Dear Lucas,
I have wonderful news my love, we are having another baby. My timing may have been bad, I wish we could share this amazing moment together but I know you are working hard and I love you for that. The doctor says it is another girl; you will have another daughter in eight months. I have yet to tell the children, including Rebecca and Sarah, for I want to surprise them just as much as we were. Write me back soon with a plan to do so, you were always so good at that. I must hear from you soon, I miss you so. Please be safe for me.







Love always,







Maria
When I received his letter, I was in complete shock.



Maria,
I have enclosed an amount that should take care of this problem; I hope you haven’t told anyone about this. Please take care of this. I don’t know when I will be home next, but I trust you shall do what I ask. Take care.
-
Lucas

I was dead. Inside I was falling, how could I have ever loved a man that could ask me to do such a thing? This was not a ‘problem’; this was a symbol of our love for each other! Sending money blew me over the edge; this dirty money wasn’t going to kill my daughter.
Our love was dead. My Lucas would never ever do this to me, he had never hurt me before and I knew he would never start now. But when I didn’t respond for a month I got another letter with more money to ‘cover the cost’.
Daniel and David moved out at the age of 13, Benjamin took them in at my request. Charlotte and I seldom talked; Rebecca had become more of a mother to her. The house was to me and Clara, even in my darkest hour she had always been by my side. She suspected from the beginning that something was wrong; my stomach wasn’t easily hidden by the third month.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what her father had said to me, but somehow she knew. She knew that this was a secret that would be taken to the grave. No one else could know. She delivered the baby herself when time came; she was only fifteen when Cora was born in 1848. Lucas kept sending money until I wrote him back, this went on for months. I told him that our baby was taken care of and that I was living alone with Clara, he would never find out about my Cora, never.
And he never did, no one did. Clara never married. Cora was our responsibility and nothing could jeopardize her secret. Lucas never returned home. He died in 1876, but he was dead to me long before that. My family separated and lived their lives to the fullest. Cora, Clara, and I kept to ourselves in the family house. When I left this world some of my children had left before me, Clara and Cora lived on. Clara was special; she and I understood each other from day one. Before I died I asked her of one thing; that outside our family house would be the truth. And so it did.

Johnson

Lucas Johnson

1801 – 1876
Maria Johnson

1810 – 1889
James Johnson

1827 – 1877
Benjamin Johnson

1828 – 1880
Charlotte Johnson

1832 – 1885
Clara Johnson

1834 – 1894
Daniel Johnson

1836 – 1890
David Johnson

1836 – 1891
Cora Johnson

1848 –