the Southwestern Christian Advocate newspaper. Through the newspaper and the notations in Mrs. Salter’s book, countless families and lost loves were reunited long after separation by the scourge of slavery and war. “Having found many members of my own family,” Mrs. Salter remarked, “this was an impassioned service I could provide for others. The greatest hardship to the heart is to endlessly wonder about your people.”
Upon the cessation of ceremonies today, the marble base will be sealed, containing the Century Chest within, to remain so until the future year of 1988, that the importance of this library and the stories of its people be remembered by generations yet unborn.
Awaiting placement atop the sealed pedestal, the donated statue stands both benevolent and ever watchful.
St. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of the lost.
EPILOGUE
BENNY SILVA—1988 LOUISIANA STATE CAPITOL GROUNDS, BATON ROUGE
A single ladybug lands featherlight on my finger, clings like a living gemstone. A ruby with polka dots and legs. Before a slight breeze beckons my visitor away, an old children’s rhyme sifts through my mind.
Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, and your children are gone.
The words leave a murky shadow inside me as I touch LaJuna’s shoulder. She’s breaking a sweat under the blue-and-gold calico dress. The open-air classroom we’ve set up today as part of a festival on the Louisiana State Capitol grounds is the biggest undertaking yet in our year-long living history project. The opening of the time capsule has provided us with opportunities we could never have dreamed of otherwise. While our pageants have not yet taken us to the cemetery in Augustine, Louisiana—and may never—we’ve told our Tales from the Underground at museums and on university campuses, at library festivals and in schools across three states.
The hand-stitched neckline of LaJuna’s costume hangs unevenly over her smooth amber-brown skin, the garment a little too large for the girl inside it. A single puffy scar protrudes from the loosely buttoned cuff. I wonder about the cause of it, but resist allowing my mind to speculate.
What would be the point? I ask myself.
We all have scars.
It’s when you’re honest about them that you find the people who will love you in spite of your nicks and dents. Perhaps even because of them.
The people who don’t? Those people aren’t the ones for you.
I pause and look around our gathering place under the trees, take in the various Carnegie ladies, as well as my students’ little brothers and sisters, Aunt Sarge, and several parent volunteers, all dressed in period costumes to add authenticity to our project today, to stand in respect and solidarity with those long-ago survivors who are not here to speak their truth. While we’ve told our Underground stories many times, this is our first attempt at a recital of the Lost Friends ads. We’ve tried to reimagine how they may have been written over a century ago in churches, on front porches, at kitchen tables, in improvised classrooms where those who had been denied literacy came to learn. In towns and cities all over the country, letters were composed for publication in newspapers like the Southwestern, sent out with the hope that loved ones stolen away years, decades, a lifetime before, might be found.
We have the Century Chest and The Book of Lost Friends to thank for giving us rock-star status here at the state capitol. It’s enough of a story to have beckoned the TV cameras our way. They’re really here to cover a contentious special election, but they want to film us, too. The media attention has produced an audience of dignitaries and politicians who want to be seen supporting our project.
And that has pushed the kids into meltdown mode. They’re terrified—even LaJuna, who is normally a rock.
While the others fumble with nib pens and inkwells, pretending to compose letters to the “Lost Friends” column, or hunch over their papers, mouthing the words of the ads they’re about to recite out loud, LaJuna is just staring off into the trees.
“Fully prepared?” I ask, angling a glance at her work, because I have a