before Sam’s request was accepted. Amber’s profile photo depicted a slender blonde, about age thirty, with her eyes hidden behind oversized shades.
Why had Sam’s request been accepted but Amber’s rejected? According to their Facebook pages, both had ties to Macedonia, and oddly both had spelled it wrong. Mecedonia instead of Macedonia. The misspelling of the town’s name wasn’t the only thing that made the interaction with Amber suspect. One hour after Cari Farver rejected her, Amber posted that she “was partying it up in Mecedonia [sic].” Residents would laugh at that, but not because of the spelling error. “Party and Macedonia” is an oxymoron, for Macedonia is “small-town family life” at its tamest.
Macedonians are proud of their Main Street of tenderly cared-for historic buildings that house a few shops, a restaurant, a community theater, a museum, the Post Office, and City Hall. Everybody in Macedonia knows everybody else, and nobody there knew Amber Mildo or saw her “partying it up” on November 7 or any other day. While Amber Mildo was unknown, everyone in Macedonia was familiar with Cari. Her roots in the town wend back generations, most notably through the Bisbee line. Nancy, a Bisbee by birth, grew up in Macedonia, and so did her parents, her grandparents, and some of her great-grandparents.
The blood of those who came before us flows through our veins, and in Cari’s case, we can look at family history and see certain traits passed on, generation after generation. While intelligence and physical attractiveness are among the family’s obvious traits, their compassion is the most endearing. Kind hearts run in the Bisbee family.
Is kindness inherited?
Apparently so, according to the findings of a recent study. In November 2011, The Huffington Post reported on an international study conducted by researchers from a number of colleges, including the University of California at Berkeley. The results of the intense genetic analysis revealed that a gene variation does indeed appear to be linked to caring. Whether or not empathy is inherited or learned, the genesis of Cari’s kind heart can be traced back to her great-great grandmother, Anna Sophia Meyer Reichstein. Anna, born in October 1871 in Strawberry Point, Iowa, was known for her generosity.
Anna’s German born uncle, Henry Meyer, was only nine when he became ill and developed a fever so high it caused permanent brain damage. His intellect stunted, Henry never learned to speak English or to read or write. Uncle Henry was childlike, and Anna felt protective of him. He couldn’t live on his own, so when his parents died, she took him in. He was thirty-six years older than his niece, but he called her Mama.
Anna and her husband, Frank Reichstein, married in 1891 and lived on a big farm in Grove Township, Iowa. They had eight children—nine counting Uncle Henry! Three babies were born within their first four years of marriage: Lillie, Amiel, and Lonnie. The rest of the children arrived with at least three years between them: Gail, Henry “Scoop,” Mabel, Etta, and Beulah.
The sixth child, Mabel Marie Reichstein Bisbee, was Nancy’s grandmother. Many years ago, Mabel shared her memories via tape recorder and marveled at how devoted her mother had been to all of the people she cared for. Mabel recalled that Uncle Henry liked to sit by the stove as “Mama” worked in the kitchen. Uncle Henry “always carried the wood, and we always had plenty. But the trouble was that he always sat right there by the stove, and when Mama was baking, she had to watch him like a hawk. He’d put in too much fuel and burn it up.”
Mabel, too, was fond of the elderly man, and she remembered how he’d sing the babies to sleep, crooning in German, as he held them and swayed in the old wicker rocking chair. He continued with the tradition long after Mabel felt she was too old for it, but she went along with it, so she wouldn’t hurt his feelings. Everyone could see that Henry wanted to be helpful, but it was difficult for him to communicate, so “Mama was about the only one who could talk to him.”
Kind-hearted Anna also welcomed a homeless man—an out-of-work carpenter who Frank had hired to run the threshing machine. When the harvest season was over, he asked Frank if he could stay. “Well Gee-whiz,” Mabel recalled, “Mama had a house full of kids! Papa said, ‘You’ll have to go ask my wife.’ He went in and asked Mama, and she wouldn’t turn him out.”