The Ozark - Esto Perpetua

At the Land of the Ozark

This year Lily and I went on a very interesting trip across the area of the three American states, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas. It is an area of the old rocky mountains, green valleys, and dense forest.

People call that area the land of the Ozark. French used to call that area Aux Arkansas. But it isn’t a French word. French explorers mispronounced the Quapaw’s Indian name Ugak-hopag and called it Akan-se-a first and then Aux Arkansas and finally Aux Arks (the land of Arches.). Later, Quapaw Indians mispronounced the French name Aux Arks and called it Oz-ark. Thereafter, American settlers took that name from the Quapaw Indians and Ozark became an English word. It was the English word, but with a very strong Irish accent. First Europeans who settled in those parts were the people who ran from the Irish potato famine in the mid-1800s. Then during the Civil war, the Union troops almost totally depopulated the area and thereafter new immigrants came to this land from all over.

Life never was easy here on the green slopes of the oldest mountains in North America. After a long day of work, people set by the fire and told stories. Those stories were about ghosts and shadows, about creepy monsters and scary creatures. And about love and the star of happiness that lightens the road to prosperity for all.

There is an enormously large forest there. People named this largest natural forest in the country after Mark Twain, who was a native of this land. That name doesn’t need an explanation. It is well known all over the world and in the Americas.

There is a small historic town that grew on the side of the Magnetic Mountain that was swallowed by that enormous forest.

They called it Eureka! Or Eureka Springs.

Our voyage through the Ozark wouldn’t be complete without visiting Eureka Springs, AR.

This old historic town is one of the most interesting and unique places.

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Many people believe in the mystical vortex present in the area, some others are not.

Of course, anyone can search the web and read about it, but I will tell you about it in my way.

We never know how the world turns for us. Perhaps by the chance, but maybe by fate, we visited this town four decades ago during our first American vacation and now we came back. This visit unlocked me so much that I chose to share our experience.

I’ll tell you the story of this place in my interpretation, as I read a lot about the place and we visited here just now as well as before.

I call myself a perpetual student of history and I always try ‘to find a needle in the haystack’. Perhaps if you will read this story to the end, and I certainly believe that you will, you will understand the true meaning of that phrase and how it applies to my story. I hope you will appreciate my unique findings that connected the small American town with the most famous historical happenings in the world over the last 250 years. You will be surprised.

This story grew as I wrote it and became, if not a non-fiction novel, but at least a novelette, as I called it.

I broke my novelette into eight chapters, so you can read it one at a time.

Please enjoy.

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***

Chapter 1

Our first trip to the Ozarks in 1981

Before... in 1981.

It is unbelievable how time flies… We were here in the Ozarks four decades ago. It was our first American vacation.

Now we are traveling like seasoned Americans with years of experience and know-how. Back then, we were the cartoon characters of Boris and Natasha, unprepared, not knowing or understanding much, but very sure of ourselves.

We lived in Des Moines, Iowa, and we’re proud one full-year Americans.

Yes, after one year of exemplary behavior, our newly adopted country gave us a “Green Card”. The little and very powerful card wasn’t green, actually. In 1964, the government stopped making those in the color of money, but the name remained.

The card was actually blue and guaranteed us the right to live in the USA permanently and work there as well. We could not take part in the political process, but to be honest, we didn’t care. Elated by the outstanding new achievement, we decided we can start fulfilling our dream of traveling.

I already got a prestige permanent day job as a draftsman at a construction company and a secondary night job in the county hospital cleaning crew. Between those two jobs, I more than double my minimum wage, and we saved the first few hundred dollars in our bank’s saving account.

Hooray!

We were not millionaires or a thousand-airs; we were proud hundred-airs, and it was great for us. We were very proud and very permanent Americans.

Once we got the postcard in the mail promising a free 4-day vacation in the Ozarks.

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It came from the Whitewater Development company and looked very promising. We didn’t know where the Ozarks were, or what the Whitewater Development was, but the invitation spelled in big letters FREE NEW VACATION EXPERIENCE, and it sounded great to us.

My first six months with the company as a draftsman earn me six paid vacation days.

This would work perfectly, - I decided.

Two days for traveling and four for a new vacation experience would be a dream come true for any new American.

My friend from work, with whom I shared this exceptional plan, warned me not to go. He explained it would be a sales trap. He said that a trained con-man will force me to purchase some worthless property and take all my money. I was told by my friend I was too naive to resist the pressure of the persuasive sale and lose all our money. He told me that the country is vast there and has areas of extreme wilderness where it would be impossible to find any help if needed. He told me I wasn’t ready for a trip like that.

-I have no money to speak off, therefore there is absolutely nothing for me to lose, - I smile in response.

- "One can’t lose something that he never had", - I added a sharp expression picked up from the immigrant’s russian language newspaper “Novoe Russkoe Slovo”. (New Russian Word)

Lily’s dad was getting this paper from New York weekly. It was my source of the news in the early 80s. And it was my introduction to the common interpretation of the complexity of the American way of life.

My argument was impressive and my friend concede his position, shaking his head in disbelief. I turned up an application for my vacation, got approval from the chief executive, and we were ready to go.

It was the fourth of July week.

My vacation was automatically extended by a day, therefore I got the entire week of vacation. America, what a country! And what a perfect way to celebrate the first anniversary of a young couple from Latvia coming here to stay for good.

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We started to get ready. I picked up a free copy of an AAA driving map and marked every place we need to travel to. My friend from the work told me to drive at night time. That way it will be less traffic and the temperature wouldn’t be that hot. I shook my head, agreeing, but I didn’t. We wanted to see America around us, not a starry sky, as beautiful as it was.

Lily, meanwhile, prepared a provision for the road. While in Italy, before coming to America, we traveled a lot. We covered the entire country, north to south. And we have done that not only because we desired to see new and exciting places. We did that because we assumed that never we would have a chance or money to get back and visit that beautiful country again. Little did we know about our forthcoming future.

Back then, we survived on baked turkey legs, bread, and bananas while traveling around Italy. It was our way of traveling without spending much money. Money that we didn’t have. Now we were in a different country, but we prepared everything the very same way.

Lily cooked turkey legs. I wrapped them in aluminum foil. Bananas, apples, bread, hard-boiled eggs, sweet rolls, and paper towels were part of our package. We had much more provisions than back in Italy when we traveled by bus. We packed a roll of duct tape because Lily’s dad suggested that with that we can fix anything on the way. Everything was ready to go!

We didn’t have an icebox, so useful for traveling through the hot Midwest during the summer. I decided we put some ice in a plastic bag and place it around inside the car’s trunk where the food was. After all, how hot could it be? We packed our suitcase and though we went.

The very first stop we made showed our naive unpreparedness to auto-travel in America. After the first few hours, we parked by the gas station and I went to the restroom.

Coming back, Lily told me to check the car because there was a large puddle of water underneath. The water wasn’t under the front of the car, but clearly under the back. I opened the trunk and found that all the ice melted, the plastic bag had a hole apparently and everything got wet.

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I instantly figured out what to do.

We laid a towel over the top of the rear seat under the car’s back window and put all of our provisions to dry by the blistering July sun.

We didn’t use AC. It used too much gas.

- It is hot in July in Iowa, therefore the food will dry quickly... - I thought.

The drying wasn’t everything our food did under the sun on a hot day, but we didn’t even think about it...

We had our dinner near the state border and then somewhere in Missouri we stopped for the night. Turkey's legs dried up but tasted and smelled a little different.

- Maybe it was the herbs we use for the marinade... - I thought.

Our car was large and comfortable. We did not need the hotel.

All I needed to do was to find the right parking place. And finally, we did. The parking was behind some motel on the edge of the forest.

The sign said, - “Overnight sleeping in a vehicle prohibited by law”.

I got my Russian dictionary and started the translation.

I knew the second part of the first word,- "the night", but the first part was unknown to me.

- The word “Over” means "above", - I read in my russian dictionary.

Therefore, the sign meant that we couldn’t sleep here above the other night, but ... if it would be one night, ... it should be alright.

It is actually unbelievable how easy it was for me to take wishful thinking for an actual one.

We settled up for a sleep.

Our first day of driving was very long, and we felt tired. To be exasperated and to fall asleep, aren’t the same thing, especially if something in your stomach moving around and gurgling.

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Maybe we ate something wrong... yet after a while, the tiredness took its turn and we fell asleep.

Early in the morning, a police officer knocked on our car's window.

I told him right away that we were not sleeping here "above the night, but only once".

A police officer was a friendly one and asked me, - what I was smoking???

That I easily understood. A man just wanted a smoke. And I offered him my Riga cigarettes from Latvia that I always carried for special occasions.

The police officer looked at the cigarette package, smelled it inside and out, and returned it back to me. He told us to get out of there quickly.

So we did.

- I think my Latvian-made cigarettes were too strong for him, - I said.

Our provision lasted through the second day and after another turkey leg dinner on the side of the road, we were at the Arkansas border. We were on schedule but developed a minor problem. Apparently, the boiled turkey legs in America weren’t as good for traveling as it was in our previous experience in Italy.

The discomfort in our stomachs turned into an ache. That wasn’t one continuous pain. No, it wasn’t. It was like a pendulum on the old grandfather clock. It was coming and going. It was torture.

We needed to make it to the office in Eureka Springs before 5 PM. It was getting late. We were feeling awful.

We needed medication. The pharmacy was the place where we needed to go. We realized that. However, if we would go there, we would be late for the appointment and our dream vacation will disappear into the unrealized dream. We were practical people. We couldn’t allow that to happen.

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I was pale on my face, and my hands were trembling when I finally open the office door.

- Do you spik eng-lish ? - I started a dialogue with my usual English phrase. -We want rest-room. Do you have? - I continued.

From the misery of the pain, I almost forgot how to speak. People in the office showed us to the restroom.

- Was it a long drive? - asked me a nicely dressed gentleman, when I came back to the office after the restroom. He was smiling. I wasn’t.

- We from Rasha, - I said. I don't know why I said that, but for some reason, it was the first phrase that came out.

-We from Rasha, - I repeated myself.

- Oh, my... - a nicely dressed gentleman replied.

- But we now in Des Moines and we came for New Vacation Experience. No buy Nothing.- I said in a forceful tone of voice, trying to explain our situation.

- Okay, it would be not a problem. - said a nicely dressed gentleman and asked me to join him at the table.

Lily came out of the restroom and joined us in a few minutes. She was very pale on the face also and I could tell she wasn’t well.

- Are you feeling better,- I whispered.

- I think so,- she replied.

- I already told them, we will not buy anything.- I said.

- Good...

I put on the table our invitation, both green cards and just to be on the safe side, I included our cards with the Social Security numbers. To our surprise, no one pressured us to buy anything. We got a bunch of coupons for breakfast and dinner in a local restaurant, a key to the luxurious cabin that should be ours for the three entire nights, and a map that showed us in red how to get to our destination. Tomorrow, after breakfast, they invited us to attend a special presentation and the rest of the time would be ours to spare. Our vacation was on the right track.

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Once again our America didn’t disappoint us.

As we were leaving, I inquired about the“ Farmasee”, as I pronounced the word pharmacy. They told me it is back in town. We decided not to go. We both felt a little better and wanted to see our luxurious cabin first.

We found it with no trouble.

It was a bungalow built from logs in the forest. There were several very similar cabins spread around. It was twilight already and we couldn't see the surroundings. Lily opened the door. Oh, my God! How beautiful it was! It was all white and gold inside. It was really luxurious.

One big room was all carpeted in a snow-white plush carpet with yarns so long that our feet were sinking in it when we walked. On the back, there was a restroom with a golden-trim bathtub on one side and a kitchenette on another. And in the middle of the room... there it was, - the king-size bed. It was enormously large.

Back in Des Moines, we didn’t buy ourselves furniture yet. We slept on double-size donated mattresses we placed on four sets of bricks to be elevated from the floor. The luxury extras were not the first thing on our to-do list.

Although, we knew and appreciated the style. Back in Riga, we were extremely stylish city folks. Relatively speaking, we were well brought up in the cultural matters, educated and well read. Now we traded our past stylish life for a priceless chance of liberty. We froze our time for the future forthcoming happiness. A temporary lack of comfort was a small price to pay. I was a proud one-year American and in my other 28 years of the past life, I put on the back for future use, perhaps.

Lily and I, we have started our new American life from the very beginning, but together.

And now, for the first time in America, the piece of stylish luxury was right before us.

It was an actual dream coming true for us.

I was so excited, I couldn’t talk! I picked Lily up and gently brought her to the bed. She laid in bed with her clothes on.

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I jumped high and plumped down next to her. It was heaven. I rolled over and looked into her eyes. It was a moment of love...

At that very romantic moment, I heard the sound. It was the sound of the roaring train and it was coming from... inside of me.

- I love... lov... lo... ouch... I need to go, - I whispered and crawled to the floor. I ran to the bathroom as fast as I could.

- Common! Get out and let me in. I need to go! Please!!!- That was Lily pounding at the bathroom door right after.

In a few minutes, we both felt a little bit better, but we understood the unavoidable. Our young bodies were strong, but a backseat, sun-dried American baked turkey legs inside our stomachs, were stronger. We needed medication.

I left Lily to rest and went for a ride again. It was late. It was dark. It was the narrow road on the forest-covered side of the mountain. My stomach was continuously talking and roaring, but I was persistent. I was looking for a pharmacy.

To find one in a small town in the middle of the night wasn’t easy. Everything looked closed. Finally, I noticed a pedestrian and pulled over.

- I am looking for Farmasee, - I screamed, the“Farmasee”, was as I pronounced the word pharmacy.

The person looked at my pale face with dark blue circles under my eyes and told me that if I was looking for drugs, I could get drugs downtown.

- There will be some men at the corner and they will help you, - he said.

In a few minutes, I was in downtown, and I drove really slow looking for a man on the corner. I didn't see anybody there.

Suddenly I noticed a sign, “24 HR. Drugs and Company”.

I went inside. It was an old pharmacy store where one can get all the necessities and medication. I approached the lady at the counter.

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- Hi…, - I said and suddenly realized that I did not know how to say the word “diarrhea” in English. My Russian dictionary I left back in the bungalow, and my stomach started to produce very strong warning signals again.

I was desperate but innovative.

-Do you spik Ing-lish? I need drugs.My stool don’t stop,- I said quickly, despairingly looking for the lady’s reaction.

- You need Pepto Bismol,- she replied smiling, and gave me a small pink bottle.

I was victoriously happy and quickly drove back.

The magic pink fluid helped a lot. We started to feel better and fell asleep, dreaming about the snow-white luxurious time together that we had just missed.

In the morning we went for a breakfast and to the special presentation. Everything was just as they promised to us.

Two different people talked to us for about an hour. To be honest, we didn’t understand even half of what they said. We just replied either yes or no, the way we thought it fit better. Then the same people took us for a jeep ride to the forest and showed us a piece of land marked with yellow tags. They said it would be ours if we wanted.

I had no idea why I should want a piece of the forest in Arkansas, but to have something for nothing was attractive. After all, those nice people gave us a free breakfast and a luxurious bungalow all heavenly carpeted in beautiful snow-white.

When we came back to the presentation room, the same nice people brought a lot of paperwork. We answered some questions and they asked me to write a check for $4000.00.

That was hilarious to me actually, and I started to laugh. Lily, seeing me laughing, started to laugh too.

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Those nice people visually stop being nice and became to wander. It appeared they didn’t understand what was going on either but in their own way.

I felt it was my time to do some explaining to do.

- If I were a rich man, - I sang,

- If I were a rich man,

- I will have $4000.00 in the bank,

- Ya ba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dum... - I paraphrased a line from the song of the popular movie Fiddler on the roof.

- One day we will... But we are not a thousand-arers yet.

- We are not millionaires either.

- One day we will, but not today.

- We came for a FREE NEW VACATION EXPERIENCE. We came for NOTHING TO BUY.

- Ya ba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dum...

My elaborate musically inspired speech brought a very positive result for us. The sales team went on a retreat and let us go. We were delighted.

Our dream vacation happened just like we planned. We spent the rest of the two days in our luxurious snow-white bungalow. We hiked around in the forest and saw beautiful lakes. Finally, the vacation time came to the end and it was time to return back to Des Moines, Iowa.

We got back to the car and tried to follow the map. In the mountains area, it is not a simple task, especially if you are there for the very first time.

Somehow, we ended up driving through Eureka Springs again.

We drove to the parking on the mountain top near the big old church building. That building looked unusual to me. The bell tower was built separately from the church building. There was a statue and a sign that I read. It said it was the saint Elisabeth from Hungary.

A building like that was very unusual to see in the US. The style of the architecture was rather Mediterranean, I thought... It had a rounded dome and looked like some churches we have seen in Italy.

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The view from the top of the mount was absolutely breathtaking. We could see far, very far over the vast forest, where we noticed a giant statue of a cross that looked like Christ's silhouette.

- Wow, It’s like in Rio de Janeiro, - I exclaimed. - We need to check this place. It is outstanding!

Next to us on the very top of another hill, we saw an immense building that looked abandoned. There was an old stone staircase that lead to it. The old construction fence that was broken in a few places encircled the site.

- What an interesting place, - I thought, but nothing else crossed my mind at the time.

We turned around and drove down towards the end of our first free American vacation experience.

We had an opportunity. We chose to take it. We seized it.

We got what we wanted.

America, what a country!

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***

Chapter 2

Our 2022 trip to Ozarks. 40 years later

It was then. Four decades ago. And now we are here again. It’s a different car that we are driving now. We are different as well. We are older, yet the boychik’s enthusiasm is still very much alive in my heart.

The opportunity to travel isn’t given to us for free anymore. We are paying for it, however; we are trying to pay as little as possible and to get more for ourselves.

And only once in a while do we pay a bit more for the privilege or wanted extras. That is how the world turns when we are traveling our days.

We were on the second half of our journey when came to Eureka Springs. The long driving wore us out and we were tired from hiking daily. My Fitbit watch showed that for the first week of vacation I walked 35miles. It was impressive and incredible, both.

Lily leased a nice bed-and-breakfast while in this town. She could get a room in the same old hotel that we have seen abandoned 40 years ago. Now it was totally restored, but we chose it differently.

The internet brochure showed us a different pink building with white decorated windows, all covered in flowers. All the furniture in the room should be antique and they should serve the breakfast old fashion way, whatever it means. We have fallen in love with it.

Lady from the bed-and-breakfast called a day before to check what time of the day we are planning to arrive and assure us of forthcoming hospitality. That was extremely nice.

Nevertheless, we decided not to drive straight to our bed-and-breakfast place, but to see one interesting place on the way.

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It was the old restored Crescent hotel that was intriguing to me because the more I read about it, the more I wanted to know...

It was a really old Victorian-style building with Roman arches over some windows and French doors coming out of the white walls built from a square cut stone. It was at the very top of the East Magnetic Mountain of Eureka Springs. I read that people named that hotel “The Grand Ol’ Lady of The Ozarks”. When I saw it, I understood why.

I like to say, - “There always stands a great man who is behind every great accomplishment.

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And now,

A brief History of the Old Crescent Hotel

(as I see it...)

I like to say, - “There always stands a great man who is behind every great accomplishment.

In the case of the Crescent Hotel, there is definitely more than one man.

When Powell Foulk Clayton retired from the Arkansas governorship, he and his family moved to Eureka Springs. It was a new booming town in the Ozark close to The Missouri border. As any charismatic man of the time, he wanted to create something people will remember his name by.

He got together with his Civil War friend Richard Kerens Sutherland an Irish immigrant who after growing up in America became a politician, a military man, a successful contractor, a railroad guru, and among all those things a very wealthy man. Together, they obtained a large piece of land on the top of East Mountain and decided to build a hotel that would be the largest and the more beautiful that the entire country had ever seen.

They invited an architect Isaac S. Taylor from St. Louis, Missouri. A man who later will be the head architect of the Saint Louis Fair of 1904 that would make American architecture and industry world famous.

- What was common for those three men? - You may inquire.

- None of them came from any known nobility. All three came from very ordinary backgrounds and achieved everything in their life through their tenacious pursuit of knowledge through hard work and honest attitude.

It was 1881 and the construction work began... Clayton secured the funds for the construction. Kerens summoned more than a hundred skillful Irish Mason layers and contracted a nearby quarry for the building materials.

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Taylor designed and drew a project that the entire world had never seen before.

The creation of anything so big and beautiful isn’t easy.

The Crescent Hotel wasn’t an exception to that rule.

First, the masons completed incredible work by rebuilding the entire city drainage system. The town was suffering from unpredictable mudslides coming from the top of West Magnetic Mountain. Masons unearthed large tunnels into the surface of every street and therefore elevated the entire city by about 20 feet. House’s first floors become its basements.

Town folks were happy. New construction saved their homes from future mudslides. That work was humongous and never was planned before the hotel’s actual construction began. But it was necessary to stabilize the foundation of the future building.

Finally, in 1886, “The Grand Ol’ Lady of The Ozarks” opened its doors to the first guests. The hotel was a unique blend of French Renaissance, Victorian Classism, Richardsonian Romanesque, and many other styles mixed into one. (Richardsonian it is an American style created by Henry Hobson Richardson in the mid-1800s. It was the revival style that incorporates 11th and 12th century French, Spanish, and Italian architecture.) The building had Roman arches over the windows and French-style doors. It was lighted with Edison lamps, heated with steam, and had a hydraulic elevator. It was a true showplace of today’s niceties. It was indeed out of the ordinary. A real American beauty, it was.

For the first decade, the hotel ran by invitation only. Then finally it was opened to the general public, serving over 300 guests at once. Although it was extremely expensive and out of reach for most people. The hotel looked beautiful, but soon the management realized the obvious.

This enterprise simply was too big to manage.

They leased the hotel to the Frisco railroad company for temporary use.

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They gave part of the hotel to the Crescent College & Conservatory for Young Women.

It soon became one of the most exclusive boarding academies for “fine young ladies” in Arkansas. A few years came by…

The years of the Great Depression were very hard for the country. The Crescent College wasn’t an exception, but it survived with limited attendance.

Yet in the mid-30th something terrible took that college out of existence. It was a scandal. A horrible one.

One of the Ladies becomes pregnant and couldn’t overcome her feeling of shame. She threw herself down from the fourth-floor window.

The College management tried to cover up the story, but by doing so made the matter worst, and the college for the fine young ladies closed its door forever.

It was 1937 when the “Man in Purple” came to Eureka Springs. This town, during its colorful history, has seen all different kinds of eccentricity.

But Mr. Norman G. Baker was not an ordinary eccentric. He was so many different things in one that no one knew what he really was about. Yet, he had money. A lot of money. The Money that this town needed desperately.

And in 1937 the old hotel become Baker Cancer Hospital. In three years of its existence, the hospital claimed to cure thousands of patients, yet all of them died, eventually.

Baker’s treatment comprised seven daily shots of Formula 5.

The ingredients of formula 5 weren’t publicized and kept secret.

Now we are being told it was alcohol, glycerol, carbolic acid, ground watermelon seed, corn silk, and clover leaves. I read this in a hotel’s historical brochure…

Now we are being told that Baker stole the recipe from another con man in Kansas City. We are being told that Norman Baker was a fraud and a charlatan, but people adored him.

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He wore a black three-piece suit during the winter days and was all white in the summer. His shirts were always lilac, a tie and suspenders were lavender, and the convertible he drove was purple.

He was a charming man and made millions.

That was what the hotel’s historical brochure said.

In 1940, the government finally managed to put him in jail for mail fraud. That was all they got…

Baker’s first arrest happened on September 1st, 1939, when WWII started.

People’s minds weren’t on the Bakers’ case anymore. People were involved in the war.

Baker served his sentence in jail, retired to Florida, and eventually died in 1958. And yes, he died from… Your guess is correct. Norman G. Baker died from cancer. I read this in a hotel’s historical brochure.

Meanwhile, the building stood abandoned, surrounded by a cloud of mystery and with no hope that someone would ever resurrect its forever lost beauty.

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The town didn’t have any industry and couldn’t support itself during WWII. Most of the people who lived here left. Eureka Springs became a ghost town once again. This time all the way through the end of the 1960s.

In the 1970s, Eureka Springs become the hippie capital of the Midwest. When the flower children of the area grew up, they choose to settle here. Many old buildings were restored, painted in bright colors, and become livable again. Hippies try to restore the old hotel, but the top floor got on fire and it was destroyed. The building became unlivable again.

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After the fire, some people got unaccounted for, and they disappeared under mysterious circumstances, but it was too many drugs and alcohol involved. The police eventually closed the case.

In the 1980 Midwest, development started to grow repeatedly. The city of Eureka Springs was reborn again. This time as a tourist attraction. It became a favorite town for bikers, traveling musicians, self-taught philosophers, actors, and people who felt different in one way or another. Many of the old buildings became small bed-and-breakfast hotels. The old magical healing waters bath house opens its doors to visitors again, although no one knew if the spring water remained medicinal or not. It looked like the good old days came back…

But then, only one year later, the terrible tragedy hit that town again. The first American AIDS epidemic in 1981 took nearly half of the town population away. The good old stair-step town one more time became a ghost again.

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That was when Lily and I drove here from Des Moines, Iowa, in 1981.

It was our first real American vacation. I just wrote about it at the beginning of this story, in Chapter1. It was a great experience, and we had a lot of unexpected adventures. We saw that old abandoned hotel at the very top of West Mountain, but we had absolutely no idea what this was. We didn’t know then what we know now.

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Yet, it was the Ozark country after all! The town found the strength and finances to be reborn once again.

And I will repeat what I like to say: - It always takes a man and a vision to create something wonderful.

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But this time it was a couple.

In 1995, Marty and Elise Roenigk from Connecticut traveled through Ozark’s small towns collecting old mechanical music boxes and looking for a place to plan semi-retirement. They visited an old 1905 building of the Basin Park Hotel and fell in love with it. It was at the time downtown’s biggest and tallest building. The couple places a bid to purchase it. Then they heard about an old abandoned hotel that was there on top of the mountain and purchased it as well. Obviously, they couldn’t handle both and the old Crescent hotel became their business of choice.

They managed the initial renovation in only two years and “The Grand Ol’ Lady of The Ozarks” opened its door to visitors again. At that point, a 10-year plan for the complete restoration was approved and financed in advance. Marty and Elise believed in paranormal happenings. They invited two well-known certified mediums, Ken Fugate and Carroll Heath, both of San Francisco, CA. to “read” the building. Their findings, plus the startling number of repeated sightings that had been recorded over the decades, became the basis of what has become the nightly Crescent Hotel Ghost Tour.

The new Crescent hotel had everything new and old combined for the perfect family vacation or a business meeting. It was a wedding venue and a perfect escapade for a honeymoon. And soon it also gains popularity among people looking for paranormal activities. That was because of the old ghost legends, Nathan Baker mysteries, and something... Yes, this time it was really something spooky.

While digging through the old planter, the landscapers found over 300 jars with the body parts... Instantly the roomer started that the purple man did all that years ago...

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And on top of everything, another tragedy happened. One June night of 2009, Marty and Elise Roenigk in the company of their favorite dog drove to Iowa. Marty didn’t see another car coming… The accident was terrible. Elise survived but lost a husband and a dog that night.

You can tell by now that I spent many hours studying the history of the Bakers Hospital. When I study a historical event or a subject often there is a moment that would change the entire perspective of the opinion. To me, this time it was 300 jars with the body parts… With certainty, I can conclude that those medical jars got nothing to do with the hospital in Eureka Springs.

Baker’s Cancer Hospital didn’t have any operation rooms or autopsy facilities. It had a small morgue, but the space was too small for any research. If Baker really was interested in that, he would have built an appropriate facility. He had more than enough funds to do so. That minor detail raised my curiosity, and I started my exploration.

I found that the jars more than likely came from a totally different hospital.

In 1937, when Norman Baker got the building in Eureka Springs, he moved his existing hospital from Nuevo Laredo in Mexico to it. They brought everything down; the beds, all equipment, medical supply, doctors, and nurses. Back in Mexico, it was a fully functional hospital with operating rooms, a morgue, and a research laboratory. I would guess that they brought the medical jars to Arkansas at that time and disposed of those later as waste.

In any way, it was mysterious and interesting and I really wanted to see that place and be able to decide by myself what is true and what isn’t in this tremendous story of the Grand Ol’ Lady of The Ozarks.

p-22

******

Chapter 3

And finally, we were on the way to see the Old Crescent Hotel

We put on GPS the address of the Old Grotto springs. European settlers found the very first mineral healing springs in these parts.

We drove through the old part of town, coming up by the crooked, serpentine road, turning almost 180 degrees at every corner.

- Nothing in this town is straightforward, - jokingly noticed I.

The GPS reported we arrived, but there was nothing but green flowering bushes and rocks on the side of the old winding narrow road.

I drove back and forth, and check my input on the phone setting again. It said that we arrived. There wasn’t a place to park. The road was too narrow. I parked at the bus stop nearby. I knew it was prohibited, but I didn’t expect to see a bus here. And we went to investigate.

Sure thing, my GPS was right. The Grotto was here behind all the greenery. The old stairs lead us underground.

That was the place where everything in my story began.

******

It was in the early 1800s when one old traveling preacher met a chief of Osages and learned about the medicinal water that is coming from under the rock in the hidden mountains cave.

The Chief of Osages reviled the secret legend.

“Once Upon a Time...An Indian Princess suffered from an eye affliction that had taken away her sight. The young girl bathed her eyes in the waters of Basin Spring, and within a short time, her eyesight was fully restored. The people were overjoyed and agreed never to fight in the presence of the healing water…”

p-23

The preacher touched the water and exclaimed, - Esto Perpetua!

Meaning that the healing waters would flow there forever.

Esto Perpetua! - curved on the wall over the entrance to the grotto. It was dark and cooler, much cooler than outside. There was a rock and a little stream of water was coming from under it. The cave was lit by the only candle. This was the place where this town began its existence 150 years ago.

We rushed back, and our timing was just right. The bus was coming, imagine that. I started the car, and we drove away just as the bus was approaching.

We drove to the top, and I recognized the old church that we saw 40 years ago and a statue of a giant cross far away over the green forest.

- Look, it really looks like in Rio,-I smiled.

- Maybe just a little, - Lily replied, getting her camera ready.

The old building on top of the mountain was totally restored, and from a distance looked a little different from 40 years ago.

We walked up 62 steps. I knew that from the book. 62 steps for 62 Mineral Water springs around this town. We opened the old hotel door and stepped back in time. A young gentleman in a hotel uniform treated us with a crescent cookie and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. Just like it was 150 years ago. I looked at his smiling face. He had a little blue hat, like in old black and white movies. I wore the very same style hat while in grade school, back in Riga. That hat reminded me so much…

Not that many people were in the lobby, but the place looked crowded because of the overwhelming amount of old furniture, statues, and decorations.

It looked like an antique store more than a hotel,- I thought.

p-24

*****

I bit on the cookie. OMG, how tasty it was! It was the same shape as a crescent, the same size, with the same lilac sweet topping as years ago in my childhood. Back in Riga, we lived near the central department store that had a bakery on the first floor. My grandpa was taking me for a walk nightly. I loved those walks.

During the winter holidays, the bakery made those cookies that look like a crescent with the lilac sweet topping. Grandpa was buying me one or two. We would go home and I would enjoy those with apple jam and a glass of juice. It was apple juice most of the time. The oranges were a rarity there...

- Excuse me, those a so incredibly good! Can I have another one? - I asked.

- Of course, - A fellow in hotel uniform smiled at me. - Please take as many as you want. I got a box full to get rid of.

I glanced around. Over the reception area were an antique wall clock, several oil paintings, and a statue of the Crescent Man gliding over the Moon. That clock definitely saw a lot of fascinating happening here in this historical place.

There was an old fireplace and two humongous musical machines. Those looked like an organ because of the air pipes, but the organ was it not.

I have never seen anything like it. Those were the hot air callaiaphones. The musical innovation of the early 1900s never found a future for itself. That instrument works by sending gas, steam, or compressed air through the different pipes and whistles, producing a unique sound. Several keys very similar to a piano regulate the air movement. This hotel is perhaps one of the few places in the world where one can see that musical instrument of the past.

p-25

There was a painting of a cat on the wall. I read about him as well. It was Morris, the cat, who was welcoming all hotel guests for 21 years straight before he passed. That cat becomes a hotel good sign and an emblem.

In our days, there was another cat. He was black with a white diamond on his chest. His name was Morris, as well. The black Morris rolled on the floor by one of the callaiaphones. I decided to take a picture of the cat and therefore came closer. There was a love seat right in front of the cat’s place. An elderly lady was sitting there. She was strange; I have to admit. Very much so. It was very hot outside. Everybody was dressed in shorts and t-shirts. That lady wore a gray trench coat. Her long gray hair was falling down straight on the trench coat’s standing color. Oversized glasses totally covered her face in the massive black frame. Glasses like those of the old teachers were in the black and white movies of the 1920s.

I excuse myself. I told her I’ll take a picture of the cat and get out of her way.

- I just want to be alone, - she whispered.

I took a picture and got out of her way. She raise up from the sofa and stood beside it.

- I just wanted to be alone, - she whispered.

I walked to the different parts of the lobby where Lily was taking pictures of the old wall clock.

- Did you see that strange lady in the trench coat? - I asked.

- No, I didn’t see anybody like that here, - Lily replied.

- Look down there by the sofa, - I said.

We both looked, but nobody was there.

- Ok, I’ve seen the first ghost,- I giggled.

We decided to check the Grand Ballroom at the Crystal Room restaurant.

Wow! It was really great. The white cloth-covered tables were all set for dinner with shiny tableware and crystal wine glasses.

p-26

They set the food service buffet along one of the walls, comprising a dozen or more shiny steel rolling drum-serving stations. There were some mirrors on the wall. Mirrors on the opposite side. Mirrors everywhere. And windows... It was an endless number of shiny windows all along the walls of the restaurant.

And huge crystal chandeliers, those were everywhere, it looked like over every table. It was a true Great Crystal Room!

Everything shined so brightly that somehow the shininess was up in the air. It looked like a shiny ball was floating over the room. No wonder people have seen ghosts there.

We returned to the hotel lobby and proceeded toward the staircase.

That old wooden staircase was leading up and down for several floor flights in mysterious rectangular combinations of green, gold, and brown.

On the top of the staircase, a shiny skylight sent its lights to reflect from the crystal wall lights. If you look from the bottom up, you would see the ball of lights up at the top. If you look down, the shiny ball would be below you. We went upstairs and looked through the endlessly long hotel corridors. This time the shiny window was set at the one end of the long space and was reflecting several times from the mirrors on the walls. I noticed a shining ball of light moving through the space as I walked toward it. Wow! How genius was the architect who created this! No wonder people reported seeing an image of a little boy bouncing a shiny ball there. They even named him Breckie. The legend said that Breckie, the 4-year old died in this building while it was a hospital. He died from the complication of appendicitis.

This hotel carried a lot of mysteries inside its walls. Mikhael, an Irish stonemason, fell to his death during construction in room #218.

Dr. John Freemont Ellis was an in-house doctor during the early 1900s. His cherry tobacco-smelling ghost was seen next to room #212, where his office was. Theodora, the cancer patient seen fumbling with the keys in room #419. And finally, the ghost of the flying nun. It was the young lady who got pregnant and threw herself down from the 4th-floor window.

p-27

All those stories and multiple reports of noticing something paranormal here made Crescent Hotel the number one unexplained phenomenon in the country. The annual convention of ghost seekers and UFO believers has taken place here annually.

Is there any truth to that? I personally doubt that.

However, the hotel was built on the top of the magnetic mountain known for its medicinal magnetic water streams coming everywhere a century ago. There is a trace of radiation present as well. Some people complained of nausea while visiting and are offered medication in the lobby.

****

Reading the history of the town, I found one peculiar detail. Because they build the whole town on the side of the mountain, there are no streets that cross at a 90 degrees angle and absolutely no traffic lights in the old part of the city, even today. They originally built the town in the second half of the 19th century with no prep-planning and suffered greatly from the sudden and devastating mudslides. When hundreds of Irish stonemasons were summoned to town to build the Crescent Hotel, they decided to protect the whole town from any future mudslides.

Over every city street, they erected a system of covered drainage channels. They built the roads finish over the top of the channels and therefore elevated every street surface by about 20 feet. Every house’s first floor become a basement and the old basements went even deeper.

Of course, people at those times didn’t understand the natural cycle of mineral water creation. When they built the roads, they inadvertently destroyed the upper layer of the tufa rock. Tufa is the porous limestone through which mineral water was coming slowly collecting its minerals.

The tufa layer was damaged and the medicinal mineral water was contaminated. The same construction mistake killed the mineral water sources in many places in the American Midwest and south.

p-28

During the prohibition time, they smuggled alcohol through those channels. In our time, nobody knows where those channels are and where they are leading to. The present city mayor of Eureka Springs doesn’t have jurisdiction over the channels because a lot of those are located under private property. This remained the town’s unknown mystery.

Today everybody knows the danger of radon gas. Back in the 1880s Irish stonemasons didn’t know about the danger of this colorless and odorless gas that, among some other health risks, causes hallucinations. They built all those tunnels without ventilation. The drainage water was going down to the bottom of the mountain. The gasses inside the channels were floating up towards the top where the Crescent Hotel was. Could that explain the mystery?

I don’t know if I just solved the century-old secret, but it sounded probable.

*****

We continue our walk through the hotel stairs and corridors coming to the very top. We found another peculiar thing. It was something very unusual. From the distance, it looked like a giant high voltage power isolator, the one I saw at the power plants. Yet it clearly wasn’t. It was covered with shiny jewels. What was it? I read the label.

It was a time capsule placed here by the present hotel owners on the last day of 1999 to be open 100 years later. Nobody knows what is inside. We have to wait for another 78 years to open it. It would be a good reason to come back. Maybe in the other life... Nothing would be impossible in this mysterious place.

We came to the rooftop bar. The view around was amazing. The green endless forest was everywhere eyes could see. Down below was an old-looking and very unusual church. The architecture of the church was odd, but I couldn’t understand why. We would go there next. Maybe then I will be able to figure. I raise my eyes up and far over the forest noticed a giant statue of the cross. It was white and almost invisible in the background of the white afternoon sky. Here it was, the Jesus of the Ozarks...

p-29

- Just like in Rio, - I thought. - But not… There was another cross like this one that I saw… Yes, it was when we traveled to Peru…

We went downstairs, came through the hotel lobby again, and came toward the big old hotel door to exit.

Suddenly I noticed that old lady in the long grey trench coat. She stood quietly by the side of the door.

- Look, here is that strange lady again, - I told Lily, turning back toward the door.

- Were? - Lily asked.

- Right there... - I looked again toward the door, but no lady in the long grey trench coat was there.

- Never mind... - I said, and we went outside…

*****

p-30

Chapter 4

******

The lunatic or the one who came before his time

and seemed to be misunderstood?

The story of that hotel intertwines with the story of Mister Norman G. Baker. To some, he was an evil man, but a caring angel to others. He was a charlatan to many and a genius doctor to some.

Norman G. Baker was a crazy charismatic person and a most famous radio talk man who helped president Herbert Hoover secure his presidency. He himself ran for a US Senate seat twice and for Iowa governorship once, but unsuccessfully. He got many doctors working for him to believe that he invented a cancer treatment, yet many more doctors eventually ran him out of town where he first open his cancer treatment center.

Most of the information sources I came across in my research lining to present his persona in a very negative light. Yet, I will try to be lenient in my judgment. That way perhaps more of the truth would come up and you, who read this today, will be able to build your own opinion about the man.

He happened to be from Muscatine, Iowa. It is a small town we drove through in 1981 on the first trip to Ozark. We didn’t know about the man and about a small Iowa town with an interesting history. We didn’t know much at all...

His father was an inventor. He had hundreds of US patents in his name, including the famous aluminum can-making machine. He had 7 children and Norman was the youngest. Like a sponge, he collected everything his father could teach him and become a machinist. Yet the technical trade didn’t attract him at first. Once the carnival was in town and Norman saw a mentalist who could read the human mind.

p-31

- If he can do it, I can as well, - Norman decided.

He left his town and joined the carnival crew.

Soon he becomes a very good entertainer, hypnotist, and mentalist.

A few years later, Baker somehow managed to transform himself from a carnival actor to a radio host and a musical machine inventor. He invented a unique Tangley Automatic Air Calliaphone. It was a variation of the common in the early 1900 steam musical organ.

He actually registered the patent for his Air Calliaphone in 1915. Then improved it and created a company called Tangley to manufacture his invention. That invention was selling well and made him a lot of money. The calliaphone in the lobby of the Crescent Hotel today could be one of his or a similar ones.

He placed his calliaphone on the bus and ran a very popular campaign denouncing mandated cattle TB tests, various vaccinations, and water fluoridation. Baker advocated against the use of aluminum cookware, which he claimed caused all cancers. Tens of thousands followed him.

His radio show and a radio station were called KTNT, which stands for “Know The Naked Truth”. He started the publication of the very popular TNT magazine. He believed that Muscatine, Iowa has the potential to become the business capital of the Midwest and people loved him for that.

Once he saw a street artist who would take a small picture and enlarge it quickly to a much larger size. Baker comes up with a simple mechanical tracing mechanism, the Baker’s Panto-graph, that would copy, enlarge or reduce the original by tracing it.

Soon after coming to the USA, I worked as a draftsman. I used the very same instrument and become very proficient with it. Although I had no idea who invented it.

Baker didn’t have any formal education, but he started the Art of the Correspondence School. That was the school for drafting, calligraphy, and art. It was successful. He started The Progressive Publishing Co. And it was successful. Hi denounced Big Business and advocated a small urban development.

p-32

Simple working people loved him, but the progressive globalists quickly become his enemies number one.

There was a small doctor’s office In Muscatine, Iowa. That office was run by Dr. Charles Ozias. This doctor experimented with unusual cancer treatment techniques based on vein injection shots of different natural remedies solutions.

Dr. Charles Ozias called his treatment the formula 2. Norman Baker wasn’t a doctor, but he studied Charles’s formula 2 and created his own formula 5. Formula 5 become an instant success.

Norman Baker performed open-air cancer prevention and treatment sensations. Those events were gathering crowds and were attended by many. Baker hired a helper and a companion, Mr. Harry Hoxsey. Hoxsey had his own cancer cure. That was a mix of natural remedies that claimed to make bodies digest cancer and avoid surgery. Hoxsey’s treatment was very expensive, but Baker didn’t charge much money for his. Both ran a vigorous campaign against AMA (American Medical Association) naming that prestigious association Amatur Meat cutters of America.

An American Medical Association labeled both inventors as charlatans. Baker filed a defamation suit against the AMA and lost. As a result, he was charged with practicing medicine without a license.

He paid a large fine, but his clinic was closed. The group of doctors ran him out of town. Those doctors happened to be Jewish, and that was how Norman Baker got known as an antisemite. I read several publications about him, but didn’t find any direct evidence that he hated Jews in one way or another.

Baker and Hoxsey parted their ways, but both escaped to Mexico.

I found that Hoxsey eventually came back to the US to continue his legacy and opened a clinic in Dallas, TX called Bio-Medical Center. His natural cancer cure methods are being practiced even today. Apparently, Hoxsey survived because he was never involved in politics or any other public work.

Norman Baker recreated his publishing company and a radio station in Nuevo Laredo, just outside the US border. His XENT-AM was the second most powerful radio station in North America in 1933.

p-33

People called him a “border bluster” and his constant rant against organized religion of any kind brought his popularity back.

He recreated his cancer treatment center in Mexico. That was a 100-bed facility he purchased.

In 1937, when an order for his arrest expired, Norman G. Baker came back to Muscatine, Iowa. He paid a $50.00 fine and served one day in jail.

He asked the city permission to start his cancer cure clinic again legally.

Permission was denied.

Once his assistant mentioned to him in passing that Old Magnificent Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, was closing and a building was available for a quick sale.

Norman G. Baker instantly purchased the Historic Hotel building and renovated it in a matter of a few months.

He painted the hotel lobby in purple color. Organized several treatment rooms. Hire several medical doctors and moved his Mexican hospital staff and equipment from Nuevo Laredo to Eureka Springs.

Baker advertised that a combination of fresh Arkansas air, Magnetic Hill medicinal water, and his unique formula 5 shots are the most successful treatment against cancer. People believed him and a new Cancer Center become well known.

Norman G. Baker drove around in the open-top purple car. He wore a white suit, a lilac shirt, and a purple tie. He was very eccentric and demonstrated his flamboyant personality everywhere.

Some of his patients survived, but others did not. Most of them had their conditions improved while in the Bakers Hospital, yet their health deteriorated as they were coming back home.

p-34

The roomers about different misappropriate events at the hospital started to circulate in town.

AMA filed several suits against Baker’s Institute multiply times but lost all of those. Baker had a lot of friends, but even more enemies.

Eventually, he was charged with mail fraud fined $4000.00, and jailed for four years from 1941 through 1944.

While in jail, there was another case brought against him. This time, the prosecution was victorious. They recognized Baker's treatment method as a fraud.

That was when the ingredients of the “Formula 5” were released by one of the doctors who worked for Baker. Later, however, that doctor took back his statement and admitted that he wasn’t fully honest when testified. During the court procedure, he revealed that formula 5 was a mixture of alcohol, glycerol, carbolic acid, ground watermelon seed, corn silk, and clover leaves.

Baker’s hospital ran for a while without the boss, but then was closed and the court labeled Baker’s Cancer treatment as a “pure hoax” and “utterly false”.

After serving his sentence, Norman G. Baker asked for permission to come back to Iowa to continue his enterprise, but that permission was denied again. He retired to Florida and died in 1958 from the complication of...

Yes, your guess is right!

He died from complications of cancer.

The Old Crescent Hotel stood abandoned for half a century.

p-35

Chapter 5

(Continuation of Chapter 3)

****

The Old Church of the Ozark

- Look There is that strange Lady again, - I told Lily turning back toward the door.

- Were? - Lily asked.

- Right there... - I looked again toward the door, but no Lady in the long grey trench coat was there.

- Never mind... - I said and we went outside...

The day was coming toward the evening. The sun was still up high, but its lights weren’t coming from the top anymore and lightened the surrounding just over the gigantic trees at the Hotels gardens. We walked across the lawn where the big letters C and H were planted by flowers. We left the Crescent Hotel and its mystery behind. As adults, we do that every day, leaving the miracles behind us.

We don’t have that unique childish naivete anymore. The miracles we dismiss. The mysteries we ignore. We feel too smart to pay attention to the unexplained and misunderstood. We are too busy to pay attention to details, leaving those to the dreamers among us.

Am I a dreamer?

I certainly am. And in my very busy everyday life, I always managed to leave some moments to hope for the miracles to come.

To me, miracles it is just misunderstood phenomena and I always like to find satisfaction in explaining them.

We walk down the old rocky stairs toward the street. All 62 steps. The tourist’s book said it was 62 cold mineral springs on the West Magnetic Mountain on some day in the past.

p-36

In Judaism, elders predict that 7 weeks would be given to destroy the original sin, following 62 weeks to get ready. Those 62 weeks were called the times of trouble when enemies attack Israel from all over. And then it will be a week when Messiah would come.

In Christianity, many regard Psalm 62 as a prayer of an innocent who was accused of wrongdoing.

What is that? A pure coincidence or...

We crossed the road and faced the entrance to the church.

Everything about this site was a bit unusual. The bell tower stood separate from the church building and serve as the main entrance to the compound. It actually looked more like an arch over the statue than like a bell tower. The statue was of saint Elisabeth as was noted on the sign.

Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, why that saint was chosen here in Arkansas?

Biblically, Elisabeth was a cousin of the Virgin Mary and the wife of Zechariah. Zechariah or Zachariah in Jewish history was a Jewish man from the tribe of Levi chosen as the First temple servant responsible for burning the incense. Elisabeth wanted to become pregnant, but her husband was too old or too righteous before God to have children.

Once Zechariah was approached by the angel Gabriel and told not to be afraid to have a child and Elisabeth bore a child from him and the child was born and they named him John. Christians believe that he never took wine or other fermented drinks, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit even before he was born. And John the Baptist he becomes.

Historically, however, Saint Elisabeth was a Hungarian nun of the Dominican Monastery in Toss, Hungary. She was the young wife of the Hungarian King whose Queen mother treated her very poorly. Married by 14 and widowed by 20, her life was hard. The King died and Queen mother forced his young widow to become a nun to prevent her from claiming the inheritance of the throne. Therefore, she was the innocent who suffered from being misunderstood.

It was her name chosen for this church. The Saint Elisabeth of Hungary.

p-37

I was trying to find a connection with the small town in Arkansas…

We came through the bell tower. The fact that the bell tower was separated from the church wasn’t that unusual to me. We have seen the “Companile” in Italy and “Beffroi” in France.

In fact, early Christians adapted the bell towers from the Muslim minarets when Christianity took over. Unusual to me was the road leading toward the church. It was descending rather than ascending. Normally churches were built in a such way that people attending were coming up toward God’s glory. Descending ways in Christianity usually lead toward the crypt or a place of burial.

So what was that church?

I read it would have 100 steps walk toward the church with marble statues depicting all 14 stations of the Christ. I saw those on the Right side of the walkway. The walkway was coming down and the 14 beautiful statues were ascending on the Right side. At the end of the line of statues up on the hill was another, larger statue of Christ. Therefore, inadvertently, people who were walking down toward the church entrance were distancing themself from the image of the very God they worshiped. That can not be right!

At the church entrance, I recognized another statue. Without a doubt, it was the Lady of the Fatima.

Lily and I were traveling in Portugal and, as a matter of fact, are going back there in a few months. Fatima is the last recorded and recognized Christian miracle place of our times. According to the records, three little children met a miraculous lady while in the forest. Lady of Fatima declared to the shepherd children that “My Immaculate Heart will triumph.” That lady gave them a time and a day when she would reveal herself to all of the people. It was, in fact, the summer of 1914 when hundreds of people came to the big open field. They all saw an unusual light in the sky and the sun was moving in a zig-zag motion and they heard several messages. One of those predicted that horror destroying the faith would be coming from Russia. Of course, WWI began at the same time and the Communist revolution followed, destroying religion everywhere in Eastern Europe and beyond. Lady of Fatima was trying to save the innocent and those who would be misunderstood.

p-38

- You know, I don’t feel comfortable here,- Lily said. - I feel like I am at the cemetery and I don’t like it.

- Ok, let’s go. I just want to check the church door. Maybe it is open. It will be a minute… - and I pulled on the massive entrance door.

To my surprise, the door opened, and we entered the sanctuary. And again, it was unusual. Normally, churches have an entryway called Narthex.

It is like a threshold of the church’s entrance where one should get ready to enter the holy place spiritually and physically, both. Some other non-christian places of worship do not have that tradition, as they do not consider the place of worship to be necessarily the place of G-d.

Why this church is so different?

We walked through that primary sanctuary, as I identified that space to myself. It was lightened with the red light and the ceiling was dark blue, all covered in golden stars. I noticed the Great Seal of the United States of America embedded in the floor. Thirteen stars... and the olive branch held by the Eagle...

- E Pluribus Unum,- I read. Out of many to one...

Why is this placed here in the church?

That starry, rounded space opened into the long hall with more statues by the windows and finally, we were inside the church itself. Holy, holy, holy – was written on the altar. It was a usual American church of the early 1900s.

Nobody was inside. The church was lightened by the sunlight coming through the beautiful stained glass windows. We took some pictures and left. Lily insisted on us leaving because she felt like at the cemetery...

I wondered, why?

We drove down to town. Walked the old streets by the old colorful homes decorated with old windows and doors. Those homes looked like they were coming out of the mountainside. It looked like all seven gnomes would come out.

p-39

Downtown was full of town visitors. Restaurants, bars, music everywhere. The rainbow flags were almost on every building. Eureka Springs now is the unofficial gay capital of the Midwest.

We stop for a meal in one of the oldest family diners in town. I googled that place before. It was famous because, for its hundred years of existence, the restaurant never changed the original grandma Mae’s recipes. Murtie May was a widow with six children who started her cafe in 1920.

The food was simple, but really delicious. Portions were huge. Lily couldn’t finish hers and I came to the rescue, but even for me, it was too much food.

The restaurant had many old pictures placed on the walls. The pictures showed a young woman and her kids, the old Eureka Springs of the years prior to WWII. And then it showed the same women being older in the 1960s. It displayed the entire history of the town on that wall.

We were tired.

We saw so much that day!

So many steps we took walking!

My Fitbit watch sent me a special reward already telling me I beat the walking record of the week.

A group of bikers came to the restaurant right after us. Big bearded guys in leather jackets. They looked mean but actually were very quiet and polite. They quickly finished the meal and left even before us.

Bikers... Suddenly I remembered our first trip to the Ozark 40 years ago and the very first encounter with the bikers gang on the road...

I smiled, but said nothing.

It seems to be a lifetime ago.

Yes, it was…

p-40

Chapter 6

******

At the Land O' Nod Motel

I had, however, too many things on my mind and really wanted to get to my laptop as soon as possible. I wanted to look up the puzzling questions we encountered today.

We found our bed-and-breakfast place quickly. It was as charming as the brochure have promised us. All pink corteges and some two-story buildings spread around in the pine-tree forest. The entire complex was up on the hills. We parked below.

Lily waited in the car while I went up to get a room key. I scampered up the few steps to the landing in front of the main building and look around. All houses had picturesque windows in the white frames. Red peonies bloomed in the planters below. It was that special time of the day when some flowers are trying to tuck themselves for a night. The sun just falls into the sunset, painting the sky orange-red. It was beautiful. For a second, it really looked like I was “on Dacha” (the summer house in Russian) somewhere in my childhood. It looked like behind those magnificent pine trees will be sand dunes and a sandy beach coming down to the water… Yet I was in Arkansas. I certainly knew that.

A nice lady who called us before politely treated me with freshly baked cookies and keys to our room.

Next to her on the counter sat a very large red cat.

- His name is Morris, isn’t it?- I asked, remembering Morris, the cat from the Crescent Hotel.

- Yes, How did you guess that? - Lady looked at me in wonder. - He was a stray. We took him in and named him Morris. He is very special.

- Just like the famous cat from the Crescent Hotel? - I asked.

- You are about the big place on the top, are you? - Lady asked me.

- Yes, that’s right.

p-41

- We never go to those parts... - Lady told me and looked at me through her big heavy framed glasses. The kind school teachers used to wear in the old black and white movies.

I trembled... For a second, I thought I have just seen the lady from the Old Crescent Hotel. Maybe I have seen a ghost...

- Thank you for the cookies and keys. I probably will go... My wife over there is waiting for me... — mumble I and walked toward the door.

The place looked old, just like the brochure described the Land O’ Nod Motel.

There was an old antique umbrella stand there with some raincoats hanging. Suddenly I recognized an old long grey trench coat there as well. That was kinda spooky...

- I guess it was a very long day, - I thought to myself and decided not to share my latest discovery with Lily.

*****

Meanwhile, the twilight fell down and lit the surrounding with the light from the big yellow moon that showed itself up over the treetops.

Our room was on the second floor overlooking the garden. Tall pine trees were everywhere and flower beds below were all covered with large red peonies. Long shades from the tall trees fell over the flowers and made them close for the night. All the houses of that old American motel were pink. In the moonlight, the pink turn to be reddish-white. They decorated the tall glass windows with stained glass that shined from the reflection of the moon. It was beautiful and to me; it looked like back in my childhood in Riga, Latvia. The places we used to go to to spend summer by the Baltic sea.

It was late. Lily went to bed, but I put in a little time with my laptop, searching. My search came back full of surprises.

I found a lot of very interesting facts about the Old Crescent Hotel, the unusual church, and Eureka Springs.

p-42

Richard C. Kerens, one of the three founders of the original Crescent Hotel, was brought to the united states as a young child by a family of Irish immigrants. Throughout his life, he was devoted to his mother, Elizabeth Kerens (born Gugerty). Every place Richard lived he would accommodating place for his parents and especially for his mother as well. He was married and had two sons and two daughters, all of whom were well established in American life.

Aside from his military and engineering career, he was a philosopher and psychologist. He wrote for Notre Dame Scholastic Society in the early 1900s. Magnetism and psychology were some of his interests as well.

While the Crescent Hotel was under construction, his mother fell ill, and a few years later, died. At the base of the hotel, Richard built a memorial chapel to commemorate her life. In a few years, he commissioned a large church that incorporated the memorial chapel. That was why the church building looked a bit odd to me. The entrance to the church was in fact the old chapel, as they built it for Elizabeth Kerens. That could be the reason Lily inadvertently felt like at the cemetery there.

They chose the name of the church to be Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, to keep the memory of Richards’s mother alive.

Richard become very involved with the church and with the history of Saint Elizabeth. His interest entailed him into the position of the United States ambassador to Austro-Hungary, where he served from 1909 through 1913th under the appointment of president William Howard Taft.

While in Vienna, Austria, Richard become a close associate of Sigmund Freud and took part in many of his public discussions and lectures.

His personality was very well-known, in fact so much known, that in our time George Lucas and Steven Spielberg introduced his character in the Indiana Jones movie.

In the movie at some point: “When Henry Jones’ world lecture tour brought him to Vienna, Kerens hosted the Jones family at his residence and used his influence so that they would enjoy the best the city had to offer. Because young Indiana Jones took Sophie Von Hohenberg on a joy ride, Archduke Franz Ferdinand sent a complaint letter to him.”

p-43

The next day Kerens hosted the first psychoanalytic conference with Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Carl Jung making a toast wishing them success in their new science." - I couldn't believe I found that! That of course was presented in the movie.

But in real history, I found also that Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand considered forming a federal government of 16 Hungarian states, calling it the United States of Greater Austria.

This was the way of changing the Austro-Hungarian rule over the Slavs, Germans, and Magyars, so everybody would be having an equal voice in government.

I only can assume that this idea was brought up in his meetings with the American ambassador Richard C. Kerens.

But everything changes. President Taft lost reelection. Woodrow Wilson become the 28th president of the United States and the American ambassador to the Austro-Hungarian empire and was called back home.

The idea of the United States of Austria was in direct conflict with the Serbian nationalists who had a desire of breaking off with Bosnia and Herzegovina to form an independent state. They assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and WWI started.

The life of Richard Kerens was devoted to catholic values. It was the life of the philanthropist who wanted to protect and help the destitute and the innocent. His life went on the principles inherited from his mother Elizabeth. In fact, his mother's maiden name Gugerty sometimes anglicized the form of the Old Gaelic "O'hOgartaigh" or "O'Fogartoigh", which means "to manifest the destitute".

I was absolutely mesmerized by everything I discovered. Who could imagine that here far in the hills of the Ozarks in the small town of Eureka Springs I would find the connections to the people personally responsible for the greatest twists and turns in world history?

p-44

I couldn’t fall asleep. I was thinking about the old grotto, with the mineral springs coming from the mountainside.

And about the old preacher who once said,- Esto Perpetua!

And about the young Indian princess whose blindness was treated with this magic water.

And the Hotel that was built incredibly to be the biggest and the most luxurious in the entire United States.

And about an eccentric charlatan who believed he found the cancer treatment.

And about the Irish immigrants who came to this country to build a new life for themself.

And about us who came to America as well and on the very first American vacation went to travel here not knowing how special this place really was...

I didn’t notice how I fall asleep...

And I saw us, Lily and I, in the car driving along the twisted mountain road almost half a century ago.

My thoughts took me back in time...

*****

p-45

Chapter 7

*****

Back in 1981...

At that point in 1981, we were new immigrants in America. Most of the things were unknown and surprising to us. We grew up behind the "Iron Curtain" and knew America from the sources of information carefully curved by the soviet propaganda machine for people’s consumption. It was an Amerika with the ” K ”, where “ K “ means Komunism.

They made us to believe that we were well educated, yet we didn’t know much of anything. A few months before leaving the country, we read several articles about auto traveling in America. They published those in the newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, - The Young Communists Truth.

Two soviet correspondents wrote the articles who, admittingly, were allowed the opportunity to travel through the American Midwest.

From those articles, we learned about many American wonders. We were looking for those and couldn’t find any.

Americans show religion-themed movies in the sky while drivers watch them while driving… We didn't see any.

We read roads are painted in America in different colors. Each color corresponds to a different speed limit, and that is how Americans drive by colors rather than by posted signs…

None of those and the similar “true” facts about America we ever found here and I actually never understood why the silly things like that were given to us to read. Maybe those two cited correspondents wrote those stories in Moscow and have never been to the USA.

Another “true” fact about American life was the fascination with the motorcycle gang culture.

p-46

I read that most American poets, writers, and musicians like to change close to all leather jackets and drive motorcycles all over the country for inspiration in large groups. They called themself the bikers, and it was captivating for me.

When we first came to America, everything was foreign to us. Mentally, we kept ourselves separate from other real Americans, referring to them as a third person.

We referred to American customs as “ their “ customs. We referred to the land we have seen around as their land.

As time went by, that feeling of being an alien disappeared and I began to see this country and its people as mine.

I was a young and restless wanderer and I romanticize everything American around us, including people’s language and customs.

After a year in the country, my English was good enough to understand most of the common conversations around. Although it was rather difficult for others to comprehend my “perfect” English mumbling.

Yet I wanted to enlarge my vocabulary daily. I never went to school to learn my new second language. I went to work right away and picked the lingo on the go as it was.

One day I felt a need to express myself strongly and use some profanity. I didn’t know how to do that and I asked around.

People smiled but didn’t give me any examples of foul language. That actually shows that very nice folks surrounded me. I insisted, and finally one of my friends gave me an example.

- Say “son of a bitch”,- my friend told me, - that would be good for any strong language needs.

Of course, I did not know what it means and how it should be spelled. I kept that phrase in my head and inadvertently it become the “sun on the beach”. Those words I knew.

p-47

I remember coming home one day, all excited, and telling Lily that now my English is so good, that I already know how to swear in that language!

- You know, English is such a polite language that even swearing by itself sounded nice. When one wanted to swear, he simply mentioned the blistering sun over the beach and the reference to the scorching heat would be, in fact, the swearing! - I was telling my wife that romanticizing everything American.

- No wonder some people asked me how to say some bad words in Russian.

Now I understand. They just don't have such colorful words in American English...

For a long time when I wanted to swear, I would make a mean face and say,

- Sun on a beach!

And amazingly people understood...

And now we were on our first real American vacation, driving through the beautiful land of Ozark.

I rolled the window down, and the wind hit me in the face. I felt like a real American.

Lily was sitting next to me in our real American car. Dodge Royal Monaco 1974 model. We loved that car.

It was then when the cars were big and safety seat belts didn’t exist. Lily set on the front seat with her knees up, leaning over to my shoulder.

It was a beautiful land around us, left and right. It was our American land. We were so happy.

Far away in the green line of the endless forest, we have seen a gigantic statue that looked like a giant cross, but actually, it looked like a statue of Jesus.

I really wanted to drive closer, but I didn’t know how. The map we had didn’t show it.

p-48

I was trying to take some side roads, but all of those were going elsewhere.

It was frustrating.

- Look at that cross, like the one in Rio de Janeiro that we saw on TV the other day. I’m trying to get closer to see it and, oh, that sun on a beach! It goes away every time. It’s obsessing, - I said, exercising my newly obtain American slang.

- Listen, it isn’t that important. We saw it already from the distance. Let’s drop the idea and drive back home. We really got a very long drive ahead of us. - Lily replied, she always was one cooler from the two of our heads.

I slowed down trying to get a wider part of the road to turnaround. I looked into the rear-view mirror and noticed a dusty cloud. The cloud was catching up with us and soon I realize what it was.

It was a real American bikers gang!

Oh, my G-d! How happy I was!

- Look, look there is a real American bikers gang coming! - I exclaimed. - Remember we read about them in “Komsomolskaya Pravda”. They all look mean and ragged, but they all are poets, writers, and musicians. They drive their huge motorbikes looking for inspiration!

I slowed down, even more, waiting for bikers to pass me. The Gang caught up with us and for a while, we all drove along.

They drove with the sound of two dozen rocketing motorbikes and us driving our beige Dodge Royal Monaco circa 1974. It was my dream coming true.

The head guy, I recognized him right away by the beard, and a really mean look in his eyes was driving next to my window.

I smiled.

He smiled also and showed me a hand gesture that I didn’t understand. He moved his hand up and down with one finger extended and smiled, even more, demonstrating his yellow from chewing tobacco teeth.

- What do you think that guy is trying to tell us? - I asked Lily.

She didn’t reply, and I decided to do the obvious.

p-49

The obvious at that point for me was to return the favor. And I mimicked the very same gesture back.

The leader of the gang gave me an ambitious look, as I understood and signal something to his buddies. They all surrounded our car and forced us to pull over and stop by the side of the road.

I was really excited. I will have a chance to meet real American bikers!

I came out of the car taking my Russian-made photo camera, Zenit, with me. I really wanted to take a picture of the entire gang together.

I walked straight to the gang leader and told him how happy I was to meet real American bikers. I told him that I read about them in the Russian newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda” and I know that all of them are, in fact, poets, writers, and musicians.

I wasn’t sure that the gang leader understood me fully, but I noticed that when I said the phrase - “in fact poets...” his face grimace changed and he repeated the word “Fact” several times shaking his head from the left to the right. That his word sounded to me like a word ” Fact ” anyway.

- Fact poets and fact Russians, - I repeated after him adding “sun on the beach!”, and just to be sure he understood I showed him the new gesture I just learned.

The following result was totally unexpected to me, anyway.

The head biker spat on the ground, said the word “ Fact”, he apparently liked that much, turned around, and left. The rest of the gang followed him.

I went back to the car.

- What happened over there?- Lily asked.

- I don’t really know. - I replied. - I think it has something got to do with the English phrase “In fact” and the way I pronounced it. In any way, they didn’t want to get pictures taken...

And we continue our journey. The Statue of the giant cross that looked like Jesus disappeared over the horizon.

p-50

- They weren’t really the poets or musicians, did they? - Lily asked.

- Nope... I guess not... Apparently the" Komsomolskaya Pravda" didn’t tell us the truth as expected... - I replied.

*****

- Oh Sasha, Sasha! - Lily shook me by the shoulder. - I opened my eyes.

- You fall asleep holding your laptop in your hands. - Lily was smiling.

I shook my head, trying to wake up. The memory of the dream I just had started to fade. I wanted to catch those to tell Lily about it, but I couldn’t.

The morning sun was shining brightly already, and we went for breakfast.

They set the breakfast in the main building. The same place where I got the keys last night.

We walked a short alley sided with red peonies covered with pine cones fallen from the trees. We opened the back door to the lobby, and I noticed the antique umbrella stand by the entrance. I remembered the old gray trench coat hanging there last night. The hanger was empty.

The Lady hostess treated us with a big friendly smile and invited us for a breakfast. She wore the same large glasses as yesterday, but she didn’t look like a schoolteacher from the 1920s black and white movies anymore.

The beautiful morning sun was reflecting on the stained glass decorations in the window, lighting the entire room into rainbow colors. Breakfast was nothing out of the ordinary. The usual orange juice, coffee, scrambled eggs, and turkey sausage. Typical motel breakfast.

- How old is this motel? - I asked.

- We celebrated the anniversary just a few weeks ago. My parents started this business in the early 50’. I inherited it. I have been running that place for many years now. This April, this motel turned 70 years old. - lady answered me with a smile.

p-51

- So am I... - I said.

The big red cat jumped down from the counter and came closer, looking me in the eye.

- Good morning Morris,- I said.

- Where are you heading today? - lady asked me.

- We are going to see Jesus... - I smiled.

- Everybody does at some point... - The lady answered and walked away.

Morris the cat followed her...

It was the morning and we had the whole day planned ahead of us.

******

p-52

Chapter 8

******

A Million candles burning for the love that never came...

“...A million candles burning for the love that never came...” - my favorite poet once wrote. And I want to add - ... not yet. The love is coming... It always does...

We just have to learn to catch it.

“I wasn’t born in America, but I came here as soon as I could!”- I like to repeat this phrase quite often. It describes my personality pretty well.

Thanks to my late and not authentic coming to America, I see our country from a bit different point of view. I celebrate its best and I cry about its mishaps, yet I am fallen in love with it for 42 years now and this feeling is everlasting.

America is my country, and throughout its relatively brief history of only 246 years, made a lot of mistakes, yet it always learned from those and chose to correct and amend for better its road to the future.

That proceeding protected our country from those mistakes never to happen again, considering we are following the rules left to us by the founders. That is what makes our country and its people different, exceptional from the rest of the world. It sounds complicated, but it is very clear to me as I could see my country from the outside looking in.

****

- We are going to see Jesus... - I told to the lady at the Motel when she asked me about our day's planning. It was a little tongue-in-cheek, perhaps.

That morning, we were driving to see the statue of Christ.

The largest one in the country.

p-53

I see everything in history as well as in today’s event through my unique set of Judeo-Christian glasses that I wore permanently over my mind.

I started this part of my story with Leonard Cohen’s quote that many people call “very dark”. It is from one of his last songs he named “Hineni”.

My Jewish friends and especially ones who are in Israel would instantly recognize that word as the phrase “He-Ne-Ni” meaning in Hebrew “here I am”. That is the phrase chanted by the cantor during the liturgy on Rosh Hashana. (Jewish New Year)

It is the phrase that, according to our beliefs, Abraham said to G-d when he was called. Therefore, to me, that phrase isn’t dark at all. Contrary, it’s not the end, but it is the beginning.

*****

- We are going to see Jesus... - I told to the lady at the Motel when she asked me about our day's planning. It was a little tongue-in-cheek, perhaps.

That morning we were going to see Christ...

That phrase by itself has a huge meaning to all of my Christian friends. It is meaningful for me as well and not only from my love and respect for my friends.

I grew up in a country that was under the soviets. Antisemitism was the natural common state of mind for many of my friends. In today’s America, it is hard to understand how some friends of mine would resent me for belonging to a group of people who weren’t that much different in their everyday life. We all looked similar, walked similar, dressed similar, talked similar, but... we weren’t. Only because we were born from the different kind of parents we weren’t.

My childhood memory is full of bitter examples when somebody would derogatory call me a Jew. Kids who I wanted to be my friends would tell me that “my people kill their God Jesus and therefore I am not good for it”.

p-54

When I was a boy, I found a shiny black and gold button in my grandmother’s locker box that looked like Mogen David. It was a six-point star made from two triangles with some mysterious lettering. I knew it was Jewish. I glue a little silver cross inside it and was caring it with me secretly as a lucky charm. No, I didn’t want to change and become different. A sense of peace and understanding is what I wanted. I thought it would come to me one day. I dreamt about it.

*****

Unknowingly, I was right. That sense of peace and understanding came to me, but over many years later.

It came to me, but to see it coming I had to change the countries, my life, and my language.

Our destiny brought me and a family to be part of a unique society where we can be openly Jewish. Where friends of ours can be Christians and we can live side by side with no remorse, regrets, or jealousy.

We are in America, and we are the Americans.

Yet when I see an enormous image of Christ or hear the overwhelming phrase of him, I have a little feeling in my spine reminding me of who I am and where I came from. It isn’t bad. I think it is the way we, the Jewish people, are. Perhaps it is the way it should be.

40 years ago, we were mesmerized by the giant image of Christ standing over the endless fields of the Ozarks. Now, and especially knowing the very controversial history of that monument, we had a totally different perspective.

Let me share it with you.

In my days, I learned to see all Americans divided into two categories. The first are the ones who are trying to do everything possible to improve upon themselves to the image described by our American founders.

p-55

The second are the ones who are denying to our founders their clairvoyant intelligence and trying to change others to the new form of righteousness they believe is more contemporary and progressive.

Both are very good and honest people for the most part, just with a different understanding of the values and the ways to go. Yet there is a layer of other folks between the two groups.

Those people between the two groups are naturally charismatic and are born with instant leadership qualities. They are quite narcissistic and believe in their own personal genius. Often they take advantage of others by converting large groups of people to become their followers. Leaders like that rarely believe in their own teaching, but only use it to advance themselves in their personal achievements.

Gerald Lyman Kenneth Smith was one of those pseudo-leaders.

Years of the depression in America were very hard for the country and brought a variety of leftist inclinations into the colorful palette of American political life. It was especially noticeable in the southern states, where the number of destitute people was larger.

It was the time when Louisiana leftist Governor Huey Long introduced his so-called “Share of the Wealth” program in 1935. Huey Long had a long-time friend who had a very long triple name he liked to repeat.

That friend was Gerald Lyman Kenneth Smith who helped governor Long to run his program and, when Mr. Long was assassinated, become a leader of the Wealth Redistribution idea. Some historians claimed that governor Long wasn’t actually assassinated, but provoked the shouting between his own bodyguards as was fascinating with his own death. In any way, his program didn’t work then as well as it doesn’t work now, no matter how politicians are trying to reform that century-old idea.

p-56

Gerald Smith eventually drop the idea and turned to the populism of growing the European National Socialism in America. Smith was a traditional follower of the American Disciples of Chris’s ministry and creator of his own American First Party. He and his followers were openly sympathetic to everything Hitler was doing trying to create a new super-white American society. Later in his life, Smith never apologized for his beliefs and ideas, yet he eventually ran out of public life long after the end of WWII. It resulted from the American Anti-defamation League campaign that openly opposed his ideas. Finally, the “Minister of Hate” quietly retired to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Here he ran out of all of his followers and money.

******

I read that by 1963, Smith’s estate was less than $5000.00. Yet he suddenly organized a new campaign and raised $1,000,000 by the spring of 1964 to commission and construct the “Christ of the Ozarks” project. He purchased the piece of property on one top of Magnetic Mountain and oversaw the construction of this 67ft (20m) high monument standing on the top of the 1500 ft hill. He also started the construction of the full-sized model of Old Jerusalem and launched the performance of the Passion Play, the tradition that comes from the town of Oberammergau, Germany, where it is performed every ten years. Smith died in 1976. They buried him and his wife at the feet of his creation.

Of course, it was nothing wrong with creating what Smith organized and achieved. Yet for me, everything was wrong with his beliefs, his activities, his claims, and his personality.

Reading about Smith’s life history, I was looking for a trace of remorse or repentance, for some form of apology for the previous mistakes, an apology for antisemitic remarks, an apology for holocaust denial, an apology for praising german national socialism. I found none of those...

I only found some articles concluding that he tried to find his repentance in Christianity, but that certainly was not enough for me.

p-57

Now we know the very dark history of that statue. Of course, during our first trip to the Ozarks in 1981, we had no idea. To us back then, it was part of the overall American wonderland 20 meters high and almost like in Rio de Janeiro. That was all we have seen…

Knowing the controversial history of the statue, understandably, we weren’t eager to visit it now, but being near the giant and my curiosity took the lead, and so we went to see it.

******

- We aren’t going to spend a lot of time there, - Lily told me.

- Absolutely not, - I replied. - We just going to take a look and go...

Driving to the statue was short and easy and very soon we entered a humongous parking lot, built for thousands of cars.

On one side of the parking was a monumental recreation of the Old Jerusalem gate surrounded by mock-ups of the old walls and buildings.

On the other was a vast green forest with a network of trails decorated with religious symbols and statues. Someone specially designed those trails for religious meditation.

A sign showed us the way toward the statue and so we went.

We heard music coming from far away. The music sounded familiar and I couldn’t believe what I heard. We came closer, and I recognized the music.

It was one of the popular Hasidic songs called Sholem Aleichem. Literally, in Yiddish, it means “Peace be upon you”. This song is about the “blessing for the King of Kings, the Holy One, Blessed be He, who sent us the ministering angels, the messengers of peace, and therefore the Holy One, Blessed be He”. This song is a part of the Jewish religious liturgy.

Why is it playing here at the feet of the largest statue of Christ in America built by known antisemite?

p-58

There were two large tents where the music was coming from. They decorated the tents with the Flags of Israel. Men and women dressed in red T-shirts with Hebrew letters were dancing near the tents. That was surprising, to say the least.

I recognized the logo of the Messianic Jews who dedicate their lives to the safety and prosperity of the country of Israel and its people. That movement is popular among many Christian groups, but many religious Jewish people are opposed to their activities, as their mission openly invited Jews to convert.

I personally appreciate all the good work they do. I do not believe that Jewish people can be “stolen” from Judaism. Temporary, perhaps, but we always are coming back to our traditions and no one can take us away. Unfortunately, sometimes we are coming back very late in life, yet we are the ones to make our choices. That is what I believe…

Inside the tents, we found a lot of Jewish religious artifacts and souvenirs for sale. All the funds were to go to benefit the country of Israel and its people,- the sign said.

Obviously, we were surprised. Here on the way to the statue created by the known antisemite, people were collecting funds to help the very country Gerald Smith hated.

We continued our way to the statue and got surprised again.

There was a small church there on the edge of the green forest.

The door was opened, and I stepped inside. It was a simple church, like many in America. A crucifix, a few religious paintings on the walls, a beautiful stained glass windows. Books, benches, more books... And suddenly my eyes stumbled on something unexpected. A talesz, or how it is called in Hebrew tallit, was hanging over one bench. A talesz, as we call it in Yiddish, is a Jewish religious fringed garment worn as a prayer shawl. That was surprising. Surprising was what we saw outside the church as well.

On one side was a Holocaust memorial and on the other was a presentation of the piece of the Berlin Wall as a monument to the victims of Soviet Socialism.

p-59

The Holocaust memorial comprised the part of the wall with the image of the fenced way leading to the end of itself. “… ich habe keine angst…”- that was written on the way to the end…

My german isn’t much, but I understood. “I am not afraid. “— That is what it said. And under it in big letters, I read - “Psalm 23”.

Psalm 23 is solemn to all Christians and Jews equally. It is the Song of David.

As the Book said, David was running away from King Saul, who wanted to murder him. David took refuge in a dense forest. While there without food and water, G-d miraculously saved him. And David wrote a song glorifying his trust in G-d.

That simple memorial was so powerful.

The piece of the Berlin wall on the other side of the church had a part with the famous graffiti depicting Jesus’ crucifixion in red and yellow that I remember seeing when that wall was taken down in November 1989. That was a very powerful message to me then and it reminded me to be very powerful now.

Next to the church was a small office, and I entered inside wondering. I wanted to know how this mesmerizing to me change of ideas happened here.

A friendly lady in the office knew little, but she gave me several brochures and magazines that explained my confusion. That is what I learned.

*****

At some point after the death of Gerald Smith Cornerstone Bank began “amicable foreclosure” of the land in Eureka Springs, including the Statue and all buildings. Later in 2013, the South Central Oklahoma Christian Broadcasting radio ministry purchased that territory.

Subsequently, the Great Passion Play Organization was created. That organization supported by many has publicly renounced Smith’s views and beliefs.

p-60

The actual part of the statement was:” We here at the Great Passion Play believe we are all equally culpable for Jesus’s death. No one people group was solely responsible..."

*****

We, Lily and I were actually familiar with the work of that group, as we like to travel to Wichita’s Natural Preserve in Oklahoma where another century-old remarkable Passion Play site was built. That one is the oldest in the country and was traditionally visited by all American presidents at Easter. That tradition ended however a few years after the WWII.

I wrote about that special place before.

*****

Originally, as I read, the statue was planned to be much taller. The figure had legs. American aviation authority FAA requested the installation of the air traffic warning light on the top of the statue. The sculptor refused to put red blinking lights on Christ’s head. Legs were cut off, and the statue was lowered. It is only 65.5 ft. tall now, but standing on the top of the hill seems to be much taller.

Just to compare the size, I should add that David Adickes’ Sam Houston statue in Huntsville, TX. is 66.5ft. tall and Bob Cassilly’ giraffe in front of the Dallas Zoo entrance is 67ft.

Looking into the history of this monument, I read that the idea of the giant statue of Christ might as well not be coming from Smith himself. There was another similar statue that was planned for about the same time when the Ozarks’ idea developed.

*****

At the beginning of the WWII, a small group of refugees from British-occupied Palestine arrived in the country of Peru. They settled in a small community in the town of Cusco. It was an unusual group of refugees. They kept secluded. Very little is known about them now. Were they Coptic Christians, Arabs, or Jews, we don’t know. Although they were the people with money and a lot of it.

p-61

In Peru today, the tour guides called those refugees Palestinians and assume that they were Arabs.

I doubt that theory. I read that at the beginning of the WWII, the land of Palestine was under the occupation of the British Authority.

It was called Mandatory Palestine.

The Italian military bombed Tel Aviv on September 9th of 1940 and 157 people died and many more were badly injured. Following this bombing and later others in Haifa panic and fear took over the whole territory. People in Palestine saw the war as an action to exterminate Jews. They wanted to leave, but the British authorities closed the border for Jews. The only way of leaving was to bribe the authorities. Ashkenazi Jews at the time didn’t have either money or the connections to do that. Ashkenazi Jews were the poorest group in the territory. All the wealth was in the hands of the Sephardim. That is why I assume that the group of refugees who escaped to Peru were actually Sephardi Jews, although they commonly spoke Spanish as well.

Through the years of the war, they dealt successfully in banking and trade, as well as taking part in many local charities. When the war was over, they immediately returned home. As the mysterious refugees were leaving Cusco, they purchased a plot on the top of the Pukamoqo mountain near the legendary Inca archaeological site of Sacsayhuaman.

They promised to erect a giant statue of Christ there overlooking the city of Cusco as a token of appreciation for the refuge they got.

They placed the first stone of the statue in 1944, but it developed and got built later in the 1960s.

We have seen the statue, Lily, and I while visiting the majestic and mysterious site of Sacsayhuaman. I remember walking by the giant walls built from the tremendous boulders, some up to 20 ft. in size. I remember wondering how some ancient pre-Inkas civilization could create that.

p-62

I remember coming to the top of the site and looking down over the city in the beautiful colors of the Peruvian sunset. And suddenly there was a statue of the cross that one can see from everywhere. The Cristo Blanco statue, as it is called there, was magnificent.

I found that an American pastor Rev. Daniel McLellan was the one who secure a huge educational and development loan for the country of Peru in 1961. He traveled to the country extensively during that time. He was the most instrumental figure in building relationships between the nations during Kennedy’s administration. Smith ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate and even for the presidency several times. During his failing election campaign, he could hear the story about Cristo Blanco either from Rev. Daniel McLellan or some of his associates. It is very much possible that that was the actual source of his idea.

Reviewing Gerald Smith’s life and character, that theory sounds logical to me. Personalities like him commonly used somebody’s ideas to improve, improvise, and use for their own benefit. It is, however, the only good guess of mine. I obviously can not be sure of it.

There are angels and demons. The first we love, the latter scared us. There are the symbols and the idols. Those can either be good or bad, depending on the meaning people place on them. We are given free will, therefore it is for us to decide good from wrong. Yet there is certain guidance that leads our intelligence to the right choice.

For the last two decades, the giant statue over the Ozarks is presenting the message of love, peace, and devotion to charity. And that is why this Christ of the Ozarks statue today is an exceptional symbol of goodness.

Although the grave of a certifite Jew-hater and Hitler sympathizer was placed right beneath the statue. There is a granite headstone with Smith’s name on it there.

Do I need to carry a grudge? Do I need to be upset? Do I need to forgive, but not forget?

In Judaism, forgiveness is one of the mitzvot (good deeds) given to us by the Torah. Although we need to learn how that should apply and when.

p-63

We choose the ways we travel in life ourselves and those are the ways other people remember us by.

*****

We walked around the statue, overwhelmed by its giant size. We read many decorative plaques explaining the history of the place. Yet none mentioned any controversial facts about the creation of the statue. Gerald Smith's name was mentioned many times, but not characterized.

*****

There was a praying circle set on one side of the park. They placed simple wooden benches around in a form of a horseshoe under the simple wooden cross. I noticed a father and a son sitting there. A little boy lowered his head a little down under the head of his father and listened quietly. His father talked to him quietly. It was a real Kodak moment, but I put my camera down. It was too private, too personal.

On the green field below the statue, there was a little meditation sitting area. I sat on the bench while Lily was taking some unique pictures of the statue and the surroundings. A young couple was sitting behind me and inadvertently I heard what they were talking about.

- I can’t believe how huge this is, - she said

- Yes, it is – he replied

- It makes me think of good deeds I have to do, - she said

- Me too, - he replied.

- I guess good people made it for us to be better, - she said…

Obviously, that couple knew little about the statue’s controversial history. And I thought there wasn’t anything wrong with that limit of the information displayed anymore.

p-64

The way we remember the past shouldn’t prevent us from building a better future.

This statue is a true monument to the history of our nation. The nation that admittingly did some wrong in its past, yet recovered, recognized, and went forward for the better ways and justice in life for everyone.

*****

When we drove back from the Statue, I suddenly realize why all those years ago I couldn’t find the way to it. The road wasn’t there at the time.

In the past, the Statue stood on the green loan on the very top of Magnetic Mountain without a paved road to it.

I read Smith was trying to get the state of Arkansas to pay for the roadway toward the site of the statue, as public access to the religious institution, but he lost his bid in court. The financing of that very road brought him down to his financial demise.

They constructed later the road when the good folks of the Mike Russell foundation took over the care of this project some 15-20 years ago.

We visited the statue and drove out toward the highway to continue our trip. There was a sign pole at the intersection.

It showed the distances to the world-famous religious sites.

On the side of the pole, somebody curved the star of David with the cross inside it.

Just like the one I made from my grandma’s old button many years ago.

Of course, I have never wanted to change my beliefs. I just wanted to live in peace and share true love and friendships with all of my friends, Jewish and not. It’s unbelievable how many roads we had to walk to find the place it would be possible. That is why I love our today’s country of the USA so much.

It’s true what they say,- God moves in mysterious ways...

p-65

*******

We had a lot of driving planned for the day.

Ahead, the pleasant relaxing time in the warmth of the hot mineral water bath in Quapaw was awaiting us. That is our favorite place in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

We were driving from the cold waters of Eureka Springs to the Hot bubbling streams of Hot Springs. And that would be another totally different story.

*****

There is a famous phrase, - “Looking for a needle in the haystack”.

That is what I do.

We like to travel, Lily and I. We like to travel far and near. We never know when and where we can find an amazing and unusual place that we are looking for.

She would take pictures, and I would write the notes. That is how the world turns for us and Esto Perpetua!

Sometimes those places are right under our noses but we can’t notice it.

We attributed the above phrase about the needle in the haystack to Cervantes. He was the first who use this comparison to describe Don Quixote’s pursuit of his dream-love Dulcinea. You may be surprised, but Dulcinea isn’t a real name. It meant sweetness, and Cervantes dreamed it up for his character. He wrote, and I quote in translation,”… tracking Dulcinea up and down El Toboso will be as bad as looking for a needle in a haystack or for a scholar in Salamanca.” Don Quixote was a dreamer, but he knew what he was looking for. So am I, most of the time.

My findings, however, often surprised me. I hope I surprised you with this story as well.

p-63

Before I will say, - The End, I want to add my words of appreciation to everyone who reads this story to the end. It came out a bit too long. Don’t you think?

I checked on Google and it determines that this story of mine is qualified to be called a short non-fiction novel. My story is mostly true, but because of too many side thoughts, I would call it non-fiction. As far as calling it a novel, I would stop a little short.

I will call it my first novelette.

Thank You…

The End.

Alex Mirsky

Dallas, TX. August 2022.

Reff:

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2021/12/a-quack-radio-doctor-a-miracle-cure-for-cancer-and-a-haunted-hotel/

https://drprincetta.com/harry-hoxsey-cancer-cure/

https://historycollection.com/norman-baker-man-claimed-cure-cancer/3/

https://crescent-hotel.com/blog/norman-baker-comes-back-to-life/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_Clayton

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_G._Baker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KABC_(AM)#:~:text=Two%20former%20KABC%20hosts%2C%20Dennis%20Prager%20and%20Larry,were%20released%20from%20the%20afternoon%20show%20on%20KFI.

https://www.draftingsteals.com/pantographs.html

https://www.historichotels.org/us/hotels-resorts/1886-crescent-hotel-and-spa/history.php

https://www.historichotels.org/us/hotels-resorts/1886-crescent-hotel-and-spa/history.php

https://crescent-hotel.com/blog/history-of-the-crescent-hotel-cats/

https://www.crescent-hotel.com/history.shtml

https://stelizabetheureka.com/about/parish-history#:~:text=St%20Elizabeth%20Catholic%20Church%20is%20listed%20on%20the,ago%2C%20and%20which%20still%20holds%20its%20charm%20today.

https://www.eurekasprings.com/historical/church.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Kerens

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9355/richard-c-kerens

https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Richard_Kerens

http://archives.nd.edu/Scholastic/VOL_0042/VOL_0042_ISSUE_0036.pdf

https://stelizabetheureka.com/

https://www.biography.com/political-figure/franz-ferdinand

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Howard_Taft

https://web.archive.org/web/20051217000520/http://users.aristotle.net/~russjohn/sacpro.html

https://www.greatpassionplay.org/christ-of-the-ozarks.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalom_Aleichem_(liturgy)

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http://ocosbe.org/mike-jan-russell/

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_L._K._Smith

https://www.ticketmachupicchu.com/cristo-blanco-cusco/#white-christ

https://www.incahighlands.com/cristo-blanco-statue-in-cusco/#:~:text=Perched%20high%20above%20the%20colonial%20centre%20of%20Cusco%2C,sought%20refuge%20in%20Cusco%20after%20World%20War%20II.