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Webster’s Canopy

Thomas Elson

    Eighty-eight years ago during the Great Depression in middle America Webster, whose father had been drowned by his employees in the Fork River, was raised as an orphan until adopted by a blueberry farmer, built lodges for travelers in towns that had only bleak walk-ups just off dirt roads. Another man, Tom, was a political boss who prided himself on maintaining near total control over his town; a man unliked but feared, whose nemesis wasn’t some person but the local newspaper publisher.
    Each of Webster’s lodges was large and commodious with multiple floors and two elevators. Lobbies with marble wainscoting, with brass front doors echoed at the entrance to the dining room. There was a drug store across the lobby and a reception area that rivalled the White House.
    Webster hired the most efficient maids. His bellhops discretely catered to each guest’s needs and wants. And, on the top floor of each lodge, he donated a medical clinic. The clinics were well-used, and his lodges were quickly occupied with oil men, cattlemen, and Army officers. He repeated this in many towns.
    He loved his lodges and, during construction, would take his son to the roof and watch while the boy carved his name into the damp cement of the decorative parapet.
    Once, in the city with a political boss who controlled almost everything, he decided to build a
copper canopy to extend from the road to the brass doors to shield his guests from the weather. However, in order to build this copper canopy, he needed a permit from the political boss.
    His first request for a permit was neglected. His second request was forgotten. And his third denied. Webster grew impatient. On Christmas Eve, he directed his workmen to erect the copper canopy that very night.
    On Christmas morning, the canopy was in place. Webster saw it and smiled - new, bright, and as beautiful to him as silk brocade.
    But when the political boss saw it, he ordered Webster arrested at his home at 48th and Oak Streets during Christmas dinner with his family.
    “What are they doing to you, Webster?” His wife, Gertrude, asked. Their two little boys clung to her while policemen shoved their father into a black paddy wagon then clinched him into ankle bracelets.
    When he was released, he returned to his family and learned his canopy was in shreds. He directed his workmen to re-build it. The next day he saw their work and was pleased.
    Again, he was arrested, and his canopy torn down. When he was released, he approached the political boss with an envelope filled not with money but a copy of a typed letter to the newspaper publisher.
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    Eighty-eight years later, the political boss, when remembered, is remembered only by the misspelling of his last name. The newspaper publisher is remembered only by the small print on the front page listing him as the founder. Webster is buried in a corner plot of forgotten town. But his canopy stands, rebuilt and still beautiful, on the paved main boulevard that leads to the double brass doors of the lodge that Webster built.

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