Anna’s treasure

We drove up the snowy, winding road towards the cozy A-frame cabin.

Anna Welt knew this house would be the place. She read the reviews, she researched the history and found all of Hester’s notes.

Dean pulled the truck up to the snow piled in front of a side garage to the house. He was irked that snow blocked him from pulling into the garage, but Anna’s excitement was contagious. Giving that old diary to Anna had seemed to break her out of the job loss depression and set her on a path of exploration and writing. Even if they found nothing or were at the wrong cabin at least they would have a great weekend together and she could write about the adventure and submit it somewhere.

The North Carolina mountains in November were the perfect setting for a couple’s weekend, an adventure weekend and an article.

Anna had left the newspaper in June. She had been freelance writing and baking for money. She had also been researching lost treasure since Dean gifted her the diary of a bank robber’s wife. Dean supported her researching and ideas of finding lost treasure. He always brought along his metal detector and smile.

Anna was not on the trail of a tall tale; the facts were simple—it was the exact details that were hard.

The facts were from a newspaper article: In 1936, Charles Pritter worked at the First National Bank in Evansville, Indiana. Pritter walked out of the bank at 4:30 p.m. on February 20 with 1500 gold bars or $52,305 at that time.

It would be over $614,000 present day if discovered all the gold bars.

His wife Hester wrote in her diary that her husband came home early and in a hurry that day. They loaded up everything of value into their green Lincoln KB within an hour and started driving Southeast. She remembered in between nodding off that a sign for Nashville welcomed them and Charles refusing to stop. He even refused to stop to eat. Finally, after they crossed the North Carolina border, he relented, and they stopped and ate some of the food she had packed from home. Both slept in the car for only a couple of hours before hitting the road again.

According to Hester’s journal, Charles had been to North Carolina when he was a boy. He grandparents had lived near some federal land that had a waterfall on the property. They arrived early in the morning before the sun came up at an A-frame cabin that Charles had rented. Hester had read from the brochure in the cabin that the Civilian Conservation Corps built the cabin with hand-hewn logs and stones from nearby that very year of 1936. The cabin was a 2 bedroom with a kitchen originally.

Anna hopping from the car quickly found the plaque on the cabin that read built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1936 or 1937. Everything was matching up.

Dean unloaded the luggage while Anna walked around examining the cabin and the grounds. Without spotting anything unusual she fetched Hester’s diary and started reading the final entry again for the millionth time. Anna had even memorized the Biblical references at the end of each entry.

Hester and Charlie slept most the day after arriving according to the diary.

Hester wrote: Woke up around 4 p.m. since did not arrive at the cabin until about 6 a.m. Charlie went outside and did not return until well after dark. He even built a fire near the woods- I could see it flickering. He said he had been planting an investment and smiled when he came back in. We ate some sweet potatoes and slices of beef. He said we needed to hit the road and be in Charlotte when the banks opened. He said he had the cabin rented for the month. We headed out to Charlotte late that night and arrived just before the banks opened. Charlie pulled out a gold bar and headed toward the bank. As he was getting out of the car, he said our names are Thomas and Hester Bland. I shook my head and said nothing. All of it was strange. Next thing I knew police officer knocking on my window and telling me a man got run over in the street and was saying go tell my wife in the green car. “We had a time finding you,” said the officer. So here I’m sitting in a police station with a gold bar, a dead husband, and giving them false names for me and my dead husband – without knowing the reasons. _-- Proverbs 17:3.

Anna could hear Dean calling for some help for unpacking and fixing dinner. Anna smiled, slipped the diary into her purse and headed inside. Dean and Anna enjoyed cooking up hamburgers and sweet potato fries. They discussed what they would do if they found the fortune and that all the magazines and news stations would want the story. It was the funniest date night since Anna had lost her job and for her it felt plain joyous.

After dinner, with no internet or electronic available, they played several rounds of dominoes and a game of strip poker.

Anna jumped from the bed and zipped to the kitchen to get coffee made for her and Dean. She planned on them taking the metal detector out and covering as much ground as possible.

After hours of searching much of the property and mainly digging up some old iron pipes and other items. Dean wondered if the cabin was still on the same spot where it original stood or if during one of the remodels it had been moved.

Anna rode to town and searched through the library records of the CCC and found a drawing of the cabin and layout and denoted that when originally built the cabin had a heating furnace near the back door and the cabin had been relocated in the 1960’s remodel so that plumbing could be added.

With the new information, Anna returned to the cabin and Dean was walking around outside the cabin again with the metal detector. Anna hollered the cabin use to be about 30 feet that way and angled back toward the mountain.

“Do you think it could be under the cabin?” asked Dean.

Dean and Anna crawled in the crawl space under the cabin with flashes in tow and the metal detector.

After crawling around for few minutes with the detector lighting up around every pipe and loose piece of metal under the cabin two rocks under the cabin seemed out of place. Anna hollered to Dean. In the compressed space together, they dug under the two rocks and discovered a wooden box. The box was not heavy enough or large enough for hundreds of gold bars but the tv sized box did have some heft to it. The couple dragged the box out from under the cabin and while holding each other’s hands tightly, Anna laughed and smiled nervously.

Could this be part of the treasure? Maybe another clue to all the treasure? What could it be?

Dean could no longer hold back and hollered,” Well, let’s open it!”

Dean had to fetch a hammer to pull out the nails holding the top onto the crate. With a swift movement the top was off.

One gold bar sat in the box on top of a letter.

Dean quickly gathered up the gold bar and Anna grab the letter and read it aloud with excitement and happiness pouring forth.

To whom it may concern:

I don’t know if one of my children have discovered this or a random strange but either way, I will tell the story that goes along with this valuable gold bar.

My first husband stole this one along with many more. He died before he personally gained anything from it, yet he did help me and his child along with his child’s half-sisters.

Charlie was not a bad money. He just enjoyed nice things and giving me nice things. He had been borrowing from the bank for several years to afford our house, the car and other things. When he got to far under the losses, he took all the gold he could and ran. I found out I was pregnant the day we arrived in North Carolina. Charlie was excited about it and just reinforced to him that he made the right decision leaving and taking the money.

After he died that day, I had to work with a lawyer to get all my paperwork as Hester Bland (a not real person) set up so that no connections to the robbed would ever be known. Within two months, I was married to my attorney James Daugh. Mary was born just a few months later. James treated Mary no different than Charlotte and Susa who were born 3 years later. I first vowed never to touch the gold and leave it all buried except the one that Charles had on him at the time. Yet, if you know that there is an easy solution to a problem then you will reach for it. So, over the years those gold bars paid for my daughter’s Christmases, their college education (Mary become one of the first woman lawyers to be heard before the North Carolina Supreme Court.), weddings and other challenges. Susa once needed an airplane ticket to Boston for her first job interview and one visit to the cabin covered not only the ticket but most of her expenses for her first year there.

While you came looking for treasure, I spent almost all of it on my treasures – the true treasure of life which is the ones you love and the ones that love you. I could never bring myself to sell the one Charles had on him when he was hit by the car so, you get one gold bar.

Hester Daugh

Anna eyes were filled with tears. She was thrilled. This was a priceless story.

Dean was thrilled. He hugged her tight and smiled. This was the happiest he had seen his wife since their wedding day. He was so glad he had gotten his great-grandmother’s diary and gave to Anna. This was exactly what she needed.

Anna now could tell Dean she was pregnant, and he had been right they would always figure out the money stuff. “Quite worrying about the $. This life is short and the only debts you truly owe are to yourself and the ones you love.”