The Pitcairn Matriarchs

Or, cackling in Alleghany foothills with elderly voters

Yesterday a tired, cheerful volunteer named Nancy handed me my next list of addresses. I noted her Democrat-blue nail polish with envy. She said she wasn’t sure about this list, because it seemed like many of the voters were inside apartment buildings and likely to be hard to reach. But she mentioned it was a high priority area for the campaign.

Thirty minutes later I arrived in Pitcairn, PA, a tiny town in the foothills of the Alleghenies with beautiful old craftsman houses in disrepair. Based on my brief Wikipedia reading, Pitcairn used to be a bustling railroad hub town built for workers’ families. It’s nestled right on a creek and the foliage was stunning. It felt like a ghost town just holding on. A few people had decorated their porches for Halloween, but I was just as likely to see boarded up windows.

My first address was a large, nondescript apartment building with a locked door. The list said there were 18 registered democrats inside. I started pressing call buttons, and the door buzzed. Someone had let me in.

I knocked on the door, and eventually a small woman - Ida - opened it, obviously harried at my arrival. I told her who I was with an apologetic smile.

“You all have GOT to STOP! I have never missed an election since I turned 18. You think I would miss this election? Come on now. Stop with the phone calls. Stop bothering people!”

I apologized and told her I’d make a note that she was clearly an expert at voting and no one needed to knock on her door again. I told her I was there to make sure everyone had a way to vote, to see if anyone needed a ride, etc.

She opened the door wider and came out into the hallway, whispering.

“Ok, well you know we can’t let this idiot win. I’ve been telling everyone we need to vote. You’re not supposed to be in here but just don’t tell anyone I let you in.”

I thanked her and apologized again, trading a few more Trump jabs before moving on.

Despite Ida’s encouragement, I didn’t feel right knocking on an apartment door unannounced, so went back outside to the callbox and pressed the next few numbers. After I pressed a number on the second floor, the door buzzed again.

The door opened just a crack and a wizened old man smiled out at me. 

“Hi, are you Herman?”

“Yes, why?”

I gave him my spiel.

“Oh, well I don’t vote!”

“Can I ask why not?”

“Well I’ll tell you what. If I did vote, I’m DEFINITELY a DEMOCRAT. But it doesn’t matter who wins, it’s all the same to me.”

I talked with him for a few more minutes and tried to charm him into reconsidering, but didn’t want to press my luck as he continued to decline politely, so made a detailed note and encouraged someone to come back and try to talk more with him. Based on his appearance I assumed he might be a shut-in and wished there was still time to get him a mail-in ballot somehow. 

As I walked back downstairs to the callbox, another woman was coming into the building in a wheelchair, so I held the door for her.

“What are you here for?”

“I want to make sure everyone who wants to vote can vote. Do you have a plan to vote on Tuesday?”

“Oh I need help with that. Come on up with me.”

Beatrice welcomed me into her apartment and settled me onto her couch. She told me she had just returned from dialysis. She said she wanted to vote but what she really needed was someone to donate a kidney. She told me about her grandson in DC and how she was staying alive for him, but described how difficult daily life was. She told me she hated living in the building, and pointed out the stained carpet as she swatted away one of the small flies I had noticed in the hallway.

I listened and told her that the first thing I noticed was how beautiful the light was in her living room. She had filled her window with plants, and her walls were full of photos of her children and grandchildren. Her pride in her home was obvious, despite her chronic pain and limited mobility. 

She went on. 

“I would definitely vote for that lady, I don’t remember her name. Not Trump. Definitely not Trump. He’s terrible. Trump is coming for social security. But I don’t know how I can vote. Look at me.”

She gestured at her bulky motorized wheelchair. She showed me the scars on her legs from a fire she had survived as a child and her dialysis port.

“And I just moved here. I don’t even think I CAN vote.”

I started looking things up on my phone. Within a few minutes I had found her active registration (in the same district but at another polling place) and we had a plan for her to get picked up on Tuesday. 

She said “I only want you to pick me up. I trust you. I’m not getting into a car with anyone else. You can’t trust people.”

I told her I would need to make sure it was a van with a lift, and I didn’t have one of those. I told her I knew the people at the campaign and trusted them and I thought it would be ok for her to trust them.

With her plan figured out, she said “ok, well we need to make sure everyone else is voting. You know Dottie up on the 6th floor?”

I checked my list. “Dolores?”

“Dottie. That’s my girl.”

She grinned. “You’re trying to get people to vote? I can help you with that.”

She picked up the phone.

“Dottie! DOTTIE! Get down here. Are you voting?”

Beatrice (who said I should refer to her as “Miss B. No wait, YOU don’t have to call me Miss. Just call me B.”) made a series of calls like this one, contacting nearly everyone else on my list (plus two of her local sons and other friends who weren’t on my list) to make sure they were voting. Her friend Denise came by in her wheelchair and we celebrated the fact that she had already mailed in her ballot. She chided B for disrupting her nap, noting to me that she had MS and slept a lot.

B’s friend Barbara came by and joined me on the couch. Beatrice is Black and Barbara is White, and they are avowed besties. As B remarked “some people in the building don’t like Barbara because she’s so pretty!” Barbara demurred. B insisted. “Look at her. Isn’t she so pretty!? You know what, she’s sexy!” Barbara’s daughter had died the year before after twenty years on dialysis, so their conversation was half co-cackling at their inside jokes, and half serious detail about transplants and the likelihood of “dying on the table.” Without my prompting, they remarked on how scared they were about Trump cutting their (already insufficient) benefits. 

At one point Barbara said to me “you know what I was doing when B called me? I was dancing!” She rattled off a list of oldies she had been playing from youtube, many of which I knew, so we all sang an impromptu, naughty verse of My Ding-a-Ling.

I eventually extracted myself from their hilarious repartee. They blessed me as I left. B directed me to several more doors I should try.

“If they’re mad you got inside the building just tell them B sent you. It’s fine. Nobody messes with me.”

At the remaining doors, I met a number of other elderly women, some of whom had already voted by mail, and one of whom opened the door with the invitation “you want to come in and play some cards?” My last door was a woman named June who wanted to vote, but wasn’t clear on how, so we made a detailed plan, which I wrote down for her. I eventually realized that the apartment building was likely subsidized for elderly people, many of whom seemed to utilize public assistance programs. Many of the doors I knocked on were checkered with proud veteran, oxygen user, and wheelchair stickers.

When I start a new door knocking list, it always feels like a numbers game. It took me nearly two hours to get through these eighteen doors, but I entered at 4pm an annoying stranger and left at dusk blessed by the building matriarchs. I think at least four or five people are much more likely to vote because of just showing up and being friendly with some logistical support at the ready. I know for sure B will have a ride to her polling place, and that June has a small handwritten card with her exact plan to get to the ballot box Tuesday.

I hustled to finish my list despite the setting sun. As I continued knocking on individual apartment doors above the shuttered businesses on main street, I met a woman with two young children whose husband would be voting for the first time after immigrating from Tanzania. I encouraged her to talk with him about Harris’s plans. I climbed up a rickety wooden staircase as dusk was setting to meet an elderly woman named Twyla, who couldn’t believe anyone had come knocking on her door. She told me she had a plan to vote and it was private. She seemed tickled that I had managed the stairs, and monitored me as I descended to make sure I was ok. I made a note in my app encouraging someone else to come chat with her during the day.

When I see the polls and freak out, I remind myself that so many people who want to vote for democrats - people who will benefit most from our policy priorities - face solvable logistical barriers. We have three days left to show up, be friendly, and help people vote in their own self interest.

So, how can you help? The southern suburbs of Philly are a short ride from DC. Drive up, take one list, help a few people with logistics, and be home by dinnertime. Here’s a list of prioritized districts where volunteers are needed.

If not, please pick up the phone. Trump and/or loss of power in Congress will absolutely be worse for the lovely, cheerful ladies I met in Pitcairn. We win and lose on tiny margins, and it’s people on the margins who need the most help to bring Pennsylvania over the line.

Heading out now to get my next list!