Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Pinocchio (Photo by M. Minderhoud)

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire--Remember that old chant from the playground?  What is today's equivalent?  Maybe in our busy world, symbols on computer screens have replaced chants, and our equivalent is the Pinocchio symbol.  This week's blog is about an event involving Isaac Werner in which two people told the same untruth.  Were they both lying?

To complete the requirements for a homestead claim it was necessary that the claimant live on and make improvements for five years to the property he or she claimed.  When that was accomplished, it was still necessary for the claimant to appear before a judge with two witnesses to vouch for having met those requirements and to swear that he or she had not sold nor have intensions to sell the property.  The government wanted to populate the land with homesteaders.  They did not want speculators going through the paperwork, then hiring someone to build some kind of structure and take steps to improve the land so that when the five years had passed, the speculator could step forward to claim the land.  The 'speculator' might even be a settler who wanted to claim more than his or her quarter-section, not just some absentee  investor.  The point was that the homestead laws were intended to populate the land.

One of Isaac's neighbors asked Isaac to be a witness for him, and they went to the county seat and swore before the judge that the requirements had been met.  Isaac's neighbor had staked his claim and worked the land for the required five years.  Unknown to Isaac, however, his neighbor had entered into an agreement with a horse dealer to swap his claim for some horses.  Some time after the appearance before the judge, a federal officer arrived in the community to arrest Isaac's neighbor for giving false testimony. The dealer had informed against him, apparently having changed his mind about their horse deal for some reason.  Both Isaac and his neighbor had sworn under oath that the requirements were met.  Were they both liars? 

It was common in those harsh years for struggling homesteaders to prove up their claims and not long afterward sell them.  Many of Isaac's neighbors were enduring the hardships just long enough to mature their claims, with the intention to leave Kansas as soon as they had proved up their claims.  Quick sales were not uncommon.  Is that relevant to the facts of Isaac's neighbor's case?

"A lie is a statement that is known or intended by its source to be misleading, inaccurate, or false.  The practice of communicating lies is called lying, and a person who communicates a lie may be termed a liar.  Lies may be employed to serve a variety of instrumental, interpersonal, or psychological functions for the individuals who use them."

Does this help you answer my question?

Unless Isaac knew that his neighbor had entered into the contract to swap his land for horses, his  answer was not a lie.  His neighbor had done everything necessary to prove up his claim legally, but he got the horse before the cart--or more accurately, the horse deal before the title to the land--and swore to something he knew to be false.  The fact that others were only holding on long enough to prove up title, with intensions to sell and move on as quickly as possible once they had title, is not a defense for Isaac's friend.

Hard times make men desperate.  This particular neighbor had been a respected man in Isaac's community, but the drought and dropping prices for crops had put him, and many others, in severe financial need.  My manuscript shares more stories about this man as he makes repeated bad judgements as economic conditions for farmers worsen.  The late 1800s were a test of character for many families struggling to survive.

"Tell a lie once and all your truths become questionable."  Source Unknown

Walt Disney's Pinocchio from his 1940 film

A Publishing Dilemma



Reading the County Capital

Recently, visiting the online newsletter Biographile, Discover the World Through Biography and Memoir, I spotted an intriguing article titled, "No Such Thing as Objective History."  As you know from reading my earlier blog, "What is History, An Update on my Manuscript," posted 5/23/13, one of the issues I have faced in writing my manuscript about Isaac Werner has been--"When documentary material is inadequate to supply every detail, can an author write legitimate history or biography?"  Writers of history and biography who are researching famous people often have a great deal of documentary material available.  With Isaac, I was fortunate to have his journal, his newspaper articles, and his probate documents, but I did not have personal letters, interviews, news reports, speeches, and other documentary material of the sort someone writing about Thomas Jefferson or Marilyn Monroe might have.

Visiting Rossville, IL

I have not read Reza Aslan's best-selling book about the "life and times of Jesus," but the Biographile article questioning "Objective History" was based on an interview of that author, who discussed his approach to writing about the life of Jesus.  Aslan's method for writing about more than the Biblical account was, "[to] rely on the world in which Jesus lived, a world that--thanks to the Romans--we know a great deal about.  By placing Jesus firmly within his time and place, we can fill in the holes of his life and create a picture of him..."  What I found so relevant from the interview of Aslan was how he used the information that was available from that historic period in his book.

Transcribing & Annotating Isaac's Journal

My  manuscript about Isaac Werner also uses what Aslan called research about my subject's "time and place" to "fill in the holes of his life and create a picture" of him.  In addition, I benefitted from getting to know Isaac from the emotions and opinions expressed in his journal.  (Thank goodness he did not always follow the advice of Henry Ward Beecher to keep personal feelings out of his journal.  Blog of 12-7-2012.)




Marketing my manuscript, I am asked to define it.  Biography?...history?...narrative nonfiction?...historic fiction?  That definition is difficult, and it has created a publishing dilemma for me.  Am I prohibited from imagining dialogue if I know from Isaac's journal when, where, and with whom Isaac had a conversation and the likely subjects they discussed?  Does it make a difference that I document in a footnote what I have done, distinguishing the sourced information from the imagined?

Reading books Isaac read

In his interview, Aslan insists, "There's no such thing as objective history:  a scholar cannot help but bring his own impressions and perceptions into his study, no matter how hard he tries."  Aslan argues that his approach in describing Jesus by "immers[ing] readers in the social, political, and religious context of the first century" allows a reader to "figure out for yourself the larger implication of what he [Jesus] was saying or doing."

Here is what I have done:  I have studied Isaac from his daily journal, (Blog of 10-23-11), his published writings, newspaper and other accounts of events he attended and organizations he joined (Blog of 4-12-12 & 4-17-12).  I have traveled to the town his father founded where Isaac was born and raised, (Blog of 2-16-12 & 2-23-12), visited the town where he was a young druggist, (Blog of 1-20-12 & 1-27-12), walked the land he homesteaded (Blog of 5-16-13), and found his forgotten grave (Blog of 1-13-12).  I have read specific books he read, as well as books by speakers and performers he saw in person and with whom he corresponded (Blog of 2-2-12, 5-30-13, & 4-11-13).  I have done genealogy research of his ancestry and descendants of his siblings, as well as searching the ancestry of each of his neighbors, also learning from interviews with descendants and public documents as much about Isaac's neighbors as I could.  I have immersed myself in the history of the period, reading original documents and scholarly books (Blogs of 8-30-12, 9-13-12, & 10-18-12).  I often felt I knew those people and their lives better than I know the people living in Isaac's community today.

Researching Isaac's Neighbors (Doc Dix)

What is important to me is not writing another scholarly book but rather bringing Isaac, his community, and the Populist movement of the Gilded Age alive to readers, whether they are reading for pleasure or for academic information.  Isaac's journal and the other research I have done is valuable to scholars, but it is also incredibly interesting for general readers.  Is there not some way I can present Isaac's story that is accessible to both?

In the interview with Biographile, Aslan addresses this issue:  "The biggest criticism I have of my [academic] colleagues is that they spend all their time talking to each other, that they rarely bother to synthesize their ideas and their research to make it accessible and appealing to a wider audience.  ... There is a culture in academia that tends to look down on those who try to reach a wider audience--we're immediately tagged as not serious."



Interviewing Isaac's cousin in Wernersville

I have successfully published two non-fiction books, Should the Children Pray?  A Historical, Political, and Judicial Examination of School Prayer, published by Baylor University Press, and Private Choices, Public Consequences, Reproductive Technology and the New Ethics of Conception, Pregnancy, and Family, published by Dutton, a division of Penguin.  You can learn more about those books at my author's website, www.lynfenwick.com.  I sought with both of those books to bridge the gap between writing for general readers and academics, or as Aslan said, to reach a wider audience, although both books were carefully researched and documented.  I was chosen the Georgia Non-fiction Author of the Year for Should the Children Pray?

Visit to town founded by his father

In telling Isaac's story, with a bachelor homesteader at the center of the Populist Movement in his community and events throughout the nation impacting Isaac and other laborers, I am again seeking to bridge the gap between general readers and academics.  By footnoting imagined conversations and describing events based on research and newspaper accounts, I feel that general readers will find the story more involving and accessible while academics will be warned to consult the references provided in the footnote without assuming that the conversation or description is an accurate account of that particular conversation or that the description of the event was exactly as Isaac experienced it, although Isaac's journal does reference the meeting or event.  I may not have an easy label for what I have chosen to do, but as Katherine Hepburn said, "If you obey all of the rules, you miss all of the fun."  I believe trying to fit my manuscript into either an academic mold or reducing it to historical fiction would make it less than what it is as I have written it.  The challenge is to find a publisher that agrees!


Are you one of 93 million descendants?

Isaac B. Werner had no descendants, but many homesteaders raised families.  Today it is estimated that 93 million people are descendants of homesteaders.  I am among that number, and perhaps many of you following my blog are too. 

This past weekend my husband and I attended the 57th Annual Willa Cather Spring Conference in Red Cloud, Nebraska, and I will be sharing that great American Writer and her hometown with you in future posts.  However, I mention our trip to Nebraska to share some side trips we took after the Conference.

The Homestead National Monument operated by the National Park Service is located near Beatrice, Nebraska, northeast of Red Cloud.  We enjoyed the drive through some of Nebraska's beautiful rural landscape and realized only when we arrived at the national park that it is the 150th Anniversary of the Homestead Act of 1862. 

Those of us who know the Great Plains region tend to think of homesteading as having occurred on the plains, overlooking the extent of America opened for settlement by homesteaders.  Upon arrival at the park site, visitors are immediately presented with the question:  "Do you live near a Homestead?"  A map shows that there were 30 homesteading states, although in 1862 when Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, not all of the territory had yet achieved statehood.  According to the park ranger who greeted us, Montana is the state with the largest homestead acreage, and Nebraska is the state with the largest percentage of its land having been homestead.  Kansas, where Isaac homesteaded, also has a great homesteading heritage.

As visitors approach the Heritage Center, the sidewalk parallels a wall showing the 30 homesteading states, with a box cut from each state's silhouette representing the proportion of that state's total area that was available for homesteading.  The photograph taken looking down a portion of the wall shows Nebraska at the far left, with Kansas next in the line of state silhouettes on the wall.

After an informative conversation with the ranger, we viewed the film and walked out just in time to see a Junior Ranger being sworn in.  It was great seeing how seriously the young man took the responsibilities he was assuming with his oath to learn about the prairie and help care for it and teach others to respect the land.  Notice particularly the tall Plexiglas tube on the left side of the photograph.  A bunch of prairie grass has been carefully extracted from the soil to show the blades of grass above the surface (above the top band on the tube) but also the length of the roots extending deeply into the soil.  Grass such as this formed the sod that homesteaders plowed to clear the land for cultivation of crops.  I will never again think that the common garden weeds that I pull have deep roots!

Isaac staked his claim in 1878, and it was not until 1886 that he finally bought a horse, having avoided the indebtedness necessary to purchase a horse until that year.  During his early years of farming, he traded his own labor in exchange for help from neighbors with horses and machinery to break the sod. This exchange of labor allowed him to break so little sod that much of his time was spent raising trees rather than planting fields.  Even when the sod was broken, he had to use hand tools for farming the ground.

The implements displayed near the homesteader's cabin on the grounds of the Heritage Center are those pulled by horses, mules, or oxen; however, at the Education Center the exhibit included man-powered implements like Isaac initially used.  When we arrived there, I spotted the sign directing visitors to that exhibit.  "Oh, look!" I exclaimed.  "This is where the farm implements are!"  I noticed two rangers exchanging perplexed expressions, and I said, "I suppose that is not something you usually hear from the women visiting your exhibits."  They laughed and nodded.  They had no idea that it was my time spent with Isaac that had caused my enthusiastic response to the opportunity to see the implements he used on his homestead.  In a future post I will share pictures of some of the implements I photographed.

Not only the Homestead National Monument has wonderful events planned throughout the summer commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Homestead Act of 1862 but also the Nebraska Humanities Council is celebrating their state's homesteading legacy.  It is a great year to visit Nebraska, and when you do, be sure to include the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie and Willa's hometown of Red Cloud in your planning.  http://willacather.org/; http://nebraskahumanities.org/; and http://www.nps.gov/home/planyourvisit/150th-anniversary-of-the-homestead-act.htm.   

Isaac Learns to Farm on the Prairie

To survive as a prairie farmer, Isaac had a great deal to learn, and he approached his education enthusiastically. His journal became his record of weather, planting dates, specific farming methods such as depth of planting, width of rows, and spacing between seeds for each variety of seed sown. He recorded yields of his crops, evaluating which of his experiments succeeded and how he might improve. From 1884 to 1891, Isaac's daily entries in his journal document the challenges faced by homesteaders carving farms out of the prairie sod and learning how to raise enough to survive.

The Morrill Act of 1862 established federal land-grant colleges by giving states federally controlled lands for the colleges, with curriculum focused on agriculture, science, and engineering. Kansas State Agricultural College, now Kansas State University, became the first of these federal land-grant colleges, although there are other colleges and universities established earlier as state land-grant colleges. Isaac was eager to learn from the research being conducted at Kansas State, and he developed an ongoing correspondence with Professor E. M. Shelton, who in 1874 became the Farm Superintendent at the college. Prof. Shelton recommended mixed farming of crops and livestock, but he was also well known for experimentation with wheat. In about 1889 Prof. Shelton left Kansas State for Brisbane, Queensland, Australia to work under the Minister of the Interior, promoting agricultural interests in the colony. Prior to Shelton's departure, however, Isaac sought the professor's advice and shared his own farming ideas.

Isaac believed in the importance of identifying soil types, describing in his journal what was needed: "[S]ome competent man to go through the country and inspect each quarter section of land, its surface soil and its sub-soil, and classify them by number or letters according to the predominating elements of soil." By mapping the soils in every county, it was Isaac's opinion that better implements could be manufactured to suit the soils found in Kansas. As for himself, he never stopped modifying his implements in various ways to improve their functions, and he shared these modifications with the farming publications to which he subscribed.

In February of 1888, Isaac wrote in his journal: "I for my part getting disgusted to look on such faded styles of farming for this droughty country. If no better methods be resorted to, bankruptcy will continue to stare into the face of everyone trying to continue such farming." While Isaac studied new farming techniques, other farmers continued to struggle with farming methods they had used on European and Eastern U.S. farms. Isaac believed that everyone would benefit from a County Agricultural Society where farmers could meet to share successes and failures and learn methods better suited for their locale.

Not one to keep his ideas to himself, Isaac set about forming such an organization, beginning with an article published in the local newspaper at the end of March. He wrote: "The farmers of Stafford county are requested to meet in the court house at 2 p.m. in the city of St. John, Wednesday April 4th for the purpose of discussing agriculture in Stafford county. It is a well known fact that many farmers are not sufficiently familiar with climate and soil of Stafford county, to make a success at farming. The opinion of the farmers who have been in Stafford county for years, and have made a success of farming, is of great value, therefore every farmer in the county who has a bit of valuable experience that would be of benefit to his neighbor is earnestly requested to be present...[together with] every mechanic, business and professional man..."

The day of the advertised meeting, Isaac got to town early to promote attendance, and the lack of interest nearly caused him to give up on the idea. "I had to busy myself most the afternoon running about St. John what could be done towards making a start to organize our County Agricultural Society. The general indifference show[n] by town and country people really astonished me...Another 5 minutes more procrastinating and I would have made up my mind to drop all efforts on my part for good for all time to come, but concentrate my efforts to make the best of all my experience hereafter in a selfish way..." At the last moment, a small group of men arrived for the preliminary meeting, at which Isaac was chosen chairman.

The permanent organization was formed in the following weeks, but participation continued to be disappointing. In addition to writing letters to individual farmers that he knew, Isaac wrote the following appeal for publication in the newspaper: "After a ten years settlement of Stafford county, the fact begins to dawn on the minds of many of our progressive farmers, that many of the difficulties presenting themselves in our new soil and climate, for successful tilling, can be only overcome by a united effort on the part of the farmers themselves. The object of this association, the greater part of the soil of said county, is composed of what is generally called blow-sand, and handling this light soil successfully, (productive as it is) is no small matter when brought under cultivation, its liability to blow has to be avoided, and how this had better be done, is still a vexed question, but generally, in the counsel of many there is wisdom."

Eventually, others saw the importance of the organization, and the County Agricultural Society Isaac had envisioned began to serve its purpose. Representatives were selected from each township in the county, and although some townships had more active members than others, the Society offered the opportunity for farmers and merchants to come together and begin sharing information that helped make Stafford County a more productive farming area. A county agricultural society was not unique to Stafford County, but without the vision and promotional efforts of Isaac, it seems less likely that anyone else would have stepped forward to organize the local group.

As Isaac prophesied, bankruptcy did continue to stare some farmers in the face after that, and more than a few of them lost the staring match, but others, like Isaac, learned better ways to farm the sandy prairie soil beneath the stubborn sod, and descendants of a few of those families still carry on the farming tradition in Stafford County today.

The old photographs are of my grandfather Royal D. Beck's harvesting crew sometime after the turn of the century and are from the Beck family's personal collection. Remember, images can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Isaac's Victorian Court House

The early Stafford County Court House was in a wooden structure, but as the town of St. John grew, some of the town leaders believed a more distinguished building was appropriate. As is often true in political decisions, the location of the court house was a subject of dispute, some believing it should be built in the town square while others preferred to preserve that public space for a park. As is even more often true in political decisions, the expense of building the court house created further arguments.

At last, a group of prominent citizens decided to use private funds to erect a brick building of which the town could be proud, and since they were bearing the expense, they chose the location--the corner just to the southeast of the park. They selected brick rather than wood, not only to make it more elegant but also to reduce the risk of fire destroying the building and all the important records kept inside.

The story is told that one of the County Comissioners refused to accept the gift of the building. Somehow he was tricked into coming to the new structure to sign a document, and this act of business was deemed to show acceptance of the building, waiving his objections.

The citizens of the county decided that it was irresponsible not to reimburse those people who had spent their own money to build such a fine county building, so bonds were voted. Later, someone discovered a state law prohibiting voting bonds to repay private individuals for something already given to the county. The local newspapers followed the dilemma of whether the county had a moral obligation to repay the private donors, regardless of the legal prohibition concerning bonds, with arguments from both sides published.

Despite the controversies of its construction, the Victorian court house was enjoyed by the community from the time of its construction in about 1886 until September of 1925, when a petition signed by more than one-fourth of the taxpayers of the county asked the county commissioners to levy a tax to raise funds for a new court house. Within three years enough money had been raised to begin.

The elegant Victorian court house that Isaac Werner visited for business, lectures, and meetings was not replaced because people had tired of its style. Rather, the Board of County Commissioners' minutes of February 1, 1928, describe the conditions of the forty-year-old structure: "...the walls of which are what is commonly known as soft brick...are now cracked and the key stones in some of the arches of the doors and windows have loosened...and the walls of said building are spreading apart and have spread apart to the extent that the county has found it necessary to support the same by rods and other devises, and the plastering on said Court House is in bad condition and in many places has broken loose and fallen and much of the plastering is now loose and in danger of falling and injuring persons within said building, and the roof...is shingle and old and dilapidated and the said building needs a new roof." The minutes continue to describe a gaping crack running completely from top to bottom and from east to west, as well as fire risks and other dangers.

For all those reasons it was decided to demolish the grand old structure, to salvage any materials that might be used in the new building and store them on county-owned lots elsewhere in the city until they were reinstalled in the new building, and to rent space in The Delker Building in which to conduct county business while the new court house was being built. During the previous year, three architectural firms had been interviewed--Rutledge & Hurtz, Mann & Co., and Hulse & Co.--with Mann & Co. of Hutchinson chosen to draw the plans and supervise the construction of the new court house. With everything in place, the work proceeded quickly, and the new court house was dedicated in 1929.

Isaac claimed his homestead and timber claim in 1878, before St. John was much more than an idea in the minds of a group of early settlers and four years before St. John was chosen as the county seat in the election of April 14, 1882. In his early years as a homesteader, Isaac lacked a horse, and trips to town were made on foot. The map of Stafford County shows the location of St. John near the middle of the county and Isaac's homestead and timber claim in the southwest part of the county, adjacent to the Stafford-Pratt County line. The dotted line from Isaac's homestead to St. John shows the approximate route Isaac would have walked, sixteen miles according to Isaac's Journal. By the time the Victorian court house was built, Isaac had finally acquired a horse, and he traveled to the court house frequently for personal business. When he became active in the Farmers' Alliance, the Stafford County Agricultural Association, and the People's Party, he made many visits to the brick court house for meetings and conversations with political allies. Like Isaac himself, the existence of the elegant court house has faded from the minds of most Stafford County residents. Isaac, his friends, and the rich history of their times are worthy of being remembered, and I am enjoying making those introductions to those of you reading my blog.

(Remember, you can click on the images to enlarge them.)