Isaac's Catalpa Trees

Perhaps it was the deep shade cast by the large, heart-shaped leaves of the catalpa trees that made Isaac love them as he did.  What he specifically mentioned in his Journal was the sweet perfume of their blossoms.  Blooming in late spring, the flowers resemble miniature orchids--delicate petals of white surrounding an open throat bordered with a tracery of burgundy accented with yellow.  Isaac found the fragrance of the catalpa blossoms sweet, but others find the scent overpoweringly strong, as I learned when a dinner guest once asked me to remove a catalpa bouquet from the room. 

The blossoms are followed by green seed pods 10" or longer, resembling elongated green beans.  These pods darken to brown by autumn, and their appearance gives the tree the common names of cigar tree, Indian cigar, and Indian bean tree.  A friend of mine understood that name literally as a youngster and tried to smoke one of the long brown seed pods.  It didn't work.

The name catalpa has an interesting history.  The Native American name for the tree was Catawba, but the botanist who wrote the first formal scientific description of the genus made a transcription error which resulted in the scientific name being Catalpa.  In some regions of the country, the Native American name of Catawba is still used. 

Catalpa leaves are the only food source for the caterpillars of the catalpa sphinx moth (Ceratomia catalpa).  The popularity of these caterpillars among anglers for use as live fishing bait has encouraged some fishermen to plant small catalpa groves to assure a ready source of what Southern anglers call "Catawba-worms."

One day, with the catalpa trees in full bloom and a new batch of chicks scratching around the chicken yard with the hens, Isaac had visitors.  The ladies who called were from the Antrim community a few miles to the east of Isaac, and like others sometimes did, they came to admire Isaac's farm, and especially, to enjoy his trees.  Isaac wrote in his Journal:  "[Misses] Gibbs & Mrs. Bushel called in buggy to see place & trees, got chick & catalpa bouquette, & well pleased," the bachelor homesteader offering a bit of prairie chivalry.

A Guest Post by Misty Beck

After posting the blog remembering Memorial Days from the past, I asked my cousin, Misty Beck, if she would share as a comment an amusing story about how my Uncle Arthur taught her the tradition of decorating graves.  I fear that some of you aren't taking time to read the comments that visitors post, which are certainly worth reading.  In case you missed reading Misty's, I asked her if I could share her story for Memorial Weekend.  I've added this picture of me with my parents, decorating my grandparents' grave when I was about the age that Misty describes in her Guest Post.

Misty's Comment:
My grandparents (Arthur and Wilma, in Lyn's photograph posted May 10, 2012, 4th man from left and 4th woman from left) were adamant that when I was a child in the late 70s and early 80s, that I learn about the meaning of Memorial Day.  But, more importantly, my granddad insisted that I know where all of the family graves were located.  I remember every year as a child loading up the boxes of flowers (replaced with the ease of reusable plastic flowers in their later years) and heading to the cemeteries.

Our route included Farmington at Macksville, Byers (Naron), and Iuka.  At the cemetery, I would sit in the back of the pickup, or if we were in the car on the trunk--they didn't worry so much about safety back then. My granddad would drive, and when I found a family grave, I had to knock on the back glass.  He would stop, and then I had to show him where the grave was and tell him who was buried there.  This probably started when I was 3 years old.  My granddad died when I was 8, but I have very vivid memories of our trips to the cemeteries and how important it was to him that I know where those graves were.

While locations were important to my granddad, my grandmother found other things important.  Every year as we finished at the last cemetery (Iuka), she would remind me that we had one more set of flowers to put out.  See, my dad was adopted by my grandparents, because his biological mother died when he was born and his biological father couldn't take care of him.  Her grave was our last stop every year, because my grandmother always said we needed to thank his birth mother because she gave my dad to my grandparents.  And, if she hadn't, they wouldn't have me.  Of course, that was my grandmother's way of making it important to me.

I could probably still find all of the graves but must admit my Memorial Weekend pilgrimage is much shorter.  I just visit one cemetery to decorate our family graves there, but I am thankful that my grandparents took the time and energy to educate me on these great family traditions.  And, as I leave the Iuka cemetery every year, I put a small bunch of flowers on my dad's biological mom's grave...just like Gram always insisted.  

Water on the Prairie

In 1877 not only did the annual rainfall encourage potential settlers with the total amount that fell.  More importantly, the rain was well distributed over the growing season for winter wheat and corn.  Relying on that, many homesteaders decided to stake their claims for a farm on the prairie, and the number of acres claimed at the Larned Land Office, where Isaac filed his homestead claim, jumped from 145,977 acres in 1877 to 246,377 in 1878, the year Isaac arrived.  Unfortunately for the settlers, 1877 rainfall proved to be an unusual year, with subsequent years not only receiving less rainfall but, more significantly, the rains that came were at the wrong times for crops.  By 1880 the prairie was in a drought.  Many settlers gave up and abandoned their claims, and Edwards County lost half of its settlers between 1880 and 1882.  As bad as those years were, however, the 1890s were worse.  Rainfall on the prairie was at best undependable and at worst inadequate to sustain crops year after year.  [Craig Minor, West of Wichita, Chapter 10, "The Weak Shall Flee," University Press of Kansas, 1986]

For those who stayed, dependence on collecting rainfall for domestic and agricultural needs being inadequate, every farm needed a well for their own water and for their stock.  These wells were hand dug, and water was raised by pulley, rope and bucket.  From Isaac's Journal, it appears that wells often had to be cleaned or new ones dug when old ones became fouled or dried up.  In January of 1888, Isaac wrote, "One luxury I feel having about me again, that is plenty of well-water, two wells, cleaned and ready to use for house and stable. 

Isaac owned a windlass, or a sort of winch, and he was often called upon by his neighbors for its use in digging wells.  One man worked at the bottom, digging down to the depth needed to strike water.  Another man remained at ground level to crank the windlass that carried the dirt being removed from the bottom of the hole to the surface, where the dirt was dumped and the bucket or other container was returned to the bottom to be filled again.

Because the soil in the area was generally sandy loam, a curb at the surface was typically necessary to protect against cave-ins.  Even if the well had been dug without installing a curb, one was often needed to keep debris out of the well water.  Isaac mentioned needing a curb for his stable well after heavy rain washed dirt and the kind of material typical around livestock into the well.

A common cause for needing to clean a well, according to Isaac's Journal, was the water becoming "crickety."  Anyone who has battled keeping crickets out of basements and cellars can imagine the challenge of keeping those insects out of an open well.

Isaac mentioned bucketing water to his garden plot and to his young trees, but hand watering the larger fields was impossible.  In some regions, farmers were trying irrigation, but not in Stafford County were Isaac lived.

In October of 1887, an agent for the I.Y.L. Windmill Company stopped by Isaac's homestead for a visit.  Isaac listened with interest to the man's description of the machine, but after being told by the agent that the windmill he recommended for Isaac's farm would cost $240 (a huge amount for those times), Isaac declined.  He was already so far in debt that he believed a windmill was out of the question, even if a lender could have been found from whom to borrow the cost.  However, neighbors Charles Shattuc, the Bentley family, and others gradually acquired windmills.

By 1891 when the journal ends, Isaac was still lacking the financial ability to afford a windmill, although he did acquire a used pump for his well from old neighbor, Jesse Green.  A newspaper ad from the County Capital describes the increase in sales of the "Aermotor Pneumatic Water Supply System," claiming 45 were sold in 1888, with significant annual increases in sales leading to the prediction of 60,000 sales in 1892.  Interestingly, this ad was taken from a newspaper published in 1895, but the ad neither updated the sales numbers through the year of publication nor validated actual sales in 1892.

Many of the early settlers believed that "water follows the plow," in other words, that if they planted trees and broke sod to plant fields, rainfall would increase, and the arid plains would become a land of abundant crops.  After nearly two decades of testing that theory, homesteaders came to realize that Nature paid little attention to the foolish beliefs of men.

Farming has changed since Isaac's time, but put a group of farmers together, and chances are that in the course of their conversation the topic of rain will be discussed.

Memorial Day at Farmington Cemetery

When I was a child, Memorial Day was an occasion for honoring America's fallen soldiers and visiting graves of ancestors.  Tin cans and canning jars were covered with tin foil, around which a bow was tied to create a vase to hold spring flowers from the garden or peonies ordered from the grocery store and kept in the bottom of the refrigerator to keep the buds from opening too early.  Memorial morning men dressed in suits and ties, and women wore their Sunday dresses with hats and gloves to go to the cemetery to put flowers on the graves.  It was important to arrive early enough to get the graves decorated with time to stroll through the cemetery admiring the decorations and visiting with friends and neighbors, especially those who now lived out of town and returned for the annual pilgrimage to decorate the graves.  The picture is of my parents, aunts, and uncles in about 1949.

About 10 o'clock the high school band, playing patriotic songs, would march from the school to the cemetery, and a ceremony would be held at the Memorial for veterans, with two of the best young trumpeters slipping away to hide behind large gravestones or trees to echo the playing of Taps.  Memorial Day was always May 30th, and no one considered going to the lake or the beach.  It was a day to remember the dead, not a day for recreation.  When the memorial service ended, the band marched away, only going as far as the end of the cemetery before students raced to their parents' cars to shed the hot, wool band uniforms.  The crowd gradually disbursed, many gathering for large family dinners.  Afterward, when the women retired to the kitchen to wash dishes and gossip and the men found comfortable chairs in the living room where they could intermittently visit and nap, the kids would slip away to meet their friends at the swimming pool, which opened for the summer season that afternoon.  I am the girl with the tenor saxophone, marching in one of those hot wool band uniforms.

Those days have disappeared.  With Memorial Day turned into a holiday weekend, graves are still decorated at the Farmington Cemetery, but the flowers are primarily silk and the decorating is often done early so people can travel somewhere for the long weekend.  Jeans are typically worn for the practical business of anchoring the silk flower arrangements in the soil to stay in place through the weekend in the likely chance of strong spring winds.  There is still a VFW honor guard that marches on Memorial Day, but the music is provided by a CD player rather than the high school band.  People do linger for a while to visit after the memorial services, but the crowd dwindles each year, it seems.  There are still some families that have traditional dinners, and kids whose parents have not taken them to the lake still gather at the swimming pool, if it is the opening day of the summer.  My husband is one of the men in the VFW honor guard at the "new" Veterans' Memorial.

I used to tease my mother-in-law not so many years ago when she would ask us to drive her through the cemetery, where she would comment as we passed by the graves, speaking of those buried there as if she were pointing out residences along the streets of the town.  Now she occupies one of those cemetery lots we once drove past, and my husband and I find ourselves driving through the cemetery, speaking of friends and parents of friends buried there, just as she once did.  Since doing the research about Isaac's neighbors from the late 1800s, I now have several more graves whose occupants I almost feel that I know, and I give Isaac's old neighbors a nod as we drive by.  This is the "old" Veterans' Memorial to which our high school band once led the honor guard.







Isaac's Penmanship

With his usual eagerness for self-improvement, Isaac noted the following purchase in his journal:  "During P.M. looked over my catalogues to find some standard Work on Penmanship, feeling the want of such a work for occasional reference for some time, and just concluded to send for Spencerian's Compendium."  Actually, Isaac's handwriting is fairly neat and the difficulty in transcribing his Journal resulted more from his dense crowding of words and fading ink on some pages (suspected to be caused by his watering ink when the supply was running low), rather than from his handwriting.  In 1870, when he ordered the Spencerian handbook, he wrote with the flourish of a young man, expressing both in style and content the confident attitude of youth.  When he resumed writing in the journal in 1884, he was more thrifty of his opinions and materials, writing in sentence fragments, with little philosophizing and a smaller, closer script.

Spencerian script was developed by Platt Rogers Spencer in 1840, but it was his sons who published his previously unpublished writing guide after their father's death in 1864, and through their publication the Spencerian style of writing gained great popularity through about the 1920s.  When Coca-Cola created their logo in the late 19th century, they used Spencerian script. 

My handwriting over a drill from handbook.

  My own handwriting is often remarked upon, most often by clerks in stores when I am writing a check--even when I am signing those awkward electronic screens after swiping my credit card.  I have my mother to thank for my penmanship.  One summer when I was about ten, Mother decided that my cursive writing was unsatisfactory and set aside time every day for me to practice using my entire arm and shoulder, rather than  only my fingers.  I was required to make row after row of uniform loops across the page, and if she caught me drawing the loops with my fingers, the practice time was extended.  She had no name for what she was teaching me, but I believe it was the Palmer Method.

In 1894 Austin Palmer published a book titled, Palmer's Guide to Business Writing.  His idea was that using the muscles of the arm rather than the fingers, and simplifying the letters, reduced both the labor and the time it took for writing and allowed someone writing by hand to compete with the speed and clarity of the typewriter.  Gradually the Palmer Method replaced Spencerian script.  The drill above is from Palmer's handbook.

By the time I was in grade school, students were taught to print before they were taught cursive, which had apparently produced the block-like cursive that my mother found ungraceful.  For many years it was the practice to teach children entering school how to print (also call manuscript).  Then, about grade three, cursive writing was taught.  Over the years, certain styles predominated, but unless you were a teacher or the parent of a child in school during these changes, you were probably unawae of the shifting styles and teaching techniques.  The pictures below are from the Palmer Method textbook, when penmanship was a serious part of the curriculum.

In recent years a new debate has arisen.  A blog from 2007 asked:  "Cursive vs. Printing:  Is One Better Than the Other?"  The author pointed out that cursive is a better exercise for strengthening fine motor skills, and also that children who can read cursive can read manuscript writing but the reverse is not true.  On the other hand, first teaching print (manuscript) is comparable to the text in books and educational material.  Furthermore, cursive is less legible and harder to read, the proof of which is the line below the signature line on many forms which asks:  "Please print your name."  (www.blog.montessoriforeveryone.com)  An online debate from 2010 dealt not with what to teach but rather which to use, and responses were mixed.  A dialogue between two people leaving comments seems to reflect the younger point of view.  The first person wrote:  "I think in this day and age cursive is dying a slow painful death."  The second person replied:  "In an age where handwriting is going the way of the dinosaur, I would have to agree."  (www.sguforums.com)

Now, in case you haven't heard, many states are abandoning the teaching of cursive entirely or are leaving it to the discretion of teachers to determine whether there is time in the crowded mandatory curriculum to devote to cursive instruction.  The Theory is that classroom teaching of "keyboard skills" is more valuable in the electronic age.

I know my blog is being followed by current & former teachers, as well as students, parents, and grandparents.  This is the perfect post for those of you who have not yet left a comment to express your opinions about the abandonment of teaching cursive penmanship in schools.

In Isaac's time, penmanship was an indication of a person's education and sophistication.  There were still many who could neither read nor write and who signed documents with an "X".  The illustration of Isaac's penmanship is taken from the flyleaf of his journal, actually written before he ordered the Spencerian Handbook.

In my time I have regarded legible penmanship as a courtesy, enjoying a hand-written note of news, thanks, congratulations or concern, thoughtfully hand written by a friend, far more than a greeting card with only a signature.  Taking the time to write neatly, whatever the purpose, seemed as necessary to me as taking the time to fix my hair and put on lipstick before leaving the house.  Perhaps today's generation finds both of my "necessities" old-fashioned!

One individual responding to the question of cursive vs. manuscript wrote:  "Well-done cursive is really beautiful, and I think in the letter-writing culture of old, presentation was almost half of the pleasure of reading a letter."  I tend to agree, although I bristle a little at the characterization of that tradition belonging to the "culture of old."  Her comment received this reply:  "I found a box of letters a few months ago between my grandfather and his sister during WWII, and they were all so beautifully written.  Each one of them was like a small piece of artwork."  I would add that each was like a small piece of history.  Yet, if teaching is abandoned, will the cursive writing of ancestors become undecipherable to their descendants?

Two of my favorite museum memories are visits years ago to the manuscript rooms in the British Museum in London and the New York City Public Library.  Reading a handwritten letter of a witness to the beheading of Anne Boleyn, which described how Anne's little dog had run out from under its hiding place within the folds of her long skirts at the moment the ax fell, imprinted the horror of her execution in my mind in a very personal way far beyond what reading those same words in type could have done.  And, seeing the cross-throughs and interlinings on hand-written manuscripts of famous authors allowed insights that will be forever lost to future scholars and would-be writers viewing today's computer-written manuscripts, where changes are deleted forever.

Although most writers probably compose on computers, during an interview on CBS author Stephen King expressed the significance of writing in longhand:  "It slows you down.  It makes you think about each word as you write it, and it also gives you more of a chance so that you're able...the sentences compose themselves in your head.  It's like hearing music, only it's words.  But you see more ahead because you can't go as fast." 

An Op-Ed by Trevor Butterworth concludes, "...there is plenty of evidence that handwriting involves a series of complex cognitive processes in which perception and motor action are intertwined."  In reply to his conclusion, I would ask, when penmanship is abandoned in favor of keyboard skills, are educators neglecting the training of young people's minds in order to make them more productive at communicating ideas devoid of reflection, reason, and innovation?

 If Isaac had kept an electronic journal, would I have found it worth reading over a century later?  The picture to the left is of the top corner of page 422 of Isaac's Journal, typical of his handwriting a year before the journal ends.  Perhaps not beautiful, it is certainly neat, with a creative flair to it.  I believe that the words he wrote each day by hand speak to me more clearly than reading them on a computer screen ever could.  I also believe that his daily habit of writing in his journal allowed him to reflect more deeply and create more imaginatively than today's rapid tapping on a keypad.                                 

Take a minute to leave a comment telling me what you think! 

Did Your Ancestor Know Isaac?

As much fun as researching Isaac has been, researching his neighbors so that I can bring to life the entire community in which Isaac lived has also been interesting.  Some of the surnames were familiar to me, whether because I had heard someone speak of them or because their descendants remain in the community.  Others were unknown, left for me to identify through research.  This post shares some of the remaining riddles I'd love to solve!

William M. Campbell, born in 1846 in Indiana, served in the Civil War before coming to Kansas, and lived in the southwest quarter of section 27 in Albano Township, about half a mile from Isaac.  A member of the Kansas House of Representatives for three terms, first for the Union Labor Party and then for the People's Party, he was asked to run for State Senator and for Governor.  However, the death of his wife Eliza, and eleven months later the death of his baby daughter Jennie, forced him to decline running for further political office in order to turn his attention to his family.  At the time of Eliza's death, there were three children still living at home, along with the infant Jennie.  A few years later, William married a woman named Orpha, and he served as a commissioner on the Kansas Railroad Commission in Topeka.  He and Isaac were neighbors and friends, especially sharing an interest in Populist politics.  Campbell's articles and legislative reports appeared frequently in the County Capital published in St. John.  However, I have failed to locate a picture of this prominent man or learn much about him later in his life.  Surely there are clues I haven't discovered.

Another mystery I am anxious to solve involves Isaac's house.  After his death, Isaac's homestead was sold by his heirs to Jacob A. Degarmo and his wife Addie.  There is a photo post card of my great aunt, Abbie Hall Boylan, with two other young ladies, standing in a tree grove in front of a 2-story clapboard house.  On the back of the picture is written, "Abbie and the Degarmo girls."  From a photograph in the Gray Studio Collection, I have determined that the girls with Abbie are daughters of Jacob and Addie.  The house in the background is not Abbie's home, but it fits the description of Isaac's house as he described it at various places in his journal, and it seems very likely that it is a picture of the Degarmo house which was first Isaac's home.  All I need is someone who remembers that house or someone with other pictures of the Degarmo house to confirm what I believe.  The abandoned house was still on the land when I was a child, but I simply don't remember it.  However, some of Jacob and Addie's children--Ethel Lee, Clyde Francis, Archie Glenn, Jennie May, George D., Annie Myrtle, Iva, and Roe--remained in the general area and raised their own children nearby.  I continue to hope I can connect with a Degarmo descendant or former neighbor who will help me confirm the identity of this house, or, perhaps, provide a better picture of Isaac's home and tree groves.

Immediately surrounding Isaac's homestead and timber claim were families with names like Henn, Curtis, Frazee, Ross, Vosburgh, Shattuc, Gereke, Clouse, Green and Bentley.  Only a mile or two further were Shoop, Farwell, Bonsall, Mayes, Rowe, Loftiss, Frack, Stimatze, Carnahan, Webber, Doc Dix, Hall and Beck.  Further away were Kachelman, Cornett, Tousley, Toland, Tanner, Garvin, Wilson, Dr. Willcox and Searls.  In nearby Pratt County were Goodwin, Moore, Carr, Blake, Eggleston, Brown, Lattimore, Stringfield and Logan.  In St. John were businessmen, lawyers, and bankers--Swartz, Hilmes, Gloyd, Rohr, Burr, Shale, Dixon, Gillmore and Miss Shira, while in Pratt Center were the Blaine brothers, photographer Logan, and horse dealer Sam Jones.  All of these names, and so many more, appear in Isaac's Journal.  My research has been more successful with some than with others, and I have paid my respects to many of them in local cemeteries.  Quite a few gave up on their Kansas farms in hard times and decided to start fresh in the Oklahoma and Washington Territories, and one family settled in Salt Lake City.  Women are especially hard to trace, as they disappear behind a new married name.

I have found names on grave stones, census and courthouse records, and newspaper pages, and I have searched through the Gray Studio Collection, occasionally finding pictures of the young farmers Isaac knew, photographed a decade or two later as distinguished looking elders.  I know there must be old photo albums and scrap books with mementoes pressed between the pages long ago, and as I write the book about Isaac it is hard for me to be satisfied with what I have found, trying to bring each person alive again for just a moment on paper.  American writer, Harlan Ellison, wrote:  "Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike."  That may be so, but Isaac and the people in his life, struggling to build something on the open prairie where they settled, deserve to be remembered a while longer.

If you recognize names among those Isaac mentioned in his journal or have ancestors who lived in that area during the late 1800s, please click on the "comment" box below this post and tell me about them. 

If you have never left a comment, you may visit my post of Feb. 8, 2012 to learn how it is done.  A hint about deciphering the letters to permit you to share your comments--focus slowly on one letter at a time and do not try to make a word of the letters.  Most are only letters that do not make a word, and if you focus on each letter, the black & white shapes within the letter are less confusing.  Good luck!

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 and the 200 Year Club

In 1870 Isaac Beckley Werner was a twenty-six year old druggist in the Illinois prairie town of Rossville. He took great pride in his business, recording word for word in his journal the praise of a drug salesman from Lafayette, Indiana, with the firm of Tinney & Moore Druggist: "Your name, I.B. Werner, I wrote many a time before this, quite familiar to me, although this is the first time we get to see each other," Moore had commented. "You keep the neatest Drug store I met in a good while. In traveling about the country selling goods one comes often into regular Holes--mean, dirty groceries and saloons. But, indeed you have everything well arranged and keep it in good order." Obviously, Isaac had some rudimentary knowledge of medical remedies and certainly respected the need for maintaining a clean establishment.

The times in which he lived, however, were inundated with all sorts of quack medicines. Isaac never mentions buying or using any patent medicines, nor does he regard the use of alcohol for medicinal purposes favorably. He did occasionally visit dentists, and tooth brushes were among the personal items sold at his estate sale. As for visits to a doctor, that was rare. Once, when he developed severe stiffness and swelling of the fingers of his left hand, he treated it with a poultice he made for himself from linseed oil, and by the time he finally went to town on business and at the close of his day visited a doctor, his hand was nearly healed. He did continue during the following days applying a poultice of linseed oil and the ointment the doctor had given him, and his hand slowly improved but remained stiff.

Overall, his health seemed good until his late 40s when he began to experience headaches, dizziness, and bilious spells. It was around this time that he sent off for membership in the Ralston 200 Year Club. The Ralstonism movement was the creation of Webster Edgerly, a graduate of the Boston University School of Law. Edgerly did practice law, but he also wrote many books, using the penname of Edmund Shaftesbury. He expressed little respect for doctors, suggesting that the common sense of most men and women exceeded the methods of doctors, whose cures often caused more harm to the patient than the ailment for which medical advice was sought. Several comments in Isaac's Journal reflect that he shared a similar negative opinion of invasive medical treatments of that era.

So, as Isaac's health began to fail, instead of consulting a doctor, he wrote for a membership in the 200 Year Club. Edgerly was a savvy marketer. Part 4 of his book emphasized that members were to accept the idea that "...the acquisition of perfect health is by far the most important thing in life," and having accepted that idea it was their duty to spread the Ralston doctrines through forming and attending local clubs--obviously bringing more customers for Edgerly's books.

While Edgerly included remedies for specific ailments in his book, his actual approach to good health was through the practice of preventive medicine, in short, prescribing a regime of healthful living to avoid sickness, of which exercise was an important part. Part 1 of the book set out "The Nine Great Laws of Nature," itemizing elements of healthful diet, exercise, and lifestyle. The objective, once these nine laws were understood and implemented, was to change the member's Nature. Edgerly explained that Man's 2nd Nature was to be controlled by the circumstances of his life, but the goal was to overcome this tendency by cultivating Man's 1st Nature, which would allow him to shape the circumstances himself.

The first step in accomplishing this process was to stop allowing circumstances which "disturb, annoy, embarrass or affect you." Instead of responding negatively, you should take life as it comes, without worry or irritation; present an open face through calmness, sweetness, and purity; and observe the Nine Great Laws of Nature. Using these techniques, those who practiced Edgerly's advice could change their Nature.

Edgerly proposed that irritability was the greatest disease breeder of all. He wrote: "Some people go through life one train late. The common successes keep just ahead of them. They may move with rapidity, but they do not start soon enough. Such persons curse themselves, their creator, and mankind." Many of Edgerly's ideas were almost comical, but others are accepted even today. For example, he said, "We do not drink water enough," and "...four or more light meals per day are better than two or three heavy meals." As for exercise, four of his nine great laws of nature dealt with staying active, specifically: "Gravity causes us to sit too much, to lie around in lazy positions, to half lounge when at home, and to avoid walking and standing. These lead to inactivity and ill health." Motion is necessary. "Too much sleep, and too much inactivity produce disease...Nature intends to make us active...Repose is decay...Ennui is a disease." "Energy is both refreshing and recuperative..." And, finally, "Speed, combined with energy...impells the blood throughout the body in even circulation, and scatters the blood that stagnates in the brain."

Unfortunately, while Isaac tried to implement Edgerly's ideas, especially with regard to improving his diet, he did not live to be 200 years old but only about a fourth of that. One of the things the Ralston Health Club advocated was including whole grains in the diet, and a recipe for cereal included in the book was very similar to a cereal being produced by the Purina Milling Company. They asked Edgerly to endorse their product, which he did, and that eventually led to the name, the Ralston Purina Company. Edgerly and his health Club are largely forgotten, but the name his cereal gave to Ralston Purina remains familiar.

What Edgerly was doing with his 200 Year Club was telling people how they could improve their lives for themselves. Self-help books are nothing new, although they seem to have exploded in today's market, expanding beyond the printed page onto electronic screens, the internet, health club membership, lectures, seminars, and DVDs. Enter "self-help" as a search topic on Amazon and you will get 254,913 results! However, you can also look backward and find self-help advice from classical antiquity. As a young man, Isaac sought self-improvement through acquiring a personal library, believing he could educate himself with the wisdom contained in those books. It was natural for him to turn to the advice contained in Edgerly's book for improving his failing health.

Turning to membership in the 200 Year Club may now seem foolish, but in comparison to the extravagant claims of the patent medicine ads, such as those found in the County Capital newspaper to which Isaac subscribed (from which all of the advertisements pictured in this post were taken), Edgerly's advice about diet, exercise, and positive thinking seems quite reasonable. What is always interesting is not the differences we find in history but the similarities, the common issues each generation faces and the similar ways we confront those problems. Isaac may not have had a treadmill nor a grocery store with aisles of food labeled "fat free" and "whole grain," but it is surprising how little his generation's goals for better health differ from our own.

Remember that you can click on an image to enlarge it, especially to read the text accompanying these advertisements from the 1890s.

Isaac & the Plutocrats

America has not always been a nation with great disparity between the wealth of its richest and poorest citizens. In his famous book, Democracy in America published in 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville opened with this observation: "Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions," a statement that obviously ignored American slaves who certainly did not share in such "general equality."

As for the rest of the American population, most were farmers. Writing in 1781, Thomas Jefferson said: "While we have land to labor then, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a workbench, or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry: but, for the general operations of manufacture, let our work-shops remain in Europe." To assure that America continued to have land for the agrarian republic he regarded as the ideal, Jefferson acquired the Louisiana Territory in 1803, providing room for further expansion.

By 1850, farmers still represented 64% of the labor force, although Jefferson's idea of leaving "the general operations of manufacture" in Europe had begun to change. At the beginning of the Civil War there were only a few hundred American millionaires.* By 1890 the number had risen to about 4,000, among them such familiar names as J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and Jay Gould. The number of farmers, however, had dropped to 42% of the labor force. During the time these incredibly wealthy men were creating their fortunes in railroads, steel, and oil, farmers were confronting higher interest rates and foreclosures, lower prices for their crops, and drought, blizzards, and other hardships caused by Mother Nature. It is no wonder that the great disparity in wealth between farmers and laborers, in comparison to the wealthy and politically powerful men of the Gilded Age, created resentment and distrust.

As Isaac Werner wrote in his journal in 1889, "...disgraceful low ruling prices ruining near everybody but 'skimmers' with money. Things getting daily into worse shape and more discontent among the producing class causing oceans of thinking among the commonest people." In a speech delivered in 1890 by Mary Elizabeth Lease, a leading Populist speaker, she said, "Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. The West and South are bound and prostrate before the manufacturing East. Money rules..."

It is startling how the language of the Populist activists of Isaac's time and the Occupy Wall Street protesters of today is so similar, and the political cartoons of the late 1800s are almost capable of appearing today without modification. Compare some of the goals expressed by the 99ers today with the concerns of Isaac's time--jobs, more equal distribution of income, and a reduction of the influence of corporations on politics. Both then and now, activists sought economic justice and directed much of their anger toward corporate abuses. In their 1880s newspaper The Nonconformist, the Vincent brothers of Winfield, Kansas blamed "corporate greed, that breeds anarchism and everything else that is hideous, in the proportion that it deepens its grip upon the industrial masses."

In Isaac's time the wealth of the few soared during and after the Civil War. Recent statistics from the Congressional Budget Office show that between 1979 and 2007, the incomes of the top 1% of Americans grew by an average of 275%. As for the country's total wealth, in 2007 the richest 1% of Americans owned 34.6% and the next 19% of Americans owned 50.5%. By combining these numbers, it can be seen that the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the country's wealth, leaving 15% of the wealth in the hands of the bottom 80% of the population.

In the 1800s there were no federal social programs like those we have today to help the aged and the poor. Therefore, the economic extremes between the needy laborers and the very rich were especially severe. When the steel workers in the Carnegie Homestead Steel Mill attempted to negotiate a wage increase because the price of steel had increased during the three years since their prior union contract had been negotiated, they were told that management would instead reduce their wages in the new contract by 22%. When farmers were losing their farms to foreclosure and feeding their children a mixture of ground wheat and water to keep them from starving, the wealthy were building mansions fit for royalty.

The agrarian society upon which Thomas Jefferson placed his faith, believing that farmers possessed a "peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue...[which] keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth" is a mere sliver of the American population today. In the century and a quarter since Isaac joined with other farmers and laborers to form the People's Party to confront the political power of Wall Street, corporations, and trusts, the American population has changed. Data from the 2010 census shows the total U.S. population as 308,745,538, with only 613,000 farmers, with those farmers representing about 2.5% of the nation's working force and only about 0.5% of all employed Americans. As for the present workers in manufacturing and industry, many of them have seen their jobs given to foreign laborers. Yes, America's work force has changed; yet, the issues of economic inequality are being debated as vigorously today as they were in Isaac's time.

*A million dollars in 1890 would be equivalent to about $24,400,250 in 2011.
Plutocracy is defined as government by the wealthy; also, a controlling class of rich men.

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.)

...And May I Add?

Spring has arrived in Kansas, and with a couple of days of rain, the wheat is growing, leaves on the trees are opening, and everything seems to be eager to crowd the season a bit. The sand hill plum blossoms opened earlier than usual, and like Isaac and his friends, we all have our fingers crossed that a late frost won't spoil the plum crop again this year. I opened our last jar of sand hill plum jelly a few days ago, and I need to restock the shelves this summer.

I'm not complaining, but the rain knocked some of the petals off before I got outside with my camera to take pictures, but for those of you who read my post of March 1, 2012 titled "Sand Hill Plums" and are interested in seeing what blooming plum bushes look like, I'm posting two pictures taken yesterday as we returned from Stafford. (You can click on the photographs to enlarge them, and if you look closely, you may be able to see the thorns.)

My husband and I were returning from the Stafford County Historical & Genealogical Society where we had hosted friends who spent the afternoon cleaning and cataloguing some of the glass plate negatives from the Gray Studio Collection. You may read my January 6, 2012 post about the "Stafford County Museum" collection by going to the blog archives. I bribed my friends a little by planning a tea party as an excuse for gathering at the museum, but it was really their spirit of volunteerism that caused them to accept my invitation.

The Gray Studio Glass Plate Negative Collection may be seen at http://www.contentcat.fhsu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/stafford.

Mining for Gold at the Court House

On the southeast corner of the town square in St. John is the Stafford County Courthouse. It was built in 1929, replacing the one Isaac would have visited. I remember going there as a little girl with my father, and each time I enter the building, I am reminded of the echo of my father's leather soles on the marble floors. Today, as I create my own echoes walking the cool hallways, the building is filled with shadow memories that I experience as emotions. I suspect that the feelings inspired in me when I was a little girl had a great deal to do with my decision to study law. There was something unique about entering that quiet space in which people seemed to speak more softly, as if respectful of the business conducted there. I felt it then and I still feel it today. I suppose my sense of awe in entering what is a sort of people's temple of justice will always be part of me. The court houses I entered when I was actively practicing law were often busy and sometimes noisy, but for me there was always that special feeling about the honorable purpose of the building. My recent visits to the Stafford County Court House while doing research have not diminished those feelings, fueled by my childhood memories, my respect for the law, and my fondness for history.

Court houses are like mining for gold, the records filled with valuable information for a researcher to discover if she is willing to dig for it. Initially my research took me to the Deed Records to find information about Isaac's homestead and timber claim. Now, when I walk into that office, the women working there immediately ask about my progress on the book, research for which they have been so helpful.

Also in the court house is the District Clerk's Office, where one day I went to inquire about birth and death certificates. I was disappointed to learn that those old records are now kept in Topeka, the state capital. I must have mentioned that I was doing research on Isaac B. Werner, and while I visited with one of the women, the other lady seemed busy at her computer. Suddenly she asked, "What did you say the man's first name was?" "Isaac," I replied. "Well, there's no Isaac indexed in the Probate Records, but I have an I.B. Werner." "That's him!" I exclaimed. When she returned from the room where probate records are stored, she carried a thick probate file of Isaac's estate, from which I have learned so much about him.

Seeing my interest in the Probate Records, the women told me that they had recently finished indexing all of the District Court records, going back to the 1800s. Isaac was never a party to litigation, but several legal disputes are mentioned in his journal, so I was obviously thrilled to learn that those records were available. I periodically return to examine files, documenting litigation Isaac has mentioned, and both of those ladies have been terrific. In fact, they have shared suggestions about bits of history preserved in the records of the court house that would make wonderful stories for future writing.

Since Isaac died in 1895, the current court house was not the one he visited. In next week's post I will share a picture of the Victorian court house of Isaac's era, along with stories of how it came to be built, some of Isaac's visits there, and why it was replaced with the current structure.

I have lived most of my life in cities, and there are many things I enjoy about the urban lifestyle that cannot be matched in a small town. However, there is nothing quite like returning to the home of your childhood, where your roots go back a few generations, and experiencing the willingness of people to pause for a moment and invest their time and interest in you, something anonymity and the busy pace of city life rarely offer. Like Isaac, I enjoy doing business--and research--in a court house where people nearly always have a little time to chat.

Planting Osage-Orange Trees

For my birthday one year, I gave myself the gift of wandering the farm with a photographer's eye, pausing to take pictures of scenes I tend to overlook in the ordinary rush of life. One of my stops was the Osage-orange tree grove just north of the house. It was late October, and the nubby, lime-colored fruit was falling from the trees. Being round, the fruit rolled easily into the natural depressions beneath the trees, forming ribbons of green winding through the grove.

The Osage-orange tree has many names--among them hedge-apple, bodark or bois-d'arc, and bowwood, with the Latin name Maclura pomifera. The uses of the tree may be found in the names it has been given. Native Americans, as well as today's serious bow-makers, found the wood especially valuable for making bows. Bois-d'arc comes from Louisiana French and translates literally as "bow wood." For people on the prairie, the primary reason for planting the trees was for fencing. I do not know who planted the hedge-apple grove on our farm. It has been a mature grove of trees since I was a child. What I suspect is that the trees were planted by my grandfather for posts to fence our pastures.

This summer a pasture of unplowed prairie was planted to wheat. The land was owned by my grandfather and tended by my father for his sister, who had inherited the land. During my childhood I had played in the pasture with my cousins, especially in the large sand hill plum thickets with their cattle paths and clearings which our imaginations transformed into castles and forts. Before the fencing was removed, I photographed the ancient posts that had been there all of my life, still as sturdy and free of rot as they had always been, and embellished with the patina of age. I do not know for certain that the wood was Osage-orange, but I know of no other wood that would have endured for so long.

In addition to cutting the wood for fence posts, settlers used the trees themselves as hedges. The growth pattern of the limbs is unruly and abundant, and while branches are young and tender they can be woven together to form an impenetrable barrier. Add to that the thorns on the branches, and planting hedge-apple trees along the borders of fields and pastures can create living fences.

In his Journal, Isaac describes helping a neighbor plant these trees: "I all day at putting up my 3 runner marker planter & helped Bob Bland drag their first 5 acres in osage seed (planted 5 acres in 2 hours)." Although Isaac does not describe it, presumably the seedlings that grew from the drag planting were later transplanted into rows or hedges. According to one writer, "No other wood played such an important part in the early movement West by the settlers as the Osage Orange."

Many people, including my mother-in-law, believe that the hedge apples themselves repel insects. Among those proponents, some suggest cutting the fruit into wedges to better release the milky juice. No commercial use of the juice has been discovered, but various compounds have been extracted from the heartwood for use in products such as an antifungal and a food preservative. The tree so valuable to homesteaders like Isaac may yet find modern uses.

Woodmen 's Gravestones

It was late May, and although the nights were chilly, one sunny day three children who lived in West Naron Township in Pratt, County decided to walk to their grandpa Cubbage's house. He lived up in Stafford County, but the two little boys were confident they could find the way, and their little sister Mary, not quite three, was excited to go along. It was hard for her to keep up with her older brothers, but she did her best. Once they got away from their home, the grass on the open prairie was taller than they had expected, and although they were sure they were headed in the right direction, they grew tired and still saw nothing that looked familiar. A passing farmer offered to take them home, and both little boys eagerly crawled up into the wagon beside the man. As he started toward the children's family farm, one of the boys said, "Bring Mary home too when you find her."

With darkness falling, the farmer went directly to the Naron School House where he knew that the newly formed Woodman of the World lodge was meeting. The group immediately adjourned to organize a line of about sixty men carrying lanterns, walking closely so as not to overlook a little girl lost in the dark on the prairie. They searched through the night, and just before daylight they found little Mary in the timber on Jeff Naron's claim. Exhausted, chilled, and sobbing in a broken slumber, she was lying on the ground eight miles from where the children had begun their walk.

Woodmen of the World is one of the first fraternal benefit societies in the United States. It was founded by Joseph Cullen Root in 1890 and remains a privately held insurance company. Its roots go back to a time when the social safety nets for widows and children did not exist. Men formed lodges whose members pledged to take up a collection for each man's widow and children should any one of them die. From this system of helping each other grew the idea of a private insurance fund for members.

Today's members not only carry on the benefit of private insurance but also continue the commitment to serving their communities. The thing for which they may be best known, however, is the tradition that extended into the 1920s of gravestones in the shape of trees. The form varied from tall tree trunks to small stumps, and because they were hand chiseled, the details varied with the artistry of the carver. The symbols of the organization are the maul, wedge and ax, which often appear on the trees. Not every member chose a tree gravestone, instead displaying the symbols on traditional stones. In addition to the symbols, only the carver's imagination limited the flora and fauna that might appear--flowers, mushrooms, vines, scrolls with the deceased's name or message, with ropes holding scrolls. Two country cemeteries in Isaac's community have beautiful examples of these grave stones. In Neelands Cemetery is a beautiful tree trunk adorned with ferns and mushrooms, bark artfully rolled back to reveal the name "Neil." On the reverse side is an inscription: "Remember me as you pass by; As you are now so once was I; As I am now you all shall be; Prepare for death and follow me."

In another part of the cemetery is the Wilson family plot, a stump for Little Fay, as was common for children of Woodmen of the World members, a somewhat taller tree trunk for the father, and a traditional stone for the mother.

In the Prattsburg Cemetery several milles away is another tall tree trunk, this gravestone bearing the three symbols of the organization at the top of the sculpture, with a carved rope holding the scroll with the name of the deceased, David Johnson.

There was also a women's organization, called Woodmen Circle, of which Ella Beaman was apparently a member. Her stone in the Prattsburg Cemetery is a beautiful example of the forked trunk design, with a heart-shaped carving bearing the traditional Woodmen symbols resting in the fork and additional details in the trunk and base.

These Woodmen of the World trees were my favorite grave stones when I was a child, and others have told me they felt the same way, but none of us knew that they were anything more than pretty sculptures. The significance of the stones became lost to our generation.

Isaac was not a Woodman. His ambition was to help farmers through education and cooperation, and so, he joined the Farmers' Alliance, attempted to establish Reform Clubs, and supported the Peoples' Party. While neither the Woodman of the World nor the farmers' groups Isaac supported survive to the present day in his old community, they served the people of Isaac's time who faced great hardships by not having to face them alone.