Drought on the Prairie

"July was proving to be unusually hot, and rain was sorely needed.  The leaves on Isaac's potato plants were drying, even the ones in his garden patch that he watered daily.  The corn was suffering too,  drying before  ears had formed or silk was out, and leaves turning white.  The ground was too dry and hard most places to stir the wheat stubble, such droughty conditions being exactly what Professor Hicks had predicted.  According to the current almanac, the drought was to set in after June and continue into the 1891 and 1892 seasons.  Isaac could only hope that this time Professor Hicks was wrong."

The above quote is from Chapter 8, 1890, of my manuscript.  Did you think I might be quoting from this week's newspaper?  The passage certainly sounds familiar to many farmers in Isaac's old Kansas community.

In Isaac's time, he turned to almanacs for long range weather predictions.  The almanac pictured at right was published in 1892 by Dr. J. A. McLean to promote his patent medicines, but the "Storm Calendar and Weather Forecasts" were prepared by Rev. Irl R. Hicks, the "Storm Prophet," whose weather predictions Isaac came to respect.

Today's farmers have more sophisticated forecasting methods available to them.  The United States Seasonal Drought Outlook map shown below was issued by the National Weather Service.

 According to the news report accompanying the map, the current drought is the most widespread since 1956, with 56% of pastures and rangelands in poor to very poor conditions and stream flows at or near record low values across much of the Midwest and parts of the Central Plains, West, Southeast, and even parts of New England.  Sixty-four percent of the contiguous U.S. is in some degree of drought, with another 17% abnormally dry.

Working on my manuscript this week, tweaking and deleting to tighten the text in preparation for submitting to publishers, I read the paragraph quoted above.  Like so many issues from the 1880s and 1890s that relate to what we face today, today's farmers can obviously identify with the challenges faced by Isaac during the drought a century and a quarter ago.  Careful weather records like those kept in Isaac's journal are part of our present consideration of whether such climatic events are only cyclical weather patterns or whether today's weather is becoming more extreme and erratic.  Farming since Isaac's time has obviously become more sophisticated, but like Isaac, today's farmers remain subject to the challenges of unfavorable weather.    

A Note to my International followers...

Because I have a great many international followers, I had hoped some of you might leave your comments to this week's post.  Whether you come from countries that were America's allies during W.W. II or you do not, sharing your family memories about W.W. II might allow us to see the ways in which people are more similar than different.  I believe history can help our generation avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, and the loss of so many young men in war is sad for every family, regardless of the uniform those soldiers wore.

Living in the Past

History has overtaken the Fenwick household!  After tolerating about two and a half years of my immersion in newspapers from the 1880s and 1890s, my husband has discovered just how interesting reading old newspapers can be.  Last week, while I went through the old photographs available at the Stafford County Historical Museum in search of images that might be used in my book about Isaac, my husband joined me and began his own research from the Macksville Enterprise during the years of World War II.

Nearly every week's newspaper had a center front page section about the young men from Macksville (and occasionally a young woman) who were serving our country.  That generation is disappearing, and more than once since he began his research he has wished he had done it a few years ago when there were more veterans still living.  I am encouraging him to write about the interesting things he has found.  Maybe you will open my blog one week to discover a guest post from him!

So many Macksville men served in W.W. II, but there were also many who were given deferments to stay home and work the farms.  My father was one of those men, and I believe he always felt uncomfortable about not having served in the military.  He was very proud of my husband when Larry entered the Air Force after college. 

While Larry searched the information about the "Macksville boys in uniform," he found this interesting advertisement of the Community War Fund.

Published in the Macksville Enterprise October 26, 1944

The message reads: "Victory begins with the American farmer, working from long before sunset until long after nightfall.  Upon him falls the burden of feeding the fighting forces...the civilian population...and hungry mouths in war-torn countries."  It continues:  "Despite shortages of help and equipment, they have established records.  They have contributed mightily towards winning the war."

Having acknowledged the necessary role of those men whose military duty was deferred, the appeal for contributions to the War Fund was made.  "Now you are asked to help your fellow-men in another way...to contribute money to give men in the armed forces needed recreation, to give books and sports equipment to prisoners of war, to give nerve-shattered men in the merchant marine a chance to recuperate.  To give unfortunate people abroad and at home a chance to have life, liberty, and happiness."

I don't know whether my father responded to this appeal, although I would hope that he did.  However, I do believe he always felt that others his age gave far more to the war effort than he did, some men he knew having given their lives. 

The first Memorial Day after we had rescued the farm house, we resumed the old tradition of hosting a family Decoration Day Dinner at the farm.  Before the meal we paused to remember those family members who had served in the military.  Three veterans were present, and among the other guests everyone had someone to remember--a husband, brother, son, father, or brother-in-law.  

Many of the original homesteaders in Isaac's community were veterans of the Civil War, and my husband and I can trace family roots back to the American Revolution.  In during the research about Isaac, I verified that some from this community served in the Spanish-American War, and many answered the call for World War I & II, Korea, and Southeast Asia.  Yet there were also those who stayed at home.  In a farming community, I found it very significant to discover that appreciation was shown to the young men who stayed on their farms during W.W. II. 

A One-room Schoolhouse Surprise

Isaac Beckley Werner was an accomplished carpenter, and he helped build the wood frame school house that served his prairie community.  He believed in education, not only for children but also for adults to continue reading and studying.  So, this post about a country school house is particularly apt.

Our last stop at the Homestead National Monument was the brick Freeman School.  White curtains waved at the windows as I crossed the boardwalk from the parking area, admiring the neatly painted privy behind the school and the American flag high atop its pole at the front.  This was certainly a handsome school for homesteaders' children to attend.  Later, I learned that the Freeman School did not close until 1967, earning the distinction of being the oldest operating 1-room school in Nebraska.

A park ranger greeted me inside the school.  I looked at the interior, so similar to other 1-room schools I had visited--with pictures of Washington and Lincoln at the front, wooden and iron desks in neat rows, and a stove in the center of the room.  The ranger described the history of the school and ended his talk with these words:  "This is where separation of church and state began."

What a surprise those words were.  As the author of the book, Should the Children Pray?, I had spent a great deal of time researching the historical, legal, and political issues surrounding public school prayer, and now I found myself standing in a school house with its own connection to that issue.  Of course, I knew it was the First Amendment to America's Constitution that established the relationship between our national government and religious beliefs, and it was Thomas Jefferson in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association that used the description of "building a wall of separation between Church and State."  However, the ranger explained the role of the Freeman School to the issue. 

Several of the Freeman children attended the school, and when their father learned that the teacher was reading passages from the Bible to the children during the day, he asked that she stop.  When she refused, he took the matter to the school board, who supported the teacher's view that her readings "were for the best interest of the pupils."  Having exhausted his appeals to the school authorities, Freeman filed suit in the Gage County District Court, but the court ruled in favor of the school board.

Daniel Freeman was not a man to be easily dissuaded, and he appealed all the way to the Nebraska Supreme Court.  At last, on October 9, 1902, the case of Daniel Freeman v. John Scheve, et al,  was decided in favor of Plaintiff Freeman.  The court relied on the Nebraska Constitution rather than the United States Constitution for its ruling.  Citing Article 8, Section 11 of the state constitution, which provides:  "No sectarian instruction shall be allowed in any school or institution supported in whole or in part by the public funds set apart for education purposes," the opinion of the court was that readings from the Bible and prayer, even if no comments were made by the teacher, were prohibited.  Ironically, the named defendant in the suit, John Scheve, was not only an officer of the school board but also an organizer of the First Trinity Lutheran Church.  The feelings within the community during the long period over which this litigation extended (and probably for some time after) must have been intense.  Whether Daniel Freeman was a courageous defender of religious liberty or a meddlesome troublemaker depends on your point of view.  Unexpectedly, I had discovered another way in which Isaac's times are similar to our own.

http://www.lynfenwick.com 

 

Isaac By My Side

Most writers will tell you that their characters, fictional or real, will begin to inhabit their waking lives, even when they are not writing.  Sometimes the characters will invade their dreams.  For the past few days, Isaac has joined me in the Kansas summer heat as I dig goat head stickers!

 

From 1878 when Isaac arrived on the Kansas plains to claim his homestead until 1886 Isaac was without a horse.  His journal is filled with references to his ongoing battle with sun flowers and sand burrs, and most of the time his only weapon was a hoe.  To get the benefit of better tools, he had to trade his own labor to borrow a neighbor's horse and plow.  In August of 1885 he wrote, "...up to Stimatze about getting final 1 horse plowing in 6 acre timber's [timber claim's] sandburrs in exchange for work."  Apparently Isaac was not able to barter his labor with Stimatze, for the next day he wrote, "...about done with tall sun flowers and sand burrs...(each tree is hoed).

I'm not certain whether Isaac was battling what local people call Mexican sand burrs--a small round burr covered with countless stickers--or what we call goat head stickers--a hard seed shaped vaguely like a goat's head with a single, long sharp sticker.  What I am currently battling are the goat head stickers.  That is work enough, so I am presently ignoring the grassy clumps of burrs growing in the same area. 

The challenge for me is digging the entire plant and carefully lifting it into the trash can without knocking any of the stickers off to hide in the dirt and repopulate the area I just dug.  When the trash can is filled, I take the contents to be safely burned.  Otherwise, the plants will dry up but the tough sticker seeds will drop off and germinate wherever they were dumped.

It's hot, dry and windy in Kansas right now, so I was outside this morning before sunrise, an empty trash can beside me and a garden fork in my hands.  The birds were serenading me, and the flies were biting as if I were the morning smorgasbord.  Sandy loam soil can look like a child's sand box, but in dry weather it can also take on the hardness of plaster of Paris, so the previous evening my husband had watered the area where I planned to dig, and it was just right for jabbing the garden fork underneath the central portion of the plant and lifting the root section.

The objective is to reach down below the stems to the actual root and pull the entire plant out of the soil, leaving nothing left to regrow.  Sometimes I find an old mother plant, nothing much left of her but the dry skeleton of her branches radiating like spokes of a wheel in a 3' or 4' span.  Her dry carcass must still be dug and lifted with special care to avoid dropping the dried seeds clinging to the stems.  My spiteful pleasure comes in digging all of her progeny clustered around the span of her reach, destroying everything she spent her life creating.  The truth remains that dig as I will, I know that the soil contains more seeds waiting to germinate as soon as my back is turned.

The plants are actually rather pretty, with delicate, almost fern-like leaves and tiny yellow flowers.  The circular pattern of the stems is highlighted with a peachy-orange color, the plant spreading discretely close to the ground where the mower blade will pass over without harm.  Trying to rid yourself of them by plowing, as Isaac seems to have done, only turns the seeds into the soil, unless the plowing is done before the seeds set.

As the sun climbs on the horizon and the temperature rises, I am glad to take Isaac with me to my computer as I write this post.  Tomorrow morning I will be back outside doing battle with the goat head stickers, and for many mornings to come, I fear.  I know I can defeat them, for our lawn is finally free of them--although I must be vigilant for those that we have planted by tracking the stickers into the grass on the bottoms of our shoes.  The work I am facing now is the result of my own negligence for having ignored that area of the farmyard the past two years while I researched and wrote about Isaac.  It's only fair that I take him with me outside every morning to face the digging and bending and pricks of my fingers and sweat and bites of the flies.  The monotony of the chore is abated by Isaac's company as I reflect on his life on the prairie and all the work he too did by hand.  He used a hoe for his digging, but I think he would have had better success with a garden fork!





Isaac as Photographer

Isaac's interest in photography is mentioned in his journal several times during 1871, and when he sold his drug store business, he considered becoming a photographer--if not a professional then at least an amateur.  With the changes occurring as towns sprung up on the prairie and railroad tracks slashed through the landscape, Isaac dreamed of preserving images of the unspoiled country before it was "ruined" by civilization. 

He believed there would be a particular market for stereoscope views, photographing not only the landscape but also public occasions and seasonal images to be enjoyed at other times of the year.  Stereoscope views consist of a pair of images taken by cameras a few feet apart, with the finished photographs mounted side-by-side on a rectangular cardboard.  Inserted in the adjustable rack of the stereoscope, when the pair of images are viewed through the lenses of the stereoscope, the two photographs merge into a 3-dimensional image.  In a world before television, movies and computers, stereoscopes provided both entertainment and the opportunity to view distant places.

Isaac studied the various types of cameras available, of which there were several, and just as today, the prices varied widely.  Although these cameras were expensive, in comparison to the amounts Isaac had spent on his library, a camera seemed affordable.  However, having sold his business, he may no longer have been in the position to purchase such luxuries, and it is uncertain whether Isaac bought his own camera.

A journal entry during the summer of 1890, two decades after the first entries about photography, it became obvious that Isaac's interest had not disappeared, for he wrote:  "...very anxious to have a series of Negatives taken of my home from several points of view."  The following day he added, "I walked over place with small mirror selecting point of views to photo, some time, making some 30 different interesting views I would like to have taken."

As if fate had heard Isaac's wishes, only four days later at a political rally in Pratt Center, Isaac met Seth Blake, a farmer with an amateur photo outfit.  Blake lived only 7 miles south of Isaac, and they struck up a friendship.  In the following months, Isaac accompanied Blake to several political rallies to photograph the events, and Blake began coming to Isaac's farm to photograph his neighbors, using  Isaac's picturesque farm setting as a back drop.

Among the neighbors Isaac recorded as having been photographed at his farm were the William Campbell family, Fracks, Frank Curtis team and women, William Blanch family, Graff and Penrose in buggy, Carr team and wagon, Sadie and children, Mrs. Henn and family, Miss Anna Carr and Miss Balser, Mrs. Ross, McHenry team, and numerous other photographs of boys on horses and groups that were not specifically identified.  The hard times had reduced the farms of many neighbors to abject poverty, and I suspect there are many photographs in family albums with Isaac's prosperous farm and beautiful tree groves in the background, assumed by descendants to be their ancestors' farms.  I have yet to locate any photographs of such family groups, nor the historically valuable images of political rallies and parades that Blake and Isaac took.  Neither have I found the photographs of Isaac's farm, his 3-horse cultivator, nor the co-operative potato patch, all of which are mentioned in his journal.

The cameras of that time were cumbersome and heavy; yet, Isaac describes in his journal the day he climbed into the top of his big cottonwood tree with one of Blake's cameras in an attempt to photograph an elevated view of his farm.  Imagine Isaac, at the age of forty-five, perched high in a cottonwood tree!  He concluded that the wind in the tree caused too much swaying to get a good image, and he climbed down without getting his photograph.

I remain hopeful that some of these photographs still exist for me to find.  Seth Blake did not develop his own dry plate negatives, which were developed by a studio in Pratt (probably Logan's) and by Miss Shira in St. John, so some of Isaac and Blake's photographs may appear on mounting cardboard bearing the logo or address of these or other studios.

I also know that Isaac sat for two different studio portraits of himself in 1890 and 1891, taken at Logan and Shira's studios.  He recorded having sent studio portraits to his siblings, as well as some photographs of his farm, but if they still exist, I have not located them.

I have made the most surprising discoveries in doing research for the book, so I continue to hope that I may yet find one of Isaac's photographs!

Isaac's Farm Implements

Our visit to the Homestead National Monument near Beatrice, Nebraska, allowed me to see some of the implements Isaac may have used, particularly those he used in the early years after his arrival in 1878 before he had a horse.  A walking cultivator is displayed at the Palmer-Epard Cabin which was moved from a nearby homestead.  The homes in Stafford County, Kansas, were not so grand, for there were no trees for wood and little adequate clay for bricks or chinking between timbers, so they made their early homes from sod.

Because the original settler had cleared the land for crops, when the National Park Service acquired the land on which the first homestead had been claimed under the Homestead Act, they had to recreate the vegetation of the original prairie.  Isaac probably did not find the same grasses on his prairie homestead in Kansas, the tall grasses less prevalent further south.  Even so, imagine trying to break the sod without a horse or oxen to help.  To maintain the healthy prairie environment, the Rangers burn one-third of the park acreage each year, emulating Nature's prairie fires.

Among the implements on exhibit is a hand cultivator with a plow blade, rather than the forked tongs in the picture at the top of this post.  When Isaac traded his own labor in order to have a neighbor break sod for him with their horses, mules or oxen pulling the plow, even the turned sod with ancient roots imbedded in the soil would have been extremely difficult for Isaac to cultivate by hand.  Yet, hand tools were all that Isaac and many settlers had available to use without horses of their own. 

Once the ground was prepared for planting, these farmers who were dependent on their own manual labor, like Isaac, used hand planters, the one pictured being a hand corn planter.  Isaac's journal is filled with detailed records of his experiments regarding how many kernels to plant in each hill, the best date for planting, how far apart to make the hills, the spacing for rows, and the importance of making straight rows to facilitate cultivation of the growing corn.

Not all of the corn was planted in plowed soil.  In the early years, Isaac and many others planted "sod corn," planting hills in the midst of the prairie grasses.  The yield was not particularly good, but they managed to raise enough to supply their own needs.  Today's combines not only cut the stalks but also separate the ears from the stalks and the kernals from the cobs.  Isaac did that by hand, making use of the stalks for fodder or using the dried stalks for fuel in his stove, along with twisted husks and the cobs, once the corn was removed.



These photographs offer some understanding of the hard, physical labor required to create farms on unbroken land, the stubborn grass roots resisting the plow.  Only 40% of the settlers staking their claims endured the hardships and labor required to prove up their land and receive a patent from the government.  It is easy to understand why so many did not survive the difficult task, some giving up their lives in trying, others just giving up.



http://www.nps.gov/home/planyourvisit/150th-anniversary-of-the-homestead-act.htm

Plum Harvest

Today's post is about harvesting things long awaited.  First, after more than two years of research and more than a year of writing and re-writing, I am polishing my manuscript in preparation to begin marketing.  Seeing the pages in a neat stack feels like quite a harvest to me!

Second, I have posted about canning plum jelly and have shared photographs of the blooming plum bushes, but for those of you who have never seen a sand hill plum, I have supplied only my verbal description of the plums.  Every year, like Isaac, I await the sand hill plums, hoping that there were no late spring frosts to harm the blossoms and that rains came at the right times so that the bushes will be loaded with plums in summer.  Those of you who follow my blog know that a late frost and too little rain left the plum bushes nearly empty last summer.  You also know that I have hoarded one last jar of the 2010 jelly, refusing to be completely without.  Now I can open that jar.

Hurray!  The 2012 plum crop is here, and the bushes are loaded.  Most are still too green to pick, but this morning I went out with my pail and my camera to pick and photograph the early ripened plums.  I will gather more in coming days before I set aside a day for making jelly, but the first day of harvesting the plums is deserving of celebration.

I believe they are early this year, and I know they are earlier than Isaac picked his plums.  I found one incredible thicket on which the plums are remarkably large.  Perhaps there were plums like these in Isaac's day that gave him so much pleasure eating them right off the bush, but I don't remember ever seeing plums so large.

Although my manuscript is nearly complete after many drafts and much editing, I will continue to post stories about Isaac and his community on my blog.  For those of you on facebook, you may visit my Lynda Beck Fenwick page to follow my progress in seeing Isaac's story published.  Just enter Lynda Beck Fenwick in the search window at the top of your facebook page to visit.

Things long awaited are especially enjoyed, and although finishing the manuscript is only a milestone and not the final goal, thank you for supporting me along the way so far.

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'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!