Writer of the Prairie

Red Cloud, Nebraska

"Black Hawk, the new world to which we had come to live, was a clean, well-planned little prairie town, with white fences and good green yards, about the dwellings, wide dusty streets, and shapely little trees growing along the wooden sidewalks.  In the centre of the town there were two rows of new brick 'store' buildings, a brick school-house, the court-house, and four white churches.  Our own house looked down over the town, and from our upstairs windows we could see the winding line of the river bluffs, two miles south of us."  Taken from "My Antonia" 

 

For Willa Cather fans like me, a visit to Red Cloud, Nebraska, is like a literary Disneyland.  Cather's fictional town of Black Hawk is a stand-in for Red Cloud, for Cather's novels often involve the use of her hometown and the people she knew there.

 

Red Cloud Opera House

Many of you may remember reading My Antonia in high school.  If you haven't read it, perhaps you should.  If you have, you might consider reading it again.  Just as I often tell Kansas children that they should read L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz, I believe those of us who love the prairie should read Willa Cather, and My Antonia is a good place to start.

 

If you live close enough, you may want to include a visit to Red Cloud as part of your Cather experience.  There you can see on the west side of the main street, which is Webster Street, the "new brick store buildings" described by Cather in the paragraph that opened this blog.  In the middle of the row is the Red Cloud Opera House, circa 1885, where Cather attended performances.  The Cather Foundation offices, gallery, bookstore, and auditorium now occupy this wonderful space, with exciting plans underway to expand the facilities.

 

Silas Garber's bank
 

 

During your visit you could go inside the Harling (Miner) House, circa 1878, to see the tiny room where the "hired girl" after whom Cather fashioned the character of Antonia slept.  You could drive out into the country to visit the Pavelka Farm where the "real Antonia" lived with her husband and where they raised the family of children described by the fictional Jim Burden when he visited Antonia as an adult.

 

 

You could also see the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank built by Silas Garber, which houses a museum with other memorabilia connected to Antonia.  Garber was the founder of Red Cloud and the 4th governor of Nebraska.  What is significant to Cather fans like me, however, is that Silas and his wife were the prototypes for Captain and Mrs. Forrester in another Cather novel, The Lost Lady.  When I visit Red Cloud, fiction always trumps reality!

 

Red Cloud Train Depot

 

My favorite of Cather's novels is O Pioneers! about a woman who takes over the family farm after her father's death.  Cather writes often about the immigrants who claimed homesteads on the Nebraska high prairie, and many of them arrived by train.  Alexandra Bergson is the Swedish heroine of O Pioneers! with whose love for the family farm I identify.  "She had never known before how much the country meant to her.  The chirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the sweetest music.  She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun." Many Swedish immigrants, as well as those from other countries, arrived by train, and when she was a child, Cather enjoyed being at the depot.  During your visit to Red Cloud, you could see the original 2-story building that existed in Cather's day.

Willa Cather's childhood home

 

When young Jim Burden describes the view from the upstairs window in the above quote, Willa Cather was surely thinking of the view from her rented childhood home.  Visitors can now tour her old home, furnished as it would have been when Cather lived there.  The Cather Foundation has recently acquired the home Cather's parents bought in 1903, where Cather spent summers when she came to stay with her family.  It is now possible to stay in the home her parents bought when you visit Red Cloud.

 

There are many other Cather sights to see in Red Cloud and the surrounding countryside.  We visited the grave of her cousin, upon whom her Pulitzer-winning novel, One of Ours, is based.  Cather was the first woman to receive that award.

 

If tackling one of her novels seems a little intimidating, I highly recommend her short stories.  Among my favorites are "The Sculptor's Funeral," "Old Mrs. Harris," "A Wagner Matinee," and "Coming, Aphrodite!"  Cather's writing shares in common with another favorite of mine, Harper Lee, the richness of writing about people and places they knew.  What both women write will stay with you, because when you finish their books you feel like you have come to know their characters and have been present in the places described in their books.  Theirs are book to slow down and savor.

 

Consider going to the library to check out a Cather book, or going online where many of her novels and short stories can be downloaded.  If you find a favorite, or already have one, please leave a comment recommending your favorites to other visitors to this blog.  I hope that at least some of you will join Cather's many fans, including international readers, and soon you will be among those who love to debate which book or short story is her best!

 

For more information, visit www.willacather.org.  

How Investors Created Pratt

Lyn in Pratt County Museum lobby near books for sale

Pratt County lay alongside the south boundary of Isaac's homestead, and its earliest towns were Iuka and Saratoga, both of which Isaac visited.  Iuka was established in 1878, the year Isaac came to Kansas, and although Saratoga was not incorporated until 1884, the settlement existed earlier.  Pratt Center was also incorporated in 1884; however, the method of its creation differed from the earlier towns.  Rather than evolving naturally from a cluster of settlers at its core, Pratt Center was formed by a syndicate.  In fact, the early town site was mockingly called "Dog Town," because the only genuine residents were the prairie dogs.

 

Briefly, Kansas required all counties to set aside land to be used for schools as the population grew and families with children settled the area.  Frequently, however, families preferred to donate an acre from their own homesteads for building a school nearer their homes.  With these small one-room schools dotting the countryside, one or two in each township, the land reserved for schools was often unusued.  Predictably, settlers chose to run the risk of treating these lands as homesteads, planning to make an official claim when the land was released from the school set aside requirements.  It was just such land that became involved in a legal scandal when Pratt Center was formed.  Leaving the details of that legal dispute for a later post, or to read in my book, for now it is enough to say that Saratoga settlers alleged a fraudulent conspiracy to get their lands, while Pratt investors claimed they had utilized proper legal actions available to businessmen to develop their town.  Ultimately the pre-emptive settlers lost their farms and the businessmen created a town.

 

Having entered the battle for the county seat late, Pratt Center nevertheless gained the prize in 1888.  Many Iuka businesses and residents chose to move into Pratt Center, and the remaining Iuka businesses focused on services for surrounding farmers, becoming a center for marketing and shipping grain.  Saratoga, however, disappeared, having lost its post office in 1895, and so many businesses and residences having been literally moved into Pratt Center by 1900 that few landmarks of the town that Isaac had known remained.  



The North School Building with its basement

 

Part of the problem was the close proximity of Pratt Center and Saratoga, so close that Isaac seemed to use the two names interchangeably in his journal.  After getting the patents to his homestead and timber claim, Isaac's friend Doc Dix decided to move into town to resume his medical practice, and Isaac referred to the location of Doc's new residence by both names.  In December of 1887, Isaac helped the Dix family move, and when he finished helping his friends, he went over to Pratt Center to ride the new street cars which had been operating for only two weeks.  However, there is an old photograph showing the house of Dr. Dix in Pratt.  These and other clues make it seem likely that Dr. Dix did move his family to Saratoga but participated in the subsequent exodus to Pratt Center.

 

Pratt Center thrived.  In his journal entry of April 27, 1887, Isaac wrote:  "Pratt Center laboring under a new boom, outfit at grading Rock Island R. R.  W. of road at town water tank, lots of new buildings going up all round along main street digging out foundations for several brick business blocks." 

 

Many of Isaac's trips to Pratt Center were to Blaine Bros. Implement Dealers.  He bought implements from them and they carried his notes given in partial payment.  When Isaac invented a 3-horse cultivator, he turned to them for advice about patenting his invention.  The 1993 publication by the Pratt County Historical Society, a re-publication of a 1911 book published by the Pratt Commercial Club, contains a picture (at left) of the distinguished D. W. Blaine, who was then engaged in the automobile business.  In 1888, with a population of 3,000, Pratt Center had twenty brick buildings; a city waterworks, electric lights, and a street railway; five churches (Methodist, Christian, Presbyterian, African, and Catholic); four banks, three newspapers, and a 3-story school that included a high school.  The long list of businessmen included proprietors of about every business that could be imagined for a bustling prairie town. 



Lyn beginning the museum tour

The name Pratt Center had been adopted during the county seat battle to refute Iuka's claim that it was the best choice because of its central location.  (A change in the county's boundaries impacted Iuka's claim and allowed Pratt Center to assert its own location advantage, although neither town was actually the geological center of the county.)  After winning the county seat battle, Pratt Center no longer needed to assert the distinction of occupying the center of the county, and "Center" was dropped from the town's name in 1893 after a newspaper poll indicated that citizens favored the simpler name of Pratt.

 

Visit the Pratt County Historical Society Museum online at http://prattcountymuseum.org or at its location at 208 S. Ninnescah, Pratt, Kansas, to enjoy their wonderful displays or do research from their collection.

 

Remember, you can enlarge the images in this blog by clicking on them.

 

  

 

 



Isaac's Giant Melon

Garden planted in the old chicken house foundation

When Isaac arrived on the Kansas prairie in 1878 and staked his timber claim and homestead, he did not own a horse.  It was 1886 before he bought his mare Dolly, and without a horse to pull a plow, he was limited in his ability to break sod.  For that reason, he focused upon planting and tending trees on his timber claim.  To meet the requirements for a homesteader, he resided on that claim, first living in two different dugouts before building a wooden house.  His farming consisted primarily of planting sod corn and tending his garden plot to raise his own food.

 

Over the course of keeping his journal, Isaac mentioned several things that he raised--tomatoes, cucumbers, peanuts, black-eyed peas, turnips, radishes, and melons among them.  His August 31, 1884 entry specifically described harvesting a forty-eight pound Cuban Queen watermelon.  As I did with so many references in his journal, I searched for information and at gardenweb.com I found a member comment about a Missouri grower in the late 1800s who had grown Cuban Queen watermelons.

My tidy 2011 garden in early spring

I researched many heirloom plants and animals mentioned by Isaac.  After he acquired horses his primary cash crops were potatoes and corn, and he tested many varieties to determine which grew best in his sandy loam soil.  I attempted to research each of the many varieties that he identified, but I could not find some of them, even after consulting farmers who raise heirloom plants.

 

At local nurseries most plants being sold are hybrid varieties.  Having overcrowded my 2011 garden, I had learned my lesson.  This past spring I was determined to plant no more than five tomato plants.  Unfortunately, something nibbled one plant down to the ground and ate about half of another plant.  It was early in the season, so when my husband went to town I asked him to buy a replacement for the destroyed plant.  Suffering from the same dementia I experience when I enter a plant nursery in the spring, he came home with three plants rather than only one--one to replace the plant nibbled to the roots, one to replace the partially eaten plant (because he didn't believe me when I said I thought it would be all right), and one because the clerk had recommended it so highly.

 

 

Mid-summer the path has disappeared

When I took the new plants to the garden and dug up the roots of the "destroyed" plant, I observed a sprout.  Not one to throw away a plant struggling to survive, I moved it to have a chance at life.  The partially eaten plant was recovering, so instead of my carefully spaced five tomato plants, I had eight crowded plants!

 

Marigolds that had ringed the 2011 garden had left behind seeds, whose descendants I carefully transplanted.  I also noticed tiny seedlings with tomato-like leaves, so I left them to see what they might be.

 

After being away for a long weekend in early June, we returned to find many healthy little tomato plants, especially in the area that I had found difficult to reach in the overcrowded 2011 garden.  Unpicked tomatoes had apparently fallen to the ground and left seeds in the soil.  I transplanted (unsuccessfully) a few of the volunteers to an area too shady for them to thrive and left the rest.  The thick little forest of volunteer tomato plants that I ignored began to sprawl, as the store-bought plants grew in their tall cages, beautiful towers of green.

Sprawling tomato vines escape through the fence

Whether you live in the central region of the United States or not, you know from my blog that this has been the second year of high temperatures and little rain.  Before it got so hot, we got a few tomatoes from three of the eight plants we bought, but I'm sure you can guess where most of our tomatoes were picked--from the ignored, sprawling volunteer plants, of course!

 

They engulfed the green beans, cucumbers, and onions, growing wherever Mother Nature planted them.  They exploded through the fence.  And, they produced tomatoes!

 

Volunteers overtake the herb garden

What do seeds from volunteer hybrid tomatoes produce?  In our case, cherry and Roma tomatoes, probably because in 2011 the large tomatoes did not produce well to leave behind any hidden seeds.  The volunteers seem to be more tolerant of the heat and drought than the fancy hybrids in their cages, some of which produced nothing this year!

 

Tomatoes and marigolds were not our only volunteers.  The zinnas from 2011 overtook the herb garden outside the fence.  Herbs are hardy plants, however, and they refused to give up.  The other thing that spread vigorously was the Bermuda grass, which was determined to fight for space in the jumble of plants intended for herbs.  It was a messy garden in 2012, but it survived the drought.

 

I hope this year's tomatoes hide some seeds beneath their sprawling vines for Mother Nature to tend.  She seems to grow better tomato plants than the nurseries!  However, I must be more hard hearted next spring about which little volunteers I allow to live.  Either that, or I need to clear more garden space in a sunny area!  Maybe then I could grow asparagus and strawberries and melons and...

Before Carrie Nation--Prohibition in Kansas

Frances Willard

Ask most Kansans to name the woman who led the crusade against liquor, and they will think of Carrie Nation and her hatchet; however, prohibition in Kansas has a much longer history.

 

When Isaac Werner was a young druggist in Rossville, Illinois, selling liquor was part of his business, and one of the reasons he chose to sell his business was concern about the changing liquor laws.  By the time he arrived in Kansas in 1878 to claim his homestead, he was sympathetic to the prohibition cause, although he was never an active member of the Prohibition Party.

 

In 1880 Kansas voters (which would have meant men at that time) approved an amendment to the Kansas Constitution prohibiting all manufacture and sale of "intoxicating liquors."  The statewide ban went into effect January 1, 1881, and Kansas laws remained among the strictest in the nation for nearly seven decades, the statewide prohibition lifting only in 1948.  That year the Constitution was amended by authorizing the legislature to regulate, license and tax the manufacturing and sale, as well as the possession and transportation of intoxicating liquor, but open saloons were "forever prohibited."  Gradually, liquor laws were changed to bring Kansas more in line with other states.  

 

Despite the strict early laws of the state of Kansas, exceptions allowing sales of liquor for medicinal purposes and original container laws that permitted sales in the original containers under interstate commerce allowed liquor into the state.  During these years, a letter to the editor of the County Capital asked just how it was possible in a prohibition state for anyone so inclined to go to St. John or Stafford and get drunk!

 

While Isaac was living in Kansas, the Prohibition Party was a significant political influence, and at the center of the movement was the Women's Christian Temperance Union led by its second national president, Frances Willard.  Elected in 1879, she held that post for nineteen years.  At a time when women did not have the vote, WCTU women nevertheless championed prohibition through lobbying, petitioning, marching, preaching, publishing, and educating. 

 

Advertisement from the County Capital

The Prohibition Party created problems for the Populist movement, for among the People's Party were members who both favored prohibition and those who saw no reason to oppose responsibile consumption of liquor.  Whether Populist candidates supported prohibition or ignored the issue, they were bound to offend some portion of their members. 

 

In 1888 a young lady named Blanche Hazelett arrived in St. John and made her home with dentist Dr. McCann and his wife.  She had come as a WCTU prohibition lecturer, and when Isaac heard her speak at a meeting in Livingston one evening, he wrote in his journal that despite her youth, she was by far the best speaker of the evening.  It was not long before Isaac paid a social call at the McCann residence, and he recorded in his journal the "social time in pleasant surroundings."  Miss Hazelett became the Democratic candidate for County Superintendent of Schools, and her political biography during the campaign included the fact that she had served as secretary to Frances Willard.  When she lost the election, she resumed her travels as a prohibition lecturer, and Isaac enjoyed no further social calls on Miss Hazelett.

 

Frances Willard expanded the activities of the WCTU beyond prohibition, advocating for education, better working conditions for laborers, improved sanitation and health regulation, child protection laws, and work relief for the poor.  But foremost among her goals was what she called "Home Protection," which she felt could be best achieved by securing the vote for women above the age of twenty-one.  For those women who found the suffragists too strident and unladylike, home protection offered a socially acceptable way to work for enfranchisement.  With the vote, women believed they could impact laws concerning the issues important to protect their homes and families, including stricter laws to enforce prohibition.

 

Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard died in 1898, but the Women's Christian Temperance Union carries forward its mission to this day.




Membership certificate of Ester (Esther) Hoopes

A friend shared this wonderful family document with me after reading this week's post about the WCTU.  The certificate belonged to her great grandmother, and she added the note that her ancestor was buried wearing her Carrie Nation pin.  Anthony, Kansas, where Esther Hoopes lived, is not far from Medicine Lodge, Kansas, home of Carrie Nation.  Thank you, Helen, for this wonderful addition to my post!     

Confronting the Dalton Gang

One of my problems with history is organizing various historical events in my mind in relation to each other.  When I picture the wealthy women of the Gilded Age arriving for a party at one of the mansions along 5th Avenue wearing their long strands of pearls and exotic feathers artfully arranged in their hair, it is hard for me to place them chronologically alongside prairie women raising their children in a dugout.  Yet, they shared the same period in history.  One of the interesting experiences in researching and writing the book about Isaac B. Werner was putting the events of Isaac's time together like pieces of a puzzle.

 

When I told my husband that I was writing this blog about the Dalton Gang, he asked, "Were they robbing banks in Isaac's time?"  The answer is, "Yes, they were."  The County Capital, to which Isaac subscribed, reported the Coffyville bank robbery on the front page of its October 7, 1892 issue.

The days of the notorious outlaws of the American West had nearly ended by the time the Dalton brothers began robbing trains.  However, they were continuing a sort of family tradition, since the Younger brothers who rode with Jesse James had been their first cousins.  Jesse James was known for robbing banks, and it was said that Bob Dalton decided to cement his outlaw reputation by doing something Jesse James never did--robbing two banks at once in broad daylight.



The bodies of the Dalton Gang

Perhaps they chose their hometown for the site of the dual robbery because of its familiarity to them, but whatever the reason, it was a bad idea.  They had hardly entered Coffeyville the morning of October 5, 1892 when they were recognized, despite the false beards they wore.  The gang consisted of Bob, Grat, and Emmett Dalton, and two other outlaws named Dick Broadwell and Bill Power.  Three of them went to the C. M. Condon Bank and two entered the First National Bank on what proved to be the last day of their lives for all but Emmett.

 

Oldest brother Frank Dalton

However, this is not a post about these bank robbers.  Instead, it is a story of two lawmen.  Ironically, the oldest of the Dalton brothers was a Deputy US Marshal who served honorably and was killed when he attempted to arrest a horse thief in the Oklahoma Territory on November 27, 1888.  His brothers chose to follow in their older brother's footsteps, but their service was not so honorable, and they traded their badges for the outlaw life that killed all but one of them.

 

The rest of this story is about Town Marshal Charles T. Connelly, who rushed to defend  his town when the Dalton Gang rode into Coffeyville.  The members of the gang tried to make their get-away, but getting to their horses that were tied in an alley complicated their escape.  Grat did reach the alley, although he was mortally wounded, and when Marshal Connelly ran into the alley from the south end, Grat let him pass and then shot him in the back at close range. 

 

Charles T. Connelly was only 47 years old, but he had lived an admirable life, beginning when he enlisted in the Ninth Indiana at the age of 17 to serve as a Union soldier in the Civil War.  As a civilian after the war, he had been a teacher, and according to an interview his son gave the Kansas City Star, Marshal Connelly had accepted the position of high school principal and would have left his office as town marshal in a matter of days.  His son told the newspaper that his father had served for about five months, agreeing to accept the position during the summer when school was not in session.  He was approached by citizens who wanted more law and order enforced in their town, and he and the citizens thought he was a man who could get that job done quickly.

 

Grave stone of C. T. Connelly

Charles T. Connelly had two children with his first wife, and after her death he married again and had two more children, only one of those two still living when he was killed.  The memoriam in the Coffeyville newspaper said:  "As city marshal he discharged his duty with great courage, and absolute fidelity to the best interests of the city.  He gave his life freely in defense of the lives and property of our citizens and his faithfulness to duty will ever be held in grateful remembrance by the people of Coffeyville."

 

The public schools were dismissed, and students and teachers marched to the depot to met the train bearing his body, and honor guards from the GAR, the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and the Modern Woodmen marched in front of the hearse.  Charles T. Connelly was a respected man whose life was cut short by the famous Dalton Gang, whose name is remembered, while the name of the honorable marshal they shot in the back is largely forgotten.

 

At www.odmp.org/officer/3343-marshal-charles-t-connelly on the Officer Down Memorial page, Marshal Connelly is honored.  (All of the Dalton brothers were killed except Emmett, who was sentenced to life but pardoned after 14 years.  Three men who had ridden with the gang, Newcomb, Pierce, and Doolin, were not part of the Coffeyville robbery, although rumors persisted that Doolin had been there.  The reference on the Officer Down page to a shootout by the Dalton Gang a year later is unclear, as no Dalton could have been a participant. 

 

For an eye-witness account of the attempted bank robberies, you may visit "The Dalton Gang's Last Raid, 1892," at http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com .

 

Visit http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/civilwar/Charles%20T.%20Connelly.htm for the newspaper obituary, interview of his son, and funeral accounts (also the source for the image of Connelly's grave stone). 

 



 

 

 



Chasing Ghosts

"I see dead people."  Of course, that famous movie line is from the 1999 movie, The Sixth Sense.  However, after 2 1/2 years with Isaac and his Stafford County neighbors, I can identify with Cole Sear, the young man from the movie who lived with dead people as real to him as his flesh-and-blood friends and family. 

 

As I finalize my manuscript, I am making an effort to discover details about a few of Isaac's neighbors, and this week, I experienced the historian's idea of hitting the jackpot!

 

G. G. John is first mentioned in Isaac's journal when Isaac went in search of fertile eggs to use in the incubator he designed and built.  What he found at G. G. John's place instead were hens and chicks, saving him the trouble of hatching his chicks in the incubator.

 

However, my specific interest in G. G. John came from the Probate Records detailing the administration of Isaac's estate.  The last two years of Isaac's life were difficult, ending with Isaac receiving round-the-clock care in the homes of others.  The man who allowed Isaac to spend a few more months in his own home was G. G. John, who checked on Isaac every day, ran necessary errands for him, and built an invalid chair to help him move around his house.  When claims were submitted to the estate, John's claim for five months of attending to his neighbor was ten dollars.  In contrast, the couple who took Isaac into their home later claimed ten dollars a month board, plus $2.50 a day and $2.50 a night for his care!  This was during hard times when one young man was willing to work for thirty-eight cents a day and men in search of work rode the rails and could be arrested as tramps in many cities for simply having no sign of gainful employment.

 

I wanted to know more about the man who asked so little for helping a sick neighbor (in contrast to other neighbors who took advantage of an opportunity to cash in on Isaac's care!)



My first clue about G. G. John came from an undated newspaper clipping in my great aunt's scrapbook with the headline:  "Byers Author Is Remembered / Leaves Own Books in Farm Mansion."  A reviewer of the book was quoted in the article as calling John's book, Whose Son is This?, "socialistic is theme, but scintillatingly brilliant."  His home was described in the article as having 13 rooms, with a large library, an elevated music room, a large cold storage room off the kitchen, and two separate wings, each with its own staircase.  That would have been quite a country home for those times--in fact, for today!

Searching for a man who used initials (without knowing the names for which those initials stood) is challenging, and his last name of John created its own problems.  Search engines insisted upon adding an "s" to the end, or putting "St." at the beginning.  Even knowing the state where he was born and his approximate birth date had not allowed me to find him on ancestry.com. 

 

Then, a friend told me about an 87-year-old man living in St. John who might be related somehow.  Crossing my fingers, I made a phone call.  Jackpot!  I spent a delightful couple of hours talking with Milton John about his Great Uncle George.  He shared wih me that George's parents had named all of their sons with double initials--O. O., E. E., and M. M.  Using G. G.'s newly confirmed given name and the names of his brothers, my search on ancestry.com succeeded, and I learned that George's father had an even more unusual pair of names.  His name was John John, a blacksmith and farmer born in 1831 in Virginia.

 

A few hours later I received an e-mail from Milton's sister sharing the birth, marriage, and death dates of George Griffith John!  I wrapped up my research with a trip to the court house deed records to confirm that G. G. lived on the land just to the west of Isaac's timber claim, making an easy walk for him to reach Isaac's house on his daily visits.

 

Neither his niece nor his nephew had a picture of G. G., nor of his Southern-style mansion embraced in porches.  Regardless, I can picture that house in my imagination, with a distinguished gentleman standing on the porch, holding a book.  How happy the kind, book-loving neighbor must have made Isaac each day when he visited those last five months Isaac lived in his own home.

So now you are wondering why I posted the picture of a group of men standing on the steps of the Stafford County Court House, aren't you?  Could one of those men be George Griffith John?  We can only guess...(unless someone out there discovers the real thing!  And, while you are looking for his picture, see if you can find a copy of one of  the books he wrote!!)

Writer's Angst

Books whose titles were in Isaac's Library

Most days the craft of writing is incredibly satisfying, but one night I experienced a serious bout of writer's angst, lying in bed awake, with thoughts jabbing at me.  I announced with satisfaction several weeks ago that my manuscript was finished, but I continued to tighten and polish it, each edit making it better.

 

 

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.  Henry David Thoreau 

 

 

I have been living with Isaac for about two and a half years.  The transcribing of his journal was a sort of courtship.  The research was a matter of meeting his friends and family, getting acquainted with his neighborhood, and familiarizing myself with the books, ideas, and goals that were important in his life.  There was no point in considering an engagement to Isaac until I had done these things.

 

 

Next to doing things that deserve to be written, nothing gets a man more credit, or gives him more pleasure than to write things that deserve to be read.  Lord Chesterfield 

 

 

I knew very quickly after the discovery of Isaac's journal that his was a story that should be told.  However, it was not until I reached the point in his journal when he began to write about farmers organizing to confront their problems politically that I saw the arc to his story.  What had been a struggling homesteader's diary became a history of the populist movement with Isaac at its center.

 

 

Close the door.  Write with no one looking over your shoulder.  Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.  It's the one and only thing you have to offer.  Barbara Kingsolver 

 

 

I begin every day reading aloud what I wrote the previous day before writing anything new.  I edit with a more objective eye and I fall back into the rhythm of my writing, and only then can I start a new writing day.

 

 

An essential element for good writing is a good ear.  One must listen to the sound of one's own prose.  Barbara Tuchman 

 

 



Isaac's journal

There is nothing like reading my work aloud to show me awkward passages or if I am being verbose or dull.  As I told someone once, if it bores you to read it aloud, why would you expect a stranger to find it worth reading?

 

...an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.  Colette 

 

By the time I finish a chapter, I have read it aloud to myself, deleting, rewriting, tweaking it in countless ways many times.  I then put it aside for several weeks to allow me to edit with a more objective eye.

 

Books aren't written, they're rewritten.  Including your own.  It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it...  Michael Crichton 

 

Eventually, all the chapters were written, and the process of polishing and editing the manuscript as a whole began--was the tone consistent, were characters properly introduced when they appeared and identified as they reappeared, were recurring events threaded through the manuscript in such a way that a reader could recognize the sequence as it advanced the story, were there enough clues to orient a reader without being redundant?

 

Every sentence has a truth waiting at the end of it and the writer learns how to know it when he finally gets there.  Don DeLillo

 

I write at the computer, so when I edit, the old version disappears.  After completing a careful rewrite, which I see at that time as the best I can do, I print it.  I use colored paper clips to hold each chapter.  My first saved version of the manuscript was clipped with white paper clips.  My second version used red.  I have now gone through blue, green, pink and yellow.  The version I announced as finished used the yellow clips, the last color option in my box of paper clips.  The subsequent rewrites were not printed...not because I am out of colors but because I knew when I finished that they were not my last revisions.

 

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.  Thomas Jefferson

 

I have realized that my night of angst was the result of knowing that, while I had been successful at tightening the manuscript, doing what Jefferson advocated, the manuscript was still too long.

 

I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.  Truman Capote 

 

My sleeplessness just may have been the ghost of Truman Capote poking me with scissors.  Writers know to ask themselves, does this advance the story?  If it does not, it must be eliminated, regardless of how interesting or beautifully written it is.  Doing all of the research that I have, I discovered so many interesting things, but taking Truman Capote's advice, I have cut wonderful sections from the manuscript that did not seem necessary to advance the story.  In short, I may miss them, but I don't think an editor will.  Perhaps I will share those deleted stories in future blogs!

My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start.  So far today, I have finished 2 bags of M&M's and a chocolate cake.  I feel better already.  Dave Barry

This time the manuscript really is "finished" and ready to be shown to others.  Isaac is about to make his debut--edited, polished, tweaked and slimmed down to make a good impression.  I'm not sure what color paper clip he will be wearing.





Earthen Prairie Homes

Isaac described the sandy loam soil of his claims as "light blow-sand," a description that would seem to indicate soil incapable of holding together in the rectangles of sod used to build homes or of supporting cave-like dugout walls and roof, yet these structures are well documented in his community.  It was obviously the mat of prairie grasses with their strong, dense roots that held the soil together for use in construction of the rude homes built by settlers.  The sod having been stripped from the soil long ago, we find it hard today to imagine the sturdy earthen structures of our ancestors.

 

 

When Isaac resumed writing in his diary in 1884, he had lived on the Kansas prairie for six years.  By then he had built a wooden house of two stories with a basement room and a cellar for storing his potatoes, grains, and garden produce like melons, turnips, and peanuts.  However, in his early years on the prairie he lived in dugouts.  His journal mentions two different dugouts, abandoned by 1884.

 

 

His wooden house was atypical among his nearest neighbors.  Brothers Will and Felix Goodwin living just to the south of him across the Stafford-Pratt County line lived in a dugout.  Will had a small dugout, and when Felix joined him in 1884, Isaac "staked off Will Goodwin's new residence" and commenced fitting on Will Goodwin's side boards...hanging door, making table..." and finally "set roof on Will Goodwin's new dugout," completing the larger dugout to accomodate both brothers.  In 1885 when Jesse Green's family moved to the claim just to the east of Isaac, they built a soddy, and Isaac went to Larned with Jesse to buy the Iron Board Roofing Paper to finish the soddy's roof.  That same year Isabel Ross staked her claim just east of Isaac's timber claim.  Isaac met with her to discuss building her soddy, but "so much advising and different architecture about, I glad to escape the job."  Tousley became her contractor, but Isaac worked on building her soddy, from top to bottom--staking the dimensions, making the door and window frames, shingling the roof, and digging her well.  George and Nancy Henn lived in a soddy just to the north of Isaac's timber claim, and Persis Vosburgh, another single woman whose homestead was just to the west of Isaac's claim, lived in a dugout. 

There were wooden houses in the community, but Isaac's closest neighbors, as well as many other early homesteaders who arrived on the treeless prairie, took advantage of the materials at hand to build their earthen homes. 

The images used in this post are from the collection of Old Stafford County Pictures at the Stafford County Historical and Genealogy Society, available on CD at the museum.

The Santa Fe Trail Center near Larned, Kansas, has recreated both a dugout and a sod house for visitors to experience what living in these prairie homes was like.  Visit the Santa Fe Trail Center on facebook or see http://www.santafetrailcenter.org/. 

Remember to click on the images for larger viewing.

  

Naron--an early settler, a town, and a cemetery

Near Isaac's homestead were two country cemeteries in use in the years before his death.  The nearest one was the Naron Cemetery in Pratt County, about two miles southwest.  The community of Naron took its name from an early settler, and the cluster of buildings included a store, a school, and a church.  In 1914 the town of Byers was founded about half a mile to the south of Naron, and the businesses in the old community literally picked up and moved to the new town.  The old Naron Cemetery continued to be used by the neighborhood, for it sits on a hill about a quarter of a mile northwest of Byers.

My aunt, Wilma Carr Beck, wrote a history of Byers, 1914-1964, in which she describes the celebration day of the new town, using information found in the Pratt Union newspaper.  The death of Naron and its rebirth as the new town of Byers was the result of the decision by the Anthony & Northern Railroad to locate its tracks where they did.  Byers was built along the north side of the tracks and was given the name of the railroad company president, O. P. Byers.  Relying on the promise of the railroad that the tracks would arrive in Byers on October 15, 1914, the town scheduled its celebration for that date.  The tracks did not actually arrive until later, but two political candidates did--the Honorable J. S. Simmons and Senator Jewett Shouse, and the town celebration became a sort of political rally.  There was also a balloon ascension and a barbeque dinner, and the citizens felt that their town was off to a strong start. 

As for the town of Naron that Isaac had known, Byers drew what was left of it like a magnet.  Many houses were moved, but the certain end to Naron was when W. F. Brown moved his store into Byers in March of 1915.  He carried a complete line of dry goods and groceries, and his slogan expressed his disappointment for the demise of Naron, as well as his commitment to Byers.  "We never came here and we don't intend to go away!" the slogan declared.  Using the pen name of 'Old Fisher Brown,' he wrote for the Pratt Union newspaper, and about the time of his commercial move to Byers, he wrote, "Old Naron was almost gone, but not forgotten."  Today, most of the people who remembered the old town of Naron are gone, taking their memories with them.  Even the town of Byers has nearly disappeared but for a few houses and one thriving business.

Isaac did not live to see the founding of Byers, but he certainly knew the settlement of Naron, often mentioning trips to the Naron Store, Farmers' Alliance meetings in the Naron school house, wagons parked around the Naron Church, and funerals held at the Naron Cemetery.  Naron was about a mile and a half south of Isaac's homestead, and the cemetery was about a half mile southwest of the town, so both were an easy trip for Isaac, even before he owned a horse.  Although Isaac chose to be buried in the Neelands Cemetery to the north of his claim, several of his friends and neighbors are buried in the Naron Cemetery, including:  Frank Curtis, whose life Isaac may have saved when he was only a teenager by suggesting changes in the boy's diet after the doctor had told his mother there was no hope; Charles Shattuc, who farmed some of Isaac's land as Isaac's health began to decline; William F. Brown, with whom Isaac shared an interest in books and ancient history, as well as progressive politics; Gus Gereke, who was a nearby neighbor and someone who joined with Isaac and others in planting a cooperative field of potatoes; and neighbors James Lattimore and Wesley Logan, whom Isaac hired to harvest a crop.  A visit to the Naron Cemetery cannot help but evoke sadness to see the several gravestones of infants and young children of Isaac's friends, their lives cut short by the hard times Isaac's Journal describes so vividly.


Reminder:  By moving your cursor over the images or clicking on them, you can enlarge the images to view them better.

International Visitors This Week

So disappointed that only one international visitor clicked on the "surprising" box below this week's post.  For the first time, France topped the list as the country with the most visitors this week, followed by Russia.  There were also visitors from Canada, India, Ukraine, China, Denmark, New Zealand and for perhaps the first time, Panama.  I do not check the listing of international visitors every week, so other countries may have been represented as visitors that I failed to see.  I can see the countries from which visitors come, but I cannot see who the persons are, nor can I tell who clicks boxes...so don't worry about privacy issues.  I don't know where my faithful visitors from Germany, the UK, and Japan were this week, but I missed you!   I just wanted to spend one week letting my international visitors know how much I appreciate their visits.  I will be posting a new message later today.

Celebrating America's International Roots

Hola!  Li-ho!  Jum Reap Sour!  Hej!  Salut!  Ciao!  Labdien!  Hallo!  Moi!  Ohayoou!  Hei!  Zdravstvuyte!  Witaj!    

Hello to all the international followers of my blog!  One of the surprises and great pleasures of my blogging has been the number of international followers that read my blog.  That was something I did not anticipate when I began my weekly posts in October of 2011.  The numbers began small and gradually grew.  The week of July 4th, my international visitors exceeded visitors from the USA.  That may have been an exceptional week, but the numbers of foreign guests remain consistently large.

They come from all parts of the world.  Listed alphabetically, they include:  Argentina, Australia, Barbados, Belgium, Cambodia, Canada, China, Columbia, Denmark, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. 

Because the United States is a country of immigrants, perhaps I should not be surprised.  A brief history of our nation's immigration patterns reveals that in the colonial era of 1600 to 1795 the largest number of immigrants were British.  Strictly speaking, these early arrivers were not really immigrants, for in the early years we were still part of the British Empire.  A large number of those arrivals were indentured servants, whose passage was paid in return for their commitment to work as a servant for a certain number of years, typically seven, and of those early settlers, 90% became farmers.  In addition to economic reasons, many came for matters of religion.  My book, Should the Children Pray? includes chapters for each of the original thirteen colonies, describing the religious reasons why many colonists made the dangerous ocean crossing.  Along with the British immigrants, a large number of Dutch settlers located along the Hudson River, with people from Spain settling in Florida, Texas and New Mexico, while the French settled along the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast.

During the period of 1790 to 1849 there was relatively little immigration, but beginning about 1850 a new wave of settlers arrived--Germans who settled primarily in the Midwest, and Italians, Greeks, Humgarians, Poles, others whose language was Slavic, and many Jews--all arriving in significant numbers.  These immigrants tended to fill the need for industrial laborers, and the USA expanded beyond its original agrarian roots to become a world leader in steel, coal, and textiles.

Of course, among the population were the Native Americans, who had made their homes here long before the immigrants arrived, and Africans, who arrived against their will.  The Chinese added to the growing population, as did Scandinavians, who settled primarily in the upper Midwest.  In the late 19th century, settlers from Lebanon and Syria came, many remaining in East Coast cities like New York and Boston.  Unavoidably, this brief summary leaves out other groups who arrived before and during Isaac's years on the prairie and made their own important contributions.

Focusing on the migration of populations in Kansas, it must first be remembered that many Indian tribes were relocated from their native homes in the eastern part of North America to land in Kansas.  In 1854 certain Kansas territory was opened to white settlement, but the population shift really began after the Civil War (1861-1865) and increased with the passage of the Homestead Act of 1862.  That settlement era included Black Americans seeking new homes after the Civil War.

Many of the Kansas homesteaders migrated from other states, their parents and other ancestors having immigrated earlier.  The largest international group coming to Kansas were German speaking, some coming from Germany and others from the Volga region in Russia.  There were also many Swedish immigrants, who arrived because of famine in their old country.  Mexican workers came along with the railroads and large agricultural operations, such as sugar beet production.

George & Theresa Hall with Maria & baby Lillian

Most of the homesteaders in Isaac's community relocated from other states, many from Pennsylvania (Isaac's childhood home), as well as a great many from Midwestern states.  However, there were also those who had not been born in the USA.  Among them were two of Isaac's close neighbors--George Henn and Gustave Gereke, both of whom came from Germany.  Surprisingly, the owner-editor of the County Capital newspaper in St. John, John Hilmes, came from Germany in 1872 and had acquired the proficiency with English to publish the weekly newspaper.  Of particular interest to me are my own great grandparents, George & Theresa Hall, who were close friends of Isaac.  They came from England in 1882, settling in Ohio for a few years before arriving in Kansas.  The baby on her mother's lap is my grandmother Lillian.  The picture was taken shortly before they left England for America.

Immigration to America continues.  In 2010 the countries from which the largest numbers of legal permanent residents came were Mexico, China, India, the Philippines and the Dominican Republic.  During the decade of 1990 to 2000, Kansas ranked 14th among all the states in the percentage of change in its foreign-born population, with a 114.4% increase.  The state with the greatest percentage change was North Carolina with a 273.7% increase.  The state with the least change was Maine with 1.1%

So, here is a tip of my hat to all of my international visitors.  I hope you continue to visit my blog and that you invite others to visit as well.  I thank all of you for the rich contributions your countrymen who have immigrated to the United States of America over the years have made to our national culture. 

To my international visitors, I invite you to "click" on the middle box below labeled surprising if you see your national flag on the map at the beginning of this week's post.  I had fun finding the flags for all the countries to glue on the map.  To my USA visitors, I hope you will open the comment box to leave a message stating the country of origin of your first ancestor who came to America.





Drought Link

The Blog Fodder, an early follower of my blog, has sent this link showing annual drought patterns in the USA back to 1896! Those of you engaged in agriculture will enjoy viewing drought conditions during important years of your families' histories. Thank you to Blog Fodder for this link and the many informative comments he has left to past posts!
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/07/20/us/drought-footprint.html?ref+earth

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