If Isaac Could Only Imagine



Isaac's arm stabilizer



The margins of Isaac's journal contain many sketches of his ideas for improving or inventing machines.  As a young druggist he designed and built an apparatus to stabilize a man's sore elbow enough to allow it to heal.  As a farmer in Kansas he designed and built a 3-horse cultivator, the first of its kind, for which he sought a patent.  He rarely bought a piece of equipment without modifying it in some way to improve its performance.  With his inventive mind, how he would have loved to attend the exhibition we know as The Chicago World's Fair!

 

The proper name was the World's Fair:  Columbian Exposition, organized to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the New World.  When it opened to the public on May 1, 1893, it covered 600 acres, with about 200 buildings and pavilions containing exhibits from around the world.  Isaac would have loved all of it, but the single thing that might have impressed him the most was the amazing invention of George Ferris.

 

George Ferris

Born on Valentine's Day 1859 in Galesburg, IL, Ferris attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, and earned a degree in civil engineering.  By the late 1880s he had opened G.W.G. Ferris & Co. in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with their principle business being building tunnels and rail lines.

 

Although Ferris made a good living from what he was doing, he was ambitious, and the construction of the Eiffel Tower for the Paris Exhibition of 1889 inspired him to consider what he might build that would exceed the famous Paris landmark.  He imagined an observation wheel, and when plans were announced for the Chicago World's Fair, he believed he had found the perfect venue for his invention.

 

Unfortunately, when he presented his idea to the committee in charge of accepting or rejecting entries to the Fair, some regarded it as impossible to build, some saw it as too dangerous for riders, and some even called him a "crackpot."  Ferris enlisted endorsements from other engineers, and the committee changed its mind and accepted the concept of George Ferris for a giant observation wheel.  Their delayed approval resulted in the Ferris Wheel being incomplete when the fair opened, but when it was finished and open to customers, people lined up in great numbers to ride the new invention.  In fact, ticket sales for the Ferris Wheel are credited with keeping the fair from indebtedness.

 

The Ferris Wheel at the Chicago Fair

Imagine a bicycle wheel with the axle of the wheel set on two steel pyramids, with the wheel spokes consisting of heavy steel beams.  Now, consider the engineering genius of the construction.  The axle was the largest piece of steel that had ever been forged in the United States, weighing 46 1/2 tons!  The wheel itself was 264 feet high, and the towers supporting the wheel were 140 feet high.  There were 36 passenger cars outfitted to impress Victorian tastes and capable of carrying 40 seated passengers or 60 standing.  Two 1,000 horsepower steam engines turned the wheel, and a huge air brake stopped it.  George Ferris had indeed created a marvel to equal or exceed the Eiffel Tower!

 

Sadly, the Chicago World's Fair was only a temporary site, and the location to which the Wheel was moved was not successful.  In addition, when others attempted to use Ferris's ideas, he became involved in many patent infringement lawsuits.  He gained his fame but died in 1896 at the young age of thirty-seven.

 

The above image of the Ferris Wheel was taken from a wonderful book of photographs of the Chicago World's Fair published in 1893 that is now part of the archives of the Stafford County Historical Museum.  In the background of the photograph may be seen some of the buildings said to have inspired L. Frank Baum in his depiction of the Emerald City.  If you happen to be in Stafford, KS, on a weekday, stop by and ask Director Michael Hathaway to see the wonderful book of photographs from the Chicago World's Fair.  

 

Today there are taller Ferris Wheels in the world.  The London Eye towers 400 feet above the River Thames, dominating a fairly flat city and altering the lovely, traditional skyline.  The tallest Ferris Wheel, however, is the Singapore Flyer, that pierces the sky at 541 feet!



Isaac and the Sunflowers--Part 2

Roadside Kansas Sunflower

 

Having shared the information about commercially grown sunflowers and their history in last week's blog, I must admit the fact that most farmers, like Isaac, regard the common sunflower as a weed.  Although the sunflower is the state flower of Kansas, and visitors admire the golden blossoms growing along roadsides, the plants are a nuisance in corn, wheat, and soybean fields, having the potential to reduce crop yields.

 

Since its introduction to the Old World, the popularity of the sunflower has spread.  Germans make a popular bread called Sonnenblumenkernbrot (literally, sunflower whole seed bread) by combining the seeds with rye flour.  During the 18th century the popularity of sunflower oil expanded in Russia because it was one of the few oils allowed by the Russian Orthodox Church during Lent.  Using data compiled by Monfreda, C.N. Ramankutty, and J.A. Foley from 2000 production figures, the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment compiled the map below showing how far the production of sunflowers has spread across the world, far beyond its native American roots.  Indicative of its popularity and importance, the sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine.

 

The sunflower is a popular symbol.  In the late 1800s, during Isaac's lifetime, the sunflower was used as the symbol of the Aesthetic Movement.  Artists and writers of the Aesthetic style believed that art should be appreciated for itself, without any association with morality, sentimentality, or usefulness.  The purpose of art was beauty, not utility.  Perhaps the best known among its practitioners are Oscar Wilde, A.C. Swinburne, James McNeill Whistler, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  When Oscar Wilde made his American tour during Isaac's lifetime, he was often lampooned by cartoonists who drew Wilde wearing a sunflower as a boutonniere or carry a sunflower as a bouquet.

 

The flower is also a common symbol for green ideology, as well as for the Vegan Society.  It was chosen as the symbol of the Spiritualist Church because "Spiritualism turns toward the light of truth" and the sunflower turns toward the sun.  Spiritualism has its origins in the mid-1800s and while the societies and churches vary in their practices and beliefs, in general they are described as believing that when humans die it is the physical life that ends, but the personality or mind survives on a spirit plane.  Mediumship is the method through which spiritualists seek to reach these spirits.  As for their choice of the sunflower as their symbol because it follows the sun, science offers a less spiritual explanation.

Worldwide sunflower production



 

 



 

Scientists have concluded that the alignment of sunflowers is the result of heliotropism, and their movement is a circadian rhythm, synchronized by the sun.  Tests have shown that turning the sunflower 180 degrees will cause it to turn away from the sun until resynchronization by the sun over the period of a few days realigns the movement.  Whether one accepts the Spiritual or the Scientific explanation, seeing a large field of sunflowers identically aligned to face the sun is an awesome sight. 

 

One summer we had three urban, non-farming couples visiting our farm, and we hosted a supper on the lawn, inviting several of our farming neighbors.  As I worked that afternoon getting things ready for the meal, my city guests asked if I had containers they could use for wild flower bouquets for the table.  I gathered some interesting antique containers to use as vases, and they went in search of wild flowers.  That evening the tables looked lovely with the old dishes and tins holding the charmingly arranged flowers.  As the meal concluded and we lingered around the long table to visit, one of the farmers leaned back in his chair and studied the floral arrangements.  "You know, those weeds are kinda pretty," he said.

 

I cannot help but wonder if one evening after chopping sandburs and sunflowers with his hoe in the hot prairie sun all afternoon, Isaac didn't reach down and pick up a few of the slaughtered blossoms to take back to his house and put in a vase to decorate his kitchen table that evening.

Isaac & the Sunflowers--Part 1

Isaac loved the beauty of wild flowers spreading color across the prairie each spring.  He loved the fragrance of the catalpa blossoms and looked forward to the blooming sand hill plums.  (See blog archives for "Isaac's Catalpa Trees," May 30, 2012, and "Sandhill Plums," March 1, 2012.)  As for sunflowers, however, his feelings were directed toward their tendency to rob soil moisture from his crops, and he devoted his time to hoeing and plowing them rather than admiring their beauty. 

 

Sunflowers are native to the Americas and were used by many indigenous people long before Europeans arrived.  Not only were the flowers planted in their gardens, along with the traditional corn, beans, and squash, but sunflowers also served as the symbol for their solar deity.  The early Spanish explorers found sunflowers growing in the New World and took the seeds back to Europe.

 

Among the countless newspaper clippings saved by my mother-in-law (mostly weddings, births, and obituaries) were two news stories from 1977 about Kansas farmers experimenting with commercial fields of sunflowers.  The Kansas Farm Bureau News reported that Pratt County farmer, Verlin Killingsworth had tried his first field, hoping for 3,000 pounds per acre, anticipating 2,500, and actually harvesting between 900 and 950.  The crop suffered hail and head moth, but Killingsworth was "disappointed with the yield but not discouraged."  Under the headline, "Farmers hope state flower will turn into moneymaker," the Hutchinson News reported that farmers were turning to sunflowers because of "low wheat prices and a dry year."  The article quoted Professor Stegmeyer of Fort Hays State University as saying "about 50 percent of the sunflower crop grown in the United States is exported to Europe."  Nearly four decades later, the Kansas State University Research & Extension website reports that there are currently about 250,000 acres of commercial sunflowers grown in Kansas.

 

Today, commercial sunflowers are grown across the plains, from North Dakota and Minnesota to Texas, but they are also grown in Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, according to the Texas A&M University Research & Extension Center.  The seeds are marketed for human snacks and bird seed, and planted by hunters to provide a food plot for wild birds.  A high quality vegetable oil can be extracted, and the resulting meal can be utilized as a protein source in livestock feed.  Even the fibrous stems can be used in paper production.  Many of today's sunflowers are hybrid varieties, and yields on dryland fields range between 1000 to 1400 pounds per acre, increasing about 50% in irrigated fields.

 

Florets in the head of a Sunflower

 

By now you may be wondering why I used the mesmerizing graphic at the beginning of this blog.  The answer is that it illustrates the pattern of florets in the head of a sunflower.  What we call the flower is actually a "flower head," also called a "composite flower."  The circular head contains hundreds of the disc florets that mature into seeds, and these florets are always arranged in a spiral pattern.  The mathematical model for this pattern was proposed by H. Vogel in 1979 and the illustration is a computer graphic of his formula.  The spiral pattern can also be clearly seen in the close-up photograph of the sunflower at the left.

 

Isaac and the Sunflowers--Part 2 to be continued next week...

How Far is Gettysburg?

Monument at Gettysburg Cemetery

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is less than one hundred miles from Isaac's hometown of Wernersville, Pennsylvania, the village founded by William Werner, Isaac's father.  (To read more about Isaac's hometown and childhood, go to the blog archives to read "Visit to Wernersville, Feb. 16, 2012; Isaac's Birth & Childhood, Nov. 4, 2011; Isaac's Childhood Church, Feb. 23, 2012.)  Today the distance can be driven in well under two hours, but at the time of the American Civil War, when Isaac and his twin brother Henry were still in their teens, the trip through rugged country would have taken much longer. 

 

Pennsylvania was a Union state, and during the Civil War the commonwealth raised over 360,000 soldiers for the Federal armies, more than any other state except New York, although other states sent a larger proportion of their populations.  Thaddeus Stevens, the senator who played such a pivotal role in the recent movie, "Lincoln," was from Pennsylvania, as were several well-known generals.

 

The map shows the division of states during the Civil War, the Union states indicated in dark blue, the Union states that permitted slavery (so-called 'Border States') in light blue, and the Confederate states in red.  Territories at the time of the War are shown in white.  Yet, lines drawn on a map do not always tell the entire story.  Sympathies of individuals did not always align with those of the states in which they lived, and Pennsylvania was no different from other states in that regard.  In addition, there were many who preferred to avoid military service entirely, if that could be managed.

The exhibit that greets visitors as they enter the Gettysburg Museum lists all the states and the numbers of soldiers that fought from each state.  Each state lists both Union and Confederate soldiers, and it surprises most visitors that large numbers of men and boys chose to disregard the state alignments to serve, instead, the side with whom they agreed.

 

In 1861, when Isaac and his brother Henry were 17-year-old school boys in Wernersville, PA, their teacher was a man named Francis Trout Hoover.  Almost three and a half decades later, their old teacher published a book titled, Enemies in the Rear:  Or, a Golden Circle Squared.  A Story of Southeastern Pennsylvania in the Time of Our Civil War.  This book is a fictionalized account of the division of loyalties among citizens in the fictional village of Haltfest, located in Berks County, PA; however, most believe that Haltfest is a pseudonym for Wernersville.  By the time the book was published, F. T. Hoover lived in Rushville, NY and Isaac was deceased and could not have read his former teacher's book.
 

Statue at the Gettysburg Visitors' Center

In the Preface, F. T. Hoover began his story about draft dodgers and active Southern sympathizers with these words:  "To square the circle, that is, to determine its exact contents in square measure, has generally been held to be impossible; but, as herein appears, the national government solved the famous problem perfectly, at least so far as it related to the Golden Circle of Knights in southeastern Pennsylvania.  And the solution showed the exact contents of this particular Circle to be an admixture, in about equal parts, of ignorance, hypocrisy and treason." 

 

As can be deduced from that beginning, F. T. Hoover did not treat his old village and its citizens in a complimentary way in his book.  People still living at the time of the book's publication, who were personally familiar with the events of their community during the Civil War, recognized specific characters, despite their fictitious names.  While they said that some of Hoover's story was pure fiction, they admitted that much of it was true.  So true, in fact, that someone wrote a book identifying the real people masked in the story by pseudonyms.  According to a local historian, copies of that book are rare, most having been destroyed by people who did not want their family names identified!

 

Canon at Gettysburg Battlefield

F.T. Hoover says in the Preface:  "...during the war the agitation and conflict were not all confined to the army and navy, the capital and the great cities.  Remote districts and obscure country places also felt the great movements and were stirred, though of course in a smaller degree.  And that in such localities many thrilling episodes occurred we can readily believe if we will but remember that in those days there were enrolling officers, drafts, and Knights of the Golden Circle." 

 

We tend to look back at history and see things in precise terms--the Union and the Confederacy.  Yet, then as now things are rarely so sharply defined.  The opinions and actions of some people fit the extremes of inflexible black and white, but experience shows that the opinions and attitudes of most people fall in shades of gray rather than absolutes.

The pain and suffering of the Civil War were the result of Americans thinking they could not work

together to resolve disagreements.  Enough Americans believed the differences were so great that the nation should be divided, but President Lincoln never believed that the South had the legal right to secede.  The flag of the United States from 1861-1863 retained all its stars throughout the war, adding a new star for the state of West Virginia.  The Union was preserved.

Francis Trout Hoover wrote his book "to deepen the interest of the present generation in the history" so that we would never again fall into the trap of Ignorance, Hypocrisy, and Treason.  I would add a fourth danger, warning us never to succumb to the arrogance of believing our generation is smarter than the Founding Fathers and over 200 years of history.

(If you wish to read Francis Trout Hoover's book, Enemies in the Rear:  Or, a Golden Circle Squared," about this little known slice of history during the Civil War, you can find several publishers of F.T. Hoover's novel in the form of 'books on demand' at amazon.com.) 

More Orphan Train Stories

An Orphan Train

A little girl stood on a train platform with a group of other children, managing to position herself close to two younger boys.  Adults milled around the children, resembling nothing more than shoppers selecting merchandise.  In a way, they actually were shopping, for the children had just disembarked from an orphan train and the adults were prospective guardians, deciding which children they wished to select.  Because farm families often had in mind gaining help on their farms, boys were often selected first, and the two little boys standing near that girl were quickly chosen.  The adults who had come to look the children over were beginning to wander away, and the chaperones were directing the children who had not been chosen back to the train, preparing to resume the journey to other towns where potential foster parents might be waiting.

 

Robert Morgan & Lyn with portrait of the Reed children

Suddenly the little girl burst out of the group of children being urged back on the train.  She grabbed the hands of the two little boys near whom she had positioned herself and refused to let them go.  Although she was only eight years old, she felt responsible for her little brothers, for the rest of their family had drowned in Lake Ontario when their wagon broke through the ice on which they were crossing the frozen lake.  She refused to release her brothers' hands, insisting that the three of them were not going to be separated by distance, even if they were selected by different families in the same town.  If no one in the town were willing to take her, then all three of them were getting back on the train.

 

Display at Orphan Train Museum

The family who had chosen her youngest brother, Howard, who was only three, finally committed to take her, not for themselves but rather to be responsible for finding a family for her.  It was through the determination of this 8-year-old girl that the three Reed siblings remained in close enough proximity that they did not lose touch with one another, as so many other siblings did when they were separated while riding the orphan trains.

 

Morgan-Dowell Research Center

This story was told to me by Robert Morgan, the son of little Clara Reed, who kept her family together the best that she could.  The three-year-old brother was adopted by the Dowell family, and the generosity of descendants of these three children resulted in the building of the Morgan-Dowell Research Center adjacent to the Orphan Train Museum. 

 

My husband and I traveled to Concordia for the 2013 Orphan Train & Depot Days Celebration.  After registering, we had a delicious lunch at Jitters Coffee House and visited a music store and an antique shop before returning to the Orphan Train Complex to hear Friday afternoon's speaker, Doug Brush, author of "Northern KS Div'n MO Pacific Lines, Originally Cent. Branch Union Pacific RR."  Later, we visited the museum before enjoying Heavy's BBQ prior to attending a concert in the park by NCK Jazz Band, a pleasant ending to our day.

Speakers' panel at 2013 Orphan Train Celebration  

 

Saturday morning I was honored to be asked to join the speakers' panel which included, from left:  descendant Shirley Andrews, writer & early keeper of orphan train history Evelyn Trickel, descendant Robert Morgan, descendant Margaret Webb, myself, and moderator Holly Andrews.  I shared Shirley Jorns Fast's story contributed as a comment to my blog of 1/31/2013 about the Orphan Trains, and the audience appreciated it very much.  Thank you, Shirley!  (You may also visit my blog of 2/2/2013 for more orphan stories shared by followers of my blog.)

 

Descendants of Howard & Nora Reed Dowell

Last year was the first year that no riders attended the celebration.  Most of the riders are now deceased or have reached the age when travel is challenging.  However, many descendants of riders were in attendance.  At Saturday's luncheon I met the descendants of  Howard Reed Dowell, the little brother of Clara and James Reed.  Those descendants graciously posed for a family photograph:  the orphan rider's son, Harold Reed Dowell, 2nd from left; grandson, Donald Reed Dowell, far right; great grandchildren, Nicholas & Kim,  far left and holding little Nora.  Howard took the surname of his adoptive parents, but he retained his original surname of Reed as his middle name, and the men in the family have continued the use of Reed as their middle names.  Nora carries on the name of Howard's wife, her great-great grandmother.  (Another great-great-grandchild, Nicholas' son Easton Reed Dowell, was not present.)

 

Sculptures outside museum donated by Mr. & Mrs. R. Morgan

Board President Susan Sutton, other members of the Board, Curator Amanda Wahlmeier, staff, volunteers, descendants and their families, and people of Concordia that we met made us feel very welcome.  Thank you to everyone.  I urge anyone who reads this to consider a visit to Concordia, especially on a Tuesday-Saturday when the Orphan Train Museum  is open.  www.orphantraindepot.org 

Whether Isaac ever met someone who came West on an Orphan Train I do not know.  I do know that many children were brought to IL and KS, states where he lived, so it is possible that he knew a family that adopted a child from an orphan train.  If you know stories about orphan train riders, please share them with me.  I would especially love to know if any children came to Stafford County, Kansas!

Imagine parting at the depot to start a new life in a strange place with strangers



Keeping a Journal

Title page from Isaac's journal

The spring of 2010 I found Isaac's journal and began the experience that has formed the basis of this blog.  One of my earliest posts described that discovery.  (See "Finding Isaac's Journal" in the blog archives, October 23, 2011.)  Isaac began the journal that forms the core of my manuscript in 1870, as a young druggist in his mid-20s living in Rossville, IL, but journaling was apparently something he had done most of his life, for that journal is labeled Vol. 5th.  Following an interruption in 1871, Isaac resumed his journal writing in 1884 and continued filling 480 pages of closely written daily entries until 1891.

Working with Isaac's journal--reading, transcribing, annotating, and eventually writing my manuscript about him, his community, and the period about which he wrote, I came to see Isaac as someone I knew very well.  However, most journals are meant to be private, and probably Isaac could never have imagined someone like me devoting months and years to his journal as I have.

People keep diaries and journals for different reasons.  Computer journals are now quite popular.  In my October 23, 2011 blog I describe the influence of Henry Ward Beecher on Isaac's method of journaling, an influence that changed Isaac from his youthful style of expressing his opinions and judgments of others to the more restrained style of his middle age.

Why do people keep journals?  In her book, Slouching Toward Bethlehem, Joan Didion examines that question in an essay, "On Keeping a Notebook."  She writes:  "The impulse to write things down is a compulsive one, inexplainable to those who do not share it.  ... Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant, rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss."

Since I have intermittently kept journals during my life, I read her words with a personal interest.  Am I lonely, an anxious malcontent, a rearranger of things?  I think not.  The diary I kept in high school would have satisfied Rev. Beecher's suggestion that I should describe what I did each day, people I saw, and events in the community, although I don't believe I included the weather, as Beecher suggested, and I'm quite sure my teenaged activities would have bored anyone but me.

Joan Didion offers the best reason for consistently keeping a journal:  "We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive or not."  If I had the courage to confront my teenaged self, it might be interesting to see who I was so long ago.  I hope I would like that young girl, but I doubt that I would recognize her as myself!

Isaac's Journal

Was Isaac Werner lonely and resistant?  Yes, I believe he was.  Was he an anxious malcontent?  Well, he was often impatient of those he found unwilling to learn, lazy about their work, and neglectful of their commitments, but after venting his annoyance in his journal he was more likely to launch a campaign of educating, lecturing, or organizing than he was to indulge in anxious discontent. The 1800s were an era when many people kept journals, so perhaps their motives were different from Didion's assessment of modern journal keepers. 

I have a friend who writes letters to those who have angered or hurt her, expressing her feelings without restraint.  It helps calm her own emotions, although the person to whom the letter is addressed never knows how my friend felt, for once the letter is complete, my friend destroys it.  Sometimes, I believe that was what Isaac accomplished with his journal entries, although he did not destroy what he had written when he finished.

My journaling is the way I reflect on matters that concern or interest me.  I keep a review of every book I read.  It is very structured, opening with a section in which I identify Setting, Plot, Characters, and Theme.  That is followed with a section in which I analyze the writing itself under headings titled Literary Techniques and Structure & Style.  Next comes a section titled My Comments, concluding with the final section, Favorite Quotes.  I have often finished books still wondering why a particular book is considered a classic or was praised by reviewers.  By forcing myself to write the review and complete all the sections, I reflect more thoroughly on what I read and discover themes and symbols and richness in the writing that the original reading of the book had missed.

I have also taken issues that concern me and spent weeks or months researching, studying, and journaling to reach an informed personal judgment about the topic.  In other words, I tend to journal as a way of thinking deeply about a subject.  I think Isaac also used his journal to think through ideas he was considering, although he generally left the emotions out of what he wrote after falling under the influence of Rev. Beecher. (See "Advice from Henry Ward Beecher," Dec. 7, 2012, in my blog archives.)

While reflecting on Isaac's journal and why he wrote daily for so many years, I encountered a quote written by Virginia Woolf in The Death of the Moth and Other Essays. Woolf wrote:  "Since the only test of truth is length of life, and since words survive the chops and changes of time longer than any other substance, therefore they are the truest.  Buildings fall; even the earth perishes.  What was yesterday a cornfield is to-day a bungalow.  But words, if properly used, seem able to live forever."  (I found this quote in a wonderful website at www.brainpickings.org.)

Isaac's house and the school house he helped to build are gone.  Nearly all of the trees he tended with such devotion have died or been bulldozed to make way for crops.  Even the pinnacle hill he climbed to watch fireworks in distant towns has been carved away until it is now no higher than many other hills nearby.  What remains are Isaac's words--those published in newspapers and those written in his journal.  But for the words he wrote, Isaac and his deeds would be forgotten.  They are his truth.

 

Who reads Shakespeare?

Visit to Shakespeare's Birthplace

I cannot answer who reads Shakespeare today, but in the 1800s many people did, and  Isaac Werner was certainly among those readers.  On December 31, 1870, he wrote in his journal:  "The following works I long to possess...in the course of time to possess them all, and arranged in my library...Clark's Concordona to Shakespeare and some future time also one of the very best large editions of Shakespeare, and so we can cultivate deeper familiarity with authors the more we long to read their works and see the best we can the individuals themselves."  On January 4, 1871 he recorded in his journal having ordered that book, along with Wealth of Nations, Don Quixote, Wharton's History of English Poetry, and several others.   

 

Isaac was unusual among many boys of that era, for at the age of 17 he and his twin brother were still attending school in Wernersville, PA where they were raised.  Clearly, he had received more education than many of his peers.  However, as a young druggist in Rossville, IL he chose to spend much of his income acquiring a personal library and continuing his learning.  (See blog post "Isaac's Library, February 2, 2012)  For the rest of his life he enjoyed Shakespeare, describing in his journal during his years as a homesteader on the prairie many evenings spent reading Shakespeare.

On January 26, 1871, Isaac recorded the list of books he had ordered, including the prices he had paid for them.  Clark's Concordona to Shakespeare was the second most expensive of all the books, at $11.25.  (Don Quixote cost $12.)  To put this cost into context, I researched average earnings in 1870.  According to ask.com, the average yearly income for 1870 was $129.  According to a book no longer in print titled the National Bureau of Economic Research, hourly wages that year ranged between 17 and 41 cents per hour.  Can you imagine wanting a book so badly that you would spend 12% of your annual income to buy it?! 

Title Page to Shakespeare's 1st Folio

Isaac was not alone in his love of Shakespeare.  According to Abraham Lincoln's aide, John Hay, President Lincoln "read Shakespeare more than all other writers together."  We even know which of Shakespeare's plays was Lincoln's favorite, for in 1863 he wrote a letter to Shakespearean actor James Hackett saying, "I think nothing equals Macbeth.  It is wonderful."  Ironically, following Lincoln's assassination the murder of King Duncan in that play was often compared to Lincoln's own death.

For many children of that era--as families pushed westward and often lived on isolated farms or struggled beside their parents just to survive--formal education was not possible.  If these children learned to read and write, they had to learn at home, and often the only books from which to learn were the Bible and Shakespeare--if they were lucky.

One of my favorite quotes from a child of this historic period describing his discovery of the works of Shakespeare comes from the famous lecturer, Robert Ingersoll, who was not so lucky as Lincoln to have Shakespeare in his home.  Ingersoll was in his teens, already on his own in search of work when he heard an old man reading aloud in a small hotel.  He was "filled with wonder," and when everyone left the room for supper, Ingersoll lagged behind to read the title of what the man had been reading, too ashamed to have simply asked the man when he felt the book must be something "an intelligent boy ought to know."  The book was Samuel Johnson's edition of Shakespeare.  Poor and getting by through traveling to offer himself for work wherever it could be found, Ingersoll spent $4 of his meager earnings for his own copy of the book the next morning!  Years later, this is what he wrote about the experience.  "For days, for nights, for months, for years, I read those books, two volumes, and I commenced with the introduction.  I haven't read that introduction for nearly fifty years, certainly forty-five, but I remember it still.  Other writers are like a garden diligently planted and watered, but Shakespeare a forest where the oaks and elms toss their branches to the storm, where the pine towers, where the vine bursts into blossoms at its foot.  That book opened to me a new world, another nature..."

Tableaux recreating scene from Shakespeare's era

How many of us today have read Shakespeare since one or two of his plays were assigned to us in high school?  Perhaps that is because Shakespeare's plays were written to be performed, and as a result, they are better heard than read silently.  The plays are still performed, and many have been adapted for the screen.  Romeo and Juliet may have been adapted more than any other, including George Cukor's 1936 adaptation in which the main characters, Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard, had a combined age of 75!  The beautiful 1968 adaptation by Franco Zeffirelli, that attracted many young fans to Shakespeare, cast teenagers Leonard Whiting as Romeo and Olivia Hussey as the Juliet that I will forever picture in my mind.  For the younger MTV generation, Baz Luhrmann's 1996 version cast Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Dane as the young lovers.

Shakespeare Theater in Ashland, OR

Sometimes movie versions are inspired by Shakespeare's plays rather than being adaptations.  Two hugely popular movies based on Shakespeare's plays are West Side Story, based on Romeo and Juliet, and The Lion King, based on Hamlet. 

Sadly for Isaac, there is no indication that I have found that he ever saw Shakespeare performed, but he read it with friends and he read it alone.  He, like many other great men of that era and since, elevated their minds by reading Shakespeare.  If you have a dusty volume of Shakespeare on a bookcase somewhere, you might consider pulling it off the shelf to read something young men were once willing to spend money earned with days of sweat and toil to buy a challenging book. 

To read a wonderful analysis of Lincoln's interest in Shakespeare you may visit www.abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/Library/newsletter.asp?ID=21&CRLI=101.

 

What is History? An Update on my Manuscript

Rossville, IL

My first blog at this site shared my love of history. (See "I Love History," reposted January 3, 2012, where it can now be read in the blog archives.)  My feeling that history has so many lessons for us, to make each generation wiser than their predecessors by learning from past experiences both good and bad, was a big part of why I wanted to share Isaac's story.  The late 1800s have much in common with the problems we face today, making Isaac's experiences not only interesting but also relevant.

Recently, an internet friend and I were exchanging face book posts about the challenges of teaching young people history.  I shared my opinion that for students who have celebrated no more than 18 birthdays, their frame of reference makes even 20 years seem like ancient times.  I liked his reply so much that I wrote it down.  He said he had learned to appreciate the importance of history from his parents.  He concluded:  "I loved history in high school and could not understand why the other kids...did not understand how important it was.  It [history] is where we came from and points in the direction we are likely to go.  It is a huge puzzle with many pieces which one cannot possibly learn in a lifetime."  For me, his description of viewing history as a giant puzzle, some of whose pieces can be fitted together over a lifetime, seemed a wonderful analogy.

Dressed for Victorian Tea 2010

I believe my appreciation resulted from a natural immersion in family history.  I was raised in the house built by my paternal grandfather and his mother.  We had my paternal great grandfather's Civil War journal, from which I remember my mother reading aloud.  On Memorial Day we put flowers on the graves of paternal and maternal grandparents of several generations, joined in doing the decorations by aunts and uncles whose shared memories made me feel as if I had known the people whose graves we visited.  History was something real for me, not just names and dates from textbooks.

My experience is not common in today's world.  I read somewhere that the average American family lives in a house only five years before moving elsewhere.  Doing genealogy research I discovered that many people do not know their grandmother's maiden name.  Follow the news on television and the internet and you will see how headline events are abandoned within days or hours to report the new headlines in the next news cycle.  Not only is history given little attention, but also current events are quickly treated as irrelevant and forgotten.  Today's children grow up in a very different environment. 

FDR's Museum & Library

Not many families make history an intriguing puzzle for their children like my friend's parents did for him, nor are many children today raised in a home and community where evidence of their ancestors' lives surround them.  How do we make history interesting enough that people want to read about the past?  How do we make the lessons of history more than dates and names, not only for school children but also for adult readers?  That has been the question I asked myself as I wrote Isaac's story.

David McCullough has said, "No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read."  I agree. I have had the benefit of Isaac's own words in his journal from which to tell his story, but my manuscript is not just Isaac's biography.  I researched his community, using ancestry.com, family documents, legal documents, old photographs, tomb stones, and personal interviews to get to know the people Isaac mentioned in his diary.  I also researched the history of that period, becoming familiar with the biographies of famous people in politics, religion, business, and the arts.  I learned about the events that shaped the times.  Only when I had spent incalculable hours of research to become familiar with all of this was I able to put Isaac's story in context.  The challenge was to make the history during Isaac's time "something someone would want to read," as David McCullough said.  I believed that writing the manuscript like a doctoral thesis or a text book was the wrong way to share history with the readers I wanted to reach.

Visit to Isaac's Hometown

My manuscript has an extensive bibliography with footnotes to document the research I have done.  However, I have chosen to bring Isaac and his friends and acquaintances to life, revealing this exciting time through them.  Occasionally, that means I imagined conversations to share important information that would be deadly dull to most readers if presented as text.  For example, the People's Party, which shaped not only the politics of Isaac's time but also laws and social programs years later when the People's Party itself had faded away, evolved from smaller political movements coming together to form a powerful movement.  I could have written a paragraph or a few pages describing each of these separate groups and how they united.  Instead, I imagined a conversation between Isaac and his friend, William Campbell, a member of the Kansas House of Representatives who was a delegate to the organizing convention at which the People's Party was formed.  I know from Isaac's journal the night Isaac went to visit Campbell to "talk politics."  I am confident that they discussed the convention, its leaders, and the mix of political groups that were represented there.  However, I do not have a transcript of their conversation.  Instead, I have my research from original documents, newspapers, and secondary books and articles, and I have my imagination to put that information in the form of a conversation between Isaac and William Campbell the night Isaac went for a visit.

In those few places in my manuscript where imagination joins research to make history more readable to those who are neither scholars nor researchers, I identify in a footnote the sources used to create the scene and indicate what has been imagined, making the content enjoyable to casual readers but also documenting sources for more serious historians.  These passages in the manuscript are limited, but they do raise objections by some who believe my decision takes my manuscript out of the strict definition of history and moves it to some realm between historical fiction and authentic history.

Victorian Tea 2011

I disagree.  History is defined as the study of past events; the branch of knowledge that records and analyzes past events.  Yet, Voltaire said:  "History is the lie commonly agreed upon."  Even the most thorough research about a person or event cannot establish each detail with certainty, and analysis unavoidably introduces the bias and experiences of the analyst.  If only two people are present in a conversation, they will take away from their meeting a different recollection of what was said.  We can try to capture history accurately, but an absolute record of events is nearly impossible.  I have researched the subjects of my manuscript thoroughly.  If I make that research more accessible to readers by occasionally using my imagination to present the facts, while warning them in a footnote what I have done, is it any less accurate than the scholar's text where gaps are filled with analysis and supposition?

History is so important that rulers, politicians, and historians have manipulated it for generations.  As George Orwell said, "Who controls the past controls the future:  who controls the present controls the past."  I believe in the manner in which I have documented the history of a period, most commonly known as the Gilded Age, but presented from the perspective of those farmers and other laborers who lived their lives covered in sweat, dirt, and tears rather than gilt. My efforts will serve no purpose if I fail to make history something someone would want to read.  One publisher did not feel that my method met their criteria for  presenting history.  I remain hopeful that I will find a publisher who shares my enthusiasm for telling Isaac's story and the exciting events of the late 1800s as I have done. 

I have deleted "Reactions"

Thank you to those of you who have shared your "reactions" in the past.  Unfortunately, the blog support has been unable to correct the problem of deleting the checks; therefore, rather than enduring this ongoing problem, I have removed that section from the blog page.  I really did enjoy your feedback and regret its loss.

Walking in Isaac's Steps

Pond from which I began my walk

Last spring one of the writers' websites I visit challenged readers to an Immersion Writing Contest, described as using a "participatory experience to write about yourself completing a reenactment."  I decided it would be fun to reenact Isaac's footsteps as he walked from his homestead to the home of Doc Dix, where the Emerson Post Office was maintained. 

 

Isaac's homestead was located in the southwest quarter of section 33, and as nearly as I can locate his house, it was near the center of the quarter.  Doc Dix owned the north half of section 31, his timber claim being in the east quarter and his homestead in the west quarter.  When I was a child, my father spoke of "the old Dix's place" as we drove past what appeared to be the remains of a home site located along the north side between the two Dix's claims.  The distance from the center of Isaac's homestead claim to the point on the north side between Doc Dix's two claims would have been about two miles.  I did not carry a camera during my reenactment, so the photographs accompaning this blog were taken in 2013; however, the description of my walk is my experience from 2012.

 

My husband dropped me off at the retention pond in the northeast corner of Isaac's homestead.  (Isaac makes no mention of any permanent pond on his claims, although he does mention ponds after rainfalls.)  My husband paused by the pond with me long enough to flip a turtle struggling on its back at the edge of the pond before leaving me to begin my reenactment of Isaac's walk to get his mail.  As I lingered to watch the wild ducks that Isaac had loved, a splash caught my attention too late to see its cause.  Soon, a bug-eyed frog surfaced to stare at me--the apparent cause of the splash.  A few of his buddies gradually emerged in the pond, reminding me of the "frog choruses" Isaac described in his journal.

 

Racoon tracks

As I turned to begin my walk, the smell of crushed rye along the path my husband had driven filled the air, alive with tiny yellow and white butterflies performing their aerial dance over growing wheat on one side and alfalfa on the other.  Bird songs from the trees near the pond were replaced by the buzz of insects, and  I wondered what birds serenaded Isaac on the treeless prairie before the cottonwoods, catalpa, and peach trees he planted began to grow.  Studying the raccoon tracks beside my own foot prints, I nearly missed the moment I had come to find, the feeling of Isaac tapping me on the shoulder to say, "Look around.  See why you are here."

 

I stood between Isaac's homestead and timber claims and slowly turned in a circle to see the land around me.  How proud Isaac must have felt to be master of the 360 acres he had claimed.  I saw the land through Isaac's eyes and understood his pride.

 

The 1/2 section line

But, I was on my way to Doc Dix's soddie after the mail, and I could not linger.  Soon I reached the black top road and left Isaac's land.  A farmer's daughter born and bred, I refused to cut across a neighboring field and trample knee-high wheat, although Isaac probably walked the diagonal route.  Instead, I walked the half-section line between two fields, straddling a wheat row to avoid bending the slender green stalks, perhaps not so different from walking across the tall prairie grass.  Midway across the field, the noise of a pickup on the backtop road behind me sounded alien, out of place, so immersed was I in Isaac's walk.  A large, deep badger hole beside my path made me hope my reenactment would not awaken the fierce nocturnal animal. 

 

Neglected tree row

 

I passed a mudhole, dried down to the mossy bottom and pocked-marked with deer tracks, while at my feet little red pyramids of anthills dotted the ground.  I paused to listen to the rustling sound of the wind as it ruffled the wheat that surrounded me. 

 

As I neared the center of the section, a tree belt planted in the 'Dirty Thirties,' decades after Isaac's death, obstructed my path.  The wind made a different sound--stronger and full of mystery, and dying branches bent to the ground, a tangled barricade.  The interruption broke the spell of my reenactment and chased Isaac from my imagination. 

 

My walk continued, but the destination changed toward my family home located in the south half of the section in which the Dix family had once resided to the north.  The changed world of abandoned claims, blacktop roads, irrigated fields, and neglected trees brought me back to the present, but for a while I had walked in Isaac's steps.

 

(Remember, you can enlarge the photographs by clicking on them.)

 

 

What is the Matter?

William Allen White

Since others have to tolerate my weaknesses, it is only fair that I should tolerate theirs.  --William Allen White

 

William Allen White came upon the political scene about the time Isaac exited, but it is certain that had someone posed the question, What is the matter with Kansas? to both of them, the two men would have answered quite differently.  In fact, White used that very question for the title of an editorial critical of the Populist Movement.  He blamed the populists for the lack of economic and population growth, writing sarcastically:  "Give the prosperous man the dickens!  Legislate the thriftlessman into ease.  Whack the stuffing out of the creditors...Whoop it up for the ragged trousers; put the lazy, greasy fizzle who can't pay his debts on the altar and bow down to worship him."  In short, White believed that populist politicians had scared businessman and investors away from Kansas with their policies and their rhetoric. 

 

At the time White wrote those words, he was not yet thirty, and he was the editor of a little-known small-town newspaper.  The editorial "What's the Matter with Kansas?" brought national prominence to White and his newspaper, The Emporia Gazette, gaining particular attention because it was written by a Kansan attacking the Populist Movement in the region of the country where the movement was strongest.  (To read the full text of the editorial, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" go to http://www.kancoll.org/articles/what's_the_matter_with_kansas.html.)

 

I have never been bored an hour in my life.  I get up every morning wondering what new strange glamorous thing is going to happen and it happens at fairly regular intervals.  ---William Allen White

White's Emporia Home

 

William Allen White was born in Emporia, KS in 1868, but his family soon moved to El Dorado.  His newspaper credentials began when he was still a teenager, working as a press apprentice before attending the College of Emporia and the University of Kansas.  He worked as an editorial writer for the Kansas City Star and married before moving to Emporia and buying the Emporia Gazette, still operated by the fourth generation of his family.  Located at 517 Merchant Street, the family business maintains a small museum with old newspaper equipment, photographs of which you can see at http://www.kansastravel.org/emporiagazette.htm. 

 

A little learning is not a dangerous thing to one who does not mistake it for a great deal.  --William Allen White

 

It is said that on his way to work the morning he wrote "What's the Matter with Kansas?" he suffered some unpleasantness with a loafer spouting populist rhetoric.  Still bristling from that encounter, White wrote the editorial without time for his emotions to cool.  Whether the incident actually happened, the editorial is more confrontational than his other writings often were, especially in later years.  He won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for his editorial in support of free speech titled "To an Anxious Friend."  He wrote:  "...you can have no wise laws nor free entertainment of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people...This state today is in more danger from suppression than from violence, because, in the end, suppression leads to violence.  Violence, indeed, is the child of suppression.  Whoever pleads for justice helps to keep the peace; and whoever tramples on the plea for justice temperately made in the name of peace only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man which God put there when we got our manhood.  When that is killed, brute meets brute on each side of the line."  (Full text at http://www2.ku.edu/~jschool/school/waw/writings/waw/newspaper/editorials/anxiousfriend.html.)

 

White's car with GAZETTE license plate

White died before I was born, and my first encounter with his writing was as a student reading the heartbreaking eulogy written to his daughter who died from injuries sustained in a riding accident.  Titled simply with his 16-year-old daughter's name, "Mary White," he described her with these words:  "She was mischievous without malice, as full of faults as an old shoe."  The eulogy is still widely read, and you can find the full text at http://grammar.about.com/od/classicessays/a/Mary-White-By-William-Allen-White.htm. 

 

In 1924 White ran unsuccessfully for Kansas governor on an anti-Klan platform, and although he was not elected his effort probably contributed to Kansas becoming the first state to outlaw the Klan.  In 1940 he served as chairman of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, but what he was best known for was his gift of championing small-town values with humor and wisdom.  Late in his life he was sometimes referred to as an "old progressive," quite a change from the young author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

 

He died in 1944 in Emporia, where he was working on his autobiography.  His son, William Lindsay completed the unfinished manuscript, and it won another Pulitzer Prize for White.  The William Allen White House in Emporia is open limited hours to the public.

 

Reason has never failed men.  Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.  --William Allen White

 

 



What if Isaac had met Alexandra Bergson?

Cabin at Homestead Park in Nebraska

I have already shared my love for Willa Cather's books and short stories in this blog.  (See "Writer of the Prairie" in the blog archives at October 4, 2012.)  It is difficult for me to narrow down a single favorite among her wonderful short stories, but I have a definite favorite novel.  It is probably because I identify with Alexandra Bergson's feelings for the land, among other reasons, that explains my love for the novel, O Pioneers!

 

This quote near the end of the book, as Alexandra expresses her feelings to her life-long friend Carl Linstrum, is explanation enough for my emotional connection to the book:  "The land belongs to the future, Carl; that's the way it seems to me.  How many of the names on the county clerk's plat will be there in fifty years?  ...  We come and go, but the land is always here.  And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it--for a little while." 

 

I was raised in the house my paternal grandfather and his mother built.  The timber claim house on the creek and the big Victorian house built later by my maternal great grandparents were both standing and owned by decendants back then.  My father told me, "Always hold onto the land," and I have.  With so many ancestral farms around me, and the advice of my father emphasizing the point, it was natural that I saw land as part of a family's heritage, to be passed from generation to generation.

 

Cover from early edition

Yet, doing the research for Isaac's story, I came to know the names of so many early pioneers whose family surnames have disappeared from the community.  My maternal grandparents' homes remain, but they are no longer owned by family.  While I may value the idea of families staying on the farm for generations, that is no longer the norm.  "We come and go...and the people who love it...own it--for a little while." 

 

O Pioneers! was published in 1913.  It tells the story of a Swedish family that settles on the Nebraska prairie and struggles to survive.  When the father is dying, he entrusts the management of the farm to his daughter, Alexandra, instructing her brothers to follow her advice and leaving specific instructions for how the land is to be divided when the boys are old enough to marry and have farms of their own. 

 

Alexandra succeeds, surviving the years when times are hard and many other settlers sell the land and leave the prairie.  Her brothers are not always supportive of her decisions, although they honor their father's wishes to follow Alexandra's advice.  The two older brothers marry and have families, but Alexandra gives her labor and love to the land, and it rewards her well.  Cather describes the results of Alexandra's efforts with these words:  "When you go out of the house into the flower garden, there you feel again the order and fine arrangement manifest all over the great farm; in the fencing and hedging, in the windbreaks and sheds, in the symmetrical pasture ponds, planted with scrub willows to give shade to the cattle in fly-time.  There is even a white row of beehives in the orchard, under the walnut trees.  You feel that properly, Alexandra's house is the big out-of-doors, and that it is in the soil that she expresses herself best."

 

Image from movie starring Jessica Lange

In 1992 O Pioneers! was made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, with Jessica Lange cast as Alexandra, Heather Graham playing the young Alexandra, and David Strathaim cast as Carl.  The DVD is still available for purchase, although I would always suggest that you read the book first and watch the movie later.

 

The annual Spring Conference held at Red Cloud, Nebraska, Willa Cather's hometown, selects a particular piece of Cather's writings to study each year.  This year's choice is O Pioneers!.  I will enjoy hearing the Cather scholars deliver their lectures about this novel that I love, but I doubt that anything I learn will increase the way Cather's own words draw me into this book.  "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.  Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring."

 

If Isaac Werner could have met the fictional Alexandra Bergson, how they would have loved sharing farming advice!  I think they would have made great friends, but they were both too devoted to making a success of their farms to take the time for romance.  Besides, Carl and Alexandra were destined to be together, from the time they were children.

(Visit http://www.willacather.org for more information about Willa Cather and her writing.)

Postscript:  As I am about to post this blog, I have discovered a link to an NPR review of the new book, The Selected Letters of Willa Cather, including an interview with one of the editors, Andrew Jewell.  I recommend that you open this link to enjoy the review and Andy's comments.  Be sure to read the excerpt from the Introduction that is attached.  One of Ours, for which Cather won the Pulitzer, is another of my favorites, and I can hardly wait to read her letters about her cousin and her family connection to characters in that novel.  The new book will certainly be a treasure for fans and scholars!   http://www.npr.org/2013/04/30/178647158/wonderful-words-in-willa-cathers-no-longer-secret-letters?utm_source=share