April Delight

When I awoke April 24, 2014, I had two appointments on my mind.  First, I needed to find the time during my busy day to post "Habits of the Past," the blog I had planned for that week because Isaac Werner loved Shakespeare and the previous day had been Shakespeare's birthday.  Second, my friend Shirley had invited me to join her at a poetry reading by Kansas Poet Laureate Wyatt Townley at the Kinsley Public Library.  At that time, I did not remember that April was the National Poetry Month, although my intended blog fit that celebration perfectly!  

Although Shakespeare was apparently Isaac's favorite writer, he was very interested in the lives of other famous writers.  Among the books in his library were Wharton's History of English Poetry, Authors' Classical Dictionary, Allibone's Dictionary of American & British Author's (2 Vols.), Fiske's Manuel of Classical Literature, Abbott's Shakespearean Grammar, Clark's Shakespearean Concordance, Lippencott's Biographical Dictionary, and Harbauch's Poems.  His engravings, stereoscope collection, and photograph cards also included images of poets and writers.  Isaac was on my mind as I entered the Kinsley Public Library for the reading.

Wyatt Townley, KS Poet Laureate 

We arrived at the library early and enjoyed the opportunity to meet the poet, Wyatt Townley, purchase books, and meet her husband, Roderick Townley who is also a poet and author.  Not all poets have the gift of both writing beautiful poetry and reading beautifully; however, Wyatt certainly possesses both talents, as well as a gift for public speaking, weaving together her poems, the stories behind her poems, and bits of poetry from other poets.  I was surprised when she quoted the same lines from William Carlos Williams that I had included in my blog!  (See "Habits of the Past, 4-24-2014.) 

A former dancer, Wyatt has transformed that sense of grace and motion into her dual roles of poet and yoga instructor.  Add to that a cunning sense of humor, and you have the ingredients for a compelling hour of poetry.  I was very proud to see that our current Kansas Poet Laureate represents the face of poetry to those within and beyond our state so well. 

Langston Hughes

What I did not know was that the evening of April 24, 2014, the celebration of poetry continued at Lincoln Center in NYC as the Academy of American Poets presented an evening of poetry, recited by a luminary group of actors and musicians, reading poems written by a wide variety of poets--what AP writer Hillel Italie called "a mini-survey of American verse."  As examples, musician Esperanza Spalding read "Life is Fine" by Langston Hughes, (1902-1967), with the defiant closing stanza:

Though you may hear me holler,

And you may see me cry--

I'll be dogged, sweet baby,

If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine!     Fine as wine!     Life is fine!

Maya Angelou with President Obama

Meryl Streep read poets Richard Wilbur and Sylvia Plath, while Kevin Kline read a poem by the popular Billy Collins called "To my favorite 17-year-old high school girl," and Tina Fey read James Tate.

Rosie Perez read 2013 Medal of Honor recipient Maya Angelou's triumphant poem "Still I Rise."
     You may trod on me in the very dirt
     But still, like dust, I'll rise. 

Edna St. Vincent Millay
photo credit Carl Van Vechten

Actor Patrick Stewart read Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem, "God's World," which he indicated was a personal favorite, sharing the story of having experienced the incredible beauty of a New England autumn that left him in tears and having been given Millay's poem that same weekend.

     O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

     ...

     Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag

     And all but cry with color!

     ...

                    Lord, I do fear

     Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;

     My soul is all but out of me,--let fall

     No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

What an incredible day of poetry April 24th turned out to be for me, and since I had remembered Isaac by sharing some of the poetry he may have admired, it seemed appropriate for me to use this week's post to share some more recent American poetry.  The e-mails and comments you sent in response to last week's post indicate that while not everyone who reads this blog particularly appreciates poetry, many of you do, and I hope others will read these blogs and consider picking up a book of poetry at the library, or perhaps some old textbook from high school or college long ignored.  Or, next time you are in a bookstore, you might find the poetry aisle and see if some modern poet is to your taste.  I will close with a poem that my unexpected day of poetry inspired me to write.  (The three lines that open the poem were spoken to my husband when he found me reading aloud from the book "The Afterlives of Trees" by Wyatt Townley, which I had bought at her reading the previous day.  The lines were offered to explain why I was reading aloud to only myself, and this poem grew from that short explanation.)

Poems only live when spoken.

When you read in silence,

they just lie there on the page--

Stillborn from the poet's pen,

awaiting a voice

to coax the breath of life

into the lovely words.

                                    (c) Lyn Fenwick 

Habits of the Past

Edgar Allan Poe

One day Isaac Werner was in St. John on business when he noticed a bill posted to advertise the appearance of a well known elocutionist at the new high school building scheduled for that same evening.  Although it meant traveling home in darkness, Isaac decided to attend.  A poet popular with elocutionists of that era, and of this elocutionist in particular, was Edgar Allan Poe, so perhaps Isaac heard his recitation of Annabel Lee:

It was many and many a year ago

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee... 

Perhaps Isaac even knew that poem by heart, for in that time it was common for people to commit poetry to memory.  Isaac was a great believer in the importance of elocution, for he thought that speaking well not only impacted the speaking voice but also improved a person's reasoning ability.

John Donne

Many people of a generation or two ago could recite favorite poems, and some of those poems from Isaac's era are still read today.  The poems of John Donne remain staples for funeral oration.

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadfull, for thou are not so...

and

...Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls, 

It tolls for thee.

Robert W. Service

While memorizing poetry is not so popular today, we had a friend who enjoyed nothing more than entertaining us with poetry.  One of his special favorites was "The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert W. Service.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold...

Although Service was born during Isaac's lifetime, he was not publishing poetry until too late for Isaac to have heard one of his long, narrative poems, but perhaps someone in your own family loved reciting this poem or another poem by Service, as he was a popular poet of his time.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Young lovers today may know more rap lyrics than love poems to recite to their sweethearts, but their grandfathers might have recited Elizabeth Barrett Browning's...

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach...

While if Isaac Werner ever chose to recite poetry to a lady, he was more likely to have chosen Shakespeare, perhaps Sonnet 18:

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate...

Today the habit of reciting poetry has waned, and the more formal rhyming style of the past has been altered by modern poets.  Yet, poetry survives, in styles as different as rap music and unrhymed verse.  William Carlos Williams wrote:

     It is difficult

to get the news from poems

                         yet men die miserably every day

for lack

of what is found there.
  

In an essay written for Poetry. philosopher Richard Rorty said, "individual men and women are more fully human when their memories are amply stocked with verses."  Surely Isaac would have agreed!

Perhaps reviving the old habit of memorizing poetry might be worth considering.  If so, Rudyard Kipling's advice to his son in the poem, "If," might be a good poem to select.

Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all around you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,...

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;...

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much...

...you'll be a Man, my son!  

(All of the poets pictured were living before or during Isaac's lifetime, although not all had begun publishing their poetry prior to his death.)











Isaac and the Weather

An almanac Isaac used

As a Kansas homesteader learning to farm in the sandy loam soil of the prairie with weather different from the Pennsylvania farms and weather of his youth, Isaac Werner depended on both almanacs and folklore to help predict the seasonal weather patterns.  In locating books that Isaac owned in his personal library, I was eager to include the specific almanacs Isaac owned and used frequently.  You can only imagine how excited I was to find a 1892 McLean's Almanac with the Storm Calendar and Weather Forecasts of Rev. Irl Hicks--an example of the very publication Isaac was almost certain to have owned!  I could hardly wait for it to arrive so I could read the forecasts Isaac would have relied upon, and when it came, it was in perfect condition, its cover pictured at right.

The joke was on me, however, for although that cover is in English, if you look carefully at the lower right-hand corner, you will see the word "GERMAN."  All of the pages inside the almanac are published in German!  Isaac was raised in the Pennsylvania Dutch country, and in the early pages of his journal, written in 1870-1871, he occasionally writes short passages in German, so it might be possible that Isaac owned a German language almanac.  However, I'm sure that the almanacs he picked up in St. John to pass around at the Farmers' Alliance meeting would have been in English.

Not everyone trusted the storm predictions of Rev. Hicks, but the almanacs also illustrated phases of the moon, predicted eclipses, and other information, and Isaac continued to rely on the weather predictions in his almanacs as one source to consider.

In April of 1889, he recorded in his journal that nine of his roosters had begun crowing the previous evening, which he interpreted as a sign of changing weather.  This is consistent with the folklore that "When a rooster crows at night there will be rain by morning."  Isaac also saw a good season for hatching toads as a prediction of a change in the weather, and he wrote in his journal about a trip to St. John with his early harvested potatoes loaded in his wagon, during which there were so many toads hopping in the wagon tracks ahead of his horses that he could not avoid crushing some of them.  He was perplexed as to why they chose the road for their exercise, but he did feel that the abundant crop of toads predicted a weather change.

However, during a droughty period he wrote that the usually dependable signs of rain, like frogs croaking in the evenings and gnats and mosquitoes being particularly bad, had not brought the rainfall that was needed.  Perhaps this quote from Alice Hoffman would have been better suited to Isaac on both accounts:  "When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure."

If you missed the blog about folklore weather predictions posted 4-3-2014, you may want to read it now. 

Learning History from Books

From my first blog post I made it clear how important I believe it is for intelligent people, and especially decision makers, to have a well-informed awareness of history.  (See "I Love History," 1-3-2012 reposting in archives.)  I hope my subsequent posts have shared some historic wisdom with all of you who follow my blog.

Titles from Isaac Werner's Library

What is essential, obviously, is the accuracy of the sources from which we acquire our information.  My admiration for Isaac began early in reading his journal, as he described the books he acquired for his personal library.  The quality of his selections was apparent.  (See "Isaac's Library," 2-2-2012.)  Later in his life he engaged in a practice we all must avoid if we are to be fully informed.  He began to narrow his reading to those authors with whom he already agreed.  As I quoted pollster Frank Luntz in "Isaac & the Political Press," (archives 10-24-2012), "We [Americans] don't collect news to inform us.  We collect news to affirm us."  If we restrict ourselves to biased information, our opinions are inevitably biased.

I have always had an awareness of World War II, but most of what I had read was written from an American perspective.  Only recently have I happened to select books with a European perspective, and I thought I would share some of these books for your consideration.

My first recommndation is a book written by a German author, Hans Falada, called Every Man Dies Alone.  It was written in Germany just after W.W. II and was not available in an English translation until 2009, when I first learned of the book based on the true story of a German couple whose  drafted son died fighting a war of which he disapproved.  His death gave them the courage to begin their personal protest of the war.  The book opened my eyes wider to the universal potential of war to corrupt the citizenry through greed, jealousy, fear, ambition and other dangerous motives to turn on one another, as well as the personal courage of ordinary people to do small things that make a difference.

More recently I read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, with a young girl living outside Munich as the central character.  Now having been made into a wonderful movie, the book is described as being for young adults, but it has ample interest and wisdom in its pages for adult readers.  I definitely recommend both the book and the movie (now on DVD).

Madeleine Albright

I just finished Prague Winter, A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, by former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright.  Sec. Albright, born in Czechoslovakia, was not yet two years old when her homeland was invaded following an attempt by British and French leaders to appease Hitler by compromising away part of Czech lands.  She was still a toddler, living in England with her parents, when she was baptized into the Catholic Church, and she did not know of her Jewish heritage until a reporter disclosed that information through his own research when she was 59 years old, after both of her parents were dead.  With the news of her ancestral heritage came the discovery that more than 2-dozen of her close relatives had died in the Holocaust.  

Her father had been a diplomat and the head of broadcasting for the Czechoslovak government in exile in England during the war, so his records of the war play a significant role in the research for this book, but she had to look elsewhere for information about her family's Jewish roots.  The result is a very personal account, sharing her childhood memories, her father's documented role in the Czechoslovak pre- and post war activities and government in exile's activities during the war, as well as her search for information about her own discovered relatives and their suffering as Jews during that tragically inhuman persecution.  She brings not only the personal tragedy and the political insider's perspective of her father and his circle of acquaintances but also the wisdom and professionalism of her own training and experiences.  It is an amazing book, and I highly recommend it.

While this is a bit different from my typical blog, it is certainly consistent with my theme of using history to avoid mistakes of the past in our present decisions.  As I was reading Sec. Albright's book, Putin's soldiers were marching into Crimea, and a part of one nation's citizens were voting whether to secede from their own country.  America and other nations were watching and seeking ways to intervene appropriately.  I could not help but consider the similarities to events before W.W. II, when some ethnic Germans living inside Czechoslovakia welcomed a takeover by Germany of that part of Czech lands and European leaders sought to appease Hitler by doing nothing about his land grabbing.  Our own country has its own bloody example of one region deciding to secede from this nation.  

Perhaps if we look to the wisdom of history, the decisions made in the present will be better informed.  

Folklore Forecasts of the Weather

Red sky at morning,  sailor take warning...

In an era when there was no NOWA to alert us to the approach of severe weather, no constant weather channel to share weather conditions across the nation, and no television weatherman (or woman) to artfully point to temperatures and predictions on a local weather map, people relied on almanacs and folklore to predict the weather.  Isaac Werner's journal contains his observations and predictions about the weather, and every daily entry included the temperature, moisture, and wind conditions.  

My father often mentioned weather sayings, paying particular attention to the evening sky to predict the coming weather.  I believe observing a ring around the moon as a prediction of bad weather was one of his comments.  There is some scientific basis for that bit of folklore, since the ring is caused by a refraction of reflected sunlight from the moon onto ice crystals in the upper atmosphere.  Thin cirrus clouds normally precede a warm front by 1 or 2 days, and a warm front is often associated with a storm.  Some people believe the number of stars inside the ring indicate the number of days until the bad weather.

Nearly all of us know the saying, "If March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb."  Given the recent severe cold across the nation, surely most of us are hoping for the appearance of a lamb that doesn't disappear during the following days!  Another familiar quote to many of us is "Red sky at Morning, sailor take warning; red sky at night, a sailor's delight."  One prediction utilized by my father was "Rain before seven, fine before eleven," although I don't think he used the rhyme.  If you would enjoy reading more examples of weather folklore, you may want to visit http://www.granny-miller.com/50-old-time-weather-proverbs-signs/.  

...Red sky at night, a sailor's delight!

Having been raised in a farming community, I could certainly identify with what Kim Hubbard had to say:  "Don't knock the weather.  If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation."  Farm families depend on suitable weather for their growing crops, and although merchants and service providers in agricultural communities should also realize the significance of weather conditions to their customers and clients, apparently not everyone does.  I was shocked by a woman dashing into Wal-Mart one day, complaining loudly to everyone within earshot about the rain spoiling her hair.  Those of us with crops desperate for rain after a lengthy dry spell weren't too sympathetic about her spoiled hair-do!  As Benjamin Franklin observed, "Some are weatherwise, some are otherwise."

A later blog will share Isaac Werner's methods for predicting the weather!

Isaac's Prairie Orchard

The importance to Isaac of his peach orchard is reflected in several entries in his journal, beginning when he mentions the fragrance of the blooms each spring and continuing through the harvest of peaches when they ripen.  Isaac did not can the fruit or convert it to jams and jellies.  Instead, he relished the pleasure of eating fresh peaches to his fill while they were available, as well as sharing his bounty with neighbors.  Like growers everywhere, even today, he dreaded the late frosts that meant there would be no peaches for that season.

The peach orchard was also the venue for some special events.  When his twin brother traveled from Pennsylvania to spend two nights with Isaac on his homestead, they spent the last evening of his visit together, hoeing around the peach trees.  They had not seen one another for a decade since Isaac had left Wernersville, PA to make a life in the West, and the two brothers would never see each other again after that visit.

The peach orchard was also where Isaac scattered corn for his flock of wild quail.  Isaac loved all of the wild birds on his homestead and timber claim, and he protected them from neighbors who trespassed to poach his game.  He fed them simply because he enjoyed having them on his land, not because he ever killed them to eat.  When his flock froze to death during a severe blizzard, he grieved for what he called his "pet flock of quails."

When a traveling salesman called on him one autumn selling apple trees, Isaac ordered 40 trees.  It may have been only a coincidence, but his decision to raise apples happened right after his mare Dolly delivered the colt he named Jimmy, and it is reasonable to imagine that Isaac considered not only how he would enjoy fresh apples but also how his two horses would appreciate the treat.  The trees arrived too late for fall planting, but he set them out in the spring.  Unfortunately, he struggled with hungry rabbits eating the bark during the following winter, and his 40 trees were reduced to only 4.  By the next season he was down to a single tree.  His dream of raising apples on the prairie had failed. 

Fruit Trees on the Prairie

Sand hill plum branch

Very few trees managed to survive the frequent prairie fires that raced unstopped across the open range, but the stubborn thickets of sand hill plums managed to survive and spread, living long enough before they were overtaken by a prairie fire to produce fruit.  When the early settlers arrived to claim homesteads, they were grateful for the hard little plums from which to make jellies and to savor the taste of fresh fruit in season, despite the small amount of pulp around the hard central seed.

Once they could plant a garden, melons were added to the seasonal fruits they enjoyed, but it took a while for fruit trees to be planted and grow to the size necessary to produce fruit.  Even with his fruit trees, Isaac Werner looked forward to the seasonal plums and melons.

When I was young, my father bought a quarter-section of land just west of our farm.  The sons of the family who had lived there when my father was a boy, the Kennedy family, had not returned to the farm, and they leased the land to be farmed by Glen DeGarmo.  When Glen died, they sold the land to my father and they sold the old house to someone who moved it to a new location about a mile north and a half mile west of Pratt, off Hwy 281.  Left behind were the old trees, and among them a trio of pear trees.  Every summer, my mother and I would go there to pick the pears for pear butter.  The trees were very old, and there were fewer pears on them each summer, but there were always enough for a few jars of pear butter.

Pear Varieties

Mother stopped taking the effort to make pear butter after my brother and I were no longer at home, but one summer I was home during pear picking season and we went over to gather some pears.  There were none.  We assumed the old trees were no longer able to bear fruit, although we did check occasionally for a few years if I happened to be at the farm during the right season.

One year I was visiting at the time Mother had a farm women's club meeting, and I went with her as her guest.  I happened to be seated next to a lady who had moved into the community after I left home, and she and her husband were my parents' nearest neighbors to the north.  As we were visiting, I was enjoying getting to know one of Mother's friends, and somehow the conversation drifted to jelly making, and I spoke of the sand hill plum jelly we always made.  She was so excited to tell me about her own jelly making since moving into the community,  and she began describing the three old pear trees she had discovered at a deserted homestead from which she had made wonderful pear butter. 

As you can guess, she had found our three pear trees and had begun picking them clean every year before we got there to pick our share!  She was so embarrassed when I told her that my father owned that land and we too had enjoyed the pears.  

For many years my husband and I lived far away from the farm and were never back at the right time to pick the pears.  By the time we rescued the old farm house and I went across the section to find the old pear trees, they were dead.  Perhaps I should plant some pear trees this spring.  I believe that dear neighbor lady is still living in a nursing home, so until my own trees produce fruit, I really ought to go in search of a market that sells pear butter.  I'll bet she would enjoy it!

Next week's blog will share the story of Isaac's fruit trees. You might enjoy revisiting the following blogs from the archives:  "Isaac's Giant Melon," 9-20-2012; "Plum Harvest," 6-14-2012; and "Sand Hill Plums," 3-1-2012.

Isaac Claims a Homestead

"He could not breathe in a crowded place--

He wanted his air and his open space--

He watched while civilization neared on the path

through the wilderness..."

William B. Ruggles, "The Pioneer"

The pull westward for Isaac B. Werner had begun while he was still a teenager, and soon after his father died in 1865, Isaac left his father's rich Berks County, PA fields in the Lebanon Valley.  Leaving behind the picturesque Pennsylvania-Dutch community, Isaac and his older cousin Henry traveled first to Indiana, but the promise of the western frontier pulled Isaac onward to Illinois.  In Rossville, IL Isaac established a prosperous business as a druggist and later a milling partnership, but after a few years the gradual civilizing of Illinois reawakened a longing for "his air and his open space," and in 1878 he claimed his homestead and a timber claim on the Great Plains of Kansas.

Posters enticed settlers

Isaac was not some dandified small town druggist without calluses on his hands nor lacking farming experience in his background.  Experience in the milling business had added some agricultural knowledge to his youthful experience on his father's farm.  Yet, not even the Illinois prairie years had prepared Isaac for farming in Kansas.  Foremost was the limited rainfall, which caused crops that were lush and promising in the spring to wither and die in summer's heat and drought.  Next was the fierce wind, which propelled the blast-furnace heat into tender crops.  Fields of corn that had managed to receive the necessary rain and escape grasshoppers and chinch bugs often succumbed to the wind's gritty sand that shredded leaves and blew the essential pollen away before it could fertilize the waiting kernel, ruining the crop for both fodder and the development of the corn.  Add to that the sandy loam soil, and nature's trick of hiding patches of gumbo in unexpected places, and Isaac and other settlers faced unanticipated agricultural challenges.

Original 1933 Cover

 Isaac was not alone in his decision to leave the more settled parts of America and start fresh on the vast prairie lands which had previously been the domain of Native Americans and a few trappers and hunters.  Many American children have been introduced to the saga of Western expansionism through the "Little House" books of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  In Little House on the Prairie, Laura's family built their log house near what is now Independence, KS, having moved into Indian Territory in anticipation of the land being opened for settlement in the near future.  In Little House in the Woods the family returned to Wisconsin to settle on a pre-emption claim.  In Little Town on the Prairie, the Ingalls family moved to South Dakota where Laura's father finally claimed a homestead and they remained, participating in the growth of the town of DeSmet.

Replica homestead

Each of the Wilder's attempts to claim land relied on a different means.  Briefly, these are the three situations.  The Homestead Act of 1862 was signed by Abraham Lincoln, but it did not open all of the Western land for homesteading.  Some eager settlers moved onto land that was not yet opened and attempted to fulfill the requirements for homesteading--building a structure in which to live, making improvements to their property, and physically remaining on the property the required amount of time to mature their claim as if it were homestead.  If that land were subsequently opened for homesteading, they had a head start on other claimants, usually having claimed the most desirable, more fertile land by pre-emption, and they could remain.  Pre-emption could also apply to buying a claim and finishing the requirements started by someone else.  In the case of Indian Territory, those settlers were not always rewarded by their early settlement, as the case of the Oklahoma Land Rush and the term "Sooners" shows.  When the government made a new agreement with the Indians in Oklahoma, and that land was opened for homesteading, early settlers were not allowed to prove up the land they had settled and improved.  Instead, they had to return to the boundary and participate in the Land Rush with everyone else.  Those who hid and pretended to have "rushed" for the land they staked were called Sooners, (whether they were new settlers or preemption settlers trying to secure the land they had developed), given that name because they jumped the starters' guns the morning of the rush, taking advantage of getting to their claim sooner than those who began the rush at the designated starting places and time.

Stafford Co. Map 1885

Isaac came to southernmost Stafford County to stake his homestead in 1878 on land officially open for homesteading.  He built his residence, initially a dugout, and began making improvements by planting trees and breaking sod, and he remained on the land for the requisite 5 years necessary to prove up his claim.  In order to secure his patent, he took two neighbors before a local judge to swear with him that he had lived on the land for the required time and had made improvements.

According to the US Department of the Interior statistics, more than 270 million acres of public land, or about 10% of the land that made up the 48 contiguous states, was transferred to private ownership under the Homestead Acts.  Isaac claimed 160 acres, the maximum allowed under the Homestead law, and received his patent from the government, signed by President Grover Cleveland.

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

Isaac and my Grandmother

Ad from County Capital

Returning from a trip to St. John one day, Isaac Werner stopped at a neighbor's house to borrow a sewing machine.  He did not mention the purpose for which he used it, but I suspect it was for mending, as he never described buying fabric.  He did, however, make banners for the People's Party parades, so that might have required a little stitching.

Maude Hawk's Quilt

Prairie women were often busy at their sewing machines, often making clothing for their families.  Every scrap of fabric was saved for other uses, particularly for quilts.  Occasionally special fabric was purchased to use with the scraps to make a special design, and the family quilt top made by my Grandmother Maude Hawk as a gift to my mother was of the second type. 

Students tour the quilt show

As I remember what my mother told me, Grandmother Hawk was working on two different quilts and gave Mother the choice between them.  Mother was young, and she liked the bright pink flowers of the one she chose.  The other quilt was a wedding ring pattern, and Mother came to realize later that it was a more intricate pattern, but she had made her choice, and I believe the wedding ring pattern quilt went to her younger brother, Junior.

Money was very tight in those times, and Grandmother Hawk had not purchased quite enough pink fabric to complete the quilt.  Later, when she bought more, the dye lot was slightly different, but over the years the pinks have come together in color.

Wedding ring & Dresden Plate

When Mother was in her 60s, Grandmother finally brought the quilt top to her, saying, "Pauline, I guess I'm never going to get this finished for you."  It was fortunate that the gift had been presented when it was, for Grandmother fell and suffered a severe injury that necessitated her entering the Clifton nursing home near Junior.  I suppose that was how Mother learned that the ladies at the Clifton Church did quilting, and she hired them to finish the quilt.  Before Mother's death, she passed it on to me.

Macksville Centennial Quilt

My mother-in-law Irene was also a quilter, often making baby quilts for children of strangers she had read about in the newspaper who were going through some personal loss or injury, but she also made many quilts for babies in her community.  She made several blocks of a fundraiser quilt made for the Macksville Centennial, and she wanted to win it back in the raffle so badly that we gifted her enough to buy 100 tickets.  She didn't win, but 25 years later, after her death, we toured the quilt show where that Centennial Quilt was again on display and enjoyed seeing the blocks she had done.  The photographs with this blog were taken at that show, a lovely display of both antique and modern quilts.


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

Isaac's Potatoes

In the earliest years on his homestead and timber claim, Isaac B. Werner did not have a horse, mules, or oxen with which to break sod.  He had to trade his labor in payment for using neighbors' animals and plows to break sod for planting, and that allowed him only limited acreage for row crops.  Instead, he focused on planting trees.  (See "Isaac Plants Cottonwood Trees," 12-2-2011 in blog archives.)

Gradually he was able to open more land for planting, and eventually he acquired a horse of his own.  (See "Isaac's Dolly Varden," 12-28-2012 in blog archives.)  His two main crops were corn and potatoes, and he gained a reputation for raising particularly fine potatoes.

Harvesting potatoes

 When our nephew came for a visit, we arranged the opportunity for him to see the farm operation of a family that raises potatoes.  Naturally, I could not help but contrast the commercial operation of today's farming with the methods used by Isaac.

Potatoes arrive from the fields

When Isaac determined that his potatoes were ready for harvesting, he had two options--he could plow them out of the ground using his horse Dolly and a plow, followed by hand picking the potatoes turned up by the plow, or he could manually hook the potatoes from the ground without plowing.  It was a very labor-intensive job either way, and Isaac was often frustrated by the inability to find neighbors available to help at the time they were needed.  Contrast Isaac's method with the image of the machinery at work in the field today.

As Isaac by himself or with the help of neighbors dug the potatoes, they were generally transported to his house by wheel barrow.  The number of potatoes that could be dug in one day were a matter of a few bushels, in contrast to the far larger numbers dug by machinery, and Isaac had no need for machinery to convey the potatoes for cleaning and sorting, although transporting them by wheelbarrow was a back-breaking job.

Sorting the potatoes

Isaac stored his potatoes in the basement of his house.  He built bins to hold them until he had time to sort them by quality and size.  Occasionally he had help sorting them, but it was generally a job he did himself.

In order to transport his potatoes for sale in town, Isaac had to build rectangular, bushel boxes from wood.  He did this in the winter, when he was not busy outdoors, and the boxes were not sold with the potatoes.  Building the boxes was time-consuming and the wood used in their construction was expensive, so he recycled their use.  

Huge bags of potatoes inside semi-trucks

He transported the boxes of potatoes in his wagon, pulled by horses.  It was a heavy load, if the wagon was full, so in the early years when Dolly was his only horse, he borrowed a horse or mule from a neighbor to help pull the load to market.  Today, potatoes are loaded by machinery into huge bags and are transported by trucks.

Isaac experimented with many varieties, getting his seed potatoes from growers in other places to test in the Kansas sandy loam of his fields.  The names were often almost poetic--Rosy Moon, Rocky Mountain Rose, Early Maine, Monmouth Prolific, Strawberry Red, Chicago Market.

In 1885 he wrote in his journal:  "...had my barrel of Irish Seed Potatoes 2 3/4 bushels unloaded, the following kinds and quanties..." (after which he listed several varieties), concluding with these words:  "11 kinds total".  Like Isaac, modern growers continue to plant test fields to determine the best varieties to grow.

The Trip to Sun City

Downtown Sun City

 When a friend read about a fun bar and restaurant called Buster's in Sun City, Kansas, she suggested that my husband and I join her and her husband for dinner on Halloween week-end.  She had heard that patrons were encouraged to costume for the occasion, but we settled for boots and jeans.  We fit in perfectly with the other ranchers and farmers, although there were a few people in costume.

Opposite side of the downtown street

We accepted the invitation not only because we looked forward to an evening with our friends, but also because I was eager to see Sun City.  First, I remembered school bus trips to see the caves and natural bridge nearby.  Second, I wanted to see the old town where Isaac had traveled by wagon to sell potatoes.  Unfortunately, we were delayed in starting the drive (because my friend had hit a deer on their way to our house with her brand new pickup).  By the time we reached Sun City it was too dark to see very much except the well-lighted restaurant and a group of people gathered around a fire nearby to keep warm on the chilly evening.

A few days later, my husband and I happened to be nearby and detoured to see Sun City in the daylight.  The photographs accompanying this blog were taken that day.

Terrain near Sun City

As Isaac's reputation for raising quality potatoes spread, and awareness that he kept part of his crop in his cellar to use as seed potatoes became known, he developed a market in his neighborhood.  He realized that selling seed potatoes in the spring might provide competitors for his own potatoes when they were harvested later, but the cash received in the spring was needed.  As he had anticipated, at harvest the neighbors had their own potato plots and did not buy his potatoes.  Even the markets in towns were glutted.  Consequently, he had to load his potatoes into his wagon and travel to areas where potatoes were not grown.  That was how Sun City became a marketing destination.

The site where Spring Vale was located

Isaac had never traveled to that region of the country, and he described the terrain in his journal:  "Curious country around here, once a flat country but gullies started & washed by ages & frosts crumbling projecting rock flattened bluff sides down to gentle sloping & now green grass covered."  His first trip started at 3 a.m. when he arose to grease his wagon and then went to Eggleston's place to borrow a mule to hitch up with Dolly.  He spent the night at Judge Purdy's place "22 miles south of Cullison" and continued to Sun City the next morning.  He reached his destination by 11 a.m. and sold his potatoes by noon for $1 to $1.25 a bushel.  He started home, traveling through Spring Vale and Turkey Creek Mills, and spending the night in Cullison.  

Turkey Creek

In October, Isaac made another trip to Sun City, stopping this time for an overnight stay at J.P. Chinn's ranch.  The weather was colder than his first trip, and despite covering his potatoes, a few were frost bitten.  He lingered to visit with the Chinns the next morning, finding them "a clever family," but he reached Sun City by 11, disappointed to find the potato market "somewhat dull...money so scarce, finally I sold 5 bushels at Hotel & 16 1/2 to dry goods store (Douglas) all at 1.00 for bushel = $21.50"  

Isaac made his last potato trip to Sun City in early November, selling his entire load of 25 bushels to "one store W. of the Post Office, at 95 cents."  

During our visit I asked about the old hotel and was told it had been torn down when the fire station was built.  I didn't see any building that I could identify as dating back to 1887 when Isaac made his marketing trips, but I did photograph some interesting old buildings.  We went out of our way to drive through Spring Vale, where Isaac had stopped for the night on his October return home, staying overnight in the feed stable.  He stabled Dolly and the mule there, paying 35 cents, including hay, and he spent the night in the stable with them.  There are no longer any buildings.

One of the curving, unpaved roads we traveled

We had passed by Turkey Creek Mills along the way.  It is now a private club.

Although we left paving to explore the country through which Isaac traveled by wagon, we always had the benefit of graded roads.  We found it hard to imagine Isaac's trips with a mare and a mule pulling a wooden wagon loaded with 25 bushels of potatoes through the irregular terrain.

Prairie Bachelor Reflects on Marriage

In his mid-20s, we know from Isaac's journal not only what he felt about the responsibilities of marriage but also what his future marital plans were.  He wrote:  "According to brother Henry's late letter, the Home boys [in Wernersville, PA] still continue pretty fast-tampering with the cup of Sorrow--till ending in wedlock.  Then simmer down--like a final anchor and enjoy the ups and downs of married life and the animated fruits of their toiling.  While I a thousand miles away, like a Hermit delighting mostly in my ever so dear and trustfull, best companions, Books, and intend continuing so at least for coming 5 or 10 years--no telling though how circumstances unexpected might interfere."

"Circumstances unexpected" do interfere in all of our lives, and in most instances it is how we react to those circumstances that determines the course we take as much or more than the circumstances themselves.  We cannot know all of the romantic opportunities that Isaac allowed to pass by without pursuit, nor can we know of all the romantic ventures he attempted unsuccessfully.  His journal offers clues that have been shared in prior Valentine blogs. (See "A Young Man's Fancy," 2-9-2012 and "Romance on the Prairie, 2-12-2013 in the blog archives.)  He certainly admired some of the young ladies in Rossville, whom he referred to as "Juliets" and "Venuses," but except for some fumbling attempts at flirtation, Isaac seemed not to have had much romance in his life during those years.

Suffragettes Marching in 1912

On the Kansas prairie, he was a thoughtful neighbor to the divorced Mrs. Isabelle Ross, but whether his intentions were romantic or merely neighborly is uncertain.  He called upon the much younger prohibition Lecturerer Miss Blanche Hazelett at the home of Dr. McCann where she lodged, an evening Isaac enjoyed very much but about which we cannot know Miss Hazelett's feelings.  And, he left a cryptic note in his journal, "2nd refusal," which perhaps had a romantic explanation but isn't clarified.

In short, we do not know whether Isaac turned his back on romance or Cupid failed Isaac.  What we can be certain of from entries in his journal is that Isaac was very supportive of Women's Rights, even going so far as to consider becoming a Lecturer in that cause.  The idea of advancing the rights of women was already an active cause when Isaac was born.  Many of the early champions of the women's movement were also opposed to slavery, and when Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were barred from attending the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840 because they were females, they held a Women's Convention in the United States.  The first Women's Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848, and in 1850 the first National Women's Rights Convention was held in Worcester, MA.  At that meeting, attended by Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Sojourner Truth, a strong alliance was formed between Women's Rights and the Abolitionist Movement.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony

In 1868 Kansas Senator S.C. Pomeroy introduced a federal women's suffrage amendment in Congress, but it was the 14th Amendment with citizens and voters defined exclusively as male that was ratified.  When the 15th Amendment gave the vote to Black men in 1870, leaders of the women's suffrage movement felt betrayed by their male Abolitionist colleagues having failed to press for women's right to vote as well.

Disappointed but not defeated, Victoria Woodhull addressed the House Judiciary Committee in 1871 to argue that the 14th Amendment should apply to women, and Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth both appeared at different polling places in the 1872 elections seeking to vote.  Fifteen other women were arrested for illegally voting that year.

Many men opposed women's suffrage because they feared women would use their votes to prohibit the sale of liquor.  When Frances Willard became the head of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1876, two years after its founding, she was an out-spoken proponent for women's suffrage.  (See "Before Carrie Nation--Prohibition in Kansas," 9-13-2012 blog archives.)  States began putting women's suffrage on their ballots, with mixed results; however, it was not until 1919 that women finally got the vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920.  Isaac, who died in 1895, did not live to see this achievement, nor did most of the early supports of women's rights.

So, ladies, this Valentine's Day as you remember the gentlemen in your lives, pause for a moment to remember the Prairie Bachelor who wanted to see women get the vote, who criticized husbands who treated wives with disrespect, who admired women who assumed roles typically reserved for men, and who never let his support for the social and professional advancement of women cause him to ignore a pretty face!

To read more about the efforts for Women's Suffrage, see the National Women's History Museum Timeline (1840-1920) at http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/history/woman-sufferage-timeline.

Macksville Methodist Church

Isaac B. Werner's relationship with organized religion was complicated.  During his childhood in Pennsylvania, community life centered around St. John's (Hain's) Church (See "Isaac's Childhood Church," in the blog archives at 2-23-2012), and his personal library contained books evidencing his religious study.  He admired Rev. Henry Ward Beecher (See "Advice from Henry Ward Beecher," 12-7-2012 and "Keeping a Journal," 6-6-2013), one of the most famous ministers of that period, and a newspaper column written by Rev. Beecher was glued in the front of Isaac's journal.

Isaac was critical of anyone who, in his opinion, practiced their profession or craft in a careless way, whether the person was a farmer, a newspaper man, or a politician.  If Isaac felt that a minister was a second-rate preacher, he did not hesitate to criticize even a man of the cloth in his journal entries.  He seemed particularly critical of a minister because of such a man's ability to influence others.

In Isaac's community, religious services were held in the school house, conducted by lay pastors from other communities.  For example, Rev. Hoddle was a farmer-preacher from the Garfield community who came to preach at Emerson school.  Neighbors also held morning prayer services in their homes, especially during the difficult times when rainfall and money were both scarce.  When Isaac saw wagons parked at a neighbor's home for these morning prayer meetings, he reflected in his journal that studying better farming methods for the prairie soil might do their families more good than praying about their misfortune.

 Although Isaac's immediate community did not have a church, the town of Macksville about thirteen miles away organized the Methodist Episcopal Church even before the community officially became a city.  The church's charter was granted on November 13, 1885, and in March of 1886 Rev. B.F. Rhoads was appointed as the first pastor and the first church was built.  George Mack, after whom the town was named, donated land for the construction of the church, and for a time the structure was called Mack's Chapel.  Lumber and other building materials had to be brought by team and wagon from Larned, and it is likely that members from the community served as the carpenters.

The belfry, bell and steeple were added in 1888, and the original bell that called the early settlers to worship now occupies a place of honor outside the present church building, which was constructed in 1951-1952.

Among the names of those early members of the Macksville church appears George Hall, Isaac's friend and my great grandfather.  It was the Hall family that first took Isaac into their home when his health deteriorated to the point that he could no longer live alone, and it was George Hall's granddaughter, Lucille, who preserved Isaac's journal and bequeathed the journal to the Lucille M. Hall Museum in St. John, KS.  (See "Finding Isaac's Journal," 10-23-2011, "Small Town Museums," 10-29-2011, and "2011 Victorian Tea," 11-8-2011.)  I cannot help but wonder if Isaac and my great grandfather ever discussed the Bible during their evenings together.