Ancient faces: Tillis Miller

Memorial Day, in addition to honoring the sacrifices of men and women who have died in the service of their country, also is a time to remember family members and friends distinguished for us at least primarily by our love. In my parents' day, it was called Decoration Day, and my mother used to speak of her parents loading children, gardening tools, fresh flowers and food into a buggy or spring wagon --- later, a car --- and setting off on Decoration Day for the Columbia Cemetery. First, they cut the grass and straightened up the family lots (country cemeteries as a whole rarely were maintained in that day and age), then the flowers were placed and finally, a picnic and visiting with others who had come to the cemetery on similar missions.

Those days have passed, and many of the loved ones once remembered clearly are fading from our view. Tillis Miller is one of the almost-forgotten.

She was a daughter of Francis and Josephine Miller, called the "Swede Millers" to distinguish them from their neighbors, my own substantially larger Miller clan who were just "the Millers." Obviously, Francis was of Swedish descent; my own family, not so obviously, Scots-Irish.

A beautiful young woman, Tillis was a friend of my great-aunt, Cynthia (Miller) Abrahamson --- and that probably is why this elaborately printed remembrance of her was among the hundreds of photographs and bits and pieces of memorabilia that once belonged to my grandfather and now are mine to preserve and share.

Tillis is buried in the Oxford Cemetery in Lincoln Township, Lucas County, with many other members of her "Swede" family. My Miller great- and great-great-grandparents rest there, too.

So blessed be her memory!

Faded letters and tattered flags

The Iowa Memorial at Shiloh (Ask.com)

I visited Vicksburg at dawn once, on a May morning when great flowering trees were in bloom. This was toward the end of a long overnighter downriver from St. Louis to Natchez and in another world --- before Vietnam and AIDS, middle age, the Internet, September 11, Afghanistan and Iraq. Life seemed as full of promise as the day ahead.

The guide who met us as the sun was rising spoke of war and death, courage and lost causes. He told improbable stories of nightfall during the siege when undeclared truces brought Confederate and Union boys from behind their lines to play together before dark, then return to camp, sleep, arise and kill again.

I could not fathom death then; none of us, except the guide, were over 30. I did not think of James Rhea, dead in his 30th year and buried here among the Union unknowns, his grave marked by a small block of stone inscribed with a number related to nothing more than the order of burial when his unidentified body was brought from its temporary resting place near the division hospital where he died.

Eleven thousand of those gray blocks climb the hills in sweeping curves, fill wooded glades and cover terraced slopes. None of us could comprehend, in the utter green silence, that this beautiful place had once been shattered by war and spattered with blood.

James M. Rhea, whose life ended on the battlefield at Vicksburg 144 years ago, was my uncle. He left behind only a penciled letter to his little sister, Lucinda, headed "tenasee camp pitsburg," written on 2 April 1862, two days before the carnage at Shiloh began. There are no photographs, fond family memories or great-great-grandchildren.

That letter is beside me now, the writing badly faded, barely legible.

A record page from the family Bible tells me that James was born on the 17th of February, 1834, in Island Grove Township, Sangamon County Illinois --- Lincoln country. My family knew Lincoln. He was their lawyer.

James was only 5 when his father, a Baptist preacher and farmer named Richard Rhea, died during November of 1839 at the age of 31. His older sister, Elizabeth Rachel, was my great-great-grandmother.

When James was 8, his mother --- Eliza --- married the widower Thomas Etheredge and they brought their blended family to Iowa about 1848.

As a young man in Lucas County, James farmed and worked in a grain mill. Who knows what dreams he had?

When the Civil War began, he enlisted on 10 August 1861 in Co. I, Eighth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and was mustered on 17 September at Davenport. He was 27, profiled in his company's descriptive book as 5 feet, 10 and a half inches tall with a light complexion, blue eyes and sandy hair.

After several months of service, the Eighth Iowa moved between 11 and 21 March, 1862, from Sedalia, Mo., to St. Louis and then on to Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.

And so it was that James came to be camped at Pittsburg Landing on the evening of 2 April when he took pencil in hand to write a letter to his sister, Lucinda, who had celebrated her 18th birthday a few days before.

"tenasee camp pitsburg
aprile the 2, 1862

"dear sister: it is with pleasure that i take the opertunity in leting you know that i am well and harty at present and tolerable well sadisfied and i hope these few lines may find you and the rest of the folks well and doing well. i have ben well sense we have been here with the except a bad could. there is a heap of sickness here for there is so many here. there is one out of our company at the hospitle. there is a few that is not able for duty. the wether is warm and nice. the timber is green nice. in a few days catle can liv. we have plenty of hard crackers to eat and meat. it is geting late and i must go and eat some of the hard crackers. i am very lazy this evening. tell demcy to not hurt the oald blu hen and so also no more at present.

"James M. Rhea
lucinderia etheredge"

Four days later, the hideously destructive Battle of Shiloh began. Fatalities totaled 23,746, 13,047 of them Union and 10,699, Confederate.

"Brave of the brave," begins an inscription on the Iowa monument at Shiloh. "The twice five thousand men who all that day stood in the battle's shock, fame holds them dear, and with immortal pen inscribes their names on the enduring rock."

Although James was neither wounded nor captured, he was ill enough after the battle to merit leave. His company's May and June muster roll lists him as "absent" and contains the note, "sick at Monroe Co., Iowa, since April 19, 1862."

He rejoined his unit during late June and was listed as "present" on its muster roll to 18 August. On 15 August, the Eighth moved to Danville, Miss., where its headquarters remained until the Battle of Corinth.

The death toll at Cornith was 7,197, 2,359 of them Union and 4,838, Confederate, and James was among wounded.

Treated at the U.S.A. General Hospital in Mound City, Ill., he was listed as "present" on muster rolls for November and December of 1862 and January and February of 1863.

It was during James's time at the hospital that his stepfather, Thomas Etheredge, died on Christmas Eve, 1862, back home in Cedar Township, Lucas County.

By March, 1863, James had rejoined his unit and between May 2 and 14, the Eighth moved to join the siege at Vicksburg. Surely James must have had a heavy heart.

His younger half- brother, Robert Etheredge, only 16, had lied about his age the previous summer and enlisted as a private in Co. F, 36th Regiment, Iowa Infantry, on 9 August. He was plagued by illness almost from the time he was mustered, however, and on 20 February 1863, Robert was discharged for disability at Helena, Arkansas, and made his way home to Lucas County where he died on 9 April, the same day the Eighth was ordered to Louisiana en route to Vicksburg. He had just turned 17.

It was at Vicksburg, that James' life ended, too. He sustained a gunshot wound to the knee on the 22nd of June, and while a patient at a division hospital nearby his leg was amputated, perhaps after gangrene set in. On the 25th of July, 1863, he died.

Following James’ death, his personal effects were claimed by his mother and forwarded to her at Lagrange on or about the 9th of August --- A forage cap, a uniform coat, a flannel sack coat, a pair of trousers, 2 flannel shirts, 2 pair of socks, a testament, a memorandum book, a portfolio and $5 in bank notes.

Elizabeth had given two sons to the Union cause. Somehow it seems that there should have been more.

We have learned little since, hundreds of thousands more have died and in Iraq, more will die today.

Faded letters and tattered flags and one day, each year during May, set aside to honor them.

Paradise

Ed Abbey always managed to say it well:

"When I write paradise, I mean not apple trees and only golden women, but also scorpions and tarantulas and flies, rattlesnakes and gila monsters, sandstone, volcanos, and earthquakes, bacteria, bear, cactus, yucca, bladderweed, ocotillo and mesquite, flash floods and quicksand, and yes, disease and death and the rotting of flesh. Paradise is the here and now, the actual, the tangible dogmatically real Earth on which we stand. Yes, God bless America, the Earth upon which we stand."

His frame of reference was the desert southwest. Mine is Iowa, Wyoming, Saigon, New York City, Baltimore, Boulder, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, more --- remembered and here and now.

I have no vision of paradise in another dimension --- unless it is parallel to this: sitting on the bench in front of the house on a May evening, a glance up from the geranium-filled planters through the trees down the hill and toward the river.

And other specifics --- west of Cody along the road to Yellowstone many years ago now, lunch at a picnic table, declining to smile at the photographer I see clearly still behind the lens that took this, hands-in-pockets along the creek. And walking out into a late summer sunrise from my uncle's ranch house to the far side of the pond he had built and stocked, then turning west, Big Horns reflected.

The importance of sittability

As a collector of church buildings, I’ve tried to figure out what makes some good and others not-so-good and concluded it may be sittability, by which I mean when you walk up to it, it says “come in” and when you do, it says “sit down and stay a while.” And when you do that, too, you don’t feel alone --- even if the lights are turned off and the candles, if any, aren’t lighted.

Counting my cathedrals the other day, I decided St. Patrick’s in New York, the Washington National Cathedral and St. Louis in New Orleans had never spoken to me --- although St. Louis whispered. It probably was the herds of tourists like me, enough to rattle any good building and cause it to heave a sign of relief and go to sleep when they’ve gone.

It’s not stained glass, although that can be nice --- especially in a city where the view isn’t that great anyway. It’s not the organ, although if there is one I prefer pipes and pipes where I can them without getting the feeling I’m supposed to worship the instrument.

It surely isn’t size. Surely nothing can be drearier and lonelier and emptier than a contemporary “mega-church,” carpeted barn with padded seats, theater lights and a sound system. Good settings for good shows maybe, but hardly a place to worship.

And sadly, it’s harder these days to get in even if the old church says “come in.” In a day and age when the answer to the question “Is nothing sacred?” is “No,” they’re nearly all locked. That’s understandable. Arson took down Burlington’s grand old First United Methodist a couple of weeks ago, and two of my all-stars --- Somber Lutheran east of Lake Mills and St. Mary’s of Rosemont, a few miles from Lacona --- also have been intentionally burned to the ground within the last few years.

So here’s my sittable nomination for the day --- the old Presbyterian church in Bentonsport, perched on a minuscule point half way down the bluff that separates this Iowa-ancient Des Moines riverside village from higher ground to the east. Minimal parking, no plumbing and no stained glass (although only trees, sky and air are visible through the clear glass here and that’s just as good). No central heating, an old reed organ and a congregation only during the summer. Still, the old lady always says, “come in, sit down and rest yourself.”

If the good Lord saw fit ...

If you are among those the Rev. Jerry Falwell consigned to hell during a long and very public career as a self-proclaimed spokesman for God, it's challenging to say something both charitable and just.

If the good Lord saw fit to take Brother Jerry home, I'm grateful that he did it on a slow news day.

But many of those the Rev. Mr. Falwell demonized over the years have returned the favor: Flames licking around his turned-up toes or more positively, a heavenly mansion along a street paved with gold in heaven's gay ghetto attended by winged feminists, Teletubbies endlessly cycling on the big-screen TV.

And there was the predictable performance of Mitt Romney --- among the Mormons Brother Jerry repeatedly excluded from grace over the years --- coming forth as the first GOP politician to kiss his cold dead ass.

I got to thinking about this guy I know who is a fundamentalist atheist, avid debater of clerics, firm in his lack of faith, religiously irreligious --- and about how much I had learned about my own faith because of him. So I told him one time that maybe God was using him, that he was merely an instrument and a work in progress. He didn't think that was funny.

But it's one way of looking at Brother Jerry. How do we learn to behave if we do not see misbehavior; to love the seemingly unlovable until we witness hate at work?

Best of all, we don't have a say about the form eternity will take for Brother Jerry. That is in better hands.

Eternal rest grant him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

Queer thistles

So I’ve been obsessing about the lawn lately. Wanna make something of it? Every week, rain or shine --- as long as it keeps raining --- the grass has to be cut during the narrow window of time I’m in Chariton or first me, then the neighbors and finally the city become distressed. There’s a lot of time to think, riding the old Snapper around and around the back 40 --- and I’ve started to think while playing lawnmower cowboy of that expanse of green as a paradigm.

I came back to early this week to hear our own Dean Genth speak during the Mason City PFLAG chapter’s regular meeting about his experiences as mentor and coordinator of logistics on the east bus of this year’s Soulforce Equality Ride March 1-April 26.

Soul Force (mission statement: "The purpose of Soulforce is freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance.") , co-founded by the Rev. Mel White and his partner, Gary Nixon (pictured at the top of this post, right and left respectively), launched the Equality Ride last year. The goal is to witness in an explicitly Christian and non-violent manner at a variety of church-related colleges that either reject outright or severely restrict LGBT youngsters. Approximately 50 young people participated in east and west bus rides this year, accompanied by a couple of older mentors --- like Dean.

It was an illuminating presentation. Dean’s east bus commenced its route at Dordt College (Reformed) in Sioux Center, Iowa, and after traveling through the South, Southeast, Northeast and eastern Midwest ended the trip at Bethany College in Mankato, Minn. The stop at Bethany intrigued me especially since I was baptized and confirmed in a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, which owns Bethany and has its seminary there.

Although received civilly at Dordt and somewhat confusedly at Bethany (visions of frozen Lutherans peering from behind the blinds as an army of gays proclaiming the gospel advanced across the campus lawn), some fairly awful things happened to the riders, especially in the South. Strip and body-cavity searches during incarceration after being arrested for “chalking” a sidewalk at Baylor University in Texas, that bastion of Southern Baptists, for example.

So I was glad I sat in on the meeting. It’s useful to be reminded of just how many self-proclaimed Christians are scared shitless by us and how narrow the line between being scared and being hateful is.

I came home and started thinking about my diversity lawn --- I warned you this was going to be about grass. Like I’ve said before, the neighbor has a conservative Christian lawn --- regularly patrolled with spray can in hand to kill anything unworthy.

My lawn is more or less as God planted it: About 60 percent bluegrass with the other 40 percent comprising dandelions, creeping Charlie, crabgrass, quite a few plants I can’t name and even a thistle or two. So which among that natural mix are we? Personally, I like creeping Charlie --- ubiquitous, tenacious and a lovely shade of blue when it blooms. But I’d settle for dandelion, same toughness and a bright yellow bloom to boot. But thanks be to God for the occasional queer thistle, too.

The flowers that bloom in the spring ...

No, I've not forgotten this. But the "new blogger" approach to photographs confused me back in February --- then I got sidetracked. Now I think I've gotten it figured out (just added a photo of Elizabeth E.E.F. Hammer's tombstone to the previous entry) and just could be back on track.

It was cold then, and a beautiful sunny May day in Iowa now. Easter morning, I left Mason City at 5:30 a.m. and arrived in Chariton before 9 a.m. to view the effects of our big freeze during the previous week: Tulips and daffodils flat on the ground, magnolias (blooming the weekend before) looking like they'd been horsewhipped, all the budding trees turning brown.

By now, nearly everything has recovered and I'm going to try the same 5:30 a.m. stunt Sunday, hoping everything I've planted will be standing tall. The "spite prairie" bed just south of the house --- so-called because I'd hoped it would deter the neighbor who sneaks across the lawn and sprays poison on my dandelions --- is flourishing. The prairie bed hasn't deterred the neighbor by the way, but I guess that will just have to be OK. He's given up on saving my soul and now seems content to try to save my lawn ("creeping charlie doesn't grow uphill you know," Mrs. neighbor said the other day, referring to the fact I live on higher ground). I hope those poor folks aren't lying awake at night, worrying about my charlie creeping closer and closer.

Some things don't change: The Iraq war goes on, no less deadly it seems; no closer to resolution. We continue to pray for the dead and for peace Tuesday evenings during compline at St. John's. But why aren't more people gathering in more churches to pray? Surely prayers for peace, even by the most militant, couldn't be viewed as "not supporting the troops."

And the price of gasoline just keeps going up and up and up.

But some things do. Freed of Republican control, the Iowa Legislature this session added gay and lesbian youngsters to new anti-bullying legislation directed at our schools; then followed up on that by adding LGBT folks to the list of those who cannot be discriminated against in public arenas. Who would have thought it? In Iowa?

Hope does spring eternal in the spring: Even if, damnfools that we are, we succeed in wiping ourselves out, the planet probably will survive; tallgrass prairie will break through cracks in the Interstate and sweep toward, then through, Mason City --- until there's only the sound of grass in the wind and running water again. My prairie bed, accompanied by creeping charlie and the dandelions, will rise up and conquer the neighbors' perfectly manicured lawn. And the dandelion shall lie down with the bluegrass ...