Ancient Faces: The Ratcliffes at Hogue Cemetery

I ran onto these photos taken last fall at Hogue Cemetery down in Wayne County the other day while looking for something else, so it seems like a good time to trot out the Ratcliffes, the Coxes, even Myrtillo E. Hart, credited with being the first person buried at this lovely place back in 1852.

That's Jane Anna (Boswell) and Thomas J. Ratcliffe up top with two of their sons. Grandmother Jessie did not identify the boys, but I suspect that they're the youngest of Jane's and Tom's nine children, Lloyd (born 16 May 1875) and Peachy G. (born 5 July 1877). Peach was the only grandchild to carry forward the outlandish name of his maternal grandfather, Peachy Gilmer Boswell.

Quite a while back I did some theorizing about what makes a great cemetery, and Hogue falls into greatness in my book primarily because of its setting --- way off by itself in the hills and timber with a lovely view of a lake-sized pond downhill to the west (which I couldn't photograph last fall because the sun was going down and defied my attempts to shoot directly into it.

Located maybe two and a half miles southeast of Cambria in Section 35 of Washington Township, here's what I think is the easiest way to find it: Drive about four miles north of Corydon on Highway 14 and after you cross the South Fork of the Chariton River start watching on your left for a new-like sign that says "Hogue Cemetery" pointing up a gravel road headed up the hill west. Drive about a mile and a half west on the gravel road and watch to the south (left) for a shot-up sign beside a gate that says "Hogue Cemetery," too (keep in mind this a part of the country where everybody shoots at stuff, including signs, but we won't shoot at you --- unless it's deer season and you're not wearing orange). Turn left through the gate, drive a little more than a quarter mile down the narrow lane and you're there.

Jane and Tom lived less than a mile southeast of the cemetery on the south bank of the South Chariton --- but you can't get there from here anymore since a bridge went out and wasn't replaced.

Jane, born 14 February 1836 at Point Pleasant in Mason County, (West) Virgina --- there was no "West" in West Virginia then, was the second of the seven surviving children of my great-great-grandparents, Peachy Gilmer and Caroline (McDaniel) Boswell. My great-grandmother, Chloe Boswell/Prentiss Brown, was the eldest.

If you click on the family photo to enlarge it, you'll notice a finger missing on Jane's right hand. Here's the story about that: Chloe and Jane were the eldest Boswell children, so chores that might have been handled by the boys fell to them. They were sent out one day at Point Pleasant to chop up some wood for the fire. Chloe had the axe; Jane held the wood. Jane's finger got in the path of the axe and goodbye to it. She never seems to have held her missing digit against Great-grandmother.

Peachy and Caroline brought their family (which by then included Frances Susan, William Reed, Ellis Green, America Elizabeth and Thomas W., age 1) west to Village Township, Van Buren County, in 1850. Almost whole Boswell herd abandoned West Virginia in the late 1840s and 1850 and nearly all of Peachy's siblings and his mother ended up in Van Buren County, too.

Three years later, in April of 1853, Peachy and Caroline settled just the far side of Wildcat Creek immediately north of Corydon in Wayne County.

Tom Ratcliffe, son of Jesse, was born 18 January 1834 in Jefferson County, Ohio, and came west to Van Buren County with his family about 1852 and moved farther west to Wayne County in 1853, too.

Jane and Tom probably met in Van Buren County and were married there on 2 February 1854. Tom died 15 January 1896 on that riverside farm and Jane continued to live there until 1906 when she moved into Corydon. She died 18 September 1912 at the home of her son, Peach.

Buried to the northwest of the Ratcliffes, over by the west fence, are Jane's sister, America Elizabeth Boswell (8 December 1847-16 December 1925), and her husband, George Washington Cox (8 November 1846-20 August 1898). George and "Mec" lived a little more than a half mile due south of the cemetery. And yes I know the tombstone says born 1848, but it's a liar.

George, who was a teacher, died at 52 after a long, long illness; and America outlived him by 27 years. Aunt Mec was the only one of the Boswell siblings that my mother remembered --- and only faintly. It was the long, long trek by horse and buggy from English Township, Lucas County, to Washington Township, Wayne County, that Mother remembered better.

There are other kin buried here, but their graves are not marked. Peachy Gilmer Boswell's brother, William M. Boswell (died 25 December 1867), his wife, Eliza Jane (died 23 December 1884) and two of their children, Greene H. (died about 1858) and Angeline (died 15 November 1891) lie in unmarked graves just north of the Ratcliffes. Not many people know that, but I do --- although I have no idea exacly where on that lot or in what order they are buried.

As I said, Myrtillo E. Hart, who died 13 January 1852 at age 37, reportedly was the first to be buried here at Hogue. His tombstone has fallen flat on it's back, which allows us to take a look at something I found interesting --- the maker's mark on the stone that ordinarily would be below ground level. I read it as "R.S.S., Eddyville."

Keep in mind that there weren't many people, let alone a tombstone maker, in either Corydon or Chariton (the nearest good-sized towns) in 1852. So it looks like family members interested in marking graves had to go all the way to Eddyville, way off to the northeast on the Des Moines River were Monroe, Mahaska and Wapello counties meet, to acquire one. That was about the biggest trading center (larger than Ottumwa), milling center and river crossing site in the region in those long-ago days.

Larry McMurtry's "Books: A Memoir"

You'll enjoy Larry McMurtry's brand new "Books: A Memoir" if: (a) you love books just because they're books; (b) collect (or accumulate) hundreds, even thousands, of them and have read, are reading or will read most; and (c) believe that the answer to everything is somewhere in a book and that you'll find it if you keep reading.

If you don't, you won't.

McMurtry, surely you remember, is a prolific writer ("The Last Picture Show," the Pulitzer-Prize-winning "Lonesome Dove"and 36 others if I counted right, plus two in partnership with Diana Ossana) and screenwriter (including Academy-Award-winning "Brokeback Mountain" with Ossana).

Less known to many of us is his lifelong career as a book seller and occasional scout, proprietor of a sprawling establishment in his hometown of Archer City, Texas, that offers some 400,000 used, rare and collectible volumes.

"Books" is not in-depth autobiography nor is it intended to be profound --- it's merely an account of how books have woven themselves into McMurtry's life told anecdotally in 109 brief chapters filling 259 pages (Simon & Schuster, hardcover list price $24).

But the "merely" is mighty entertaining, following McMurtry's life from its start in a Texas ranch house without books to proprietorship of one of the largest U.S. book stores.

There certainly is some thought-provoking speculation about the future of books and reading in the digital age, but many more entertaining insights into the great characters in book scouting, selling and collecting.

A good many funny anecdotes, too, including an account of an encounter with Janet Lee Auchincloss Morris (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's mother), paralyzed with horror when she realized that in attempting to sell the library of her late second husband, Hugh D. Auchinchloss, she might have to deal with common folks "in trade."

It's a good read however you do it --- in one gulp or more slowly; and a good addition to that pile of books dealing with books and the people who relish them.

Who will watch the home place?

That opening line of the refrain from a Laurie Lewis song kind of says it all for most of us involved directly or peripherally (me) during the last few weeks in the closing down and family leavetaking at the old Miller home place in English Township.

The rest of the refrain would be overstating the case for most of us, although certainly not for my Aunt Marie:

Who will tend my heart's dear space?
Who will fill my empty place
When I am gone from here?

When I backed out of the long driveway early Tuesday (filled with vehicles so the turn-around was not accessible), Dick was wrangling the stuff he and Karen are hauling now back to New York into a U-Haul. His treasure: an ancient anvil anchored to a substantial tree stump that Grandpa kept in the back garage.

Among Karen's: A modest pile of rocks (to Dick's dismay, although they're used to each others oddities and tolerant of each other's quirks by now). In that, Karen is her grandmother, Jessie, and my mother, her aunt, reincarnated. For some reason, Miller women always have collected rocks and hauled them home. Karen recalled bringing a small rock back from Okinawa, where she was teaching quite a few years ago now and where she met Dick, for my mother to add to her collection on our farm south of Russell.

The big auction was Saturday, the packers came Monday and as I drove north on Tuesday the moving van was headed toward the farm from Omaha with an anticipated noon arrival. By now, the big old house is as empty as it's ever been in the century since it was built as the last of its most recent family drives east.

The auction Saturday exceeded everyone's expectations I'm told (although I wasn't there because of a command performance at the office here and I can't decide if I'm sorry or glad to have missed it). It did not rain, for a change, to everyone's relief and a big crowd turned out to pay absurdly high prices for some things; absurdly low prices for others. The auctioneer even --- as an afterthought --- sold for $40 a pile of rock that had been hauled up to the house over the years and deposited out northwest of the house. There's just no accounting for what people will buy.

People have asked Marie, Karen and Dick --- even me --- during the last few weeks if we don't feel just awful about selling and leaving a farm that's been in the family since the 1880s.

And the answer to that, for all of us I think, is well, not really. It has served one family wonderfully well for going on 130 years, but there's a time and a season for everything and it's someone else's time and season now. We just hope it continues to be loved and taken care of.

I have a strong sense of place, I think, but tend not to be overly sentimental about real estate. I wouldn't want the farm even if I could approach affording it. Others' dreams have spread themselves across those acres of rolling hills and woodland and have been invested in mighty barns and a house that reflected their thoughts about a suitable place to live. But it's the dreamers who hold a place in my heart --- Grandpa and Grandmother Jessie, Verna, Uncle Richard and Aunt Marie.

Without them, it seems hollow --- and echoes lonesome.

I'm missing Aunt Marie already --- she who is among the most delightful of human beings; and anticipating the empty space that will be left when "the girls" fail to make their annual (or more frequent) pilgrimages from across the East to the farm.

But I'll give them all a call this weekend when the dust has settled a little, and feel better about their absence.

Maybe I'll go out to the farm after a while and walk around a little, take a few more photos. Then again, maybe I won't.

The photos up top here were taken last fall, looking south across a small pond just beyond the old orchard toward the farmstead, then north across the pond to the fields and woods beyond. I just haven't had the heart lately to run around out there with a camera.

Snakebit II: Worth Eugene Nelson

Look down a ways here and you'll find the first "Snakebit," a list of stories extracted from Darlene Arnold's index to Lucas County newspapers related to rattlesnake bites (some fatal but most not) sustained by Lucas Countyans between the 1880s and 1920s. One of those who died was a little boy named Worth Eugene Nelson, but I couldn't tell from the index if he was from Lucas County or somewhere else.

Got to visiting via e-mail with Darlene yesterday about something else, mentioned this and she recalled checking the little boy's death out some time ago for a relative of Worth named Kimberly Smith, who lives in the Davenport area.

As it turns out, Worth, age 4, was bitten by the snake somewhere in Pleasant Township's wild and wooly hills. The story states that the family farm was "a few miles east of Tipperary, near Olmitz," and that's a little odd --- Olmitz was just south of Tipperary, but at least it tells us the general neighborhood.

And it's a neighborhood where you wouldn't be surprised to find a few rattlers, even today. It's beautiful --- but rough (hilly) and wooded. A couple of units of Stephens State Forest are located there, units that the state intentionally has returned to an undeveloped state after making an effort quite a few years ago to make them a little more user-friendly (the state forest units in western Lucas County, near Lucas, are considerably more hospitable).

Tipperary and Olmitz both were mining towns, now vanished. I can take you to the site of Olmitz, but it's impossible even to get to Tipperary. The road that used to continue east past Zion Cemetery led there, but it was closed many years ago; and the road in from the north now is a private lane.

Olmitz and Tipperary could be pretty tough places in their time. Dad used to talk about the time old Sam Beardsley, Chariton's best-known undertaker, went out to Tipperary to lay out a corpse. "How did this man die?" Sam reportedly asked. "Don't ask," was the answer.

But none of this has anything to do with Worth Nelson. Here's the newspaper report of his death that Darlene forwarded to me:

SNAKE BITE PROVES FATAL

Little son of Mr. & Mrs. Schaterick Nelson, of Near Olmitz, is Victim.

IS BITTEN THREE TIMES

Passes away after suffering several hours; snake menace in Southern Iowa becoming serious.

"One of the saddest events we have had to chronicle for some time is the sudden death of little Worth Eugene Nelson, four-year-old son of Mr. & Mrs. Schaterick Nelson, who reside a few miles east of Tipperary, near Olmitz, which resulted from being bitten by a large rattlesnake on his father's farm.

"On Tuesday afternoon the boy and his father were picking blackberries, and the little fellow, who was barefooted, stepped on the snake. The rattler struck him three times on the left leg, near the ankle, each bite going deep into the bare limb, and it was impossible to check the spread of the poison through his system. The boy's leg was soon swollen to three time its normal proportions. The accident occurred about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Dr. Fisher, of Tipperary, was hastily summoned, and later Dr. Hills of Russell, both of whom tried every method of relief possible, using whiskey, tourniquets, and other aids without any results, and in the evening it was decided to remove him to the Miners' Hospital in Albia. They arrived there in the evening at 9:30, but hospital officials were unable to give him any aid, and stated that the boy was so badly bitten that it is doubtful if he could have been saved if a physician had been right on the spot. He passed away on Wednesday morning about 2 o'clock. Right after being bitten, the lad said that the snake had gone into a hole in the ground. A large rattler was found about 30 feet away, however, and was promptly killed.

"The remains were brought to the family home on Wednesday and today will be taken to Centerville, where funeral services and interment will take place. The boy is survived by his parents, and by two brothers and one sister. To them the deep sympathy of all good people will be extended.

"Reports from many sections of Iowa state that there are an unusually large number of snakes this year, many of them of a dangerous nature, and people are advised to be cautious and keep a careful lookout. The greatest danger is to children, who seldom watch their steps closely, and who are unable to defend themselves if attacked. Snakes should be killed on sight."

This story was taken from The Chariton Herald-Patriot of Thursday July 27, 1922.

Kimblerly Smith told Darlene that Worth's parents were Shadrick and Lena (Zeller) Nelson, who moved away from Lucas County a few years after the little boy died. Darlene looked for a tombstone record in Appanoose County, since he reportedly was buried at Centerville, but none was found.

By the way --- if you look in the sidebar you'll find a link to the Lucas County Genealogical Society under "Lucas County Genealogy." You can find out there how to join. And if you had joined, you'd already have known all of this since it was included in the most excellent newsletter that Darlene and other members publish once a month.

The price of a cup of coffee

I'm told that the going price for a cup of coffee at the coffee house two blocks east of here is 2 bucks. Now I may look dumb, but I'm sure as hell not dumb enough to pay 2 bucks for a cup of coffee, especially if it's one of them sissyfied brews, hazelnut bannana delight or somesuch. I'll just keep making my own thank you very much.

I get my coffee at Hy-Vee West and these days it comes ground up in a can with Hy-Vee written on it. In the interests of science, I just made a field trip. The 2-pound can of Hy-Vee breakfast blend that I paid 7 bucks for a couple of weeks ago is selling this morning for $5 --- bought another can. Same size can of Folgers was "on sale" for about $10. Bulk whole-bean Millstone was about $10 a pound and you could pick up 12-ounce packages of Seattle's Best and other fancy brands for something like $7 --- on sale.

Now I have aspired (once or twice a year) to coffee greatness. I have two coffee grinders, one here and one in Chariton, and when the urge to excel hits I buy Hy-Vee's whole-bean fair trade brand, still selling for $7.99 a pound. It doesn't seem to sell very well, probably because the marketing geniuses in Des Moines have decided it should be in the health food aisle where most of the people who buy coffee --- and have no idea what fair trade means --- never see it. I buy it (a) because it's the cheapest whole-bean brand available (probably because it's been sitting around a long time) and (b) because I can feel self-righteous when I do it.

But the truth of the matter is I have a tin tongue --- now matter how expensive (or inexpensive) the coffee is it all tastes about the same to me unless it has some damnfool flavoring in it. I make a pot in the morning, drink a few cups, throw the rest away the next morning when I make another pot --- and that's it.

OK. OK. I did have an espresso machine once that also spat steam out a little tube and bubbled up hot milk to make that coffee drink I've forgotten the name of that has a fuzzy white top. But when I found out how much time it took to clean the blessed thing after making a cup I stuck it in a cupboard and finally fed it to a garbage bag. Life is too short ....

We're living in hard times you know --- the end result of an economy built on layers of air and the improbable idea that everything can keep getting bigger and bigger, businesses can keep making more and more and we'll always be able to afford to buy tons of stuff (only a small percentage of which we need). They tell us it's going to get better. But it isn't, brothers and sisters. It's going to be a bumpy ride, so hold onto your hats.

Meanwhile I'm drinking another cup of cheap Hy-Vee breakfast blend this morning while awaiting the apocalypse, holding onto my hat and hoping the coffee doesn't spill on the way down.

Snakebit

Snakes get a bum wrap and I'm one of the guys who contribute to that --- I don't like them. In fact, I jump about six feet when one surprises me (let's face it, I'm older now --- make that four feet). But I don't kill them and I've even reached the point where, having jumped four feet, I realize how foolish I've been, walk back and watch the critter for a while.

My mother hated snakes in a steely-eyed murderous sort of way. If she caught sight of a snake, even one that was minding its own business, she grabbed a hoe and it was a gonner. Dad didn't mind them, even cultivated the bullsnakes that occasionally took up residence in grain bins because, he said, they ate mice.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources tells us that three varieties of rattlesnake are found in diminished a numbers in the state --- a few prairie rattlesnakes in some parts of the Loess Hills and more timber rattlesnakes (photo above) and massasauga rattlesnakes, but all are rare and endangered.

This all came to mind early this week when I received an e-mail from James F. Mahaffy of the Biology Department at Dordt College in Sioux Center. As part of his research into "historic populations of rattlesnakes in Iowa and Minnesota," he's ferreting out reports of deaths attributed to rattlesnake bites in the state.

I post a lot of genealogically-related stuff to assorted Web sites and he'd come across something I'd written about Cousin Alonzo Miller, who according to family lore died during August of 1869 at age 7 of a rattlesnake bite on the farm in English Township where he lived with his parents, Sylvanus "Vene" and Adelia Miller. Sylvanus was the youngest brother of my great-great-grandfather, Jeremiah Miller. Vene's wife had one of the more elaborate names in the family --- Adelia Permelia Lucinda Phylena Nottage.

Anyhow, Sylvanus moved to English Township from Monroe County in 1853 --- a time when there weren't many people around, but there were a lot more rattlesnakes. He married Adelia in 1859 at her home in Wapello County not far from Eddyville and brought her back to Lucas County where they settled down to raise a family that included Mary and Alonzo, both of whom died young; and Sarah Naomi (Miller) Minter and William L. Miller, who lived long lives. Mary and Alonzo reportedly are buried in Brownlee Cemetery, although their graves aren't marked.

I was able to tell James Mahaffy that the mortality schedule attached to the 1870 federal census of Lucas County tends to support the family rattlesnake lore --- although because of legibility problems and enumerator errors it wouldn't be wise to bet the farm on it.

Then I decided to run "snake" and "rattler" through Darlene Arnold's extraordinary index to vital records (and anything else that interested her) in extant Lucas County newspapers. I've bragged about this incredible resource before --- you'll never know just how handy it is until you've used it. I came up with the following list of stories related to snakes (including one death that occurred in Lucas County and another that probably did; sadly, there are no surviving newspapers from the time of Alonzo's death).

Keep in mind that there are no extant copies of Lucas County newspapers from the 1850s and very few from the 1860s. The number of surviving issues grows through the 1870s and is fairly complete after 1880. It's also likely that only a small percentage of the snake stories told in Lucas County ended up in the newspaper. The letters after the dates of publication indicate the name of the newspaper: D is Chariton Democrat, H is Chariton Herald, P is Chariton Patriot, HP is Chariton Herald-Patrion and L is Chariton Leader.

Here's the list.

Barron, J. T.'s son, story, 07-26-1895D, pg8, bitten by rattlesnake - Derby items

Barron, J., son, story, 07-25-1895H, bitten by rattlesnake

Blue, Mrs.'s son, story, 07-18-1883P, 3 miles southwest of Russell, bitten by rattlesnake

Danner, Newton, story, 07-04-1912P, fp, son of D. N., bitten by rattlesnake

Dixon, Gerald, story, 07-22-1920L, pg5, fishing, went to sleep, snake coiled around neck, saved

Dixon, Robert, story, 08-01-1912P, pg9, son of Mr. and Mrs. George Dixon, bitten by rattlesnake - Russell

Duckworth, George, story, 05-11-1894D, bitten by rattlesnake, Olmitz & Cedar items

Eaton, Johnnie, Jr., story, 06-19-1902D, pg8, bitten by snake, getting along OK, Norwood items

Floyd, Chas., story, 10-03-1895H, almost bit by rattlesnake

Gillespie, J. T., story, 08-08-1895H, quite a fright from a large bull snake

Hall, J. H., Mrs., story, 06-23-1898P, stepped on rattlesnake, it bit her toe

Johns, Samuel, story, 04-15-1886H, snake story (but no indication what kind of story, FDM)

Lighter, Everett, story, 08-20-1896H, bitten by rattlesnake

Lott, Chas., story, 05-28-1891D, lifting potatoes from box, bit by rattlesnake

Magnall, Thomas's dau., story, 09-17-1884P, bitten on foot by rattlesnake

McCullough, Leroy, story, 09-05-1877P, bit on foot by rattle snake

Messenger, E., story, 07-21-1880P, bitten on leg by rattlesnake

Morris, Lew, story, 09-11-1902D, fp, bit on cheek by rattlesnake

Nelson, August, Mrs., story, 10-18-1895D, pg5, bitten by rattlesnake

Nelson, Worth Eugene, death report, 07-27-1922P, fp, son Mr/Mrs. Schaterick Nelson, snake bite, buried Centerville

There is no record of this boy’s death in Lucas County, nor is there a complete obituary. This suggests, but does not prove, that he did not die in Lucas County. The full story probably would straighten that out.

Noble, G. W., story, 08-20-1873P, bitten by rattlesnake

Prather, Johnnie, story, 10-15-1897D, pg8, bitten by small rattlesnake - Cedar items

Rustan, Homer, story, 06-28-1932L, fp, son Mr/Mrs. Albian Rustan, bit by rattler

Sefrit, Amy, story, 08-17-1905P, fp, dau Mr/Mrs. George Sefrit, bitten by rattlesnake

Shardeen, Dan, Mrs., story, 08-19-1898D, pg8, bit by rattlesnake, almost fatal - Derby

Sowash, Vernon, story, 08-01-1895H, found a snow white rattlesnake

Thompson, G. J., s-08-13-1896H, rattlesnake on porch

Vawter, Victor, death report, 09-08-1910P, pg7, bitten by snake (Thomason/Arnold Cem) - Liberty

Cause of death in Lucas County death records is given as infection from a snake bite; Victor's grave is marked in the Arnold Cemetery.

Weller, girl, death report, 09-19-1895P, pg2, bit by rattlesnake (Eldorado Cem) - Cedar Township

Weller, Hilda, death report, 09-19-1895H. of snake bite, dau of Wm. Weller, bur Eldora (actually Eldorado FDM)

Weller. Hilda, death report, 09-20-1895D., pg5, dau. Mr/Mrs. Wm. Weller, bit by snake (LaGrange Cem; Actually Eldorado FDM)

Quite a few place conflicts here, but online Monroe County tombstone inscriptions show Hilda B. Weller, born 28 March 1892, died 9 September 1895, age 3yrs, 5 mos, 12 dys, daughter of W.A. and C.M. Weller, buried in Elderodo (sic) Cemetery, Cedar Township, Monroe County. The southwest corner of Cedar Township, Monroe County, joins the northeast corner of Cedar Township, Lucas County, so it’s difficult to say whether Hilda died in Lucas or Monroe County, but the number of reports would suggest Lucas County as does the mistaken report that she was buried in LaGrange Cemetery, located on the Lucas/Monroe County line in Cedar Township, Lucas County. No death record found for her in Lucas County, however. Original stories might clear this up.

Whitten, Clark, Mrs., story, 08-17-1896D ,pg4, bitten by rattlesnake

Whitten, Clark, Mrs., story, 07-16-1896H. bitten by rattlesnake

Whitten, Clark, Mrs., story, 07-16-1896P, pg3, bitten by rattlesnake,

Wilson, James, Mrs.. Story. 05-22-1902H, killed full grown rattlesnake on her veranda

Yocom, Dr., story, 05-10-1894H, buggy ran over snake, threw Dr. Yocum

Yoders, Freddy, story, 07-13-1893H, stepped on a rattlesnake

So there you have it. Be kind to snakes. It's unlikely you'll ever see a rattlesnake, less likely you'll be bitten by one and unlikely you'l die of it even if you are.

The old cord bed comes home to roost

I have not done justice here to the old cord bed, but rain Monday night upset my plans to pose the old lady carefully among some flowers. Showers were chasing me when I finally got around to driving her in from the farm (I hadn't taken a tarp along), it was getting dark and as I unloaded her it started to sprinkle --- so I leaned the pieces up agains a bench, took two quick shots and got her inside. Lord knows she's been through enough and I didn't want to add insult to injury. Shortly thereafter, it started to pour.

As I wrote earlier, my cousin, Suzanne, and her husband, Bill, had talked for years about taking the bed home with them to Atlanta and restoring her. Or I should say Suzanne had talked about it --- we never see Bill. He's a native Georgian, has never quite managed to rise above the Civil War and doesn't like damnyankees --- and by god whatever else we may be, we're damnyankees and damn proud of it. So Bill's been to Iowa maybe twice in the 30-plus years he and Suzanne have been married and I've seen him once --- fleetingly at the funeral of his father-in-law, my uncle, Richard. Then he hot-footed it to the airport, flew back to the southland and that was that. Suzanne's just a wonderful person and some times we wonder where we went wrong, but there's just no accounting for taste and the misadventures of love.

But you know down in your heart the old cord bed had an ice cube's chance in hell this summer when push came to shove of finding a cushy home in either of the Georgia houses those folks call home. So now I have custody.

If you look carefully, you'll see that what started life as a four-poster is now a two-poster with stubs --- and I expect that's why she's still in the family. Who else would want the poor old girl?

She's called a cord bed because of how she functioned. When assembled, two side rails were inserted into slots in the headboard and footboard, then wedged so the whole contraption wouldn't collapse. Each piece of the bed has a series of pegs that anchored a heavy web of rope (called cord) that when installed and tightened supported a featherbed or straw tick. I'ts about as simple and functional a piece of furniture as you'll find.

The story about the bed is my grandfather's and I really can't prove any of it, but have no reason to doubt it.


















According to Grandpa, the bed was made for my great-grandparents (above), Joseph Cyrus (called Cyrus) and Mary Elizabeth (Clair) Miller at the time of their marriage, which occurred on 21 January 1875 at the home of her parents, James Wayne and Elizabeth Rachel (Rhea) Clair, in Pleasant Township, Lucas County. Somehow the bed looks older than that to me, but this is what Grandpa said.

Anyhow, they started houskeeping with the bed in a little cabin-like structure in English Township that had been the original house on the farm of his parents, Jeremiah and Elizabeth (McMulin) Miller, just east of what now is Williamson and across the road south of the far grander home built by the Millers on that farm during the late 1860s or early 1870s. Both of these homes have long since been demolished.

A year or two later (after the birth of Grandpa and perhaps his sister, Elizabeth), Cyrus and Mary purchased a prairie farm two miles northeast and moved into a small two-up and two-down house there. The upstairs rooms had low ceilings with sloping sidewalls --- and the bed didn't fit too well.

Great-grandmother, Mary, proposed cutting off the posts on one side of the bed so that it could slide in under the sloping sidewalls instead of standing in the middle of the room. Cyrus said "no."

His ruling prevailed until one day he went off to town to do some business, leaving Mary at home with a houseful of sick kids, some of whom were languishing in the old cord bed planted inconveniently in the middle of the room. Provoked, Mary grabbed a saw, sliced two of the posts off about midway up and shoved the bed into the position she had envisioned for it in the first place. And that was that.

According to Grandpa, the tops of the two posts were kept for a while with the idea of putting the bed back together, but finally got tossed outside and ruined by exposure. And that was that, too.

Later in the 1880s, Cyrus and Mary traded the prairie farm for what now is the Miller century farm (and will be that for just a little while longer) a mile southwest just east of Williamson Pond on the headwaters of English Creek. There was no timber on the prairie farm --- and there was lots of timber on the new farm, which made it more attractive to farmers of that era. Everyone needed firewood, for example; and rails for fencing.

The Millers moved into the ramshackle old house on the new farm, and the old cord bed had a new home.

Cyrus died during November of 1895, the latest in a series family tragedies, leaving Mary with a houseful of children. My grandfather, William Ambrose, age 20, was the oldest. Jeremiah, age 3, was the youngest. There were six others in between.

Soon after Cyrus died, Mary lost patience with the old house and built a new one --- which for that time was a rather grand structure --- just to the south and west. The old cord bed moved again. That house still stands, although deteriorating, on the 60 acres of the Miller homestead retained by Uncle Jerry and his family.

My granddad, purchased the balance of the farm from his siblings and about 1908, after his marriage to Jessie and the arrival of Uncle Joe and Uncle Owen, began building the "new" house --- where my mother was born and raised, the retirement home of my aunt and uncle, Marie and Richard Miller. The old cord bed moved again.

I remember the old bed fully assembled and functional (complete with featherbed) there, housed in the northwest bedroom upstairs. This had been the "spare" room, and the catchall --- Uncle Owen's cavalry saber was in the closet. Around the walls hung enlarged photo portraits in elaborate frames of a variety of deceased kinfolk. And we grandkids loved to bounce on the old cord bed when we weren't rummaging around in trunks and the closet (another favorite pastime was examining with awed fascination a couple of illustrated sexual hygiene books supposedly kept secure in a towering bookcase in the downstairs bedroom; there the male grandchildren learned that masturbation led innevitably to dissipation and blindness).

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Granddad amused himself by bulding two new house in Chariton and moved into one of them. Most of the farmhouse contents moved with him, but the old cord bed remained on the farm.

After Granddad's death at 94 during 1969, Uncle Richard and Aunt Marie purchased the farm and began the long-distance multi-year marathon of reshaping the old farmhouse into their retirment dream home. The cord bed was disassembled, but no thought was given to disposing of it. Eventually, it landed in the basement and has reposed there for more than 20 years.

Now it's moved again, complete with a crack I don't remember in the headboard, presently covered with blankets along the north wall of the garage in Chariton. It's an awesome responsibility I've been handed --- and quite frankly I'm a little nervous about it.

Clarity at Clear Lake

It's one of those gray, green and fuzzy mornings when North Iowa still is deciding what it wants to be today: Louisiana or Southeast Asia during monsoon season. So far, it looks like Louisiana.

I've been at one desk or another too much this week, so took the 10-minute drive west to Clear Lake to see if I could find the dredging equipment that's been moved into place at Ventura, the little town at the northwest corner of the lake (much of the rest of Clear Lake is surrounded by Clear Lake the city).

Clear Lake is of Iowa's few natural lakes, all up here at the edge of old glaciation --- perhaps 50 at the most. There used to be more, but a majority of the smaller ones have been drained for farming or other purposes or have silted in and now are merely marshes.

Clear Lake's an attractive place and the two towns along its shores are nice, too, but as in much of Iowa there's no wild left, little sense that all that water once was part of a larger landscape with a life of its own. It must have been a sight to behold back then.

What's left is essentially a pretty puddle surrounded by affluent humans perched in astonishingly ugly but very expensive houses on postage-stamp-sized lakeshore lots looking out at the water or at each other.

The two largest public areas, Clear Lake State Park and McIntosh Woods State Park are nice --- but small. Clear Lake State Park is downright claustrophobic; McIntosh Woods, better --- at least from here if you pretend hard enough you can almost see how it might once have been.

It's better I'll bet for folks who like to be on or in the water. But less rewarding for those of us who like to just sit beside it and look.

One positive thing about the lake, however, is the quality of its water --- and that's improved dramatically lately after hard work by those who live around the lake and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which manages the liquid part of the equation.

The levels of nutrients from fertilizer runoff (a surprising amount of it generated by overenthusiastic lot owners pouring the stuff onto their grass) has been cut, so ugly and smelly algae blooms are diminishing. Game fish are flourishing. And now dredging of "little lake," which is actually just the west end of the lake proper, is about to begin.

In that area, depth has decreased from more than 20 feet to 6 at the most because of silt since humanity started fiddling around in a big way up here. So the dredges have been moved into place and this summer and next, a gazillion cubic yards of muck will be pumped out and spread elsewhere. When it's done, depth will have increased to about 20 feet; water clarity across the lake should improve since a stiff breeze will no longer stir up the muddy bottom in this part of it; and the DNR assures us fish will flock to little lake come winter to create an ice-fishing paradise.

That'll be nice.

Dances with Buffalo (make that Wolves)

I found a DVD of Kevin Costner’s 1990 epic “Dances with Wolves” a few weeks ago on the $7.50 bargain table and decided it was high time to watch it again --- not quite the same as the big (and only) screen at the Forest Theater in Forest City, where I saw it the first time, but good enough.

I’d forgotten what an epic it was --- and also had forgotten that it opens with a gory amputation scene (unsuitable if you’re eating supper, as I was, with both eyes on the screen).

Great film, although very long --- and I’m going to watch it again one of these days when enough time opens up. It won seven Academy Awards, including best picture, and also was the Golden Globe best motion picture of the year.

Its scenery and the buffalo were especially interesting to me and assorted cousins because much of the location shooting (including Fort Sedgewick and all those buffalo) was done on the Triple U Enterprises/Standing Butte Ranch in central South Dakota --- which we like to think has a Lucas County/family connection, albeit a very distant one. But I find obscure connections to this and that endlessly fascinating.

L. Roy Houck (whose wife, Nellie, had died in 1988) owned and operated Standing Butte when the film was made; and Roy’s dad, Jacob R. Houck, was a Lucas County native.

Roy’s granddad (Jacob R. Houck’s father), Charles W. Houck (22 October 1834-15 December 1915) was born in Esslingen, Wurttemberg, Germany, but came to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, when he was 15. A veteran of the Civil War, he married Sarah A. Myers, an elder sister of my great-grandfather, Daniel Myers I, about 1867 in Westmoreland County and they continued to live there for a time.

In the meantime, Sarah’s father and stepmother, Jacob and Harriet (Dick) Myers, moved from Westmoreland County to Benton Township, Lucas County, in 1867, and in 1870 the Houcks joined them there. They farmed in Benton Township for 16 years.

In September of 1886, the Houcks left Iowa and moved to central South Dakota where they farmed and ranched first near Norfolk in Sully County, then in Riverside Township, Potter County, before retiring and moving into Gettysburg in 1907.

About 1909, they became interested in an old soldiers’ colony in St. Cloud, Florida, and began spending winters there. Sarah (born 27 May 1835 in Westmoreland County) died at St. Cloud on 9 May 1911. Charles died four years later in Gettysburg, where both are buried.

Charles and Sarah had six children, one of whom, Cora (27 September 1869-27 March 1881) died of scarlet fever in Benton Township and was buried in Salem Cemetery.

The other children were George Abram Houck, Phoebe Elizabeth (Houck) Peck, Jacob Roy Houck, Edward H. Houck and Daniel Myers Houck.

Jacob R. Houck married Helena B. Hoerber, and L. Roy Houck (left), born 28 January 1905 on a ranch 17 miles north of Gettysburg, was one of their four children. He married Nellie Beohmer in 1928 and they were operating the Triple U Hereford Ranch when the Oahe Dam project was conceived and built --- taking much of their land.

When that happened, the Houcks’ Triple U Enterprises purchased the Standing Butte Ranch, about 50,000 acres (now 60,000) located about 35 miles northwest of Fort Pierre.

The new ranch, however, proved unsuitable for large-scale cattle ranching, so the Houcks became pioneers in commercial Buffalo ranching --- acquiring the first of what became a herd numbering approximately 3,500. By 1974, all the cattle had been sold.

At the time “Dances With Wolves” was filmed, the Houck ranch herd was the largest in the world and that, combined with the ranch’s setting, made it the logical choice for much of the location shooting for the movie, a process Roy Houck and his family reportedly enjoyed very much indeed.

Roy Houck died on 2 November 1992 in a Rapid City hospital at age 87, concluding a career that had included service as state senator and South Dakota lieutenant governor as well as countless agricultural and conservation honors.

Their daughter, Kaye Ingle, and her family continue to operate the ranch.


This Houck family photo was taken on 26 December 1908. Charles W. and Sarah (Myers) Houck are seated. Their children (standing from left) are Edward, Phoeobe Elizabeth, Daniel, George and Jacob.

And here's to you, Bishop Robinson

Anybody else out there remember “The Graduate,” Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft --- 1967? Wow. Where the heck did I see that the first time? Somewhere in Iowa City, I suppose.

Anyhow, this is the week the Lambeth Conference began in Canterbury --- an event seemingly irrelevant to much of Christendom, but of intense interest to many Anglicans --- estimated to number somewhere in the neighborhood of 77 million of the baptized worldwide, including members of The Episcopal Church in the United States. All of us more or less acknowledge the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams at the moment, as a spiritual leader and the Church of England (which he heads) as our point of denominational origin. The whole shooting match is called the Anglican Communion, although in parts of it lately more shooting than communing has been taking place.

Now the Archbishop has no real power, but he does control the invite list to Lambeth --- a gathering held every 10 years to which all the world’s 800-plus Anglican (and Episcopal) bishops --- including Iowa’s Alan Scarfe (a good guy) --- traditionally are invited. It’s just a get-together --- the bishops have no collective power; but they do enjoy putting on their purple shirts and heading off to London for tea with the queen, bless their hearts. (The point of the exercise actually is very worthy: To unite, inspire and teach the bishops so that they might more effectively move forward the work of the catholic --- universal, including Roman, Anglican, Lutheran, Orthodox and all the rest --- church.)

The Episcopal Church has been viewed by some as a problem child in the communion for quite some time. Our bishops are elected, not appointed, and they preside, but don’t rule. We pioneered in the ordination of women as priests --- and to add insult to injury for those bishops (including a few Episcopalians) who believe men should always wear the skirts in the church --- elected a woman, Katharine Jefferts Schori, as presiding bishop (head of the national church) last time around.

Just before doing that, the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire elected V. Gene Robinson as its bishop. Bishop Robinson is queer, has been partnered with a guy named Mark Andrew for more than 20 years and makes no secret of it. In other words, he’s an honest man --- a fairly rare commodity. That photo up there, by the way, is of Bishop Robinson.

Well! That along with sensible treatment of all those unworthy women certainly got some ecclesiastical undies all bunched up at various points around the globe.

It’s not so much that Bishop Robinson is gay, or committed to a same-sex partner, that causes the problem. Lord knows there are queer clergy and more than a few queer bishops, where there are bishops, not to mention communicants, in all the expressions of Christ’s church out there. Christ doesn’t mind, it seems, but boy some who call themselves Christians do.

Especially when you talk about it. Shhhhh!

Honesty has always been a challenge in the institutional church --- along with that troublesome urge to burn heretics literally or figuratively at one stake or another.

So with all the screeching and hollering going on, the Archbishop decided he’d just head off trouble (and avoid threatened boycotts) by not inviting Bishop Robinson to Lambeth.

That turned out to be rather pointless. It made a number of Americans and other socially liberal Anglicans madder than old wet hens. And those who had threatened to boycott (maybe a fourth of the bishops, mainly from Africa) are boycotting anyway --- just don’t want to associate with those damned Americans, they say.

And then Bishop Robinson goes to London anyway --- not to crash Lambeth and not to preside or officiate (the Archbishop has forbidden that), but to preach where invited (also discouraged by the Archbishop) and otherwise meet and greet.

And he’s been getting remarkably good press; better, perhaps, than that accorded the congregated purple-shirts elsewhere.

And he’s said some interesting things, appreciated at least by those of us who like him profess to be both queer and Christian.

Preaching at St. Mary’s Church, Putney, “My homosexuality is not my sin --- but I am just as frail and self-absorbed as the next person. I am not unworthy --- I am made good by Jesus Christ."

And, "Right here, in St Mary's church, Putney, I am going to divulge the homosexual agenda. It is Jesus!"

What a guy! So …

Coo, coo, ca-choo, Bishop Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know (Wo, wo, wo)
God bless you please, Bishop Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray
(Hey, hey, hey... hey, hey, hey … hey, hey, hey)

And apologies, of course, to Simon and Garfunkel. If you'd like to follow goings on at the Anglican circus, Bishop Robinson's blog, "Canterbury Tales from the Fringe," is here. And Simon Sarmiento's "Thinking Anglicans," which does a top-notch job of locating and referencing stories about Anglicanland is here.

Cheyenne River Writings

I read Dan O’Brien’s “Buffalo For The Broken Heart” not long after it was published in 2001 and now that it’s turned up in an unexpected place (the set of shelves in Mason City that is supposed to hold only oversize books), it’s been added to the re-read pile.

It’s a grand account by a rancher (sometimes teacher, writer, falconer, wildlife biologist) in the shadow of South Dakota’s Black Hills, owner (thanks to a substantial mortgage) of a small place called the Broken Heart because of the configuration of its brand, who abandons cattle and begins raising buffalo.

It’s a love song about the Great Plains, the Black Hills region and its people, and, of course, about the buffalo that once ranged these plains (and Iowa’s vast prairies, too) by the million. It’s just a wonderful book and I’m looking forward to the reread.

In the meantime, perhaps a year ago, I happened onto the Web site for O’Brien’s “Wild Idea Buffalo Co.,” located here.

In the years since 2001, O’Brien has sold the Broken Heart (although he still manages it) and now owns the Cheyenne River Ranch, west of Badlands National Park and north of the Pine Ridge reservation. He lives there with his partner, Jill Maguire, and associates Gervase Hittle and Erney Hersman.

Hittle is an interesting guy, too --- retired chairman of the Modern Languages Department at the University of South Dakota, now a ranch hand.

The Web site has a number of purposes, but one certainly is to market the buffalo meat produced by Wild Idea, developed into what O’Brien calls a “model of native grass-fed animals culled humanely in the pastures where they live.”

One of the most interesting accounts found on the Web site details an especially “wild idea” developed by O’Brien and others --- a mobile (state inspected and fully approved) slaughtering operation that goes to the pastures where the buffalo graze so that animals to be harvested can be killed and processed on site and with minimal stress. One point of this exercise is to make it available, too, to the people of the Pine Ridge.

The big bonus for those of us who enjoy reading what O‘Brien (and Gervase Hittle, too) has to say is “Cheyenne River Writings” (look for it in the site index), monthly essays by both, also available in newsletter format if you care to subscribe. Past writings are available in the archives.

Reading them all, and I’ve done that gradually from start to July 2008, has been almost as much a pleasure as finding a new book by O’Brien on the shelves at Borders would be.

The ministry of weeds

I’ve been hanging out early mornings this week in the churchyard pulling weeds. Others have been there, too, at other times --- pulling, pruning, planting. I prefer early.

St. John’s is a self-maintaining parish --- there are no janitors or groundskeepers. What gets done is done by the people who call it home. I like that. When we’re unhappy about the way something looks, the alternative to unhappiness is doing something about it. Complaining without doing doesn’t accomplish much since there’s no paid-by-the-hour scapegoat to remove the source of our unhappiness.



And the grounds at St. John’s --- margins of lawn next to the street and a lovely shaded courtyard formed by the “u” of the church --- chapel and offices, classrooms, parish hall and sanctuary --- are more gardened than landscaped. No genetically-engineered shrubs arising from pools of sterile gravel. Instead, banks of daylilies, a flourish of coneflowers, drifts of roses and ferns, lots of other plants --- and weeds.

The weeds are my favorites. I love the free-from-guilt pulling of them (no endangered plants here), the look of a weed-free flower bed, the brief self-created sense of order.

It’s all about the illusion that humanity can impose order. The ministry of weeds is the lesson that we can’t. They'll be back. So just relax, but keep pulling. And rest assured that ultimate order rests in other hands.

Tombstones that talk

By that I mean tombstones that say in one way or another something about the people whose graves they mark --- not stones that acutally speak.

But as you might expect, there was mild excitement a couple of years ago when a guy named Robert Barrows of San Mateo, California, obtained patent for what he called a Video Enhanced Grave Marker. The idea was to create a hollow tombstone that contained video and audio devices in a weather-proof, tamper-proof chamber that would allow the deceased to speak his or her piece from beyond the grave --- turn a graveyard visit into an interactive multimedia experience. It doesn’t seem to have caught on, yet.

Here are three tombstones at Iowaville that speak without technology. They mark the graves of three children of A.L. and Mary J. Garrison who died within a month of each other during the early spring of 1880.

I know next to nothing about the family, or what its connection to Van Buren County was. But the mortality schedule attached to the 1880 federal census shows that Effie, Wilber and Frank died in Chicago of scarlet fever complicated by meningitis. All three were born in Iowa, although their father, a druggist and physician, was in business in Chicago when the youngsters died. He, in fact, was listed as their attending physician. How sad.

The parents obviously selected matching tombstones for their children that were intended to tell us something about them --- what their interests or talents were. I’ve seen this type of tombstone before. The tree-like shape was intended to signify a fallen branch. In the big cemetery at Forest City there’s a log like this only resting length-wise on the ground with a saddle on it --- reflecting the fact that the youngster whose grave it marks loved horses and died in a fall from one.

Here at Iowaville we have Effie B., “Our Pet,” who died 16 March 1880, age 13 years, 10 months and 20 days, memorialized with an open book on which her inscription is carved.



And Wilber N., who died April 3, 1880, age 11 years, 4 months and 29 days, memorialized with a ball, a bat and small straw hat.



And finally Frank C., “Our Pride,” died April 6, 1880, age 16 years, 5 months and 25 days, whose stone is topped by a concertina.

Books, sports and music.

Iowaville is a long way from Chicago and 2008, a long way from 1880. But at least we know something about these young people long dead.

Kansas Gothic

Reading about Grant Wood's "American Gothic" brought this photo to mind because of Steven Biel's reminder that the pose of the couple in the 1930 painting was not uncommon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (or for that matter, now) --- couples or entire families gathered by intinerant photographers in front of their homes, often holding or posed near prized possessions. In one of Biel's illustrations, entitled "Nebraska Gothic," the head of the household even was holding a pitchfork.

There's no pitchfork in this battered photo of the John and Susan (Myers) Hickle family, posed in front of its Lincoln County, Kansas, home probably during the late 1880s, but it's still an interesting and typical shot. Other than John and Susan, who was my great-grandfather's sister, I can't identify the others in the photo by name, although that may be Jesse standing in the wagon in the background.

John, born 22 August 1831 in Ohio, reportedly led an interesting life --- including work as a Pony Express rider --- before settling down in Benton Township, Lucas County, where he married Aunt Susan (born 27 February 1844 at New Florence in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania) on 9 April 1867.

John and Susan farmed in Benton Township for 17 years and nine of their 10 children were born there --- and two died, Jacob Edwin (28 September 1873-14 June 1874) and Rosa May (30 June 1879-1 August 1880). Jacob and Rosa are buried near their grandparents, Jacob and Harriet (Dick) Myers, in Salem Cemetery.

The Hickles moved from Lucas County to Kansas in the fall of 1884. John died there 12 years later, on 1 October 1896; and Susan followed on 12 June 1903.

Got your copy yet?

I picked up the latest volume of Wapsipinicon Almanac (Number 14), one of Iowa's recurring and portable treasures, Sunday morning in Ames --- and have been dipping into it while mowing lawn, trying to reread Black Hawk's autobiography and having better luck with Steven Biel's "American Gothic."

So far I've finished off Timothy Fay's "Talk Of The Township," Raymond M. Tinnian's "Four Seasons Mini-Almanac" and the two history-oriented pieces, Bill Douglas's "Insurgent Religion in Iowa" and Laura Rigal's "A Bad Day On the Prairie: The Chickasaw County Massacre."

By this time next year, when Volume 15 appears, I'll have finished it off --- if not before. That's one of the nicest things about the Wapsi Alminac: It only appears once a year. Not that you wouldn't like it to appear more often, but it does leave a reader free of periodical guilt and the need to cover that pile of unread magazines that subscribing to seems like a good idea at the time.

The Almanac is a 160-page compilation of writing by Iowans about Iowa --- non-fiction, fiction, history, a little bit of everything. That may sound a little chauvinistic, but who is going to write about Iowa if Iowans don't?

It's published the old-fashioned way, brought to you by Eldon Meeks on the Linotype and editor/publisher Timothy Fay at the controls of the vintage letterpress press (he operates Route 3 Press), down near Anamosa, then sidestitched and bound. It's about the size of National Geographic, but about as far away from slick as you can get --- and that's the point. Even the advertising's fun and non-threatening.

You can't subscribe (another advantage) and it's sometimes difficult to find out in the hinterland (and Ames certainly is that). Book-sellers tend to be unsure what to do with it. It is a periodical, after all, but I found it among the "Of Local Interest" selections.

If you can't find it on the shelf somewhere, you can order direct from Route 3 Press. Here's the Web site.

Caldwell, present; McMullen, among the missing

I really like Van Caldwell’s tombstone at the Iowaville Cemetery --- and surely would like to find Daniel McMullen’s, which seems to have vanished, another of the minor mysteries this place specializes in.

Caldwell was a Virginian who arrived at Iowaville about 1839 after living at Bentonsport with his family for a year or two. One of his sons, Henry Clay Caldwell --- lawyer, Civil War colonel from Iowa who was named an Arkansas judge by Lincoln, prominent citizen of Little Rock where he died in 1915 --- kind of overshadowed his dad and got most of the press. But there are a few sketchy references to Van Caldwell out there.

Van is described in one of many biographical references to his son as “at one time, a wealthy Virginia planter, (who) meeting reverses in fortune, and losing the greater part of his estate, sold his ancient homestead and came to Iowa, which was then a territory. … He was an old-style Virginia gentleman.”

When the Caldwells arrived at Iowaville, they settled northwest of the village --- inadvertently claiming land in a small triangular area north of the Des Moines River that at the time was still Sac and Fox territory but became Davis County. They weren’t supposed to be there.

The first survey map of the area, which dates from about 1840, notes the Caldwell cabin’s location in Section 2 of what became Davis County, roughly an eighth of a mile due north of Black Hawk’s grave and the same distance east of the river. This was about a mile and a quarter northwest of Iowaville.

John Beach, who succeeded his father-in-law, Gen. Joseph M. Street, as agent to the Sac and Fox upon Street’s death at Agency in 1840, explains why the Caldwell family was allowed to remain:

"Through some unfortunate misunderstanding in regard to the boundary line, several persons had intruded upon the Indian land upon the Iowaville bottom and the ridges in the rear, as well as upon the south side of the river; and as the Indians made complaint to the Government, it had no alternative but to remove them. This duty fell upon the writer to execute, and was a very unwelcome one, if only for the reason that several of the intruders were persons who would not willingly have violated any law. Among them was that fine old specimen of West Virginia hospitality, Van Caldwell; but by reason of his location, and his readiness by any reasonable arrangement to escape the terrors of fire and sword, the writer obtained permission from the Department that he should remain, upon the condition of his maintaining a ferry for access to Soap Creek Mills during high water.”

As a result, Van sometimes is noted as the first Iowan licensed to operate a ferry in the state.

Caldwell’s first wife reportedly was Susan Moffit, but she apparently had died elsewhere and Van married a substantially younger woman, Rachel, who shares the Caldwell lot at Iowaville with Van and three of their children, all of whom died very young.


Rachel died 29 April 1854, age 29 years, 8 months and 21 days, apparently while giving birth to a daughter, Belle R. Their children were Adeline, died 16 February 1847, age 5 days; Belle, died 5 October 1852, age 1 year, 10 months and 23 days; and Belle R., who survived her mother by a couple of months before dying on 15 July 1854, age 2 months and 15 days. (Note that Belle R.'s tombstone has fallen and I did not photograph it.)

Van himself died 8 October 1856, “at his residence on the Des Moines River” as the tombstone inscription records. He was 56.

While a good deal of information can be found about Van Caldwell, that is not the case with Daniel McMullen (sometimes spelled McMullin).

The 1878 history of Van Buren County lists William McMullen, a bachelor, among Iowaville’s first settlers. That history also contains the statement that “The demise of Daniel McMullen was the first in the place (Iowaville).”

WPA workers located Daniel’s tombstone in the Iowaville Cemetery at some point during the 1930s, reporting that it contained an inscription stating that he died 18 August 1841 and indicated that he had been born during 1797.

Van Buren County D.A.R. members, working in 1936, recorded the same date of death and the notation that Daniel was 44 when he died.

At some point a more complete description of Daniel’s monument, which sounds as if it were a table tomb, entered the literature regarding Iowaville Cemetery --- and it’s been repeated again and again.

That description has most recently been repeated in a new book entitled “Van Buren County, Iowa: A Pictoral History,” published by Villages of Van Buren County in 2007.

The description of Daniel’s monument (page 68) reads, “One of the most pretentious tombs belongs to Daniel McMullen, an early day trader with the Indians. The McMullen tomb, walled up with stone, is topped by a slab about seven by four feet. The name, “Daniel McMullen,” the date “August 18, 1841,” and age “44 years,” are inscribed above a bas-relief insignia that resembles the Masonic square and compass but is a crossed Indian arrow and tomahawk.”

The difficulty is, that tomb just isn’t there. And what became of it I cannot say.

Although I do have a theory: That Daniel is in Black Hawk's grave. To phrase that another way, that the current somewhat peculiar monument to Black Hawk was constructed on the ruins of Daniel McMullen's table tomb because of a misunderstanding about just who was buried there. More about that another time.

The view from Iowaville

For as long as humanity has been gazing out across the Des Moines River valley toward the Soap Creek hills --- and that’s a few thousand years now, give or take a millenium --- we’ve been doing it from here: a natural observatory that is the prow of Iowaville Cemetery.

I head downriver from Eldon to Douds-Leando and beyond along Highway 16 several times a year and just before Selma, often turn off onto the twisting lane that leads up into this cleared slot in the wooded bluff, pull off about halfway up, then walk back west onto the point, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with what may or may not be Black Hawk --- and just look.

It’s an amazing way to restore perspective.

Iowa’s mound-builders were here first and I’m told their creations can be found, if you know where to look, along the ridge.

Highway 16 itself is a fairly recent innovation, following the general route of a vanished rail line around base of the eastern rim of the valley. Before that, the main trail edged the river --- and still does, although it’s rutted gravel from Iowaville up to Eldon and closed entirely from Iowaville down to Selma.


Look carefully into the distance and you’ll see a narrow north-south gravel road leading from Highway 16 down to the riverside. This is the road to the village of Iowaville, laid out in 1838 by trader James Jordan and others. The road was at its east boundary; the Van Buren-Davis county line (also the west border of the Black Hawk Purchase), it’s western limit.

But long before that, this was the site (or near the site) of the principal village of the Ioway people, who found refuge in this broad valley as early as 1720 after their numbers had been drastically reduced by diseases of the whites.

Perhaps a century later, 1819-1824 depending upon who you believe, the Sauk and Fox (Meskwaki) with Black Hawk as a secondary commander, virtually finished off the Ioways by massacring hundreds of them as a great celebration was under way out there in the valley. Their bones are just under the surface.

After the Black Hawk War, Black Hawk himself came here to die --- in the fall of 1838 upstream from Iowaville along the river not far from trader James Jordan’s home. He was buried a little farther upstream for a time --- until an enterprising white who had visions of making money by displaying it swiped the head (or the whole body), boiled away the remaining flesh and vamoosed.

There’s a very old tradition in these parts that only the head was taken and that the remaining bones were brought up here to all that remains of Iowaville and buried, which is why it’s possible to stand by Black Hawk’s grave even though it’s entirely possible the old chief isn’t in it. It all depends on what you want to believe, as most things do.

Iowaville itself was doomed --- too close to the river, too many floods. And now everything is gone out there except the land and the river. The last of the buildings, Robert Rathbun’s Iowaville House hotel, long a farmhouse, came down in the 1950s; James Jordan’s mansion, in the 1960s.

There’s not a sign, not a marker, nothing to indicate that history swirls around you here like falling leaves in a brisk October wind.

That’s the way it works you know. We’re mighty small stuff, despite the size our heads sometimes grow to; and the troubles of today have little or no meaning in the grand scheme of things. The river will keep flowing, dirt will cover our bones and we’ll be forgotten. And that’s not a bad thing.

A slippery slope seen from atop a pile of stuff

My aunt, Marie, is downsizing radically this summer, preparing to sell the Miller family homestead (a century-plus farm in English Township) and move east to live near a daughter in the Detroit suburb where she (Marie) grew up. Her handmaiden in this herculean effort is my cousin, Marie's most worthy daughter --- Karen, who ordinarily lives with her family not far from Lake Ontario's southern shore in northwest New York. Karen will have put many stars in her crown before all is said and done.

If all goes according to plan, there will be an auction with lunch on the grounds during late July. Soon thereafter, Marie and her moving van will depart. At some point, the farm will sell. Down at Columbia Cemetery, my Grandfather Miller is rotating in his grave --- not because the farm is being sold, but at the price it's expected to sell for. The escalating value of Iowa farmland has been breathtaking. Grandpa, rarely speechless, would be now were he not 133 years old and long dead.

The house is big --- my mother's childhood home reshaped into my aunt's and uncle's dream home (in large part by themselves) in the years after they acquired it, about 1970. There are two of the biggest barns still standing in Lucas County, both full. And two garages, full again. The sorghum shed was full, too, but it caved in a while back and no one's worrying about what's back there below the pond.

My aunt and uncle were of the generation who remembered the great depression clearly and threw nothing away. Now, much has been consigned to dumpsters and more will be. A majority of what remains will be sold. The distilled essence will go east.

So I've been considering my own pile of stuff and how burdensome it seems some days. I used to value it more --- and gladly add to the pile. Now I'm more hesitant.

So far, very little has made its way from the farm into Chariton --- and I'm glad of that. The exception was this old copy of "Radio Hymnal" with cover intact but detached. I got it because of the inscription inside, "From Flora Myers to Mrs. Elmer Gibbany." Flora was my paternal aunt and Mae (Miller) Gibbany, my maternal aunt. They were friends. I'm not quite sure how the hymnal got back to Iowa, since Aunt Mae's pile of stuff was in Wyoming, but I'm kind of glad it did.

Open the cover and you see that it was first published in 1927 by the Henry Field Seed Co. Those who think about such things will know about the radio battle between seed and nursery giants Henry Field (Station KFNF) and Earl May (station KMA) and how for a golden radio era beginning in the 1920s all ears in a substantial chunk of the Midwest were turned toward signals broadcast from little Shenandoah.

I don't recall listening much to Shenandoah in the 1950s (our station was the 50,000-Watt Voice of the Middle West WHO Des Moines, founded by chiropractic kingpin J.B. Palmer of Davenport to promote bonecrunching, just as KFNF and KMA were founded to promote seed).

But I do remember regular pilgrimages to Shenandoah in the summer to view the nursery test gardens of both Henry Field and Earl May (plus others) --- and at least one visit to Mayfair Auditorium, the showpiece of the Earl May/KMA empire.

And of course well into the the 1970s, there was Kitchen Klatter, a talk show for farm and small-town women (as well as a monthly newsletter/magazine) launched in 1926 at Henry Field's behest by his sister, Leanna Driftmier, and carried on by her daughters, Lucille, Marjorie and Dorothy (who lived near Chariton with husband Frank Johnson and daughter, Kristin, but traveled regularly to Shenandoah to pitch in with the broadcast).

Midmorning daily Monday through Friday my mother, and thousands of other Midwest women, turned the radio on to listen to that widely-syndicated broadcast with pen and paper nearby (to copy down the recipe that was a daily feature).

I expect I have all the Kitchen Klatter cookbooks and quite a few Kitchen Klatter kitchen favors (copper salt and pepper shakers, measuring spoons, spice rack, etc.) offered in return for a little cash and a few Kitchen Klatter cleaning product boxtops or Kitchen Klatter flavoring bottle seals. Ah, the memories.

After coming in from the farm one day last week, I took a long hard look at the north wall of the garage and decided stuff had to go. So far, a garbage bag full of junk, a set of steel shelving and two dead chairs have departed. I can now open the pickup door and exit without turning sideways and squeezing. There's another set of shelves, an unused tool chest, more junk and a modest pile of lumber still to go.

I wish I could say unreservedly that I'm mending my ways and lightening the load. But truth be told, it now looks as if I may inherit, from the farm, the old cord bed, once a fine piece of four-poster furniture, but an albatross hanging around the family neck since it was vandalized by my great-grandmother in the mid-1880s. For nearly 130 years, no one's had the nerve to throw it away (or try to sell it).

My cousin, Suzanne, was supposed to take the bed home to Atlanta with her --- and restore it. Now, she's hedging. We'll see. But just in case, I'm getting a new home ready and it will move if absolutely necessary (Sell it? Throw it away? Certainly not!) from the old homestead basement to the north wall of my garage. I'll keep you posted.

American Gothic

No, no. Not my cousin, Helen. It's the house. Look at the house behind her. This is the American Gothic House, Eldon's pride and joy, and also the site of a new light-hearted visitor center dedicated to that most-parodied of American paintings, Iowa boy Grant Wood's "American Gothic." Over the last couple of years, it's become one of my favorite places to visit --- and also to show off when visitors turn up on my doorstep.


That's what happened a week ago Sunday when I pulled into the driveway in Chariton to find my way blocked by Helen's substantial white van with Utah license plates. At 86, she's terrifying her daughters again by roaming the country during the summer all by herself. She had made her way to Iowa through Colorado, Kansas and a corner of Missouri in a week; headed deep into Missouri on Tuesday; then moved on to Indiana and Ohio. Before summer's done, she also plans forays into Idaho, Washington and Oregon. Whew!

We headed downriver from Ottumwa on Monday because I wanted to inspect flood damage (moderate when compared to Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and elsewhere, but bad enough) and have lunch at the Bonaparte Retreat in Bonaparte, where I like to grab a window seat and watch the river roll by (and also like the food and the atmosphere, both served up on the main floor of an historic old mill).

Eldon is about half way down Highway 16 between Agency and Iowaville, right beside the Des Moines River, and sandbags still flanked the road at the lowest spot along main street. All the lights in town went out as we drove up the bridge from the Floris side of the river, but I don't think that had anything to do with us. It did make the stop at Casey's General Store for gas pointless, however, since the pumps weren't pumping.

The American Gothic House (and the American Gothic House Center just southwest of it) are located in a high and dry spot in southeast Eldon that's a challenge to find unless (a) you know where you're going or (b) start watching carefully for signs pointing the way just south of the main part of the business district.

Although the house is owned by Iowa's State Historical Society (it is not open to tourists by the way; too small, too fragile and its exterior is the point of this whole exericse anyway), the visitor center is a collaborative effort of the people of Eldon and the Wapello County Conservation Board, which administers it.

Grant Wood came to Eldon in the high summer of 1930 along with others, including Eldon native John Sharp, another talented artist who later moved to the East (and died during 1966 in West Palm Beach, Fla.).

Edward Rowan, director of the Little Gallery in Cedar Rapids, had obtained grant funding that year to experiment with promoting the arts in smaller Iowa towns and picked Eldon, where he rented a house to be used for exhibitions and classes. Wood and Sharp came along for the ride.

Wood reportedly spotted the house while on a tour of the town with John and was amused by the elaborate gothic window under the peaked roof of the simple cottage with board-and-batten siding. He painted it quickly then, and returned home to Cedar Rapids as what became "American Gothic" formed in his head.

The models for the dour couple he placed in front of it were his sister, Nan, and the family dentist, Dr. McKeeby. The house, Nan Wood and Dr. McKeeby at no point posed together --- but were assembled in the mind of the artist. And the rest is history. The original of "American Gothic" is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Visit the visitor center and you'll enter a foyer with a large display room to the left. It's lots of fun, but also represents serious scholarship. The highly professional displays focus on Wood, Sharp, the regional school of artists to which they belonged, the painting and parodies. It's just a delight. There's also a small theater where you can watch a video and, across the north end of the building, a great little shop (I came away this time with an "American Gothic" mouse pad and a copy of Steven Biel's book, "American Gothic").

If you like, you can also borrow overalls, an apron and a pitchfork, then head outside for your own "American Gothic" portrait in front of the house.

Want to know more? You'll find the American Gothic Center's excellent Web site here.