Thursday, May 31, 2012

Where the hell did "Jesus Loves Me" go?


Well, there have been several more gotcha moments this week in the latest-in-Christian-love series. The series involves damnfool self-proclaimed Christians who get up in front of a bunch of folks and say or do damnfool things which are duly recorded, sent forth on the Internet and take on lives of their own.

First up was the Rev. Curtis Knapp, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Seneca, Kansas, who sent out an audio clip of his Sunday sermon calling for the government to kill LGBT people.

They, Knapp preached, "should be put to death; that's what happened in Israel, that's why homosexuality wouldn't have grown in Israel. It tends to limit conversions, it tends to limit people coming out of the closet. Oh, so you're saying we should go out and start killing them? No, I'm saying the government should. They won't, but they should." And so on.

So much for the concept of limited government. I'm assuming this is what bringing America back to God entails in the mind of the Rev. Mr. Knapp.  If interested, you can find the audio clip or a transcript thereof online yourself.

Another favorite of the week --- the cell phone video of two little boys (age 4 at the most) standing at the front of Apostolic Truth Tabernacle at Greensburg, Indiana, as the Rev. Jeff Stangl looks on, singing what apparently is a new Sunday school ditty, "Ain't No Homo Gonna Make it to Heaven." Here are the lyrics:

I know the Bible's right, somebody's wrong.
I know the Bible's right, somebody's wrong.
Romans one and twenty-seven.
Ain't no homo gonna make it to heaven.

The kids got a standing ovation and a high five or two upon leaving the stage. Again, video clips remain online.

Now in the first place, this is just plain bad theology. No homos in heaven? Seriously? Who the heck do you think is going to be doing the hair of all those Baptist ladies after they've been raptured up? And what about that residual shag carpeting in Glory's Methodist wing? The decorators are coming in any day and you don't seriously think they're straight do you? I know, I know, that's stereotyping --- sorry.

But as you get older, some of the elements of the past seem better --- and I've been waxing sentimental after hearing "No Homos" about the Sunday school songs popular back in the day, little melodies that still chase themselves around in my head some days. Like:

Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong.
They are weak, but He is strong.

Or how about this one --- a retelling of the Luke 19 story about Jesus's interest in sharing lunch with a dimunitive sinner:

Zacchaeus was a wee little man,
And a wee little man was he.
He climbed up in a sycamore tree,
For the Lord he wanted to see.
And as the Savior passed that way,
He looked up in that tree,
and he said, "Zacchaeus, you come down!"
For I'm going to your house today.
For I'm going to your house today.

Or, finally, a personal favorite:

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
All are precious in His sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

OK, so I'm living in the past. Sunday school now isn't like what Sunday school was then. It's just that when compared to these old-time favorites, I'm going to have trouble whistling "No Homos in Heaven."

Addendum: Light-heartedness aside, Greensburg, Indiana, where "No Homos in Heaven" premiered, also was where Billy Lucas, perceived to be gay, was bullied, then killed himself during September 2010 --- inspiring Dan Savage to begin the "It Gets Better" project. Here is Savage's response to the latest: "The Apostolic Truth Tabernacle is in Greensburg, Indiana. That's the town where Billy Lucas was bullied to death for being perceived to be gay by his classmates. I wonder if they stood up and cheered at Apostolic Truth Tabernacle when Lucas died — hey, another homo in hell. I wonder if any of Lucas's tormenters attend services at Apostolic Truth Tabernacle. And remember: I'm an anti-Christian bully for pointing out the connection between what straight kids are taught about 'homos' in the shithole mega-churches they're dragged to by their parents and what they turn around and do to 'homos' they encounter in classrooms. And what if that precocious little four-year-old singer is gay? Praise the Lord and pass the barf bags."

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Miracles at nose level when kneeling


Of course I think it providential that our friends at Google, celebrating Peter Carl Faberge's 166th birthday, have splashed images of six gold, enameled and bejeweled eggs across this morning's search page. After gardening at nose level with a stand of butterfly weed late yesterday, I have my own offering --- more complex, just as beautiful and considerably less expensive. More enduring, too.

Felled by its own cruelty and excesses, tsarist Russia was toppled by Bolsheviks and with that fall, the House of Faberge, too. But the house of milkweed bug continues to churn out millions of black and orange enameled little critters annually.

My only question: Do you think because of their relative sizes, a milkweed bug looks upon its four-month lifespan as any less generous than a bison, its potential for 25 years?


Or consider this fat caterpillar, also grazing at nose level Tuesday and not long emerged from a monarch butterfly's egg. Soon it will spin its silk pad, and pupate into plain chrysalis stage before bursting forth, also gloriously orange and black, in two more weeks.


Believers occasionally us this emergence symbolically to represent resurrection, but resurrection seems such a shabby conjurer's trick when compared to metamorphosis.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Welcoming the Nickersons home


I've spent quite a bit of time over the Memorial Day weekend and in the days leading up to it thinking about the Mormon Trace and those who followed it west to Utah commencing in 1846. Driving out the Blue Grass Road with flowers to Salem Cemetery, where many generations of my family are buried, I followed in reverse the path of those early Saints down along the east flank of Chariton Point, then turned east with the Trace across what then was open prairie.

Salem itself, a couple of miles out, began according to legend when a Mormon pioneer died and was buried there at the intersection of the main Trace and a branch that meanders down past Ragtown before reconnecting at Greenville. As fence rows are buldozed out at Salem it becomes easier to appreciate the lay of the land, then as now.

But what really got me thinking was the new Nickerson Family Association monument to Elder Freeman Nickerson on a rise just inside the south entrance to the Chariton Cemetery --- as close to the original "point" of Chariton Point as it is practical to erect something of this sort in the 21st century.

I had a notion to write about this a little earlier, before Memorial Day, and then decided to wait. Some members of the association will be here themselves during June, heading down the Trace to a big family reunion in Nauvoo --- and since I am a self-declared (although somewhat wayward so far as communications are concerned) honorary Nickerson, I'd rather have it associated with that event.

Anyone interested will be welcome to attend the dedication I'm sure --- and I'll keep you informed about the timing. But in the meantime, take a look at the monument when you're in the neighborhood. It's very easy to find, which was the primary point behind putting it there in the first place. The inscription on the west face of the monument reads,

FREEMAN NICKERSON
1779-1847

Lieutenant in the War of 1812, Vermont state wrestling
champion, father of 9 children, and Mormon pioneer.
Died and was buried near this place having fallen victim
to a vicious winter during the western migration.

Erected in 2012 by his grateful descendants numbering in the
thousands, who have been inspired by his heroic Christian devotion.

And here's the text of the inscription on the eastern face of the monument, which adds a face and facts to the legends concerning Lucas County's first long-term settlers:


FREEMAN NICKERSON

When Freeman Nickerson and his family and friends erected
temprary shelters near here at Chariton Point in
November of 1846, they may have been the first non-native
American settlers in Lucas County. Freeman and about nine
others died from the extremities of winter on the open
plains, and were buried in pioneer graves. When spring
arrived, the beleagured party moved from the river up
onto the prairie, building a few log shanties where
the city of Chariton would eventually emerge. They stayed
until April or May of 1847 before continuing
 to the Utah Territory.

"He who has no feeling of veneration for his predecessors
should expect none from those who follow him."
By: William Emery Nickerson, founder of the Nickerson Family Association

It is almost certain that Freeman Nickerson and other members of his party who died during that harsh winter where the first graves at what now is Douglass Cemetery, on high ground northeast of what most likely was the site of the winter encampment at the base of bluffs along the Chariton River. And some thought was given to locating this monument there. Access to that cemetery, however, is across private land and its location is somewhat obscure. So, the decision was made to put the monument here, looking south into the Chariton River valley very near the original "point."

Although I had nothing to do with the decision to put it there, I'm really pleased. And how cool, too, that someone noticed Freeman's status as a veteran of the War of 1812 and placed a flag near it for Memorial Day.

I think I'll leave more of what there is to say --- and there's plenty of it --- to another time. But if you're interested in more about the Trace and about the Nickersons, you can look at these earlier posts, "Rock of Ages: The Mormon Trace", "Becoming Lucas County" and "Along the Trace: Douglass Cemetery."





Monday, May 28, 2012

Hear that lonesome whistle ...


Trains provided accompaniment during yesterday afternoon's brief sign dedication program at the County Farm Cemetery --- as they most likely have been doing for so long as there's been a cemetery there right along the tracks. Two, an east-bound coal and a west-bound mixed freight, in under half an hour.

It was a little distracting, but appropriate as 17 of us gathered to say a few words about the sign that recognizes by name 38 people buried here, all but five in unmarked graves. There were a few words about "poor farm" and cemetery history, we took turns reading aloud the names on the sign, little Ellie Masters decorated the five marked graves and Fred Steinbach closed with a brief litany from the Book of Common Prayer. The sign is a joint project of the Chariton Historic Preservation Commission and the Lucas County Genealogical Society.

Fourteen of the 17 are grouped around the sign above (from left): Bill Marner, Frank Mitchell, Karen Patterson, Mary Ruth Pierschbacher, Carol Marner, Ilene Chuch, Dru Thorne, Sherry Steinbach, Fred Steinbach, Ellie and Hilary Masters, Ray Meyer, Alyse Hunter and Janet Clark. Darlene Arnold and Bob Sims had to leave a little early. Here's Ellie, below, scattering flowers.


Headed out to the cemetery Sunday morning to help attend the shelter house for a couple of hours, I grabbed the card table I'd promised to bring --- but forgot the camera. That means I missed the opportunity to take a picture of my counsins Laura and Pete Morici and Laura's dad, Ernest Miller, who are spending the Memorial Day weekend in Lucas County. It was great to see them --- next time I'll remember the camera.

We had a good turnout at the shelter and people seemed to enjoy seeting the interior of the little building, the lemonade and cookies and examining the cemetery interment records, which go back to the beginning in the 1860s.


By the time I got back with a camera after midafternoon lunch, the crowds and thinned, but here's Carol and Bill Marner examining the records as Frank Mitchell looks on (above) and another view of the shelter's interior.


We all enjoyed just sitting on the breezy front porch, unaltered since the shelter was built during 1929. It's one of best front porches in town.


Here's Ev Brightman, of the genealogical society, engaged in a little story-telling.

Although the shelter's locked --- except on special occasions --- the front porch always is open and anyone in need of a time-out just to sit and ponder is welcome to climb the steps and do just that.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Holding the flag(s) high


U.S. flags were flying Saturday evening in the Chariton Cemetery at the graves of my great-uncle, Jeremiah Miller, in a World War I holder, and immediately to the north, in a similar Korean War holder, at the grave of his son, Warren.

Memorial Day at any Iowa cemetery is loaded with symbolism, bright flags held erect at veteran gravesites in holders unique to the war or the era in which he or she served. In the Chariton Cemetery and several others nearby, the mix is enriched by distinctive Chariton Volunteer Fire Department flags in considerably more elaborate holders bearing distinctive red flags with Old Betsy emblazoned upon them. Every deceased veteran of the fire department back to the beginning is honored each year in that way in Chariton, at Oxford, Waynick and elsewhere.


Lt. George W. Alexander's gravesite is a perfect storm of symbolism. Alexander, attorney and popular Chariton mayor, died during 1916. The tombstone with pointed top and Southern Cross of Honor identify him as a Confederate veteran (Co. 3, 31st Tennessee Infantry), but the flag holder is Grand Army of the Republic (Union) and the flag, U.S. The Chariton Volunteer Fire Department holder and flag tell us that he was a veteran of that organization, too. Alexander is buried on the lot of his friend and colleague, Napoleon B. Branner, also a Confederate veteran. You'll find more about Alexander here.


Here's a closeup of the distinctive CVFD holder on the grave of a cousin, Wilberforce Coles, also a Civil War veteran. In some cases, graves otherwise unmarked are identified by their fire department holders, each of which names the honoree. A contemporary adaption of this holder still is used by firefighters.

And there once were more flags, all in distinctive holders, used by members of various fraternal and patriotic orders to memorialize once yearly their former members. Only the Fraternal Order of Eagles maintains that tradition now, but the holders of long-vanished organizations continue to dot the cemetery.

This is not a comprehensive collection of flag holders. I stopped at the cemetery Saturday evening after the trip out to Salem, but ran out of light before I ran out of holders.


Of all the lodges that once flourished in Chariton, only the Fraternal Order of Eagles continues the tradition of marking members' graves with distinctive flags for Memorial Day.


The prettiest flag holders in the cemetery are located at the graves of Rebekahs, members of the I.O.O.F. auxiliary organization. The faded pink rose was attached several years ago by a lovely lady from rural Humeston, whose task it was to track down and so decorate the graves of all Rebekahs in Lucas and Wayne counties. Sadly, she now has died --- and there will be no more roses once this one is gone.


There are at least three varieties of flag holders for I.O.O.F. members themselves, but this is the most elaborate. There seems to be no one left, however, to fill the holders.


The redoubtable Daughters of the American Revolution once was a force to be reckoned with in Chariton --- but no more. Their flag holders remain empty. This is one of two located on adjoining graves of Dungan sisters.


The Womens Relief Corps, an auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic, was created in 1883 specifically to to perpetuate the memory of the G.A.R.



This is Samuel Walthall's War of 1812 flag holder, but the hole intended to support a flag is far too small to support a contemporary flag. Samuel, who died during 1858, was buried first in the Douglass Cemetery, but moved into Chariton with his wife and a daughter during 1919, when this holder was acquired. You can read more about Walthall here.For some reason, the operable flag holder located on Walthall's grave is for a Spanish-American War veteran. I suspect it was moved by mistake from the nearby grave of an actual veteran of that war, but need to check this out.


I'm sure there are other flag holders at the cemetery, so keep your eyes open if you're wandering around out there this weekend.


Whoops. I forgot the Knights of Pythias. We used to have lots of knights --- and their ladies, the Pythian Sisters. Now, there are no more.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Having traveled widely in graveyards ...


I've written a lot about Memorial Day over the years, occasionally with grace but more often not. It's an odd holiday, mixing Day of the Dead, fond remembrance, survivor guilt and flag-waving civil religion. Or maybe just beer and barbecue.

Back in the day, silk was big --- I know where all the bodies are buried and there are many of them in Lucas, Monroe, Marion, Appanoose and Wayne: 28 grandparents of varying generations alone. A couple of times, I decorated the graves of all just to be able to say I'd done it. Greener now, that doesn't happen. Live plants go to a few graves, then come home to be replanted a few days later. Fond remembrance.

I can take you to the scattered gaves of all Lucas and Wayne countyans who died in Vietnam and are buried here and to a few other graves in neighboring counties and elsewhere besides. Survivor guilt?

I know where many young men who died of AIDS are buried, too --- another war on many fronts in my lifetime and one that continues. The first were buried quietly by families shamed by myth. I could stand with you at the grave of the first whose actual cause of death was acknowledged in an obituary in the Chariton newspapers.

Haven't attended a formal Memorial Day program in years, although I used to. These often go well until a speaker, asked to say something appropriate, gets up and tries to do so.

Decoration Day commenced formally in 1868 to commemorate the Union Civil War dead. There's a little about that here in an old post entitled "A flag for Daniel McDermott."   The "Evans Cemetery monument" is, to my mind, the most evocative reminder nearby. And "Faded letters, tattered flags" talks a little about two of my uncles, brothers who were Civil War fatalities. Survivor guilt comes though uncomfortably here, at "Names."

I used to think it was kind of shameful, all that revelry on a solemn day of remembrance. But the more people you bury, the more appealing beer and barbecue become.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Kill the Buddha ...


Confronted for too many days by piles of paper surrounding a water-starved philodendron on the kitchen table, I've watered the plant and dusted off Gary Thorp's little book "Sweeping Changes," subtitled "Discovering the Joy of Zen in Everyday Tasks."

The book's been described as a "primer on making household routines part of the path of spiritual practice."

Not that I'm a good enough Christian to practice Zen, a rigorous discipline --- but I enjoyed the book when first read maybe 10 years ago. Perhaps I'll take it to heart this time. Hope springs eternal and I like the idea of housekeeping as a form of meditation. Actualizing the idea is another matter.

There are quite a few books around here with Buddhist themes --- if I could just find them --- dating from days when it seemed amusing to self-describe as a Zen Lutheran. That was primarily a play on words. I was a member of a Zion Lutheran church at the time. Having taken a step up the ladder toward liturgical glory it would have to be Zen Episcopalian now, and that doesn't roll off the tongue quite so harmoniously.

I'd especially like to find Thich Nhat Hanh's little "Living Buddha, Living Christ," in which that renowned ecumenist draws parallels. I'm sure it will turn up.

One thing I especially liked about Nhat Hanh's thinking involved his contention that it may be best to bloom where you're planted. For a cultural Christian, than would involve incorporating the best of the Buddha's thinking and practice into your worldview, but not necessarily heading for the nearest zendo, determined to be born again in the lotus or half-lotus position.

One more or less classic Buddhist line has stuck in my head --- "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." Atributed to the 9th century master Lin Chi, this does not imply physical violence. Buddhists tend to be a peaceful lot --- with exceptions of course.

It's merely a way of reminding the listener (or the reader) that if one turns the Buddha into a religious fettish the risk increases that what he actually taught will fall by the wayside.

That line came to mind this week while overdosing on the comments sections of my favorite religiously-oriented blogs, where the same arguments circle endlessly, some content to have their say and shut up (always wise), others determined to have the last word.

So what was said about the Buddha also could be said for Jesus, or the equal and more insidious subject in Christian culture --- the Bible. I'm trying on for size, "If interpretation of the Bible becomes a bone of contention, burn it." Keeping in mind that this doesn't necessarily imply getting out the lighter fluid and finding a match.
.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Thomas Brandon's remarkable memoir


Thomas Brandon was buried during 1923 near his second wife, Mary J., in the cemetery at Iconium, a mile or so south of where he had first settled 80 years earlier.

If I have a favorite straight-from-the-horse's-mouth account of Lucas County's history, this is it --- Thomas Brandon's memoir commencing in 1843 of his first years in south central Iowa. Brandon and his father, James, along with two other men, entered Monroe County (Lucas County's neighbor to the east) during May of that year --- as soon as it opened for settlement after expiration of confederated Sauk and Meskwaki treaty entitlement to it.

My great-great-great-grandparents, William and Miriam Miller and Joseph and Mary McMulin and their families, also rushed to cross the Des Moines River and claim Monroe County land that May, but settled down not far from Eddyville in its northeast quarter. The Brandons traveled to the extreme southwest corner of the county --- the "four corners" area where Monroe, Appanoose, Lucas and Wayne counties join --- before James Brandon made his pre-emption claim. This was due north of what now is the tiny Appanoose County town of Iconium.

At that time, Lucas County was not yet open to settlers --- the Sauk and Meskwaki still had more than two years to clear out of Iowa west of the Red Rock Line and cross the Missouri River into "Indian Territory." But that did not stop the Brandons and others from exploring the territory. His accounts of visits to Chariton Point, now the location of Chariton, before Lucas County existed are the earliest known to have been recorded.

Thomas had just passed his 81st birthday when he wrote the following, read during a meeting of the Lucas County Old Settlers Association on Sept. 25, 1907. His timing is very slightly off in a few instances, and I've indicated corrections. The Mormon Trace, for example, became the principal route west for Utah-bound Saints during the summer of 1846, for example. But his retention of detail is remarkable.

The original hand-written manuscript of Brandon's memoir is in the collection of the Lucas County Historical Society. It also was published in The Chariton Leader of October 3, 1907.

Thomas married Ruth Barker during 1849 in Appanoose County. She was a daughter of Matthew and Tamar Barker, pioneer millers along the South Chariton River just northeast of Confidence where Jones Chapel church and cemetery now are located. She died during the 1850s and he married as his second wife, Mary J. Stephens.

Brandon, who lived to celebrate his 96th birday, became a successful farmer and businessman in both Monroe and Lucas counties. He was a hero of the great banking disaster that brought Chariton's First National Bank down in 1907. A principal, with Chariton's Frank R. Crocker, in the Russell Bank, Brandon used his personal funds to repay all the losses Crocker was responsible for, saving the Russell Bank from receivership and its depositors from losses.

Thomas died February 24, 1923, and was buried with his wife, Mary J., in the cemetery at Iconium, very near where he had first settled 80 years earlier.

+++

At your request, I have written a few lines according to my best recollections, regarding the early settlement of Monroe and Lucas Counties. On May 10th, 1843, my father, James Brandon, and a Missourian by the name of Wm. Moore, and an old gentleman from Maine, we called him Captain Higby, and myself, landed in what is now known as Franklin Township, Monroe County. It was not surveyed at that time. Afterwards, when it was surveyed, we were in Kishkekosh County. Mr. Moore took for a claim what is now called Dodge's Point, which proved to be in Appanoose County.

We had a team of oxen which we had hired from a man by the name of Miller in Missouri. By the first half of June we had broken nine acres of prairie and two and one-half acres on Mr. Moore's place with those cattle, and planted it in sod corn. Our plow got so dull we could not break any more.

About that time three men drove up to the camp, and said they had been out west looking at the land. They lived in Missouri also and we knew them when they drove up. They stated to us that they had crossed the Chariton (River) pretty much west of a point we called Chariton Point. The timber growing up on the prairie showed grand for four or five miles east of there. They had got one of their horses down; it had got the single tree hook in its foot, and had lamed it so that they could not bring it. They told father that if he could go back and doctor it up he might have the horse.

Next morning we started, and took their wagon back, and followed on foot until quite late in the evening when we came to where they had left the horse. I don't think the horse had lain down from the time he had got hurt until we found him. Father had on a wool hat which he gave me to carry some water to the horse. I had to go nearly a quarter of a mile before I found a slough hole where I could get the hat full of water. I carried two hats full and the horse seemed very thirsty, as it was a hot day. We tried to move the horse, but only succeeded in moving him about a rod. This was about a half mile east of the timber that we called Chariton Point. Some time afterwards we came up to see if we could tell anything of what became of the horse; we supposed though he was dead, and sure enough we found a pile of bones just about where we had left the animal when we went away.

We called it twenty-five miles from where we first landed, to Chariton Point. Father looked around at the timber and admired the place as the timber came up so boldly to the top of the prairie, but he would not think of changing his place as he had such fine spring water.

This took place in the spring and summer of 1843. I was 17 years old the 27th of August, 1843. The last part of June 1843, we decided we would see if we could find anybody in the country. So we turned the oxen on the grass and left Captain Higby, the man from Maine, to look after them.

My father, Mr. Moore, and myself, started out pretty much north, taking an Indian trail that ran right through the grove my father claimed. We thought we were near the Des Moines River. When we started we each had a blanket and a little grub to do us two or three days. We traveled on till quite late in the afternoon, and we got out on the prairie just about where the public square is in Albia now. There was a pole with an elk's head with two horns on stuck on the top of the pole. We sat down there thinking it was too big a prairie to follow our Indian trail across that night.

While we were still sitting and standing around, thinking of what do do, we discovered a smoke northwest. We supposed it was some Indians camped there. We started out thinking it wouldn't be more than a couple of miles to walk, but we found it to be about four miles before we got there, and to our surprise, when we arrived, we found Wareham G. Clark and John Clark, men whom we had been acquainted with from January until May when we started for Iowa, at which time each one took his course, and did not meet again until in June.

We were very glad to find someone we knew and stayed with them that night. The next day we went back to camp. In the course of a month or six weeks we went back to Mr. Clark's and found him living in the same little shanty covered with hickory bark, and they were still breaking prairie with their oxen. It wasn't very far from the timber and we named the place Clark's Point, which name it goes by till this day. That was the first time I met Dr. Dungan. I think he was there when I went there the second time. I think that was in August 1843. Dr. Levi Dungan died in 1846 and was buried at Clark's Point, Monroe County.

The Clark boys were batching and seemed to have a good time. They were the closest neighbors we had at that time and were 20 miles from us, but afterwards we went in with them. We split open an oak log, about a foot and a half or two foot through and bored the flat side full of auger holes and drove in short pins and went to making our roads. We hitched three of four yoke of oxen on to that log and I believe we started from Clark's to father's with the drag and it was a very good day's drive. We stayed all night at father's and went back to Clark's the next day, going twice in the same track. This made us a very good road to travel in and I guess the road is there yet if someone has not fenced it. That was a nearer way to Clark's Point than to go by where Albia is now.

During the fall of 1843 or the spring of 1844, Mr. Moore had not come back to improve his claim, and a man by the name of John Ballard, from near Tippecanoe, Missouri, took his claim, or as we called it then, "jumped" his claim. He had quite a little family and we were very much pleased that he went on it, as we wanted more settlers. His stay with us wasn't long, as in 1844 or 1845, I am not positive which (it was actually 1847), he moved away, north and west from where he lived. Said he was going on English River (English Creek). I understood when the counties were laid off he was in Lucas County. The last time I saw Mr. Ballard he came by our place. He said he lived in Missouri. I would be be pleased to hear from any of the family. (John Ballard and his family generally are recognized as the first permanent Euro-American settlers of Lucas County.)

In the fall of 1844 there were a couple of families moved in north of us, about six miles, one by the name of Ingham and another by the name of Searcy. That winter, December I think it was, Mr. Ingham went to Missouri to get some corn for his team and meal to eat. There were no roads in the country at that time, and if there had been, we could not have found them from the fact there came a snow almost knee deep. Instead of going the way he should by where Moravia now is, he came farther west around on the main ridge not far from where John Ballard lived, and not very far from where we lived on the north side and Mr. Ballard on the south side of the ridge. The water that fell on my father's side of the ridge ran into the Cedar and then into the Des Moines River. Mr. Ballard lived on Honey Creek, and that creek emptied into the Chariton River and thence into the Missouri River, so Mr. Ingham had to pass between Mr. Ballard's and Mr. Brandon's.

Mr. Ingham must have been badly lost, as the weather was cold and the snow drifting and I cannot understand how he lived through the storm. He must have turned north a little east of where the Russell Depot now stands. We did not hear any more from him till he got down near English, near where John Ballard finally moved. Someone lived there as he saw smoke and unhitched his team and started towards it; he either got to the shanty, or they saw him and helped him in, as his feet and hands were badly frozen. They had to keep him there several days before he was able to go home. I would be pleased to know who took care of him, and who took him home when he was able to go. If there is any man here today that knows anything about this case, I would be pleased to meet him.

I was only up to Chariton Point a couple of times during 1843, the first time in June and the last time in September. We had no road from our place to Chariton Point, neither did we have any stream, not even a slough to cross. We followed the main ridge from where we lived to Chariton Point. I still own a portion of the land that father took for a claim, May 10th, 1843.

In the fall of 1845, the Mormons viewed and established what they called the Mormon Trace from Ballard's Point, afterwards called Dodge's Point, to Chariton Point. That winter (1846), if I am not mistaken, Iowa was admitted into the Union. Late in the fall of 1845 (actually late in the fall of 1846),  three Mormons and their families got snowed under at Chariton Point. They drove down on Chariton River and wintered there. They cut elm and lynn for their cattle to browse on it; it was all they had until the snow went away; then they found quite a bit of winter grass in the bottoms that helped them through. I don't believe they lost many cattle, but they got very thin. In the spring of  1846 (actually 1847)  they came up to the edge of the prairie and built them each a shanty as their stock was too poor to travel. Some time in June 1846 (actually 1847) I heard they wanted to sell their claim as their stock had got able to pull their wagons and they wanted to go on.

The prairie was covered with covered wagons, mostly going west so I had no trouble in sending the three Mormons word at Chariton Point that I would buy their claim if I was able. In a few days the most business one of the three walked down to where we lived; that was near Ballard's Point. His name was McGuff. I showed him what stock I had, which was two heifers and a three-year old cow, that was all I had excepting a horse. He agreed to take the hiefers provided his two partners were willing. I took my horse and went home with him, he being on foot, and stayed all night with him that night, and traded for his claim. They were to give possession in a week or ten days. This was on or near the middle of June 1847. So I went back down to father's and got my brother to hitch up a yoke of oxen my father had. We hitched them to a cart and moved me to Chariton Point, taking a straw bed, some cooking utensils, a little meal and a blanket, and set up house-keeping.

During the summer that I bached at Chariton Point, Gen. A.C. Dodge came through on horseback from Garden Grove, which place was settled by the Mormons in the fall of 1845 (actually, the spring of 1846). Mr. Dodge had got off his road and in crossing a creek had lamed his horse. He got up to my place and stayed about a week, he and I doctoring his horse. Also the same summer Mr. John Brophy had an appointment from the state to select so many sections in the different counties -- saline land. He stayed with me about two weeks. He and I rode over the country hunting where we could find any marshes that the deer would visit.

About the 15th of November Wm. S. Townsend, a man I was very well acquainted with, came up from Appanoose County, and I let him move in with me. I remained with Mr. Townsend, as he had a family, and I was not nearly so lonesome. I stayed with him at Chariton Point until the next spring. I hardly know how we managed to get along as neither of us had any money, and he had four or five of a family.

In the spring of 1847 (actually, spring of 1848) I sold out to Mr. Townsend for a horse and a two-horse wagon and went back to father's and took a claim joining him, and my brother younger than I went in with me. We batched there till the fall of 1848, when we quit baching, my brother going home, and I went down and stayed with a man by the name of Nowels that had settled in the fall of 1844 about four or five miles southeast of our claim. He had a wife and one child, and I stayed with them from the fall of  1848 to the spring of  1849. That was the winter we had the big snow. If there is anyone here today that was in the country at that time they will remember the winter of the big snow.

In September 1849 I was married (to Ruth Barker) and went back on my claim and lived there until April 6th, 1853, when with a couple of ox teams I, with wife and two children, my brother George, 16 years old, and my wife's brother about 17 years old, started for California, landing at San Jose about the 22nd of September, 1853.

I remained there until the 16th of February 1854. We all went down to San Francisco and shipped for New York, crossing the Isthmus of Panama on mules to Aspinwall, where we took passage on a boat for New York. After resting up a few days we bought tickets to Chicago and then bought tickets to Rock Island, thence down the River to Fort Madison by steamboat. There we hired a liveryman to take us out to Salem where my wife had a sister living. We hired a man to bring us up to her mother's. Her father was the man (Matthew Barker) that built the mill on South Chariton, in Wayne County, south of where Confidence now is.

(signed) Thomas Brandon



Wednesday, May 23, 2012

End of religion as we know it?


Diana Butler Bass

I've been watching --- in the context of Diana Butler Bass's newest book --- the near-viral spread since last weekend of a clip from the Rev. Charles Worley's Mothers Day sermon at Providence Road Baptist Church, Maiden, North Carolina. Fascinating stuff.

Worley, in the clip, proposes from his rather tasteful pulpit that "lesbians, homosexuals and queers," as he calls us, be gathered up, fenced into large enclosures and left to die. Apparently he's been at this sort of thing since the 1970s --- in an audio sermon clip dredged up from that era he reminiscenses about the good old days when homosexual people were hanged from white oak trees.

The latest in Christian love, some would say, although many realize that Worley is not necessarily representative of the faith tradition he claims to represent and that it's due only to the the wonder of communications technology that the rants of an insignificant independent Baptist preacher have spread far and wide. But many don't. and that's the catch.

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Butler Bass's new book, "Christianity after Religion: The end of Church and the Birth of a new Spiriual Awakening," was published in February --- and you'll have to read it, if interested, to understand fully what she's saying. A church historian rather than a theologian, she's a Methodist turned Episcopalian. Many identify with her writings; traditionalists --- well, no.

Her premise is that the United States is nearing the tipping point of a fourth "great awakening," similar in some ways to earlier awakenings that swept the nation, commeincing during the Revolutionary War era, and shaped religion in America as we know it. An awakening is not a revival, which involves refreshing tradition, but a revolution --- that in some sense sweeps the old away as traditional institutions --- in this case institutional religion --- crumble. Butler Bass sees the flight of younger people from traditional religion as perhaps the most significant indicator.

The awakening commenced in the 1970s, Butler Bass contends, but accelerated to top speed after "four shocks and a crisis" during the opening decade of the 21st centery. The "shocks," roughly in chronological order, according to Butler-Bass:

1. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by Islamic fundamentalists on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, followed up by relaliatory wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, also in a sense "holy wars." This associated religion with violence in the minds of some.

2. The sex-related scandals that began to rock the Roman Catholic church shortly thereafter, linking institutional religion and abuse.

3. The installation of V. Gene Robinson, a partnered gay Episcopal priest, as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, which highlighted the divide among Christians concerning LGBT issues and linked religion with incivility and meanness not so much because of the debate but because of how it has been conducted.

4. The 2004 election, when Christian evangelicals essentially "won" the battle for political ascendancy they had been fighting for years with the election of George W. Bush, but --- according to Butler Bass --- may have lost the war because of the now-embedded perception that institutional religion and politics are inseparably twined.

The crisis that capped the shocks, according to Butler Bass, is the ongoing economic recession which, she contends, is driving faithful from the church rather than toward it, citing trends observed during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

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In the Butler Bass context, the Rev. Mr. Worley's remarks can be seen as an extension of Shock No. 3, which linked because of technology before a broad audience --- whether accurately or not --- the institutional church with great incivility and meanness. And Worley's sermon actually is kind of a double-whammy since it also serves to reinforce stereotypes elsewhere in the country about perceived ignorance in the South.

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Butler Bass's premise is not necessarily a pessimistic one --- at least for those not deeply intrenched in the traditional institutional church. She sees a more authentic Christianity emerging, perhaps carrying the best of the traditional church with it, and blending into an emerging spirituality that has the potential to benefit from the best from many other traditions.

Personally, I'm ready for the revolution. But is it really coming? God knows.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Back to the fourth grade


Repetition is one of the perils of a blog like this, one that plods on year after year, and looking back I see that roughly the same photo illustrated roughly the same post at this time last year --- Curator Marilyn Johnson instructing a roomful of scholars in Puckerbrush School.

Aimed for variety this year but fell short, neglected to charge the battery before running out of the house at 8 a.m. yesterday and so the camera fainted after this shot was taken --- and that was that.

It was a great morning otherwise, however, as more than 100 (it was either 113 or 130; can't remember which) fourth-graders moved through nine stations at the museum in two and a half hours flat, then sat down for sack lunches on the lawn. The kids were all bright, attentive and well-behaved --- yes, really, I'm not just saying that.

At my usual post --- Otterbein Church --- I get to ring the bell at half-hour intervals, helping to keep the schedule on track. I like that, too, because my great-great-grandparents, John and Isabelle Redlingshafer, were among charter members of the Otterbein United Brethren in Christ when the congregation organized back in the 1860s and John led the pledge drive (yes, they had those back then, too) in the 1880s when faithful decided they could afford to move from Gartin School to a building of their own.

Two other members of the vast Redlingshafer conspiracy, LCHS board members Frank Mitchell and Ilene Church, were in charge of other stations --- along with Jim Secor and Cliff Brewer, Marilyn, Jerry Pierschbacher, Fred Steinach, Ron Christensen, Darlene Arnold, Lucinda Burkhalter and Betty Cross. It was a great day.

You do tend to become a little delusional, however, when it's time to begin the seventh of eight similar presentations delivered at 15-minute intervals --- and begin to babble slightly.

And then there was a time I could shock and appal fourth-graders by telling them that back in the good old days when churches like Otterbein dotted the land, it took some preachers an hour just get their sermons launched. That doesn't work well now, however, because we have many students whose parents are natives of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus and who attend Slavic Pentecostal churches. Accustomed to three-hour Sunday services, they are not impressed.

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Richard Beck resurrected a few words of Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and visionary, the other day. If you're feeling frazzled this morning read "Talking like the Rain." It'll only take a minute.

 

Monday, May 21, 2012

Barn floors and the meaning of life


The museum barn a couple of years ago during the annual July ice cream social. We've been able in other years to make room to serve ice cream just inside the front door. This year, we'll throw open all the doors and invite those who attend to dance.

I think it was fumes from that spray bottle of Formula 409, but it made sense briefly yesterday afternoon ---  while scooting on my butt across the floor of the museum barn --- to use the building's condition as the base upon which to build a metaphor about life in general. Back outside, fumes dissipated and I'm not going there, thankfully.

But all the fourth-graders in the school district are headed our way today for a morning of marathon historical tourism and we'll be throwing the barn doors open for the first time in several years. So it seemed like a good idea to grab the 409, introduced in the 1950s as a much stronger industrial degreaser, and clean up small puddles of oil left behind by a tractor that spent some time there earlier this spring while engaged in good works around the museum campus.

The barn's really a great building, constructed around the ancient pegged frame of a farm veteran that was disassembled and hauled into town several years ago. Then, when it was necessary to evacuate a gallery in another building to allow repairs, it became a warehouse. Not everything that was hauled across the patio was hauled back and the southwest corner became an impenetrable heap of stuff.

Then, the barn became the base of operations (and storage unit) when the blacksmith shop was under construction, virtually unusable for other purposes much of the time. Now its returning to life and, as Martha would say, that's a good thing.

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Led to the link by Rachel Held Evans, I was interested yesterday in this post by Jonathan Martin, "On Mitt Romney, Liberty University and Civic Religion." Martin contends that the institutional church is evolving into a "civil" religion devoid of spiritual base and divided into "conservative" and "liberal" largely political wings. Instead of dismay, however, he expresses the hope that the trend might lead to room for "more authentic Christianity (that) can stand apart from all the parodies." Interesting.

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Interesting, too, this TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) talk by venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, who offers a take on the free market system not generally expected from venture capitalists.



Sunday, May 20, 2012

Christian soldiers & Walter Wink


Walter Wink

Among trials and temptations of the week --- isolating at the last minute four credible hymns among the hundreds in the Episcopal "Hymnal 1982" that can be banged out on the organ this morning with minimal embarrassment.

Our turbulent priest, the vicar emeritus, believes that God speaks hymnodically only through "Hymnal 1982" and, having already been handed a couple of setbacks, it seemed wise not to distress him further by falling back on old gospel favorites.

Yes, we're having company this morning. But no, there will be no incense; and no, we won't be pushing the free-standing altar aside so officiants can use old glory, the marble altar with slippery steps waiting to cause hip-breaking accidents and now serving primarily as a reredos.

I was sorely tempted by "Onward, Christian Soldiers," Sabine Baring-Gould's and Arthur Sullivan's 1869/1871 exhuberant marching song for the church militant. It's fun and easy to play and many like to sing it, but considering the recent death of Walter Wink, at age 76 of complications from dementia, inappropriate.

Wink, advocate of constructive nonviolence and liberal theologian and thinker, was ordained a United Methodist minister but spent much of his career teaching at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, affiliated with The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Richard Beck, of "Experimental Theology," remembers Wink gratefully this morning and offers links that can be followed elsewhere. Wink's classic 1979 essay on Homosexuality and the Bible can be found here.

Needless to say, Wink was not popular within the church militant in part because he had little patience with the concept of Christian soldiers. His thinking on that topic is reflected in writings about what he called the myth of redemptive violence.  His contention that there is no such thing as a biblical sex ethic ruffled feathers, too.

In honor of Wink, I've been thinking this week about redemptive violence in connection with bullying, which has been attracting increased interest lately, especially in relation to schools. Kyle Munson has an interesting piece in this morning's Register about the fallout in Sioux City of the documentary "Bully." The school district allowed the film's producers full access during production, which has resulted in a good deal of dirty laundry being publicly aired. In several instances, the district's pioneering anti-bullying program hasn't worked.

I wonder if the failures of anti-bullying efforts among youngsters should surprise anyone when we fail to deal with pervasive bullying among adults. How much of the political discourse during this election year could be categorized as verbal bullying? Or how about talk radio? Or how about Sunday morning sermons and the rantings of TV and online preachers? All of it involves outrage, some real but most manufactured in order to manipulate for a cause --- redemptive violence. Is in any wonder that all of the violence filters down to kids who express it in less pointed but equally destructive ways?

Wink was not a pacifist --- a believer in non-resistance. He preferred the term "nonviolent," which for him involved actively confronting injustice in the context of love --- what he believed that guy Jesus was all about. The Jesus message was not about mere eternity, Wink taught, but about becoming more fully and generously human  here --- and now.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Pre-Memorial Day roundup


Bright red geraniums have been planted in the four big urns at the Chariton Cemetery shelter house, another reminder that the Memorial Day weekend is only a week away. I'm not quite sure where spring has gotten itself to, but summer is nearly here.

As is the tradition, members of the Chariton Historic Preservation Commission and Lucas County Genealogical Society will open the shelter --- usually locked although you can look in through the door and windows --- from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. next Sunday, May 27. There will be lemonade and cookies and volunteers will be there to talk about the cemetery and its history and, when necessary, try to help visitors locate graves.

The unaltered "English cottage" shelter, added to the cemetery grounds in 1929, is one of the features that made the cemetery eligible during 2009/10 for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. Other contributing features were the entrance gates and the cemetery's rural park-like design.

The shelter probably was designed by Chariton architect William L. Perkins, although that can't be established for sure. He was city engineer at the time, however, and the little building is similar to his larger buildings. It consists behind that generous front porch of one large and light room with fireplace and, in its northwest corner, a small restroom (now non-functional). Storage and maintenance areas are on the building's lower level.

So if you're in the neighborhood next Sunday, stop in.

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Speaking of the cemetery, someone asked the other day how many people are buried in Potters Field --- a pretty hill-top area in the southwest corner of the cemetery where those without resources or families to claim their remains have been buried since 1863, when the cemetery was established. The area appears to be undeveloped, with perhaps only a dozen stones in it, most of those marking the newest graves. The last burial recorded here, in "public ground," was an infant who died in 1966.

The city clerk's office has a fairly detailed record of 97 burials in Potters Field since 1902, giving names, ages, location and in some cases additional information. Records of the area prior to 1902 have disappeared --- the cemetery was privately owned until the 1920s. But an article in The Chariton Herald of Jan. 30, 1902, when the records still were in the hands of the Stanton family, stated that 76 people had been buried there Between 1863 and the end of 1901.

That would bring the total to 173, although one or two bodies were removed later by families to other parts of the cemetery. Most of the people buried here were just poor, but there are tragedies in the mix. Burial No. 3992, which occurred on Oct. 30, 1915, was an "unknown male (suicide by hanging)." And Burial No. 5883, June 14, 1935, "Unknown infant male found under bridge west of Chariton."

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Memorial Day weekend also will bring the "official" opening for the summer season of the Lucas County Historical Society museum campus. "Official" because we're always kind of open, maintaining morning hours and Tuesday afternoon hours October-May and welcoming guests who either turn up then or who make appointments.

But as of next Saturday, we'll be open 1-4 p.m. daily Tuesday-Saturday through September with Judy B. and a crew of Lucas County Health Center Volunteer Services volunteers on hand. Admssion is free.

All of the Chariton Community Schools fourth-graders will trek through the campus on Monday, which is a major undertaking that goes remarkably well most years. I've still got to clean up some oil leaded onto the barn floor by a tractor --- so that kids don't track it elsewhere; and the log cabin still needs to be swept (every suicidal insect in Chariton comes there in the fall to die). But I'm sure we'll make it.

Kay Brown, Sarah Palmer and Robin Kennedy, masterful gardeners one and all, have taken on the museum grounds and have been working very hard to whip them into shape (our usual high school clean-up crew was rained out a couple of weeks ago). They're also doing a lot of planting and Kay is whipping into shape the terraced planter that descends to the patio.

On Monday evening, we received a substantial (and much appreciated) grant from the South Central Iowa Community Foundation that will help with several projects involving the Stephens House --- more insulation in the attic, rebuilding a large basement window to Department of Interior standards (the house is National Register listed) and dealing with pesky drainage issues involving the front porch roofs.

And by midweek, the alternate Frank had completed and submitted the application for a state grant that we'd like to use to help replace the wood-shingled roof of Puckerbrush School, in place when the 1880s building was moved to the museum many years ago and now threatening to fail. Replacing even a small wood-shingled roof is a very expensive affair.

I had very little to do with the grant application --- all of which had to be submitted online --- other than taking photos, scanning documents and trying to be reassuring when the preparer started cussing a blue streak (in a mild sort of way) or threatening to go out and get drunk when the thing was done. Those online forms can be frustrating when you're not used to them. I'd feel better about the process if I weren't reasonably sure that, once in the right hands in Des Moines, staffers there print out and distribute a dozen copies, thus destroying any trees that might have been spared in the application process.

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I also was out Friday afternoon to do a brief program for residents at Chariton Nursing and Rehabilitation, borrowing Hotel Charitone props that live at the museum between public appearances. That was lots of fun, for me at least, as we shared hotel stories.

It was good to see, too, that amazing Russell girl, Vera Clanin --- going on 105 --- who remembered watching the Charitone go up in 1923.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Naming the dead


A new sign commemorating 38 Lucas Countyans buried between 1879 and 1926 in the Lucas County Farm Cemetery, all but five in unmarked graves, will be dedicated during a brief program at 4:15 p.m. Sunday, May 27. Participants will include members of the Chariton Historic Preservation Commission and the Lucas County Genealogical Society. All are welcome to attend.

Ordered last fall, the sign was put into place earlier this spring by personnel from the Lucas County Engineer's staff.

The sign is a project of the preservation commission, paid for with its own funds and a matching contribution from the genealogical society. Commissioner Melody Wilson led the research effort, using county home and county death records. The cemetery is located alongside County Road H20 at the Burlington Northern & Santa Fe railroad crossing immediately north of Hy-Vee's Perishable Distribution Center in northwest Chariton.

The small cemetery was established here not long after Lucas County acquired the 160-acre county farm during 1869. The Hy-Vee distribution center now occupies the southwest portion of the old farm, where its buildings were located, south of what then was the Burlington & Missouri River (later C.B.&Q.) right of way. The larger portion of the farmland is north of the tracks.

The county farm was intended originally to be a self-sustaining temporary refuge for Lucas County's poor, occasionally entire families, but broadened its scope as the years passed to include long-term residents who  were elderly and without resources and others who had physical or intellectual handicaps.

Those who died at the county home and whose remains were not claimed by family or friends for burial elsewhere were buried in the cemetery, then as now located right along railroad tracks. The first known burials were those of Benjamine Hillen (1841-1879) and Mary A. Moor (1831-1879). Burials countinued through the first quarter of the 20th century, after which burials at county expense generally were made --- when family lots were not available --- in the potters field section of the Chariton Cemetery.

The last recorded burials here were those of Nute (or Newt) Wayland, age 93, suffering from senility,  and Alfred Whitcomb, age 72, also suffering from senility, both in 1926.

This is not exactly a restful place, but then it never has been. Trains continue to roar by frequently, the highway to the west is busy and, just south of the fence, construction continues on a major addition to the Hy-Vee center. But at least those buried here now have been reunited with their names.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Xury E. West's remarkable barn


Many Greenville-area pioneers are buried in the old Greenville Cemetery, all that remains of the village that was at the heart of a pioneer Washington Township neighborhood. This photo was taken by Doris Christensen, another Dry Flat alumni, who has taken I'd guess a couple of thousand tombstone and cemetery photographs for the "Find A Grave" Web site.

We were talking over lunch Sunday --- again --- about the decline and fall of Iowa's remarkable barns, a feature of the landscape and the economy made obsolete, or so it seems, by shifts in farm size, numbers and agricultural practices. The cook's old barn, which lost its roof in a wind storm last year, will come the rest of the way down once someone can be found to do the deed --- which brought the topic up in the first place.

Sometime in the early years of the 20th century, Henry Gittinger (1861-1953) --- then editor of The Chariton Leader --- wrote about one of Lucas County's more remarkable barns, constructed by his grandparents, Xury E. and Mary "Polly" (Hays) West, in Washington Township, southeast of Russell (see this earlier post for more about Greenville) shortly before the Civil War. This barn, too, has long since fallen. But here's his account --- from an undated Leader clipping:

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Perhaps boy life in Lucas county a generation or more ago had as many charms as it is possible in any age. In fact the retrospect is filled with pleasant memories and the more serious things then are viewed as really amusing. The writer calls to mind one occasion which made his eternal future look dark and not a ray of hope seemed to penetrate through the lowering clouds of despair.

It was just before the (Civil) war that Grandfather (Xury E.) West erected the big barn at Old Greenville, on the Mormon Trace. It was an immense structure then and would be no small thing now. The framework was of hewed oak and everything was of the best native material. It looked to us afterwords about the size of the Chariton depot (the old two-story C.B.&Q. depot and hotel).

The building of the temple at Jerusalem likely was watched with no greater interest than was the erection of this barn for there was nothing like it along the course of the Trace from Nauvoo to Council Bluffs. It was provided with a great threshing floor, ware rooms, granaries and bins, and the stables were separated from the other parts of the building so that it was perfectly clean in these departments. Above were the great benches for mowing hay and everything presented an architectural order superior to any building then known in the land.

Religious meetings and public assemblies of all kinds were held in the little old school house or at a private residence --- that is of an ordinary nature --- but on greater occasions Grandfather's big barn became a sort of exposition building, the threshing floor seated, which formed the auidtorium, and the hay mows served as galleries and all would accommodate a thousand or more people very comfortably.

Intellectual giants used to meet here in the early days to thresh out the political issues of the times and Greecian orators were never listened to or cheered with more appreciation than on these occasions. Dr. Lind, political sage and savant, often appeared here and thrilled his hearers with his reasonings and the Hon. Robert Coles sometimes aroused the democrats to high enthusiasm with his polished words and even flow of language. Could the old rafters and timbers speak, they would tell of great times there, for it was the temple of eloquence --- and the seat of early learning.

It was in the good old days when the "quarterly meetin's" meant something and the presidin' elder came and preached the "big" sermons. Everybody looked forward to these occasions with high keyed expectation, whether they held to the Methodist faith or not, but in those medieval days no issue was taken on those grounds and it may be that the newly mown clover formed the decorations of the house of worship, hanging in green festoons here and there about the altar or pleasingly relieved by the more mature hues of the dry fodder.

In either event it formed a picture that is painted ont the memory in never fading colors and the background has never been excelled by the silken drapery of city churches.

"Rock of Ages" was sung in the pious way of old by everyone who had a voice to sing --- and those who didn't measured the metre on their fingers. They were not then afraid of their neighbors getting ahead of each other and this etended to the song services as well as in businessfor some sang high, some low, some deliberate and others, like a steam engine divested of a governor, but it was melody that will ring in the ears that heard it so long as time shall last.

It was on one of those occasions that the incident happened previously alluded to. In his innocent nature, the writer concluded to scale the ladder to the gallery (just like the boy of today) and mingle with the crowd on high. The presiding elder had lined his long metre and was delineating the "big" sermon, but whether it was his flight of eloquence or a misstep of the boy caused the accident the world will never know --- perhaps the former.

An avalanche was started from the gallery and soon there was a lull in the sermon. However, they got the pitchforks and dug the preacher out from under the hay while a good old uncle of the ambitious youth immediately renounced his Methodism for the time being, accepted the doctrine of total depravity, took him out into the back lot and there taught him the beautiful lesson of repentance with a locust sprout. The lesson has never been forgotten.