Salem Cemetery: A Community Still (Part 1)

For Mary and the Russell Historical Society in respectful memory of all who rest here.

A gravedigger once told my dad that the dirt is black and rich six feet down at Salem, the legacy of countless tallgrass prairie seasons cycling under endless sky. Everyone in this community forged by death was tied somehow to the land in life and it remains a good place for an old farmer to take his rest.

The first to be buried here beside a fold in the prairie as it begins to break toward the Chariton River was a Mormon refugee moving toward the woods and water at Chariton Point two miles northwest during the 1840s, carrying in his head Brigham Young’s vision of New Zion in the intermountain West.

The most recent, during 2006, was a farm wife in her 94th year who carried memories of a full life on the farm just across the road as she traveled toward home.

Time and the prairie wind have swept away the Mormon pioneer’s name and the exact location of his grave, but the memory of Ora Gartin still is fresh and lively as grass begins to heal during this summer of 2007 the wound inflicted when her grave was dug.

SALEM is located in the southwest quarter of Section 3, Benton Township, two miles southeast of Chariton and two and a half miles due west of Russell, just south of the intersection of the Blue Grass and New York roads.

The Blue Grass Road here follows the path of the old Mormon Trace, the trail blazed from Dodge’s Point in Appanoose County northwest past old Greenville and then due west through what became Russell to Chariton Point and beyond by Mormons during the late spring and the early summer of 1846. The Trace was used thereafter by most of the thousands of Nauvoo Saints forced to flight by non-Mormon neighbors in Illinois who would not tolerate their differentness. They moved past what became Salem in ox-drawn wagons, on horseback and on foot toward Chariton Point, then Garden Grove or Mount Pisgah, across western Iowa to the Missouri River and beyond through Nebraska and Wyoming to Utah.

At Salem, the main trail was joined by a shortcut used by some of these pioneers that meandered back southeast past Ragtown, then cut directly east toward Greenville across the prairie flats south of Russell.

It may have been this convergence of trails that made it seem likelier to loved ones that a grave here would be less likely to be lost. Those who mourned had no choice other than to bury, say a prayer and move on.

DURING the roughly 160 years that have followed that first grave, approximately 300 people have been buried at Salem. Of those, about 240 graves are marked, the locations of perhaps 20 unmarked graves are known and perhaps 40 more people, known but to God, lie buried here.

These people were overwhelmingly of Scots-Irish and German descent, although there are Swedes and others, too. Most were members of three churches: Salem Methodist Episcopal (later Salem Community) Church, congregations whose building stood in front of the cemetery from the 1870s until the 1970s and from which the cemetery took its name; Mt. Carmel United Evangelical Church, four miles south; and Otterbein United Brethren in Christ, four miles southwest. The only other cemetery in Benton Township is Ragtown, a mile and a quarter southeast and long unused. For reasons now unknown, several families began to bury at Ragtown, then stopped and began using Salem. In at least one instance, a wife was buried at Ragtown and her husband, many years later at Salem.

There are Civil War veterans of both the Union and the Confederate States here, as well as veterans of World War I and World War II. There are men here who took their own lives and at least one who was murdered, women who died in childbirth and dozens of infants today‘s medical practices would have saved, many victims of tuberculosis (then called consumption) and many more who lived long and full lives. Their descendants are practically numberless now and scattered like buckshot, but this remains a community and its members still have stories to tell.

Ancient faces: Tillis Miller

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

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

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

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

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

So blessed be her memory!

Faded letters and tattered flags

The Iowa Memorial at Shiloh (Ask.com)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"tenasee camp pitsburg
aprile the 2, 1862

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

"James M. Rhea
lucinderia etheredge"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paradise

Ed Abbey always managed to say it well:

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

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

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

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

The importance of sittability

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

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

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

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

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

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

If the good Lord saw fit ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Queer thistles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The flowers that bloom in the spring ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let us praise Elizabeth E.E.F. Hammer

Communicants and friends entering the main door of Chariton’s St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church during its second incarnation, roughly from late 1904 until the building’s demise during the mid-1950s, would have passed a large and finely crafted (by the Gorham Manufacturing Co. of New York) bronze tablet upon which words cast in raised letters read : “To the Glory of God and in Grateful Recognition of the Liberality of Elizabeth Evans F. Hammer, Born December 7, 1815, died January 30, 1896, Whose Generous Bequest to St. Andrews Parish Aided Greatly the Erection of this Church.”

Elizabeth’s memorial tablet was the lesser of two Gorham creations in the church. A larger tablet erected to the glory of God and in memory of Smith H. Mallory, whose $10,000 bequest during 1903 allowed completion of a building begun with Elizabeth’s 1896 bequest of roughly the same amount, was displayed more prominently --- on the north wall of the choir to the immediate left of the altar.

The precedence given Mallory is not surprising. He had been, after all, a member (although not yet confirmed an Episcopalian) from organization of the parish on 13 June 1866 until his death on 26 March 1903, was an alpha male and arguably Lucas County’s (if not southern Iowa’s) most prominent citizen of that era. He also had the foresight to leave behind a widow, Annie, and daughter, Jessie, to ensure for at least a few last golden years that his proper place in the precedence of things was recognized.

Elizabeth, although no less devout and substantially more generous if percentages of the respective Hammer and Mallory estates designated for good works are considered, was operating with two disadvantages: She was a woman and she left no descendants.

In the end, the legacies of both turned to dust in worldly terms. St. Andrew’s the second was demolished and both memorial tablets went missing in the confusion of that congregational and architectural disaster.

But time delivered to Elizabeth a degree of recompense. Her polished granite tombstone topped by a marble urn stands tall in the Russell Cemetery, and her mortal remains rest there still, secured by a slate vault purchased from Dr. J.E. Stanton of Chariton for $60 (then a remarkable amount) upon her death.

Mallory, by contrast, was unceremoniously uprooted from the Chariton Cemetery by his daughter during the 1920s, his body cremated and both his ashes and the spectacular Celtic cross that had marked his grave shipped off to eternal obscurity in a Florida cemetery.

In the beginning:

Elizabeth was born, her obituary (Chariton Democrat, 7 February 1896) tells us, on 7 December 1815 in New York to William and Dorothy Evans, one of nine children --- all but one of whom predeceased her --- and was married to William Fulkerson about 1833. I do not know where that marriage occurred or the circumstances --- other than the fact that they were childless --- of their early years together.

Prior to October of 1850, William and Elizabeth had moved to Waukegan, Illinois, located north of Chicago in Lake County --- so called because Lake Michigan formed its eastern boundary. William and Elizabeth, along with Mary Mason, age 13, born in Michigan, were enumerated as a separate household within the home there of William J. and Sarah Dennis and their children, Mary A., 3, and Joseph, 1. The occupation of both William Dennis and William Fulkerson was given as farmer, although Dennis was credited with real estate valued at $1,200 and Fulkerson apparently owned none.

About 1854, the Fulkersons moved west to Washington Township, Lucas County, settling on a 240-acre prairie farm two miles south and a mile east of what would become Russell --- a farm later owned and occupied by three generations of the Kells family for more than a century. Here, the Fulkersons prospered.

Elizabeth, according to her obituary, “at a very early period in life … was confirmed in the Episcopal Church of which she ever remained a devout communicant.” William may or may not have been an Episcopalian. There are no records to tell us.

Elizabeth, we know, was involved in forming an Episcopal parish at Russell immediately after the town was organized along the Chicago Burlington & Quincy (then the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad) rail line during 1867.

Susan Day, in her 1914 “A Brief History of Russell, Iowa,” tells us that “The first church, the Episcopal church, which was established in 1868, did not prosper, owing to its weakness in membership, and was soon disbanded and the church building was sold for other purposes, and it is now (during 1914) occupied by I. E. Raines as a paint shop.”

Charles M. Wright, in his 1967 “Russell Centennial Book,” adds a few details: “As soon as the rails arrived in the town (during 1867), the railroad authorized the newly appointed agent, N.B. Douglas, to offer two lots and a cash subscription to the first denomination that would build a church in the town. By August, the Episcopalians accepted this offer. Eventually they were given three lots and a fourth was sold to them for $25. A subscription of $50 was then granted to them for their new edifice.

“Even before this transaction was completed,” Wright contines, “the Presbyterians, hearing of the matter, offered to put a building under way immediately in exchange for two lots and a cash donation. Douglas wrote for instructions. ‘I think,’ he observed, ‘that two churches would be a great benefit to the growth of the town.’ Asked for more details by the authorities, Douglas reaffirmed his belief that ‘two churches would flourish here.’ The Episcopalians, he explained, had then only a few members, but the were ‘all of a wealthy aristocratic class.’ They already had six loads of timber on the spot and planned a structure 30 by 60 feet, with a tower and steeple in front. The Presbyterians, with a large and active membership, expected other denominations to help build their church in return for using it a portion of the time. Thereupon the second donation was authorized.”

“It was Dr. LaBach of Chariton,” according to Wright, “who came to Russell and began the preparation for the building of the Episcopal house of worship. This was completed in the spring of 1868, but owing to weakness in membership the church did not prosper and was soon disbanded. The building was then sold for other purposes.”

Praise, too, for the Rev. Isaac Peter Labagh

Wright is mistaken in attributing to Dr. “LaBach” first work among the Russell Episcopalians. The gentleman in question actually was the Rev. Isaac Peter Labagh, a pioneering Episcopal missionary whose name certainly should be spelled correctly and whose work in Lucas and Monroe counties deserves proper acknowledgement.

The Rev. Mr. Labagh, whose work in the Diocese of Iowa from 1865 until his death during1869 was sponsored by the Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church, arrived in the state during July of 1865 when shortly before his 61st birthday he was named rector of St. Peter’s Church in Fairfield.

As the tracks of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad (later Chicago Burlington & Quincy) pushed west after the close of the Civil War, Labagh and his family followed.

He was appointed 5 August 1867 as the first rector of the newly-organized St. Andrew’s Church, Chariton, and also was named at about the same time to serve as rector of Grace Church in Albia. He moved with his family to Russell, a new town platted during October of 1867 along the B.&M.R.R. route in Washington Township, Lucas County, between Albia and Chariton but now accessible to both by rail, and set about planting a third Episcopal church, St. Mark’s, there.

Labagh, born 14 August 1804 in Leeds, Green County, N.Y., was a fascinating character who embodied the missionary zeal of the Episcopal church of that era. His father, the Rev. Dr. Peter Labagh, was a prominent minister of the Dutch Reformed denomination. Isaac was determined to follow in his father’s footsteps, and in preparation for that calling graduated from Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., during 1823 and the New Brunswick Theological Seminary of the Dutch Reformed Church, then sharing facilities with Queen’s College (now Rutgers University), New Brunswick, N.J., during 1826. He then served Reformed congregations in Rochester, N.Y., and Gravesend, Long Island.

During 1842, however, he was suspended by the Reformed general synod “for views expounded concerning the second advent and the Christian Sabbath.” He found a welcome, however, within the Protestant Episcopal Church during 1846 and never looked back.

His first work as an Episcopal missionary was among the Jewish population of New York City. He then founded and built Grace Episcopal Church, Gloucester, N.J., and St. Paul’s Church, Brooklyn, N.Y., and “resuscitated” Calvary Church of Brooklyn, “which had fallen into decay.”

During 1860, he moved west to McHenry County, Ill., where he established a seminary for girls called Euphemia Hall in Maringo, which burned during 1862.

Throughout his career, probably to the occasional dismay of his family, the Rev. Mr. Labagh financed mission efforts with his own funds. That was the case with Euphemia Hall, in which he had invested an estimated $15,000, all lost when it burned.

Undeterred, Labagh moved to Cairo, Ill., where he built St. Peter’s Episcopal Church before commencing work in the Diocese of Iowa.

St. Mark's Episcopal Church:

As Charles Wright recounted in his Russell history, the Rev. Mr. Labagh was the first in Russell to take up the railroad offer of lots and a financial subscription in return for the promise to build a church. On 23 April 1868, Henry S. Russell, trustee, deeded lots set aside for the Episcopalians the previous fall, Nos. 143, 144 and 145 in the original town of Russell, to Isaac P. Labagh, trustee of the Russell Episcopal congregation.

Labagh had purchased a fourth lot, No. 142, from Henry Russell for $25 during March of 1868. Interestingly, the purchaser of record for this lot was listed as the Rev. Mr. Labagh’s son, Reginald Heber Lebagh, then 19. And it’s interesting to speculate about why. The most likely explanation is that the Rev. Mr. Labagh’s habit of financing mission work out of his own pocket left his family financially vulnerable and that this was intended to offer some degree of security. Accounts of Grace Church in Albia, for example, state that its building was financed in large part with funds advanced by the Rev. Mr. Labagh. Those accounts go on to state that Grace ran into financial difficulty during the 1870s and actually lost the building to creditors other than Labagh, who sold it to the Roman Catholics of that city.

Whatever the case, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church was constructed in Russell during 1867-68. Lots 142-145 formed the south half of the city block in the northeast corner of the intersection of Prairie and Ames streets. It seems likely that the church was constructed to the east and the Labagh home, on Lot 142 at the southwest corner, a site now occupied by a service station, but there’s no way to confirm that.

St. Mark’s had been enclosed by February, 1868, and a festival was scheduled to raise funds for outfitting it, as reported in The Chariton Democrat of 22 and 29 February:

“FESTIVAL AT RUSSELL: All of our people ought to go to the festival to be given in St. Marks (Episcopal) church, at Russell, on next Tuesday evening. A special train will leave Chariton between six and seven o’clock, and carry passengers free. A grand time may be anticipated, and a pleasant little ride “into the bargain all free gratis for nothing,” Superintendent Perkins having generously placed a train at the disposal of the society. Supper tickets 50 cents.” (22 February)

“THE RESTIVAL AT RUSSELL: The festival held in the Episcopal church at Russell, on Tuesday evening, was one of the pleasantest affairs of the season. The church has just been enclosed, and the object of the festival was to raise funds to fit it up. A large number of Chariton people went down by the special train, and those in the vicinity of Russell turned out almost en masse. It was expected that Albia would send up a delegation also, but by reason of some misunderstanding they did not come. Mrs. Fulkerson, one of the founders of the church, desires to thank the people of Chariton for the generous manner in which they resonded to the institution, and assures them that when an opportunity occurs to reciprocate, Russell will turn out in full. The net receipts of the festival amounted to $41.” (29 February)

Sadly, the Rev. Mr. Labagh became ill during the closing months of 1869 and on 29th December of that year died in in Fairfield, probably at the home of his son, Peter.

Although both St. Andrew’s and Grace continued, St. Mark’s did not survive the Rev. Mr. Labagh for long --- and its interesting to speculate about what its outcome might have been if that dynamic individual had lived longer. The deed transferring three lots to Isaac Labagh specified that they be used only for church purposes, so once the Russell church closed its doors the lots defaulted to the Russell trustees. They were sold on 21 June 1873 to D. F. Comstock, a Russell businessman. This suggests that the Russell congregation probably survived for four years at the most.

Reginald H. Labagh retained ownership of Lot No. 142 until 3 June 1879 when he (then a resident of Chicago) sold it to Rowena (Sargent) Haywood for $100.

Elizabeth soldiers on:

While there is no record to tell us exactly when the Episcopal church in Russell closed its doors, Elizabeth Fulkerson seem to have been undeterred and apparently not tempted to join another denomination. Instead, she shifted her allegiance to St. Andrew’s of Chariton.

Elizabeth and William were enumerated in the 1880 census as residents of the village of Russell, so apparently lived there rather than on their Washington Township farm until his death on Friday, 31 Decemeber 1880, at the age of 69 years, 10 months and 17 days. The Fulkersons had purchased lots in Russell as soon as it was platted and also owned lots in Chariton, where they reportedly also lived for a time.

William Fulkerson’s passing drew brief note in The Chariton Patriot of Wednesday, 5 January 1881: “Wm. Fulkerson, whose death was briefly noticed in Friday’s Daily, was an old citizen of the county, having located on the farm near Russell where he died, over 26 years ago. He was 70 years of age, and had been sick about a week of congestion of the lungs. He leaves an estimable wife to mourn his departure. The funeral will take place tomorrow at Russell under the Masonic auspices.” William was buried in the Russell Cemetery.

An astute businesswoman, Elizabeth managed a substantial amount of property in the Russell area and enjoyed income both from rent and from cash loaned at interest to various people and institutions in the community. She also built a substantial brick home --- a rarity in Russell --- probably the house in the east part of town that later served as a private home, then as the O’Donnell Nursing Home and eventually was demolished.

About seven years after the death of William Fulkerson, Elizabeth married Eli F. Hammer on 4 September 1888 at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Russell (of which Hammer was a member) with the Rev. Francis Duncan Jaudon, rector of St. Andrew’s 1888-1891, officiating.

Eli, born 1 January 1826 at Greencastle, Ind., had married Mrs. Demitha Branham, some 10 years his senior, 1 September 1848. The Hammers were prosperous but childless farmers who lived in Wright Township, Wayne County, just a few miles south of Russell probably in or near what was known as the Dry Flat neighborhood. Eli and Demitha were charter members of the Russell Methodist congregation.

Demitha Branham Hammer died 25 March 1887, a year and a half before Eli’s marriage to Elizabeth, and she, too, was buried in the Russell Cemetery.

Eli and Elizabeth moved into Elizabeth’s home in Russell and apparently lived there contentedly until the late fall of 1895, when old age and circumstance conspired against them. A Chariton Democrat news item of 31 January 1896 states that Elizabeth had sustained injuries a few weeks earlier in a fall, then became ill with “lagrippe.” Eli, according to The Democrat, became ill at about the same time. She died in their Russell home at 1 a.m. on Thursday, 30 January, age 80; and Eli died a few minutes later, at 1:35 a.m., age 70.

Joint funeral services were held at the Fulkerson/Hammer home Friday afternoon, 31 January, conducted by the Rev. A. W. Armstrong of the Russell M.E. Church, and by the Rev. William V. Whitten and the Rev. J. A. Russell, of St. Andrew’s. Elizabeth then was buried in the Russell Cemetery beside her first husband and Eli, beside his first wife, Demitha.

The benevolence of Elizabeth E.E.F. Hammer

Elizabeth and Eli had not mixed their assets upon marrying and owned no property jointly. In her will, she left $4,400 to be divided among five people: Amelia Miller, $200; Doratha McKinley,$1,800; H. Everett, $2,000; Mary E. Carpenter, $200; and Minnie Miller, $200. She also provided for Eli Hammer’s brother, Isaac, of Wisconsin, by ordering that he be paid $5 monthly from her estate so long as he lived.

The balance of Elizabeth’s assets was willed to churches. St. Andrew’s Episcopal was the principal beneficiary, receiving $500 outright and the residue of her estate once other bequests had been paid and accounts settled. The other congregations that she remembered, each of which received $200, were the Russell M.E. Church, Russell Baptist Church, Russell Presbyterian Church, Trinity Evangelical Church (located a mile east of the Fulkerson farm and now known as Center Community Church) and Dry Flat Evangelical Church (also known as Goodwater Church), located in the Wayne County neighborhood where Eli had lived before his marriage to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth named George W. Plotts, variously a Russell farmer, meat market operator and grain dealer, to administer her estate. At the time of her death, he was leasing her brick business building on Russell’s main street and seems to have functioned as her manager.

It took two years to settle Elizabeth’s estate. Her biggest asset, the old Fulkerson farm of 240 acres, was sold to Charles A. Kells for $8,400 during 1898. That farm, which remained in the Kells family until 2006 when it was sold for only the second time in its history, was valued in 21st century dollars at many times that amount.

On the 25th of April, 1898, Lucas County’s probate judge approved payment of specific bequests, including $500 to St. Andrew’s. By October of that year, St. Andrew’s also had received $6,300 from cash in hand after all other bequests and bills had been paid, and at St. Andrew’s request, remaining assets of the estate had been transferred to that congregation, as well as the obligation to pay Isaac Hammer $5 per month until his death. Those assets included title to Elizabeth’s brick business building and brick home as well as a vacant lot in Russell. A variety of household goods and uncollected notes, including one for $320 against the trustees of Russell First Baptist Church, also passed to St. Andrew’s as did several hundred dollars in cash.

When all was said an done, St. Andrew’s received approximately $10,000 from the Fulkerson/Hammer bequest, an amount sufficient to allow the congregation to begin planning a grand new building to replace the modest frame structure that had served it since 1868.

Brother Ted and Brother Mike

Brother Ted Haggard

Subtitled: The Haggard and Jones Show, but Not Merle and George.

By now it’s old news and a “Google News” search for Haggard --- that’s Ted, not Merle --- brings up fewer and fewer hits. But I did find a commentary not long ago, written by a black preacher, that dismissed gay male escort Mike Jones, who brought Brother Ted down, as a work of the devil, an interesting characterization.

Brother Mike Jones.

You may remember the details of the Rev. Mr. Haggard’s fall --- not from grace --- but from position: As lead pastor of Colorado Springs’ 14,000-member New Life Church, which he founded, and as head of the multi-million-member National Association of Evangelicals --- a loose affiliation of congregations that probably would describe themselves as fundamentalist --- approximately 50 denominations (including Assemblies of God, Christian Reformed Church in North America, Church of the Nazarene, Evangelical Free Church of America, the Salvation Army and dozens more).

The Denver-based Jones, watching television some time ago, realized that a client he had serviced for about three years, known to him as Art, actually was Brother Ted --- the happily married father of five and a general in the war against gay marriage and those of us who are queer in general. Many of the Haggard and Jones encounters, Mike said, were methamphetamine fueled and Jones admitted to facilitating some of Haggard’s purchases, but denied selling him drugs outright.

Brother Ted denied it at first (“I didn’t have sex with that man”), then acknowledged that, well, the allegations were partially true, that he had bought meth once but never inhaled, that he’d gotten a massage from Mike, but by gum that was as far as it went. And then he vanished, leaving behind a letter to his congregation that surely does suggest Jones was the truthful one and that Haggard’s life to date has been a lie wrapped in lies.

Now he is undergoing “spiritual restoration,” apparently a Protestant version of Roman Catholic exorcism, only a far longer process, far more painful and with no guaranteed results. I believe they’re going to try to straighten him out, poor guy.

We live in interesting times.

Response to the Haggard and Jones show depends, I guess, on the “who” factor --- who you are and where you’re at with who you are.

I was lucky growing up so far as organized religion was concerned --- for the most part avoiding it. That was due to my parents, who never preached, rarely judged and whose relationship with whatever congregation they had established an uneasy truce with was governed by intercongregational warfare. First sign of trouble and they were gone. Me, too. Vamoose.

But you can’t escape genetics, and a residual centuries-of-Protestant -fireworks disdain for the Roman Catholic Church remains. What a glorious, but absurd, confection it is. Protestants are no better than they should be, either, however, and neither seems to have much to do with that guy on the cross --- more a matter of “Wooohee, look at me. I’m going to heaven and you’re not.” Such nonsense.

But, sure, I‘m a Christian, although content not to fuss much about it. That I think is the queer factor. You soon discover, when you are (queer, that is), that Christianity Inc. is determined send you to hell (although that outlook is moderating in some denominations now). Snce you know, if you‘ve got a lick of common sense, that sexual orientation is original equipment, it occurs to you that self-proclaimed spokesmen for the Creator can‘t send you to anywhere. At that point, that absurd collection of finger-pointers loses its power. So you bypass that old bankrupt institution that fancies itself the body of Christ and go straight to the Man himself. It’s called epiphany. I recommend it.

But that brings me back to Brother Ted and Brother Mike and an old story about my granddaddy.

Some time back before the turn of the 20th century, Brother Ollie Fluke and Grandpa got into it at a camp meeting in the Fluke grove down near Zion Methodist Church in Pleasant Township. That bunch of Methodists had discovered Pentecostal fire and some of them were busy helping to organize something called the Fire-baptized Holiness Association (Brother Ollie went on to preach and evangelize within that association and the Pentecostal denomination that grew from it). One of his distant kin was the late Dorothy (Fluke) Many, of Chariton --- quite a gal, and I’ve sometimes wondered how she and Uncle Ollie would have gotten along.

But that’s beside the point. Grandpa was a staunch Christian (Disciple of Christ) and Brother Ollie opined, I’ve been told, that those Christians just didn’t have enough of Holy Spirit in ‘em to get to heaven.

So Grandpa reportedly responded, if it came down to it, he’d “rather spend eternity in hell with the Disciples than in heaven with those Goddamned caterwaulering (translation: screeching like a cat in heat) Methodists.”

I sort of feel that way about Brother Ted and Brother Mike and “sinners” in general. I’ll take good old dumb maybe-I-can-make-a-difference-by-telling-the-truth Brother Mike any day. Work of the devil --- not at all. That boy’s glory-bound.

Goodbye, Jim Nussle

And then there's First District U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle, who managed to give the impression when he announced his intention to become the Republican candidate for Iowa's governor that somehow we owed him.

Conventional wisdom now, after a 10 percent loss to Democrat Chet Culver, is that he was swept away by nationwide dismay at George W. Bush run amuk, the war in Iraq and a Republican congressional majority that had strayed a considerable distance from old-fashioned GOP principles. That surely was the case with Jim Leach, veteran U.S. representative and Republican moderate down in southeast Iowa.

But there's something else at work here with Nussle, buried deep in the Iowa psyche --- After we send senators or representatives to Washington, Iowans discover after a year or two that we don't really like them. There are a lot of advantages to seniority in Congress, no matter the party. And as a rule, as a tribe, we deplore change. So except in extraordinary years like this, we'll live and let live.

That I suppose is a factor in the rise of the outrageous Steve King, re-elected Tuesday in his western Iowa home, where neo-Nazis roam.

But giving a collective finger to congressional delegates who begin to operate under the delusion that Iowans love them is fast becoming a state tradition.

There was Fred (aka "Gopher") Grandy, who decided to challenge Terry "Governor-for-Life" Branstad for the Republican gubernatorial nomination during 1994. Then there was the eminently forgettable Jim Ross Lightfoot, who took on Tom Vilsack during 1998 as the GOP nominee. And now, Mr. Nussle.

Curiously, when we hand these guys their walking papers they seem to take it personally (it really isn't) and instead of sticking around to work for the state they told us they loved so much, high-tail it back to Washington to find some sort of fringe, although highly-paid, alternate occupation.

So we'll see how long it takes Brother Jim, who told us during the campaign how much he loved Manchester and how glad he was to call it home, to get out of Dodge. Betcha the moving van already's been reserved.

Iowa's new "big lug," Gov.-elect Chet Culver. 

Hog heaven for yeller dog Democrats ...

... like me --- "If'n that there yeller dog's a Democrat, I'm a gonna vote for it." Always have, always will --- unless I die in a Republican-controlled nursing home, they prop me up, wheel me to a polling place, put a pen in my cold dead hand and vote GOP with it.

It's just as well to get crowing out of the way today, I guess, since it's a lot easier to play the critic as a minority than to govern as the majority. But hot damn ain't it great to see our big lug, Chet Culver, and that grand old southern Iowa gal, Patty Judge, at the top in Iowa with a Democrat-controlled Legislature behind them; the U.S. House in Democrat hands; the Senate almost there; and, frosting on the cake, that fool Rumsfeld out? So, Dubwa, I thought the Donald was going to stay with you til your term ended?

Had a vision after I got home last night of Dave Paxton, editor and publisher of the Chariton newspapers, writhing on the floor, chewing the carpet and soiling himself. That made me feel so darned good I went right to sleep and slept, well, like a yeller-dog Democrat.

The Harvey Miller family. Harvey and Alice (Shore) Miller are seated in the foreground flanking a portrait of their deceased son, Clarence Harry. Their three surviving children (from left second row) are Gerial, Denia and Delbert.

Ancient Faces: The Harvey Miller Family

James Harvey Miller (11 April 1861-20 February 1933) was the fourth son of Jeremiah and Elizabeth (McMulin) Miller. Born in Monroe County, Iowa, he moved with his family to English Township, Lucas County, Iowa, during 1866. Harvey is shown here with his wife, Mary Elizabeth Alice (Shore) Miller (28 November 1860-28 January 1935), and their three surviving children (back row from left) Gerial (27 February 1885-14 June 1950), Denia Alice (Miller) Tilson (31 May 1893-13 May 1942) and Delbert (20 February 1883-30 March 1960). The portrait photographed with the family is of Clarence Harry Miller (born 14 April 1887) who died in an accident at the family’s Garden Grove, Calif., farm on 19 June 1906. Another child, a daughter named Vinna E., was born 1 July 1881, died 27 July 1881, and is buried in Zion Cemetery, Pleasant Township, Lucas County, Iowa. Harvey and Alice were married 5 September 1880 in Lucas County, Iowa, and moved to California during February 1895 where the remainder of their lives were spent. This photograph is from the collection of William Ambrose Miller, my grandfather.

Clarence Harry Miller 

Ancient Faces: Clarence Harry Miller

The greatest sorrow of Harvey and Alice (Shore) Miller’s family life was the loss of their youngest son, Clarence Harry (born 14 April 1887 in Lucas County, Iowa), who was electrocuted in the pump house on the family farm near Garden Grove, Calif., on the morning of 19 June 1906, when he was 19. There are some indications that their grief was a factor in a decision to leave the farm during 1908 and move into Corona, Calif., where Harvey entered the livery business and, during 1912, added a furniture business. Clarence was buried in the Santa Ana, Calif., Cemetery, and Harvey and Alice were buried with him when they died, respectively, during 1933 and 1935. This photograph is from the collection of William Ambrose Miller, my grandfather.

Looking east into the Mars Hill Cemetery through one of two window openings in the church's east wall. 

The view northwest through a collapsed portion of Mars Hill's west wall, showing the valley beyond. Rebar had been drilled into window openings, as seen at right, many years ago in an attempt to prevent vandals from entering. Vandals hooked log chains to the rebar over some windows and ripped it out. 

Mortised logs at the northwest corner of Mars Hill Church. 

The Mars Hill Church sign, some distance south of the structure, survived the fire untouched. 

Looking north toward the front door into the shell of Mars Hill Baptist Church. 

Mars Hill and Mysterious Ways

Ottumwa styles itself the City of Bridges, but city of churches would work as well. Swinging southeast on U.S. 34 parallel to the Des Moines, it is the spires of St. Mary of the Visitation (built 1930 and a wonderful art deco version of Gothic Revival), Trinity Episcopal (built 1894-95 and pure Gothic Revival) and many others that catch the eye as they climb the bluff along the river’s far shore.

The contrast between these stone confections and the stark simplicity of the remaining log walls of Mars Hill Baptist Church, located in the Wapello County hills southeast of the city, could not be sharper.

The key word here is “remaining.” Built about 1856 of hand-hewn logs to serve a Missionary Baptist congregation, it was Iowa’s oldest log church, perhaps the oldest log church still in use west of the Mississippi, although only for an annual early-summer service and a few special occasions during the year.

During March, five Ottumwa teen-agers set it afire --- just because they could --- and before firefighters arrived at this remote location the roof was gone, a portion of the west wall had collapsed and many of the remaining logs were deeply charred.

Mars Hill’s simple enclosure crowns the highest point in its neighborhood with sweeping views of a valley to the northwest and a well-maintained although somewhat dilapidated (and vandalized) cemetery, now undergoing restoration, sloping into woods on the east.

Searching for a name for their church, the pioneers who built it looked into the Acts of the Apostles and found reference to the Areopagus (anglicized Mars Hill) in classical Athens and a sermon delivered there by St. Paul.

Paul, noting altars to many gods on Mars’ Hill, including one to the “unknown” god (Athenians believed in covering all the bases), responded as follows (Acts 17:22-25):

“Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, “To The Unknown God.” Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things ….’ ”

I thought about that passage Monday, standing (where signs told me I shouldn’t be) on the charred floor, looking out through empty gaps where windows once had been, then up at the sky.

Mars Hill Church intact was evocative, but confining, musty and dim, its wide plank floor warped and rolling --- like Iowa’s prairie. It seemed abandoned, empty, a fossil, as dim and dead as the interiors of those grand Ottumwa churches must be when their congregations depart.

Now, without roof and windows, sunlight and fresh air flooded into Mars Hill and it was alive in near-death.

Of course these severely damaged walls, although carefully propped into place, cannot survive long exposure to the elements and Mars Hill’s caretakers hope to restore it, perhaps acquiring a log building of similar age and recycling its walls to replace the church’s most extensively damaged logs.

The estimated cost of the restoration project is $100,000 --- an amount beyond the imagination of the men and women who built Mars Hill in the first place. I wish them well.

It could even be that this fresh infusion of love and labor was something Mars Hill needed. The good Lord moves in mysterious ways, after all, His wonders to perform.

To reach Mars Hill Church, drive a few miles south out of Ottumwa on Highway 63, then turn left (east) onto the graveled Copperhead Road. Turn south off Copperhead onto 100th Avenue and follow it down into a creek valley then up around Mars Hill to the church and cemetery.

Here are some of Red Haw State Park's redbuds in bloom along the west side of a small cove off the south shore of Red Haw Lake. 

This is another view of redbuds in bloom along a cove off the south shore of Red Haw Lake. 

Finally, these are red haw blossoms on a specimen tree that grows near the park ranger's house. 

Red Haw's Redbuds

Although named for the red haw (hawthorn) trees that grow there, redbud trees are the springtime wonders at Red Haw State Park, a mile east of Chariton, underplanted in the woods around the lake and elsewhere. Quite a show!

These photos were taken during early May, on a Sunday afternoon when the redbuds were at their best and the park was full of people admiring them. I intended to put them here then, but didn't quite get around to it.

Red Haw, built during the 1930s as a Civilian Conservation Corps project, is a great little park with a classic stone shelter house from the CCC era that serves as a venue for everything from picnics to weddings --- even funerals now and then.

An interesting footnote involves the fact that if it ever gets really dry in Lucas County, those of us who live in Chariton are entitled to drink the lake! That's because when its dam blocked the creek above the lakes that provide Chariton's regular source of water during the 1930s, the city wisely reserved the right to tap Red Haw Lake if those lower lakes went dry. Iowa's Department of Natural Resources got nasty about that a few years ago, forcing Chariton to go to court to affirm its right to Red Haw water if worse comes to worst.

Heath Ledger (left) as Ennis Del Mar and Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist. 

Brokeback Fever

You know that movie about those two gay cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist? Darned embarrassing at my age, but I’ve got me a bad case of Brokeback Mountain fever. Joined the Ultimate Brokeback Mountain Forum a while back. May look for a Brokeback Mountain support group before long, too.

Fact is, that’s me and my first Jack up there on Brokeback around 1963 and I already knew every word, every move, every touch and every whisker. Painful to watch the first time. A kick in the gut. I just sat down and bawled about it. Coming home after 40 years away. Hard thing to do.

It seems to affect most of my people that way.

I was late seeing Brokeback. Gave up on theaters long time ago, so waited for Wal-Mart. Was rewarded by the DVD checkout gal’s little smirk: “Are you sure you’re at least 17?” Lots older than that, ma’am; earned every wrinkle and every spot.

Maybe she didn’t mean anything by it, but that sure did take me back to when you had to be real careful about what you bought and where you got it ’cause you didn’t want anybody to guess you might be queer --- even though they always did and let you know it.

Here’s my clumsy Brokeback summary: Ennis and Jack, both 19 and dumb like all us country boys were then, get jobs together herding sheep on an allotment up on Brokeback somewhere in Wyoming during 1963, fall in love, love a lot, then come off the mountain that autumn, part, get married and have kids.

We were all supposed to get married and have kids back in those days. Remember? Find a good woman, boy, and you’ll get over it. Lots of good women out there with big holes in their hearts because of that. Ennis and Jack didn’t get over it either.

Jack was the starry-eyed one, ready to give love a chance. Ennis was the practical one: “If you can’t fix it, you gotta stand it,” he says. And so they stood it for 20 years, Ennis in Wyoming and Jack in Texas, getting together a couple of times a year, fishing up on Brokeback. You damn well know those fishing lines never got wet.

Then Jack dies, and Ennis, long divorced, has daughters he adores but an otherwise empty heart. Closing scene in a banged up old trailer. Ennis walks to a closet where two bloodied-up shirts saved by Jack from that first Brokeback summer nestle one inside the other, hanging beside a cheap postcard view of the mountain. “I swear, Jack,” he says. Fade out.

Seems like simple stuff. But Annie Proulx’s short story is a wonder. She’s straight, you know, and how she got it so right I don’t know. Maybe it really is that universal love story they talk about. Film’s a wonder, too. Beautifully made by Ang Lee, it moseys along like most cowboys I’ve known, but under everything there’s something and behind what you see the first time is something else. Dead-on acting, even if Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are straight boys not used to simulating gay sex and kissing men. You’d never know it. Dead-on to the way it was back then, too. I swear.

Thing is, it’s so good the line between fiction and fact isn’t there. That’s the power. I’m not qualified to talk about how straight people see it, but every gay male I’ve run into and a good share of lesbians, too, see themselves in it, or reflected. My people have never had anything this good before.

Like I said, that’s me up there. Not nearly so good-looking, damn it. But my Jack was and he grew up Wyoming cowpoke and dirt poor, too. I grew up farm boy. Brokeback mountain wasn’t ours, so we didn’t go up it. We went down Ten Sleep instead. A big piece of my heart’s still somewhere in that red canyon, not far off the road over the Big Horns from Buffalo to Worland.

After Vietnam, my Jack came back to Wyoming and tried wrangling dudes for a while. Couldn’t take it, did that Jack thing and moved to Denver. Good life there, but AIDS came along and got him. No fix for that then, so he did it the cowboy way with a clean shot through the head, just like he’d done it for an old horse with a broken leg up in the high country years before. We left him scattered in the mountains, too.

After Vietnam, I did the Ennis thing: Came back to Iowa. Still here. Still alive. Transfixed by places, hooked on people. A couple of other Jacks after that, an Ennis or two, some damnfoolishness in between.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve gotten love, given love and have no more regrets than anybody else I know, gay or straight. But man it was hard to go back to the beginning and watch it all again. So I started talking about it, mostly with people like me, mostly riding the online range. Thousands of us out there doing that.

Here’s some of the stuff I heard. No way scientific but a fair account I think.

A lot of us, especially the younger ones, start blaming Jack and Ennis for the troubles those two had back then. Why they should have just rode off into the sunset, found that little ranch and settled down together. In a way this blame game’s good, because it means things have gotten better and lots of us are doing just that nowadays. But I’m here to tell you it was real hard to do back then, especially in the country. If you wanted to stay alive. Can’t forget that, boys and girls.

A lot of us see our own screwed up relationships and missed opportunities in Jack and Ennis. Some of us beat ourselves up pretty bad. Shouldn’t do that. Others start making resolutions and promises to themselves not to let it happen again. Good. Just remember to carry through when that DVD wears out.

A lot of us blame you straight folks and we’re still mad. But you know, you did do your best to make us miserable when we were kids and you knew we were vulnerable. You called us names, beat us up, kicked us out, fired us when we got older, spit on our relationships, killed us if you felt like it and then, when we got AIDS, said for a long time that we deserved it. That’s why a hell of chunk of my generation’s dead. That takes a lot of getting over, cowpokes.

A lot of the folks I’ve talked to identify as Christian. Now isn’t that funny? The church as a whole is not our friend. There’s the United Church of Christ and those Unitarian Universalists, bless ‘em, plus a few specifically gay outfits. Yea, there are some friendly people behind some church doors. But the majority just figures they’re in charge of that old express bus to glory and maybe they’ll let us sit in back or maybe they won’t let us on at all.

Thing is I guess, Jesus isn‘t like that. Jack and Ennis watched out for those sheep, and He’s out there on old Brokeback with us now. Found a lot of us long time ago and He’s looking for the rest. He made us like this, you know, and never gives up calling. Just stands there with wide open arms hollering something like, “Jack Twist, I swear.” Doesn’t pull a Bible and fire point-blank. Just grabs ahold and hangs on tight. Real easy to talk to. So many of us call ourselves Christians because of that and figure what goes on between Him and us is nobody’s business but ours.

That‘s where epiphany comes in, that big word that just means sometimes all of a sudden, probably when you’re not even looking, grace knocks you flat, floods in and you know you’re home.

Lots of gay men, especially us older ones, gave up on happy endings long time ago. So a lot of guys who look at that last scene in Brokeback and see Ennis standing there at that closet, about 40 now, looking at those two old shirts and that postcard, figure that’s all there is, the end.

But neither the short story nor the movie specifies that; they leave it to us to write the rest of the story --- just like life does.

“I swear, Jack,” Ennis says, and that hard old conflicted heart of his cracks wide open and begins to fill. At least that‘s the way I see it.

My first Jack rode off into the sunset long ago, and there goes Ennis now --- another good man beside him I’ll damn well bet.

Kind of hope I don’t get over Brokeback fever. But what ever happens buckaroos, gay and straight, I hope grace finds you and that you find your Jack or Ennis, too. That’s all there is, you know.

And that’s about as straight as this queer old wrangler can tell it. Cowboy up!

Judy Corbett's "Castles in the Air."

Books less traveled: Castles in the Air

Problem is, we’ve run out of places to run to. That used to be part of the answer when the world went nuts. Or when you started waking up in the morning thinking the best way to deal with the neighbors might be just to shoot ’em, putting everybody out of their misery thataway. Saddle up old Blaze (or pack the wife and kids in a wagon) and head west.

Like I said, that’s a problem now: The West’s a gonner, overrun by new money and old tourists. We ran out of it maybe 50 years ago.

You can still hitch up to a book, though, and that’s some relief. To my mind one of the best places to look is down a lesser-traveled path, maybe in the “travel narrative” section at Borders (certainly not among the best-sellers).

Take Judy Corbett’s “Castles in the Air” for example. My idea of a good read --- sit down to graze and find you can’t stop until you’ve swallowed it whole.

Granted, you’ve got to like a yarn where the main character is a cranky old house --- in this case Gwydir Castle near Llanrwst in North Wales --- to like this book. But I do, and did.

Corbett, a bookbinder, and her spouse, Peter Welford (an architectural historian), got fed up with the 20th/21st century, too; saddled up and headed west to the 16th.

When Corbett and Welford found Gwydir, seat of the once-powerful Wynn family, during the early 1990s it was heading toward dereliction. Rebuilt on the site of an earlier house by Meredith Wynn about 1490, it had survived quite nicely into early 20th century, then suffered a variety of indignities --- gutted of its contents (including the paneling and other fittings of two of its most important rooms) during a 1920s auction, damaged by fire, victimized by a 1970s “restoration.” Finally, it had deteriorated into a squalid nightclub and home to squatters with failing roof and in the opinion of many --- including Britain’s National Trust --- beyond redemption.

As sometimes inexplicably happens, however, Corbett and Welford fell in love, scraped together enough cash, bought the relic --- along with 10 acres of overgrown garden --- and moved in during November of 1994.

Thereby hangs the tale of its gradual restoration, bit by bit, stone by stone, slate by slate, never with adequate financial resources, always with leaking roof and during most of the process with no heat other than that provided by open fires.

The story is replete with ghosts --- among others an ancient hound and perhaps Lady Margaret Cave, who turned nasty when Corbett and Welford decided to turn their partnership into a marriage --- but mercifully short on sex and violence, excepting the damage a damp, cold, falling-down old house can do.

A major Welford coup was discovering that the fittings of Gwydir’s grand Jacobean dining room had been purchased for William Randolph Hearst, then abuilding San Simeon, at that 1920s auction, packed into 14 crates weighing six tons and shipped to the United States --- then never unpacked. They found the untouched crates in a remote Manhattan warehouse, among holdings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and with help from Cawd, the Welsh historic monuments association, purchased the fittings and returned them to their rightful home at Gwydir.

Like all good yarns, this one has a happy (continuing) ending --- restoration of Gwydir’s dining room attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales, who paid the Welfords a royal visit during 1998.

And today, with its roof and other parts secured, the restoration continues as the Welfords raise operating cash from tourists and bed-and-breakfast patrons.

Gwydir has its own Web site, if you’d like to take a look: http://www.gwydircastle.co.uk/

Corbett, Judy, “Castles in the Air,” London: Ebury Press (Random House), 2004. Available in paperback for about $14.

Names ...

EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THREE NAMES have power, punched alphabetically into slabs of black granite; more power when read mindfully, one by one.

Sun-baked Sunday before Decoration Day and early. We brought beer, cigarettes and roses; combat veteran and Saigon warrior (me), odd couple, old and scruffy by dawn’s early light.

This was Des Moines, down a path southeast of the Capitol at the Iowa Vietnam memorial, a curved shadow of that big Wall in D.C. with 58,249 names on it. A small ritual, nothing special, and why this year I'm not sure.

Already under the names when we got there: Peonies with stems wrapped in a damp cloth and tied up with string. Somebody's mother had been there, maybe.

A FEW DAYS LATER and sitting around up here with other folks and talking about military plans to teach combat ethics to troops now that word of an apparent massacre of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in Haditha is getting around.

“Teaching killers ethics?” one guy asks. A slip of the tongue I suppose.

A COMMON DENOMINATOR that links all veterans of all wars is a need to justify --- to make sense of it, to explain what was seen and done, to fit it into something bigger. For some of us, it’s just one of those exercises life imposes. For others, sanity depends on it. Most work on it quietly, never say a thing.

It’s been hard to justify Vietnam, but for years I thought I had it down pretty good. We bought time and life for millions of younger ones, ended the draft, fixed it so they didn’t have to live with war, so they could be self-indulgent and shop. You wondered sometimes if they were worth it --- and still do --- but that’s just getting old.

SEPTEMBER 11 and Afghanistan come along. No huge problem there. Afghanistan had to be done you tell yourself.

Then Iraq, and you begin to think those good old boys and girls in Washington might be forgetting a few things and you begin to wonder.

Don’t start a war unless you’re 99 percent sure you can finish it; never underestimate the enemy; don’t plow into cultures you don’t understand if you can avoid it; never lose sight of what combat will do to the youngsters you send into it.

And that most inconvenient of the new commandments, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as theyself."

Now that alleged massacre in Haditha.

Well what did you expect? Forget My Lai? It was much bigger, much worse. But this is the same chapter, just a different verse.

I DON'T WATCH much TV, but happened to see a Monday night special on PBS: "American Experience: Two Days in October" that juxtaposed 17 October 1967, the day 64 of 142 U.S. troops died in a Viet Cong ambush in Vietnam, with 18 October 1967, the day police responded with extreme brutality to a large anti-war protest on the campus of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Anybody else remember that, when America was so badly divided over the Vietnam War that we had a war within a war back home?

You can argue till kingdom come about that one, too, but one result was undeniable: the total disconnect between the soldiers in Vietnam and many of the folks back home they’d been told they were fighting for.

Friends of mine got off planes in the U.S., frazzled and worn out, and were taunted. One guy I knew, escorting the body of a KIA buddy home to Missouri, was spit on. Hadn’t done a thing to deserve it.

I'M AFRAID it’s going to happen again. That’s why “teaching killers ethics?” scared me. I think this war will end the way Vietnam did; declare victory and walk away. That this is the way many will start to think about our soldiers, Marines, corpsmen, airmen.

They’re talking about a new memorial, maybe out at the new veterans’ cemetery near Van Meter, for Iowa’s dead from Afghanistan and Iraq. Forty-one now, I think; but many more scarred mentally, pieces blown away.

I’m scared about how many names will be on that memorial before everything’s said and done. Scared for those whose names won’t be there.

I’m scared we’ll forget that the fingers that pulled those triggers in Iraq were extensions of ours, that they were us.

I’m scared that when we scramble to find someone else to blame for this war that we’ll betray another generation of the young, those we’ve been calling heroes (they would not call themselves that, you know; it's just our way of making ourselves feel better). Then turn away.

JUSTIFICATION. I didn't have it worked out that well after all. But there’s something else, and my buddy could tell you more about it than I can because he lived it.

Those politicians, Memorial Day orators and others will tell you those kids died for freedom. But if you get right down to it, in the blood and guts of a war zone, they live, fight and die for each other.

How does the Good Book put it? "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

If you don’t get that, try this: They die for your sins, and mine; did it then, do it now --- day after bloody day.

Land of the free, home of the brave

Ya know, it's probably time to get this thing going again. Been a while for no particular reason other than local history takes time and I kept running out of it. So the future probably will include more introspection and less history. Don't mean to disappoint, but it is my blog, after all.

Visiting this morning with a friend in England about British vs. American television (and my affection for expensive British mystery series on DVD) got me to thinking.

I do not watch television at all here in Mason City during the work week, but sometimes do evenings at the house in Chariton. Two programs this weekend past were especially affecting. PBS's "Frontline: The Age of AIDS" astonished me by jerking me back and reminding me how much fury, frustration and sorrow a few years had managed to dilute --- The U.S. has a very short attention span and once reasonably effective H.I.V. medication was available here and the death rate slowed, we managed to almost stop thinking about it, even though some 40 million or more are now infected worldwide. They are mostly "those people," black and/or poor, gay, I.V. drug users, of course, and although we are a remarkable nation, we are a remarkably prejudiced one, too. Sorry to say, I realized I'd almost stopped thinking about it as well. Mustn't do that.

The other, "American Experience: Two Days in October," juxtaposed 17 October 1967, the day 64 of 142 U.S. troops died in a Viet Cong ambush in Vietnam, with 18 October 1967, the day police responded with extreme brutality to a large student anti-war protest on the campus of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. That one broke my heart.

I was vulnerable.

Met a buddy of mine (a combat veteran; I was a Saigon warrior --- military intelligence) at the Vietnam memorial in Des Moines early Sunday. He brought beer and cigarettes (for them, not us; such things were sacred over there back then), I brought roses and we sat down and read the 853 names on the memorial one-by-one and then bawled about it --- early, as I said, so at least we didn't make a public spectacle of ourselves.

It's 80 (F), sunny and clear here in the heartland this morning, and I've got to get to Super Wal-Mart, where hundreds of us will be scrambling for thousands of things we don't need --- all under one roof; just what those guys fought and died for. It takes courage to go to Wal-Mart at mid-morning, but we don't call ourselves the land of the free and the home of the brave for nothing.