Dancing in the Graveyard

Maybe you don't think about a cemetery being a joyful place. But when I see the joy in these two little girls' faces, I can't help but think that the ancestors whose graves we were visiting had to be smiling.

Was their blonde hair from a distant grandparent? Were their blue eyes from a great-grandfather? If you compared their hands to those in an old photograph, would the shape of their fingers be echoed in the image?

Paige & Jill - 1988

For some families, Memorial Day may mean the first chance to get the boat out on the lake. It may mean a cookout with hamburgers and hotdogs and the summer's first s'mores.

For our family, Memorial Day has always included the annual cemetery tour.

For my Dad, Memorial Day holds special significance. Both his father and little brother died when he was still in elementary school. Memorial Day was a time to remember them, as well as others in the family who had passed on. It was a time to pay respects to the family members who homesteaded in South Central Kansas and established the farm where my Dad and brother still farm today.
Our annual trek has stops at cemeteries in Stafford and Pratt Counties, including Pratt's Greenlawn Cemetery, the Iuka Cemetery, Pleasant Plains Cemetery, Prattsburg Cemetery and  Macksville. On Sunday, we'll experience the 2014 version.

(New life in an old cemetery at Pleasant Plains: Brent's first Memorial Day, May 1988)

The trip involves a trunk load of fresh flowers - never silk.
My Grandma's flowers were usually from her own garden and carefully arranged in cans which my Grandpa had spray-painted a dark green.

(There she is in the background with my Grandpa in 1989. Brent, 1, is with my Dad, and the young-looking guy in the middle is Randy.)

Blake & Brent - 1989

When Jill was little, she noticed a marker with a little lamb in the Peace Creek Cemetery just a mile north of Randy's folks' house. There were never any flowers on this grave. So Randy's mom would always have an extra flower so Jill could decorate this little one's grave, a girl who was born and died in 1946.
The little girl's name was Jewell, so I know her parents wanted and cherished her. I always figured that her parents had already passed away or had moved away and that's why no flowers ever marked her grave. I think it made all of us glad that we could, in some small way, help remember her short life.

Families are a lot more transient these days. Unlike my Dad who lives on the same land where he was born, families are spread across the country.

Many don't live where they can drive down after church and make the cemetery rounds.
Will Memorial Day change as the older generations pass on? Even we die-hard cemetery visitors often don't go to all the out-of-the-way cemeteries our grandparents visited. As our children and our children's children move further from home, will there be anyone but flower shops visiting cemeteries on Memorial Day weekend?

We usually meet Kathy's family on the cemetery hill just west of Stafford during the Memorial Day weekend to decorate the graves of his Mom & Dad and Grandma & Grandpa. 

We even have purchased "real estate" nearby.
With life's fast pace and a world in which it seems we'd rather text than talk to our neighbor, will there still be flowers and flags and families dotting the cemeteries on a late May weekend in 30 years?

I hope so.

Note:  This is rewritten from a 2010 post on Kim's County Line. Happy Memorial Day to all!

Happy Birthday, Kansas!

You probably wouldn't think about having a birthday party in a cemetery. But as Kansas celebrates 153 years of statehood today, I am thinking about those pioneers who settled this land I now call home. On January 29, 1861, Kansas was admitted to the Union and became the 34th star on the American flag.

Peace Creek Cemetery is just a mile from Randy's boyhood home. Some of his ancestors rest in this quiet plot at the edge of a wheat field. Maybe a visitor or two who take the wrong road to Quivira National Wildlife Refuge might happen across it. But, for the most part, it's off the beaten track. The chilly silence may be broken by the growl of a tractor or a pickup traversing the sandy road. But most often, the sound is just the breeze through the trees that stirs the music of a wind chime near one of the graves.

As we drove by one January evening, I asked Randy to stop. I watched the sun sink into the horizon of the western sky, and I thought about those pioneers who came before me. They may have marveled at a similar sunset sky, the velvet blue lightened with pinks and yellows and oranges - the vibrant colors that come only on a cold January night.
There were probably fewer trees then, but the same sun and the moon still hung from the sky. These celestial bodies defined their days - probably more so than they do mine since they would have lit their homes with candles or kerosene lanterns on dark January nights.

I wonder about the people buried there, some as long ago as 1879. There are mothers and fathers, babies and toddlers, neighbors and friends.
Were they adventurers? Were they dreamers? Were they looking to improve life for themselves and their families? Under the Homestead Act, any person older than 21 could choose 160 acres of land on which to farm or ranch. If the homesteader could live and farm on the land for a period of five years, they could own it.

Clearing the land of the tall, tough prairie grass was back breaking work. They had to figure out what crops would grow, often a process of trial and error. Droughts, thunderstorms, bitter winters, prairie fires and grasshopper invasions stood in the way of fulfilling their hopes for a different way of life.
The dreams they planted on the Kansas prairie took root like the trees they planted to block their homesteads from the unrelenting wind.

And they worked hard. They planted churches and schools along with the winter wheat.
They raised their families. They lived and they died on the Kansas prairie.
And as we celebrate 153 years of statehood, I am thankful for my ancestors and those of my husband who had a vision and worked hard to provide a future for their children and their children's children and beyond.
Kansas is celebrating its birthday. But we got the gift.

This is updated from a 2012 blog post on Kim's County Line.

Ties That Bind

As I nestled the pink geranium next to Gloria's gravestone, a red-headed girl and her brown-haired sister stood watching. Gloria was my late father-in-law's younger sister. On Monday, we gathered around the Fritzemeier stone at the Stafford Cemetery, carefully placing metal stakes in flower pots to batten them down in a stiff Kansas wind. No one in our little Memorial Day group knew Gloria. She died in 1954, a year before Randy was born.

But, as the unrelenting gale whipped Emily's red hair and pulled it from her ponytail, I thought about the threads that visibly and invisibly link us all together. Most of the photos I've seen of Gloria are black and white. I think her senior picture was probably tinted, as was the fashion in the 1950, but it shows her red hair and big smile.

My late father-in-law, Melvin, talked about Gloria's red hair. He, too, had red hair, but he often joked that it didn't stick around for long. He started going bald while still in high school. None of Melvin and Marie's children inherited the red hair. It wasn't until Emily was born that the family had a new generation of redheads.

But our visit to the cemetery was less about Gloria than it was about carrying on a tradition that was important to Melvin and Marie.

Later, Randy, Amanda and Emily (as well as Kathy, Dave & I) gathered at a soda fountain in downtown Stafford where Gloria and Melvin likely shared ice cream cones once upon a time. Not long ago, the marble bar and assorted fountain parts were dug out of storage and refurbished as a centerpiece for the new Stafford Mercantile. On Memorial Day, it was just another thread connecting past to present.

It was the same way at the Iuka Cemetery, as I laid flowers on the graves of my Dad's dad and his little brother, Gary.

It's been 70 years since my 79-year-old Dad had a father here on Earth and even longer since his brother died. I don't put the flowers on their graves to honor them as much as I do to honor my own Dad.

Those threads from the past inevitably stretch toward us. It's good to remember.

That seemed to be a theme everywhere I went last week. I was our church's lay delegate for the final Kansas West Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. In January, Kansas West will join Kansas East and the Nebraska Conference of the UMC in one big Great Plains conference.

The conference in Hutchinson was the last of its kind. During one of the sessions, Mary Lou Reece, the wife of Bishop Scott J. Jones, showcased an 1892-era quilt. It had belonged to the Rev. Augustus P. George, who was a Methodist circuit-riding preacher from 1880 through 1892. The quilt was presented to Rev. George to commemorate the places in Southwest Kansas he served from 1883 through 1892. He eventually retired in 1908 and died in 1917.

It's a crazy quilt, as unique as the congregations who stitched it together with different fabrics and threads. Those pioneer woman likely used scraps from their own dresses and from the curtains that brightened their simple homes. After a long day of tending children, working in the garden, making meals and hauling water, they may have sat near a kerosene lantern or a glowing fireplace to piece together the fabrics and add embroidery stitches and lace. The quilt squares are from Dodge City, Spearville, Garden City, Johnson City, Bucklin, Ness City and 14 other towns, including those long faded from memory.

One of those towns was Nonchalanta, which was a post office and trading point in Ness County. It was located 15 miles southwest of Ness City on the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. In 1910, it had a population of 69, but it included a Methodist church. Nonchalanta's square caught my eye because of the yellow cross featured there and because of the name.

Click on the photo to see a bigger version of the collage

There's nothing "nonchalant" about this quilt. George's descendents treasured it for more than a hundred years and kept it carefully preserved in cedar chest and mothballs.

Now, it's getting new life. George's great-grandchildren presented the crazy quilt to the Kansas West Conference. It will now be on display at the Great Plains UMC Conference office in Wichita.

During one of the conference worship services, we sang one of my favorite "new" hymns, "Hymn of Promise." (New is relative. It was written in 1986.) It says, in part:

From the past will come the future
What it holds a mystery
Unrevealed until its season
Something God alone can see.

That's true ... whether you're talking about families or churches or communities. It's the ties from the past that bind us together ... the threads that connect us ... the bits and pieces that come together to make the whole. That's worth remembering.

***

I'm linked today to Jennifer Dukes Lee's Tell His Story. Click there to find out if you're smarter than a 5th grader and other important "stuff" about faith.

Memorial Day Picnic Salad

Jill helping decorate graves in 1988 - Age 2 1/2

On Sunday, I'll join my parents for our annual Memorial Day pilgrimage to several Pratt and Stafford County cemeteries. Then, on Monday, Randy's sister, Kathy, and family will be here to decorate graves for that side of the family.

Back when I was a little girl, my Grandma and Grandpa Leonard from Sublette came back to their home county (Pratt) to make the trip on Memorial Day weekend. My Grandma's flowers were usually from her own garden and carefully arranged in cans which my Grandpa had spray-painted a dark green.
(There she is in the background with my Grandpa in 1989. Brent, 1, is with my Dad, and the young-looking guy in the middle is Randy.)

Maybe you don't think about a cemetery being a joyful place. But when I see the joy in these two little girls' faces, I can't help but think that the ancestors whose graves we were visiting had to be smiling as the little girls danced. (Read more in my 2010 blog post, Dancing in the Graveyard.)

Dancing in the graveyard - Jill & Paige - 1988

When I was a little girl about their age, we sometimes gathered at Lemon Park in Pratt for a picnic before our car caravan to the cemeteries. My Great Aunt Helen and Great Uncle Mike and their family would often meet us there. As a child, I loved getting together, eating homemade favorites and playing on the playground equipment until it was time to go and place flowers on graves of ancestors, some of whom I remembered and some who had died long before I was born.

At the time, I was blissfully unaware that preparing a picnic meal while also getting flowers ready for Decoration Day was more work for Moms and Grandmas. These days, we usually let a local pizza parlor do the cooking for us. And that's OK, too. But, if you have a picnic or a potluck to attend this Memorial Day weekend, this Cornbread Confetti Salad could be a contender. 

I last made it for a funeral dinner at church. It makes a large amount, which is great anytime you need to serve a crowd. Enjoy!

Cornbread Confetti Salad

From Taste of Home magazine

1 pkg. (8.5 oz.) cornbread/muffin mix
2 cans (15.5 oz. each) whole kernel corn, drained
2 cans (15 oz. each) pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (15 oz.) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 pt. grape tomatoes, halved (or 3 small tomatoes, chopped)
1 medium green pepper, chopped
1 medium sweet red pepper, chopped
1/2 cup chopped green onions (bulb and green tops)
10 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled
2 cups (8 oz.) shredded Cheddar cheese

Dressing:
1 cup (8 oz.) sour cream
1 cup Miracle Whip
1 envelope ranch salad dressing mix

Prepare cornbread according to package directions. Cool completely; crumble. Set aside.

Combine dressing ingredients; set aside.

In a large bowl, combine corn, beans, tomatoes, peppers and onions. Refrigerate.

Just before serving, add corn bread, crumbled bacon and cheese to the bean mixture. Pour dressing over all and toss to coat. Makes 20 to 22 servings.

Notes: I used both low-fat Miracle Whip and sour cream. Instead of preparing my own bacon, I used a package of already prepared real bacon bits found near the salad dressings. It was more expensive, but it worked well and saved time and mess.

The original recipe added the cornbread to the beans ahead of time. I prefer not having the cornbread, bacon and cheese soggy, so I add those just before serving. However, the leftovers were still good even with all the ingredients combined.

If you are serving this at an outdoor event, be sure and have a cooler ready for the leftovers.

Here's another potluck salad good for a Memorial Day outing:

Marinated Vegetable Salad

***

I am linked today to Ashley's What's In Your Kitchen Wednesday. Click on the link to see what's cooking with other food bloggers.

Timing Is Everything

American flags weren't the only things flying on Memorial Day this year.

Strong south winds blew Harvest 2012 onto our South Central Kansas farm over the weekend. Those amber waves of grain could have made you seasick with their tossing and turning on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

It's not out of the ordinary to be cutting wheat on the 4th of July. Back when I was a kid, we were usually cutting wheat on my birthday, June 27, and harvest often extended into early July.

Since Randy and I have been married, harvest seems to have arrived earlier. and we have often been done cutting by my birthday and, certainly, by Independence Day. (Independence Day is rather an apt description of how it feels to be done with harvest, but I digress.)

But, until this year, we've never cut wheat on Memorial Day. We took our first truckloads of wheat to town on Saturday, May 26. Other people began cutting before we did. An area farmer cut one small field north of Stafford and hauled it to town on May 22. It caused a lot of "combine fever" and scrambling by his neighbors to find some dry wheat.

More joined the harvest parade by Friday, May 25, but ours was still too wet to cut. But, by late afternoon on Saturday, the moisture was down to 13.5, and Harvest 2012 on The County Line commenced.

Randy has been farming since he was a sophomore in high school. (Oh my goodness! That's 40 years.) He can't remember cutting wheat before the second week in June.

My parents, who have been farming full-time in Pratt County since the 1950s, think June 7th was their earliest wheat harvest start until this year.

According to a neighbor, Randy's late Great Uncle Glenn Bagley cut wheat on May 30th, though we're not sure what year. Randy rented his first farm ground from his Uncle Glenn, who lived just a half mile to the south of Randy's boyhood home, and we still farm for his daughter, Mary.

We decorated Randy's folks' graves on Friday afternoon with his sister, Kathy, and her girls, Amanda and Emily. (How did I miss getting photos?!)

On Sunday, Randy missed the annual cemetery trek with my family. But I went on the annual excursion to Pratt's Greenlawn Cemetery, as well as Iuka, Pleasant Plains, Prattsburg and Macksville Cemeteries.

It was a first cemetery tour for my great-niece Neelly. She posed by her great-great-grandparents' gravestone, for whom she is named.

She got quite the family history lesson (and I'm sure at 13 months, she'll remember every word of it.) She and Great Grandma Moore posed at Neelly's great-great-great grandpa's grave in the Prattsburg Cemetery in rural Stafford County.

(To read more about the unusual Woodmen of the World grave marker, read this post by blogger Lynda Beck Fenwick.)

But I was back home in time to make my Meals on Wheels delivery to the guys and to see a spectacular sunset over the wheat fields.

More to come on Harvest 2012!

In Memoriam

Those we love remain with us
For love itself lives on
And cherished memories never fade
Because a loved one's gone.
Those we love can never be
More than a thought apart
For as long as there is memory
They'll always live on in our hearts.

- Anonymous 

They stood taller than other monuments in the cemetery, reaching toward the sky as it transitioned from day to night, as blue gave way to gold and gray.

We had just been at St. Fidelis Church, better known as the Cathedral on the Plains. (More about that another day.) I had tucked my camera back in the bag and was about to open my book. But I caught a glimpse of the crosses to the right as we traveled toward I-70. 

We'd been to the cathedral before, though it had been several years. We'd been down this road before. But I'd never noticed the crosses.

We pulled into the cemetery, a plot tucked into a ripening wheat field on three sides, a landscape that was making its own subtle transition from green to gold, even as day faded to night.

We began to wander among the markers. 

The faded centers tell a snippet of the story. The pioneers these monuments honor have birthdates from the 1800s and death dates in the next century. In 1876, Germans who were immigrating to Kansas from the Volga River region of Russia began to settle in Ellis County. The Germans were accustomed to the hard work associated with farming in their homeland, so they persevered despite brutal winters, drought and poor crops. Eventually, in 1913, their settlement called Herzog and the earlier-established town of Victoria grew together and merged as one.

There are 110 iron cross grave markers in St. Fidelis Cemetery. Because wood was available and less expensive than granite or marble, the first burial markers for the Volga-German pioneers were simple wooden crosses. But with the strong Kansas winds and storms rotting the wooden crosses, local blacksmiths began to craft wrought iron crosses. 

Although the techniques used by the blacksmiths varied from community to community in Ellis County, many of the crosses were made of twin steel pipes bent and joined to form the main structure of the cross and rounded off with U-shaped joints. Metal lattice work was created and welded between the pipes. The coils were made from a soft rod clamped into a vise and turned to fit a particular pattern. The decorative inserts were twisted rods or thin, flat metal. The hearts and other shapes were cut from tin and welded into place. (Information taken from the brochure, "Victoria, Kansas: Home of One of the 8 Wonders of Kansas."

Just a little further north, there's a cross enclosed in native limestone fence posts, which marks the original cemetery.

This Memorial Day weekend signals the unofficial start of summer. For many, it's a kickoff for summer rituals like barbecues and trips to the lake. This year, it may also usher wheat harvest into Central Kansas.

But no matter how busy we get with work or play, Memorial Day is also a time to remember those who came before us. It's a time to remember those who sacrificed their time and even their lives on battlefields in far-off lands to protect America's freedom.

It's a time to place flowers at family headstones and remember.

Jill - 1988

For it is in the remembering that we pay tribute to the past and look forward to the future with confidence.

Wishing you a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!