Happy 155th Birthday, Kansas!

A Kansas sunrise is like a fingerprint. No two are exactly the same. But this morning, I thought about sunrise on January 29, 1861. On this day 155 years ago, were the settlers even aware that January 29 would become a momentous day for their ancestors?

The trees I often use as silhouettes in my sunrise photos likely weren't there. Many of them were probably planted as part of the timber claims by Kansas settlers. But as men and women left their humble houses on a vast Kansas prairie and ventured out to feed or milk cattle on a brisk January morning, did they watch the clouds illuminated as the sun made its way toward the horizon?  Did they appreciate the beauty of a new day, a day that would become an important part of their heritage?

This day, I thought about my family members who packed up their families and moved across the nation to Kansas for new opportunities for themselves and their families.

On my Dad's side, Kentuckian James T. Moore (my dad's great-grandfather) came to Kansas in the late 1860s, spending a brief time as a helper to a buffalo hunter. He was impressed with the potential of Kansas for cattle grazing and went home to tell his wife, Chalista, that "the grass stood as high as the stirrups on a horse."

In 1876, he and Chalista brought their family to Kansas in a covered wagon drawn by oxen. They arrived in December of 1876 in Sodtown, Kansas, later known as Stafford. (And isn't it ironic that his great-great-granddaughter ended up later calling Stafford home!)

A hotel proprietor there mentioned to J.T. that he might do well to homestead in Pratt County. And so he did, 15 years after Kansas became a state.

The Moores filed a claim which lay 3 miles east and a half mile north of what is now Byers in northern Pratt County. They began living on the claim in the spring of 1877. They later filed a timber claim which originally gave them a total of 320 acres of land.

My mom's grandfather, Charley James Neelly, came to Pratt County from his native Missouri in 1898. Charley went to work for a farmer. In 1900, he married Ethel Denton, and they had 10 children, including my grandfather, Shelby Neelly, the second oldest.

So, on this Kansas Day 2016, I thought about these pioneers, the people in my family who saw opportunity in the Central Plains. As a jet stream pierced the canvas of Kansas sky, I thought how incredulous they'd be at the changes to this place they called home. And I was thankful for the vision that brought them to this state I love so much.

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.

Hieroglyphics

A faithful sentinel welcomes me home.

Summer ... 

Fall...

Winter ...

Spring ...

... the old cottonwood opens its arms in greeting.

As pioneers came to the area in covered wagons, they homesteaded on the wide open prairies, taking advantage of the provisions set forth in the Homestead Act of 1862. Settlers also could obtain a quarter section of ground for a timber claim. Through the Timber Culture Act of 1873, a settler could pay a $14 filing fee and plant trees on 10 acres of a quarter section. After the family cared for the trees for eight years, the land became theirs. Many of the pioneers came from the eastern United States, so they were used to more plentiful trees. They hoed them and watered them. As their own children grew, their trees did, too.

Did those settlers imagine that one day the trees would provide a landmark and shade for generations to come? I don't know when the cottonwood just south of our drive was planted or whether it was part of a timber claim. If only the markings on felled trees could tell me their story like hieroglyphics on cave walls. 

It's sad to see some of these majestic old trees breath their last and topple into ditches or among their peers in windbreaks.

If only they could tell their tales. They have been the silent sentinels as the world has changed. The horse and plow gave way to the first tractors and now to machines guided by GPS.

 

They have been the witnesses as a father passed the mantle of leadership on the family farm to his son, generation after generation.

Two summers of prolonged drought ravaged some of these faithful witnesses to history. Underneath the bark, insects have burrowed and left their homemade hieroglyphics. As I've driven by shelterbelts the past two summers, the dead and dying trees seem more noticeable. Were the rains that fell in July and August enough to save them? Or, like people, are these trees just at the end of their long and productive lifespans?

May "snow"storm

The tree at the end of the driveway is like an old friend -
as the fluff of its white "cotton" drifts along the ditches in the spring ...
as it stands strong when the January wind rattles the ice-covered branches ...
as sunlight kisses the fall leaves with gold ...
and as birds make their nests among the bright green leaves and their song joins the music of the south wind ...

Thanks, old friend.

Advice from a tree: Stand tall. Go out on a limb.      Remember your roots. Drink plenty of water. 

Enjoy the view. 

Bear Grylls

The cottonwood on my parents' farm

For more about a special cottonwood tree on my own family farm in Pratt County, click on this link.