James Sankey Lindsey (1846 - 1921) & Sarah Elisabeth Hartman
in Summer 1913 with their grown children
Sitting by father: Wayne Wallace (1889 - 1951)
Sitting by mother: Samuel Gordon (1893 - 1918)
Standing, L to R: Lillian Virginia (1897 - 1980), Gail Hartman (1899 - 1944),
My Grandfather Paul Jones Lindsey (1895 - 1983)
Bertha Mabel (1880 - 1968), James Sankey, Jr. (1883 - 1965),
Edna Beatrice (1891 - 1922)
Two weeks ago, I quoted several paragraphs from a letter that my great - grandmother wrote during her homesteading years in Nebraska. Here is the letter in its entirety, complete with Sarah's views on various governmental homestead measures and Veterans Affairs.
to her niece Eyrie Winegarden Hadley, 1866–1943
Eyrie was the daughter of Sarah's half - sister
"Emma" Emily Eugenia Hartman, 1846 – 1928
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Madrid, Nebraska, July 30, 1893
Dear Eyrie,
Your truly welcome letter of the 9th was rec'd the following Saturday night. Found us all well, and so glad to know that your mother is again improving and we fervently trust that it will continue so until she recovers.
I am (nearly) alone this afternoon, with my babies Beatrice and Gordon both asleep. Jimmie went 5 miles away to see a sick horse this morning, taking Wayne with him. Mabel and Jim are at Sunday School three and half miles distant since dinner. And I have a quiet time in which to write. You know, Eyrie, few of the homesteaders have another room where they can go and read or write undisturbed.
We had a delightful shower last night, and I was reading today little poem entitled "The Music of the Rain" and thought the author did not know in what sense it was musical to us. It was indeed a grateful sound, after having been so long without rain. I have felt so deeply concerned about your mother's illness that I have not written you much "news" lately nor have I spoken of our lack of rain.
We have had the worst drought this summer that we have ever had. We have always had what we call our spring rains, until this year we had none until the first of June we had a thunder shower, and two light showers since, that of last - evening being one of them. This is the first spring without some early garden vegetables. Even 3 years ago when we suffered so from drought we had early vegetables, but later ones such as beans, peas and beets, etc. did not grow. But this year we have not had any of any description -- nor a bite of fruit. Our wheat was blown out entirely by the severe spring winds and the drought has burned up the corn. It is general too, and the coming winter will be the worst that the homesteaders of this county have ever known.
I see by the papers that the governor of Kansas has called an extra session of the Legislature to afford relief to the drought stricken farmers in the western half of the state, immediately south of us.
Well, as a result of this succession of crop failures, Jimmie [her husband James] has at length concluded to take your advice and go where he can gain something for his labor but he cannot go until his time on the homestead expires, which will be a year and a half yet.
Thus far our experience in this country: a good year follows a general drought and invariably a great many eastern people who have heard of the rich land. So long as the poor fools will come and will have the land, we hope to dispose of ours so that we will not lose everything by this dearly bought experience. It had to be experience with us too for we thought it was a grand country, and have laughed at folks for moving away. People cannot live on a crop once in three years. That is the average -- as we have found it, but we kept on hoping that the rainbelt would be extended and we would have rain more regularly. We have read, and heard it said,that agriculture extends the rainbelt westward from the 100th meridian, but I do not believe it will ever do it permanently. The effects of the rainfall we do have are carried away by the constant winds. I have not kept account but I don't believe we have had a dozen days this last five months without strong winds all day long -- sometimes ceasing at nightfall but renewing their energies with the sunrise.
People are deceived by the appearance of the country and the occasional good crops. A very wealthy gentleman from Philadelphia has purchased hundreds of acres of land north of Madrid and has been at great expense to have it plowed this summer. Another from the central part of this state has done the same. Had we the amount of moisture required to grow vegetation, never was there a more fertile country; but we are so far from any stream that it is impossible to irrigate it. The winds are very destructive and disagreeable, once the sandy soil is cultivated the wind blows it in great clouds across the country almost blinding the people and filling the houses with dust. This is what we call a sandstorm. It blows the pig pens full of sand like drifts of snow so that the pigs can walk out over the top of the pen.
When the thunder shower I have mentioned came up the first of June little Jim was just coming in with his herd at noon and it was right in the worst of it when he got them to the coal gate and Mabel, Jimmie & I all helped and he had an awful time to get then to go in, but finally succeeded, and Mabel & I came in the house to get on dry clothing, when there came a terrible flash of lightning (Jim had gone to put this horse up in the barn & his pa was closing the corral gate when we came in). I rushed out of the house in an instant and saw Jimmie lying by the corral gate. He received a pretty severe shock, did not regain consciousness for awhile, and we had an awful time to get him in the house. It was in the hardest of the shower too; he was sick abed several days from the effect of it.
He [Jimmie] had his [Civil War] pension granted some time ago -- six dollars a month. He thought it so little. When granted he considered it almost an insult, but if it were not for it now we'd nearly starve. I see [President Grover] Cleveland is having all the New Law of 1890 Pensions suspended for sixty days until all the evidence can be reviewed. We may come under that. Don't know yet. There will be a great many pensioners cut off during the present administration.
While Jimmie was sick an old friend & wife who used to live in J’s native town in Ohio, came eight miles to see him. They are well-to-do people spending a few months here for their health. They brought him some oranges, a can of peaches, and Gordon [Uncle Sam, as a baby] a new dress. After Wayne had eaten of the peaches, his papa was telling him we would move east where fruit grows and then we could have some. I was out, and when I came in, Wayne said, “And Mama don't you think they grow on trees”! It has only been a year since he learned there was such a thing as a tree. He scarcely ever sees one, they usually die in the first year.
Mrs. Jung brought so much shrubbery with her & had not but one bush on her place, after nearly five years of trying. I rec'd this paper & the other papers last - night. Many thanks Eyrie for the same. God know I never want you to feel the sting of poverty as we have. I hope in some way some time to repay you for your kindness to us.
I saw Grandpa a week ago just for a few minutes. I went uptown for the mail & he was in too. He is well. You must not feel hard toward him Eyrie for not writing oftener. He has worked awfully hard all summer and not writing much & with his hard work and age too all together his hand is stiff and tired and he no doubt does not feel like writing. I did not tell him what you said. He was awfully glad to hear of your mama being better. Tomorrow is the 31st, his 69th birthday. I wrote Frank the other day to send him some help. He will not have anything for his hard work. I think he will go to Frank's this fall to stay. We don't know where we'll go but we will certainly go -- if we live -- as soon as we can dispose of our claims.
Eyrie, I am glad you take such a sensible view of your trouble, for it is something you cannot help, and I think Fred is a grand good fellow to help you bear it too.
I read a poem two or three years ago, perhaps you have seen it -- about a census taker who called at the home of a man who had a son that lost his mind from a disease incurred in the war. In telling the census taker of it [the son was at home] and on his remarking about it being unfortunate for them, the father replied "Unfortunate -- yes: but we can't complain. It's a living death . . . when the body clings to a life of shame and the soul has gone to the bad. But Bill is out of the reach of harm and dangers of every kind. We only take care of his body but God takes care of his mind." Isn't that a beautiful thought and so comforting.
Write soon -- hope to hear about your mom.
Love to all, S.
"I do not remember crossing the Missouri River, or anything about the long day's journey through Nebraska. Probably by that time I had crossed so many rivers that I was dull to them. The only thing very noticeable about Nebraska was that it was still, all day long, Nebraska. . . .
"All the years that have passed have not dimmed my memory of that first glorious autumn. The new country lay open before me: there were no fences in those days, and I could choose my own way over the grass uplands, trusting the pony to get me home again. Sometimes I followed the sunflower - bordered roads. . . . sunflower - bordered roads always seem to me the roads to freedom.
"I used to love to drift along the pale yellow cornfields, looking for the damp spots one sometimes found at their edges, where the smartweed soon turned a rich copper color and the narrow brown leaves hung curled like cocoons about the swollen joints of the stem. Sometimes I went south to visit our German neighbors and to admire their catalpa grove, or to see the big elm tree that grew up out of a deep crack in the earth and had a hawk’s nest in its branches. Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons. It must have been the scarcity of detail in that tawny landscape that made detail so precious." (5, 28 - 29)
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