ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
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| "Sarah E. Lindsey
Niotaze, Kansas" |
What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.
Philip Larkin (1922 - 1985)
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| "Gail called up from Kansas City
& wanted to know when I was going up." "First Frost Country ~ Niotaze" |
The next few entries, between 11 - 25 October, record Sarah's trip from Caney, Kansas, to Summersville, Missouri. A number of family members lived in Caney during the early 20th Century, but not until discovering this booklet did I know that Sarah's eldest son, Jim Lindsey (the brother of my Grandfather Paul, who was Sarah's youngest son) had ever lived in Summersville, 275 miles away.
Sarah keeps track of the weather (very rainy!) and the letters she has written to most of her other children: Paul (my grandpa!), Bea and Gail (who had already written to her); Wayne and Virginia (no letter for Mabel this time).
Nothing else for the rest of the year. However, on the the very back page, using the 1921 preview calendar, Sarah mentions returning to Peru (another small Kansas town, near Caney) from another trip to Summersville.
I wonder how Sarah made these long trips from Kansas to Missouri. Was it by train? Or by car? Years before, this woman had made her way out to Nebraska and back again, giving birth to my grandfather in a covered wagon; so she was no stranger to traveling around the wilderness!
When I need some perspective on my recent move from Indiana to Virginia, I think of Sarah's journey, in the 1880s, from Ohio to Indiana to Illinois to Nebraska, starting over each time, teaching school in each location. She lived on a homestead in a two - room house, enduring hardship, drought, near - starvation, the birth of nine children, the loss of a four - year - old daughter (before my grand-dad was born) to a horse fall accident, and their eventual relocation from Nebraska to Kansas. Sarah gave birth to my grandfather on this return trip in 1895, attended by her own father, who was a medical doctor of some kind and traveled with them.
Why did she do it all? For love, for adventure, for a better life -- and for me, her great - grand-daughter to have the opportunity, a century later, to move all around the country at will and without complaint! So I shall try to embrace that blessing and live up to her legacy, and -- of course! -- teach the whole story to my own granchildren -- Sarah's great - great - greats!
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| "Reached Peru, Kansas
From Summersville, Missouri February 15, 1921" |
In addition to Sarah's personal notations, the pre-printed note that concludes the date book is also of interest, particularly the phrase: "existing conditions this year.” Sounds like an early version of the supply chain issues with which we have all grown so familiar in the past couple of years! Could it be that Sarah got this booklet -- courtesy of Ritter Dental Mfg. Co. -- free from her dentist? Or was someone in the family practicing dentistry without a license? Perhaps not likely — but not impossible!
Best of all, on a page for telephone numbers, just before the maps section, Sarah has jotted down a recipe for oatmeal cookies:
Near the back of the miniature New England Primer, Sarah has pinned in the obituary of her sister-in-law Anna (1852 — 1888). Anna was a younger sister of Sarah's husband (my great - grandfather) James Sankey Lindsey (1846 - 1921). How sad it is to read of her life cut so short by an illness that today may well have been successfully treated with antibiotics. Did Anna use this quaint little booklet for teaching her young students?
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, August 14th
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