Quote:
Originally Posted by Grantham Forester
Steve, did I understand you correctly in your post? You recently wrote about your growing up in Kansas? The Prairie Queen was the name of the church, the area was settled by Swedes and Norwegians, Haavik, Skofer, Eggebrotten- it was all the same in "The Prairie Queen". I'm not critic, but I think Jack Curtis captured the rural American farmer spirit very well in his writing-- "Ya, we get the Monkey Ward Catalog, and when it shows- Good, Better, best- we always order best-- Nice gun, have to watch that safety though- me, I just got an old Nitro Marvel, but they all shoot the birds-- lines like that paint a picture of Sivert Haavik like Van Gogh did with "The Starry night"- IMO anyway. Like to see your story, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Montana, Idaho-- truly our "Heartland" even if you are not a hunter!
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Whew! Grantham, I didn't even have to duck and you just went way over my head! There was a nice little book entitled Byrd, or Bird; Kansas. It captured the unique qualities of growing up in those dusty little farm towns. The town I grew up in, Bucklin, Kansas, was the birthplace of both of my parents, so their parents, my grandparents, lived there too and I was related to a bunch of the folks who lived in that little burg.
I did not spend most of my youth there, but living there made the biggest impact upon me and I recall the experience as the most important and memorable of my young life. I also adored my grandparents.
There were many Swedes in Kansas. Tall blond haired farm boys. We lived on Pawnee land and my grandfather showed me Indian camp sites and the hollows left by collapsed pioneer dugouts. I met men who had known Bat Masterson, who was the Ford County sheriff for a term, leaving there after Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday left. Bat did show up in Tombstone, but he didn't stay long. I also knew men who had lived in Dodge in the 1870's and not a single one of them recalled either the Earps or Holliday. Come to find out Doc Holliday was only in town for three months and Wyatt spent most of his time in dives and saloons. He didn't come in contact with the "normal" people in town. Wyatt was in his late 20's and didn't show up in Tombstone until he turned 31.
My great grandmother lived in a little farmhouse on the north edge of town. Here name was Eva. She kept chickens and still had an egg business and she made cakes and pies for the hotel (it burned) until she went to the "Hill House" when she was 97. She made a grape pie! She was born in 1887 and in 1900 lived with my great grandfather in a dugout on the prairie. She was bitter about how hard they worked and suffered and chagrined that her husband died so young, at 63. She lived to 99.