The Kinkaiders

My postings on the Kinkaiders of Nebraska came about because my great great aunt Lois gave my father the memoirs of my great great uncle's family named Tilley as they homesteaded in Nebraska.  Each week when I compose a post, I inevitably go to a web site to research the area, the history and the farming & ranching.  So far I have not found them in the history of the area, but I'm still in process.  I did find, on a photo site, a photograph of a sod house in 1915, the period that my ancestor's

1915, Sand hills Nebraska

journal comes from.  I've written the owner of the photo to see if I can get any information about my family there.  His photo shows a very stalwart family standing in front front of their sod house, looking worn and a bit dirty.  Laundry was a hard chore in those days, and sparkling clean clothes did not exist in most cases.  Laundry was hung out to dry in all weather, fair and foul.  Can you imagine wash-boarding clothes in water you had to carry from the well and heat in a large boiling pot on the stove?  Then hang them out in the dead of winter?

Or, to roll a house across the undulating prairie to move it to your homestead?  That's what great great uncle Clyde had to do when homesteaders who left gave their wood frame house to his family.  Each reading of Lois' diary brings more questions and curiosity.  I'm having a wild good time looking in to it.

These folks had grit and determination.  I hope you're enjoying the series as much as I am.

The Ancestors, Part 15

That fall, we also had some uninvited company.  Dwight Ingalls and his wife drove their new Ford up from eastern Colorado.  He said he didn't let us know because he didn't know whether his car would make it or not.  Cars were just beginning to be used then, and there were no roads built for them yet.  It was just at the time when ducks were migrating south.  I had never seen them come into the lakes out there, and Clyde took us all up to see them come in and land on the lake at sundown.  They made a cloud.  I had never seen anything like it.  He and Dwight went back the next day, too Don to retrieve what they shot and brought back all that we could eat.  I picked the down off and saved it for pillows.

As soon as the school house was finished, a teacher was needed of course.  There were only about a dozen youngsters and wages were very low, so it was not easy to find a teacher, but one of our neighbors had a certificate that was still good.  She also had a little two year old daughter, but she took the job and her husband tried to take care of the baby.  When he just couldn't have her with him, he brought her down to me.  It was too far for Ruth to walk to school alone, and in the cold weather, so I kept on teaching her.

We had a much better organized Christmas that year, were home alone on Christmas day, but went to the Corls' for New Years day.  They had two daughters, 14 and 15 years old, a pair of twins Ruth's age, a boy Richard's age and a baby Mildred's age.  They had come out from Grand Island for Floyd's health with only the two older girls and taken a homestead north of the land in the drawing.  The were educated, gentle people, and we enjoyed them very much.  Evidently they had income coming to them fro back home, for Floyd was not a rancher.

After Christmas that year, some of the Kinkaiders go together and decided to try building a telephone line using the barbed wire fences.  Clyde had helped build the rural line that led to their home back in Kansas, so he knew how to put the insulators on the wires and they used poles to carry the wire over the gates.  They built it to the new county seat and it really worked unless some nosey cow went through a fence -- then someone had to ride until he found the break and mended it.  It was wonderful when it worked.

TGIF

I had a great Friday evening out with a lovely lady I've been dating.  New restaurant (for me) where we had fried chicken, mac and cheese and mustard greens.  OMG.  The security man (it's a saloon/music hall) recommended the dish after I asked him what his favorite was.  I was just trying not to get carded, so I chatted him up.  (Because I look under 21 don't you know?)

It's so much fun getting to know someone...finding the things we have in common, laughing at the lunacy of modern life, sharing family stories.

So much to be grateful for!

The Power of Money v. The People

"Today, the US Senate ignored the will of the American people and failed to pass a bi-partisan, commonsense, moderate solution for keeping deadly weapons out of the hands of dangerous people and making our communities safer. Almost 90% of Americans said they wanted this sensible solution to be implemented, but the senators voting against the measure chose instead to obey the leaders of the powerful corporate gun lobby, instead of their constituents. We know this proposal respected the rights of lawful gun owners like ourselves, and we know it would have saved lives.

We will use every means possible to make sure the constituents of these senators know that their elected representatives ignored them, and put Washington, DC special interest politics over the effort to keep their own communities safer from the tragedy of gun violence.

Gabby has always said this would be a long, hard haul. Our work does not end today; we are committed to finding commonsense compromises that will keep us safer, and to making sure we have a congress that will put the interests of their communities ahead of the interests of the gun lobby."

"How long, how long, short sighted businessmen?  Nothing lasts for long...."  Joni Mitchell

 There is something desperately wrong with our government, we all know it, when it fails to protect the least among us.  You can't get any more innocent than a group of first graders and the adults who taught them.  And yet, this wasn't enough to sway the cold dead hearts on Capitol Hill.  The gun death stats are horrific, and yet lawmakers turn away from the awful truth.  The NRA leadership have there greedy meaty hands around the throats of lawmakers who are supposed to listen to the people.  The bill that went down yesterday was a pretty watered-down bill as far as I'm concerned, but it was still a move in the right direction.  And even it couldn't pass.

As I watched the press conference in the Rose Garden yesterday, I finally saw the President display some righteous indignation.  Finally.  I heard his call to the American people to raise our voices against the gun lobby and for common sense gun control laws.  We are the only ones who can do anything about this.  I just made a donation to Americans for Responsible Solutions.  I hope you can, too. 

Wordless Wednesday

The Unthinkable

Driving home from a coffee date yesterday afternoon I turned on the local public radio station to hear the news of the Boston bombings.  There I was on cloud nine after a delightful 2 hour conversation with an interesting, intelligent woman when bam! The acts of stupid idiots hit me through the radio waves.  While we were talking about food, scuba-diving, pets and second-hand stores, folks in Boston were  reeling from another act of terror.  Ain't that just the way the world is? 

After watching the television coverage and contacting a friend in Boston to find out if he was okay (he is), I turned off the t.v.  Just like 9/11 or the Oklahoma bombing, the video was repetitive, the speculation nonsensical.  I'll wait and use the t.v. selectively for updates.

There is a certain morbid excitement exhibited by t.v. news coverage.  Like driving past a car wreck and not wanting to look, but you do.   We are an odd bunch, we humans.