Nancy McClure: A New Fort

Chapter 4

I followed my husband to this new place and marveled at its vastness, a place I realized pleased all my senses.  Not only did I feel as if could I see into the boundless distance, when I heard a meadowlark singing in the morning, its melody played in my mind all day.  The yip and howl of a far-off coyote, the brush of warm breezes on my face, the aroma of sage, the taste of nearby spring water, all making this a land where I imagined nature had gathered in one place.

Immigrant wagon trains moving westward in ever larger numbers and construction gangs building the Northern Pacific Railroad made easy targets for warlike Indians.  General Alfred H. Terry, commander of the war department in Washington, learned of the potential for trouble and made the decision to construct some forts placing soldiers closer to the danger.  He had ordered a battalion of soldiers from Fort Wadsworth under the command of Major George Crossman to travel to the place identified as Bears Den Hill and construct a fort.  

We learned it would be named Fort Ransom to honor a young Civil War general who had served the Union in a distinctive manner.   Wounded in four different battles, he finally died from the last one he received.  General Grant’s reputation was such that he did not easily show emotion, but we were told he wept upon hearing of Ransom’s death.  As for General Sherman, he honored him by hanging a picture of Ransom on his office wall years after his death.

The battalion arrived  on June 17, 1867 and began the big job of constructing the fort.  The site was bare of anything except prairie grass and soon a collection of buildings and a defensive perimeter moat needed to be dug.  All day long we heard axes chopping and sawing the solid oak trees gathered along the Sheyenne River.   The builders did not erect a stockade like the one at Fort Abercrombie, but instead earthworks dug into the virgin soil would serve as the perimeter defense.  

Structures started to rise while other men with picks and shovels worked on the long ditch moat. The sun was climbing high in the sky these days of early summer, and the hot, sweaty work made them always thirsty.  A good spring of drinking water was found at the bottom of a hill, but it needed to be hauled up in barrels by mule team many times a day for about 600 yards so the men could quench their ever-present thirst. 

I haven’t mentioned mosquitoes yet.  One day as he stood there swatting them, I heard Captain Crossman say, “In all my experience in Texas, Louisiana and other places, I never saw anything to compare to the mosquitoes in Dakota; they actually made life a burden.”  I don’t think he had experienced a northern winter yet either.

Lest you think the buildings were built with comfort in mind, let me explain what they were like.  The buildings were arranged in a square layout with little windows facing to the outside from which soldiers could shoot their rifles if they ever came under attack.  Dirt covered the roof of each building and the chinking between the logs let daylight creep through.  Having left the fort and moved to the Pigeon Point area I can only repeat the following from hearing it later.  In 1869, two years after its construction, an inspection of the fort stated conditions there

 were very primitive with most of the buildings still unfinished, a situation blamed on the fact of civilian carpenters being sent home too early.  The hospital met with disapproval in the report, “It is totally unfit for the accommodation of the sick in the colder season, at which time the thermometer frequently indicates the freezing point…”

While the fort waited for a herd of cattle to arrive for slaughter, we ate buffalo meat.  Herds of them still could be found and Gabriel Renville, who had the reputation of being a good hunter, one day took out his new repeating rifle to test his luck.  He did, with only eight shots he killed six.  For a little variety we shot an occasional duck in the nearby slough, or found a few elk roaming in the countryside.

While we were at the fort for only a brief spell, I witnessed some life-threatening incidents, and in fact there was loss of life.  I will collect my thoughts and tell a couple of those stories in the next chapter.

Nancy McClure: Fort Ransom

Chapter 3

As you’ve noticed I’m telling this story through the mind and hand of a person who hovers near the edge of old age but seems rational enough to work with.  When errors in fact or judgment find their way into his writing, we work together to correct them.   I know he has this philosophy about storytelling that when you don’t remember facts, you let your imagination run wild, but so far I’ve mostly kept his fancies in check.  Now I’m ready to continue reminiscing.

To this point I’ve related a bit of how I’d spent my life in the forests of Minnesota where I never thought much about distant horizons.  Contentment prevailed in that secure world where I could mingle with the plants and animals that lived in its shelter.  I was comfortable there, that is until the uprising occurred, and then I became suspicious of anything that moved in the shadows and I started to feel confined.  When my husband David Faribault received an offer to work as a scout on the Dakota prairie, I was ready to follow.

You may ask what is this scout business?  As the West began to attract an ever growing stream of outsiders, the same thing began to happen as it did in Minnesota.  Indians thought these people were trespassing on their land and realized the term “Dakota Territory” meant nothing except the name written on a map. In such an unsettled time before western forts were built to house troops who could range out to prevent sneak attacks on Minnesota settlements, a scout brigade was made up of Indians and mixed-bloods to serve as a warning system.  

It also served as a sort of goodwill payback for those Indians who did not participate in the uprising.  About 250 were hired, and luckily, families of scouts were permitted to accompany the men.  Gabriel Renville received the appointment from General Sibley to serve as the first scout leader in Dakota Territory.  While Fort Wadsworth became our headquarters, he chose Lake Tewaukon for the first scout camp.  

We experienced a few years of moving around to different scout camps, and I became acquainted with such places as Bear’s Den, Bone Hill, and Surrender.  I remember those remarkable views after climbing some of those hills like Standing Rock and Dead Colt Hillock and thinking how I could see forever up there.  Forest people never experienced such emotions in their lives.  

The first time I entered the vastness of the area, one sight stood out.  A recent prairie fire had blackened a large area and heavy rain the night before I arrived had washed clean a scene I could never imagine.  Glistening in the sunlight,  bleached white bones from thousands of  skeletons were lying about in such thick order that my horse couldn’t walk a straight line as we passed through their field of death.  

For the most part these were the remains of buffalo, and their bones seemed thicker near wallows hollowed in the earth.  Some were fairly recent since the barrel of their chests remained rounded, while others had been picked clean and scattered about the area.  Injured and aged animals had found their way to the water here for rest and water, never to rise again and travel on with the herds as they grazed on.  

Burnt prairie ceased being remarkable because I soon discovered that it was the way of the plains.  When lightning danced and played in the sky it sometimes stabbed the dry grass and became a roaring inferno.  It didn’t take long to realize why trees didn’t grow in forests like those in Minnesota did.  Whenever the tip of a little oak tree poked through the dirt, its tender shoot was ground down by countless split-hooves passing over it or burned to nothing in the heat and flames of a passing prairie fire.

In June of 1867 our lives changed again when my husband found employment as a scout under Major George Crossman who was charged with constructing Fort Ransom.  He marched a battalion of the 10th U.S. Infantry from Fort Wadsworth to the chosen site and began building with the stout oak logs cut from the river valley.  There were quite a number of buildings and we’ll talk about them next time.

Nancy McClure: Clash of Cultures

Chapter Two

In Minnesota the Indian and the white communities mixed like oil and water as more whites arrived.  Missionaries came with the idea of educating everyone in the ways of a dominant culture.  I enjoyed my years in school and learned to love reading and writing, especially.  While at this school I had my first “Indian scare.”  Our classes were held at the teacher’s small farm where he kept a few head of cows and their calves.  We took care of the calves, grew attached to them and even named them.

But then I experienced the ugliness of growing hatred.  One day an Indian staggering about in a drunken condition came to the corral, jumped in with his knife drawn, and killed every one of those little calves.  We were terrified and sickened from the sight and screamed so loudly that my stepfather who was nearby heard and came on the run to drive the butcher away.  As much as we cried over the sight of the savagery, I was destined to witness far more horrific scenes.    

As the influx of white settlers grew, they kept wanting to push farther westward, thereby encroaching on the lands of the Wahpeton and Sisseton Dakota tribes.  Alexander Ramsey and Henry Sibley persuaded the U. S. government to negotiate a purchase agreement from the Indians which they did in 1851.  The Indians had to cave in to the proposals because their hunting grounds had become depleted, and a guaranteed annuity would buy the goods to clothe and feed them.  So in July of that year, at a gathering of representatives from both sides, an agreement was reached whereby the tribes were to give up land and move to reservations.

After the signing, a huge celebration was held that made me wonder where all the champagne came from.  Since it was also the occasion of my wedding to David Faribault, there was double the reason for celebrating.  They said I looked so pretty in my white bridal dress.  

Since David was a trader and moved around a lot for his business, I followed him and saw new country.  Once we traveled to St. Louis on a steamboat on which I had a grand time and made friends.  Upon returning, we settled in Shakopee for a time and then moved to Faribault.  At the time of the uprising in August, 1862, we were residing at the Redwood Agency.  David became known for his fair dealings and made many friends with the Indians.  For instance, he continued extending credit when other traders wouldn’t.  But white settlers came to him, too, and we enjoyed many social gatherings with them.

The times took a serious turn.  In the summer of 1862, the Indians came to the agency to collect their annuities, but the money hadn’t arrived yet.  The story given was that the shipment of gold had been delayed at Fort Ridgely.  That was the match that ignited the explosion.  It met with disbelief and anger, and soon we heard the first gunshots.  A man came galloping through the settlement and shouting, “The Indians are killing all the white people at the agency!  Run away, run away quick!”  My husband decided to saddle our horses and escape, but then we saw a wagon hitched to oxen that was loaded with settlers heading toward us.  The driver was whipping the beasts, but oxen only go so fast. “Will you hitch your horses to our wagon?” they pleaded.  When they were ready to start rolling again, we saw Indians coming.  David, our baby Mary, and I ran into the woods while the wagon sped off.

They found us, remembered David for his fair-dealing, and promised no harm if we’d surrender to them.  Of course we agreed.  Then we saw two more wagons pulled  by oxen loaded with white people coming down the road.  The Indians took after them and even though I pleaded loudly to show them mercy, we soon heard cries of anguish as they were being killed.  I could tell many more horrifying tales, but it is too painful for me to recall.  Nightmares visit me every night and don’t let me forget what I saw.

I could tell more about this period but don’t want to bore you.  Very few of my fellow half-breed Indians took part in the uprising I’m proud to say.  The whole affair ended when General Sibley took over and many of the rebels were sentenced to hang.  Thirty-eight of them did. Remember those horses we loaned to pull the wagon? They made it to Fort Ridgely where one of them dropped dead upon arrival.  The other was claimed by an Indian, but I stood my ground saying he was mine, and I intended to take him.  I think he read determination in my eyes because he relented.

One more chapter needs to be written before I can travel to Fort Ransom.

Nancy McClure: My Early Life

Chapter One

 

I’ve always wanted to see pieces of my story collected since I never wanted a life that no one cares to remember.  I lived in turbulent times, and the fact we survived is significant itself.  One period in my life culminated in watching thirty-eight men hanged in unison on a large gallows built for that purpose.  But let me come back to that.

Through my veins runs an equal mix of Dakota Indian and Irish blood, the product of my father Lt. James McClure and my mother Winona.  My Indian name is also Winona which among the Sioux means the first-born female child and is as common a name among the Indians as Mary is among the white people.

After my father left us, Mother married again and like all Dakota mothers taught me traditional ways which I acquired hand in hand with many of the white women’s domestic skills from the mission schools I attended. Unfortunately, she died when I was just fourteen years old, and since I was too young to be on my own I went to live with my grandmother.  I had matured fast and probably became a little vain because people said I was good looking.  Maybe they were right since I seemed to attract plenty of male attention.  

Then David Faribault entered my life and, too soon, wanted me to marry him.  I didn’t want to jump into marriage, something my relatives agreed with.  A powerful man, however, came to David’s side and acted as a matchmaker.  General Sibley took me aside saying David came from a good family and always made enough money to support a wife and family.  Yes, I guess you could say I had connections, but it was through David, since he and Sibley knew each other well from their business dealings.  This is the same General Sibley who led the huge march of soldiers into Dakota Territory on a “punitive expedition” after the uprising of which I shall soon tell you about. 

I’ll have to guess this sketch of me represents my appearance quite well.  A man name Mr. Mayer drew it on the day I was married and in his diary said this about me: “On a mattress covered by a neat quilt sat Winona, the most beautiful of the Indian women I have yet seen.  She possesses Indian features softened into the more delicate contour of the Caucasian & her figure is tall, slender & gracefully girlish.  Her eyes are dark & deep, a sweet smile of innocence plays on her ruby lips, & silky hair of glossy blackness falls to her drooping shoulders.”  I said before that I’m a bit vain, but that quote embarrasses me.

Our wedding ceremony drew quite an assembly, I’m proud to say.  But again, it was because of my new husband’s acquaintanceship with them.  Most notable were Governor Ramsey and General Sibley, plus several army officers and head chiefs of the Sioux nation.  At the reception, many toasts were made with champagne and wine glasses held high, but I didn’t drink in response.  I am a devout Presbyterian and a teetotaler who refuses alcohol for any reason.

Most of you have heard of the Minnesota Uprising of 1862, well, I can tell you, I experienced it from the inside out.  The next chapter of my life will paint the picture of a very unpleasant time. 

Nancy McClure

My name is Nancy McClure and I have a story to tell.  Perhaps you’ve never heard of me since my life has lain hidden away on dusty bookshelves for years. But if you’re interested and want to hear more, relax and walk with me into the world where I lived.  It’s not far away, in fact you walk on its ground every day.

The reason I speak now through the mind of one who imagines my life and times is that he gives me a voice.  I never wanted to be unregarded.  I lived in two different worlds, that of the Dakota and that of white people. I learned to unravel the differences between the two and got along well in either.

In the weeks to come, I’ll tell you my story in chapters, but for now you might like to read a brief overview of this life I want to share.  I was born in Mendota, Minnesota in 1836 to a white father, Lieutenant James McClure and a Dakota mother, Winona.  When the army sent my father to serve in Florida, he abandoned me and my mother, only to die shortly thereafter.  Poetic justice?  My mother’s new husband moved us to Lac qui Parle where I learned the ways of the Dakota and attended a mission school.  Mother died in 1850 and David Faribault entered my life whom I married a year later.

The circumstances of our marriage placed us right in the middle of the Minnesota Uprising of 1862, a struggle where we faced constant danger. My husband and I did not support the violent ways of the insurgents, even though their grievances did beg attention.  For instance, one storekeeper would not extend credit to the Dakota and said something like, “They can eat grass.”  Well, when they found his mutilated body, they also discovered his mouth stuffed with grass.  I saw much of this killing and brutality while we lived there, and it still pains me to think back on it, but I will steel myself enough to include it in my story.

The government began building forts for protection of the crews who were constructing the railroad as well protection for the growing westward flow of settlers.  A scout brigade made up of Dakota men who did not participate in the uprising was established for a two-fold purpose: to act as outriders to spot trouble and to reward those Dakota men with paying jobs.   My husband David was hired for one of these scouting jobs at the newly built Fort Ransom, and that is where we made our home for awhile.  We lived in the scout camp located about a mile from the fort.  It was there that my eyes witnessed more death and heartache when a prairie fire swept through the camp of mixed-blood Metis who had stopped to trade with the sutler.

Fort Ransom obtained its goods and supplies from Fort Abercrombie, and the arrival of those long wagon trains carrying freight was an exciting time with lots of activity.  Those rough cut teamsters really livened things up.  While I wasn’t there for those three long days when an empty train returning to Fort Abercrombie stalled in a blizzard, I’ve heard enough first person stories of it to pass some along.  

We didn’t stay long at Fort Ransom since we had the chance to operate an overnight inn on the Sheyenne River between the two forts.  I couldn’t escape life threatening troubles with Dakota raiders here either and once found myself fleeing with neighbors to safety.  I loved the beauty of the area with all its wildlife, but it was here I endured the breakup of our marriage and a consequent move to Flandreau with my new husband.

Everyone in our community talked with pride about my daughter’s brother-in-law, Dr. Charles Eastman, one of the first Indian doctors in the country.  He was there at Wounded Knee when the U. S. army began firing on the Indians who had gathered there and offered medical aid to the wounded and the dying.

In my new home, I lived quietly and safely while the years passed, but later I was asked to do one more thing.  One of the battle chiefs during the uprising wanted to tell his story to a St. Paul newspaper, but he spoke no English and nobody at the paper could speak Dakota.  My daughter’s husband, the Rev. John Eastman, and I were asked to translate.

So you see, I have all these stories and others to share and will begin, chapter by chapter, next week.

Change

Plenty of things change in our lives, at least they have done so for me.  My preference in reading material is a good case in point.  I experienced a change in attitude about books and authors a few years ago.  One of the reasons came about through the good graces of my old high school math teacher, Miss Hanson, from about 55 years ago, a teacher with whom I’d become reacquainted in Bismarck.  She had stayed in contact through the many years with her old colleagues, Mrs. Vitus, my English teacher and Mr. Vitus, my social studies teacher/superintendent.

Miss Hanson called one day saying the couple was in town, that she was meeting them for breakfast, and would we like to join them?  Well, certainly, all three of these people had a lot to do with my educational formation, especially Mrs. Vitus.  Because of her demanding classroom methods, I learned much about language and literature and went on to earn my own college major in English.  

Our visit ranged over several topics that morning, including the reading material that we enjoy in our leisure time.  No, Mrs. V did not expound on the latest critical readings of William Shakespeare or William Blake’s seminal position in the history of poetry or Ralph Waldo Emerson’s lead in the transcendentalist movement in 19th century literature.   She and her husband both said they read and enjoy Louis L’Amour’s books.

I found that a bit surprising, especially when they added  they’d even visited some of the areas featured in L’Amour’s stories.  He said, “If L’Amour said a rock stood in a certain place, it was there.”  The couple spent a good deal of their time traveling around the country in one of several Dodge vans they had owned which he’d converted into campers.

The point of all this is that was another step in setting aside any snobbish ideas I may have had about his books and spend more time reading his stories. While my taste in reading covers a wide range, I definitely add plenty of the West in it.  So much so that I’ve become a book reviewer for the Western Writers of America from whom I receive books from my editor in Santa Fe to look at and make comments on. 

Presently, several books wait for my review, none being novels.  A lady sheep shearer wrote one called Raw Material: Working Wool in the West which reminds me of the sheep we raised and sheared on our farm.  I look forward to reminiscing about it in the pages of this book.  Another, Black and Kiddo: A True Story of Dust, Determination, and Cowboy Dreams promises some good reading about difficulties working on the land, as does another, My Ranch, Too: A Wyoming Memoir.  The fourth book represents a good deal of research, Wild Migrations: Atlas of Wyoming’s Ungulates. It tells a detailed story of  the migration of elk and other hoofed mammals in that region.

A one-time musician named Frank Zappa is quoted as saying, “So many books, so little time.”  Fortunately, I’ve lived longer than Zappa who was only 52 years old when prostate cancer took his life and I hope to read a few more.  The author of The Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin says it well, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies … The man who never reads lives only one.”

What am I reading presently?  A paperback by Louis L’Amour, The Sky-Liners has caught my interest, as has a long involved one by Dan Brown, Origin.  Add to them several magazine subscriptions that arrive regularly, plus some internet material.  Reading is a great way to fill time as well as the space between my ears.

Those Twin Engines Were Roaring

On Sundays I often tune in the Thomas Jefferson Hour on public radio.  A creation of Clay Jenkinson, he assumes the character of Jefferson about whom he knows a great deal from his lifelong study of the man and his period of US history.  In the second half of the show he sheds the Jefferson persona and steps back into present day reality to banter about a variety of topics with his co-host.

A recent program caught my attention when he talked of his experiences in Kansas on his then father-in-law’s farm. Jenkinson admitted that as a farmhand things didn’t go well for him with his assigned jobs.  When he discussed the irrigation set-up on the farm, I knew full well what he meant.  He rode along with his father-in-law to the head of the irrigation system where even today he expressed amazement at the memory of it.  There, pumping water from deep in the Ogallala Aquifer sat two large engines running at high revolutions per minute while emitting a thunderous noise.

My own erstwhile experience in the irrigation business came to mind.  Some years back I took a job with a dealer selling irrigation equipment because I wished for a change of occupations.  While that never panned out, I remember one time when I accompanied the company’s irrigation specialist to a site he had designed and was very proud of.  As we drove along he related how he applied formulas from the field of physics to design the system, especially those of hydraulics.  When we arrived at the head, I saw the same thing Jenkinson saw: two large stationary engines sat side by side running full throttle while emitting an ear-rending thunderous roar that wailed from the power they generated.  The very ground around them vibrated. The designer considered many factors: distance for water to be drawn, circumference of pipe, acreage to be irrigated, amount of horsepower needed, and more.  It was an impressive layout.

Readers of this article might wonder how a transition can be made from irrigation power in the present day to a description of a World War II demolition raid, but there is a dam and water and a designer involved, so we’ll go for it.  A recent Time magazine article made me aware of the life of a Norwegian commando Joachim Ronneberg who died recently at the age of 99.  Unquestionably, he was a man who fits the mold of a true hero.  History turned on the action he and his men took in World War II.

The Allies feared a Nazi development program might provide them with a weapon of enormous power for which they had no match - the atom bomb.  An ingredient necessary to the manufacture of an atom bomb was a product called “heavy water.”  Spies told the Allies that Nazis had begun to manufacture it at a dam site in occupied Norway.  Because many Norwegian citizens had been conscripted to work there, the decision-makers did not want to endanger their lives by dropping bombs indiscriminately on the dam.

Ronneberg and a small group of commandos were trained in England to parachute into Norway in the dead of winter, plant explosives, and destroy the facility.  A series of strong blizzards paralyzed their movement for several days but they finally reached the target on the night of February 27, 1943.   Luck followed them because they found the cavernous area used as a factory and set their charges.  A quick escape in the dark went unnoticed.  As they ran they could hear the explosions  destroying the facility.  With their head start they eluded capture by the awakened garrison even while being hunted by 2,800 German soldiers.  Skiing, they traveled over 200 miles through forests and across mountains to reach neutral Sweden and safety.

Ronneberg and his men went on to perform other exploits in the war effort and received medals and recognition for their service.  In later years he lectured widely telling of their resistance to the Nazis, especially wanting young people to know about it.  He is quoted as saying, “There is a lot of talk about never again, but this is impossible if we don’t remember what happened back then.”  

Plastic Pumpkins

The world is awash with plastic pumpkins, or for that matter, plastic anything.  What is it about replicating something in the real world with a facsimile of plastic?  We buy a lot of it.  Once past Halloween with its plastic jack-o-lanterns there will be plastic turkeys at Thanksgiving, artificial Christmas trees, and plastic eggs at Easter.  There’s a fake world out there filled with plastic pink flamingos, houseplants, turf, and styrofoam cups.  Why there’s even the time when two fellows stood looking at a beautiful young lady.  One said she got her looks from her father, he’s a plastic surgeon.

Plastic products are made for us to buy and make life easier because we can just toss them out when we’re done with them.  Like college professors do, they’ve come up with the five steps showing how raw materials move through the economy from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal.  All along that line people work and make money.  But a problem has developed: raw materials deplete, factories pollute, landfills overflow, and huge masses of junk accumulate in the ocean.  As one said, “You can’t run a linear system in a finite world indefinitely.”  

People my age lived in a different world at one time.  We carved real pumpkins, bought Christmas trees where the needles dropped off, and drank from china cups.  If our television quit working, it was placed in the car and taken to a tv repair shop.  We needed to leave it there until the repairman got around to ordering the replacement tube.  In the meantime, we lived like we did before by reading, playing games, working around the place, or maybe writing letters by longhand to friends.  Most of the products we owned could be repaired.  When one stopped working, we fixed it.  

The little corner I call my office is spartan; just one photograph hangs on the wall.  It captured the moment when a Buffalo Pitts steam engine pulling a Nichols and Shepard Red River Special threshing machine has entered a fording area across the Sheyenne River just south of Anselm, ND.  They’ve stopped to pose for the photographer.  At the left is a buggy where one man is seated, probably the boss.  In the middle is the steamer belching smoke and steam with its trailing thresher.  Behind it is a filled bundle wagon, and to the right is a water wagon hitched to a mismatched team.

A crew of fourteen men can be counted standing or sitting in various places in this scene dated by the archived newspaper articles of July and August, 1901.  I have it hanging where it’s in full view to remind me of that period of our history where things weren’t thrown out.  They were repaired.  Most of the men in it were probably transients who had stolen rides in boxcars who owned only the clothes on their back.  Pay at the time was $2 per day when they could work, so extravagant spending was unheard of.  

This is not to say that I practice what I preach.  We recently purchased a fireplace for our home, and as might be guessed, it’s an electric model complete with plastic logs and fake flames that don’t give off heat.

The Flu Season Has Arrived

The time for this year’s flu shots arrived so off we went to a pharmacy to receive our vaccinations.  The first thing the pharmacist asked was “How old are you?”  It’s hard for me to say 76, because I am in denial, but I answered honestly.  She said she was out of the high-dose vaccine recommended for people in my age group.  The next day the shipment arrived so we returned.  I asked just what was the difference between the two vaccines.  The clerk said it was recommended for the elderly.  Elderly? I jumped on that word to play some high jinks deviltry.  We ended up involving three of the pharmacists and clerks as they tried to correct the “elderly” verbiage to my liking by using such words as older, mature, grandfatherly, aged like a fine wine and others that were a bit more acceptable.  It all ended up for the good.

The ladies never did satisfy my curiosity in telling the difference between the two vaccines, so when I got home, a google search for information brought a simple non-scientific answer.  The high-dose version contains four times the antigen of the regular dose and is intended to give older people a better immune response, and therefore, better protection against the flu.  I accepted that.

What is the history of vaccinations? I wondered.  A man named Edward Jenner living in England administered the world’s first vaccination in 1796.  Jenner was a perceptive man who realized that when the area milkmaids developed a mild illness called cowpox, they never went on to contract smallpox.  He conducted an experiment by scratching the arm of an 8-year-old boy and smeared some pus from cowpox on it.  Then after a period of time he took the next step and added a bit of smallpox into the same child.  The boy did not catch it since he was now immunized.

A story from our own area’s history talks about the winter of 1884 when smallpox broke out at Owego.  One family named Knutson suffered the first tragic deaths from the outbreak when two of their four children died.   As a result a doctor came from Fargo to administer vaccinations to everyone in the community.  The thought of a long needle inserted into the arm did not appeal to everyone.  The wife of one settler refused it and hid herself thinking the doctor would soon leave.  But her husband became adamant and said, “Katherina, you must come down, the doctor is here and he says you must get ‘waxmenated.’” After much coaxing she finally relented to being “waxmenated.”

In the St. John the Baptist Cemetery near Zeeland, North Dakota, six iron crosses mark the graves of one family’s children who died during the diphtheria epidemic of 1898-1899.  This community was particularly hard hit when 61 different families suffered the deaths of 99 individuals, mostly children.  We will venture to guess that they were not vaccinated.

An engrossing interview found on YouTube features a man named Charles Challey of Lisbon, ND relating his memories of the flu epidemic of 1918.  He talked about the severity of the illness and how fast it killed some of the victims.  Challey’s father was the mortician in the community, and Charles tells of wagons and buggies carrying bodies of the victims that were stacked up behind the mortuary.

A story from the annals of my wife’s family deals with a diphtheria epidemic in 1927.  One family who didn’t believe in doctors or vaccinations experienced the death of three sons in one week’s time.   My mother-in-law recalled how they dreaded the sight of the father of the dead children walking over the hill towards their farm to order another coffin be built by her dad.  For building material he used boards he ripped from partitions in the granary because the roads were blocked in the winter and he could not get to a lumberyard for new boards.  He expressed concern that he might run out of boards.  Neighbors became insistent for action and banded together to bring by horse team a Doctor Lorenzen to the rural community to vaccinate all the families.

We need to thank Edward Jenner for identifying how we can prevent diseases through vaccinations.  Some still won’t accept vaccinations for their children.  The state allows for three types of exemptions: medical, religious, and personal belief.  A health care provider’s signature is needed for a medical exemption.  A parent’s signature is required for religious or personal belief exemptions.  That’s their choice.  My shots are up-to-date.

The End of the Line

One of my aunts recently passed away, an event which happens in families all the time.  But in this case, she was the last of the line.  My Dad’s family included eleven siblings — eleven siblings who married and begot a generation of their own descendants.  We lived amongst those twenty-two brothers, sisters, and spouses throughout their lives, only to watch the number diminish, one by one, as they left us.  My cousins and I now remain as the oldest generation in the family.  

I feel a bit of sadness after learning the last one of anything has disappeared from the earth.  I even felt a bit gloomy when I read about the death of the last passenger pigeon, a species that once was the most common bird in North America.  The word “irreversible” connotes strong meaning, and once the last beating heart stops, that’s it.

Fred Baguhn, an old Owego pioneer, wrote about the huge numbers of pigeons that visited our area.  He said, “So numerous were they reported to have been that they completely obscured the sun when in flight and completely covered the trees of the woods when they alighted.”  Scientists at the time estimated there were three to five billion pigeons in North America.  But after their numbers were greatly depleted through hunting and netting that bagged as many as 500 at a time, the end came about 1900 when a boy shot what was thought to be the last surviving bird in the wild.  Some were held in captivity, and the last of these died in 1914.  

We have become interested in family genealogy as that found in both Scandinavian and German-Russian history.  I found an interesting passage written by an old Catholic priest when he compiled a history of families living in the Dickinson area.  He wrote of rolling steppes in the southern part of Ukraine that lay idle for a long while until the Empress of Russia Catherine the Great invited German farmers to settle and farm the virgin soil.  On that land Russian wolves had multiplied to great numbers and Monsignor Aberle wrote “It took those brave settlers and their descendants almost one hundred years to wipe out the ever hungry and vicious wolf pack.”  

References can be found where wolves, buffalo, bears, eagles, crows, and all manner of wildlife once lived here.  Consider the huge buffalo herds roaming the prairie, and it stands to reason that many kinds of predators and scavengers once thrived here.  Buffalo dying from natural causes or injuries made for easy pickings for wild animals to dine on their meat.  Then civilization happened with people, towns, and fences to thin their numbers and make their light die out and disappear from our region.

Even the ground we live on enters the picture.  Since we now make our home in Fargo, this old farm boy can’t ignore the fact of his residence sitting on a piece of beautiful farmland taken out of production so some developer could build on it to make a one time profit from its sale.  We always learned the Red River Valley is among the richest land in the world, which is not a stretch of the imagination after seeing the bountiful crops grown on these fields year after year.  Driving to the outside boundaries of the city, heavy machinery continues to prepare the cropland for another building and asphalt street.  The line from a Joni Mitchell song hits the mark, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”  The end has come for many things.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Some people don’t like the subject of history saying it’s dull and boring.  They live in the present and worry about paying their bills in the future.  So the past doesn’t much affect them, they think.  But the old platitude about our standing on the shoulders of giants speaks quite well to the topic, I think.  The simple explanation states that each generation builds on the knowledge of the one before.  Even more simply, anyone standing on the shoulders of a giant can see farther than the giant himself.  

To illustrate, consider the invention and development of internal combustion engines.  They just didn’t appear in their present form to power vehicles along I-94 at 75 miles per hour.  Prior to 1860 and as early as 200 BCE in China hand cranks were developed and in the 300s a crank and connecting rod mechanism saw use in Turkey.  In the 1700s the first idea of a rudimentary internal combustion piston engine using gunpowder to power a water pump appeared.  A variety of developments kept showing up at this time such as two-stroke compression, carburetors, plus many more.

A big moment in engine development came with Nikolaus Otto’s invention of the Otto gasoline engine in 1876.  It was the forerunner of our familiar four-stroke engine operating with intake, compression, power, and exhaust strokes.  An example of one can be seen at Rollag, Minnesota during the Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion. A video of it in operation can be found by doing a brief google search.  Inventions, improvements, and perceived uses kept piling up, a topic about which a curious person could spend hours reading about.  

Personally, I’ve read history dealing with many topics and follow whatever trail I find myself on.  One dealt with my maternal grandfather and his experiences in World War One.  After learning the name of the army division and regiment that he marched with, I gathered a good deal of knowledge about the battles they fought, the conditions they struggled in, and the death and destruction that surrounded them.  

From that experience, another area of interest developed - the use and abuse of horses in that war.  Millions died from disease, malnutrition, injuries, overwork, and wounds from being targeted by enemy fire.  One particular horse stood out, a South Dakota horse rejected by French buyers because he could not be tamed to ride or pull loads.  Tipperary’s owners turned him into a rodeo horse, was used up in arenas until he could no longer perform, and was turned loose on the open range to die a lonely death in a blizzard.

One topic, still untold, begs for attention.  It centers on my home ground, more or less defined within the present day boundaries of Ransom County.  In general, I find it significant because that ground became the highway that settlers and freighters used to drive their wagons westward, at least, that is, until the Northern Pacific Railroad built its line from Fargo to Bismarck.  It’s a slow process to dig up information because not a lot has been written about it, but it’s worth the effort.

The term “scouts” comes up in some of the literature, especially that dealing with Fort Ransom and Pigeon Point.  I could never quite determine what was meant by it, until recently, while attending a family history workshop I found a publication that tells me, The Fort Sisseton Dakota Scouts and Their Camps in Eastern Dakota Territory, 1863-1866.  The aftermath of the U.S. - Dakota War of 1862 had spilled over into our part of the country and Indian men who had remained friendly to the whites were hired as another layer of defense.  More about that next week. 

  

Leadership in Turbulent Times

I visited the Barnes and Noble bookstore the other day thinking I might purchase the new Woodward book — Fear: Trump in the White House.  After picking it up and riffling through the pages, I realized I’d already read several excerpts and heard much about its contents debated on cable news. I decided to wait to check it out of the library, but instead reached for my wallet to buy Doris Kearns Goodwin’s new book— Leadership in Turbulent Times.

She has previously written books about Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson.  Now, she returns to those four presidents to take another look at their leadership abilities during the periods for which they are remembered.  While I have only dipped into its pages briefly, it begs to be read completely through to the end.  

It seems as though turbulent times stick by our sides on a permanent basis; today is certainly not an exception.  The years prior to the Civil War saw disruption in the legislative process when the subject of slavery came under consideration.  In 1856 while deliberating the issue of slavery in Kansas, the anti-slave Senator Sumner of Massachusetts gave an impassioned speech against it.  It so inflamed one man, a member of the House of Representatives, that he entered the floor of the Senate and repeatedly struck Sumner on the head with his cane.  Reasoned discourse had broken down.

Two years later in 1858 the subject of slavery in Kansas still raised ire.  During one debate a Republican and a Democrat argued to the point of exchanging blows.  Before the sergeant-at-arms could bring order to the chamber, more than thirty members had joined in.  Two Republicans ganged up on one Democrat and successfully ripped the hairpiece off his head.  When things settled down, Kansas entered the Union as a free state.

Fiery personalities appeared before that.  In 1818, General Andrew Jackson invaded Spanish-controlled Florida to attack a gathering group of Seminole Indians.  Henry Clay, the speaker of the house at the time, was infuriated by Jackson’s action.  Little good it did for his side because Jackson went on to become elected president and was responsible for the Indian Removal Act that resulted in The Trail of Tears forced march.  Jackson was very much the authoritarian while Clay became known as the Great Compromiser.  At this period heated debates over tariffs came about.  For the record, President Trump has expressed admiration for Jackson and his style of governing.

Since “fake news” has entered the recent dialogue, I found it interesting to look for examples where other presidents abhorred their press coverage.  The first example looks at Thomas Jefferson who was pro-press, that is until the stories were about him.  Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams used the press to insult each other.  Newspapers that supported Jefferson called Adams such things as a hermaphrodite, while Adams’ press support accused Jefferson of being the “son of a half-breed Indian squaw.”

Teddy Roosevelt shrewdly used the reporting to his own end.  He’d give reporters a story on Sunday and then waited to base his decisions on how the public reacted on Monday.  In the Spanish-American War he took along his own reporter to write positive stories about him and his actions during the war.

I found it surprising to learn how far Woodrow Wilson went with attempts to control the press in World War I.  He tried censoring their reporting or writing his own propaganda stories to submit to them.  He wanted desperately to be granted the authority to exercise censorship over the press, but the senate and the  house of representatives never consented to it.

Harry Truman complained about his press coverage but got the last laugh when he defeated Tom Dewey.  Newspaper publishers were mostly united in their preference and favor for Dewey.  The Chicago Daily Tribune, so certain Dewey would win, even printed their paper with the erroneous headline, “Dewey Defeats Truman.”  A picture shows Truman holding it up and grinning from ear to ear.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein doggedly pursued a story and coaxed an informant known as “Deep Throat” to uncover the Nixon administration’s wrongdoings.  As more information became known, Nixon even tried to get the FBI involved to kill the investigation into the Watergate affair.  Affairs became naked to the public view and Nixon resigned the presidency.

Doris Kearns Goodwin tries to answer some questions in her latest book: Do the times make the leader or does the leader shape the times?  How can a leader infuse a sense of purpose and meaning into people’s lives?  What is the difference between power, title, and leadership?  Is leadership possible without a purpose larger than personal ambition?  I’m anxious to read the book through to the end to discover the answers.