Feelings for Ukraine

 I claim a natural affinity to Ukraine through the fact that one of my grandmothers left the harsh life there to emigrate to the U. S. Furthermore, all four of my wife’s grandparents did as well. We hold a paid membership in the group called Germans from Russia and have learned much of their lives through the history that knowledgable members bring to the membership.

     We GR’s are not Ukrainian as such, but many affiliated with that identity shared reasons of hardship to come here. Catherine the Great knew the German farmers were progressive workers who could bring the steppes to flower. Unfortunately, successive rulers such as the czars, took away all the benefits the German farmers had been promised.

     The Ukrainian culture is a bit cloudier to me, but a historian named Anne Applebaum described it and made it understandable. Many Ukrainians share a sense of ethnic identity that brings them together today. Applebaum says one of the problems existing is Russia wants to restore Ukraine as a lucrative colony. Stalin instituted collective farms, something which took away successful privately owned farm operations. Furthermore, Stalin set in place a dreadful period called “the Holodomor” in which any food possessed by these people was confiscated. Consequently, about 4 million of them died from starvation. It was a forced famine. A shared sense of ethnic identity has resulted; therefore they are fighting the Russians as any independent country with a soul would.

     A recent development also brings into the picture another piece of my heritage. Sweden has been a neutral country but now promises anti-tank missiles to support Ukraine. My last name comes from my Swedish heritage - Björling. 

Win or Lose...

Limerick Number ? (so who's counting?) 

When television first came to this part of the country in the 1950s, a sportscaster named Bill Weaver reported the scores on WDAY. He’d end every spot with a wink and a line I’ve never forgotten, one that could be used today.

Bill Weaver on sports would exhort

from the piles of scores that he’d sort

Teams and players filled his time

always ending with this line,

“Win or lose, be a good sport.”

Good Luck at a Book Sale

      Sometimes the book gods smile down on me. I attended a book sale at the Moorhead Public Library and came away with one prize that I’ve been wanting for some time. While taking a quick second pass I spotted this gem unnoticed on the first: The Last Best Place - A Montana Anthology. I’ve considered ordering this online as a used book but you then take a chance with quality. Here for a buck (soft cover price) I purchased my clean copy of almost 1200 pages of writing. Why am I excited about it? Montana has produced so much good literature that interests me. I don’t know whether or not it’s because of the English department at the university in Missoula, but some of these authors came out of that program.

     A Great Plains Reader contains examples and excerpts of writing about just that - the great plains.

     The Only Game in Town was put together by David Remnick of sports articles that have appeared in “The New Yorker.” Flipping through it makes me want to get to it.

     Barbara Tuchman took her place as a serious historian and in this one Practicing History tells about some of her ideas in writing.

     I never met Tony Hillerman, but he had made his name as a novelist in the southwest. Pretty down-to-earth stuff as I read it. We have met his daughter Anne, a writer, too, and she certainly was down-to-earth.

     Garrison Keillor has always been a favorite of mine, in fact, we’ve attended three of his concerts. This book tells his story.

     A miscellany of three other books rounds out my $13 purchase.  Boxes of books at the sale haven’t even been put on the tables, yet. I’m going back.

Myron Ranney

 from Sheldon - Remembering Our Past

Twenty years or more ago, a popular book penned by Stephen Ambrose named The Band of Brothers drew a lot of attention. It dealt with  former members of  E Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division that fought in World War II and was based on multiple interviews of the participants. To interest enough soldiers to join the airborne outfit the offering of a $50 a month bonus was extended.

A young man from Sheldon joined. His name was Myron Ranney. His father ran the newspaper office in Sheldon and is buried in the Sheldon cemetery. According to findagrave.com Mrs. Ranney is buried there, too. However, the grave marker does not indicate that.

Upon learning Myron was now a paratrooper, Russ wrote this comment in the paper: “A letter came this morning from my son, Myron, saying he had volunteered for the paratroop division of the army. Myron is nineteen and a former student of the University of N. D. The letter brought a lump in my throat and made it hard for me to work. He was not forced to go. But he loves his own country greater than his own security.”

Ranney’s unit took part in the D-Day invasion and performed well by destroying German artillery that was shelling the soldiers on the beach. Their commander, Dick Winters, ordered what is known as an enveloping maneuver highly regarded today as a good example of an assault on a fixed position. Ranney and one other man successfully attacked the German’s right flank. Winters was quoted as saying that Ranney was one of Easy Company’s killers who instinctively understood the intricacies of battle.

HBO based a 10-part miniseries on the book. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg made the film.

Thoughts on Turning 80

Since last writing, I turned 80 years old. I’m not sure how that’s best placed in perspective, but it’s so old that if I’d get into a traffic mishap the news reporter would refer to me an elderly victim, a reference which would really rankle me, by the way.

There was no choice about turning 80, but I’m glad I did since many don’t. Aft
er thinking about it, one choice for aging does exist, though. The song “Old Hippie” by the Bellamy Brothers expresses it very well. “Should he hang on to the old. Should he grab on to the new.” How will the time remaining be spent? Will it be useful? 

The Bellamys end their song with “He’s just trying real hard to adjust.” Adjust I have. There’s been cancer where the surgeon left a hole requiring plastic surgery to cover it. There was another cancer where the prostate gland was removed. There was cataract surgery to clear up those cloudy views, and there was a handicapping injury in my youth. In order to deal and cope with this life, I’ve adopted a word for my mantra - “Onward!” It works better for the psyche than remembering with regret those past acts of omission and commission.

A many times quoted adage from the gonzo writer Hunter Thompson fits the bill. “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming Wow! What a Ride!”

The mantra “Onward!” for me means making plans for the future as if little or nothing has changed. We will attend the 36th annual Dakota Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Medora over the Memorial Day weekend. This is a grand affair, a two-day event featuring both poetry and music. It makes my wife shudder to think she will have to bear with me on stage, but that is what I’m going to do.

Performing an original piece of poetry in Medora is on my “Bucket List,” although we have attended and done so a couple of times before. I still feel a strong attachment to the topic of horses during World War I and am presently writing the long poem about them. Maybe it’s bad poetry what with its rhyming couplet scheme and all, but I hope it meets with positive regard.

The poem moves from the general to the specific and begins by referring to the huge battlefield slaughter of horses. Here is the way it begins: I’ve got this sad tale to tell/ one without parallel./ It’s one I’d like to renew/ a memory held now by so few…

European farmers could not supply enough replacements to satisfy army needs and purchase agents ranged across the United States buying and shipping boatloads of horses to the battlefields. But it wasn’t a “gate run” proposition since an inspection of the animals had to take place. Injured, diseased, or untamable animals were rejected. So it was when one horse deemed too wild to be useful was turned back out to pasture. His owners made him a rodeo horse. His name was Tipperary.

Some years back, in 2011 to be exact, Sheila Schafer bought and gave me the gift of a book titled Tipperary: The Diary of a Bucking Horse 1905-1932. She and I were members of a study group at Bismarck State College, and I had made some mention of the horse matter during this historical period. Grand old lady that she was, here comes the book in the mail complete with her inscription. She’d found it at the Western Bookstore in Medora. The story of this horse becomes the “specific” in my poem.

Plans for the future also include attendance at the Western Writers of America annual convention in Great Falls, Montana. Hopefully Covid concerns won’t cancel the affair like it did last year. The following year that convention will be held in Rapid City, South Dakota. In anticipation of that meeting that I’ve proposed a couple articles for publication in our magazine “Roundup.” The editor accepted both topics and therein lies my mantra of planning for the future.

One story will feature that very horse Tipperary. I thought of it when last passing through Buffalo, South Dakota and saw the large statue of him in a city park. South Dakota history claims the horse as theirs. So with a convention in Rapid City, it should be appropriate. The other story for publication will carry the title “Dakota Territory: A Difficult Birth.” The facts and feelings surrounding the formation of our territorial government appeal to me and I’ve done quite a bit of work on that project already.

There will be other plans made for the future. Making them gives one a reason to get up in the morning. My wife asked me what I’d like for my birthday. I have no needs, so I simply said, “A nice cake.”

A groaner

 Another groaner of a limerick

Now that I've turned eighty

My scale says I'm weighty.

A big appetite

Is my plight.

I'll quit ice cream, ... maybe.

A Lonely Grave Stone

 Of interest to the Dakota War Dialog might be this post. In the sandhills of southeast North Dakota a number of small cemeteries can be found in a rather small area. I claim relatives in all of them, something which prompts us to visit each spring when the Meadowlarks are singing. In one of them, a solitary tombstone stands at the western edge of an old Lutheran church cemetery where the church building has been moved elsewhere.

The stone at the grave identifies the occupant as James M. Kinney, a wagoner attached to Co. B, 10 Minn. Inf. While there is no reason to doubt the facts, they were borne out in a book titled

MINNESOTA IN THE CIVIL & INDIAN WARS which includes rosters of all the men on the Sibley Expedition of 1863. Thanks to Kevin Carvell for sending this book to me, a book which contains much information about this period.

Mr. Kinney died in 1915. I thought this stone looked newer than that and set out to find the circumstances of its placement. I was able to find the “Application for Headstone” made to the War Department, dated June 8, 1939 by a Mr. Henry Ylvisaker. His farmstead is nearby and he had been on this church board.

The editor of the Sheldon Progress on March 10, 1911 expressed his admiration for Kinney as expressed in this headline of the newspaper: “Remarkable Feat Performed by Seventy-seven year old man.” A sub-headline states “James Kinney walked from his home on the Sheyenne, a distance of sixteen miles in less than six hours.”

Although on the shady side of seventy-seven years, James Kinney performed a most remarkable feat for a man his age on Monday when he walked from the home of his son on the Sheyenne River to Sheldon in less than six hours, the distance covered being over sixteen miles. He started on his trip shortly after 8u a.m. and was on the last lap of his journey by 2 p.m. The soft loose snow somewhat retarded Mr. Kinney’s progress. Mr. Kinney spent the afternoon and evening in Sheldon, leaving the next morning for the Soldier’s Home at Lisbon where he has spent every winter for the past several. He is an interesting narrator and entertained several of the young fellows by giving many interesting incidents of the stirring days of the Dakota plains, many of them of local interest and in which he was engaged.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Mr. Kinney was driving a stagecoach in Minnesota, but the adventures of the life did not compare with that of chasing Indians, and one day when he pulled in from his trip, after delivering the mail, and not waiting to care for his four-horse team, he joined the ranks of Company B 10th Minnesota as a wagoner.

…

When seen the next morning by the writer he was chipper and the fatiguing walk of the day before seemed to have little effect on him. In the summer he spends most of the time with his children.

Part II - J. T. Hickey

Part II - J. T. Hickey

J. T. Hickey represented well the people of spirit and mettle who entered this country and survived in trying conditions. His obituary hints at living an adventurous life, but I was put in contact with a member of the family who provided more information. A grandson wrote a concise biography of him which another family member forwarded to me. The father of the man who eventually settled in Sheldon knew Abraham Lincoln and introduced the young J. T. to him.

At the start of the Civil War Old John freed his slaves. He wanted to apprentice J. T. to the printing trade, but it wasn’t to his liking so he struck out for the West. He became a stage coach driver for a time and said he drove a coach between Jamestown and Deadwood.

Later on he became a supply wagon teamster for the army. At the Battle of the Little Big Horn he drove a supply wagon for a Captain Benteen who was under a Major Reno and had the immediate task to come to the aid of George Custer. Custer’s last note is a request for help and was dropped by the officer who received it. J. T. picked it up and later sent it to Custer’s widow.

The grandson wrote more saying his grandfather was called to Chicago to testify at the court martial of Major Reno for Reno’s failure to come to the aid of Custer. Reno was found guilty on six of seven charges against him, and ordered dismissed from the army. Later, President Rutherford B. Hayes reduced the dismissal sentence to two years.

I’ve looked for information regarding Hickey’s participation in the trial but have never found any. Likewise, I’ve searched for Hickey’s connection to the message found fluttering on the battleground and have not found any there either. We can just be content that this legend lives within the family and is not for me to question.

J. T.’s wife gets mention. The grandson writes “I recall Dad mentioning that his mother, who was very diminutive, carried a Colt revolver with her at all times when the men were away from the house because there were many unsavory characters prowling the countryside at that time.” She had such small feet that when a girl had to wear baby shoes. As an adult she had to have her shoes custom made in Chicago because she couldn’t find small enough ones locally.

As a lover of our local history, I found Hickey’s story fascinating. I can only wish more of it would have been written. Bits and snatches of his daily life appear in the Sheldon paper, but they just speak of simple everyday things like doctor visits, business trips, etc. Some readers of this have the Kaspari family relationship. A daughter of the Hickey’s became the wife of Martin Kaspari who I’m sure is a relation. Maybe someone can add information.

More stories will come. That’s all for now.

One of Sheldon's Great Stories

      One of the great stories in Sheldon’s history is that of John T. Hickey. He came to this area in 1890 with a young family and farmed for 19 or 20 years before purchasing and running the Sheldon livery stable for several years towards the end of his life. Working around oxen, horses, and mules came naturally because he spent many years in his younger days as a teamster driving oxen while hauling freight between Fort Abercrombie and Winnipeg. He worked with Don Stevenson’s freight outfit that moved the material from Fort Abercrombie to build Fort Ransom and stayed with him while hauling goods and material to Fort Lincoln near Bismarck.

     The most fascinating point of his life was while working as a civilian teamster under Lt. Col. Custer’s command at the Little Big Horn. When the army moved in those days a large wagon train filled with supplies trailed right along with them. As they neared the place where scouts told him a large camp of Indians was near, Custer left the noisy wagons and ordered that ammunition and supplies be placed on the backs of the mules.

     Here Custer split his command into three groups, one he’d command, one under Captain Benteen, and one led by Major Reno. Hickey stayed with the Reno contingent and thereby missed the slaughter that Custer’s men suffered. So many details of this situation can’t be found, but Hickey can be called lucky.

     Look for Part II of this story about Hickey on “Sheldon - Remembering Our Past.” Included now are pictures of Hickey’s grave marker in the Sheldon cemetery, his picture, and the headline from his obituary dated April 12, 1923. Next time I will share information his family sent me.

Grandpa Bueling

(I posted this on the site called "Sheldon - Remembering Our Past.")      

This is a good site for us Sheldonites, but since there hasn’t been much activity lately, I’ll start adding a few posts of historical value over the coming weeks.  Here is a picture of my grandfather Charles Bueling. I barely remember him. He was the father of my dad Arnold as well as Alfred, Russell, and Leslie Bueling. There were several daughters, too, but none of them lived around Sheldon.

     He knew horses and broke many of them to harness. As I remember, he was an average sized man, but the big, strong horses he was holding make him appear small. Dad thought this picture was taken in the 1920s.

Sherman and Sheridan Leave Bismarck, 1877

Bismarck, Dakota 1877 • Bismarck NP Depot

Sunday morning, July 1877 at 9:00 am 

General William Tecumseh Sherman (The Supreme Commander of the U.S. Army) is leaving town looking east with his staff as they all watch their train approach Bismarck from far off.

They have just returned to Bismarck after inspecting the Custer battlefield in Montana at the Little Big Horn River. That is where Custer and his men were killed one year prior. The U.S. Secretary of War had requested an official investigstion to be presented to congress soon after. This is a photo by Fargo photographer, F.J. Haynes, the official photographer of the Northern Pacific Railway.

This is a photo of General Sherman's Army delegation that was assigned to him by the U.S. Secretary of War.

They are sneaking out of town early in the morning incognito. Bismarck was full of working men from the old south who lost their families during the civil war while under the command General Sherman. Wild West Bismarck, Dakota was a very dangerous place to be in 1877.

The man in black who is sitting down is probably not General Sherman, the man in black is probably General Sherman's look-a-like decoy.

General Sherman is probably disguised as that railroad worker at the corner of the depot with his arms crossed.

General Phil Sheridan is on the right side sitting in a barrel chair with his legs crossed.

Because of the danger they could not wear uniforms.

Most of the bad people in town are hung over from the Saturday night parties at Bismarck that took place there at the 25 or so rough saloons in town the evening before.