Taking Things for Granted

We take so much for granted. We get up in the morning, flip a switch, lights come on, but one day a power outage robs us of our automatic reflexes. We sit in the dark, the furnace stops running, microwave buttons do nothing, and cell phones lay dead. Daily habits must wait on hold while we wait for a surge of power. Luckily, the situation does return to normal. I hope the stock market returns to normal again after its latest nosedive. I’d started taking its record highs for granted.

It’s easy though to think of times when it doesn’t. We attended a recent program featuring the retired national park superintendent Gerard Baker who left me with an unsettled feeling when he said, “My generation never got to see the river bottom.” This Mandaree Indian, born and raised on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota, was speaking of that consequence when Garrison Dam backed up the waters of the Missouri River and formed Lake Sakakawea. Three little towns - Elbowoods, Sanish, and Van Hook - disappeared under the rising water. Their old way of life could no longer be taken for granted.

Some white ranchers also lived on the land and worked harmoniously beside the Indians only to suffer the same fate. So it was that the Voigt family went looking for new land and found a ranch, the Anchor Ranch established by William V. Wade, for their operation south of Raleigh, North Dakota. Their herd of cattle needed to be moved to that new ground, and the decision was made to drive them overland. After 10 1/2 days on the trail, the herd arrived at their new home on the Cannonball River.

In our household we often read stories about the political turmoil caused by cruel regimes in Europe. I recently purchased the new book by Erik Larson, “The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz” which looks at Churchill’s first year as prime minister of England. Bound and determined, he would not give in to Hitler’s efforts to make England surrender to his threats. Instead, as prime minister he marshaled efforts to resist and maintain their identity. Hitler took it for granted he could easily defeat the English by sending over waves of bombers to destroy the country bit by bit until he forced a surrender.

While the bombs rained down and buildings crumbled, Churchill’s action-oriented speeches and defiant stance rallied his countrymen to stand and fight. English factories went into hyper-production building weapons to answer the Germans with, being especially successful in their production of Spitfire fighter planes which rose to unravel so many flights of German bombers. Churchill wanted the country to survive until he could entice the United States to enter the war, something he took for granted would happen. It was during this period he uttered his now famous words, “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.”

To finish on a lighter note, I think my old custom combining boss was taking memories of wheat fields in Kansas for granted when he recently joked, “Lynn, should we get some combines and head south in May?” I answered, “Ha, ha, been there, done that.” He finished, “Well, I can still dream.” And there’s nothing wrong with dreaming, I remember the story about the 90 year old man who went out and bought a Corvette to impress the ladies.

A Positive Review

4 Years Ago

See Your Memorieschevron-right

Lynn Bueling

March 29, 2016 · 

Here's a review for my latest book in "Roundup" magazine. Rod Miller, the reviewer, lives in Utah and is an active, award-winning author in the Western Writers of America.

At Rest in Unmarked Graves

I like the way some stories reveal themselves, especially after their seeds germinate in my thoughts for a period of time. I’m inclined to write about pioneer stories set at least partly in our small region, especially Ransom County, and I found some pieces of information that will permit me to continue one tale. Owego Township generates many narratives because it stood midpoint between Fort Abercrombie and Fort Ransom where so much traffic passed between. The Sheyenne River, its neighboring woodlands, and an abundance of wild game attracted some of the early settlers here, among them members of a family named Ward.

A few weeks ago we told a story they figured in, the one where a new and unknown settler came to ask the Ward brothers for help burying his young child. Then, after a small group of about fifteen neighbors gathered, it seemed no one knew any proper words to say. Unexpectedly, two French and Indian children living somewhere nearby arrived to mourn and stood near the coffin reciting, as I imagine, a Hail, Mary, “Je vous salue Marie, pleine de grace, le Seigneur est avec toi…” At the gravesite they  might’ve recited the Lord’s Prayer, “Notre pere qui es aux cieux, que ton nom soit sanctifie…”

Unusual as it seems, the story can be found in the ancient annals. As for the burial site, the exact spot where the child rests in his unmarked grave is lost to memory. But the story of the Ward family and another unmarked grave continues further west in the Bismarck area. The Northern Pacific reached Bismarck in 1873 and edge of the frontier followed right along. River boat traffic grew, Fort Abraham Lincoln was constructed, and the smell of gold was in the air.

Custer had led an expedition into the Black Hills where miners found gold. Another person associated with Ransom County, the freighter Don Stevenson, had returned to Bismarck from the Black Hills with the first shipment of gold ore. Get-rich-quick fever reached epic proportions and caused a flood of hopeful miners to that area, in spite of angry Indians who’d signed a treaty barring whites from the hills.

Not everyone wanted to dig in the dirt. Apparently the Ward brothers and other entrepreneurs didn’t either, who instead spotted potential for selling goods to the miners. Bull trains hit the trail filled with merchandise; some drove cattle for dairy or butcher purposes.

In March, 1876,  Oscar Ward led a party of about twelve people from Bismarck to the Black Hills and were joined at the Little Heart River by another group of about fifty-five people. One evening they camped at a place about midpoint on their journey called Big Meadow near the Grand River. A group of Indians attacked in the dark and got away with 22 head of cattle and a number of horses. Sadly, the younger brother George was killed in the gunfire. They buried him there with the intent of reclaiming the body later and moved on to their goal.

Another group that followed had to rebury him after they discovered Indians had dug up George’s body, stole the blankets wrapping him plus all his clothes, and then left his naked body lying there exposed. The memory of the exact place of his burial became lost and as many times as Oscar passed this spot, he could not locate the resting place of his brother.

Further commerce between Bismarck and the Black Hills grew in spite of Indian trouble. In fact, miners were getting ambushed all the time, but the promises of riches kept them working their claims.

Sequestered, March 27, 2020

A Story from the Flu Pandemic of 1918 … I’m not as well read as I should be and had not to this point read Katherine Anne Porter’s ‘PALE HORSE, PALE RIDER.’ Just yesterday I saw reference to it and searched it out. From enotes: “During World War I, Porter worked as a reporter in Denver. There she met and fell in love with a lieutenant. She then contracted influenza during the epidemic [of 1918] and nearly died. ‘Pale Horse, Pale Rider’ is her attempt to record that experience.” 

She experiences a nightmare in her feverish sleep and sees a pale horse and rider who represents Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation. She “rose in her stirrups and shouted, I’m not going with you this time — ride on!” This book is on the internet and can be read free.

Sheltering in Place - March 26, 2020

A couple weeks ago I mentioned Fr. William Sherman’s book ‘Wagons North: Minnesota to Oregon.’ It contains, in part, diaries written by participants on a wagon train headed west through Ransom County on the northern route of the Oregon trail. The last diary entry in the book was October 12, 1867. Since then I’ve seen the entire diary. One gentleman saw the Enderlin Independent article which drew from Sherman’s book and contacted me saying he had relatives on that trek and possessed a copy of the entire diary. Would I like to see it? Well, yeah… so we met at a cafe for breakfast one morning where he loaned it to me.The entry of December 6 stated, “… about 5 o’clock just as it was growing dark we at last reached our destination, the goal for which for so many months we had been longing and yearning — PORTLAND, OREGON.” This train departed from St. Paul, MN on June 25 and stayed in Fort Ransom July 18 to 24.

Another Day of Isolation, March 25, 2020

In old pioneer days isolation was commonplace and here is a little anecdote to illustrate. As I read yesterday in the huge volume of Morton County’s Prairie Roots, I related to the section of WPA stories. A family of settlers during their first year experienced crop failure due to a hailstorm. The husband went east to the Red River Valley to work in the harvest, and during his absence the wife stayed on with their children. One day the dog started barking like never before and when she opened the door, there sat two Indian men on horseback. Their motions indicated they wanted a drink of water. Terrified, she gave them a drink and they rode off. As other Indians came by from time to time, she became somewhat used to having them as neighbors. Her children were always barefoot outside, and one day some Indian visitors must have felt sorry for them. They wanted to take the kids to their nearby camp and get them fitted for moccasins. She had heard too many tragic stories and rumors and refused to let her children go. The story ended well when the husband returned with enough money in his pocket to buy five cows.

Reading, All Kinds of Time

Since we’re staying indoors away from people these days, it’s time for some heavy reading. I just finished a couple: ‘The Vile and the Splendid’ which is the story of Winston Churchill’s first year as prime minister during World War II. It was a worthwhile read even though a little heavy regarding some of his family’s pettiness. I also finished re-reading ‘The Shootist,’ one of the great westerns of all time. Next: ‘These Truths,’ a new history of the United States and probably another James Lee Burke mystery. Burke is one I can heartily recommend. There are a couple books waiting for me to review that I’ve received from my editor in Santa Fe, NM, and they will get into the mix soon.