I have deleted "Reactions"

Thank you to those of you who have shared your "reactions" in the past.  Unfortunately, the blog support has been unable to correct the problem of deleting the checks; therefore, rather than enduring this ongoing problem, I have removed that section from the blog page.  I really did enjoy your feedback and regret its loss.

Walking in Isaac's Steps

Pond from which I began my walk

Last spring one of the writers' websites I visit challenged readers to an Immersion Writing Contest, described as using a "participatory experience to write about yourself completing a reenactment."  I decided it would be fun to reenact Isaac's footsteps as he walked from his homestead to the home of Doc Dix, where the Emerson Post Office was maintained. 

 

Isaac's homestead was located in the southwest quarter of section 33, and as nearly as I can locate his house, it was near the center of the quarter.  Doc Dix owned the north half of section 31, his timber claim being in the east quarter and his homestead in the west quarter.  When I was a child, my father spoke of "the old Dix's place" as we drove past what appeared to be the remains of a home site located along the north side between the two Dix's claims.  The distance from the center of Isaac's homestead claim to the point on the north side between Doc Dix's two claims would have been about two miles.  I did not carry a camera during my reenactment, so the photographs accompaning this blog were taken in 2013; however, the description of my walk is my experience from 2012.

 

My husband dropped me off at the retention pond in the northeast corner of Isaac's homestead.  (Isaac makes no mention of any permanent pond on his claims, although he does mention ponds after rainfalls.)  My husband paused by the pond with me long enough to flip a turtle struggling on its back at the edge of the pond before leaving me to begin my reenactment of Isaac's walk to get his mail.  As I lingered to watch the wild ducks that Isaac had loved, a splash caught my attention too late to see its cause.  Soon, a bug-eyed frog surfaced to stare at me--the apparent cause of the splash.  A few of his buddies gradually emerged in the pond, reminding me of the "frog choruses" Isaac described in his journal.

 

Racoon tracks

As I turned to begin my walk, the smell of crushed rye along the path my husband had driven filled the air, alive with tiny yellow and white butterflies performing their aerial dance over growing wheat on one side and alfalfa on the other.  Bird songs from the trees near the pond were replaced by the buzz of insects, and  I wondered what birds serenaded Isaac on the treeless prairie before the cottonwoods, catalpa, and peach trees he planted began to grow.  Studying the raccoon tracks beside my own foot prints, I nearly missed the moment I had come to find, the feeling of Isaac tapping me on the shoulder to say, "Look around.  See why you are here."

 

I stood between Isaac's homestead and timber claims and slowly turned in a circle to see the land around me.  How proud Isaac must have felt to be master of the 360 acres he had claimed.  I saw the land through Isaac's eyes and understood his pride.

 

The 1/2 section line

But, I was on my way to Doc Dix's soddie after the mail, and I could not linger.  Soon I reached the black top road and left Isaac's land.  A farmer's daughter born and bred, I refused to cut across a neighboring field and trample knee-high wheat, although Isaac probably walked the diagonal route.  Instead, I walked the half-section line between two fields, straddling a wheat row to avoid bending the slender green stalks, perhaps not so different from walking across the tall prairie grass.  Midway across the field, the noise of a pickup on the backtop road behind me sounded alien, out of place, so immersed was I in Isaac's walk.  A large, deep badger hole beside my path made me hope my reenactment would not awaken the fierce nocturnal animal. 

 

Neglected tree row

 

I passed a mudhole, dried down to the mossy bottom and pocked-marked with deer tracks, while at my feet little red pyramids of anthills dotted the ground.  I paused to listen to the rustling sound of the wind as it ruffled the wheat that surrounded me. 

 

As I neared the center of the section, a tree belt planted in the 'Dirty Thirties,' decades after Isaac's death, obstructed my path.  The wind made a different sound--stronger and full of mystery, and dying branches bent to the ground, a tangled barricade.  The interruption broke the spell of my reenactment and chased Isaac from my imagination. 

 

My walk continued, but the destination changed toward my family home located in the south half of the section in which the Dix family had once resided to the north.  The changed world of abandoned claims, blacktop roads, irrigated fields, and neglected trees brought me back to the present, but for a while I had walked in Isaac's steps.

 

(Remember, you can enlarge the photographs by clicking on them.)

 

 

What is the Matter?

William Allen White

Since others have to tolerate my weaknesses, it is only fair that I should tolerate theirs.  --William Allen White

 

William Allen White came upon the political scene about the time Isaac exited, but it is certain that had someone posed the question, What is the matter with Kansas? to both of them, the two men would have answered quite differently.  In fact, White used that very question for the title of an editorial critical of the Populist Movement.  He blamed the populists for the lack of economic and population growth, writing sarcastically:  "Give the prosperous man the dickens!  Legislate the thriftlessman into ease.  Whack the stuffing out of the creditors...Whoop it up for the ragged trousers; put the lazy, greasy fizzle who can't pay his debts on the altar and bow down to worship him."  In short, White believed that populist politicians had scared businessman and investors away from Kansas with their policies and their rhetoric. 

 

At the time White wrote those words, he was not yet thirty, and he was the editor of a little-known small-town newspaper.  The editorial "What's the Matter with Kansas?" brought national prominence to White and his newspaper, The Emporia Gazette, gaining particular attention because it was written by a Kansan attacking the Populist Movement in the region of the country where the movement was strongest.  (To read the full text of the editorial, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" go to http://www.kancoll.org/articles/what's_the_matter_with_kansas.html.)

 

I have never been bored an hour in my life.  I get up every morning wondering what new strange glamorous thing is going to happen and it happens at fairly regular intervals.  ---William Allen White

White's Emporia Home

 

William Allen White was born in Emporia, KS in 1868, but his family soon moved to El Dorado.  His newspaper credentials began when he was still a teenager, working as a press apprentice before attending the College of Emporia and the University of Kansas.  He worked as an editorial writer for the Kansas City Star and married before moving to Emporia and buying the Emporia Gazette, still operated by the fourth generation of his family.  Located at 517 Merchant Street, the family business maintains a small museum with old newspaper equipment, photographs of which you can see at http://www.kansastravel.org/emporiagazette.htm. 

 

A little learning is not a dangerous thing to one who does not mistake it for a great deal.  --William Allen White

 

It is said that on his way to work the morning he wrote "What's the Matter with Kansas?" he suffered some unpleasantness with a loafer spouting populist rhetoric.  Still bristling from that encounter, White wrote the editorial without time for his emotions to cool.  Whether the incident actually happened, the editorial is more confrontational than his other writings often were, especially in later years.  He won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for his editorial in support of free speech titled "To an Anxious Friend."  He wrote:  "...you can have no wise laws nor free entertainment of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people...This state today is in more danger from suppression than from violence, because, in the end, suppression leads to violence.  Violence, indeed, is the child of suppression.  Whoever pleads for justice helps to keep the peace; and whoever tramples on the plea for justice temperately made in the name of peace only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man which God put there when we got our manhood.  When that is killed, brute meets brute on each side of the line."  (Full text at http://www2.ku.edu/~jschool/school/waw/writings/waw/newspaper/editorials/anxiousfriend.html.)

 

White's car with GAZETTE license plate

White died before I was born, and my first encounter with his writing was as a student reading the heartbreaking eulogy written to his daughter who died from injuries sustained in a riding accident.  Titled simply with his 16-year-old daughter's name, "Mary White," he described her with these words:  "She was mischievous without malice, as full of faults as an old shoe."  The eulogy is still widely read, and you can find the full text at http://grammar.about.com/od/classicessays/a/Mary-White-By-William-Allen-White.htm. 

 

In 1924 White ran unsuccessfully for Kansas governor on an anti-Klan platform, and although he was not elected his effort probably contributed to Kansas becoming the first state to outlaw the Klan.  In 1940 he served as chairman of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, but what he was best known for was his gift of championing small-town values with humor and wisdom.  Late in his life he was sometimes referred to as an "old progressive," quite a change from the young author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

 

He died in 1944 in Emporia, where he was working on his autobiography.  His son, William Lindsay completed the unfinished manuscript, and it won another Pulitzer Prize for White.  The William Allen White House in Emporia is open limited hours to the public.

 

Reason has never failed men.  Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.  --William Allen White

 

 



What if Isaac had met Alexandra Bergson?

Cabin at Homestead Park in Nebraska

I have already shared my love for Willa Cather's books and short stories in this blog.  (See "Writer of the Prairie" in the blog archives at October 4, 2012.)  It is difficult for me to narrow down a single favorite among her wonderful short stories, but I have a definite favorite novel.  It is probably because I identify with Alexandra Bergson's feelings for the land, among other reasons, that explains my love for the novel, O Pioneers!

 

This quote near the end of the book, as Alexandra expresses her feelings to her life-long friend Carl Linstrum, is explanation enough for my emotional connection to the book:  "The land belongs to the future, Carl; that's the way it seems to me.  How many of the names on the county clerk's plat will be there in fifty years?  ...  We come and go, but the land is always here.  And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it--for a little while." 

 

I was raised in the house my paternal grandfather and his mother built.  The timber claim house on the creek and the big Victorian house built later by my maternal great grandparents were both standing and owned by decendants back then.  My father told me, "Always hold onto the land," and I have.  With so many ancestral farms around me, and the advice of my father emphasizing the point, it was natural that I saw land as part of a family's heritage, to be passed from generation to generation.

 

Cover from early edition

Yet, doing the research for Isaac's story, I came to know the names of so many early pioneers whose family surnames have disappeared from the community.  My maternal grandparents' homes remain, but they are no longer owned by family.  While I may value the idea of families staying on the farm for generations, that is no longer the norm.  "We come and go...and the people who love it...own it--for a little while." 

 

O Pioneers! was published in 1913.  It tells the story of a Swedish family that settles on the Nebraska prairie and struggles to survive.  When the father is dying, he entrusts the management of the farm to his daughter, Alexandra, instructing her brothers to follow her advice and leaving specific instructions for how the land is to be divided when the boys are old enough to marry and have farms of their own. 

 

Alexandra succeeds, surviving the years when times are hard and many other settlers sell the land and leave the prairie.  Her brothers are not always supportive of her decisions, although they honor their father's wishes to follow Alexandra's advice.  The two older brothers marry and have families, but Alexandra gives her labor and love to the land, and it rewards her well.  Cather describes the results of Alexandra's efforts with these words:  "When you go out of the house into the flower garden, there you feel again the order and fine arrangement manifest all over the great farm; in the fencing and hedging, in the windbreaks and sheds, in the symmetrical pasture ponds, planted with scrub willows to give shade to the cattle in fly-time.  There is even a white row of beehives in the orchard, under the walnut trees.  You feel that properly, Alexandra's house is the big out-of-doors, and that it is in the soil that she expresses herself best."

 

Image from movie starring Jessica Lange

In 1992 O Pioneers! was made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, with Jessica Lange cast as Alexandra, Heather Graham playing the young Alexandra, and David Strathaim cast as Carl.  The DVD is still available for purchase, although I would always suggest that you read the book first and watch the movie later.

 

The annual Spring Conference held at Red Cloud, Nebraska, Willa Cather's hometown, selects a particular piece of Cather's writings to study each year.  This year's choice is O Pioneers!.  I will enjoy hearing the Cather scholars deliver their lectures about this novel that I love, but I doubt that anything I learn will increase the way Cather's own words draw me into this book.  "She had never known before how much the country meant to her.  The chirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the sweetest music.  She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun.  Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring."

 

If Isaac Werner could have met the fictional Alexandra Bergson, how they would have loved sharing farming advice!  I think they would have made great friends, but they were both too devoted to making a success of their farms to take the time for romance.  Besides, Carl and Alexandra were destined to be together, from the time they were children.

(Visit http://www.willacather.org for more information about Willa Cather and her writing.)

Postscript:  As I am about to post this blog, I have discovered a link to an NPR review of the new book, The Selected Letters of Willa Cather, including an interview with one of the editors, Andrew Jewell.  I recommend that you open this link to enjoy the review and Andy's comments.  Be sure to read the excerpt from the Introduction that is attached.  One of Ours, for which Cather won the Pulitzer, is another of my favorites, and I can hardly wait to read her letters about her cousin and her family connection to characters in that novel.  The new book will certainly be a treasure for fans and scholars!   http://www.npr.org/2013/04/30/178647158/wonderful-words-in-willa-cathers-no-longer-secret-letters?utm_source=share 

Tumbling Tumbleweeds

Kansas Tumbleweed along Country Road

Driving toward the farm I spotted a magnificent tumbleweed.  Seeing tumbleweeds caught in fences or trapped along roadsides is common in Kansas this time of year, and I drove past this one quite a ways before putting on the brakes.  Cautiously I looked for other cars--not only because I was concerned that someone might hit me as I began backing up but also because I wanted to spare myself the embarrassment of anyone catching me photographing a common weed.  As I moved around the tumbleweed taking pictures, I saw an approaching pickup in the distance, but it turned at the intersection to the east, and I was saved from explaining my reasons for photographing ditch trash.

 

Isaac's nemesis was not tumbleweeds but rather sunflowers and sandburrs, which he spent hours hoeing around the base of his young trees.  Yet, surely he too saw tumbleweeds rolling across the prairie.

 

Bottom showing break from root

Interestingly, a tumbleweed is not a particular plant.  The name can be applied to any number of mature, dried plants that pull away from the root to roll and tumble in the wind.  Scientifically these tumbleweeds are diaspora, whose tumbling and rolling habit disperses seeds as they roll.  As anyone who has seen ditches filled with growing tumbleweeds knows, the seeds take root in a wet location, whether dropped as the dry parent weed tumbled or still attached to a plant caught in the ditch.  Among some of the plants called tumbleweeds are Russian thistles, baby's-breath, and plants in the aster family, the legume family, and the mustard family. 

 

The brown fields and trees in the distance in the photograph to the left are Isaac's homestead and timber claim.

 

Tumbleweeds--growing and caught in fence

 

 

As I continued driving, I photographed this iconic image of two tumbleweeds--one still attached to its root in the sandy soil and the other caught in a barbed wire pasture fence.  In the background is a thicket of sandhill plums.

 

For many of us, we can't think of tumbleweeds without the melody of a cowboy song running through our minds.  "See them tumbling down, Pledging their love to the ground; Lonely but free I'll be found, Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds..."

 

You can hear Marty Robbins sing those words at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbPPnCbEXJE  or enjoy the singing of the Sons of the Pioneers at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiSMyyi-Ac in a clip from an old Roy Rogers movie.  If these links do not open, go to google.com and enter Marty Robbins + Tumbling Tumbleweeds to hear Marty, and enter Sons of the Pioneers + Tumbling Tumbleweeds to hear the Roy Rogers movie clip.  I'm sorry the links are not working.

Disappearing "reactions"

A note to followers:  I have been disappointed in the reduced number of checks in the boxes beneath each post recently.  However, I have discovered that for reasons unknown to me, the checks you are leaving disappear.  I will continue trying to resolve this problem with the blog host, but please do continue leaving your reactions.  Sometimes I am able to catch a few before they disappear!  I also know that my reply to a comment disappeared, so I hope disappearing comments does not become a problem as well.  I'll keep trying to fix the problem!  I really do appreciate getting your feedback!  In the meantime, I hope you continue to enjoy the blogs!!

Another Echoing Voice





A 1890s political cartoon from the County Capital 

In her speech at Cooper Union Hall in New York City on 11 August 1896, (referenced in last week's blog post, "Echoing Voices from the Past,") Mary Elizabeth Lease spoke the following:  "Once we made it our boast that this nation was not founded upon any class distinction.  But now we are not only buying diamonds for thier wives and daughters and selling our children to titled debauchees, but we are setting aside our Constitution and establishing a gold standard to help the fortunes of our hereditary foe."  This cartoon is a perfect illustration of Mrs. Lease's accusation!



Titled "Fruits of American Plutocracy," the cartoon shows a wealthy American father bestowing his blessings on his daughter's  marriage to a "Foreign Prince," linking his family with the "Nobility."  The dialogue at the bottom of the image reads:

"American Millionaire:  So, Duke, you want my daughter's hand in marriage?
The Duke:  I would give name and honor through her hand.
American Millionaire:  Have you scrofula?  Are you dissipated?  In other words, have you all the contaminations common to noble blood?
The Duke:  I'm afflicted with scrofula, epilepsy, am dissipated, disreputable, and a scoundrel.
American Millionaire:  Take her, then, and may heaven bless my children." 

Mary Elizabeth Lease declared in her Cooper Union speech that "There are two great enemies of thought and progress, the aristocracy of royalty and the aristocracy of gold..."  It is said that George Washington declined when asked to be made King of the United States, and our Declaration of Independence states that "All men are created equal."  Yet, the fairy tale lure of kings and queens, and the romance of a simple girl marrying a handsome prince has appealed to many Americans.  Magazines with photographs of William and Kate on their covers sell well, and many Americans wept for the death of William's mother, Princess Diana.

 

Nothing offers greater proof of Americans' fascination with English nobility than the current popularity of the television series, "Downton Abbey."  Consider its plot.  Downton Abbey has fallen into financial distress, so the young male heir, Lord Grantham, marries Cora Levinson, the daughter of a wealthy American, in order to save the estate! 

 

Obviously, not all of us share the scorn of Mary Elizabeth Lease as we tune in each week during the all-to-brief season to watch the lives of the Crawley family and wistfully long to see what is going to happen to them as we wait for the months to pass until the next season begins.  For those of us who admit to being fans of that show, we shouldn't be too critical of the Plutocrat in the cartoon who wants to be aligned with the nobility through the marriage of his daughter to a Duke!






Echoing Voices from the Past

Political cartoon from the 1890s

"They say this question is so deep that the common people are not fit to decide it.  They say 'leave it to the financiers.'  We have left it to them too long, and while we have been sinking into bankruptcy our financiers have been growing millionaires."  Mary Elizabeth Lease from her speech of 11 August 1896 to a mass meeting at Cooper Union Hall, New York City

 

When I began my blog, the first post was titled:  I Love History.  I wrote, "It gives us such a road map of achievements to emulate and mistakes to avoid.  When I am discouraged by things happening in the world in which I live, I am heartened by reading history.  If they made such a mess of things--and they often did--and their world survived, then perhaps our own mixed-up world can survive the problems we have created."  (You may read that blog in the archives at 3 January 2012.)

 

One of the reasons I decided to write a book about Isaac B. Werner, his community, and the People's Party movement of the late 1800s was that I saw so many similarities with our own times.  In particular, they were going through a time of great disparity between average working people and the wealthy corporate tycoons, railroad magnates, and Wall Street speculators.  When you began reading the words quoted at the beginning of this blog, did you initially realize they were spoken over a century ago?

 

This past week I read through the Forbes list of America's 100 most highly compensated CEOs of 2012, and it reminded me of the complaints made by laborers during the late 1800s, who called themselves "Wage Slaves." Today's wage earners might share some of the same feelings when they compare CEO compensation with their hourly wages.  Forbes reported that the most highly compensated CEO in 2012 was John H. Hammergren, who received 131.19 million dollars, (including salary, bonus,"other" and stock gains)!  Some of the names on the list might be more familiar to you:  Ralph Lauren, who received 66.65 million dollars, and Howard D. Schultz of Starbucks, who received 41.47 million dollars.  (To read the full list of CEO Compensation for 2012 visit http://www.forbes.com/lists/2012/12/ceo-compensation-12_rank.html.)

 

A political cartoon from the 1890s

Contrast those CEO compensation numbers with the current minimum wage standards in the U.S.  An employee earning the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour would make $15,000 a year, which would put him $7,000 below the federally defined poverty line.  The minimum wage for employees who derive part of their income from tips is only $2.13.

 

A little bit of math will offer the following comparison between Mr. Hammergren's earnings and those of a minimum wage worker.  At $7.25 an hour the weekly wage for a 40 hour work week is $290, but Mr. Hammergren makes $2,522,884.61 a week, although I don't really know how many hours he works.  Assuming a 40 hour work week for Mr. Hammergren, he makes $60,572.11 an hour--more or less.  Of course, Mr. Hammergren's compensation is extraordinary, even among his corporate peers.

In the USA Today article published March 28, 2013, "Back in the high (pay) life again," the authors' observed, "[B]ig raises continue even as many companies are laying off employees."  Even CEO Eleanor Bloxham is quoted as admitting, "The continual disconnect between CEO and worker pay is just creating more of a gulf."  ("Special Report:  CEO Compensation," Matt Krantz and Barbara Hansen, B1-2)  Several news sources published reports on this topic, and rankings of the highest paid executives varied, perhaps because compensation often includes such a variety of "other" benefits, such as use of corporate jets and other "perks", as well as stock options and bonuses.  

 

In her 1896 speech at Cooper Union Hall, Mrs. Lease deplored such extremes of compensation in a nation which was formed to avoid an aristocracy among its citizens.  She said, "But here in this country we find in place of an aristocracy of royalty an aristocracy of wealth.  Far more dangerous to the race is it than the aristocracy of royalty.  It is the aristocracy of gold that disintegrates society, destroys individuals and has ruined the proudest nations."

 

A political cartoon from the 1890s

The political cartoons published in the County Capital to which Isaac subscribed and whose editor was a friend illustrate the themes of Mrs. Lease's speech.  The "Golden Empire" stresses the greed of capitalists growing fat by reducing wages to allow workers barely enough to purchase clothing, food, and lodging, often making those purchases at company stores so that their wages were little more than "tickets."  The cartoon with Columbia, as a symbol of the nation, attempting to awaken feelings for the suffering of a poor family in a man clutching his bags of money is an obvious illustration of the disparity in wealth and the difficulty in bridging mutual understanding across the chasm that separates their very different lives and opportunities.  The cartoon showing a group of wealthy Wall Street men sitting on their money is especially reminescent of recent criticism of banks to whom taxpayer money was given in 2007 to avoid a national financial collapse who chose to sit on the loaned assets from taxpayers rather than putting it in circulation to speed the recovery.  The political cartoons I have posted have been particularly popular with visitors in the past, and these three seem to me good examples that we have much in common with the concerns of our ancestors. 

 

The United States has always been a nation that admires success and that believes in the possibility for anyone to work hard and build a better life for him- or herself.  We do not condemn the successful for the money they have earned through their hard work and clever ideas.  Yet, as these cartoons show, our nation has long struggled with the difficulties of preserving the American dream for everyone without allowing a disparity between the fortunate and the unfortunate to mock the idea of this country as a land of opportunity for all its citizens.



Isaac's Neighbors Leave their Homestead

Early leaders & structures of Trinidad, Colorado

I love the comment left last week by a regular visitor to my blog.  He wrote:  "Threads from Isaac's life can lead you anywhere."  Recently, following one of Isaac's threads led me to Las Animas County, Colorado!

Harry Bentley and his family moved into the quarter section just to the east of Isaac's homestead, and they became friends.  Financial difficulties caused the Bentleys to leave their claim, and they settled in Las Animas County.  It was not a happy move for them, apparently the result of co-signing a loan for someone else who defaulted on the debt.  On April 25, 1888, Isaac recorded in his journal, "Mrs. Bentley talking of staying on her place and trying to get her team back."  While the Bentley's did not lose their land, some of their personal property was seized, including the team.  Two days later Isaac wrote, "Mrs. Bentley about to rent her place..." and on May 11, 1888 he documented, "Mrs. Bentley started to St. John with 2 loads of goods for Las Animas, Colorado."

Memorial to Coal Miners

Although Isaac and Harry had worked together when they were neighbors, after the family moved it was Mrs. Bentley with whom Isaac corresponded, keeping an eye on the tenant to whom the Bentleys had rented their house and communicating with her about the Bentley's share of the crops raised on their land.

Naturally I was curious about Las Animas County, and I did some research to learn about the place the Bentleys had chosen to relocate.  It is the largest county in Colorado, 4,798 square miles in size, which makes it nearly as large as the state of Connecticut.  Its present population is about 15,000, leaving a great deal of empty land in the county.  (There is also a town called Las Animas, the county seat of Bent County, Colorado, located in the same region of southeast Colorado.  It is the only town in Bent County,  current population 2,410, and particular problems with water shortages.)

Memorial to Coal Miners

However, when the Bentleys arrived in Las Animas County, they would have found a prosperous county seat at Trinidad, the economy fueled not by farming and ranching but rather by coal mining.  The semi-arid land in southeast Colorado had initially attracted open range ranchers, but as homesteaders staked claims and built fences, agriculture increased and grazing of the open range receded.  Just as the Kansas farmers suffered from drought, lack of rainfall caused farms to fail in southeast Colorado.  It seemed that the Bentleys had moved from the frying pan into the fire when they left Stafford County, Kansas for Las Animas.

Trinity History Museum with Baca Mansion upper right

The region has an interesting history, with familiar Western names like Kit Carson and William Bent, but the settlement that became Trinidad has its roots in a group of 12 families who followed Felipe and Dolores Baca to Purgatoire Valley.  In 1870 John Hough established the mercantile firm of Prowers & Hough, and using Hispanic adobe construction techniques he had workers build a home of English design for his wife Mary, and their two daughters.  Three years later he sold the house to Felipe and Dolores Baca, and it is now the Baca House of the Trinidad History Museum.



Bloom Mansion to left of Museum

The town also prospered because it was the gateway over Raton Pass, and Trinidad was officially incorporated in 1876, a few months before Colorado became a state.  The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad arrived in 1878 and completed the rail line to Santa Fe in 1880.  In 1882 a merchant, banker, and cattle baron named Frank Bloom built a Victorian mansion with his wife Sarah, and Bat Masterson was the town marshall.

By the time the Bentleys arrived in 1888 it was a beautiful Victorian town, and my husband and I strolled the streets in search of buildings that would have existed when the Bentleys came.  Isaac's journal does not record how Harry Bentley supported his family--whether he tried to scratch out a living as a farmer or whether he worked in the coal mines.  However, Isaac's journal entry of February 27, 1889 states, "Harry arrived to re-move on their place."  Before the Bentleys could move back into their house they had to displace their tenant.  "March 7, Hackers moved out," according to Isaac's entry of that date.  The Bentleys' plans were shortlived, however, for on March 29 Isaac recorded, "Harry Bentley rented their place to Frazee A.M.  Wrote their agreement in my basement."  Isaac was often called upon by neighbors to draw up their legal agreements, although he was not a lawyer.  On April 2, 1889, Isaac recorded, "Harry Bentley started off early on foot for Macksville for Colorado."

The Opera House

On Valentine's Day 1890 as Isaac stopped by Isabel Ross's soddy on his way home from mailing a letter to Mrs. Bentley about the corn crop he was storing for her, he was surprised when Mrs. Bentley stepped out from behind the door where she had been hiding to surprise him.  When they were still neighbors, Mrs. Bentley had cared for Isaac during an illness, and they had developed a close friendship, something unusual for Isaac among the neighboring wives of the community.  Her reason for returning was a sad one.  She had come to pack the last of their belongings, having given up on ever returning to their farm.  For several days Isaac recorded how Mrs. Bentley packed and he helped carry heavy loads down the stairs for her in between doing his own work.  On February 19, 1890, Isaac wrote, "Some cloudy from N in dark streaks passing over and threatening light snow storming.  I backed wagon with furniture out of shed and repacked things safely.  [B]y 10 Mrs. Bentley & I off, dined at Tolands & P.M. quite cool drove on to Macksville, unloaded goods on platform & Mrs. B taking 9 train."

Two months later Isaac wrote in his journal, "Eve[ning] got letter from Mrs. Bentley now living in Salt Lake City, answered same."

Photo of KS farm displayed in Trinidad, CO

As my husband and I looked into historical displays in Victorian store fronts along the old main street of Trinidad, thinking of the Bentleys and their pilgrimage from Stafford County to Las Animas to Salt Lake City, we were in for another surprise.  Looking at an old photograph in one window's display I was shocked to read the caption:  "Summer time wheat harvest at the Bert Aultman farm outside Macksville, Kansas in 1911."  How did that photograph end up in Trinidad, Colorado?!  Did other Stafford County residents from the 1880s and 1890s migrate to Las Animas County?  Can anyone solve this mystery for me by identifying Bert Aultman or sharing the names of others from the town a few miles from Isaac's homestead who might have gone to Trinidad or who might have known someone there with whom they shared the photograph?  (On the NE corner of Main & Commercial is the Aultman Photography Studio where a father and son recorded Trinidad life, but the link to Bert Aultman in Kansas, assuming there is a link, is currently unknown.)  Please leave a comment, send an e-mail to me at txfen@msn.com, or go to my Lynda Beck Fenwick facebook page to help me solve this mystery.

Children's Museum

The building in the center of this photograph is Trinidad's 1st City Building, which housed city hall, the firehouse, and the jail.  It is now a children's museum.  Although Trinidad is no longer enjoying the hey days of the late 1800s, it is regarded as among the best examples of Victorian commercial buildings to be seen, and it is easy to imagine what it must have been like when the Bentleys strolled the streets.

(Remember, you can enlarge the images by clicking on them.  To read more about the early days of Trinidad, Colorado go to http://www.sangres.com/colorado/lasanimas/history.htm )

1st Black Female Lawyer

On October 27th, 1890, Isaac headed to St. John for a People's Party rally, joining the Livingston and East Albano Farmers' Alliance congregations along the way.  He set up a camera to photograph the wagons that paraded around the "E. side of public square round by 5th Avenue house, down to S.W. corner of square and around the square finally double procession..."  After lunch the farmers gathered at the rink for speeches, and among the speakers was "a colored Speaker from Topeka, the 2d orator, short and quite satisfactory."  Although Isaac approved of the man's brief and effective speech, he did not include the man's name in his journal, nor did the newspaper mention the name.

 

In doing my research for writing the manuscript about Isaac and that historical period, I found a clue that suggests to me who the speaker might have been.

 

Image of Lutie Lytle from the County Capital

In about 1882 a man named John R. Lytle joined other African Americans in relocating his family to Kansas as part of the Exoduster movement.  The family moved into a house at 1435 Monroe Street in Topeka, and John became involved in the community.  As the People's Party became active in Kansas, John became a member, running unsuccesssfully for the position of city jailor.  His local prominence allowed him to assist one of his four children, daughter Lutie, to gain an appointment as the Populist Party assistant enrolling clerk for the state legislature.  It seems quite possible to me that John R. Lytle was the man Isaac heard speak to the rally in St. John.

 

Lutie gained prominence in her own right.  She explained to an interviewer that she was working in a printing office when she began to contemplate becoming a lawyer.  She said, "I read the newspaper exchanges a great deal and became impressed with the knowledge of the fact that my own people especially were the victims of legal ignorance.  I resolved to fathom its depths and penetrate its mysteries and intricacies in hopes of being a benefit to my people." 

She carried out her dream of studying law by moving to Tennessee, where she attended Central Tennessee College, having earned tuition money by teaching school.  In September of 1897 she was admitted to the Criminal Court in Memphis after passing an oral examination.  Records indicate that she was the first African American woman to be licensed to practice in Tennessee, the second or third in the United States (records conflict about this), and the first in Kansas when she returned to Topeka. 

 

Lutie Lytle

Lutie was briefly married to a minister, but later she married Alfred C. Cowan, a lawyer.  According to the 1910 Federal Census, Lutie and Alfred lived in Brooklyn, New York, and were both employed in the general practice of law.  Lutie's father John was living with them, employed as a real estate agent, together with her brother Albert, age 26, working as a law clerk, and her sister Corine, age 17.

 

The date of Lutie's death is uncertain, but in 1925 she spoke to a large audience at St. John's A.M.E. Church in Topeka, the church she had attended as a girl.  She opened many doors for women, and during the year she taught domestic relations, evidence, and criminal procedure at her alma mater, she was described as "the only woman law instructor in the world."

 

Her own words describe her feelings for the law:  "My favorite [area of the law] is constitutional law.  I like constitutional law because the anchor of my race is grounded on the Constitution, and whenever our privileges are taken away from us or curtailed, we must point to the Constitution as the Christian does to his Bible.  It is the great source and Magna Carta of our rights..."

 

Lutie and her father are a distinguished and important part of the early history of Kansas, and whether John was the speaker to whom Isaac referred in his journal or not, they are a significant footnote to the story of the People's Party.

(To read more about Lutie Lytle Cowan visit www.kshs.org; www.blackpast.org; and http://edwardianpromenade.com/women)

Susan's Album

Susan & Anna Beck

My great-grandmother, Susan Beck, taught in one-room country schools  in both Stafford and Pratt Counties.  School terms accommodated the necessity for children to help on the farms, and the fall term usually began in late October.  After a break for the holidays, the spring term resumed until March or early April.  Many of the country school teachers were barely older than their students, young unmarried girls who had been students the previous school year.  Having a mature woman with a high school education as their teacher was considered quite a privilege.

 

Records of the Stafford County country schools are incomplete, but the Stafford County History book indicates that Susan taught in the early sod school house in Albano Township.  Susan has a photo album given in appreciation for her teaching in that community, and she may have taught in the school house Isaac helped build.  Pratt County has more complete documentation of its country schools, and those records confirm that Susan taught in townships located on the far north side of Pratt County several terms in the 1890s.  Her daughter, Anna Marie Beck, not only taught in Stafford County schools but also served as Stafford County Superintendent of Schools.

 

As you may remember from prior posts on this blog, Isaac Werner was friendly with the Beck family, loaning books, stereoscope views, and his albums to Aaron and Susan Beck and their children, Royal and Anna.  Unfortunately, Isaac's books, views, albums, and framed prints were sold in his estate sale, and although I suspect some of them might still be found among family antiques in the surrounding communities, I have not located any of Isaac's collections (other than his wonderful journal).

 

Susan Beck's album from grateful parents

Therefore, I am using the album my great-grandmother received from parents of students she taught as an example of what Isaac's albums might have been like.  I have seen many examples of albums from this period, many with velvet covers and most with some type of decoration.  The pages are thick cardboard, on which a card stock type of paper is glued with framed openings to hold photographs or cards of famous people.  Susan's album has two frames on each page positioned vertically.  Other albums have different arrangements of frames and different sizes of frames.

 

Interior pages of Susan's album with a print

Susan's album from the late 1890s or early 1900s holds primarily photographs of family and friends, but Isaac's albums probably held more images of  prominent people.  Although newspapers published sketches of people in the news, we must remember that without movies, television, and the internet, images of important people, historical or living, were not widely available.  In his ongoing quest to better educate himself, Isaac wanted to be familiar with the images of famous people. His journal entry of December 31, 1870 included among the books and engravings he wished to purchase the following:  "Card Photographs of about 150 Authors & Artists."

 

Another entry on February 27, 1871 read: "Started also a small book or memorandum of transitory or present or future wants, such as photographs of certain noted individuals, painting and certain necessary books etc.  By eve had already recorded 3 columns in my small book of such items."  When he acquired the photograph cards he wanted, they were arranged in albums similar to the album in the above photographs.

 

Although Isaac was eager to acquire a better education with his reading and his collections of engravings, stereoscope views, and photograph cards, he was reluctant to reveal to those who might criticize his efforts just what he was doing.  His entry of March 16, 1871 revealed this modesty: "During A.M. as Mr. Hutcheons run in and out several times, and each time found me busy at my desk at something (he knew not what though, filling my large Album with card photographs of Authors), he remarked, 'Well Mr. W.--.  You astonish the natives someday, the way you are always busy at something.'"      

 

Most of Isaac's books, engravings, views, and photograph cards were acquired during the years when he was a prosperous druggist in Rossville, Illinois, but he always believed the money to acquire his collections was wisely spent, and he continued to enjoy them during the hard times of his later years as a homesteader on the Kansas prairie.

Postscript to 5th Avenue Hotel

The 5th Avenue Hotel in later years

As a postscript to the previous blog, I am adding this image of the building taken several years later.  From the cars parked at the hotel, I would guess that the photograph was taken in the 1930s or early 1940s.  Decide for yourself whether you think the modifications to the structure improved its appearance.

Fifth Avenue Hotel

When the railroad arrived in St. John, Kansas, new buildings sprung up nearly as fast as hen bit is currently doing in Kansas lawns.  Among those buildings was the Fifth Avenue Hotel pictured above.  It is similar in style to the elegant Victorian courthouse written about in my blog of 3/29/2012 (Isaac's Victorian Court House), and it shares similar details with the school built at nearly the same time. 

Early St. John School

Far more elaborate than the St. John Hotel, the wooden structure pictured in my recent blog about Women on the Prairie (2/21/2013), the Fifth Avenue Hotel featured balconies overlooking the square.  It was from one of those balconies that Isaac photographed the wagons in a double row that extended around the square and beyond in a rally parade for the People's Party.

 

The City Stables

 

Unfortunately for Isaac, money was scarce, and when he needed to spend the night in St. John, unless he was invited to stay in the home of a friend, the City Stable served as the overnight accomodations for both Isaac and his horses!

Snow Storms on the Prairie

Sculpture in Kiowa, Kansas

Last week we arrived at the farm in Kansas between record breaking snow storms.  The sculpture of a prairie couple made me think of Isaac Werner and his neighbors dealing with blizzards in the late 1800s.  Unlike today's prairie residents, they did not have NOWA to warn them of approaching storms nor satellite images shown on television and the internet.  The day before the second snow storm arrived, the sky gave no indication that Mother Nature was not finished dumping snow on Kansas, and I wondered if Isaac would have known of signs we no longer recognize as weather predictions.

 

Drifts fill the road near our farm house

Regardless of our sophisticated methods of predicting approaching weather, we are sometimes left helpless to deal with the conditions.  The picture at the right shows one of the roads drifted full of snow near our farm.

 

Today, many farmers have snow plows they attach to their tractors.  Farmers with cattle raced to protect their herds from the dangers forecast for the second snow storm, risks not from the cold itself but rather from the combination of snow and extreme winds that can cause cattle to breathe in the moisture and literally drown from the moisture in their lungs.  In the blizzard of 1886, thousands of cattle and sheep died on the prairie, but the recent snows caused no such disasters.

 

View of our front yard after the 1st snow storm

Drifts filled the roads, and plows cleared streets and roads from the first snowfall just in time for the second storm to arrive and create new tasks for road crews.  The warmer weather since the storms has melted some of the snow, but the new problem is mud and standing water, and drifts still block many country roads.  Neighbors with tractors have helped us reach the farm, and this morning I learned that our township grader is broken, idle until a new part arrives.  Now I know why no roads to the farm were plowed for us by the township grader!

 

In Isaac's time, homesteaders lacked our sophisticated technology and our powerful equipment, but even with these things, Mother Nature is still capable of showing us that she hasn't been conquered.

 

(The windmill in the picture to the left has the blades that capture the wind removed from the tower.  These wind-powered pumps used to lift water from underground acquifers are a gradually disappearing sight on the prairie.)

 



Political Symbols on the Prairie

All Americans are familiar with the elephant and the donkey as symbols of our two leading political parties, but do you know the origins of those two animals as party symbols?  Animals were often used in political cartoons to satirize individuals and groups.  One of my favorite cartoons from the County Capital during the 1890s appears at the right.  (Remember, you can click on the images to enlarge them.)  The poor farmers and miners who were suffering such hard times are depicted as hares or rabbits, appealing to the wealthy and powerful for help.  Those well-dressed animals ignoring their pleas are: politician as horse, monopolist as bull, office holder as goat, speculator as sheep, and money lender as cow.  Fierce dogs, labeled famine, want, and other hardships, threaten the defenseless rabbits.

The origin of the donkey as the symbol of democrats is traced back to the 1828 presidential campaign of democrat Andrew Jackson.  His opponents called him a "jackass" for his populist views, but rather than being offended, Jackson adopted the image of a stubborn donkey in his campaign posters.  Cartoonists, especially Thomas Nast, picked up the association of a donkey representing democrats, and the image continues to this day.

It is believed that a cartoon drawn by Nast that appeared in Harper's Weekly in 1874 was the first use of an elephant to represent the republican party.  My favorite from the County Capital depicting the elephant as a political symbol appears at the left.  The People's Party, which the newspaper and Isaac supported, saw republicans as the wealthy and powerful, gobbling up benefits through their influence over politicians in Washington and the state capitols.  This cartoon uses not only an elephant but also adds a greedy pig inside, labeled "Plutocrat" and wearing a blanket labeled "G.O.P." or Grand Old Party, another name for republicans.  The hay the elephant is consuming is labeled "The Public Substance."

The symbol used by the County Capital for the People's Party was the rooster.  The crowing rooster pictured at the right appeared on the front page of the newspaper announcing a near sweep of state and local elective offices, the editor's visual boast covering about half the page!

Although there is no doubt that in Stafford County, Kansas, the rooster represented the People's Party, researchers believe it sometimes was used to represent democrats.  An article appearing in the 1913 Journal of American History traces the origin to 1834 in Indiana when a man named Joseph Chapman ran for office.  Apparently Chapman was quite an orator, and his style of boasting about what he would accomplish if he were elected was described by his opponents as "crowing," giving him the nickname of "Crowing Joe."  http://www.newrivernotes.com/old_nrn/misc/rooster.htm   Another researcher traced the connection of a rooster with democrats in West Virginia.  In that state, voters were urged to "Scratch the Rooster," meaning to put an "x" below the rooster symbol to vote a straight democratic ticket.  http://morganmessenger.com/news/content/story-10302

All of that may be true, but at the St. John, Kansas, County Capital newspaper, the rooster crowed for the People's Party. 

Women on the Prairie

City Hotel in St. John, Kansas

In searching for images to accompany this blog I observed that often the women photographed in everyday scenes were at the back of the picture, standing behind the men.  You will need to click on the image at the right to enlarge it enough to find the women at the rear door of the City Hotel in St. John, Kansas.  That is an appropriate allegory for how the role of women in homesteading the prairie is often seen--a wife surrounded by children standing behind her husband.  Certainly many of the women on the prairie were wives who came with their husbands to stake a claim, but it must be remembered that those wives, and the children as well, worked side-by-side with their husbands, not necessarily doing the same chores but doing other things that needed to be done if they were to survive and prosper.

 

The requirements for homesteading were that the claimant be the head of the household or be single and at least 21 years of age.  The claimant's gender was not specified.  As a result, many homesteaders were women--single, widowed, or divorced.  The ratio of men to women homesteaders varied from place to place and year to year, but estimates range from five to twenty percent of homesteaders being women.

 

 

Woman gathering buffalo chips for fuel

The women in my family who came to Isaac's community to build a new life on the prairie came with their husbands--Susan Beck, Theresa Hall, and Mary Wilson.  However, two of Isaac's nearest neighbors were women homesteaders.

 

Persis Vosburgh was an unmarried lady, born in New York state in about 1837.  She came to Kansas with her younger brother Jerome and his wife Ann.  After Ann's death, Persis helped raise her brother's children who were still at home--Fay, Leila, and Fannie.  Because of her close connection with her brother, (she was counted in his household in both the 1880 Federal Census and the 1885 Kansas Census), there were those who raised an objection to her claim as a homesteader, believing Persis had not maintained a residence on her claim.  At a vigilance meeting at the Naron School in the spring of 1885 to discuss what to do about claim jumpers, Isaac, William Campbell, and C. W. Shattuc supported Persis against those who said she did not meet the requirement of residing on her land.

 

In 1888 Persis Vosburgh died while on a visit to New York state to see family.  Isaac farmed her land following her death, growing corn and plowing fire guards to protect her trees from prairie fires.  Her heirs eventually conveyed it to G. G. John, the man who cared for Isaac during the final five months Isaac was able to remain in his own home.

 

Isaac's other unmarried neighbor was Isabel Ross, a divorced woman with children still at home.  When Mrs. Ross made the decision to claim her homestead just to the east of Isaac's timber claim, Isaac called on her to make out a lumber list for what would be necessary to build her soddy.  He wrote in his journal that she had so many architectural ideas that he was glad the job of contractor went to Tousley, another neighbor.  However, Isaac worked on the job from the time the soddy was staked until he dug her well after the structure was finished.

 

Although divorce was rather uncommon in those times, the court records on file explain why Isabel Ross filed against her husband.  She claimed he abused her and their children and he claimed she was an unfit mother, but she prevailed in the suit and was given custody of their children.  Over time, Isaac's initial opinion of her changed, and his journal records many kindnesses he showed her--taking corn husks and cobs to her for fuel in storms, helping tie down her stable roof in winds, papering inside her soddy roof to reduce drafts in the winter.  Despite these acts of thoughtfulness, Isaac continued calling her Mrs. Ross, avoiding the more personal use of her first name.

 

Susan Beck & daughter Anna Marie

My great grandmother Susan Beck is a good example of women who remained on the land with their children after misfortune.  Her husband, Aaron, suffered a stroke in about 1891, and Isaac's journal describes a sale at the Beck's about that time. During the 1890s, Susan taught in nearby Pratt County country schools.  Their older child, Royal, was a teenager, old enough to do work on the farm with direction, and by the time of Aaron's death in 1900, Royal and Susan had bought land and had begun building a house.  Daughter Anna Marie was already following her mother's footsteps as a teacher in Stafford County schools, and both mother and daughter spent a year teaching in Colorado before setting up their household in St. John.  Royal remained on the farm and brought his bride, Lillian Hall, to the home he and his mother had built.  Although Susan was not initially widowed, she did become the primary provider for her family as her husband's health failed, and she kept the family together in their prairie home.

 

The roles of women on homesteads, whether as the claimant or the wife, daughter, or unmarried sister or aunt of the male claimant, should not be overlooked or minimized in the settling of the prairie.  You might enjoy Staking Her Claim:  Homesteading the West, by Marcia Meridith Hensley,  http://newwest.net/topic/article/no_husband_no_problem_problem_for_women_staking_her_claim/C39/L39

 P.S.  The woman pictured gathering buffalo chips is Ada McColl, believed to be the first female photographer in Kansas.  She is known for documenting everyday life on the prairie, as well as for portraiture.  Her homestead was in Kearny County, and she began working as a photographer in the late 1800s in Garden City.  The image is taken from an old postcard.  

Romance on the Prairie

From the County Capital

Touring a personal library is a lot like going through someone's family photo album.  Quote from "The Man Who Loved Books Too Much" by Allison Hoover Bartlett

 

Isaac B. Werner captured my heart when I discovered his passion for books.  Having spent nearly three years studying the lists of books in his journal and in the inventory from his probate records, and having acquired many of those books to read, I feel that I have toured Isaac's personal library and know a great deal about him. 

 

At Isaac's estate sale there were so many books to sell that not all of them could be auctioned individually, and some were boxed to be sold together.  Among the books sold was one titled "Marriage & Family," and knowing that, I am sure that Isaac never intended to spend his entire life as a bachelor.  Why else, when money was dear and he took such pains to select the books he could afford to buy, would his library have included a book about marriage?! 

 

With Valentine's Day at hand, I find myself thinking of the ladies in Isaac's life after he came to Kansas, trying to imagine someone to whom he might have wished to send a Valentine.  He did leave some clues, and one of the most intriguing involves a lady named Ellen.  His journal mentions receiving letters from Ellen or Elle Green, and he was obviously pleased to receive them and prompt to reply.  One day, however, there was a cryptic entry in his journal, "second refusal," and after that day there were no more mentions of Ellen.

 

Another possible candidate was neighbor Isabel Ross, to whom he referred in his journal as Mrs. Ross, using her given name only once.  Mrs. Ross had divorced her husband on the grounds that he was abusive to her and their four children, and following the divorce, she staked a homestead claim as a single woman on land adjacent to Isaac's timber claim.  Gradually, a friendship developed between them, and Isaac was especially kind to share corn husks for fuel and make sure her soddy was readied for cold weather.  If they came to care for each other romantically, Isaac never mentioned such feelings in his journal.

 

The most obvious infatuation he revealed was toward a young woman who came to St. John to deliver temperance lectures.  The first evening he heard her speak, he wrote in his journal:  "...heard Miss Hazelett deliver a first class prohibition speech with magic lantern views, a splendid political speech from a quite young lady probably 23 years of age a nice & good sensible talker."  A few days later he heard her speak again, this time a political speech when she ran as the Republican candidate for County Superintendent of Schools.  It may have been the only time he had something positive to say in his journal about a Republican candidate!  The following month he visited Dr. & Mrs. McCann, the couple with whom Miss Hazelett resided.  Isaac wrote:  "...paid a visit or made a call on Miss Blanche B. Hazelett at Dr. McCann's residence.  Some pleasant surroundings and agreeable company to talk to."  Unfortunately, Miss Hazelett lost the election and resumed traveling on the temperance lecture circuit, and a few weeks later the McCanns left St. John for a different city.

 

From the County Capital

Isaac was regarded as a "good catch" for the ladies.  After a visit to Isaac's farm, newspaper editor John Hilmes praised Isaac's farm as one of the finest in the area.  In that same issue of the paper, the local reporter described the abundant trees Isaac had cultivated and added:  "We think the rooster of the sand hills ought to take some fair damsel under his wings." 

 

The most outright teasing Isaac received followed his lecture at a Farmers' Alliance meeting about ideas from Edward Bellamy's book, "Looking Backward."  That book, still read today, was very popular with Populists who admired some of the social changes Bellamy described in his future world.  Perhaps Isaac mentioned one change--that it was socially proper in that future time for a woman to propose marriage to a man.  In the County Capital newspaper the week after Isaac's lecture, the local reporter teased that the eligible women of Isaac's community had discussed taking him up on that idea, and if he wasn't willing to agree to the propriety of a woman extending the marriage proposal to a man, they didn't want to hear any more talk from Isaac about Edward Bellamy and his future society!

 

Isaac lived and died a bachelor, never having need to use the information contained in his own copy of "Marriage & Family."  Yet, I believe he had not meant to live his life alone.  To read about Isaac's flirtations and marriage plans as a younger man, visit my Feb. 9, 2012 blog, "A Young Man's Fancy."