Black Dog, rivers, storms, cotton, economy
August 10, 2009

We have returned to the country of brick and cobblestone streets, makes a heck of a clatter when we’re pulling the trailer over them.

After crossing the Arkansas River for the umpteenth time, we see that it has gained back its lost water and is impressive once again.

When we have traveled the country previously, we could generally get a feel for the economy of various places - whether they were booming or declining, and often why. Now, however, it’s more difficult to make those assessments because of the general decline across the nation. Are those businesses closed because of what’s happening in the past year economically, or has some major area industry relocated? We are seeing store closures in our own town; the trends are hard to read.

I was shocked today when we were in the Cowley County seat, Winfield, and saw the beautiful impressive shaped-stone masonry buildings of a college, and then realized on closer inspection that they were empty and open to the weather with universally broken windows. What a terrible shame to let those wonderful edifices go derelict.

We seem to be in the vicinity of the Black Dog Trail, so called for its originator, an Osage chief of that name. It extended from east of present Baxter Springs, Kansas, to the Great Salt Plains in Alfalfa County, Oklahoma. Black Dog was blind in his left eye. An impressive figure, he stood around seven feet tall and weighed an estimated 300 pounds.

I see crape myrtle and rose of Sharon blooming everywhere here. It makes me wonder about mine at home. They were just budding out when we left. Seems that everything oughtta be in full bloom right now with our strawberries fruiting for all they're worth. We had some of our own frozen strawberries for breakfast this morning. Delicious, but no match a’tall for those incredible sun-ripened, sun-warmed delectables that I eat by the handful after being drawn to the garden by the alluring aroma.

We have seen quite a lot of cotton being grown here, a surprise to me. Its open white blooms are lovely; bolls are just beginning to form.

The evening temperature has plummeted down into the mid-70s and a sweet breeze enticed us out for a walk down our dirt road. It was enchanting - cool, quiet, a good-sized pond twined through the trees just off one side. A great blue heron soundlessly lifted away from there, didn’t give us so much as a squawk.

On the way home this evening, I saw such a funny sight that we were well past before I could register just what it was, then back we went for a photo and to share it with Chris. A large field of tall soybeans, and there sitting on a sea of green was the cutest brown head and two ears - a deer keeping watch. Just as we stopped, the head ducked out of sight and suddenly two deer began bounding as high as they could over the plants to get away from us. They looked like a couple of dolphins on the ocean surface smoothly soaring above and dipping below. I didn’t get my photo, but it was worth a turnaround for sure.

I did get a shot of an old farm house being reclaimed gracefully by trumpet vine and assorted foliage.

Shortly afterward, we saw an amazing cloud formation: a huge ropy light cloud running horizontally in front of a dark storm sky. Another photo missed when I looked through the viewfinder and saw the message, “batteries exhausted”. Heck, I’m exhausted plenty of times, but it doesn’t mean I quit working . . . at any rate, I whipped those useless non-power sources out, threw in young macho batteries and still got some dynamite shots, even though the rope was unraveling by then.

We search for Augustus Sherwood . . .

Our stay here was specifically to search for ancestor Augustus Sherwood. We thought he died here, or possibly farther north in Republic County. We didn’t know why he’d left Nebraska in his later years, but surmised it was to be with an offspring. The Cowley County courthouse in Winfield offered scanty records and none at all for Sherwoods. The nearby public library was disappointingly bare of historical or genealogical fare, too, although we spent substantial time perusing old newspapers on microfilm. About the most I learned there was that the term “dog and pony show” originated from spectacles called exactly that, performances that traveled from town to town much like the circus. I had thought it was a phrase conjured from imagination.

Chris was surprised to find a book containing baptismal and marriage records of the old Dutch church of Ulster, New York. That had nothing at all to do with our search, but we knew it would contain a slew of our other ancestral stuff, so much so that the task of reviewing it while sitting there was beyond daunting. I suggested that he Google it in case it was online. He did; it was, so he downloaded it.

About then, I began to wonder whether onsite research has passed its prime with so much being otherwise available. That doubt was cast aside later in the day. We left Winfield empty-handed (except for a billion things from Ulster) and wended our way to the tiny town of Udall, where our information told us Augustus had passed from his Earthly realm.

Downtown consisted of a community center, senior center, post office, museum and library. The only one open was the post office, and Augustus was not “wanted” there. Disappointed but still hopeful, we called the phone number posted at the museum. The lady who answered said she’d send her husband down in about ten minutes, and sure enough, there came Fred Satterthwaite to greet and admit us.

Another five minutes brought us to the laminated original front page of the Udall newspaper for September, 1904, and Augustus’ obituary. Wow, it told us he had sailed at age 21 (before the mast; I don't know what that means) on the whaler, Vesper, about his wife and 13 children, his whereabouts during his later years, and that he had moved to Udall four years previous to live with his son, Frederick.

We discovered his grave in the nearby burying ground, marked by a plain handmade concrete stone that states simply “Sherwood”. We think earlier family researchers have never tracked that down, but were basing their data strictly on an obituary published for him back in Nebraska.

We were happy to locate his resting place, put flowers on his grave, and to gain further information about him. We think his son is buried in Manhattan, Kansas. Because that is near Topeka, which is on our itinerary, we will give it a look-see.

Mr. Satterthwaite was an accommodating gem of a guy, retired from the Udall Police Department and as Cowley County Sheriff, he and his wife seem to be the mainstays of their interesting historical museum. He was just as excited as I when we saw the article about Augustus.

He showed us around and told us about the 1955 tornado that leveled his home town of Udall - a 3/4-mile-wide twister. Eighty-three people died in Udall, and 200 were injured, in addition to many hit by the same storm over a 50-mile path. The photos told the story of complete building devastation; nothing could explain the human losses and pain.

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