Farewell Missouri

August 12, 2013

Some people do as the song says and “Waltz across Texas”.  We, however, chose a different state and instead wandered across Kansas, and we did it up right.  After I vetoed a long driving day, we opted to stay two nights in Wellington, Kansas, smack in the middle of going from Carthage, Missouri, to Garden City, Kansas, or at least as central as we could get and still find a decent place to park the Totee, in this case, a nice little KOA.

The previous day was a record-breaker for us - no rain!  After 33 consecutive days with rain, we were dry for one entire 24-hour period.  In the too-good-to-be-true category, we went right back to it in a big way: more downpour, deluge, torrents.  Everything around us was flooding - the park had standing water; the neighbors had to wade to their car. 

The Arkansas River, which a local feller told me is typically a quiet stream that one can wade all the way across, has transformed into a quarter-mile raging chocolate-hued torrent boiling with turbulence and filled with debris. 

Endless rain aside - back to our wander.  The decision to break up the drive gave us ample freedom to get off the slow road we were already following and to even more slowly detour through various settlements scattered across the plain.  Many consist of little more than derelict old downtowns that once served the countryside’s farmers.  One garnered a stop on a deserted downtown street to buy lemonade from two nice little girls who offered that beverage or Tang for 50 cents per cup.

Slow-mo is our favored method of travel, but it can be an issue when trying to find a place to stop for snapping a photograph.  Many country roads have no shoulder at all, a situation that causes me some nervousness, and pulling into a short driveway with the trailer is not possible.

The result is that I don’t always get the shots I want, such as the dugout I spotted off the road in a farm field.  When this region was first settled, many pioneers utilized shelters dug into a hillside until they could get a cabin built, and I think this was one of them.  Once when we were in Nebraska, we met a dear elderly man who showed us the dugout where his mother had been born on the farm where he still lived.

Bob, fish hatchery . . .

We had been disappointed that weird timing was causing us to miss seeing my brother-in-law Bob while we were through this country.  Bizarre that he was in our Arizona while we were in his Missouri, but much to our delight, he got back just in time and was willing to drive down to meet us in Carthage.  We three spent the day together at the Neosho National Fish Hatchery and the Pea Ridge Civil War battlefield.

The hatchery was built in 1888 and is the oldest continuous operating hatchery in the country - what a grandiose building, strange to be so for a hatchery.

The highlight there, besides the endless fascination of feeding trout and watching them boil the water, was the bubble in the interior fish tank.  Fairly sure it was made for kids to climb into, we nevertheless tried it out ourselves.

Pea Ridge, Trail of Tears . . .

The Battle of Pea Ridge National Military Park was an interesting site, consisting of an eight-mile driving tour with stops that explained how the series of battles ensued at each point over a two-day period.  Due to poor strategy by the Confederate commander, what should have been a rout for the outnumbered Union troops became their decisive victory instead, and a turning point in the war's progress west of the Mississippi River.

Some of the tour stops were in places where we could hike along trails and Civil War-era roads through the lush woods.  One foray into the vicinity of Leetown, a settlement that ceased to exist long ago, brought us to a most beautiful crystal-clear creek flowing rapidly over a bed of limestone.  The awesome scenery all around us belies the horror of those battles and the war in general.

The Elkhorn Tavern, a home and inn turned battle infirmary during the fighting, is now rebuilt.

The infamous Trail of Tears route followed a route through here along some of the same pioneer road, later called Telegraph or Wire Road, that we hiked.  Thousands of Cherokee and other Indians were forcibly removed from their homelands during the winter of 1838/39 along what is now little more than shallow depressions.  The short-lived Butterfield Overland stage line utilized this passage also, as well as both the Confederate and Union armies.

The woods are now so peaceful that it's impossible to imagine the human tragedies that transpired here.

Neosho, Taylors, Joplin tornado . . .

While in Neosho, we photographed the former home of my two-greats grandparents, Samuel & Sarah (McKinney) Taylor, which we had located years before on Wheeler Street by comparing it to an old photograph.  In addition, we visited the cemetery to get pictures of the family gravestones and leave flowers.

Because their markers are weathered enough that they are illegible in a photograph, we employed the shaving cream method to get good pictures - the difference was fairly startling.

Samuel’s stone was one of the ones we’ve had repaired.  The first time we were there, it had broken off its base and was flat on the ground, about to disappear into the dirt.  He fought for the Union from Indiana and was debilitated for the remainder of his life because of the hardships of that service.

Another visit to the amazing Neosho springs at a park in town was delightful.  The water fair gushes out from under a limestone ledge in a grotto.

The town has created a wonderful park at the site.  Other limestone formations there have created caverns whose openings are being obscured by falling boulders.  A former resident we met there told us there are food stores stashed in there enough to supply the entire Neosho population for 90 days in case of emergency.

I’m not sure what type of emergency they were anticipating when they did that, but certainly disasters of the tornadic type are known to occur in these parts.  In fact, the recent devastating tornado at Joplin was not far from here.

At a downtown cafe, we saw a well-done, but unfinished indoor mural that was begun by a Joplin artist.  While it was in process, the tornado struck; that fellow lost his family and his legs and so has not completed his work, although the waitress said he intends to do so.

Neosho honors some of its better-known sons and daughters with plaques placed in the park.

Chisholm Trail museum . . .

A new milestone reached: we have now toured the most outrageous museum we’ve ever spent time in.  Although we are big fans of independent local depositories of whatever interests the folks in the region, and although we’ve made donations to many of the same in order to have a gander, the museum in Wellington has put us off our feed, so to speak.  Touted as a Chisholm Trail facility, it falls far short of the mark. 

Typically, we enjoy pretty much all museums, Smithsonian quality or small-town funk and everything in between; however, while having various items of interest within its spacious three floors, it was such an unprofessional hodge-podge of donated and homemade uncategorized and unlabelled (except for occasional papers taped onto things) displays, much of it purely junk, that I was incredulous.

It did invoke a bit of mirth, at least, and after all, they did not charge an entrance fee, only asked for a donation.

The “collection” was so humongous and so haphazard that it is impossible to convey the chaos within those walls.  Among the items on display were a human skeleton ("Henry" they called it), horribly moth-eaten stuffed animals and birds, pictures of bathing beauties, a bomb, scary mannequins with ill-fitting wigs, pictures drawn by schoolchildren, arrowheads, a sabre-toothed tiger skull, a small "arrangement" consisting of a single stick and three clamshells glued-together (the sign said these items came from a nearby river - their claim to fame, I guess), old medical instruments, miscellaneous binders filled with pictures taken by locals, a mammoth bone, an anatomically correct boy doll in a buggy, jumbled piles of tools and implements, china and glassware, amid the most amazing array of hum-drum useless bric-brac I’ve ever seen assembled in one spot.  Evidently, whatever bit of yard sale leftover is donated gets added to the mix.

Shelves of tattered old Bibles made me want more than anything to snatch them out and transcribe any family data recorded therein.

I do fear for the genuine antiques housed within the confines of that historic former hospital - extreme water damage on ceilings and walls and water on the third story floor leads me to think that little of the contents will survive unscathed.

These books were put to use so this chest could be displayed upright.

One tiny room held a few poorly xeroxed newspaper clippings about the Chisholm Trail in addition to several items that might have been of the era but not necessarily.  That was the extent of the collection relating to the museum’s name.

Augustus Sherwood . . .

Darren’s ancestor, Augustus Sherwood (1823-1904) is interred near here in the Udall Cemetery, his grave marked only by a last-name stone that is incurring lawn mower damage.  We left him flowers as we have in the past; it seems a shame that he is not better memorialized, but it seems unlikely to happen.  Evidently, he is the only one of his family that is in this area. 

Marian Days . . .

After our mad dash to Carthage in a desperate futile attempt to escape the rain, we needed to do a little shopping, which is when I noticed something unusual - the place was a madhouse of busyness and there were far more oriental people in the mix than one would expect to see in a small midwestern town.  Later we learned the reason for the hubbbub. 

We had arrived in Carthage smack dab in the middle of Marian Days, the largest annual gathering of Catholics in the United States, an event that draws Vietnamese faithful from all across the country.

Begun after the fall of Saigon in 1975 when thousands of displaced Vietnamese immigrated to this country, the four-day event is attended by somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 Vietnamese.  Marian Days is religious in purpose and prayerful in substance, a festival of families connecting and celebrating.  We stopped in on the last morning and joined the throngs of people gathered in the area of the Congregation of Mother Co-Redemptrix, the host church and monastery.

The entire large campus was filled wall to wall with tent shelters that spread into surrounding neighborhoods of the town.  Streets were lined bumper to bumper with private vehicles and tour buses.  Many residences had tents pitched on their lawns (one presumes the space is rented out); streets were blocked off, which is just as well because where they are open, it was next to impossible to drive down them due to hordes of pedestrians sauntering down the middle of the pavement.

The festival has a joyous energy to it; singing and food abound, as thousands attend numerous masses.  Before we knew its source, we heard angelic singing at our campground a couple of miles distant.  One wonders just how much the folks across the street savor it, although they do seem to benefit economically.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stroll through the crowds and extensive beautiful gardens and statuary.

One thing we couldn’t quite figure out were the rows and rows of low walls covered with plaques.  They were obviously memorials to individuals; however, I’m not sure of exactly what the significance was in that particular place - perhaps a sacred place to immortalize loved ones.

   
Generous kin, good rememberies . . .

Our only other visit to Carthage was years back when we were first researching ancestors in the area.  I disremember exactly how, but we located some folks by the name of Catron, my mother's father's surname and ended up visiting them.  They owned a Catron family history, a classic by Henry Hardy Catron, and as I chatted with Wayne and Helen, Chris frantically began taking notes from the book that related to our lineage.  Eventually, it became obvious the job of taking down the mass of pertinent data could not be completed in a reasonable time, so we boldly asked to borrow the large tome overnight.

There we were: complete strangers from another state asking to skulk away with their out-of-print book, and they agreed.  With extreme gratitude for their generosity, we stayed up late scribbling as rapidly as possible, and returned it to them the next morning.

I'm sure they doubted their senses when we drove away with their book.  How I still would love to own a copy of that book.

The courthouse in Carthage is reminiscent of European castles.

A dry moment to make music.

I can't seem to keep it in my mind what poison ivy looks like, sure a lot of it in these parts.

Too cute to pass up.

Mural, murals and more murals.