The Birth of Julia Laure Emma Chevallier

Julie Chevallier, my great grandmother

Julia Laure Emma Chevallier

Julia Laure Emma Chevallier

Birth

Born the 14th of March at 6 in the evening, 1862 in Graffigny-Chemin, Bourmont Canton, Department of Haute-Marne, France. Father Paul Constant Chevallier, 40 years old, mother Anne Marie Richier, 36 years old.

1862

Napoleon III (born Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte), the nephew of Napoleon I ruled France. He was, by most accounts, a good ruler, modernizing the French economy, lowered tariffs, opened the Suez Canal, allied France with England, and liberalized laws for the working class and women. He was on the other hand a poor military leader, suffering defeat in France's Mexican intervention and in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, after which the Third Republic was proclaimed.

In 1862, Victor Hugo's Les Misérables was published. When all was said and done, Victor Hugo would write of Napoleon II as a mediocrity, "Napoleon the Small" (Napoléon le Petit) in contrast to his famous uncle.

Paul Constant Chevallier was a "propriétaire demeurant"  landlord of property in Graffigny.

John Finley Van Huss

After we pass only the bare bones of our life remains. Take me, John Finley Van Huss for example. Myheritage says this:

John Finley Van Huss, 1859 - 1939
John Finley Van Huss was born on month day 1859, at birth place, Tennessee, to Valentine Worley Van Huss and Lucinda H. Van Huss (born Campbell).
Valentine was born on November 15 1818, in Wythe County, Virginia.
Lucinda was born on April 15 1819, in Carter County, Tennessee.
John had 6 siblings: James Matthias Van Huss, Daniel Smith Van Huss and 4 other siblings.
John married Josephine E. Van Huss (born Brewer) on month day 1888, at age 28 at marriage place, Kansas.
Josephine was born in June 1865, in Missouri.
They had 5 children: Lois O. Gresham (born Van Huss), Luva G. Foote (born Van Huss) and 3 other children.
John lived in 1880, at address, Kansas.
He lived in 1900, at address, Kansas.
He lived on month day 1905, at address, Kansas.
He lived in 1910, at address, Kansas.
He lived in 1920, at address, Kansas.
He lived in 1930, at address, Kansas.
John passed away on month day 1939, at age 80 at death place, Kansas.
He was buried on month day 1939, at burial place, Kansas.

Such a paltry and  incomplete description recalls to mind the second stanza of William Butler Yeats' poem "Sailing to Byzantium."

II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,

Nor is there singing school but studying

Monuments of its own magnificence;

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium.

But I was not an aged man when I left Tennessee to travel to Kansas by wagon with my parents and brothers. Just a young boy full of hope.

I was six years old when the Civil War ended. Our family was for the Union, a sentiment that was popular though not unanimous in eastern Tennessee. My great grandfather Valentine Felty Van Huss had come to Tennessee by way of North Carolina and Virginia seeking a new start and new land. His son Matthias my grandfather had stayed. Matthias had married twice. I was the only child of his first marriage to Elizabeth Worley of Cripple Creek Virginia. She died within a year of my birth. My father then married Lovina Dugger and they had a large and wonderful family. Lovina was a wonderful mother to me. Then my grandfather died in 1856. The farm in Elizabethton was not large and my father understood that it was best that it go to my half brothers and sisters.

So it was that my father and mother decided to head west to Kansas.

What an exciting adventure for an eleven year old boy to head west to the country of Indians, to land that would be ours. Across western Tennessee we went, though Missouri over roads that a few years before had been primeval forests.

We crossed into Kansas near Kansas City. There my mother Lucinda Campbell of Carter County Tennessee took sick in the town of Aubry and died on October 20th, 1870. She was just 52. I was but 11, too young for such a tragedy, but who is ever ready to lose one's mother?

It was a sad winter for all of us and especially for my father who had lost his wife. But next spring we once again loaded our few possessions into the wagon and headed south.

It was to eastern Butler County we went, to a place on the prairie out on the Flint Hills. The rolling land was watered by the Little Walnut River, which gives you an indication of its size. The land was for the most part grassland, but there were plenty of creeks, and where the creeks went, there was walnut and oak and sycamore.

To sum up, my brothers and my father would take up a homestead. I too would become a farmer. I met a Missouri girl named Josie Brewer from the neighboring farm and we got married in 1888. We had five children Bula, Fred, Luva, Elmer and Lois, who happily all grew up. My life was happy until too soon, the angels took dear Josie at the age of 47. Should you wish to visit her grave, don't be fooled, she is not in Latham as some say; rather you can find her buried next to her parents in peaceful Brownlow cemetery on an old country road.

In his final years, my father lived with my brother Isaac. He died in 1908 and we buried him in the Little Walnut Cemetery, two miles north of the road from Augusta to Beaumont. I lived another 30 years. You can find me in the cemetery at Latham, Kansas.

John Finley Van Huss and wife Josie

Valentine Worley Van Huss' Obituary

From the El Dorado Republican newspaper, July 24th, 1908.

"V. W. Van Huss peacefully passed away July 18, 1908 at the home of his son Isaac..."

Born November 15, 1818 in Elizabethton, Carter County, Tennessee, taking his first name Valentine from his grandfather and his middle name from his grandmother Catherine Worley. Valentine's parents were Mattias Van Huss and Elizabeth Worley. Valentine was raised by a loving step-mother Lovina Dugger.

At 24, Valentine married Lucinda Campbell, the marriage producing 8 children. He left Tennessee to homestead in Kansas with five sons, James Matthias, Daniel, Isaac S., Robert Eldridge., and John Finley. The family left Tennessee in a Conestoga wagon, crossing into Missouri south of St. Louis, following the Missouri River to Jefferson City, then heading due west to Sedalia and Pleasant Hill and entered Kansas near Spring Hill where the party stopped, no doubt because Lucinda was in poor health. Lucinda died in 1870 in Johnson County, Kansas.

Eventually, father and sons made their way to Butler County and took up homesteads near Beaumont and Latham, Kansas. Oldest son James got his homestead first in 1875, followed by Isaac, Daniel, Robert, and John. Father Valentine would not get his homestead until 1902. James would move to Oklahoma, Robert to Texas, Daniel unknown. The others would stay.

Surrounded by his children and grandchildren, Valentine was laid to rest in a the small Baptist church cemetery located a few miles north of Highway 54, a few miles west of Beaumont, on the Rosalia-Keighley Road just before it turns west and turns into Flint Hills Road.

A visit to the North Frisian Islands 1887

"Sufficeth them the simple plan, That they should take who have the power And they should keep who can."

Frisians and North Frisia

The Romans were the first in history to comment upon the Frisii as an identifiable group. They were migrating Germanic tribes who lived in the coastal regions and the outlying islands and islets, on terps, hillocks like those described below by Queen Victoria's diplomat, John Ward. These hillocks had the advantage of protecting them from marauding armies, but the greater disadvantage of being at the mercy of storms and the sea.

Frisian is generally the area along the North Sea, encompassing mainly the coastlines of the Netherlands and Germany. North Frisian was that part of the coastline on the Jutland Peninsula. The people were an amalgam of Dutch, Danish and German. I find it interesting, that the NOrth Frisian dialect, now spoken by about 10,000 people, is considered the 'kissing cousin' of the English language.

At the conclusion of the Second Schleswig War in 1864, the province of Schleswig along with the North Frisian islands, once Danish became Prussian.

Experiences of a Diplomatist, Being Recollections of Germany, (1840-1870), by John Ward, C.B., her Majesty's Minister Resident to the Hanse-towns.

August 8. A visit to Husum and dined. Thence by steamer through the North-Frisian islands to Fohr and Sylt. We reached the point of Norse on Sylt at 10 pm, and after a rough drive in the bright moonlight arrived at our lodgings on the west side of the island at Westerland about midnight.

August 9. Surveyed the island which consists of heath and sand without any trees. Nothing exists between us and the English county of Durham except sea. Rye, barley, and oats are grown here but no wheat. The houses are built small here and all alike. The peasantry are all well off. In winter a great deal of wool is knit into stockings for export to Germany.

August 12. The inroads of the sea on the Frisian islands is very remarkable. Three hundred years ago the land area was double... There is an old geographical description by Caspar Danckwerth, burgomeister of Husum. August 13. To Keitem, the capital of the island on the east coast to visit a sort of museum of curiosities... The island of Nordstrand, we were told, before the Flood of 1634, contained 40,000 demaths of land and now only 6,000. The islands loss was the coastlines gain, with the marshy districts of Tondern, Eiderstedt, etc, adding some 30,000 demaths.

August 15. The islands are collectively called the North Frisian Utland (Outland) and the sea the Wattenmeer. Watten, meaning tracts of sand and mud emerging at low tide. In the midst of the water are Hallige, islets of land covered by tall grass washed every day by the tide and inhabited by a few families who live on hillocks of raised turf, supported by piles of wood driven into the wet soil.

August 18, Sunday. Drove to List at the north point of the island. The road along the shore line contained so many sea fowl. At Vogel-koje wild ducks are decoyed and kept for sale... List was a Danish enclave with a church and a school of eleven children being "Danized". The Danish schoolmaster was replaced by a German when the enclaves were ceded by Denmark to Austria and Prussia in 1864...  

Experiences of a Diplomatist, Being Recollections of Germany, Founded on ...

Churning Song

Johannes Vermeer, the Milkmaid, c. 1658

Volkje Jurraiens von Nordstrand

Gentle reader:

On the last day of the last year of her life on Nordstrand, Volkje and her sister Annetje would have gone about their daily tasks, rising to feed the chickens, tend the ducks, gardens to tend, candles and soap to be made, milk the cows, wash the clothes, prepare and cook the food. In 1634, a terrible gale hit the coast of North Frisia and the island of Nordstrand, causing the sea to break the dykes and flood the island, destroying churches, farms, and homes with great loss of life. Sixteen year old Volkje and her older sister Annetje are the only two in her family who are known to have survived.

We find her, five years later in Amsterdam, marrying Jan Franz Van Husum (Husem), departing for the New World, New Holland, and a new life.

The butter churn surely followed.

Volkje might have said, "'An aching back, a weary arm robs the churn of its charm.'"*

Then added, "As harsh as life ahead may be, with nothing but a butter churn, my future prospects are certainly better than what I leave behind."

‘Apron on and dash in hand
O’er the churn I stand’
Cachug, cachink!
Aching back and arms so weary

We are not so dumb as you might think
It’s just that we have no time
We must work
We milk the cows, we let it sit
While we mend, clean and cook
Then take the cream
And place it in a barrel
From which we churn and turn
Hour after hour
To make our bread and butter

And you my child, the future
You are not so smart
Yes you, who do nothing more than text
You see, oh no you don't
That iPhone in your hand is
But a stratagem to beguile
A clever ruse, a simple trick
A wile they say is free, and
All the while
They charge you out the ass
And turn your brain to mush

Pieter Bruegal, Visit to a Farmhouse, c.1620–1630

*From a poem by Silas Dinsmore, St. Nicholas Magazine, 1874.

Love in 16th century Frisia

Surely they were touched by human emotions. A 30 year old sailor named Jan from Husum, a 20 year old farm girl named Volkje, married in Amsterdam's Nieue Kirche and about to set sail across the Atlantic to New Amsterdam and a new life. She would be his guiding life, the mother of his children, the keeper of the house. Together they would share life's journey.

What thoughts had they, we can only imagine

Dear Lyltsen, when I am with thee
(My light, my flame, my sun, my eye)
As dark as deep as night may be
When through the sky stars steer their course
No matter how dark it may be
It is light as the daylight sun for me.

But when your flare flares not unto me,
I have no star to steer my turning;
I move then blind as a stick, a stone,
Though mid-day sun is burning.
What use if the sun in my eyes is bright?
Lylts is all, my dark, my light.

Gysbert Japicx (b. 1603)

Lyltsen  (the diminutive and enduring way of referring to Lylt), possibly Lilith. In Jewish mythology, Lilith refers to a demon in the night.

Gysbert Japicx (also Japiks; 1603–66) was a 17th century Dutch poet who wrote in Latin as well as the Frisian dialect, Friesche Rymlerye (1668; “Frisian Verse”). Japicx or Japiks spoke to his beloved Lylt in several verses.

Here is one in the original Frisian:

Lyltsen paeyde Poppe' in pea,
Dear trog trillen, lef, sijn ljea,
Fijt'! him tocht him salm t'ontrinnen.
Yn swiet mulke it 'i thauwer-poeen.
't Is klear jou-leas-nimmend'-joeen.
Dock jaen jou-nimt hert in sinnen.

And my poor translation:

Lyltsen paid Poppy in peas (the Pope in peas?)
Dear, rise up trembling, beloved, they lie
Fie! he thought his salmon escaped
In sweet cucumber, it is their point
'Tis clear to you less none do join
Yet, unless you take heart in your mind

The Nordstrand flood of 1634

Perhaps a thousand homesteads were gathered on the island of Nordstrand before the flood. Perhaps two. Over successive decades, the land had been reclaimed from the North Sea. In 1630, the Dutch government hired Jan Adriaansz Leeghwater to supervise the land-reclamation. The island had two high points, Nordstrand itself and the smaller and more westerly Pellworm. The homesteads had names: Westerwold and Osterwold, Stintebull and Konigsbull, and many others. The island was home to some 9, 000 people, farmers, cattlemen, goose and chicken ranchers. It encompassed almost 100 square miles, four times the size of our own Manhattan. More than two dozen windmills and a long dyke kept the sea at bay. A half dozen clock towers sounded out the hours during the night and summoned the holy to church on Sundays.

In the space of one night all this would change. In the evening hours of October 11-12, 1634, the sea swallowed more than half of the island, 6,123 people drowned, 1,339 farms and houses were washed away, as were 28 windmills and 6 clock towers. The estimated loss of livestock was 50,000.

Escape was a miracle, for even boats were tossed about by the wind and the waves.

A lettered man

I am not an unlettered man. I neither lack in the facility to read or write. Give me the Bible and I can read from it at length and explain its passages.

marriage certificate jan franz van husum and volkje nordstrand

I do admit that I came across this ability late in life. Then, many things came to me late in life, marriage, children, property, status and wealth.

I was, in the beginning, a sea-going man, sailing from my home, the port of Husum, Schleswig Holstein. Sometimes called we called it Friesland because of the large numbers of Hollanders who to reclaim the marsh from the sea. My wife-to-be, Volkje was one of these Hollanders, living on the island of Nordstrand. It was the Dutchman Jan Adriaansz Leeghwater who came to supervise land-reclamation using dikes and wind mills. And for a time, man conquered nature.

But I get ahead of myself. The mind wanders of an old man wanders. So much time has passed. So many memories.

My sea-going was aboard a fishing boat. We sailed the waters of the North Sea catching cod, to be dried and salted, and sold. All Europe wanted cod. Spain and Portugal wanted cod, and so did other Mediterranean buyers, such as those in Italy. It could be sold for Spanish bullion, traded for English manufactured goods. It was a profitable business, but already new fishing grounds in Newfoundland were cutting into the market. This was an area that the Spanish and the Basque were capitalizing on. And even the Dutch recognized the potential of the New World. By 1624, the colony of New Netherland was established by the Dutch West India Company grew to encompass all of present-day city of New York, but then it was called New Amsterdam, and New York, New Holland.

It was old Kiliaen van Rensselaer, a wealthy Dutch merchant, who, in 1630, set up the manor where my wife and I first came. It was the same old man who encouraged my wife and I to leave Holland in 1639, to settle on his lands as indentured laborers, to learn to red and write, to become something of ourselves in this New World.

But before we could sail for the New Holland, it was necessary that Volkje and I marry. So we did. The marriage took place in the the Nieue Kirke, a few blocks from the port where we would board ship. I recall then that minister who precided over our marriage asked Volkje and I where we were born. It was then that we answered Nordstrand and Husum, and that is how I got my name. To signify our agreement to the marriage we both signed what is called a signum manus, I with cross and line though it and Volkje with a simple cross. This was by way of practice. I knew the rudiments of writing by then, but names were not used.

There was something that caused all this to happen. I do not speak of it often for it was terrible. It took the lives of Volkje's parents and ten thousand other lives. It was a flood of Biblical proportions like the Great Flood that only Noah and his family survived.

It is hard to speak of even at this time, some 30 years later. It was the Great Flood of October 1634. Having spoken of this calamity, I will leave it for later.

An old man tires quickly.

The Last Will and Testament of Jan Fransse van Hoesen

Caveat: The names are spelled variously according to where Jan and Volkje lived. The seaport in Nordfriesland where Jan came from is now spelled Husum, and is in north Germany on the Jutland Peninsula. In Frisian the town was spelled Hüsem.Volkje's name is spelled variously, as well as her place of birth, Nordstrand, an island off the Frisian coast near Husum. Their marriage certificate in Amsterdam spells the last name Hussum. The name evolved as branches of the family got further away from New York and moved to Pennsylvania, then to North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, and Kansas.

VAN HOOSE VAN HOOSER VAN HUSS FAMILY IN AMERICA by Joyce Lindstrom

On June 5, 1662, at Claverack on the Hudson, Jan Franse Van Hoesen bought from the Mahican Indians about half the present Columbia County including the site of the city of Hudson. The purchase price was 500 guilders in beavers, although one must wonder why the Indians needed beaver and not vice versa. Then again beaver to an Indian is more meaningful as a unit of exchange than paper or metal guilders. Ref-'The Albany Protocal, pp 566-575. The tract took in three clavers and extended southward to van Slechtenhorst’s land (about two miles of river shoreline) and eastward an uurgaan,or “hour’s going” (3 miles), over to the big Claverack creek.

Two Mahicans showed up before Johannes Provoost, clerk at the court of Fort Orange and the village of Beverwijck to affirm the sale, the two Indians being: one named Pamitepiet or in Dutch Kesjen Wey, and the other Hans Vos or in Indian Tatankenat.

The Will of Jan Fransz van Hoesen and his Wife, Volkje: A Case Study by Ruth Piwonka,  HollandSociety.org Winter 2011

No one lives forever, and Jan Fransse  Van Hoesen, ten years shy of his allotted three score and ten, preceded his wife in death, executing a joint will her, possibly on the evening of the 29th or the morning of the 30th of November, 1665, when Jan passed away "at about eleven o'clock in the forenoon". The will was drafted by a notary, Van Schelluyne.

JAN FRANSSE VAN HOESEN'S WILL

In the name of God, Amen. (On this day appeared) Jan Fransz van Hoesen and Volckie Jurriaens of. van Noortstrant, husband and wife, residing in Albany (known to the undersigned witnesses), he, van Hoesen, lying abed sick and she, Volckie Jurriaens, being sound of body, but both of them being in full possession and having the full use of their faculties, mind, memory and understanding, as far as outwardly appeared and could be observed, which appears, considering the shortness and frailty of human life, the certainty of death and the uncertain hour thereof, and wishing therefore to forestall the same by proper disposition of their temporal estate to be left behind, declared that without inducement, persuasion, or misleading on the part of any one, they had made, ordained and concluded this, their joint, reciprocal and mutual last will and testament, in form and manner as follows:

First and foremost they commend their immortal souls when they shall leave their bodies to the gracious and merciful hands of God, their Creator and Redeemer, and their bodies to a Christian burial; and whereas they, the testators, acknowledge that before the date hereof they had neither jointly nor severally made or executed any testamentary disposition, legacies, donations, or other bequests whatsoever, therefore, the said testators hereby declare that they hereby nominate and institute the survivor of both of them as his or her sole heir to all the property, real and personal, claims, credits, money, gold, silver, coined or uncoined, jewels, clothing , linen, woolens, household effects, etc., nothing excepted or reserved, which he or she who dies first shall vacate at death and leave behind, to do therewith as with his or her own free property , without contradiction or gainsay by any one, provided that the survivor of the two shall be held to bringup the six minor and unmarried children, namely, JURIAEN, aged 23 years; MARYA, aged 14 years; CATARINA, aged 12 years; JOHANNES, aged 10 years; JACOB, aged 8 years; and VOLCKERT, aged 7 years, until they are of age to marry; to rear them in the fear of the Lord and to train them and have them trained in an honest trade or profession whereby in due time they may earn their living and then, when they reach their majority, to turn over them as much as their two married children, to wit, Styntie Jans and Annetie Jans, have received, or the value thereof, with which the said testators consider that the survivor of them may suffice. Therefore, the survivor of the two shall be held to bind therefor especially their real and immovable property, such as houses and lands, both the house and lot situated here near the fort and the land lying below the fort. Furthermore, the testators hereby exclude and shut out the honorable orphan-masters and ever one else from the guardianship of the aforesaid children,and the administration of their estate, not being willing that they shall meddle therewith, and in their place they nominate and appoint the survivor of both of them as guardian.

We, the undersigned, declared for the honest truth that what is hereinbefore written is the last will and desire of the aforesaid testators, stated clearly and with due understanding of its meaning by both of them, which they caused to be reduced to writing as hereinbefore stated, and that, when the writing had progressed as far as above, the testator, Jan Fransz van Hoesen, wanted to get up from his bed and sit near the fire, where, on being taken there and put in a chair, he suddenly and unexpectedly gave up the ghost and died. Actum in Albany, on Monday the 20/30th of November 1665, at about eleven o'clock in the forenoon.

Cornelus Tonisen Bos Anthony Jansz D.V. Schelluyne, Secretary

Return to Husum

If the stars align and the fates allow, my wife Robin Van Huss, her sister Laurie, and I will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, rent a car and cross the Storebælt Bridge to the Jutland Peninsula making the journey to town of Husum and nearby island of Nordstrand. These two places mark the starting points for the Van Huss family clan. What does one say about a place whose moniker is "the grey town by the sea"?

It is Home

Home to those who go by the following names: "Van Huis, Van Housen, Van Os, Van Hise, Van Ness, Van Asse, Van Hoose," according to Ancestry.com, and even Hooser without the "van". If you are from New York, then it is probably Van Hoesen or Van Heusen.

Did you know that all the land around Hudson, New York once belonged to Jan and Volkje. Only in America...

One is warned, like George Webber that "You Can't Go Back Home Again". Scorn awaits you. "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." You Can't Go Back Home Again, Thomas Wolfe.


Should my wife and her sister get past this, they face the fact that nothing is as it was. Husum was once a quait fishing village, in which their penultimate ancestor Jan Franz Van Husum  was a "Sea-going man" and his wife to be, Volkje Van Nordstrand, a simple girl living with her parents and sister Annetje on a spit of land reclaimed from the sea. What they did for a living is mere conjecture, but why not guess? It is likely they raised geese and or cattle and wheat, which they took to the markets in the south.

The First Van Huss

A few lines above I mentioned "penultimate" ancestor and named Jan Franz Van Husem. I should explain. Jan and Volkje did not get their names until they married. They married in the  Nieuwe Kerk and the registrar asked them where they came from, Jan answering, "van Husum" from Husum, and Volkje, "Nordstrand". Penultimate because Jan was asked the name of his father, Franz, who technically becomes the ultimate Van Huss.

 

 

The idyllic life for Jan and Volkje ended on the night and day of 11–12 October 1634. A storm tide rose from the North Sea and struck the coast of North Frisia overrunning the dikes built to keep back the ocean, it drowned upwards of ten thousand deaths. Much of Nordstrand was washed away, the fishing industry devastated.

If catastrophe can be the cause of celebration it is that Jan met Volkje and the two went to Amsterdam, were married, and in 1642 sailed  on a boat to America.

The summer of '43

Summer of 1943, Beaumont, Kansas

Outside Beaumont in the bottom lands, the farmers raise corn, which they call maize and primarily used as forage for cattle, in the uplands on the rocky hillsides, the cattle grow fat grazing on the rich Kansas grass. Everyone is what they call "dirt poor" meaning that one hopes for a better life for one's children.

In Beaumont, the roads are dirt and few. The horse and buggy replaced by the Tin Lizzy, but Beaumont is small and one can walk from end to end in a matter of minutes.

Bob was 13, his brother Jim was 14. They lived on Main Street in a two bedroom house. Their father Fred was a cattle trader, his mother Beulah the postmistress, his grandfather Dr. Phillips, the town doctor. City houses had electricity and phones, party lines that neighbors could listen in on. A bank took in what little money there was from the cattlemen and farmers, who loaded their cattle and crops on the steam engines that stopped at the depot at the south end of town. The depot was next to the holding pens for the cattle and the two ponds that caught the rainfall when it came.

The railroad was the reason the town existed at all. Years later, the Frisco railroad stopped running and so did the town. They took up almost all the track, leaving only a short stretch and the historic water tower that is now the town's signature piece.

Last Night

My wife and I went to dinner with her father at the Cracker Barrel last night.

Bob Van Huss was born in 1929 in Beaumont, Kansas. He was 12 years old when World War II started. He and his brother Jim saw farm boys from Beaumont go off to war. And Bob and Jim would have heard this song on the radio in 1943 while they worked the farms in place of the boys who left.

Some never came home.

Bob has seen a lot. During the war and after, the steam engine trains came through Beaumont taking troops off to training camps and to war. Bob tells the story of the time the train stopped to take on water and refuel. Jackie Robinson was on the train with other recruits. They got off for a spell and, according to Bob, Jackie ran a foot race against all comers, and won.

Bob and his brother answered the call to serve their country, both served in the Army overseas. Jim fought in Korea. Sadly, Bob now suffers from memory loss, but he is staying at the Presbyterian Manor and I am glad to say, quite happy.

On a Wing and a Prayer

On the way to the restaurant and home again Bob sang the lyrics over and over again with a smile on his face. Oh, how he sang. There were stars in his eyes. The world was in bloom. Somewhere, it was spring again. Some memories are never forgotten.

Thought you might like to hear it:

Comin' in on a wing and a prayer
Comin' in on a wing and a prayer
Though there's one motor gone
We still carry on
Comin' in on a wing and a prayer

What a show, what a fight!
Boys, we really hit our target tonight
How we sing as we limp through the air
Look below, there's our field over there
With just one motor gone
We still carry on
Comin' in on a wing and a prayer...

There are many recordings, but English vocalist Anne Shelton gives one of the best.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B69CquvLHgY