The Crazy Quilt of Life

Kansas was a magical word in the 1880’s. It had the power of a magnet. It drew people from nearly every state east of the Mississippi River. Not just the young men, but the middle-aged and old as well. Entire families left the home grounds which their fathers and grandfathers had wrested from the wilderness, making it safe and pleasant to live in such places. They turned their faces toward the vast, alluring, and untried West. It was a mass movement and such migrations have a strange power. There is a hurry to get ready. Goods are quickly turned into cash (which is usually a value much less than the goods are worth) and the precious possessions that are too heavy to take are left with relatives. On the day of departure, there are quick and tearful goodbyes. The ones leaving say, “We’re off.”
Off to what? To many people it proved to be a deceptive mirage. To the others who stuck it out, it was a journey of hardship and loneliness; one defeat after another in their conflict with the weather until at last victory was in some form achieved. If the victory was not directly for them, it was for their children who would live and adjust to the new environment.
It was September of 1882 that my father set forth with my mother, my sister Elizabeth, and myself. I was only 10 months old. He halted in Linn County, just across the Missouri boundary into Kansas. Here he rented rich land along the Big Sugar Creek and went to work. During the first year there, aunts and uncles and their families followed us, along with my grandmother and grandfather Alley. They all found it pleasant there, with good land to farm, good fishing, and good neighbors. But the winds of the rolling, treeless plains further west kept up their siren songs and my father became restless; he wanted to continue on.
One day, dear little grandmother Eliza Pumphrey Alley went to her last rest on March 22nd, 1884 at only 52 years of age. They buried her at Wesley Chapel near the village of Wallstreet. Her grave is marked and someday I hope to visit it.
There had been a very strong bond between grandmother and my mother. So now that grandmother was gone, mother gave more heed to my father’s insistence that we move further west. Accordingly, in the fall of 1884, father and mother climbed to the spring seat of the heavily loaded covered wagon and again took the westward trail. Mother, who was leaving her family, the grave of her mother, and was expecting a new baby before many weeks, was desolate. However, my father had the vigor and vision of a young man thrilled and confident of a bright future. By nature he was the very soul of cheerfulness and optimism; he continued to be until the end of his long life. He was a keen observer, alert on both political and economic matters and with his great humor he was able to make many friends, both young and old. He always made time to chat with anyone. Mother was different though. Modest and retiring she made fewer friends. But when she made them, they would be sincere ones. As the horses pulled the wagon westward, father was excited for the opportunity ahead. But mother was leaving all of her world behind.