An absence somewhat explained

Long have I been absent (or so it must seem to my one or two followers) from posting on this blog. Here I get to draw from the deck (as my husband would call it) the CANCER CARD. OK, it’s true, I was diagnosed with uterine cancer in May this year, following several months of just not feeling well. In June I had a hysterectomy (sure wish I could have photographed that, as it was robotic surgery!) In August I will have three radiation treatments, highly targeted, I’m told. Meaning few, if any, side effects – which for me add up to, “can I still ride my horses?”

I feel extremely lucky as my docs and I caught the cancer at a very early stage. And I have to add that I don’t intend in any way to minimize the scourge of cancer – so many, including close family members and friends of mine, have had to endure, treat and sometimes die from the disease. I simply don’t intend for myself to discourse at length or call it a battle. I will either survive both the cancer and the treatments, or I won’t.

If I’m honest, though, I have to admit that life also has been irritatingly interfering with my writing, so it hasn’t just been the cancer (although I probably could have gotten away with claiming just that). Working as director of programming for seniors at a hospital, running a small cabin business and trying to enjoy the many pleasures of rural life suck up a lot of time. At any rate, for the moment, I’m back!

Back in the saddle on my newest horse, 

Libby a few weeks after surgery.

August 13, 2016

Reaching Ernie

I never know whether to be impressed or depressed when I read about monumental figures who died “young” yet accomplished much.

Impressed that they could do so much in a shortened lifespan. Jesus Christ, age 32; Wolfgang Mozart, age 35; prolific author Jack London, age 40; Princess Diana, age 36; John F. Kennedy, age 46; U.S. Army Officer, Captain Henry T. Waskow, 25. Of course, Ernie Pyle, age 44. And so many, many more.

Depressed that at age 74 I feel my accomplishments so much more diluted. Like wine weakened with water of which the ancient Greeks were so fond. The wine and accomplishments began at full strength. But diluted, wine, like accomplishments attained over a broader span of life, do not seem as spirited or full-bodied as the undiluted versions.

Ernest Taylor Pyle is of the impressive sort – a life lived quickly, heartily and then over. By the time he died as a non-combatant in World War II, Ernie had written millions of words and many of those words ended up between the covers of books.

His wartime writings are preserved in four books: Ernie Pyle In England, Here Is Your War, Brave Men and Last Chapter. Many more books, such as Home Country, have Ernie’s name as author and he certainly is the author of these books, which are a compilation of the numerous stories he wrote as a journalist. Other collections of Ernie’s writings include Ernie’s America, The Best of Ernie Pyle’s 1930s Travel Dispatches, compiled by David Nichols in 1989, and At Home with Ernie Pyle, compiled by Owen V. Johnson in 2016.

If this latest book’s date seems surprising – in that interest in a newspaper correspondent dead for more than seven decades still elicits enough interest for an author to invest time in creating yet another book about him – you have not yet grasped that Ernie has a large following in this century. That book’s author, Johnson, is a journalism associate professor emeritus at The Media School, Indiana University Bloomington. Johnson  developed the course “In the Footsteps of Ernie Pyle,” and is author of historical columns and research papers focused on Pyle.

If you need further proof that Ernie’s essence is alive and well, check out the Facebook group, Friends of Ernie Pyle, which has a following that posts frequent messages and photos. In a recent posting you will find that a documentary is planned by Pyle scholars. The group is applying for scholarships and grants to fund the project, which may cost a half-million dollars.

I have purchased and am reading a few of Pyle’s books, currently Ernie Pyle In England. I’m simultaneously reading Ernie’s America, The Best of Ernie Pyle’s 1930s Travel Dispatches, Home Country, and At Home with Ernie Pyle. There is also a small collection of Pyle’s writings gathered in a booklet, Images of Brown County, that can be purchased at The Ernie Pyle WWII Museum in Dana, Indiana. If it seems I’m getting hooked on Pyle and his writing, I guess it’s because I am. In David Nichol’s introduction he mentions noticing that his grandparents always turned to Pyle’s column after reading the news in their paper. Nichol says he doesn’t know what his grandparents thought about Pyle’s writing, but he thought they must have enjoyed the columns because they always read them. That made me think of my father and his voracious reading habits. I can imagine my dad, and probably also my mom, reading Pyle’s columns regularly and I can hear in my head how my dad would have laughed or how he would have repeated a story to his buddies.

But, like so many readers of Pyle’s columns I think I just feel that strong connection to someone who really “gets it.” And after nearly three-quarters of a century, his writing has both a contemporary feel (what ever really changes?) and gives a glimpse into the realities of life in the 1930s and 1940s.

As this blog flowed from keyboard to computer screen it has taken turns I did not plan for or expect. I wanted to describe how Lyla and I came to Ernie’s home farm and prowled around it, completely alone. And that is what we did.

The road to the farm.

The Mound, where the Pyle farm was 

located on the left.

It was the second day of our six-week trip last summer. The sky was a hot blue and Lyla and I were both feeling a bit unsettled. We were still close enough to our southeastern Ohio home that I could have turned tail and pulled down our long rural driveway in less than 8 hours. The tug of that comfortable existence was like a rubber band that would have to be stretched a few hundred more miles before it would break and free the two of us to our solitary existence on the road.

Following hints from others who knew where the former Pyle farm is located, I had no trouble recognizing landmarks and finding the acreage. But other than knowing I would see a slight rise on this platform-like land and a grove of “very big trees,” I had no idea what to expect. I did know the house is gone and that there might be a few outbuildings.

I did not expect a partially-overgrown field with the faint outline of a driveway that had been mowed at least once that season. I did not expect the complete silence of a country road – no nearby neighbors would even notice our arrival. (At this point I should add that I did not feel I was trespassing, due to comments that led me to believe visiting was not discouraged.) 

I was glad for the solitude, for I am that sort of person who enjoys her own company. Not always, but often. And, especially when I want to think.

An overgrown driveway leads into the old Pyle farm.

An old shed sits alone amongst the weeds.

A tree seems to find the interior of the shed homey.

I parked our van a few hundred feet up the trace of driveway, hoping any recent rains had not left the ground too soft. As I stepped onto the course grasses and slid open the door for Lyla, I immediately felt at home. More, I felt I already knew Ernie. I grew up in the countryside most of my young life and fully embraced all the pleasures that come with the solitary life of a country kid. Unlike Ernie, for me living in the country has been a life-long passion and only rarely, and of great necessity, have I lived where neighbors can hear you flush the toilet.

Lyla surveys the Pyle farm.

For about an hour, Lyla and I had the pleasure of exploring the small acreage that is left of the Pyle farm. Here is some of what I wrote in my blog July 21, 2015.

“(On the way to Dana) We made a small detour because we saw a sign that said “Ernie Pyle School.” I expected an old one-room affair with a memorial sign out front, but it is actually the real school used by today’s young Indianan farm kids. It’s nice that they named it after Ernie. I hope those who want to go to college get to, but I also hope some stay on the farm, because without them we would get very hungry.

The Ernie Pyle school, 2015

Finally, down the lonesome road so accurately described to me, I found what the locals call “the mound.” It’s a slight rise in the otherwise pancake-flat land with the ruler-straight roads, and on it is a lovely group of very old and some younger trees. Two ancient outbuildings whose window-less windows frame the pretty trees, lean in on themselves. It was very easy to imagine the blacksnakes and the hornet’s nest waiting inside the buildings to startle intruders (which I was not).

Mosquitoes buzzed my ears and I anointed myself with repellent, but they still followed, creating a small haze around my head. Then, as I approached the bare area where I knew the house had to have been (they say it burned down), the insects mysteriously disappeared. It was about that time that I began to feel watched over in a good way, as if Ernie appreciated my appreciation. I hope I am correct that his mother is the one who planted all the flowers that lined the edges of the house site – of course they are still there, reappearing year after year. Day lilies, a rose of some sort (pin rose?), lacy blue and white flowers.

Did Ernie climb this tree?

A huge tree near the end of the drive was forked part way up and I could imagine a young boy climbing that same tree a hundred years ago. The boy would have looked down on the ancestors of the Queen Ann’s Lace that festoons the ground at the base of the tree and out at the acres and acres of corn, soybeans and other crops that grew in all directions then and today. And he would have appreciated them and he would have growing in his mind the thought that the world is big and that in it were stories to tell.”

Since I wrote those words I have done a bit of research about crops of the early 1900s and doubt that soybeans were planted in the Pyle fields at that time, as they were not a popular crop in the U.S. until the 1940s.

Looking across a present-day soybean field at the back of the former Pyle farm. Dana is in the far distance.

I have also read a number of Ernie’s “dispatches” as well as commentary from those who have performed marvelous research and pulled his millions of words into cohesive books. I’m impressed with the most recently published book, At Home with Ernie Pyle. Researcher and editor Johnson has done an astounding job of ferreting out columns of Ernie’s that have some reference to his home state, Indiana. Johnson’s 22-page introduction is especially intriguing background of Ernie’s early and later connections to Dana, as well as providing information not found elsewhere about his long relationship and marriage to Geraldine Siebolds, referred to by Ernie as “That Girl.” Also from Johnson’s book I learned that Pyle’s Dana neighbors, Howard and Ella Goforth purchased the Pyle farm after the elder Pyle died and that descendants of the family tore down the house in this century.

My hour wandering Ernie’s farmland last summer spawned many small imaginings about his early life there. The At Home book has managed to fill in those mind scenes with some very tangible imagery. Plus, it helps that, although I wasn’t born until Ernie was 41, many of his youthful experiences were still very much in practice during my young years in the 1940s. White bread spread with butter and sprinkled with white sugar was considered an actual lunch! (Page 35, Ernie’s mother brings him a lunch of bread and butter and sugar the first day he drove a team of horses in the fields at age 9.) In 1938 Ernie’s parents, still on the farm, had electricity and running water, but the phone was a “party line” (page 58). Ernie could remember who had the various “rings” – theirs was three shorts. As late as the 1950s, our phone was also a party line. It was considered courteous to hang up if you picked up the receiver and heard someone talking. But, of course, not everyone was courteous and even if you were, there might be a snatch of conversation that would turn into the week’s gossip.

To say that I’ve become obsessed with Ernie and his writing might be a stretch – I still get up in the morning and do a zillion things besides reading and thinking about Ernie, his life, his legacy. But I keep wandering mentally back to that mosquito-infested, prairie-like farm, where, thanks to one photo in Johnson’s book, I can now envision the home where Ernie spent all those long winter evenings and slow summer days. The falling-in buildings have taken on new meaning as I visualize Ernie’s dad driving their car into a shed and a moment later a wagon somehow coming crash-bang out one end and into a gravel pit (page 34). I have a photo of an old concrete post with a big iron ring stuck in it, such as one would use to tie a horse. I have another photo of an old decorative mailbox post in front of the farm.

Was this the Pyle mailbox post?

Flowers still bloom around the old Pyle homesite.

An old concrete post with an iron ring at the front of the Pyle
farm appears to be a hitching post for horses.

And then there are the flowers. They should be in bloom right now, outlining where I think the house sat, just as they were when Lyla and I walked the land on July 19, 2015. And I really want to believe that Ernie’s mom and his Aunt Mary planted and tended their predecessors.

Postscript: Lyla and I did also tour Ernie’s birth home (which is a different house than the one on the farm where he spent his growing-up years) and the World War II museum three miles away in Dana. Both are well worth visiting. The house has been beautifully restored and offers more wonderful imagery (right down to a couch Ernie may have hidden behind to escape being kissed after his Aunt Mary’s wedding). As for the museum—well carry a tissue! As with so many smaller and struggling museums/historical sites, this one is kept open by volunteers who dedicate much time to helping preserve important history.

Downtown Dana during a visit in 2014.

Near the Pyle museum.

Lyla took note of the dog on the sandy 

beach depicted in the Pyle museum.

The path to finding Ernie, part I

Reader alert: this blog is a bit rambling, but if you choose to read it all you may find some interesting, educational, emotional and perhaps even amusing information.

One of the touchstones of my journey was to revisit the Ernie Pyle home and museum in Dana, Indiana. A year before, my husband, Don, and I visited it as an extension of a trip to spend a couple of days with my brother, Don, and his wife, Vicki in Henderson, Kentucky. My interest in Ernie was piqued when I read a book written by long-time friend, Sharon Hatfield. Her book, Never Seen the Moon, The Trials of Edith Maxwell is the true tale of a free-spirited young woman accused of murdering her alcoholic father in 1935 in the tiny town of Pound, in Wise County, Virginia. Pound is within spittin’ distance of the Kentucky border, in that narrow southwestern part of Virginia where the state just sort of peters out as it is squeezed between Kentucky and Tennessee. In the 1970s Sharon spent time as a young journalist covering stories in the same Wise County Circuit Courtroom in which Edith was tried.

In her book Sharon mentions that Ernie also spent time in Pound, talking with residents and principals involved in the infamous trial. This was during the five-year period when Ernie scratched about the United States unearthing stories about everyday women and men. After working at a desk job for Scripps-Howard for three years, Ernie couldn’t sit still any longer. He convinced his newspaper, The Washington Daily News, to let him “cross the road and see what was on the other side.” His promise of six columns a week was amply fulfilled, published regularly in The Washington Daily News and made available to 23 other Scripps-Howard newspapers.

Numerous national media venues had produced stories about the trial and the subsequent imprisonment of Edith Maxwell. It seems that quite often Pound and Wise County inhabitants were portrayed as quaint, backwoods hillbillies, who embraced a “mountain code” that allowed the beating of grown children (and presumably wives) and who were just plain mean, cantankerous folk.

Ernie was one of the most beloved and respected traveling journalists during the 1930s and well known for his downhome ways. According to Sharon, Ernie arrived in Pound “admittedly skittish,” since his newspaper had already reported that Pound was a “hard, suspicious place.” Still, he waded into a group of men, some of whom were erecting a building and the lot of which were loafing and watching.  He said to an elderly carpenter named Lee Greear, “I’ve heard that Pound isn’t a very friendly place for reporters. But here I am, so go ahead and shoot if you must.”

Instead of getting shot, Ernie got interviews and a real insider’s view of the people of Pound, common folk like Ernie, common folk such as you meet if you travel anywhere.

Just as famously, Ernie was a World War II correspondent beyond comparison. I had always admired his work and I was curious about his early life.

Knowing that Pyle had grown up only one state border away from my Ohio hometown and that there was a museum, childhood home and farm to explore, I had to see it for myself. Having visited the museum in 2014, I decided Dana would be the perfect launchsite for my exploration of the twenty-first century United States and citizens. But more than visiting the museum and house again, I wanted to walk on the soil where young Ernie lived the mostly solitary life of a farming family. I wanted to soak in the very atoms he had breathed.

So it was that the second day of our trip Lyla and I made our way to the far western side of Indiana. We had stayed in a multi-story motel in Terre Haute the night before and Lyla had her first elevator ride (four stories) up to our room. She handled the disturbance of sudden gravity shifts exceedingly well and even had the presence of mind to cordially (though politely) greet other elevator riders.

The next morning, as we took the road toward Dana, we experienced an exercise in contrast to the peaceful fields we were headed for in that farming area. A half-hour or so before we reached the outskirts of Dana, a tiny town of about 600 souls, we were “treated” to a very noisy burst of go-kart racing in Clinton. With a population just shy of 5,000, Clinton was founded in 1829 and named after former New York governor DeWitt Clinton. Italian immigrants made up almost a third of the early settlers, who mostly came to work as coal miners.

According to a Wikipedia entry Clinton hosts an annual Little Italy Festival, a four-day Labor Day Weekend celebration of the area’s Italian and coal mining heritage. If you’ve ever wanted to stain your feet purple by stomping grapes (ala, Lucille Ball Ricardo, but maybe without a fistful of grapes in your face), apparently you can do so at this festival, which also features Italian and carnival-style food, and a grapevine-roofed wine garden. And what annual town festival is complete without free stage entertainment? This festival also boasts the largest Italian-theme parade in the Midwest. Want to experience the Indiana Bocce Ball championship, or see one of the few coal mining museums in the nation as well as one of fewer than 400 genuine gondolas in the United States? Clinton is your destination!

Notable people who were born, lived or died in Clinton include:

•       Charles Edward Jones, an astronautical engineer who was killed aboard American Airlines Flight 11 in the September 11, 2001 terrorists attacks (in December 1986 Jones had been scheduled to go into space on mission STS-71-B , but the mission was cancelled after the Challenger Disaster in January 1986).
•       Ken Kercheval, an actor best known for his role as Cliff Barnes on the television series Dallas.
•       Serial killer Orville Lynn Majors, a licensed practical nurse at the Vermillion County Hospital, now known as Union Hospital, who was convicted in October 1999 of six counts of first-degree murder. Although convicted of killing six hospital patients, the exact number is unknown and may be as high as 130. He was sentenced to 360 years in prison.
•       Henry D. Washburn, who practiced law in Newport, Indiana, then became a Civil War general, U.S. Congressman and explorer. As surveyor-general of the Montana Territory in 1870 he led the first government survey – the Washburn—Langford—Doane Expedition – of what would become Yellowstone National Park. Mount Washburn in the park is named after Henry D.

And, as I discovered, yet one more attraction brings folk in from the countryside to Clinton — although go-kart racing is not exactly mentioned in the Wikipedia entry.

Racers and helpers can easily push go-karts.

I was getting used to following directions dictated to me by the female voice of my new GPS system and trying my best to follow her advice to navigate through this medium-size town next to the Wabash River.

I don’t usually name inanimate objects in my life and I didn’t name “her” then, but now it occurs to me that the perfect name is “Female,” which I think I will address her as throughout these pages. This would be pronounced “fee-mal-ee” and it comes from an old story from my mother-in-law, Winny, who was an elementary school teacher among many other careers. She once had a student with the name Female. When she had a chance to gently ask the origin of the name (pronounced as above), she was told that when her mother, who had not chosen a name for the infant, received the birth certificate, she sighed relief that a name had already been chosen, for there on the certificate was the official “Female.”

And so my nav system is now referred to as Female, with the above pronunciation, please. Now I am at heart a map person. I LOVE maps! There is something ancient and viceral about spreading out a three-foot piece of paper with varying colors of lines for different kinds of roadways and blocks of colors to designate our notions of geographical divisions such as states or provinces. If you think about it mammals, birds, insects, fish, all have mental maps – how to find the nearest waterhole or food, where a sheltered spot may be. Native Americans are said to have had signal trees – trees they bent as saplings to point to places of interest. Petroglyphs may have also provided directions. Deer and other forest animals wear out the earth underfoot to produce easily-followed trails (even our dogs have trails they have made through our yard which they run on over and over as they chase toward a disappearing deer tail beyond the fence). Birds follow their own internal mapping system to fly thousands of miles to wintering or breeding grounds. Fish follow ancient urges to return to spawning grounds. Even insects, such as ants, use sun and shadows to “map” their way to food and home again.

In a recent newspaper article I was again reminded that any number of people have over-trusted their in-car nav systems onto deserted desert roads, into oceans and off cliffs. The article suggested that folks today may have eroded their “cognitive maps” because they are not processing information used to move through our landscape. In fact, I have noticed that most younger people do not know how to read a map and may have never even seen one.

While I embrace learning new technology, my relationship with Female was one of uneasy trust – the front seat next to me was loaded with maps of all states I would visit, an atlas and a couple of versions of United States maps as well as some regional maps I picked up along the way. And yes, I usually refold them accurately again for storage.

The Wabash River flooding at Clinton, Indiana

The Wabash River, which we got to see multiple times because of the routing situation in Clinton, was running brown and more than bank-full, thanks to plentiful rain during July in this area. In a small park along the river, trees that should have been handy for males dogs to spray on, were instead awash with flood waters. We got to see it over and over not because Female was malfunctioning, but because the route we needed to proceed on was blocked by multiple emergency vehicles. Firetrucks, medic vans, police cars. I was sure we had stumbled into a major fire or crime scene and was watching carefully to make sure I made all the detours required. Unfortunately, the detours circled a downtown area repeatedly, and with Female shrilling in my ears and several versions of police vehicles blocking the way I was a bit unnerved.

One thing I have learned about driving in an unfamiliar area is that after several passes you start to have a feel for the topography, whether that be streets, back roads or interstate highways. As a passenger in a car, that doesn’t happen so easily. At any rate, after seeing the same police cruisers, ambulances and fire trucks a half-dozen times (and knowing they had observed me) I widened my circle and discovered an obscure roadway that actually led out of town. It also led to the staging area of the go-kart racers.

Ok, I told myself, I have said I will be spontaneous on this trip. So, although go-kart racing is not a passion of mine, I parked in a small field near railroad tracks to have a short explore. As I stepped from the van a group of women approached holding out a small plastic bag with two homemade cinnamon cookies, which they pressed into my hand. With a friendly smile they suggested I have a blessed day. The cookie package label explained why they didn’t keep their hands out for a donation: “God Loves You! Clinton United Methodist Church.”

When I first saw the tiny racing cars I imagined they were toys for kids. The wheels were the size of a midget car hubcab. With about one inch of ground clearance, the miniscule three-foot-long vehicles didn’t even look big enough to house an engine. As it turned out, an engine, steering wheel and seat is about all there is to a go-kart. According to a couple of fellows changing tires on a go-kart (since it looked like rain was imminent the tires had to be quickly switched) one could pay just about anything for the privilege of sitting a couple of inches in front of an engine that sounds like a locomotive approaching a crossing. $3K, 5K, 10K. These fellows, by the way, looked as if their legs would fit better in a full-size 1950s Cadillac.

Drivers change tires on a go-kart as rain approaches.

Almost immediately, Lyla and I faced the challenge of passing a car with a hound hidden beneath staring balefully at us. We managed to circumvent the sourpuss dog and headed toward the “track,” which it turned out was several downtown blocks of roadway and which also explained why streets were blocked. Given the presence of so many emergency vehicles I expected to begin seeing pileups immediately. Rectangular foam blocks about 18-inches high lined the race course, flanked by orange snow fence to keep spectators back. To my left, young children braved the edge of the snow fence to get a better view of the racers skidding around the city street corners and to my right a family of mom-with-baby-strapped-to-her-chest, dad and three young ones leaned against a substantial brick building – downtown Clinton is designated a Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

Lyla endures go-kart racing

I tucked Lyla into a doorway alcove, vowing to stay for only one or two races in order to spare her ears. She didn’t complain, but with each passing blast of sound I felt more guilty about her having to endure the discomfort. Within a few minutes a child driver (it turned out there were races for both children and adults) spun out of a corner turn and upset his go-kart against a barrier a few feet from us. Emergency personnel swarmed the scene, helped the unhurt driver to his feet and lifted his vehicle out of the raceway.

The race is on!

Spectators of all sizes watch the races.

Having seen enough of how a portion of my fellow citizens choose to spend a Sunday afternoon by consuming gas, making a lot of noise and closing city streets I decided to get underway to my real destination – Dana. But Lyla and I still had to traverse the course of the hidden hound, who was tied to the axle of the vehicle parked by our van. We practiced our “look-at-me” game from about 50 feet away and were finally successful in getting back into the van without incident.

The “look-at-me” game was one of many strategies taught to us by Shana, the Ohio State University Veterinary College animal behaviorist Lyla and I worked with for several months before our trip. Using “high-value” treats the dog’s person asks the dog to look at them, whereupon the dog then receives the treat. (I’ve been told the treat is not “high value” if it doesn’t make your hands slimy and almost gags you. One of Lyla’s favorite is cooked beef or chicken, but because we were on the road with limited cooling containers, I opted for the tastiest packaged dog treats I could find.) The object is to teach the dog to refocus on something other than what is worrying him or her. It takes a lot of practice and patience, but we had done it numerous times and it helped in situations like this.

Next: we finally reach our destination – the Ernie Pyle farm and homestead in Dana.

Getting to know you

When I travel I usually buy a newspaper in towns where I stop for meals or to stay overnight. To me, a sense of the community can be found in every part of a newspaper, from the news stories to the photos to the advertisements (disclaimer – I worked for newspapers as a writer and photographer for ten years). I have also been a news junkie ever since I picked up my first comic book at about age 5. I still cannot understand people who read only certain sections of the newspaper, and especially those who skip the comics (ok, another disclaimer – I am not particularly hooked on reading the sports sections, but sometimes I do just to get a feel for what interests other people).

Usually, I read newspapers from front to back (same with magazines and books). Even when stories “jump” to another page, I make myself wait until I get to page 3 or 5 before I am allowed to continue the story. That’s not to say I read each and every article, but given time on my hands, I will read the most mundane stories. “Legion installs officers” or “Harlan Hall planning a talent show” are just two from The Prairie Press, a free newspaper I picked up in Paris, Illinois. Having worked for two family-owned newspapers (and then seen them morphed into giant company-owned rags), I am always interested in just who publishes a newspaper. The Prairie Press is one of those rarest of newspaper breeds to be found today – a locally-owned newspaper! Here is the “about us” statement on the newspaper’s website:

“The Prairie Press is delivered, free of charge, to every mailbox in Edgar County, Ill., each Thursday. The Prairie Press was created in 2014 as the only locally owned media outlet — newspaper, radio or TV — in Edgar County. The newspaper’s name is a tribute to the county’s history, as Edgar is on the edge of the region known as the Grand Prairie.

As a modern newsroom, we are part of a never-ending conversation with this community. Our reporters and editors are ready to listen to our audience — and encourage readers to share their thoughts and dreams.”

I can only applaud the owners, for operating a small weekly in today’s competitive newspaper world is brave and not usually well-compensated. On the opinion page the editorial board is listed as Taylor M. Smith III, publisher and president, Nancy Roberts Zeman, editor and vice-president and Gary Henry, staff writer. In future blogs and in the book I am writing about my travels I’ll tell about the Weston County Gazette, established in Newcastle, Wyoming in 1912 and still publishing today in Upton, Wyoming. I may also touch on The Free Paper, which my husband and I established in Logan, Ohio in 1987. Still remembered today by many locals, The Free Paper published for nine whole months, then was trampled to earth by advertisers when an opinion column didn’t suit the fancy of some folks.

In the edition of The Prairie Press printed for the week of Thursday, July 16, 2015, the lead article is titled “Farm values changing.” In the article one can learn about widespread concern among local farmers because of a change to the Farmland Assessment Act of 1977. The story addressed a very complicated issue about valuing farmland based on a formula factoring in commodity prices, input costs, interest rates, productivity, land use and – of all things – soil types! In Illinois there are more than 900 soil types, according to the story.

Other local news covered a school district’s financial shortfall, the beginning of the county fair, the merger of the local hospital with a larger hospital organization, the retirement of Dr. Reid Sutton from 38 years of practice, a traffic accident, and the search for an arsonist who wandered through a home (according to security system photos) and allegedly started a fire in a pile of clothing on a child’s bed.

One of my favorite sections is always the police and fire reports –  in this newspaper, it is titled the “Siren Report.” Not surprisingly, this included reports of traffic arrests for speeding and failure to stop at an intersection; disorderly conduct; domestic battery; and drug possession. The county sheriff’s department reported the demise of deer in three separate encounters with cars. The fire department responded to several medical assistance calls; a car fire in which some poor soul lost a 1993 Volvo, which was totally incinerated; and a traffic accident where firefighters simply needed to check vehicles for hazards and stand by until wreckers cleared the scene.

The court news covered the details of those in custody, those who faced charges, and those who had entered guilty or not-guilty pleas, as well as 15 people who were being sought on arrest warrants.

The always-popular (to read, that is) Opinion Page offered an editorial about why the local hospital will benefit from joining a rural alliance; an editorial by publisher Taylor Smith about checking the facts in politics – he recommends politifact.com, where political claims are ranked as “True,” Mostly True,” “Half True,” “Mostly False,” “False,” and “Pants on Fire.” A project of the Tampa Bay Times, politifact.com was particularly interesting to me in this election year.

The biggest sports news was that the Paris, Illinois U15 Babe Ruth League Baseball team won its second straight Babe Ruth League Southern Illinois State Championship.

Of course there were ads galore (my husband and I discovered too late that’s the only way to keep a free paper going). Ads for hearing aids, mattresses, karate lessons, restaurants, auto sales, food markets, insurance agencies and so forth. These are the lifeblood of a newspaper and kudos to both those who buy and sell advertisements!

Disappointingly, The Prairie Press carried no classified ads or comics, but at least there were plenty of entries in my second favorite section, the OBITUARIES. And that is actually why I began this particular blog. By reading the newspaper, the portrait of a community can be painted as easily as applying colored oils to those long-ago, paint-by-number pictures. But the most important color to apply is the one about people who lived their lives in the community and now will be buried there. In The Prairie Press of July 16, 2015, there were five obituaries (and, I have to point out, two funeral home advertisements at the bottom of that page). Each obituary offered information about former community members.

One stood out for me: Doris Lorenzen Westfall, who died June 28, 2015 at age 96. Westfall was born in 1918 in Foosland, Illinois, a tiny village with a population today of about 100. Settled by William Foos in the 1840s, the town wasn’t incorporated until 1959. Today it has a post office, bank and fire station.

The oldest of six children, according to the obituary, Westfall had been heard commenting that she was her father’s first son because she often drove a team of horses to help with the daily farm work. At the age of 24 she graduated from what was in 1942 the St. Elizabeth School of Nursing in Danville, Illinois.

Westfall’s obituary said, “In addition to her caregiving skills as a nurse, she was profoundly committed to preserving the native environment she knew as a young child and lifelong resident of central Illinois. Mrs. Westfall committed hundreds of hours of her time and enlisted many friends – including the nuns at St. Elizabeth in their habits – to save special places.”

One project protected an area from development and restored native prairies, in particular the prairie at Forest Glen County Preserve, which was named the Doris L. Westfall Nature Preserve. According to the Vermilion County Conservation District website, (vccd.org) Forest Glen Preserve is an 1,800-acre nature preserve in McKendree Township in Vermilion County, Illinois.

Forest Glen Preserve has an extensive botanical listing and is rated third in the state for the number of different botanical species. The Doris L. Westfall Nature Preserve has 100 native prairie plants with Vermilion County seed origin. The 40-acre prairie is dominated by the tall grasses of Indian grass and Big bluestem, as well as Indian paintbrush, puccoon, purple gentian and Illinois bundleflower. A prairie garden plot is available to help visitors identify the many prairie plants.

Westfall received other recognitions, such as the 1990 Conservationist of the Year by the Illinois Wildlife Federation, and she was invited to Washington D.C. to accept the National Chevron Conservation Award.

Now having never met Doris, can’t you just picture her from this brief description of her life? Here’s my image:

As a child, the pigtailed Doris, standing (probably barefooted) on an upturned bucket to reach heavy harness onto the backs of draft horses, then following them down row after row of heavily-scented, plowed dirt. Noticing the spring flowers lining the fields and the birds overhead noisily competing for nesting rights. Bringing the sweaty horses back to the barn after a hard day of work and unharnessing and feeding them hay and grain. Then, because she was the oldest (I know of this from experience!) returning to the house to help with evening chores of cooking, mending and tending to the younger children.

As a teenager, loving school and studying hard to qualify for nursing school, making it through the Great Depression with her family on the farm. Then, studying for her nursing degree as the world turned upside down with a second world war and people all around her were being sent off to fight a war for which no one had asked. Beginning her nursing career when soldiers were returning home, some with injuries or scarred emotions that would last their lifetimes.

As a grown woman, marrying the love of her life (her husband, Robert E. “Bob” Westfall died in 2001), and birthing and raising two children. Since her funeral service was at the Trinity Lutheran Church, I can also visualize Doris and her family attending services there. Eventually Doris would be a grandmother too, to eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. The obituary said “she treasured” her three sisters, two brothers and many nieces, nephews and their families. This speaks to me of holiday gatherings, as well as extended visits with grandma or Aunt Doris, probably visits such as my large family constantly had while I was growing up. (How I loved visiting Aunt Phoebe’s farm – I still remember walking barefoot to the pond to see the bullfrogs and then picking ticks from our hair when we returned to the sweet-smelling kitchen.)

Since about one-third of her obituary was taken by her work as a conservationist, I can see Doris as a woman consumed by her love of the outdoors and dedicated to teaching her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews and many others about the importance of preserving large swaths of the lands we have so abundantly used and too often abused. She even conscripted the nursing school nuns (working in their long, dark habits) to labor in the prairie restoration efforts. Can’t you just see them all out there – Doris, the children, the nuns – walking through the prairie of long grasses and bright flowers, bending to touch the earth and encourage yet more growth?

“A prairie is an investment in eternity,” is a quote from the spokesperson for the Vermilion County Audubon Society at the dedication of the Doris L. Westfall Nature Preserve. What a fitting epitaph for a woman who contributed so greatly during her 96 years of life in central Illinois.

And I know about Doris because someone took the time to tell us a little about her in her obituary.

Lyla and her nose remember

Emma and I have returned from a “walk” in the woods – for us it was a more of a race, up and down our steep hills, splashing through streams, crunching in the fallen leaves – and as usual when we returned to the warmth of our house we fell dead asleep. Fif (Friend I Follow) was stretched out on the couch drinking a potent-smelling tea and reading a book. I heard her mention to Ef (Emma's Friend) later that evening that my feet were still running as I dreamed in front of the cozy fire.

Here's Emma (on the left) and me taking a short break.

But it wasn’t rabbits or squirrels I was chasing in my dreams. It was memories from last summer. My feet probably were twitching because much of the trip I was pretty agitated. But I’ve already described how there were strange dogs and new dog smells everywhere we went and how much they disturbed my sense of well-being. What I may not have mentioned yet was some of the other amazing and sometimes disturbing smells, sounds and sensations.

The very first night we stayed in a motel where we had to get in a very small room before we arrived at our room with the bed. Fif pushed a button on a wall and suddenly my tummy shifted violently as the floor of the tiny room pushed at my feet. Later, when we went back outside, we had to enter the tiny room again and this time my tummy went up to my backbone and for just an instant I thought my feet had left the floor. I actually handled all this very well, particularly as there were strange people pressed all around and I surely didn’t want to upchuck on anyone’s shoes, especially since they kept telling me and Fif how beautiful I was. So I put on my best grin and after two or three times got quite used to the funny sensation.

Fif and me and my incredible nose.

It appears that humans cannot smell, see or hear much of what we dogs do. For example, I could smell where all the people who were in that tiny room that lurched my tummy had been that day. But, I could also smell where they had been for the past several days. The  odors coming from their shoes was quite overwhelming, but their clothing also reeked of everything from food smells to gasoline to other people and things they had come close to in the past few days. I could pick out big random odors of dogs, suitcases, car tires (which smell of much more than rubber) and so forth. But since I can smell thousands of times better than a human I could also smell, for example, if a certain human’s suitcase contained clean clothes and/or dirty clothes. If the clothes were clean I could tell if they had been washed in detergent with or without fragrance. If they were dirty (much more interesting) I could tell if they had food stains, had been worn on the beach, fishing or horseback riding. I could tell if the person had had sexual relations recently or been smoking. And on and on.

I don’t mess around with computers, but here is something Fif said to have my readers refer to if you want to learn more about how my world while traveling was so overpoweringly full of smell.

(This article is by Peter Tyson, former editor in chief of Nova Online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/dogs-sense-of-smell.html. Alexandra Horowitz’s book, Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know is cited in the article. That book went with us on our journey last summer and was referred to many times.)

Here are just a few of the big and little smells I encountered during our six-and-a-half week’s journey:

Water– lakes (some so big I couldn’t see across them); streams, rivers (both dry and flooded); ponds; lakes; puddles; the salty ocean (which I wasn’t too thrilled about); rain; snow; and water with lots of different chemical stuff in it in motels, houses and restrooms.

This was Shell Lake in Wisconsin and in the direction I'm looking we were told that
black bears had been romping on the beach a couple of nights previously.
Do you think I could smell them?

Food – this of course is a huge category, but some highlights include the delicious smells of food Fif was eating and I usually got to sample (I even got my own personal hamburger on a number of occasions); items I consider food but Fif steered me away from, such as cow and horse poop at a fairgrounds where we walked; odors of food wafting down motel hallways or seeping through walls from the units around us; and smells of my dry dog kibble, which wasn’t all that appealing until about the third day on the road.

Air – I would venture to say that humans don’t pay much attention to the smell of air, unless it is really bad air. But to a dog air is the avenue to every other odor. There is the smell of indoor air and outdoor air, the smell of air that has traveled over water and air that has come from mountains and from forests and across deserts. Sometimes air smells of impending storms. The air in our van had vast and enormous smells and I even heard Fif say she was getting sick of the smell of moldy bread and dirty clothes. Several times I got to smell museum air. In one museum there was a “man” dressed in a military uniform. After he didn’t move even when I put my nose on his leg I realized he wasn’t a real human. But the clothes he wore had been somewhere very scary. I could smell human fear on the clothes, which I could also tell were very old.

People – every single human I’ve ever seen or met has a unique smell. That is why if I get separated from Fif on a woods walk at the farm I can easily pick out her trail and find her in a flash. She says she has watched me track her and even when I’m in sight of her I don’t look up, just keep my nose to the ground and fly along. I at least attempt to catalog people smells and that really took some doing as we traveled. No sooner would I store away a smell than we would be on the road and never see that person again. Sometimes, though, we would stay somewhere a couple of days and I was much happier because my smell memory could be useful.

Dogs – as mentioned before, they are without number. And, as with people, each has a distinct odor. The only two dogs I got to continue an association with after first smell was when we visited a family in Bakersfield. At first when I was let loose in a small back yard with very tall walls I criss-crossed the yard at top speed, frantically sucking up thousands of smells. I even ran across (only once) a very spongy thing that later turned out to be a tarp across a swimming pool. Since we were there for three days I eventually just got very curious about the other two dogs who obviously lived there. I wanted to meet them (and then decide whether to eat them or just be friends), but I wasn’t scared of them like I was of so many others. Unfortunately, Fif and her friends decided not to risk an encounter (something about one dog being old – I knew that – and the other being small – I knew that too.

These children are searching for prairie dogs in a "town" the critters built in a park in
North Dakota. Their homes are in holes -- I could have shown them exactly where to look!

Other animals – again, without number. Some were very familiar – raccoons, skunks, opossums, snakes, and so forth. When we camped at a big lake the ranger warned Fif not to let me loose because there were porcupines. She showed us a photo of a dog with hundreds of quills in his poor nose – I bet that nose had some smelling issues for awhile. At one motel there were wild bunnies everywhere. I could not only smell them constantly, but I could smell where their dens were and tell you how many babies were hunched inside. At another motel many elk grazed all night on the lawn in front. I was particularly interested in their droppings, but again wasn’t allowed to taste. Once while we were walking alone in a forest I stopped in my tracks and stared into the top of some trees. I didn’t bark, but was VERY quiet. Of course Fif looked up too and she quickly realized what I already knew. Something very big and black had been there pretty recently. We made a quick trip back to the van.

Motel rooms – loaded with odors! Humans and dogs and all the foods they eat, all the things they carry or wear, all the things they do. Because we always stayed in rooms other dogs had inhabited, some odors were so strong even Fif commented on them. The first two or three nights I had a great urge to pee on the carpet where others had committed the same sin. This, despite the fact that I have NEVER used our house for a bathroom. Fif reprimanded me sternly about that urge. Eventually, she got the idea to spray each room with some smelly stuff, saying it covered up the odors. Well, for her maybe it did. For me it just added another layer.

This is when we visited the cemetery at Shell Lake
Wisconsin, looking for Fif's great-grandmother's grave.
We did not find it but you can tell I enjoyed this outing!

Random things – graveyards – we visited many, as Fif realized they are usually vacant and great for walks. You would be amazed at what odors I smelled there! At one I was tempted to do some digging next to a headstone, but Fif blocked that impulse. Long roads in the countryside where we walked were very rich in odors, from fertilizers for the fields to birds flying around, to corn and wheat and hay growing, to myriad small creatures burrowing and climbing and crawling. I even took time to stop and smell the flowers.