A Son of the West Fork Has Passed

In 2009, I wrote several blog posts about the Barkers Mill area of southeast Christian County, KY. I did a little study of the pioneer history along the West Fork River, and I became very interested in it. I spent several pleasant afternoons, touring and photographing the beautiful farmland, Chapel Hill church, big old houses, and other sights of the area. Some of those photos ended up on my blog along with what I wrote.

Chapel Hill Church

West Fork River from Barkers Mill Bridge

Not long after I published those posts, I received an email from a fellow who introduced himself as Will Meriwether. Born in 1923, he had grown up in the West Fork area, just over the state line in Montgomery County, Tennessee. He had enjoyed reading my posts. He was descended from some of the earliest settlers of the area-- among them, the Barkers and (of course) the Meriwethers. One of my photos, taken from the Barker's Mill bridge, looked over an area where he and his brother and friends used to swim -- a happy memory from his youth. He went away to college as a young man and became a doctor. Life took him around the world and back, but he still loved his childhood home. I heard from Dr. Meriwether occasionally through the next decade. One of his earliest memories was a visit to a cotton gin in Hopkinsville with his father. He wondered if he remembered that correctly. I sent him an old newspaper column where the writer mused about former times when cotton was grown in Christian County and ginned in Hopkinsville. This was the sort of thing our conversations were about. A year ago, Dr. Meriwether sent several old photos and drawings of historic homes in the West Fork area that he thought I would enjoy seeing. A few weeks ago, he wrote to me, asking if I had a recent photo of Glenburnie, an old home that was built by a Barker patriarch in southern Christian County. He was trying to help a descendant of a Glenburnie slave of Chiles Barker, who was gathering material for his ancestral history. (I did not have a photo, but I encouraged him to contact Jim Coursie, a local architect and writer, who takes a great interest in the historic houses of this area.) A few days ago. I learned that Dr. Meriwether passed away shortly after our last email exchange. One of his daughters wrote to me about it. I was truly shocked. William happened to be born into a family that probably had more affluence and influence (historically, anyhow,) than many of us enjoy, but he didn't coast through life on his family credentials. He made his own way with his hard work and good mind and his gift for outreach. I want to mark his passing, and so I am sharing his obituary which tells some of the highlights of his interesting and noteworthy life. I hope you will find it inspiring. https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/san-antonio-tx/william-meriwether-9198053 Condolences should be offered to the family, not to me. I will miss hearing from Dr. Meriwether, but I was acquainted with him only through our email correspondence.

Add Zip Tie "Boning" to a Face Mask

First, let me say that full credit for the amazing, wonderful idea of a ziptie boning goes to Renée Thompson McCloud.  Please see her videos on YouTube. 

The purpose of the zip-tie boning is to keep the fabric and center seam of the face mask arched so the mask will not collapse toward the nose and mouth as you breathe.

I was so excited when I read about a ziptie boning in a mask! I joined Renée's Facebook group, Zippy Mask Support, and, after some study there, I tried putting the ziptie in the front seam allowance (as many Zippie maskmakers do.) That didn't go well for me, but I was determined. I decided I could make a casing for the boning down the center seam, instead.

When I posted a photo of a mask I had made with the ziptie in a casing, several people asked me to do a video. That would be a steep learning curve for me. It was easier to just make this tutorial.  

I attach the boning to the lining of the mask only. If the boning holds the lining back from the face, it will also hold the front of the mask away from the face. There is no need to sew it through both layers.

Here is how I make the casing for the ziptie.

On one of the two lining pieces, baste a line from top to bottom along the front edge of the face mask.  Use a long stitch for the basting so it will be easy to pull out later.

With rights sides together, sew the center seam of the lining with 1/4" seam allowance. Below, you see the basting line on the left and the completed center seam on the right.

Trim the center seam slightly with pinking shears, or clip out a series of small triangles, so the lining can assume the shape of the curve more easily.

Then take the lining to the ironing board, and press the center seam to one side. Bring it back to the sewing machine. Working with the wrong side up, stitch down the seam edges, staying close to the seam line.

 Below, you see the front of the lining. From left to right, there is the stitching line from when I sewed down the seam edges, the center seam, and the basting line that will be my guide in the next step.

Now it's time to apply the ribbon to the lining. I like to use 3/8" grosgrain ribbon which is very sturdy and just the right size.

Fold over the edge of the ribbon and hand stitch it a little on the edges of the fold to hold it. Then, working on the right side of the lining, center the ribbon over the center seam of the lining.  I place the folded edge of the ribbon about 3/4 inch down from the top. I need to leave room for the top seam where I will insert a nose piece later, and I will also need enough room to do the top stitching when I turn the mask right side out.

The basting line is a guide to help keep the ribbon centered on the seam.  Stitch down one side, across the bottom, and back up the other side. Be sure to back-stitch at the beginning and end of this stitching. Keep the stitching very close to the edge of the ribbon. Leave the casing open at the top so you can insert the zip tie later.

Now it's time to pull out the line of basting. Its work is done. You can see that the ribbon hides any wobbly stitching I did when sewing down the edges of the lining.

Complete the mask as usual. 

After I have sewed the mask front to the lining, I will turn the mask right side out, I'll press it well and then top-stitch the bottom of the mask.

Then, I'll insert the zip tie into the casing to see what length is needed for the mask. The boning needs to end just a tad below where I will top-stitch the top of the mask. I will trim the zip tie to size, push it to the bottom of the ribbon casing as tightly as possible and add a hand stitch or two to keep it in place, if needed.

Next, I'll push the nose piece tightly against the top seam of the mask and add a short line of hand basting to hold it there. Then I'll do the top-stitching along the top of the mask, being very careful as I sew across the center seam between the nose piece and the boning.. This is the most exciting part of the whole process! (Ha!)   

Ideally, the topstitching will catch the folded edge of the ribbon and close the casing.  If that doesn't happen, I'll add a few stitches by hand to close it.

Here is a completed mask, using this technique.  I hope this proves helpful to someone. Let me know in the comments if you try it.

Poke Weed Berries

Poke berries seen in Hopkinsville, KY, about 2013.

Pokeweed berries are so pretty that I hate to think of them being poisonous to humans. But the National Forest Service urges caution:

The entire plant is poisonous causing a variety of symptoms, including death in rare cases. The berries are especially poisonous. Young leaves and stems when properly cooked are edible and provide a good source of protein, fat and carbohydrate. Regional names for the plant include poke, poke sallet, poke salad, and pokeberry. The fruits are important food for mockingbirds, northern cardinals, and mourning doves. The name “phytolacca” means red dye plant. (Source: American Pokeweed)

The weeds took over my garden this summer. I had a "thing" removed from my shinbone in late May, and I had to keep my leg elevated for weeks afterwards so it would heal. By the time I was mostly normal again and returned from a summer trip, my garden was full of weeds. I was too lazy to fight them, in the 90° weather of July and August. My tomato plants were sickly anyhow, and so were my cucumbers -- not worth trying to save. The peppers were doing well enough with weeds as near neighbors.

When the weather finally cools down, I will clean it all off, and I'll try again next year. The 2020 weeds will probably be terrible after so many weed seeds dropped into my garden soil in 2019.

One of the things that popped up in my weed patch is a poke plant. It's about six feet tall now and loaded with berries. I've decided why I've let it grow -- not because I'm lazy, not at all!  It's for my mockingbirds, cardinals, and mourning doves!

John and Mary Jane (Kendall) Clark: Elderly Settlers of Gage County, Nebraska

Note to my children: John and Mary Jane were the great-grandparents of my dearly loved, paternal grandmother Nora (Clark) Hill.

In about 1855, Gage County was created from Otoe land. By treaty, the Otoes in the vicinity agreed to move to the Otoe (Big Blue) Reservation. Their reserved land measured 25 miles in length east to west and 10 miles north to south, about 160,000 acres. It stretched all the way across southern Gage County, Nebraska, and it extended west into Jefferson County, Nebraska, and south across the state line into Washington and Marshall counties in Kansas.

Map from Wikipedia showing
location of Gage County

Algernon Paddock, a Nebraska senator, then persuaded the U.S. Congress to allow the sale of some of the Otoe lands in 1876. (Read more in the History of Gage County, Nebraska.) By 1883, all of the  reservation was open for settlement, and the Otoes who had lived there had moved (or had been removed) to Oklahoma.

Odell, Nebraska, as shown on the1897
 Galbraith's Mail Service Map of Nebraska

In about 1881, my great-great-great grandparents John Clark and Mary Jane (Kendall) Clark bought 160 acres of land in Paddock Precinct in Gage County, Nebraska, south of Wymore.  Paddock Precinct was made up entirely of former Otoe land. The little village of Odell is listed as John Clark's mailing address in an 1886 Gage County directory. A history of Odell, published in a League of Nebraska Municipalities newsletter, says it was surveyed and laid out in September, 1880, on the former Otoe reservation by Anselmo B. Smith of the Lincoln Land Company.

The Clarks were among hundreds of families who moved into the area after the Otoes were removed. Many of John and Mary Jane's neighbors in southern Gage County were immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Czechoslovakia, and other countries. I don't know if they ever thought about the people who had previously owned the land or wondered how they were doing in Oklahoma. Perhaps they only thought of their hope that Gage County would be a good home for them, a better place than where they came from.

John and Mary Jane were senior citizens when they came to Gage County (69 and 65 years old.) I am surprised that they wanted to tackle the hard work of starting over again, after more than 20 years in Cass County, Iowa. In the absence of family letters or other records, one can only imagine their thoughts. They left children in Cass County and came to Gage County with Thomas Jefferson Clark, their youngest son. Maybe Tom had wanderlust. John and Mary Jane had lost six (or perhaps seven) children by 1881. Maybe they couldn't bear the thought of their youngest son going off alone.

On 20 Nov 1881, soon after the Clarks arrived in Paddock Precinct, Thomas married Mary Elizabeth Mayhew, an English girl who had lived on Otoe Reservation lands for several years with her widowed mother and her brothers. The young couple spent several years in Paddock Precinct, Gage County, probably on the farm with John and Mary. Then, in 1889 when the “Unassigned Lands” in Oklahoma were opened to settlement, Tom was a participant in the Land Run. He obtained property west of Orlando, Oklahoma, and built a log cabin there (information from Ron Porter, a Clark cousin.)

After it was surveyed in 1880, Odell quickly became a thriving prairie village. The Sanborne Fire Insurance map of 1885 shows a variety of buildings along several streets. Here's a list from the map of what John and Mary would have seen when they hitched their horses to the wagon and drove to Odell for supplies. Nearly all of the buildings in Odell at that time were frame structures.

The United Methodist Church built in 1885,
 Odell, Nebraska. Public Domain photo from
Wikimedia Commons by Ammodramus

Bank built in 1885 with native stone,
Odell, Nebraska. Public Domain photo from
Wikimedia Commons by Ammodramus

Lumber yard
Cribs near the railroad tracks (for grain?)
Black Smith and Wagon Shop
Feed Mill
Saw Mill (so it appears) with Circular Saw, 25 HP Engine, Force Pump and a Well in the Engine Room
Livery Stable and Feed Store with Crib in back
A large Ware House
Meat Market
Grocery Store
Bank
Hotel
Post office
Offices (maybe lawyers, doctors, or dentists?)
Millinery Shop
Hardware Store
Drug Store
General Store
Another Hotel with a Well in front of it
Barber Shop
Furniture Store
Cobbler
Sewing Machine Store
2 more grocery stores
Paints and Oil Store
Drug Store
General Store with Watches and Jewelry
Harness Shop
Another Meat Market
Livery, Feed & Sales Barn with a large Corral in back
Ice House
Smoke House
School
Photographer
Another Grocery Store
Another large lumber yard
Another Black Smith and Wagon Shop
Well in front of the Black Smith and Wagon Shop
More Cribs
Coal, Lime, and more Coal storage
Saloon with a Hall on the second floor
Several dozen Dwellings and Stables

John and Mary Jane's second youngest son, John Henry Clay Clark, committed suicide in Cass County, Iowa, in 1882, and their daughter, Ruth, died in Cass County in early November of 1890. These losses were surely hard for parents who had already lost so many children!

Mary Jane died on 23 Dec 1890, probably in her Gage County home, just a month and a half after Ruth's death. Some have suggested that she died in the Thomas Jefferson Clark home in Marshall County, Kansas, but Tom and his family were surely still living in Oklahoma in late 1890.

Samuel Harrison Clark, another of the Clark sons (and my great-great grandfather,) then moved his family to Gage County from Sherman County, Nebraska, where they had been living. He helped John sell the Gage County farm in 1891. After the sale was accomplished, Samuel moved to Oklahoma and spent a short time there before moving to Weld County, Colorado. (Information from cousin Melvin Clark.) Samuel had consumption (TB,) and he and his family were seeking a dryer climate that might help him. He died in Colorado in 1895. John Clark then had only three children still living – his oldest daughter Nancy and his oldest son, Joshua who were both in Cass County, Iowa, and his youngest son, Thomas Jefferson Clark.

I don't know where John moved after he sold the farm.  Maybe he built a little house in one of the little prairie towns (I am only guessing.) By 1895, Thomas Jefferson Clark and his family came back from Oklahoma and began farming in northern Marshall County Kansas, near Oketo, just a few miles southeast of Odell. It is likely that John moved to Marshall County around that time and spent his last years with (or near) Tom and his family.

John Clark died on 1 Feb 1899 in Marshall County. Both John and Mary Jane are buried in Deer Creek cemetery, about 7 miles southwest of Oketo in northern Marshall County, Kansas.
_______

This blog post about the final years of John Clark and Mary Jane (Kendall) Clark was written by Genevieve L. Netz. Copyright © 2019. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use this document for family tree enrichment only. It may be attached to online Clark family trees. This note about your permission to use this document must remain attached. Any other re-publishing requires written permission. I am always grateful for additions, corrections, and new information. Please contact me at gnetz51@gmail.com

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Hot Summer Days

When our children were growing up, we didn't have air conditioning, so they spent a lot of long, hot summer days amusing themselves in shady spots outside. I lived under the trees a lot during hot summer days when I was a child, too.

During those summers, I started participating in the "Day in the Life of Christian County" photo contest that the Kentucky New Era was running. I packed the kids, water jugs, snacks, and my camera stuff into the pickup truck and we drove the backroads of Christian County to take pictures. It was a good way to pass a long, hot day, and it created some interesting childhood memories for Keely and Isaac that they still enjoy talking about. They especially remember the hot day when the little truck's temperature gauge was well into the red for some reason, and I turned on the heater to expel some of the excess heat of the engine. Whew!

This was a photo that I tried staging for the "people" category of the photo contest one year. I wasn't happy with the color in it, so I didn't submit it. This was during my last few years of film photography, before I got my first little digital camera. I had a lot of trouble with the color in my pictures during that time. I don't know if it was the film, the processing, the printing, the camera, or the photographer. To me, the green in this photo looks weird, even after "photoshopping."

Just some random thoughts about this picture.

Vaguely related:
"Lazy, Hazy Crazy Days of Summer" by Nat King Cole

Tropical Storm Barry in Missouri, 2019

When I made my yearly visit to Kansas in July, 2019, Hurricane Barry was all the talk in the news. (Along with the usual politics, of course.) I was planning to travel through Southern Missouri on the same day that the remnants of Barry blew through, so I followed the reports with interest. I wondered if I would spend the day driving through strong winds, torrential rains, or even severe thunderstorms or tornadoes.

Tropical Storm Barry sky-scape in southwest Missouri

Happily, Barry did not impede my trip at all. I drove in fine mist for several hours in south central Missouri before noon. I paused several times during the day to photograph the dramatic clouds. Those short stops were my only travel slow-downs caused by the weather. In eastern Missouri, I was surprised at the strength of the wind and the high humidity when I stopped to fill up with gas. And that was Barry.

Skies of Tropical Storm Barry in southeast Missouri

Barry's winds in Sikeston, Missouri

Whistle Stop in Hopkinsville

If I had arrived at this intersection a moment earlier, I might have caught the locomotive as it went by the Whistle Stop -- but I missed it. That didn't stop me from trying to get a picture, though. I like the reflections on the wet pavement. And I remember how the train cars were rumbling by when I took the picture, even though it's hard to see them. 

The Whistle Stop has fabulous donuts and rolls. I only allow myself to stop there once in a very great while, but today, I got one of their cinnamon rolls. It was wonderful!