K-L Post--Leon Kleinfelter, part 2

source

Leon Kleinfelter clutched the telegram as he waited at the train depot in Snake Junction, Kansas.  The paper had been read, folded, read again so many times that the print was now faded by sweat and oil.  But, Leon knew every word by heart and had pinned his hope on those words.

Mary Lannahan.  That was her name and she would be arriving today on the Noon train.  A mail-order bride, picked from a list of names and basic descriptions, was going to be here and they would be married. 

Leon knew only that she was twenty years old with red hair.  She was “a solid, dependable worker” and could cook.  Other than that, this mail-order bride was as a cloud, hard to describe and even harder to grasp.

The train’s whistle sounded and the billowing smoke signaled the train’s imminent arrival.  Leon’s throat grew dry as prairie grass, as he grasped the wilted bouquet of wild flowers he had picked nearby.  She’s here.

A blonde woman stepped onto the platform, clutching a paper that had been read, folded, and read so many times that it was faded.  Solid and dependable Katrina saw Leon and his flowers, standing in front of his wagon.  A lonely figure of a man, but Katrina saw the hope in his nervous smile and the beauty of the flowers.  She smiled.

“Leon?”  They both hesitated.  “I’m Katrina….Mary could not come…so I came in her stead…I hope…”

Leon gave her the flowers, tipped his hat.  “Katrina was my grandmother’s name….You are most welcome…”

Both smiling and shy, they walked to the church, where the preacher was waiting.

source

 All names, places, situations in this post are purely fictional, and bear no resemblance to any person, living or dead.

K-L Post: Katrina Lang, part 1

source

Katrina Launtenheimer was the thirteenth child of seventeen children whose parents were hard-working farmers, Klause and Helga Launtenheimer.  The three oldest boys died brutally in the early days of the Civil War.  The Ohio family grieved as stoic farm people grieve: privately, silently, chins high, shoulders back.

Katrina was chosen as the “take care” progeny, which meant simply that she would remain at the family home and take care of the parents as they aged and died.  All the other children were expected to marry and procreate, but not Katrina.

This had been understood as long as Katrina had been alive.  

It did not matter much to Katrina, until she watched siblings four, five, six, eight, nine, eleven, and twelve marry and leave.  Numbers seven and ten were boys and they would remain on the farm with their wives, if and when they married.  

Numbers fourteen, sixteen, and seventeen had died in a smallpox epidemic.  

Number fifteen ran away to Chicago, they thought.

source

Katrina sewed wedding dresses for her sisters, cooked and cleaned for her parents, and watched as her friends left.

A ruthless reality of wars is that a generation of men are killed, leaving fewer options for husbands.  

Some of her pretty friends married quickly when they hit marriageable age, but the other friends had few options:  be like Katrina or become a mail-order bride for the open territories to the West. 

Since the transcontinental railroad’s success in the 1870s, mail-order brides packed and left, searching for better lives.  One such friend was Mary Lannahan, whose beau Harold Finster had jilted her in favor of Gracie Smith.  

Disgraced, Mary was fleeing Ohio in tears.

Katrina hitched the wagon, and drove Mary to the train depot. 

As Mary prepared to say good-bye after her hefty trunk was loaded, Harold arrived on his horse, pleading with her to marry him.  He had made a mistake, clearly.  He loved Mary with all his heart and…

Mary looked at Harold and then at Katrina.  Shoving her tickets into Katrina’s hands, she insisted.  “Katrina, get the hell out of here.”

Katrina speculated for a moment, then leaped on the train.  “Don’t tell my folks!  I will write to you..."

Source

All persons, characters, places are fictional.  No resemblance to any person, living or dead, is intended.  What will happen?  Will Katrina find happiness?  What will her parents say?

G-H post: part 2-- Gift of Sacred Dog

From this source

How the horse came to the New World is fairly well documented.  Spanish and French explorers shipped them over early on in their conquest of the New World.  

Some horses either escaped or were left behind.  These horses became the mustangs, the wild horses that filled the plains and dominated history for the Native Americans.

But, questions niggles at my brain:  what did the indigenous tribes think about the horse?  Did they realize what the horse would give them?  Did they view the horse as an extension of the Spanish, as an animal to serve them, or what??

The book, Gift of the Sacred Dog, grants the reader a better answer about the horse.

The horse benefited the Native Americans, allowing them to survive and prosper.  At least for a while, anyway. 

This G-H dual post celebrates the beauty, nobility, and power of the horse, one of God’s creatures.

See you tomorrow on the I-J posts:  Icons of Just living...  

Five Days

The alphabet swirled around her head, inside and out. 

The A to Z 2013 Challenge was only five days, a crazy five, days away.  

Oh, the easy letters had been nailed down, scheduled.  A?  In her sleep.  D?  On scraps of paper towels.  T?  Didn’t even break a sweat.

One would think that “W” would be easy.  But the brain froze somewhere in the spin cycle, and the letter “W” was a soggy mess. 

Would an idea emerge tomorrow?  Would a dream become a revelation?  Oh, when would brilliance assert itself?

One will have to wait until April 26 to see what she will do with the Letter W.

Just Thinking about the A-to-Z...

Thinking ahead of the A-to-Z Challenge, my mind has set wondering.  This will be my third year of participation.  Looking at my first year and then at my second, I was not pleased.  Oh, there were some posts that met expectations (mine), but there were a miserable lot that had me shaking my head.  What was I thinking…

This year my plans are different.  Writing something every day for each letter forced me to come up with something, even if that something was a stab at the dark world of alphabet letters.  Also, the sheer numbers of participants had me gasping in frustration; there were so very many fine writers out in the blogging world, and there was so little time and physical endurance.

This year I will be combining adjoining letters, two at a time, skipping a day, and writing from a tilted point of view.  A with B, C with D… There will be some oxymorons, some silly thoughts, a few profound contemplations, and hopefully some interesting writing.  Interesting and very very brief writings.  Can I work with 50 words or less?  I pray so.

The problem with this Challenge is not only the incredible participants; it is also with the overly-lengthy blogs.  Seeing a blog that fills the screen makes my eyes blur.  Having to do the de-coding in the "captcha" defeats me. 

So that’s my plan.  Have you given it thought?  I bet some of you are already done—you rascals.