N is for Nebo, Illinois

 

Hebo High School, 1917?

The irony of Nebo, Illinois, is that while I lived there, I could not wait to leave it.  Now I think about those days, get a wallop of nostalgia, and wish I knew more about the place left behind.

It began as a true log cabin town, growing with each new settler with names of Shaw, Ross, Franklin, and many more.  With each new family the settlement became a township.

  When I returned for visits over the years, the town had shrunk just a little bit more and the people I knew had died. Their children left (just as I had), and then there were empty vandalized houses, and people I don’t know.

                            Basically this ghost town could never compare to its former self.

Here are photos of back then :

Baptist Church, which still looks like this.

 

Peck house on Pearl-Nebo road

C.R. Rodgers' Trans Continental trip for
to promote Vin Fizz soda

 

 

 The community flooded to the events like this. Life was personal at this time of Nebo's existence.

Painted by in-mate at nearby prison

Nebo High School Gym--all that remains
of the High School

Country School Students

Another Nebo, in Wales, 1984

 

Mt. Nebo, where Moses is buried

Women made civilization possible.

filmfanatic.org

The programs in the 1950-60s were focused on Westerns, though I do not know why. Matt Dillon, Lone Ranger (with Tonto, played by Jay Silverheels), Rawhide, Have Gun Will Travel, and many more filled our living room with galloping horses, lots of gunfights. Many up and coming stars began their acting careers in a Western.

What is seldom seen are the dramas with female wives who are racing around in long prairie skirts, always working in the background.  Working? They were the workforce until children grew enough to pitch in.

Who are these women? Why in the world were they always stirring pots over log fires, especially when hell is breaking loose around them?

Old Farm and country photographs

1906 Yakima

Kentucky, 1920s

Workers in hayfield. Women are cooking.

Nebraska, 1886

 

1920s, going on honeymoon

grinding corn Kentucky

Fool Thunder and family. Hunkpapa Lakota. 1880

True west magazine

earliest photo of Native Americans

1853

1906, Osage

Native Americans and European immigrants, being a woman was desperately hard. Sunrise to sundown, women worked hard to feed and care for her family. 

Women settled the West, more so than the men. Sure, men were charged with protecting family, keeping them safe, chasing bad guys. But, women provided more than food and children--they civilized the West. Churches, schools, and a sense of community emerged from the strength of these special strong women.

Salute the women in your life. You are lucky to have, or to have had, these God-blessed women who make the world bearable. Give them some roses, just for the heck of it.

She will deserve every petal.

A Man after Your Own Heart

One statement was made to me 1997, when my brother Robert died. "Oh, it will hurt less and less as time goes by." It was said with love and with the intention to comfort me.  

I knew that they meant to reassure me, but I always wondered if they knew what he had been through. Robert had continued to drink coffee and smile at the local cafe. He shared jokes with friends. So, they could not see what had been his last months.

Robert had an anaplastic astrocytoma brain tumor, an aggressive incurable tumor. He was diagnosed September, 1995, and died May 1997. People knew this was a 'time was short'. His community knew him well, some prayed for him.

In 1996, one of the times I was visiting, I walked to his house and found daughter Amy washing dishes. She was angry. "Dad's listening to this CD, searching for a song to be played at his funeral."


Robert gave me his characteristic crooked smile, but didn't say anything. This was the song.

Man after Your Own Heart, sung by Gary Chapman

We listened in silence while Amy and I cried silently. Then we listened to one other song. Neither was played, but that's the way it was.

Sometimes He Comes in the Clouds, sung by Steven Curtis Chapman

In truth, I do not think of Robert every single day, but I do think of our family when we were all together with Robert. 

Hurt less? Grief never stops or goes away, but hurt less? I don't know yet.

Community, Casseroles, and Connections

Olympic Sport

As in other countries, for example, Norwegian Curling  or Irish Hurling, hometowns in Pike County, Illinois, their own particular events occur.

All would agree that basketball, baseball, soccer, football, wrestling, and any other sport is played across America.   These games start in the early years on elementary school, heading up through high school, and maybe on to college.  Then onto a friendship that is shared.  All observers would be correct

An extremely passionate sport, county against county. Many injuries.

Community is an important, maybe even vital, word.  It means being part of a group of people who join together in anything from a potluck before a city council meeting to box derbies to parades and, most important, funerals and honoring veterans.  Locals join together just for connections that keep binding people, one to one another.

Coon Hunters Club    

Pike County, Illinois, is a prime spot for hunting of all kinds of wild animals.  (Lock up your cows.)


Annual Pole Shed Open.

Jennifer Wellman (obviously a pro in Pike County,) confronts and then swiftly wends her way through various obstacles of toy tractors loaded with corn, a water fall, and even toy combines and silos. As a fundraising event, the final tally total was not given yet according to Dustin Morrow.  The event was a rousing success.  Money will be applied to ag scholarships, as well as other events and funding for Pittsfield High school FFA.
Photo taken by Beth Zumwalt/Pike Press

First Continental Crossing

Probably August is a biggest month my hometown community celebration.  It is a remembrance of a landing of Vin Fiz plane, piloted by Cal Rodgers.  He was the first to make a continental flight, funded by millionaire William Hearst. (Who would pay Rodgers at the completion of the flight, if he met required time.  He missed the date by 15 days.  Hearst reneged on paying him..

This annual event has events with multiple activities. a grand parade, car show, and awesome BBQ.  Having been to one or two of the Vin Fiz day, I agree this community activity is excellent.  (I wrote a blog post about this event some time ago.)

It is a certainty that other annual events exist and bind communities together. No matter the event, friends and neighbors will be there, probably with a casserole.

Wish I were there.

Community Communing

Just saying “Memorial Day” sets off a slide show in my head.   Flowers on graves….flags…Veterans in parade…community dinner…people sitting together…laughter...gossip…tractors…pick-ups…Those are all part of a very long slide show.

Oh, I could write about feeling like an indentured servant as a teenager serving desserts and cleaning up.

But, mainly the message here is one of community and communion: Together, worshiping, sharing memories, passing on traditions, and meeting as one.

This song comes to mind: Let Us Break Bread Together

Community communing.  Something worth defending.

Eyes Wide Open

source

My small rural town in the 1950s was a close community where it was understood that each life impacted the entire town.  If there was an illness or injury, no one needed to ask for help.  Assistance flowed into that family’s home.

There was an understood, unspoken responsibility each person maintained for the people of the town.  If one had an alcohol addiction or was mentally unstable, everyone knew about it.  Everyone cared about what happened.  And, each family actively supervised their problem.  What this one person did affected every other person.

Many many years after I had grown and left this town, things changed.  A generation died off; my generation relocated where there were jobs.  The dynamics shifted and new unknown people moved into the emptied houses.  This was a different town.

There was a boy who was odd—that’s what my mother called him. When he was in school, no programs or aid had existed for this boy who was essentially barely able to button his shirt, let alone talk or read.  When he was about ten, his parents kept him home and attended to his needs.

One day, this mentally disturbed and developmentally delayed boy (now grown to a man) went to the grade school.  Thirty years had passed since he had been there, but this man still possessed great anger about those years in the back of a classroom where he was teased and belittled.  Angry about the teacher who had been ‘unkind’, he took a double-barreled shotgun with him.

There was a confrontation, but everyone knew him and was able to prevent what could have been horrific.  The teacher retired shortly after.

If this happened in my small hometown in the 1980s, why is it any surprise that crazy events happen now…most people live in one town and work in another…neighbors come and go…most towns have been merged with other towns into one big city glop…

Be watchful and speak up.  See someone behaving strangely?  Call the police.  Don’t ignore the obvious signs of danger.  Pay attention.  Keep yourself and others safe.  The responsibility is ours.