Autumnal Tumbling

Red and orange are gradually being added to the green, brown, and yellow leaves in Southern Illinois. Only a few leaves are falling so far. Yet autumnal tumbling describes our recent life at Woodsong. We seldom finish one activity or thought until another tumbles in to interrupt or change our direction.

Harvest on our farm is finished thanks to the great efforts and management skills by our son-in-law Brian. He also has winter wheat sown already. He must wait awhile to harvest the rest of his acreage—rented fields over near Harrisburg-- which were sown later. I hope he has been able to get some rest before then to make up for those nights he was still working at 3 a.m. the next morning.

Granddaughter Brianna was down to help her dad over the weekend as well as to enjoy her cousin Sam Cedar’s first Homecoming parade on Friday afternoon, the football game that night, and the coronation the next night with her mom, who had also shown up on Saturday to help with the harvest.

Despite heavy traffic, I made part of the parade, which Bri was watching with Katherine and David, but I hurried off to attend (late) the Women’s Club meeting at the library since I had missed the previous month and I especially wanted to hear Jon Musgrave’s program and his latest research for his next book.

Gerald and I went to our first football game in years in order to see Sam march in the pre-game show and at half time. We left early since we had to park so far away and would be walking near the edge of the street on rough ground. We didn’t want to do that in heavy traffic. Although we walked a long way, many more people were parked further up that road than we were, and I am sure it was the same on the other side of the school. We heard the end of the game just as our car arrived in the garage—and Marion won by one point. It was Centralia's first defeat this season.

Before we left for the game, we had a message on our answering machine from my sister that their daughter Candy was in the hospital and might not live through the night. We found out she had made it, but she was still unconscious; we were still worrying about that on Saturday afternoon when my brother Jim and wife Vivian came by for a visit after being in Union County celebrating with the Class of 1946 the 65th anniversary of their high school graduation. It was a two-day affair and they also added the third day so they could visit friends, Vivian’s sister Ruby, and us.

On Sunday we were enjoying all the photos posted on Facebook of Sam and his beautiful date for the Homecoming dance. We came home from church to find that Mary Ellen, Brian, and Brianna had carried in dinner for all of us from Kentucky Fried Chicken. So we had a good visit over lunch with no effort on my part before I drove in for an afternoon visit with Katherine to hear all about Homecoming from her perspective and their anniversary celebration the night before. Before David got home from his friend’s farm, where they are making preparations for hunting season, I got to take Sam to his youth meeting—that was after he came home from a friend’s house. My sister phoned that afternoon on my cell to give me an update on Candy while I was still at Katherine’s.

Katherine herself was still receiving intravenous antibiotic every twelve hours by home health aides and David. On the previous Monday, various complications at the Cedar home kept happening so that we helped out by taking Katherine to the ER at the Carbondale hospital for tests and to be given the right antibiotic with the insert of a receptacle left in her arm so that she was given the antibiotic every twelve hours at home. Since the extreme busyness at ER that night kept us there seven hours until 2 a.m., we were thankful we had taken her and that David was home with Sam. Katherine had been told that they were dealing with three heart attacks and the arrival of four ambulances.

It was a strange experience because the waiting room was filled with weeping people, and the crowd kept growing as the night progressed. The grief was so raw and intense that I wondered if a child was dying, but it was such a diverse crowd that I could not figure it out. We were shocked and very saddened ourselves when we learned that a kindergarten teacher in a local school had hung herself in a classroom after school and was found by another teacher. As the word spread, her fellow teachers were coming in praying she might live and trying to comfort one another. She did live until the next morning when organs were donated. The school, as shown on the news the next day, was in mourning and tried to help with counseling for the students, but who can explain suicide, let alone to children.

We were so pleased with the very sharp ER doctor that night. Katherine knew from previous infections what was needed and he listened carefully and was not threatened by questions by an intelligent patient. Instead he called her urologist and found out she was right, and consequently everything was done correctly. It is difficult for patients to advocate for themselves, but a good physician appreciates it. There was the sweetest and most understanding nurse taking care of Katherine in the ER that night, and it made the long tiring experience much less difficult.
On Tuesday afternoon this week, a visiting nurse came to remove the receptacle for the antibiotic and to write the final report. And this home nurse was so intelligent, informative, and supportive that I find myself really high on the medical profession right now. We have had some bad experiences with doctors and ER people in the past, and so has Katherine, so that makes you really appreciate the good people.

Some people are scared of any kind of government employees and, thus, are scared of government involvement in medicine. I am convinced that competent and caring people work in the government bureaus just as they do in private situations. And unfortunately incompetent, arrogant, ignorant, lazy, and cruel people also work both in private businesses and in government bureaus. All of us, whether we want to be or not, are at the mercy of other people. Most of us are not unfortunate enough to be in a beauty shop, on an air plane, in a church house, or at a political rally in a supermarket parking lot when a crazed individual shows up and starts shooting. All we can do is try to encourage one another to be one of the giving people and do what we can to prevent incompetents and crazies from hurting others.

Meanwhile down in Amarillo, Candy is better though still in the hospital, and her daughter is up from Florida to visit her. Her Oklahoma sister is coming this weekend. Her local sisters are hosting their niece, and when Katherine talked to Rosemary this week, Rosie and Phil were fixing another family dinner in addition to their regular Friday night supper for their clan.

While all this family unhappy happenings have been going on, we are also carefully following and celebrating granddaughter Geri Ann’s high school softball career down in Georgia. She and her fellow pitcher Courtney Poole, both seniors, are continuing their winning ways on the mound and with their bats. Geri Ann has just broken both the all-time season record and career record for homeruns among Georgia high schools. The playoffs with several more games will continue for the next two weeks. Someone may catch up with her, especially since no one will pitch to her now, but her grandparents in Illinois believe she will finish on top.

We are also excited about our granddaughter Leslie down at Belmont University at Nashville. Her Facebook page is filled with congratulations on her stunning performance with the Rock Ensemble there on campus Wednesday night. We find it hard to believe that our little blonde is a senior in college, but we aren’t at all surprised she is winning praise for her powerful voice. Hearing her called a rock star by her band friends and Belmont audience is somewhat unexpected. Anyone who has heard Leslie sing in her high school musicals, with her guitar at coffee shop concerts, or leading worship at church would not think of her as a rock star. Yet this was the campus ensemble she was asked to perform with, and obviously her virtuosity includes rock. Here is a link to one of their concert performances now on You Tube:

Panic Attack by Dream Theater-Belmont University Rock Ensemble
www.youtube.com
From the Rock Ensemble's 2011 Show Written by Dream Theater

Tonight our computer is moving so very very slow. A slow computer in addition to all the busyness contributes to my not blogging in a timely fashion lately.

Newspapers, Our Visiting Musician, and Softball

A high point in the week for me was hearing Chandra Green again at Southern Illinois
Writers Guild on Thursday night. Chandra has a most remarkable life story—one that could only happen to an incredibly gifted woman. Dropping out of school at 15 to marry and escape an alcoholic father, she went to work at the West Frankfort American and said she literally fell in love with journalism the minute she walked in and smelled the ink. She continued working at area newspapers through repeated bad marriages but acquired a GED and an incredible understanding of writing, page design, editing, and the business side of journalism. She also has acquired a long-standing stable marriage with the love of her life.

I met Chandra through her column in the Southern Illinoisan, and I was delighted with her writing and her stories of Ma, her elderly grandmother, and her mom—the Queen of Stuff. Rising in the ranks during her 16 years at the Southern Illinoisan, she became an editor, and she credited all those early co-workers who helped her learn the ropes and love her job. But changes and pressures there caused this largest area newspaper to lose one of their best talents--just as the paper also lost Jim Muir, our Guild speaker last month. Chandra did not say she was one of their best talents—but as a reader I knew she was. And so was Jim.

Employed at other work where she missed that smell of ink, Chandra came up with an idea as she sat at her kitchen table with a daughter. The daughter was taking a college class, which required her to make a business plan, so she was able to pick her mother’s brain for starting a niche newspaper. By the time the business plan for her class was completed, the daughter and her mother had determined to use it to start Heartland Women. They succeeded at what everyone believed was an impossible task. Five years later the award-winning paper is still going strong, and Chandra offers area writers an opportunity to sell their work. The free twice-monthly newspaper, which is distributed widely in several counties is filled with columns, feature stories, and news of area women.

In the midst of the declining use of newspapers by a public who now often depend on the Internet for news, Chandra has shown it is possible for a newspaper with a clear purpose to establish itself. (I won’t say a clear audience because I think many men read Heartland Women.) Could anyone do it? No, only someone who has the enormous talent and knowledge and the incredible work ethic that Chandra has.

I worry that she works too hard, but I love to pick up her paper. She pointed out that while she was in journalism because she loves to write, all the other duties consume her time and she probably spends little more than two percent writing. Someone has to sell the advertising that keeps the paper going, and often she becomes the one who has to do it. Her two novels sit half finished and unattended.

After the bitter cold weather at the first of the week and then the dire predictions of more bad weather this weekend, it was hard to believe how beautiful yesterday and today were. Coats weren’t really necessary although most of us were still wearing them out of habit. (I saw some wearing shorts.)

Folks were grateful for the break from cold and for the delay of the predicted heavy rain that replaced the icy weather predictions. A friend involved with the Red Rose Gala to raise money for the Marion Civic Center was concerned what bad weather might mean to that effort. Our neighbor of many years died Wednesday after three or four exhaustive weeks for his family while he was in hospitals and rehab, and I was very thankful the weather stayed pretty today for his funeral and the burial in a neighborhood cemetery. Our granddaughter Leslie was arriving at Woodsong at bedtime last night from visiting friends and family up at the state speech contest in Peoria, so I was very relieved she wasn’t driving on scary roads. Tonight the delayed rain began with gentle sprinkling, but she was safely back in Tennessee by then.

Leslie was ready for bed when she arrived at the farm late last night, because she’d had a slumber-party type visit Friday night with a high school friend now at University of Illinois, and the two met up with the Freeport speech kids at Peoria. I offered sandwich fixings and a very brief visit and encouraged her to go catch up on her sleep in the brown room. That’s the windowless room everyone wants because it is completely underground and great sleeping. (When our son-in-law dropped in Friday night, I invited him to sleep in another guest room because I told him I was saving the brown room for Leslie. However, he was already planning to sleep in their camper at the other farm, which is parked there most of the time. He had farm business to take care of with various people on Saturday before he returned home to his family in central Illinois.)

This morning we were pleased to hear Leslie sing at worship. She had forgotten her guitar, but after mulling it over last night, she realized she did have a song she could sing with piano. We hurried home from church for a quick spaghetti and salad dinner so she could get on the road in time to make a 5 p.m. rehearsal back at Nashville. She had a CD of Miles Davis on his trumpet that she must memorize and be prepared to sing in a jazz class on Tuesday. So she was planning to listen as she drove.

By this time, Gerald was finding the Texas A&M and Georgia softball tourneys on his computer, and those games occupied most of our afternoon. Both teams were hosting tournaments this weekend, and we had been following them as best we could, and both teams won all five tourney games.

A Visit With My Big Brother

The phone rang at 6:15 this morning, and a half hour later, I decided I wouldn’t go back to sleep. That was good because I had some put-away chores to do before I left to drive up to central Illinois to see my brother Jim and his wife Vivian. I drank coffee with Gerald even though I knew I would stop for egg and toast on the way up in order to take a break. I wanted to hear the report on the early-morning phone call, which is when Gerry usually calls his dad.

Their family was leaving Sioux Falls after Southern Force 16U softball team had their second loss in the nationals there. (I think Geri Ann accumulated seven home runs during practice games, pool play games, and the games they played before they were out of the tourney. Of course, they would have liked to stay in the tourney longer, but it wasn’t to be.) Gerry was driving from Sioux Falls to the airport in Minneapolis when he phoned his dad. His companion was his two-year-old grandson Aidan. Gerry, who has loved a race and/or competition since he was two or maybe younger, had Aidan all involved with the idea that they were going to beat his Gma Vickie, Aunt G, and baby brother Maddux, who had flown out of a different airport to Atlanta. He probably convinced Aidan they won even though the other three had to wait for them to arrive in Atlanta to drive on to Athens.

Tara, the boys’ mother, had left Sioux Falls to go on to Oklahoma City for the 18U gold nationals softball tourney this week. (Last year Gerry coached 18U Southern Force, and Tara coached 16U. Since Gerry can no longer coach a summer team, Tara took over the 18U and certainly did her daddy proud taking them all the way to gold nationals. So this week we will be following the 18U progress just as we did the 16U last week. These games aren’t on TV or game tracker, so constant checking on cell phones will be taking place. (Today Southern Force won their first pool play game.) In the meantime back at Athens, Gerry and Vickie are enjoying these two little guys, and guess what? In his last phone call to his dad, Gerry was telling how smart Aidan is. Grand-fatherhood fits Gerry very well.

Although Jim and Vivian have lived in Mattoon for decades, I have always had a difficult time not getting lost going in and leaving town. Maybe cause Gerald is usually driving. Maybe cause there are two ways into town, and we’ve taken both down through the years. Maybe cause we have often left there to go on up to Freeport or come into town from Freeport. Whatever. But Mattoon has always baffled me. As usual, I turned the wrong direction on their street because NESW seems to reverse itself up there for me. But because I know that, I quickly realized I had made my normal error and turned and went the other way. (And when I glanced down to see the car telling me I was going north, all I had to say was Never Eat Shredded Wheat as I located the other directions.) Gerald offered to set the GPS for me, but I do not like the noise.

We visited awhile and shared news and photos of our kids and grandkids. Each of us had a photo of our newest great grandson. I had to admit that their Vincent Indiana Roland Jones was as cute as Jim said. I hope Indy likes his little outfit I took for him.

Jim had told me on the phone last month about their new fine barbecue restaurant at a resort outside of Charleston, and that is where he and Vivian ended up taking me for noon dinner. Like many senior citizens, they eat out frequently, and Vivian had commented at home that despite the recession, all their many eating places seem to have good crowds. Jim had first pulled into the back parking lot of a nearby eatery only to see that even the large back lot was full—on a Monday no less. We went onto two or three more places in Mattoon and found crowds there also. Finally Jim just kept driving till we got to the resort. They too seemed to have a goodly number of customers, but there was plenty of parking outside and plenty of tables inside. Service was quick and the barbecue was delicious. But all the crowded places had proved Vivian’s point.

The resort is called the Stovepipe in honor of Abraham Lincoln—a childhood home of his is in this area near Charleston. There was an enormous building-high Lincoln figure greeting us that Jim said had been moved there from another park. And in “Abe’s Garden,” there were numerous painted wooden Lincolns that some artist had carved with a chainsaw. The younger crowd were busy at the miniature golf course that we walked by as we passed elaborate water fountain flowing into the goldfish pond with lily pads. Because of the obvious investment someone had made, Jim was hoping that this new business venture would have success.

We drove back to Mattoon a different way that featured good-looking soybean fields on either side. Then we had the afternoon of talk, which I had put off too long. I told them I had been trying to schedule a day-long visit like this since January. Vivian understood. She said she had wanted to start a new quilt since November, but was yet to do so. (When we came back to their house, a friend had left two boxes of fabric at her back door. He had helped an elderly lady move, and Vivian bought the entire woman’s collection of fabrics. Vivian said she had already received boxes and boxes and is sharing with the granddaughters she taught to sew.)

I wanted to leave at five in order to get home shortly after dark. I did and arrived home at 8:30. Gerald was just coming in the kitchen from showering after yet another day getting the storm-fallen trees out of the creek at the other farm. I had hoped he’d take off early and eat dinner in town since I was eating at our favorite chain restaurant in Mt. Vernon to break my journey. But he had worked too late and was settling for sandwiches again, which is what he had for lunch. I opened a can of soup to provide him something hot. And I think he probably ate another piece of angel food cake.

Well, I have blogged, and Leslie has arrived at Woodsong. We’ve talked a bit and she has her laundry going. (My downstairs office has a laundry on one end.) She has already been on her laptop to send a twitter and Facebook entry for Mike and the world to see and know she arrived here safely. She is sleeping in the “brown room,” which is everyone’s favorite downstairs bedroom since it is the underground area of the downstairs without windows and the sleeping is good. She just told me good night, and now I will say the same to you.

Jeannie's Back Home!

Jeannie’s back home, and we miss her and Cecelie already. Although they told us good-bye last night, I was sure I would be awakened when Jeannie and Cecelie departed this morning. I had been briefly awake when Gerald was getting ready to leave Woodsong to go on an Angel Flight with his friend Herman. When I awoke again, I thought I better be quiet so as to not wake Jeannie and Cecelie. Then I looked at the clock and saw 8:45 and knew they were likely gone—and they were. They were eager to get home to Freeport and see Elijah who returned from Kentucky yesterday. And, of course, they were missing Rick too. From the frequency of his phone calls yesterday, they had decided he was lonesome for them.

But I have a small sweet wild flower bouquet in a little bottle on my desk. A daisy, some clover—red and white—and a small Queen Anne’s lace blossom and a couple of other miscellaneous stems. Cecelie brought it in yesterday and presented it during an afternoon she spent (as she had the day before) appearing in various ensembles from the “costume closet” of old clothes from long ago. The previous day was spent with her cousin Samuel. That evening after starting to look for fireflies, they had filled the downstairs den with quite a collection of frogs, which they kindly released at the end of their frog hunt.

Since next-door Katie did not seem to be home, for the next two days, Cecelie entertained herself (and consequently also entertained us) dressing up. Using various hats and shoes chosen for her outfits, she looked beautiful in every one of them.

The tattered pink formal was once bought by my sister Rosemary, I believe, for college banquets. Since she and Phil have been married 60 years, that gives you an idea of how old that dress is. Topped with the pink picture hat I wrote about in a 1960s column, the entire attire was ancient but lovely on this l0-year-old granddaughter. Other clothes had been worn by her mother and aunts. One bright skirt had been a long skirt my mother had when long dresses were the fashion, and she wore it to a Christmas party.

From the clothes and stories told, Cecelie (our youngest granddaughter) found out who Gma Katherine was--my mother whom Cecelie’s Aunt Katherine was named after. Summer is the time for families to be connected again and the proper time to share family information with the young generations. Only the oldest two granddaughters ever met my mother, but my mother was aware before her death that Jeannie and Rick were expecting Leslie—their first child. I have always been happy that Mother knew that exciting news.

Leslie and her friend Mike had driven up from Belmont University at Nashville on Saturday while I was working on the Trail of Tears bus tour. Mike placated Cecelie, who really does not like to share her big sister, by watching a movie just with her. Leslie and Mike had to leave Sunday afternoon in time for her to get back to her dorm, where she has a summer job welcoming teens who come in for Centrifuge and other conference guests at Belmont. But we enjoyed their jam session Saturday night while Les and Mike, both guitarists, practiced some of the original songs their band is working on right now. I’d gotten up much too early to get to Golconda that morning, so I fell asleep mid-concert. Nevaertheless, I did enjoy hearing their lovely chords and sounds as I drifted off. I have slept late two days in a row now, so maybe I am caught up on my rest.

Oh, by-the-way, we found out Saturday who owned the strange dog who had been here for over a week. A far-neighbor came to collect his dog Roxie after seeing our sign on the mailbox. Unfortunately, Roxie left Woodsong the day we posted the sign and we have not seen her since. But we have heard from other far-neighbors here in our countryside that she has become known as the “traveling dog” since she goes from neighbor to neighbor to visit.

Spring Is Blossoming Out All Over

Last Friday night, the first day of Spring, Gerald and I experienced the awakening as we drove down to Union County amid the white blossoming pear trees, tulip trees already shedding their pink blossoms, yellow forsythia, and golden daffodils in yards and roadsides.

We went early to have time before we met his brothers and wives, so he could take me up to Hamburg Hill again in Shawnee National Forest. I had taken the wrong turn with Samuel the week before and missed it. I wondered if it were a good thing. When Gerald and I went up, I knew I had been fortunate to miss the right road. The road was rough and I think if I had gotten as far as Hamburg, I might have been foolish enough to try to drive to the top of Atwood Hill, where the fire tower was. Gerald started also but soon turned around in a road so narrow that I closed my eyes and clinched my fists—even though I knew with my mind that he would make the turn safely. Somehow my stomach did not know this.

Although the grass was greening, the forest itself was still stark trees with leafless limbs—still beautiful in their abundance up and down the steep hills, but not yet breathtaking as they will be when the leaves come back. We were looking for the cut in the forest where the old road used to go. We did find the cut and the pioneer cemetery. We then explored another narrow road through the forest to the top of the hill, where other explorers had left behind their beer cans and trash. There was plenty of turn around room here, and after walking around a bit, we headed on to Fox Hollow for fish with the brothers and sisters-in-law.

This is definitely the time for seeing the countryside. Each day is greener and different as new plants come from the ground. I was able to carry in sweet-smelling hyacinths for the women from church who gathered at our house on Monday evening. I only picked two for each table because it was Gerald’s bulb garden he planted last year, and I did not want to have it too barren when he returns from his birthday trip to Georgia.

I had forgotten he had planted one yellow and one white daffodil there, so I was richer in daffodils than I thought. Each plant had three blossoms, and I picked one yellow and one white to stick in a tall narrow vase. I resisted the urge to pick a fifth hyacinth to go with the two daffodils for a table in the living room.

I had put out the elaborately painted eggs that my friend Jane Perr made years ago. She had learned the craft from an elderly gentleman from the Russian Orthodox Church in Royalton. So I invited Jane down to our meeting, so she could see I was still enjoying her beautiful eggs. She surprised me by bringing me another beautiful egg in its own little holder and also a purple hyacinth that completed the daffodils just the way I wanted the vase to look.

Today after eight hours sleep, I came out of my bedroom at 10 a.m. with the idea I’d walk down the lane to the mail box to get the newspaper that Gerald always walks down for at 6 or 7 a.m. I was somewhat startled to see daughter Jeannie walking out of the other bedroom.

“When did you get here?” I queried. “I figured you’d be driving back today. How did you get in the house?”

Evidently shortly after I went to bed at 2 a.m., Jeannie and Cecelie had arrived from Nashville to our dark house. When we built this house, we gave each of our children a key, but no one seems to remember that they have one. We, of course, leave the door open for them when we know they are coming. Fortunately, one of Jeannie’s kids had found her key and wanted to know what to do with and she had told them to put it in the van. So they had let themselves in and we all slept peacefully, and I got a report on her visit with Leslie as we ate a bite of breakfast.

Much too soon, we had a late lunch and she and Cecelie were off to Freeport although they planned a drop-in visit with her sister Katherine in town before they got back on I-57 to head home.

Cecelie had enjoyed a piece of left-over angel food cake from our women’s meeting, and I put another in a plastic bag for her to take on her trip–along with the left-over chocolate eggs that I knew I should not eat.

As I followed them outside to wave reluctant goodbyes, our eyes focused on the ornamental tree in the driveway’s circle, which is just starting to bloom. Jeannie commented on how she enjoyed our spring down here and in Nashville knowing it will still be three or four weeks before the trees blossom up north. So she will do spring twice.

When Gerald phoned later, he told me that it was chilly in Georgia. Nevertheless, he and Vickie and her mother Shirley, Geri Ann, Tara, Aidan, and baby Maddux were all heading out to the softball stadium at the University of Georgia to support Gerry and the Dogs, now ranked 7th in the nation again. They were to play Mercer. I read tonight it had rained but didn’t rain the game out, which was good since we won.

However, the inclement weather at Waco did cause a postponement of the A&M game with Baylor until April 29. I had to laugh when Erin blogged about the tailgate party last Saturday night for the team, friends, family, staff, and Sugar Daddies. The Broussard family had generously supplied an abundant supply of crawfish. Erin had to fess up, that as an out-of-state girl without crawfish in her menu background, she was grateful for the table laden with desserts.

Since Gerald took the car on his trip, I drove the pickup over to a small-group meeting at our village church. I stopped at the end of the lane and finally picked up this morning’s newspaper.

Spring Breaks and the Western Part of the Trail of Tears through Southern Illinois

Spring breaks have started for our grandchildren. Samuel like all the kids here in Williamson County has been off school this week. And so has Geri Ann down in Georgia, which allowed her to go with her mother to see Erin play softball in Boca Raton. Her sister Tara, husband Bryan, and the two little boys also took a vacation there. Leslie was in Puerto Rico with her church group since Belmont was having spring break.

The Eilers up at Freeport will be off next week, so Jeannie is bringing Cecelie thorough here on their way to visit Les at Belmont while Elijah goes to Mount Rushmore and that region with his high school choir performing most of Showtime at various venues. They’ll be well rehearsed when they get back to perform at Freeport. Trent and Brianna will be off that week also and are going to Florida to see their Grandma Dot.

I wanted to grab some time with Samuel while he was on vacation, so we planned a day trip down to Union County to see the western part of the Trail of Tears through Southern Illinois. We first stopped at the Trail of Tears rest stop on Interstate 57. Oddly, that rest stop has pictures of Cairo but no mention of the Trail of Tears. Our Illinois Chapter of the Trail of Tears Association finally got permission to place brochures there—something Sandy Boaz, Illinois TOTA president, had tried to do for years but wasn’t allowed. But the brochures were all taken the day Sam and I stopped by. We obtained an Illinois road map there, and Sam was able to follow our journey to the west where we were to cross the Mississippi River.

The Trail of Tears rest stop is actually on top of the trail. When I-57 was built, that spot on the highway goes over a short tunnel on the road beneath it, where the Cherokee actually walked. To see that, Sam and I exited I-57 less than a mile down the highway and were on State Route 146, Illinois Designated TOT highway and also the National Park Service’s TOT auto route.

Next we took the first country road to the right and were driving through beautiful rural land, which has been built up with many fine homes in recent years. Soon we were down below I-57 and drove through the tunnel and down the actual Trail. It was chilly enough that we weren’t tempted to get out and hike, and we turned around and went back to the cemetery where Southern Illinois University Carbondale geologist Harvey Henson and his students have located at least 19 graves in the area that oral tradition had always indicated the Cherokee had buried their dead during the bitter cold of December 1838 and January 1839.

Since there had been perhaps as many as 3,000 camping there at one time and more before and after those weeks, it is a sign of land owner George Hileman’s kindness that there were so few deaths. He allowed them to cut down the woods to obtain firewood for warmth, and he sold them corn meal from his grist meal for sustenance to go with the wild game they foraged. He approved their graves in his pasture where he and his wife had buried two small children a few years earlier. Later he was to donate land for the church established there, and he donated more land for the cemetery.

Sandy Boaz, a descendant of Hileman, has been searching for what roads went from Camp Ground over to Jonesboro in the first half of the 19th Century. As a favor, she recently was helping someone with their genealogy questions, and serendipitously found some good hints about the road, which she intends to investigate. She has often talked about Dog Walk Road, and since Sam and I were not on schedule, we decided not to return to Route 146 but to leave on the Camp Ground Road going west until we came to Dog Walk, which we took over to the Lick Creek Road and finally back to Route 146. It took a little longer than it should have since I have no sense of direction, and I turned in the wrong direction on the familiar Lick Creek Road. I turned around when I noticed on the dash we were headed east. On 146 in Anna, we soon were passing the Trail of Tears Junction, the elaborate gas and more station owned by Ron and Deb Charles, who both descended from Cherokee families around Elco.

We were hungry by then, and we stopped at the Country Cupboard, more often called The Potato Barn, created in the old Goddard Feed Store, where county farmers always headed to buy garden seed, tools, and bib overalls as well as feed. As always, the food there was absolutely delicious. I had a bowl of creamy potato soup and a Reuben while Sam had a shrimp basket. I should have ordered either soup or a sandwich since both turned out to be over-sized. I had fun explaining to Sam the complicated family connections to the Bridgeman daughters who own the restaurant now. His great Grandma Ada’s Aunt Ollie Bridgeman is seen holding Sam’s mother in the first baby photo we have of Katherine. Part of the pleasure of going to the Potato Barn is wandering around looking at the antiques and artifacts, so we took time for that before we got back on the Trail.

We left Anna by Heacock Street and down Boettner Hill, and I was able to tell Sam how folks used to block off traffic on a few nights when the snow made that hill a perfect place for sledding. I took him out to the Old Fair Grounds, where Lincoln and Douglas gave one of their 1858 debates while running for the Senate. Sam enjoyed the new statues there of the two famous debaters.

And then it was up to the Jonesboro Square, where the bank stands on the storehouse site of Winstead Davie. Behind the store was his and Anna (Willard) Davie’s home, where the Davies invited Rev. Jesse Bushyhead and his pregnant wife Eliza and another “chief” and his wife and baby to stay with them. The name for this second so-called chief has been confusing, but I am convinced this was native preacher Rev. Stephen Foreman and his wife Sarah and baby boy Jeremiah Evarts Foreman. Darrel Dexter tells us that Davie applied for a license to keep boarders the very day that little Jeremiah was born, and Davie family tradition tells of the Cherokee baby and parents who stayed with them.

On the west side of Davie’s store on the other side of the road from the Old Fair
Grounds was where Davie’s brother-in-law and competitor William Willard had his store. Sadly William never married but died of tuberculosis at age 31 in 1843. His two brothers, Elijah and Willis, ran the two ferries near Willard’s Landing on the Mississippi River. (Some folks still called the Landing by its earlier name—Green’s Landing.)

Sam and I drove down Cook Avenue past the school , and I showed Sam where I grew up. Then we drove as far as the road went to the top of Bauer’s Hill where some Cherokee crossed over and down to the other side to camp at the southern end of Dutch Creek. We came back and got back on Route 146, now also called Willard’s Ferry Road.

Because of the swamps in The Bottoms by the river, the Cherokee were backed up in the Dutch Creek-Clear Creek area. Perhaps as many as 5,000 or more were waiting for the ice floes to melt or float away. We turned at the Lockard Chapel sign onto Berryville Road and explored one of the many routes some of the 11,000 took. As usual I got lost and took a wrong turn before we reached Hamburg Hill and Atwood Tower, but eventually we were back on Route 146 and continued to the village of Ware.

Directly west of Ware was the road that took early travelers to Willard’s Landing, where there was a storehouse and some homes to greet the boats bringing merchandise from Pennsylvania for Davie and Willard’s Jonesboro stores. (The eastern boats came down the Ohio River to Cairo and then up the Mississippi.) Since the river has changed and been changed so radically by levies and flood control since 1838, we have never discovered any residue of Willard’s Landing.. Several Cherokee detachments crossed here including Jesse Bushyhead and his wife Eliza Wilkerson Bushyhead, who gave birth on January 3, 1839, to Eliza Missouri Bushyhead at what is now called Moccasins Springs. There Bushyhead’s sister Nancy Bushyhead Walker Hildebrand died and was buried.

We drove on south now on Route 146 past Ware Baptist Church, where Sam’s mother was enrolled in Sunday School as an infant, We continued on the TOT Auto Route past the fine goose-hunting and corn-growing farms there in The Bottoms. At Reynoldsville, we noted the road crossing called The Old Cape Road, but we kept on the new highway to the Flea Market, where the Route 146 turns back west to cross the bridge to Missouri. In Cape Girardeau, we enjoyed the beautiful murals on the river flood walls u before we turned to go back across the stunning Bill Emerson Bridge into Illinois.


We did take the Old Cape Road on our way back to Jonesboro because no doubt some of the Cherokee detachments went to the ferries at Hamburg Landing through there. Either there or further south, some Cherokee found themselves crossing on the Smith Ferry and going to Cape Girardeau. We got Sam back to his house, so he could get to bed early for the spring vacation trip his dad had planned for him on Friday to Saint Louis sites.

Yesterday I went to Sam’s last Upward basketball game and found out that son-in-law Brian and daughter Brianna had come down late the night before from Lake Saint Louis to their camper up at Wayside Farm. So in between watching softball games for Georgia and Texas A&M, Gerald and I had Samuel with his new puppy Scooter and Brianna .with Fifi to play here at the farm on Saturday afternoon.

That was a good diversion because Gerald is still at a painfully red and quite ugly stage of his skin peel treatment and has been reluctant to get off the farm much. He did take neighbor Scott to Carbondale to catch a train, but they went through the drive-in for breakfast rather than going inside. We hope by his birthday next Sunday, he will have skin as soft as a baby’s. Reckon?

Watching Softball at Woodsong

A weekend highlight happened Friday afternoon when our granddaughter Leslie dropped by Woodsong. She was on her way up from Belmont in Nashville, Tennessee, to see two girl friends at the University of Illinois.

The next day the three were heading over to Belleville to meet up with the Freeport High School speech team at the state tournament. Today Leslie made the long drive back to Belmont after going to church with a friend in Effingham. Her Aunt Mary and cousin Brianna were able to come across the river and have lunch with her at Belleville.

Otherwise our weekend was taken up with following Texas A&M softball team playing in the Marriott Houston Invitational tourney and the University of Georgia softball team hosting the 6th annual Georgia Softball Classic at Athens.

When Leslie arrived, we were able to report Texas A&M’s first victory where they beat Northern Illinois 14-2. Her cousin Erin’s exciting 5 for 6 hitting success with seven RBIs, which included a three-run homer, kept the phone lines buzzing between Woodsong and Tara up at Aurora and Vickie down in Georgia. Her heavy hit over the score board excited the game-tracker announcers—but not as much as Erin’s family fans. Oh, yes, she also put out the two Northern runners who were silly enough to try to steal. Later that night, A&M defeated Prairie View 11-1. More phone calls followed.

Ranked 16th in the nation now, Georgia also won both their Friday games, winning against Ball State 15-3 in five innings and Tennessee State 8-0 in five. We went to bed happy for Erin and happy for our son Gerry at Georgia, where he is assistant coach.

Saturday morning the grey rainy day suddenly turned to a snowy day. Since Gerald needed a tool at Sears, he volunteered to take me to my hair appointment in his pickup. I hadn’t thought about it being slick, but evidently it was because we passed a car on Route 13 that had flown across the medium and across our west-bound lane and into the ditch. We got home in time for me to fix lunch and for us to have it eaten before the afternoon games began.

After A&M shut out McNeese State 3-0, and Erin batted .500, we were pumped to listen that evening to the game against home-team Houston Cougars, who were ranked 18 while A&M had slipped to 19th because of recent away-game losses. After battling the wind in a come-from-behind game, A&M forced the game into an eighth inning. The game-breaker rule placed Erin on second base in this inning. She made third thanks to Alex Reynolds’ sacrifice, and then onto home, thanks to Kelsey Spittler’s game-winning single. We went to bed happy after that 4-3 victory. Georgia had won over Marshall 9-1 in six innings and over Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis 15-3 in five innings.

Today started with a very early phone call from Gerry to his dad, and I am sure they talked softball. We thought we would see both of “our” teams won their respective tournaments with five wins apiece. But that wasn’t to be. Georgia did win their tourney by defeating the University of North Carolina Greensboro 12-2 in five innings—their ninth straight victory with the mercy rule. They had hit 10 home runs in this tourney, and their tournament batting average was .425. Next weekend they travel to the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Leadoff Classic in Columbus, Georgia.

Texas A&M was to play University of Illinois for the championship at Houston, and the game was in the fourth inning when we got home from church. Soon Gerald had the game going, and I brought down chili for our lunch, which is what we also ate last night while we watched their game.

When Kelsey Spittler made a big hit in the bottom of the seventh to tie up the game, I thought for sure we’d repeat last night’s victory. But Illinois scored a run, and then despite our game-breaker runner making it to third, we couldn’t get the hits to bring her home. We lost 5-4 and are going to bed sad tonight, but I am sure we aren’t as sad as those kids on the bus heading back to College Station, However, they will be playing on their home field for awhile now, and I predict more sweet dreams next weekend.