An untimely death

After writing yesterday's entry about soldiers dying so far away from home, I thought of this story about my great great grandfather Loren Webb whose chronic illness brought him to an early death. (You will find an excerpt from his Civil War diary in my March 31st entry). At the time of his death he was en route from Florida to Ohio. He was living in Florida in hopes that the climate would ease his symptoms. He suspected that he was near the end of his life and was hoping to see his daughters one more time, but did not make it.

With many thanks to a distant cousin (third cousin once removed, to be exact) and genealogical researcher extraordinaire, Jonathan Webb Deiss, our family has scans of many documents pertaining to Loren Webb (and others, too). He tracked down this newspaper clipping of one of the obituaries of Loren Webb, written by Rev. McFerrin who was one of the most famous preachers of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Loren was a preacher with the Methodist Episcopal Church North. (The manner in which the Methodist Church split over the issue of slavery is a story for another time...)

Especially note the transaction between the two negating the division between the north and south.

The date of his passing is February 20, 1880 at the age of 41. [Loren's name is misspelled throughout].

Death of Rev. Lorin Webb. - Kind Deeds and Comforting Words
The following letter kindly sent to us from Rev. Dr. M'Ferrin, Book Agent, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Nashville, reached us too late for our last week's number. The generous hospitality shown by our brethren in Nashville will be greatly appreciated.
On Thursday morning, Feb. 19, a stranger called at the Publishing House, Nashville, and asked for a Methodist minister. The undersigned answered... (some of the remaining sentence is missing).

The stranger said, "There is a Northern Methodist preacher at the Louisville depot in a dying condition, and he wishes to see a Methodist minister. Rev. Mr. Rudisill is not in the city." I went immediately to the depot and found Rev. Lorin Webb, of the New York East Conference - as he reported himself - in the last stage of consumption. I was introduced by some fellow-passengers whom he had met on the train. Said Mr. Webb, 'I know you. I want a place to die.' He was too feeble to be taken to a private house, but was carried into a room at Linck's Hotel, just adjoining the depot. Here he lingered until Friday evening, half-past six o'clock, when he died in great peace.

He reported himself on his way to Norwalk, Ohio, to see his two daughters, his wife having been buried in Florida. On Saturday morning I had his body and baggage shipped to Norwalk, Ohio, to the care of C. S. Herrick, a relative, where his children reside.

He was very rational to the last and died in full hope of everlasting life. He said when I met him, "I sent for a Methodists preacher; we are a band of brothers every-where." And I replied, " Brother, we are one in love; and here we, in the hour of trial, know no North, no South." He was fully appraised of his condition, and died full of faith.

He had every attention necessary for his comfort. The proprietors of Linck's Hotel treated him with marked attention, and the servants were kind and obliging.

Drs. Menees and Summers offered medical treatment, but he was so far gone that no remedy could reach his case - he was only soothed in his last hours. The Young Men's Christian Association gave help in watching and waiting.

It was sad to see a brother die from home and away from his family, but the friends of Christ were present, and, above all, Jesus was there to give him the victory.
J. B. M'Ferrin

Remembering and forgetting, Part 1

It seems to be human nature that we tend to forget things that need to be remembered and we remember things that it would be better to forget.

We even have a national holiday, Memorial Day to help us remember. It began way back at the end of the Civil War to honor the fallen Union soldiers. For many of us today its simply a paid holiday to get together with family and friends and have a picnic. Yet in thousands of villages and cities across this great nation people gather round in public squares and parks and cemeteries for the purpose of remembering. Veterans who were fortunate to come back from battle serve as the colorguard, a wreath is laid at the monument, remarks are made, then the gun salute. Finally, the mournful solemn sound of "Taps" played on a trumpet. It's a sound that can send a chill down your spine, or a tear to the eye..... to consider what it might have been like for these fallen heroes to have taken their last breath in a desperate and lonely place so far away from home.

"Lest we forget" is inscribed on the bottom of the monument erected last year in the park next to the library in my home town. Its in remembrance of four of my brother's buddies/peers that came back from Vietnam in a casket:

Tom Gopp
Gregg Heidrich
Claude Howard
Larry Walton

The polished stone is so reflective that this photo had to be taken at this angle in order to see the names, as opposed to seeing the photographer's image in the stone. Seeing our own image reflected in a monument honoring fallen heroes can be a reminder to all of us, that it was for us, for all of us collectively, that they died.

The tradition of erecting monuments of remembrance dates back thousands of years. When God delivered the nation of Israel across the Jordan River in about 1406 BC, finally bringing them into the promised land, they were instructed to pile up 12 stones, one for each of the 12 tribes. "We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’ These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.” (Joshua 4: 6-7 NLT)

It could be said that all of our history books were written for the sake of remembering. The recounting of critical points in history can have a powerful effect as was illustrated in Erin Gruwell's story of the Freedom Writers. When she intercepted a racial caricature being circulated around her classroom and compared it to the Nazi caricatures of Jews during the holocaust, she was appalled to learn that many of her students had never heard of the holocaust. She then had the class view the film, Schindler's List and read the Diary of Anne Frank. Students who were simply trying to survive the battlegrounds in their homes and neighborhoods began to connect in meaningful ways with people in other kinds of battles, from distant times and places.

The history of the Jewish nation from the time of slavery in Egypt to David's reign as recorded in Psalm 77 was repeated over and over from one generation to the next, so as not to forget... "I will teach you hidden lessons from our past—stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us. We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders...."

My home town

I was looking for something else on my computer and found these reflections on my home town, a slice of life of small town America at the Labor Day Festival, 2006. It captures a little bit of what makes me who I am today. A year later I captured some the annual festival on film, hence the photographs. This is a little bit longer than I'd usually do for a blog entry but editing out anything would detract from the whole.

Labor Day, 2006
Sitting on the enclosed back porch of the house where I spent all my growing up years, and have come "home" to in the many years since, we watched the annual parade of John Deere and International Harvester farm tractors pass by, hauled on trailers and flat beds pulled by an assortment of pick up and semi trucks. Dollar signs rolled in my head thinking about the many thousands of dollars wrapped in those rigs.

"Do ya want to go down?"

"Nah..."

We tossed that back and forth a few times, then finally I said I would go if they wanted to go. So we did. We drove down, even though it’s only a few blocks, cause by the time we walked around there, it would be too much to walk back. Roeder greeted us at the gate and made sure we had a close-up parking space. Without blinking an eye, they gave us all three, Mom, Dad and I the senior citizen admission rate. I may be eligible for AARP, but I sure don’t look like a senior citizen. Doesn’t bother me, though.

We walked across the drive and through the remnants of the old playground I used to play on as a kid. All that remains is the metal framework for the kiddie swings and horse gliders, and the concrete base where the tall metal sliding board used to be anchored. The base for the teeter totter and merry-go-round is probably there somewhere too. On the other end of the space kids played on a colorful climbing apparatus with all the modern day safety features built in. We might have fallen off a few things, skinned our knees or pinched a finger, or got sick to our stomach or dizzy on the merry-go-round, but somehow we survived all those many wonderful hours of playing there.

Across the other drive and past the shelter where the African-American 2nd United Methodist Church used to cook up barbecued chicken dinners every year, sits a huge barrel-type barbecue device, run by a couple black guys, and on their pick up it says, "Ribs by the Bay, Sandusky, Ohio." Dad had them open up the pit, filled with split chickens and racks of ribs. He approved of the looks of them and said maybe we’d be back.

Pick-em-up trucks had backed into the fence all along the track and folks put their lawn chairs up in there for a good view of the tractor pulling. In between, guys that even Dad calls geezers were lined up in their lawn chairs, along with an assortment of younger folks too. We remembered how our cousins, the Schneiters used to go down early every Labor Day to get a prime parking spot for their pick up. Dad struck up a conversation with someone and Mom and I walked around to the opening in the track where people cross over to sit on the bleachers. After a while Dad joins us too, having come around the track from the other side. Enroute in got sucked into buying a $5 raffle ticket from Graph, for a picnic table to benefit the renovation of the clock tower on the Methodist Church. He’s in the process of painting the picnic table we already have, so I’m not sure what we’d do with another, probably let someone else have it.

On the end of the track sat the long trailer-like device with the weight on it and a cab attached high up on the back, where one or two guys sit, getting pulled down the track one way, then, putting the wheels down on the front of the trailer, they reverse it back to the starting point. The front end of this thing gets attached to the tractors and as it gets pulled, the weight slides along a metal track that runs down the middle of the trailer.

One guy on a John Deere pulling a scraping device was preparing the surface of the dirt track, and another guy on (I think) an International Harvester, pulled another device with a row of several smooth tires all in a row, then the New London Fire Dept. yellow pick up driven by my fellow class mate, Dick Rowland, with another guy perched on the tailgate, came along with a water sprayer. That must be partly to keep the dust from blowing around and partly to make the surface of the track just so.

The tractors pull by categories of weight that they’re pulling and whether or not their tractor is "modified." Some guys had bar cages around the sides and back of where they sit on the tractor, presumably because the thing could tip backward and somehow that would protect them. A couple guys even wore a helmet.

A skinny guy with long beard getting dustier by the minute, was in charge of the stop and go flags on the front end of the track. He pulls back the red flag and holds out the green one, and the tractor driver starts revving his engine. It gets louder, the rear wheels dig in and the front wheels lift up off the ground. Some guys have weights attached to various places to keep it from rearing back too far. White smoke belches out of the smoke stack on the front end of the tractor. Then gray smoke, and depending how how modified a tractor is, black smoke. If you’re interested in preserving your hearing, you might consider covering your ears against the screaming of the engine as it passes by.

There appears to be a little bit of technique to shifting just in the right way and the right time to get the maximum power going for the pull. Above all the noise, you might be able to hear the announcer as he gives a running account of the distance traversed and how many more feet the guy has to go to claim first place in the competition for his particular class. You can hope that the wind blows just right so the smoke blows up and over the bleachers, but a good part of it settles down on the crowd. Dad makes a comment something about black lung. The tractor driver keeps pulling until the wheels start to spin, and sometimes at that point the front end of the tractor rears up. If the driver isn’t happy with his distance and thinks he can do better, he has the option of going around and giving it another try.

The device being pulled automatically tracks the exact distance pulled in feet and inches. It used to be that guys with posts and measuring tapes would run back and forth to measure the pulled distance, then another tractor would have to come and pull the weights back to the other end. Now the whole process goes a lot faster, theoretically, but they never have started on time and somehow the event consumes most of the day and promises to give many hours of entertainment.

In the middle of it all, Mom remembers the advertising byline of John Deere. "Nothing runs like a Deere," she says.

Besides the excitement of watching tractors go up and down the track, you can eavesdrop on all the nearby chatter about crops and farm animals. Then there’s always the interesting parade of people passing by and a few here and there that we know and talk with or at least wave to. Some are wearing heavy work boots, blue jeans and John Deere tee shirts, which would seem to give away that they are probably farmers. Many look like they could use a good hair cut, tufts of hair poking out of their sweat stained caps.


A small group of folks that look like they’re related to one another stand off to the side of the bleachers. One tall skinny guy holds a trophy with a chrome plated tractor on the top. A while later I look over and see a toddler in a stroller holding on to the trophy and everyone’s staring down the track, straining to see through the dust and smoke, listening to the announcer on how the next competitor fared in his bid for first place.

There’s a ball game going on directly behind the bleachers and a few homers sailed over the fence, and one even came over the bleachers and on the track. Dad instructs someone at the end of the bleachers to keep watch for the balls so we don’t get konked in the head.

Kelly comes by with his second wife. He ran the greenhouse that used to sit behind our house, across the drainage ditch, where my brother Bob used to work. So Kelly sits with us a while and with him, his second wife. He talks about the summer being too short, and now he’s back to driving school bus again. He hired two Amish boys to help him put new windows in his house. He thinks he’s going to try to make hay this week, depending on the rain situation. We get an update on all 5 of his kids, spread far and wide, and none of them came back home for the holiday weekend.

After about an hour and a half, Mom and I get tired of the noise and the hard bleachers and took off walking. The junior prom committee is running the lemonade stand so we get some of that, even though I know it’s going to be too sweet for me. Right next to it is Dor-Lo’s pizza a mainstay at all the local festivals for as long as I can remember. We look over the raffle drawing prizes and sit on the bench outside the re-located train depot, drink our lemonade and watch the goings-on. After a while we decide to check out the Hileman building where an assortment of flowers and produce are lined up with blue and red ribbons attached. The Garden Club had crafted a pretty nice looking quilt for a raffle drawing, constructed of squares made by the members.

That’s where Dad finds us. He gives us the car keys and announces he’s going back to the barbecue pit to get us some chicken to take home. We drive out the back way, and seeing all the cars parked in the outlots, we’re doubly grateful that Roeder showed us special favor in getting a close-up space. We turn up White Ave, driving past where Grandma used to live. They’ve enclosed the front, have put on nice yellow siding and put up a nice big garage.

Throughout the afternoon and especially driving back to Cleveland, I think that this agreeable little slice of time in a small rural community, my home town seems a half a world away from the central Cleveland neighborhood where I work. My home town is quiet for the most part, except for the trucks that rumble down highway 60 past the front of our house, and the distant train whistles that sometimes sound so close when the wind is blowing just right. There are lots of big houses and big yards and big trees, some of which I remember being planted when I was a kid. There are folks who know each other and take the time to help their neighbors out. If we hear a siren, we look out the window when it passes by and wonder if its someone we know.

Being surrounded by farmland, and largely populated with people who were or are farmers, there’s a deep sense of connection with the land. We know first hand what "home-grown" means, having picked tomatoes and green beans in our own back yards. We grew up going to the county fair every year and participating in 4-H. We went to school with kids who belonged to the Future Farmers of America, and had already done morning chores on the farm before coming to school.

Continuing the drive back to Cleveland, right about where Rte 20 becomes a divided highway I see that the tops of the trees are golden, the last rays of the day’s sun give them a warm cast. As the four lane divided highway turns into Interstate 480 and 8 lanes, I can see a beautiful golden glow in the western sky in my rearview mirrors. Labor Day is ending for another year. Up ahead I see intercontinental airliners flying over I-480, coming in for a landing at Hopkins.

I think about the work week ahead. My office is surrounded by blacktop and concrete and structures. Many of the people who come to The City Mission have led lives in such stark contrast to my own. A fairly significant percentage have never seen the outside of a city. They wouldn’t be able to discern a green bean plant from a pepper plant unless.... " [That's where my thoughts ended back when I wrote this in Sept. 06 so I'll leave it at that.]

"Back when I was a kid..." we watched horse pulls on Labor Day. Draft horses that are bred for strength and agility pull loads down the track. Dad has a story about the superior strength of the horses his family used on the farm. Maybe I can get him to tell it again.

Photography

A friend said she hoped I would be posting some of my photographs on my blog. I'm not sure where to start. I have hundreds of photos. I have been taking pictures since I was a kid. I'm not saying how many years that's been.

Here is a photo of my brother and I on a family vacation. Note we are both holding cameras. Behind us is the Mackinac Bridge which connects the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan. (At 5 miles long it is currently the third longest suspension bridge in the world. )

After many years of working in the social service field I decided to go back to school in photography to see if I could make it in the field. Within a couple years of that I was in a Cleveland Bicentennial photo exhibit at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. It was put on by a group of women photographers, many of whom had their own photography business/studio. What a blast that experience was! Each of us also put photos and our bios in a time capsule at the Western Reserve Historical Society to be opened in 100 years. Within a short amount of time I also was published, with 4 photos in a coffee table book entitled "Cleveland: Continuing the Renaissance." More about those experiences later. I'll have to find the negatives and get some digitized. I also worked 5 years as a portrait photographer. I made a living at it, although not a great one. I really liked doing it but it takes a lot of energy.

Photography is a part of my job at The City Mission. I recently did a couple of photo shoots at Laura's Home, our program for homeless women and children. We needed some fresh photos for a new Laura's Home brochure. Once we have the brochure posted on our web site I'll post a link so you can see how my photographs were laid out in the brochure. Besides photographing women involved in various activities I also did a few family portraits. It was great fun and reminded me of my time working in the studio.

I am best at photographing people. Aside from some occasional portrait type photos I enjoy capturing people going about their daily lives, a photojournalistic approach. My camera has gotten me into some interesting places and circumstances. I once traveled on a oar freighter (from Lorain to Cleveland), chronicling the people and activities on the freighter. Believe it or not, it was a 10 hour trip, ending at LTV steel. That's a whole other story.

As I scan through some of my CD's looking for a photo to post here I decided on one of my favorite photos of my parents, Dad in his army jacket and Mom in her wedding suit, taken not quite 2 years ago. It was one of those instances of discussing the extra little roll around the waist and wondering if they can still get into something they wore decades ago. Note that the clothes still fit pretty good. You can see frames hanging all over the walls... lots of family photos and a few of my nature photos enlarged. Everyone's high school graduation photos hang together in one place around a grand old clock.

The first 35 mm camera I used was Dad's Argus. I used that in a photography class I took at OSU. Dad took lots of photos when we were growing up and on our vacations. He was pretty good at it, although he won't admit it. I treasure them all. He usually shot with slide film which is harder to do. There's very little room for error. If you don't get the exposure right, there's no fixing it later. I fondly remember all the slide shows he put together. Some of the slides now have been made in to prints and are displayed in the many photo books Dad has put together. By now he has run through several printers and probably hundreds of ink cartridges.

Is it any wonder that I'm so into photography?

Here I am being excited about something. Isn't it fun?

April 6, 1862

From the ephemeris [diary] of Captain Loren Webb
The Battle of Shiloh (also known as Battle of Pittsburg Landing)

"Sunday, 6th
Pleasant [weather]. This morning at daylight we heard firing on our advance line. We soon determined that it was a general attack and we were soon ready. The firing grew terrible and our line was driven in. Our Regt. was then taken to the left of our forces and soon we were engaged with a strong force. Our boys took cover behind the ridge and kept our place for a long time. The rebels brought up fresh troops twice but could not drive us. They then brought forward a fresh line and charged bayonet on us and routed us. We then retreated to our camp and washed our guns and got ammunition and went in again. This time I was wounded in the right foot. Lieut. G. W. Williford in the knee. The battle raged all day the whole length of the line, but the rebels were in great numbers and drove us at all points. By night we were closely hemmed on the river bank, but the gun boats now commenced shelling them while our boys worked on them in the front and they were obliged to fall back. They fell back about two miles. There were many interesting (events) transpired during the day that I cannot mention, but much bravery was displayed. I saw several of my men fall dead and many more are missing. Col. Phillips was several times wounded, but it is hoped not fatally. 19 of 26 officers that went into the battle killed or wounded. I had but 20 men the second time that I went into action. I was early wounded and have not seen my co. My foot has swollen much and is quite painful. All is suspense, but now Buell's forces appear on the other shore. Tis dark."

Coming home

A coworker reflected today that we're all homeless in a sense..... It made me think of this poem by G.K. Chesterton, referred to as The Christmas Poem

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done...
To an open house in the evening
Home shall all men come,

To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

Everybody is a story

"Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don't do that so much any more. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering. Despite the awesome powers of technology many of us still do not live very well. We may need to listen to each other's stories again."
Quoted from:
Kitchen Table Wisdom
by Rachel Naomi Remen
http://www.rachelremen.com/ktw.html