Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.
Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
I normally have a strong aversion to rhyming poetry and mostly find the British Romantics' poetry to be banal and predictable, yet I was drawn to these lines from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard" when reflecting on Memorial Day. Elevating and celebrating the lives of simple, hardworking farmers, Gray encourages his readers to reflect on how they lived their lives, away from fame, power, and complexity. While it may be an oversimplification of what rural life is like, Gray touched a note with me as I looked a photographs I took this past Saturday at the cemetery in Edgar, Nebraska.
Settled on the flat farmland of Southeastern Clay County, Edgar, like many small Nebraska towns, has had its population dwindle and average age rise as agriculture becomes more and more mechanized and automated. A glimmer of hope, The Sugar Shack Candle Company has expanded its business to multiple buildings in 'downtown' Edgar, distributing a new 'cash crop' of fragrant and colorful candles and soap all over the Midwest, far removed from the more masculine corn, beans, and cows most rural areas produce. Also like most small Nebraska towns, Edgar grew up along the railroad, a vital artery for transportation and commerce in the late 19th century. Interestingly, Edgar is part of what was called the 'ABC Railroad', stretching through Alexandria, Belvidere, Carleton, Davenport, Edgar, Fairfield, Glenvil, through Hastings.
My mom's family ventured west from Indiana around 1880 for reasons unknown to us, perhaps the prospect of cheap and fertile land. We do know that, in 1882, Henry Frank King officially homesteaded a parcel land in southeast of Edgar in Northeastern Nuckolls County, a piece of land that has been plowed, cultivated, grazed, and lived upon for the past 130 years. Through those 13 decades, my family name of King disseminated outward to Schlictmans, Kruegers, Chards, and Greers, yet all are buried in the the Edgar cemetery due that one decision by H.F. King to move outward. I am where I am today due to a long line of cause-effects chains but H.F. King is definitely a big part of it; in fact, each person buried under the sod has their own story.
1st Generation
Above is the grave of my great great grandparents Phebe and Henry Frank King. Before reaching a quarter century, they had already traveled across the Midwest, settled in a new land, and convinced other members of the family to come with them, even Henry Frank's father, John, born in 1835; He too is buried in the cemetery. While Grandma had few stories to tell about her grandfather that I remember, pictures of him reveal he was an average built man, with a moustache and slightly unkempt hair; obviously, keeping up appearances were the least of his worries, tempting to make a living on land that could be unforgiving. In the decades before, the Northeastern Nuckolls county was semi-tamed with sporadic Native American-settler disputes, Pony Express riders, and Oregon Trail voyagers. As I reread Old Jules last year, I imagined how my own ancestors must've gone through similar trials, natural and man made.
Surviving her husband by nearly two decades, Phebe King was much more prominent in the mind of my grandmother; in fact, a small black and white photograph shows her, born pre-Civil, holding my newly mother in a hospital, generations a century apart tied together in one snap shot. Genealogical records show she was born in Long Island, New York. In a photograph I assume is her in her twenties, she appears strong, confident, yet feminine, her hand resting on some stock piece of furniture from a photography studio. She raised four children on the newly gotten farmstead, encountering with both the mundane and the singular on the frontier; for example, on baking days of the week, she soon found out she had unintended fans of her bread, as Indians would catch a waft of the baking and ride up asking for an extra. Not knowing their intentions, Phebe capitulated to their request. After many decades on the farm, she moved into town where she positioned herself as the family matriarch, tending to countless houseplants as well as overseeing family events. She became a role model for my grandmother after losing her own mother before the age of 13. She died at the age of 95, after living a life that spanned geographical, cultural, and technological barriers. We still lay flowers on their graves, a signifier of the impact they had on future generations.
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