Mom surprised us all by going before Dad. 1,778 days later, he followed her.
In the intervening years Dad was capable and willing of doing for himself. But the 64-year relationship was built upon Mom doing all things indoors and Dad conquered outdoor chores on the small ranch. It fell upon a couple of family members to fill the gaps of cooking meals, a bit of banking, and other oddball tasks. For me, the oldest daughter, it was more about being with him as well as stocking the fridge with casseroles and desserts.
It meant Sunday afternoon visits after church. It was a short drive of about 20 miles to the childhood property I grew up on. It was still home to me despite Mom not being around.
One week necessitated a midweek trip to dear ole’ Dad’s. He needed my help with some banking back in my little town. Coincidentally, the tune “My Little Town” (Simon & Garfunkel) repeated in splendid reverie as I turned onto his little lane. I crooned the lyrics of the chorus, “nothing but the dead of night back in my little town,” and for reasons unknown curiosity compelled me to pull over and Google the lyrics to the full song.
I was stupefied to learn that for the past umpteen years I’ve been belting out incorrect words. According to lyrics.com, the correct lyrics are “nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town.” My bad.
At the time, dead and dying seemed to be more appropriate at that time; from 2016 to 2018 my little town had lost my mother and three aunties, two of whom I was especially close to. Dead and dying spoke
The lyric of the song seems to imply nothing productive comes from their little town whereas my little town has lost four bastions of strength, grace, faith and character.
I prefer to keep my version. Maybe it is born from habit of many years. Maybe it’s plain stubbornness––I’ll keep on keening “nothing but the dead of night.”
The Sunday afternoon and mid-week visits have ceased. Although the property now belongs to me another family lives there. When my outings take me to the little ranch at the end of the lane, it doesn’t feel like home, making the ancient adage true: you can’t go home again.
Gosh darn it––I must take my leave before this earworm leaves me in a puddle. (Insert humming sounds.)
On a dark and stormy night, no, I’m joking. It was a hot August night (for reals) when I experienced the phenomena––a life review––my life flashed before my eyes. Granted, it was a like a YouTube Short because I was only 18 years old at the time. It’s a boring name for a fantastical event––a life review. Can’t we come up with something more mysterious? Say like animated appraisal?
At the gloaming, after a laborious day of working in a lumber mill as a ty-up girl, I went to a friend’s house to relax and party a bit. I remember inhaling (unlike Bill Clinton) some wacky tobacky and washed the smokey dry throat with a beer or two. I don’t remember all the sordid details. And I did what all stupid people do; I drove my car the 6 miles to my home. The stigma of driving under the influence in the 1970s wasn’t as it is now, and back-in-the-day no one really gave it much of a second thought unless dire things happened. Shame on us.
All was well until I jerked awake at the wheel approaching the left bend of the exit from the I-5 freeway onto highway 273, exit number 667A. Literally a film of important life events streamed like a Hulu Original. And as stated, it was a short film of only 18 years. It was freaky this occurrence of my life review…er, I mean animated appraisal.
Twenty-three years later I was involved in an accident while riding in a truck and trailer hauling gasoline and diesel, a literal crash and burn scene. The likelihood of survival was slim but there was no life review. According to google scientific studies, this happens when a person thinks they are going to die. Tumbling around in the cab I believed I would die, but no flashes of life passing me by. Later that evening while unconscious I died and had to be revived two or three times, again no review. Just as well because 41 years of life would have a full-feature film.
I no longer drive under the influence of any substance; in case any are wondering.
My little town in far northern California has many now defunct signage––stores out of business, and some for many years. I am tempted many times to grab snapshots of each (most of them) carry childhood memories, but I am not a photographer. At least that is my excuse for failing to do so.
This sign of Gene’s Hamburgers has special memories of grammar school days with clothes shopping trips to the “big city” of Redding, California. We lived in the country between two tiny towns with few people about 20 miles south. My parents were frugal, pragmatic people. We rarely ate meals outside our home. We raised our own beef and had a large garden; the logic was why pay for food when we have plenty at home?
The rare exception was a trip to Redding for items not found in our local stores, such as the awful oxford black and white shoes we girls we forced to wear for the first few years of school. I would say God-awful but why should he get all the blame? But I digress.
Redding trips were exiting because cheeseburgers, fries, and Coca-Colas were on the lunch menu. And Gene’s Hamburgers was the family favorite. For decades Genes was the local social hangout for car enthusiasts, but today it has been razed including the sign. The lot sits empty and forlorn.
One the last meals I had with my grandmother was from this hamburger joint. I’m thankful I had the foresight to snap this pic years ago when I first heard of the plans to close the place.
There once was a little girl who had the nursery-rhyme curl in the middle of her forehead. Country folk like to call it a cowlick, named after the way a swirling pattern is fashioned when a cow licks the hair of her calf. But on humans it refers to a strand of hair that stands up or lies at an angle at odds with the rest of the hair. Little Girl was made with two––one on her forehead and one on the crown of her head.
Heading down the lane to “home”. Photo taken in front of the former G.F. Spoon home.
Little Girl lived with her parents at the end of a dirt road; a road that seemed endless to a small girl. Her father’s parents, Grandma and Grandpa Spoon, lived at the mid-way point so that she passed their house when walking up or down the lane. Walking ‘up the lane’ meant going to the paved road that led into town. Walking ‘down the lane’ meant going home.
Her adventures of riding the school bus began at an early age. The bus was a big caterpillar looking mustard-colored machine that gobbled up kids early in the morning and carried them away to places where they were taught all sorts of things. The best thing about this bus was it brought them back to the end of the lane and spit them out in the afternoons.
Little Girl knew how to read fluently at four years old, so she skipped kindergarten and started the first grade at four, turning five years old three weeks later. She was able to read so young because her grandma, the one who lived up the lane, taught her. In fact, her Grandma Spoon taught most all her grandchildren to read for she was a retired schoolteacher.
On non-school days Little Girl walked up the lane to visit her mother’s parents, who also lived in the neighborhood. She visited the Watkins’ home often because she liked her grandma and had hopes of being given buttered toast covered with sugar. It was a secret treat just for Little Girl whose mother never allowed such a thing. Two uncles and one auntie also lived with Grandma and Grandpa Watkins, but Grandpa was rarely home because he worked in the woods far away. The uncles played guitars and Little Girl danced with her auntie to the catchy tunes. Sometimes she didn’t dance at all and watched Auntie twist to the music on her Twister Board. The Twist was all the rage in that day.
A visit to the Watkins’ home meant walking up the lane just past the Spoon home. The two homes were separated by a wide pasture and was catty-corner to the Spoons. So, she had to go under a barbed-wire fence and walk the pasture because she wasn’t allowed to walk on the paved road. The problem was the field was home to many cows and bulls and Little Girl was afraid of cattle. She always looked two or three times to be sure they were far away before risking being poked by the barbed wire fence while entering the field.
She hurried along the way looking over her shoulder to be sure no beast had her in their sights until she was safely over the wood fence into the Watkins’ yard. She loved being able to visit both sets of grandparents all by herself, no adult to scold her for this or that or anything at all. Or any pesky siblings to bother her.
After every school day, school bus #81 dropped her and her older brother to walk down the long lane to home. Their baby sister stayed home because she was just that, a baby. And babies didn’t go to school or ride busses.
A row of mailboxes sat on the edge of the dirt road ending a few feet before the paved highway perpendicular to the dirt road. Little Girl always opened the door of the largest mailbox first and snatched the stamped envelopes addressed to Mr. and Mrs. G.F. Spoon. Her brother never interfered, and she never knew why he was not interested in this fun chore.
It was fun to Little Girl because Grandma rewarded her with a dill pickle. Little Girl was well known for her love of dill pickles, but her mother never bought them because her father, nor her brother liked them. Some days Grandma was out of dill and substituted sweet or bread and butter. Little Girl didn’t like these pickles as much, but she still ate them.
If the weather was good, Grandma would be sitting in her rocking chair on the porch. She would ask if Little Girl was a good mailman or a bad one. She never really knew what she was but always answered “good.”
Sometimes Grandpa joined them but most times he was in his workshop behind the house. The shop was built by the old man out of blackened railroad ties. Many stood slightly crooked and off kilter. Little Girl learned late in life that the reason the thick square boards were blackened was because her father, in his early 20s, had accidently set fire to them. Yet he never confessed to Grandpa Spoon.
Grandpa Spoon was a small man whose boot size was only 7.5, small for the average man and was 5 foot 9 inches or so tall, or so they said. His stooped shoulders and wrinkly lines on his bespectacled face made him look shorter. But Grandma was robust making her appear slightly taller than her husband. He wasn’t as friendly to Little Girl as Grandma, so she didn’t seek him out if he was absent.
Little Girl’s home was about 1/8 mile from the elder’s Spoon Ranch, as it was called. She loved talking with her grandma, because Grandma had been a substitute teacher in nearly every school in Shasta County, California, and beyond. She had lots of stories to tell––stories about the old days.
One day she learned how Grandma earned her teaching credentials: She and her five children at the time stayed camped out in a tent in Mt. Shasta, California. She attended classes while the oldest children watched the younger in the campground. Sometimes Grandma took a child to school with her. She did this for about 6 weeks! Little Girl was impressed at the fortitude and courage Grandma demonstrated. Even at five years old she recognized her grandma as a free thinker, a woman ahead of her time. In that era, most married women did not work on a job: they stayed home caring for the children, cooking, and cleaning while the husband was employed.
Little Girl’s favorite story was when Grandma went to work teaching at a school in the Jelly’s Ferry Road area in northern California. Her youngest baby at the time, Daisy Bell, just a few months old was put on the teacher’s desk to nap. Before Grandma knew it the baby rolled aside right off that desk! She had been wrapped up so tight that the unravelling of the blanket stopped the babe from hitting the floor with full force.
There was a day, May 25, 1966, when Little Girl got off the bus to find flashing lights of an ambulance parked in the road in front of the Spoon Ranch house. She forgot about the mail, she forgot about being a good or bad mailman, and even forgot about the dill pickle. She ran to the house, but her father met her and her brother on the road in front of the house and were told not to stop but to go home to Mama. He only said Grandpa was sick and needed to go to the hospital. No one told her grandpa was already gone before the ambulance got there. He had keeled over with a stroke. Just like that––at the snap of a finger––talking one second and gone the next.
Little Girl was distressed that grandma was all alone and asked to spend the night to care for her. She was allowed and slept on Grandma’s couch for the next several nights. Each morning, she made hotcakes for Grandma who insisted they were not called pancakes, but hotcakes!
The old women still drank water from a dipper filled from the kitchen faucet instead of from a glass. She never explained why she did this, but Little Girl perceived it went back to the days of drawing a bucket of water from a well, long before indoor plumbing and kitchen faucets were installed in homes.
One time when Little Girl was washing a drinking glass she had used, Grandma Spoon told her with an air of superiority, “people always wash the bottom of the glass when they should be washing the rim because that’s where the germs are!” To this very day Little Girl can’t wash a glass without hearing that voice in her head to wash the rim, where the germs are.
As Little Girl was still learning to make a hotcake taste good, her grandmother sat at the table patiently waiting. One morning she instructed Little Girl to do all things in the name of Jesus. If you can’t do it in His name, you shouldn’t be doing it. (Little Girl wondered if that would help make the perfect hotcake.) She never forgot this advice but didn’t always adhere to the guidance.
After several nights keeping guard of her beloved grandma, she awoke one morning to find an extra blanket upon her. Little Girl didn’t remember crying in the night, but Grandma got up to cover her. Little Girl felt she had failed. She was supposed to take care of grandma, not be cared for. But Little Girl was only 9 years old and didn’t realize a lot of things. That was Little Girl’s last night at the Spoon house. The adults decided one of Grandma Spoon’s daughters should take the job until a professional nurse could be hired.
Three and one-half years later, just after midnight of the first full day of Little Girl being 12 years old, her grandmother, her teacher, and spiritual advisor, passed on to her heavenly home.
Little Girl learned long after Grandma Spoon’s passing, when Little Girl’s little girl had a little girl, that Grandma had been a postmaster in a tiny town named after her: the town of Stacy, California, in honor of Mary Stacy Joella Yoakam Spoon, Postmaster.
Years ago, I had purchased an audio lecture course for word nerds via Audible. I quit listening for reasons I don’t remember, but it’s most likely a new semester had begun. Now that I am a certified university graduate, I decided to form a new habit of learning one new word each week in 2022.
I do love words; yes, I am a nerd. I just don’t know enough of them to make me sound like a pretentious, and pompous windbag, yet I am willing to learn how to be one. Just kidding. I love how one skilled in language use can string words together, forming into an exquisite and rare-jeweled necklace adorning the page. Like how a blob of paint upon a canvas can be pushed, pulled, and squished around to form an abstract or still life. Or how a musical note layered one upon another can become an enchanting melody transporting me to a third or fourth dimension.
I am also inspired by a long-time friend, a genuine Einstein level of genius who has a vocabulary the size of a real, hard copy, 8” thick Webster’s dictionary: The self-proclaimed and humble Master of None (https://rongiesecke.com/?s=giesecke). In my opinion, you are master of the English vocabulary, whose use of language I admire. (And yes, 8-inch-thick dictionaries really exist. My mother owned one yet was most often used in our family as a toddler’s booster seat at the table.)
After rediscovering and listening to the introductory chapter of the course, I remembered what had attracted me to the lectures; the technique of teaching was finally a process that I could remember a word’s meaning far beyond that of knowing long enough for a test and promptly flushing.
Therefore, what and when I write here is something I cannot take credit for––another’s idea yet put into my own words. That credit belongs solely on the instructor, Kevin Flanigan, PH.D., West Chester University of Pennsylvania. The title of the audio course and the accompanying eBook in PDF format is “Building a Better Vocabulary.”
His method involves 1) defining the word 2) using the word in context 3) breaking down the morphology and/or etymology 4) making connection: the new with what you already know 5) chunking or learning by groups of similar words. Words that are very often used together are collocates and aids memory by learning synonyms that can be connected in meaning.
I have four new words saved to memory: factotum, procrustean, circumspect, and factitious. Following in the footsteps of Prof. Flanigan, I explain my two favorite words from the first four weeks of 2022. These I will remember 50 years from now. (Ask me then.)
Factotum
1. Definition: a factotum is a person who performs many kinds of tasks, or a general servant; a jack-of-all trades.
2. Context: Modern society would not typically use the word factotum to describe a butler, girl- Friday, or a go-fer, but in fact, that is precise meaning of a factotum––one who performs many different types of tasks.
3. Morphology: Latin; fac, make, do + totum; all, of the whole.
Etymology: first used in the 1500s, Martin Luther used factotum in his commentary on Galatians in 1535. (Merriam -Webster dictionary app.)
4. Making connection: take the new word and connect it to what is already known. We know that mothers are nursemaids, cooks, housecleaners, laundresses, chauffeurs, bookkeepers and more. Picture your mother and now you can make a connection of the new word factotum. Moms do a little bit of everything.
5. Chunking: category of words that mean servant, jack-of all-trades, man/girl Friday, personal assistant, or a handyman/woman.
1. Definition: Tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it means to enforce uniformity or conformity without regard to natural variation or individuality.
2. Context: Many U.S leaders have instituted mandates they equate with constitutional law and enforce by tyrannical means of denying basic human rights such prescription drugs, loss of employment, or denying people to be in public places without proof of receiving a particular injection. Many people view these as being placed on the procrustean bed of leadership by coercing individuals to comply, regardless of personal belief or health status, with the specious argument of keeping every citizen “safe.”
3. Morphology: Procrustean is an adjective derived from Greek mythology of a robber named Procrustes who was known to force victims to lie on a bed and made them fit or by chopping off limbs. Etymology: first known recorded use c.1640s; Procrustes+an (Dictionary.com).
4. Connection: The authoritarian ruler often metes out punishments to young children with procrustean methods such as spanking with a willow tree branch. My personal connection is a memory of an angry mother chasing me around the yard while my calves stung with each strike of a willow branch and an involuntary corresponding yelp. I envision a weeping willow tree and see Procrustes.
5. Chunking with words that mean ruthless, tyrannical conformity, unmerciful, inexorable.
I’m excited to think that by this time next year, I will have 52+ new words to insert into my writing. I suppose at the year’s end that the next challenge is to see how many new words I can use in one blog and be coherent.
It was seven days before Christmas, and I still had to purchase gifts for 21 grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and 10 adults. Technically, Christmas was eight days away, but our family gathers for dinner on Christmas Eve, opening gifts after the grandchildren wash the dishes.
Ho! Ho! Ho! Oh, here I go. I snuggled into my favorite love-seat position: blanket; feather-pillow; pajamas; steaming mug of coffee latte at the ready, with the Amazon page brightly shining and resting on my lap. Christmas / Saravejo 12/24 by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra transmitted via Apple TV. The music was so loud that I thought I heard the neighbors singing along.
I read that Amazon Prime members were extended an offer-of-the-day to have purchases gift- wrapped for free. I started to clap my hands. I had forgotten I was holding the latte, and nearly doused my shopping cart.
The doorbell rang. I was greeted by a small crowd; my third-born daughter, Angela, her six-month-old twin daughters, Annakate and Adeline, and her ten-year-old son, Dylan. I welcomed them in, and as they were seated, Dylan spied my computer and asked if he could play Minecraft on it.
“Of course,” I said with a wink at the platinum-haired boy, “That’s why I downloaded it, silly Dilly.”
He carried the laptop to the dining table and I set my attention to oohing and awing over the twins.
They left. I returned to my Amazon shopping, made my selections and set about washing dishes, making the bed, and tossing clothes into the washing machine. As I cleaned, I made a mental grocery list for the big dinner. Then, it came to me; a jolting revelation, so jolting I swear I heard the angels sing. I could order all my groceries on Amazon.
* * * * *
I opened the door to the UPS delivery truck driver asking for my signature and I happily signed, although I wasn’t sure why this particular delivery required a signature; she didn’t look happy. She must have made 12 jaunts––truck to doorstep, using a dolly–– getting more red-faced each time, as I gawped. Her parting words were something about why I thought I needed 42 Christmas hams and concluded with a caustic Merry Christmas as she offered a hand signal that may or may not have signified her IQ level.
I smiled, dripping with saccharine to shield my consternation, I called out something about her job security. I ogled (my face as frozen as the hams) for a few minutes at the mass covering the front porch and decided the Amazon SNAFU could be dealt with in the morning and began dragging the boxes inside.
The new day arrived; the sun shining in a clear blue sky despite putting my order with the Big Guy for snow. I wondered if I should have checked for availability with Amazon Prime. I hoped and prayed that the one special gift would arrive before dinner as I baked all day for the expectant, hungry horde. The gift was delivered at last, and I placed it upon the swollen mound that exceeded the ‘under the tree’ notion.
I rang the Amazon office contact number only to reach an automated response: closed for the holidays, please try again December 26, 2017.
We wonder, September, who, what star will sing new,
And who, what star will wax far away.
Your third sapphire day’s star arose shimmering bright
only to apex and implode
into the heavens and dissipated.
The black it left is as bright as the light.
This, too, is to your ode.
Star light, star bright,
We wonder how you are tonight.
A new sapphire day’s star birthed and shines high, distant,
As if this new star would behold
The morning’s glory for an instant,
Our witness that we forget-you-not.
This, too, is to your ode.
September, your eleventh sapphire day’s star
Has darkened halls, the crowds gaze
Ever looking with mouths agape,
Searching beyond black heavens mar;
The blackness in the night stays.
Stars light, stars bright,
We wonder how you are tonight.
Sapphire days, autumn’s equinox, falling foliage,
chilly beginning, sweltering afternoon, asters wilting,
brown and spent. September sapphire days have
forever changed the history of our family lineage.
This, too, is to your ode.
A niece and an uncle’s star away were scurried
To mark the anniversary of my September birth,
Grand-ma-ma’s star flittered away one day after
the thirteenth anniversary of the same. All buried.
This, too, is to your ode.
Stars light, stars bright,
We wonder how you are tonight.
Your third sapphire day’s star arose shimmering bright
only to apex and implode
into the heavens and dissipate.
The black it left is as bright as the light.
This, too, is to your ode.
We wonder, September, who, what star will sing new,
And who, what star will wax far away.
Reviled and cursed is your third sapphire day, September.
Jaydan Anthony, we wonder how you are tonight.
On earth where you mingled, was your glowing ember.
May you light the heavens beyond our sight.
This, too, is to your ode:
The conclusion to Jack and Holly’s adventures reads below. Their expedition is based on factual events. Following the story is a list of what really happened.
The boats of Coos Bay, Oregon
Echoes––The Conclusion
“Look Holly,” Jack commanded, “I found a family name here, my family, I mean.”
Holly looked up from the book she was searching through at a table in the Coos Library. She thought it strange he was reading in the first place when he had been quite vocal that he would rather be in the pub three doors down. The librarian hushed Jack with a classic look; glasses lowered to the tip of the nose, eyes focused and glaring over the rim at the perpetrator.
“It says here she married John and Eliza’s son, George,” Jack whispered, “Oh, wait, I take it back, George’s wife’s name is the same as my great-grandmother’s, but I don’t recognize her father’s name. It can’t be my family.”
Holly breathed a sigh of relief and added, “That would be strange to think I’m a blood relative to you.” She shuddered.
“That would make things even more weird.” Jack said.
Holly didn’t miss the inflection in Jack’s voice. She wondered what he had meant by “even more weird.” Holly pondered on their relationship and wondered if the remark was about their marriage –– she had a hunch and hoped this was about how they had heard from relatives that their ancestors had been at odds. But things have been weird between us these last few months and I can’t put my finger on it.
She tucked the remark away and continued her study of the local newspaper, Coos Bay Echoes. “Death Summons Prominent Citizen,” the headline read, and Holly was surprised to read in great detailof the life of John Yoakam. She thought how glad she was that reporters and editors included more personal details than they do today.
“It says here the girls are buried at Yoakam Hill,” Holly said, “Didn’t we see that on a map?” She glanced over her shoulder, expecting a scolding from the librarian.
“Let’s go,” Jack said, “Let’s go find this hill.”
“I want to see Eliza’s spinning wheel in the Coos Historical and Maritime Museum and visit the cemetery all the Yoakams are buried in.”
“Macabre.” Jack observed.
Holly started to defend herself, thought better of it and gathered her things in silence.
* * *
The eastern sun streaked into the cab as Jack nosed the truck up the narrow, gravel road. The area was heavily forested, isolated and devoid of human inhabitants.
“Are you sure the map said to head west on Cammon Wagon Road?” he asked without taking his eyes off the road.
“Positive, just keep climbing, we’re almost there.”
They reached the summit to find the road had ended, but a short driveway led to a home surrounded by a cyclone fence. They exited the truck and headed toward the house to ask permission to walk the property, but no one appeared to be home. They trounced around the forested property outside the fence looking for headstones. Jack was enjoying the exploration, but after an hour Holly grew frustrated, trudging in the dirt, brushing limbs, leaves and debris aside looking for markers. She hoped that the house had not been built over the little cemetery.
“Look, Jack,” she said pointing at the map, “The GPS coordinates say I am standing on the exact burial site, but there is nothing here,” Holly’s eyes welled, “It’s gotto be here, all the books, websites, and maps say this is the place,” Holly said with a disappointed and loud sigh, “I guess it’s time to give up.”
The couple plodded with a defeated posture back to the truck, climbed in, and Holly slammed the door in frustration. As Jack turned the truck around to head down Yoakam Hill, a black sedan crawled around a corner, tires crunching on the gravel and approached. The driver pulled alongside the truck and questioned Jack. He explained the reason for their presence and the homeowner, congenial and polite, told them she had lived there for over forty years and had never heard of the burial site. Holly handed her a business card and asked to please call if she ever learned any information.
Before Jack could engage the motor, Holly placed her hand on Jack’s right forearm.
“Wait, Jack, I want to ask you something.”
She asked what he had meant by things being even more weird. He explained that he didn’t mean anything at all, there was no hidden meaning.
“I was referring to the weirdness that you had discovered our people fought against each other in the famous Battle of Culloden in 1746.”
“Oh,” Holly said with relief.
“Is that why you’ve been so quiet today?” Jack inquired as she relaxed back in her seat.
Holly sat still and shrugged her shoulders replying, “I guess so. Let’s head out of The Coos Pioneer Cemetery. I know we’ll find that.”
* * *
Jack positioned the rig onto the street in front of their house.
“We’re home. Another successful voyage across mountain and valley.” Jack declared.
Holly was annoyed at Jack’s habit of stating the obvious. Jack, thinking she was going to playfully call him Mr. Obvious, noticed her seriousness.
“What’s wrong Holly?” he asked, “Are you disappointed?”
“I really wanted to find those five gravesites, so yes, I am a little. Besides, I don’t think you enjoyed this trip much.”
“Listen,” Jacked turned and cupped her face in his hands, “I had a really great time. Do you remember me telling you that my great-great-grandfather was the trail guide for Brigham Young on the way to Utah?”
Holly nodded.
“The rumor is he converted to Mormonism after. I bet there are lots of records about him.”
“I thought this genealogy stuff bored you.”
“You were so excited, and in your element, it was inspiring. Seeing my grandmother’s name got me rethinking. And I really loved traipsing through the woods on Yoakam Hill. I felt like an old-time wilderness explorer––we were Lewis and Clark.”
Holly smiled at the comparison.
“I know a great Italian place in Salt Lake City.”
Facts and Actual Events
Eliza and John Yoakam lost five daughters by a burning, falling tree, one a babe in Eliza’s arms.
The tragic loss of the Yoakam girls is documented in newspapers such as the Coos Bay Echo, as well as the “Death Summons Prominent Citizen” article, found in the Coos Bay Library.
The oldest girl that perished was adopted by John and Eliza after the girl’s mother passed away. It has been said that she was Eliza’s best friend’s daughter.
Eliza and John lost their oldest son to disease on the trail.
Eliza delivered the baby girl that died in her arms three days after arriving in the Coos Bay area.
According to a graveyard and burials website, and in Coos Bay history books, the girls are buried together at Yoakam Hill
Jack and Holly (aka ‘Frank’ and Janet) could not find the tiny graveyard.
The resident on the hill had never seen or heard of the graves in all the 40+ years living on Yoakam Hill.
Eliza Yoakam’s spinning wheel is on display at the Coos Historical and Maritime Museum.
Jack and Holly camped in an RV on Arago Beach beneath the cliffs of the Yoakam State Park.
Jack and Holly found Eliza and John’s grave markers at the Coos Pioneer Cemetery.
Jack, a Scotsman, and Holly, of English descent fought each other in some war in the ancient days: it may or may not have been Culloden.
Jack’s great-great grandfather was a trail guide for someone associated with Brigham Young, and was looking to settle in Utah.
Little Italy, in Coos Bay, is a fantastic place for dine.
Holly was often annoyed with Jack stating the obvious and called him Mr. Obvious.
Holly has never driven with an RV in tow, nor does she ever want to.
Jack would have rather been in the pub than the library but developed an interest in genealogy while in the Coos Library.
John was a younger brother of Jasper and George. George died in 1901, five years before his mother, Eliza, as pictured above.
I’m posting, in two parts, a short story written as a classroom assignment. This is based on true events that occurred in the ancestral line of my paternal grandmother, my great-great grandparents, John and Eliza Yoakam, who settled in Coos Bay, Oregon in the mid 1850s.
Echoes, Part One
“Turn left here,” Jack yelled.
“No, the map says to turn right,” Holly retorted as she grasped the dead man’s knob on the wheel and turned the large, black Dodge truck with a 5thwheel in tow onto Cape Arago Highway.
“Maybe you’d rather drive,” Holly teased, smiling at her tow-headed husband.
Holly guided the rig toward the RV park near the beach in silence. She thought of the purpose of the trip and hoped she would find answers to nagging questions. Her great-great-grandmother, Eliza Davis Yoakam, and her husband, John, had an experienced a tragedy March 27, 1855, near Coos Bay, Oregon.
The Yoakams had followed the Oregon Trail from Ohio and chose to settle in Empire City in 1852. Eliza, one of the first white female settlers to come to Coos Bay, crossed the nation while pregnant with their eighth child. The Trail had claimed the life of the oldest boy. She gave birth to a girl three days after arriving. Holly tried to imagine how difficult that must have been for her–– alone without her mother’s support. What amazed Holly more was how Eliza had managed to carry on after that fateful night in March, three years later. How does one go on after that?That dogged pioneerdetermination.
Eliza and John lost all five of their daughters during the night, one a babe in her arms. A freak windstorm gusted a large tree upon their makeshift cabin; a branch hit Eliza and the girl she held. Two toddler boys, George and Jasper, survived because they had been tucked in a trundle bed–– and had slept through the ordeal. George was Holly’s great-grandfather.
Eliza Yoakam
She noticed Jack’s fingers tapping near the passenger window. She thought about how much coaxing it had taken for Jack to agree to the trip. He failed to understand her need to see ancestral grounds and thought it morbid to explore the site of tragedy. She bribed him with dinner at the “best Italian restaurant in two states.” Holly couldn’t remember the name, and Jack had teased her how great could the food be if she couldn’t recall its name. She reminded him of the power of Google and said not to worry.
That evening they dined on their traditional beach fare of salami, Swiss cheese, sourdough bread and red wine resting on Holly’s handmade quiltlaid upon the brown-gray sands of Arago Beach, sitting cross-legged and facing each other, against the backdrop of an August sapphire sunset. Milky swirls, aquamarine clouds on hovered close to the setting sun on the Pacific horizon. The sun morphed to a reddish golden globe, a utopian aura casting an array of colors, like rainbow Sherbet, into the clouds as it began its final descent into the ocean waves.
Jack prepared a pit in the sand, piling wood, kindling, wads of paper, and lit the heap with a cigarette lighter. As flares of red flames leapt high, he relaxed and reached for the boxed wine.
“May I?” he asked as he offered to fill Holly’s ‘wine glass,’ their beach term for a red SoHo plastic cup, “You look ravaging in the fire light.”
Holly teased that it was the wine talking, secretly pleased at his compliment, and set out their camp chairs.
“Good idea, Holly, my bones were starting to ache,” he said as he plopped into it.
They discussed the following day’s itinerary and decided to visit all the places on Holly’s list and the next day check off Jack’s list. The special dinner would take place on the eve of the trip home.
They smiled at the antics of the young children and their parents who had walked onto the beach, making S’mores over their small fire. Moments later, a large group of young men, drunken and loutish, caused the family to pack and leave. Holly and Jack looked at each other and without speaking, gathered up their belongings, doused the fire with sand and trudged under the blue-tinged, muted yellow glow of the half-moon to their sanctuary on wheels.
theRagingSpoon 