Post

Living history

About every three months, our church holds a “Family Night.” We usually have a potluck meal and some sort of entertainment. Last Sunday evening, my husband played guitar and sang songs familiar to the mostly-sixty-plus crowd gathered in our church basement. I love these get-togethers with our church family. The people in our congregation are some of the best people I know. I only wish there were more young people in the pews on Sunday mornings and eating deviled eggs and banana cream pie with us at our quarterly get-togethers in the church basement.

One of the best jobs I ever had was at Scott County Nursing Center when I was a senior at Winchester High School. Through the co-op class, I went to school half of the day and worked in the office at the nursing center the second half of the day. I would deliver the mail to the residents each day, so had the pleasure of bringing a smile to many of their faces as I brought news from relatives and cards from old friends. One of the rules strictly enforced by then-Administrator Inez Myers was that the residents always came first. If I was typing up physical therapist notes or filing something and a resident came in to the office, I was to stop what I was doing and give that resident all of my time and attention. That was a great rule. There was never a college professor that held my attention like the residents/teachers at the nursing center were able to do.

How many times do you hear someone use the term “kids today” as if it is such a bad thing. “Kids today do not respect their elders like they did when I was young” or “kids today don’t work as hard as they did when I was young.” Parents have an opportunity to teach their children many things. Teachers and 4-H leaders can serve as great role models, too, but there is a large part of our society that lived through the Great Depression, experienced life before electricity came to the farm, and farmed with real horse horsepower. History books are wonderful, but consider the impact on your child of actually having a conversation with someone who “lived history.”

There is an old family cemetery on the hill just on the other side of our northern property line. According to the abstracts, it was once part of our farm and many of the names scratched into the rocks that serve as tombstones are the same as those listed as previous owners of our land. Jim and I were saddened to see that the cemetery was not fenced off and cows had rubbed against stones, knocking them over and doing damage that cows do when allowed free reign of a shaded area.

Last Saturday morning, as we headed out to turkey hunt, we heard chain saws and saw human activity atop the hill. Imagine our delight to learn that a Boy Scout Troop has taken on the enormous task of cleaning up and fencing the cemetery. The boys were very carefully picking up stones and flagging areas they thought might be graves before someone came in with the equipment to confirm the gravesites. Along with a handful of dads, several of the boy’s grandfathers were helping with the project.

I wish I had spent more time talking about the past with my Great-Grandma McCullah, who was born in 1890 and lived to be nearly 103 years old. I wish I’d written down some of the stories shared by the residents at Scott County Nursing Center.

As much as we need this younger generation who will some day make decisions about taxes, health care and wars, we need those who came before to share their stories. We would all be well-served.