found by the door
between the day and the night
those empty spaces
-CJ Holm
spoon and empty bowl
waiting for the chicken soup
after winter storm
-CJ Holm
wild red raspberry
growing near a forest trail
spring revelation
Genealogy
Family History/Stories
Haiku Challenge (4/26/21)
Photo by Stephan Seeber on Pexels.com
The challenge is to create a Haiku utilizing this week’s words
Ronovan Writes Haiku 355 – Thrill / Sad
Frozen mountain pass
On bare rocks we sought life’s thrills
-Sad without flowers©2020 cj holm
The Lambs of the Prairie
Some younger cousins were talking about old gravestones in a family cemetery and it reminded me of this post
As a child my mother spoke gently of her family’s story and those that went before. She spoke of a special recollection of young children buried way too young on the plains of North Dakota. Her haunting stories spoke of the children buried beneath the plain white markers embossed with fading lambs representing their youth. The Prairie Rest Cemetery is solitary remembrance dedicated to the youngest lambs who died while establishing our statemany years ago.
The Lambs of the Prairie
– Clarence Holm
Beneath the broad Dakota blue
On a hilltop kissed with morning dew
Were the silent lambs on prairie old
Lying peacefully, a family’s tears consoled.
Soundless sentinels endlessly resting
Reverent callers gazes arresting.
Their fading faces don’t betray
Machine etched stones, long in decay.
An eternal place of gathering,
Sweet memories in stone are offering
Old stories lost and gone
Waiting together for their eternal dawn.
Roots
I just received my results from Ancestry DNA. The results confirmed the research I’ve completed over the last 20 years that I am officially a displaced European “Mutt”!
For nearly two centuries, my genes were created by a indiscriminate breeding of the cast-off population of Scandinavia and Germany. That my ancestors ended up in the Midwest portion of America by choice or a lack of direction is still under review. What is known is that all arrived seeking a better life for themselves or their family, not unlike the current crop of immigrant settling around us now.
My family history includes stories of young men and woman escaping war and famine. Some came for opportunities not available in their crowded homeland. Some were following their dreams, while others arrived because they drew the short straw! Whatever happened that made them take to the sea in the mid-eighteen hundreds, they all ended up as farmers and shopkeepers on the dusty plains of Dakota.
Together they survived because of a rugged independence imbued on them by the conditions they chose to settle in. They were a stubborn, some would say obstinate, people who made the best of their situation. (Who else would think that rotted cabbage and dried up whitefish (Sauerkraut and Lutefisk) could be cherished as the makings of a holiday treat?)
The fact that I still live happily in the rural midwest could be considered a testiment or a curse of the genes that shaped my being.
-CJ Holm
Fear Grips Minnesota as the Indian War 1862 Goes On
A Man’s body in tree since 1862 is found. – Wood choppers in Le Sueur County make gruesome discovery while working in woods. “Man hid in Hollow Tree, During Indian Outbreak. Unable to Extricate Himself.”
The Le Sueur News tells about a startling discovery made recently on the farm of Edward Gleek of Ottawa Township in the woods along the river. In clearing a piece of land, it became necessary to cut down a gigantic white oak tree which broke in falling, disclosing the fact that it was hollow for a distance of about fifteen feet, beginning several feet above the ground and the cavity ending in a large opening concealed among the branches of the lower side of the tree which leaned considerably.
Within this hollow was found by the horrified choppers the mummified body of a man, not at all decayed, but dried and shriveled by the lapse…
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Johann Melchior Wahl
2012 – The Minneapolis Tribune recently ran a series on the 150th Anniversary of the Dakota Indian War.
Because my family had deep roots to that area, I have spent time researching their involvement in that action. Here is a little of what I found.
150 years ago – The Dakota Indian War
My grandmother’s 18 year old grand uncle, Johann Melchior Wahl arrived in Baltimore, Maryland from Württemberg, Germany in 1862. Less than three months after his arrival to the farm in Carver County, Minnesota, the first attack on the unsuspecting farmers in Acton, Meeker County, Minnesota signaled the start of the Dakota Indian War. Within days Melchior had enlisted and was marched to Hutchinson, MN along with other area farmers, to defend his new countrymen. During his time as a soldier he not only participated in notable battles with the Dakota, he also served as a witness to the hanging of the 38 Indians at Mankato. Later…
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Dad
Dusty gravel roads
Near swaths of ripening wheat
-Father’s furrowed brow-Clarence Holm
I think of my father, especially when I am trying to solve a problem that requires some patience. When all seems lost, I think back to my days on the farm, remembering the endless chores and the way my father attacked them day after day after day. Dad’s stoic acceptance of running a small farm with old equipment held together with bailing wire and cardboard gaskets, in a weather cycle that didn’t produce enough rain to parch the sandy soil, taught me that even in a losing effort there are battles to be won.
Though our family gardens were doomed to be raided by the neighbor’s pigs and the Massey Harris combine and the old John Deere tractor were unwilling farm servants, dad always found ways to persevere. Even when most sane men would throw in the towel, his stubborn Midwestern will would drive him through the crisis.
I remember lots of happy times too. Noon-time meals with the entire family sitting down to meat and potatoes, covered in gravy served with Mom’s fresh white bread on a plate in the middle of the table. I loved hearing his lunch time dreams of tomorrow, when the next harvest would run over our bins.
I remember him during those times of joy and sadness and wish I could stand near him again to walk in those fields of Dakota. Even though Dad rests in peace, I just wanted to say just one more time, Happy Fathers’ Day dad; I love you this much.
Thought Again Of Prairie Fields
To my sister, who I loved very much.
I thought again of prairie fields
And remembered warm summer suns.
I felt the wind that blew back then
And played with my family again.The big front yard, the pasture gate
Sweet memories swirl around me.
I hold the thoughts tighter now
I’m scared that I won’t remember.Baseball games at reunion parks
Our families played there together.
The children ran, while old folks looked
And the winners called for their treasures.We grew older then and some moved on
Black and white pictures replaced the elders.
The family picnics are much smaller now,
I’m missing so many aunts and uncles.To return once more to yesteryear
Will have to wait for awhile.
I have dreams to share and kids to hug
Before I lose another smile.-Clarence Holm
In Loving Arms
4 Generations – Myself, My Mother, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother – On the Dakota Prairie, Summer 1953
Those sweet memories
Of the way it used to be
When I was safe in my mother’s arms
On the infinite Dakota prairie.Where life could be hard
And money was in short supply.
But, love would surround me
While adversity passed by.Passed between these ladies
I clung to their arms
Knowing they’d protect me
From dangers on those family farms.They were with me when I was young
Advising, suggesting, sometimes stern.
Leading protectively on the long dusty roads
Teaching me lessons, they hoped I would learn.-Clarence Holm
Maroon, Pink, and White
Delano, MN front yard 2016
The peonies are blooming again in my front yard, just as they have for nearly 18 years. In a few weeks, I will be digging them up to transplant them into my new home. I know it is the wrong season to move them, but the purchase of the new home dictates the schedule.
These are hardy plants! They have been dug-up and moved at different times by six generations of my family. I‘ve been told; my great, great grandmother (Victoria) planted the original shrubs soon after she arrived in the “Big Woods” near Chaska, Minnesota from her home in Bavaria, Germany in about 1850.
These flowers thrived and grew in that location until they were dug-up, split, and moved to my great grandmother’s (Crescentia) 1886 home in Laketown, MN where she was married and bore 4 children. Within 6 years, three of the children along were her first husband succumbed to harsh life and disease on the prairie. She married again, this time to a widower, who had five children from his first marriage. She brought her daughter and her flowers to live with him in Cologne, MN.
The peonies were relocated with her and quickly established with his family. Over the next 14 years, she bore him nine healthy children before she died in childbirth with the tenth child. My grandmother took over the duties of raising her children until she met and married my grandfather and moved to his farm in Cuba, North Dakota in 1911.
Once again the peonies were moved to a new home, this time to the flat prairies of North Dakota. There my grandmother (Victoria) planted and propagated them on an open field near her farmhouse. She weeded, watered, and cared for them until her death in 1972.
My parents (Clarence and Hermione) moved many of the plants to their yard in Valley City, North Dakota. They shared the spring peony blossoms with friends and family until their deaths within a week of each other in 1999.
The peonies were moved again with each of the six siblings taking a share of the plants. I planted mine in my front yard in Delano, MN where they have grown and bloomed each year.
My move to Ormsby, Minnesota may well be my final time planting and moving these living testaments to my family’s history. I’ve already shared them with the next generation (my daughter Kathleen) and they have been firmly rooted in her home in Dowagiac, Michigan.
Each spring when I see and smell the fragrant peony blossoms, I am reminded of the history of the flowers and the people who loved and cared for them.
Maroon, pink, and white
The buds bloomed again this year
Welcoming the spring-Clarence Holm
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