Remembering Grandpa

Every February 16th I pause to remember a great man who passed away on that date, year 2000. He was named Everett Lyell Elson and he was my grandfather. He was born in 1920 to a farming family here in Chenoa, IL. They had a successful and fairly well-to-do farm. His grandfather had carved the virgin prairie that he grew up farming and built the house that he lived in. He personally saw many modern conveniences and farming advances that we take for granted, come to the rural community first hand. From the time he starting helping plow with a team of horses, till he retired in 1985 a lot of changes came to rural Central Illinios. Tractors, steel-bottom plows, corn picking machines, combines, gas lights and heat, indoor plumbing, electric lights, rural phone service. He saw his livelihood and his community undergo major, fundamental changes in his lifetime.

Not just his farm and community, he lived through major national and global change as well. He was a boy during prohibition, the roaring 20's and the subsequent crash of the 1930's. As a young man he attended the University of Illinois and was a gifted mathematician. (Later in life, other farmers would come to him to ask for his help in figuring out acreage calculations and other questions). During that time, he saw major unrest in Europe that eventually lead to the infamous bombing of Pearl Harbor. He left the U of I and enlisted in the army. Within a year that farm boy from Illinois, along with a great many others that had never known anything other than farm or factory work, sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge and didn't stop till they got to Okinowa. He, and the other men of the 88th Signal Battalion were not glory-seeking "heroes," they were not career soldiers, they were men doing a job that needed to be done. As I've previously written:

These were men, perhaps, not necessarily trying to do something great, noble, and heroic. They were men doing what was necessary, because it had to be done, and they were the more heroic for that fact.

It is one thing to go out and seek to do great things as an end in itself. For glory or recognition or whatnot. It is quite another to stare into the teeth of hell and know that someone has to go in there and push it back. That is what these men did.

After the war, Lyell returned home, but never did go back to the U of I to finish the relatively short time he had left to finish his degree. The war had changed him. The world was different now. I don't know all that he went though at this time. These days he would have full medical and psychiatric support to help him transfer back to civilian life. To help cope with the hellish nightmare he and others had lived through as they lay in the mud of numberless, nameless Pacific Islands... the many memories of those that never got back up out of that mud. Back then there was no such support, he "went to stay with his aunt up North for a while." Whatever that means. I assume he sought whatever passed for professional help at the time.

He returned and married my grandmother, Doris Fosdick. They moved out to the farm where he, once again, took up farming the same prairie that William Elson had begun to tame all those years before. From there the years are deceptively quick to summarize, 4 children, 12 grandchildren (and had he lived to see them, 10 great-grand children so far) a lifetime of commitment to church, family, community, and the endless cycle of the seasons. His was a life of integrity, simply lived. I realize that he was not a perfect man, but should we not hold up those noble qualities in the ones we loved as we seek to inspire ourselves and others with their memories? To that end, let me share a segment of a piece written by my brother as he was prompted to remember Grandpa's passing this last Thanksgiving:

I didn’t know Lyell as a farmer, or as a soldier, as a high school football captain, a college math wiz, youth group sponsor, or a Sunday school teacher. He was all of those things, but I knew him as grandpa. I remember him as quiet, reserved in public, slow to anger, quick with a smile, quicker to forgive, witty, content to watch the Cubs game with one eye, and chuckle at the grandkids running wild with the other. I didn’t have a lap sitting, story reading, baseball out back kind of relationship with my grandpa but I loved him, and I learned the kind of man I wanted to be through his death.

Forgive me a long story, but I don’t know that I’ve ever talked about all this. I was a sophomore in college and living at home. I came home and checked the messages. There were two. The first was my uncle Stanley calling for my mom saying that their dad, Lyell, had collapsed and being taken to the hospital. The second was also from my uncle Stanley. I remember it exactly, he said, “Jan, this is Stan again, I don’t know how to say this, but dad didn’t make it . . .” I was at home, by myself and found out my grandpa was dead through an answering machine message that wasn’t even for me.

A weird moment. I sat for a minute trying to figure out what to do. I called my mom at work to tell her I guess, or see if she already knew. She already knew and my dad was on his way to pick her up. I called my brother, who worked near the hospital they took grandpa to. I told him. He went to the hospital to see if grandma was still there. I went and picked up my sister at jazz band practice at the high school and told her. There is something ominous about sharing that kind of news. Its an eerie feeling you get, knowing you have news that will bring grief, sadness, and disbelief to the hearer yet you must tell them anyway. An odd day for sure.

The days that followed are a blur of family, strangers, hospitality from neighbors, churches, and friends. I will never forget the visitation though. Four hours of wall to wall people. In that moment I learned what it meant to be a man. Not manly in tough guy sort of way, but a man, a father, a husband, the importance of charity, grace, and forgiveness, the never ending reach of the simplest kindness. Everyone that walked through the doors of Duffy-Pills funeral home that night had a story. Some way that Lyell had touched their life. Many of them had never met him. They had been touched by his children, my mom and her brother and sisters. They had been influenced by his grandchildren, or touched by his faithfulness to the Lord. People drove from hours away to a little town in central Illinois to pay respects to a small time farmer and his family. By the worlds standards he didn’t amount to a whole lot. He didn’t have a lot of money, didn’t have fancy things, never held public office (that I know of), his kids weren’t astronauts or professional athletes and I believe the nicest suit he owned was the one grandma had to buy to bury him in. I’m glad the world’s standards didn’t mean much to my grandpa. He was a just, decent man, who loved the Lord and loved his family...

Not only was the stream of people seemingly never ending that night at the funeral home, the cards and letters continued to come for weeks, from literally all over the world. The simple faith and ministry that he and his wife lived and shared had impacted the world for the better. He was not just a pillar of this community, but far beyond. He was not outgoing and gregarious, aspiring or complex. He was an honest man, that expected others to be also. He occasionally suffered for this. He lost money, he worked harder than he might have had to otherwise, but he was an honest man, sincere and trusting. At the risk of getting too carried away, I summarize with this:

The world, literally, the world is a better place, because this farmer from Livingston County was a part of it. I truly believe that, I miss you Grandpa.

Micah 6:8 - He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

~Gabriel

Quote of the Day

Uttered by my esteemed brother during an internet conversation about the government's justification for the bailouts. Their repeated claims that all heck would break loose if we didn't give them 750B dollars IMMEDIATELY.

"Yeah, the world end? maybe its just the Midwesterner in me, but I don't think I'll let someone else tell me when my world is ending nor what qualifies as that end."

Well said, Michael, well said.

Illinois Corn Huskers

It's a beautiful Autumn day today. A crisp 54 degrees, bright sunshine and deep, deep blue skies. Perfect weather for harvesting corn. It's been a little wetter than you'd want recently, but today is perfect. The combines are out in the fields in force, mostly John Deere green with a good showing of Case IH red as well. There should be a few New Hollands out there and perhaps an occasional CAT. Grain trucks shuttle back and forth; new Peterbuilt day-cabs with full trailers, rusty old Ford F-600's, and classic International trucks. Hundreds of thousands of bushels of corn are currently being stripped from the stalks, husked, seperated from the cob, and loaded onto the waiting trucks in a single operation.

Innovation in harvesting technology and techniques allow the modern American farmer to harvest large tracts of land with very few people in a short amount of time. Even a single farmer can now quickly harvest acreage that would have been out of reach for a team of people a few short decades ago. So what did Central Illinois corn farmers do before the advent of GPS guided combines and diesel powered Kenworths?

Bill Kemp, at the McLean Country Museum of History provides us with a glimpse into harvest time in the Midwest before the advent of mechanized harvesting equipment:

Today, corn is harvested by the kernel, but for most of human history the grain was harvested and stored by the ear. In Octobers now long past, the Corn Belt countryside would be dotted with groups of men and boys methodically working their way through the fields, picking the ears by hand.

A good picker - also known as a husker, shucker or even jerker - could work two or three rows simultaneously, snapping the ears off the stalks, removing the husks, and bouncing the now-cleaned ears off of a raised backboard (or "bangboard") of a horse-drawn wagon.

The most difficult step was stripping the husk off the ear. For this, many used glove-like husking hooks. Strapped to the wrist or across the palm, these tools featured a sharp steel edge that when drawn down the husk separated the shuck from the ear.

As you can imagine, this was a simple process in concept, yet demanding and skillful work if done well and quickly. In the manner of men since the beginning of time (I assume) any activity that requires skill and strength must soon become a competitive endeavor.

Like a lot of manual farm labor, husking was simple to learn yet difficult to master. It demanded stamina, speed and hands of iron. The more accomplished huskers competed against each other in local, county, state and national contests, and crowds numbering in the tens of thousands would gather in fields to watch men "bang" upward of 50 ears a minute.

The typical husking contest lasted 80 minutes. Speed was not the only measure of success. Pickers, for instance, were penalized for leaving corn in the field (referred to as "gleanings"), or failing to strip away enough husk on the picked ears.

Irvin (also known as Irvan) Bauman, an unmarried, 22-year-old farmer from Congerville, captured the 1935 state championship. A crowd estimated at 25,000 gathered at the Woodford County farm of George Shuman to watch Bauman husk 2,662 pounds of corn, with a deduction of 105 pounds for missed corn and excess husks. Bauman’s net load of 36.5 bushels was not far from the then-world record of 36.9 bushels.

The next time you here someone refer to the "Midwestern work ethic" keep this story in mind. Mr. Bauman single-handedly harvested 36.5 bushels of corn in 80 minutes. Now, that was the state record of course, not your average Livingston Country cornhusker, but still. And the next time you see a football game on a Sunday afternoon and marvel at the huge stadiums and the 75,000 people in attendance, think back through Illinois history to a time when farmers drew bigger crowds than athletes or movie stars:

In 1939, the state title match in Danville drew a crowd of 90,000. The champion was Ecus Vaughan, a Kentuckian who helped work his half brother’s farm in Monticello. "Despite a record-breaking crowd," the Pantagraph reported, "many of the farm advisors reported interest in husking contests waning, due to more and more general use of machines."

The advent and evolution of farming machinery might be another post in itself. The 1930's were the last decade in IL to see virtually all the corn crop harvested by hand. As the country boomed after WWII, manufacturing took giant leaps forward and farming became increasingly changed by the availability of tractors, harvesters, combines and everything else that have become the staples of the modern farmer's life.

So next time you drive through the country and witness the corn harvest coming in, think of two things. Firstly, marvel at the ingenuity and technological prowess that allows so few people to grow and harvest so much grain. It is a feat unprecedented in human history. Secondly, take moment to picture groups people moving through the fields picking and shucking each ear of corn by hand and tossing them into a horse-drawn wagon; take a moment to appreciate the strength, determination, and hard-working spirit that was exemplified by the people that built these counties into the heartland that we sometimes take for granted today.

~ Gabriel

Bill Kemp, the Archivist/Librarian at the McLean County Museum of History has put together a series of articles at the Pantagraph detailing various aspects of life in Bloomington/Normal and the surrounding counties throughout the history of the region. I find these articles fascinating and intend bring a few of these articles and stories to my blog in an effort to celebrate the history and cultural roots of Central Illinois.

The Pioneering Spirit

I originally found this article on the online version of the Pantagraph, but they seem to have left it up for a grand total of an hour or so. After a little digging I found the story posted at the Rocky Mountain News. File this under, "another reason I love the Midwest." It's an AP story and it's headlined with the quote, "We're resilient as hell." It's part of a statement from the mayor of a small town in MO that has been hit hard by the flooding Mississippi.

"There's one thing about Midwesterners," said Don Giltner, mayor of Louisiana, Mo., a picturesque river town north of St. Louis where 40 square blocks were under water Wednesday, three days before the Mississippi's expected crest. "We're resilient as hell. We're all worn out. We've put in a lot of long days."

As I read this article I could not help but contrast the attitudes and actions of the folks in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri with the attitudes and actions we saw in New Orleans during Katrina. I want to be careful to point out here that I don't want to characterize ALL people from LA as one way and ALL people from the Midwest as another, but there are some generalizations that are glaringly plain to see.

When Barack Obama or George Bush (maybe McCain has come by, but I hadn't read about it) or 'ol Rod Blagovitch show up to these little towns they are met with... irritation. Not because they haven't done enough or haven't handed out enough money or were too slow to get there. No, it's because they're in the way. Their very presence suggests that maybe we can't handle our own problems and we need a politician's help. A quick perusal of the article suggests that perhaps these people are willing to fight on their own, not only for their homes, but for those of their neighbors. They didn't ask for permission from the federal government to do so.

As the rivers rise, these modest towns survive because neighbors look after each other, and the people reinforcing the levees are business owners, farmers and fellow church members who have lived there for years.

"My house is past help. So we're trying to save everybody else's," said Bethany Frank as she helped fill sandbags in a church parking lot in Oakville. Her home on the outskirts of town was flooded up to the roof.

These people aren't waiting for "some else" to come and shore up the levees. They aren't sitting on the roof hoping for a helicopter, they aren't complaining that the government hasn't done enough. They're not looking for a FEMA trailer or a cruise ship. They're looking around, seeing what needs to be done, and doing it. People like the Gabeline's:

Oakville sits at the bottom of a hairpin turn the Iowa River makes on its course to the Mississippi. When it became clear the levee would fail, trucking company owners Trina and Ward Gabeline scrambled to help friends save whatever they could.

They gathered about three dozen truck trailers and dropped them off at houses so families could load them with furniture and heirlooms. Then the company retrieved them and carried the cargo to higher ground.

"We didn't do it expecting to get paid," Trina Gabeline said, her eyes bloodshot from crying. "We did it to help the people.

It is people and attitudes like this that built this country. The American dream of self sufficiency tempered with compassion on display in the midst of adversity. Living free of the government in bad times as well as good is an American ideal. It is one we have slowly lost track of over the years.
I believe we saw the results of the abandonment of this principle in New Orleans. The response of the people and government of that city will be forever associated with the picture of the school buses underwater. We will always remember many of the people of New Orleans a year and more after the hurricane complaining that the free ride from FEMA was going to end. We remember the whining and blame shifting and accusing coming from local and state officials.
I believe the response of the midwestern communities to the current flooding can give us hope and encouragement that this idea of helping yourself and helping your neighbor sans government still exists. We've seen it recently in this community when a local farmer tragically lost his life last year and his neighbors brought in his crops at harvest time, making sure his widow was cared for. We've seen it thoughout the history of this area as settlers spread out to make their own way, but came together to fight prarie fires, to clean up after tornados, to play, and to worship. It's been called the "pioneering spirit," "Yankee ingenuity," "rugged individualism;" or, in the words of Don Guiltner, "we're resiliant as hell." It's who we are, it's who we all used to be.

~ Gabriel