Anniversary

So, on the 30th of June, 1919, the ill-omened Treaty of Versailles had just been signed, Jack Dempsey was preparing for the match that'd win him the heavyweight boxing championship, and wily, determined, selectively generous old Andrew Carnegie was on his deathbed. Earlier that year the buying, selling, swigging, sipping, tippling, and/or drinking became against the Law and too, the country, desperate to return to a normalcy that probably never existed was all hot & bothered with a Red Scare.

Harry Truman and Bessie, his blond bride of 2 days, were off honeymooning. Meanwhile, in Cameron, Missouri, beautiful dark-haired Eulah Brown was being married to redheaded, blue-eyed Albert Harley Wolfe, just home from the Western Front. And here I am, one of their 10 grandchildren, 91 years later, letting you know about them. Harley, as he was known, was given up for adoption when he was a boy in Illinois, him and his sisters, by their father, James Wolfe. His wife, whose name is lost (to me anyway), had died. The youngest sister was Emma, a red-haired 3-year-old, when she was put aboard an orphan train. A childless Minnesota couple, the Stickneys, adopted her, changing her name to Alice....

Spike of Gold

So, up at the Courthouse Square, here in Independence, there's a statue of Andy Jackson. He and his horse stare off westward, unaware, I reckon of the changing scene around them. Just as well they took no notice of the streets blocked off all around them, streets full of chilly people roaming & ambling & goofing around, visiting vendors, ever-hopeful, on the occasion of Harry Truman's birthday. Lots of big doin's hereabouts, none of which I bothered with. Much more interesting it was doing yet another drawing for my Betsy-Tacy Coloring Book. If you're not aware, do make the acquaintance of Maud Hart Lovelace's mostly-autobiographical books about her happy girlhood in Mankato, Minnesota, 1897-1917. www.betsy-tacysociety.org Comforting too, messing about with pen & ink, drawing pretty pictures. It's what I've always done when the world's too much, ever since my own girlhood, here in Independence.

And, too, just for you to know, 'twas on this day in 1869, when Laura Ingalls was 2 years old, a big gaggle of top-hatted gents, working men, and 2 steel monsters all met to celebrate the completion of our nation's transcontinental railroad by way of a Golden Spike. A truly big deal it was. www.nps.gov/gosp/photosmultimedia/index.htm