Mertle of Hoover, South Dakota

The two postcards on my desk, right there next to my computer, would catch your eye, one lying at an angle to the other, a sort of awkward sandwich of words. Old postcards, the edges worn soft. They date from the early 1900s, together with the last wave of homesteading on the South Dakota prairie that caught so many people in its wake, people like Govert Van der Boom. Two postcards of unknown origin. Govert Van der Boom of Govert, South Dakota, had nothing to do with these postcards. But, as you shall see, in their own way the postcards had something to do with Govert.

No picture of the Black Hills or the Corn Palace, or other boastful holiday destination. No fading sepia image of a family squinting into the camera in front of a soddy or a wood-framed claims shack, no image of a dear husband or wife carefully posed in a photographer's studio. On one, the crust of orange-red poppies, together with a sprig of one daisy ... two daisies ... three daisies, lies mute, without fragrance, on a gilded background.

On the other, a tangle of purple violets frames a hip-roofed building, the cupola piercing a heavy blanket of snow.

Someone, more than 100 years ago, put the tip of a forefinger on that one cent stamp, the green one, the one cent stamp with Benjamin Franklin in profile ... and slid the stamp to the edge of the table where she sat writing ... we do know both of our authors were of the female persuasion. She slid the stamp to the edge of the table so she could pick it up, her forefinger on Benjamin Franklin's cheek and her thumb against the dried glue backing. She lifted the stamp to her tongue and carefully, authoritatively, licked the stamp and then firmly applied it to the upper right hand corner of the back of the floral display. On one postcard, good ol' Ben stood on his head, the stamp carefully lined up with the corner, upside down, the custom to show affection for the recipient.

 
Two postcards. Two mysteries to be solved. But, as you shall see, the two mysteries became only one.

Both postcards were mailed from Hoover, South Dakota, a rural post office little more than 14 miles south of Govert, South Dakota. One was written in a younger scrawl; the other author had more years to develop her penmanship. One was written by Mertle; the other was written by Bessie. Who in the world were Mertle and Bessie? And what were Mertle and Bessie doing in Hoover, South Dakota?

Mertle chose the card with the snow scene in the snarl of violets. If snow and violets seemed incongruous to Mertle, she paid it no mind. Mertle picked up her pencil and wrote a note to her cousin in Scobey, Montana, a small town so remote the card would have to travel almost all the way to Canada. "Dear cousin, Did you know we had a new sister, born on 16 July. Write soon. Mertle Holt."


The postcard was cancelled on 25 July, but that must have been the day the Hoover postmaster was somehow incapacitated. Whoever was helping out at the post office on the morning of 25 July didn't realize the number under the day was for the year, not the hour of the day. With the cancellation stamp incorrectly calibrated, this card has passed through the decades effectively undated. Aha! You see it, too, don't you? A good clue! A newborn Holt baby, with a birthdate of 16 July.

You know, and I know, Mertle's new sister had to have a birth year; we just have to figure out what it was. With a flick of the history wand, and reference to the South Dakota birth index, we now know the new Holt baby was born in 1911 ... 16 July 1911, little more than a week before the postcard was mailed from the Hoover post office. "Dorothy", they called the new Holt baby. Mertle and her baby sister, Dorothy. Mertle and Dorothy. The two Holt sisters.

We can't forget the second postcard ... the one written by Bessie.

 

 ... signed as "Bessie H". Wait a minute ... you see it, too, don't you? "Mertle Holt"? "Bessie H."? Could it be? Could it possibly be?

Another flick of the history wand and we have our answer. Sisters. The three Holt sisters. Mertle and Bessie ... and Dorothy ... all sisters. What were the chances that these two postcards, sent to different destinations, ordered by me from a dealer in postcards, would land on my desk at the same time? But that's not the end of the story. Maybe that's just where my story begins. Maybe, for Mertle, this is the middle of her story.

Mertle's story goes back to 1897, when she was born in Lincoln County, South Dakota. You can't travel much further south and east in South Dakota than Lincoln County without crossing the border into Iowa. Canton, where Mertle began her life, was the county seat, right on the border with Iowa, the border that followed the Big Sioux River. Fourteen years would pass and the Holts would cross a lot of miles before Mertle's baby sister, Dorothy, would be born west of the Missouri River.

Mertle didn't make this journey alone. This was a family journey. Mertle's sister, Bessie, was older by 11 months. Then came Emma, Erwin, Rolfe, and then Wilfred, who was born in 1905. Their parents were Carl O. Holt and Mary Christine Martinson Holt. As for Dorothy, in 1905 she was still a gleam in her mother's eye.

In 1905 the South Dakota census taker found Mertle's father in Woonsocket, South Dakota, just east of the Missouri River. Often the husband formed the advance party, seeking a secure situation for his family. Then, in 1910, when Albert H. Pier, the census taker for the federal government, knocked on a door on Seventh Street in Woonsocket, he found Mertle living there with her mother and her brothers and sisters, but now her father was claiming a homestead west of the Missouri River near Hoover. Mertle is moving ever closer to this place that would become her new home.

Mertle will have a close connection with Govert, South Dakota, perhaps even a surprising connection, but you won't learn about that until Mertle gets to Hoover, and even then you will have to wait until Mertle grows up. Right now the year is 1910, a year before Mertle mails the postcard from Hoover. And Mertle is still east of the Missouri River in Woonsocket. Mertle is 13 years old.

Thirteen years old. Mertle must have wondered about this next move west across the Missouri River, virtually into the wilderness. When they moved this time, would she make new friends at the country school near her father's homestead? Will I fit in? Will they like me? Always a town girl, Mertle would now attend a small country school with all the children in one classroom. At thirteen, Mertle would have been among the oldest children in the country school; many children would stay in school no longer than necessary to earn their common school diploma.

In 1910 Mary Christine Martinson Holt left Woonsocket with her six children, the oldest 14 and the youngest 5, traveling with them to Carl's homestead near Hoover, South Dakota. From the time they reached the Holt homestead, they would mail their letters from the Hoover post office. The family arrived in Hoover sometime during the two months between 22 April and 20 June, probably in May after the end of the school year in Woonsocket. How can we be so sure? The first date is when the 1910 census was taken in Woonsocket and the second date is when Mertle's older sister, Bessie, mailed her postcard with the orange-red poppies from the Hoover post office back to Woonsocket. "Dear Lola, Will answer your postal. I was pretty tickled to get it. It was such a cute one. You say you wish I was there. I [know] you don't because I would tease you so. Goodbye as B/4. Write soon. Bessie H."

And then, thirteen months after Bessie sent her postcard to Woonsocket, Mertle posted the other card to her cousin in Montana boasting about her nine-day-old baby sister, Dorothy.

Perhaps the mystery of the two postcards is solved. But you still don't know Mertle's connection with Govert.

What is the rest of the story for Mertle? Mertle was 14 when she wrote that postcard in 1911. As the years passed, "Mertle" became "Myrtle". In 1916, at the age of 19 (or 20 according to the marriage record), just five years after sending the postcard, Myrtle married Harry Devereaux.

Harry is believed to have been the first editor of the Govert Advance. Maybe he even founded the country newspaper read by every Goverite over a span of years leading into the 1940s. And then there was the Moreau News. Or how about Harry's involvement in the Star-Herald in Panama during construction of the canal. Harry Devereaux was also the merchant at Hoover, the same way Govert Van der Boom was the merchant at Govert, and the two men most certainly were acquainted. Harry Devereaux is another story, for another time. For now, Myrtle Holt needs no better connection to Govert, South Dakota, than her husband. Harry and Myrtle had a son, Jack. Myrtle died in October 1982, at the age of 85, then a widow.

What is the rest of the story for Bessie? According to the 1915 South Dakota Census, Bessie was a teacher in Hoover. Not even a flick of the history wand gave us the end to Bessie's story.

What is the rest of the story for Dorothy? Only 15 years after Mertle so proudly broadcast her baby sister's birth in a postcard, Dorothy died. Mertle's baby sister died 24 July 1926, and that precious child, such a welcome addition to her family in 1911, is buried at Hope Cemetery in Newell, South Dakota, together with her parents, Carl Holt and Mary Christine Martinson Holt.

What is the rest of the story for me, your storyteller? Yes, I can step into this story, too. I went to elementary school in Wyoming with Myrtle's grandson, Harry Devereaux, named after his grandfather. Little did I know then that my schoolmate, through his grandfather, had close connections to the history of Govert, South Dakota, the town founded by my grandfather, Govert Van der Boom. Little did I know then that my grandmother, Emma Vogt Van der Boom, was a close friend of young Harry's great-grandmother, Sarah Murphy Devereaux Burke. Emma had her own homestead before her marriage, north of Hoover and bordering the south edge of the Burke ranch. Sarah, that strong, gutsy, Irish woman, took her new neighbor under her wing. Little did I know the postcards would lead me home.

I didn't know. I simply didn't know. In my early playground years, I cared for little more than playing marbles kneeling in the dirt at recess ... clearing a circle in the dirt, aiming my prized creamy white shooter. And, of this, I have the strongest recollection ... I beat young Harry at marbles.

I couldn't have been that skillful; my lucky shooter was soon retired. Wait a gol-darned moment ... did that Harry Devereaux let me beat him?

Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate

[Written with reference to US Federal Census records for 1900 and 1910, South Dakota Census records for 1905 and 1915, South Dakota record of birth for Mertle Holt, and record of marriage for Harry Devereaux and Myrtle Holt, findagrave.com, US Social Security Death Index, Government Land Records; and with gratitude to the South Dakota School of Mines in Rapid City, South Dakota, for sharing the biography of Harry Devereaux presented at the 2 July 1970 dedication of the Devereaux Library, named for Myrtle's husband.]

"Temperance", Thy Name Be Mrs. Coffield

"FORMER SLIM BUTTES LADY PASSES." On 5 December 1940 the Govert Advance reported the death of a neighbor:

"H.L. Coffield received the sad news on Monday of the death of his mother, which occurred at the home of her daughter, [Marietta Catherine Coffield Cozine], who resides near Rapid City. Deceased was well known in the Reva community, as she made her home with her sons for many years. She was active in W.C.T.U. work for many years, and did a lot of work along that line including writing articles for newspapers. Her other son, Edgar, has been located near Hill City since leaving the Slim Buttes country. The funeral was held at Rapid City on Tuesday and the body brought to Buffalo for burial on Wednesday. [Buffalo] Times-Herald."

The name of the "Slim Buttes Lady" does not appear in the notice of her own death, other than the assumption that she would have been Mrs. Coffield, mother of two sons, H.L. Coffield and Edgar Coffield, and a daughter, Marietta Coffield. Referring to Mrs. Coffield as the "Slim Buttes lady" was not out of disrespect, or neglect. We can fairly judge that mother Elma Emmaline Perkins Coffield was well known in Reva, where she lived, and in Buffalo, where the Times-Herald was published, and in Govert, where the article was re-published. Mrs. Coffield was familiar in her own right to those farming and ranching in the Slim Buttes, but also because her son, Hubert Leroy Coffield, was the Harding County Commissioner for the Slim Buttes, including Govert. No further identification was necessary from the viewpoint of the journalist, or the editor of the Govert Advance.

Mrs. Coffield must have been a firebrand in her day, perhaps stoked by two years immersion in progressive advanced schooling in the northeast. She graduated from Oswego Normal School in New York, probably by 1875. There she embraced the innovative Pestalozzian teaching techniques, using objects to teach instead of relying on recitation and memorization. She married Flemon Augustus Coffield in 1887 when she was about 32.

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, to which Mrs. Coffield owed her allegiance, was organized in 1873, probably while Mrs. Coffield was developing her perspective of the world at Oswego. Although an early proponent of temperance, Mrs. Coffield apparently did not see eye-to-eye with Carry A. Nation and did not adopt Mrs. Nation's dramatic bar-smashing interventions as the 19th century turned into the 20th. From the early years of its organization, the majority of WCTU members, even those considered activists, channeled their passion into education, warning of the dangers of alcohol and tobacco, just as Mrs. Coffield did in her newspaper articles. Mrs. Coffield may not have been entirely popular among Harding County men who appreciated their brew, but Elma Coffield had an audience who supported her views.

For one ... Emma Van der Boom of Govert, South Dakota, was a like-minded woman. The two women lived on opposite sides of the Slim Buttes, Emma living 23 miles south down the road from Reva. From a distance of more than 75 years, we can only wish to have heard the waves these women created. I am very familiar with Emma Van der Boom's views on alcohol (and tobacco). Gram and I never talked about organized efforts at social change. Still, when I was about eight years old, Gram gave me a box, made of a soft wood, bearing a design she burned into the wood many years preceding. The importance of the box in this story is not the design, not what was in the box, not even the box itself, but what appears on the bottom of the wooden box.

On that visit to our house, Gram recited a sort of poem I scribbled on the bottom of the box in pencil. Catchy ... one of those simple, sing-song jumble of words you can never un-memorize, even after the passing of more than half a century.

The words are already fading into the wood. An "artifact" I had a hand in creating has almost been lost to time during my own life. Here are the words on the bottom of the wooden box given to me by my grandmother:

Never drink liquor,

Never drink beer.

Always drink water,

And keep your head clear.

Does education work? This little bit of education works well if your audience sees the value of keeping a clear head. As a young woman, whenever I found myself in a social situation requiring clarity of mind, my grandmother's voice repeated the words to me. And, thereafter, I repeated the words to myself.

The opportunities for Elma Coffield and Emma Van der Boom to have shared tea and social concerns ... and perhaps even a sage little sing-song verse ... would have been considerable. Emma moved to Govert in 1912 after her marriage to Govert Van der Boom and she remained in Govert township until the Van der Booms moved to Spearfish in 1929. Mrs. Coffield also was living in Harding County before 1920, and remained in the Slim Buttes until into the 1930s. Their age difference ... in 1920 Elma would have been 65 and Emma was 35 ... was inconsequential, as Emma never saw age as an impediment to ideology. Spirited women like Elma and Emma tend to be ageless.

If time travel were possible, tea with Elma and Emma in the Slim Buttes would have been a pleasant, if not an illuminating, destination today.

The next time you're in Harding County, South Dakota, stop by the Buffalo Cemetery to honor Elma Emmaline Perkins Coffield, a prairie woman with the courage to take a moral stand. I will.

Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate

[Based on Mrs. Coffield's death notice in the 5 December 1940 edition of the Govert Advance, 1920 United States Census, 1925 South Dakota Census. Should I ever discover a WCTU article written by Mrs. Coffield, I'll be sure to share it with you.]

Emma Van der Boom and the Parable of Unexpected Expectations

Emma Vogt Van der Boom, wife of the Govert, South Dakota, storekeeper, and storekeeper herself, told me a parable when I was ten years old. I call Emma's story a parable because the narrative was short, illustrated a truth and, as often is the case with parables, the story line was somehow not entirely satisfying.

"One morning two couples were eating breakfast in a restaurant. The remaining tables were empty. The couple over there [Emma motioned to the left with her crochet hook] was well-dressed. The man was tall and handsome, the woman proportionately smaller, pretty, with a good figure and her hair and makeup were expertly done. If you saw them walking along the street, you would notice how nice they looked together.

"The second couple [motioning to the right], well, she was tall and square, he was short and lean. And maybe they weren't so stylish. [Emma paused and then continued].

"The handsome man was silent sitting there in the restaurant. He held his newspaper high, creating a barrier between himself and his companion, as he read what news there was to read. The pretty woman sat quietly in the chair on the other side of his newspaper, looking sad and sullen as she picked at the food on her plate, stirring the eggs without eating.

"The newspaper purchased by the mismatched couple lay unopened on their table. The too tall woman and the too short man were in their own little world, chatting about this and chatting about that. You couldn't hear what they were saying but their words were animated and their laughter rang true."

Or words to that effect.

Emma continued her crocheting through the telling of the parable but, with the last word, she stopped abruptly. She looked up at me expectantly, eyes wide, eyebrows raised, lips pursed, wise and knowing as grandmothers are supposed to be. But then she said not a word more about the two couples in the restaurant. Not a single word.

OK, Gram, I'm not sure what motivated your parable, but I get your point. Appearances are not important, only what's on the inside counts. Blah. Blah. Blah. So I'm stuck kissing frogs while the other girls get the princes. At the age of ten, I was already the tallest in my class at school. I wonder now whether Jesus had as much trouble sinking a point with the Israelites.

But there's more. For years, a nuance of the story remained hidden. How many years had to pass before I realized that, in the parable, my grandmother was talking about herself and my grandfather. They were not the handsome-is-as-handsome-does couple. Like the second couple in the parable, Emma was tall and square, Govert was short and lean.

Few people remember my grandmother as tall; she grew shorter with age. On the other hand, the fact that Govert was not a tall man has been recorded in history by people who met him at the store in Govert, South Dakota, the town named after him. They remember a small man with a foreign accent and abounding enthusiasm. Imagine what it would have been like for a child whose chin reached the countertop in the Govert store, just tall enough to admire the candy jars ... what would it have been like for that child to discover this not so tall man peering from behind the store counter with an engaging smile and sparkling blue eyes, and then when the man spoke his voice was musical. Is it true that Govert Van der Boom never forgot what it was like to be a child?

I don't have to tell you, Emma was right about the gold we wear inside of us, the interior riches that find a way out, maybe even as a sparkle leaping from deep blue eyes. Emma and Govert may have been a mismatched package, but they were a package deal in the town of Govert, South Dakota. Even though the town carried Govert Van der Boom's name, Emma became her husband's partner in marriage and in business. Emma and Govert were good companions through homesteading, running businesses, raising sons. They were life partners.

Do you suppose Emma told me the parable because she saw a younger Emma in me? I would like that. I'm probably now near in age to my grandmother when she told me her parable. Sometimes it takes wisdom to meet wisdom. Gram found her prince. Yes, so did I.

Now, let me ask you this. Did you realize you were reading a parable within a parable ... the latter being a genealogical parable? Emma's point was time-tested and true, but I was trying to make a point, too. I was trying to point out that history - whether that be the history of a nation, or the history of a county or town, or family history - is about people. People. Tall people, short people, fat people, skinny people, happy people, sad people. People, lots of people. Facts are important because they anchor people in time and space, but we should never divert our focus from the people, not even those who lived their lives quietly day to day. History is what happened just yesterday ... to you.

Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate