The Soul of Forrester West

The unrelenting wind slapped the prairie grass against his legs and whipped the blue chambray of his shirt which earlier had been tucked neatly into the worn, bibbed denim overalls. Forrester West broke his gaze from Sheep Mountain cast in the pale remnants of gold and peach of the rising sun. He turned to his left and, via the jagged edge of the Slim Buttes to the north, continued his tour of the prairie toward the far away horizon to the west. This survey of Forrester's world, a world extending little beyond Govert Township, reminded him of why he resisted leaving the remote corners of the prairie ... why he remained here with his family long after other prairie homesteaders surrendered to the siren call of urban centers beyond the borders of Harding County, places like Belle Fourche or Rapid City, or those who quitted entirely the state of South Dakota.

Forester's business was cattle and sheep - and family. We can't overlook Forrester's wife, Louise Cornella, because he wouldn't. Louise was both fragile and gutsy. Forrester respected his wife's determination and character, and treated her with warm concern for her fragile heart. We can't forget Forrester's children, because he couldn't - Herman and Richard, his wife's sons whom he embraced as his own, and their daughters, Evaline, Alice Mae, and Shirley Jean, who brought Forrester a gentle joy he never knew would be his. Forrester's livestock was a means, and his family the end. This wild, unfettered land was the how and the where he wanted his children to be formed into strong, independent adults. Forrester wasn't much of a stockman, his daughter Evaline remembered, the land held him, not the nature of the work ... Evaline's father had far too much empathy for the cattle and the sheep in his care. Forrester was a shepherd in rancher's clothing.

Little about Forrester appeared ordinary. He was taller than most, and his dark hair was thicker than any man had the right. The forehead beneath that bounty of hair was broad, giving the impression of deep thought, or an artistic temperament. Your eyes would be drawn to his - a prescient grey - and by the prominent cheekbones supporting them. Forrester watched the world around him through these grey eyes, half-closed. Maybe his eyes were light-shy from all the days of his life lived outside on the prairie ... from the hot, gritty wind half the year and ice barbs carried on the wind the remaining months, and from the near eternal prairie sun. Or maybe watching the world through half-closed eyes was instinctive, a tool of observation.

[Louise Cornella West and Forrester West in 1925]

Was it the half-closed eyes under the broad forehead that made you wonder "What is that man thinking about?" Was it because Forrester had little to say when you leaned on the counter beside him in the Govert store, or claimed the empty seat on the bench beside him at a P.T.A. meeting in the Govert schoolhouse, or stopped on the side of the rutted dirt road interrupting his work to talk about the weather? Forrester must have thought in loops of consciousness that most of us could never hope to understand. Forrester observed the world like an artist, and he painted the world he saw with words. For us he translated his thoughts into poetry.

Forester worked his poems while he worked the cattle, while he worked the sheep, while he mended the fences. Then at night, by the muted light of the kerosene lamp, he transferred the words swirling behind his ever observant eyes to a lined yellow legal tablet. You might wonder how poetry can flow from a man who works more hours in the day than you knew existed, outside, in the hot sun and blowing dirt.

Forrester appreciated hard work, honesty, integrity. He appreciated the beauty and strength of nature, and the strength and weakness of mankind. He appreciated the cycles of life. Most of all he appreciated the openness of the prairie, the beauty of the rustling grasses, the buttes, the breaks, the sunrise, the sunset, and the absence of all that was urban - the sort of silence that forgets man and allows men to forget.

Forrester West was a man you would want to know. Here on Thru Prairie Grass you will read Forrester's "A Message to Youth" published in the Govert Advance on November 28, 1940. Herm was 26, Rich was 24; Evaline was 12, Alice Mae was 10, almost 11, Shirley Jean was about 3 years old.

Forrester became the messenger when he wrote "A Message to Youth". Published after Forrester passed his 54th birthday, wisdom had replaced the brightness of opportunity, and the peace of acceptance was still to come. Forrester must have been talking to his sons, young men full of life's promise. Forrester had no way of knowing that in five months his son, Richard, would be dead.

A MESSAGE TO YOUTH

by Forrester F. West

The return of spring with its sunshine and showers,
Its new life and budding flowers,
Always reminds us of youth and the springtime of life.

In memory we go back thru the years to our own youth,
With its joys and pleasures, its disappointments and sorrows,
Yes, and its dreams and ideals.

But for us the day is far spent.
Now our greatest ambition is to realize in our children
What we wanted to be,
And the accomplishment of what we wanted to do.

Yes, you who are young,
We have an interest in you,
And for you we have a message.

We are taking a great deal of liberty in speaking to you
For we are not speaking for ourselves alone,
But for our generation.

Perhaps you ask, what right have you to speak to us?
You who are Ignorant.
No marble halls of learning have ever been yours.

No, but we are wise,
In wisdom often gained through bitter experience.
Yes, wisdom sometimes hot with the yearnings of a heart,
And sometimes with the anguish of a soul.

We who have crossed the half century line
Know that we have reached the afternoon of life.
Yes, we are nearing the land of the setting sun.

But you, who are young,
For you we hope life, real life,
Has scarce begun.

Memory carries us back nearly fifty years,
But it seems only yesterday
That mother wiped away our childhood tears.

In looking back we realize how short is life,
Even tho we might be spared
The three score years and ten,
Or four score or even more.

But rather than go back, if we could,
And live it over again with its failures and mistakes,
We would stumble on down to the end of the trail.
Hoping that a wise and kind Heavenly Father
Might give to us a few more years.

That we in some way might finish the work he gave us to do,
That the burden to be laid on your young shoulders
Might not be so hard to bear.

But why lament over the shortness of life?
For it matters not so much how long we live, but how we live.
Yes, one short second may decide the destiny of a soul.
One minute might decide the destiny of a nation.

We believe that time and life
Are two of the most precious things in this world.
Time may be cruel,
For it carries us toward old age and the grave.

But then again it is kind,
For with the passing of the years,
Many of the bitter struggles and hardships of our youth are forgotten,
And in their place linger memories we cherish dearly,

But enough of the bitterness remains
To remind us that your troubles and your problems are real.
Yes, if we had it to do over again
We would be more kind to the young,
Giving a word of kindness along with a word of reproof,

For we have some idea of the disappointment
And heartache that might be yours.
Of the two, life is far more precious than time,
Yes, precious Human Life.

Human life consists of three elements,
The body, the mind and the soul.
Sometime every young person asks,
Which of these is the most important?

Certainly, it is not the human body,
For of it has been said from dust thou came,
To dust thou shall return.

It is not the mind,
For that mind, tho it may be brilliant,
Before the dawn of another day,
It may reel and topple from its throne.

Then it must be the Soul,
That spark from the Divine,
That for good or evil
Shall live thruout Eternity.

Today Forrester's daughters are in their 70s and 80s. They have taken their turn as messenger, and have progressed beyond wisdom to the peace of acceptance. They are exactly where their father would want them to be.

Thank you, Forrester West, for choosing to pass your life on the prairie near Govert, South Dakota, for sharing your poetry with the Govert community, for sharing your soul.

Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate

[Written with gratitude to Forrester Frank West and the three daughters he raised to be such wonderful women, Evaline, Alice Mae, and Shirley Jean, who now are sharing their father's poetry with us. Photo and poem used with the permission of the West sisters.]

Oh That Strudio!

Think back ... think back to 1941. Back to December 25, 1941 ... to Christmas day 73 years ago today.

Now picture Christmas dinner, the meal your mother, your grandmother, your great-grandmother, or maybe even your great-great-grandmother labored so lovingly to prepare.

And now, picture dessert. Even if dessert did not follow most meals in your house, today was Christmas day, and surely, oh surely, your meal would end with a sweet treat and a contented smile. Yes, Christmas day was special for many reasons, and a fancy dessert was one of them.

Now, tell me, what was the dessert served in your home or your grandmother's home December 25, 1941? Was it an angel food cake or a cherry pie? Did you eat plum pudding? Did this detail of Christmas dinner slide into the silence of lost memories?

Marie remembers. Marie, called by her Croatian name, Marija, was eleven years old by Christmastime in 1941. Marie remembers because Mother, referred to by the rest of the Govert community as Mrs. Kulisich or as Nikla, baked a Croatian dessert on special occasions. And Christmas was a special occasion everywhere, including the Kulisich Ranch two miles south of Govert, South Dakota.

On Christmas Eve in 1941, Mitch Kulisich woke at 5 o'clock in the morning, the same as every morning. Mitch braced himself against the cold as he lit the kindling in the cook stove in the kitchen, the same as every morning. Today was special though, this he knew. After 25 years of marriage, Mitch and Nikla had no secrets. Today was Christmas Eve and Mitch knew Nikla was in a baking mood.

Nikla felt the mattress shift and then she sensed Mitch's absence. She lifted her arms and stretched in bed, smiling as she followed the familiar early morning noises ... the soft thud of Mitch's feet against the wood planks as he moved about the house, the groan of the door to the firebox as Mitch added wood to the stove, a scraping as Mitch lifted the bucket to fill the kettle with water, and then a firm thunk as the heavy kettle of water was seated on the cast iron stove to heat.

How Nikla loved this house! One big room where they all slept, an attic, plus a kitchen added as a sort of lean-to. The house was built four feet into an earthen bank and so was warmer in winter and cooler in summer. She was content here.

For the first 19 years of their marriage, they lived in what had been Mitch's homestead shack, a mile to the west. That house had grown into a bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen by the 1920s, but burned to the basement in the summer of 1935. Marie remembers her father sitting in the doorway of the granary after the fire, wiping his eyes with a big red handkerchief. They lost everything and then lived out the Depression cooking and sleeping in the cramped granary. Five years they lived in the granary.

Then, in June 1940, Mitch and Nikla moved their family to the old Kinney place, where this very day Nikla was stretching in bed. And now Nikla was just where she wanted to be, with a big kitchen about 12 foot by 20 foot, large enough for a work space and a separate area for a table and chairs where the family could sit together for meals, and where they could entertain neighbors who came calling.

Nikla came to America from Croatia in 1914, a teenager, traveling alone, speaking not a single word of English. She worked at a cousin's house in a Slav neighborhood in Lead, South Dakota, to pay off her fare from the old country. Two years after she arrived in a country foreign to her in every way, Nikla married this Slav man whose soft thudding footsteps now comforted her in the early morning hours. She moved from poverty in Croatia, to poverty in Lead, to poverty in Govert.

Their life was not without luxuries. Living in this house was one of them. And another was waking to a wash basin of hot water. Nikla had to wonder whether the husband of any other woman in Govert gave his wife, morning after morning, year after year, the gift of hot water in which she could dip her wash cloth. She knew she was among the very fortunate to have married a man who was so strong and capable, yet protective and gentle to her and their children.

Mitch was confident his favorite breakfast would be on the table this Christmas Eve morning. He just knew. Special days were like that - the surprise that no longer surprises, but still pleases. His eyes rested on Nikla where she stood over the wash basin of hot water, brushing a towel over her wet face, his gaze uninterrupted as she lifted her apron from the back of the chair where she left it the evening before. Nikla adjusted the apron, knotting the ties around her waist, as she moved toward the stove, and Mitch's eyes turned with her as she added coffee grounds to the open pot and put on cereal to cook. Corn meal mush. Mitch smiled, his confidence rewarded. Corn meal mush, bread and butter, and coffee. His favorite breakfast. This was indeed a special day.

After breakfast, Mitch hefted his heavy coat over his shoulders, fastening it close around him and, taking a deep breath, he plunged into the cold Harding County air. While Mitch checked the sheep, Nikla opened the door to the firebox to evaluate the wood still burning there. She nodded with approval at the extra wood piled by the stove where her son, Tony, left it the night before. Then Nikla pulled out her cutting board and her knife and set to roughly chopping dried prunes and dried apricots.

Nikla welcomed the familiar chopping rhythm. As she reduced the dusky prunes and nectar-colored apricots to chunks, Nikla gave thanks for the two men who sent the dried fruit to this place so far away. Mike Sentovich, the corner grocer in Slav Alley in Lead, deputized the mailman for his delivery, and Mitch's brother, Anton, sent sacks of prunes from California, big sacks weighed by the tens of pounds. Without the dried fruit, the Kulisiches would have had no fruit at all. Fresh fruit was not easily or inexpensively available to them.

Nikla piled the chunks of dried prunes and apricots in her big sauce pan and threw in a handful of raisins. She carried the sauce pan to the stove and added water from the kettle Mitch had set to boil on the stove earlier that morning. The dried fruit, now simmering in water, re-hydrated, plumping up by the minute.

While the texture of the dried prunes and apricots was transformed to a silky softness, Nikla finished her morning chores. She washed and dried the breakfast dishes and stacked them in the tall, free-standing cupboard. Feeling the satisfaction of a job well done, Nikla swept the wide wooden planks in the floor, and proudly put her house in order. And all the while, Nikla kept her eye on the simmering fruit so the pan would not boil dry.

When the fruit had softened and the sauce had thickened, Nikla removed the pan from the stove to the table. With her hands, Nikla smoothed the bibbed apron protecting her cotton dress. Nikla always wore a dress; trousers, jeans, and overalls were for men, and for her young tomboy daughter, Marija. Nikla's dress was a print, either yellow or green, her favorite colors. Nikla's apron was also a print, either yellow or green ... and, print against print, apron against dress, the effect was just right.

While the fruit cooled, Nikla paused from her housekeeping, paused from her baking, paused from the sights and sounds that made her life here on the ranch near Govert so comfortable and, for a moment, the peace in her domain cracked. The Pearl Harbor attack, now 18 days past, still gnawed uncertainly on her world. Nikla was sure Pearl Harbor was far away, maybe even as far away as her home in Croatia where she had not returned, and now would never return. Safety comes with distance, but a mother knows the distance can never be far enough when she has sons. Tony was 22, and John was 20. But it was Christmas Eve, and Nikla tended to the preparations in front of her, the same way she approached everything in her life.

With the fruit still cooling, Nikla entered into the great mystery of creating strudio. She pulled her mixing bowl and big mixing spoon from the cupboard, her rolling pin, and her baking pan, and set out the bag of flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and the small tin of ground cinnamon. And the can of nuts. And a muslin towel. Nikla was ready.

The towel was the key, and Nikla prepared that first. She spread the towel on the table and sprinkled the towel with flour. Then Nikla broke two eggs into her mixing bowl. She beat them well, until the color was lemony, the color of the yellow in her dress. She added flour to the beaten eggs, the amount depending on the eggs, as Nikla never used measuring cups. When the eggs and the flour clumped into a ball and was no longer tacky to the touch, Nikla patted the ball flat and, placing the disk on the floured towel, she picked up her rolling pin.

Nikla rolled the dough thin, into a circle. Then she spread the fruit over the surface of the dough, followed by what must have been a cup of chopped nuts. She dotted the entire surface with butter, and followed that with a sprinkling of sugar and of cinnamon.

And then Nikla rolled her strudio. Lifting the edge of the floured towel, Nikla gave the towel a quick tug and an upward jerk and the edge of the dough closest to her flipped over. Another tug and jerk of the towel, and then another, and the fruit covered dough turned upon itself again and again until one layer, then a second layer, and then a third layer of the dough formed a roll. The rolling is the mystery of the creation of what would be a stunning strudio.

All that was left now was to spread butter on the strudio and to bake her pastry creation in a medium oven, a temperature Nikla would judge by her senses - which we would describe as 350 degrees. When the strudio was lightly browned, after an hour in the oven, Nikla's dessert was ready for her Christmas table the following day.

Today 11-year-old Marija is 84, and her mother's strudio remains a favorite memory of childhood. She remembers Nikla's dough, when baked, had a crunchy texture, almost like noodle dough. As an adult, grown-up Marie baked her own version of strudio for her children, adding shortening to Nikla's recipe to make the crust more like pie dough. In this way the tradition of Nikla's Christmas strudio was passed to another generation.

The story about making Christmas strudio was to have ended here. You were to have scrolled down to a photo of a stunning strudio, a long, well-turned roll of fruit-filled pastry, browned to perfection, with a slice on a plate to show the symmetry of the spiral of pastry and fruit. With that in mind, my research plan for the story included baking both a strudel and a strudio. As it turns out, writing Marie's story about her mother's strudio was a lesson not to count my strudio before they are baked.

The first thing I learned in this culinary research is that strudio and strudel are not the same thing at all. Although both appear as rolled pastry, the strudel has a fruit-filled center with layers of pastry on the outside. In a strudio, the fruit is dispersed throughout the layers of pastry. In publishing Nikla's recipe, the St. Mary's Catholic Altar Society cookbook functionally translated "strudio" as "fruit roll".

You probably won't find the word "strudio" in a Croatian cookbook; Marie and I didn't. Still, Nikla was not the only Croatian woman to bake strudio. The Lales, another Croatian family with Govert ties, also celebrated special occasions with strudio. Whether the word originated in a community in Croatia or whether it originated in Govert, whether the inspiration was that of Nikla Kulisich or Pauline Lale, whether the word was recorded by history as strudio because of Nikla's Croatian accent or Marie's American ears, "strudio" is the word that survived.

Strudio and strudel are not the same, but similarities do exist. The same floured towel technique is used for rolling both a strudio and a strudel. The filling is the same. But for slicing the rolled pastry, not even Mitch would be able to tell the difference because, straight out of the oven, a strudio and a strudel appear identical. Had I not dipped my hands in the flour like Nikla did, had I not used the floured cloth to coax the dough into roll, I might have missed the probable answer to the origin of the word "strudio". Maybe the word really is the invention of immigrants. Not a strudel, but something like a strudel, so a strudio. Or, as my husband said, having cheerfully assumed responsibility as taste tester, "strudel-ish".

My research strudel turned out quite well. Nicely shaped, golden brown, an enviable result, perhaps beginner's luck. The appearance of my research strudio was, well, not so nice, certainly not stunning like Nikla's strudio. Russ, as official taste tester, reported to me, "I agree the strudio is not as pretty as the strudel, but the flavor is much better". I was surprised. And my taste tester continued sampling the strudio.

Like Russ, Mitch would have happily eaten the strudio I baked but, without a picture of a stunning strudio, my preconceived ending to the story fell into doubt. I could not in good conscience pass off a picture of the successful strudel as strudio. This was, after all, a story about strudio. So I did what any author with a rigid plan would have done: I considered making a second strudio.

And then the muse who is inside of each of us, if only we listen, nudged me. And, for once, I listened. Sometimes we have to be reminded that things are not always what they appear to be. The image of the strudio I had labored over so hopefully was not one I was willing to commit to the public eye, but the flavor was better than that of the more attractive strudel cousin. The strudio was not what it appeared to be. First, it wasn't a strudel at all and, second, my sad little strudio was a happy mash of pie dough and fruit. My muse smiled and went back to sleep.

Things are not always what they appear to be. And, just as my muse repeated to me ... things are not always what they appear to be.

Maybe this story isn't what it appears to be.

Consider this. Applying an economic standard, Nikla and Mitch appear to be poor.

But were they poor? Things are not always what they appear to be.

Maybe this story is not about strudio after all. Maybe this is a story about Nikla and Mitch.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM GOVERT, SOUTH DAKOTA!

This story is dedicated to Marie's great-grandchildren.

Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate

[Written with gratitude to Marie Kulisich for her memories.

The photograph in this blog post is used with the permission of Marie Kulisich. In the back row are John, Ann, and Tony. In the front are Marie, Mitch and Nikla.

Gratitude is owed to Robert Jerin, who has been kind to entertain my questions on all things Slavic since 2010. Robert has long been associated with the Croatian Heritage Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and is the moderator of the Croatian Heritage and Genealogy page on Facebook. Robert was not familiar with a Croatian word like "strudio". Robert advised that the Croatian word for strudel is strudla (pronounced like shroodlah). He suggested the possibility that "strudio" may derive from dialect or family tradition.

The natural concerns of a mother for her sons following December 7, 1941 were to become very real for Nikla. The son she and Mitch named John Govert Kulisich joined the Marine Corp in 1942. John served as a Corsair pilot, and remained in the Marine Corps until he retired as a Master Sergeant in 1962. Tony (formally named Anton after his uncle) was deferred from service in World War II because his labor was necessary to maintain ranch operations.

Marie tells me that wood produces a faster, hotter fire. Wood was preferred in the kitchen for cooking and baking. The stove in the second room was fired with coal. Coal was good for banking the fire at night as the coal did not burn as fast. Paul Ellis operated a coal mine near the Slim Buttes, and he provided coal to most of the Govert community. The wood the Kulisich family burned in the cook stove came from the Slim Buttes, with Mitch and his sons collecting the wood in the fall. If wood were ever in short supply, a Govert family would use whatever fuel was available. Nikla might have baked her strudio in an oven fired by coal this Christmas Eve in 1941.

The cookbook published by the St. Mary's Catholic Altar Society in Newell, South Dakota, is undated, but Marie believes publication preceded 1973.]

Echoes of Govert, South Dakota: Gordon Van der Boom

Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Another of God's children lovingly tucked into bed, one last time. Good night, Gordon.

Gordon was the last of the Van der Booms to once have lived on the townsite known as Govert, South Dakota. The bell tolling for Uncle Gordon ended this Van der Boom family connection to the feisty little town founded by his father, my grandfather, on the South Dakota prairie.

On September 7, 1918 the population of Govert, South Dakota, grew by one precious baby boy, a birth that would be celebrated by the entire community. On that September day 96 years ago, 33-year-old Emma Van der Boom gave birth to her second child, a son Emma and Govert named Gordon. This was not a family name, but neither was Virgil, the name they gave their first son, or Roger, the name they would give their third son. Homesteading in West River was a new life, calling for new beginnings. None of their sons would be called Govert. But, with a twinkle in his eye, Govert Luther Joseph Marion Van der Boom, the founder of the town of Govert, named his children Virgil Marion, Gordon Luther, and Roger Joseph.

All three brothers were handsome men. Their lives took them along different paths but they also held in common a sense of wonder and curiosity as to the world surrounding them. They each also inherited their father's twinkle - right there in the corner of their eye. Maybe their father's father charmed women and children with that same alternately merry and mischievous twinkle, too, but the elder Govert died in 1895 two weeks before the younger Govert's 12th birthday, and these last decades have left no one to remember such things as twinkles.

Gordon started his childhood in Govert, South Dakota, finished those years in Newell and then, in 1937, armed with little more than his handsome looks and the twinkle in his eye, Gordon headed for California, leaving the prairie behind. He was 19, a young man in search of opportunity and adventure. Gordon's motivation differed little from that of his mother and father before him when they chose to change their lives by claiming homesteads west of the Missouri River. Young Gordon must have overheard the men talking in his father's mercantile store at Govert and later at the implement company in Newell - if any destination still held magic in the 1930s, that destination was California. The images that fired Gordon's soul at the age of 19 were probably similar to the romantic images his nieces and nephews carried for him, the stories told to them by their parents.

The earliest memory of Gordon, created for me by my father, was that of my swashbuckling uncle seeking fame in Hollywood as a tap dancer, which made me admire this mysterious uncle all the more. The birth of twins, uncommon in the Van der Boom family, made the California Van der Booms more exotic than ever. Then came my father's story of an invention by my clever uncle, then the modern house with the white carpet, swimming pool and tennis courts, and even a sophisticated sort of clover for a lawn. Then there was the time Gordon rescued my brother from drowning in the pool. All part of the star package, mostly true, all believed. As you can see here, Uncle Gordon could have been a 1940s movie star, and that's not just his eight-year-old, awe-struck niece speaking.

Govert Van der Boom must have been puzzled, but he also must have understood what drove his middle son to reject the known for the unknown. So in 1937 when Gordon left South Dakota for California, Govert accompanied his son to the train station in Newell, the last stop on the spur from Belle Fourche. Gordon climbed aboard the caboose attached behind two cars and an engine. What does a father say in his reluctance to part with one of his sons for the first time? In the awkwardness of accepting this farewell, the Dutchman - in his heavy accent - cautioned Gordon to "stay away from bad girls." And then Govert watched his son fade with the train against the horizon.

Gordon took his father's well-meant advice and, in California, Gordon fell in love with a beautiful and talented woman, a promising young author, Marjorie Jean Nichols. Their daughter, Linda, was born in 1942, followed by the twins, Gordie and Sherry, in 1945. And then came the gift of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Gordon could not have muted the fast forward that drove him to California, and there he made his own magic.

Watching his grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow older, Gordon began to reflect, the kind of reflection in which we can engage only after our life experiences mature us. Gordon's "what once was" arose from that piece of land in southeastern Harding County where he spent his earliest years, and Newell where he passed the years of teenaged introspection. In his 80s, Gordon harbored a sort of wonder about the life his parents chose in a small community that was both close and supportive.

I know this because Gordon told me so. He told me in 2004 when he traveled to Oregon to join my mother, my sister, my brothers and me in memorializing my father, Roger. I know because Gordon made a pilgrimage back to Govert, South Dakota, that same year. I know because of the close bond Gordon formed on that pilgrimage with his great-nephew who lives in Belle Fourche, South Dakota. I know because Gordon followed my research with a sense of wonder, that same sense of wonder he shared with his brothers. My Uncle Gordon was a romantic image all my life, but I didn't know him until 2004 when Gordon was 86 and I was 52.

They grew where they were planted, these Van der Boom boys, or they grew where they were transplanted. All three of Govert's and Emma's sons flourished, each with his once-and-forever wife, just like their parents. Govert died in 1957 and, in 1968, Emma joined him at Rose Hill Cemetery in Spearfish, South Dakota, 81 miles from the homestead life they shared with their three sons earlier in the century. The youngest son, Roger, was the first of the sons to die and he was buried as a soldier, a veteran of World War II, at the National Cemetery outside of Sturgis, South Dakota. The oldest son, Virgil, was the second to die, two years later in 2006. You can find Virgil and his beloved wife, Mildred, in the small cemetery adjacent to Newell, South Dakota. And now the middle son, Gordon, has died. September 24, 2014 was not a good day for all the people who loved him. Gordon and his wife, Marge, are interred in a columbarium in the western state Gordon adopted as his own.

And now, no Govert, South Dakota, Van der Booms remain. Not a single one. The prairie wind dispersed Govert Township and the memories of the town, leaving Govert, Emma, Roger, and Virgil ... and now Gordon, too ... as echos of Gordon's "what once was".

Listening to the wind blowing through the prairie grass. Kate

[Written with gratitude for having known Gordon. For the grownups among us, Gordon chose a career in advertising. He was a partner in Van der Boom, Hunt & McNaughton and Van der Boom-McCarron. Some of the stories my father told me about Gordon may or may not be completely true; Gordon himself declined to comment. My father admired his older brother, and my father was fond of telling stories, a dangerous combination for recording family history with accuracy. Join me here soon for Gordon's memories of life on the prairie, which I believe to be based in truth, like nearly crushing the Dutchman's car in the 1930s. The 18th Century "lay me down to sleep" children's prayer is the formula I followed at bedtime every night of my childhood, and Emma Van der Boom most likely supervised the repetition of this prayer as recited by Virgil, Gordon, and Roger kneeling by their beds in the attic of the frame house next to Govert Mercantile in the 1920s. The photograph of Gordon comes from my archive.]