An unusually warm December day ends in a beautiful sunset near Silkville, Kansas.

Two Decembers ago, East Central Kansas was buried under snow drifts six feet deep. This year, we’re closing the calendar out with 50-degree weather and beautiful skies. In the wide open spaces between Williamsburg and the Franklin-Coffey county line, where only hints of ghost towns remain, the sunsets can take your breath away. Every second is a different color, a different texture, a different experience. Just a hundred yards or so from the sign identifying what is now the Silkville Ranch, the sky churned with more life than the land beneath it.

A century ago, this land was not so barren.

In 1869, Ernest Valeton de Boissière, a native of France, purchased 3,500 acres from the Kansas Educational Association of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He established Silkville, a self-sustaining commune whose primary export was silk ribbon. De Boissière built elaborate facilities, including a 60-room building to house Silkville’s residents, a winery, an ice house, a school house, and the structures needed to grow silkworms and produce silk. Silkville’s library was the largest library in Kansas at that time. For a short time, Silkville thrived.

As other companies began to compete in the domestic silk trade and the commune’s residents discovered they could earn better wages elsewhere, the commune began to fail. By the 1890s, the commune was gone, and de Boissière deeded the land to the International Order of Odd Fellows (I. O. O. F.) to establish an orphanage, but after de Boissière’s death, a legal battle over the property’s ownership ensued between the I. O. O. F. and de Boissière’s sister, Madame Corrine Martinelli. In 1903, Martinelli won the suit and seven years later, the land and its structures were sold for $130,000. Six years later, the 60-room house burned to the ground.

Today, most signs of Silkville–other than the Silkville sign itself–are gone. The structures have long since disappeared, and most of the mulberry and Osage orange trees planted to feed the silkworms have been cleared away to make room for grazing cattle. The area where most of the buildings were is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a Western settlement.

De Boissière’s idea of Utopia may have failed, but on a warm winter evening, when you can get out of your car and feel like you have the whole sky to yourself, it still seems pretty close to perfect.

Learn more about Silkville at the Franklin County Kanasas History Portal, or read Phyllis M. Jones’ recorded memories of the community that no longer exists.

I was going to write about the efforts little towns make to sparkle during the holidays. Emporia and Ottawa also string up the lights and baubles to infuse holiday cheer into an otherwise dreary, dark and cold season. But it wasn’t until I began to research the buildings in the shadows behind the lights in Williamsburg, trying to match them with historical photos, that I began to understand why Williamsburg is such an interesting town.

It shouldn’t have survived.

—

“Look at this old picture,” I said to my husband as I flipped back and forth between my shots of Williamsburg and an old picture I found of the business district, shot well before cars replaced buggies. The historic photograph of the Williamsburg business district, which I found at the Franklin County Kansas History Portal,  included a furniture/undertaker shop, a grocery store, and a post office.

The building I was especially interested in identifying was one that looked like it had only recently gone out of use. The windows were mostly blocked by the building’s contents, and we’ve never seen cars parked in front of it during our rides through town. Yet the words “Lucille’s Cafe” are neatly and fairly recently painted on the window glass.

A snowflake hovers in front of the storefront that was once Lucille's Cafe. Williamsburg, Kansas.

“None of these buildings look quite right,” Jim said, flipping back and forth between the two tabs, old and new. “Of course, that first picture is at least a century old.”

What began as a fun little Christmas post turned into a quest for photos and the history of downtown Williamsburg. According to William Cutler, whose History of the State of Kansas is still considered one of the first places you look for early Kansas history, the 30,000-acre township of Williamsburg had a strong start as a railroad and coal mine community. The Williamsburg Coal Company was able to mine over 25 tons of coal a day. By 1870, the town had a school, wood frame and stone homes, drug and grocery stores, a wagon shop, a church, and a mill. Within the next decade, there were banks and hotels, hardware stores and blacksmith shops, physicians, a newspaper and more about 400 inhabitants.

The town’s greatest folly, long before Interstate 35 moved in and turned U.S. Highway 50 into Old U.S. Highway 50, was its peculiar determination to burn itself down. Repeatedly.

According to “Williamsburg,” from The History of Franklin County, Kansas,

…there were four general stores, two butcher shops, two drug stores, three lumberyards, two hardware stores, a post office, a printing shop, a grain elevator, two livery stables, a jewelry store, a tin shop, two blacksmiths, two wagon shops, two boot and shoe shops, two harness and saddle factories (Ringer’s and Magrath’s), and eventually two banks—E.M. Bartholow’s, established in 1881, and F.W. Olson’s, established in 1882. There were two hotels—Stauffer’s with rooms for 40 guests, and The Lamont. A newspaper, the Gazette, was established on April 3, 1880 by Frank Bennett.

There were also cheese factories, a saw mill, a flour mill, and law offices.  The town was on its way to being a prosperous, growing community.

In 1890, a fire destroyed half the town. A few years later, lightning caused another fire that burned down the barn and carriage sheds behind one of the banks. Later fires would destroy the hotels, and yet more fires would ultimately burn down every single building on the business block except for the D. Fogle store, a stone building Fogle purchased shortly after it was built in 1869.  As one final insult, the school’s auditorium-gymnasium burned down in 1942.

And yet.

Despite the relatively few remaining buildings downtown, despite the fact that other previously thriving nearby communities like Silkville and Ransomville are now nothing more than the names of ranches, despite the redirection of a main trans-Kansas thoroughfare, despite the fact that the railroad tracks were removed for good in the 1970s, Williamsburg is a tidy community with a stable and young population. The town has held on to its elementary school. Their local watering hole, Guy and Mae’s Tavern, produces the kind of BBQ ribs barbecue lovers dream about and connoisseurs are willing to travel long distances to eat. Williamsburg’s most recent achievement is the new community library, a charming community gathering place that offers books, technology, and meeting space.

Despite the fact that the town has a few gaping holes where buildings stood a century ago, despite the fact that its streets are quiet enough that I once had to pass a deer walking down the center of the business district, Santa will be coming to town, because Williamsburg is still a a living, breathing town.

And Santa, Guy and Mae’s will pack you a to-go order of ribs.

Santa hangs out just a few doors down from Guy and Mae's Tavern, home of some of the state's most famous BBQ ribs. Williamsburg, Kansas.

Tagged: Christmas, Franklin County, History, Holiday Decorations, Kansas, Photos, Small Towns, Travel, Williamsburg ]]> http://dianastaresinicdeane.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/o-little-town-of-williamsburg/feed/ 8 dianastaresinicdeane Downtown Williamsburg December 2011 Lucilles Cafe, Williamsburg, Kansas Santa in Williamsburg, Kansas http://dianastaresinicdeane.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/encouraging-the-next-generation-of-kansas-writers/ http://dianastaresinicdeane.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/encouraging-the-next-generation-of-kansas-writers/#comments Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:45:13 +0000 Diana Staresinic-Deane http://dianastaresinicdeane.wordpress.com/?p=475 ]]> A few weeks ago, Mrs. Jenkins, a teacher at Ottawa High School, invited me to speak to her class about what it means to be a writer. Completely flattered, I said yes and then spent the next few weeks wondering what I would say. Luckily for me, Mrs. Jenkins’ class developed a fantastic series of questions. Some of my favorites:

• What is your favorite piece of work you have written?
• How long would you say it takes to write a book?
• Do you wish to become a professional writer like James Patterson, or is it just a hobby?
• Is anyone in your family not supportive of you being a writer?
• When did you decide to become a writer? Why?

These questions really got me thinking about the writing process and reminded me why I love writing. Even on the days when I delete twenty pages because I realize the story is moving in the wrong direction. Especially on the days when I figure out which direction the story should go.

So, just for fun, here’s the presentation I put together so we all have something to stare at in the event that I can’t remember what I was going to say.

Writing Presentation – Ottawa High School

We’ll have a good time. I hope. At least, I hope no one falls asleep.

The sign drawing in visitors from Old U.S. Highway 50.

“Has it been six and a half miles yet?” I asked as we drove down a country road, with only a handful of farm houses in sight.

“I have no idea,” Jim said. “I’m not even sure what county we’re in.”

Suddenly, our road intersected Kansas Highway 31 at an angle and we were looking at a steep hill.

“You think it’s up there?” I said, doubtfully.

“Let’s go see,” Jim said. And we climbed the hill to find one of the most spectacular overlooks in central Kansas.

—

We were, in fact, in Anderson County. Belying its idyllic appearance is a county whose people and history are a touch contrary and more than a little accomplished. Named for attorney Joseph C. Anderson, a leader in the “bogus”  pro-slavery legislature that attempted to take control of Kansas, the county would as claim its own one Dr. J. G. Blunt, who, as a major general, was the highest ranking member of the Union army to settle in Kansas. The county would also be the birth place of Edgar Lee Masters, author of the Spoon River Anthology, and Dr. Martha E. Cunningham, one of the first women doctors in the state. And yet, the southeast corner of the county was known to be a hiding place for border ruffians during the Civil War and Jesse James thereafter. It is also believed that the first-ever picture of a tornado was shot from Anderson County.

But this was all in Anderson County’s future. In 1857, when Irish transplant John McManus was looking for somewhere to claim for his family, he saw the cheap land and excellent soil and staked a claim near the Ionthe Creek in Reeder Township.

—

At the top of the hill with its breathtaking panoramic view was a brick, Romanesque church.

St. Patrick's Church, built in 1899.

“It’s almost all alone up here,” I said, seeing only a decrepit building next to the church.

Yet the church was maintained and, other than the fact that its bell tower had been removed, appeared to still be in use.

—

The McManus family was followed by a wave of others who made their way west after immigrating from Ireland, many from North Ulster. Soon names like Doolin, Collins, McEvoy, Glennan, McElroy, Cristy, McGrath, Reddington, Fitzgerald, Sullivan, McLindon, Campbell, and Granis populated the area. After the Civil War, the Fay, McGlinchy, Cotter, Swallow, Benedum, Hagan, McGlinn, Mooney, and O’Neill families settled into the highest eminence of Anderson County.

Many of the monuments at St. Patrick's Cemetery attest to the Irish roots of Emerald's original inhabitants.

“They built log houses, danced and were happy in a land of boundless opportunities where they were the landlords instead of the tenants as they had been in Ireland,” Harry Johnson wrote in 1936 in his History of Anderson County Kansas.

The Irish settlement, which spread into nearby Coffey and Franklin counties, did prosper. By 1870, they had outgrown the first church and replaced it with a structure built from locally quarried stone. In 1899, they replaced the stone church with the brick Romanesque building that is said to have been decorated by artists from Luxemburg.

“One of the finest church edifices in Kansas,” Johnson wrote, “…this brick structure, built Roman style, forms the nucleus of the Emerald settlement today.”

The area became known as Emerald, and with no town per se, the church, which stood at the settlement’s highest point, served as a beacon to the community’s Roman Catholic population.

—

“Look at this cemetery,” Jim said as we walked behind the church. At a glance, it was clear that we were seeing a prosperous community who could afford substantial monuments to honor their dead. Some family stones were adorned with statues eight feet tall, artistry infused with enough emotion to take your breath away.

The monument honoring the Collins family in St. Patrick's Cemetery.

A close-up of the angel that stands eight feet tall over the five-foot base of the McGlinchy family monument.

By World War I, Emerald was home to 75 families, and its schools (the final building, St. Patrick’s School, is the empty structure next to the church) produced five lawyers, two doctors, numerous nurses and teachers, and a member of the Kansas Authors Club. Eighteen men from the area would serve in the Great War, two losing their lives.

Then, like so many other rural areas in Kansas, the settlement experienced a population decline beginning during the 1930s. The number of local families dropped to 48, with a slight resurgence after World War II. Despite the decline, many with Irish roots still call this area home, and the church and cemetery are still in use. While the bell was removed from the church roof during the 1990s, it is preserved at the entrance to the cemetery, where visitors can activate the clapper, causing it to resonate a deep, rich sound that can be heard for miles.

At a time when so many Roman Catholic churches are closing their doors due to financial shortfalls and a shortage of clergy, St. Patrick’s Church continues to serve the community of Emerald. Though the settlement may only be a shadow of its former self, at five o’clock each Saturday evening, the church that otherwise sits quietly on the hill is renewed with members from the surrounding farms and ranches.

It took 10 snapshots to build a panoramic view of the sweeping countryside east of the steps of St. Patrick's Church in Emerald, Kansas.

We pulled on to patch of mowed grass that served as the temporary parking lot. I remembered to bring my camera this year. Despite the lack of rain, we were having the most beautiful fall weather–a perfect day for an outdoor festival.

The pumkin patch in front of the 120-year-old barn that now serves as the Louisburg Cider Mill.

—

The first year, we were a couple celebrating our first anniversary, and we were too broke to travel far from home. We climbed into the car and made the 90 minute drive to Louisburg to spend some time together in the sunshine. What we discovered was a wonderful little festival: lots of venders, families, pumpkins, bluegrass music, and cider and cider donuts that came directly from heaven.

What started out as a cheap day trip turned into an annual pilgrimage.

—

The Louisburg Cider Mill was once an old, abandoned hay barn. In the 1970s, Tom and Shelly Schierman bought the property and restored the old barn in 1977 and pressed their first jug of cider that fall.  By 1978, they reconstructed another old barn to create a country store. Today, many Kansans know the best time to head for the mill is during Ciderfest.

During the entire drive to Louisburg, all I can think about is getting my hands on a fresh batch of cider donuts.

—

“Donuts, music, or vendors?” I asked as we walked down the dusty lane of parked cars to the Ciderfest.

“Let’s see whose playing now, and then decide,” Jim said. The bands were between sets, so we cruised the best collection of vendors we could remember seeing at the Ciderfest.

Not for me, but totally adorable.

Some old-timey herbs and medicinals from Watkins.

Almost too pretty to eat: cupcakes from Sugar Pearl Cupcakes.

As we weaved in and out of the dense crowds, we made it back to the hay bails in front of the stage just in time to hear one of our favorite local bands, Bluestem, start their set. The guys of Bluestem are as much a part of our pilgrimage as the donuts. They were on stage that first year, and they’ve been on stage every year since. Jim Rood, a fiddler and vocalist, saw us sit down and smiled at us.

“It’s the folks from Emporia,” he said. “We were wondering about you!”

Bluestem stem members Jim Rood (fiddle), Keith Alberding (banjo), Marvin Pine and Woody the Wonder Bass, and Rick Marshall on guitar.

After Bluestem finished their set, we headed for the food.

Everyone else had the same idea.

The line for fresh cider and cider donuts. Once you've tried a Louisburg cider donut, you'll wonder how you ever did without.

—

My love for cider donuts began in college. I was far away from home, my first fall in Los Angeles, when my dad overnighted a box of cider donuts. Even a day old, the rich smell of cinnamon and yummy goodness filled the room when I opened the box. By the end of the day, the donuts were gone.

“They’re even better when they’re warm,” my dad told me, and he was right.

—

We wormed our way into the County Store. The Louisburg Cider Mill folks could barely keep the shelves stocked with cider. Customers were taking jugs out of the stockers’ hands as they walked by while in line.

Trying to keep cider on the shelves.

We also decided we needed kettle corn and lemonade.

Kettle corn made in a real kettle.

Arms loaded with two dozen cider donuts, a jug of cider, a bag of kettle corn, and two cups of fresh-squeezed lemonade, we had enough sugar and fat to make it through the rest of the afternoon. We plopped on another hay bale to watch another awesome band play – so awesome, that I can’t remember the name of their group to save my life.

New to me: the haunting vocals of the Blue Moon Trio. (Thanks to the people at the Louisburg Cider Mill for providing the name when I asked about it on their facebook page.)

As the band played, I pulled out my very first sweet, tantalizing cider donut of 2011.

I was so overjoyed to have a donut I could hardly keep the camera focused.

As five o’clock approached, we knew it was time to go home. But we took some souvenirs with us.

Mmmm, cider donuts.

James and Anna O’Marra and their nine children, ranging in age from six months to 21 years, lived seven miles south of Hartford. Their family was in mourning for James’ brother John, who had died of pneumonia on March 30, 1903. The newspapers are not clear as to exactly what happened next, but John O’Marra’s funeral may be a clue, as family members from outside the area came to Lyon County to pay their respects.

According to the Neosho Valley Times, a cousin visiting from Anderson County might have been the unwitting carrier for the tragedy that would devastate the O’Marra family.

—

“What’s diphtheria?” my colleague asked me as I told her this story.

“We’re so lucky we don’t know first hand,” I told her.

—

On April 10, nine-year-old Julia O’Marra was taken down with respiratory “black” diphtheria. As the bacteria grew thick dark membranes around her tonsils and throat, she grew weak, gasping for air, until the membrane completely blocked her airway. On the morning of Tuesday, April 14, Julia suffocated to death. She was buried the same afternoon.

The tiny marker for Julia O'Marra, age 9, the first to die of diphtheria.

Before the last of the earth was shoveled onto her grave, all eight of the remaining O’Marra children were extremely ill. Rumors were circulating that the O’Marras had already infected members of other large families. Though unfounded, the stories prevented many neighbors from offering assistance. Beyond the help of “the old priest,” Father J.W. “Paul” O’Connor and the undertaker, Mr. Holloway, the O’Marra family was on their own.

Thirteen-year-old Anastasia, called Annie, died Saturday morning, April 18, and was buried the same day. Her four-year-old brother James died at 11 o’clock Saturday night, followed by his seventeen-year-old sister Ellen, called Nellie, who died early Sunday morning.

Anastasia "Annie" O'Marra was the second sibling to die.

James and Nellie were buried in the same coffin Sunday afternoon.

James and Ellen "Nellie " O'Marra died within hours of each other, and were buried in the same grave.

—

How serious is diphtheria?

Diphtheria is a serious disease: 5%-10% of all people with diphtheria die. Up to 20% of cases lead to death in certain age groups of individuals (e.g., children younger than age 5 years and adults older than age 40 years).

— Immunization Action Coalition

—

On Monday, April 20, 21-year-0ld William and his six-year-old sister, Hanora, called Nora, also passed away. They were buried in the same casket later that afternoon.

William and Hanora "Nora" O'Marra also share a grave after dying the same morning.

James and Anna were beside themselves with grief and worry. Anna grew physically ill herself, and it was feared that she, too, had contracted diphtheria from her children. While the parents looked on, the local doctor, S.P. Reser, administered anti-toxin, a therapy that had only been in use since the late 1890s, to the three remaining children. He was too late. Maggie, the six-month-old baby, died Monday night.

Six-month old Margaret "Maggie" O'Marra was the seventh sibling to die, despite anti-toxin treament.

A nurse from Kansas City arrived to help care for the two remaining children and the heart-sick, exhausted parents. The two surviving children, eighteen-year-old Mary and eleven-year-old Lizzie, appeared to respond to the anti-toxin treatment. Neighbors stepped in to help as they could. It was thought the two girls would recover.

On the morning of May 5, Mary’s heart gave out, most likely from myocarditis.

Thought to be recovering, Mary, the eldest daughter, died on May 5.

Lizzie, the middle child in a family of 11, was now the only surviving daughter to two of the most grief-stricken parents in Lyon County’s history. She would outlive her siblings by nearly six decades.

—

A confirmed case has not been reported in the U.S. since 2003. Approximately 0.001 cases per 100,000 population in the U.S. since 1980; before the introduction of vaccine in the 1920s incidence was 100-200 cases per 100,000 population. Diphtheria remains endemic in developing countries with low vaccination coverage. During the 1990s, the countries of the former Soviet Union reported >150,000 cases in a large epidemic.

— Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Diphtheria

—

Cemeteries are rich with the history of the people who live in a particular area. They indicate wealth, social status, social and religious affiliations, and ethnicity. They are also a strong indicator of the hard existence our not-so-distant ancestors endured.  For me, the graves of children are both the most heartbreaking and the most honest, because it is our nature as humans to do all we can to protect our young. The headstones and markers of the young tell the stories of those we couldn’t protect from stillbirth, disease, or tragic accident.

Cemeteries that date back a century or more often protect the remains of far more infants and children than most of us are comfortable seeing. The late 1800s and early 1900s brought death to children, death from diseases most of us have never even seen in another living being: tetanus, small pox, diphtheria, typhoid, and polio, as well as others that are beginning to reappear as more and more Americans lose the immunity acquired through vaccination or choose not to vaccinate their children (measles, mumps, pertussis). These families lost children — sometimes many or all of their children — in a matter of days or weeks.

I acknowledge that some of the most important decisions we ever face are those concerning our own health and the health of our loved ones. As thousands of children died all over the world from highly communicable and extremely dangerous diseases, doctors and scientists and other public health officials sought ways to protect the entire population by protecting the most vulnerable: the very young.

In some ways, those scientists and doctors and public health officials were almost too successful. We have forgotten how severe, painful, dangerous, and heartbreaking many of these diseases really are.

Vaccines have always generated dissenters as well as supporters. As the concept of vaccination spread through New England, many argued that to “sicken oneself as a way of preventing God from sickening you…[was] an act of supreme arrogance,” and considered a sin.  (See Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver by Arthur Allen.) Today, many believe that vaccines are physically dangerous, that there is no need to to vaccinate children from diseases that are sometimes mistakenly believed to have been eradicated. Yet we know that unvaccinated children are only as safe as the people around them, completely dependent on the immunity of others to protect them from harm.

As many news stories have demonstrated, in a world where people travel freely from city to city, state to state, country to country, it is very difficult to prevent exposure to some of these extremely deadly diseases. What’s more, there is a tremendous cost, physical and financial, to minimizing the impact these diseases have once they are reintroduced to populated areas.

My reaction is more visceral. When I hear of someone arguing against the benefits of vaccinations, I want to say, “Before you make up your mind, let me show you something.” Then I want to take them out to a local cemetery. “This,” I want to say, “This is why we have vaccines. Because I believe in my heart the O’Marras would have given anything to have protected their children from this. They would have given anything to have had children who lived full lives.”

I believe the O’Marras would have given anything for their children to have more than the occasional stranger standing over their graves, wondering what awful tragedy befell them in 1903.

The O'Marra family plot at St. Mary's Cemetery, south of Hartford, Kansas.

Author’s note: Two newspapers covered the O’Marra family tragedy: the Emporia Gazette and the Neosho Valley Times. The exact times of death vary slightly between the two papers; I opted to go with the times listed in the Neosho Valley Times, which was the more local paper for Hartford. O’Marra is occasionally spelled O’Mara, though all of the family markers at St. Mary’s Cemetery spell it “O’Marra.” All photos by Diana Staresinic-Deane.

I was running late for work. I was always running late for work back then, and back then, we had cable, so CNN was on in the background while I was running around, trying to get ready for work, when I caught sight of the images on television of the flames coming out of the World Trade Center. Then the second plane hit. Just then. While I was watching, a plane hit the second building.

I consider that the pivotal moment. Not when the first plane hit, not when the buildings collapsed, but the moment that second plane hit, you could feel this collective gasp echoing all over the world. It was the moment when we realized the first plane wasn’t an accident, that it was so much bigger and scarier than an accident. It was the realization that some group of really angry people would do this on purpose.

—

In 1995, I visited family in the almost brand-new Croatia. I remember walking through the streets of Karlovac, where many of the buildings downtown bore the injuries of shrapnel or were caved in on themselves from bombs and fire. I remember a car door slamming and people dropping to the ground in case what they heard was actually gunfire.  I remember thinking how lucky we were not to have to live in a war zone, how fortunate we were not to have to live with that kind of persistent fear in the United States, the realistic fear that someone or some group could hate you or what you have or how you live your life so much that they were willing to try to take it all away from you.

—

I called my then-fiance-now-husband, who was a student working in a hardware store. It took him a while to process what I was telling him. At first, he thought I meant a little plane hit a pair of residence halls on the local university campus. Then he understood, and was quiet.

—

I went to work. The internet was very, very slow that day, as everyone in the entire universe was trying to access whatever updates they could about what was happening. We were slowly piecing together the connections: New York, the Pentagon, Pennsylvania. Then the Twin Towers collapsed.

—

My then-fiance-now-husband was encountering bewilderment at the hardware store. “Why is this so important to you? Do you know people in New York?”

—

Mid morning, it hit me, like a punch in the gut. The synapses in my brain finally locked in on the fact that one of our bridesmaids was a United Airline flight attendant. The other worked for American Express in the World Trade Center.

—

Word was getting out on the campus where I worked. “This isn’t your problem,” we were told. “Get back to work.” But it was my problem. It was everybody’s problem.

—

The flight attendant’s father’s assistant called to reassure me that my friend had the day off.

—

“I’m okay I’m okay I’m okay! Who is this?” my WTC employee friend said when my call finally made it through to her after dialing what seemed like a thousand times. I hung up the phone and sobbed. I cried with relief for my friends, and I cried with sorrow, for all of the people whose calls would probably never get through.

And that’s what it was like to experience 9/11 from the most remote place on earth.

Doc by Mary Doria Russell

After three straight days of trying to listen to local radio, I knew I needed a new audiobook. My favorite authors were already checked out, so I decided to try something new. That’s the wonderful thing about library books; you can try new authors for free. I took home a shiny new copy of Mary Doria Russell‘s Doc.

I fed the first CD into my car stereo. Ten minutes in, I was enchanted. By the time I moved on to disc two, I was in love. And now that I’ve finished the book, I can honestly say this is one the best books I’ve listened to this year.

In Doc, Mary Doria Russell sets out to tell the story of John Henry Holliday: a son, a cousin, a dentist, a friend, a sick man who found himself trying not to die in a tough post-Civil War Kansas town. Told with incredible compassion but never softening the realities of the day, Russell shows Holliday, the Earp brothers, and the rest of the Dodge City crew as real, three-dimensional people whose histories, motivations and personal demons are varied and complex.

In sumptuous prose, Russell also tells the story of a cow town in tremendous transition.  Today, us Kansans tend to pride ourselves in our history as a free state. But Kansas, even in the 1870s and 1880s, was complicated. Less than a generation after the Civil War, boys who had fought for the south were driving cattle through Dodge to do business with northerners. Prostitutes, saloon keepers and gamblers earned their keep within blocks of families lured out to the plains with the promise of bountiful farmland. People living in Dodge City in those years were redefining their own personal moral compasses, adjusting to the reality of their surroundings, weighing Victorian standards against the need to survive.

Read Doc for the beautiful writing. Read it for the history. And read it because it’s full of moments that will touch your heart.

This is the story of how they continue to heal, three months after one of the worst storms in Alabama’s history changed everything.

—

Ten adorable baby ratties are trying out one of their very first grown-up meals: a plate of spaghetti.  Julie steps right onto the plate.  George meticulously nibbles on a single kernel of corn. Hannah eats a noodle from beginning to end. Now 21 days old, these Fourth of July babies were part of the package when the Weaver family adopted three rats, one of whom was pregnant, from nearly 200 abandoned pets at the Mainely Rat Rescue.

It’s three months later. It’s not the same, but the Weavers are slowly rebuilding their lives, reestablishing what it means to have a home. Coziness. Comfort. A sense of safety. And lots of loving pets.

Three of the newest members of the Weaver household: baby ratties George, Hannah and Dolley play in a soda box during their very first floor time. Photo by Marsha Weaver.

—

The first two weeks were overwhelming in their immediacy. Shock. Pain. Grief for all that was lost, especially so many of their beloved guinea pigs and rats. Needing clothes to wear the next day, food for the family, a place to sleep. Injuries to recover from. They needed to replace their vehicles and finish cleaning their land. As time passed, the initial trauma gave way to the long-term questions. Where would they go? Could they rebuild? Did they want to start over somewhere new?

The Weavers were starting over from scratch.

It was different than moving away from home for the first time. When you left home, you had your clothes, a few pieces of furniture, and those tangible little things that you cherished as your own. But this was worse. As they sorted through their belongings, they learned the hard way that in addition to losing their pets, they lost many of those treasured things. “I know it’s just stuff,” Marsha wrote, “[but] it means something to me.” The worst part was that unlike when they left home, they didn’t get to pick what survived. The rocking chair Marsha held her children in when they were babies, Doug’s very first mother’s day present to her, vanished. The handful of Doug’s late mother’s things were also gone. All of the family videos were destroyed. “It’s strange to know you had those items,” Marsha wrote, “and poof, they are just gone.”

Some special things did survive.  Marsha’s cedar chest, a gift from her parents, was damaged and could not be saved, but many of the contents could. Her own Christening gown. The outfits her children wore when they came home from the hospital for the first time.

Yet while so many items were missing or destroyed, the compost heap of guinea pig litter remained completely intact, proving what all guinea pig owners already know: guinea pig poop is completely indestructible. “Obviously,” Marsha wrote with humor, “the tornado could not find a use for it either!”

—

The surviving pets are settling into their apartment surroundings, even if they are a bit less spacious than the old house. The four surviving guinea pigs, Allie-Belle, Holly, Jasmine, and Emma, are learning to share a cage. Shelby, the dog who survived surgery by flashlight, is coping with hiking the stairs to a second floor apartment.

Allie-Belle, Jasmine, Emma and Holly line up for one of the first family portraits shot by Marsha since the storm. Photo by Marsha Weaver.

Of the five surviving rats, two had a difficult time. Olivia, the little girl who was found more than two days after the tornado, continues to struggle with asthma.

Sweet old Wesley, the elderly rat who wasn’t expected to survive at all, lasted long enough to help his humans and rattie friends through the worst of the aftermath before his own health failed and he crossed the rainbow bridge.

Still grieving, but so full of love and compassion, the Weavers opened their home to new critters, sweet little rats they could love and cherish. The Weavers needed them as much as the rats needed the Weavers. New life, new discoveries, new joys. Not the same as before, but still beautiful. Still important.

—

Every day after the tornado has been a marathon. Balancing what absolutely needs to be done while establishing a new sense of normalcy takes strength and courage. Overwhelming amounts of paperwork. Arranging to have temporary electrical service at the damaged property. Turning in rental cars. Making list after list after list of everything they can ever remember owning for the insurance company while getting dinner on the table and picking the kids up from school.

One day at a time. One foot in front of the other. Some days are better than others. Other days, like when news spread of the disasters in Reading, Kansas and Joplin, Missouri,  and the sirens went off in Alabama–those days were hard.

—

Marsha had never intended to gussy up the apartment.

But the Weavers are nesters, and as the weeks passed, Marsha knew it needed to be their special place, even if it was only for a little while and it had to be done on a very tight budget. A few decorative pillows, a rooster canister set. These little touches made their temporary space cozy. Even more, it gave them some control over their lives.

—

The Weavers want a home of their own again. They don’t know where that home will be yet. Some days, they’re sure they want to rebuild, better than before, complete with a storm shelter and emergency lighting. Other days, they visit their lot and see the homes to which their neighbors never returned, and they aren’t so sure. They’ll have to decide soon, but not yet.

For now, the Weavers have each other and their strengthened ties with family and friends. The Cozy Cavy has not yet reopened for business, but nearly 1,500 people share in the ups and downs of post-tornado life with Marsha and her family at the Cozy Cavy Facebook page, and thousands more connect with her through GuineaLynx.

—

During a shopping trip for towels, Marsha picked up a framed picture and hung it on her apartment wall. The words on the sampler epitomize the courage and heart that is integral to being a Weaver:

Having a place to go is HOME

Having someone to love is FAMILY

Having both is a BLESSING.

The Weaver family is proof that despite horrible loss, there is hope, and that every day is full of little miracles.