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Bob Crager
Bob Crager of Lewis Street Glass is a 26 year veteran in the glass business. Lewis Street Glass is a leading Wichita Glass company, serving the entire Wichita/Sedgwick County area since 1919. They do anything and everything having to do with glass, both residential and commercial. They also do Auto glass. They are located at 743 South Market, facing Kellogg on the South, and you can reach them by phone at (316) 263-8259. You can email Bob Crager at bcrager@lewisstreetglass.com
Glass
2008-10-01 15:56:00
Life on the open prairie
Question: Grandpa said that “people were built of a stouter stock” when he was a boy…What the heck did he mean by that?
Answer: Telling you a story dealing with the past activities of our fore-fathers entails, necessarily, a good deal of hearsay, repeating some of the old legends, and some lifting and adapting from the writings of those who have made a serious study of pioneer life. Some of the material here presented has been researched from the world wide web, and some from other sources. I’ve always loved stories about the “olden days”, especially when the stories come from those who were there…who actually lived the life they’re talking about! I particularly loved the part where they talked about not having any glass windows in their cabins to look out of. “Stouter stock” meant that your Grandpa and his contemporaries had to endure a pretty tough life, and were able to stand up to it and survive it. It is difficult for us today, living in the land of plenty, to imagine the hardships endured by the original settlers who pioneered this part of the country. Raising their own food, just enough for their own family’s sustenance was a terrific job. Today, even the poorest of our citizens enjoy an ease of life which was wholly beyond the reach or even the thoughts of the richest of the early settlers to this area, and the poor of the time. Why are there so many more poor folk, who lived a life of very rigorous hardship and deprivation. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have wanted any part of it! But that’s all they knew, so they accepted it…had to do it! They came west by the thousands, hauling everything they owned in the back of a covered wagon, or an open buckboard wagon, with the livestock walking along beside. They stopped along the trail before the sun began to set, or at the site of a stream or river where life-giving water was available for them and their livestock, to bed down for the night. They were early on the trail before the sun came up the next morning. They were a hardy lot. Today we take for granted fancy stereo radios, surround sound, big screen and flat screen televisions, automobiles, trucks, natural gas and propane fuel, hard surfaced roads, theatres, digital sound systems, stores selling every need and nearly every luxury item you can imagine. Right down to something as common today as the glass windows and doors we all have in our homes and businesses. We can still see some of the evidence today of the way of life in the 19th Century, and even into the early 20th century. The rural countryside in many areas is traversed with the old short telephone poles & lines and the rural electric power wires, but in recent years, the functionality depended upon by the people who built those has all been replaced with modern digital fiber optic network cables, wireless transmission systems, satellite dishes, and the like. Railroads and truck lines still bring in wares from other places and take our farm produce out to the markets of the world. Yes, I believe you could say we’ve got things pretty good today, comparatively. Most folks living today would probably not be living today if they’d had to endure the lives the early settlers had to face every day and night. Not only fighting off the attacks and burn downs by roving nomadic bands of Indians, but just surviving the weather conditions was an ominous task. One hundred years ago, large areas of the country were sparsely settled, with neighbors living, except in the towns and villages, far apart, dependent on their own resources for a livelihood and entertainment. I doubt if these sturdy, self-reliant folk gave much thought to the lack of what we today feel absolutely necessary for living our lives. For one thing, most of our modern aids to ease, comfort and provide for our well being were not even thought of. I expect if some prophet in the 1880’s or even in the early 1900’s would have foretold some of our modern inventions, he or she would have been derided as insane, or as having imbibed just a little too much whiskey. Today, when we have a cold spell, we have double and triple paned insulated glass windows and doors keeping the cold and wind out, gas heaters, space heaters, floor furnaces, central heating systems, all well designed to keep us warm and comfy. Well built houses, often with insulated walls, double floors, tightly fitting windows and doors keep the cold outside. Our early settlers lived in log cabins, or flimsily constructed houses of rough sawn planks. Roofs were of loosely laid shingles, the floor, either broom swept earth, or planks with wide cracks. The windows and doors were makeshift at best. In short, the houses were drafty and cold. The only heat was that thrown out by the fireplace, or “chimney “ as it was called, and was never very warm. The open fire, though cheerful to look at, served to roast the front and freeze the rest of the person. So it was the custom to throw a quilt over the chair and wrap this over the shoulders to keep warm by the fireside. The only light was that of coal oil lamps, tallow dips, or a lit up rag in a bowl of lard. Yep…that’s right! Lard! In the summers, not only were there no electric fans, evaporative water coolers nor air conditioners, there were also no glass windows or screens. Flies, mosquitoes and other insects made themselves right at home inside the house. “Cooling” was when you sweat enough that you could get in front of a nice breeze and feel like you were standing inside a meat cooler or dark cave. Speaking of dark, due to the lack of “after dark” home comforts, as we know them, folks went to bed with “the chickens” and there was little nocturnal social life in the early days. There were the occasional sociables, and infrequent square dances held at night. But the social life, as we know it, was non-existent. For one thing, it took a lot of hard work just to live, especially for the women folk, and by nightfall all of them, and most of the kids and men folk were tired and ready for sleep. The pioneer woman, especially, had a hard life. Bearing and raising a large family, cooking for all of them, doing the wash in the good old fashioned way with tubs, washboard and an iron boiling pot, using lye soap she had made herself, making clothes for all the family, even in the early day spinning and weaving the cloth, putting up preserves and the various sorts of pickles needed to spice up the monotonous diet, making a garden, often cutting the stove wood and then working “in her spare time” in the fields alongside her husband and older children, and milking the cow morning and night, made for a full life that did not crave nightly or daily amusement. The early settlers were, in the main, deeply devout, sometimes bordering on the rim of fanaticism. Therefore, most of the early entertaining centered about and was dependent on the religious culture of the time and place. Many of the pioneers were members of the more militant evangelical sects and these frowned upon most secular entertainment as being Satan’s handicraft, and the members were forbidden, upon pains of eternal exclusion from the ranks of the blessed, of attending any public gathering unless it be educational in nature. As legend has it, circuses added the menageries of wild animals to their shows so as to be able to come under the “educational” category. Likewise, it is a well documented fact that the reason theatres were all called “opera houses” was to circumvent the ban on theatres. I am sure many older folks could recall the old Opera Houses, and could further recall that there was never an opera sung in them. But many fine theatrical performances were given, and those who would could still say they had seen the opera. So, in the early days the church services were the greatest social event. Possibly because the people lived far apart and were lonesome, seldom seeing even the nearest neighbor, and the church afforded not only spiritual strength, but afforded an opportunity to see and visit with friends and neighbors. As ministers were scarce, regular preaching services were had on an irregular basis. Some churches maintained circuit riders who followed a fairly regular schedule over an established route. Other denominations had missionaries in the field who covered as much territory as they could. But in the summers, when the weather was warm, the crops laid by and there was plenty of time, there were held the great religious gatherings of the year. The protracted meeting, or the camp meeting. I am not familiar with the exact distinction between the protracted and the camp meeting, but think the protracted meeting was held at some locality where the settlers were thick enough so all could attend from their homes, both daily and nightly sessions. On the other hand the camp meeting ministered to the spiritual needs of those who lived more widely apart and so a central spot was selected, preferably in a grove of trees, with water available. In this spot the men folk would erect a rude shelter made from posts with pole stringers to support a roof of tree limbs or brush. There was once a community called “Brushy Arbor”. The brush roof of the arbor afforded shade and made it cool and comfortable for the listeners. And maybe it was well that it was cool and comfortable, because often the sermons delivered treated the listeners to great heat generated by “fire and brimstone” preachin’ for the unwary sinner. At these meetings there were, in the early days, no pews or seating arrangements. People sat on the ground, or brought their own chairs. In some places, where the tree growth was sufficient, logs were cut and rolled under the arbor for rude seats. In later days lumber was borrowed or rented from lumber yards to make benches. When the camp meeting started all the people in the vicinity in a radius of, say 15 or 20 miles, would pack food, bedding and other necessities of life in their wagon and drive to the meeting. There they would each select a camping place, generally in family or friendly groups, unload the wagon and set up housekeeping for the duration of the meeting. Some brought the family cook stove, others cooked over an open fire. There was a lot of trading of food, recipes and gossip. The women and children generally slept in the wagons and the men and boys underneath the wagons. Isn’t this fun stuff? If you like this, let us know and we’ll continue with more of the story next month…
 
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