On the inside cover,
2-28-2006
Dear A'Dell,
Along life's way, may the flowers outweigh the tears and leave you with pleasant memories.
Much love,
Great Grandad
Jess Lord
Preface
It would seem that anyone audacious enough to write an autobiography must believe that he has done things either rather important or especially interesting. At the onset, I wish to disclaim either condition as a basis for this effort. I delude myself on neither count, for I have never held high office, committed acts of particular bravery, nor earned any special glory.
This is simply the story of a boy growing up in early, rural Kansas and then fitting in as best he could into the adult environment of a rapidly changing world.
Introduction
Silverdale, Kansas is a small town of less than one hundred people, located about three miles north of the Oklahoma border and about a third of the way west across the state. It lies just east of the confluence of the Arkansas and the Walnut Rivers, just as the Flint Hills leave off and the flat lands of the western prairie (wheat country) begin.
Settlers began moving into that part of Kansas following the Civil War, before the Indian Wars ended. Although there were no Indian massacres reported in the area, those early settlers were acutely aware of danger. Peaceable Indians exploited that fear by frightening lonely women on their isolated farms into giving them food. That frontier condition prevailed until the end of the century, when Midland Valley Railroad was built through the town; then a period of deteriorating conditions and rowdiness took over. As men were killed on the construction right-of-way, they were unceremoniously buried along the side of the railroad. Open saloons went unchallenged by the prohibitory laws of Kansas at the time.
My father to be, Rollin Lord, was reared in upstate New York. As the Indians were giving way to the railroad, he and a friend called B.M.,short for Bernard Smith, were speculating on the excitement of the West and decided to get in on the action.
B.M. had some relatives in the Silverdale area, so that's where they went. My father met and courted my mother there and returned to New York. Evidently he was sufficiently smitten by my mother, for in 1905, the following year, he returned to Kansas to continue the courtship.
His timing coincided with the railroad boom, which was in full sway. There my father ran a boarding house where he had numerous double beds. On certain occasions, when all the beds were full, additional customers were assigned to beds already occupied. Upon waking, one might find himself in bed with a total stranger.
One steady customer was a United States deputy marshal named Casey who, as it turned out, was also a wanted outlaw.
On occasions, when the house was full and there were no empty beds, my father slept in the same bed as that man, who always had a gun under his pillow. As my father approached the bed, he would make some sound to alert Casey, who, with gun in hand would inquire, "That you Roll?"
There were no accommodations for women in that boarding house, and I have no idea what a lone woman's prospects were in finding a place to stay overnight. If she had no church connections or friends, she was probably out of luck.
He also worked in a hardware store across the street where, because he understood the intentions of a particularly angry man, sold him a gun with a crooked barrel. Sure enough, in a few minutes the hostile man was in the middle of main street firing at another fellow as he fled from sight. There was a sheriff, but things were really out of control.
The sheriff formed a posse to seek out the man. Pop knew the suspect to be the victim of racial prejudice and, because he thought the posse might be more interested in a manhunt than the capture, he misled the sheriff into thinking the culprit has left town, "...in the direction of the Oklahoma Territory." All the while, the guilty man was hiding behind a building watching the posse leave town.
My mother's mother came from Indiana in a covered wagon to Arkansas City in 1876, at the age of ten.
That was the year some Sioux and Cheyenne Indians defeated U.S. troops in the Battle of Rosebud, in Montana. Also, the same year Custer led 250 troops to their doom at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Indian enmity was high on the minds of travelers throughout the West during those times. Although Indian raids and uprisings ended in 1878 in Kansas it was not until 1890 that the final uprising of the Sioux ended the Indian Wars, and the White fears began to subside.
Grandma Harvey told me of that trip by covered wagon in 1876:
"I remember that I would jump out of the wagon sometimes and walk for awhile. The wagons would always have to stop when I wanted to get on again. One day I was walking alongside the wagons when I turned around and saw a group of Indians behind us. That was one time I managed to get on without having the wagons stop for me."
She and her family arrived in Arkansas City in time to, "hear loud noises coming from a saloon, followed by the sound of a shot. It seemed as if the saloon keeper decided it was time for one of his customers to leave. This didn't meet with the approval of the customer and a brawl got quickly underway. Result -- the unwelcome patron lay dead in the street." It would be another twenty or thirty years before such rowdy behavior went out of favor in that area.
After three years, her family moved the Silverdale area. Three years later, a sixteen-year-old Grandma Harvey married a cowboy who had wandered in off the prairie. They settled on a farm about a half mile our of Silverdale. This accounts for Grandma and Grandpa Harvey.
As my father was at their farm one day, he reached into a corn crib and was bitten by a copperhead snake. Snake stories of the day probably greatly over exaggerated the lethal aspect. Anyway, my father ran into the house and Grandma Harvey shifted into full medical gear.
He was required to drink a huge quantity of milk and then the bite was wrapped in a kerosene soaked rag. Grandma didn't consider him completely medicated though. Roll was instructed to run, saddle a horse and ride to town as fast as possible and drink all the whiskey he could hold. Although those instructions are quite contrary to today's recommended procedure for snakebite, my father faithfully carried out her instructions. Those boom-town, open saloons packaged whiskey in full quart bottles, one of which he managed to down.
The town doctor, who still had about 12 more years to live before an irate and jealous husband shot him to death, arrive on the scene. But there was nothing to be done other than assess the situation and offer a comment. "Well, Roll. I doubt the snakebite would have killed you, but the quart of whiskey surely would, hadn't you upchucked."
In 1906 Pop and Mom were married and settled in a new house he had built in Silverdale. He was a builder, coming from a long line of builders. Eleven months following their marriage, my only surviving sister was born, Emma, after my father's deceased mother. Two years later, Bill, my only brother, arrived. Then, two and a half years later, the stork dropped me off during one of the most severe winter storms of the twentieth century. The record low temperatures of 1911-1912 are still noted on the evening TV reports.
I was named after my mother's father, that lovable old cowboy who, fortuitously, had wandered into Silverdale off the high plains.
***
Main Street, Arkansas City, about 1886, twelve years after
Grandma Harvey arrived. During those few years, the town had grown
from a wooden buildings into the city as shown here with a horse-drawn
streetcar and three story masonry buildings.
BM and Roll (Pop) upon coming to Kansas. About 1904
Wedding picture of Mom and Pop. 1906
Grandma Harvey, the ten-year-old who had come from Indiana in a covered wagon, and Grandpa Harvey who had come in from the early cattle drives to marry her. 1900
Bill and Emma, ages 5 and 7. Jess (author), age 2
