In MO

Last Thursday, October 10th, I landed in St. Louis at 6:10p.m. I switched my phone off airplane mode as soon as we'd arrived at the terminal--only to find 17 text messages awaiting me. A fire was burning in Calimesa, the city where I live. Friends and family members were calling, texting, emailing and hitting me up on Facebook to check on me.

It only took a few minutes to get a Lyft ride, and from the backseat of my driver's car, I called my next-door neighbor. All was well in my senior complex, but the mobile home park 5 miles away had burned to the ground. The good folks in my town were already rallying to reach out to those who had been displaced.

We drove on in a steady rain to Pacific, Missouri, where Marc and Ginger, my two musketeers, were waiting in the lobby of the hotel to take me to dinner. We talked about the fires burning back home, about my flight, about Marc's health and Ginger's current situation with a bad, bad ex-husband. It was so, so great to see them.

The next day was meant for rambling. I met my new-found cousin, Chris, and his wife Vicki, in the hotel breakfast room the next morning. Chris and I share a distant (several times) great-grandfather, Israel Lee, and the day would be spent looking for Israel's grave. We never found it (though we have a few new leads). But along the way we stopped in Morse Mill so that I could visit the grave of my great-grandmother, Bertha Gifford. Marc pointed out the remains of the old mill, which sat upon the banks of the Big River (not to be confused with the Meramec or the Missouri or the Mississippi rivers), and we strolled across the old bridge that is still there.

Later, we would find another mill along the Big River, one Israel Lee might have been involved in erecting. 

Chris and I ventured inside the 100-plus-year-old building, which is mostly gutted, and the giant millstones are gone, but it was clear where they'd been placed all those years ago, and how the pressure from the flow of the river water passed through to turn the mechanism which turned the stones. The place is for sale, and we had half a mind to call the realtor. But then common sense prevailed.

I'd been invited to Missouri to attend a ceremony to honor my great-great-great-great-grandfather on my mother's paternal side, Landon Williams, who had fought in the War of 1812. The Society of the War of 1812 in the State of Missouri, and the National Society of United States Daughters of 1812 in the State of Missouri were joining together to bestow a medallion in recognition of his service on the grave of Landon Williams. He did not die in the war. He survived--and fathered a son who fathered a son who fathered my great-grandmother. Amazing, no?

The ceremony was presided over by Sumner Hunnewell, president of the Society of the War of 1812 in the State of Missouri--and a true renaissance man. He not only emceed the ceremony, he brought 30 small pies for refreshments. Pies he baked himself. From scratch. And I mean scratch--making his own crust and cooking down the pumpkin for the pumpkin pie (which was not the only kind; he also brought berry, pecan, and mincemeat). 

The 4th Regiment North Carolina Militia turned out for the ceremony as well, posting the colors and, at the end, providing a rifle salute to Landon Williams.

Cool, no? Of course, as soon as they posted the colors, I cried--for our flag, for our country, for men who find the courage to act out of duty to both, and for all the generations of my family that somehow survived hardship and kept reproducing so that I could live this extraordinary life. It was a lot to take in. Plus pie.

All of this hoopla started when my cousin, Tim Ogle, went looking for people in the Williams family he was related to. And he found Landon Williams' grave. And the headstone was broken, so he repaired it. (Good job, Tim!!) In researching Landon, he discovered his service in 1812, eventually enlisting the aid of the two historical societies to honor Landon's service. All I had to do was show up and take a seat in the front row.

The next day, my last full day in Missouri, was spent once again with buds Marc and Ginger, just driving around, visiting cemeteries, laughing over lunch and Marc's puns and cornball jokes. (We love them. We really do.) As we were headed back to the hotel, he casually mentioned, "Oh, we're near my friends' home. They raise bison." And suddenly he was pulling to the side of the road. Yep. That's a buffalo all right.

People often ask me why I go to Missouri every year, and what I do there. Well... I spend a lot of time walking through cemeteries... and hugging friends... and laughing... and relaxing... and seeing things I don't normally see... and being spoiled. I get homesick easily, and I miss my fur babies while I'm gone. But the minute I'm home again, I also miss the friends and cousins I will not see for another year. Oh yeah, I'll be back again next year. We still have to find Israel's grave.