I had mentioned that Mrs. Muzikdude spent her summers at the farm of her grandparents.
This is one of the many stories I have concerning that place.

The house, the barns, and all the other buildings were treasure troves of history, and as I rummaged through the old structures, I often found wonderment in the things her grandfather regarded as useless

Mrs. Muzikdude and I visited the farm at least once a year since we had been married (18 years), so I had developed and emotional attachment to the place as well. The homestead is located in northeastern Kansas where there are more hills than plains. In the places where there are not fields, there are trees and it is truly beautiful.

The house is a large two-story, typical, farmhouse with a sizeable covered porch and squeaky screen door. Her grandfather built the porch swing as a shop class project when he was a kid and it was still operational and sturdy as ever. This place is the epitome of quaint living. Oak trim and hardwood floors adorn the interior and while the house is an environmentalist’s nightmare, it’s a woodworker’s dream.

Mrs. Muzikdude was very close to her grandparents and the loss of them both had taken an emotional toll that still hasn’t completely faded. We both miss our annual pilgrimage to the farm. Nothing cleanses one’s mind and soul quite like a trip to the country.

Closing down the homestead was a painful sense of finality that no one was ready to endure. Family members clung to items that had previously been stored away with little concern. These items were once everyday wares that had eventually out lived their usefulness or had found themselves replaced with technology of the day. They had become residents of the family’s attic.

The attic is a large opened area accessed by a stairwell from the master bedroom. It’s a classic old-fashioned attic in that the dormered roof of the house outlines the contour of the large room’s ceiling. This room was loaded with history.

There were boxes of textbooks from the 1920’s and 1930’s. We found dressers full of letters and photographs from the turn of the century and old trunks filled with the keepsakes of generations past. It was a truly magical place.

We loaded trailers with as many memories as we could fit and watched tearfully as the auctioneers sold the remaining contents of the house. We agonized over the irony of tools and household goods being sold right in front of the home they had been used to keep running for so many years. Every piece of Tupperware, every hammer, and every rug had some sort of memory associated with it for someone present.

The most painful part of the entire experience was locking the door for the last time and pulling out of the driveway to make the 9-hour drive home in melancholy silence. The summaries of close personal relationships were now in tow on a trailer loaded with material possessions. It seemed to be a tragic reduction. We had no idea what great stories awaited in the drawers and boxes we were about to unpack.

When we arrived home, we unloaded furniture and boxes for what seemed like hours. Not one of us felt like doing this chore. Once we were finished, we reminisced while sorting through mementos… we shared some laughs and some tears. I sat surrounded by boxes of letters, postcards and photographs. I spent my spare time over the next week reading every letter, knitting back together a story that had long since lain unraveled in an attic.

Much of this correspondence took place between Mrs. Muzikdude’s great grandmother, Lulu, and her cousin. I had come to know Lulu with posthumous intimacy fostered by articulation preserved on paper, now yellowed from age. Her personality became more vivid with each word I read.

Lulu was a “schoolmarm” in a one-room schoolhouse on the prairie of eastern Kansas. Her students loved her immensely but she had quit teaching in order to marry an older man. Apparently, her fiancé, Thomas, was not good enough for Lulu in the opinions of friends and family, but she saw desirable qualities in him and no one could convince her not to marry.

Many people had written Lulu over the years and it seemed everyone that knew her loved her ardently. I began to feel deprived for never knowing her. The more I read of Miss Lulu, the more I wished I could have met her. Maybe, one day, in another life…

Lulu had gone from teaching children in a small town to the role of a farmer’s wife on what was a very large farm by the standards of that era. She fed farmhands, chickens, cattle, hogs, and her children thrice daily. She had traded in her textbooks for a hatchet that she used to procure the meat for chicken potpie. She gathered eggs, laundry, and dirty dishes. She grew vegetables in a large garden behind the house.

Her life had changed drastically but she seemed content. This was the destiny of an educated woman of the day and she took it all in stride. Lulu had the physical and emotional strength of any man today yet, her demeanor was gloriously sweet. This, in my estimation, was the reason for her popularity.

Because of this, many people were devastated when Lulu was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Lulu’s illness shed light on a side of Thomas that no one knew existed. He sold everything he owned with the exception of his land and moved Lulu to Colorado Springs for treatment. Even a hardened man like Thomas couldn’t help but give in to the soft attraction of Lulu’s spirit. He loved her as much as anyone else and couldn’t bear to lose her.

I’m not sure if Thomas was literate. The only knowledge I have of his feelings were surmised from letters written by Lulu but his love for her was blindingly evident. To put his entire life on hold for his wife says volumes of the man’s devoted adoration for Lulu.

Lulu had received many letters from friends while she lived in Colorado. Although street addresses existed in those days, they were rarely used because the mail carriers knew the names of everyone on their route. However, Lulu had received one letter with a street address and it happened to be one of the few for which she had saved the envelope.

The house is about 5 miles from Mrs. Muzikdude and I so we took a drive to see if the place is still there. Sure enough it is. The house is still in good shape and occupied. It’s in an area that we would say is close to downtown, but was probably the outskirts of town 80 years ago.

There’s a gap in the story of Lulu’s illness but they eventually moved back to the farm where they raised their son, Frank. Frank is Mrs. Muzikdude’s grandfather and he lived in that house until his death. Mrs. Muzikdude wants desperately to live there and if I can find work, she may have her wish. At least then, we can return the stories to their place of origin and give the house one more generation of family to keep the legacy alive.

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I've decided to remove my opinions concerning today's society from the end of this post. I feel they were a distraction from the story.