Godsong haiku

Violins
God's breath
in my ear.

Watching Family Movies

My father's jumpy images,

miles of trees,

autumn on parade.

Looking for myself

in all those flickering cells,

in spring.

In autumn;

the sun, and my head,

out of the clouds.

Looking for dad

in all those flickering cells.

Found,

In miles of trees.

colors

In the stained glass warehouse

Searching for the hues

We'll miss in winter

I'm channeling my father

Who loved color

As much as I.

Haiku for a black and white bird

Little chickadee joy

a stunning jewel

framed by my window.

A Genealogist’s Garden


A northern gardener surely cannot be surprised
By the rapid passing of the seasons
The urgent, boyant seedlings
seeking the spotlight
The unselfconscious bloom of summer
The sudden peak of beauty at harvest,
Which can only be discerned in looking back
And the long colorless decay
Buried under the cold
Of winter.

As I remove the detritus of death
From the sprouts of spring
I wonder.
How generations of my seedlings
Will continue their blooming
Long after the debris of my being
is swept away.

-Marcell Dickinson Warren-

Not this tide...

When Rudyard Kipling lost his son John, who died and disappeared in Loos in 1915, he wrote this poem:

"Have you news of my boy Jack?"
Not this tide.
"When d'you think that he'll come back?"
Not with this wind blowing,
and this tide.
"Has any one else had word of him?"
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing,
and this tide.
"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind -
Not even with that wind blowing,
and that tide.
Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing
and that tide.

Charles M. Dickinson was related by marriage to the Kipling family. He assisted in looking for John over those long years while he was missing. In 1911, it was concluded that John Kipling had died in the war. The following article was printed in the Trenton Evening Times on November 29, 1911. (Charles and my third great grandfather, Theodore Dickinson, were first cousins.)

"KIPLING’S SON LISTED AMONG WAR MISSING Binghamton, N.Y., Nov. 29 – John Kipling, son of Rudyard Kipling, who has immortalized the British Tommy in verse and story, has finally been listed among those thousands of soldiers who vanished in the war without leaving a clue as to their fate. This was announced here by Charles M. Dickinson, former Consul General at Constantinople, who for several years has been searching the Near East for trace of the young British soldier. Until shortly before Mr. Dickinson began his search the last word of the author’s son had been in October, 1915, when he was reported wounded and missing in northern France. He was only eighteen when he entered the army. It was learned, however, that young Kipling was on a British vessel bound for the Dardanelles, and he was thought to have reached the Gallipoli Peninsula, where some of the fiercest fighting of the war took place. Here, however, all trace of him was lost. Mr. Dickinson took up the search on the theory that Kipling might have been captured by the Turks. He is acquainted with the Turkish leaders through his successful efforts twenty years ago to obtain the release of Miss Stone, who had been captured by bandits. Mr. Dickinson has become convinced Kipling is no longer alive, after a thorough investigation by mail and special messengers. John Kipling’s name does not appear anywhere in the lists of the English dead, and he will now be officially recorded as among those unaccounted for." Trenton Evening Times, November 29, 1911

We never did farm.

Remarks of Ralph H. Dickinson before the Beltrami County Historical Society March 8 1932

I was born in Minnesota in 1871 and have lived in Beltrami County for 55 years. I came up here in April 1897, moving from Managha in Wadena County with wife and family consisting of my oldest son Cyril. I resided at Buena Vista for about 35 years. This was twelve miles straight north of Bemidji. Father and Mother did mostly farming. They did not live in Menagha. I had several difficulties in getting here. My father-in-law, J. W. Speelman (I imagine most of you know of him), came here in the summer of 1896 with his son and wife and he established in Bemidji a newpaper called the Beltrami County Eagle. Bemidji was then Bermidji. Mr. Speelman had homesteaded a farm in Buena Vista and had erected a stopping house which he called the Summit Hotel. We followed the next spring with our possessions. It took us 3 days to get here. From Park Rapids north it was just one solid forest. I never thought it would be possible to log it off. There hadn't been an axe or saw into it.
We had many good times and quite a few of the reverse. There were no roads. We simply followed old trails over stones with ruts and stumps and cordouroys. We lived thorugh it and were quite healthy.
The country about Buena Vista was fairly settled at that time, mostly by batchelors (sic) and homesteaders but with a few families mixed around here and there. There were not very many social events slthough the neighbors nearby used to roll back the carpet. As far as that was concerned I can't see but what we had as many enjoyable times then as we do today, and probably less headaches. This was new country and everyone was starting on an equal basis. We tried to clear a little land and fix up our home. That was the main object besides raising our family.
In the late fall of (18)'97 the Halvorson-Richards Company opened their logging camps at Nebish and they transported their material across from steamboat landing to Nebish by sleigh, hauling it cross country and following the lakes, came though Buena Vista and they rang the bell. It is too bad that one of those locomotives couldn't have been saved as a relic. It could have been if we had had an organization. There was a railroad from Nebish to Red Lake. They hauled their logs and dumped them into Red Lake. They were taken across the Lake, put into the Red Lake River and driven down to St. Hilaire where they were millled.
At the time of the Indian outbreak we had two or three anxious days and nights. Bemidji, I understood, was protected by the soldiers, but we up there weren't. We called in what few settlers there were around there and asked them to come in with us and we would try to defend ourselves there with whatever guns we had. Buena Vista is located on that old Red Lake-Leech Lake trail. The Indians traveled by water quite a bit in those days. We were on the canoe route and also the trail. It was necessary for us to have guards out to watch these different points where the Indians might appear. The signal was to be two gunshots in quick succession if any Indians appeared. This was all right during the day time but my turn came at 2 o'clock in the morning back up on the old Indian trail. If any of you people have been out on a still night and listened to the noises around in the woods you would be surprised at what there is to hear and the chills that run up your back. I was very still too. I didn't fire any gunshots but when I got back to my log store which I had turned over to the other men, I found them all covered with blankets and snoring. If I had fired the shots there wouldn't have been any response. This outbreak was in 1898.
Two old Indians figured quite prominently in our early history up there. One of them was called Paul - that was his Christian name - and the other was Debegishick. Debegishick was a half-breed and Paul was a thoroughbred Indian - a very nice old man. They told us afterwards that they had camped near Buena Vista during that uprising to try to quiet the situation and keep the young fellows from taking any part. How true that is, I don't know, but that's the story they gave to us.
Most of the industries revolved about timber. We never did farm. We had gardens.
At one time the Hudson Bay Company had a trading post in Buena Vista. When we came there we saw the foundations of 14 buildings that had been their trading place. They had either rotted out or burned. We picked up quite a few relics there in the way of old guns, home-made nails and all that. I don't know just what time they were there but it could have been twenty years before we arrived. My father-in-law had a couple of books about Count Beltrami and I have read them and they seemed quite visionary. I guess there was no doubt that he came thru this territory. He described it well enough so that you could be sure of that.
Our school at Buena Vista was a subscription school. We all chipped in to pay the teacher. Miss May Frank of Warren, Minnesota, was our teacher. I think we had 8 or 9 children in the school and it was successful. Later they organized a school district and went ahead much as you would today, except that we had the little schoolhouse. Frankly speaking I wish we were back there today.
We had a Presbyterian Church there organized by Mr. Blair. He lived in Duluth and took quite an active part in the church work in Bemidji. He erected a church there and it stood for a long time. Buena Vista was quite a little village at that time. It competed for the county seat but got beat. There was no skiullduggery. The people up there were all good. ( Dr. Hagg seems to think there was a bit of skulldugery in Beltrami Co.) The first Beltrami County Fair was held at Buena Vista in 1899. There was quite a large gathering. Lots of Blackduck people and people from the reservation. There were some good showings of garden stuff, grasses and vegetables of all kinds. One year was all they ever had because Buena Vista was rather inaccessible at times.
We had some sawmill industry there and the first box factory in the county was built there at Buena Vista. I know it was operated for seven years because I lost ...(end)
I had been connected with store work before I came up here and I knew quite a little about that. It was my idea to establish a country store up here. We enjoyed a fairly good business there in the store and much of it was Indian trade, trading goods for furs, senna roots, bead-work, or whatever we could use. A little later on we had a man by the name of Boarrett who operated a steamboat on Turtle lake, which was brought up for the towing of booms of logs to a place they could drive them. Later on he equipped that boat for passenger service and it was used quite extensively one season. We came down from Little Turtle into Big Turtle and down thru Movil Lake to the south shore. The Britten took 3 miles overland to Lake Bemidji and then a boat brought them to town. That's the way we came to town that year.
If my father-in-law J. W. Speelman had lived twenty years later he would have come in just right for this tourist business because he had ideas all along the line. He advertised without rest. He could get the most into a paper without paying for it of anyone I ever knew. He always had a write-up here and there. Many people came over from Grand Forks to go fishing and also from the cities. (Minneapolis/St. Paul) We had one party of N P officials from Chicago there. We had several substantial parties. I remember Speelman telling them that the bathroom was down at the lake.
There was an old settlers organization there which was quite extensive. It was held there for a year or two and finally at Blackduck and Tenstrike. I presume there are people around yet who know more or less about it. Speelman had a sign on his hotel - Hotel Summit, top of the world. It seems to be it is 1300 feet above sea level and it is the divide of water running north and south, and it so happened that with the house that Speelman built the drippings from the north side of the house went south and from the south side of the house flowed north.
We had a large collection of pictures and newspaper articles which was handed to us by Mr. Speelman who was very active along those lines, but that has been distributed mostly to my children. My youngest son Fred has quite a few and so does Cyril. It is too bad. I am sorry this thing couldn't have been started many years ago. There were many things we could have gotten. I know that Mr. Molander made an effort when the Red Lake Road was discontinued to set one of the coaches out. It would have been nice to have had one of those old engines hooked to it.
There was a steamboat on the Red Lake at that time - the Michael Kelly - and another one the Beltrami. They were mostly tow boats. Eberhard used to have a steamboat there they called the ---?. Most of the traffic coming from Red Lake down our way was Indian. Once in awhile we would see a timber man. The Red Lake Indians were quite friendly, as a whole. They were always more peaceful than the Sioux.
In the box factory we employed 15 or 20 men. The timber was mostly out within a radius of 5 miles of Buena Vista. We had a sawmill. I did not own this but had a contract with Mr. Mahar, who did. His son now works at the sanatorium. He did my sawing. We logged in the winter time and this lumber was cut and piled up to dry. We later ran it through as we got orders for boxes. Quite a little of our stuff was hauled into Bemidji by team and some was shipped over the Red Lake Railroad.
Would I come to the same place and live the same type of life if I were to do it all over again? Well, if I had know what the road was I don't think I would have ever come. When I got here the road was so bad that I didn't want to go back over it.