Old Friends and New

 Today I am writing from Hannibal, Missouri, home of Mark Twain. There have been several days between my last entry and meeting up with Mr. Twain. Tuesday night, after a challenging pull through the freeway interchanges and tollroads that skirt Chicago, we arrived at the D & W RV park in Champaign, Illinois but not till I took the wrong turn and missed paying the toll. (Have learned it is possible to go on line and pay missed tolls in Illinois, so we are hoping that arrest will not follow us home to California!) Tuesday night with so much anticipation we got ourselves to the home of Terri and Jay in Urbana, Illinois. Terri and I have a friendship that reaches back to 1968 when we met at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. My Jim and I moved into a duplex apartment in January 1968 right after we married and Terri and her Jim, at the time, lived next door. During that time in Lawton, Terri and I did so many creative projects together and developed a wonderful friendship. Since our husbands got orders for Vietnam at the same time, departing October 1969, we decided to live in Woodland together and wait out the 12 months till the guys returned the best we could. It was during that year in Woodland that Terri greeted her son Porter to the world and I was honored to be her stand in coach during his birth. It was on many days difficult when we didn’t get mail or just got worried about the dangers to our men in Vietnam. We have seen each other just a few times over the nearly 50 years that have passed. Sadly, she and her Jim parted ways but share 3 beautiful children. She now enjoys her life with Jay and has for over 20 years now. It was a wonderful time as we spent about 2 1/2 days picking up our creative projects, sharing family stories and just enjoyed being together. Sometimes we are just gifted with meaningful special people in our lives. Terri is one of those people. It was difficult to leave. Perhaps the next visit will be less time in the distance. We laughed and said 20 years between visits is a luxury we can”t afford anymore. 

A great visit. Thanks Terri!

          While we were in Urbana, we definitely got to experience Illinois summer weather in spades! Tuesday night, we returned about 10 pm to our little Escape home. We could see the stars and the fireflies were dancing on the grass. We went to sleep with windows open. Sometime in the very early morning hours, the thunder and lighting hit with vengeance . The whole inside of the trailer lit up with the lightening. Thunder shook with such force that you could feel the ground shake. After an hour or so the rain started beating down noisily on the roof. That was pretty much the end of sleep after about 3 in the morning. The rain was heavy and steady, sheeting down the windows for the rest of the night and into the morning light. We discovered the power to the trailer was off. We went off to Terri and Jay’s feeling not quite ready for the day. 

       The day, with the end of the rain about noon then turned hot. We are talking over 90 with humidity just as hight. To our disappointment, still no electricity which meant, horror of horrors, no air-conditioning. Yikes, it was a long night with little comfort and weirdly it started to hear our neighbors running their air conditioners. (It was after 10 pm when we got home so couldn’t reach the park owners to fix our issue). We tried flipping the breaker with no changes. Will end to the story, after complaining to owners next morning tried one more time to flip breaker and it came on. The whole experience has caused us to have great admiration for those Illinois people who managed summer nights and kept right on doing their work. Summers in California have made us soft. 

Woodlawn Farm 1824

         The geography of the states we have passed through has been so interesting and varied. We have left the lakes and trees of Michigan, passed just briefly through Indiana where the terrain began to flatten to move into Illinois. Truly corn and soybeans are king. The fields are often large with trees remaining around houses and some field lines but little evidence of hills until we began to draw closer to Missouri and the Mississippi River. We did see an example of what the smaller farms looked like many years ago as we took a road to see the historical Woodlawn Farm built in 1824. During the period between Christmas and New Years, slave owners would allow a week for their slaves to go visit family. This provided, during the coldest part of the year, a small period of time when the slaves were less closely watched thus an opportunity to reach Canada and safety.  This farm, a part of the Underground Railroad near Jacksonville, Illinois, was a stop for slaves escaping from Missouri and making their way to Canada. They were given clothes and food and guided by "conductors." Hidden in wagons under loads of straw or in specially designed secret places in wagons to help them get away from the merciless slave hunters.  Due to the Fugitive Slave Law enacted in 1850, the slave hunters were allowed to capture the escaped slaves in free states and return them to their "owners," who paid a bounty. The abolitionists referred to this law as the Blood Hound Law.  

I was fascinated by this old outbuilding. It was held up by trees that had grown into it. 

       The old farm house is slowly having parts removed that we added in later years to bring it back to the original. It now houses a museum with volunteer docents. The garden has herbs planted in it that would have grown during the time of the Underground Railroad. A mom and her four children stopped by and told us so much. The kids are home schooled and have taking a great interest in history and especially this period of time. Three of them are high school aged and one has an art showing at a nearby cafe owned by some Amish friends. The museum as on their way and they had stopped to see it. We got a detailed engaging lecture from them about this part of Illinois history. Rose was a real hit with all of them. They were very interested in our stops at historical places on our trip and asked us what we had seen an learned. 

Detail of door of outbuilding. Note the wonderful use of doorknob, latch and hinges.