+ Francis Howell Cemetery

Date: October 6th, 2pm

The third annual Boone-Duden Historical Society cemetery tour was held on Octover 6th, at 2pm at Francis Howell Cemetery.

Description:

This year the featured location will be the Francis Howell (previously known as Fitz) cemetery which is located in Busch Wildlife Area past the Missouri conservation Department office. This cemetery features the graves of some of the earliest pioneers and settlers in the St. Charles County area; many of whom arrived before Missouri Statehood in 1821, and many who arrived while this area was Spanish territory. Please note: This is not the Thomas Howell Cememtery on Hwy 94.

Several characteres including Francis Howell, Sarah Johnson, Forutnatus Castlio, O.E. Bacon, J.C. Pitman and other cahracteres will speak in costume and tell stories of their lives and their times. Characteres who settled the area in the 18th century through the mandatory removal of all citizens from 18,000 acres that had been their home for genereations in 1941 to build the TNT Plant for WWII munitions manufacture will speak.

+ Augusta and William Brinkmann Thomas Howell Cemetery

William (1843-1916) & Augusta nee Fischer (1850-1935) – compiled by Cathie Schoppenhorst

1. William Charles (1873-1954) M Frances Seitrica (1869-1926): Augusta M Gerstner: none

2. Amalia (1875-after 1957) M William Waelke (1875-1957): none

3. August C (1876-1954) M#1 Emilie K. Luetkemeyer: Oscar, Viola, August, Esther, Verna, Mamie & Eli [many descendants]; M#2 Dora Kuschel Meyer

4. Johann Jacob (1878-1879)

5. Ernst August (1879-1880)

6. Wilhelm Heinrich Herman (1881-1902)

7. August Adolph Otto (1883-1954) M#1 Dena Strattmann who died in childbirth; M#2 Ella Guhlemann: Andrew, Ewald, Arthur, Dorothy [many descendants]; raised Schuster nephews

8. Mina Meta (1885-1979) M August Waelke: child died age 16

9. Carl (1886-1886)

10. Anna Auguste (1887-1968) M Henry Nadler (1886-1926): Arlie, Omar, Berniece [have descendants] buried in Wellington, Lafayette County

11. Anna Friederike (Annie) (1889-1921) M Edwin Schuster: Elmer (killed at work by a body press), William; Edwin married Minnie Backhaus after Annie died

I am Augusta Brinkmann, and I have a story to tell. I was born in 1850, the daughter of William Fischer. My family came from Germany to the Schluersburg area when I was a girl. My husband, William Brinkmann, was also born in Germany in 1843, and came here as a young man, already trained as a stonemason. He sailed from Bremerhaven on the North Sea to the Baltimore Harbor, and paid for his passage by agreeing to fire the ship's boiler. He had to work two trips as fireman in order to fully pay his way. Many years later he cut the stones and laid the foundation for this church.

William and I were married and lived temporarily in St. Louis, then in a yellow limestone home near Femme Osage Creek Road north of here. That home had been built in 1852 and was later the home of our son Otto and his children. While it no longer stands, the original stone smokehouse remains. We also did some farming, but did not have as many acres as some of our neighbors, such as William Gerdemann, William Schmidt, Elizabeth Wildschuetz and John Becker. In 1880 we reported to the census taker that we were tilling 15 acres, and had 25 acres of woodland. Our farm was valued at $500 and we had $10 in implements and $100 in livestock. We had 1 horse, 1 mule, 2 milk cows and 1 other cow, 4 swine and 100 poulty. We sold 400 dozen eggs, 100 pounds of butter and 5 gallons of molasses. We raised 100 bushels of Indian corn on 4 acres, 75 bushels of oats on 3 acres, 130 bushels of wheat on 11 acres, 30 bushels of Irish potatoes on ¼ acre and had 6 apple trees. We cut 25 cord of wood valued at $125. We spent $25 on building and repairing fences and $60 on wages for farm labor.

William and I had 12 children, although several died young, and only 7 were living when William died in 1916. They were William, Amelia, August, Otto, Meta, Augusta and Anna. I lived another 19 years, and died at the home of our daughter, Meta, in St. Louis. I was blind and had fractured my skull. William and I had 18 grandchildren and many other descendants, some of whom are still living in the area today.

+ Timeline for Eviza Coshow

My name is Eviza Lydia Howell Coshow and I have a story to tell. A lot of people in these parts called me Cousin Duck. I reckon they knew how much I liked the water and just like my ancestors, I liked an adventure. I'll bet you have heard of my grandmother, Jemima, who was the daughter of Daniel and Rebecca Boone. Grandmother told me about being kidnapped by Indians at Fort Boonesborough and how my grandfather, Flanders Callaway, was one of the ones who followed their trail to rescue them. [She also said how badly the rescue party felt for their sweethearts, seeing them in such a plight with their clothes cut off above their knees, scratched and bleeding from being dragged. When they got home, Grandmother said the joy of her mother and the neighbors was past expression: She said her mother laughed and cried for joy, as she always did when over joyed. During the siege, grandmother went out at night and gathered the spent balls that had hit the sides of the fort so they could re-mold the lead to use again against the enemy. I remember hearing her say how glad she was when the treaty was signed so she would not have to be confined to the garrison, but could go out and tend the garden. It was joyful times, she said.] My grandparents got married soon after that when she was only 14!

My mother, Susannah, was one of their 10 children, and I am one of their 80 grandchildren! My father was Thomas Howell, who is also speaking today. [I oftimes heard him say he came here and helped drive the red skins from the land-then the Hessian Dutch came and stole and confiscated his property. He was a very stout, active robust man, but suffered a death stroke and died 3 weeks later. I sat by him those three weeks, rubbing and trying to bring feeling to those dead limbs, with no avail.]

I was #8 of my parents' 14 children! [Let's see if I can name them all in order: first there was Coanza Burilla, Larkin Flanders, Eliza Ann, Pizarro William, Alonzo Boone, James Callaway, Amazon Cap, then me, Eviza Lydia, Mary Etaline, Amandelia, John Francis, Jemima Elizabeth, Lewis Morgan, and Sarah Minerva. As you can see, some of these are family names and some of them were new to the family. My papa told me Daniel Boone himself named Amazon after the great river.]

I was raised a spinner and a weaver of flax and wool. Some of you might have seen Maw Castlio's quilt made by the ladies of Howell's Prairie. I got to the quilting bee late, and was determined that my single pinney block should be included, even if the border had to be cut, and that's just what they did. I was always getting in a predicament: One Sunday I stepped out of the wagon at church and what do you think? I looked down and saw that I was only wearing one stocking and my other leg was bare.While I was dressing my feet, one of the children needed something, so I slipped my foot into my shoe and forgot about the stocking. I went on into church as if nothing was wrong and heard a good sermon, too.

I could play the violin and dance all night and still do the wash all the next day . I suppose there is some of the Boone in me. I belong to ME Church South: the discipline forbids it, or at least the ministers do, but I can fix up a violin today and lead my only son, William Coshow, in a real good old Fishers Hornpipe-Haste to the Wedding-Arkansaw traveler, and do not think it any harm-it's so natural for me. My father and five brothers played and I dearly love good violin music today. And I also learned to hunt, to provide food for our table. When I was a young lady about 18 years of age, very stout and active, I killed a spike buck myself with just a knife, in the Missouri river, in January. It was quite cold and snowing a little. I floated him back to the shore, then ran home and changed my clothes. I never had a cold from it!

My oldest daughter, Varrillia E Terrill, lived in Mongomery County Mo. My youngest, Mary Susan Yarnall, was a good organist and lived in Callaway Co near Fulton, Missouri. I have but the three Children-my Son lived with me near the Missouri river in sight of Mechanicsville Mo. My husband was Andrew Jackson Coshow and he was the son of William Coshow, who bought 161 acres of Daniel Boone's land. William's mother married Jonathan Bryan after her first husband died.

A lot of people have lived in this area their whole lives, but I was fortunate enough to do some traveling! My husband was a captain of a Missouri River steamboat, and I often accompanied him up and down the river. I traveled west in a covered wagon and lived in Montana in the 1870s. Before I left home, my mother told me I was taking my scalp to the Indians, so I had two switches cut out of my hair for my family to remember me. When I got there, the Sioux were on the warpath and we had many a scare. One day my son and his brother-in-law had to go to Bozman, so they told us to bar the door and keep a look out. That afternoon, we looked out and here come 7 Indians full tilt; I yelled out the window and told everybody to arm up and fight. The neighbors all ran to places of safety. I put my 2 little grandchildren in a barrel and stuffed feather beds and quilts around them. I took an axe from below the head of the stairs, so if they broke in and took to ascend the stairs, I would have split their heads as fast as they came. I also nailed rugs over the windows. By this time, they were coming close. The old lady realized that they were a band of friendly Indians. She began to holler to me: Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I nearly fell vext, I was so well fortified and actually wanted to fight. It proved to be a friendly band of Naspericius. After that I lost sleepless nights with fear. My brother and son used to say “we can all sleep because mother will stand guard.” After my stay two years in Montana, I spent two years in California [on the Pacific-San Francisco-Sacramento-Healdsburg and Visalia-] it's a nice place, a lovely country to visit. My youngest brother Lewis M Howell and nephew, Lett Johnson lived there.

Even though I only had one eye, and lost my specks in the snow, I wrote many a letter to the historian Lyman Draper, answering his questions about my family. I knew the true stories, because I heard them from my Grandma Jemima. I told him just as Grandmother related it to her grandchildren. Oftimes I would beg her to tell me more Indian stories. Mr. Draper said he was going to put some of my stories in his book about Daniel Boone. I sure wished he would have finished that book so I could have read it!

Howell's Prairie Quilt: Nancy Howell (1788-1864) first married James Callaway (grandson of Daniel Boone) and had three children. James was killed by Indians in 1815, and Callaway County was named after him. When Nancy was 30 years old, she married 18-year-old John Harrison Castlio, and they had six children together. In 1849, three of their sons, Fortunatus Boone Castlio (Doc), Othaniel Caleb Castlio (Maw), and Hiram Beverly Castlio (Bev), along with Nancy's son-in-law, Henry Snyder (husband of Theresa Callaway) went to California to seek their fortunes in the gold fields. While the men were away, the women of Howell's Prairie, most of whom were relatives, pieced blocks for a quilt to be given to one of the brothers. On March 5, 1851, women gathered at Nancy's house to finish the quilt and vote on which brother would receive the quilt. Three cakes were prepared, each representing one of the brothers, and since the most slices were eaten from Maw's cake, he won the quilt.

+ Slave Matilda

My name is Matilda, and I have a story to tell. I was a slave belonging to Thomas Howell, the man who owned the house that once stood just through those trees there. I was born in 1847, and by the time I was five years old, my master owned twenty-three slaves, from little ones like me to big, strong field hands who did most of our master's farming. All of us lived in two buildings, one made of bricks and one made of logs. There is no record of when I died in 1863, because I was just a slave. I am buried here, outside the boundaries of the cemetery, because slaves were never buried within the family cemetery's borders. When my master died, a carved stone marked his burial spot; a plain creek stone probably marked mine.

In the years leading up to the Civil War, there were about 2,000 slaves in St. Charles County. Many were owned by farmers who owned bottom land on the Missouri River. In the three southernmost townships in the county, Femme Osage, Callaway,and this township, Dardenne, there were nearly thirty people who owned at least ten slaves. Some of these were David Pitman, William Coshow, Peter Fulkerson, Samuel Keithly, and John Talley. Over 165 families in these three townships owned slaves, the average number being five. Lots of the Howells around here owned slaves. My master was one of the leaders of the secessionists in the area. He was even arrested once by Arnold Krekel's Home Guard soldiers.

But we had plenty of neighbors who owned no slaves and who thought the idea of one man owning another an abomination in the eyes of God. There were many hard words said back in those days, and some blood was spilled around here. Missouri was a divided state, and St. Charles County was a divided county. Because Missouri was a border state, when Mr. Lincoln made his Emancipation Proclamation in early 1863, I was still a slave when I woke up the next day, and I died a slave later that year. Missouri didn't free its slaves until January of 1865.

By the time I was born in 1847, Missouri had several long-established slave laws. Slaves were legally considered to be personal property and nothing more. Slaves couldn't use a firearm. If a slave sexually assaulted a white woman, he could legally be mutilated, yet a white man who raped the female slave of another white man was usually just charged with trespassing. Slaves were declared to be incompetent as witnesses in a trial. In the year I was born, 1847, a new law prohibited the education of slaves and free blacks. If a man were caught teaching a slave to read, he could be jailed up to six months. Of course, slaves could be bought and sold at the whim of the owner. Slave marriages were not recognized by the law; the law called them “moral agreements with no legal force.” In fact, slaves who had been married before emancipation had to remarry after they were free in order to be legal. Even at church, slaves were reminded of their low standing. We could attend the same churches as whites, but we had to sit in the balcony or at the back of the church. When it came time to receive the Sacraments, slaves were served only after all the whites had been served.

A couple of decades after I died, a former slave wrote these words: “Think what it is to be a slave! To be treated not as a person but as property, a thing that may be bought and sold, to have no right to the fruit of your own labor, no right to your own husband and children, liable at any moment to be seperated at the arbittrary will of the master of all that is dearest to you on earth. Deprived by the law of learning to read the Bible, compelled to know that my purity and that of my daughters is exposed without protection of the law to the assault of a brutal white man. Think of this, and all the nameless horrors that are concentrated in that one word, SLAVERY.”

+ Arch Bowman

My name is Arch Bowman and I have a story to tell. I was born on April 23, 1894, to Jasper and Christina Bowman, who farmed forty acres about a mile north of Hamburg. My dad died when I was still a boy, so I quit school to help my mother, brother, and two sisters run the farm. World War I changed everything. On April 28, 1918, just a few days past my twenty-fourth birthday, I was inducted into the U. S. Army and became Private Arch Bowman.

My unit arrived in France on June 21. After two months of training, we were sent to the front in northeastern France where we were part of the Meuse-Argonne offensive. For one four-day period in mid-October, my unit, Company A, was surrounded by the German army and survived on starvation rations and beech nuts before being rescued.

As the American forces advanced toward the border of Belgium in early November, Company A was down to eighty-one men, including me. Our regiment spearheaded a four mile advance north from the village of Barricourt to the village of Nouar on November 3. It was a day of intense combat, as Company A endured German planes, artillery, and machine gun fire.

The next day my company fought northeast about five miles through the Dieulet Forest, approaching the heights over the Meuse River. On November 5, we advanced a few more miles, clearing the Jaulney Forest of Germans, finally reaching the Meuse River at 5 PM.

On November 10, we crossed the Meuse River and occupied the small village of Pouilly. It was during the river crossing that I was mortally wounded when a bullet passed through my skull, leaving large holes on both sides.

On November 14, I was buried where I died on the battlefield. I was laid to rest in his uniform, wrapped in burlap in a box, and his grave was marked with a simple cross. Three months later, in February of 1919, my mother wrote to the U. S. Army in France, requesting a picture of my grave. My body,however, was reburied in the new Sedan American Cemetery in Ardennes.

By the fall of 1920, my mother had initiated the process to have her my remains returned to Hamburg for burial. My body was again disinterred shipped to America. About two weeks later, it arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey, and from there was sent by rail to Louisville, Kentucky, on April 6, 1921, along with several dozen remains of other soldiers whose families had requested reburial in the United States. Then it went by an Missouri-Kansas-Texas train to St. Louis, and finally St. Charles, where it arrived on April 10.

It was met by members of St. Charles American Legion Post 312, which was responsible for the funeral arrangements. Then my body was escorted by train to the Hamburg train station. At 1 PM my body arrived at the home of my mother. From there an honor guard consisting of one hundred members of American Legion posts from St. Charles, Augusta, Wentzville, and St. Peters, along with the St. Charles Military Band, accompanied my body for a one-mile march down the Marthasville Road (Highway 94) to the church in Hamburg. At 2 PM, Rev. Edward C. Brink officiated at my funeral. My body was then escorted back up the Marthasville Road, past the Bowman house, to the Thomas Howell Cemetery, where I was laid to rest according to military regulations. This large gravestone topped with the life-sized statue of the World War I soldier was designed and carved by Frank Waye of the Waye Marble Works in St. Charles.

+ Thomas Howell

My name is Thomas Howell, and I have a story to tell. I was born in 1783 in North Carolina. When I was fourteen, my family moved from that state to here in St. Charles County and I never left.

In 1806, I married Susannah Callaway, a granddaughter of Daniel Boone. We ended up with fourteen children, all of whom lived to maturity.

In 1808 I joined up with James Callaway to accompany General Clark up the Missouri River and help in the building of Fort Osage. He needed protection against the Indians, and I was happy to help provide it. I was a sergeant in the group of eighty dragoons. Later I served as the trumpeter in a company of rangers that Captain Callaway organized, again to provide protection against the Indians.

When I was still a young man, I acquired three Spanish land grants and claimed other land. Soon I owned several hundred acres between here and the Missouri River. Within ten years or so of the marriage, my wife and I built a brick and stone house which stood to the west over there, about a hundred yards from this spot. It was a fine house that stood for about a hundred and twenty-five years. The front parlor was a thing of beauty; it had a high, elaborate, hand-carved walnut mantel adorned with fluted columns. All the floors in the house were walnut and the woodwork was cherry.

It took a lot of money to build that house. Some of my money I made by operating a ferry that crossed the Missouri River to the end of the old Olive Street Road in St. Louis county. In 1826 I bought a parcel of land on the river and years later started the business. The road that led to the ferry landing had been an old Indian Trail, but in 1846 St. Charles County laid out an official road to the ferry. Even today you can still find it called the Howell Ferry Road on some maps. It ran right across Highway 94 at that parking lot and on down to the river. You can still walk down it today. I operated that ferry for abaout ten years; my son Larkin ran the business. I also made money distilling whiskey, up to 1400 gallons a year. A lot of my money I made by farming, and I could not have done as well as I did without my slaves. I always had slaves and plenty of them, at least compared to other folks from these parts. In fact, in the years before the War Between the States, only two men in the entire county owned more slaves that I did. Most of the time I had twenty-five or so. I was one of the area's leading secessionists during the war.

I was always pretty athletic, even in my later years. Before I was married, I was known as the best runner and jumper in the area. Once at a wedding, someone named Lewis challenged me to a jumping contest. I was there with my fiancee so I wasn't about to let her think I couldn't beat the man. Lo and behold, Lewis took off running and jumped over a table loaded with food! There was nothing for me to do but to take off after him. I did and cleared that table beyond the point where Lewis had landed! In 1850, when I was sixty-seven, a younger man named Francis Wyatt built a ferry boat for my business. I paid him in gold and then offered to run a footrace with him for that gold. Winner take all! He turned me down, because he knew he was no match for me, even at my advanced age. I was a good musician, too. Once I swam the Missouri River with my fiddle and my clothes on my head to play at a wedding in Bonhomme Bottom.

I suppose you could say the end of my life and the years that followed were not good ones for the Howell family. The outcome of what is now called the Civil War was that I lost all my slaves. Foolishly, I never made a will. After I died in 1869, two of my children sued the other surviving children, and it took five years to settle the estate. Susannah, my wife of sixty-three years, followed my in death on Christmas Day in 1876 and was buried next to me.

That beautiful house my wife and I built outlasted both of us by several decades. It stood until 1941 when the United States War Department bought all the land around here to make a munitions factory and tore the house down.

+ John W. Coshow

My name is John W. Coshow, and I have a story to tell. I spent almost all of my life in this area except for my time in the Confederate army and for a few years after the war. I joined up with the Confederates in 1864 when I was just seventeen. In October of 1864 I left St. Charles County with about 150 other recruits to join General Sterling Price's army. We had to avoid Federal cavalry and some of our group were killed by Union soldiers, but we finally joined the Price's army in Arkansas.

A few months after I joined up, the war was over. At least it was over for most Confederate soldiers. On June 1, 1865, our fearless leader General Jo Shelby announced to his assembled command that he would not surrender to Federal authorities but would instead go to Mexico. He instructed any of us soldiers who would follow him to Mexico to step forward three paces; I took those three paces along with about one hundred fifty men, including General Price. As we crossed Texas, we were joined by soldiers from other units. Our group, now numbering several hundred, crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico at the end of June.

I have often read in newspapers of writers wondering why General Shelby went to Mexico instead of going surrendering as most of our command did. General Price thought it a good idea to go to Mexico and get a grant of land, start a colony and have our families come to us, not knowing if we would be allowed to return to Missouri and live again. Now that is the reason they went to Mexico, and that is the reason that some 300 or more of us went with them.

Mexico didn't work out for us, though. It didn't make any sense to get involved in the civil war that was going on between the Imperials and the Mexicans, and we couldn't get land grants because the country was in such chaos, so pretty soon we left. General Price advised us to make our way back to the United States and surrender to the government. So I went back to Texas and surrendered.

My problem was I couldn't go back to Missouri. After the war, the Missouri legislature, controlled by the Radical Party, rewrote the state constitution, which included a loyalty oath required of any former Confederate who wished to have full citizenship in Missouri. The oath required me to swear I had not committed any of nearly ninety different acts of disloyalty, including even expressing support for the Confederacy. I could not truthfully take that oath.

So what I did was go to Montana Territory. Many old Confederates ended up there because of an amnesty offer by a Union General named Pleasonton. He had allowed captured Confederate soldiers to go there, as long as they promised never to return to right again. Many, many Confederates accepted the amnesty and went to Montana Territor. In fact, the territorial capital was named Virginia City in 1863 because of this southern element in Montana.

I knew about that amnesty as I worked my way north after leaving Mexico. In fact, my cousin, Lewis Howell, had moved with his family to Montana Territory in 1865. So I decided to go west, knowing I would find a likeminded community of southern sympathizers in Montana Territory. The Gallatin Valley is situated about eighty miles east of the gold fields of Virginia City, and the trail to the gold went through Gallatin County, where may Confederates farmed the rich soil. This is what happened to me. By 1870 I owned land and had married Alice Ferguson, a fifteen year old from Kentucky, in Gallatin County. The next year our first child was born in there.

By 1870 Missouri voters themselves had repealed the loyalty oath in 1870, so I returned to Missouri with my family in 1872 or so. We owned a farm in Dardenne Township. When my wife and I died in the mid-1920's, we were buried here in the Thomas Howell Cemetery.

+ Morris Muschany

My name is Morris Muschany, and I have a story to tell. It begins in Howell, a small town about a five minute drive from here which doesn't exist anymore. But I was born there in 1890; my dad was the teacher in the one-room schoolhouse. I spent all of my life in this area. Well, at least I did until 1941. Something terrible happened that year, and it took several more years for the tragedy to end.

I had two brothers and a sister also born in Howell. We were involved in the community in many ways. I was Sunday School Superintendent of the Howell Methodist Episcopal Church for many years, and I also coached Howell baseball and softball teams several seasons. In fact, near to the general store in Howell that my brothers and I ran, we had a ballfield on our property. My brothers, Karl, Claude, and I also owned the Howell Garage just down the street from our store. As far as my job goes, I was the area's undertaker. Lots and lots of people in the cemeteries around here came through my business in Howell. I guess I was someone people looked up to. One newspaper writer said I was a leading figure in the county.

In the fall of 1940, everything changed for us folks in Howell and Hamburg and on the farms around here. It was then that the War Department told us that we would have to sell our homes and move off them. We didn't have much time to think about it, and the prices they first offered seemed fair, so we signed contracts and moved away. Most of us were gone by the beginning of 1941.

You see, America was trying to help England fight off the Nazis, and President Roosevelt and Congress had decided to supply England with war material. Why did that decision in Washington, D. C., affect us in Howell and Hamburg? Well, it was decided that a TNT plant would be built right over there and that we would have to give up our homes so the area could be secured. Nobody was happy about it, but American was gearing up for war, and we felt it our patriotic duty to cooperate.

The problem came in the spring of 1941 when the War Department decided it had agreed to pay too much for the properties. One hundred twenty of us landowners still hadn't received our checks from the government, even though we had moved off our properties several weeks earlier. The War Department reneged on the signed contracts and then offered us new contracts which valued our properties at only a fraction of the original, agreed upon amounts.

We were angry, of course, and several community meetings were held. I was one of the leaders of the landowners who had not been paid. We decided to sue the War Department, so we hired lawyers who fought for us. Finally in the spring of 1945 our case against the War Department reached the Supreme Court of the United States. In a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court decided in our favor. After four years, we had won and were paid for our land according to the original contracts.

By this time my wife and I had moved to Wentzville, where I spent the rest of my life. I died in 1966. Twelve years later my son, Donald K. Muschany, wrote a book about what had happened to Howell and Hamburg. He called it The Rape of Howell and Hamburg: an American Tragedy.

Today in this area you can walk through the woods and find evidence of the people like me who used to live here. It might be a crumbling foundation wall, or a patch of daffodils in the spring, or a cistern still holding water, but there is still plenty of proof left that folks like me lived here once.

Oh, by the way, I really did marry two women with the same name, Nell. My first wife died before the tragedy of 1941, so she was spared that sorrow. My second wife Nell outlived me by ten years.