No. 85

The Kill Farm

Stewart King c/o

John C. Davant, Attorney

501 Cleveland St.

Clearwater Florida

January 15, 1938

Dear Stewart,

Your mother said that it was a mistake for the Boy Henry to be sent to the “Keil” farm, which she sometimes called the “Kill Farm,” the large estate owned by Esther’s parents. She said, “that was where our heritage went to die. Charles did it anyway. I suppose he had nowhere else to turn.”

Well, she said, it was later learned, that Esther’s mother was left behind in their native state of New York as she herself was mentally imbalanced. They hid this from Esther and, of course, from Charles, for he had no knowledge that this retardation that was in the blood line, otherwise he would have never married her."

Then your mother back peddled, saying “Well, I can't be sure that Charles would have rejected Esther because of this, because she was literally dumped on him when he was an older man, with her being so young, well, she must have been pleasant enough for that brief exchange it takes to make an issue of it.”

Although I was growing tired of her direction, knowing I was dumped on her just a few short months ago, knowing that I felt like a bag of mail to be routed, your mother continued, “It was true that Henry wanted to be with the animals and so was sent there to be useful, it was satisfying that Charles, after all his hard work to teach the boy, especially on the side of discipline and how to rise and get to the chores straight away, like you do, Minnie."

It occurred to me then that your mother really did see my face falling, and so it was her style to end that last dig on Charles (or anyone else) with a lift toward me. I was being moved, generally, re-routed, and this shift and constant shifting or was it more like a splintering was to be a long-time sickness, not hers, but mine.

Charles knew that his father-in-law, Mr. Keil, was especially good at horses. This talent interested Henry. So, Charles understood mission, how to drill, how to turn. And now I understood why Charles was so determined about the horses in Kanona, thinking he might maintain influence over his son, to hold the line, or have advantage over Mr. Keil by presenting Henry with the pure seed of those Morgans, even if it meant that he would have to work with the beautiful and complicated widow of his brother, Carrie Dawson, who was now in possession of these Morgans, as if she knew anything about their value.

One thing I kept from your mother was how Charles treated me, on certain visits, when the rest of the family was out. On these occasions when your uncle would stop by. He would insist that I stop working. I would listen to him read from the book he carried, Lucile, while I ironed or polished something.

On one of these days, with him reading to me, I received an unexpected visit from my younger sister, stopping by on her way out of town. I didn't know her well, because I left home before she was born with my father's second wife. She was moving to a farm near Lafayette, Indiana with her first husband. She wanted me to have her address. Also, she wanted to share some bad news about my father.

She wanted him to travel with her, but he refused. She was sure of his pending decline. She wanted me to consider traveling with him, should he change his mind and want to visit her or come and live with her. But he would need a companion or nurse for this move.  She told me she was expecting a child and more, God willing, would come, but also with the farm life she would not travel.

“I will never come this way again, Minnie,” she said.

I told myself sternly, or a voice inside of me did, to be tender, or at least cut in half and save for later. I, at first, didn't want to trust her. I trusted my father even less. I never met his second wife, but saw some pain in her face. I agreed to hold this pathetic line of opportunity that she wanted, not me, should the need arise. It wasn't my nature, or so I thought, with the old Dutch side, to ruminate on my childhood when I had so many chores before me, now that my poverty was over. But something about her arriving that day, with my softened heart, feeling for the character Lucile, when I was pulled out of my schedule and sitting there loose with Charles, passive and happy for a story, or perhaps an improvement to my own story, well, I decided that I would very much like to write to her, and not wait for my father to fall into despair.  I promised her that I would be ready for the call.

Charles later told me I did the good deed, to give her hope. I told him I may have been play-acting, because I didn’t want to do it, but would wait for God to make it happen or not.

As my family was hardly together before fragmenting, yours pressed upon me with their interests, what needed polishing for them, including those items and dreams that belonged to your uncle Charles.

It was now 1896 and his daughters had been in the orphanage for about nine or ten years. We all enjoyed his comfort in seeing them getting tall and lady-like, properly groomed and educated, and, back in Iowa and sometimes expanding his experience and exposure in the Dakotas, his Boy Henry with his professional confidence, award-winning livestock.

His own railway postal assignments were going well for Charles, too, and this is how I knew him when he rescued me: upbeat, boots on, busting with physical rigor. All that misery from the '80s behind him, and you boys were having so many adventures of your own, that the spirit and storytelling in the house was thick and hilarious. The spin, failure, and thrill of the technological inventions and the fairs and exhibits were most exciting! We found ourselves off the farm with the lights on, expanding our nights to party and dance more and more.

But let me get back to something, Stewart, for on this day, though, if we can back pedal ourselves: shortly after my sister left, you all returned from the game or party, and I flipped the switch into waitress mode as if nothing had happened.

As I distributed the refreshments, I learned of a field trip being planned for your mother and Charles to ride out to Bath, New York. The patriarch died about the time the girls went to the orphanage there, I think. Anyway the trip was needed to bump the renters out of the old house, empty it of any relics, close it, sell it, and to go north about 20 miles or so to have a talk with Carrie Dawson, now known as Carrie Brother, their sister-in-law, in Kanona, the one who was tarred and feathered in 1870. They needed to meet with her to find a way to get some Morgan horses to Iowa, as a novelty or ornament, perhaps, or as a charm, but they would sell and entertain, everyone knew how accommodating they were, how useful. And the Morgans would be fun for Boy Henry, who was now a man. A man who wanted to reunite with his sisters at the orphanage.

Upon learning of their trip, overhearing their plans, I was overcome with a desire to be part of the family adventure, to not be left behind to air out the house but to air out my head, to get on the train with them, to see Bath, to see the old home that raised the Elders, and I had to find a way to be used by them.

I had never traveled outside of Clinton since I arrived in America as a child, since grieving my lost mother, why, I hardly remember any town we passed along the way, and it was colorless, but I’m pretty sure it was the fall and so I should have remembered the trees turning red. Were they red in the background? Was it all farm? All production? I wanted to see America and use her as a happy young, productive, educated woman, as I was becoming one myself, just like Lucile, just like the daughters of Charles Brother, just like Carrie Dawson.

— Miss Minnie

2025 Copyright Christine Friesel