Life Then

Tuesday after an early dinner, we drove to a Civil War Battleground near Pleasanton, twenty-five miles North of the Fort. I have to tell you when we first got there we were a little disappointed at what we saw. A lone museum out on the Kansas prairie and a couple of monument signs. . . I guess we expected to see a whole reinactment and statues and plaques for a half acre (and it was after closing time, at that.) As we walked the 1/2 mile back to Mine's Creek we starting thinking about what really occurred there. 2500 Union soldiers came up against the 8000 Confederate and won the battle in less than thirty minutes with only about 120 casualties. The Confederates sustained losses upwards of 600. This became a turning point in the war for the Union Army. We realized that it was sacred ground as many of these me lay buried under this soil. We thought about what all took place on such a little-known plot of ground. We were told earlier that since it was Kansas, it wasn't considered a major Civil War Battleground.

Walking a path between the tall prairie grass fields, got us to wondering what rural life might have been long ago -- This trek had us winded but it would have been nothing for the homesteaders back then. . . why, their kids probably covered three times the distance on their way to school in all kinds of weather. Speaking of the younguns' they wouldn't have had after-school sports -- just the chores their folks had designated them to do since they were old enough to carry a bucket or work a plow. Furthermore, they didn't have tv to watch or video games to play and there wasn't an attic full of old toys or e-waste piling up in the shed.

All of life was pretty much contained to their land, their small cabin-type houses and the people who lived there.

Was life simpler back then? Don't know for sure . . . I know it was hard . . and oftentimes they fought against the elements in order to settle the midwest.

There I was taking pictures with my iphone to download to my computer and copy to my blog to send out on the internet . . .Wouldn't that boggle their minds!