This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Wapsi Willy Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Yl.2ADE/2682 Message Board Post: We have been talking about Wapsi Willy. We are wondering if anyone has any information about the truth behind the legend.

My uncle Pat always shares a story about Wapsi Willy with his family. He is quite the story teller around family bon fires. Here is one of the many versions he shares with us: There flows a stream in Iowa the green water turns and falls the black earth exposes its belly and drops from the sod girded walls In summer the sod holds the bank side and the water runs smooth and clear in spring time the waters grows into a tempest and the black earthen banks disappear The two-meter stream in the summer in spring turns into torrent the two foot pool in the summer is replaced by a hundred foot current In June when the grasses are supple and moves with the sun and the wind in March the grass is a servant that funnels the torrent within. The life source the spring, the water, the gentle source and serene with rain the source of nightmare and the murmuring sweet gentle stream is a horror two miles wide of drowning a thundering, murderous wall and all of the dreams and wishes, survival seems suddenly small When the firefly's dance like fairies in the dark of the stream in the night and darkness surrounds like a canopy hold to the fire and the light. The love ones are there, the children in the night cling to them and hold dear The storyteller just sits by the fire, and getting himself a beer looked to the children with pale blue eyes and sat back in the night that was chilly looked to the children in the campfire light " Do You know the name Wapsi Willie" William went over the ocean with family, with all he had left his children would have something better for his family he wanted the best. The loneliness of the prairie stretched out in carpets of green the wagon, the freedom, the wonder the spring rain, air fresh and clean soft grass whispered come onward and the clouds that moved through the sky interrupted the assure blue skyline like great masted ships passing by. Here's where we'll camp for the evening, beside this gentle stream here beneath the stars above here we will stop, rest and dream The supper was hardtack and beans and biscuits cooked on a stick and the water quietly danced on the stones and the rocks in the creek. But this was no creek, no creek at all, but the terrible Wapsi river. And God decided that night that the rain and the wind he'd deliver. Deliver he did by buckets and gallons and torrents The silent creek that morning turned into a murdering current. The water rose from a couple of feet to a river that turned wild and free, and William and family were caught in the wind, the rain and thundering sea In the morning he searched for his family but his children, his wife and his home had been caught by the churning brown water and lost in the murdering foam. The stories at night tell the tale of a man that so caught up in his sadness walks through the night in the forest and so caught up in his madness lights a fire to sit by and waits by the light to find his family and today sometimes in the distance a light will shine through the whispering trees. A hundred years plus has come and gone the Wapsi still runs without care the lives of hundreds its taken, of anyone wishing to dare to tame the watery hand of god and wind up caught up in its lair At forty plus years as I wander out by the river and forest with the light of the campfire I listen to the sound of the frogs evening chorus there in the darkness a light glows just out of the edge of my sight in the darkness a fire Wapsi Willie and the campfire that burns in the night. Best Regards, Janet Rossmiller - Miller http://www.sycamorecreekdesign.com ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, September 03, 2004 10:26 AM Subject: [IASCOTT] Wapsi Willy > This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. > > Surnames: Wapsi Willy > Classification: Query > > Message Board URL: > > http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Yl.2ADE/2682 > > Message Board Post: > > We have been talking about Wapsi Willy. We are wondering if anyone has any information about the truth behind the legend. > > > ==== IASCOTT Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe, send a message with the word unsubscribe to: > mail mode --- [email protected] > > ============================== > Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration > Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more. > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237