Little Egypt Heritage Articles Stories of Southern Illinois (c) Bill Oliver 11 January 2004 Vol 3 Issue: #02 ISBN: pending Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen of Little Egypt, There is a saying that we are not given more than we can handle. There is another one which goes something like this: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going". [I] Don't want "no" more; things are tough enough. <hugebroadsmile> I woke one day during this week to read a "day old" newspaper and discovered that the Mother of two of my cousins' passed away at 89 years of age. Bon Voyage, Aunt Helen. Aunt Helen had gotten a divorce and passed out of many of our lives in the late 1930s. There were nineteen of us "OLIVER" cousins. There are still thirteen of us "above ground" and most of us are scattered far and wide. That brings me to say a word or two about the pros and cons of our mobility. Grandma Oliver's sister, Fanny, migrated to "Canadee" in a Conestoga Wagon. With this type of travel one didn't often return to the "homestead". There are cases of "returning" east after disillusionments, especially in the Nebraska territory, but for the main, even communication between family members was lost when distance separated them. In my wife's family an Uncle went west to Iowa. The last known communication between brothers was sitting on the porch of the "staying" brother in Wood County, Ohio. He was quoted as saying, "Well, Will, I guess we won't be seeing much of each other." Well, to continue, Grandma Oliver, born in 1885, flew in jet airliners and witnessed Neil Armstrong's step upon the moon. What do I remember? Steam engine whistles. Long before they decided to build an "underpass" for our street I remember that the train engineers had to pull the cord on their steam whistle to notify drivers that they were near the crossing. My Mother's youngest sister had tuberculosis of the hip bone and was considered a "cripple". The engineers on those trains gave her a flashlight in which to signal them as they passed the house. There was a code of some sort, which was developed between the trainmen and my Aunt. I remember going o sleep to the sound of those steam whistles and hearing the clicking of the rails. How soothing. When we returned from Bermuda in January 1942, we stayed with my maternal Grandmother. They had moved and lived across a boulevard from a freight switching yard. The engines would pull and push and release cars on various side tracks to make up long freight trains. Here too, they used their whistles as they would block traffic on a near by street. However, the various sounds of the engine pushing railroad cars, releasing cars, the clacking of the wheels along the tracks, and the eventual crashing sound of cars connecting together lulled me to sleep. Those sounds meant things were "right" with my world. The third remembrance was riding the trains for long distances to get from one city to another, following my Father from [military] post to post. There was a romance to "riding the rails". It was the "click of the rails" and the slight swaying that could lull one into a peaceful sleep. It was a magnetic or hypnotic feeling. Mobility was certainly enhanced during the "great depression" of the 1930s. Somewhere I read that there was a quarter of a million American teen "hoboes" riding the rails. Those were just teens; we have all heard of the great movement of people during the depression using automobiles as Conestoga Wagons. As a reminder of those times, read or re-read John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" and/or Irene Hunt's "No Promises in the Wind". These past few days, humankind has sent its technology to Mars. The magnitude of that fantastic engineering accomplishment is more than some of us can grasp. Some of us can remember being awestruck when Armstrong stepped upon the moon. Those "giant steps for Mankind" just keep on "keepin' on. Gazing at a full moon on a bright night, it is difficult not to think about a verse from a song written by Guy Clark. It concerned a train that was "highballing" down the tracks through a small Texas town when he was a boy in the late 1940s. "It left 50 or 60 people, just sittin' on their cars "Wonderin' what it's comin' to and how it got this far!" Those were the days of the first Jet air-o-planes; at least ten years before the first monkey in space. One wonders if there will ever be a train that runs on our moon or on the planet Mars. Getting back to the Conestoga Wagon is a bit difficult with the mind out in space. The Conestoga Wagon was most common vehicle for hauling goods or freight. It was developed in Pennsylvania by German immigrants. They were large and heavy. They could haul up to about 5 tons, where smaller "farm wagons" could only carry about 1000 to 3000 pounds, depending on their length and depth. Though "Prairie Schooners" were referred to as land ships, the Conestoga Wagon had some similarities to ships. First their bottoms were slightly rounded. This was so that barrels wouldn't roll out while going up and down hills. The ends of the wagon beds were angled like the bow and stern of a boat. The watertight covering [hence the term "covered wagon"] extended out beyond the bow and stern of these vessels. These wagons were so heavy that it usually took teams of six to eight horses to pull such heavy freight. Oxen were sometimes used. Along the Sante Fe trail, horses were not practical due to the long distances between water holes. So, oxen and/or mules were used. Teams of as many as two dozen of these animals might be used depending upon the weight of the freight being hauled. Today we notice along our highways, and sometimes streets, truck traileers [wagon beds] in tandem. This is an adaptation of earlier days when a second wagon or "backaction" was sometimes hitched behind a lead wagon. Due to the impractability of these large heavy wagons on the Sante Fe Trail it was necessary to make adaptations Good ole Yankee Ingenuity altered the Conestoga Wagon to a smaller version. This became known as the "Prairie Schooner". The difference was the new Prairie Schooner, with tongue and neck yoke measured a bit less [about 23 feet] than the covering of the old style wagons [29 to 33 feet]. These wagons [both the Conestoga and the Prairie Schooner] were built in three main parts so that they could be repaired easier. These parts were the covering, the bed, and the undercarriage or "running gear". The "bonnets" or coverings were stretched over hardwood bows, which had been soaked until pliable, bent into U-shapes and allowed to dry. The bonnets themselves were usually homespun cotton doubled to make them watertight. The outward angled front and back allowed some protection to the contents of the interior. The wagon bed was made from hardwoods to minimize shrinking. The sideboards were about two to three foot deep and with a bit of tar, the bed was made watertight. The bed sat upon two sets of wheels of different sizes. The front wheels being smaller than the rear ones. This was to aid the maneuverability of the wagon. To protect the wooden rims, wheels had forged "tires". Though the wheels were made of hardwoods to reduce shrinking, and thus allowing the "tires" to come loose and leave the wheels. The wheels were often soaked in streams and creeks if available. "Jockey" boxes were attached either to the rear or sides of the wagon beds. These carried repair items such as iron bolts, linch pins, skeins, nails, hoop iron, any tools and a "jack" to lift the wagon bed for wheel repair or replacement. Wagon repairing was a good business along the trails, supplying a need for wainwrights and blacksmiths. Springs, except under the driver's seat, were unknown. Riding a wagon was not comfortable. There are stories written that some parts of trails were so rough that one could put cream in the butter churns and have constant supplies of fresh butter. The later wagons used by those in the "western movement" were adaptations of the Prairie Schooner, called "farm wagons". There were not as large, nor as well sheltered. Their bonnets usually were not cantilevered, front and back. Traveling by wagon was certainly a romance. <grin> e-la-di-e-das-di ha-wi nv-wa-do-hi-ya nv-wa-to-hi-ya-da. (May you walk in peace and harmony) Wado, Bill -=- PostScript: Other sites worth visiting: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/SOIL http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ILMASSAC http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/state/BillsArticles/LittleEgypt/intro.html