Silence keeps them all guessing

I do not know much family history. It was not talked about much, and when it was, as soon as we children came around, silence ensued. I do not yet know why, other than the young generation distracted the old from the reflective mood one may need to be in to talk about the history. Secondly, noise is difficult to talk over, but we children were more seen than heard, or not. I do not know.

I recall one summer day, wandering over to grandpa's, perhaps we were there, the details are sketchy in my mind. Gus and one of Grandmothers brothers were siting out on the north side of the house, in the shade, talking. So I sat down and started listening. Gus was relating that he had never met his grandfather, because he was born after arrival in the US, he had been born at "cousins Julius place" in Minnesota shortly after they arrived, but they soon left for Iowa. Teresa Luther, Karl, and others arrived when he was small. Teresa was his grandmother, who left Prussia after Gustav (Gus's Grandfather) drowned in a spring flood of the Odor River (they were from east of the river, in what is now Poland) trying to save a bull. The main thing Gus recalled was Teresa teaching Latin to him, to cognate verbs, and then she died.

Now there is some conflict there. The "official" record says that Gus was born in Dallas County, and the name was Meilike, but what do I know.

Gus was an atheist, but Julius pushed an afterlife onto him, whether he believed or not, I do not know. Grandpa Julius had him burried with his buffalo coat, a gun and a knife that he had brought with him from Iowa, Dallas county, in the fall of 1906 I think. There is a bit of confusion about the year.

Gus and Julius stopped in Edmonton, and Gus worked on the Post Office, the old one who's clock is beside the Citadel now, and three house. They were all gone before Gus died. Grandpa went looking for land, first north than toward Greencourt. After he found land, he was returning to Edmonton, and encountered Gus on the road. Work had run out, and Gus struck out to save cash. Julius had been gone for quite a while longer than expected, and Gus figured something had happened.

Gus told the story that "when Julius brought me here, the only way I could see a hundred yards was straight up." They whip sawed a lot of lumber and built a cabin. It had a Rubberroid roof, a new product, invented(1905) and  produced in Edmonton at that time. It faced south, and had two rooms. The north room had a cellar underneath. The first year they cleared enough to get a patch of spuds in, and a few oats. 

More remembering later. My memory is good for that old stuff, but the newer bits, not so good. I need to take the trailer in to place on Parsons Road to get some work done, and I could not recall where Parsons Road was, but I recognized the name. When I looked it up, I was shocked that I did not remember it. I use it often, and had an office along it for a few years.      

mail

I happened across your Meilicke page.  Sam Meilicke was my Granddad.  There is no blood relation but he adopted my mother, Edna Barton Meilicke.  We lived in Baring, Mo., just down the road from them.  I saw them nearly everyday and also went by his feed store after school on a daily basis when school was in session.  I have some of the Meilicke information that my Mother had but I don’t know of any family left around here now.  I have lived in several places but now am retired (sort of) back in Baring.  I live less than a mile as the crow flies from where I grew up.

 

Just wanted to say hello and if you know any information I would be glad to hear it.  I have enjoyed the pictures on your site.  I used to write to Uncle Gus and Uncle Jewel when I was a child.  I knew about them homesteading but I had never seen pictures until I saw yours.  I’m so glad to see them.

 

Response

 

Hi Pamy;

It is great to hear from you once more. I had to go to my notes of Oct 2013 recall the communications content. I am not much on keeping up with the relatives.

I recall going to Gus's place and being handed one of your letters and being asked if I would like to write back. I was not a writer of letters. I recall it being on lined paper. That must have been in the early 1960's.

There are a few scattered second cousins and more distant around the US. Some have gone back to the original Meilike spelling. That seems to have been changed during WWI. But I never met many of them, and do not keep up.

I did meet Jules's (my grand father) brother, Sam in the summer of 66 or 67 perhaps when he was up here. Something to do with the settling of Gus's estate, and some land held in trust from the Gustav Estate (from about 1919 or 1922, perhaps to avoid taxes.) The land had increased in value over the nearly forty five years in trust. But what do I know, I was only a teenager then.

I recall Sam asking if there was one of Adolph's (Ed) corn savers was around the farm, but I had never seen one at that time. Why I remember that is beyond me. I also recall that Sam was much smaller physically than Gus and Grandpa Jules.

I have a lovely family tree, typed up in about 1965 and added to many times, but what to do with it. It is unsafe to put live people on the net, so it will just sit I guess. Over the years, through comments, I have heard of numerous distant cousins, but few responded beyond that.

Past, Present and Future and Stop Evangelizing

What to do with this blog? Few of the relatives seem to have much interest in my efforts, and information is hard to come by. It is like trade secrets or something. I just cannot care anymore. It is too depressing, that and all these dead relatives. Anything I obtained was available somewhere already, so nothing much new was added. So what is to be gained? Knowledge that I am unable to retain, and no one wants? It became to depressing to work on much.

Security is always an issue now, so nothing of the live relations can be put on this. Facebook has bits of live relations, if I were so inclined. We have very different lives, and very different values. I do not want to be around some of them; I can see why these people will not come near me, after they find out a few things about me. Oh well. Rejection is normal for me, I reject them, they reject me. So be it.

In the past few years I have been contacted by two distance relatives and both of those closed with a strongly evangelizing god reference. I am atheist, there is no god, no soul, no afterlife. So why are these people evangelizing at me, or are they just evangelizing. If they are just evangelizing, do I want to know them? They may be relatives but are not rational. No critical thinking, rational person, who has examined the god concept in detail could believe in a god. So the most generous thing I can say is that they have not rationally considered the concept, and have just gone on historical teachings, without critical examination.  Or should I just evangelize back... no I do not have the patience to argue against religion and the damage it does. It is a waste of time to point out the obvious to those who will not look or see. But why should I put up with their evangelizing?


So what do I do about those, tell them the truth, and give them warning. What is the point, they are not critical thinkers, else they would be unbelievers.  So I am not only atheist but anti-evangelist, as god is at best a concept, not real. Belief in gods are one of the main reasons for conflict between cultures, races, nations, and the like. It is all about distrust of people who think differently. They become, in effect, a different species. It is very natural to feel threatened by different species, and being sapiens, do as any sapiens would and try to eliminate the competition. It is only natural. There are many that say we could change our nature, but that may occur later, after they are no longer a threat. We did that with the native, but thy reproduced, and are now a problem again. If the problem does not go away, perhaps we will need to take some action again as a culture, nation, society. 

Ultimately, evangelizing will destroy any desire for family ties. But if we are not of the same belief system, there will be no family. So what is it to be folks?