Spencer, as I will call him, was an immigrant from South Africa who came to live with my grandparents during the late 1930's. He worked alongside of my grandfather and grandmother in their day to day farm activities, assisting where he could, and always a smile on his face. Grandmother once said that Spencer was the most positive element in their lives. He was a man who was always cracking jokes and trying to make someone elses day a little brighter. During his stay at Springbrook, he started the rennovations on the farmhouse that my great grandmother Summer had built. He designed special woodwork from a mill that my grandfather had built out of timbers that were cut from trees along the banks of Springbrook creek. The estate where she lived from 1886 till 1934, later became home to my parents, and still later on to myself and my family. Now the estate lay in ruin, with the buildings "falling back into the earth", trees dying and roads being washed out. Out of it all, a few trees still are living.
During the years I spent at Springbrook we had a huge Elm tree in the south yard that we spent many a hot afternoon under. Family picnics and reunions were held under the tree from the early 1900's till well into the new millenium. Gramma Summer said that the tree was there when she homesteaded in late 1889 and the tree still stands today very much alive. While reading in a diary that belonged to my grandfather Jim, I came upon the article that was written in on the 2nd day of their arrival at Springbrook. It told of a woman who also homesteaded the estate prior to Jim and Summer's arrival. She and her husband lived there for a couple of years before he was killed. When she first arrived, her husband planted an elm tree on Springbrook hill to mark their wedding and ownership of the property. They had a dugout in the north bank of the pasture which is where they lived when not in the fields working. Dugouts were a common sight on the prairie in the late 1800's. Grandfather Jim would frequently write of the buffalo that lived in among the cattle herd that he had. On the north side of the estate there was a huge indentation in the earth that was called a "buffalo wallow". It was shallow and was used when water was present as a way of cooling off.
While working in the north field a team of horses overcame the husband and he died. The woman and her 3 children left the estate and moved west to the area known as California. My grandparents never met her nor did they after they took possession of the property. In local county papers the records and names of the previous owners would have told who they were, but in the fire of 1939, most of the court house records was destroyed, no there is no record now that exists that tells her name or that of her husband. I reached a dead end in my research into this.
The elm tree seen many changes in the lives of the people who lived near it. Also it has seen many weather changes, especially during the drought of the 1930's, when grandfather Jim thought that the tree might wither and die, because most everything plant life ceased to exist during that decade in the midwest. The tree withstood the drought and went on to see another generation grow up and have more children. Spencer climbed the short side of the tree in 1941 and placed a rope with a tire tied to it for a swing, which many of my family had sat in as children. I basked in the shade of that old tree many summers during the 70's and 80's when my son was staying with me as I did not own air conditioning.
The main part of the house that sat due north of the elm tree was built in the late 1890's and during the years seen a couple of expansions and was remodeled more than a couple of times. When I vacated the property in 2002 the house had been occupied constantly by family members for more than 100 years. Neighbors in the area had assembled here on this spot 100 years before to build what would become home to countless members of my family. They fashioned concrete blocks from molds that were constructed "on site". These blocks were used as the foundation of the house, and after they were set, the walls of the house were erected and the house finished early in 1898. It had large rooms and high ceilings (almost 15') and consisted of two bedrooms with nice walk-in closets. Everything was done in victorian style as was popular for the times. Later in years, dad and I changed a lot of it.
Today the elm tree still stands proud on the hill at Springbrook, but likely it is all that remains of the lives of a people that surrounded it for over a hundred years. Mockingbirds and Starlings have made their homes in the tree for many years, and they are still raising their families there. Happy, content and protected in the shade of the old elm tree.
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 26
Matthew
this was a delightful read. I know trees are the tallest living creatures on this earth. Bless the tree and bless you, too.
I wonder!
The tree that held my swing when I was a child is still in the back yard of the house I grew up in.
My husband and I planted a tree when our grandson was born but sold the house several years later when we moved from that community. Imagine our disappointment when we returned years later to find that the new owners had cut it down along with the Christmas tree we had planted nearby on his first Christmas!
Thanks for igniting the memories.
One day the old farmer showed up at our farm to borrow my father's tree saw. He had tears in his eyes and I had never before seen a man cry.
It seems that his cows had sought shelter from a sudden thunderstorm, beneath that huge tree. Lightning struck killing thirteen of them, a full quarter of the herd that he had accumulated over too many years.
He took down the tree but was bankrupted and lost his farm and moved away the next Spring, never to return.
I can't describe the sadness I would feel each time, over the years, each time we would drive past that overgrown field with the decaying stump of a once majestic tree, left as a monument to the memory of one man's tragedy.