Memorial Day weekend will involve patio relaxation in what has reason to claim being the most peaceful and calming habitat known to mankind. Sure there’s the occasional hawk appearance when a sentry regiment of blue jays encircle safely at a distance and the half-dozen cry out their shrillest, loudest warning of danger. Only twice in 22 years has an Angelkeep hawk “kill” been witnessed. It’s safe to say, Angelkeep’s a safe place indeed, for both man and beast.
The world stage interrupts the blissfulness of Angelkeep. Stories and scenes of war around the world are certainly avoided on the patio. Rhythmic rocking in a patio chair before a crackling bonfire tends to force the troubles of the world aside.
Memorial Day weekend proves the exception. The price paid by so many returns to memory because of Mom’s diligence of placing homemade coffee can bouquets on graves in multiple cemeteries. As a young child, I was but a tag-along, not aware of the full measure of those lives lost. Thanks to Mom’s ways, those lives lost, and those who served, sacrificed, and returned are never forgotten. Those who remain serving today, regardless of duty station, are remembered with prayers rather than a posey pot.
Today’s constant war news infiltrates patio’s peace on Memorial weekend. Prayers go out to all serving, regardless of country, politics, gender, color, and so too for citizens caught up in the wake. Are the grandchildren safe? Do they have a future?
Angelkeep remains proud and thankful for wartime service of family members. Brother, brother-in-law, Dad, uncles, cousins, granddads, and great-grandpa. World War II KIAs included an uncle, and Gwen’s cousin. Hitting the POW list twice was a great-grandfather serving during the Civil War. Yet his preserved letter to great-grandma proved he returned to battle, on the Richmond suburb line when the town fell to end the war.
Dad failed to share much of his military history. He seemed to feel his many years in WWII less significant that others since he was assigned to an office. He made sergeant by counting the beans, keeping soldiers fed, and seeing to the payroll, or funds sent home if by their choice. He carried on that work the rest of his life in the corporate world. True, not all soldiers face a life-ending threat, yet their service remains as vital. Thanks, Dad, for your service. Sorry I never said that while you lived.
A loud report from a red wing can jolt Angelkeep out of reminiscing and remembering those who served and yet serve. Red wings tend to loudly announce from the top of the shepherd’s hook every time they find sunflower seeds to eat. Comically, they had found the same location five minutes earlier. Chirp! Chirp! Like the crack of a gun. Memorial weekend fitting, in its own way.
The Memorial weekend patio would be a good time and place to reread one of Kayleen Reusser’s books filled with interview stories of many area soldiers of the past. Kayleen iss from Bluffton with a personal mission of keeping the memory of men and women who served from fading forever.
Local history of military soldiers, battlefront and support troops alike, are fun to read in the Wells County Public Library’s resource room collection, including the microfilm of local newspapers dating back to the mid-1800s. Patriotic expression digressed over the years. War years’ newspapers show a different world.
Angelkeep prays on the Memorial weekend patio that WWIII never materializes.
The Indiana National Guard Quarter Master Sergeant 4th Regiment wrote to the newspaper in May 1898 from Camp Mount, Indianapolis. “The bravest soldiers are at home, consisting of the mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts. Here men have time to brood over the future or the past. Today the enlisted men were given an opportunity to go home. I really felt sorry for some of them because the squad that left for home was hooted out of camp. The boys are all singing:
“We are Hoosiers every one,
Every single son-of-a-gun;
Turn us loose on Cuba’s shore,
Spanish rule will be no more;
Land us at Matanzas bay,
We are ready for the fray,
Let us at old Morro Castle,
We’ll give Spain the razzle-dazzle.
We’re the boys of ninety-eight,
And in everything up-to-date,
With our knapsacks on our back,
We will tackle old hard tack;
We belong to company E,
We’re for General Bill McKee,
Clear the way for here we come,
We’re the hottest boys
in Hoosierdom.”
At Angelkeep the cardinals and blue jays sing, all decked out in their red, white and blue.
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
