A family story to share

 

Earlier this week, on April 15, I noted a family milestone and it had nothing to do with taxes.

Thomas Jefferson Lewis, my great-great-grandfather was born on that day in 1850.  Before we get to him, I want to share about one of his sons, Paul Lewis, who played a role in my lifelong interest in family history.

 

Thomas Jefferson Lewis Sr with his wife, early 1920's (he died in 1925

I met the man just once but our time together has proved to be significant,

and has steered the course of my life into the past. At a multi-generational

family reunion where the stories flowed faster than the creek waters beside our

pavilion and fried chicken filled our bellies, my great-great uncle Paul, my

great-grandfathers brother, fired my imagination and set me on a path leading

backward into history. At the time, he was one of the oldest living members of

the Lewis family, my maternal grandmothers family and when my mother introduced

us, he told her to leave me with him for a while. So, she did.

 

I don’t know what he saw in me that day that was any different than the

dozen or more other children running around the park, but I sat on the grass at

his feet and listened as he talked about the family history. Although I don’t

recall every word he said, I do remember much of what he said. He talked about

his father who had been acting sheriff of Buchanan County when outlaw Jesse

James died, and about his grandparents who made the pioneer trek into Missouri.

 

They were headed for California when they ended up in St. Joseph, Missouri but

when their seventh son, Thomas Jefferson Lewis, made his appearance on April 15,

1850, they stayed. Maybe it was originally for the season, and maybe not, but

they settled down and put their roots into Missouri soil.

By the time they reached St. Joe, the Lewis family had already trekked

across the ocean from Belfast to the colony of Virginia. They homesteaded there

long before the American Revolution but when that war erupted, they fought for

the fledgling nation and some of my ancestor died for it as well. As the years

passed and the country expanded westward, they moved into Kentucky, and lived

there for a few generations before packing up once more to spend some time in

Sangamon County, Illinois. From there, they were bound for California (or some

say it might have been Oregon) but they stopped in St. Joe.

 

Uncle Paul’s stories fired my imagination. At nine, I already had a

passion for the past. When other little girls played house, I preferred to take

it a step farther and play what I called olden days or wagon train. When I learned my own

folks had been pioneers a few generations back, I was hooked for a lifetime of

pursuing genealogy.

 

From the few scraps of information I inherited, over the years I’ve traced

the Lewis family line back into the 1700s. Their story is a rich historical

tapestry filled with triumphs and tragedies, a personal version of the American

story.

 

A few years ago, when my daughters and I made a trek to northern Virginia, we passed through the country where my ancestors first settled in the New World. I delighted in viewing the country they called home and trying to imagine it as it once was.

During our travels, we came across many highways designated as memorials

in several states. In Virginia, we found ourselves traveling down the John

Lewis Memorial Highway, then also on the Andrew Lewis Memorial Highway. John

Lewis is a direct ancestor of ours and Andrew is his brother. We passed

through Lewis County in Virginia, also named for another of our Lewis kin. As

the saying goes, I felt like I was walking in tall cotton that day.

 

My maternal grandfather also came from Virginia but from the southwest

corner of the state. Other ancestors on various branches of my family tree also

have a connection to Virginia or one of the other states we traveled through in

the region.

 

The Lewis history is far too detailed and diverse to share in a single

column but my Missouri branch began in April 1950, when my great-great

grandfather was born in St. Joseph, Missouri to pioneers who decided they’d come 

far enough.

 

From the land of Oz to your own backyard

 

As a young child my imagination was forever captured and my mind warped by the classic film based on Frank Baum’s book The Wizard of Oz. In the years when I was growing up, the classic movie aired once each spring. If you missed it, you missed it until next year so it was, to me, a very big deal. Of course, I also read the book and some of the others written by Baum that were set in the land of Oz.  As a parent, The Wizard of Oz was one of the first movies I bought for my children’s video library along with classic Disney. One of my daughters loved it so much that she wore the little blue and gingham Halloween costume dress as often as I would allow and at one point, both girls had shoes that resembled the ruby slippers. Although my kids are now grown, The Wizard of Oz remains a family favorite.

 

 

 The multi-layered story is much more than it may seem on first viewing. In my various writings I’ve had characters reference the show and quotes from it as well. One of my favorite themes within The Wizard of Oz is power. Dorothy possessed the power to go home all the time but doesn’t realize it. It takes a journey through dangers and facing fears to find out. It requires others to show her what she possessed all the time. And at the end of the movie the viewer learns that exotic, lovely Oz is no more than Dorothy’s imagination or so it seems.

I’m thinking about Oz today because I’m thinking about settings. Some writers like to choose exotic settings someplace far, far from home. Others write about places in their own backyard. I do a little of although I seldom write about any place I haven’t been. Why? Because as a reader, nothing infuriates me quicker than reading about a place I know and I can tell the author doesn’t. I usually read any book to the end but I once quit on a book by a well-known author because her story set in the southwest corner of Arkansas, flat country with oil wells and known as part of the Ark-La-Tex, was described as being in the Ozark Mountains and dotted with pine trees. But, the Ozarks end about mid-state and pines aren’t common.

I think of these things when I sit to write and I do my best to make sure I get the settings right.

I seldom write anything in a fantasy genre so creating a world outside our physical reality such as Oz isn’t on my radar. Another Missouri writer Samuel Clemens, better know as Mark Twain, first offered the advice “write what you know” to budding writers and I think its still sound advice.

When I write fiction, whether it’s a short story or a novel, I choose settings that I am familiar with. Neosho and the Ozark region appears often and so does my hometown of St. Joseph, MO.  If I haven’t lived in a place, I’ve usually been there and gained a feel for it before I write about it.. I’ve written about both New York and Los Angeles enough to receive high praise from my editor, a native of the Big Apple, and a long-time resident of LA who said he could tell I’d spent some time there.

Setting is important – whether it’s the Land of Oz or your own backyard.

The mystery of Hermann Jaeger, the savior of French wines!

 

     

 

 

 

       Wine has an ancient history, dating back some six to eight thousand years before Christ. By the time that Jesus walked the earth as a man, wine had become a well-known drink.  Wine as we know it traveled from Italy to France Today, French wines are considered among the world’s finest but had it not been for a man from Neosho, the French wine industry may have died on the vine more than a century ago.

 

            Hermann Jaeger was a Swiss immigrant who moved to the United States following the Civil War. He and his brother, John, came to Newton County to plant vineyards, side by side about 4 miles east of Neosho along what is now Highway 86. Their first efforts were planted in 1866 and the brothers soon combined the farms.  In between raising families, they worked at developing new grape varieties, which was Hermann’s area.  He took tough Missouri wild grapes and grafted them with both Concord and Virginia grapes.

            In his development and experimentation, Jaeger worked with notable scientists of the date including Missouri entomologist George Hubbard.  At the World Fair held in Vienna, Austria in 1851, Missouri wines took top honors, winning 8 of 12 medals.  French vineyards, which had suffered a few setbacks in recent years, bought rootstock but instead of prospering, the new rootstock brought a parasite called phylloxera that systematically all but destroyed the French vineyards.

            Jaeger sent large quantities of his hybrid rootstock that combined traditional grapes with the hardier wild Missouri varieties and in doing so, he saved the French wine industry. With gratitude, France made Jaeger Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, the highest award the nation could provide. He became a hero, at least in the wine industry. That was in 1893.

            His fame, however, was short-lived. Jaeger suffered some financial problems and on top of that, a local law was passed that prohibited the sale of alcohol in Newton County, a definite damper for a vineyard owner and wine maker.

            The Jaeger family moved to the Joplin area to start a new vineyard.  Other legal issues arose and on May 16, 1895, a Thursday morning, Jaeger headed for Neosho driving a wagon and team to appear in court. He didn’t return and a few days later, his wife received a letter postmarked Kansas City that was printed in the Newton County News, translated from the German in which it was written. It read:

            "My Dear, Good Elise: When you read these lines, I won’t be no more alive. The more I think over everything, the more my mind get troubled. It is better I make an end to it, before I get crazy. Since for a length of time I am not able to attend to business. I as a food but I meant it good. Do not hunt for me. I hope to end some place where nobody can’t find me. Dear Elise, you deserve better luck. I hope you will have it yet. Kiss the children. Your unlucky Hermann"

                His family never heard from him again and it was believed that, in despair, he had committed suicide. Other stories suggest he may have vanished to start over again somewhere else, under another name but no one knows for sure.

            One of the historical markers in Big Spring Park tells his story and Jaeger is still remembered for his role in saving the French wine industry.

 

 

            Hermann Jaeger remains a local unsolved mystery, one unlikely to ever be explained. Sometimes his name is Americanized to Herman Yeager but it’s the same man, unlucky Hermann, who was awarded France’s highest honor for ensuring that French wines would continue forever.