Western Life - Influences

When a man has four children, and when those children have known a measure of freedom in both city and country, and when the man suddenly awakens to the fact that it is far easier to build the sound body than the sound mind, and when he looks about him for guidance in mind-building and sees so many bidding him to go this way and that by all sorts of straight and narrow roads, then it comes as a great relief to discover that there is a Mind of the Race based on wide and long experience, which Mind of the Race is stored up in Literature....so far so good?

Then comes the realization that literature is vast concerning thought and intelligence and that which is merely emotional. How then may man find the first, enjoy the latter not fall into narrow divisions as age progresses and interests change? By nurturing new friendships, embracing tested and true old friendships and keeping an open mind to the hopes and dreams of all mankind.

Friendships may be summed up for this writer as "western life."  Not just the old west of frontier days, but including high ideals which benefit mankind, our family and nourish our mind and heart. Now you may explore some of the influences in this writers life and how people, places and events hopefully prepared him for life after death and enabled him to enjoy the "small things" of our short existence on mother earth.

Johnny Appleseed

John Chapman, born September 28, 1774, died March 18, 1845, was known  as Johnny Appleseed throughout the Northwest Territory where he planted apple seeds. Today known as the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. Popularized in word and song, made a legend through stories laced with fact and fiction, he was also well known and widely admired by children who grew up during and after the WWII.

John was a "boys boy" because his house was literally on his back, for he never had a home in the traditional sense of the word, but he was no mere dreamy wanderer, often traveling bare foot ahead of the westward migrants and planted his nurseries before the refugees arrived. The record on Johnny Appleseed reveals him to be a careful, organized and strategic businessman who, over a period of several decades, bought and sold many dozen tracts of land in advance of the frontier expansion, and who developed countless thousands of productive apple trees throughout the upper Midwest.

Johnny made friends with many of the Indian tribes and was known to have learned many Indian languages well enough to converse.  Memories from settlers who know Johnny well indicate the impression that many Indians held Johnny in high regard, and that his unusual zeal for serving others led some to believe he was touched by the Great Spirit.

What made Johnny legendary is that he stayed itinerant his entire life, his ability to exist harmoniously with Indian cultures as well as his own; his colorful personal habits; living on foods provided by nature, never killing animals; and according to his acquaintances with skin so thick on his feet that it would kill a rattlesnake to try to bite Johnny's feet.

John Chapman lived in complete harmony with nature.  In field and meadow and forest, he walked, concerned with the spacious thought of God.  The singularity of his thinking and his living was inextricably entwined with his religious views of Swedenborgian spiritual growth which was also embraced by Helen Keller and influenced Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James.

Lessons Learned and Applied From Johnny Appleseed

• Planted first tree in the fourth grade at Westlawn school in Mobile, Alabama

• Participated in Arbor Day every year from 1950 through to date.

• Active participant and adult leader in the Boy Scouts of America with particular emphasis on the outdoor code and high adventure camping.

• Established the Youth Conservation Committee of the Soil and Water Conservation Service in Mobile County, Alabama in the aftermath of hurricane Frederick, planting thousands of trees and collecting seeds for propagation in Alabama state nurseries.

George Washington Carver

One Christmas at about age 6 a chemistry set was carefully pulled from under the tree along with a little book, Ten Boys Who Became Famous, by Basil Miller. God's ebony scientist was born in 1864 and died January 5, 1943. The color of Dr. Carver's skin was of no concern to a six year old, but delight in the fact of him teaching at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, my home state from age 4 until to day. His work with two lowly southern crops, the sweet potato and the peanut are among the great scientific achievements of my life time, but the little facts of his life are what have truly inspired and lent me encouragement.  Carver was convinced that the key to his success was, "In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

During his many years of his work at the Institute he taught a Sunday school class, or, as he called it, a "Bible class," where he often indicated the correlation of science and the Bible, and clearly demonstrated the scientific nature and the truth of the Genesis account of creation. He believed that the Creator worked with him, revealing to him the secrets of nature and showing him how to unlock the treasures of common things.  On his desk in the Carver Museum lies the small Bible which he carried for more than fifty years.

He received many attractive offers, but he chose to remain at Tuskegee. Honors came to him. He was elected to noted societies, received special degrees, and famous people the world around visited him.  He was busy to the end of his life.

The night the world was shocked to learn that George Washington Carver, the slave lad who had been traded for a race horse, had died. He was buried in a quiet spot among the green hills of Tuskegee, near the little chapel where he had worshiped for many years.

 Lessons Learned and Applied From George Washington Carver

• Men and women of God are created equal in his eyes and he loves us, one and all.

• Take time from the busy schedules of daily life to seek understanding and harmony with nature in God's handiwork.

• Alabama and the world are better places to live because of George Washington Carver

• Daily Bible reading is a joy...Thank you Dr. Carver for showing the way.

• Thinking that this writer would also gain knowledge of "little secrets" like Dr. Carver, there has been no disappointment.

James Francis Thorpe (Jim)

Another little book under the Christmas tree, Jim Thorpe-Indian, by Van Riper, Jr 1956 after seeing the movie which stared Burt Lancaster.  When folk ask if we are kin, a smile is always kindled.  All Lancasters are related, some more distant than others. Born 1888, died 1953. Most people know that Jim won the decathlon and pentathlon in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, but what a lot of people do not know is that he was voted the first president of the American Professional Football Association. This was the forerunner of today's National Football League and that he was named to both the college and professional football halls of fame. The semi-pro baseball team which Jim Thorpe occasionally played for was made up of several other Sac and Fox Indians.

Most folk also know that Jim was stripped of his Olympic medals and the Olympic Committee was forced to legitimize this racially motivated precedent by concocting a Byzantine rule system that denied U. S. athletes support while foreign governments were free to support their athletes.  The medals eventually were returned when it was realized that baseball was not an Olympic sport.

On a lighter note and from an inscription in our "little book" the following. "There is mention of the game between Carlisle and West Point where Ike (future president) was told to "stop that Indian!"...and was promptly run over."

 Lessons Learned and Applied From Jim Thorpe

• We honestly had rather try, then fail, than not to try at all.

• Distance running became a passion, though never excelling, always a picture of a childhood hero running along side me and smiling. Now we fast walk and Jim Thorpe is still with us.

• Even a "little school" like Carlisle can and will produce greatness, all because of those who teach and truly care.

Our Western Life Founders and Members

Within the pages of Western Life Org are living hero's and heroine's who have been apart of our life for the past few years.  They have given help, guidance, understanding and words of encouragement to try and write poetry, live life each and every day to its fullest and most of all friendship and memories which shall not tarnish nor dim with time.

Remembering the Farm Community of Heartland too!

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