Kohart Hands

This is Mandy, writing...again!  After a hiatus due to another pregnancy, some family illness, and now a new baby, I am back helping my Dad again.  Whew, where to start?  I've wanted to share some thoughts that are always tender to me as I welcome a new baby into our family.  July 3rd also marks 6 years since my Grandma Hazelton's passing (my Dad's mom).  She has been on my mind.

My Grandma Hazelton was a talented lady.  She took painting lessons with her oldest daughter after Grandpa passed away and quickly developed a wonderful skill for it.  She had a few of her paintings hanging in her home that I remember seeing growing up.  One of them was of this lonely looking “soddie” on the plains of Kansas.  Her Kohart great-grandparents had come over from Germany in 1872 and trekked west to try to tame the treeless lands in western Kansas.  Without a supply of lumber, they resorted to making bricks out of mud and grass and building sod cabins.  In these humble and challenging circumstances, my ancestors staked their claim in Kansas. 

My Grandma was born in this little soddie and spoke German until she started school.  She was a quiet and stoic woman who didn't have a bone her body to complain or feel sorry for herself.  As I read Willa Cather’s “O Pioneers,” I felt a love for this part of the country that I had never appreciated before.  I identified with the characters and loved how Alexandra could not leave when everyone was deserting the land.  She stands on the edge of their land and sees something there that not many seem to see.  She has a vision of what could be and somehow that makes her love what is there.  No matter the challenges of working that land, she is compelled to stay and bring her vision into fruition. 

I recognize that same willingness to forego comforts and ease in the present in an effort to build toward a vision of better things.  My great-great-grandparents who left Germany left behind a comfortable life.  As I thought about what must have compelled them to leave, and to leave with Sophia 8 months pregnant for a 3-month voyage by ship, I started to piece together the vision that must have kept them moving and working.  In exchange for their comfortable life, they embarked on a difficult journey that would mean foregoing their lifestyle forever.  Their hope was laid up in store for generations to come.  Me.  My children.  Their hands dug in that sun-baked earth and their skin wore the leathery hardness of work for my day.  They traded their comfort for my freedom, for land and chances and choices. 

My Dad has often quoted this thought, “If I have seen far, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.”  In quiet moments, thinking of these good people, I think of what I owe them.  And I hear a whisper, “You are not your own.”  This thread of looking to the future with a vision of better days, of sacrificing now to offer up a gift to posterity, has been passed down by more than genetics to my Dad and then to me.  I love to hear stories of him working alongside his Dad and his Grandpa Kohart.  He smiles as he relates their lessons to him—lectures given by hard working hands more than by words.  Often, he would simply hear, “That ain’t sanitary, boy!”  Translation: that’s not the way we do things—we work in a way that when we leave, it’s better for those who come along after.  And now, when my daughter is working hard alongside me, I whisper to her the treasured compliment my Dad once gave me, and she smiles.  “You have Kohart hands.”