Pioneer, All for Life

A pioneer is one who goes before,

Prepares the way

For others.

My grandfather was a pioneer.

In 1877 he came to Kansas,

Staked out the claim on his homestead,

Built his sod house and his barn.

He was not anybody’s grandfather then.

He was a young man,

With his thoughts on marrying Nettie.

 

In 1878 he married her in Illinois,

And brought her back

To his land

With the sod house and barn

In Smith County, Kansas.

They were both of them only twenty-one years oldÑ

Children, in the wilderness.

 

The sod house had three rooms and a wooden floor.

Many sod houses didn’t have wooden floors.

Houses were built of sod

Because there were not enough trees.

(Often and often Nettie must have longed for the luxuries of Illinois.)

Kansas looked flat and desolate,

But things could grow there,

And they did.

My grandfather was a good farmer: he worked hard, and got along.

(Did he have time, working so hard, to talk much to Nettie?)

Children were born, and the sod house

Was replaced by a frame house.

In time, the house on the farm

Was replaced by a house in the town.

And my grandfather prospered.

 

My grandfather was sociable.

He liked parties, with singing.

He liked story telling.

He liked reading aloud, with everybody gathered around listening.

He liked to go to baseball games and yell for his team.

When the Populist cause took Kansas,

My grandfather was a Populist.

He must have had some rowdy good times

Fighting for justice with the boys.

My grandfather liked to go places and see things.

(My grandmother liked to stay home.)

He had a lot of original ideas.

He wasn’t a stick-in-the-mud.

 

My grandfather was a pioneer.

He was brave, and he worked hard;

But best of all, he was lively.

I am proud of my grandfather

For being a pioneer,

All for life.

There is no great credit in being brave

If you’re going to be surly and sour and dull while you’re brave;

But there is credit in being brave

If you are all for life, as you are.

 

Anyone who is all for life

Can be a pioneer.

It doesn’t take a sod house

To be a pioneer.

The thought of my grandfather

Has encouraged me.

In thinking of his jauntiness on the dim, unsettled land,

I am stronger.

I see his face in the photograph of 1905,

And I am stronger.

C.H. is smiling, over the years, over the miles:

A pioneer who was all for life;

And the life he was for, goes on.