We left our South Dakota refuge in the Black Hills to venture out on the prairie, driving across to Pierre this weekend to visit my grandmother. The rain has been good this year, and the plains have a kind of austere beauty that tugs a little at my memories:
But then I remember how hard life is on that land. We took the gravel drive of a back route, between Midland and Ft. Pierre on the Bad River Road, pausing at the town of Wendte:
though ghostly Wendte, alas, is no more—a place that failed when the railroad ceased to be important:
I sometimes think Catholicism could not have settled this land. It took the sternest of Protestants, for there is a hard wayfaring-stranger reality to these plains, a moral landscape with nothing but God and the soul in it: no room for anything else.
I know dark clouds will gather o’er me,
I know my way is rough and steep;
Yet beauteous fields lie just before me,
Where God’s redeemed their vigils keep.
July 22nd, 2009 | 4:15 pm
[...] which we saw this weekend, while visiting my grandmother in Pierre. [...]
July 22nd, 2009 | 5:02 pm
I’m from SD–long time ago. Our only relative there now is an aunt, age 90, living in DeSmet. In Faulkton, where my family lived from late ’30s to mid-’50s, I remember knowing through osmosis or something the name Bottum. A judge Joe Bottum maybe? The last time I returned, for a high school all-class reunion, we each got a list of graduates from “the beginning.” A number of Bottums graduated in the ‘teens. Been reading First Things for years and following your career. I’ve been praying for and to Fr. Neuhaus. Beautiful job carrying on the legacy! Kathy Malone Prantner
July 22nd, 2009 | 5:29 pm
Kathy—
Yep, that’s my family. Great-Grandfather was the federal circuit judge, based in Faulkton, and his children all grew up there, though the boys both ended up in Rapid City, while my father moved on to Pierre.
Jody
July 22nd, 2009 | 11:50 pm
“I sometimes think Catholicism could not have settled this land. It took the sternest of Protestants, for there is a hard wayfaring-stranger reality to these plains, a moral landscape with nothing but God and the soul in it: no room for anything else.”
Perhaps. But likely the Desert Fathers would have disagreed with this statement.
I grew up next door to South Dakota, in Wyoming. But I never visited SD. Too many people there, I suppose….
July 23rd, 2009 | 12:05 pm
“”I sometimes think Catholicism could not have settled this land. It took the sternest of Protestants, for there is a hard wayfaring-stranger reality to these plains, a moral landscape with nothing but God and the soul in it: no room for anything else.””
“Perhaps. But likely the Desert Fathers would have disagreed with this statement.”
Actually I thought this was/is a beautifully crafted truth. But perhaps I’m blinded because because I had a similar thought regarding our Pilgrim Forefathers after a quiet walk on a cold beach in Cape Cod one early Easter. One cannot but think of the hard lives these folks took on – 6 years without cheese and farming land that is more conducive to growing rocks?- and realise it was their stern faith that made it a possibility.
Heck, I would have gotten back on the boat and headed for the Papists up in Canada…
July 23rd, 2009 | 7:18 pm
I’m glad to hear the confirmation that your family was from Faulkton. I thought that was the case (seem to recall something you’d written a few years back in which you’d mentioned it). When I asked my grandmother, Marie Schmidt nee Rombs, about it, she too recalled a judge and, additionally, a family house fire. Thanks for your work at First Things. I’m looking forward to the upcoming book.
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