By Catherine Hedge

I have several dear friends who are June brides or were many years ago.  It’s a lovely time to get married in Kansas.  The garden in front of my house is an explosion of blooms; gladiolas, petunias, Rose O’Sharon, Kansas cone flowers…all soothing to the eye and heart. Although it is one-hundred degrees outside right now, I sit in air-conditioned comfort and watch the morning glory vines climb over my balcony railing.  I listen to beautiful music on the Classic Arts Showcase and sip drinks cooled by my automatic ice-maker.  I lead a blissful existence!

Liberal, Kansas, 14 April 1935. (Kansas State Historical Society)

I wonder, though, how it must have been eighty years ago, when my parents were young and Nature unleashed her fury upon the Midwest.  I hear the old folks talk about The Dust Bowl.  You covered the dinner plates as soon as they were dished up and then threw a tablecloth over everything.  Children had to come the instant you called them in.  You whisked off the cloth.  Everyone ate as fast as they could before the food turned to mud.   You blocked all the windows, doors, and any cracks with wet towels for fear the new baby might die of suffocation.

What a difficult life it must have been for a new bride and her husband.   I imagined a slice of their life in the poem below.  I wrote it in honor of those resilient men and women of Kansas who wouldn’t give in to despair.  They left me this beautiful land I love today.

Basin

by Catherine Hedge

I brung the enameled basin in

A weddin’ gift

Milk white, perfect

Speckled with hay from the packin’ crate

Out of the wash bucket

Slick with lye soap

It jumps from my hands and sings

A bell-toned wobble across the wooden floor

A black eye peeks out through the dent on the rim

I wipe the basin dry and gleamin’

And prop it on the sideboard

Turning  it round

‘till the chip don’t show

Sunlight traps my face on the bowl’s surface.

Unforgiving harsh in its reflection,

I sweep lank curls under my bride’s cap

And pinch my cheeks back to color

 Strange how livin’ changes once the courtin’ stops

Jakob’s on the back forty

‘stead of swingin’ on the porch.

The drought sears him like a brand

 And smiles ain’t easy on his weary face

Until now, I never seen

The fly specks on the brocade wallpaper

Or the veneer on Mother’s bureau

Curlin’ like potato peels

********

Source:  Kansas State Historical Society “Liberal, Kansas, 14 April 1935. (Kansas State Historical Society)“