The Cemetery was huge on both sides of the road. One side was called the old side, and one the new side. Since the original graveyard dates back to 1865 or so, we didn't even know which side. Fortunately a lady we saw cleaning graves told us to go to the Public Works office next door. We mat a nice fellow who looked up the graves and guided us to them. He said he knew where the Mees are because my aunt, Lois, had been one of the best teachers he had ever had. That was nice.
While we were at the graves, he pointed out an area of the cemetary and said that that was the colored (black) part of the graveyard. He said that blacks could not be buried in the main cemetary until 1965 when a local Reverand filed a lawsuit so that his son who drowned in the swimming pool could be buried there. Interesting that it was 100 years after the Civil War before the dead could be integrated.
We then headed to Earlton, a small, shrinking berg where my greatgrandparents owned a general store. The building is sill there, turned into a clothing store -- still the only store in Earlton. Back in Chanute, we had lunch at the McDonalds which overlooks the corner where my grandmother's house once stood, and I once played. The house is gone and a bank stands there now.Then we went by my aunt's and uncle's house on South Highland, still the wide brick street that I remember. Following the brick road in Kansas -- sounds familiar.
Chanute was named for Octave Chanute, a French engineer in KC who advocated for building and flying heavier than air machines. Orville and Wilber Write used one of his designs at Kittyhawk.
The railroad was important to Chanute, in fact, my grandfather came to Chanute originally to work on the railroad. Now the only rail travel is a private line that supports the local cement plant, a huge and growing operation in town. The old railroad station was restored and now houses the Safari Museum honoring Martin and Olsa Johnson, early explorers of Africa and Borneo.We headed back to KC around noon, and braving the freeway traffic, we headed across Missouri on I-70. Missouri has lots of year-round fireworks stands - we noticed this yesterday too. And then we saw billboards for the giant "Adult Super Store." After we passed that store, we noticed these signs that had three X'x, "XXX." I told Jim that must have something to do with the Adult Super Store, and sure enough it was attached to an adult video store. Along the same road as this store, we saw a man in a horse-drawn carriage going down the street (Amish?). It looked like he was coming home from the XXX store, but I don't think so.
We decided to stop in Columbia, Missouri and encountered the worst freway interchange I've ever seen. The exit dumped us onto a 6-lane road. We needed to go three lanes over to turn left for our selected hotel. We didn't make it and had to go straight ahead which put us onto another freeway. We did an on-off and headed back, but to get to the hotel you had to exit. So we found ourselves going by on the freeway again -- just in the opposite direction. Another on-off and taking the exit this time put us on the right road but faced with three left-hand turns within a block and no signs that we could see. So we choose the second one and found ourselves going parallel to the frontage road, but entering I-70 again going east. I was driving and told Jim, "I'm never going back there again."
So we found a lone Super8 Motel at the next exit. It was right on the freeway. You could wave to the truckers from the swimming pool and the sound of the freeway lulled us to sleep. But we were just happy to have survived. ( I'm thinking of another hit show: When Freeways Attack )
Looks like the gas shortage has eased in the SouthEast, so we are off to Tennessee tomorrow.
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