David speaks of his grandfather growing
businesses in Howe, where the Rock Island
crossed the Kansas City Southern. Folks’d bring
him cowhides and bones from the prairie, grand
items he’d ship to KC for cash. He
built a first-class general store, coal mines,
lumber mill with sawdust piles recycled
to buffer railroad-car walls—thickly lined
to preserve ice blocks. Used new wired cool cars
to ship in greens, oysters from the Gulf coast
for holidays. Treated pandemic scars
of flu in ’18, respecting loved ghosts
of relatives killed: bought a second home
to care for their children. Fifty would come.
Roger Armbrust
June 29, 2014
