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Butch Furse
Like many of us we have been making visits to cemeteries prior to Memorial Day decorating graves of our loved ones. Sometimes that requires trips out of the immediate locale to pay our respects.
That was the case this past week when we were the closet relatives to live within the radius where our grandparents, great grandparents and even a generation before them are buried in Kansas. After decorating our parents graves in Aurora, our next stop was to head to Kansas in behalf of us and our out-of-state cousins.
We’re not going to bore you with cemetery morbid visitation reports, but we’re certain we all had common feelings when at the grave sites. To us memories came back to us instantly -- fond memories of parents and grandparents triggered our strongest memories.
Arriving in Kansas at a small rural cemetery a few miles from the town of Republic where I was born brought those strong memories.
Memories brought back the story of my dad and mom trying to eke out a living running a newspaper in my mother’s small home town in addition to operating a theater and selling insurance. Dad and Mom soon found better opportunities and we moved to a larger Nebraska community. In the meantime my grandparents continued to operate a grocery store until Republic faded in population and prosperity.
My last segment after the cemetery visit was to drive through Republic and see the place I was born. (Don’t laugh. I was born in a hotel where the entire first floor was two apartments and the upstairs had single rooms mainly occupied by railroaders. It is now a large home). At the other end of the block my grandparents lived where each summer in my grade school years I would spend a week. What great memories fishing with gramps and eating grandma’s cookies, etc.
Those memories were shattered when on my tour I found their home lot empty. The house had been torn down. As I drove down the “main drag” less than a half dozen buildings housed active businesses and no townspeople in sight. My memories continued to sadden.
Disappointment took over, but when I turned the corner at the street intersection to head back to Nebraska I was forced to slow. I was greeted by a pet pot-bellied pig coming up to the car. His “welcome” brought a laugh, and gave a memory to take home . . .and hopefully one to look forward to next year’s visit.
RL Furse is publisher emeritus of the News-Register
