Re: Blank Family in Illinois, Jonas ,etc.
-
In reply to:
Re: Blank Family in Illinois, Jonas ,etc.
Lillian Dettmer 4/24/07
Such is the simple story of the "life which exhibited itself." Surely, if we were to stop the narration of the mere outward facts, we should have wasted out time. Let us try to get a little closer view of his personality and character.Says Walt Whitman: "Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and eat and sleep with the earth.
Jone Blank was an open-air man. One couldn't imagine him in a city. He just wouldn't fit there. He loved animals--especially sheep. To see him with a flock was suggestive of that incomparable parable of the Good Shepherd. "The sheep knew his voice." He made no pretentions to scholarship, had had but little schooling. His spelling was highly original, yet he was an interesting talker and the writer of engaging letters. He lamened the fact that he had never amounted to anything, "had been merely a fact-of all trades" as he said, and indeed he was. He could turn his hand to almont any of the common trades--was a good carpenter and fair blacksmith. He could fix one's watch or build a wagon.
He never studied law but was well versed in legal matters and he was frequently calledin to settle differences between neighbors, and prevented not a few law suits that way. He had faults too--one was a quick and explosive temper which occasionally flared up in a way which moved the inhabitants to flee to the mountains, but his failings were such as mostly leaned to virtue's side. He was no money maker (if this be a fault) and such money as came his way he had mostly given away at the time of his death in 1907 at the age of seventy-two. The founding of the Wayne Center Cemetery Association was largely his idea, and he and his faithful wife rest here side by side.
The End.