by Elaine Rassel

Saturday morning (August 28), Mr. Brighton passed away. Even though we knew he had a health problem, it still came as a shock. He had attended the football game the night before and it must have been one of his better days. The next morning, the Lord called him home. Sometimes I think people know when the time comes that they are going to leave this earth but not exactly when. He did have a good last day.
The attendance at his funeral on Friday, Sept. 3 was so many that there weren’t many chairs left empty. Think of all the kids he had in the time he started his job in 1987 until 2020! There were a good many of the flowers at his funeral that were from Classes of (many) in his past. He had many awards during this time showing he did his job well.
May memories of these times be of comfort to those whose lives he touched and may he rest in peace until we meet again.
Another death occurred this past week. Mert Hanson (goes to St. Paul’s Church in Remsen) was sitting beside Steve in church on Sunday (Aug. 29). The next day she had some kind of surgery on one eye. That night she had a stroke. She was taken to Orange City and on to Sioux Falls. Then she was taken to Happy Siesta where she died on Friday night (Sept. 3). Her funeral is to be on Tuesday (Sept. 7). Six days before she had a stroke, she was driving her car. By the way, she was 99 years old! You would never had guessed her age as she was a very active person. May she rest in peace until we see her again.
Well, it is Labor Day weekend and that means no work for some people on Monday. Jeff’s Foods is closed on Monday and I almost didn’t get to the store on Saturday. It was eight minutes to six on Saturday when I got there! It didn’t take long as I did know what I needed.
After Labor Day is the Grand Meadow Days on that weekend. I hope the weather is as nice as it was for the Marcus Fair. The people at Grand Meadow work hard to keep that place going and don’t need to be rained out! If you haven’t been there, go and check out what they have to offer. It is also a place that kids like to go to.
I had Ila and Linda for lunch on Thursday. It doesn’t seem like Ila will be going back to Tennessee soon (last of October). She didn’t get to Marcus until July this year and the time up to now has gone all too fast.
Well, the two in my household have let me know for the last time that they want NO MORE chicken, no matter how it is fixed. I made a rice dish that included chicken. I thought it was tasty, but they didn’t because there wasn’t anything else to eat, they did eat it, anyway.
When I was going through the 1996 book of Marcus News papers, I came across the time K-Products had their 50th anniversary. All of their plants were closed on that Friday afternoon for a party at Orange City. Marcus plant employees went on buses provided by the company. We all received a bonus check before we went home. I don’t even remember what mine was_except we were really surprised.
Mr. Kohout was not the young man that started out this company and shortly after the party, he sold out to another company. His family didn’t seem to be interested in it so he had no choice. Besides, at the time he decided to sell, it was the right time. Competition was present as more companies started doing the same kind of work. For the time we were working, it was a blessing as money was tight those days.
I went to the Marcus Blue Book to find out just how K-Products came to Marcus in the first place. Of all places that K-Products looked at to build, they chose the Christensen farm. Vivian and Ethel still lived there, if you could find the place. These women had beautiful flower gardens and were well known for their flowers. They were always sending bulbs out of state. Then there came a time when the “weeds” took over! They couldn’t do anything about this.
This family lived as simple a life as possible. The story goes that they went to Cherokee in the family car and before they got there, it quit running. When a dealership came to get it, they suggested that maybe it was time to get a different car. The salesman told them they could enjoy “air conditioning”. The Christensen’s (Ed, Vivian, and Ethel) told the salesman they had air in their car all they had to do was crank down the windows!
People knew it was time to plant their corn or beans in the Spring when Ed finally harvested his crop from the year before! This is just how simple they lived, but were happy no matter what people might have thought of them. It was a surprise that they were willing to sell. It seems that they had subscribed to a newspaper in Oregon for years and this is where they both (Ed had died) left Marcus to go live. Anyway, Marcus was happy to be able to have K-Products come to town.
There was a caravan bringing home the remains of nine Rosebud Sioux children, and one from the Alaskan Aleut Tribe who died at a Pennsylvania boarding school more that a century ago that stopped in Sioux City July 15. The cemetery contains more than 180 graves of students who attended the former Carlisle Indian Industrial School that was a government-run boarding school for Native American children.
The Carlisle Indian Industrial School was founded by an Army officer, opened in 1879 and housed some 10,000 indigenous children before it shut down in 1918. Students were forced to cut their braids, dress in uniforms, speak English and adopt European names. Infectious disease and harsh conditions claimed the lives of many of the children who are buried there. The Army is funding the cost of the project that is about $500,000 per year, including travel to the transfer ceremony, as well as transport and reburial of the deceased children.
Since 2016, many Native American and Alaskan Native families have requested that their ancestors be returned from Carlisle. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s youth council members encouraged the return of the children’s remains after a visit to the Carlisle ground.
The children’s English names, and where available their Native Americans names, were : Dennis Strikes First (Blue Tomahawk), Rose Long Face (Little Hawk), Lucy Take the Tail (Pretty Eagle), Warren Painter (Bear Paints Dirt), Ernest Knocks Off (White Thunder), Maud Little Girl (Swift Bear), Friend Hollow Horn Bear, Dora Her Pipe (Brave Bull) and Alvan also known as Roaster, Kills Seven Horses; and Sophia Tetoff of the Alaskan Aleut tribe on Saint Paul Island in the Bering Sea.
Dennis Strikes First arrived Oct. 6, 1879, and died Jan. 19, 1887 of typhoid pneumonia. A news item indicates that he was the son of blue Tomahawk of Rosebud Agency, Dakota, and calls him a “bright, studious, ambitious boy, standing first in his class, and of so tractable a disposition as to be no trouble to his teachers.”
Another clipping detailed the Dec. 14, 1880, deaths of Ernest Knocks Off and Maud Little girl, describing it as a “sad and mysterious coincidence.” Ernest was sent to the hospital in October to receive treatment for a sore throat, but he wouldn’t agree to take any medicine, leaving him “weak and exhausted.” Maud Little Girl was said to have died of pneumonia and was called a “bright, impulsive, warm-hearted girl, much beloved by her school mates.”
This brings up the cemetery at Sergeant Bluff that a brick making industry will pay to move so they can have more land that has the clay that they need to make bricks. If it is up to the most recent burials there, those relatives may agree, however, the ones that have been buried there since the beginning, no one is there to speak for them. Remember, there were no vaults back then, so how is a casket going to be removed. Maybe there wasn’t even a casket. It makes a person wonder if “money” is going to talk to have this cemetery moved?
Remember to keep in your thoughts and prayers those who have recently lost loved ones to death, have health problems, are really trying to get their job back, those who are struggling financially even though they have a job, and those who should think seriously about making amends. Think of how fast Mr. Brighton and Mert Hanson were called home. You could be the next one.
I will leave you with this quote from Judge Mathis: “Someday, a judge greater than I, will judge you. Will the Pearly Gates open for you or will you have to have a canteen filled with ice water for the hot place you could be going to?”