The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1920-10-27
The Pioneer Is Passing.

How new is not that community
that can point to people still living in
/ it and say: "They are pioneers of this
locality!" All through this section of
the state we can do that.
There are still with us men and wo-
men who came here 40 and so years
Iago. then upon the threshold Of man.
hood and wonanhood
How little do the children, the young
people of today, know about the life
of the pioneers! True, they have
heard their parents tell about the ear
ly days and they have probably read
some accounts of the life on the prai-
ries SO years ago. But to them it is
all dream. A story. A thrilling
romance Of the frontier!
The young farmer of today puts in
his seed with drill, cuts his hay with
mower, gathers it with leaders,
stackers and hayforks. His grain he
cuts with elf-binder, his field he
plows with tractor. His thresh-
ing he does with gas-propelled sep
arator. He hauls his produce to mar
ket in an automobile truck and he runs
to town to do his shopping in car
that cost more than all the equipment
that his father and mother had when
they began farming. He lights his
home with electricity and his barns,
and even his hog houses, are studded
with electric bulbs.
And many of the pioneers have lived
to see it all!
Surely the Lord has blessed the peo-
pie who came here in those early days
70 hill h &lo
The sun is fast sinking in the west
and soon they will be carried-in an
automobile hearse!-to the little acre
of ground that probably they them
selves helped set aside and hallow,
when Death paid his first visit to the
little community Of which they form
ed part.
Do you remember a pioneer funeral
not the present funeral of a pioneer,
but funeral of the pioneer days?
If you do, it probably was one
, where a yoke of oxen drew an old
lumber wagon in which was a home
made coffin, blackened with burnt
cork, followed by small procession
consisting Of the household of the
dead and the few neighbors who con-
stituted the community, all on foot:
Probably there was a minister along
but more likely net.
Then again you may remember a
funeral something like the one that
impressed itself upon our child mind
in those early days. It was not an
imposing one-that is not why we re-
call it. The time was mid-winter The
day was gray, sunless, cherries
dow covoroG Tboro
were no roads.-In those days there
were but few roads in summer and
none in winter. The scene is the in
terror Of a small farmhouse. On two
chairs stand the little black coffin.
with awe we had watched the carpen-
ter, working with candle light, the
night before, make this mysterious
box. We had seen the little form lai1
into it and the lid nailed down. Nov
it was to start on its last journey.
Father, mother, the carpenter and one
or two others stood in a row on the
floor and sang a hymn. Someone read
a prayer. Then the carpenter and the
father, one at each end Of the bier,
picked up the little black box and ear
ried it out through the door and de-
posted it within the haarse''-rather
they placed it upon little hand sleigh
that stood at the door, ready for the
journey. The distance to the grave
yard was several miles. The father
bid the wife and the family good-by,
threw the sleighrope over his shoulder
and, followed by the carpenter, started
off on the weary trudge to the ceme-
terry.
That was pioneer funeral.
Truthfully and justly do we say chat
this country has done much for these
newcomers" But, let it also be said,
for it is equally true and equally fair
as those must attest who saw the
barren and wild prairies Of Minnesota
generation ago-that these same
newcomers" nave done lot for this
country.
So much Of the progress and
achievement that We see about US is
the work of their hands Against the
promise that the soil held forth they
staked their lives. They not only
planted grain but they planted them
selves, their lives, in the soil.-Gun-
mar B. Bjornson, in Minneota Mascot.