A few years ago, I found this photo among my mother’s effects. Written on the back was: “Uncle John Warner about 1925. Enroute by bicycle from San Diego to Nebraska.”
After a little digging, I was able to determine that this was my paternal grandmother’s uncle John Charles Warner (or “Werner,” as he was born), who according to the caption would have been about 77 when this picture was taken.
You look at a picture like this, and you have to think, “I bet he had stories to tell… .”
Yes, he did.
I found this essay that he had written several years before that, probably around 1915 or so. It’s a bit long, but I thought it was worth posting in its entirety; I enjoy his writing style, and he has a unique story. I wish I’d known about him while my dad was still around. I wonder if they ever met?
I was born on January 8, 1848 at what, I think, was called the Sachs-Shifska Colony in West Prussia, where my brothers, Henry and William, also were born. At the time of my birth I was on hand, red, wrinkled and a lump of pudgy flesh and jelly. I was commander-in-chief at that eventful occasion. My commands were law, my will complied with and my wishes granted to the best ability of all attendants. But my potency stopped there! I had no voice or choice as to my mental or physical attributes. I came into this life without any volition, etc.
My life has been kaleidoscopic, as checkered and varied as the phases of the sun, moon and stars. I have seen some of the rich, sweet and juicy side of flowing life, when every zephyr was a balm of peace and joy of sweet life. (That was when I was in love.) And too, I have supped at the dregs of that bitter cup of reverses.
The gods of failure and destruction have been my guides and keepers in about even numbers to the gods of success and prosperity. But the goddess of hope and the graces of good cheer and mirth have not deserted me entirely, at no time. I can yet laugh with the hilarious and, too, drop a pearly tear with the weeping and sad at heart; and more, I can give them good cheer and counsel. They cost but little effort and waste of strength. My sympathy for humanity is not dead.
Now for facts and events. I was enrolled for U. S. service when I had just passed the milestone of sixteen years, not very sweet or prepossessing, neither of great promise, into Co. M, 12th Indiana Cavalry. Was mustered out in the fall of 1865, and went to my father’s home and joined the family circle as of yore. But my mind and ambition were tainted with the spice and flavor of rambling and ‘seeing the sights’ and new fields to conquer.
In June 1866, I took ‘Dutch leave’ to the lumber woods of Michigan. After a complete dose of chills and fever I went to Milwaukee, where I worked on a dairy farm. Later I meandered to Iowa, where I did teaming work on a railroad construction job.
From here I went to Marion county, Iowa, where I worked the then virgin prairie. That was a scene and life of unlimited beauty of landscape, Nature’s rich pastoral beauties strewn over miles upon miles of teeming range, where fed and basked deer and other game and herds of fat, slick cattle, almost unnumbered, succulent rich and juicy plants, grass and seeds, on which game of the hoof and wing, cattle and horses, fed and feasted to juicy fatness. It was a Paradise on the heaving and weaving bosom of Mother Earth.
That winter I went to Monroe, Jasper county, Iowa, where I engaged in the mining timber supply contracting business (a bit of a money mint) for about two years. I then went to Cornell, Iowa, to attend school, where change of life, food and occupation soon undermined my health, for I had to study and work some to supply for my keep.
After two terms and the exciting events of Commencement with its joyous features, usual after the closing of a scholastic year, left me in the proud possession, the morning after the festivities, of five cents. That was my all, in cash. However, the world was open before me. For was I not a student? Yea, verily!
Having invested my five cents in a half loaf of bread I started on a tramp in quest of work. After seventeen miles of hiking I got a job on a farm. I returned to school in the fall with $87.00 in my overall pockets. I then was one of the ‘Its.’ In the winter early I got a homesick spell, went home to Indiana, and by merely a miracle I became a ‘Hoosier Schoolmaster.’
The next year I went to Napiersville, Illinois to resume my studies in the Theological School. Becoming dissatisfied with the course I finally went to Philadelphia and matriculated in the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania. In the second term I contracted pneumonia, the third siege of it for me, resulting in the undermining of my vitality to such a degree that I was compelled to give up all study and go south for the winter. My fate was sealed!
Changing of climate often for winter and summer, has converted me into a genuine nomad. I have seen the wonderlands in Uncle Sam’s domain, the vast plains, the mesas, vales, vast ranges of towering mountains, caves, gorges, native parks and forests to near repletion. Rich is our land in variety of beauty, gorgeous and vast in extents and sublime in vastness, limited only to our visual powers and imaginations.
With ageing years the scenes of life leave me not, at the scenic beauties of landscape and forest, stream, lake and ocean grow not less beautiful! And life hath charms till the drooping and closing of both eyes — beating of heart and — stop! call! — to breathing of life’s zephyrs ———-.
I am not in want, with $12.00 per month pension and a bit of interest. Economy, frugality and moderation are three of my daily hand-maidens and I live at home in ease and comfort.
