For years, when I was a young girl, I would sit side-by-side with Gram and listen to her stories of growing up on Belle Prairie in Nebraska. Long into the night, we we would flip through the old photo albums that spilled out of her front room cabinet. I was carried off to another time and place with talk of Grandpa Sam, the bound boy, and life in Kissinger Hollow near Marklesburg, Pennsylvania. I imagined myself growing up with Maggie, Kate, Jenny and Dud. Times were tough. But there was family and the beauty of the Appalachian hill country. Dud met a fellow from over the ridge. He had a wandering soul and was determined to strike out on his own. There were the letters from Frank to Dud and back again. In one, Frank wrote of his Nebraska skies - "Address it to a starry night and it will find me every time - for the stars shine bright out here." Finally, Dud found the strength to leave her family home and join Frank out west in 1884. She was terribly homesick. The prairie was bare with hardly a tree in sight. Dud would say the wind nearly blew all the curl from her hair and her only comfort was the song of the meadowlark. Now days, when I visit their graves, I close my eyes and listen for the meadowlark and feel the wind across my face and think of all my ancestors who have gone before me. I am bound to them through their stories even though I will never look into their eyes or hear their voices. The writings on this website are my attempt to honor their history and cherish their lives.

Lynn Ayers [2020]