Ardis Journal

Mother desperately wanted me to become a southern lady.  A gracious, soft-spoken, hospitable, serving, loving, Christian lady.  She sewed me a lovely dress to wear when I married Tom.  It had yards and yards of fabric in the skirt with a hoop skirt underneath.  I did wear it to marry Tom.  It now is packed away.  What earthly good would a fancy dress with a hoop skirt do me now?

To be honest, I was rather a lost cause at being trained to be lady like.  I'd rather ride a horse bareback than sit side saddle.  When ma would call me in to instruct me on cooking, I would hide in our old haystack.  She would finally tire of trying to call me.  She rarely complained that I didn't come when she called.  I think she understood that I didn't take easily to the domestic arts of homemaking. 

Ma and Da came from serious poverty.  They came to America to make a better life for them, but especially for me.  They longed to own a big plantation in Tuckaleechee Cove.

To really attain such wealth they would need slaves to work the fields, whether they grew cotton or other crops.  The three of us just couldn't produce enough to compete with the big plantation owners, especially since some of them had the head start of a home and land passed through generations.  My parents wouldn't even consider having a slave.  They believed that honest work must be done with their own hands.  They were certainly financially stable.  They owned their farm out right.  Sigh, once again I feel harsh thoughts toward Tom.  He sold my birthright without even speaking to me.  Sadly, we lost everything.  It does give me a small measure of comfort that the evil villain that robbed us of land and money is now in jail and will be there for a long time.

My wedding day was grand.  I managed to convince Tom's mother not to tie my corset so tightly that I could not breathe.  I still maintain that corsets were invented by men to keep us dominated, subverted.  The dress was lovely, bright, feminine.  I felt lovelier than I had ever felt before.  I even had been assiduous in treating my work roughed hands and face so that they were very soft.

I never wanted to be a boy.  I enjoy the types of outdoor work they do.  Gardening has always seemed like an excellent way to create.  To me it's a way to create beauty.   I've always like bright, shiny things, and pretty clothes.  I just also enjoy riding a horse, playing with our old dog Bright, and playing kick the can with Tom and the neighbor boys.  Sometimes I lose track of time when I sketch someone, or something.  My sketches of people are much better than my sketches of places.

I am grateful to state that most of the time I understand and like myself.  The good Lord has blessed me with gifts that I hope to use to his glory!

Ardis Journal

I have been knitting some hot pads.  Blake picked up a pan by the handle the other day and burned his hand quite severely.  I asked him why he would do anything so foolish.  His response was, "I don't have anything to hold the handle with."  Gratefully I have Mama's knitting needles, and lots of yarn as well.  I'm making a simple pattern.  I've heard it called the basket weave.  I decided that was a little too simple.  In the pattern I'm making I'm creating triangles in a square.

Mama could make anything.  She didn't need a pattern, or someone to show her how to make it.  It would just show up in her head, and it would be perfect each and every time.  She made me the most beautiful dresses.  I have out grown most of the gowns she made me.  The ones that still fit, well they were torn to shreds as we came from Tennessee to Oregon.

I have saved as many scraps as I could.  I'm going to sew them together to make a quilt for Tom and I to put on our bed.  I am trying to think in a positive manner.  Even though he has not written, I am certain that fighting in a war leaves very little time for letter writing.

Maybe some day, some time our child will put the quilt over their child, and mama, papa, Tom, and I will all live on.  I fear that I am in a melancholy mood this evening.  No matter how many times I try to reach for positive ideas, all that comes to mind are the deaths, the failures, the home that we left behind.

When Blake burned his hand, I did not speak a word to him.  I took him by the other hand and pulled him with me to the well.  I pulled up water.  Next I continued to pull him forward to the ice cellar.  I used the ice pick that is always kept there and chipped off some ice.  I put the ice in the bowl of water.  Next I sat Blake down and put his wounded hand in the cold water. 

Blake looked very surprised.  He said, "My mother always said that butter should be put on a burn.  I never understood.  Butter seemed to make my burns hurt worse."

I replied, my mother always put burns in very cold water as soon as they were burned.  She made us hold our burned anatomy in the cold until it began to feel better.  I was always amazed at how that simple action helped most burns to heal quickly.  Blake you just stay here until I send Red to fetch you.  I'll finish the meal and then we'll eat.  Blake didn't even bother to reply.  It was easy for me to see how the cold water relieved his pain.

Well I don't know that I cheered myself up much, but I'm so tired I'm going to try and sleep anyway.  Nightie night.
 

Ardis Journal

Rain is drumming on the ceiling over my head.  I'm ever so grateful to know that whatever Blake builds, he builds to outlast rain, snow, or wind.  Tonight the pounding is not soothing.  It just feels like the world is going backwards.  The Bible speaks about Noah and how wicked the people of his time were.  God washes away everybody but Noah, his family, and the creatures they take on the ark.  He gives those wicked folks many opportunities to repent, they won't listen.  I wonder right now, are we all as wicked here in this place that seems to be getting washed away?

Tonight I'm so tired and sad.  I remember strongly the final peace I felt when I was trapped in that creek.  I felt that death was close and I wasn't fighting any more.  I felt love, richer, fuller, than ever before.  It was a rude shock to be jerked back into living.

I believe that there is not an end to our essence, or spirit.  I have never doubted the existence of God, the Creator of heaven and earth and all that is in them.  I believe that he created this beautiful, harsh planet for us, his children, to live on, and learn from.

During the daytime I keep myself busy and push away these deeper philosophical thoughts and emotions.  It also helps me to sleep quicker and more deeply if I work hard.  I haven't been recording anything in this journal again for a long time.  I've tried on many nights.  I wind up tearing up the drab dreariness that falls off my pen onto the paper.

Blake Calkin is a very good man.  I worry, often, that people in the town will assume that he and I share more than a platonic friendship.  After all, so many men in this area have moved Indian women in with them.  They don't worry about the Christian ceremony of marriage.  Some of the men have more than one woman living with them, all of the women giving his children life.  Knowing these facts explains why some of these folks assume that is the situation with Blake and I.

I am eager for a white woman to move in somewhere close by.  I need to have a woman that I can share a place with. I hope that I can move away from this male dominated household. 

Blake is a wonderful, unselfish man.  He's well traveled, self-educated, and very thoughtful.  Nonetheless, writing this down makes me feel guilty.  After all, I have a husband, a man who deserves my loyalty, my allegiance. 

It is a very harsh thing to me is that I don't know if Tom is alive?  Sometimes I can't even remember what he looks like, except that he is considered very handsome.  To me, I miss a certain lack of imagination and mischief that never shows on that handsome face.  He is constant...and often I have found that very boring.  Now I'm feeling negative.  I'm going to try and sleep.