Tag: Civil War

September Morn

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Until recently, I didn’t know much about Frances Streumpf Sendke. Only stories my father and aunts shared–passed down through the generations–about my paternal great grandmother.

One is a memory Dad shared about September 1. Apparently, every year on the morning of this day, his Grandma Sendke (she and Grandpa Sendke lived with them when Dad and his sisters Thelma and Violet were children) walked into their bedrooms, pulled back the covers, and shouted “September morn!”

I don’t know the cultural history behind that, but Dad’s “September morn” memory was cast as a celebratory moment long before Neil Diamond wrote his September Morn song.

Instead, I believe my great grandmother was acknowledging the arrival of September’s light and the nip in the air. It was a harbinger of fall days.

Another favorite bit of folklore about Frances Streumpf Sendke came from my Aunt Thelma. She shared a gauzy story about her grandmother, riding horseback in rural Missouri during the Civil War as union soldiers stormed through the countryside.

Today, on this September morn, I’m learning more about my great grandmother thanks to Ancestry DNA. According to census records, she was born in Westphalia, Missouri, in 1857 (exactly one hundred years before me). She died in the St. Louis area in October 1933.

Along the way, she married Charles Ludwig Sendke. He emigrated from Princelau, Germany. (According to Aunt Thelma, he left Germany as a stowaway on a ship at age 13.)

On October 14, 1884, their daughter Anna Louise Sendke Johnson (she went by Louise) was born. I remember the large floral print dresses she wore, the over-powering scent of her powder and perfume, how much she loved her soap operas, and visiting her in the hospital a few days before she died of a heart attack in April 1968. She was my paternal grandmother.

I’m sure I’ll be writing more about genealogy in the coming weeks. But for now, suffice it to say I’m enjoying learning more about my ancestors, all of whom have contributed to the person I am.

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Incidentally, after submitting my DNA swab several weeks ago, Ancestry DNA says I am comprised of the following heritage:

Sweden and Denmark = 33%

Scotland = 30%

Germanic Europe = 23%

Norway = 14%

Decoration Day

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When I was a youngster in the 1960s, my dad and his sisters spoke solemnly of an alliterative-sounding day we don’t hear about anymore: Decoration Day.

It was an apt description for an activity Americans performed every May 30, as the heat of summer rolled in. They decorated the graves of those who died in defense of their country.

According to history.com, the tradition began May 30, 1868. After General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, 5,000 participants left flowers on the graves of 20,000 who died during the Civil War.

What we now know as Memorial Day has evolved into a hybrid holiday–the day we honor those who have served, pig out on barbecue, watch sports on TV, bicker about politics, guns, and vaccinations, pay an arm and leg to fill up our gas tanks, and race to the mall for a new mattress that’s on sale.

On this especially somber weekend–just days after the latest school shooting and slaughter of innocent children in Uvalde, Texas–I prefer to pause and kneel (theoretically) before the grave of my father rather than salute our flag. Though I can’t be in St. Louis right now to do that, I can write about it.

Walter Johnson served our country during World War II. He was an Army sergeant, who fought in Europe in the Battle of the Bulge in 1944.

Despite shell shock, personal trauma, and frequent nightmares, Dad lived nearly fifty more years. He died in 1993. He and Helen Johnson, my mother, are buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery south of St. Louis on the top of a hill under an oak tree.

This weekend, volunteers will be decorating all of the graves there–and in all national cemeteries–with miniature American flags.

On September 4, 2021–it would have been my parents’ seventy-third wedding anniversary–Tom and I visited Dad’s and Mom’s graves.

We left two decorations–a couple of acorns–on top of their marble headstone. Though my parents are both long gone, like the acorns, the vivid memories are alive and the love endures.

My hope is that one day soon–for the sake of American children and future generations–we can find our way to put down our guns, regain our senses, and decorate our lives with more than flowers and regrets.