First Field Trip
Just less than two weeks after our arrival, we went out on our first field trip. This trip took us to places in the general Nauvoo area, starting across the river in Fort Madison, Iowa. I took a seat next to Krista on the bus. Krista, like me, had come to Nauvoo engaged (albeit only sort of—see “On Being Engaged” for further info on this peculiar concept, “sort of engagement”). Thus, we two often made opportunities to commiserate together. Our first such conversation was only four days after our arrival, and afterwards I was forced to wonder why in the world she—or anyone—would leave the love of their life for an entire semester. I’m sure I wouldn’t! And yet, of course, I did. I must’ve been crazy. I wonder if babies ever feel that way when, after arriving on Earth only to find that they really are helpless little diaper-fillers, they longingly think back to those fast-fading memories of a world where everything made sense, and they didn’t have to be thumped on the back every couple hours by a strange man who won’t stop googooing at them.
Four days after our first conversation on the subject of far-away loves, Krista walked into the computer lab and asked offhandedly if I was in the depths of misery. Actually, she just asked if I missed my Lynsey, and I said no, not at the moment thank you. After she left I realized I had been lying. When she asked, I had been in the middle of an interrogation with my email account, asking how it could possibly account for the lack of Lynsey-originating letters; checking up on my planned Valentine’s Day present and, most tellingly, performing internet searches for the name “Lynsey.” You know you’re in trouble when you start doing that.
So Krista and I had decided to sit next to each other and take turns singing praises—first of her Dave, then of my Lynsey.
As I mentioned before the memories of loneliness overtook me, our first stop on the trip was Fort Madison. It was snowing. Much as it did when soldiers were actually quartered in Fort Madison. Deadly, killing snow! Of course, most everything in the early nineteenth century was “deadly” and “killing.” All sort of people died. No doubt the place is crawling with ghosts. In one of the site’s buildings, they have conveniently set up a coffin against one wall.1 I stepped into it. It was baby bear right. I had my picture taken, and thus began my semester long infatuation with dead people. Before the semester ended, I would have well over the healthy limit of photographs of me with tombstones and open graves. I’ll try to keep out the morbid details, but if a little slips through, just try to understand—I like dead people.
Our Fort Madison guide whose name, alas, I have forgotten, came out special to take us through the fort. He and his wife had spent years helping the fort rise once more from the banks of the Mississippi, and he was happy to take us through. He detailed the fort’s history and reconstruction for us, and deathly cold notwithstanding, we had a great time. Although, may I ask, what is it with creepy mannequins at historic sites?
Greg, whose recent coronation as student body president seemed to be going to the musical part of his head, led us in what would be the first of many impromptu musical numbers throughout the semester. I can’t remember the song, but it was a fitting farewell, and we trickled back to the bus to compare frostbite losses.
Our first field trip was also one of the most hectic. Examining the itinerary, it is amazing that we managed to see all we did. Our first stop after Fort Madison (named after our shortest president) was a lonely spot along the river, where we considered the lost Sac and Fox Indian tribes. Joseph Smith had personally met no less a mucky-muck than Chief Keokuk himself, whom he entertained; but other Indians also came to Nauvoo. But a prophet’s welcome in Nauvoo aside, it was not a good time to be a Native American, as you well know. And so our brief stop was not to recall the dances in Nauvoo, but the sad truth that once great nations are no more. That America was astonishingly successful in destroying an entire culture.
Then we were off to Iowa towns Montrose, Nashville (now gone), Zarahemla (now gone and as lost as the original) and Keokuk, named after the chief. Chief Keokuk believed in staying as far away from the white man as possible, a philosophy he developed after visiting Washington, DC and realizing that there were quite a few of them about. The Sac honcho Blackhawk disagreed with Keokuk, which led to some fighting, after which the Sacs and Foxes came together with Keokuk at their head. Three years before his defeat of Blackhawk, the town of Keokuk was named after him. What all this means exactly, I can’t say. But it’s historical, and that’s what educational field trips are all about.2
Next: Warsaw, Illinois—a town with a history the residents would prefer you overlooked. Mike Trapp, a local historian, was with us on this trip and told us that he has only barely been able to get the people of Warsaw to open up to some recognition of their past. Warsaw, of course, was the queen bee’s inner sanctum in the hive of anti-Mormon buzz in nineteenth century Illinois. Anymore, Warsaw is a nearly forgotten town without any money paving the streets, but I have a great scheme for them. Warsaw, I believe, should capitalize on its unsavory past by holding such activities as bi-nightly gunfights—turn Warsaw into a wild, wild, west kind of town. The first badman comes out to stand on the main drag and hollers, “Jesse! I’m acallin you out!”
Out comes Jesse, who glares at the first badman, and then spits a copper stream; “Wallace, I thought I done told you to leave this town.”
“Wha, choo think a lily-livered gundropper like yerself can skeer me?”
“I had figgered ya dint wanta die, Wallace, that’s all.”
“Hell, Jesse, ya Marmon-lovin, river-draggin drunk, you don’t really think ya cud kill me, do ya?”
“Me, a Marmon lover! Why, you fool Yankee, I jest seen you up licking Genral Smith’s boots just thother night.”
“You lyin bastard. It were you I seen up in that Nauvoo, hobnobbin with them Marmon soldiers. I betchoo even done got baptized.”
“Hell, no! Wallace, you lying scum. Why, jest thother night I’s over at Mr Thomas Sharp’s—not no Marmon’s—and we done sold our souls to the devil man, hisself.”
“Yeah, well the devil man, he sez to me he don’t want my soul, it done got the blood of too many Marmon women on it even fer him. But he sez I cin come visit him, whenever I please.”
“Yeah right, Wallace. Everbody knows you ain’t never shot that gun of yourn—let alone killed a person. Not even no Marmon.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
And then they shoot and kill each other. Everyone visiting Nauvoo would be dying to see the Famous Warsaw Shootout. You Warsonians (or whatever you call yourselves) can have this idea free of charge. It’s my donation to your economic future.
And honestly, they need the lift. I couldn’t believe how depressed the place appeared, just driving through. And with the prebuilt, oldtime architecture available and history there to exploit, I wish someone would pour some money into Warsaw and give them a boost. Can’t you see it? While stopping at the bar for a sarsaparilla, a crazy drunk and a wild newspaperman accost you with a Polaroid camera. You could walk to the former home of the Warsaw Signal and play carnival games—dunking Thomas Sharp in a vat of banana pudding for instance. What fun that would be!
But such a day of wild, touristy fun is years off—if indeed such a thing will ever happen. I have my doubts.
Krista and I were swapping cds and sharing memories attached with various sappy songs as we continued down the depressing leg of our journey. Warren, a town where all sorts of unhappy persecutions commenced, culminating in the First Presidency telling everyone to just move up to Nauvoo before they got themselves killed, was our first drive-by, followed by Green Plains, home of a man as impolite as Thomas Sharp, Levi Williams.3 Hilariously, Williams once said that Nauvoo would be leveled and no one would ever hear of it again. But when was the last time you ever heard of Green Plains?
We also hit Yelrome (which was so named because it is Morley backwards—sort of) and Lima, two LDS settlements worryingly far from Nauvoo, as well as Webster, which fits the same description, but is additionally where we had a cemetery snowball fight and our bus became stuck in the mud. Catherine Smith (Brother Neff’s ancestor) is buried in this cemetery, but we couldn’t find her.
The highlight of the day, as you no doubt would have expected had I mentioned earlier we would be going there, was Carthage. A handful of us had driven to Carthage after church the Sunday previous, but this was the first visit for most. There is something distinctly weepy about Carthage as you no doubt know if you have ever been there, and as you can no doubt imagine if you haven’t.
The photographs of Carthage Jail and its red stones are not representative of the jail’s appearance at the time of the martyrdom. The stones, you see, have rusted. They were white back then.4 This could lend itself to mythologizing, claiming the stones were stained by the blood of the martyrs, but we are not a superstitious people. Although if we were, that would really be something to grab hold of.
Driving home, we hit a couple more empty lots that were once towns. It is amazing how places that once were can be totally eradicated by time. Perhaps this was on Krista’s mind, when she confronted me not long after the trip, and grilled me regarding my love for Lynsey. It was a little nerve-wracking because I sensed she might apply my answers to her Dave and thus every word might have a very personal effect upon her. Life though, is like this. We can’t know what our relationship with God was like before we were born, and so we rely on this life’s relationships to tell us. We can’t know what Zarahemla, Iowa was like, and so we rely on books and an empty grove of trees to tell us. We can’t see or touch a loved one, and so we look for comfort. But unlike Zarahemla or any other such disappeared place, relationships are still real. Krista and Dave are now married. Lynsey and I are now married. And when we go home, after this life, we will find that our personal relationships with our Heavenly Father are preserved even better than either Krista or I found our engagements to be upon our return.
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Thanks for revisiting Nauvoo with me. I would love to hear your thoughts.