Planted Seeds

Somewhere over the rainbow

Way up high

In the land that I heard of

Once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow

Skies are blue

And the dreams that you dare to dream

Really do come true

Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Harold Arlen & Yip Harbury (1939)

This print hung on a wall at my grandparents' farm house for as long as I remember,
until a tornado destroyed the house in 2003.

My paternal grandparents, Joe and Mabel Groseth, lived their lives on a family farm in SouthEastern South Dakota near the small town of Centerville. Both of their grandparents immigrated from Norway to  homestead there in the late 1870's and much of that land remains in the family to this day. 

Grandpa Joe and Grandma Mabel successfully farmed the family farm for decades, starting with horses and adapting to machinery. Beef cattle and dairy cows, hogs, chickens, and horses filled the barnyard and surrounding pastures. Pheasants, jackrabbits, deer, coyotes and all sorts of other wild critters roamed the dense shelter belt and nearby river bottoms. Corn and soybeans filled the fields and the harvest filled the barns and bins.

Grandpa Joe actively engaged in community affairs at Scandia Lutheran Church, with various service organizations, and through township politics. He even served 10 years as a representative in the South Dakota State Legislature. He was a force.

Grandma Mabel also actively volunteered at their church, service organizations. and charities. She had grown up on her family's farm just a few miles away, and played basketball for the Centerville High School girls basketball team in 1919. That's over 100 years ago! She then became a country school teacher, before starting her own family. She was a rock.

They raised three sons on that farm, the youngest my dad Clifford. That hardy, faith-driven upbringing developed Dad's strong character traits of integrity, honesty, accountability, independence, and self-reliance, as well as his entrepreneurial spirit, business acumen, and legendary stubbornness. Farming occasionally allowed time to think and dream, which Dad eagerly embraced.

Grandpa Joe's "business card" when running for re-election to the South Dakota legislature.

As a "town" kid growing up in the 1960's and 1970's, I loved our frequent visits to that family farm. The main attraction, of course, was Grandpa Joe and Grandma Mabel. But getting outside, out into the barn and outbuildings and deep into the shelter belt, was always a great adventure.

One enduring memory of the family farm was that of a small art print in a simple frame, hung on the west wall next to a window in their living room. I would see the image of a little cabin perched high in the mountains, gaze out the window to the west, and wonder.

Do places like that exist? Where? Could you live there? How? What would that be like? It looked so quiet, so peaceful. Boy, I'd love to go there someday.

I also wondered why Grandpa and Grandma placed that print in such a prominent place in their home.

I do know that in 1928 they drove a Ford Model A over a thousand miles one way from Centerville over the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake City for their honeymoon. That certainly took some gumption and some grit, especially back then on mostly dirt roads. Maybe the print had something to do with that. I don't know. I never asked them while they were alive.

Grandpa Joe passed in 1977, Grandma Mabel in 1990. For several years, Dad maintained the buildings and continued to farm the land. But in 2003, a tornado blasted through the area, destroying the homestead. It actually lifted the roof off the house, spun it a bit, and set it back down off kilter. Debris scattered everywhere.

The family and community pulled together a massive cleanup effort and then Dad auctioned off most of what had been salvaged. I wasn't there for any of that, though I should have been. Afterward, only the uninhabitable house, the old barn, and a silo remained.

Aerial photograph of the homestead of Joe and Mabel Groseth (circa 1978).
This was after Grandpa Joe passed and before a tornado destroyed the house.

Months later, when I finally made my way back, Dad and I walked around the hauntingly vacuous homestead. Ever the stoic Norwegian, Dad spoke softly of the tornado and its destruction. It felt like the heart of family history had been ripped away.

We entered the house. Doors had been blown off hinges and siding pried off walls. Shattered glass, broken furniture, chunks of woodwork, tree branches of all sizes, and random debris littered the floor. Every step landed on top of something that wasn't supposed to be there. A heavy sadness clouded all thoughts.

Climbing a narrow, creaking staircase to the second floor, I stepped into a small bedroom. My heart stopped.

Atop piles of debris on the floor lay that mountain cabin print!

How it found its way up there is anyone's guess. Dad suggested that it flew out a first floor window and, in the swirling chaos of a tornado, flew back into the house through a second floor window.

I don't know. It didn't matter.

In the midst of such destruction and loss, here was a cherished piece of family history. Somehow, despite the tornado's unimaginable power, the print had survived and appeared right in front of me, months later. 

It felt like a miracle.

With Dad's permission, I dug it out of the debris to take home. The rest of our homestead tour passed a little lighter.

The high mountain cabin print, as restored and re-framed in 2004.
(Thanks, Kent Cherne at Denver Art Supply)

That restored and re-framed print has hung in our home ever since.

And it always makes me wonder. 

What combination of nature and nurture creates a yearning to explore the unknown, to see what lies around the next turn, across the next river, or over the next mountain. More broadly, what fuels the willingness to take a chance, venture beyond your comfort zone, or forge your own path, however unconventional.

Certainly some of that is hereditary. But it's hard to discount seeds planted by environment. They are likely inextricably intertwined.

I'm just grateful for both.

Thank you, Grandpa Joe and Grandma Mabel.

Over The Rainbow, Eva Cassidy (2014).