October 19, 2007
Friday
Our first Toyota driver on Thursday, Martin, who delivered us to the Lincoln Museum, was so intrigued by our story about Maytag Blue Cheese that he called me later in the day on my mobile phone with an urgent message. He had two passengers with him, Mr and Mrs Griggsby, who make cheese upstate near Nauvoo.
Martin put Mr Griggsby on the line and Mr Griggsby told me that he had worked with the University of Iowa team when they perfected the method of making blue cheese out of cow’s milk, the methodology that launched the Maytag Dairy Farm into the cheese business.
Mr Griggsby was well acquainted with the Maytag Dairy Farm and he wanted us to come visit his place so he put Mrs Griggsby on the telephone to give us directions. She did not quite do that, giving me just a list of towns they were near and her telephone number if we want to call again for directions.
She also said that their children are trying to get them to move to California so it may be that it is already too late for us to plan a visit to their farm.
Today we drove across Illinois and Iowa to Newton and the Maytag Dairy Farm and filled up out bags with wheels of cheese.
Then we drove south to Kansas City and on to Pleasant Hill to the home of Anne and Steve Busch, family members through marriage, to spend the weekend. Uncle Tim joined us from Fort Smith.
Saturday
Steve drove us to Liberty and we went past the Jesse James Bank Museum, where Frank and Jesse James and the Younger brothers performed the first daytime bank robbery in the United States in 1866.
Then we drove to the James farm, now a county park preserving the farm and cabin where the James family grew up.
The cabin was built in 1822 and purchased by Robert and Zerelda James in 1845. Robert went to California in 1850 and died in Placerville. Zerelda lost the home, remarried a couple of times and eventually moved back into the farmhouse with both her old and her new families.
Hired by the railroad to stop the incessant robberies of their baggage cars, Pinkerton agents tried first to infiltrate the gang. Clay county was still full of southern sympathizers who protected the James family and two of the agents turned up dead, one of them eaten by hogs..JPG)
A group of agents attacked the farm in 1875 and threw a firebomb through a window. The explosion killed Jesse’s younger half-brother and severed Zerelda’s arm. This incident turned public sympathy in favor of the James-Younger gang members with interesting results.
The railroad that hired the Pinkertons negotiated with Zerelda and finally gave her a lifetime pass. She used it as often as she could and rounded up as many people as she could to accompany her for free passage. When she died, she was on the train and our guide believes Zerelda would have been delighted that she put one last spur into railroad management.
The other result was that the Missouri legislature came within a few votes of passing a bill that praised the gang members and would have given them amnesty.
Zerelda lived in the house until she died in 1911, 29 years after Jesse was murdered "by a traitor and coward whose name is not worthy to appear here," part of the inscription that she engraved on his tombstone.
Frank inherited the house and lived in it until he died in 1915. Both Zerelda and Frank ran the farm as a tourist attraction. Jesse was buried in the front yard where Zerelda could keep an eye on the grave and tombstone to prevent souvenir hunters from defiling it while she maintained a trove of souvenirs to sell.
Frank’s wife continued to live in the house until she died in 1944. Jesse’s grandchildren then inherited the house and lived in it until 1970 when they sold the farm to Clay County. Jesse’s great-grandchildren are still alive.
We went to the Westport Flea Market for Kansas City’s Best Hamburger, a ten-ounce patty cooked to order and "dressed the way you like it," washed down with a cold draft Boulevard beer.
We then visited the National World War I Museum and Liberty Memorial of Kansas City. The
Liberty Memorial Tower is 217 feet high. We took the elevator to the top and walked around the observation deck and observed Kansas City below.
Inside the Museum we passed through exhibits commemorating the war.
Between 1914 and 1919, 65 million soldiers fought and nine million of them died. After the first two years of warfare, one-third of the men on each side had been killed. World War I killed one-third of French males between the ages of 18 and 31.
In 1917, Germany’s foreign minister sent a secret telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico instructing him to propose that Mexico join Germany in a military alliance against the United States. British agents intercepted this telegram and turned it over to their American cousins. This, combined with Germany’s resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare against non-combatant merchant ships, persuaded Woodrow Wilson to ask Congress for a declaration of war.
American intervention turned the tide and changed the world and American boys ("How will you.JPG)
keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?") forever. An unexpected event, however, was that, after spending time in France and Paris, American soldiers returned home and found out they could no longer buy a drink in their own country.
We had dinner in a gas station in Kansas, at a place called Oklahoma Joe’s. People lined up out the door for piles of pork and beef and beans and slaw served on paper towels and a tray.
It isn’t really a gas station any more but you couldn’t tell that until you drove into the parking lot and smelled the glorious scent of barbecued meat. Management has preserved as much of the interior of the service station as possible while adding a kitchen and a serving counter and a blackboard listing combinations of ribs, chicken, sausages and beef. Confronted with irresistible temptation, we ate again.
Friday
Our first Toyota driver on Thursday, Martin, who delivered us to the Lincoln Museum, was so intrigued by our story about Maytag Blue Cheese that he called me later in the day on my mobile phone with an urgent message. He had two passengers with him, Mr and Mrs Griggsby, who make cheese upstate near Nauvoo.
Martin put Mr Griggsby on the line and Mr Griggsby told me that he had worked with the University of Iowa team when they perfected the method of making blue cheese out of cow’s milk, the methodology that launched the Maytag Dairy Farm into the cheese business.
Mr Griggsby was well acquainted with the Maytag Dairy Farm and he wanted us to come visit his place so he put Mrs Griggsby on the telephone to give us directions. She did not quite do that, giving me just a list of towns they were near and her telephone number if we want to call again for directions.
She also said that their children are trying to get them to move to California so it may be that it is already too late for us to plan a visit to their farm.
Today we drove across Illinois and Iowa to Newton and the Maytag Dairy Farm and filled up out bags with wheels of cheese.
Then we drove south to Kansas City and on to Pleasant Hill to the home of Anne and Steve Busch, family members through marriage, to spend the weekend. Uncle Tim joined us from Fort Smith.
Saturday
Steve drove us to Liberty and we went past the Jesse James Bank Museum, where Frank and Jesse James and the Younger brothers performed the first daytime bank robbery in the United States in 1866.
Then we drove to the James farm, now a county park preserving the farm and cabin where the James family grew up.
The cabin was built in 1822 and purchased by Robert and Zerelda James in 1845. Robert went to California in 1850 and died in Placerville. Zerelda lost the home, remarried a couple of times and eventually moved back into the farmhouse with both her old and her new families.
Hired by the railroad to stop the incessant robberies of their baggage cars, Pinkerton agents tried first to infiltrate the gang. Clay county was still full of southern sympathizers who protected the James family and two of the agents turned up dead, one of them eaten by hogs.
.JPG)
A group of agents attacked the farm in 1875 and threw a firebomb through a window. The explosion killed Jesse’s younger half-brother and severed Zerelda’s arm. This incident turned public sympathy in favor of the James-Younger gang members with interesting results.
The railroad that hired the Pinkertons negotiated with Zerelda and finally gave her a lifetime pass. She used it as often as she could and rounded up as many people as she could to accompany her for free passage. When she died, she was on the train and our guide believes Zerelda would have been delighted that she put one last spur into railroad management.
The other result was that the Missouri legislature came within a few votes of passing a bill that praised the gang members and would have given them amnesty.
Zerelda lived in the house until she died in 1911, 29 years after Jesse was murdered "by a traitor and coward whose name is not worthy to appear here," part of the inscription that she engraved on his tombstone.
Frank inherited the house and lived in it until he died in 1915. Both Zerelda and Frank ran the farm as a tourist attraction. Jesse was buried in the front yard where Zerelda could keep an eye on the grave and tombstone to prevent souvenir hunters from defiling it while she maintained a trove of souvenirs to sell.
Frank’s wife continued to live in the house until she died in 1944. Jesse’s grandchildren then inherited the house and lived in it until 1970 when they sold the farm to Clay County. Jesse’s great-grandchildren are still alive.
We went to the Westport Flea Market for Kansas City’s Best Hamburger, a ten-ounce patty cooked to order and "dressed the way you like it," washed down with a cold draft Boulevard beer.
We then visited the National World War I Museum and Liberty Memorial of Kansas City. The
Liberty Memorial Tower is 217 feet high. We took the elevator to the top and walked around the observation deck and observed Kansas City below.Inside the Museum we passed through exhibits commemorating the war.
Between 1914 and 1919, 65 million soldiers fought and nine million of them died. After the first two years of warfare, one-third of the men on each side had been killed. World War I killed one-third of French males between the ages of 18 and 31.
In 1917, Germany’s foreign minister sent a secret telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico instructing him to propose that Mexico join Germany in a military alliance against the United States. British agents intercepted this telegram and turned it over to their American cousins. This, combined with Germany’s resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare against non-combatant merchant ships, persuaded Woodrow Wilson to ask Congress for a declaration of war.
American intervention turned the tide and changed the world and American boys ("How will you
.JPG)
keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?") forever. An unexpected event, however, was that, after spending time in France and Paris, American soldiers returned home and found out they could no longer buy a drink in their own country.We had dinner in a gas station in Kansas, at a place called Oklahoma Joe’s. People lined up out the door for piles of pork and beef and beans and slaw served on paper towels and a tray.
It isn’t really a gas station any more but you couldn’t tell that until you drove into the parking lot and smelled the glorious scent of barbecued meat. Management has preserved as much of the interior of the service station as possible while adding a kitchen and a serving counter and a blackboard listing combinations of ribs, chicken, sausages and beef. Confronted with irresistible temptation, we ate again.
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