1859 Captain W. F. Raynolds' expedition set out from Fort Pierre, SD, to explore the upper Yellowstone, Gallatin, and Madison
Rivers. Attribution: On This Day.
1893 Sheridan Inn opened. Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.
1907 The first train arrives in Centennial, where today there is a train museum. Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.
1916
The Crisis on the Border in 1916: The National Guard Mobilized
New York National Guardsmen in Texas, 1916.
The National Guard is mobilized due to the ongoing crisis on the Mexican
border caused by the Villista raid of Columbus New Mexico.
This included, of course, the somewhat short handed Wyoming National Guard.
Mobilized New York National Guardsman.
Not all of the National Guard was Federalized at one time. The entire
National Guard had been Federalized prior to the entry of the United
States in World War One, but the mobilization came in stages, with
various units taking tours of duty along the Mexican border while the
crisis with Mexico endured. The mobilization came to be a critical
aspect of the United State's preparations for World War One, although
accidentally, as it effectively meant that a huge proportion of the
American defense establishment was mobilized and effectively training
prior to the American entry into the war.
National Guard Camp, Camp Ordway Virginia, 1916.
1918 Huge evening thunderstorms washed out railroad bridges in Central Wyoming on June 17. Hardest hit was the area between Powder River and Waltman. The news hit today.
A rail line still runs between the towns today, but there are no bridges. At the time, there were numerous ones, which shows how different rail bed construction was at the time.
Interestingly, at the time of 2018, this same day was also pretty rainy in Central Wyoming.
And not just the storm of war.
We posted about the big storm that wiped out bridges in Central Wyoming yesterday. Today it hit the press.
And flood waters were becoming a concern on the Sandbar. This, of course, at a time when only one dam, Pathfinder, was upstream on the Platte.
1976 The J.C. Penney Home in Kemmerer was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Attribution: On This Day.
1990 The Gap Puche Cabin near Jackson, WY, added to the National Register of Historic Places. Attribution: On This Day.
2017
American Father's Day
Today is Father's Day in the United States for 2017.
Almost like a scene out of the Andy Griffith Show, father and son fishing, Jackson County West Virginia.
It's set on the Third Sunday of June, meaning you father's don't get the day off.
I'd have guessed this was some sort of uniquely American holiday, but it
isn't. The US actually came to it late in comparison to Catholic
Europe and Latin America, where it was established on conjunction with
the Feast of St. Joseph, which is celebrated on March 19. The separated
Coptic Church, interestingly, also makes this connection but celebrates
the feast day on July 20.
St. Joseph depicted with Jesus as a young boy. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or less.
The connection comes due to the obvious role of St. Joseph. In this
connection its also interesting to note that the focus on St. Joseph has
increased in recent years in association with his role as the patron
saint of workers. Indeed, he's sometimes called St. Joseph the Worker.
Another depiction of St. Joseph, who made his living as a carpenter and passed that trade on to Jesus. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or less.
Those two roles, it occurs to me, are probably more connected than it might at first seem. . . .
Father's Day as an American holiday was first proposed in the early 20th
Century and Woodrow Wilson wanted to make it such. Wilson seems to have
experienced his first early troubles with Congress, which would become
enormous later on, with holidays as Congress would have none of it.
Note that we just passed Flag Day which didn't become official until
after World War One, but which was subject to a Presidential
proclamation in 1916. In regards to Father's Day, Congress feared it
would become commercial so they wouldn't go for it. Finally President
Johnson made it subject to a proclamation in 1966 and it became an
official holiday in 1972.
Based on the advertising found this time of year, Congress may have had a
reason to worry about the day's commercialization. . . .
It's been a really long time since you could get a plate of anything for .30.
On this day I always see, now that we have so much cyber stuff going on
all the time, posted dedications by some to their fathers. And that's
great. What strikes me, however, is the interesting connection between
the example of St. Joseph and the day, and in a way that occurred to me
about this day before but not quite in the same context. If we look at
St. Joseph's veneration's, that of father and of a worker, what we're
left with is the example of a really dedicated individual who carried
his family through some really horrible times, to say the least, and who
passed his trade on to his son through direct example.
We don't know a lot, indeed, about St. Joseph. We know that he was
older than Mary but much is debated beyond that. Quite a bit of early
church attention suggests that he may have been a widower at the time
that he became betrothed to Mary and indeed that explains a lot about
their relationship that seems to completely baffle modern Americans in
particular, given that they think relationships between men and women as
portrayed by Friends or The Big Bang Theory are normal,
rather than pathologically abnormal in the real and natural sense. What
that means is that a lot of St. Joseph's life was about duty and
example. Indeed, his life, to the extent we know about it, was pretty
much about dedication. He may very well have suffered the tragedy of
the loss of his first wife, and may have had children from that union
(again, this is maintained by quite a few students of the Gospels and it
seems to be a fairly valid argument). His betrothal to Mary seems
likely to have been under circumstances in which he was marrying a young
woman (Mary was likely quite young, perhaps about sixteen) who was
perhaps a consecrated virgin (again, something argued by some students
of the Bible and which seems to be a pretty valid argument) which meant
that the marriage was going to be a Josephite Marriage from the onset.
He wasn't making his life easier in any sense by the marriage and right
from the very onset it took a turn that made it marketedly worse for him
on a real physical level. And yet, he just kept on keeping on.
Immigrant farm laborer with his sons, the older two of which were
already working with their father at the time this photo was taken in
the late Great Depression. Note the depiction in the background which
sort of ties into this dicussion.
Which is part of my point.
A lot of fathers today just don't stick around.
Indeed we've grown accustomed to a situation in which they're not even
expected to quite often, even by the women they get pregnant. This has
made, to a degree, us accustomed to the concept that fatherhood is
somehow optional. It isn't. It is, rather, an obligation, and being
there is a big part of that obligation. And, by being there I mean in
the sense that St. Joseph was.
Now most of us won't endure trials such as his. Most of us won't have
to flea for Egypt. But then most of us wouldn't pass that test and men
who just ignore the situation in general have already flunked it. Women
who allow them to are flunking it as well.
But being there means more than being physically present. It also means
being some sort of example. We all fall short on that, particularly in
comparison to a Saint, but a lot of us fall very far short of it. Being
an example only in the acquisition of wealth doesn't mean very much at
all. Conveying a value to things that are done means a great deal more,
but that's not always easy in a society which measures everything
simply by monetary gain. Very few young men today grow up in a
situation in which they see their father's work, and a lot of that work
has a value that's somewhat mysterious at best.
Idaho father and son, late l930s, in a cleared field. Agricultural
families today remain really rare examples of families in which children
actually see what their parents do and what the value of it is.
And of course there's a lot more of value to life than work, although we seem to have forgotten much of that.
