Coassement de la
Grenouille
Journal of the Milice de Ste. Famille
Volume
14, No. 5, November 2002
While sitting
around the campfire at the November fort, I heard a question. “Who is the Milice?”
I think the
Milice is the most diverse, convoluted, and interesting unit in existence. We have more different types of members than
any unit around. We have shooters. We have merchants. We have people just interested in the history. We have a dance troop. We have craftspeople.
This mix makes
for some very interesting discussions.
Sometimes we agree. Sometimes we
argue. A lot of the time we just agree
to disagree. We can compete against
ourselves and not bring bad blood. Just
good-natured ribbing about whoout-shot whom. (and I am writing this not knowing
the outcome of the woodswalk.)
But in the
end, the unit always comes first. And
that’s what makes the Milice great.
I have been
proud to serve as your Captain. I am
honored to be nominated to serve again.
Votre
serviteur
Jean Baptiste
Tavernier
October F&I Encampment
Many thanks to all who took part in this
event. Marshall Meaders for organizing
the team shoot and the steak shoot.
Mark and Nancy Balance for the bayonet drill. And Ken Brigman for being the target for the officer’s duel.
The Milice fielded two teams which finished 2nd
and 4th out of six.
You may remember at June Rendezvous, I threw
down a gauntlet to the de Chartres Marines for this event. Bad Move.
They took the team shoot. Or maybe, I should say, they just didn’t shoot
as badly as we did. It seemed no one
could hit anything that day.
Dave Wiederhold took 3rd place in
the individual shoot.
Stark’s company Rogers Rangers, won the steak
shoot and the officer’s duel. Out own
Jim Chestney finished 2nd in the duel. Jim asked why prizes were given to 1st through 3rd
places for the team and the individual matches, but not for the duel. I reminded hin that 2nd place was
NOT a good place to finish in a duel.
All in all, we had a good time. The Sunday battle tactical was canceled for
lack of Brits to shoot at.
Milice de Ste. Phillipe will be putting on the
event for next year.
Please
note that the roster was sent with this newsletter. Check your listing, and let me know if I need to make any
changes. Thanks you – Lynn
Christmas Party/
Meeting
Sunday, December 1, 2002 at Eckert’s in Belleville from 1
–4pm. The food will be “off the menu”
and cost per person will depend on what you order.
Please remember the gift exchange for the party – the recommended
amount12 is $15.
Elections will held . The
nominees so far, are:
Captain – John Mefford
1st Sargent – Marshall Meadors
2nd Sargent – Gail Cornelius
Treasurer – Lyle Cubberly
Secretary – Ken Brigman
Carol
Luer
Board of Directors – Ray Naughton
Jim Chestney
Dave Kuehnel
Nominations will be reopened at the December meeting.
Upcoming
Events 2002 (dates with * are recent
additions)
Dec 1 – Milice
Christmas Party - Meeting TBA
Dec
7 – Caroling at Kimmswick
Dec
7 – St. Nicholas Tradition – Martin-Boismenue House 6pm – 8 pm
CANCELED Dec 7-8 – Christmas at the Barracks – Jefferson Barracks - CANCELED
2003
*June
14-15 – Muster ON the Maumee (timeline event) Fort Meigs
*Aug
16-17 – Seige 1759 (F&I event) Fort Meigs
SNOW
PLOW
David Kuehnel [Danger] won first
place in the State of Illinois’ snowplow drive contest. There were nearly fifty teams competing in
both knowledge of the truck, the plow, and driving skill. He and his partner will move on to the
national regional competition. Many of
us that attended the F&I heard the story many times. Ask him to tell you about it. He did tell me that he does not want to talk
about it any more. Yea! Any more than an
hour, that is.
By
Jim Chestney
Father
DeSmet's Grave
By
Phil Jose
Even
before I knew of his life, I knew that Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet, SJ, was a
great man. Growing up in the northern part of St. Louis County, Missouri, I saw
enough streets and schools named after him attesting to the fact that he was
someone special. When I learned of his life and adventures, I stood in awe of
him.
However,
it's not the purpose of this essay to recount his exploits; others who have
done far more research than I have already done that. What this essay deals
with are matters of reward and justice.
At
a time when a life of service meant constant, grueling travels and everyday
hardship, Father DeSmet freely lived such a life. His devotion to God took earthly
form in the thousands of wilderness miles that he traversed. God's love
manifested itself through him in the way that he touched people's lives.
When
that long life of service closed, this world's reward was a simple one. He lies
in a grave at his beloved St. Stanislaus, his spiritual home. It was at St.
Stanislaus where he found rest upon returning from his journeys. He sleeps with
nine of his Jesuit brothers who came to the American frontier along with him in
1823.
I've
been to his grave. Its setting is no longer the rural one that Father DeSmet
was used to. The little cemetery is now surrounded by the bleak and frenzied
world of a twenty-first century metroplex. Yet somehow as I look at his
gravestone and reflect on his life, the bleakness and frenzy fades. I remember
the impact that a life devoted to goodness and the Ultimate Giver of Good can
have. I leave once more inspired, my belief in the Divine Spark within each of
us reaffirmed.
But
now I have to wonder how much longer I'll be able to do this. That small patch
of serenity may soon be gone.
There's
a plan being seriously considered to make this little cemetery disappear. For
reasons not entirely clear, those resting there would be exhumed and reinterred
far from the spiritual home that they had in this world.
Furthermore,
the adjoining museum, dedicated to the contributions that the Jesuit Society
made in opening the West, would be closed. Its priceless catalog would be
dismantled and shipped elsewhere. There is no guarantee that the exquisite gold
and silver chalices-- including the one that Father DeSmet took west with him--
would ever be displayed again.
To
me, the final outrage of this scheme is the identity of its planners. They are
the present day Jesuits themselves, the inheritors of the legacy that these
pioneering men of God began. I don't understand how anyone entrusted with such
a stewardship can actively make such plans.
I
have a deep and active interest in history. It would be easy for me to finish
by reminding you that in compromising their own heritage, the Jesuits are
looting something from us all. However, there's something even more important
at stake here-- justice. To keep a collection of hard-earned treasures housed
and on display where they're appreciated and to allow those priests to rest
forever at a place they loved are just acts.
They're
also simple decency.
Copyright
2002, Philip Jose
It may not be too late to
save the cemetery and the Museum of the Western Jesuit Missions. Please let
your protests be heard by contacting the Provincial of the Jesuits here in St.
Louis, Father Frank Reale. He can be reached via email or snail mail:
Fr. Frank Reale, SJ
Provincial,
4511 W. Pine Blvd.
St. Louis, Mo. 63108-2191
His email address is provincial@jesuits-mis.org
We here in North St. Louis
County need a lot of voices added to our own. How about taking five minutes to
become one of them?
New
addresses, emails……
Donna
Lybarger – ecteach@plantnet.com
Dennis
Lybarger – gaston@plantnet.com
Lyle
& Barb Cubberly – lachawk@charter.net
Larry
& Kathy Ring, 23220 Regal Dr., Lebanon MO
65536, (417) 488-1288
ANNOUNCEMENTS
TENT
FOR SALE – Panther Primitive 12/16 Marquee.
6ft sidewalls, Burgundy “Washington” style scallops, poles-ropes new,
wall panel with stove inset (un-cut), all stakes included. Used 4 times. $800 new, asking $600 for all.
Need to down-size! H20cop99@hotmail.com, or 573-348-0990.
Stroud
Wool
Hello
Well
we finally have gotten some new saved list stroud wool dyed. It has taken us over a year to find a decent
supplier (knot on wood), that we are importing from England. Winter weather has held us off from dying
the wool until this last weekend.
We
are also starting to dye Yellow, along with the standard Blue, Red, and Green.
This
new 100% wool is thicker and tighter woven than the wool we had gotten from
California earlier. It also has a good
old time square weave to it. It also
seems to be very water resistant as it is very difficult to dye. This also results in less bleeding on the
sawtooth edge.
We
assumed the wide was 60 inches, but after dying it, I measured it and it was 64
inches wide. The wides and length
shrink down differently on each piece of wool, but we start each blanket with a
2 ½ yard piece of wool. The blanked can
be ripped to whatever size you would like.
Prices
are as follows:
$125
per 2 ½ yard blankets
$50
per yard
$20
per foot
$2
per inch
$10
for 1 ½ inch sample of all four colors.
Sincerely,
Sagebrush Traders
Ken
Weidner
2288
70th Road
Copeland
KS 67837
620-668-5249
Dannie
White
12400
Ucca Dr.
Garden
City KS 67846
620-335-5486
Notice
to all the friend of Fort Massac
Demolition
of the old Fort Massac has begun as you can see by this notice from the site
interpreteur. Just wanted to let
everyone know of its progress. We are
excited about the new Fort that will replace this one, but we all have many
fond memories of the old one.
The
members of Fort Massac Marines want to let you know that we will continue with
our garrisons each month and plan to host our annual basic training as well as
our F&I Memorial Day weekend.
Thanks to all of you who have supported the Fort and our group in the
past. We hope to see all of you again soon.
Votre
Serviteur,
John
Ward
Capitaine
Fort
Massac Marines
“By
10:00 am. Friday, two more blockhouses were down and the third one came down by
10:15. We now have rubble and little of
the stockade left. – Sheila
John – I’d like to thank you and
the Milice for the get well card and the “medicine”. They serve to remind me that the Milice is a great group of
people. I’m on the mend, the operation
got all the cancer, life is good.
Thanks again. Your obt servt,
Denny Duffy.
Improving
your French
If
you want to work on your French vocabulary, you might wish to subscribe to CBC
Radio One’s Word of the Week; every Friday on “C’est la Vie” (www.radio.cbc.ca/programs/castlavie),
they take five minutes to spotlight a particular word and its usage. Then they send out an e-mail putting it all
in writing, for folks like me who learn better by reading things. (They also archive the radio discussion in
RealAudio www.radio.cbc.ca/programs/cestlavie/subscription.html
to subscribe to the Word of the Week mailing list.
An
index to all the words they’ve done so far is at www.radio.cbc.ca/programs/cestlavie/words/index.html.
(submitted
by Joyce Matson)
Flints
are important in having an excellent lock.
Use good flints that are large enough.
Early locks and Military locks used larger flints than we tend to put in
them today. If your Frizzon (stell)
doesn’t kick all the way open, try using a larger flink in stead of sanding or
trying to police the camming surface, or put your flint in bottom side up as
some early locks we made to use spall type flints which have no top or
bottom. The shaped flints we have today
did not come into major use until after 1800.
The British (PTEW!) were still using chips and spall type flints in the
war of 1812. Source: The Rifle Shoppe,
Inc., Jones, OK (submitted by Bill Sorgman)
The
rest of the story…..
We’ve
previously had a little information about the symbolism of memorial statues
where it is a famous soldier on horseback.
The statue – especially the horse – will tell you something if you know
the next few lines of text.
Our
National Archive sin Washington, DC, has actually drawn up specific regulations
as to the position of the horse in equestrian statues.
We
already knew that a soldier who died in battle is mounted on a horse that’s
rearing or cantering – with only two feet on the ground.
We
knew that three legs on the ground signifies that the rider survived the
battle, but later died of his wounds.
We
knew that a horse with all four hooves flat on the turf designates a rider
who’s been declared a national hero – and proved his mettle.
We
didn’t know….that if the soldier is standing on the ground, the horse was
killed in battle!
With
thanks to the Lake Havasu Genealogical Society Newsletter. From “The Family Tree” published by the
Ellen Payne Odom Genealogy Library, and submitted by Rod Mikel.
Folk Remedies
The
ltions and potions give below are based on fold medicines and old wives’
tales. Garlic is generally acknowledge
to be an effective tonic and aid to digestion, to be an expectorant and to have
antiseptic qualities, but you should not attempt to use garlic medicines
without first consulting your doctor.
Garlic
Lotion for Bites and Stings
Crush
2 cloves of garlic and mix with ¼ pint (1/2 cup) of warm water. Dab on affected parts.
Garlic
Poultice for Swellings and Infections
Crush
1 clove of garlic on to a clean piece of gauze or muslin and cover with another
piece of same size. Rub a little oil or
crema into the swelling or infected area and lay the poultice on top. Leave it in place until the swelling goes
down.
(submitted
by Frances & Bill Sorgman)
Announcing
a cookbook (hopefully)
If
you have any favorite recipes that you use when reenacting, please send a copy
to Lynn Cornelius, and they will be compiled into a booklet. Everyone who sends at least one recipe will
receive a copy of the booklet.
Thank
you.
Lynn
Journal
of the Milice de Ste. Famille
1015
Genevieve Pl.
Cahokia IL
62206-1403