He Who Must Be Obeyed spent some time at the Adams Museum in Deadwood, SD a few days ago. He visited with the curator about a planned exhibit on his family that went into the Gulch in 1877, one year after General Custer and Wild Bill Hickock bit the dust as they say. General Custer actually "bit the dust" but Wild Bill just hit the floor of Saloon No. 10 which is still in operation. It was probably filthier than the dust of the Greasy Grass, which makes the dying no more comfortable.
Having families whose lives coincide with the history of the Black Hills makes for interesting writing and day dreaming. I am one of those individuals whose imagination has a way of filling in all the blanks between the dry facts. One can get carried away with the what ifs and the fancy thats.
It is nice to have the family honored at the Adams Museum. The stately photograph of the immigrant mother who endured incredible hardships and difficulties, and her spinning wheel have been the basis of the display. It is good to honor people other than the infamous and the wild women who serviced them. I am sort of relieved that we do not have HBO so I don't have to watch "Deadwood." Reading the history is about all the excitement that I need. Taking a college class on the Ghost Towns and Gold Mines of the Northern Black Hills brought those days to life for me.
My own quiet Finnish immigrant ancestors left the Homestake Gold Mine to take their families a hundred miles north to the short grass prairies to obtain land of their own. They were a quiet group, along with their neighbors, simply surviving the elements of the northern high plains, establishing schools, churches, and cherishing their tight knit neighbors. Maybe the likes of Calamaty Jane were just too much for them. She died in Terry, one of those ghost towns and gold mines, the year after they left to homestead.
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