It has been 78 years since George Kammer moved to Brule. Mom is the only one of the original Brule Kammer family still living. My wife, Valorie Anne Cowan , myself, mom and my dad, Bill, are planning to fly from Seattle, Washington to Denver, Colorado, and then to drive east from Denver to Brule. This isn't the first time mom has traveled back to Brule, but it was to be my first experience.

Mom and dad arrived at my home in Kent, Washington, at 4 AM. I opened the door to the garage and saw mom peek her head of silver hair from behind our car as they loaded their luggage. Mom and dad were in good spirits even though they had not gotten much sleep because their alarm clock had gone off at 11:30 PM! Dad soon described how he had been preparing for the trip by buying fresh liver from the local Fall City butcher. He explained that liver is packed with the B-vitamins which aid the body when under stress. We fondly refer to dad as "Dr. Z" because of his extensive knowledge of vitamins and their use to insure good health.

We arrived at the airport an hour before our departure. We were unaware that we needed to have picture identification, but luckily everyone had brought their driver's license. Mom mentioned that she had almost decided to leave hers at home, but decided to bring it at the last minute! We boarded the Boeing 757 at 6 AM and were airborne at 6:15. As we rose above the clouds the pilot made a fly-by of Mount Rainier. We flew so close that we could almost see every crack in the massive ice glaciers around the summit. Fluffy clouds obscured our view almost all the way from Seattle to Denver, with only a slight break as we approached Denver. Dad really enjoyed his vegetarian breakfast and commented over and over again how tasty it was. He would click his teeth together and say, "ummm!" as he rolled his eyes! Just before landing I moved my watch one hour ahead since we had crossed one time zone. It was 10:30 AM, Denver time.

The weather in Denver was sunny with temperatures in the upper 60's. We climbed aboard a van which took us from the airport to the car rental agency. We loaded our luggage into the car but unfortunately the rental van driver did not give us any instructions about exiting the lot and keeping the rental contract handy. So, as we were leaving I tried to exit in the wrong lane and the lady at the gate had a fit, yelling at us to back up and move into the other lane. Then, she wanted to see our contract but I couldn't find it! A search of the car ended when we found it in the trunk with our luggage. Fortunately, during our search I happened to notice that the car window had a crack in it. Since we had refused the rental agency insurance, we made them note the damage on the rental contract! Dad commented, "See. Everything happens for a reason!" We all were to see the truth in that statement throughout the rest of our trip.

The Denver International Airport is located over ten miles from Denver. Since we had gone directly from the terminal into a van and had arrived at the rental agency without knowing exactly where we were, it was confusing to try to find ourselves on the map. When we asked the lady from the car rental agency what direction to go, she only shouted, "Go! Go! Go on!!" And, since we were blocking traffic, other impatient customers were honking their horns. Valorie hunted and hunted on the map to try to find the cross-streets as we came to them, but it seemed like we were going in the wrong direction! To make matters worse, the freeway was never identified with signs so we didn't even know what highway we were on! Valorie finally realized that the airport we were looking at on the map was the old Denver airport and "no wonder we thought we were going in the wrong direction!"

The drive from Denver towards Brule went smoothly. Mom told us a few stories about growing up on the farm. She shuddered as she recalled the dust storms during the period known as the "Dust Bowl." She noted that "dust would come in through even the smallest cracks in the house. It settled on everything." The "Dust Bowl" was the result of a combination of severe drought and farming practices on the Great Plains in a "150,000-square-mile area, encompassing the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring sections of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico." As Quest of a Hemisphere describes it, "through the years... more ground was plowed, harrowed, and cultivated, until the soil was powdered into dust. By the early 1930's the prairie wind was scooping up the loose top soil and swirling it into the air. In blinding blizzards of dust, boys rode horses hitched to plows in an effort to guide the animals across a field. The furrows were soon filled with 'blow dirt'; seed was whipped out of the shallow turf and blown away; houses and fences were partly buried under drifts of sand and loam. Congressmen came from Washington to see the black blizzards which choked livestock and human beings and drove farmers from their homes. It was a national calamity."

In another story, she remembered locusts and how they came across the countryside in clouds. She noted that "it seemed like they would eat anything in their path, even the telephone poles!" Plagues of locusts have been noted in the Bible and in Mormon history. The dictionary describes them as migratory grasshoppers. The female grasshoppers "lay their eggs in holes in the ground in the fall. The eggs hatch in the spring, and the young reach maturity in July or August. When a normally non-migratory grasshopper reproduces too rapidly for its food supply, it becomes migratory and undergoes extensive changes in external form." Today the locust infestations are combated with insecticides sprayed by planes and truck-mounted mist blowers.

It crossed my mind that perhaps the locusts and the dust along with the other difficulties of farming were reasons that prompted my grandfather to retire from farming in 1935.

As we traveled, it was amazing was how different the countryside was from western Washington. Mile after mile was nothing but rolling hills. Most of it was fenced and some of it was being farmed. Sometimes the land looked much like the arid country in eastern Washington with sage brush and tumbleweeds. I commented that it would be easy to get lost if you wandered out into the hills, especially if it was cloudy and you couldn't use the sun as a guide for direction. It is difficult to imagine the determination of the early settlers who followed the Oregon Trail from Independence Missouri through Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and finally to Oregon. Their trip of about 2000 miles was similar to the length of our trip. The difference is that we were accomplishing it in little more than half a day. Theirs took six months!

Occasionally we passed farms with expensive irrigation sprinklers, the kind which move on wheels in a circle, covering an area over a mile in diameter. It was obvious that water is the life-blood in this arid land. We were fortunate to see several antelope browsing in tall grass beside the road and even saw several deer. Often we would see hawks circling lazily in a warm updraft as they searched for a live meal.

As we neared the Nebraska border we noticed that Spring had not yet arrived in the heartland. At home in western Washington, the trees were leafing out and plants were bursting forth with new buds. But here, the cottonwood trees still stood bare and naked. Mom was the first to point out that occasionally a large empty bird nest could be seen in the branches of the cottonwoods. Perhaps the hawks would soon return as the leaves burst forth?

We passed Julesburg by mid-afternoon and soon were in Nebraska. The freeway closely follows the South Platte River. It was evident that the trees need the water provided by the river since I could easily tell where the river was by the stands of cottonwoods on its shores. In contrast, the surrounding land was barren of trees except where they had been planted by farmers as windbreaks. We soon passed by the freeway exit to Brule and within eight miles took the Ogallala exit to our motel. Mom commented that Ray and Norma Siebold should already have arrived as well as "Tiny" Wiggins along with Linda and John Bauler. Linda is Tiny's daughter. The lady at the Super 8 was aware of our reservations and commented that she had remembered filling out our reservation cards several weeks before. Mom and dad had room 146 right across the hall from ours and we agreed that we'd rest a while and then get together for dinner around 6 PM.

In the mean time, Valorie and I drove over to the Ogallala Chamber of Commerce to get whatever information we could. The lady there was very helpful and gave us several pamphlets about Ogallala, Keith County and its history. As we were leaving we noticed a display case with an enormous mounted fish in it. It was a record-breaking bass caught on two-pound test line in Lake McConaughy. As we were to find out later, mom's brother, George, worked for a time on the project to build the dam on the North Platte River which had created Lake McConaughy!

We knocked on mom and dad's door at 6 PM and headed out for dinner, ending up at the Stagecoach restaurant located just over the freeway from the motel. Their sign advertised that they had a twenty-four foot long salad bar, but there were not many patrons in the restaurant and unfortunately the salad bar did not look very fresh. Dad and I both ordered rib-eye steak and the meat was the most memorable and tasty of any that we had while in Nebraska. We were definitely in cattle country and most of what was offered on the menu included steaks of all kinds.

After dinner we explored around town and then returned to the motel to see if we could find Tiny, Linda and John. We asked for their room number at the front desk and quickly found the room. Mom knocked on the door and it opened slowly. An old lady poked her head out but she was a complete stranger! With many apologies, we returned to the front desk and found that they had directed us to the wrong room. Now, given the right information, we knocked on the door on the other side of the hall and was welcomed by Tiny, Linda and John. Tiny is the Bessie's daughter and is given that name because of her size. She lives in Wagon Mound, New Mexico and traveled here with her daughter Linda. Linda and her husband John live in Arizona and were glad to meet us. John talked about his occupation as a bee-keeper and we heard stories about how Linda used to drive eighteen-wheel trucks. In her words, "that had always been my dream, so I did it." We also learned that John and Linda were vegetarians; they ate no meat or meat products. I'm sure they found it difficult to find satisfying choices from the menus during their stay! We visited for a short while and made plans to meet for breakfast tomorrow morning at Cassel's Family Restaurant just one block north. Tiny mentioned that they had talked to Bill and Beverly Martens and would call them to have them also meet us for breakfast.

We next found Ray and Norma's room and visited with them. Norma has been doing research on the Kammer and Bartlett families and had many pictures and much information to show everyone. They too agreed to meet for breakfast to plan our activities. Valorie decided to stay and talk with Ray and Norma, but I headed back to my room to greet my bed as a welcome friend after a long day of travel.

As I lay in bed, I recalled how mom had told Tiny that sometimes she can see faces and had seen the face of Ruby, her sister. Ruby had passed away many years ago, but mom said that she looked as she did when she was about 25. I declined to mention that several months ago I too had once been laying in bed when suddenly I saw movement and faces. This had surprised and puzzled me, but I had not thought much about it until now. Had one of those faces been Ruby's?