Cynthia Ann Parker: Frontier Life Likely Not as Pleasant as 'Little House on the Prairie' and Other Random Notes

Well, I got my Evergy bill today and it is about $16.00 less than than last month, mostly consisting of the heating cost, of course, but that's at least some improvement, although still outrageous, and I shudder to think how much it would be if I actually kept my apartment warm. I will not report the temperature on my thermostat. I am cold right now with my coat on and my space heater blasting me in my dining room as I sit down to write this at 10:30 p.m. Oh, well, soon we won't have a heat bill any more for a while. I am resolved to be grateful for everything I have to be grateful for, which is a lot: food, clothing, a roof, a bed, the only job I ever liked other than playing music, which I left many years ago, and one morning a week to sleep in during the school year. Today I filled up my tank with gas at $2.58, the lowest I've seen in town, found a copy of The Little Prince for a dollar at the library and checked out a book about Cynthia Ann Parker. If you don't know who Cynthia Ann Parker was, I didn't know who she was until a few days ago when I discovered a children's book about her at school. Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped by Cherokee Indians in Texas in 1836 when she was about 9 years old. The book I checked out is called Frontier Blood: The Saga of the Parker Family, by Jo Ella Powell Exley. It is filled with much more information than I really need to know, but fascinating, just the same. She was finally taken by the Texas Rangers to her white family 24 years later. My question had been why did it take them so long to find her? By then she had married a Cherokee warrior and had three children with him, was completely acculturated to life with the Cherokees, and the authorities had tried for quite a while to convince her to come with them. I don't think she really went willingly when they finally did get her and her two year-old daughter, Prairie Flower. I had read elsewhere that her younger son died of disease and the baby they captured her with died about three years later, after which Cynthia Ann apparently lost the will to live, stopped eating and drinking and died at the age of 43. There are conflicting reports about whether her husband was killed or whether he survived. The book I'm reading says he was killed, but other reports, including that of the oldest son, Quanah Parker, say he survived. In any case, what a story. From what I read about life on the frontier during my favorite century, the 19th century, it was really a pretty rough time to be alive, especially if you lived in parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North and South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. I think Kansas was also pretty bloody from what I have read in another book, War to the Knife, by Thomas Goodrich. I have skimmed about half of the book and have more to read about Cynthia Ann, but my conclusion so far is that we have a pretty easy life right now compared to the "wild west" during the 19th century. I have a feeling that frontier life in the 1800s might not have been as pleasant as portrayed in the "Little House on the Prairie" TV series (of which I never watched a single episode). Maybe instead of being so captured by the current geopolitical quagmire in which we find ourselves, we might gain some perspective by learning more about history. I mentioned the other day about how people in general are not very nice to each other, and the more you learn about history, the more you find out this is true. We might not be experiencing widespread kinetic, blood-letting conflict on a daily basis in our state or on our continent at this moment in history, but we sure seem to do a lot of verbal and psychological attacks on each other in the media and in politics, and it really is a disgrace when you think about it. So, in conclusion, I am particularly grateful right now to be living in this century with all its trials and difficulties, rather than living in a sod house on the prairie in the 19th century. There is more to learn about Cynthia Ann, and I might share more later, but meanwhile, I am going to sign off for this evening and try to retire at a decent hour and not throw my old bones too much out of whack so I don't miss my political fix at 9:00 in the morning.