In 1915 my great grandpa Eddie staked his claim on this ranch where we’re now living. He got married and headed off to war. When he arrived back in Bear Den Township he proved up his claim, planting some trees, flax and wheat, building a barn and putting up fences.
Over the course of his lifetime he would watch his crops grow, his wife die too young and his children make their own mark on the land he laid claim to. He would meet a couple grandchildren and serve them his famous buns, tell them jokes and scruff their hair before leaving them all behind in death to do what they would with the place he worked so hard to keep. The red barn, his old threshing machine and dozens of other little relics of his existence are scattered sparsely about the place now to remind us that 110 years ago is not long enough to rust the old equipment to dust, but it might as well be forever.
I didn’t know my Great Grandpa Eddie, but I think of him often and wonder what parts of his blood flow through mine. I think it might be the holding on part, just like those yellow roses his wife planted in her garden all those years ago before she died suddenly and only 36 years old, leaving her children, her husband and those roses behind to bloom without her.
One day I want to write his story with the parts I know and then the way I imagined it could have been. But today I thought I’d share his story in the lyrics of the song I wrote about him. I’m honed in that sort of storytelling, so I started there…
Hear it wherever you get your music or head to www.jessieveedermusic.com to order the album.
Yellow Roses
14 and 80 acres
A couple horses and two hands
Grind the gears and swing the hammer
Turn a boy into a man
His daddy was near blind then
His brother just 13
His mom, she swept the floors though dirt like that just don’t come clean
Only North Dakota
Would make promises like this
Bring with you all your hope here
See what she can do with it
He built corrals and fences
And the family’s homestead up in time
Rode the river in the big draws
With the cowboys for a dime
But there’s something bout the work here
Made him want something of his own
Signed papers on a tar paper shack and called the land his home
Only North Dakota
Would make promises like this
Bring with you all your hope here
See what she can do with it
Only North Dakota
Where the ground turns white to green
The rain, the snow the storms they blow in
like you’ve never seen
Right there we could have left it
His dreams sprouting from the ground
But if man can make a fortress
Only man can knock it down
But when the war was over
He found himself a bride
Yellow roses in the garden
And their children were her pride
Lost money on the cattle
Lost some on the grains
Lost her when she went to sleep and did not wake again
Only North Dakota
Would make promises like this
Bring with you all your hope here
See what she can do with it
Only North Dakota
Where the ground turns white to green
The rain, the snow the storms they blow in
like you’ve never seen
Now a man cannot give up there
This man didn’t have the mind
He made biscuits in the morning
Taught all the babes to ride
When the neighbors fell on hard times
He lent a hand or bought them out
And watered yellow roses in the heat of summer droughts
Only North Dakota
Would make promises like this
Bring with you all your hope here
See what she can do with it
Only North Dakota
Where the ground turns white to green
The rain, the snow the storms they blow in
like you’ve never seen
Now I stand here with my children
One on my hip, one holds my hands
Another generation breathing life into this land
We count pennies and our blessings
And to the memories we cling
And down in the barnyard yellow roses bloom here every spring.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 