Chapter XV
Last Chance –
nineteen miles southwest of Chariton on the Mormon Trail has a name that
excites the curiosity. Who named it and
why and when? We are indebted to Mrs.
Roy Hitt. There was once a town where
the church now stands. It boasted a
general store, a post office, a blacksmith shop, a brick kiln and probably
other business establishments. Little is
known and there are no dates. When a
name was needed for the post office, several were submitted but had already
been taken. Finally, someone said, ‘This
is our last chance”. They sent it in and it was accepted.
The pioneers of America, like the Hebrew
pioneers, Abraham and Moses, were prompt in setting up their altars. The first church meetings of Last Chance were
held in homes and in school houses and they named their organization ‘Last
Chance Church of Christ’. In 1867 a
building was erected at the site where the present building stands. After the turn of the century, the present
church was built. It is worthy of our
admiration. This quaint little church is
a gem of a building having something of an old world charm in its ornamental
gables and its frosted and stained glass windows. It bears all the earmarks of being revered by
the generations that have followed its founders. There have been periods when services were
not held but most of the time there have been and the church has always been
open for funeral services. At present
there is a very enthusiastic congregation.
Sunday School each Sunday and church services the first Sunday each
month at 9 o’clock. They have an active
Youth Fellowship group and a Ladies Aid.
Plans are being made to build a new church.
Nearby is its ‘City of the Dead’, centered
with three great pines, set out by the great grandmother of Fred Exley, who
lives a stone’s throw away. One of these
magnificent trees has the whispering branches of which poets sing. As one stands beneath and feels the solemnity
of its gentle, constant soughing, one gets the assurance that God is still in
His heaven and that somehow, all will surely be well with the world. Down the hillside, lie the remains of
Lafayette Sherwood. We read his
story. He was an immigrant, killed by an
ox team in 1851 one mile from Goshen and his burial was the first in this
cemetery. Tradition says that he was a
member of the Mormon train traveling thru this area. The Last Chance community has contributed its
full share of our country’s defenders as is attested by the twenty-five
soldiers who are sleeping there.
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As one strolls
among the graves at any of our cemeteries, one reads unnumbered names, familiar
to anyone who has lived very long in the county. They have come from Ireland,
Holland, Germany, Sweden and most other European countries as well as from
other states of the Union to make their homes in beautiful Iowa on their sunny
farms to live at peace with their neighbors and the world.
In the Chariton cemetery just south of the
entrance gate, stands the obelisk-like monument of John Rinehart, an Indian
Chieftain. Tradition says that he was
converted to the Christian religion. His
tribe bought four lots – enough for forty-eight graves but only a few have been
occupied. For many years after his
interment, a band from his tribe would return to Chariton each spring to
decorate his grave. Boyd Schotte’s
mother was familiar with this and Boyd describes the beautiful shells and
stones they brought with them for the art work around the grave to keep the
evil spirits away. It was done in exquisite
designs and patterns and with painstaking care.
The stones were not native to this area.
They were brilliantly colored and intermingled with some of jet black. People would take their children to see and
admire the work of the artisans and seldom, if ever, was it molested.
Few are the cemeteries that have been
honored as the resting places of five generations. Chariton cemetery has the rare distinction
and here is the sequence: In the 1880’s,
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Van Loon were laid to rest here. Their only child, Lucy became Mrs. James
Carnahan who died in 1922. Her only
child, a daughter, became Mrs. Jennie Anderson, a lifetime resident of Chariton
and whose only child was the late Glenn Anderson. His only child, Dorothy, became Mrs. Burdett
Smith and died in 1964.
Each year on Memorial Day, the Chariton
cemetery is distinguished by its “Avenue of Flags.” This was sponsored by the DAR’s and has
continued as their project.
Paul Holmberg states that Lucas county has
forty-one cemeteries – some have only two or three graves – Chariton cemetery
has eight thousand. As one walks among
the resting places of our departed, one deplores the high rate of mortality
among infants and youths before the turn of the century. How much did the world lose by their untimely
passing? Each had the immortal spark of
life, some talent that the world needed.
How many would have been doctors, nurses, ministers, teachers, writers,
wise peace keepers, musicians, agriculturists, stockmen, architects and other
needed professions and skills? Why did
they have to go and why were we permitted to live on? We, who were spared, in what measure are we
compensating for what they might have done had they lived?
And there are the soldiers and sailors of
our many wars – they who gave all to keep our great homeland livable. We pause and offer a breath of gratitude for
them, knowing that we are hopelessly in their debt. Each year we visit these hallowed spots and
we remember. It is a respite from our
feverish complexities. We pause and
think and they seem not far away. They
were here yesterday – today they are gone.
We follow them. Between today and
that day coming, how are we investing our time?
As we depart thru the gate, the words of the poet Swift come to mind “It
is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary and so universal as death,
should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind.”
Pages 61-64
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