Jim and Gabriela's Tandem Travels: We Have Arrived in the Bosom of My Ancestry

Last night at 8:45 PM we rolled into Grandma Billie’s driveway. It was a 93 mile day- my longest ever. Some rain in the morning and at times throughout the day, but aside from the wind we really have been blessed with good weather in a time of big storms.

I am writing to you from the Quinter library, just greeted by Sharon DuBois, who runs the library and graduated from Quinter High a few years behind my father. It has been a joy to read all the congratulatory comments! We depart Quinter today in grandma’s van to go meet the birth parents. We are very excited!

By the end of the day our legs were awful sore, but the adrenaline of

reaching our destination carried us as did the spirit of my heritage. About 5:30, we pulled into Hoxie, 30 miles from Quinter. We ate at the town’s Chinese restaurant (odd to find in these parts) and three old farmers sat at a table next to us. As usually happens, they asked us where we were coming from and where we were

going. “Who are your relations in Quinter?”
“Billie Flora is my grandma,” I said.

“Don’t know her, but is she related to Henry Flora,” Bill Minium, on of the old farmers said.
“Yes, that’s was my great-grandfather. Did you know him?” (He died when I was a few years old.)
“No, I just knew of him.”
The conversation continued and Bill, who mentioned my great-grandfather said, “I served in the marine corps with Duane Flora.”
This was my grandfather Leonard’s brother who was killed in a truck accident before I was born. Duane had had a childhood disease and was slightly disabled. He was drafted during the Korean War. When Jim asked Bill what kind of a person Duane was, Bill said, "He was a good, kind man." Bill later told us how his military superiors would damand that Duane march, but that because of his disbility he had major difficulty doing this and how he was harassed because of this. When I asked my grandma about it, she told of a time the family went to visit him while he was in the milirary and he had been beaten up by his superiors. They filed a complaint and had him transfered.
Yes, I am in the land of my father’s people.

We left Hoxie and headed south on Hwy. 23, which as the locals had explained each dip and crevasse, was a ribbon of hills.

But it was a glorious ride with the skies shifting from storm patterns to dusk clearness. Before we crested the final big hill, Jim said I bet we’ll see Grainfield, Park and maybe even Quinter at the top. And yes we did. Grainfield, where my grandparents held their wedding reception at the opera house after they eloped;

Park where my aunt and uncle were married in the Catholic Church; and Quinter where my parents were married in the Brethren Church. Then we left Hwy. 23 and headed east on old Hwy. 40 that was paved for two miles, then turned into a dirt road with some mud from the rain. Farther east, this was the road my father used to take to college, from Quinter to Manhattan (KSU) and then to Lawerence (KU) where he graduated as I-70 did not exist then.

As Jim says, quoting my grandma, “Time’s a wasting” and we’re off to eat at the Q-Inn before departing for Denver to meet our future. So I'll sign off for now.