As a city kid, I was always surrounded by noise—people talking (even when they were indoors and the windows were open), cars passing by, and sirens of every kind. That was not the case out on the farms, especially in the days before steam- and diesel-powered equipment. Out there, the sounds were more likely the lowing of cows or the crowing of roosters. I imagine that when my ancestors first made their way to the prairies of southwestern Missouri, they heard mostly the wind and the songs of birds.
I am hard-pressed to identify which of my ancestors truly lived a “quiet” life. There were daily farm chores, large families, and children constantly underfoot. Perhaps some of them stepped outside at the end of a long day and looked up at the stars, but they also viewed those wide-open prairies as land to be claimed and cultivated. Earlier pioneers saw the great eastern forests as sources of lumber and wilderness to be tamed, clearing trees so they could establish farms. Relations with Indigenous peoples, at times cooperative through trade, could also turn hostile, and dangers from wildlife such as bears and cougars were never far away.
For me, respite from the noise of daily life came from parks and campgrounds in landscapes long since settled. I have written before about camping, but there were other opportunities as well. As the City of Buffalo grew into an industrial powerhouse, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux were commissioned to design a park system. It included parkways linking the Niagara River to various parks, with the crown jewel being Delaware Park, complete with a lake, wooded paths, and open meadows. It was along those parkways that we played football, and where I spent time “in nature,” watching birds and learning to identify wild plants and trees.
Later trips to places as distant and remote as Algonquin Provincial Park offered moments of real solitude. More recently, parks and trails have been as close as my own backyard, where I would head into the woods on a brisk winter day, often with a young child strapped into a backpack.
I do not know how my ancestors felt about “getting away,” but my descendants have certainly continued the tradition.
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