Buffalo Soldier Monument, and to visit Fort Riley. My grandmother,
Martha Cichon (née Fitts), was born there in 1903 and grew up on post. She used to
say that in Junction, a girl had two choices for a husband: a soldier or a
railroad man. She married my grandfather (“Geegum”) who was a young
soldier in the Air Corps. We thought we would take pictures of the old part
of the post, and of the chapel where I assumed they had been married. But
my sister e-mailed that they were married in Abeline because of a recent
death in the family. So we stopped first in Abeline, found the Catholic
church, and took pictures. It is a very nice building. But afterward, my dad
e-mailed me that they had been married by a justice of the peace. Oh well!
Geegum was Catholic and so I assumed they would have been married in a
Catholic church. Gram was Unitarian Universalist but agreed to raise Mom
and her sister Margaret as Catholics. But it was a nice visit anyway, and the
old post buildings are the same ones where Gram grew up and where Mom
spent a few years as well. The rest of the trip was easy, although traffic on I-
70 in Missouri seemed much heavier than on the Kansas side.
Below: The train station in Abeline, and the old part of the post at Fort Riley, Kansas.
Monument to the Buffalo Soldiers in Fort Riley commemorates the Ninth Cavalry
Regiment and the other three segregated regiments from the old Army.
Everything is up to date in Kansas City!
No comments:
Post a Comment