Till Eternity Shall End

Charles and Hester were born three months and seventy-five miles apart. At about age eight, their destinies collided. Charles was one of probably less than a handful of white children living in a predominately black community, a community explicitly established for people escaping slavery. The dynamics of his family life are unknown. Still, we know that the woman referred to as his mother was European, perhaps Irish, and his stepfather was a man of color, a man escaping enslavement in Kentucky.

Hester spent her earliest years surrounded by several sisters, a brother, and loving parents. Tragically, both parents died before she reached her ninth birthday, and even though she was surrounded by family tied to her by blood, circumstances prevented them from offering her and her siblings a home together. At eight, Hester found herself alone in the home of people who were virtual strangers to her and in a town that was several miles from her family land.

They met as children in the Elgin Settlement (North Buxton, Ontario, Canada) when the family of Thomas and Margaret Walker Brown took in Hester.  Family lore reports a close friendship between Charles and two Brown family brothers. It has been said that the friendship of the young boys is how Charles met Hester Freeman, the orphan who was taken in by the family.

Perhaps Charles and Hester were drawn together by the sense each had of being alone in the larger world, each in their way different from the children around them. Whatever drew them together forged a bond that lasted a lifetime. They attended school and church together, and because family lore often refers to them as childhood sweethearts, they may have been together often. By age nineteen, they acknowledged their love and married in 1875. 

They remained in the Buxton community for the next ten years. In 1885, they joined members of their community and answered the call to become Homesteaders in Nebraska. It is hard to imagine how difficult the decision must have been. Though often frowned upon in Canada, interracial marriage was legal. In Nebraska, like many other US states, such marriages were not legal, and couples could be fined and/or jailed for their unions. Laws against miscegenation remained on the books in many states until the early-to-mid 1960s. The risk they took was not just to themselves. If their marriage was not deemed legal, what was the status and future of their children? 

Charles and Hester determined that the possibility of a better future was more compelling than the risks involved. They staked their lives and the lives of their children on the loyalty and discretion of life-long friends and neighbors. They hid in plain sight and built an enduring legacy.

Youngest son, Bill's first description of his father, Charles, is in a poem written when he was thirteen. The poem is about his sharpening an ax, trying to use it, and coming close to doing harm to himself. His father’s response came in the form of “a great long switch.” 

The disciplinarian father is shaded by descriptions of him sneaking lumps of brown sugar to his grandchildren. He called them by pet names and admonished them not to tell Grandma about the sugar.

Charles did not hide his love for his wife from anyone. Hester had a favorite mulberry tree that Charles protected. His oldest grandchildren reported that the only time they remember his being angry with them was when they picked fruit from that tree. His love was so evident that the neighbor men accused him of making their lives hard by spoiling Hester when they did not spoil their wives. 

According to cousins Lena and Ava Speese, he did not allow bull snakes to be killed because they were beneficial; he planted crops by signs from the moon and had “pet” watermelons. 

A couple of young men stole the watermelons one night. Charles tracked them from their footprints. One of the culprits said later that Charles confronted them after church the next morning, "He didn’t raise his voice, call us names or swear; just talked nice and quiet. But we felt smaller and smaller and smaller."

He was a religious man. A Methodist in Canada, he and his family were members of Samaritan Presbyterian Church in Overton, Nebraska. There, Charles served as the church's first Sunday School Superintendent. When the family moved to Cherry County, NE, they were, again, part of a Methodist congregation, where Charles remained an active church member. Son, Bill, recalled Charles's long prayers before meals.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of Charles’s character is that he didn’t simply walk away from the life that he was handed. Did he ever consider a life outside of the Black community? Was he so immersed in the community that succored him that there was no thought of a different life? Or perhaps his love for Hester bound him to his community roots. 

Hester Freeman Meehan was often referred to as “little but mighty.” She bore the weight of sorrow at a very early age, losing her parents to death, and her siblings to the reality of life as an orphan.

She was said to be gentle but outspoken when necessary. Hester bore eleven children, four of whom died before the age of two. She lamented the loss of a loved one in a note preserved by her son, Bill.

          "Dearest loved on though has left me, mine the sorrow thing the joy ...

          The vacent [sic] place the empty chair. We see it day by day.

          And oh it fills our hearts with care since our loved one went away.

          But though the light has left us heare [sic] like the seting [sic] of the sun

          We'll trust the .... father, Dear, and say thy will be done."

Though perhaps not unusual among the early western homesteaders, Hester was a woman unconstrained by racial and gender stereotypes. She was a landowner in Dawson County, owned her livestock, and controlled her money. She acted as a midwife in Overton and DeWitty. Unfortunately, there is no record of the births she assisted with.

The knowledge of how swiftly family units could change due to personal disaster or societal perversions was well known to Hester. Her granddaughter, Ava Speese Day, reported that Hester lost contact with her siblings for many years, but they were eventually reunited. She also maintained ties to her grandfather's Anderson family in Ontario. She saved images of her children and extended family and passed them on to her children.

In 1923, Hester quietly passed away in her sleep.

Dare when stygian mists are thickest,

Undaunted yet to struggle on,

When hearts are cold and prayers are ashes,

Still face indurate to the sun.

Though nights are dark, a light of valor,

Burns yet though fanned with faintest breath,

And though the earth be rent beneath you,

Dare bravely still to battle death.

When your life blood's surely ebbing,

Dare gaze with calm and fearless eye,

And hear the mighty thunder talking,

Dare greet the lightening from the sky.

When Hell's cruel doors are gaping-hungry,

Rise yet and dare your best to give,

Dare die unconquered, firm, unflinching,

With greater courage dare to live.

Poem by William H. Meehan

The poem, Dare, written by Charles and Hester's youngest son, embodies their spirit and the example they set for their children. Through countless generations, we continue to dare.