Last week ended with more genealogy research on Beau’s family. We visited the county courthouse recorder’s office and searched through old land records, connecting dots and learning new things. We visited towns like Sarles, where Main St is painted on a wooden sign and the postman waits for customers in his car rather than in the modest building that received 6 letters that day and “never” gets any tourists. We stopped in the town of Hannah, where the only business that really remains is a cafe, and old buildings are torn down before they fall down, like the restaurant Beau’s grand-uncle Hans once owned there. A lovely older couple stopped to chat with us strangers, turned out the man knew Hans, so we weren’t entirely strangers after all. Small towns make for a small world, but the centennial marker looks more like the town’s grave marker: Hannah, Born 1896, Died 1996. Gone are the railroad and so many of the residents that once called this place home.
