“When we learn to live without war
then we will have reached a place where our progress will indeed be rapid.”
Introduction/Biography
Editor's Note: Some punctuation was added, and other edits were made for readability. Most of the misspellings and antiquated spellings and use of terms and colloquialisms were left in their original form for the sake of authenticity. The last word of each page was repeated on the following page as was the editorial custom in his time. In the biography, hyphenated names are patrilineal, maiden name first, married name second; 'father-husband'. Non-hyphenated names are otherwise used.
These 19 pages are the only known writings of Henry Allan Capps (Feb 1, 1879 - May 3, 1963), written under the pen name Allan Good. We are not sure when this text was written, and we can assume it was composed sometime between 1930 and 1960. With such a clear fascination with technological advance, it should be no revelation to learn that rather than writing a manuscript by hand, Henry painstakingly typed this story with a machine. If you have used a mechanical typewriter, you understand what I mean. Capps’ pen name clearly comes from his own middle name in combination with the maiden name of his mother, Mary Margaret Ann Good (1845-1905). It is not surprising he had chosen his matrilineal title, considering, as we will see, he seems to have had a profound appreciation for women and the mother principle. Tracing back through the maiden names of the mothers, we find the names Byer, Chestnut, Keller, Good, and McIntosh. Byre is of German descent, the others are of the British Isles. The patrilineal name of Capps can be traced back to Wales, and etymologically speaking, means a 'hat maker'.
Henry’s father, who’s namesake, Enoch, is that of one of the more enigmatic of biblical figures,“who walked with the gods, but was not a god.” Enoch Richmond Capps (1837- 1916) was born in North Carolina, He first married Martha Swain on the 23rd of April 1857. Enoch and Martha had two daughters Aleatha (1858) and Elizabeth Jane (1860). After fighting in the civil war (1861-1865) he never returned to his wife and daughters who, naturally, assumed he had died in the war. But Why?
Indiana had, by state constitution, been a "free state" since long before the civil war and well before Enoch’s birth. News was spreading faster in those days thanks to the telegraph, and everyone was hearing about John Brown, Harriet “The General” Tubman, and the Underground Railroad. North Carolina joined the Confederacy with some reluctance, mainly due to the presence of Unionist sentiment within the state. Throughout the war, North Carolina remained a divided state. It is not clear if Enoch's reason for leaving the Confederacy to relocate to Yankee territory was a political one, or if he was just swept away in the confusion of the times. Regardless, Whether interpersonal, religious, political or otherwise, relationships are always complex.
There is apparently evidence that Enoch had continued his military service and had not actually gone AWOL so to speak, however he did in fact leave the confederacy, geographically speaking, and his family there as well.
A Capps historian tells the story thus:
“Enoch and his brother Benjamin enlisted in the Confederate Army and were mustered into Company F, 16th Regiment, North Carolina Troops. They then marched to Virginia and saw action at Seven Pines on13 May 1862. The skirmishing continued through the summer and on 13 Aug 1862 near Gordonsville, Virginia. Enoch Deserted and headed west. Another brother Elisha was in the Union Army, company K Tennessee Calvary, and died while in the army".
We do not know much of anything about Enoch’s life with Martha Swain during that melee of civil unrest in war times because he did not speak of that story. We could postulate an infinite number of scenarios that might have led to his abandonment of the confederacy and of his wife, and the reason why his brothers were fighting with The Union, yet he was not. Perhaps he was an informant to the Union Army? We also know, as we will see, that Enoch’s grave stone reflects a Union sentiment. Although the facts here make it easy to adopt this story if we so choose, the truth is that this is merely an unsubstantiated presumption. We will probably never know the whole story, and the mystery of Enoch’s life in North Carolina will remain a mystery.
After leaving the battlefield and moving on to explore the Western frontier, Henry's father Enoch went as far west as Billings, Montana and later settled in Vermillion county, Indiana, near the town of Dana. There he married his second wife, Mary Margaret Ann Good. She was born on the 5th of December 1845 in Lincoln county Kentucky, the daughter of Joseph and Millie Good. Joseph Good, a blacksmith, had moved his family from Kentucky to Vermillion County Indiana after 1850.
Mary birthed her first daughter, Rose, in March of 1866. Father Enoch was working as a day laborer, while mother Mary was keeping house, and the family continued to grow. The two had been officially wed the previous year in Clinton Indiana in the summer of 1865. Enoch and Mary Capps lived in Vermillion County near Dana until moving in 1891 to Douglas County, Missouri to homestead near the town of Ava. During their 24 years in the countryside near Dana, the world of modern innovations provided the telephone, automobiles, traffic lights, motorcycles, record players, household sewing machines and typewriters, Levi's overalls, barbed wire, and rollercoasters...and Henry was certainly noticing these amazing and exciting new things.
Between 1867 when Rose was born, and 1891 when they moved to Missouri, all 14 of the children had been born: Rose, Laura, Alfred, William, Samuel, John, Benjamin, Henry, Enoch III, Flora, Pearl, Paul, Hattie, and George. As infant death was not uncommon then, Rose, John, Ben, and Enoch Sylvanus all died under age 2. Although Enoch was likely unaware of it, his first wife, Martha, had also passed away in 1873 aged 32, leaving their two daughters behind as he had done.
Henry Allan Capps was born in Newport, Indiana 10 miles northeast of Dana. Dana was a fledgling new community that had been established only a few years before Henry's birth by a railroad promoter. This was during a time of technological prosperity historians now call the ”gilded age” after a Mark Twain novel. As a result of the railroad, the town of Dana was a rapidly developing community that grew almost 500% from around 180 people at the time of Henry’s birth to 893 by the time he was 20. This would have influenced Henry as a young man in regards to the exponential technological growth of human evolution. The first transcontinental telegraph message was sent in 1861 about the time that Enoch and his brothers went to war, and “Golden Spike” that commemorates the consecration of the transcontinental railroad that unified the east coast with the west, was driven in 1869, the year after the family had settled in Indiana. Henry in his own life would see a complete transformation of human society with the advent of the electric lightbulb, polio vaccine, airplanes, radio and television, incredible feats of engineering such as skyscrapers and massive bridges, nuclear technology, and so much more.
After the family relocated to Douglas County Missouri near the town of Ava. Some of the kids were now older and starting lives of their own. William purchased property while Samuel and Henry had found a farmhouse to rent. In that year Henry married Estella Mary Chestnut on November 8th. They birthed their first daughter Coral in 1901.
Dana had been growing very quickly as Henry and his siblings were coming of age. Ava, although quieter, was certainly growing as well. Ava had a population of around 200 when the family arrived, and around 700 by the time Henry’s son Basil was born 20 years later. Less than one month after the birth of Alfred in 1903, the Wright brothers took flight for the first time at Kitty Hawk. Aviation was born, things were looking up, and the sky was the limit. Estella had become pregnant with Delmar who would be born in November of 1905, and there were more children to come. Good times, however, are always followed by difficult ones. Henry's mother died 19 April 1905 of pneumonia, and Coral, their first born died of diphtheria shortly after. Mary Good and Coral were buried together on a farm near Ava . Estella and Henry took sons Alfred and Delmar in search of new frontiers. Estella’s parents had been wed in Wellington, Kansas before relocating to Good Hope where She and Henry were to meet. They would eventually find their way to Sumner County Kansas, Estella’s childhood home, yet they would take a scenic route to get there.
Opal was born in Kaw City in 1908 in the Arkansas River valley about 280 miles southwest of Ava. Kaw City, which, up until 1889, was in an unclaimed territory that would later become the Oklahoma Territory and then eventually in 1907, became the state of Oklahoma. Kaw is another name for the Kansa Indians after whom the state of Kansas is named. Kaw City is about 30 miles south of what is today the Kansas-Oklahoma border near Ponca City on the banks of the Arkansas River. Soon after Opal was born, Alfred began attending public school, and the family had been renting a house from a Native American woman on Big Hill Road in the Indian reservation town of Osage, 6 miles east of Kaw City.
Henry’s brother Paul also had made the journey to Oklahoma and was renting from the same woman. Presumably Alfred as well, whom Henry's kids apparently called Uncle Ed.
On January 13, 1910, the world's first public radio broadcast took place in New York City. Basil Everett Capps was born one month later. The Osage County Indian reservation was their home for roughly 6 years, and as the river of life flows, the family soon moved again in the direction of further prosperity.
Sometime in April of 1912, after reading some ads in a newspaper to go West for land in Utah, and perhaps partially inspired by the travels of Enoch before he had met Henry's mother in Indiana, Henry took all the kids, his wife, His wife’s mother Serrilda, 'Uncle Ed', and possibly even Enoch, to Montana by way of the iconic canvas-topped 'covered wagon'. Henry’s brother Paul stayed on the reservation.
Brick streets had been common throughout the midwest since the 1880s, but transportation infrastructure between cities was rare until the 30s, and it was Eisenhower who's legislation paved the way for highways in the 50s. The Chisholm Trail of the wild west, was what is today the Interstate Highway I-35. More specifically though, the Chisholm wagon trail passed relatively close to Kaw through Bramen. Most likely, after passing Blackwell and Bramen, they would pass Caldwell and Estella’s birthplace of Doster the following day, and then in the days to come through eastern Kansas probably through Medicine Lodge, The Cimmaron Crossing, Bent’s Old Fort, and Denver before arriving at Rabbit Ears Pass in Colorado near where today's US highway 40 crosses the Continental Divide, which was little more than a glorified white rock road that had began construction the year before in 1911. The pass is named after Rabbit Ears Peak which has the shape of rabbit ears, of which the smaller ear has since gone a bit floppy after a chunk of it fell off. The summit of the trail is marked with a stone monument. From there they would descend the 7 miles from the peak to Steamboat Springs making sure not to let the heavy wagon roll away on its own. After hearing of work, they would follow north to Billings where for the next two years they would call home. Agnes was born about a year after their arrival on September 13, 1913.
Family historian Pam Lehrling relates this story as such:
“[Henry’s daughter] Opal recalls that when she was 5 she moved with her family from Kansas to Montana. They traveled in a covered wagon pulled by horses. She says the thing that she remembers most is the sage taste of the prairie chickens her father shot and they ate along the way. Let me explain a prairie chicken is not like a real chicken. It is a bird much smaller than chickens as we know them. They live on the plains and fly very fast. They are brown and compact. They look like hen pheasants when they fly. The reason they had the sage flavor was because of the sagebrush where they hunted for their food and lived. A few years later my grandmother says, their whole family again returned to Kansas, but this time by train. Her father, Henry Capps was a teacher and then a superintendent of schools. He was a very quiet, very smart man. When I was born he wrote a few pages explaining how amazing the world would be in my lifetime. He said he knew he would never see spaceships and men on the moon, but he was sure that in my lifetime it would be achieved.”
Basil remembers his childhood adventure:
“I know it must have taken some extra planning to get in every thing that we would need. We started out with a covered wagon a tent and some food like flour, sugar and lard. We went west and north west thru Western Kansas and Eastern Colorado. We crossed the divide at the Rabbit Ear pass. Dad cut three small trees to tie on back of the wagon so the wagon would not run up on the horses. We all walked down the steep part and Alfred led the extra horse. We made it with no trouble. When we were in the timber it was the kids' job to pick up sticks for the fire and when we were on the grass land we picked up cow chips.
Dad did the hunting and fishing, and he said he could get one trout for every bug he could find. He usually found them under a rock. Dad also hunted for sage hens or rabbits. When we arrived in Steamboat Springs, we camped by another traveler. They were going to Billings, Montana. He said they were needing men at the new sugar refinery. Dad decided we would go there. I remember Opal and I were in the back of the wagon and she wanted to count the ant hills. she did good but I counted one, and the next was one, and the next was one...and I never got off of one. We arrived in Billings safe and sound... Dad rented a house and we moved in. Dad went to work at the sugar plant at $(9100 per week he worked 6 days a week. I remember one time I headed for the toilet and there was a path but the snow was higher than I was. I could not see over the snow. Agnes was born in Billings, montana. Then in 1914 mother got a letter from Jim Chestnut (her grandpa) he wanted her to come back and run the farm and he said that he would give her the farm. He said he was no longer able to work the farm.
Oh, I forgot to tell you there was no 5 & 10 pounds of sugar. All was put in 100 pound sacks, all of the stacking was by hand. also the loading. Uncle Ed (Dad’s brother) worked there at the plant, he stayed after we left. (My son) Gene mentioned that when we were out there. We were there in 1978 or 1979. It had been 65 years. (We san Gene in Washington) Dad said we made about 35 miles a day on the days when he did not go fishing or hunting. Then in 1914 we came back to sumner county on a train. Some got to ride home in George Kubiks new 1913 or 1914 Ford the rest came home in a wagon with all clothes and boxes. We decided the train was faster than the covered wagon.”
There is a newspaper clipping announcing the arrival of Kubric in his “new ford car“. Ford himself , who shared Henry’s namesake as well as his visionary insight, once said,” If I had asked the people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses’.”
So the family then returned to the midwest to tend to the Chestnut family farm near Caldwell in the south-central Kansas county of Sumner. This was a day's journey to the north by wagon from their previous home in Osage County Oklahoma. Census records tell that by 1920, Henry’s residence was along the Chisholm trail route, in Bluff Township of Sumner County 5 miles west of Caldwell, Kansas where they laid claim, with a bank mortgage, to a semi-permanent residence on the on the mailing route of Rural Route 2 at family residence #54.
Father Enoch had been living with Henry and family in Osage, and then in Kansas, until his death on Valentines Day 1916. Strangely enough, as his enigmatic character elicits, he was apparently buried with a 'Great Army of the Republic' emblem of Civil War Union Army veterans.
In the summer of 1920, tragedy again struck the family. Estella, to whom they generally just addressed as Stella, wrote the following letter (with black edges indicating unfavorable news) to her mother, Serrilda Beck-Blankenship’s, side of the family.:
Caldwell, Kansas
July 18 '20
Dear Parents,
Well you see I have
sad news to tell you. The lord had
to take little Marvin and the baby. We
all got tomane poison. Little Marvin
died II and the baby died the 15. Say,
it was sure hard to give them
up. Opal and Basil has been offel
bad and is better, but we sit up
and give them medicine every night.
Henry is able to go around and I am
offel weak. We got it through thrashing
in canned tomatoes I guess or pumpkin.
Write us a little encouragement
We are all broken-hearted
From your grieving daughter, Stella and Family
To Mother and all
Estella died in 1923 at age 39 from pneumonia, or perhaps of desolate sorrow. Henry at 43 endured another 37 years single. Or so the story goes. He would later become a 'milkman' for a company called Arkansas City Cooperative Milk. In any case, the children were able to help him with household chores their mother had done before, and despite difficulties, they all persevered. The next year, in 1924, their eldest son Alfred too died at age 21.
Five years later, Henry's daughter Opal had married to Clarence Wirtz and soon they had their first child, Don, on the 3rd of April, 1929. The first public television broadcast took place six months later on September 30, 1929. Their daughter Colleen was born in 1931.
Henry by this time was very well established in the community around Caldwell and had volunteered as 'Enumerator' to keep records for the census bureau of 1930 where he recorded that he was self-employed as a farmer. Delmar had taken a wife, Bonnie. Agnes would marry Oscar. Merlin married Marie Antonson, Melvin married Cora Lucille Slayden, and Basil was working in sales at a grocery store.
Both Henry's mother and father, his wife Estella, and four of his children, Coral, Alfred, Marvin, and Kermit had all long passed away.
By the year 1940 Henry, while still living in the same house on Rural Route 2, had taken a job delivering milk, presumably for Arkansas City Cooperative Milk which was 30 miles east of Caldwell. Agnus's husband Oscar was delivering for a bakery and she had begun a job teaching in public schools. In 1937, Merlin remarried to Millie Carlucci.
In those days, all that was required to teach in schools was completion of the 8th grade. Henry's daughters Opal and Agnes were the first to become educators, and Henry later followed in their footsteps becoming a superintendent of the public school district. Opal would later be the first in the family to graduate from university.
As if life is not difficult enough, the United States military imposed upon him another draft of war. Henry’s WWII draft registration states that it is for “Men born on or after April 28,1877”. He was 63 years old at that time. Luckily, he was never chosen for the draft and was not a veteran. Henry was very clear in his denunciation of war as "barbaric".
For the convenience of being in closer proximity to his workplace, Henry finally left the countryside to live at 1326 South Summit, in Arkansas City, Kansas. Arkansas Cooperative Milk was located just down the street at what today is Kan-Pac co-packing and food production, dealing mostly in dairy still to this day (2021).
The innate intelligence that radiated from Henry's laser-beam eyes with such intensity in his youth, became despondent wisdom of old age. In 1957, Henry would learn that Yuri Gargin became the first man to enter space, but he would not live to see a literal man on the moon. He would live his last years in Caldwell with his daughter Opal and her husband. Henry died on the 3rd of May, 1963 at age 84. His grave can be found in the Caldwell City Cemetery. Long after the lives of Henry and Stella Capps in Southern Kansas, the family history continues and many of he and Stella’s progeny still live there today, mostly in Caldwell (as of 2021).
Henry's creative and visionary rendition of past present and future is as follows.:
[Page 1 of original]
A Story by the Man in the moon as related by Allan Good.
Perhaps I should give some of my background to help Earth People understand my story. Back a long time ago before the earth had people living on its surface, we had an advanced civilization, ...at least we thought it was advanced. According to our history we started in much the same way as Earth People. We had a story of our started creation similar in many respects to your own. Our ancient history records that we ate meat ,used stimulants and narcotics of different kinds. We thought war was necessary and used a great deal of our time and strength preparing for war. We had jails for our criminals and even legal killing, but all this was many generations before my time. My youthful days were very pleasant. We had different forms of relaxations and games of many kinds. Some played on the water, some on the land. One game was similar to your game of baseball.
At the time of my birth, we did not eat the flesh of animals or birds. We had vegetables and fruits that gave us the same protein which you get from flesh. There were thousands of birds of nearly all sizes and colors, some very beautiful. The birds kept the insects in check and we provided them with fish for food whenever the weather was bad.
The people never bothered the birds and they in turn seemed to enjoy being near people but were never any trouble. All soul-bodied people not otherwise employed worked some on production. Food and clothing being the main products. But only a small part of the year was required for that so that each person could take time for several vacations each year if they cared to do so. We had good schools beginning with the primary grade and continuing for about sixteen years. Our scientists were men who loved their work and did many wonderful things for
[Page 2 of original]
for the good of our people. Our people were like Earth people only a little larger and more uniform in size.
The average life was about one hundred fifty years and most people retired at about one hundred or one hundred ten years. Only a few of the minor diseases were known in my time. Such diseases as tuberculosis, and cancer, heart and venereal diseases had all been conquered before my time. There was very little hand labor such as was known in our early history, instead of that a worker turned a switch and watched a machine do the work of many people more accurately than could be done by hand.
We had space travel when I was born but the fuel we had at that time would not last long enough to go to another planet but about the time I finished school our Scientists perfected a fuel so concentrated that enough to last one of the new circular spaceships five years could be carried with a crew of fifteen or twenty persons. This fuel was kept in metal containers and stored in deep cellars or in caves.
We had everything that a nation needed to make us happy and contented, and our engineers had built a large number of the spaceships of the new metal which retains its shape and strength in either intense heat or cold, down to absolute zero. The ships were strengthened so
that when we travelled out into space where there was not any pressure from the outside they would not burst from the pressure which was kept at all times on the inside.
I had finished my course in handling a spaceship and had travelled with some engineers who were excellent instructors so that when the decision was made to try visiting other planets it was not a difficult matter to get included in the crew. We made several trips to other planets but not knowing how we would be received we did not land on any of them but went close enough to
learn something of each planet, One appeared to be inhabited by
[Page 3 of original]
by highly civilized people and there were many of them. They had many large buildings and improved roads also airfields with many planes but no space ships. All This we learned by the use of strong field glasses which we carried at all times. But they also had dangerous
looking guns at different places and when they discovered us and started up to investigate us we decided to leave there, which we did after looking around some more. Our space ship would travel much faster than their planes so that we could easily keep away from them and only feared their artillery. I will explain here that in approaching a planet from outer space we would enter the atmosphere of that planet at an incredible speed and that made it necessary to circle the planet one or more times in order to get slowed down to a speed where it was safe to cruise or land. We were fortunate in not having an accident while we were learning how to meet the problems of space travel. When we returned home there was a large number of people ready to meet us and celebrate the event with proper ceremonies and amusements and a general good time. After our return the engineers and leading men began to prepare for extensive space travel, but we did not get to complete our arrangements, while we were busy there suddenly appeared from the sky a fleet of spaceships larger and stronger than our own and handled by large men with huge beaks of noses and with hair that appeared to stand straight up. They did not try to land or get acquainted with us but started dropping a very powerful explosive which not only destroyed the surface but spread a terrible poison which killed all life and vegetation for a long distance around where the explosive struch I was working at one of our largest storage pots with a crew of thirty people when the explosive was first dropped and did not realize at once what was happening
[Page 4 of original]
happening as soon as we became aware of what was happening we went into a cave near where we had been working and a short time after entering the care a terrific explosion a short distance above us tore a large crater in the surface and throw enough soil and rocks over the cave and the place where we had been working to completely hide it from anyone looking for such places. However that did not help us much but we did not know that at the time but began digging thru the debris to get to the surface again, the bombardment lasted three days and nights of horrible suspense and suffering both mental and physical and we were in poor shape when we reached the surface and certainly not in any condition to face the awful conditions we found there. The entire surface of our planet as far as we could see was pitted with deep holes and everything on the surface was burned to a cinder. We had plenty of food in the cave and went to work at once clearing a road into the cellar where the spaceships and fuel were stored so that we could make a trip around our planet and find if anyone was left alive. They completed the work in a few days but ... during that time I realized we had been exposed to the poison because the people with me began to get sick and act in a peculiar manner and in a short time two of them died. After that time they passed one or two at time after terrible suffering. Two of them lived nearly three years I was seemingly placed in a state of perpetual living where time or disease does not affect me in any way. I am fated to go on and on done until my creator calls my spirit home. After I had done all that I could for my companions, the lonely place was hard to bear and that prompted me to make the trip around the planet, but that only made it more terrible.
[Page 5 of original]
Maybe you have wondered what it would be like to be the last person left alive on the earth, if you have, do not consider it any more, the loneliness is almost unbearable. After travelling all the way around our planet, part of the time at a high altitude to avoid the intense heat, I returned to the cave which was the only place that looked the least bit like home. This caused me to travel and get acquainted with the earth and Earth People and although they are peculiar, they are a lovable people. The first trip was made some time after the destruction of our planet because there didn't seem to be anything else for me to do. At that time the earth was comparatively young and seemed to be somewhat warmer than it is now. There was thick jungle growth along the torrid zone. There were people living in the zone rather than in the northern part of it. They were small people rather dark I suppose from the extra sunshine, their houses were nothing but shelters from the rains that fell a part of the year. They did not have many conveniences and lived in a rather primitive manner although they did cultivate some grain and a few vegetables. They hunted the smaller wild animals and wild fowl of which there was a great many, but avoided the large animals when possible but had to fight one occasionally in self defense though there was a good chance some of them would lose lives for their weapons bows and arrows and wood spears with a hardened point. These people were old at forty and only a few of them lived to the age of fifty. Only a few of the babies lived to reach maturity. The old if they became a burden were forced out to shift for themselves, they did not last long but with the animals they had to face their passing was quick and comparatively painless, at first I did not try to get acquainted with any of these people but only watched and studied them from a distance that is I went as near as I could without being seen. I did not have any weapons in fact I had never learned to use them my people
[Page 6 of original]
people did not have any killing implements for two hundred years before my time. We had explosives but they were used for power and for other peaceful purposes. My way of landing was to find a mountain with a depression somewhere near the top or in an inaccessible place where the ship could be set down without danger of discovery while I was away. After watching these people for some time it seemed to be a better plan to get acquainted with them but this was a problem that required some thought because we might find it difficult to talk to make it plain that we were peaceable. However after some study I decided to approach a family that lived a short distance away from their village. So on a bright sunny morning after a refreshing shower I went to their place of living, they were somewhat excited and the man grabbed his weapons but I expected that and held my hands up palms forward to show that I came in peace, this was accepted after looking me over very carefully.Then the way to talk to each other became a problem for both of us we finally by using signs and notions and facial expressions began to understand enough so that we began to be interested in each other. We visited for nearly a half day and when I left he made it plain that he would like for me to come again. That suited me exactly for I very much desired the company of other human beings and they were a friendly people when they found that I was not an enemy. I visited with the often when they were at home,when they went to hunt the children were left at tribal headquarters in the
care of older people and both the man and woman went on the hunt. Their language was not very hard to learn and we soon were able to talk about the things that interested them most which were matters relating to their everyday life, but they were never able to understand how I came into their country. Their names as near as I could pronounce them were Manie and Teress.
[Page 7 of original]
Manie's tribe was sun worshipers and when it is cloudy for several day thought GOD was displeased and would meet at their shrine which was a shallow cave on the side of a hill and facing the south where the sun could be seen for most of the day on clear days and implore GOD not to be angry with them. There were many wild animals and reptiles, some of them poisonous but the worst of these stayed in or near the swampy sections. The people of Manie’s tribe lived in villages for protection against wild animals. They lived in shelters built on the ground or in large trees, each family separate but close enough to help each other in time of need. They had plats of ground that they cultivated with the vegetables and grains that they grow and used for food. When they were working they all had weapons near and some of the party kept their weapons in hand and did nothing but guard. These people did not have many criminals stealing or disturbing other people was rare except they were people of strong passions and when a male tried to take another male's female there was sure to be serious trouble their tempers flared instantly and violently and one of the males was apt to die
with their children were lovable mites of humanity with coal black hair and black or brown eyes It was hard for me to see so many of the children died young but what could one do? Men are so constituted that they must progress and cannot be switched from near paganism to an advanced civilization. One Pagan might be taken to a country of advanced people and taught in a few years but that is different and one is not a whole nation sit. Now that they are all gone I sometimes sit and think and mourn my friends of Mania's people, they were all a part of this great creation the same as you and I.
[Page 8 of original]
They passed the same as you and I will pass. I stayed with or near these people for more than a year and then decided to visit the regions where the weather was colder and get
acquainted with other people there if possible which was a fortunate decision for by this trip I became acquainted with the old patriarch OGGE which is as near to the way his name sounded as I could ever get I returned to the spaceship and started cruising towards the regions farther north, which after a short trip brought me to a country different in many ways from the warmer regions. The country was beautiful it being the spring season, a large part of
the country was covered with a forest. After finding a suitable place to leave the ship I went towards a place I had located while cruising over the country, it was at the edge of a great forest of very large trees with very little undergrowth. There was a building at the edge of this forest to which I made my way and found it to be the home of a grand old man who later proved to be a good friend.He did not seem to be excited or afraid when I went to where he was working.we did not do as well with the sign language as Manie and I but by diligent effort we did get acquainted He began then to teach me his language and in a short time we we were able to carry on a limited conversation His language was a little harder to learn than Mania's language
OGGE was a little larger than the people of the south are a little whiter as were most of his people. These people were more advanced in some ways than Manie's people
they had picture writing and a record of their lives was kept by passing the history by word of mouth from one generation to another. Their weapons were more powerful than the others and they did not fear the larger animals.
[Page 9 of original]
War is a relic of barbarism and is not doing anything to advance civilization except maybe helping in the development of a few machines which we probably would have without the war. The Reactionaries of any nation always fight any change and try to man make it appear as something dangerous and immoral. Usually the class in possession of the wealth of a country are the Reactionaries and they control the means of propaganda which they use to the fullest extent if they think there is danger of a change But change is inevitable nothing is exactly the same today as it was yesterday nor will it be the same tomorrow that it is today. we can probably speak truthfully when we say we are at the beginning of civilization, we are getting closer to the time when war will be no more, then and only then can man develop the talent of which he is capable.Then we reach that place men will progress much faster than he has ever considered possible even in his wildest dreams. We will have interplanetary travel and will probably find other planets with beings not any different from ourselves. We will likely find minerals on those planets which we do not have on earth and we will have minerals new to those planets. If the people we find on those planets are advanced in civilized ways we will no doubt learn many things from them and they from us. There is not any reason our bodies should weaken when we advance rather the opposite. As we gain knowledge we should have stronger
bodies and live to an advanced age with less disease and less pain senility will probably be the reason for most deaths, that is our bodies will wear out and not be destroyed by disease.
When we learn to live in peace with all other people we will no doubt know how to protect ourselves from any people not yet civilized who might try to destroy us.
[Page 10 of original]
OGGE did not believe that man evolved a lower order of creation , but that he was created in the form of man but lower in intelligence with the ability to learn and find out about the many things the Creator had prepared on earth for his good when he became intelligent
enough to use them. OGGE'S people believed in one god a Creator and Ruler of all things
on this earth, they were careful of their activities and honest in their dealing with each other. They had places which they called alters where they met to show reverence for God and to join in singing and worship. These people did not have any large domestic animals but did have
dogs that were used in hunting other animals. They had fowls which were fed with grain that they grew in their plats of cultivated soil. According to their history as told of me by OGGE: God created man and was well pleased with his work but when He decided to give man a
companion the question arose as to just who that companion should be.
The Angel Cervi had been disobedient and rebellious and had to be punished so the sentence that God gave her was, that She should come to earth and be the companion of man her and her daughters after her and although she was stronger than man she should appear to be weaker, she should appear to be obedient when deciding what a man should do.
Cervi and her daughters have been doing their duty since coming to earth and have retained the disposition of Cervi while they are wonderful beings they are sometimes rebellious.
OGGE , in talking in support of his story of creation mentioned the many instances where Cervi's daughters have shown angelic qualities such as the love of a mother for her children and how many times a mother had given her life that her children might live. how they have been known to spend a lifetime caring for a worthless husband: how they could stand by a son after he had broken their hearts and
[Page 11 of original]
And had violated all the laws of his country. There are a few of the daughters of men as mentioned in our early history but only a few, the foundation of civilization is Cervi's wonderful daughters.
OGGE talked to me as a son in fact he sometimes called me son. Once after we had been walking in his wonderful forest he said, "son I have been many days travel from here in a country where only a few trees are seen a place called the plains. I have walked across some of that in the spring time after a shower of rain when the grass was waving gently in the breeze, the sun was shining just right, the mocking birds were singing their hearts out while the larks and many other birds joined in the chorus, the kildees were walking and talking in the low land and the plovers called from high above. When you feel the peace and soothing pleasure then you realize that only God could create a scene like this and you feel humble and thankful for the experience. And again when you walk in this great forest and enjoy the quiet restfulness of all this you know that here you are seeing the work of a Master's hand.
After this it became necessary for me to return home for a supply of food and some fuel and this I decided would be a good time to make a thorough search of our planet to find if there were anything left of our civilization but it was a discouraging work although the fires had burned out and the surface had cooled there was very little left to show that this had once been the home of a happy and contented people. But loneliness will drive one away from any place even though
one calls it home. When next I visited the earth the grand old Patriarch OGGE had
passed to the Great Beyond and my visit was a lonesome journey. Manie and Teress had passed some time before this. I finally made the acquaintance of OGGE'S son, but he was a very busy man being head man or ruler of his tribe and not the philosopher his father had been.
[Page 12 of original]
I returned home and visited another planet but it seemed colder than any place I had visited before with lots of snow and ice extending down from the poles a long ways. I did not see any inhabitants or any evidence of people living on this planet but I could not be sure. It was a large planet, but on account of the extreme speed that I had when entering the atmosphere of this one I had to encircled it at a high altitude using the retarding flaps to get slowed down to a speed where it was safe to enter the lower altitude where the excessive speed would cause more heat than would be safe. During this time a great change occurred in your world. The earth had been revolving a long time and the ice had been accumulating at the places you call the poles so that it became so heavy that it threw the earth out of balance and the center of revolution being where the strongest pull was the earth whirled to put these ice caps in
that center which was the torrid zone where it naturally began to melt causing rivers and lakes to form in places where there had not been any rivers or lakes before and causing many other
changes. There was heavy fog on the earth for several years that the sunshine on the surface was very limited, all this I learned later from OGGE'S great grandson Manie's tribe was frozen and completely destroyed when they were whirled into the extreme cold of the polar regions. OGGE'S tribe being in a temperate zone did not have enough change in their climate to make a serious difference. It was a little colder but a nice climate with mild winters and summers that were agreeable. That is it was that way after the disturbance subsided that was caused by the change, the disturbances lasted nearly four years and due to lack of sunshine and the presence of poisonous gases many of the Tribe of OGGE died.
[Page 13 of original]
This change affected the earth for a long time after it took place, it
was eleven years melting the ice caps and during that time all nights were cool or cold depending on location. Let me explain here that temperature inside our space ships was
regulated by the use of the same fuel used to propel the ship and cold from the outside did not bother me in any way. Also we had oxygen and hydrogen in large containers and an automatic mixer that kept the air clean and fresh inside the ship at all times, the impure air was ejected thru a valve that let it escape but would not let anything enter. Also we had a larger valve for any other matter which we wanted to expel. The ship could be set on the automatic controls for space travel and that was the way I travelled most of the time. During the disturbances on the earth I stayed at home and explored almost every part of our planet but did not find anything left of our civilization that is nothing that could be burned by the awful heat or powdered by the force of the explosion. The explosive had penetrated to a depth sufficient to cause the coal veins to burn and this had caused more heat and destruction. Some places the minerals had melted and were laying in large round or half round pieces in these deep pits left by the explosive. The weather has changed a great deal from what it was before the destruction of the surface, the rains do not come as often or as quietly as before but come in huge cloud bursts. The extremes of temperature are much greater. The nights are colder and the days are hotter.
[Page 14 of original]
It is necessary in interplanetary travel to attain a speed comparable to the speed of a comet while travelling thru space. The speed that we can attain in an atmosphere would not be sufficient. If we had a speed of eight hundred miles per hour in the atmosphere of a planet and did would not increase it, in space it would take us twenty to fifty years to make the
trip one way, This would make it impractical for human beings unless they learn how to live much longer than at present, But the power that will give us a speed of eight hundred miles per hour going out of the atmosphere will also give us an incredibly fast speed where there is not any resistance. But we might not be able to change our course or turn the ship without some resistance that would make it necessary for the astronomers and scientific men to tell us when and how to start our trip. But if we think of how the ocean appeared dangerous and uncrossable to our forefathers in the year one thousand it makes space travel sound more reasonable for we can have the help of learned men. Our space ships would have to be made of some substance that would be strong enough to contain the pressure inside the ship when there is not any pressure from the outside also the material would have to be something that would hold its shape and strength in extremes of heat and cold. We will need a concentrated fuel one that will enable us to carry a supply sufficient for several years travel. And of course we will need food in concentrated form and in preserved form that will keep the food good indefinitely. We will need to carry oxygen sufficient to last a long time for the crew of the ship.
[Page 15 of original]
A long time after the change in earth I visited again but found much change. The language had changed a great deal, some words that had been in use in OGGE'S day were not used, and lots of new words had been added. Also the people were changed in many ways. They had two names that is if a man was a smith he might be known as John Smith or if he was a baker he might be called John Baker and so on thru quite a list of names. The people of OGGE'S tribe were much farther advanced in civilized ways than on my previous visits, they had horses and cows also, sheep and goats and cultivated fields where the grew grain for themselves and their livestock. They had learned to weave cloth from vegetable fiber and made some of their clothing of that instead of making it all from the skins of animals.
[Page 16 of original]
This appears to me as the most reasonable belief, That every human being has a spark of the
Infinite, that this spark will not die, can not die because it is a part of the Power which created this universe. Just what our next existence will be is unknown to us but is a part of a wise plan for our good. We might even return to this earth and be born again into another body
as some people of this earth think, it is not impossible and the injunction; 'Ye must be born again', might be true in a literal meaning. The spirit or eternal part of us could enter the second or third or any number of bodies in succession. When we reach a state in our development where we are capable of a higher existence we no doubt will enjoy a life which is beyond our comprehension at this time. Our different religions of this world are tailored to suit the times and do not mean a great deal only there is a supreme power and prayers are answered when they are in accord with the Divine Will. Every normal person prays in a crisis and most of them get help or seem to do so anyway.
[Page 17 of original]
No son, there is no such thing as Status Quo. It is a law of nature
that all creation must be changing all the time. Nothing is lost, it just changes form. We use water every day, but as much water remains on the earth as was there when man began using water. The electricity we use is not consumed it just passes thru our
equipment and so far as we can tell there is not one kilowatt less of electricity than when we began using it. We cannot destroy anything we can cause it to change form but we do
not change the total. We have discovered many wonderful things but we are just in the dawn of civilization and what will be learned is more wonderful than what
we now know. The Creator left us the chance to learn of the many wonderful things created here for our use and pleasure. When we learn to live without war then we will have reached a place where our progress will indeed be rapid. When we learn to live in peace with all other people then we will have space ships and visit other other planets, but not with the present planes, but a different shape probably circular and powered by a fuel not in use at present.
[Page 18 of original]
Our engineers noticed that migratory birds do not travel in a straight line when going either north or south unless the weather is settled and quiet. They therefore reasoned that the birds either could see the air currents or had some way of knowing how the high and low places in the air were formed. We would not expect a car or truck to go out across the country disregarding the hollows or hills but some of the serious air accidents may have been caused by the same thing
in the air. Working along this line the engineers developed a glass similar to a field glass in appearance that enables us to see the air which is a great help in travelling in the atmosphere. When travelling one person at a time handled this glass and gave directions to the pilot. We usually worked in shifts of about two hours. In space travel this was not necessary as there are no air currents.
[Page 19 of original]
I do not know when my first life on this planet began. the first one which I recollect was somewhat later, though my father talked of the things which had happened in the dim past, but I do recollect how my name came about. My parents called me Allan and my [m…] name was An and as I was supposed to have come up out of the sea my name became Alan Sea. Life was simple and later we described as primitive, we did not have houses or fixed places up abode, we lived in caves or sometimes [........] in the [....]. Our rulers were strong men who were able to [.....] all opposition. They frequently killed other men who [.....] to replace them or they were killed and the winner became ruler. Some of the Shes were lovely to creatures and very desirable and the males frequently fought to the death for a female, the winner took the female for his own. Men are like the creatures that [.........] of the {....], these creatures are struggling towards the light and do reach it in time, but they come thru a place where they see very dimly and so it is with man he struggles thru the mark of ignorance and superstition on his way up to the light and the many wonderful things that his creator placed here for his good when he becomes intelligent enough to understand them.
But I started to tell you of some of the times I have lived on this earth some of these lives are just a dim memory, but some are plainer. The next existence which that I remember I was a herddman's son we had ,or rather my father had, large herds of goats and sheep and some small cattle and any of the livestock could be traded for the things we needed.life was simple and easy and we just drifted along and enjoyed it. There were some settlements called cities where people were gathered for the purpose of trading, but they were not near enough to us to make any difference in our living.
[THIS CONCLUDES THE TRANSCRIPTION. MORE PHOTOS AND RESOURCES HERE]
*We don't actually have any photos of Kirmit, and the baby in the photo is actually infant Delmar.
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