If my grandfather had a way with stories, then it must be mentioned that my grandmother had a way with words.  At her command must have laid a whole army of them, but she never traipsed them about for a good showing, at least not as I recall.  Instead she would make an efficient sort of them and select the one most effective for a particular job.

Once selected, she would wield it effectively.  I don’t recall her being strict, mind you, but when she said a word like “no” it could run a circle around your entire childhood attention span and bring it focused on a single point.  She gave some certainty to it, I suppose, and it fell like a hammer blow.  Once spoken, with its full meaning comprehended, she could convey it in absolute silence with equal effect.  Perhaps this is the acquired skill of all grandmothers.

My aunt tells the story that she was staying with the two near the end of her father’s life, and one day a neighbor stopped to visit.  This wasn’t remarkable, it happened all the time, but what was remarkable that particular day was the story.  The subject of the reminiscing were the two’s younger years and a hell of a good time they’d had when one of their acquaintances had piled up his Model T on the way home from a dance in northern Iowa.  My aunt realized for the first time in her life that her father once drank.

So when my grandfather was poised to celebrate his next birthday, my aunt decided she would get him something special to remember it by.  She went into a liquor shop and inquired from the lady behind the counter on her recommendations for her aging father.  She was directed to a fine, Irish liquor which was then boxed and wrapped.

When the big day came, and the meal had been had, and the rest of the family had said their goodbyes, my aunt asked her father to sit still for one more gift.  She went down the hall and returned with a long, slender box wrapped and tied with a bow.  He was at the table, and had his back to his wife who was dislodging from the plates the final remnants of the party.  My grandmother took an interest, though, and from time to time would look over her shoulder to witness what was about to unfold.  Sliding the bow off one end and cutting the tape with a pocket knife, my grandfather made his way to the day’s final gift.  He pulled the lid off, folded back the packing, and his eyes glistened from the joy of seeing a long lost friend.

My grandmother took one look, raised one eyebrow, and fervently resumed her work.  My aunt was facing her, and her understanding of her disapproval was instant.  My grandfather had neither seen nor heard anything, yet he was perfect in his understanding as well.  He pushed the packing back over the bottle, carefully slid the lid back on the box, and pushed it back across to my aunt with a smile.  “Mary,” he said, “I appreciate the gift, but I cannot take it.  I made a promise to someone a long time ago now, and I intend to keep it.”

My aunt either felt like she’d diminished in size, or that the chair she sat in had grown to Edith Ann proportions.  What she didn’t know was that my grandmother was adamant in her belief that a man that drank wouldn’t amount to anything.  However it was she had that conversation with my grandfather, she had brought his full attention to the topic, his understanding was perfect, and there was no need to repeat it a second time.

But of all the words she rigorously selected, the most famous was in 1935 for a contest to name a new state park south of Indianola.  The Saux and Fox Indian tribes had once wintered in the area, and Grandmother submitted the name “Ahquabi” which was their word for “resting place.”  The committee set up by the local paper loved it, and awarded her first place and $35.

She was quite fond of the stories of the Native Americans, and there are still a box or two in my basement full of her numerous newspaper clippings, letters from the Department of the Interior concerning the old Indian Bureau, and knick knacks from early trips to pow wows in Tama.  Among the clippings is one she saved detailing the night of October 11, 1845.

At midnight that night, the Indian title to the lands in south central Iowa expired.  When it did, settlers could stake claim to 320 acre parcels.  The clipping states that “Precisely at twelve o’clock, the loud report of a gun at the agency announced that the empire of the red man had ended here forever, and that of his master race had begun.”  It goes on to say “civilization had now commenced her reign in Central Iowa.”

The rest of her clippings make it quite clear where my grandmother’s sympathy lied, and I suppose she preserved this in order to note the sentiment.  The early historian goes on to detail how Jacob Frederick and Jeremiah Church were without an ax to properly mark their claims near Fort Des Moines, so they carved their initials into trees to mark their boundaries.  Frederick evidently did it in the dark, but Chruch was aided by the light of an Indian wigwam he had set on fire.

While my grandmother was concerned of the plight of the Native Americans, I take some satisfaction that they never had to see the Food Court at Jordan Creek.  I’m sure they had their own doubts about the “master race” and their “commencement of civilization” on the territory, but I doubt even they could have imagined that.  I wouldn’t have had the heart to have broke it to them.

A year after my grandmother died, in 1986, they put up a small monument in the park to her.  It’s southwest of the trail as you come in the park’s east entrance.  As I recall they put four names of her’s on it, but nowhere appears the one I knew her as.

In her clippings I found the full meaning for Ahquabi.  “Resting place” only accounts for the first half, or the “Ahqua.”  The significance of “bi” seems to have been neglected.  “Bi” was Indian for “sitting around a campfire and telling lies.”  An activity which evidently joins the two empires.  And knowing that, perhaps we can understand its full significance, and not need to be told a second time.