MOVE ON!

"What was I thinking!" Narcissa Kuykendall upbraided herself for what must have been the fiftieth time that day. Looking back, she could remember nothing wrong with northern Arkansas—only the beautiful hills, abundant water, and mild weather; soil a little too acidic but fine for growing peanuts and beans and even tolerable for corn. Why had she agreed to travel 450 miles in this rickety covered wagon pulled by a pair of slow-moving mules?
James, bless him, was a good husband—a hard worker, kind, patient, always looking on the bright side of life, always expecting the best. But why couldn't he be satisfied and just make the most of what they had? Why must he feel constantly driven to move on?
Thinking of her father and her husband side-by-side made her smile. All she remembered her father Frank ever wanting in life was to settle down with his family on his precious plot of land in Searcy County and work the fields which provided him such satisfaction. Her husband, James, on the other hand, would never thrive tied down to one place. He dreamed constantly of the greener grass on the other side of the fence. New scenery, new challenges—that's what brought him pleasure!
She was lucky this baby inside her (who would one day be my grandfather Albert) hadn't given up and decided to find out what was going on in the world outside. He was an active one! He must have felt every jolt and bump from every rock and pothole they hit; she herself sure had. Young Mary, Johnnie, Belle, James—they were real troopers. Two wagons traveling in tandem weren't enough to hold them in; they had walked most of the way in their bare feet. In fact, she knew they relished the freedom to explore the countryside to their heart's content!
Crossing the state line into Texas had tempted her to feel they were making progress; but now, still so many miles from Fort Worth and even farther from Decatur, it seemed this trip would never end.
Wouldn't it be nice to be riding on a train! Only three years ago, in 1882, the Fort Worth and Denver Railway had reached Decatur, in Wise County. James had had high hopes ever since about how quickly the town would become a shipping point and market for local farmers. He was confident it was destined to prosper and thrive with trains available to carry to market the abundant crops he expected to grow.
Her hopes? She was not so confident. What if the soil was not as black as they had heard? What if the good parcels of land were already taken? What if there were no schools for the children and no church nearby? Would there be water? Water was so important! She had so many questions. . . .
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Narcissa Kuykendall, third child of Frank and Lizzie Kuykendall, had been born June 15, 1852, in Dalton, Cherokee County, Georgia. In 1860, when she was about eight, she and her family had moved one thousand miles in covered wagons from Georgia, where her father Frank had been a farmer, to Searcy County, Arkansas. This move seems to have set the tone for the rest of her life. She would eventually ride thousands of miles in covered wagons—first, during the move to Arkansas as a child, when she shared her seat on the wagon bench with squirming siblings, and later, as a mother nurturing a bevy of young children, following her husband on numerous quests for a new homestead.
On February 25, 1875, Narcissa had married James Washington McClung. Their partnership would eventually result in the birth of eleven children. After their marriage, "moving on" soon became a way of life for Narcissa and James. Over two decades, as they raised their family, they moved at least six times in covered wagons to distant destinations in Texas and Oklahoma.
Narcissa was a gentle woman who, her son Albert told me, never raised her voice. She was blessed with good health, a fortunate asset for a pioneer woman. Her hair, like that of Albert, was brown and never turned gray. Her innate tendency to work hard and her gentle, patient personality must have been invaluable attributes for this mother of eleven children born over a period of two decades.
One of her favorite past-times was making quilts, a craft mastered by many industrious women of her era. On August 29, 1934, when she was 82 years old, she wrote a letter to her son Albert in which she mentioned making wedding-gift quilts and also explained one of the reasons she enjoyed piecing quilts—that is, stitching together the small pieces that, when joined and sewed to a backing, would result in a finished coverlet. She wrote, "Well I do not no much news [to] write but I hav got Rammons and Jacks quilt tops piced up now but not got the goods to set them together yet. I pice tops all the time but dont get much out of it. I pece to keep from being idel. I can't just sit arond idel, do nothing." This statement undoubtedly echoed the testimony of many pioneer women. Sitting around idle was not a part of who they were or the lifestyle thrust upon them.
After their children were grown, from 1906 to 1928, Narcissa continued to accompany her peripatetic husband as he relocated to Los Angeles, California; Carter, Oklahoma; the Rio Grande Valley in Texas; and Corona, New Mexico—but by then on trains and perhaps in automobiles rather than wagons. In 1938, a decade after her husband's death, she made her final trip—this one back to Oklahoma, where, at age 85, she died of a stroke on March 20, 1938, at the home of her son Albert in Norman. She is buried in the cemetery in Carter, Oklahoma. No queen's death was ever mourned more sorrowfully and few lives honored more sincerely.