When I took a few things
to go into the time capsule my brother, Dan, asked me if I had the Pensoneau
genealogy. The documentation created by my cousin, Roland Kulla, who was a
Catholic Priest, is lengthy and totally absorbing. However, the cost of
copying all that was prohibitive. We had little time or I could have done
it on tribal machines, maybe.
Mother suggested I just
do the really pertinent information such as fathers and spouses with their
children from 1600's. This was a possible task. My brother wanted the
material brought up to date showing our relationship to our grandfather,
Paschal Pensoneau and I was able to do this, although I had to stay right
with it in order to finish by the upcoming deadline for entry. I also
included his biography prepared by his lawyer brother, Louis Pensoneau. I
did find it interesting that my full Ponca grandmother named my mother,
Velma Louise. This tells me that her husband Narcissus (Narcisse) did know
about his family lineage. The fact that he carried a name for a flower, even
though he hated it, and called himself Narcisse gave me a smile. Their were
other names, LeFluer and so on, that ties the name to the Fleur-de-lis,
symbol of France.
My other research mentioned
that the Sphinx has the Iris carved on its forehead. It was also mentioned
that Napoleon would not use the symbol but that it was restored after he
left power. All these little tid-bits were interesting. I couldn’t include
all the letters and correspondence between Grandfather Paschal and John
Jacob Astor for whom he worked as an operator of an outfit, or trading store
in Kansas City. Those records are in a museum already, so if all that is
saved it will be easily researched by future generations. Paschal left his
cushy home with his well-heeled relatives in St. Louis and married a full
Kickapoo woman, Shikina. He didn’t return to St. Louis unitl they were all
dead, it was recorded. The story Centennial is a take off on his life and I
have no idea how much is accurate. The name they used for that was not
Paschal but something similar like, Pascanel.
The time capsule was
buried today, August 26, 2006. These pictures are while they were working on
it and I will go down to take pictures of the plaque.
According to the Smithsonian
people who were here for the event there was another time capsule buried at
close to the same spot in 1880.
Actual burying of the time capsule. Note the
workers water jug on top. The temperature was 107.
Probably no mention will be made of these workers who worked right along
side my brothers,
the chairman, Dan Jones, and Alvin Jones, roads commissioner. Alvin was
sorely sunburned but
continued on to the end.
This is the beautiful stone cut to carry the
plaque that will be inserted and bolted on to it.
I'll go back for pictures of the finished work. I couldn't brave the heat
and the crowds for
the dedication today.
This is a fun picture of the pow-wow
campgrounds. I love the tee-pee with the classy
cars in front of it, the porta-potty (a necessary thing) and the man talking
on his cell
phone. What a recording of the Native American as they live in the year
2006. If
Custer could have envisioned the economic donation to his country he would
have
never attempted a coup. |