These weekly MBOBs are snapshots from the back roads of my memories.
Mailboxes along the roads and old barns set back in fields overgrown with weeds often served as landmarks that told us where we were and how far we had to go in the prairie country where I grew up in northeastern Montana. 
Sometimes they signaled “home” and the end of the road.  At other times, barely visible through swirling snow they told us we had miles to go.  When I started compiling these word pictures I realized they were like those mailboxes and old barns—still identifying important places along the road, still signaling where I am and how far I have to go.  

This particular MBOB is the first of its kind. Last winter, Cyrano left a comment on an MBOB indicating that he was working on plans for an extensive trip that he and his wife hoped to take through The Great West of the United States.

They did it!
He shared his plan in January, “I’m sure my wife will love it! Hee hee. I’ll just tell her ‘I’m taking you to see Mt Rushmore, my Darling.’ Via Oregon, Idaho, and Montana…” Well, they got it done, and are still getting it done as you read here. And yes, they’ve seen Mt. Rushmore, along with a dozen other places, and then pushed on through North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho into Oregon.
A few days ago,  my husband and I had the best time time getting acquainted with these friends. We had a long visit over dinner, and a long, long visit over photos we both had at the ready – his treasure trove including the one below which was just taken on July 25.

Cyrano had mentioned in the planning stages that “It’s vast out here in the west” and they surely have the proof of that in their photos and in their memories. We had a deep-down good time with them at Shari’s where the loaded potato soup is just fine. The hours flew by as we supervised the shift change and eventually parted as old friends.

Today’s MBOB ties in quite directly with the photo above.
The church as it stands today was the second one on those grounds.  The building of the first was proposed in 1910 by a large and growing congregation of homesteaders, almost all Danes both by heritage and personality. Those who were not Danish by personality just kept a low profile and got along all right.
The first church was not completed until 1917 because the work on both the church (which was a similar size and footprint as that pictured above) and the two story parsonage was done by the farmers themselves.  Upon completion, the debt on the two structures, combined, was $728
Just thirteen years after its completion, the church burned down. Here’s the report by one of the early pastors.

July 8, 1930
All evening we had one of the most terrific and continuous lightning storms we had ever witnessed.  Aboust 11:30 we went to bed, as it seemed to be quieting down some.  Almost right at the stroke of midnight, there came a crash that seemed to shake the whole place.
I jumped out of bed and went from window to window to see if it had struck anything near the place.  Seeing nothing, I was about to go back to bed when I did see a little ribbon of fire just above the belfry of the church.
I took a pail of water, thinking that if that was all the fire there was, I could perhaps go up and put it out.

Our son also came with more water.  But when we got there, we could see that that the entire steeple was a mass of flames inside.  We went into the church to try to save something.  Of course the lights were burned out, so our son went for a flashlight.
He had not gotten more than five or six feet inside the door, when the bell came crashing down and weng right through the floor into the basement.
We did save the baptismal font, altar ware, altar chairs and a few books.
But about that time, the entire spire fell to the ground showering us with flying burning embers so we had to retreat.
Within an hour and a half, the entire church was in the basement, a burning smoldering mass.
At one time the parsonage was threatened, too, but a change in the wind and a heavy shower saved that.
Some of the men who had gathered stayed all night to watch that the fire did not flare up again.
At dawn the next day those who remained decided to leave.  As they were about to go one man asked, “What do we do now?”
And that the answer came back in a chorus, “We are going to rebuild.”
On Thanksgiving Day the same year we were to have our first service in the new church basement.
As we had no furnace, we had services in the basement during the winter and up in the church proper during the summer…

When it came to building churches, those men could say, “Been there. Done that.” But as they enjoyed the security and satisfaction of immediately beginning work on the new church building, they couldn’t have known that they were headed into some remarkably difficult years.

My older brother describes the conditions they were facing.

 Good crops were harvested up and to and through the 1920s.  Prices for wheat during those years ran from 60 to 80 cents a bushel.  It was even higher during and immediately after World War I.
The great Depression started in 1929 and grain prices began to fall, reaching a low of 26 cents a bushel for wheat in 1936. The years of 1930-35 brought poor crops producing only *6-12 bushes per acre because of grasshoppers and drought.
In 1936 there was no wheat to harvest because of rust—a fungus infection of the wheat.  1937 was a year of drought, dust storms and hordes of grasshoppers making it the worst year of the thirties.  No grain of any kind was harvested that year.

(*the first five bushels per acre of the harvest went to replace the seed)
In 1933, in the midst of the time framed by my brother’s overview, my grandfather wrote a birthday letter to his son-in-law (our Dad). The letter was written in Danish and in later years, our mother translated it for us.

Dear Immanuel,
Hope you will excuse me for being late with this birthday letter for May 17.
We wish you God’s mercy and grace, that it will be new for you each morning in the year you have started, whether the harvest is large or small.  (This was during the dry years and depression, when several years went by with little or no crops)
…that every day you will have the assurance that all things work together to those that love the Lord.
This scripture gives strength for whatever meets us each day.
We have received our first rain, enough to sprout the grain.
We are plowing for oats then we have 20 acres to plow for rye on the 1/4 we rent.
Today I was over on the summer fallow wheat field.  The wheat is coming but there so many many wild oats.
(He ends the letter with a German expression written as: Men Nix Forbloffen lassen) which means, “No, let us not be discouraged.”)

When someone asked about hard times, these could say, “Been there. Done that.”

It’s vast out here in the west.

The folks who settled the West must have marveled at the vastness.

At the impossibility of containment.

At the tenuous potential for survival.

Cyrano, this MBOB’s for you. Thank you for reading my words all of these months. For giving them room in your heart and for wanting to see a bit of what was behind them.
And now, when someone mentions Ebenezer Lutheran Church or Shari’s or breaking bread with Sharon and her DH, you can truthfully say, “Been there.  Done that.”  Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for extending yourselves to us — cross country — in the most literal way.
Godspeed to you and your wife as you continue your travels and at some point – as we always do – turn back toward home.