Image and text by Brian DeWolf, Photographer, www.BrianDeWolf.com

“Homesteader”

On Landscape Photography …

Old buildings get my attention. A lot of landscape photographers like them because, like wrinkles around the eyes, their bleached wood and sagging beams seem to say, “I have some stories I could tell.”

There are many places out west where you can see history in the raw, and you don’t have to imagine what it might have looked like through a maze of traffic, road signs, and franchise restaurants.

In 1996, I visited “the ranch” in South Dakota with my 82-year-old neighbor, George Gebes. He grew up there. His father was an original homesteader, and his family still works about 7,000 acres north of the town of Philip. A nearby abandoned, ramshackle rancher’s home was the starting place for learning something about fellow homesteader Charlie Case and life on the prairie from George, who was a witness:

The dirt road that passes in front of Charlie Case’s homestead is rutted from horse-drawn farm wagons, old trucks, and a few cars. This road used to be the only road between Milesville and Philip in the early 1900s, but the only traffic the old road sees now is a nearby rancher or a wandering photographer.

Charlie Case lived here with his wife, Ann, and a son, Clarence, from the turn of the 20th century to the 1940s. Charlie was a short man, good humored, and had three fingers missing from one of his hands. Unlike Charlie and Ann, their son “didn’t do much work,” I was told. All three are dead.

Also gone is the first telephone line from Philip. The phone system was a string of barbed wire fences. When the phone rang at the Case’s, it rang at all the neighboring ranches and anyone could listen in on the conversation. The phone service worked well unless one of the cattle broke the wire somewhere along the fence line.

Charlie was known for his self­taught veterinary skills. He was not licensed and he never charged a fee. There was no anesthetic for the cattle other than twisting a leather “switch” on the animal’s nose when Charlie cut out lump jaw, pulled teeth, castrated, or performed other surgeries.

Ranchers also needed minor surgeries that were performed without anesthetic and, at times, by the patient himself. One incident occurred on a bitter cold winter day in the 1930’s when Charlie’s neighbor, Bob Jetters, had his arm caught in a power takeoff while feeding cattle. He might have frozen to death before help arrived, so he amputated what was left of his own arm and walked about a mile to the nearest road and flagged down a passing motorist.

On the day I was there in May of 1996, I waited patiently for about an hour for the clouds to break so the sun would highlight the house. There was only the sound of the wind and the rustling prairie grass and a weather­beaten home that had a story to tell. I had time to think about what life was like years ago; long before I stood in front of the house with a camera and a tripod.

We are coming to the end of September, now, which is Farm Appreciation Month in Kane County. Maybe the story of a tumbled down ranch house in South Dakota will cause long forgotten farm buildings in Kane County to get more than a passing glance because … there’s a story.

“The closer we look, the more there is to see.”

Brian DeWolf’s work is sold through Proud Fox Gallery, Geneva, IL.

• Editor’s Note 1: Are you an amateur or professional photographer in Kane County? We’d like to give you a platform to showcase your photos in a feature we’re calling “Kane County Moments.” To take part, email a photo to ricknagel23@gmail.com, with a brief (or long, if you prefer) description. Put “Kane County Moments” in the subject line, and we’ll post as many as we can. 
• Editor’s Note 2: September 2014 is Farm Appreciation Month in Kane County. Click on the link to read more. 
• Editor’s Note 3:  I suspect it appears redundant, but I put Kane County Moments photos in twice — once as the featured image and once in the body of the post — so that the full image can be seen. Sometimes the featured image ends up cutting off a part of the photo when displayed on the homepage.