|
 BELLZONA
stuck this newspaper clipping into her little tin box. Although it was so
very fragile it held together from 1922 until this time, 1993, some
seventy one years.
Bell and her husband Joe
lived on the Arkansas River which bordered the town of Ralston. The
Osage's encampment was on the other side of their land. They were in the
very middle of the events transpiring in this day and time. For a moment,
place yourself in their position. What would have been your survival
strategy?
Bell was God fearing. The
Bible was quoted and was a constant admonishment. There were phrases like:
"you can, but you can't. Damned if you do, damned if you don't and
that old adversary. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. Anger, leave it
alone, don't mad, you are too little. The same color blood runs in all the
veins of every man and woman," and on and on. These were "old
sayings," all pertaining to the scriptures. Perhaps this higher
admonishment did help them to live. They had no counselors other than the
scriptures and most of this on their own time, since even churches were
not well established in the isolated areas.
The Jones's had no problem
with marrying into the darker Indian race, and at a time when it was just
not done by the general populace. They didn't want to get involved with
nefarious schemes like these seen here in these clippings. Joe was a
lawman and one incident told how he put a stop to the beating of an Indian
woman.
Bell clipped a poem from
the newspaper. The poem "Bell Brandon" was a poem about a girl
from the mountains, who came to the prairie, and whose veins were tinged
with the blood of the red man. It has become apparent this was so of Nancy
Bellzona Collins Jones, herself.
As we go about our busy
lives, complacent and secure, maybe it would be a good thing to reflect on
many of the early day hardships common people endured. Each contributed a
small part toward the building of the society we now enjoy.
Bell Brandon
Neath a tree by the margin of the woodland
Whose spreading leafy boughs sweep the ground
With a path leading thither in the prairie
When silence hung his night gard-a-round
There often have wandered in the evening
When the summer winds are fragrant in the lea
There I saw the little beauty Bell Brandon
And we met 'neath the old Arbor tree
When I saw Bell Brandson she was a birdling of the mountain.
In freedom she sporteth on his wing
And they said the life current of the Red man
Tinged veins from a far distant spring
She loved her humbe dwelling on the Prairie
And her guileless happy heart clung to me
And I loved the little beauty Bell Brandon
And we both loved the old Arbor tree
And on the trunk of the aged tree I carved them
Our names on the study form remain
But I now repair in sorrow to its shelter
And murmur to the wild wind my pain
Oft I sit then in solitude repining
For the beauty-dream that night brought to me
Death has wed the little beauty Bell Brandon
And she sleeps neath the old Arbor tree
Signed only with a "D" |
