Great-Grandfather Kast
My
Great-grandfather Frederick William Kast, Sr. was a pilot on a Mississippi
River Steamboat.
Each time he boarded the ship, he carried with him a wooden box in which he
carried papers to write his reports on. There was an ink bottle and a section
for pens. And in this box he also carried his dinnerware, a silver knife, fork
and spoon. Meals for the crew were prepared by a cook on board. I still have the box.
There
was some mystery surrounding his death at such a young age. The family was told that he died of
small pox during a trip when his youngest son Fred, my grandfather, was 18
months old. He had two older
children, my Aunt Josie and Aunt Annie. This wooden box and silverware were
returned to his wife, Mary Harnagel, my great-grandmother, by the captain of
the steamboat with the news that he had died and was buried in Cairo, Illinois.
Great Grandpa had been promoted to captain of a steamboat on the Missouri
River, but he was doing one last run on the Mississippi. My dad told me that he
had been told there was the possibility that Fred had been murdered by someone
who wanted the job he had been promoted to.
This
box and silverware were passed down to my grandfather, then to my father, then to
me. I kept the silverware
carefully wrapped in a piece of velvet way to the back in the silverware
drawer, behind the old mismatched silverware, which was behind the
silverware we used on a daily
basis.
When my son Carl was 15, he and a group he was in during the school year were going on a
camping trip to the Pikes Peak area with 2 teachers supervising. He was packing
the stuff on his list of things to take and asked what silverware he should
take. I said, “Oh, take that old stuff behind the stuff we use every day.” Of
course I was thinking of the old mismatched stuff. Unbeknown to me, he took his great-great grandfather’s
special fork and spoon.
Shortly
after he got back home he said, “Mom, I’m so so sorry but I lost that
silverware.” I said, “Oh Honey, don’t worry about it. It was just junk.”
At
some later time, I realized that the spoon and fork were missing from
Great-grandpa’s set. The piece of
velvet at the way back of the drawer contained only the knife. I realized what must have happened!
For
several months off and on, I contemplated going to Colorado to Pikes Peak
and trying to find the spoon and fork, never seriously of course. But finally I was able to
accept that it was LOST FOREVER.
