5. NAMES
You are listening to Middle America.
Jared Grabb “Through the Dark” (Middle America Version)
5A
Close by the Kaskaskian cabins referred to as the Grand Village of the Illinois and high on a rocky bluff over the Illinois River, there was a camp of Frenchmen led by Henri de Tonti. Father Jacques Marquette, the French explorer and Roman Catholic missionary, had already spent five years evangelizing to the native Kaskaskia tribe at his nearby Mission of the Immaculate Conception, but Henri de Tonti’s French had arrived for military and economic purposes.
Tonti’s faction had named their place of camp Le Rocher Saint-Louis (like Luh Roh Shey Sahn Louie) or the Rock of Saint Louis. While the modern ear might quickly place this rock at the current Illinois and Missouri borders, it was, in fact, at current day Starved Rock State Park. The Grand Village of the Illinois then stood on the current site of North Utica, Illinois.
In line with the Catholic influence of Father Marquette and others, the Saint Louis moniker was derived from the 13th century King Louis IX of France, a canonized Catholic and Anglican saint.
King Louis IX, or Saint Louis, became king at the age of 12 after his father, King Louis VIII, died of dysentery while returning from a crusade against the southern barons of France. King Louis IX’s mother, the highly religious Blanche of Castile, then ruled for 12 years of her son’s 44-year reign, 8 while he came to maturity and the 4 up to her death while he later crusaded. Saint Louis was solidly under the influence of his devout mother throughout the 26 years of his reign in which she lived.
The Christian principles instilled by his mother led him to introduce the presumption of innocence into law, ban trials by ordeal, and introduce the ability of the king to pardon a conviction.
Saint Louis also took an active part in the 7th and 8th Crusades, expanded the Inquisition’s fight against heresy, ordered the burning of numerous Jewish texts, and made severe punishments for gambling, interest-bearing loans, prostitution, and blasphemy, the last offense being punishable by one’s tongue being removed.
Saint Louis eventually died during the 8th crusade, taken down by dysentery like his father.
So, over 400 years after the reign of Saint Louis, the king’s name labeled the foreign rock where Etienne Renault (like Ren Oh) arrived to inform Henri “Iron Hand” de Tonti of the mutiny, pillaging, and destruction at Fort Crevecoeur. Tonti then traveled south to the fort that he had left behind only a short time earlier to find Renault’s testimony to be true.
When two French voyagers passed heading up-river, Tonti handed them a letter to deliver to his superior, Robert Rene Cavalier, Sieur de LaSalle. The Lord of LaSalle was on a mission to retrieve supplies in New France, and Tonti’s letter was to inform him of Fort Crevecoeur’s destruction at the hands of their own men. The letter requested LaSalle return to Le Rocher Saint-Louis.
…
Then, Henri de Tonti and five other men patiently waited on the rock.
…
That is, until the Iroquois arrived.
…
However, LaSalle was having his own difficulties up north. On May 6th, 1680, just over two months after departing from Fort Crevecoeur, LaSalle and his men arrived at Fort Frontenac in present day Canada. By late July, he received Henri de Tonti’s letter concerning the mutiny at Crevecoeur along with word that the same Frenchmen had destroyed another fort at the Miami River, robbed Michilimackinac (like Misheelimakinaw) and Niagara Falls of pelts, and planned to murder LaSalle to escape retribution.
Rather than return to Le Rocher Saint-Louis, LaSalle and his men set out on a hunt for their treasonous cohorts, resulting in an ambush that left two traitors dead and more imprisoned at Fort Frontenac. Having tied up loose ends, LaSalle and 25 Frenchmen then finally traveled south to Illinois country.
Meanwhile, Henri de Tonti and his five men grew impatient with LaSalle. They had been waiting for over six months. So, they prepared to resupply themselves at Michilimackinac, that is present day Mackinaw City, Michigan. However, before they could depart, the ever-westward expanding and English-armed Iroquois struck the Frenchmen’s neighbors, the Kaskaskia.
The Iroquois arrived 600 warriors strong against the unprepared village. Standing as an arrogant foreigner, Henri de Tonti greeted the warriors and attempted to strike up a truce.
Henri "Iron Hand" may have been a little out of his depth. While he was an agent of the French, his actual birthplace was the Kingdom of Naples in Italy. In his language of origin, his surname holds meaning. Tonti, a plural form of tonto, translates into English as stupid, silly, dumb, or foolish.
While his attempted negotiation bought time for some Kaskaskia to escape the village, it also ended with Tonti suffering from a nearly fatal stab wound as he and his men retreated north to their previously planned destination.
Scouts Honor "Soul Man" 0:30-1:34
5B
So, I've never properly introduced myself. My name is Wendell Bauer. I live in a mid-sized city at the center of the United States, and I spend my days as a devoted husband, father, and artist.
You might note that Wendell is not a very common name these days. For most of my childhood, I heard calls of, "Hey, Wendy!" from across the schoolyard. My older brother, Ted, would shorten my name to Wend, and I suppose that, for other kids, throwing that "y" on the end was all too tempting.
Actually, Ted was known to throw that “y” on there himself more than a few times. We were brothers after all, and when we weren’t cooperatively geeking out over science fiction, comics, and legos, we were certainly bickering as brothers do.
More than my brother, though, the largest nuisance of my youth and most common user of the mean-spirited nickname was a boy by the name of Hank Cockburn. Hank and Frank Cockburn were both a few years older than me and lived in the neighborhood. There were times when my older brother and Frank would get along, but those moments were fleeting. As for the younger brother Hank, he and I never saw eye to eye. Maybe his hope in heckling me was that it might draw attention away from his own unfortunate family name.
My earliest memory of Hank was during the use of a bathroom pass in first grade. For whatever reason, the stalls at my school never had doors on them. Maybe it was for teachers to quickly help young children when necessary. What it meant for me was that when Hank and one of his comrades came wandering the halls, they ended up finding me alone and exposed sitting in a stall.
Upon discovering me in this compromised state, the older boys cracked up laughing.
Hank's comrade contributed, "Isn't this that Wendy kid? Ha! What kind of boy would want a girl's name?"
Hank chimed in, "Maybe he is a girl! He is sitting down to use the toilet!"
Hank then leapt upward to grab the crossbar of the stall above me, swinging like a trapeze with his shoes nearing my face as he called, "Are you a girl, Wendy? Huh, Wendy? Huh?"
Hank's pal cheered from behind him as I cowered with my pants down and nowhere to run. Eventually, bored of my failure to respond further, they dropped away and headed back out to the hall, hollering crude insults as they went on their way.
But, this wouldn't be the last time I would be harassed by Hank. Minor run-ins would continue throughout grade school.
By middle school, I was in honors and accelerated classes, which meant that for math, I was attending a class largely filled with children a year older than me. And, just my luck, Hank wound up seated behind me for my entire 7th grade year.
Not only did my proper name never leave Hank’s mouth, but I’d spend entire class periods with his pen rapping his desk just behind my ear or his feet kicking at the back of my desk’s seat. He’d make threats of plans to kill my family’s cat. He would quietly mock my job as the neighborhood’s paperboy. He’d call my older brother the nasty, hateful term that I would hear many times upon entering high school two years later, a “wigger.” It feels like that term somehow manages to be racist twice…
I’m ashamed that I was so weak. I always just wanted people, including Hank, to leave me alone and let me do my strange, introverted, and quiet thing. But, some folks can’t help but go around sniffing for blood.
Terribly Happy “Special Skeletons”
5C
Three months after Henri de Tonti’s men escaped to the north, LaSalle’s larger group finally arrived at Le Rocher Saint-Louis. There they found the Illinois village to be a charred ruin filled with corpses. Continuing further south to the remains of Fort Crevecoeur in search of Tonti’s men, LaSalle found women and children dead and burned on spikes.
When they arrived at the Mississippi River and still found no sign of their French contacts, LaSalle and his men headed back up north through the freezing winter. In January of 1681, they arrived at Fort Miami in what is now St. Joseph, Michigan.
It took LaSalle and Tonti five more months to encounter each other at Michilimackinac. Worn out from travel, the combined group headed north to Fort Frontenac again to re-supply. After resting for a time, the group now consisting of a total of 32 men once again headed south. This time they were in search of the mouth of the Mississippi River in order to claim the river system for France.
By April of 1682, they had succeeded and placed a cross up on high where the river met the gulf. Riding the momentum of this success, they then headed back upriver to Le Rocher Saint-Louis where they began construction on Fort Saint Louis. LaSalle then returned to France, once again leaving Henri “Iron Hand” in charge.
Despite hardships, the new frontier was treating Henri de Tonti well, at least in reputation. He was building prestige as an explorer and fur trader for the French, whereas his father had been disgraced and sent to the fortress prison of the Bastille during Henri’s years as a young adult.
Henri’s father, Lorenzo de Tonti, had been a governor of the Italian city of Gaeta (like Gah Yay Ta) and a banker in the Kingdom of Naples. However, soon after Henri’s birth in 1650, Lorenzo had participated in a revolt against a Spanish viceroy and was forced to seek political asylum in Paris, France. In Paris, Lorenzo modified early life insurance procedures to create the tontine, a Survivor-style system of subscriptions and annuities benefitting those who live the longest.
Sadly, Lorenzo threw in with the wrong people again in Paris when he chose to be a supporter of the powerful French finance minister Nicolas Fouquet (like Foo Que), who King Louis XIV saw as a political threat. Rather than support Fouquet’s ambitions for the chief minister position, King Louis XIV brought charges that Fouquet and his supporters had maladministered the state’s funds and had committed actions harmful to the well-being of the monarch. Nicolas Fouquet spent the last 19 years of his life in prison. Lorenzo de Tonti, in turn, served 7 years and then faded into obscurity.
Perhaps the fall of Lorenzo had some to do with Henri’s personal drive. It was in the same year of 1668 that Lorenzo entered the Bastille and Henri entered the French military. In the year of 1675, when Lorenzo was released, Henri was off losing his right hand to a grenade while fighting with French troops to support a rebellion against Spain in the towns of Messina and Gesso. By 1678, Henri had left France and the shadow of his father in favor of the new world of the Americas.
But, the Americas were working out for Henri. By 1684, he had a fully functioning Fort Saint Louis with men regularly running pelts up to New France. A mix of friendly native tribes including the Kaskaskia, Wea, Piankashaw, Shawnee, Abnaki, and Miami surrounded the fort. This native population totaled around 20,000 people.
While Fort Saint Louis was thriving, LaSalle returned from France with 180 people in search of the mouth of Mississippi River via the gulf. Unfortunately, he navigated poorly and led his people to a site where they struggled for two years in present day eastern Texas. Fed up with LaSalle’s obsession and inability to locate the river, his own men mutinied and murdered him while lost in the southern wilderness.
With no LaSalle, the King of France then put Henri de Tonti in control of all Illinois trade.
Around the same time, despite Lorenzo’s having passed away years earlier, the tontine finally came to be employed by the French State.
The family legacy would live on.
Jared Grabb “Path for Walking”
5D
When I did enter high school as a freshman, I was entering my older brother’s world. Ted was a senior, and as a senior he and his rivals held a lot of power over shoegazing newbies like me. My brother’s persona as a high school senior was outgoing, outspoken, and loomed large.
Ted was well-read and had successfully competed on the debate team for years, but to the agitation of teachers and fellow students alike, his interest in debate continued outside the competitive setting. When fellow students objected to my brother’s push to always win the argument and always upstage, fists were known to fly. In this too, my brother was more than willing to compete.
From art to gym to chemistry, my new teachers would groan after reading off the “Bauer” family name only to ask once again, “Is Ted your older brother?”
And, remember that awful term Hank threw around about him? My brother became one of hip hops earliest Caucasian adopters in our school system. He embraced the culture from his car’s driver seat leaning back to a near sleeping position to his sagging pants, Oakland Raiders jacket, and black Malcolm X ball cap, the agreement with my father being that he could only wear the ball cap after he had read The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
So, as walking the halls brought a resurgence of the nickname “Wendy,” it also brought along comments on my brother as well. Things like, “Tell your brother to pull his pants up,” and “Hey, Wendy, doesn’t your brother know he’s white?”
Entering into all of this at 14 years old left me feeling embarrassed and overwhelmed.
Not that Ted was the only thing that made me a target… Frank Cockburn, now a senior, and also a student in the same hour of gym class, found me to be just as entertaining a target as his younger brother had 2 years earlier. I was obsessed with art and independent rock music, and as such wore the uniform of cheap jeans and thrift store t-shirts. My hair looked like it was cut with a bowl. I stood out as awkward and ill-equipped, and Frank and his lackies let me know it daily. Ted did offer to stand up for me, but this frustrated me further as I thought it would draw more attention and make me look weaker.
My interests and my want to make my own way without the shadow cast by my name led me out into the world of underground punk shows. My protective parents enforced a strict curfew causing me to miss out on bands and a more involved social life. I resented the curfew, but I slowly began to find myself despite.
At 17, a girl asked me out, and we began dating. I entered the relationship with shame and claustrophobic feelings directed toward my family. My girlfriend and I spent all of our time together at her parents’ house. The strict curfew continued to chafe. But eventually, after spending over half a year away from my own home, my sentiments began to change.
I missed my parents. I began to doubt my own harsh judgement of my older brother. I started to see that the difficulties I faced at the hands of bullies were not presented by my brother or my parents. With this new-found wisdom, I finally yearned for our involvement with our families to even out. I had been such a pushover about everything for so many years, and my girlfriend had gotten comfortable with my living in her world. She had no desire to live in mine. So, that was the end of that.
I broke up with my girl. I started dreaming of a life on the road, and I started loving my family again.
At birth, I had received the name “Wendell” from my mother as a tribute to her father, Thomas Wendell Moore, a farmer born of farmers.
I received the name “Bauer” from my father, an engineer, born of a mechanic, born of a blacksmith.
“Wendell” originates from the word “wend,” meaning to wander, meander, pursue, or seek.
“Bauer” is a German surname meaning “peasant” or “farmer.”
Through everything, my name and my family are truly mine.
Jared Grabb “Prison Bars” (Middle America Version)