Old Rough and Ready & Ol' Simmons

I'm getting ready for another wedding. Whoa there, don't get too excited, it isn't mine. In just a few weeks, my son Jay is getting married. I really got to thinking about this wedding over this past weekend while I was reading some information about our 12th President, Zachary Taylor. If you look back through history and see the vast differences in the standards of living from generation to generation, it is easy to see why our ancestors were so concerned about the health and welfare of their children. Often times we now take their health and safety for granted. As you research each preceding generation, you will notice that the number of infant deaths increase significantly. Diseases, which we now look at as minor, often took the lives of many children and young adults. As I read about the hardships endured by President Zachary Taylor and his family, I began to count my blessings. Oh what a wonderful time we are living in and what a spoiled bunch we have become.

The comforts of our homes and relative ease with which we travel from place to place, contrast, to a great degree, with our ancestors. Zachary Taylor lived most of his adult life as an army officer at various frontier outposts. These outposts were in remote locations and provided little comfort and very hard lives for their inhabitants. Indian battles were numerous and Taylor fought against Tecumseh, Black Hawk and many other great chieftains of their time. Taylor married young Margaret "Peggy" Smith, an orphan from a very prosperous Maryland plantation while he was in the Army. She accompanied Lieutenant Taylor on his military assignments and many times Peggy was the only woman stationed at these outposts. Taylor commented later in life that, "My wife was as much a soldier as I was." During their various assignments throughout the western (at that time) portion of the United States, Peggy gave birth to six children.

I spent some time in the military in my younger days and was assigned to Ft. Bliss, Texas; Ft. Richardson, Alaska; back to Ft. Bliss and then to Ft. Hood, Texas. During this time I was also married and my wife accompanied me to these "remote" locations. She gave birth to Matthew in Alaska and Megan on my second trip to Ft. Bliss. The hospitals were superb and the doctors were first class, something that Peggy Taylor never experienced. (Matthew was actually delivered by a doctor in an Anchorage Hospital who came from Terre Haute.) We lived in a decent apartment in Anchorage for a period of time and later we had nice housing on post. We never were subjected to any undue hardships (for the first year I flew to work by helicopter) nor were there any hostile Indians terrorizing our post. Matt did get run over by a car once, but that was a one-time event and was purely by accident. A few years later we bought a house in Killeen, Texas just outside of Ft. Hood, I got a vasectomy and we had a semi-wonderful time. We saw very few Indians at Ft. Hood and I don't recall any occasions where we feared for our lives.

Two of the Taylor children, three-year old Octavia, and one-year old Margaret, died in Louisiana of cholera. One daughter, Sarah Knox, fell in love with one of her father's aides, Jefferson Davis, while living at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where her father was the Commander at Fort Crawford. Although Zachary Taylor was fond of young Lieutenant Davis, he was adamant that his daughter was not to marry a military man. He had seen the hardships forced upon his young wife and children and wanted no part of that for his daughter. Davis resigned from the military and Taylor relented. Unfortunately, young Sara died within weeks of her marriage, succumbing to cholera like her two younger siblings. Taylor's other two daughters married military men, Ann Mackall Taylor-Wood married Dr. Robert C. Wood, an army surgeon, and Mary Elizabeth "Betty" Taylor Bliss, married Major William W.S. Bliss. The Taylor's only son, Richard, rose to the rank of Lt. General in the Confederate Army. (This is an interesting fact because his Father, as the President in 1850, proclaimed that he would hang anyone conspiring to secede from the Union.)

(As a couple of side notes: Ft. Bliss, Texas, where I was stationed twice, was named after William W.S. Bliss, although he had never even visited the area and General Robert C. Wood, stationed at Louisville in 1862, was in charge of all medical facilities for the Union Armies in the Western Theater of the Civil War.)

So here sits this old soldier, thinking about his son's upcoming wedding and about all of my kids. The apprehension and uncertainty that Zachary and Peggy felt about their children were founded in the harsh environment they lived in and I truly respect and understand their concerns. In the environment that I live in, I find myself concerned that my children find happiness in the mate of their choosing. Sure I worry about their health, but the world we live in is a much safer place and the standard of medical technology today provides services and care unprecedented in our history. Zachary Taylor died in the White House after serving as President for only 16 months. If he had the type of medical services that we are so fortunate to have, it is doubtful that his gastrointestinal illness would have been the cause of his death.

In my mind, Jay has chosen a wonderful bride. Rebekah is a most welcome addition to my family and to me this is just like having another daughter. Matthew's wife Melanie and Megan's husband Patrick are also two wonderful people, great friends and two of my "kids". Someday Kayla Dee will settle down and then I'll have 4 sons and 4 daughters.

As the wedding approaches, I can't help but consider the words of that great battler of the Cleveland Indians, Lou Gehrig, "...today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth."