Page 48 - Always Virginia

36 Virginia Day Fritscher

when I lived there in the 1920s, it cost 50 cents each way and took
so long. For the ten minutes it now takes we all got out of the vans
and stood in the ferry. There was a huge barge coming down the
river, the longest one I ever saw. We were standing so close to the
gate of the ferry that water splashed up on us. I left the tour and
stayed all night with my cousin, Cecilia. We sat up and talked until
2 A.M. We got up at 6 so we could eat breakfast and go visit the
new Catholic Church which was built in 1978. The Church I had
attended was 100 years old that year. They have a history book of
the Church and the town.
We walked all around town, past my old house, which still
looks lovely, although the current owners have knocked out the
ceiling of the two rooms, the living room and bedroom, and made
a cathedral ceiling and a huge fireplace. Cecilia said an “Arkie” lives
there. I asked her who were the “Arkies.” I thought maybe the word
she was saying meant they were people from Arkansas, but the
archaeologists are known as the “Arkies.” We went by Cecilia’s old
house, and Kamp’s old grocery store which is now a closed-down
clothing store. Kampsville has only one grocery store now and used
to have four at least. We walked by my Daddy’s old garden lots.
The house built on them by my doomed cousin, Loretta Day, and
her dentist-husband, Phil Ritter, is still there, and the new bank
and new post office are next to them.
That early morning was quite foggy. I didn’t remember all that
fog when I was little, but guess I was used to it. Our tour started
at 8:30, so Cecilia brought me to the Kampsville Inn, where I met
the rest of the tour who had stayed overnight at the Inn or dorms
the Arkies own and operate. Cecilia and I met for lunch and several
from the tour ate with us. All this is being done by Northwestern
University, and Kampsville is the oldest spot in the United States
where they are digging for these artifacts of the Havana Hopewell
Indians in six mounds where they’ve found 150 skeletons and pearls
from the Illinois River, and figurines of men and women and ravens