JUST AN OLD TREE

          Last Thursday morning the Conde community lost what may have been its oldest living landmark.  An early morning thunderstorm twisted and destroyed the top third of an old cedar tree that grew on the John Hynes' homestead located one-half mile west of Conde.  As near as I can tell this tree was one hundred and twelve years old. 

          This tree had a significant importance to the Hynes family that still owns this homestead.  When it became apparent that I would have more than a passing interest in this family there were only two of the original family members left.  Jack and Ed Hynes told me many times the story of this tree.  They seemed to want to impress on me the importance that they placed on it.  They knew that my wife and I would own and farm this land and though they didn't say so I knew they did not want me to destroy this tree.  They did not have to worry "Olga" would never have let me or any one else hurt this tree. 

          John Hynes came to Dakota Territory in eighteen eighty-two and filed on this quarter of land.  He had brought his oldest son with him but left the rest of his family home in Minnesota.  When he returned home that fall his wife asked him "What it was like out here?"  He told her that the biggest difference she would notice was that there were very few trees-in fact there were none on the homestead he had chosen.  She immediately decided that their farm would have at least one tree.  The next spring when they were ready to head west she went down to the banks of the Mississippi River that ran next to their house and chose a small cedar seedling.  She then placed it, and some good riverbank soil in a carpet suitcase.  She kept this bag in the front of the covered wagon by her seat so that she could tend it.  It survived the long journey and upon their arrival it was planted just a short distance south west of their shanty.  For over one hundred years this tree survived all the adversities that this hostile country had to offer.  As a small tree it lived through the great Blizzard of Eighty Eight, the many droughts that happened around the turn of the century and a tornado that destroyed some buildings on the farm in thirties.  I am sure the growth rings on that tree would show the prolonged and severe droughts of the 1930s as well as the abundant rains of the forties.  I think to the Hynes family this tree symbolized the dedication, grit, tenacity and just plain stubbornness that it takes to live in this country.  This tree had survived thousands of storms as bad and worse than this one was.  But in the last few years it seemed to be aging.  Its age and the fact that it may have been a little lonely were the reasons it succumbed to a storm that years earlier it would have stood proudly against.

          To many that passed by, it was just an old tree but to others it was much, much more.