remembered well

After leaving Wichita we headed out across western Kansas, joining the Santa Fe Trail along the way.  There is a lot of not very much out on this portion of the Great Plains.  However, as we drove toward Colorado, I saw a sign for Holcomb, Kansas.

You may recognize the name of this little town from the Truman Capote book “In Cold Blood”, in which he sensationalized the murder of the Clutter family in 1959.  I was seven years old when the murders occurred, fourteen when the book was published and fifteen when the movie was released, so I was not really tuned into the whole story.  However, in 2005 when the film “Capote” came out starring the great Philip Seymour Hoffman, I learned that a woman in my book group actually grew up in Holcomb.  She was, in fact one of the nearest neighbors to the Clutters’ farm, and a Clutter daughter had been her babysitter.

I pulled off the road to take a look at the town where my friend had grown up, where her community had gone through such a traumatic event.  I did not expect a memorial, because what town would want to memorialize such a horrific moment in its history?  But I was pleasantly surprised.  There is a lovely park created in memory of the Clutter family, focusing on the contributions that the Clutters made with their lives instead of their grizzly end. And that is as it should be. 

In a documentary made in 2017, the Clutters’ granddaughter said that her mother and aunt who survived because they were not at home, dealt with the killings and its aftermath “with their faith and family and the close friends that supported them — but mainly their faith: knowing that it doesn’t end here, that they’re going to see them again.”

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve spent time this summer, arranging for our memorial in the Lakeview Cemetery in Ludington, Michigan.  Besides our names, my husband and I chose a short epitaph that reflects our life’s purpose:  Our story lives on in glory.  The way we die is not the final word.  The way we live and live on into eternity is the story without an end.  Our purpose, and I think the Clutters’ purpose is tell God’s story.  Our own story is lived in the context of His.

Love, Liz 

“Write this: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on’. 
‘Blessed indeed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!’”  Revelation 14:13