150 Years Ago--Hawel Family Migration

“Copy issued on 31 March 1868 in the matter of emigration to America" was a notation written 150 years ago on this date by the parish priest on the birth record of Joseph Hawel (aka Joseph Hovel), his wife Anna and their eight children. While the village of Dolni Chrastany had a small chapel, the main church serving the community was in Netolice, about 6.8 km (about 4.25 miles) distant to the north by today's road. Joseph would walk the dirt path into the church in order to take the first step in a long, and time consuming journey. The copy of the birth record was necessary for the family members to obtain the proper documents for travel to the United States. It is said to be an uncommon notation, but for us distant relations it is a great piece of information for which we should be thankful for the fastidious nature of the parish priest. In basic form it is only a date, but I see it as much more.  It is the beginning of the long family journey to the United States for this one family. A decision had been made to migrate and this is the first known record of action on that choice. Unfortunately, I lack specific information on why the family immigrated to the United States, or why they chose this period of time. Every individual or family would have had their own reasons to make such a journey, but research provides certain trends or commonalities among the population emigrating from Bohemia to the United States.

Anna Jodl Hawel Birth/Baptismal Record
The note on emigration is on the left side

What, according to research, were the primary reasons for immigration? Many commentators list low taxes, liberal residency requirements, inexpensive land, and a climate of political and religious freedom. However, less than four percent of Bohemian immigration to the United States was for religious reasons, so that was a very minor issue.  It would also not have been in play for this family. Economic reasons, not unlike today, may well have been the prime driver. I suspect the price of land, quality of land, and low taxes would play a large role.  I do not know what Josef and Anna thought, but the historic record may help inform us.

Hovel House, 18 Dolni Chrastany, MB Hovel Photo

Josef was the youngest son in the family of his seven siblings three others were male;  two of the males passed away before their first birthday. The other male, Martin, an older brother to Josef who was born in 1800 I have (so far) been unable to track since his birth record. An armchair genealogist, interestingly named Tom Havel (and no we don’t think we are related based on villages from which our ancestors hailed), on a Czech Facebook page commented that in Bohemia it was often the youngest son who inherited the farm. From the parish birth records Josef was the youngest son of Franz and his first wife Terezie. (When Terezie passed away Frantisek married Katherine Borowka, but I only locate one child  born from that marriage.)  1837 plat maps for Dolni Chrastany, and it shows that Franz Hawel owned a good deal of land in the area.  At this point in time I cannot read the land records of Dolni Chrastany which may shed some light on the situation, and suspect a professional is likely required. Franz may not have owned the most land in the area, but he certainly had a number of land holdings, some fairly distant from the home farm. What we do know is that most land holdings of small farmers in Bohemia were only about ten acres in size. Unfortunately, the 1837 map is digital and difficult to discern any likely scale from which to measure. A large, non-noble, land owner would likely have owned about 25 acres. Regardless, the size of the parcels in Bohemia would be dwarfed by what was available in the United States. In Bohemia, as land was divided and parcels created in a  linear fashion which was thought best to treat purchasers more equally.  One only needs to look at the plat map of 1837, and even today, to notice the long-lasting nature of land division on the landscape. This caused obvious farming issues for access, and travel distance. However, at the time of settlement, it was probably advantageous to be in a village rather than live alone in the hinterlands. Dolni Chrastany was a typical Bohemian Village, where the home acted as both house and barn, and the fields spread behind the home. This is quite different from the situation in the United States where a farm in the Midwest would typically have 160 acres and homes spaced along otherwise empty roads.

1837 Cadastral (Plat) Map of Dolni Chrastany

However, a few years before the family immigrated to the United States, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, aka the Hapsburg Empire, not only lessened emigration restrictions, but they also eased inheritance rules which would allow land to be transferred to any family member. The ease of emigration restrictions set off the second large wave of Bohemian migration to the United States, which started in 1867.  Most of those immigrants are said to be from southern Bohemia. What I do not know is if Josef owned the land in Dolni Chrastany, or some other family member.  His land tenure situation, so far, is beyond my capability.  We do know that his father Frantisek died in 1847, when Josef was near forty and a year a few months after Josef married Anna. At the time of his death, Frantisek (Franz) is noted as living in the outer house (from death record) which means he was likely retired from farming and someone else was running the farm. If Josef inherited the land from Frantisek, the easing of land inheritance rules probably meant that each of the four living sons of Josef would have parcels too small to make a decent living; that is if he chose to allow four sons to have equal inheritance. What we do know is that the Hawel family would be part of a chain migration to the United States. Chain migration is under much debate today, but would it not be a preferred method of migration? Is not keeping the family whole a better option than a broken family? In this situation the whole immediate family migrated  and re-established themselves first near Jefferson, WI, and later near Manly, IA. What we also know is that Wisconsin had an immigration commissioner to attract Bohemians to Wisconsin.  One historian noted that the Bohemians were likely “attracted by the assiduous distribution of American propaganda in the Hapsburg lands. (1)" Wisconsin may have been attractive if politics were important to the immigrant since a male only needed to be age 21, and have lived in the state for one year in order to vote. They did not need to complete the full naturalization process to vote in Wisconsin. We know that Josef Hawel took the first step for naturalization, but I have found no record in the historical archives serving Jefferson County for him having taken the second step.

 

1837 Plat Map listing Habel, Franz (Frantisek Hawel)

The Hawel family, however, were probably not the first from Dolni Chrastany to arrive in Wisconsin.  Jakob Fitzl, who would marry Ann the oldest daughter of Josef and Anna,  would have the same note as did the Hawel’s on his birth certificate, but one written two years earlier, in March 1866.  The Hawel’s fit the proto-type of a chain migration from Bohemia.   They were rural, the whole immediate family moved, and the first generation tended to marry within their same ethnic group. We see this in many of the Josef and Anna Hawel children who all appeared to have married on American soil. They were married to either those who were born overseas, or whose parents had been born in the old country. Anna married Jacob Fitzl, John may first have married Mary Popp (Bohemian), Joseph D. married Ottelia Popp, Catherine married Emil (aka Henry) Popp. I am not sure of the origination of Kachel (Rose), or Ulrich (Wenzel) but Hofmeister (Mary) seems German. Germany was often at odds with the Hapsburg Empire, and the militarism of Germany at the time of migration may be one reason for aiding migration to the United States. Jefferson County was a known location for German immigrants, and to this day the city of Jefferson has an annual German celebration.   Even if they did not like each other in the old country, they would have still shared traits. For example, Martin Hawel would marry Amelia Duscheck, who was born in the US, and while her father, Josef, was born in Boehmia it was in an area said to be settled by ethnic Germans, otherwise known as the German Landskroner settlement area.  Josef Duscheck may have been an ethnic German.  Dolni Chrastany is about 100 km directly east of Regensburg, Germany (meaning it is only about 20 km more distant from Regensburg as it is from Prague).  This means that it is highly likely that inter-mixture with German heritage could not be denied. Culture tends not to know specific boundaries.  Dolni Chrastany is only about 30 km east of the nearest part of the current Czech-German border.  Being in the Hapsburg Empire, the Bohemians were taught and knew German. The strength of a shared linguistic tongue was likely too much to pass, even with perhaps ethnic differences from the old country.

Joseph Havel (Hawel) Declaration of Citizenship
Source;  Historical Society Archives, UW-Whitewater

In the end, however, we may never know the personal reasons why the Hawel family migrated and first set roots near Jefferson, Wisconsin. Clearly, Jakob Fitzl and perhaps others from the old country  village had already made the excursion. While we can only speculate, I suspect the reasons was the availability of plentiful land for the children to establish their own farm operations. The nation would continue to settle its great prairies which began with the Homestead Act of 1862.  The Civil War likely put a dent in western migration for part of this period. It did not matter to the government that the land had once belonged to someone else, the government decided it was free to tame and settle.

Jacob Fitzl Birth/Baptismal Record 

The United States, in 1868, was in a tumultuous time. Reconstruction policies of the Republican controlled congress aimed to give more rights to African Americans, but those actions were constantly thwarted by President Andrew Johnson. The election of US Grant in late 1968 would set the nation forward on equal rights and protection of the African Americans who had been guaranteed citizenship as a result of the 14th amendment to the US Constitution recognized in July 1868. It was a time of major change and the country was dependent upon immigrant labor to man its factories, farm its fields, and further its western settlement. It was into this situation that the Hawel family would arrive on the shores of Baltimore in the middle of the summer in 1868. It would be a journey of 18 weeks. They would need to travel about 500 or more miles from Dolni Chrastany to the port in Bremen, where they would depart for the United States. For what follows next, you will have to await for part 2 of 150 Years Ago—Hawel Family Migration, which will occur at a later date.

(1)  Bicha, Karel, 1970 “The Czechs in Wisconsin History”, The Wisconsin Magazine of History, V 53, No. 3

The Third Wheel

The third wheel on a tricycle is important in order to balance a trike rider.  Stools can have three legs, with the third performing the same function as the wheel on a tricycle.  There is also another term for a third wheel, and it is often has a negative connotation--it is the person who hangs around with a couple, going to events with them.  The couple may refer to the addition of the person as a third wheel.  This could be most annoying at a younger age, particularly when a young couple is dating or newly married.  Although times are different now than they used so perhaps the third wheel, in terms of person is viewed differently.    I know about third wheels, because I was often one as a younbg adult. 

Wailing wall, part of former Jewish Temple

The idea of third wheel came to mind while recently watching the classic movie "Ben-Hur."  At the beginning of the movie there is a scene in the hamlet of Nazareth where a visitor to the carpentry shop asks why his table is not completed, a project the carpenter's son is supposed to complete.  The visitor then asks Joseph, the carpenter, where Joseph's son is.  To which Joseph replied in the hills.  The man asked why he is in the hills, to which Joseph noted his son said he is doing his father's work.  The visitor, of course, replies, that he should be here in his father's workshop finishing the table. While watching that scene it occurred to me that not only do I share some traits with Joseph, but he must have been the third wheel in the household.

Birth location of Jesus Christ

Today, March 19, is the feast day of St. Joseph.  In the United States it is a clear second fiddle to the feast day of St. Patrick on March 17.  Other than in some old Italian, or Polish neighborhoods in the United States there are no parades, there is no dying the river, there is no artificially colored beer. In some places the feast of St. Joseph is a holy day of obligation in the Roman Catholic Church, but in the United States it is not.  In the U.S. Joseph is, well, an afterthought.  Think what life must have been like for Joseph.

Sign noting location of Joseph's carpentry shop

The bible gives us very little information about Joseph.  We know he is of the house and lineage of David.  To think I have a hard time finding ancestor's beyond their time in the United States, and here Jewish oral tradition has Joseph back to King David.  Joseph is engaged to a woman who he then finds out is pregnant, and he is not the father.  This must have caused some great consternation in the community. The upstanding man he is decides to marry Mary, a decision to prevent her from being scorned.  He travels with her to Bethlehem for the census, having to find room in a manger, really a cave, due to no other lodging being available. He probably helped birth his son, but we don't know.  He is likely home when the three magi arrive after the birth of his stepson.  Sometime after the three magi arrive  he can't go back to Nazareth, instead the family has to sneak into Egypt to avoid their young son from being killed by a jealous King Herod.  While we all grew up knowing him as a carpenter, today some say he was more likely a day laborer and dabbled in a variety of tasks and odd jobs.

Looking southwest over Sea of Galilee

In addition, while his stepson was the son of God, the child certainly had his moments of rage, just like any normal person.  A prime example is the rage he had at the money changers in the temple.  His stepson also went to teach in the temple and did not even have the courtesy to tell his mother and stepfather where he was going so they had a moment of every parents worst nightmare.  Jesus, in the story of changing water into wine at Cana asks his mother, with what I take as some disdain:  "woman, why do you involve me?"  My goodness, if I had referred to my mother in that way, well let me say her look would have had me on the run.  He certainly did not appear to well honor his mother at that point.  Then of course there is the fact that Joseph's wife was specially picked by God.  Let us look at it from a practical sense: men seldom win an argument with their wife, so can you imagine what his arguments with the Blessed Virgin Mary were like?  But, perhaps, poor Joseph knew from the start any argument would be fruitless, so why bother.  On top of that how could he discipline God's offspring?

Jewish ritual bath, possibly in Joseph, Mary and Jesus' house

Joseph really does not seem to get much respect.  I am not sure how many siblings he had, but I cget the sense that he was probably a middle child.  In that way he was used to being the odd person out.  Kinda of the forgotten type.  While his stepson was away in the hill preparing for his short-lived ministry, Joseph toiled in his workshop, found the odd jobs to earn a few extra pieces of silver, and gathered the fire wood.  Joseph went about the daily routines that make up so much of human existence. In other words, Joseph's toil and labor for the benefit of the household was not unlike that of many Dad's today.

Stone water container, like the one used in miracle at Cana

To me the reason St. Joseph is special is his ordinariness.  Let's face it, but for raising the son of God he would not be a saint.  He did not chase the, apocryphal, snakes out of Ireland.  There is no record of him doing anything overly special (there is not much in the historical record on him at all).  I am sure he had his fits and rages, doubts and insecurities, triumphs and joys just like the rest of us.  In that we celebrate him as an ordinary man, placed in an unusual situation.  He may have been the third wheel in that Nazarene household over 2,000 years past, but I think that fit him just fine and he well recognized his lot in life--an ordinary person going about his daily duties, and providing some balance to an otherwise extraordinary household.

Painting in the Church of St. Joseph, Nazareth

Author photos, Spring 2013

1808

Google, the giant search engine that seemingly is in competition with Amazon to abscond with our personal data and take over our private lives, will often recognize the birth dates of certain individuals through their Google Doodle.  For example, today they recognized n English chemist born in 1938.The persons are not always prominent, or even recognized by the masses today, but nonetheless made some impact during their life either by invention, discovery, or action.  For a reason totally explainable, they did not provide a Google Doodle last Saturday for my great great grandfather, Josef Hawel, who was born on 10 March 1808.  That is 210 years ago.  I am a fourth generation distant from Josef.  His third child, Martin, was my great grandfather.  Martin died when my father was nine years of age.  What makes Josef exceptional to me is that he and his wife chose to emigrate from Bohemia to the United States.  That was a decision that would alter family history, and lineage.  I am here today because he made that decision.

1837 Partial Plat Map for Dolni Chrastany area
Shows part of the land holdings of Franz Hawel
Source:  http://archivnimapy.cuzk.cz/uazk/pohledy/archiv.html

I seem to know more facts and figures about Josef than about who he really was.  Can the life of a man simply be relegated to facts and figures?  I know when he was born, married, when he applied for a copy of his birth certificate to emigrate, date of arrival in the United States, when and where he signed his declaration of citizenship, what he grew in 1869 and 1879 as a farmer, when he died, and where he is buried.  Perhaps a look at a few of these facts will provide a narrative which may explain who he really was.  Josef was born the sixth child of Frantisek Hawel (Hawel is the Germanic spelling of Havel, and German was a common language given that Bohemia was under rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for many years)  and his wife Terezie Jiral at 18 Dolni Chrastany, Bohemia.   Terezie was born in the same house in which Josef would be born.  Frantisek was born in the village of what is called today Ratiborova Lhota.  Josef would grow up helping his father on the farm.  Overtime Frantisek would acquire some rather significant acreage for the time as shown in the 1837 plat maps of Dolni Chrastany.  Dolni Chrastany is in southwest Bohemia roughly the same distance east of Regensburg, Germany as it is south of Prague.   Josef and his wife Anna were married on 27 January 1846.  Anna was born and raised in Hlavatec, which according to Google maps is today about a 57 km (35 miles) car ride from Josef's home town of Dolni Chrastany.  While that may seem an easy to navigate distance with an automobile, in the days of horses and wagons it was probably a decent trip of nearly 10 hours, or the better part of a day.  What would be interesting to find out is how two people so distant met.

Sacramental Marriage record of Joseph Hawel and Anna Jodl
Source:  Book 30 Image 14 at https://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/DA?menu=3&id=5825

Josef's father, Frantisek, would pass away a little more than one year after Josef was married, and at the time of his death he was living in what the death record referred to as the outer house; this likely means that he was retired from farming and living in the second home, like a granny flat on the home farm.  I am not sure if Josef and family lived and owned the main house or a sibling owned and lived there as well.  It is was not unusual for a house to hold more than one, if not many immediate families.  What is interesting is that of Josef's six full-blood siblings three died within a year of birth. A heartache perhaps all too common in that era. I have not, to date, been able to track the marriage or death of Josef's remaining three sisters (including a half sibling born to Frantisek and his second wife), and his older brother Martin.  The old parish records are not always easy to decipher.  Regarding his marriage, Josef was rather old, even by today's standards, being age 38.  It appears to me that men needed to first obtain the capability to support a wife, and children.  Their first child would be born 363 days after he and Anna were wed.  The births of their nine children would span from January 1847 to September 1867.  I cannot imagine having a child at 59 years of age.  The fourth of the nine children of Josef and Anna would not even make it half way to his first birthday. He is likely buried at the church graveyard in nearby Netolice.  In 1868 Josef would leave Dolni Chrastany and the farm fields of Bohemia to establish himself in the United States.

1872 Plat Map, Jefferson Co.
Source:  Wisconsin Historical Society archives

The US Census of Agriculture and some plat maps provide additional information about his farming activity.  I know that he farmed in the town of Jefferson, Jefferson County, WI in 1870 (per census), and by 1880 was farming in the town of Koshkonong.  What I do not know is if it is a different farm, a mistake in the record, or if the jurisdictional boundary was altered.  An 1872 plat map shows land owned in what may have been then the town of Jefferson, but is now the town of Koshkonong.  The farm he owned, which was 80 acres, is located about a half mile north of Highway 106 on County N.  Farming was a difficult life, which I noted in a post last year detailing the farm adventures of three of Josef's grandchildren, sons of my great grandfather Martin; that post can be found here. While it was common at the time in the United States, particularly in the Midwest to have a diversified farm operation, it was often more subsistence than a money maker, according to agricultural historian John Shover.   Census records indicate his farm income in 1879 (reported in 1880 census) was almost half what it had been reported in 1870 for 1869 earnings.  His livestock was also valued at about half of what it was worth ten years earlier.  The 23 cords of wood he and his family cut in 1879 was valued at $46.  The diversification of the farm had included cattle, cows (milk), chickens, pigs, hay, wheat, oats, rye and Irish potatoes.  His wife, if they followed the typical pattern prevalent at the time, likely did the production of butter (200 lbs in 1879), cared for the chickens (40 in 1879) and gathered the eggs (150 dozen in 1879).  His largest crop in 1870 was 200 bushels of Indian corn, which was supplanted by 200 bushels of oats in 1880.  In 1870 his crop output totaled 424 bushels, but grew to 620 bushels in 1880.  The same five crops were grown in the two reported years but in vastly different amounts.

Sacramental record of birth and baptism of Joseph Hawel, b 1808
Source:  Book 30 Image 32 at https://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/DA?menu=3&id=5825

What we have to understand is that in 1879 Josef and Anna had fewer children assisting them with the farm work. At the 1870 census all but the oldest daughter was still at home, which left three daughters and three sons able to assist with farm chores. Wenzel would have been short of his third birthday at the time of the 1870 census, so too young for farm chores, even for a Hovel.  In the 1880 census young Joseph (reported as Jr.) and young teen Wenzel (age 13) and daughter Catherine were at home to assist with farm chores.  We have to remember that farming at that time was still very labor intensive.  Sometime after the 1880 census, but before 1882 Joseph, Anna and Wenzel would move to Iowa. Daughter Rose and her husband George Kachel would marry in February 1882 and purchase the Hawel farm. The move to Iowa may well have occurred after Rose was married.  However, Catherine Hovel Popp's 50th wedding anniversary news article says "they settled at Jefferson, WI and after thirteen years she moved to Iowa."  Given the 1885 Wisconsin census, which only lists head of household, I wonder if by chance Joseph D  was living with George and Rose Kachel as he does not appear with Anna and Wenzel in the Iowa 1885 census. By 1885 George and Anna only had a daughter, but two males are reported in the household at the time of 1885 Wisconsin census.  It is possible it could also be a male other than Josef D.

1880 US Census Record, last name is spelled as Harvill
Source:  HeritageQuest

Joseph Hawel's soul would go to his creator on 18 September 1882.  His body would be buried in the Bohemian Catholic Cemetery near Plymouth, IA.  He would spend only fourteen years of his 74 years of life on the continent west of the Atlantic ocean. He made no monumental discovery, or as far as we know did anything particularly unique.  He would have been an ordinary man who went about the daily routine of a commoner of his time--just like millions of us others on earth today.  Although, to me he has one unique attribute--he is my great great grandfather. His decision to move to the United State would alter the course of family events, even if he is not worth a Google Doodle.

Whither the Wetlands

The Wisconsin legislature has been very good at not only overturning, often at the behest of developers, issues once thought to be the province of local control, but also to rewrite environmental regulations. First it was high capacity wells, and now it is wetlands. The action began, so they say, innocently enough, to allow farmers and homeowners to fill small pockets of wetlands in which certain wetland indicators now exist. While not a wetland biologist, as a planner I have worked with wetlands for more than 35 years. Wetlands are dynamic, influenced by precipitation, and other factors. I will be the first to admit that there have been small pockets of soil removed by an owner, for some odd reason or other, that became a wetland. But the DNR would do a pretty good job of historical analysis and often made appropriate determinations. What seems to be forgotten are the reasons why there were wetland protections in the first place. We can see the effects today of non-wetland regulations: flooding, developments with continuous water in the basements, lack of biodiversity.

Frac Sand Mine in Wisconsin

But, yet this story is not unique. Our American history is made up of bountiful stories of human desire to do what it pleases to nature. I call it human hubris. These stories often they fit the narrative of their time. Well recognized environmental historian William Cronon, wrote in 1992, while at Yale (he is now at the UW Madison), of the frontier thesis posed by Fredrick Jackson Turner (who taught at the UW until about 1910) saying that “Turner saw the transformation of the American landscape from wilderness to trading post, to farm to boomtown as the central saga of the nation.” If one thinks of the Homestead act, you do have to realize, as Cronon would also point out that: “ ‘Free land” could only become plausible by obscuring the conquest that traded one people’s freedom for another’s.” The story of pioneers and their struggles to transform the wilderness has been popularized by movies, literature and television shows, think “Little House on the Prairie.” What becomes important are stories that are told, the narratives we allow to enter our minds and hearts. They form our history.

I recall one time consecutively reading two works on the transcontinental railroad, one by Stephen Ambrose, and the other, I believe, by David Bain. Ambrose admits he went into the project thinking it would be a boondoggle of corruption, but at the end, the title would best tell his conclusion: Nothing Like it in the World. Ambrose would pose a celebratory look at this massive undertaking and how it was able to draw the country together. Bain, however, found what Ambrose thought he would initially find—corruption and a boondoggle of a public work project. Bain is not afraid to put modern sensibility into this historical event. Drawing two different conclusions is not uncommon. Cronon, in his 1992 work refers to two works, each about the dust bowl, written in the same year, and using many of the same sources. Yet they came to two different conclusions. The first views those that stuck out this time of drought on the great plains as the “triumph of individualism and community spirit” where humans cleaned up nature’s mess, as Cronon puts it. The other, however, would be more about human hubris and an inability of humans to accommodate themselves to nature. 

Wetland to be affected by Frac Sand Mine Road

Wilderness and nature is a paradox in the modern world. Many of us enjoy our trips to what we now know as wilderness, but western ethos often have credited and held up high those who have built upon it. Frederick Jackson Turner created a narrative that well fit the ethos of the era. Properly planned, however, the wilderness and man can coexist. Without proper planning problems arise. That is what the legislature is now doing. Case in point, is special allowance for a Georgia Company to fill a rare hardwood wetland in Monroe County. The wetland that the company, Meteor, wishes to fill is over 13 acres of a 16 acre white pine and red maple wetland rated as exceptional and said to be irreplaceable. Showing once again the hubris of man, and legislators, the company says they will replace the wetland, even though that has never been successfully accomplished. It is easy to destroy an ecosystem, much more difficult to recreate it. Meteor wants to build the road to serve a frac sand mine, as if Wisconsin lacks locations for frac sand mining. (Frac sand mining, is a whole other issue.) The legislature and the governor make it seem that you cannot have economic development without environmental regulations. Yet, Minnesota seems to be doing well on both counts. Perhaps the tide is turning, as the Wisconsin State Journal has an article today on whether the GOP will loose sportsman because of the pro-development stance they have taken. When I pointed out to a developer this past week that there was a small pocket of wetlands on property he wised to develop, he simply said, he would just wait for the new state legislation to pass.

While in college, oh so very long ago, a professor in one of my conservation courses defined conservation as simply the wise use of resources. In his encyclical “Laudato Si” Pope Francis makes the same point when he says: Each community can take from the bounty of the earth whatever it needs for subsistence, but it also has the duty to protect the earth and to ensure its fruitfulness for coming generations.” It is once again time for us to look at the wise use of our resources and world that has been entrusted to us. It is time for the nation to move on from the old 19th century narrative to justify the industrial revolution to one that is more balanced. What the past few years of hurricane damage, and other climatic events should teach us is that nature is very difficult to control and has a way of reclaiming what had been taken. A renewed conservation ethic is required.