Great grandfather Jacob and his brother Martin were Union veterans who moved West after the war. They weren't cowboys or renegades, gamblers or gunslingers but settlers - solid, family men with wives and children. They didn't cross the Missouri to seek their fortune or make a name for themselves; they were farmers seeking land. When they got to where they were going, they unhitched the wagons, planted a crop and built a town from the mud up.
So, watching Westerns with my three boys, I get to point out little bits of family history to them - give them a little reverence for the ancestors. Though, of course, none of our forebears were saints. Great uncle Martin, for example, had a habit of rallying concerned citizens outside the local courthouse with the strongly professed intention of lynching some felon or other. Thankfully, he was thwarted the two times he tried it - on one occasion, only by the stout intervention of the local judge who said he'd lay out the first man through the door.
Still, I can't judge Martin too harshly. I am bound to criticize his ideas on summary justice but, in his own estimate, he was a man of principle and fine judgement - he only targeted horse thieves and Democrats.
