His Dreams and Her Daffodils

reflections on building A legacy, what endures, and the land we leave behind

Nobody knows what the world will remember about them, what mark they will leave on this earth, or which of, if any, of their actions might endure through the ages. Sometimes what matters most to you in life is not what you would have wanted to be left behind and sometimes the mark you make on the land is the only thing that endures.

In the early 1870s, a man named Mark packed up his belongings and moved his family from East Tennessee to the rugged Saint Francis mountains of Central Missouri’s Ozark plateau. Mark, and his wife Emily drove their wagon out of Appalachia, across Tennessee and north to the Mississippi river where they got a ferry around the tip of southern Illinois into the heart of Americas third mountain range. Leaving behind the memories of war and bringing only the essentials, Mark drove the small wagon down a series of steep ridges into a small valley, cut into a canyon by the creek working its way toward the Merrimac River. The valley was shaded by huge oaks and maples keeping it cool in the summer and the limestone boulders made excellent foundation stones for the life Mark intended to build. 

With pickaxe and spade Mark dug through the reluctant soil sweating in the sweltering Missouri heat. First, he dammed the creek to form a small pond behind where the cabin would go. Next, Mark set to sawing pines on the adjacent ridges and a roping them down to the build site. After Emily was under a roof, Mark put in a pigsty for hogs and a stable for the mule.

The soil wracked havoc on the plow, bending, chipping, and breaking the blade with its limestone shards. The wilderness resisted the families’ efforts at civilization. More than the broken plow blades and tools the mountains threatened to break Marks spirit. After a few years of failed planting, Mark begrudgingly let his familial responsibilities turn his attention to the staple business of his people. 

Two ridges east near another stream, Mark sawed saplings for days. The mule brought in metal roofing panels. Slowly, the structure took shape and grew from the earth. More than the stable, the pig stye, or even the house this structure was a cathedral of survival, the blisters on his hands and cuts on his face and forearms sacrifices to the land. This structure would ensure his family makes it through another winter.

 The pot still was huge; three times the size Mark's father used in Tennessee. He had been just a boy, but the recipe was etched in his brain. Soon, the copper piping popped and shuddered to life with the heat. The seed corn rejected by the rocky Ozark soil made a fine starter that birthed the first “cash crop” of the valley.

Fortunately, Mark wasn't the only veteran in the hills. Soldiers from Kentucky and Tennessee flocked into the Ozarks after the war. Some looked for a fresh start and a place to spend their veterans' benefits. Others hoped to continue the fight like the famous heir to the confederate thrown, Jesse James. Still more expected to only be in Missouri for a short while, bound for the prairie, then the mountains, and finally the Pacific Ocean. Regardless of what brought these men to the Ozarks, one thing they all had in common was that they were thirsty. The fruits of the still became a communion, a sacrament shared by the community, all struggling against the wild trying to forget the war. 

As the business grew, Mark expanded his small valley empire. Emily gave birth to a daughter they named Bridget. Mark and his son were able to add a kitchen to the cabin with a real shingle roof. Emily started a garden. She even splurged on exotic bulbs from Baltimore via Nashville and St Louis, planting the daffodils in huge flower beds around the main house. Life was good!

In April of 1882, three days after Jesse James was killed in St Joseph Missouri, Emily died in childbirth. Mark buried her in a little grove of trees behind the house, uphill from the dam. The following winter, Bridget died of a fever. 

Overcome by grief Mark neglected the hogs entirely, letting them run wild through the canyons and rocky outcroppings where their decedents still roam. He drank more moonshine than he sold, and the house and outbuildings fell into disrepair. In 1887, Mark passed away in his sleep. Mark's son buried him next to Emily and Bridget before leaving the valley empire behind.

***

Last winter, a century and a half after Mark, I purchased a piece of property in the Ozark mountains of Central Missouri. I planned to hunt the surplus of wild hogs in the area, deer, turkey, and maybe quail. More than hunting I was searching for solitude, a place where I might never hear the chime of a Microsoft Teams message again. 

My first visit to this piece of land was exploratory, I didn't have big plans for growing the next record Missouri whitetail. I was hoping for a nice walk in the woods with my daughters while my wife got some shopping done.  

The pictures from the realtor didn’t do the land justice. In my meandering assessment of the property, I stumbled across a small creek surrounded by hundreds of old empty glass bottles. Hidden around the bend in the lee of a moss-covered cliff sat a dilapidated old shack full of copper tubing and thick-handled jugs.

While exploring the property further, half looking for mushrooms, half looking for shed antlers, my girls and I stumbled into a wide canyon whose walls were full of caves. This a landscape as wild as you could ever imagine Missouri being, I thought. A single yellow flower stood out among the brown leaves and new budding greenery of spring. Like breadcrumbs one flower led to two, which led to four, slowly leading us up the Canyon through the boulders along a small creek. The sandy soil in the overhang of the cliffs showed sign bobcat, fox, turkey, deer, and even bear tracks. Coming through a grove of thick Cedars we saw a violent burst of color as the flowers expanded to cover the canyon floor.

Further ahead, we found the little house. Or what was left of it. The rotting planks of the porch curled upwards like old paper, the grey stone foundation shone bare in the afternoon sun. We could see the fireplace between the bedrooms, and the kitchen addition. The decretive arched wire fence is still visible in places, rimming the overgrown yard, now interrupted by trees and tall grass. The chicken coop near the creek and the main house has washed away, leaving only one nest box and the metal roof still nailed to some framing.  

While my daughters played in the Daffodils, trying to smell each one, chasing each other in youthful bliss, I paused on what was once the front porch. Between the house and the damned-up creek, in a small clump of trees set three stone markers about knee high. Weathered and chipped, the grave markers were mostly covered in moss. 

This is where I first met Mark, Emily, and Bridget. 

Letters carved in the stone bore their names and told their story in basic details. Mark, a veteran of the second Tennessee infantry and wife Elizabeth born 1844. Elizabeth Died in childbirth 1876, Mark in his sleep 1883. Daughter Bridget born 1877, died 1882 of fever.

Kneeling in the shade struggling to read the etchings in stone I listened to my daughter's laugh among the flowers. The veil between past and present grew thin in my mind. A man had lived here. Loved here. Lost everything here. A lifetime of happiness, sadness, victories, and defeats happened here. An old stone-walled road, too narrow for a car, but perfect for a wagon winds its way from the house through the sea of flowers, over the ridge and down to the next valley to the Moonshine shack, crossing the more modern forest service road where I parked the truck. The girls and I use it to make our way back, where, after a quick tick check, they are buckled into their car seats and napping before the tires touch pavement.

I purchased the property. 

I visit Mark and the homestead, once a week. I sit in the shade, listen to the creek gurgle through the small valley while smallmouth bass snap at water bugs in the deeper pools. What did Mark think about how he might be remembered. Did he ever imagine grandchildren chasing frogs in the creek? A house full of music and family? Was he upset at his wife constantly planting flowers instead of vegetable garden? 

What would he say if I could ask him about his most significant impact on the world? Certainly, his children would come up, and if he was anything like me, a close second would be his military service. I answer my own question.

Maybe he was a vibrant member of the community. Could he have been the life of the party with his supply of spirits? Friends might recall his Christmas parties where wagon wheels cut deep grooves through the snow on the road coming for the good times, roasted pig, and spiked punch. 

Did anyone come to check on him after Emily passed away, or was he alone? Would Mark laugh if I told him the two parts of him and his family still on the land were the moonshine shack and Emily's daffodils? Would he be happy about the still being his best piece of construction and make a joke about being Irish, and answer “of course, the liquor shanty is the best-built structure”? Or would he turn his head away shamefully, embarrassed that he couldn't grow crops well enough to support his family, remembering instead the last years drinking alone by the fire while his empire crumbled around him?  Would he smile knowing that the world, or at least this small valley, will remember Emily for a hundred years after she's gone? 

I may never learn the answers to these questions or the dozens of other questions I have voiced to the mountains sitting in the shade. All I know for sure is that a man tried to settle a valley full of bear, and deer after serving in an infantry regiment during the American Civil War. I know he had a daughter who died tragically young. I know someone was a fan of yellow daffodils. And I know they operated a moonshine still. 

No matter where you are in the world anytime you come across evidence of some former civilization there's something humbling about the experience. Knowing no matter how high we build something eventually time will knock it down. I keep coming back to the idea of transforming the landscape. The roads are well worn and all but washed away, the fences are laid low, but the daffodils return year after year. Without warning or fanfare, they rise from the winter frost and warm this small valley with their color.

***

As my girls grow up hiking the ridges and splashing in the creeks of this small piece of land hidden in the Mark Twain National Forest, I hope they can eventually understand and learn from Mark and Emily that some of the most important things you can do in your lifetime involve the landscape around you. Not all legacies are measured in bank accounts, or skyscrapers rising from the dirt, some are sown in soil.

Now, I chase pigs and turkeys through the same woods where Mark chased dreams. I set trail cameras, clean out old paths through the hills, and escape the world of emails, circle backs, and synergy. Hiking through the tree’s, ears straining to hear a gobble it's always pleasing to stumble upon another clump of bright yellow flowers. They always seem to whisper “Someone lived here. Someone dreamed here. Someone mattered.” 

I like to think someday after I'm gone and my daughters come to this land with their children they can sit in the valley, listen to the creek, watch the wind dance through the daffodils, and hear the same voice. That we are not remembered by what we do or what we build but what we cared for. Not by what we have taken from the land but what we have given to the land.

Mark entered this valley with dreams of homesteading heaven, or maybe simply of escaping the war and finding peace. For over a decade, it seems he was able to do just that, primarily through the sale of moonshine. Whatever he might have done in his life, from starting a family, to building a house, and managing a criminal enterprise, the two things that remain are his Dreams and her Daffodils.  

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About the Author

Trevor J. Hubbs is an outdoor writer and Editor-in-Chief of Mule Deer Foundation Magazine. He is an avid hunter and angler who is passionate about spending time in the field and on the water. His work highlights practical knowledge, honest storytelling, and a deep respect for the outdoors. Whether chasing game in the fall or fishing through the changing seasons, Trevor’s writing aims to connect readers with the traditions, challenges, and rewards of a life spent outside.