IN MEMORIAM.

A Tribute to Charles H. Blackburn,
 By H. L. Westphal.

Men may come, and men may go, but history lives forever. When the old year nears its end it is good to sit alone and let the mind go back in retrospection over the weeks and months that have gone. In this age of commercialism we hurry over things that are not trivial and speed by events that should be sacred and are sublime. God pity us as a people when our hearts and minds shall have become so seared and warped that we no longer have any feelings of sentiment or reverence.

Letters and pictures grow yellow with age and become crumpled and frayed and worn from much handling, but time gives them a value which only big hearts and broad minds can measure.

On the desk before me as I write, are old letters dating back to 1894 and 1900. Some Llewellin pedigrees that begin where the family tree of our present day Setters end and some pictures of dogs which show a sportsman''s ideal, and its apparent realization. The man who bred and developed and trained and exhibited these dogs, who treasured and prized those pictures who copied the pedigrees and wrote the letters was Charles H. Blackburn, of Olathe, Kan. You men who fancy the Llewellin Setters today which trace back to Count Whitestone and Prince Rodney and Mohawk II, will you pause a moment with me and offer silent tribute to this sportsman who bred Jeanette M. to Champion Rodheld and Marie’s Sport when you and I were lads?

 Charles Blackburn died at Olathe Kansas, on June 24. I saw no me tion of his passing, in any publication which sportsmen like to read. On a summer day when men lie down in the shade to rest weary and worn, he fell asleep and still sleeps on. Men who had known and loved him for many years, and who had played with him in youth, tenderly laid him away and covered him over with flowers. The place where he rests is as he would have it, so secluded, and quiet that a quail might build her nest and come and go and rear her brood in its vicinity, unmolested and. unafraid. T

he man who never gets too old to play is a sportsman. The man with a hobby is the man with an ideal it may be subconscious, but it is there. Charles Blackburn''s hobby was a beautiful, upstanding English Setter and in the pictures of Ben Bolt, Spotty Sport, Bell Boy''s Gleam, etc. we see the exemplification of his ideal.

 In such breeders as James Cole, the late William Cogswell, and the proprietors of the Dashing Kennels of Kansas City he found kindred spirits and men of similar ideals with whom he could co-operate. He was a regular exhibitor at the Kansas City shows for a number of years. Some ten or twelve years ago sportsmen''s publications frequently made mention of him and published pictures of the dogs which he placed at the shows. Among my clippings I find such dogs of his as Sport''s Beauty, Major Spot, Junior Whitestone, Missouri Bell Boy, which he owned jointly with James Cole, Sport''s Lady, Spotty Sport, and Ben Bolt.

Ben Bolt was his favorite and pride. He kept in his home an enlarged portrait of this beautiful dog and valued it highly. In the sportsman''s little world there are heroes whose achievements deserve to stand, as monuments adorning the pathway of the years. When one looks upon the portrait of Ben Bolt he is moved to say that the breeder who achieved such a master piece deserves a permanent place in the records that men write down. When a man''s work is done he is entitled to his reward, so let us write it down that the achievements of Charles Blackburn in the field of sportsmanship, where he loved to play, have been eminently worth while.

Down in Oklahoma we call our pioneers, the ''89-ers. The men who pitched their tents on the wind swept prairies and builded a city and state which have been the marvel of all time are publicly honored each year, and we who know a few of the survivors among this sturdy band honor and revere them as men of another day. Two years before the 89-ers settled in Oklahoma, Charles Blackburn arrived in Olathe Kan. When his life ended he had passed the sixty-sixth milestone. Of his personality none can speak so well as the editor of his home paper at Olathe, who published his obituary and said: "Charles Blackburn as he was familiarly known, lived among us for thirty-five years. We have known him all that time. He went in and out among men, at tending strictly to his own business He made many friends and no enemies. In the old days when we played ball together he was a good pal and the friendship then formed continued until the end. He took little part in public affairs, but in his quiet way stood for right things. He was a good friend, good neighbor, good husband and father. That''s about all that any of us can be.

 In our little world -  the dog world - Charles Blackburn did not boastfully advertise himself, or his dogs, and yet he produced and developed and trained dogs of which any man would be proud. His dogs were always shown in excellent condition and groomed almost to perfection, the best evidence of his great love for them. He was not counted rich in this world''s but to his lasting credit be it said: He never met the man who was wealthy enough to purchase Ben Bolt.

Olathe Mirror
January 18, 1912
Page 2 Col 4
2^nd Addition, Block 2, Lot 197, N2