An actual description of my great, great, great grandparents arriving in Hays, Kansas:

“Their presence is unmistakable; for where they are there is also something else, – a smell so pungent and potent as to make a strong man weak.”–Hays City SENTINEL, August 16, 1876.

The surrounding community despised them. My ancestors did not scream “privilege” or demand a “safe space.”