Brosius family in Howard County, Kansas 1873ish-1875

(Continued from  “Rodgers-Brosius family in Bourbon county, 1869-1873ish.”)

Look at a map of Kansas and you will not see Howard county. It has no population and no area. Howard county, Kansas is one among the numerous ghost counties of the United States. It enjoyed only five years of turbulent life. At one time it contained over 13,600 people and 1,290 square miles, which are now in the divided possession of Elk and Chautauqua counties. At Howard county’s organization, the city of Elk Falls was designated as the county seat, but that designation was to prove the impetus behind much of the turbulence of the county’s short existence. As early as the fall of 1870, the County Commissioners received a petition requesting an election to decide on the relocation of the county seat. The vote took place in September of 1872, but showed such unmistakable signs of fraud that the Commissioners declared no election.

Thus, the family which had been headed by John Rodgers moved from one tense area (the Fort Scott area, where they had lived only a very short time, was beset with tensions between the railroad, assisted by United States soldiers, and squatters) to another. However, the new tension, being entirely political and not involving the armed forces, may have seemed innocuous in comparison.

It is not known at this time precisely when the family arrived; only that they arrived sometime between 1870 and 1873. They moved into Belleville Township, near the town of Peru, which had itself been established in 1870. Perhaps they were not among the earliest settlers; John Rodgers’ 1899 obituary refers to him only as “one of the old and highly respected citizens of this county”; but by 1920, when his stepson John S. Brosius died, he could be called a “pioneer resident” (“John Rodgers Dead”, “John Brosius Dead”).

The youngest member of the family, Samuel Elbert Rodgers, was born 22 May 1873, but it is unknown whether his birth took place in the family’s earlier home in Bourbon county or their new one in Howard county. His mother, however, perhaps succumbing to an infection or disease related to the childbirth, died on 11 July 1873 and was buried in Peru Cemetery under the name “Margrett A. Rodgers.” The cemetery, like the town, had been established in 1870, and its occupants bespoke the area’s roughness. “Of the first nine people buried in the cemetery,” wrote one historian, “seven died ‘with their boots on’” (Blackmar 468). Perhaps it speaks even more eloquently of this frontier that only ten days after this death, not far to the east (though a few hundred miles north) the famed James-Younger gang led by Jesse James committed their first train robbery, derailing a train on the Chicago, Rock Island, & Pacific Railroad near Adair, Iowa.

Margrett may not have been the only casualty in the family that year. Back in Crawford county, Pennsylvania, Margrett had a married daughter named Mary Ann Christy. She died on 31 Jan in either the year 1873 or 1874, at the young age of 26.

A few months after Margrett’s death, on 11 Nov 1873, Howard county held another election for the relocation of the county seat. This election resulted in a majority of 232 votes opting to keep the county seat in Elk Falls. However, the residents of the losing town, Boston, had no intention of permitting it to be so. On 19 Jan 1874, a posse of 150 armed men began what became known as the “Boston war.” They, along with twenty-four wagons, entered Elk Falls and, “amid the consternation, threats and tears of the inhabitants of the town,” seized the county records and property (Cutler). Perhaps the soldiers of Fort Scott were recalled by former residents of Bourbon county as Howard county raised three companies of militia to retrieve the records and apprehend the guilty parties. The purpose of the militias remained unfulfilled as the county seat, now resting in the beds of wagons, traveled through the hills and even spent some time in neighboring Cowley county. The situation was not resolved until the Judge of the district, unable to convene the District Court at the appointed time without the required records, placed several of the conspirators under arrest for contempt of court, and essentially held them for ransom, the price being the “unconditional surrender of the records and other county property” (Cutler). After the surrender was made, the county seat was allowed to remain at Elk Falls without contest for the duration of the existence of the county.

Elk Falls, once again in its lawful position, was to be the site of the next major step in young John S. Brosius’ life. He was growing, as all young men do, and had already passed the age of majority. It was only natural that he should wish to begin a new life for himself, and on 10 Oct 1874 he did just that. On that day he stood before Justice of the Peace Henry Welty and was married to a Miss Frances E. McClane.

Although little is known about John’s marriage to Frances, it is easy to guess how they met. In the 1875 Kansas state census, the couple appear directly below the household of Frances’ father, “Jarrett McLain,” or Jared McClane. John Rodgers appears only two households before that, so clearly the families were near neighbors.

John Rodgers filed his land patent on 20 Nov 1874, but it is likely that he had resided there prior to his filing, and perhaps since his arrival in the county. In any case, his new land was a significant step up from the land he had purchased in Bourbon county, as far as sheer size was concerned. He now owned over 158 acres, more than tripling his previous acreage. But the value of his real estate as recorded in the census records declined from $9,000 to a mere $300. He also was now the widowed father of three young children, the eldest only nine years old. Neither of his living stepchildren remained in his house to help out. We have already described the situation of John S. Brosius; now it is time to relate the little that is known of his sister Rebecca.

The 1875 census finds Rebecca Brosius still residing in Belleville Township, but evidently not anywhere near her brother or stepfather. Instead, she appears three pages earlier, in the household of P. N. Williams. Her status within the family is not stated, but the line above hers belongs to a W. Henderson, whose occupation is listed as “Farming.” Since neither of them share the Williams family name, it seems a good guess that he is a farmhand of some sort and she perhaps a domestic servant. She does appear five years later, in the 1880 Federal census, as a domestic servant to another household, so perhaps she began her career in the Williams home. Possibly, though, she was only a guest, as she was only 15 years old and is reported to have attended two months of school within the year.

The Kansas state census was enumerated on 1 Mar, when the Rodgers, McClane, Brosius, and Williams families all resided in Howard county. Three months later, without any need to move, they all would find themselves suddenly in the newly-formed Chautauqua county. Howard county had been divided, and the southern half became Chautauqua, the northern: Elk. Howard county with its too many square miles and its hotly contested county seat was no more.

(Continues with  “Brosius Family in Chautauqua County, 1875-1880.”)

Citations and Selected Sources:

1875 Kansas State Census, Howard, Kansas, population schedule, Belleville Twp, p. 10, dwelling 76, family 76, lines 3-9, Rebecca Brosius (in Household of P. N. Williams); digital images, Ancestry, Ancestry (ancestry.com).

1875 Kansas State Census, Howard, Kansas, population schedule, Belleville Twp, p. 14, dwelling 114, family 114, line 20-23, Household of John Rodgers; digital images, Ancestry, Ancestry (ancestry.com).

1875 Kansas State Census, Howard, Kansas, population schedule, Belleville Twp, p. 14, dwelling 116, family 116, line 25-29, Household of Jarrett McLain; digital images, Ancestry, Ancestry (ancestry.com).

1875 Kansas State Census, Howard, Kansas, population schedule, Belleville, p. 14, dwelling 117, family 117, lines 30-31, Household of John Brosius; digital images, Ancestry, Ancestry (ancestry.com).

1880 U.S. census, Chautauqua, Kansas, population schedule, Sedan, enumeration district (ED) 15, p. 31, dwelling 290, family 298; digital images, Ancestry (ancestry.com); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T9, roll 375.

Blackmar, Frank W., ed. Kansas:a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions,industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc., vol. II. Chicago: Standard Pub. Co., 1912. 468. Transcribed by Carolyn Ward in KSGenWeb. Blue Skyways, July 2002. Web. Accessed 25 Jan 2014.

Cutler, William G. “ElkCounty.” History of the State of Kansas. Chicago: A. T. Andreas, 1883. Page numbers not indicated in transcription. Transcribed by Bruce L. Garner and Carol Anderson in Kansas Collection Books. Kansas Collection, Aug 1997. Web. Accessed 7 Feb 2014.

Bureau of Land Management. Accession Nr: KS1230__.411; “Land Patents,” database and images, GeneralLand Office Records (http://www.glorecords.blm.gov : accessed 18 Dec 2013).

Bureau of Land Management. Accession Nr: KS1420__.033; “Land Patents,” database and images, GeneralLand Office Records (http://www.glorecords.blm.gov : accessed 18 Dec 2013).

“John Brosius Dead.” Sedan Times-Star 22 Apr 1920: 1. Xerox copy sent to the author by Gloria Brosius.

“John Rodgers Dead.” Sedan Lance 19 Oct 1899: 5. America's GenealogyBank. NewsBank Inc. Web. Accessed 14 Feb 2012.

“Kansas,County Marriages, 1855-1911,” images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1-16087-50295-41?cc=1851040&wc=11692786 : accessed 02 Feb 2014), Chautauqua > Marriage records, 1870-1875, v. A > image 129 of 147.

Mayfield, Judy. “Margrett A. Rodgers (Memorial #19172677).” _Find A Grave_. Find A Grave, Inc., 1 May 2007. Web. Accessed 22 Nov 2009.

Rodgers-Brosius family in Bourbon county, 1869-1873ish

(Continued from “The Brosius Family: Margrette’s Second Marriage.”)

Travel and transportation could almost be called themes for the year. At least, they were increasingly at the forefront of the world’s consciousness. It was the year of the first bicycle race and the great international university boat race. The year brought the invention of the rickshaw, the opening of the Suez Canal, and the exploration of the Colorado River. It was the year that Sir Henry M. Stanley first was asked to mount an expedition in search of Dr. Livingstone. And on one spring day at Promontory Summit, Utah, Leland Stanford drove the golden spike to complete the first transcontinental railroad.

By Centpacrr at en.wikipedia [Public domain, Public domain or Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

The year was 1869, and in the U.S., trains had become a popular mode of travel. All over the nation thousands of men toiled daily, untold miles of shining steel track marking their progress. Most large cities already had the train, or were making plans to get it. Even many smaller communities, such as Meadville in Crawford county, Pennsylvania, had a line. Making connections along the way, people could travel almost anywhere in the country in the merest fraction of the time it would have taken by wagon or boat only a few years before.

It was probably by train that a certain John Rodgers took his family the thousand or so miles from their home in Crawford county, Pennsylvania, to Fort Scott, Kansas. The time frame is narrow enough to suggest speedy travel: his stepdaughter Mary Brosius was married in Crawford county on 10 May 1869 and the name John Rodgers appears on a land patent near Fort Scott on 20 July 1869. Of course, this time frame makes two assumptions: first, that John Rodgers was present at Mary Brosius’ wedding, which cannot be proved at this time, and second, that the entire family unit (except Mary, who stayed in Pennsylvania) traveled together to Kansas, which is equally uncertain. It is possible that John Rodgers left earlier for Kansas, missing Mary’s wedding, and it is possible that the rest of his family stayed behind in Pennsylvania, joining him in Kansas later. However, accepting the aforesaid assumptions gives an approximate travel date of June 1869. John Rodgers, his wife, children, and stepchildren had been residing in the township of South Shenango, not far from the city of Meadville. They could have caught a train at Meadville and made connections where necessary, bringing them well into eastern Kansas. Fort Scott is in Bourbon county, on the eastern border of the state, but far to the south. Tracks did not reach Fort Scott itself until December of that year, but the family could have taken the train to within a couple dozen miles of their destination, depending on the actual travel date. From there, they might have crowded into a stagecoach or purchased a wagon for the rest of the trip.

Where they lodged when they first arrived in the Fort Scott area is unknown. Perhaps they had friends in town with whom they could stay until they were able to build a house, or perhaps they stayed in a hotel or camped out. The only solid information is that John Rodgers purchased 40 acres to the west of town on 20 July 1869, and it is doubtful that they stayed there from the day of their arrival. One expects that John would have done a little looking around before he decided which land to buy. Additionally, the land office was in Humboldt, Kansas, a distance of about 40 miles, a distance which had not yet been shortened by train. It seems probable that John would have chosen his property before making the trip to the land office, a trip that would require at least a day’s ride if he went on horseback, and then another day to return.

Fort Scott was, at this time, a thriving and growing city. After the railroad arrived, the city would vie for years against Kansas City as the largest railroad center west of the Mississippi. But the railroad brought problems, as well. As the line pressed southward from town, it met with resistance from squatters who considered the land theirs. Legally the land, formerly known as the Cherokee Neutral Lands, and later sold by the Cherokee Nation to the Federal Government, had been bought up by the railroad. But squatters had been settling there even before the Cherokee Nation gave up its title in 1866. They did not want to lose the land they had already been working for a few years, and they saw the railroad’s coming as a threat to their own rights. As early as May of 1869, months before actual rails would arrive, they began assaults on the survey crews and graders who worked in advance of the track layers.

The troubles became so serious that the military brought in troops to protect the railroad workers. This infuriated the squatters, who had originally requested troops for their own protection and found it outrageous that a nation would take up arms against her own citizens in order to protect her commercial interests, but it did help to keep the violence down.

It is not known on which side the sentiments of the Rodgers family lay, but it is certain that they were present during this period of high tension. The entire family appears in Mill Creek Township, adjoining Fort Scott, in the 1870 U.S. census, enumerated 17 June of that year. John Rodgers, his real estate valued at $9,000 and his personal estate at $500, is the head of the household and a farmer. His wife (relationships are not recorded on this census, but we know the relationships of those in this family from other sources) Margaret’s occupation is identified as “Housekeeper,” and her place of birth is a ditto to her husband’s “Ireland.” Perhaps she really was Irish, or perhaps it is an assumption on the part of the informant. The next two lines give weight to the notion that the informant was not in possession of all the facts. They are the lines recording the children from Margaret’s previous marriage, John and Rebecca Brosius, however this census makes no mention of their alternate last name and includes them under the “Rodgers” umbrella. It is unlikely they were actually going by the name of Rodgers as this is the only document found which identifies them as such. It does manage to place their births in Pennsylvania, though. The other two children, Elizabeth and James, really are Rodgerses as recorded, but their birth places are identified as Kansas when research shows that they were likely born in Crawford county, Pennsylvania, as well.

Despite the purchase of the 40 acres outside Fort Scott, the family did not remain in Bourbon county for long. By 1873, and perhaps even sooner, they had moved to Howard county.

(Continues with  “Brosius family in Howard county, Kansas, 1873ish-1875.”)

 

Selected Sources:

1870 U.S. Federal Census, Schedule 1, Kansas, Bourbon County, Mill Creek Township, page 12, dwelling 88, family 88, lines 4-9, John Rodgers household. Digital images, Ancestry. Accessed 18 May 2011.

Bureau of Land Management. Accession Nr: KS1230__.411; “Land Patents,” database and images, General Land Office Records (http://www.glorecords.blm.gov : accessed 18 Dec 2013).

“Historical Events for Year 1869.” HistoryOrb. Web. Accessed 25 Jan 2014. 

“Soldier vs.Settler.” Fort Scott National Historic Site Kansas. National Park Service, Web. Accessed 25 Jan 2014.

Springirth, Ken. “Erie Railroad's Historic Journey.” The Meadville Tribune 5 Nov 2012: Web. Accessed 25 Jan 2014.

“Marriages.” Unknown newspaper article May 1869: unknown page. Print. Xerox copy sent to the author by Gloria Brosius, along with family group sheets recording the marriage date and place.

The WADEs in 1820

I have already written at length on my search to find the father of my 3g-grandfather Joseph WADE. In my post “The Hunt for Joseph WADE” I went back in census records as far as 1840. In this post I will skip backwards past 1830 and focus on the 1820 census. (As of yet I have been unable to locate them in 1830; I think they may have been among the early settlers in Indiana and been missed by the census.)

Josiah WADE, likely my 4g-grandfather, before settling in Jay County, Indiana, was one of the early settlers of Ohio. He signed with Nathaniel MASSIE’s party in 1790, and became one of the original pioneers of what would later become Adams County (Evans 52). Information about this venture is readily available in various places on the internet. I will explore the subject in more depth in another post at a future date. I mention it mainly to establish some basic background on the WADEs that will be featured in this post.

John WADE

We are looking specifically at two pages of the census of Fayette County, Ohio: pages 27 and 28, which cover most of the area known as Jackson. The last page, 29, of the area contains no WADE households. On page 27 we find three WADE households, which are clustered together on three consecutive lines. First is the household of John WADE, who is as yet unidentified in my WADE tree. The makeup of his household is:

1 M 0-10

1 M 16-26 = John

1 F 0-10

1 F 16-26 = probably John’s wife

Josiah WADE had a brother named John, but this John is far too young to be him. As you can see, this John is between the ages of 16 and 26, whereas Josiah’s brother would be about 40, if he were alive. One online tree reports that John died at the age of 18 and was buried with his parents (Stuart). Perhaps the John in this census is a son or a nephew of Josiah.

Edmund WADE

Moving on to the next household, we find an Edmund WADE. This Edmund probably is Josiah’s brother. He did have a brother Edmond, and the age bracket is right. According to the Pottenger Family Tree on Rootsweb, which appears to be fairly well researched, Josiah’s brother Edmond was born in 1767, which would make him about 53 at the time of this census. “Edmond raised his half-brother Jackson by his father’s second wife, Mary Campbell,” notes the Pottenger Family Tree, and further gives Jackson’s birth date as 1815, so we can tentatively identify him in this household (Pottenger). It is only tentative as we do not have a date of death for either of Jackson’s parents, which might give us an approximate date of his moving in with Edmond. We also do not have dates for Edmond’s wife Lucinda, nor do we have names or dates for any of their children, so I identify little farther within his household, which in this record is comprised of:

1 M 0-10 = Jackson (1815)?

2 M 16-26

1 M 26-45

1 M 45+ = Edmund (1767)

1 F 10-16

1 F 26-45 = Lucinda?

Joseph WADE

The third WADE on page 27 is a Joseph WADE, who could quite possibly be my 3g-grandfather. He and his wife are both the right ages, and they have a daughter of the right age bracket to possibly be the Susan who is suspected to be a sister of my 2g-grandfather Allen C. WADE. There is also an unexpected son:

1 M 0-10

1 M 16-26 = Joseph (1797)

1 F 0-10 = Susan (1820)

1 F 16-26 = Mary (1796)

I have never heard of another son in this family, but given the parents’ ages—23 and 24—it is certainly possible that they had an earlier child. Their marriage date is unknown, so there may even have been other unknown children.

The proximity of this Joseph WADE to the other WADEs on this census (I must judge solely by the census record, having been so far unable to find any land records) suggests the possibility that he is the son not of Josiah WADE but of his brother Edmond. Either way, though, he is still the grandson of their father, William Zethonia WADE, and I can continue my research upon that assumption.

Of course, there is always the possibility that this is not my Joseph WADE at all but rather one of his cousins.

Josiah WADE

Having completed our investigation into the WADE households on page 27, we now move on to page 28. There are two WADE households on this page, separated by only one line. Between Josiah WADE and a second Joseph WADE is a James McCOY. Although that surname does not appear anywhere in the WADE genealogies I have accessed, I wonder if he may have been an in-law of some sort.

Josiah WADE’s household is made up of him, a woman between the ages of 26 and 45 who may have been his wife, five younger females, and four younger males. Two of the males can be identified easily, but the other two leave a few possibilities. For now I will leave that section devoid of names:

2 M 0-10 = Jefferson (1812), William Harrison (1818)

2 M 16-26

1 M 45+ = Josiah (1765)

4 F 0-10

1 F 10-16

1 F 26-45 = Josiah’s wife?

As for those two mystery males, one of them may be that Robert WADE who appeared in the 1840 census of Jay County, Indiana. Under that assumption, given his age range here and his age range of 30-39 in 1840, we can calculate his birth date to be between 1801 and 1804.

The other mystery male may in fact be my 3g-grandfather Joseph. Perhaps he was not yet married to Mary, as no female of her age appears in the household. Or perhaps she was older than my information has led me to believe and she is the female between 26 and 45, not Josiah’s wife. In that case, one of those females between 0 and 10 may be Susan. Of course there is always the possibility that Susan was not one of their children.

Joseph WADE (Sr.)

I have identified this Joseph WADE as “Sr.” in the heading, though he is not identified as such in the document, merely to differentiate him from the other Joseph WADE (or Joseph WADEs). The title is not meant to imply any parental relationship with another Joseph.

He was almost certainly the brother of Josiah WADE, and all the members of his household can be easily identified with the aid of a certain posting on GenForum:

2 M 0-10 = Edmund (1814), James B. (1814)

2 M 10-16 = John (1808), William (1810)

1 M 45+ = Joseph (1776)

2 F 0-10 = Lydia (1812), Elizabeth Jane (1819)

2 F 10-16 = Marella (1804), Mary (1806)

1 F 16-26 = Abbie (1802)

1 F 26-45 = Mary (1782)

Edmund and James B.’s birth dates as given on the posting, 4 June 1814 and 4 Oct 1814, do not make logical sense, but I am not going to investigate that discrepancy at this time (Moore). Instead, I will assume that it is merely a slight typographical error, but that they would still both fall into this age bracket.

Sources:

Evans, Nelson Wiley, and Emmons B. Stivers. “Massie’s Settlement at Manchester.” A History of Adams County, Ohio: From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, Including Character Sketches of the Prominent Persons Identified with the First Century of the Country’s Growth. West Union, Ohio: E B. Stivers, 1900. 51-53. Google Books. 24 Jan 2008. Web. Accessed 28 Sept 2013. Original from Harvard University.

Moore, Dennis. “Re: Zephaniah Wade/Adams Cty, OH Connection.” Wade Family Genealogy Forum. GenForum, Presented by Genealogy.com, 19 May 2002. Web. Accessed 29 Sept 2013.

Pottenger, Thomas. “Pottenger Family Tree Inc. Amon,Trochelman, Copas and More.” RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project. Ancestry, 7 Aug 2013. Web. Accessed 28 Sept 2013.

Stuart, Gary Lee. “Information about John Wade.” The Gary L. Stuart of Ariel WA Home Page. Ancestry, 2009. Web. Accessed 28 Sept 2013.

Friday Funny: Straw Hats

A straw boater such as might have been worn on the streets of Omaha.

Attribution: Elf [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

It seems that fashion was important municipal business in 1913. I ran across this article on the Chronicling America website. It is from page 12 of the 13 Sept 1913 edition of the Omaha Daily Bee. Aren’t you glad that city government took such an interest in personal style?

Days of the Straw Hat Are Numbered by Mayor’s Order

Because of the long, hot, dry season, Mayor James C. Dahlman will permit straw hats on the streets to September 15, but thereafter the mayor positively declares he will put a gatling gun in the hands of a policeman and destroy all straw lids. The mayor issued the following proclamation today:

Now that the long hot, dry summer of 1913 is a thing of the past, I feel justified in fixing a definite date for sending straw hats to the cellar. I therefore name September 15 as the last day that straw hats will be allowed to appear on our streets. A gatling gun will be placed at Nineteenth and Farnam streets in the hands of the best gunner on the police force, with instructions to pick them off wherever discovered. So. Mr. Strawhat, you have fair warning.

I certainly hope that this was a joke! You can read the article in its original newspaper form here.

Amanuensis Monday--Elsie Crocker’s Manuscript, Part 21: Bees, Dogs, Chickens

To read this project from the beginning, click here.

It’s hard to believe, but we have come to the final installment of Elsie Crocker’s manuscript. This post transcribes the last two pages.

We moved closer to Boise. Here Dad got us settled before, going to Portland Oregon, to work in the shipyards. A war was going on, World War One. The pay was pretty good.

This place was a lot smaller than Shaws place. Dad got a lot of bees, about twenty or thirty swarms of bees. Dad got these bees ready before he left. He even put starters in the hives for the bees to build on. The starters. were a wooden slat with some honey comb across the top. The bees would fill in the rest and fill it with honey, some of the swarms did so well he put double decker tops on the hives. We had a clover lawn and ran bare footed most of the time, so you can imagine how many stings we got.

Walter Underwood, Sr. in his beekeeping gear several years later, in Oregon.

We had a lot of honey, we ate honey on everything. Sometimes the swams would split, if they had two queens. It was too crowed for two queens. The bees before leacing would swam on the out side of the hive. It would look real black with them, when they were ready to leave they would swarm in the air, making a round cylinder circle. Bill and I would try to stop them by throughing up rocks or dirt in the air. We didn’t want to loss these bees. Mother saw us one day She yelled at us to quit doing that as they may light on us. Where ever the queen stopped the rest stopped also.

Once in a while Bill would find a swarm in one of our trees. We would let our dad or neighbor. where they were. They would get an empty hive and try to shake some of the bees into the hive, hopeing to get the queen. The rest of the bees will follow the queen. They would leave the hive there until the next morning. Nine out of ten the swarm was in the hive, then they took the hive and put it with the others.

Dad wore a fine net screentype hat around his head. A cloth was fastened to the bottom of the screen and fell around his shoulders. He also wore long gloves. Some time he would get stung anyway. Did he look awful! He would swell up real bad. He never went to the doctors, but I’m sure he should have. Now days we get shots. Some people even die with bee stings.

At this place Mother had to sell the bees, hives and all. She just couldn’t take care of them.

We had some good neighbors close to us, I had a real good friend ashort way up the road. She had a married sister, with a very small baby.

My friend’s name was Roxy, her brother’s name was Hazel, a funny name for a boy, my mother always thought.

Roxy and I was together a lot. She started me to crochet. We were sitting under a shade tree, one day, she tried to teach me. I just couldn’t get the hang of it. But the next day I was out there by my self and made a lot of this lace “mile a minute” it was called. I could not make it that fast, but I had got the idea how it was done. I went into the house to show my mom what I had accomplished. Mother asked “Was Roxy here I never saw her?” No I did it by myself. I said. I just couldn’t make my fingers going and hold the thread in the other hand, after I had it figured out, it was easy.

Roxy had a big black and brown dog which thought could sing. We would find a nice shady place and Roxy would bring some dried peaches, her dog and a mouth organ. She would play the mouth organ and the dog would sing. We didn’t know then it hurt the dogs ears. He was howling not singing, he wasn’t held there or tyed, he could leave any time, but he didn’t. He looked very professional and cute. He would sit on his hind legs, with his front legs up, just like he was posing. I’m glad we didn’t have him sing the whole time we were there.

Roxy only took a few peaches a day, we would eat them. They were so good. Well, one morning Rozy’s mother called my mom and asked “How was Elsie feeling? Mother said “Just fine, why”? Roxy’s mother told her Roxy and I had eatened a half flour sack of dried peaches. Roxy was real sick. The peaches had swollen up in Roxys stomach. Roxy got well in a couple of days but that was the end of our afternoon dog shows.

Here is where we had a lot of watermelons too. Some one was stealing them so my brother Walter and the neighbor boy Hazel decided to caught them or to scare them away so they made some buck shots. Then that night we went out and layed doun in the water melon patch or near by. We waited and waited for a long time We got cold and damp. We finally gave up. Dis appointed no one showed up. Dad said he was glad That buck shot might of hurt someone.

We had chickens on this ranch, one afternoo it rained (as we would say) cats and dogs. The chickens were getting wased away. Mother yelled go fast and get the chicken coope door open or we will lose a lot of the small chickens, Mother and I was gathering them up in our aprons as fast as we could. It was really coming doun, I was running back and forth, trying to keep Mother from getting so wet. Well I stepped on a big clencher nail, which a nail with three sides for a point. It is so hard to get out once it gets in. Poor Mom had to get this out of my foot without hurting me to much.

And that is the abrupt end to Elsie’s manuscript, or at least my copy of it. When she first completed it, my dad, who was a printer at the time, made and bound several copies and distributed them to relatives. The copy from which I have been transcribing is not one of those bound copies. At one time it was stapled, but the staple has long since disappeared. Some day I would like to compare it to one of the bound copies to make sure that the pages are still in the correct order and that none are missing.

As you can see, this manuscript ends before the Underwood family leaves Idaho. Although I do not have the rest of the story in Elsie’s own words, I will soon post an entry telling the rest of the story as I know it.

Amanuensis Monday--Elsie Crocker’s Manuscript, Part 20: Sisters and snacks

To read this project from the beginning, click here.

In this second-to-the-last installment of Elsie Crocker’s manuscript, she relates a couple stories of two of her younger sisters: my grandma, Aileen, and the youngest girl, Inez. I particularly like to read of my grandma as a child. It is amusing to think of her as a pesky younger sister.

She also tells about some more of the foods of her childhood. I am not surprised that Elsie wrote so many times about different recipes, as Elsie herself—and, indeed, all four of the Underwood sisters—became an excellent cook herself.

Mother would cook for the thrashers when they came to our house. The thrashers would go from one farm to the other until all the thrashing in the community was finished. The men went from one farm to the other to help thrash. The wives would go with them to help the one that was having the thrashers that day. They would help with the cooking. The thrashers were fed well. We liked to watch them thrash. But wern’t aloud to get very close. As the shaff would get in our eyes, or get in the way of the machinery. It was exciting to see all the wheat filling the sacks. They called the stems of the wheat straw, used for bedding doun the horses and to keep other animals clean. When they finished there was a huge pile.

A threshing machine, perhaps similar to the one used by Elsie's "thrashers." 

By ThomasWeise (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

One day I remember clearly, we had the thrashers that day the straw was piled. As I usually collected the eggs, Mom told me to see how many eggs were at the top of this huge pile of straw. She knew there was some as she had heard the hen cackle, the hen cackles to tell the world she has laid an egg. I started to go, and there was Aileen crying and tugging at my skirt. I had to take her but it was going to be rough. That straw was stickery and light. I’d go about one step and fall back two. Carrying a small child on one hip and a basket for eggs in the other, was tough going. We found the egg, but I was tired, I wondered if it was worth it, going by myself wouldnit have been so bad but the extra weight made me sink deeper in the straw. My legs were scratched, I wasn’t very happy. I asked my mother why Aileen had to follow me everywhere I went. Mom told me I should be glad I had a sister who wanted to follow me. I am sure my mother was right. I never got upset after that, Aileen followed me every where any time

Mother made the best cottage cheese. She would put any sour milk she had, in a pan on the back of the stove top, where it cooked very slowly, until it separated. Rinsed it and washed it real good. She put the cheese part in a bag and let it drip dry. She the mixed the cheese with a lot of thick fresh cream, salt and pepper. Um’um good.

Dad would help us make pop corn balls which he never ate any (no sugar). Our snack food those days were pop corn and apples. No fast foods’.

We were always happy to get home to all the good smells especiallywhen Mom cooked the left over mashed potatoes and left over boiled cabbage, she fried it in bacon grease. This one of the dishes Bill and I would hurry to get to the table for. The smell was so good while we were doing our chores. We always when we were young had dinner at noon, and dinner or spper as we called a night meal.

We had a big irregation ditch next to our house, to one side. The ditch had a lot of rushing water going thru a culvert, the culvert ran under the road.

One night the neighbors were having a kids party. Dad was in Portland working for the war. Mother told us older kids, we could go to the party. She would go and visit a new neighbor and take Inez. Inez was not much over a year old. Mother was quite ready when we left the house, for some reason I had to go back to the house. I didn’t see Inez and asked Mother where she was. She asked Isn’t she there? I told her I couldn’t see her any where. We hyrriedly looked every where. Then I happened to remember her loving that little baby at Roxy’s house. She just wouldn’t go there surely, well, we started up to Roxys house. As we got started over the culvert. I heard a faint “Elsie”. I looked doun into this water and at the entrance of the calvert, her arms out stretched side ways was the only thing saving her from washing doun stream. I jumped into the ditch and grabbed her her out. I don’t know how I had the strength and couage to jump in that fast water. Mother was happy to see she was alive. We were both thankful we were there to save her, what if I hadn’t have gone back for something that night? I am sure the Man Upstairs was there with us that night.

Mom didn’t go to the neighbors that night, the neighbors came to our house. They worked hard and took turns pumping the water out of her. Mother watched over her to see if she was still breathing normal. Mother said to forget it but think of it as a lesson.

I enjoyed reading about fried mashed potatoes, as that is also a favorite of mine. I have never added cabbage to them, though. Perhaps I will try that one of these days.

I love that Elsie was so specific as to the time of the story of Inez’ near drowning. The details she offers would place the incident in probably the spring or summer of 1918.

Elsie told me another story of saving a little girl from drowning. This would have been several years later, when the Underwoods had moved to Portland and Elsie was working for Safeway. I believe that would have been in the late 1940s, 1950s or early 1960s. It was at a company picnic at a park. I’m sure that Elsie told me which park it was, but I didn’t write it down. (Genealogists often lament their slack note-taking in their early days, but I must excuse myself. Rather, I am glad that as a high school student I had the foresight to take notes at all!) There was a pond or a river there, and a little girl fell in. Elsie saw her go down once, twice, and then a third time. She remembered the old saying that a drowning person only goes down three times, and in she jumped.

To continue with the next installment of Elsie's manuscript, click here. 

Amanuensis Monday--Elsie Crocker’s Manuscript, Part 17: Food and Animals

To read this project from the beginning, click here.

In this installment, Elsie tells about a couple of foods that her family used to make, a misadventure with her father’s dinner, and a few animal interactions.

Sometime when it snowed, we would make ice cream. We started with a ten pound tin can with a clencher lid. We’d put some cream and a little milk, sugar, vanilla and eggs. We’d find a big drift of snow, we put doun in the snow. We took turns twisting and turning this ice cream. Of course we open the can up once in a while to see how it was coming a long. Icicies were used to freeze the cream instead of the snow, of course the icicles had to be gathered and copped up.

Mother made the best beef steak pudding, as she called it, it consisted of beef, a little flour, a little water, pepper and salt with a suet crust. She cooked it on the back of the stove allday long, on a wood stove. It was cooked in a heavy fire proof bowl, covered withe a cloth. Tied with a string. Then the pudding was put in a pan of water. This was a wonderful dinner with good mashed potatoes.

Mother cooked her plum pudding this way also.

One day Dad asked us to go over to the other ranch, across the flied, from us. This farm also belonged to the Dorrs and the Shaws. The tenants had moved and on one was living there. He had seen some scallions (little onions) over there going to waste. So one day Bill and I decided to go over and get some for him. We cleaned them and put them on the table ready for his dinner. That night Dad was happy to see that we had gotten his scallions. He took one bite. (What ever is this, where did you get this?” We told him it was what he wanted. Bill and I never had tasted or smelled garlic before. We thought it didn’t smell like onions. Bill and I got a kick out of this, he wanted us to get them and then they didn’t turn out right.

When the thrashers, came they would lift up the bundles of wheat. The binder had already been there and put the wheat in sort of standing up piles. The thrashers were pick up the piles and feed them into the machine to knock the wheat out of the stacks. Under some of these piles were a few baby mice, all pink and white. We children liked to watch the thrashers but also these litt mice. Bill and Walter being older than I, would encourage me to carry one of these cute little mice into the house and scare my mother. Of course the boys came with me but I carried this little cute mouse, by the tail into the house. I can still see Mother yelling “Get that out of here. One day she even got and stood on top of the table. Holding up her skirts yelled, Don’t let him loose in here

This was funny until one day, there wasn’t any mice. We found a water dog a little one, I was supposed to carry this in to the house. I took hold of his tail as I had did the little mice. He had a different He just curled up and bit me on the hand. That was the last I ever did that. The boys could carry their own animals after that.

I was surprised Mother didn’t like mice, as she had a little poem. I think she made up. The poem went like thi

     I’m only a wee little mouse ma’m

     I live in the crack of your house ma’m

     With a small piece of cheese

     And a very few peas

     Only having a little feast ma’m

     Oh, no need to open the door

     I can slip right thru this crack ma’m

I always enjoyed this little poem. She said there wasn’t anymore to it.

Every spring the sheepherders would bring their flocks of sheep, by our house, on thier way to the foot hills, to feed during the summer months. We lived on a small hill, we could see them coming in the valley below. The sheep would stir up a cloud of dust. Bill and I would run and get on the gate posts, the posts were flat on top, so we could sit on them. We waited for the band of sheep to come by. Then we would ask the sheep herders, if they had left any little lambs along the way that couldn’t make it. They would tell yes and where they had left them, not to far from where we lived. Bill and I would run all the way and fetch this cute new born baby lamb home with us. Sometimes there was only one and another time there would be a pair of twins. No matter we shared our little lambs. We knew how to feed them out of a bottle. Later they could eat grass and wheat like the big ones. We gave them a lot of love and attention.

Out of curiosity about that little verse about the mouse, I did a quick search on the internet. Without looking very hard, I found what is probably the original of that poem. It is entitled “The Mouse” and was written by Laura Elizabeth Richards:

I’m only a poor little mouse, ma’am!

I live in the wall of your house, ma’am!

With a fragment of cheese and a very few peas

I was having a little carouse, ma’am!

No mischief at all I intend, ma’am!

I hope you will act as my friend, ma’am!

If my life you should take, many hearts it would break,

And the trouble would be without end, ma’am!

My wife lives in there, in the crack, ma’am!

She’s waiting for me to come back, ma’am!

She hoped I might find a bit of a rind,

For the children their dinner do lack, ma’am!

’Tis hard living there in the wall, ma’am!

For plaster and mortar will pall, ma’am,

On the minds of the young, and when specially hung—

Ay, upon their poor father they’ll fall. ma’am!

I never was given to strife, ma’am!

(Don't look at that terrible knife, ma’am!)

The noise overhead that disturbs you in bed,

’Tis the rats, I will venture my life, ma’am!

In your eyes I see mercy, I’m sure, ma’am!

Oh, there’s no need to open the door, ma’am!

I’ll slip through the crack, and I’ll never come back,

Oh! I’ll never come back any more, ma’am!

(I found the full poem in Tirra Lirra RhymesOld and New on the Internet Archive and on Free Fiction Books. It also appears, missing the fifth verse, in The Unitarian Register, Volume 91, on Google Books.)

To continue with the next installment of Elsie's manuscript, click here.