May 29, 1970

Year 1887

I was born in Otoe County, Missouri, a trading post town named Boston, the name of the Post Office was Swedquick.

My name is Stella Roberts Terrell. My husband Daniel Arthur Terrell has been dead since February 59. (he died March 4, 1959). But I'm getting way ahead of my story.

My Fathers name was Joseph Perry Seymour, his nationality was Scotch, Welsh and English. My Mothers maiden name was Eliza Jane Tilton they came from Pennsylvania, so they were Pennsylvanian Dutch. Now what does that make me???

I had 3 older sisters and 1 older brother. They are gone now, my younger sister, is also gone, my younger brother as far as I know is still living someplace in Iowa. That's all about my family.

My childhood was about like other children. A few things are kind of funny I laugh about them now. My father got my little sister and I a Nanny goat and broke her to drive. He made us a sled and harness for Nanny when snow came we would harness and hitch her up to the sled and hall the wood in from the pile to the door then carry it in and rick it in the big wood box by the kitchen stove. We loved that.

I was the "Tom-boy" when the wind would blow I'd climb a tree and sit on a limb and hold on to the tree and ride around with the branches. Once a year on the 4th of July there was always a celebration with a merry-go-round. The rides were only .05 cents each and long rides. My sister and I always had .05 each. I loved coconuts so I'd buy one and carry it around in a sack all day. We always had a nice new dress and hat. We'd go home happy.

The last day of school we'd have a program and a treat from the teachers. A big sack of candy. I always cried the last day of school for I liked my teacher. They were always good to me.

The only way we had to go places was walk or go in our wagon. Father would put hay in the back and spread a quilt over it and put us kids on that. The boys would take the end gate out of the back of the wagon box and sit there with their feet hanging out. You kids of today don't know what a wagon box and an end gate are. You've missed a lot.

In the Fall of the year when the sugar cane was cut and ricked. The men would hitch a horse to the cane grinder and another man would feed the cane into the grinder and press the juice out into a vat. Others would build the fire under the boiling vat and keep it going good while others stirred the juice all the time so it didn't scorch and spoil the molasses.

We always had a barrel of molasses in the cellar. When the last vat was on, all the young people gathered at Tom Hills mill and boiled the juice into candy, when it cooled they had a "taffy pulling", now that's something else you've missed that you don't even know what its all about. Talk about fun, they had it. This was all done out in the big shed where the furnace and vat were kept. When they got tired of this they went into the house and had a skip-turn-a-lue party. They didn't have music they all sang the songs and danced to their own singing. The young people in those days really had fun.

When the hazel nuts began to get ripe, us kids would take our sacks (50 pound flour sacks) and go out in the brush and gather the pods and fill our sacks. When they got ripe they fall out of the shell. Every Sunday we'd crack a lot of them and mother would make taffy candy and put nuts in it. She put a tiny bit of soda in at the last I stirred it fast and poured it in a big pan so it was real thin. (Today you call it "peanut brittle)! but in my day it was "hazel nut taffy".

There were always a few big dinners around the country. We were always invited, I mean big dinners. The women would cook and bake and stew for days. We'd all go. Father and mother on the spring seat in front and us kids in the back on the quilt over the hay. Did everyone have fun? don't ask. When the dinner was on the table everyone was there dressed in their best clothes. The young women with white aprons on waited on the table.

When my oldest sister finished school she went to live with my Uncle and Aunt in Lincoln, Nebraska to get more education. After she had been there a couple years she came home to make her wedding clothes she was a good seamstress she married a railroad man. That is he worked for the Railroad company, was foreman in the railroad shops. Us little kids were scared of him, he was so dressed up. But they had a nice wedding.

Of course on Sunday before the wedding we all went to church. In those days men wore long coats with the tail split up the back to the waist now all us kids sat in one seat, they sat ahead of us. Well when he sat down he put his hands behind him and pulled his coat tail around to the side so he wouldn't muss up the tail. Us little kids about died to keep from laughing. My sister Flossie and I about died from other reasons. I was so ashamed of him. Why did he have to pull his coat tail up to sit on a bench in church, well he had a pocket in that coat tail. When he wanted his handkerchief he reached back and put his hand under it. I wondered just what was going on but he came out with a handkerchief. I was so ashamed I nearly died. But mother explained that he was a very fine young man and wore nice clothes. haha.

Anyway they left on the train for Nebraska. In a few years she and her husband persuaded my father and mother to sell our place and move out to Nebraska which they finally did. So us kids could get better education's.

Another interesting thing happened before we left there, was in the summer a bright sun shiny day not a cloud in the sky, but all at once it began to get a little darker so we went to mother to find out what was happening. She said, its the total eclipse of the sun, run out and get some pieces of broken glass, we did and she smoked them for us so we could look at the sun without hurting our eyes. We all had some. When it was getting dark the chickens all went to roost in the hen house. When it began to get light again the chickens came out of their house looking around like they wondered what was wrong. The big rooster flew up on the fence and crowed. I was about 12 years old when father sold the place.

I was real hurt for I had a crush on a neighbor boy, my age. He had a crush on my sister Hattie 21/2 years older than me or him either. She had a crush on another boy. Haha so there we were. 'But I had my picture taken with him and his sister. (I still have the picture) so I was happy. Now that I knew we were going to leave I could think of so many little things that had happened.

Like one cold winter afternoon all of us wanted some pop corn. There wasn't any in the house, it was all in the corn crib at the barn, so my older brother Willie said he'd go get some. He got it right in the seat of the pants, he opened the crib door and stuck his head in and was shucking some pop corn ears when Mr. Billie Goat saw him, I think that goat had been waiting for a chance to get even with him for the winter when there was snow, Willie and another boy would hitch him up to the sled, anyway when Willie finally came back to the house, Mother said "why were you so long" Will was really mad. He said, "I had to climb up the boards on the inside and climb down on the outside". He told about the goat. Boy did we tease him every time he'd go outside for a long time.

There were so many little things. One evening father was cutting wood. He had just fed the chickens. He had a pair of peafowl, the hen was so gentle and nice but the rooster was large and his tail feathers so long and beautiful when he'd strut his tail would be 4 feet tall. He was mean to the chickens always running them away from the corn, father picked up a little stick of wood and threw it at him. That stick hit the peacock around the neck and broke it. How bad Father felt for Mother loved those fouls so much. Father picked him up and smoothed his feathers down and laid him in the barn in a manger on the hay, then went up to the house to tell mother. Of course she felt bad about it, so did he, so she didn't say much. They pulled all the long lovely feathers (blue, purple and green) out and mother tied them with a ribbon and stood them in a tall vase in the living room. She still had them when I grew up.

I hated more than anything to leave my two friends and by boyfriend Elmer and his sister Annie. We'd take a sled in the winter and go up a long hill and ride down, the hill was steep so we'd come down fast and way out on the meadow. I knew once we moved away we'd never see them again. How mad I was at the man who bought our place. He used to go with my sister Nellie before she got married. I always thought so much of him. He and Nellie took me with them so many places, at home I'd set on his lap and he'd tell me a story. I liked him because I was his favorite. For once someone liked and made a fuss over me instead of my younger sister Flossie, who was so pretty with her blond curly hair and my hair was long but straight as a string. She was so pretty. Everyone (who didn't know us very well) that came into the house always said, Oh my what a pretty little girl with blond curls. I always felt left out. So I liked my sisters boyfriend after he bought our place I wouldn't speak to him. He felt bad and told father, he'd rather not have the place than have Stella mad at him. So father gave me a good talking to, he didn't scold me he just talked to me. I was his favorite anyway when Will came down again I went to him and gave him a big hug and all was fine again. His name was Will Curam. I don't know if he ever got married or not.

Some times on a nice day Mother would take us kids and we'd take a 1/2 gallon can, some eggs, and potatoes and salt & pepper and we'd go down in the timber by a creek and build a little fire.

We'd put the eggs in the can full of water on the fire and put the potatoes in the fire, we would play along the creek and on the rocks in the water till the food was cooked then Mother would call us and we'd have a picnic, we'd peel the burned skin off the potatoes and salt them and peel the eggs and just have fun. You kids now days don't know how easy and inexpensive it is to have a picnic and gather the first spring "Johnny-jump-ups" you don't even know what a Johnny-jump-up is. Well its a little white flower with a yellow center that bloom in the timber real early in the spring, we always found a few and took them to Mother.

When they sold the place we packed up and got ready to leave for Lincoln, Nebraska. We had 3 covered wagons. Father took the first one with 4 horses. Will drove the next one and Mother drove the third one which was a spring wagon it had springs under the seat and a back on it, also springs under the wagon box so it was nice to ride in. 2 smaller horses were hitched to it. So we loaded up, lined out and left MO! It started to rain in a little while. The roads got muddy, sticky red clay, it rained all day. The mud got so deep they had all the horses on one wagon to get up the long steep hills. But we always made it to the top. We came to a big farm house. The man came out and talked to father, he told him, he had two big corn cribs with a wide drive way between with a good roof over it, and we could drive our wagon in there and wait till the rain was over and the mud settled a little. So we did that. He invited us in for supper, Mother always had us kids combed and clean. We were never ashamed to be seen. We were there 3 days and we were only 20 miles from our old home. Father and Mother thanked the family and we were on our way again.

We had two or three cows with us so we couldn't travel very fast and we always had plenty milk about the only think I can remember was running and playing by the wagons sometimes we rode in one wagon, the another one. We always got up early father would start the fire in our camp stove and put the coffee on, while mother was getting dressed, then she'd make biscuits and meat & gravy. If any thing ever tasted good it was hot biscuits and gravy on a chilly morning. So we traveled on, nothing happened. We crossed the river at St. Joe Missouri. Father wanted to take us across the ferry, but that street to the ferry was Main St. and it was jammed, we couldn't get through it so we had to go on a long way to the bridge. I can still see the traffic down that street.

I don't remember crossing the river or the bridge we traveled on, one thing happened I do remember was a shot my father fired one day, and a man came tearing down through the timber shaking his fist at father and telling him it was against the law to shoot quail and wild birds and he would have him arrested. Father let him talk till he ran out of steam, then father said all I shot was a large hawk sitting on that post. Then the man looked down where father pointed and there was the hawk, father said that shot may save you a lot of chickens, little pigs, and lambs. Say, that man apologized all over the place, was so sorry he had been so mad. We drove on, we all got a lot of laughs out of that. Which was the nearest mix-up with the law we had.

We were now getting close to where we expected to try and rent a farm close to school. Everyone we met always spoke to us and tipped their hat to Mother, But one morning we met a man walking down the road he smiled and said hello little boys, to my sister and I, we said hello grandpa, boy did he laugh.

Mother scolded us and said for us to be careful what we said to people for

they wanted to rent a farm around there close to the school which we were

then passing. That's just what they did 1 1/2 miles on down the road. So we unloaded all our wagons and moved in, of course we didn't have any furniture but our beds. So in a few days Mother and Father drove to Lincoln to buy furniture.

Us kids had started to school. It turned out that the school teacher was the sister of the man we said hello grandpa to, of course the teacher had heard about it from her brother. She wanted to hear about our experience so bad she told us one day in language class she was going to have each one in class write a composition and she would write the subjects on the black board and we could choose the subject we liked best. She did that very afternoon. Had 4 subjects one of them was, a trip you have taken. We had a week to write the story. It must be several pages long.

I told my folks about it I said I'd write about our trip out here from Missouri. So my sister Myrtle helped me arrange my story. That is I wrote it and she read it over and corrected some miss spelt words. I had my story ready and handed it in at the end of the week with the rest of the class. I told about the hawk experience also us kids calling a young man grandpa. As soon as class was over she sat down at her desk and looked them all over, as our names were on the top of the first page she soon found mine, which she started reading. I kept my eyes on her as much as I could and kept studying, once in a while she'd lay her head on her arms on the desk and shake with laughter. I was afraid maybe I over did it, for I sure made a good story out of it, but guess I didn't for she told us all our compositions were good.

When we got home from school the folks were home. The new furniture was lovely, the crowning glory of it all was a six foot high 6 octave organ, it was beautiful fancy little carved posts, a large mirror in the center, 2 little round stands stood out from the corner of the mirror to set an ornament on. We were so happy.

My sister Nellie wanted us to come to their house for Christmas. So that was what we planned. It was very cold the morning we left so father put lots of hay in the wagon, with the quilts over it then put hot soap-stones wrapped in paper then a blanket in the middle of the place where us kids sat. They put us in and wrapped us up good; but we got pretty cold, so father stopped at a big house for us to get warm. The woman was so stuck up we didn't stay long, in a few hours we were at my sisters. I don't remember much about our visit there except my sister and I each got a large doll and my little brother Charles got a small Eskimo doll dressed in a fur suit.

When spring came the folks rented another farm and we moved over by Umadilla, Neb. My two sisters Myrtle and Hattie went to work, doing house keeping. Myrtle worked for a family where the mother had cancer and 3 children. The woman died the next year.

My folks bought a place with a couple acres of ground and we moved to Palmyra, Neb. The house was small and as father was a carpenter and painter he built more rooms on. We set out lots of trees and planted a lawn. I was then in my first year of Hi school and 15 years old. I had several girlfriends on Sunday afternoons, we'd go to the city park and sit on the grass looking for 4 leaf clovers.

Once in a while we really found one. As luck would have 2 or 3 boys would also stroll through the park, on seeing us they would come over and help us hunt for 4 leaf clovers. Sometimes four leaf clovers come in handy. All being Hi School kids we began to have partes in the evening box socials at county school houses, we would all go. Have horse races on the way home that would almost curl your hair with fright. If we didn't tell certain boys what our box was like they'd get mad. That's true to nature. We'd face a blizzard and bundle up and go to an oyster supper at a county school house. Then quarrel all the way home, if things didn't go right. Then the sleigh rides were great fun, the sleigh bells you could hear for miles. All bundled up in fur lap robes. Maybe spill once in a while. Winter fun runs out and it's spring.

One Sunday I and a girlfriend were chosen in Sunday School to be their representative for our church at a convention in Syracuse. So we hired a team and buggy at the livery stable including a driver who was a friend of ours. On the way the team got frightened and ran away. Something happened to the buggy tongue and it fell down hitting the horses on the heels, nothing could stop those frightened horses, they stayed in the road and we hit a small bridge and the team broke loose and up set the buggy. My arm was cut. The team only went a short distance so the driver got them, we righted the buggy and went on to town. We went to the Dr. and he x-rayed my arm, it wasn't broken but deeply cut, and as we were to go to a S.S. convention the Dr. didn't charge anything. We, my girlfriend and I took notes at the convention and wrote them at home, on Sunday we reported everything and the superintendent was satisfied with our reports. The livery bill was paid and so that's that. It wasn't much fun but we got home safe.

A few years passed, lots of fun dates, party's, then came graduation time. Our graduation play was 5 girls no boys, was 2 1/2 hours long and 3 acts. I had the main part. I guess it was, one girl was suppose to be my sister. My grandmother had left me a fortune. This sister thought that she should have it as she was the oldest. So she arranged it some way so I appeared to be out of my mind and she got the fortune and she married my boyfriend. I'd go to her house after dark and scream at her window about my fortune that she took away from me. She'd give fancy teas and luncheons and I'd always appear at a window some place, taunting and screaming at the making me an outcast, this went on through 1st and 1/2 of the second act, till she couldn't take it anymore, so she broke down and told her friends the things she had done to get my fortune and boyfriend who had died she called me in from the window and begged me to forgive her and take the fortune so I came on stage with a gray wig on my hair hanging all over my face and a cover all apron on, I looked like an old witch. She told all that I was her sister and she was in love with my boyfriend. Then the curtain went down on the 2nd act. When curtains came up again the girls all stood in a half circle with me in the middle dressed in my graduation dress (the one in my picture) my hair combed lovely. My sister was really subdued by happy now since she had confessed. I was congratulated by all, then we turned and faced the people. The hall was packed and we bowed and smiled and the curtain went down that was the end. The applause almost took the roof off. That was fun.

So many funny things happened I can't remember all till I've passed them up, but I'm going back about 2 years.

One night after supper our little crowd had a year end party as usual. Her older brother was home from college. He came in the yard and told us all to come in the house and he'd tell us something- of course we went in. He had us sit around the table. This is what he told us. I'm going to call up the sprits, now everyone be quiet and watch me. I'm going to say a few things but before the spirits show up the mirror on the wall will tremble, the table will move and the lights will. go out. We were all scared stiff but we didn't speak or move. So he threw his arms around and jabbered for a while, we kept on being more excited and scared all the time, and now believe it or not, that mirror jiggled and hung crooked and the table trembled and the lights went out, but one of the girls screamed and he said that scared the spirits on, but I tell you kids he said cats will be fighting all over the edge of town when you go home and Stella when you come to that little culvert in the road before you get home fighting cats will run out from it. So again, believe it or not, cats were sure fighting and running all over at that place. I was scared stiff but I wasn't alone a boy always took me home. We went on over the culvert (a little bridge) and home, when we got to the door, he grabbed me and kissed me good night and ran back towards town.

None of us wanted anymore ghosts called up but, Neal (the guy that called them back to life) was mad at us. Can anyone who reads this tell me how, why and what made the mirror shake and the table move and the lights go out? I sure can't but I can still see that mirror move and hang crooked. It really happened. You don't believe it do you? Well it happened. Haha! I can hear those cats fighting yet. That's enough from the spirits.

As the time comes nearer for voting for president. I can remember when women first got the right to vote. My mother was very busy (she always was) father came home from town laughing, told her now she could vote. She was so disgusted and said, it's too bad men can't run their own business, that women had enough work of their own to do. That was true. Soon men began to loose their jobs, some young woman offered to work cheaper. So some men were laid off and a woman took his job. It went from bad to worse. Today most women are working and the men are walking the streets, hi-ways looking for employment.

Talking of voting calls to my memory about Cora Nation and her hatchet. She was all for women to run everything she'd go in saloons and bust everything with her ax or hatchet. Throw things at the shelves and break the whiskey bottles-was often arrested. One day she was on the train going some place and she noticed two young men were playing cards so she walks down the isle and stops by their seats. They thought they would have a little fun with her, so they asked her if she would like to play a game of cards with them. The window by their seats was open, she said yes she'd play a game and sat down by one of them. They asked if she would like to deal the cards and she could select the game she wanted to play. She took the cards and shuffled them and then said I would like to play pitch. The boys thought the were really having fun. They said that suited them fine. She pitched the cards out the window and got up and walked away. That really happened. When the boys or men rather got back home again they told how Cora Nation played pitch with them on the train people laughed about that for a long time.

It was several years before my mother would vote. I remember going up town one day and seeing for the first time a young woman behind the counter. The man that had that job was laid off and a woman took his place, she would work for less wages. Well that's enough for women suffrage. Now everybody suffers.

After graduating which was lovely, the hall was packed. The stage banked with flowers and potted plants. We had fun decorating it, but taking all those plants back where we borrowed them, that was work we didn't enjoy. Each of us got so many lovely gifts, the program was good and then we all received our diplomas and it was all over. I didn't want to stay in Palmyra any longer. I wanted to go west. I had an older sister living in Havelock, in the western part of Nebraska. Teachers training school started in June. So Nellie (that's my sisters name) asked me to come out there and stay with them and go to school so that's what I did I applied for a school at Cornell 25 or 30 miles from there and was hired. After school was out I went back home for a little while. I received my teachers permit, so I packed my trunk and went out West to the Praire country where the tumble weeds blow all over the country.

My train got in Trenton about 10 o'clock at night. The county superintendent met me at the train and took me to the hotel. The next morning I hunted the stage driver that took the mail out to Cornell and got a ride out to the place where I was to board about 1/2 mile from the little red school house. I didn't know one little thing about the country. At the supper table Mr. Smiley (that's the name of the family) asked his son, who was a young man, if he closed the corral gate when he came in from milking the cows. I wondered what a corral was, but I didn't ask. When supper was over I went into my bedroom and looked out the window and saw where the cows were and where the "corral" gate was. I sure found out there was the gate and there were the cows in a small lot, we always called it a "cow lot," but out west its called the corral. I sure got a laugh all to myself.

Teaching school was all right. I had about 10 or 12 pupils. All sizes. The school wasn't graded. The books were, beginners, medium and advanced. I didn't have any of those advanced ones. In a day or two here came the county superintendent with a bunch of books and papers. I was to grade the school. The supt. was quite nice, not to old, but he had one fault, he always managed to get as close to me as he could.

Which made me blush and the school kids laughed. That didn't slow up the supt. one little bit. Well I stayed at my boarding place for a couple of months. One day I was in my room and I over heard the Mrs. laying down the law to her son, he was engaged to a girl who lived a few miles away and mother Smiley wasn't going to have her son talking to much to the school marm. The son was laughing and he told his mother, "oh he said I told Nina if things go to serious I'd let her know. That's all I heard but believe me the "old gal" didn't like it one little bit and I didn't like the son one bit better. She didn't have any thing to worry about but, she thought she might have. There were more sons around in the wide open spaces than him.

Some way I got acquainted with another one, I went with him for awhile. Then I got acquainted with another family named Terrell. They had several boys in school and a girl a little younger than myself. So the girl, (whose name was Addie) invited me over to spend the day. We got to like each other very much and she asked me to come board with them.

She told me she had an older brother who was back in Iowa at this time visiting a sister but she thought he'd be home soon. She also invited me and Fred (the man I was going with) to come over Sunday evening to have music and sing songs. They had an organ and sang church songs all the time. So we came. I didn't want to stay very long for I didn't want to go with him any more. So that was it and I moved my trunk over to the Terrell's. In the mean time Addle had written to her big brother Dan. In about a week he came home, to meet the pretty school mam. He seemed to be quite impressed. He had a horse and buggy. So he took me to school every morning and came after me at 4 o'clock. We went together till school was out and he asked me to marry him and I said Yes. We set the day for April 3rd, 1907. So I went home the 1st. of March to make my wedding clothes. On.my way home I had to wait over several hours in Lincoln so I bought material for my wedding dress and traveling dress. My sister Hattie made my clothes.

Word soon got around that I was going to get married to someone out West where I'd been teaching school, of course everyone wondered who he was and what he looked like. A few days before the wedding I went to Lincoln to meet him and help him pick out his suit of clothes, of course we had a good time. When the train stopped at Palmyra, we got off the train and a bunch of the young folks were all standing over by the side of the depot. If I'd had a rock or a ball bat I'd liked to have thrown it through a couple of them. We had our suit cases with us so we just walked on up the side walk and let them look.

My Grandma and Aunt had already come down from Lincoln. The day before the wedding my Aunt and I baked the wedding cake. It was about 10 inches tall 3 large layers on the bottom then small one's till it came to a little one about 3 inches across. We put lots of white icing on it, then put rock candy on in small chunks. The candy glistened like ice. It was really pretty. We had a long thin bladed knife mother gave me.

We shined it up pretty and wrapped the handle with white and tied a blue ribbon bow on it. They set the cake on a small table with a white cloth on it. We didn't invite many guests, just a few special friends. After the wedding they served ice cream and cake. Then we heard a crowd of boys outside on the road hollering and yelling. I opened the front door and stood there where the light shone on me, then my dad went out there and talked to them, told them the bridegroom had left cigars and candy bars at the cafe up town and he didn't want any trouble so they left. I didn't know till the next day that my folks were all afraid there was going to be trouble. For I had an old boyfriend in town that was pretty mad about the wedding, but he wasn't in the crowd of boys. Everyone had teased him so much about me getting married that he left town that day. In a few days we left for the west. We stopped in Lincoln where Dan's family all lived about 14 miles from town. Close to the post office and grocery store.

We stayed at Dan's folks a few days then moved into a 2 room sod house it was fun and I really liked it out there. Dan farmed quite a bit of ground with his folks. We went to S.S. at the school house every Sunday, was always a house full everyone went to S.S. all the young folks would go home with some family for dinner. We had a good time. We had plenty of company. We fixed the 2 rooms up real cute we lived there through the Summer, then we moved back to Palmyra and Dan worked with my father.

On February 12, 1908 Arthelda was born. A sweet little baby. In the Spring we moved to the country. Dan worked for a farmer. We lived there a few years but we liked the West so we moved back out by his folks. On Sept. 29, 1911, Viola our second daughter was born, at Trenton, Neb. We wanted a place of our own so Dan homesteaded a 640 acre range land. We built a large 2 room sod house, two windows in each room. It was so nice, when the plaster was all dry we moved in. How happy we were. Dan worked for a ranch man close by. Came home Wednesday and Saturday night. We set out lots of trees. Our well was real deep and hard to pump but I carried water and watered each tree every evening and enjoyed it. Arthelda would carry her little pail full and pour it around the trees and thought she was a big help. She put more on her clothes than she did on the trees.

In the Fall when it was time to start feeding cattle we would move into a house of Dan's boss so he'd be close to work.

In 1914 Feb. 1, our son was born. We stayed in Valentine about 50 miles from the ranch. Dan worked in town that winter. The city was putting up ice for Summer use. (No one had refrigerators like we do today.) The snow was so deep and it was bitter cold, we were there about 3 weeks. Then went back out to the ranch. I and the children stayed with my folks until spring then we went back to the homestead. We were 20 miles from a small town called Brownlee. I got a terrible tooth ache so we drove into town to have it pulled, but when we got there it didn't ache and I just wouldn't go into the Dr. so we got some groceries and went home. In the night boy oh boy did my tooth ache. I thought I would surely die. So in the morning we went back to the Dr. this time I had it pulled. It hurt so bad.

Built a big sod barn and out house; Everything was built of sod. We had to live on our homestead for 7 years to prove up on it. Well we did. Then we sold it for $700.00 cash and 28 head of young cows and moved on to a place on the ranch where Dan worked. We now had enough money to pay our bills that we had owed for quite awhile and it was good to be out of debt once more.

A man we knew had a small ranch (3,2000) thirty-two-hundred acres. We rented this and moved on it. The summers were nice. but the winters were long and cold lots of snow and so many blizzards. We worked hard, I'd help outside. We milked a dozen cows and sold cream. I always raised lots of chickens and sold eggs too. It was mostly work and not much play. We went to town twice a year. That is I and the 3 kids did. We would take a lot of eats and camp out one night and go into Valentine the next morning. We'd go to the hotel when we got there and clean up and put on our dress clothes. We always had nice clothes and go to dinner at the hotel. That was always fun, if we stayed in town all night we'd go to a show. I liked the ranch but it's to hard for a woman.

We lived in a 5 room house. Only 2 miles from the school house. The teachers boarded at our place. One morning she was drying her hand after washing. She stood by the door, Dan came in pushed the door open wide with her behind it. "Say" she yelled, you squeezed me behind the door. We all had a good laugh over that. There was debates at the school house once in awhile. We were always invited. One night the subject was, which would you rather have "a clean well dressed, haughty wife or a sloppy jolly good natured wife? There was a lot of laughs about that. The good natured wife got the most points.

Our closest town was Seneca about 35 or 40 miles away. Dan would go to town in the Winter time. I'd mild, separate and feed calves in the cold and snow, for 3 days. It took that long to make the freight trip. How glad we would be when we'd see his team and wagon come around the bend a mile across the valley. Those were the hard Winters.

Our third daughter Stella was born July 10, 1918. We lived there for 14 years when I think of it now I wonder how crazy can a person get! But we were young and liked that free life on the ranch. Then came the terrible 3 day blizzard in the Spring when everyone was out of hay. Every rancher around there went broke, lost cattle by the hundreds. Just a few had hay, so they bought up the small ranches. We lost most of all we had. The bank took over the rest of ours like it did everyone else! The ranch next to us had thousands of acres and a large family grown up. He was offered $50,000 spot cash the year before for the outfit. He turned it down, he lost everything from the blizzard. His wife and three of the family lost their minds and died in the insane asylum. His son bought the ranch back from the bank and his father lived with him, but he was an old broken down man. We packed up and left the ranch, we went into a farming country and rented a place to live on and Dan worked out, later on we rented some ground and raised sugar beets. Made enough money to pay for our truck and to live on. We always had a garden and lots of chickens. I set hens and raised lots of little chickens which soon grew into fryers.

We usually went to town on Saturday, we would take in crates of eggs and usually some young fryers to pay for our groceries.

When it came canning time I usually did a little. I never canned vegetables for everyone said it was hard to keep them from spoiling. Mother used to can tomatoes and wrap each can or jar in paper and store in the cellar in the dark corner on a shelf. I never tried it.

They would dig a hole in the ground not too deep, a foot or a foot and a half, and pile potatoes, beets, pumpkins, squash, and onions in them cover them with hay and dirt. In the Winter when we wanted them we'd make a small hole in one side and take out some of each, always had turnips too. So good and sweet, we'd eat them like apples. Cabbage they would pull up by the root, then tie a twine string around the root and hang them up on a nail in the cellar. Don't think they ever raised carrots, I don't remember ever seeing one. My father was the one who always dug into the pit, guess he was afraid we wouldn't stuff the old coats and rags tight enough in the hole to keep them from freezing.

In fruit canning time, we had a "wild crab apple tree," it always had apples on it, I didn't like them but everyone else seemed to. Us kids would go with mother with buckets to get crab apples, the trees were out in the timber of course for they grew wild. She always made crab apple butter, I didn't like that either. She would cut them in 4 pieces and wash them good then cook them. Then put them through a colander and take all the seeds and peelings out, then measure the pulp so she'd know how much molasses to put in to sweeten the pulp. Then cook and stir for hours. No one would do that today, to much work, but I think of those old times so much. People 75 years ago worked hard for what they got, and never wasted a thing.

Now back to my story when we left the ranch and farmed we decided we wanted to go to Idaho or Washington. So we sold everything and over hauled the truck, and came on west. We crossed the great divide, where the water runs the other way. It was a desolate place no sign of anything, had extra gasoline with us. When we got into the mountains we'd sing, "we'll be coming around the mountains." We stopped in Payette

Idaho. Danny our oldest son worked with his dad at different things, then picked fruit in the fall. Later on we moved to Pine, Idaho, for a year. Dan always wanted to pan for gold! We lived close to the river, and bought a place, a five room house four acres of land, put the children in school and Dan worked for W.P.A. Danny worked in the cannery, we were there several years. Dan had a sick spell, Dr. said it was his heart, so we were put on relief checks, which sure wasn't much money. But we always made it do, with the help from Danny until he got married, later we went to Hermiston to visit a married daughter-the 2nd world war was on then. Dan went to a Dr. had a examination and got a job as a carpenter at the ordinance or the ammunition dump they called it. We bought a piece of land and built a new house, we were there a couple of years and the war was over so we sold our house and moved to Sandpoint, Idaho. That was in 1947, we were there for a few years. Then we sold that place, the winters were to long and cold. Snow would drift so bad and we were alone, as Charles worked in the mines at Metaline Falls Washington.

We sold the place and moved to Ione, Washington. We built a house there, when our money was about gone we got the Old Age Pension. Dan passed away in 1959. I lived on the place alone for a few years then moved to Kennewick Washington and live in a house by Charlie and his wife for a year or so, then they bought two trailer houses and moved them to Plymouth close where he worked. I'm still living there and I really like it and love my trailer house. He and Gladys, his wife, have decided to move back to Kennewick as we are so far out of town. So next week we move and that's all. We now live in Kennewick Washington, 2801 S. Gum St.

I have left out a few things so I'll add a past script.

I remember when things began to change. For years we were in the wagons with narrow wheels, then the top buggy. A young man close to us in Missouri owned a farm, he bought one, also took my brothers girl away from him as she wanted to ride in the nice shiny red wheeled buggy.

Years later the Model T car was built. It was quite a sensation. In 1911 my dad bought a new Maxwell for 1,100 dollars no top no doors on the front seat. Gas was 6 cents a gallon if you bought a barrel full. Now there are more cars than good sense. All kinds and all prices. But my heart goes back to the good old buggy days. I'm 86 years old, in good health and able to visit my six children often.

That's all. Bye now. I am a great great grandma.