Daddy was one of those preachers who visited his parishioners and others who lived in the community. One day he came home from visiting a man in the hospital with a tale to tell.
This particular man didn’t want to be in the hospital. He wasn’t very compliant with the hospital staff. While Daddy was there, one of the nurses came into the room to get the patient’s temperature. She stuck the thermometer under his tongue and said she’d be back shortly. He made no comment but as soon as she left, he looked over at daddy, grinned a bit, took the thermometer out of his mouth and stuck it in his hot coffee. Just before she walked in the room, he stuck it back under his tongue. Daddy laughed as he told about the nurse running around and calling for help for that poor man who had an astronomically high fever.
Whenever Daddy was in the hospital, the nurses all loved him. “He’s such a cute little man and he is so sweet.” Some of the nurses asked if they could take him home with them. One even said she wanted to put him in her pocket. One day, I questioned one of the nurses because Daddy had not had his scheduled therapy. She reported that when he was asked if he felt like doing therapy, he said, “I don’t think I can do it today.” The therapist said, “Awwww, that’s okay. We’ll try again tomorrow.” I took the nurse aside and said, “I just want you to know that cute, sweet little man is sometimes a liar. Don’t believe everything he tells you!”
On another occasion when Daddy was a patient in the hospital, I made my daily visit. He greeted me and smiled that smile that intimated, “I’ve been up to mischief today.” I questioned his look. He said, “I failed my first test.”
“What kind of test?”
“Well, the nurse asked me if I knew how to put my feet on the floor. I told her, ‘I just grab hold of the rail, twist around and swing my legs over the side of the bed and put my feet on the floor.’ She picked up the call button and said, ‘No, you push this button.’”
When I left him that day he said, “You might not find me better tomorrow, but you’ll certainly find the nurses more enlightened.”
What’s in a name? To some, “Mrs. Ward” meant a good neighbor who had earned the respect of her community. “Niter”, so called by her little Englishman, was a woman who could throw together a meal in no time for whoever showed up at her table at mealtime whether it was the hired men, family, friends, or someone there to purchase lumber. Some called her “Mama,” a lady who could box a kid’s ears or dunk a sassy mouth in a bucket of water. She could make the kids walk a fine line or play with them like a kid herself. “Babe” was a beloved girl at any age who was endeared to family and lifelong friends. That was the name by which she was known before she even got her “real” name which came from two of her nieces. To me she was and is “Gommie.”
Just the thought or mention of her name brings a plethora of emotions and memories. It meant curling up next to her on her sofa whether sitting quietly or being rewarded with a story. Her name meant lumpy gravy. It meant a cup of hot tea in a fine china teacup from her china cabinet. It meant a trip to her beloved mountains and a visit to her “cabin” and “Gommie’s Lake.” It meant a place of refuge, a place of safety, a peaceful place.
It meant a trip to see Uncle Barney and the guaranteed story of wolf trapping days. Uncle Barney, aged, deaf, with blurred vision, would transform before our very eyes as the years melted away. Once again he stood tall, young and fit as his eyes lit up at the retelling of the same stories we had heard before though we never tired of them.
Gommie was like a mama bear that dared anyone to mess with her kids and grandkids. Her compassions were stirred by the underdog and she would have taken any of them into her arms and her home. She was like a teddy bear, kind of soft and squishy, who offered a snuggly resting place. She sent money to help orphans and also helped meet the needs of those within her community. Her black dancing eyes could pierce a proud tongue or shoot darts to stop unnecessary words. Those same eyes, black and soft, could look in the very depths of the soul and warm the coldest of hearts.
She lived by the motto “is it true, is it kind, is it necessary.” A short poem says it well, “I have wept in the night for the shortness of sight that to someone’s need I was blind. But I have never once yet felt a twinge of regret for being a little too kind.”
Yes, a name contains many facets that reflect a prism of memories and a rainbow of emotions.
Daddy told me a tale about his little sister. It goes like this….
A lady and her daughter came up to the canyon. The girl was about Mary Jane’s age. They were playing and MJ got upset about something and decided to run away – all the way to the Brannin Ranch (which was a good hike away through the wilds of Montana).
Faithful, loving brother Buck, hopped on the horse and went to fetch her home. He rode into the Brannin Ranch yard only to be pelted with her throwing rocks at him.
“She could be a little temperamental at times. She did things that we would never have gotten by with,” says Brother Buck.
Maybe brother Buck shouldn’t have taught Mary Jane to throw the ball…..
My guest author today is my Dad as he tells the story of the bear that climbed the “bear tree.” He was just a little kid, but it made a lasting impression.
Then came the episode with the bear. Cousins Sydney and Margaret were visiting with Ellen and Barbara. The girls decided to play in the hay shed, which was about 300 yards from the house and through a patch of woods. Mother’s tomcat, Nimmy Not, followed them to the shed. Sometimes they’d spook a mouse out of the hay for the tomcat. This time they spooked out a bear!
A yearling bear had come down to the corrals to help himself to some awful offal that had been left over from butchering a beef. The bear saw the children, and the children saw the bear. The bear ran for a tree. The children hid in the shed and peered through a knot hole in the side of the building. When the bear came down from the tree, he started to grow. He sniffed his way toward the shed getting larger every step. The children began to get nervous. Our fearless cousin, Margaret, who thought that all cats were females, said, “I know what let’s do. Let’s throw out Minnie.”
The girls pushed Nimmy Not out of the shed. “Go get him,” they said. Then they crawled through a hole on the backside of the building and circled their way back to the house.
“You threw my cat out?” Mother asked when she heard about their adventure.
“She said to.” Sister Ellen pointed to our fearless cousin.
The Bear Tree
A big tear came to Margaret’s eyes. “We didn’t mean to, but it was her or us.”
About that time there was a yowling at the kitchen door. It was Nimmy Not come home. The girls picked him up.
“Oh, Minnie!” Cousin Margaret exclaimed. “This is your lucky day!”
It was really my lucky day. If I’d have been at the shed, they’d have pushed me out instead of the cat.
When Daddy came home we walked over to the corral. Spot came along. When we saw the bear, Father said, “Sic ‘im!”
The hound raced across the meadow. The bear headed for the tree. Spot leaped in the air like he was catching a pancake. He came down with a mouthful of fur.
The next morning the bear was gone. Likely Spot saved the day. No more bears came around the sawmill where a leaping hound snatched them bald on the wrong end.
“A hotcake. You know, it’s the same thing as a pancake. It was left over from breakfast.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good lunch.”
“It’s yummy. While it was still hot, I spread fresh butter on it so it soaked in real good. Then I sprinkled it with sugar and rolled it up like a cigar.”
That was what my mother packed for lunch when she was in school. I watched her numerous times as she slathered butter on her hotcake and sprinkle it with sugar. It was pretty good that way! I learned to fix mine that way, too, but not to pack for lunch.
When I was a kid, Mama made hotcakes for breakfast many times. She cooked three at a time in a big cast iron skillet. One of the boys usually got the first stack. She went around the table loading a stack on each plate, then she’d start over again. The boys ate boocoodles of hotcakes – at least 9 each- at one sitting. Mama didn’t get any until they were all done. I wish I knew how much hotcake batter she made at one time.
If my granddad was around, the cat got the first pancake that was cooked all alone in the pan as a test to see if the skillet was the right temperature. If a little kid was around, the test pancake might get put on the kid’s head before it went to the cat.
My lunch bag never had a hotcake in it. Sometimes it did have a maple stick in it though. That was a rare treat!
The nation’s involvement in World War I created the demand for much of Montana’s resources. With the flu epidemic of 1918 and drought that followed, workers could no longer make a living. Soldiers returned from the war to a land and its people that had been ravaged by hardship and loss.
A time of depression and drought was the cause for the move from the plains of Montana to Idaho. Word came to the Cody and Knapp families giving glowing reports of good grass and tall timber in northern Idaho. One of the uncles loaded up his car with his sister’s family and made the drive to look things over. That trip brought its own excitement when the little girls got to attend a circus. Trained dogs, fire trucks, monkeys, and elephants were among the numerous sights. Never had they seen anything like it!
When they arrived in Idaho, they discovered the reports were true. Idaho was the place to be. They returned to Montana, sold their cattle for 3 cents a pound and prepared for the trip. Three wagons were loaded, two Knapp rigs and one Cody rig, with as much as could be carried safely. Each wagon was hitched to a team of horses with a spare team tied to the back.
Traveling by wagon, especially in a wagon train, though there were only three wagons, was quite a sight in 1931. Though automobiles were becoming more commonplace, many families trying to make a living on the land just couldn’t afford that luxury. When word came of a land with good grass, that meant a place to graze cattle, feed hungry bellies and pay for necessities. Horses and wagons could make that trip though it would take longer. There would be meager grass along the way for grazing the horses, no gas or oil required, though an occasional shoe had to be changed.
Cody and Knapp wagons ready to pull out as they head to Idaho
A place was prepared for the girls to play and sleep in the wagon. They peered from the back flap that opened in the back of the bonnet that covered the skeleton slats over the wagon bed. Dust rolled along behind them on the dirt roads. They bounced up and down, back and forth as they hit ruts and traveled on gravel lanes.
You might imagine the stares they received as their horses plodded along pulling the loaded wagons. Automobile passengers pointed, laughed and gawked at them, “Ha, ha. Look at them. Eat my dust!” Those same little eyes that saw those who mocked them saw quite another scene at the continental divide when some cars couldn’t make the climb. Those same mockers weren’t laughing then. They would pay dearly for a team of horses to unhitch from their wagons and pull the cars over the top. The view from that vantage point was breathtaking. To look back, it was easy to see how high the climb had been.
Flat prairies turned into rolling hills. Mountains appeared on the horizon as the wagons slowly made their way along mountain roads into lush green valleys. After a month on the road, the wagon train ended in Sandpoint, Idaho where they had purchased property months earlier. The reports were true. The grass was high and tender and there was plenty of fresh water. They pitched their tents, tarps or whatever they could find to shelter them from the cool nights and rainy weather while they built their log homes. At least they could use an old granary as their kitchen and dining area. The girls were entertained watching chipmunks steel potato and apple peelings and carry them off for later.
My grandmother in front of the middle wagon, my aunt, mother and great grandmother at the back of the wagon on the right
my aunt, grandmother, mother & granddad, 1931
The day came, November 11, 1931, when they moved from their tents into their white cedar log homes. When they awoke that morning, the tent sagged almost to the ground. It was freezing cold. They opened the flap, emerged from the tent and was welcomed by snow that sloughed off the canvas and down their backs. What a relief to be in their meager one roomed home with winter well on its way. Though winter was relatively short, there were days when snow was as high as the house. Winter did provide icicles to make ice cream.
The depression lingered and there was no way to buy clothes or food they couldn’t raise. A family member found work elsewhere and soon most of the family loaded the wagons and were on the move again. They saved enough money to lease a place and started back to Montana. That time, they sold their wagons and traveled by car.
Mountains high and forested Valleys lush and green It really looked like heaven The prettiest place we’d seen.
The roads were different then and we Could get off any where To camp beside a rushing stream And no one seemed to care.
In all that month our bathtub Was a rushing mountain stream When that water hit our bodies It brot forth quite a scream.
Excerpts from my Grandmother’s poem telling of their covered wagon adventure
My Mother only had a few vague memories of their trip. She and her sister were quite small. One thing she remembered was those who pointed and laughed at them as cars passed and left them in their dust. When those same people faced the steep mountain climbs, I imagine my Grandmother saying, “Who’s laughing now?” Don’t be too quick to point a finger, there’s 3 pointing back at you.
Persecution looked them square in the eyes and denied them their rights. To them persecution was not merely rumors of something that happened in another country, but something that happened to them personally. It was real.
James Chilton and his family left their home in Kent, England and joined John Robinson’s congregation in Leiden, Holland. They were Separatists, persecuted by the English monarchy and even the Puritans within the Church of England. Many of the Separatists fled to Holland where they were at least tolerated for their religious views. Upon their arrival, many had to learn new skills to survive. From there, the calling of religious freedom urged them to pursue a life in the “new world.” Their flight was not just running away to escape, it was running toward an ideal. It was seeking freedom – freedom to work their fields, freedom to own a parcel of land, freedom to practice their religious beliefs, freedom to breathe the air of satisfaction.
James Chilton, his wife, and their youngest daughter, thirteen-year-old daughter Mary, along with 99 other passengers, departed from Plymouth, England aboard the Mayflower September 6, 1920. The journey across the ocean was an arduous one. Little did the passengers know their story would be written in the annals of history and would be replayed for generations.
Through perilous seas, storms, hunger, sleepless nights, and sickness, they forged on. They intended to disembark at the Jamestown Colony in Virginia, but strong winter seas forced them to seek another harbor. Their hopes were dashed just as the ship that was battered by waves and sickness that ran rampant among the passengers. Their numbers decreased by nearly half by the time the sickness had run its course.
They anchored near the tip of Cape Cod on November 21 where the Mayflower Compact was signed. James Chilton was one of those signatures.
Casting off again, they sailed to Plymouth harbor where they dropped anchor. For all that James Chilton had endured, he only got to see the promised land that drew them across the ocean. James Chilton, the oldest passenger at 64 years of age, could barely raise his head as he looked across the harbor to see the land that awaited their arrival. It was there on December 8, 1620, he breathed his last breath. He never set foot in the country that would become the home of his daughter and her many descendants. No, he took his last breath within sight of the “new world.” His wife joined him in the winter, just a month later.
With eyes of grief and her face set with determination, the young Mary Chilton set foot onto the land that became the home of her generations. She had looked to the shores of freedom and hope. As the first woman to set foot on the land, she acquired a place in history. The determination that was bred in her lived on in future generations who helped form the new government and later expanded into the west.
James Chilton succumbed to sickness and death, yet there was still life in those old bones – life that was lived out in the life of his daughter Mary Chilton, my 11th Great Grandmother. His determination was contagious. Mary looked to the shores of freedom and hope. She instilled those same admirable traits in her descendants.
What would James Chilton think to know that he left a legacy that is imbedded in history – no, that made history? The Mayflower story is one that continues through us – their future generations. James Chilton is my 12th Great Grandfather.
Mary Chilton stepping onto Plymouth Rock as depicted by Henry Bacon’s 1877 painting of “The Landing of the Pilgrims”
April 22, 1889, not a cloud in the sky, rushers lined up waiting for high noon. Wagons carrying their passengers and all their earthly possessions stood on the brink of history. A Captain from the 5thCavalry gave the signal. The bugle call sounded, and the rush was on.
For Sarah McNeil, the race began years earlier. After her marriage ended, she moved her family to Kansas to join other family members. Her ex-husband returned to the scene and they married a second time. It wasn’t long before he was gone again. Maybe a fresh start was what the family needed. With the west opening up, Sarah took the opportunity and was on the move again. The Homestead Act allowed single women and widows the right to claim land the same as men. She was among that number. This gutsy determined pioneer woman along with her sons, the youngest just three years old, and her fifteen-year-old daughter were among the pioneers who awaited the signal. With the bugle call, the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was on and Sarah Brewer McNeil was right in the middle of it.
Grant Robinson and Sarah Ann Brewer McNeil Robinson
The ground shook as wagons and horses raced across the prairie as fifty thousand pioneers were caught up in the race. The thunderous noise of the wagons was joined by the sound of horse hooves and the whistle of the train that followed its tracks carrying homesteaders who had no horses or wagons. Furniture, pots and pans and other items tied to the outside of the wagons clanged and banged. Boiling clouds of dust and debris filled the cloudless sky shrouding the sun. Chairs and other possessions flew off wagons, some broken into pieces, and scattered across the prairie. A few wagon wheels and unfortunate busted wagons joined the scene.
My Great Great Grandmother, Sarah Ann Brewer McNeil, brought her wagon to a halt. The dust overtook the canvas bonnet that covered the skeleton of the wagon as she jumped from her seat and pounded the stake into the ground claiming her territory. Lingering dust that hung over Oklahoma Territory began to settle.
The work had just begun. As well as other homesteaders, Sarah and her family first made a house of sod until they could obtain the resources to improve their holdings and build a proper house, dig a well, and construct corrals and other buildings.
Towns sprang up overnight. Four years later, Sarah completed her application for Homestead Proof which included the testimonies of several witnesses, one of them being Grant Robinson who became her husband. Her claim was approved on February 1, 1895.
The Pioneer Spirit lived in the lives of our ancestors who dared tread the path of adventure. They were survivors.
If we traced our roots, we would find the vast majority of our ancestors were immigrants. They were drawn to a place called America where they believed they could have a better life, freedom of religion and voice.
Have you ever stopped to consider the challenges they faced coming to “the new world?” Can you imagine the hopes and dreams that compelled them to travel by every mode of transportation available to them? Many did not even make it to America. Some died in sight of her shores, some buried their loved ones at sea. What was waiting for them when they set foot on the shores of a land that promised freedom and opportunity? Who welcomed them with open arms? What if that would have been you instead of your ancestors? How would you feel to be mocked because of your beliefs or because you spoke another language? They came with little of nothing and sought for a place to call home.
My husband’s 2nd Great Grandparents with their children in 1894. Seven more came later. My husband’s Great Grandfather stands in the middle on the back row.
Here is a portion of the account of my husband’s 4thgreat uncle’s account of his emigration from Holland in 1865 that might give us surprising insight as to what it might have been like for our ancestors who made the arduous trip from their homeland.
“In the year of 1856 on the 1stday of May, we left the place of our birth. We departed from Zoutkamp on the 3rdday of May on the water vehicle Toe. After several days we came to Leiden. On the 9th of May we boarded the good ship Arnold Bonniger and the name of the Captain was Anstadt.“
On May 18, they “awoke to see the beautiful high mountains called the Brythergen near Dover (Chalk Cliffs). However, we did not enjoy the scenery for very long, because the swaying and tipping of the ship made some dizzy, others sick, others laughed.”
“Four days later we behold the coast of France and this also was an imposing sight but listening to the conversation of other passengers, I am now beginning to understand how long this voyage is going to take. After some 40 days of sailing we reached a place called New Foundland. It is very foggy nearly all the time and we were anxious for clear weather and if memory serves me correctly, another 14 days elapsed before New York hove into sight. During this time a small, child, belonging to a German woman, died, and it was placed in a wooden box and lowered into the waves. What effect this had on the passengers I will not here elaborate.”
“We were anxious to see the city and this is easily understood as for 48 days our feet never touched earth. A place called Koothe Garden was our next abode, and it was so arranged, the passengers could stay here but there we no sleeping facilities. America which we had so much coveted, but how sorrowful, we stank like strangers in Jerusalem. And what was worse, when we made a purchase, we could not make change, because we could not understand these people…. It was impossible for us to find work.”
“Many times have I been misled to go for employment and could not find one person for instruction, and then later these same people would stand in a circle around me and laugh at the greenhorn. It was driven home to me that the people here are very mischievous and without any kind of organization compared to the Fatherland where everything always was in order.”
On July 4th, the weary travelers met up with their brother who had come to America two years earlier. Upon seeing his condition, they knew they could not stay with him. He was poor in health and the means to feed even himself. At least they were together and that has to count for something.
In the spring of 1885, my husband’s Great Great Grandfather, his wife who was pregnant with their second child, and a son boarded the boat to make the trip across the big waters to New York. There, they traveled by train to an established Dutch community in Illinois. Their transition was easier than that of their aunt and uncle. It is said of them, “They never achieved material wealth but were rich in love and religious faith. Basic necessities were never lacking. They earned a living with a sense of pride. Everyone cared for and shared with each other, strengthening the bond that held the family together through the following generations.”
On their farm in Illinois, Great Great Grandparents stand in the middle
