Rachel “Rae” Wylie was a young woman good at amusing her friends. I have been trying to find out more of her background, but I can’t seem to verify who she is in official records. She appears in a 1917 UCLA yearbook, but only her name and a quote by it. She may be the school teacher who is living alone in San Gorgonio, Riverside county, California, recorded on the 1920 Census. That census says she was born in Kansas about 1895. . . . but there is time and more research that can be done. Meanwhile, our Rae Wylie left Yellowstone in September 1916 and was apparently living with a family of some kind, perhaps renting a room or boarding, but not her own family. The family seems to have had some boys who were of the age to rough-house. Rae worked at a store and was completing her senior year in college.
When her friends received these letters, one wrote to another that they screamed with laughter over them. We may not catch all the jokes, but her wit is apparent throughout.
Read all ye Deaux Drops, if ye want to hear,
A tale about a Heaver’s career,
On her way homeward bound from the Geyser land,
Read, then take your pen in hand, and
Deaux Drop me a big long letter . . . . . . D. D.
Epistle to the Deaux Drops No. 1
1106 W. 77th Street.
Los Angeles, Calif.
September 17th, 1916.
Dear Beloved Deaux Drops:
“Looking at you.” Come on, let’s go and see the Daisy play. She’s a nice old girl.1
Well, you see I am sending a family letter, as I am sure of writing to “you all” once in a while this way. Otherwise with all six it might never happen. Now, if “you all” will please pass this very valuable document on to the next one, I’ll be overcome with gratefulness.
I am so glad “you all” managed to get home safely. Oh! you railroad strike! Believe me, when I get up a strike or anything of the kind, I’ll do better than that, and when I get to running Yellowstone Park, she’s going to stay open the year round and no Dudes to bother.
To begin at the beginning of the end of the most delightful of Summers, after we saw “you all” safely deposited in your private pens on the sleeper, Lloyd and I hurried across to the other depot2 and Bill. We found him, but no trace of Edna and Gula, and have never heard of them. I guess they got on the 1:30 train thinking we were on. Don’t know what they did for reservations, as we had theirs—that word is “theirs.”
Well, we next saw a notice saying our train would not leave until seven, and as we had had nothing to eat and were hungry, we went up and partook of a good supper. We returned and the bulletin board announced our train at nine so still being hungry, we ate again. This time the board said eleven thirty, and told the truth, after so many attempts. We went right to bed and conveniently had upper berths right across, which made it so nice and homelike.
The morning we spent on the observation car and observed what scenery we could find, and really did see some wonderful rocks in a canyon, the name of which I have forgotten. I neglected to say we ate breakfast first. Then came dinner, and afterwards cards all afternoon, except when we came to a town, then we got off for refreshments. Vessie, and Perla, please overlook the card part. You see not being used to Sunday, we could not be expected to know it when it came, at least without a hand organ. Then the cards were a good thing for they had pictures of the park on and really we advertised the place. Got three people to say they would go through Wylie Way next year. I really didn’t know they were cards anyway, but thought they were a collection of views Lloyd was taking home. Excuses are ended.
We ate our supper, put Lloyd off at Victorville to visit relations a day or two, and went to bed—(Had something to eat first, tho.) We got into L.A. at one-thirty, but slept till morning. I got up first and left Bill in bed, only partly dressed. The last thing he said was to wait ten minutes and we would go get breakfast, eats again, but I was headed for home, and couldn’t wait. Thus our eventful trip was ended. We are to meet Thanksgiving Holidays when the boys come home from school, and with Clara, Tillie and Nance, have a Savage reunion.
I got home in time to start for Hemet Valley at the foot of the mountains. The folks were nearly ready to start, so I shook out my dirty clothes out of my suit case, put them in again, and started. It is a ride of over a hundred miles. We went to Riverside on the electric where Mr. Calderwood met us with his car and took us the last thirty miles. It is a beautiful country, with oranges, olives, and almond groves.
Mr. Calderwood has a ranch, but lives in Hemet, a pretty little town. We had everything good to eat, watermelon, casabas , oranges, white grapes big as your head, almonds, ripe olives, and everything. Also five picnics with fried chicken and all the other extras. We went auto riding every day too, and that was great.
Came home Friday and went down to the store to see the girls, and they want me to go to work Saturday. Really, I am so spoiled I don’t think I could ever work in that old store again. I stayed until Wednesday, and school began then, thank goodness.
School is great, only I haven’t done any thinking for so long it makes my head ache. Then our first class is at eight. That makes me leave here at seven and get up early. Cruel world, I wish I were dead. I have fallen in love with a bald headed professor, but he happens to be married and is true to his wife, and don’t return my affections. Cruel world again. If I don’t flunk I guess I am really going to get to finish Normal3 this year. Then hurrah for school next year in the good old North. I keep knocking on wood most of the time about finishing Normal, and getting the school.
Just think, only eight more months and twenty eight days until time to go back to Yellowstone. School is not out until June 21st, but we should worry about a little thing like that.
Perla and Vessie, please do not read.
This afternoon I took our boys and some of the neighbor’s boys out for a car ride.4 They disturb the neighbors Sunday naps so I was in the notion. Such a time as I had and they had. They even threw each other’s caps out of the window, so the conductor had to stop the car, and they threw orange peelings at him when he got off to rescue the lost property. It’s a wonder we were not all arrested.
Have you all started in to church yet? I have gone two mornings, but not to Sunday School yet. Am going at it gradually. Next Sunday I spend with one of the girls, so will be excused. The Young Folks have a social here Friday night. There is also an affair at the Church Thursday night, so life is not as dead as it might be.
The pictures I took at Gibbon and elsewhere are good, with the exception of the one on top of Hotel Utah. You had better get Perla’s of that group. (Be sure to send Bee one.) I will have prints made for you all, dear hearts.
The candy I brought home with me is disappearing rapidly, only one more box left, but it is the three pound one. I hope punch boards are still in style next Summer. Oh! for one good old throw with the dice box.5
Well, do write soon all of you, and tell me any news you know of. Also of your new gowns and fall feathers, etc. I have none. I hope, Dick, you get the baby’s clothes all made in time to get it started into school.6
Cora, did you get your camp stool home all right? I am so provoked that I repented and took the one out of my trunk. Next Summer I will do better. Was glad to get your letter, I’ll say I was, also Dick’s and Bee’s.
I must go to let down my folding bed and crawl in. How lonesome it is with no one to talk to me in the small hours when I take a talkative spell. I miss you terribly, old bed mate, and wish you were here.
I have exceeded the speed limit on this epistle, and hope you are all good enough hikers to wade through the jungles and jump over the mistakes in your way.
I, like Dick, will lay off with the chin music, and bid you all a fond good night. The water pitchers are full, the polly’s empty7, my face is washed, and as soon as Gordon and Phil are gone and the bears have finished their midnight feed at the garbage cans, I will peacefully sleep until morning. It’s Mart’s morning on, and I don’t have to be up until six. So good night.
With oodles and oodles of love to the best bunch what ever was,
Your Sister,
Rae.
If any of you see Edna Parkinson, will you find out what became of her? She does not have my address, nor I hers.
Los Angeles Calif.
Oct. 1, 1916
Dear Adorable Mother, –
I’ll say you are that. Well what do you know? I was quite upset with all kinds of enjoyableness at receiving your letter, also the pictures. Curses on those two hotel girls who cut in on the picture in front of the Curio Store. Didn’t know much, did they? Not even enough to fasten up the tail ends of their aprons.
Business first—as to those prints, I am sorry to disarrange any of your plans of disposing of them but I am afraid they are mine. Would be delighted to have one of Fergie. Am sending you some which I thought you might want. You know “you all” said to send anything I thot you might want. The business session is closed—now on with the dance.
Clara & Tillie arrived last week & were out here Sun. afternoon & evening. Went flower swiping in the afternoon & came off victorious with oodles of beautiful roses, pansies, and roses. Kept the kids in the evening while Aunt Anna went to church. Clara played all her old dance tunes and I longed to skim along over the glassy Geyser dancing hall in the arms, (or rather on the feet of) the barber and the wood cutter. Nance & her sister are in Long Beach & I have not seen them yet. The “Samples” went to San Diego & will be back this week and can hardly wait until they get back.
School is great and the professor is still bald headed. I have my affections at present centered on another, (fickle woman) a boy in the A Four Arith. class which we observed all week. He is a darling and I think I make some startling jumps in my love affairs. I still love the Prof. too tho’.
Friday night the young folks of our church came out here for a time, we had it and so horrified the weather that it rained that night. Our first rain & so early that it will likely prove disastrous to the citrus crops. Last year we had no rain until after Thanksgiving.
This morning I had to wade water over my shoes or pumps to get to church. Now if I take a cold I will consider it a warning not to attend church any more & act accordingly. I went to S.S. too for the first time. If I had waited until church time the water might had had time to run away, I shall not go to SS. again.
As to clothes, I don’t believe in paying so much for shoes oh! no—but there are some things necessary in this world that you have to do away with your beliefs to get. I have a terrible weakness for shoes as you know & have a $6.50 pair picked out. They are white tops with black patent leather bottoms & black buttons. Can see them a mile some classy. Then I am going to get a big droopy black hat and dark blue suit with two waists. One fussy filmy white one & a dark silk of some kind more serviceable. Am having my red silk poplin made over with gold trimmings for sort of an evening dress. Have plenty of clothes for school & my pink brides maid dress for evening & my white coat. Also my long dark coat no guess that is all I will be able to do for my country. I want a white wool suit so badly, you know we can wear them here all summer. Now if my finances only hold out I’ll be happy.
Alas the candy has departed to regions unknown & I find I have developed a fondness for Hershey bars which almost leads to theft at times.
I had the nicest letter from Dad Eaton and I answered it right away before he would leave Gardiner and join his wife at Livingston where they live this winter. He was wishing I was up there with them & so do I.
Orville is decidedly homesick for the park too. It helps to find others in the same position.
Where is Allan? I want to know all about him and when this affair is to come off. You should tell your daughter if you are going to present her with a new father.
Well I must close. The boys are having cowboys rides on chairs by the table and where they upset & knock the table I and my letter writing come to grief. Write soon dear honey bunch and I’ll do you the very great honor of sending you a private letter again from honor. With geysers full of love,
Rae.
Los Angeles, Calif.
Oct. 1st, 1916.
Dear Caugheys:
Enclosed will you be pleased to find the pictures I promised. Now, girls dear, I only sent one of each, and if you each want one, you know I’ll upset in my efforts to get it to you. Also, Perla, I can’t find all my films so could not get prints of one or two you wanted. If, however, they ever show up, “Then I’ll remember you.”
How are you, dear hearts? I washed my head, it is improved tho’ still wet, and I feel real spry for an old lady.
Tomorrow I suppose Vessie will be telling all the young hopefuls of Yellowstone National Park, its wonders, curiosities and differences in general from the civilized world. How she visited all the dark places with Gordon the evening guide, how she danced with the wood cutter, that famous dancer, and visited the kitchen in search of—well anything she could get. Then for an object lesson a piece of wood somewhat decayed will aid them greatly in seeing and understanding the process of rotten logging.
I am attending Normal and getting all kinds of ideas. But, oh! their one idea seems to be that we go there to work, and how hard it is after three months of idleness and blissful unconsciousness of unpleasant duties.
Vessie, please give my love to Gordon, when you write, and tell him I still take orders for chaperonage. If he cannot supply me with a position, maybe he can give me a recommendation that will be useful.
If you are writing to Earl Seward, will you please remind him that I want those pictures he took the day we went over the formation. He can either send them by way of you or direct, but don’t think he knows my address. Must have the pictures at all costs, very very necessary to my religion.
How do you like life by this time? I am becoming more contented, but think I am really spoiled for life that is any kind of life but the real life. Oh! you.
Tomorrow I have to get up in front of one of my classes and give an account of a geographical reading. Well I’ve got my reading but can’t find the place I read about on any map whatever. Have decided to settle the difficulty by placing it in India, hoping that our teacher won’t be as well acquainted with that country that she will know the difference. We have to use a map in our description, and the dear only know it’s got to be somewhere.
If I get corrected at the finish I will at least find out where it should be, and my report will add variety to the others by being different. It will be different alright. How I dread the performance.
The boys are driving horses made of chairs, and when the horses get reckless and collide with the table I and my letter writing come to grief, as you may have noticed. I get a kinsetic (?)8 sensation which results in an imaginary visual sensation of the boys in bed, and the sense of speech is startlingly awakened. Please observe the Psychology, it’s quite a new and terrible thing to me.
Well I must close and write to Cora. I am sending you all private letters with the pictures, and from now on I’ll probably resort to family ones.
Write soon and tell me all your troubles. Be good sweet maids, and you’ll be clever, if you’re good long at a time.
With lots of love, yea verily loads of it, I am,
Your loving sister,
Rae.
I am not taking penmanship yet, not until next term. These flourishes are entirely original and done the Wylie Way.
[Undated; had to have been written the second week of November 1916]:
Epistle to the Deaux Drops #2
As it might have Been or May Be.
The six best maids in creation
Landed at Yellowstone station
Two were short, one was tall,
Two were wide, one was small,
They had come for a summer vacation.
Their faces were withered and worn
So soon they had risen that morn,
But they smiled with a will
As we hope they do still,
May they never grow old or forlorn.
Life often the best of plans missles
Its pathway has thorns and has thistles,
But how each managed her plan
To capture a man
Will be told in my later Epistles.
Wylie Way Official Bulletin
Time until June 1917 migration –
7 MONTHS East 0 days West 2 days
My dear sisterettes: --
Writing to you with my feet on a chair rung and the rest of me on my little bed. I have taken to sitting on soft things lately as I am the proud and unhappy possessor of a boil which greatly hinders my rising up and my sitting down. An untimely jolt of the street car and a most undignified collapse on my part, did, it is true, end the real life of the said brute but still it continues at times to be master of the situation, consequently, the bed and any very sudden exclamations. I hope it soon finds out I am no relative of Job’s and will tolerate no such foolishness and take its departure. Otherwise I am in perfect condition. School is very hard, but as I have gained one half pound and no one sympathises with a fat person, I get very little consolation in my troubles.
I cannot say enough in condemnation of the California school system. It is work, work, work, night and day and then “I do wish you could find time to do a little more reading on whether Adam had a Moses apple” or vice versa, however it goes. That’s all we hear. Vessie, I’m with you dog gone it. However, I am learning and there is some hope for me. I know when I sit down suddenly that I react to an exterior stimulus which rises in the bi-polar neurone passes through other neurones, enters the spinal ganglion also cord. From there the impulse travels through medulla oblongata to motor and kinsetic regions of the cerebrum, skips back and forth through various association centers and finally I awake to the fact that I have a kinsetic sensation, or in plain English, my boil is affected. To do away with such kinsetic and cutaneous sensations I must inhibit my movements and react in such a way that certain localities of my body shall not come in contact with sudden or hard objects and thus prevent any external stimulus to overthrow my equilibrium.
Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the great student of Psychology, a study never intended for human beings, either in this world or in the next.
But life is not all so dull as it might seem. We have music in our little bungalow to-night. Kenneth takes music lessons and is now playing the C. scale for the thirtieth some time and we are looking forward to the time when he shall know it well enough to appear in public.
Also, I have enjoyed your letters so much that I will not tire you by dwelling on the subject, but hope you will keep up the good work. No Perla, I have no objections to your writing twice to my once. I really think things in heaven will be run on that plan. The poems were good and I have been wanting them, too. Clara and Tillie spent most of an evening over them. Bee, your magazine was sure great and cute as it could be. You certainly do have a bright head on you and I’m sorry that after sleeping with you all summer my dome doesn’t contain more knowledge. I haven’t shown it to Clara or Nance, yet, as I haven’t seen them since it came, but I hope I’m to be the one what gets it for keeps. If any of you all back there want it, you’ve done gone got to come after it.
Then there was Dick’s answer to my last letter, and such a long one. However did you get time to write it? Believe me, it was, and still is, out of sight.
Before I forget, who in thunder is “Cody”? I don’t remember any such personage and you all talk like I should know he, she or it. I’m curious, and as curiosity once killed a cat, please let me know soon.
You sure do make me feel fidgety when you talk about your gatherings back there. Then I hear from the Newcastle girls and they tell me Cora and Spooks were running around loose up there and they gathered them in and fed them. I sure would like to go in like sixty on one of the Deaux Drop kimono parties or mogie raids. But poor Bee, you are worse off by yourself than I am for I have Clara and Nance and we get together and talk. Then, too, we are going to have a reunion about Thanksgiving time cause Bill Litchfield said so, and he don’t tell stories. He’s afraid he’ll ruin his social position.9
Well, last Sunday Clara and Nance were out, and as house life is too tame for savages, we went down to Exposition Park where the soldiers are stationed until they have been sufficiently examined to be sent home. There are a lot of them there and very friendly people they are, so much so that we soon found ourselves escorted into a tent kitchen and there we dined on oysters and various foods, among them Hard tack. Nuff ced. If the suffragettes do finally take this country, I’ll never join the army. Of course we couldn’t stay off the subject, Yellowstone for any length of time and here to my joy we found one of the soldiers an ex-swaddie from the Park. We nearly embraced him and he got out all the pictures he had taken on the border and we were so interested that it got dark before we knew it. We had to hurry home like good girls and I sailed into the house with my head in the air over the good time I had had only to be brought suddenly to earth. There sat a girl and she very gently broke the news that she had come to take me to Christian Endeavor and to Church. I did the only polite thing under the circumstances, I went. But we will return to the soldiers.
It is interesting to watch them take evening drill and line up and get their meals, but there are other things much more interesting to be found, especially outside the camp. O you rotten logging. Think they must have had a course at Yellowstone. Of course there are no logs or nice benches by a river but street corners and curbstones seem to answer the purpose just as well. Beautiful work was being accomplished on all hands and an audience was or is no drawback whatever. The high school girls are taking advantage of their opportunities and I was surprised to find how weak the growing generation seems to be, as many of them require such touching assistance to walk about the streets. But California evenings are really cool enough for coats of arms or anything else that is convenient.
The Saturday before Tillie went home (She couldn’t get work and left. If you didn’t know, you do now.) I didn’t have to work at the store and Tillie, Clara and I went out to Universal city to investigate the moving picture process. We saw them take parts of several pictures, one, a wild west scene and when they got done with the saloon we got out in front with some cowboy ponies and had Fatty10 take our pictures. I’m sure you have seen Fatty in pictures. He is his name and then some. This day he had on a woman’s apron. We got his pictures but he wouldn’t stand still for a good one. All that helped us was his size. He couldn’t move fast enough to entirely spoil the picture. . . . . . . . . . We stayed as usual until dark came and came home in a car11 with some of the movie people. One of them, Harry Mann, whom you have no doubt seen in villain parts told Clara and I the next time we went out to send him a card the day before and he would see we got a pass in and show us around in places where visitors were not allowed. That was where he made one big mistake for we are going to take him up on it.
Going out to Lady Mac’s some day too. She was at church the other day and I could hug her to pieces . . . . . . . Well I suppose you were excited over the election. I forgot women could vote in California, didn’t register and lost out. They tried to get California dry12 this time and that was more exciting than the other. The Saturday before election the Drys had a big parade, three hours long. Latest way to measure parades. It was very good, but as we were working on the tenth floor at the store and the head lady was wet, we didn’t even get to look out of the windows. Nearly every one on the floor was wet and I felt like telling them they needed attention. . . . . . . .
Wonder what Yellowstone would be like if it went dry. I’m afraid poor old Daisy would miss some of her visitors.13 I’d sure vote wet there, for think of the candy I received from people who were not in their right minds. . . . . . . . . .
Those pictures you all want will come to you soon. Helen Wilson wrote for my films and I sent them to her, every last one of them. She will send them to some of you and you can send them on to Bee. There is no hurry for them and they might as well spend the winter in the east.
I wish, please Bee, if I be good, that I might have another one of Uncle Roy where he is talking to people out on the formation. I’m mad, too cause I didn’t hear from him. I’m going to get busy and write to every one I know and see what happens. So far I have written only to you and two post cards. Some correspondence. I’m sorry Bee that I have no new love affairs to relate. I have even outgrown the old ones. Think maybe I have one in process of construction and will let you know if it develops. I sympathise with you you know, and say, will you please inform me just what kind of letter I am to write that your family will not read. The idea of scolding me for putting things in a letter they could read. How am I going to tell you any other way. Guess I had better write you a private epistle and tell you what I think of you. You know young lady you might need a hot water bottle in the night next summer and I may not get it for you. &&&&&
With Lots and Lots and Lots and Lots and Lots of love, one lot for each of you.
Your most dignifidest sister
Rae.
****************
1. What her date said to Bee at Yellowstone one
night as she started to realize how drunk he was.↩
2. This was in Salt Lake City.↩
3. The California State Normal School in Los Angeles became UCLA in 1919. In 1916 – 1917 it was mostly a teacher training college.↩
4. On the streetcars.↩
5. Punch boards and dice games were some of the things Rae sold in the Yellowstone camp store; customers who won sometimes bought her a box of candy.↩
6. Dick (Dorothy) Loeffler had become an aunt again recently.↩
7. I could not find what this meant, but I think it was probably a chamber-pot, one of those “unmentionables” Rae delights in shocking her audience by mentioning.↩
8. She probably meant “kinesthetic”—to do with tactile sensation.↩
9. Bill’s fear for his social position was a running joke at Yellowstone.↩
10. Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, a famous comedian; he may have been filming The Butcher Boy in which Arbuckle invited 21-year-old comedic genius Buster Keaton to make his film debut. (Arbuckle’s previous film had been released in June 1916.)↩
11. A streetcar.↩
12. During passage of the 18th Amendment (Prohibition), “dry” states voted for the Amendment, and “wet” states voted against it.↩
13. Bee famously allowed herself to be taken out one night to see Daisy by a man who she discovered was very drunk, and her fellow Deaux Drops were not supposed to tell.↩
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Monday, August 31, 2015
Would You Call That a Love Letter?
Having posted my grandmother Beatrice Boedefeld’s diaries of the summer of 1916 when she worked as a cabin maid in Yellowstone National Park (see posts for May 25 through 29, 2015), I expect you are wondering whatever happened to her summer love-interest, Ivan J. Allen. I have the answers now! I was perusing my grandmother’s scrapbooks and found that she had devoted half of one scrapbook to all the letters from the people she had met in Yellowstone that summer. Some became very close friends; some of the young men disappeared into the war in France. But Ivan J. Allen was at home in Texas.
You will recall that after he had proposed marriage, she had asked for a little time for him to come to Indiana and get to know her family, thinking an Easter wedding would work well. She thought he had agreed to that plan. But then he argued again and again for her to marry him as soon as they left the Park, without any thought for her folks at home, and upon her resisting, they had come to an impasse. He had “forgotten” to tell her about two other girlfriends he had in the Park. The couple ceased to communicate clearly. The last time she saw him was the day they left the Park, and he had simply shaken hands without anything being settled. And so apparently she wrote to him in Texas after getting home.
His first letter answers one of hers. It is on blank, heavy note paper, postmarked in Dallas on September 28, 1916.
Thursday
Dear “Bee”
No I haven’t gone to Mexico and “got shot” but have been pretty near that far away from civilization. I stopped only one day in Dallas as I came through, back from the park. I went on out home and then on out to the ranch and have been there all the time until day before yesterday when I started for school. I am a little late for my work but by working a little harder for a week, can catch up all right.
Yesterday Fuller showed me some pictures Perla had sent him, one of the “Mule” team at Gibbon (Sept 2). That reminds me of one you took the same noon. Is it any good?
I am sending those we took on our hike. As soon as I get some printed from my others I will send the most interesting.
Sincerely
Kewpie
*********************
Hmmmm. “Kewpie”? Well, Kewpie dolls were popular at that time, and with his very blond hair and hazel eyes, maybe Ivan looked like one of them. The use of affectionate names is the only thing in this letter remotely lover-like, but since all of the workers at Yellowstone that season had become close friends, they all called each other by pet names, so this means nothing after all. Was Bea trying to find out whether there was any basis for her to hope for something more? This letter should certainly have been the proverbial dash of cold water on the spark of hope, in that case!
After telling her the bare bones of what he has been doing, he mentions Perla first before mentioning her at all, and it is only to ask about a picture of himself, including the specific date (as if she could have forgotten it) that his behavior toward her was cold and unfeeling.
And then he turns to the day of their hike, when they were supposedly engaged. This mixed message may have led to Bea’s next letter, for it may have reminded her of the time when they were close.
Here is his second letter, written on Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, letterhead stationery, and postmarked October 31, 1916:
Sunday.
Dear Bee—
Again I have come to life and have taken a spell of writing to the Savages. I have just finished getting all my pictures printed, and it seems that every one in the park are due several. A few more than nine hundred and fifty prints have been made from my negatives. I am about the only one from Texas who made many pictures, so of course all the Savages want some, then many who were in the Texas party have found I have them and have asked for pictures.
I am not only Asst. in Physics now, but they have given me one section of Gen. Chemistry to teach. It seems there will never be an end to work. Some one said Genius is 99% hard work. Turning that around, I ought to be a genius indeed. I don’t see why I could not have been some good rich man’s son instead of being so good looking, anyway that may be, I wouldn’t have to work.
Sincerely,
“Q.P.”
*********************
And the cold water dash becomes a shower! He may be answering questions she asked about getting prints of pictures and about how his college was coming along—but his manner! He opens with an air of faint reproach that he has to write to all the Savages, then he is complaining that he has to print so many pictures for them all—and she had asked for some. His paragraph about school and his self-compliment surely left Bea with eyes wide open to the unsuitableness of his personality.
He shows no appreciation for her, no sense of having caused her any pain or even discomfort in the Park, and his very letter is a model of self-absorption. He is definitely reminding her that she is only one among a great many, nobody special at all. Then he spends the rest of the letter on his own work, never mentioning nor asking about hers, nor anything else about her. This letter smells very strongly of a sense of unwelcome obligation.
Thus ends the summer love affair!
But that is not the end of Ivan Jackson Allen. The United States Census records and draft registrations from both World Wars give a brief history of his life.
Ivan J. Allen was the eldest child of Felix Warren and Alice W Evans Allen, of Ranger, Eastland County, Texas. He was born September 18, 1892 (he was five years younger than Beatrice Boedefeld). His sister Maria was two years younger than he, his brother William was four years younger, and his brother Alton was 12 years younger.
He graduated from Southern Methodist University and married Vivian Ryder of Fort Worth, Texas, before 1920. He worked as a research geologist for an oil company and was fairly well off. He and Vivian had a daughter, Betty Lee, in 1923, and another daughter, Virginia, in 1939.
In 1940 the family employed a private nurse for their household.
Ivan J. Allen died in Texas in June 1969 at the age of 76.
This was not the end of Bea’s relationships with the people she met at Yellowstone and grew to love. More letters are coming! Stay tuned.
You will recall that after he had proposed marriage, she had asked for a little time for him to come to Indiana and get to know her family, thinking an Easter wedding would work well. She thought he had agreed to that plan. But then he argued again and again for her to marry him as soon as they left the Park, without any thought for her folks at home, and upon her resisting, they had come to an impasse. He had “forgotten” to tell her about two other girlfriends he had in the Park. The couple ceased to communicate clearly. The last time she saw him was the day they left the Park, and he had simply shaken hands without anything being settled. And so apparently she wrote to him in Texas after getting home.
His first letter answers one of hers. It is on blank, heavy note paper, postmarked in Dallas on September 28, 1916.
Thursday
Dear “Bee”
No I haven’t gone to Mexico and “got shot” but have been pretty near that far away from civilization. I stopped only one day in Dallas as I came through, back from the park. I went on out home and then on out to the ranch and have been there all the time until day before yesterday when I started for school. I am a little late for my work but by working a little harder for a week, can catch up all right.
Yesterday Fuller showed me some pictures Perla had sent him, one of the “Mule” team at Gibbon (Sept 2). That reminds me of one you took the same noon. Is it any good?
I am sending those we took on our hike. As soon as I get some printed from my others I will send the most interesting.
Sincerely
Kewpie
*********************
Hmmmm. “Kewpie”? Well, Kewpie dolls were popular at that time, and with his very blond hair and hazel eyes, maybe Ivan looked like one of them. The use of affectionate names is the only thing in this letter remotely lover-like, but since all of the workers at Yellowstone that season had become close friends, they all called each other by pet names, so this means nothing after all. Was Bea trying to find out whether there was any basis for her to hope for something more? This letter should certainly have been the proverbial dash of cold water on the spark of hope, in that case!
After telling her the bare bones of what he has been doing, he mentions Perla first before mentioning her at all, and it is only to ask about a picture of himself, including the specific date (as if she could have forgotten it) that his behavior toward her was cold and unfeeling.
And then he turns to the day of their hike, when they were supposedly engaged. This mixed message may have led to Bea’s next letter, for it may have reminded her of the time when they were close.
Here is his second letter, written on Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, letterhead stationery, and postmarked October 31, 1916:
Sunday.
Dear Bee—
Again I have come to life and have taken a spell of writing to the Savages. I have just finished getting all my pictures printed, and it seems that every one in the park are due several. A few more than nine hundred and fifty prints have been made from my negatives. I am about the only one from Texas who made many pictures, so of course all the Savages want some, then many who were in the Texas party have found I have them and have asked for pictures.
I am not only Asst. in Physics now, but they have given me one section of Gen. Chemistry to teach. It seems there will never be an end to work. Some one said Genius is 99% hard work. Turning that around, I ought to be a genius indeed. I don’t see why I could not have been some good rich man’s son instead of being so good looking, anyway that may be, I wouldn’t have to work.
Sincerely,
“Q.P.”
*********************
And the cold water dash becomes a shower! He may be answering questions she asked about getting prints of pictures and about how his college was coming along—but his manner! He opens with an air of faint reproach that he has to write to all the Savages, then he is complaining that he has to print so many pictures for them all—and she had asked for some. His paragraph about school and his self-compliment surely left Bea with eyes wide open to the unsuitableness of his personality.
He shows no appreciation for her, no sense of having caused her any pain or even discomfort in the Park, and his very letter is a model of self-absorption. He is definitely reminding her that she is only one among a great many, nobody special at all. Then he spends the rest of the letter on his own work, never mentioning nor asking about hers, nor anything else about her. This letter smells very strongly of a sense of unwelcome obligation.
Thus ends the summer love affair!
But that is not the end of Ivan Jackson Allen. The United States Census records and draft registrations from both World Wars give a brief history of his life.
Ivan J. Allen was the eldest child of Felix Warren and Alice W Evans Allen, of Ranger, Eastland County, Texas. He was born September 18, 1892 (he was five years younger than Beatrice Boedefeld). His sister Maria was two years younger than he, his brother William was four years younger, and his brother Alton was 12 years younger.
He graduated from Southern Methodist University and married Vivian Ryder of Fort Worth, Texas, before 1920. He worked as a research geologist for an oil company and was fairly well off. He and Vivian had a daughter, Betty Lee, in 1923, and another daughter, Virginia, in 1939.
In 1940 the family employed a private nurse for their household.
Ivan J. Allen died in Texas in June 1969 at the age of 76.
This was not the end of Bea’s relationships with the people she met at Yellowstone and grew to love. More letters are coming! Stay tuned.
Sunday, August 30, 2015
A Little Trip into the Past
I spent a week in the Chicago area this month and looked up the house that once had belonged to my great-grandfather Ernest John Andrews, a patent attorney with an office downtown in the Monadnock Building in Chicago. I pulled out a piece he had written in a nostalgic mood after having gone with his wife on a little trip around Illinois and into southern Indiana to visit scenes important to his father and grandfather during their lifetimes. He wrote it for his children, Fred, Roger, Helen Andrews Hinkley, and Glenn, and their cousins, John B., Rex B., Elizabeth Andrews French, Mae B., and Charles Francis Andrews. But I think it may be of interest to more than just his descendants. He is an interesting writer, and as I want to make this information available to all the descendants of Asa Norton, Asa Piper, and Anson Seeley Andrews, here it is.
*********
The Dominions of Our Ancestors
I am sending a copy of this article to each of the grandchildren of my father so that each may have a record, of some portion at least, of the lives of some of their ancestors, not only for their own use, but to preserve and hand down to others.
It is becoming more and more desirable to have sources of information of this nature with reference to our ancestors. There are many who, at some time in their lives, are particularly interested in matters of this nature and they will be unable to obtain much information that this article contains if it is not preserved in some form. Merely as illustrating what I have in mind I will say that, much as I need the money for other uses, yet I would gladly pay a hundred dollars merely for a good photograph of your great grandfather Andrews [Note: In 2015 his $100 would be worth more than $1300]. This is only one little item of my ancestry and yet it shows how highly I would prize the information of this article if I had no other sources for such information.
The article is not intended for pleasant reading; much of it may not be at all interesting and may be omitted. But there are certain portions that no doubt will be of interest and that you will, I think, find well worth a careful consideration. Perhaps a few suggestions will clarify my meaning.
You have all been intimately acquainted with your grandfather Andrews. In a general way, you know of his character and manner of living and his relations to others. This article tells much with reference to his boyhood days, years before you were born, and hence, in a way, it completes your knowledge of his life.
As to your grandfather’s character, if all were as he was, we would have no need for police or jailers, and little need for courts. We would have no need for sumptuary laws. The present controversy over the eighteenth amendment would have no place in our lives. Life perhaps would be too easy, too free from troubles to be good for the race, but certainly it would add much to the satisfaction of living.
While it may not have impressed you particularly, yet one of the strongest impressions that I have of your grandfather Andrews is as to his constant employment at something worthwhile. I have often felt, and even now, looking back over a period of sixty years, I still feel that your grandfather was the hardest working man that I have ever known. Not a drudge, not a slave, but always actively carrying out some useful plan. He took delight in his work and for sixty years or more, I presume he averaged at least ten or twelve hours a day, mainly at manual work, not excepting Sundays. While on Sundays he changed his work, more or less, from his vocation to his avocations, yet he was always usefully engaged.
He was always looking to the future, planning and building for that which was to come.
I should like to have you know of these things and to know something of your great grandfather Andrews, particularly some of the facts contained in this article. He was very much like your grandfather.
I am sure there is nothing more stabilizing in our lives than such knowledge as this. Not that any of you need stabilizing particularly, but there often come times in our lives when we need, in order to give to the world the best that is in us, the stabilizing effect that comes from the knowledge of a long line of worthy ancestors. And this I would like you to have.
****** ****** ****** ******
On October 9, 1927, your mother and I started on our trip to Crawford County, Illinois, where many of your ancestors lived, and to Posey County, Indiana, where others lived. We drove down the Dixie Highway to Paris, Illinois the first day, and stayed all night at the Cherry Croft house, just beyond the center of Paris where the Dixie Highway turns to the east.
The next morning we drove down to Robinson, the County Seat of Crawford County, where we stopped several hours while I searched the records of the county court and circuit court for deeds, wills, and the like.
[I omitted the table of records that he found; if anyone wants it, let me know!]
Of these parties, Asa Norton was your great great grandfather and Thoda and Reuben Norton were his brothers. Polly Norton as his wife. Her maiden name was Mary Belknap. L.D. Norton was Asa Norton’s son. Benjamin Norton was Asa’s nephew. Beverly Bradley Piper was Asa’s son-in-law (your grandmother’s father). Sally, the wife of Avery Tobey referred to, was Asa Norton’s sister, and Sewell Goodridge was the husband of Asa’s sister Lydia, while William N. Norton was Asa’s son (your grandmother’s uncle).
I was unable to complete my search at Robinson owing to the closing of the offices and a further search should be made to obtain records of the entry of the land of Asa Norton in 1819. Apparently, these entries were not recorded during the period that I searched, but they were undoubtedly recorded later as the law requires such records in order to give good title to the land. Also, copies of more important deeds should be examined for interesting facts. These papers were very voluminous. I expected to be able to complete this work on the return trip but failed to do so.
We left Robinson about noon and went straight east some eight miles to Palestine, where about 1815 a fort was built as a protection against the Indians. Palestine was the old county seat of Crawford County. Then, leaving the southeast corner of Palestine across a bridge, we rode to Heathville, some twelve miles away. Heathville was the town of these Nortons and Pipers in those early days and is now the nearest town of what I have called our Ancestral Dominions of Crawford County. The road to Heathville from Palestine is also the road to Russellville, some eight miles further on, and it was a well travelled road, but neither paved nor well graded, at least during portions of the way. The surrounding country was largely clay soil and poor farm land, much of it being covered with underbrush and used for pasture. It is no such land as is to be found in northern Illinois.
At Heathville we inquired of the only store as to where the Nortons lived. The grandchildren are still living on the old Norton farm that was entered in 1819. I was referred to the neighboring garage with the statement that William N. Norton, whose house we were seeking, drove by not long before to the garage. I inquired at the garage and was directed to the Norton house and was told that William Norton had left but a short time before and that we would probably overtake him. Never having seen Mr. Norton, we carefully scrutinized the cars as we drove along. We overtook none that seemed to be Mr. Norton’s, though we did pass a man who was walking, whom we afterwards found out was Mr. Norton. Owing to the failure of the garage man to tell us that he was then working on Mr. Norton’s car and that Mr. Norton was walking home, we passed him just outside of Heathville and he was obliged to walk over two miles home when we should have been delighted to take him in our car. This merely goes to show how a little clarity smoothes life’s pathway.
We drove about two miles south from Heathville on the Russellville road and then turned west on a dirt road, and a quarter mile further, struck a little bridge and the lane leading to the north up to Mr. Norton’s house. We drove up a very steep hill to the house and met Mrs. Norton, who informed us that the old Asa Norton house was on the other side of the road. So we drove back and up another steep hill just south of the bridge and south of William Norton’s house to the house now occupied by Horace B. Norton, where we met him and his wife.
It was on this hill that Asa Norton built his house over one hundred years ago. This house was burned before 1888 and on the old foundation a new house was built, and it is here that Asa’s grandson Horace now lives. The old barns also were all gone. But the hills still remain. The Norton house was perched high up on a hill because, while on his way to this locality, Asa found the country along the Wabash River flooded and all of the low land covered with water; to avoid such floods he built his house on a high hill.
It was here that your great great grandfather fought his battle with nature as a farmer; it was here also that he was a member of the State Legislature and a Justice of the Peace; and it is here that his descendants have been since. It was in this neighborhood too, that Asa’s daughter Delia Deborah Norton, your great grandmother, married your great grandfather Beverly Bradley Piper, and it was here that she spent substantially all of her life as she was only three years old in 1817 when Asa Norton moved his family from Norwich, New York, finally arriving in Crawford County in 1819.
It was here also that your grandmother Andrews spent some of the most joyful years of her life, and where her grandfather, Asa Piper, also settled on a farm a century ago. His farm and house were just southeast of the corner where we turned from the Russellville road to the Norton place. It was here, too, that your grandmother’s father was raised, and in later years, after he was married to Delia Deborah Norton, their farm adjoined on the west that of her father, Asa Norton. Your grandmother Andrews not only lived there during a part of her childhood days, but in after years she often visited at her grandfather Asa Norton’s place, until the time she and your grandfather moved to Rockford, Illinois, in 1861.
We spent the afternoon with William and Horace Norton and their wives. We went down into the old Asa Norton basement and saw the old walls that were built by him over a hundred years ago. That is all of his handiwork that is left. But in the house is an old clock still going that was saved from the fire. And there is an old life-sized painting of Asa Norton, painted before he left for the west in 1817. He was certainly a fine looking man, and dressed in the frills of those days, he far surpasses any of you so far as elegance in clothes is concerned. The picture was injured by the fire, but was restored.
We went back to William Norton’s house, up on the hill across the road, and went northwest over to the old cemetery on Asa Norton’s farm. Here lie buried Asa Norton and his wife Mary Belknap, his son Wellington Bertolf Norton, his brother Thoda Norton, his son William N. Norton, and his daughter Mirinda Norton Parker, after whom your grandmother, Mirinda Parker’s niece, was named, and many others. Asa Norton’s grave bears no stone. It was his own wish that his grave be unmarked. The place, however, is marked sufficiently for recognition, lying immediately north of his wife’s grave. On her stone is the inscription, “Mary, wife of Asa Norton, died March 18, 1850, age 69 yrs, 6 ms, and 17 dys.” She was born in 1780. Asa Norton was born in 1781 and his wife was born the year before. This, I understand, was a sensitive point for your great great grandfather, to be a year younger than his wife. He was a very dignified man, straight as an arrow, having been a soldier for many years. Presumably it detracted from his idea of dignity to have a wife who was older than himself. A large cedar tree grows over the grave of Mary Norton, a tree perhaps seventy-five years old.
From the cemetery, we went back to the house and drove west on the road about a quarter of a mile to the corner, and then turned north and went by a schoolhouse, where once was located the old log schoolhouse that was also used as the church of the Pipers and the Nortons. The log building is gone now. But it was here that your great grandfather Beverly Bradley Piper gained his secular and religious training and where he was converted and where he preached, probably, for the first time.
It was here too, that Andrew Jackson Norton attended school and church and was converted and preached. Andrew Jackson Norton was a nephew of Asa Norton, and for fifty years he preached as a Predestinarian Baptist all over Illinois and Iowa. I have a copy of his diary in which he tells how he was converted from an aimless, drifting boy to an intense Fundamentalist, and how he spent all of his days preaching the gospel without pay other than as his parishioners produced. His account of his conversion is the most illuminating description of this nature that I have ever seen, probably because it is sincere and he seeks to tell the facts just as he experienced them. His soul was gripped by the horrors of Hell which were as real and vivid to him as is our conception of each coming day. He was an ignorant man, with practically no education except what he obtained at home, but he was sincere and intense and was firmly convinced of the literal truth of the Bible from the first page to the last. Much as we may disagree with the beliefs of such men as this, yet in their days they were needed and we must not only have for them great admiration, but must feel that it is owing much to them that our country is now blessed with the great masses of men and women whose characters can withstand the pressure of modern life.
It was in this schoolhouse also that Andrew Jackson Norton was married in 1839 by the Justice of the Peace, Asa Norton. And it was here that your great grandfather and great grandmother Piper were married in 1833 by the same Justice. So it was that this old log schoolhouse witnessed some of the most important events of our ancestors’ lives.
From the schoolhouse we went a quarter of a mile north and turned at right angles east, where within a half a mile we struck a right angled bend in the road to the north. Just to the right of this bend was an old house built by Sewell Goodridge and his wife, over a hundred years ago. Sewell Goodridge’s wife Lydia was a sister of Asa Norton, and hence, your grandmother’s great aunt. It was in and around this house that many of the happiest hours of your grandmother’s life were spent. The house is now occupied by an old bachelor, and as was to be expected, was in disorder and decay. The building itself is run down and uncared for, and the interior was dreary indeed. But as we entered the north front door, on the opposite wall we saw, in a niche in the wall built for the purpose at the time the house was built, a large cuckoo clock. There, for over one hundred years, this old cuckoo clock has stood, six feet or more high and a foot or more wide, running by weights over pulleys, and still running correctly. But the cuckoo is dead. This clock was a familiar and interesting sight to your grandmother.
To the left of this was the old china closet in which Lydia Goodridge kept many valuable dishes, about which I have often heard your grandmother speak. In the next room, the parlor, was another old clock that is thought to be nearly a hundred years old, standing on the mantle, two or three feet high and a foot or more wide. There were two fireplaces back-to-back in the wall between the two rooms. In the southwest corner of the parlor was another large cabinet, empty now but presumably in those early days containing valuable clothing, dishes, and the like.
Having heard so much about priceless articles and papers found in old buildings such as this, we ventured up into the attic. But the attic was nearly vacant; the floor seemed to be covered an inch thick with dust and old scraps of paper, and there was nothing to indicate any hidden treasures. We left with the thought that poor Aunt Lydia, the aristocrat of the Norton family, would have turned in her grave if she could have known of the condition of her beloved home.
It was in this old house that Andrew Jackson Norton spent his youth. His father, Benjamin Norton, was Asa’s older brother. Benjamin’s wife died in 1819 and he married again in 1823 when Andrew Jackson was five years old. In the meantime Benjamin’s other children were scattered. At the time of his wife’s death, five children were living, four boys and one girl, and seven were dead. Three boys died in accidents—one a knife entered his brain, one drowned, and one was scalded to death. Andrew Jackson went to live with his Aunt Lydia Goodridge who had no children of her own. He lived with this aunt and uncle until of age; he married while living there and afterwards built a house of his own not far away. He married Miss Mary Jeffers on December 19, 1839.
Going on, then, beyond the bend in the road to the north about one hundred rods, we struck the Hagan house where Sally Tobey Hagan and her husband live. Sally Tobey Hagan is the granddaughter of Avery Tobey and his wife, Sally Norton. Sally Norton was Asa Norton’s younger sister, nineteen years younger than he and a year or two younger than their sister, Lydia Goodridge.
The old house built by Avery and Sally Tobey was still standing, but had been moved to the back end of the lot and was a wreck, all ready to fall to pieces. We did not visit the old Tobey graveyard that is on the Tobey farm, as our time was limited, but I shall certainly one of these days visit this cemetery where good old Aunt Lydia and Aunt Sally and other kindred are buried.
Away off to the northeast from this Tobey house we could see the houses that mark the places where Andrew Jackson Norton had built his log cabin when first married, and nearer, where his Uncle Thoda Norton lived, and where his cousin Louis D. Norton lived.
From this old Norton headquarters we drove down the east-west road to the north-south Russellville road and passed the old Asa Piper farm on the east and down to Russellville, about six miles away. Here we stopped at the store of D.T. Beckes. He is the husband of Edna, daughter of Horace B. Norton. Mr. Beckes was not at the store, but we were directed to the Beckes house, which was built by Horace B. Norton and is the finest house in Russellville. Here we met Edna and she showed us the deed of Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, to William Noble Norton, Edna’s grandfather, dated September 1, 1834, conveying the west half of the northeast quarter of Section nineteen, Township five, north of range ten west, Palestine, containing eighty acres. This is the deed of the old farm entered by Asa Norton in 1819.
From Russellville we drove some ten miles southeast to the Wabash River and down the river several miles to the Vincennes bridge where we crossed over to Vincennes, Indiana, and spent the night. In Vincennes the following morning, we passed the location of the old Sackville Fort, later known as Fort Vincennes, and from there we went south to Evansville, Indiana, on the Ohio River. From here we went west some twenty-five miles to Mt. Vernon, Posey County, Indiana.
Then we were in the neighborhood of your grandfather Andrews’ early home. It was in Mt. Vernon that he attended school and his father’s farm was three miles straight north. I went over to the court house and obtained copies of the following records:
“John Quincy Adams, President of the United States of America. To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting.
“Know ye that, John Andrews of New York, having deposited in the general land office a certificate of the Register of the land office at Vincennes in Indiana,
“Whereby, it appears that full payment has been made for the West one-half of the NorthWest quarter of Section Twenty-Nine in Township Six of range Thirteen west, containing eighty acres of land directed to be sold at Vincennes by the act of Congress entitled An Act providing for the sale of the lands of the United States in the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, and above the mouth of the Kentucky River, unto the said John Andrews and his heirs the half of the quarter lot or section of land above described.
“To have and to hold the said half of the quarter lot or section of land, with the appurtenances, unto the said John Andrews, his heirs and assigns forever.
“In testimony whereof, I have caused these letters to be made Patent, and the seal of the general land office to be hereunto affixed. Given under my hand at the City of Washington, the Seventh day of February in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the fifty-second.
“By the President (John Quincy Adams)”
(SEAL)
“James Monroe to Anson S. Andrews of New York.
“SW ¼, Sec. 20, Twsp. 6, Range 13 W, 160 Acres.
“James Monroe, President of the United States of America.
“To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting.
“Know ye that, Anson S. Andrews of New York, having deposited in the general land office a certificate of the Register of the land office at Vincennes in Indiana,
“Whereby it appears that full payment has been made for the SouthWest quarter of Section Twenty in Township Six, South of Range Thirteen West, containing one hundred and sixty acres of the land directed to be sold at Vincennes by the act of Congress entitled An Act providing for the sale of the lands of the United States, in the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, and above the mouth of the Kentucky River, unto the said Anson S. Andrews and his heirs the quarter lot or section of land above described.
“To have and to hold the said quarter lot or section of land with the appurtenances, unto the said Anson S. Andrews, his heirs and assigns forever.
“In testimony whereof, I have caused these letters to be made Patent, and the seal of the general land office to be hereunto affixed. Given under my hand at the City of Washington, the twenty-fifth day of August in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the forty-eighth.
“By the President (James Monroe)”
(SEAL)
“James Monroe to Anson S. Andrews of New York City.
“E ½, SE ¼, Sec. 19, Twsp. 6, Range 13 W, 80 acres.
“James Monroe, President of the United States of America.
“To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting.
“Know ye that, Anson S. Andrews of New York, having deposited in the general land office a certificate of the Register of the land office at Vincennes in Indiana,
“Whereby it appears that full payment has been made for the East one-half of the SouthEast quarter of Section Nineteen in Township six, Range 13 West, containing eighty acres of the land directed to be sold at Vincennes by the act of Congress entitled An Act providing for the sale of the lands of the United States, in the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, and above the mouth of the Kentucky River, unto the said Anson S. Andrews the quarter lot or section of land above described. “To have and to hold the said quarter lot or section of land with the appurtenances, unto the said Anson S. Andrews, his heirs and assigns forever.
“In testimony whereof, I have caused these letters to be made Patent, and the seal of the general land office to be hereunto affixed. Given under my hand at the City of Washington, the twenty-Fifth day of July in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the forty-eighth. “By the President (James Monroe)”
(SEAL)
W I L L
Recorded in Book T of Deeds
page 723
“Anson S. Andrews of Black Township in the County of Posey and State of Indiana, do ordain and appoint this my last will and testament in manner and form following.
“That is to say, on this first day of March in the year of our Lord One Thousand, Eight Hundred and Fifty-two,
“To which I have set my hand and affixed my seal binding my heirs and assigns forever.
“I give a bequeath my farm on which I am now residing together with all the rents, profits and benefits arising therefrom to my beloved wife, Elizabeth Andrews.
“To have, hold and enjoy the same for and during the term of her natural life. I also give and bequeath to her, my said wife, all my farm stock, to wit: my neat cattle, horses, sheep and hogs, farming tools and utensils, farm produce, household goods and furniture, and one thousand ($1000) dollars out of my personal estate and effects; my books and other printed matter to be divided equally share and share alike between my wife and children.
“At the death of my beloved wife, I give and bequeath my said farm together with all the rents and profits thereof to my two dear sons, John and Seth, to be equally divided between them share and share alike, or held jointly as they may elect; to be held and possessed by them and their heirs and assigns forever.
“I give and bequeath to my dear daughter Harriet the piece of land I lately bought of John Vanway and described in the deed from him and his wife to me, to be held and possessed by her and her heirs and assigns forever. I also give and bequeath to her Two Thousand, One Hundred Dollars ($2100) out of my personal estate, this she is to receive in such kind or kinds of property that she shall sustain no loss or damage whatever.
“After my debts and all just demands against my estate are settled and paid, I will and direct that the balance and remainder thereof be equally divided share and share alike between my said children. And I do hereby appoint my said wife Elizabeth my executrix and my friends, Anson S. Osborne and Ebenezer Ellis, my executors of this my last will and testament. And I do hereby direct that fifty ($50) dollars be paid to each of my executors out of my estate as a compensation for their services.
“In witness whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name and affixed my seal the day and date first above written.
“(Anson S. Andrews) (SEAL)
“Signed, sealed, published and delivered by the said Anson S. Andrews as and for his last will and testament, in the presence of us who at the request of said Anson S. Andrews and in the presence of each other have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses.
“(John W. Bishop)
“(Otis Hinkley) (SEAL)
“Recorded November 4, 1854”
[There followed another table of deeds recorded in Mt. Vernon, Indiana, in Black Township. I will be happy to send the table to anyone who asks.]
Of these parties, Anson S. Andrews is your great grandfather; John Andrews is his father, your great great grandfather. He never came out west but lived at Bethel, Connecticut. The Hinkley referred to Otis Hinkley, Wilmer’s great grandfather, who lived at New Harmony, Indiana, twelve miles north of the Andrews farm, and James Hinkley is his son who married Anson S. Andrews’ daughter Harriet. This is the first connection between Helen and Wilmer Hinkley. Anson Seeley Andrews is the great grandfather of both of them. Anson Seeley Osborne was a nephew of Anson Seeley Andrews and lived with him during much of his youth. Beverly Bradley Piper was your great grandfather who lived also in the Norton neighborhood in Crawford County. Elizabeth Andrews was Anson Andrews’ wife and your great grandmother. The et. al. referred to in the Elizabeth Andrews deed was your grandfather Andrews and his brother Seth and his sister Harriet Hinkley.
The search of records at Mt. Vernon was substantially complete but it would be desirable to obtain copies of more of the deeds. For instance, the deed of Elizabeth Andrews et. al., to Worthington Bois, and the deed of John Andrews et. al., to James Acuff. The former deed conveyed the old Anson S. Andrews farm, and the latter deed conveyed the land on which the old mill stood.
There should be a search made to determine the disposition of the land transferred to Anson S. Andrews by Honduras D. Johnson and John T. McKee. The Vanway farm was willed by Anson S. Andrews to his daughter, Harriet Hinkley.
From Mt. Vernon we drove north fifteen miles to New Harmony. The road ran through Farmersville where the Andrews farm was located. As we drove by, I was able to point out to your mother a large number of landmarks from descriptions given me by your grandfather. For instance, the location of the old farm and the farm house and the store and the mill and the schoolhouse and the Baptist church and the old graveyard and other places. But we did not stop.
We reached New Harmony in the evening and went to the house of Julia E. Dransfield, a daughter of Anson S. Osborne and, hence, second cousin of your grandfather Andrews. She lives in the old Otis Hinkley house where Wilmer’s great grandfather lived.
We stayed at New Harmony and vicinity for two days and had a very pleasant visit with Cousin Julia and her adopted daughter, Mary Donald, and Mary’s husband who is the dentist in New Harmony. I cannot here go into the many interesting features of New Harmony. Although having a population of less than one thousand, it is one of the most noted towns in the world from both a scientific and sociological point of view. I have several pamphlets relating to the various interesting features of this town. But that has nothing to do with our Ancestral Dominions. Suffice it to say that we were much pleased not only with the reception given us by our hosts and others, but also by the various buildings and collections and the like which we visited.
With our hosts, we drove down to Farmersville where for thirty-six years your great grandfather was the principal man of the neighborhood. He established the town of Farmersville, or what for a time was known as the “Corners,” by entering with the United States government a section of land surrounding the Corners, being where two main east/west and north/south roads crossed. Of this land, he entered for his own use 320 acres, and the rest was taken up by friends who settled there with him at about the same time.
On our way to Farmersville from New Harmony, we stopped at the old Moore’s Hill Cemetery, about a mile north of the old Andrews farm, on the same side of the road. Here your great grandfather was buried. After some searching, we found his lot in the northwest corner of the cemetery, in the north tier of lots and one tier next to the west. The stone slab was lying on the ground, and adjacent to it was a little stone. The slab bore the inscription, “Anson S. Andrews, died September 28, 1854, in the 69 year of his age.” Having heard that the slab had fallen, I had brought with me a spade, and I dug down and found the pedestal on which the slab had been originally mounted. This pedestal had sunk in the ground over a foot deep and the slab had been broken off flush with the upper surface of the pedestal. I cleaned the broken pieces out of the groove in the pedestal and restored the slab, then straightened out the little stone nearby that bore the inscription, “Ann, daughter of A.S. and E. Andrews, died July 17, 1832, age 2 yr, 11 ms, 8 dys.”
As I stood at my grandfather’s grave that afternoon, I could picture in my mind’s eye the Andrews line, coming over from England in 1633 and slowly drifting westward—from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Glenn now lives, to Connecticut; from Hartford to Farmington, then to Waterbury, then Danbury; and from there, Anson S. Andrews as a young man went out by himself west to New York state, and thence to Farmersville, Indiana, where his body now lies by the side of his infant daughter. But the line went on, west to southern Illinois, north to northern Illinois and Wisconsin, and with it went his wife who now lies in the old West Side Cemetery in Rockford, Illinois, and beside her lies their son John, your grandfather. And so it goes, from one generation to the next, ever onward, always seeking something better, and usually finding it, leaving many by the wayside in lonely graves.
From the cemetery we went south to the old Corners, and then a quarter of a mile west past the location of the old schoolhouse where your grandfather first went to school and where he first met your grandmother, to the location of the old Baptist church where your great grandfather Piper preached from 1850 to 1853 and where your grandmother attended church and Sunday school as a girl of ten to thirteen. I cannot say that your grandfather and great grandfather attended this church. Your great grandmother Andrews attended church about half a mile west of this on the same side of the east/west road in what was known as the Christian or Campbellite church. But your great grandfather was not a member of any church. Undoubtedly, he and the children more or less attended his wife’s church, and perhaps the Baptist church. But neither he nor his son John, your grandfather, nor his daughter Harriet, nor her husband James Hinkley, nor his father, were orthodox. Seth, the second son of A.S. Andrews, in time joined the church and was one of the staunch members until he died. The present church was built in 1896 on the foundation of the old church of a century ago.
Just across the road north from the church we drove into the lane to the Andrews farmyard and to where the old house had stood. Your grandfather had told me that the house and barns were all burned, he believed, as well as the store and the mill. However, I was delighted to find the old red brick barn still standing. This is a large barn, two stories and a basement, about 60 feet long and 30 feet wide, a magnificent monument to your great grandfather. A photograph of the rear of the barn is attached. The barn was built in 1844 of red bricks made from the clay of the old farm, the brick kiln being located near the barn. Your great grandfather made bricks at that time, which he sold to others, and he built this barn, and an addition to his house, and a sidewalk leading from the house towards the barn, and he lined a dug well with the bricks. The old brick foundation of the house and the sidewalk and the well still remain, but the addition itself has disappeared. Also, the old shop and other sheds and another large barn which were there in the early days have all disappeared, being replaced by other buildings.
The farm is now owned by Ensley Trafford and his wife. His wife is a great granddaughter of Elisha Phillips, who was one of the settlers there with your great grandfather and who took an eighty acre piece of the original section taken up by your great grandfather. In a talk with Mrs. Trafford, she suggested that I would be interested in calling on John Dave Ellis, who lived half a mile straight south, as he was one of the oldest settlers and would no doubt remember much of interest. We drove over to Mr. Ellis’s house and found him at home and had a very pleasant and interesting conversation with him. He is a typical old farmer of 87 years of age, old enough to be much interested in those early times. Upon meeting him, I asked if he remembered Anson Seeley Andrews. He said that he certainly did and he remembered John Andrews and Mirinda Piper and that John had married Mirinda. When I told him that they were my parents he was much interested and shook my hand warmly and went on to tell about the old times.
Among other things, he said that Anson Andrews was one of the finest men that was ever known in those parts, and he cited several instances of things your great grandfather had done to help establish and develop the neighborhood and to assist others in getting a start. One instance was that Mr. Andrews told a neighbor that he ought to buy a certain farm and the neighbor said that he knew it but didn’t have the money. Your great grandfather said that he had the money and would let his neighbor have it and would charge no interest and wouldn’t ask him for payment. I presume, however, that he knew the man well enough to know that the money would be repaid whether he asked for it or not. Also, I think that John Dave Ellis was inclined to exaggerate a little. Among other things, he stated that Anson Andrews was a very loud talker; that he was pretty deaf during the later years of his life and talked loud enough apparently to hear himself. John Dave’s house was nearly half a mile away from the Andrews house, and yet, John Dave said that he often heard Mr. Andrews talking to his men around the barn when John himself was at home. But in spite of any tendency to exaggerate, it was pleasant to hear these statements made by a neighbor who knew your great grandfather in his lifetime and undoubtedly had heard much about him from other neighbors since his death. John Dave was only fourteen years old when your great grandfather died, so much of his knowledge must have come from older friends and neighbors.
Another thing that John Dave said was that the old Baptist church, located about midway between his house and the old Andrews house, had been cut in two in 1896, when the new one was built, and all of it had been moved onto the Andrews farm; one half of it immediately across the road, and the other half moved onto the old Andrews house foundation and still stood there. This was very interesting news as this was another joining of the Piper and Andrews families; the old church from which your great grandfather Piper so often preached had been moved to the Andrews farm and a portion of it had replaced the old Andrews house.
In view of this, we drove back to the Andrews house and found that, as he had said, the front part of the old church was on the old foundation. This was clearly indicated by the building itself, the rear portion of the house showing evident signs of having been the front of an old church. The attached picture shows the front wall of the house, built in 1896. While we were there examining the house, the lady living in it called my attention to the old well immediately north of the house, and to the old brick foundation, and to the sidewalk, and we also gave some further consideration to the old brick barn.
This brick barn has a charm for me. It seems to be typical of your great grandfather Andrews. It is typical of the solid basis upon which he always seemed to build. In his younger days he broke away from a rather worn-out New England and went to New York state, and some years later, moved further west to establish himself in a new community. He was laying a foundation for the future; not drifting along as so many do, but planning years ahead; not shirking and taking the easy path, but seeking to mold nature to the benefit of himself, his family, his neighbors, and those who were to come. Many of the glimpses that I have obtained of him by my researches and by talks with his son and others who knew him in life lead me to believe that this was strongly typical of the man, a determination to live his life in a way that would be a benefit to himself and others, building a solid foundation for his life work and for each step in that work. He established a community for himself and for others. He developed a brick kiln and a store and a mill for himself and others, all much needed in that wild western country, and he laid a mental foundation for his children and for those of his neighbors. A school building was the first building that was built at the Corners; he and others sought to establish a seminary there too, which was finally located three miles away at Mt. Vernon. As John Dave Ellis said, he provided money not only for himself, but for others. I have his books showing thousands of dollars loaned out to others. In fact, he did substantially a banking business for the community, the basis for it all carved out of the soil.
A solid basis for life is typical, in general, of the Andrews line. I have gone back some three hundred years and have carefully studied the line and find no exceptions to this. All were solid, substantial, sane men and women. They all built for the future, not for the next world of which they knew nothing, but for this world, doing the best they could to get the most out of the only life of which they could know.
We then drove down to Mt. Vernon and called on two of the granddaughters of Anson Seeley Osborne. They were Rosamond and Esther Osborne, daughters of Lemuel T. Osborne. Esther, now Mrs. Lyman Strack, gave me the deed drawn by your great grandfather and signed by him and your great grandmother, the print of which is attached.
Deed handwritten by Anson S. Andrews, properly acknowledged by him and his wife.
“This indenture made the twentieth day of August in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and forty five between Anson S. Andrews and Elizabeth Andrews his wife of the township of Black in Posey County and State of Indiana of the first part and Anson S. Osborn of the same place of the second part witnesseth that the said parties of the first part for and in consideration of the sum of three hundred dollars to them duly paid have sold and by these presents do re—i.e., release and forever quit claim unto the said Anson S. Osborn all rights, title, interest, claim and demand whatever which we the releasers have or ought to have in or to one tract of land described and dessignated [sic] as the West half of the North West quarter of Section Number twenty nine of Township Number Six South and Range number thirteen west and lying in the county of Posey and State of Indiana aforesaid — To have and to hold the premises with all their appurtenances unto the said releaser his heirs and assigns forever so that neither we the said releasers nor our heirs nor any other person under us or them shall hereafter have any claim, right or title in or to the premises or any part thereof—but thereupon we and they are by these presents forever bared [sic] and secluded.
“In Witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands and seals the day and date above written
“Signed, Seald and delivered
“In presence of Anson S. Andrews (SEAL)
Elizabeth Andrews (SEAL)”
We also saw Lemuel T. Osborne, the father, for a few moments, and called on Matthew Nelson who lived a block away and who knew much of the early life of your ancestors. His opinion of your great grandfather was much like that of John Dave Ellis, and as he was born after your great grandfather’s death, this opinion was derived entirely from friends and neighbors, and particularly from his father. His father, Turner Nelson, was something of a politician and for many years was the County Recorder of Mt. Vernon. Also, he owned a large farm in the early days adjacent to Farmersville, and of this he sold some sixty acres to your great grandfather Piper, and was the nearest neighbor to Mr. Piper when he was there.
While in Mt. Vernon, we looked up the old seminary where your grandfather Andrews went to school. The building was built in 1841 and is still used for the same general purpose. It is a very substantial-looking brick building and must have been the pride of the town in those early days. Your grandfather started school in Mt. Vernon in an old one-room building “packed full with scholars,” but the new “Seminary” was then being built and as soon as it was finished, your grandfather entered it.
The next day we started towards home but stopped in Lawrenceville, the county seat of Lawrence County, Illinois, where I found records of deeds relating to various Norton relatives . . .
[If anyone wants the table of these deeds for Lawrence County, leave me a note and I will send them.]
From Lawrenceville we went again to Vincennes, Indiana. I looked for records of early deeds there but found only the following: “Grantor Asa Norton; Grantee Barrois Francois; Book DD; Page 327; Comments: Dated February 11, 1826. ¼ of lot 64 in Borough of Vincennes. $45. Sam'l Dillworth, recorder. Vige St.”
From Vincennes we drove to Paris, Illinois, and stayed all night again at the Cherry Croft house, and the next morning, Saturday, October 15, 1927, we arrived home.
Ernest John Andrews
Chicago, November 21, 1927
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The Dominions of Our Ancestors
I am sending a copy of this article to each of the grandchildren of my father so that each may have a record, of some portion at least, of the lives of some of their ancestors, not only for their own use, but to preserve and hand down to others.
It is becoming more and more desirable to have sources of information of this nature with reference to our ancestors. There are many who, at some time in their lives, are particularly interested in matters of this nature and they will be unable to obtain much information that this article contains if it is not preserved in some form. Merely as illustrating what I have in mind I will say that, much as I need the money for other uses, yet I would gladly pay a hundred dollars merely for a good photograph of your great grandfather Andrews [Note: In 2015 his $100 would be worth more than $1300]. This is only one little item of my ancestry and yet it shows how highly I would prize the information of this article if I had no other sources for such information.
The article is not intended for pleasant reading; much of it may not be at all interesting and may be omitted. But there are certain portions that no doubt will be of interest and that you will, I think, find well worth a careful consideration. Perhaps a few suggestions will clarify my meaning.
As to your grandfather’s character, if all were as he was, we would have no need for police or jailers, and little need for courts. We would have no need for sumptuary laws. The present controversy over the eighteenth amendment would have no place in our lives. Life perhaps would be too easy, too free from troubles to be good for the race, but certainly it would add much to the satisfaction of living.
While it may not have impressed you particularly, yet one of the strongest impressions that I have of your grandfather Andrews is as to his constant employment at something worthwhile. I have often felt, and even now, looking back over a period of sixty years, I still feel that your grandfather was the hardest working man that I have ever known. Not a drudge, not a slave, but always actively carrying out some useful plan. He took delight in his work and for sixty years or more, I presume he averaged at least ten or twelve hours a day, mainly at manual work, not excepting Sundays. While on Sundays he changed his work, more or less, from his vocation to his avocations, yet he was always usefully engaged.
He was always looking to the future, planning and building for that which was to come.
I should like to have you know of these things and to know something of your great grandfather Andrews, particularly some of the facts contained in this article. He was very much like your grandfather.
I am sure there is nothing more stabilizing in our lives than such knowledge as this. Not that any of you need stabilizing particularly, but there often come times in our lives when we need, in order to give to the world the best that is in us, the stabilizing effect that comes from the knowledge of a long line of worthy ancestors. And this I would like you to have.
****** ****** ****** ******
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| Ernest John Andrews' home in Lombard, Illinois, from April 1913 through April 1939. Afterward, Helen Andrews Hinkley owned this home. |
The next morning we drove down to Robinson, the County Seat of Crawford County, where we stopped several hours while I searched the records of the county court and circuit court for deeds, wills, and the like.
[I omitted the table of records that he found; if anyone wants it, let me know!]
Of these parties, Asa Norton was your great great grandfather and Thoda and Reuben Norton were his brothers. Polly Norton as his wife. Her maiden name was Mary Belknap. L.D. Norton was Asa Norton’s son. Benjamin Norton was Asa’s nephew. Beverly Bradley Piper was Asa’s son-in-law (your grandmother’s father). Sally, the wife of Avery Tobey referred to, was Asa Norton’s sister, and Sewell Goodridge was the husband of Asa’s sister Lydia, while William N. Norton was Asa’s son (your grandmother’s uncle).
I was unable to complete my search at Robinson owing to the closing of the offices and a further search should be made to obtain records of the entry of the land of Asa Norton in 1819. Apparently, these entries were not recorded during the period that I searched, but they were undoubtedly recorded later as the law requires such records in order to give good title to the land. Also, copies of more important deeds should be examined for interesting facts. These papers were very voluminous. I expected to be able to complete this work on the return trip but failed to do so.
We left Robinson about noon and went straight east some eight miles to Palestine, where about 1815 a fort was built as a protection against the Indians. Palestine was the old county seat of Crawford County. Then, leaving the southeast corner of Palestine across a bridge, we rode to Heathville, some twelve miles away. Heathville was the town of these Nortons and Pipers in those early days and is now the nearest town of what I have called our Ancestral Dominions of Crawford County. The road to Heathville from Palestine is also the road to Russellville, some eight miles further on, and it was a well travelled road, but neither paved nor well graded, at least during portions of the way. The surrounding country was largely clay soil and poor farm land, much of it being covered with underbrush and used for pasture. It is no such land as is to be found in northern Illinois.
At Heathville we inquired of the only store as to where the Nortons lived. The grandchildren are still living on the old Norton farm that was entered in 1819. I was referred to the neighboring garage with the statement that William N. Norton, whose house we were seeking, drove by not long before to the garage. I inquired at the garage and was directed to the Norton house and was told that William Norton had left but a short time before and that we would probably overtake him. Never having seen Mr. Norton, we carefully scrutinized the cars as we drove along. We overtook none that seemed to be Mr. Norton’s, though we did pass a man who was walking, whom we afterwards found out was Mr. Norton. Owing to the failure of the garage man to tell us that he was then working on Mr. Norton’s car and that Mr. Norton was walking home, we passed him just outside of Heathville and he was obliged to walk over two miles home when we should have been delighted to take him in our car. This merely goes to show how a little clarity smoothes life’s pathway.
We drove about two miles south from Heathville on the Russellville road and then turned west on a dirt road, and a quarter mile further, struck a little bridge and the lane leading to the north up to Mr. Norton’s house. We drove up a very steep hill to the house and met Mrs. Norton, who informed us that the old Asa Norton house was on the other side of the road. So we drove back and up another steep hill just south of the bridge and south of William Norton’s house to the house now occupied by Horace B. Norton, where we met him and his wife.
It was on this hill that Asa Norton built his house over one hundred years ago. This house was burned before 1888 and on the old foundation a new house was built, and it is here that Asa’s grandson Horace now lives. The old barns also were all gone. But the hills still remain. The Norton house was perched high up on a hill because, while on his way to this locality, Asa found the country along the Wabash River flooded and all of the low land covered with water; to avoid such floods he built his house on a high hill.
It was here that your great great grandfather fought his battle with nature as a farmer; it was here also that he was a member of the State Legislature and a Justice of the Peace; and it is here that his descendants have been since. It was in this neighborhood too, that Asa’s daughter Delia Deborah Norton, your great grandmother, married your great grandfather Beverly Bradley Piper, and it was here that she spent substantially all of her life as she was only three years old in 1817 when Asa Norton moved his family from Norwich, New York, finally arriving in Crawford County in 1819.
It was here also that your grandmother Andrews spent some of the most joyful years of her life, and where her grandfather, Asa Piper, also settled on a farm a century ago. His farm and house were just southeast of the corner where we turned from the Russellville road to the Norton place. It was here, too, that your grandmother’s father was raised, and in later years, after he was married to Delia Deborah Norton, their farm adjoined on the west that of her father, Asa Norton. Your grandmother Andrews not only lived there during a part of her childhood days, but in after years she often visited at her grandfather Asa Norton’s place, until the time she and your grandfather moved to Rockford, Illinois, in 1861.
We spent the afternoon with William and Horace Norton and their wives. We went down into the old Asa Norton basement and saw the old walls that were built by him over a hundred years ago. That is all of his handiwork that is left. But in the house is an old clock still going that was saved from the fire. And there is an old life-sized painting of Asa Norton, painted before he left for the west in 1817. He was certainly a fine looking man, and dressed in the frills of those days, he far surpasses any of you so far as elegance in clothes is concerned. The picture was injured by the fire, but was restored.
We went back to William Norton’s house, up on the hill across the road, and went northwest over to the old cemetery on Asa Norton’s farm. Here lie buried Asa Norton and his wife Mary Belknap, his son Wellington Bertolf Norton, his brother Thoda Norton, his son William N. Norton, and his daughter Mirinda Norton Parker, after whom your grandmother, Mirinda Parker’s niece, was named, and many others. Asa Norton’s grave bears no stone. It was his own wish that his grave be unmarked. The place, however, is marked sufficiently for recognition, lying immediately north of his wife’s grave. On her stone is the inscription, “Mary, wife of Asa Norton, died March 18, 1850, age 69 yrs, 6 ms, and 17 dys.” She was born in 1780. Asa Norton was born in 1781 and his wife was born the year before. This, I understand, was a sensitive point for your great great grandfather, to be a year younger than his wife. He was a very dignified man, straight as an arrow, having been a soldier for many years. Presumably it detracted from his idea of dignity to have a wife who was older than himself. A large cedar tree grows over the grave of Mary Norton, a tree perhaps seventy-five years old.
From the cemetery, we went back to the house and drove west on the road about a quarter of a mile to the corner, and then turned north and went by a schoolhouse, where once was located the old log schoolhouse that was also used as the church of the Pipers and the Nortons. The log building is gone now. But it was here that your great grandfather Beverly Bradley Piper gained his secular and religious training and where he was converted and where he preached, probably, for the first time.
It was here too, that Andrew Jackson Norton attended school and church and was converted and preached. Andrew Jackson Norton was a nephew of Asa Norton, and for fifty years he preached as a Predestinarian Baptist all over Illinois and Iowa. I have a copy of his diary in which he tells how he was converted from an aimless, drifting boy to an intense Fundamentalist, and how he spent all of his days preaching the gospel without pay other than as his parishioners produced. His account of his conversion is the most illuminating description of this nature that I have ever seen, probably because it is sincere and he seeks to tell the facts just as he experienced them. His soul was gripped by the horrors of Hell which were as real and vivid to him as is our conception of each coming day. He was an ignorant man, with practically no education except what he obtained at home, but he was sincere and intense and was firmly convinced of the literal truth of the Bible from the first page to the last. Much as we may disagree with the beliefs of such men as this, yet in their days they were needed and we must not only have for them great admiration, but must feel that it is owing much to them that our country is now blessed with the great masses of men and women whose characters can withstand the pressure of modern life.
It was in this schoolhouse also that Andrew Jackson Norton was married in 1839 by the Justice of the Peace, Asa Norton. And it was here that your great grandfather and great grandmother Piper were married in 1833 by the same Justice. So it was that this old log schoolhouse witnessed some of the most important events of our ancestors’ lives.
From the schoolhouse we went a quarter of a mile north and turned at right angles east, where within a half a mile we struck a right angled bend in the road to the north. Just to the right of this bend was an old house built by Sewell Goodridge and his wife, over a hundred years ago. Sewell Goodridge’s wife Lydia was a sister of Asa Norton, and hence, your grandmother’s great aunt. It was in and around this house that many of the happiest hours of your grandmother’s life were spent. The house is now occupied by an old bachelor, and as was to be expected, was in disorder and decay. The building itself is run down and uncared for, and the interior was dreary indeed. But as we entered the north front door, on the opposite wall we saw, in a niche in the wall built for the purpose at the time the house was built, a large cuckoo clock. There, for over one hundred years, this old cuckoo clock has stood, six feet or more high and a foot or more wide, running by weights over pulleys, and still running correctly. But the cuckoo is dead. This clock was a familiar and interesting sight to your grandmother.
To the left of this was the old china closet in which Lydia Goodridge kept many valuable dishes, about which I have often heard your grandmother speak. In the next room, the parlor, was another old clock that is thought to be nearly a hundred years old, standing on the mantle, two or three feet high and a foot or more wide. There were two fireplaces back-to-back in the wall between the two rooms. In the southwest corner of the parlor was another large cabinet, empty now but presumably in those early days containing valuable clothing, dishes, and the like.
Having heard so much about priceless articles and papers found in old buildings such as this, we ventured up into the attic. But the attic was nearly vacant; the floor seemed to be covered an inch thick with dust and old scraps of paper, and there was nothing to indicate any hidden treasures. We left with the thought that poor Aunt Lydia, the aristocrat of the Norton family, would have turned in her grave if she could have known of the condition of her beloved home.
It was in this old house that Andrew Jackson Norton spent his youth. His father, Benjamin Norton, was Asa’s older brother. Benjamin’s wife died in 1819 and he married again in 1823 when Andrew Jackson was five years old. In the meantime Benjamin’s other children were scattered. At the time of his wife’s death, five children were living, four boys and one girl, and seven were dead. Three boys died in accidents—one a knife entered his brain, one drowned, and one was scalded to death. Andrew Jackson went to live with his Aunt Lydia Goodridge who had no children of her own. He lived with this aunt and uncle until of age; he married while living there and afterwards built a house of his own not far away. He married Miss Mary Jeffers on December 19, 1839.
Going on, then, beyond the bend in the road to the north about one hundred rods, we struck the Hagan house where Sally Tobey Hagan and her husband live. Sally Tobey Hagan is the granddaughter of Avery Tobey and his wife, Sally Norton. Sally Norton was Asa Norton’s younger sister, nineteen years younger than he and a year or two younger than their sister, Lydia Goodridge.
The old house built by Avery and Sally Tobey was still standing, but had been moved to the back end of the lot and was a wreck, all ready to fall to pieces. We did not visit the old Tobey graveyard that is on the Tobey farm, as our time was limited, but I shall certainly one of these days visit this cemetery where good old Aunt Lydia and Aunt Sally and other kindred are buried.
Away off to the northeast from this Tobey house we could see the houses that mark the places where Andrew Jackson Norton had built his log cabin when first married, and nearer, where his Uncle Thoda Norton lived, and where his cousin Louis D. Norton lived.
From this old Norton headquarters we drove down the east-west road to the north-south Russellville road and passed the old Asa Piper farm on the east and down to Russellville, about six miles away. Here we stopped at the store of D.T. Beckes. He is the husband of Edna, daughter of Horace B. Norton. Mr. Beckes was not at the store, but we were directed to the Beckes house, which was built by Horace B. Norton and is the finest house in Russellville. Here we met Edna and she showed us the deed of Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, to William Noble Norton, Edna’s grandfather, dated September 1, 1834, conveying the west half of the northeast quarter of Section nineteen, Township five, north of range ten west, Palestine, containing eighty acres. This is the deed of the old farm entered by Asa Norton in 1819.
From Russellville we drove some ten miles southeast to the Wabash River and down the river several miles to the Vincennes bridge where we crossed over to Vincennes, Indiana, and spent the night. In Vincennes the following morning, we passed the location of the old Sackville Fort, later known as Fort Vincennes, and from there we went south to Evansville, Indiana, on the Ohio River. From here we went west some twenty-five miles to Mt. Vernon, Posey County, Indiana.
Then we were in the neighborhood of your grandfather Andrews’ early home. It was in Mt. Vernon that he attended school and his father’s farm was three miles straight north. I went over to the court house and obtained copies of the following records:
“John Quincy Adams, President of the United States of America. To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting.
“Know ye that, John Andrews of New York, having deposited in the general land office a certificate of the Register of the land office at Vincennes in Indiana,
“Whereby, it appears that full payment has been made for the West one-half of the NorthWest quarter of Section Twenty-Nine in Township Six of range Thirteen west, containing eighty acres of land directed to be sold at Vincennes by the act of Congress entitled An Act providing for the sale of the lands of the United States in the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, and above the mouth of the Kentucky River, unto the said John Andrews and his heirs the half of the quarter lot or section of land above described.
“To have and to hold the said half of the quarter lot or section of land, with the appurtenances, unto the said John Andrews, his heirs and assigns forever.
“In testimony whereof, I have caused these letters to be made Patent, and the seal of the general land office to be hereunto affixed. Given under my hand at the City of Washington, the Seventh day of February in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the fifty-second.
“By the President (John Quincy Adams)”
(SEAL)
“James Monroe to Anson S. Andrews of New York.
“SW ¼, Sec. 20, Twsp. 6, Range 13 W, 160 Acres.
“James Monroe, President of the United States of America.
“To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting.
“Know ye that, Anson S. Andrews of New York, having deposited in the general land office a certificate of the Register of the land office at Vincennes in Indiana,
“Whereby it appears that full payment has been made for the SouthWest quarter of Section Twenty in Township Six, South of Range Thirteen West, containing one hundred and sixty acres of the land directed to be sold at Vincennes by the act of Congress entitled An Act providing for the sale of the lands of the United States, in the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, and above the mouth of the Kentucky River, unto the said Anson S. Andrews and his heirs the quarter lot or section of land above described.
“To have and to hold the said quarter lot or section of land with the appurtenances, unto the said Anson S. Andrews, his heirs and assigns forever.
“In testimony whereof, I have caused these letters to be made Patent, and the seal of the general land office to be hereunto affixed. Given under my hand at the City of Washington, the twenty-fifth day of August in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the forty-eighth.
“By the President (James Monroe)”
(SEAL)
“James Monroe to Anson S. Andrews of New York City.
“E ½, SE ¼, Sec. 19, Twsp. 6, Range 13 W, 80 acres.
“James Monroe, President of the United States of America.
“To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting.
“Know ye that, Anson S. Andrews of New York, having deposited in the general land office a certificate of the Register of the land office at Vincennes in Indiana,
“Whereby it appears that full payment has been made for the East one-half of the SouthEast quarter of Section Nineteen in Township six, Range 13 West, containing eighty acres of the land directed to be sold at Vincennes by the act of Congress entitled An Act providing for the sale of the lands of the United States, in the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, and above the mouth of the Kentucky River, unto the said Anson S. Andrews the quarter lot or section of land above described. “To have and to hold the said quarter lot or section of land with the appurtenances, unto the said Anson S. Andrews, his heirs and assigns forever.
“In testimony whereof, I have caused these letters to be made Patent, and the seal of the general land office to be hereunto affixed. Given under my hand at the City of Washington, the twenty-Fifth day of July in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the forty-eighth. “By the President (James Monroe)”
(SEAL)
W I L L
Recorded in Book T of Deeds
page 723
“Anson S. Andrews of Black Township in the County of Posey and State of Indiana, do ordain and appoint this my last will and testament in manner and form following.
“That is to say, on this first day of March in the year of our Lord One Thousand, Eight Hundred and Fifty-two,
“To which I have set my hand and affixed my seal binding my heirs and assigns forever.
“I give a bequeath my farm on which I am now residing together with all the rents, profits and benefits arising therefrom to my beloved wife, Elizabeth Andrews.
“To have, hold and enjoy the same for and during the term of her natural life. I also give and bequeath to her, my said wife, all my farm stock, to wit: my neat cattle, horses, sheep and hogs, farming tools and utensils, farm produce, household goods and furniture, and one thousand ($1000) dollars out of my personal estate and effects; my books and other printed matter to be divided equally share and share alike between my wife and children.
“At the death of my beloved wife, I give and bequeath my said farm together with all the rents and profits thereof to my two dear sons, John and Seth, to be equally divided between them share and share alike, or held jointly as they may elect; to be held and possessed by them and their heirs and assigns forever.
“I give and bequeath to my dear daughter Harriet the piece of land I lately bought of John Vanway and described in the deed from him and his wife to me, to be held and possessed by her and her heirs and assigns forever. I also give and bequeath to her Two Thousand, One Hundred Dollars ($2100) out of my personal estate, this she is to receive in such kind or kinds of property that she shall sustain no loss or damage whatever.
“After my debts and all just demands against my estate are settled and paid, I will and direct that the balance and remainder thereof be equally divided share and share alike between my said children. And I do hereby appoint my said wife Elizabeth my executrix and my friends, Anson S. Osborne and Ebenezer Ellis, my executors of this my last will and testament. And I do hereby direct that fifty ($50) dollars be paid to each of my executors out of my estate as a compensation for their services.
“In witness whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name and affixed my seal the day and date first above written.
“(Anson S. Andrews) (SEAL)
“Signed, sealed, published and delivered by the said Anson S. Andrews as and for his last will and testament, in the presence of us who at the request of said Anson S. Andrews and in the presence of each other have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses.
“(John W. Bishop)
“(Otis Hinkley) (SEAL)
“Recorded November 4, 1854”
[There followed another table of deeds recorded in Mt. Vernon, Indiana, in Black Township. I will be happy to send the table to anyone who asks.]
Of these parties, Anson S. Andrews is your great grandfather; John Andrews is his father, your great great grandfather. He never came out west but lived at Bethel, Connecticut. The Hinkley referred to Otis Hinkley, Wilmer’s great grandfather, who lived at New Harmony, Indiana, twelve miles north of the Andrews farm, and James Hinkley is his son who married Anson S. Andrews’ daughter Harriet. This is the first connection between Helen and Wilmer Hinkley. Anson Seeley Andrews is the great grandfather of both of them. Anson Seeley Osborne was a nephew of Anson Seeley Andrews and lived with him during much of his youth. Beverly Bradley Piper was your great grandfather who lived also in the Norton neighborhood in Crawford County. Elizabeth Andrews was Anson Andrews’ wife and your great grandmother. The et. al. referred to in the Elizabeth Andrews deed was your grandfather Andrews and his brother Seth and his sister Harriet Hinkley.
The search of records at Mt. Vernon was substantially complete but it would be desirable to obtain copies of more of the deeds. For instance, the deed of Elizabeth Andrews et. al., to Worthington Bois, and the deed of John Andrews et. al., to James Acuff. The former deed conveyed the old Anson S. Andrews farm, and the latter deed conveyed the land on which the old mill stood.
There should be a search made to determine the disposition of the land transferred to Anson S. Andrews by Honduras D. Johnson and John T. McKee. The Vanway farm was willed by Anson S. Andrews to his daughter, Harriet Hinkley.
From Mt. Vernon we drove north fifteen miles to New Harmony. The road ran through Farmersville where the Andrews farm was located. As we drove by, I was able to point out to your mother a large number of landmarks from descriptions given me by your grandfather. For instance, the location of the old farm and the farm house and the store and the mill and the schoolhouse and the Baptist church and the old graveyard and other places. But we did not stop.
We reached New Harmony in the evening and went to the house of Julia E. Dransfield, a daughter of Anson S. Osborne and, hence, second cousin of your grandfather Andrews. She lives in the old Otis Hinkley house where Wilmer’s great grandfather lived.
We stayed at New Harmony and vicinity for two days and had a very pleasant visit with Cousin Julia and her adopted daughter, Mary Donald, and Mary’s husband who is the dentist in New Harmony. I cannot here go into the many interesting features of New Harmony. Although having a population of less than one thousand, it is one of the most noted towns in the world from both a scientific and sociological point of view. I have several pamphlets relating to the various interesting features of this town. But that has nothing to do with our Ancestral Dominions. Suffice it to say that we were much pleased not only with the reception given us by our hosts and others, but also by the various buildings and collections and the like which we visited.
With our hosts, we drove down to Farmersville where for thirty-six years your great grandfather was the principal man of the neighborhood. He established the town of Farmersville, or what for a time was known as the “Corners,” by entering with the United States government a section of land surrounding the Corners, being where two main east/west and north/south roads crossed. Of this land, he entered for his own use 320 acres, and the rest was taken up by friends who settled there with him at about the same time.
On our way to Farmersville from New Harmony, we stopped at the old Moore’s Hill Cemetery, about a mile north of the old Andrews farm, on the same side of the road. Here your great grandfather was buried. After some searching, we found his lot in the northwest corner of the cemetery, in the north tier of lots and one tier next to the west. The stone slab was lying on the ground, and adjacent to it was a little stone. The slab bore the inscription, “Anson S. Andrews, died September 28, 1854, in the 69 year of his age.” Having heard that the slab had fallen, I had brought with me a spade, and I dug down and found the pedestal on which the slab had been originally mounted. This pedestal had sunk in the ground over a foot deep and the slab had been broken off flush with the upper surface of the pedestal. I cleaned the broken pieces out of the groove in the pedestal and restored the slab, then straightened out the little stone nearby that bore the inscription, “Ann, daughter of A.S. and E. Andrews, died July 17, 1832, age 2 yr, 11 ms, 8 dys.”
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| The Andrews grave markers in 2001. They have since been set into flat concrete frames to preserve them from further decay. |
As I stood at my grandfather’s grave that afternoon, I could picture in my mind’s eye the Andrews line, coming over from England in 1633 and slowly drifting westward—from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Glenn now lives, to Connecticut; from Hartford to Farmington, then to Waterbury, then Danbury; and from there, Anson S. Andrews as a young man went out by himself west to New York state, and thence to Farmersville, Indiana, where his body now lies by the side of his infant daughter. But the line went on, west to southern Illinois, north to northern Illinois and Wisconsin, and with it went his wife who now lies in the old West Side Cemetery in Rockford, Illinois, and beside her lies their son John, your grandfather. And so it goes, from one generation to the next, ever onward, always seeking something better, and usually finding it, leaving many by the wayside in lonely graves.
From the cemetery we went south to the old Corners, and then a quarter of a mile west past the location of the old schoolhouse where your grandfather first went to school and where he first met your grandmother, to the location of the old Baptist church where your great grandfather Piper preached from 1850 to 1853 and where your grandmother attended church and Sunday school as a girl of ten to thirteen. I cannot say that your grandfather and great grandfather attended this church. Your great grandmother Andrews attended church about half a mile west of this on the same side of the east/west road in what was known as the Christian or Campbellite church. But your great grandfather was not a member of any church. Undoubtedly, he and the children more or less attended his wife’s church, and perhaps the Baptist church. But neither he nor his son John, your grandfather, nor his daughter Harriet, nor her husband James Hinkley, nor his father, were orthodox. Seth, the second son of A.S. Andrews, in time joined the church and was one of the staunch members until he died. The present church was built in 1896 on the foundation of the old church of a century ago.
Just across the road north from the church we drove into the lane to the Andrews farmyard and to where the old house had stood. Your grandfather had told me that the house and barns were all burned, he believed, as well as the store and the mill. However, I was delighted to find the old red brick barn still standing. This is a large barn, two stories and a basement, about 60 feet long and 30 feet wide, a magnificent monument to your great grandfather. A photograph of the rear of the barn is attached. The barn was built in 1844 of red bricks made from the clay of the old farm, the brick kiln being located near the barn. Your great grandfather made bricks at that time, which he sold to others, and he built this barn, and an addition to his house, and a sidewalk leading from the house towards the barn, and he lined a dug well with the bricks. The old brick foundation of the house and the sidewalk and the well still remain, but the addition itself has disappeared. Also, the old shop and other sheds and another large barn which were there in the early days have all disappeared, being replaced by other buildings.
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| Rear view, taken in October 1927, of red brick
barn at Farmersville, Indiana, built in 1844 for Anson Seeley Andrews with bricks made on his farm. The barn is located about 200 feet west of where the old Andrews’ house is located. |
The farm is now owned by Ensley Trafford and his wife. His wife is a great granddaughter of Elisha Phillips, who was one of the settlers there with your great grandfather and who took an eighty acre piece of the original section taken up by your great grandfather. In a talk with Mrs. Trafford, she suggested that I would be interested in calling on John Dave Ellis, who lived half a mile straight south, as he was one of the oldest settlers and would no doubt remember much of interest. We drove over to Mr. Ellis’s house and found him at home and had a very pleasant and interesting conversation with him. He is a typical old farmer of 87 years of age, old enough to be much interested in those early times. Upon meeting him, I asked if he remembered Anson Seeley Andrews. He said that he certainly did and he remembered John Andrews and Mirinda Piper and that John had married Mirinda. When I told him that they were my parents he was much interested and shook my hand warmly and went on to tell about the old times.
Among other things, he said that Anson Andrews was one of the finest men that was ever known in those parts, and he cited several instances of things your great grandfather had done to help establish and develop the neighborhood and to assist others in getting a start. One instance was that Mr. Andrews told a neighbor that he ought to buy a certain farm and the neighbor said that he knew it but didn’t have the money. Your great grandfather said that he had the money and would let his neighbor have it and would charge no interest and wouldn’t ask him for payment. I presume, however, that he knew the man well enough to know that the money would be repaid whether he asked for it or not. Also, I think that John Dave Ellis was inclined to exaggerate a little. Among other things, he stated that Anson Andrews was a very loud talker; that he was pretty deaf during the later years of his life and talked loud enough apparently to hear himself. John Dave’s house was nearly half a mile away from the Andrews house, and yet, John Dave said that he often heard Mr. Andrews talking to his men around the barn when John himself was at home. But in spite of any tendency to exaggerate, it was pleasant to hear these statements made by a neighbor who knew your great grandfather in his lifetime and undoubtedly had heard much about him from other neighbors since his death. John Dave was only fourteen years old when your great grandfather died, so much of his knowledge must have come from older friends and neighbors.
Another thing that John Dave said was that the old Baptist church, located about midway between his house and the old Andrews house, had been cut in two in 1896, when the new one was built, and all of it had been moved onto the Andrews farm; one half of it immediately across the road, and the other half moved onto the old Andrews house foundation and still stood there. This was very interesting news as this was another joining of the Piper and Andrews families; the old church from which your great grandfather Piper so often preached had been moved to the Andrews farm and a portion of it had replaced the old Andrews house.
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| Front view, taken in October 1927, of the house
then standing at Farmersville, Indiana, on the foundation of the house built by Anson Seeley Andrews about 1830. |
In view of this, we drove back to the Andrews house and found that, as he had said, the front part of the old church was on the old foundation. This was clearly indicated by the building itself, the rear portion of the house showing evident signs of having been the front of an old church. The attached picture shows the front wall of the house, built in 1896. While we were there examining the house, the lady living in it called my attention to the old well immediately north of the house, and to the old brick foundation, and to the sidewalk, and we also gave some further consideration to the old brick barn.
This brick barn has a charm for me. It seems to be typical of your great grandfather Andrews. It is typical of the solid basis upon which he always seemed to build. In his younger days he broke away from a rather worn-out New England and went to New York state, and some years later, moved further west to establish himself in a new community. He was laying a foundation for the future; not drifting along as so many do, but planning years ahead; not shirking and taking the easy path, but seeking to mold nature to the benefit of himself, his family, his neighbors, and those who were to come. Many of the glimpses that I have obtained of him by my researches and by talks with his son and others who knew him in life lead me to believe that this was strongly typical of the man, a determination to live his life in a way that would be a benefit to himself and others, building a solid foundation for his life work and for each step in that work. He established a community for himself and for others. He developed a brick kiln and a store and a mill for himself and others, all much needed in that wild western country, and he laid a mental foundation for his children and for those of his neighbors. A school building was the first building that was built at the Corners; he and others sought to establish a seminary there too, which was finally located three miles away at Mt. Vernon. As John Dave Ellis said, he provided money not only for himself, but for others. I have his books showing thousands of dollars loaned out to others. In fact, he did substantially a banking business for the community, the basis for it all carved out of the soil.
A solid basis for life is typical, in general, of the Andrews line. I have gone back some three hundred years and have carefully studied the line and find no exceptions to this. All were solid, substantial, sane men and women. They all built for the future, not for the next world of which they knew nothing, but for this world, doing the best they could to get the most out of the only life of which they could know.
We then drove down to Mt. Vernon and called on two of the granddaughters of Anson Seeley Osborne. They were Rosamond and Esther Osborne, daughters of Lemuel T. Osborne. Esther, now Mrs. Lyman Strack, gave me the deed drawn by your great grandfather and signed by him and your great grandmother, the print of which is attached.
“This indenture made the twentieth day of August in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and forty five between Anson S. Andrews and Elizabeth Andrews his wife of the township of Black in Posey County and State of Indiana of the first part and Anson S. Osborn of the same place of the second part witnesseth that the said parties of the first part for and in consideration of the sum of three hundred dollars to them duly paid have sold and by these presents do re—i.e., release and forever quit claim unto the said Anson S. Osborn all rights, title, interest, claim and demand whatever which we the releasers have or ought to have in or to one tract of land described and dessignated [sic] as the West half of the North West quarter of Section Number twenty nine of Township Number Six South and Range number thirteen west and lying in the county of Posey and State of Indiana aforesaid — To have and to hold the premises with all their appurtenances unto the said releaser his heirs and assigns forever so that neither we the said releasers nor our heirs nor any other person under us or them shall hereafter have any claim, right or title in or to the premises or any part thereof—but thereupon we and they are by these presents forever bared [sic] and secluded.
“In Witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands and seals the day and date above written
“Signed, Seald and delivered
“In presence of Anson S. Andrews (SEAL)
Elizabeth Andrews (SEAL)”
We also saw Lemuel T. Osborne, the father, for a few moments, and called on Matthew Nelson who lived a block away and who knew much of the early life of your ancestors. His opinion of your great grandfather was much like that of John Dave Ellis, and as he was born after your great grandfather’s death, this opinion was derived entirely from friends and neighbors, and particularly from his father. His father, Turner Nelson, was something of a politician and for many years was the County Recorder of Mt. Vernon. Also, he owned a large farm in the early days adjacent to Farmersville, and of this he sold some sixty acres to your great grandfather Piper, and was the nearest neighbor to Mr. Piper when he was there.
While in Mt. Vernon, we looked up the old seminary where your grandfather Andrews went to school. The building was built in 1841 and is still used for the same general purpose. It is a very substantial-looking brick building and must have been the pride of the town in those early days. Your grandfather started school in Mt. Vernon in an old one-room building “packed full with scholars,” but the new “Seminary” was then being built and as soon as it was finished, your grandfather entered it.
The next day we started towards home but stopped in Lawrenceville, the county seat of Lawrence County, Illinois, where I found records of deeds relating to various Norton relatives . . .
[If anyone wants the table of these deeds for Lawrence County, leave me a note and I will send them.]
From Lawrenceville we went again to Vincennes, Indiana. I looked for records of early deeds there but found only the following: “Grantor Asa Norton; Grantee Barrois Francois; Book DD; Page 327; Comments: Dated February 11, 1826. ¼ of lot 64 in Borough of Vincennes. $45. Sam'l Dillworth, recorder. Vige St.”
From Vincennes we drove to Paris, Illinois, and stayed all night again at the Cherry Croft house, and the next morning, Saturday, October 15, 1927, we arrived home.
Ernest John Andrews
Chicago, November 21, 1927
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Return to Yellowstone: A Comedy of Misadventures
Introduction
When Beatrice Boedefeld worked in Yellowstone Park’s Upper Geyser Basin during the summer of 1916, at the end of the summer season the Wylie Camping Company staff was supposed to get a trip around the entire Park. But a threatened national railroad worker’s strike caused the Wylie management to send all possible workers home early, and Bea was terribly disappointed not to get to see the entire Park. It didn’t help that the strike never actually materialized.
Bea had had such an enchanted time that summer that she longed to go back and re-create some of the magic. She had fallen in love with the West, its mountains and wild scenery. She took a job in 1919 as society editor for the Casper Tribune in Wyoming and was assigned to interview a veteran of the Great War, Lt. Frederick B. Andrews of the Army Air Service. When she and Fred Andrews became engaged in the spring of 1920, she invited her mother to come to Casper, Wyoming from Elkhart, Indiana and act as their chaperone on a car trip to Yellowstone.
Bea’s mother, Laura Boedefeld, was 57 years old. Laura left her husband, Ferdinand, at home with Bea’s younger sister Ruth, who at 27 was a registered nurse by this time. Bea was 32; Fred had turned 33 just a month before. He was working in Casper for the Prudential Insurance Company. In the Park, Bea met various people she knew in 1916. Chief among these is Rae Wylie, her former bunk mate with whom she had kept up a frequent correspondence.
The National Park Service had been formed in the summer of 1916, so after that season, the private camping companies’ camps were reformed into the Yellowstone Park Camping Company. Things were different in the Park from what Beatrice knew in 1916.
During the 1920 trip, she wrote diary notes in pencil on a very small notepad that was held together with a straight pin. She rewrote some of the notes, then she started to type up notes into a story, but she didn’t finish. This transcription begins with her typed story and continues with the notes. I have added prepositions, articles, and helping verbs to the notes section for clarity, using as a guiding principle the idea that she wanted this to be a story that would be easy and fun to read. When I could not decipher her notes, I have inserted dashed lines to indicate words that couldn’t be read. Maybe in time we can decipher all of them. Anything in square brackets is what I added by way of explanation.
—Marci Andrews Wahlquist
August 2008
Yellowstone Park Trip, 1920
Day OneJuly 11, 1920 —
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| Bea, Fred, and Laura's route in Nancy Ford |
Fred B. Andrews bot a Ford
One fine March day
Vintage 1914, didn’t matter so they say.
For her engine was the finest
Henry Ford had e’er turned out
And the way that Ford could travel!—
Reg’lar whirlwind 'thout a doubt.
Fred’s girl she named it Nancy
One balmy day in May
Lizer Jane she didn’t fancy
Why I couldn’t say—
Round Casper oft they travelled
Day times and after dark
One day they loaded up
And went to Yellowstone Park.
That should make a fair introduction for the adventures of Fred, Mother, and I and Nancy Ford.
We left Casper at 6:30 a.m. July 11 bound for Yellowstone. “Wonder what adventures will be ours before we see this spot again,” I said as we sped over the bridge out of town and turned into the Yellowstone Highway which has been cleverly marked its entire length with stones painted yellow and lettered with a black H. Our first stop was Powder River, and we yelled, “Let her buck!” in approved fashion as we sailed across the bridge.
Poor Fred wasn’t feeling quite in holiday mood, unfortunately having been persuaded to work the night before, and was sleepy and sick too.
After passing Waltman and Wolton, we had our first trouble with Nancy, finally discovering that it was the generator post of the magneto. A short way farther, a sandy hill presented a problem, but the cooperation of two other tourist parties sent us thru the sand and them too, a case of everybody shove.
[Editor’s note: The Model T Ford did not have a magneto. Instead it introduced a trembler coil, a type of electromagnetic device that lit the spark plugs. Fred Andrews would have been familiar with magnetos from his maintenance work on First World War airplanes. He likely applied the names of the parts he was familiar with to the parts of the car until he knew better.]
We had lunch at Moneta and left there at 3 o’clock for Shoshone. A thunderstorm seemed imminent and we stopped to put on the side curtains. We had only gone a wee bit further when the real adventure happened. Mother discovered a fire in the back seat.
She said in a calm voice, “The curtains are on fire back here.”
We stopped and for a while it seemed as though our adventure would end right there. Blazing side curtains threatened a can of gas which exploded after being thrown off. Fortunately Fred had a 5 gallon can of water which he got at in time to save the car.
I remember thinking the gas would explode and dragging out some coats, carefully rescuing Mother’s glasses, and seeing Fred tenderly lay Mother’s cape on a pile of coats. He was the only person hurt—one hand was badly burned and the skin was torn off the little finger. I performed first aid with mentholatum and a bandage but not efficiently.
Taking stock we decided that some how a short had been formed in the electric storage battery which Fred said “Would save our lives” but which nearly cost them instead. My coat and suitcase were scorched and burned, so were a pair of old shoes, one of Fred’s blankets, three side curtains, a sack containing cooking things, etc.
Finally we started on and then a wind storm struck us. Heaven be praised that it didn’t come ten minutes sooner or it certainly would have been farewell Nancy—
Fred was suffering horribly with the hand— The drive into Shoshone wasn’t bad. We had ice cream in a drug store and the druggist gave the hand first aid. Couldn’t get a doctor.
Then we made our mistake in deciding to cross Bird’s Eye Pass and make Thermopolis that night. We crossed the pass splendidly but the long drop down was terrible on the brakes and finally burned out the front brake altogether. We found ourselves in the dark on a strange road with only the hand brake. On one cut with a drop on one side and a hill on the other, Fred suddenly told me to jump and block the wheels. Fell as I jumped and the car went over one foot and my knees were skinned, but I managed finally, tho the first rock didn’t hold. We tried two more hills and then, after the car had nearly run off with me due to my not grabbing the brake clutch strongly enough, we begged Fred to give up and camp out for the night.
We had just decided to do that when a car came along, and the men said we were almost down the hill. They offered to take us in and helped Fred back on the road. We thought our troubles were over then. Fred simply flew ahead of us and one of the men said, “Ever turn that fellow loose before and take after him?” But two miles from town we overtook him waiting to see if he was on the right road. Said he’d follow us in. We had just started and then we heard Fred holler, “I’m off the bank!” —last straw. He had run off the edge into a city dump which was partly on fire. The other car couldn’t get him out so one of the men said he’d send out a truck.
We came on to the Center Hotel which was full to the doors. We had to sleep on cots in the restroom off the baths. We got Fred a room over the garage. Had just fallen asleep when he called me. It would take until 3 or 4 o’clock to get out he said, 36 hours and no sleep, a burned hand—poor man.
Second Day
July 12, 1920
We spent the entire day at Thermopolis. Mother and I enjoyed the hot baths but did not greatly appreciate the other advantages of our quarters—particularly the smell of the water and the running fountain. I dreamed of Klinger Lake and the Spring boxes.
Had breakfast at 8:30 and the manager’s wife informed mother that “her husband” got in at 4 o’clock. Mother thanked her for the information but explained that he wasn’t her husband. After breakfast we went out and I showed Mother the sights. Then we came back and wrote cards in the sun room. I was drumming out some music and a young fellow came in and offered to play if I’d sing. So I did. Quite a pleasant time. A woman who played also came in and I sang one of the songs over while she played. Had lunch. The meals were nothing extra.
After lunch we went to lie down and Fred appeared. He had had an awful time but finally got the car out. He had also worried half to death over his bag which we had brought in. He had left my music and camera at the office but I didn’t know it. Also a note for me which they didn’t deliver. He and I went down town where he had lunch and went to the garage. Then we came back and sat in the sun parlor while Fred had the blisters on his hand opened and dressed.
Then I went for a swim which wasn’t as much fun as I thought for neither Mother nor Fred went in. They watched awhile and then viewed the formation. We had a good dinner at the log cabin downtown, but when Fred tried to start Nancy only two cylinders would work. He tried to fix it and finally took us home, coaxing the car along by constantly changing gears.
I dressed Fred’s hand. The manager tried to make him my brother.
Then he decided not to work the night away so he and I went to the dance and afterward sat awhile on the bank of the river under a nice friendly tree.
When I got in Mother was sick. There was a noisy party on and we couldn’t sleep till that was over.
Third Day
Tuesday July 13
Basin, Wyoming. Mother and I both had ptomaine poisoning last nite and felt pretty bum this morning. We didn’t get started until 10 o’clock. Everything lovely up to 2 o’clock. The road wound in and out through the Big Horn Basin which is irrigated and under cultivation, so green and lovely. We had dinner at Worland but couldn’t eat much. I enjoyed some ginger ale that Fred bought for me.
Finally Fred called me—said he couldn’t remedy the trouble and we’d have to get a tow into Manderson 4 miles ahead. We hailed several cars but they were afraid and finally got a Highway Truck man to take us. We had asked people to tell the garage man to come too, which he did. So we arrived at the large and flourishing village of Manderson. Mother and I rested at the James Hotel and Fred went to work with the garage man. The number 1 bearing was burned out and a new one had to be made.
We read, slept, had a good home cooked supper, went for Fred, and he ate a regular working man’s meal. Finally at 9 o’clock Nancy was ready and we made the 12 miles to Basin, arrived at 10 o’clock. We went to the Markham House and assigned ourselves to rooms as there was no clerk. Had a lot of fun over it. A note on the register said Room 15 off the Dining Room and Room 21 in the Cottage were vacant. Fred scratched out vacant and wrote taken and then acted as clerk and porter, showing us to our room, hoisting baggage, etc.
Day Four
Wednesday July 14, 1920
Mother and I slept beautifully. We woke early, waited around quite awhile for Fred. Finally we had breakfast and then as Fred still didn’t appear, I went to look for him. He was all right but had had a terrible nightmare, dreaming that he was over a bank and that he couldn’t find us anywhere. He woke to find himself on the floor under the bed trying to fix up the springs. Certainly must have been a frightful experience. He couldn’t think where he was, he said, for quite a while.
Leaving Basin we intended to go by Greybull but got the wrong turn and went the old and shorter route by Otto and Burlington. After Burlington we crossed a desert and out in the middle of it the front right tire picked up a tack. So, while Fred fixed it I got sage brush, built a fire, and we had lunch out there. Got into Cody at 4:30 and got rooms at Hotel Irma, owned by Mrs. W.F. Cody and named for the daughter of Buffalo Bill. The lobby and halls are filled with pictures of Buffalo Bill and his Indians. The fireplace is made of fossil stones and is wonderfully interesting.
After dinner we walked about some and had some ice cream. Then Mother went to bed. Fred and I danced in what was the bar of the hotel, now a soft drink parlor [Prohibition was in effect]. Then we sought out Nancy and spooned a bit.
Day Five
July 15, Thursday
Finally a car came up but not Fred. We learned though that he’d had a blowout. Before he came up we thought sure that he’d had a sun stroke too. When he did come, we had lunch on the porch of a log cabin at the top of the dam, which certainly is perfectly marvelous.
Went on after lunch but had hardly gone ten miles before we had to stop and fix the same tire which had gone flat. Stopped just at the M’s Dude Ranch which is a very ordinary place. After that we stopped twice to cool off the radiator. Made Holm Lodge at 6:30.
We got gas and water there [Holm Lodge] but decided to go on to Pahaska Tepee for supper and the night, and we were glad we did indeed. Pahaska was Buffalo Bill’s hunting lodge. It’s all of logs. It’s an unusual place surrounded by tents and cabins. It’s decorated with deer and elk horns and Buffalo skulls, has Navajo rugs in it, etc. We had a wonderful supper. Mother went to bed at 9:30. Fred and I stayed out an hour and as it was so near the Park we “called it rotten logging.” I get more and more in love with every minute.
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| 1922 Map of Yellowstone |
Day Six
July 16, Friday
The first day in the Park! After four years of longing I am back at last.
It was raining when we started at 9:30 and kept right on until we had almost reached Lake. The road was fine but muddy, and of course we didn’t enjoy it as much as we would had it been clear. Crossing Sylvan Pass, Mother and I had to push twice, but we went over pretty easy take it all in all.
Arrived at Lake at 12:30 and intended to stay all night but couldn’t get accommodations as the Reedy party from Texas was expected. The manager is the woman who was hostess at Canyon last year. She knew Vess and Ruth of course and was much interested to know I was an ex-Savage and knew them. She knew some other people whom I met in ‘16. After lunch we walked from the Camp to the hotel. Had lots of fun teasing Fred because he asked so many questions. As we came to a sign he said it would answer him anyway and when we got to it, there was nothing on it at all. We laughed and laughed and laughed over that.
At the hotel we took some pictures on the dock. We also went to the hotel where we met the Patton family. I introduced them to Mother and Fred, and later Fred got Mr. Patton to cash a check for him.
We left Lake at 4 o’clock and got to Canyon at 5:30 after stopping to see the mud volcanoes and the Dragon’s Mouth Spring. I had to get after Fred, who was worrying about the engine, for fear he’d go through Yellowstone and see nothing but a Ford. At the Canyon Camp, which is really very nicely located below the Upper Falls, I liked the office, and they have the recreation hall separate. Saw Lady Mac first in the dining room. As I left the dining room, I saw a boy who looked like Mac Smith and heard someone call him Mac but didn’t get to make sure. Lady Mac was at the desk when I came out, so I went up and shook hands.
“Who is it?” she said and answered herself, “Oh, Beatrice.” I got a letter there from Perla and she admitted that that made her think I was coming, but even so she proved again that marvelous memory of hers.
We went to the program and Fred and I were going to dance but it began to rain, so I changed my mind. Fred was disappointed, but it was the best thing to do as we were tired.
Day Seven
Saturday July 17
I slept wonderfully. A nice pack rat built the fire and it all seemed so good, the smell of the smoke, etc. During the morning we walked to Artist Point and saw the canyon more fully in all its glory of shades from white to black, from pale pink to rose, from pale yellow to deep orange, and all the tones of brick red there are beside the greens of the river and the trees. Fred was really enthusiastic. Mother and I had a ride home on the wood wagon but Fred walked. Fred and I went out to take pictures of the Upper Falls. I told him Mother said we might have been married eight months he has such a possessive air with me. (Which I love.)
It was Mac Smith in the dining room. I saw him right after breakfast and later saw him at the store when Fred wanted some Fanta. We also went to the laundry and there was Mrs. Mueller as large as life.
“I know you,” she said.
“Sure you do,” I said.
“I can’t recall your name though—”
“Remember the Deaux Drops at Upper Basin in ‘16?”
“Sure, sure! You’re fatter than you were, that’s why I didn’t know you at first,” etc.
I told her Rae was here and she said she’d have Katie see her when she goes through. Kate was in an accident last year so didn’t come in this year. Mrs. M. agreed to do some laundry for us. [Katie was Mrs. Mueller’s daughter.]
The first unpleasant incident of our trip occurred after lunch. They tried to put us out of our tents because we hadn’t registered before lunch. It was my fault, for I misunderstood the girl at the counter. I had it about straightened out when Fred came up, butted in, tried to make a big fuss about it and embarrassed me dreadfully. I had to beg him to be still and he just boiled. I was angry too, for I hate a scene worse than anything. I found out later that he went back and expressed his mind when I wasn’t there. It was our first difference and I hated it.
The view from Inspiration Point and the rest of the Canyon was beyond words. We stopped at all the places, and then we went to the Canyon Hotel and sat in the lounge there while Fred had Nancy’s lungs tested and her heart stethoscoped. They couldn’t tend to her there, so after we had inspected the hotel awhile, we drove back to camp after having ice cream cones at the store.
Mother began to feel bad and after supper was quite miserable. Fred and I went to the program which was by the Reedy party—we also saw the trick horse and Kally the cowboy guide—then dancing to 10:15. We went part way down Uncle Tom’s Trail and rotten logging out near Upper Falls. Fred was over ardent and I was out of sorts from the noon scene, so we weren’t very happy. He gave me his promise though. Mother was still sick and was cross because I was out, but she hadn’t told me she wanted me.
Day Eight.
Sunday July 18.
Mother was cross and made me cry before we went to breakfast. Fred noticed it and of course wanted to know why I had cried. We went to breakfast but I wouldn’t eat.
Fred took the car over. I visited with Linnie, took pictures, and got my laundry. I saw Ray Askey who was at Geysers. I saw George Boles at the dance and ------ was learning to dance.
I found out the pretty girl at the desk was Allie Bortman of whom the Beaver Falls girls talk so much, so I went and talked to her again and apologized for Fred’s bad temper.
We left Canyon at 10 bound for Dunraven Pass. We got off on the cutoff road and had to go back. The road over the pass was full of scenic interest. We had to refill the radiator twice and Mother felt pretty punk but it was a gorgeous day and the views were perfect. We passed snow fields several places and could look down on great vistas of the filled valley with mountains in the distances. Tower Falls was very pretty, but we couldn’t take long to see it because a thunder storm was coming up.
We left at about 2 o’clock for Mammoth and didn’t stop for the petrified trees. We had a long grade to climb and had to “water“ Nancy frequently. The distant Velios Electric Peak and other mountains and the Canyon of the Gardiner River were particularly interesting. Mammoth Camp is very bare with no trees at all, but it’s close to the springs and the mountain view is fine. They are just completing a plunge and we had a fine swim. The water was too hot, though.
We were all housed in the same tent—K-7—but it was a big four compartment, and we were very comfortable.
Fred and I went to see the campfire and stayed out together for quite a while. He was so contrite because he had gone too far the night before—oh, he’s sweet when he’s that way and I love him, love him, love him.
Day Nine
Monday, July 19
We were up for breakfast early as that was the only way to get it. Fred found one of his burned fingers giving him trouble so made a date with the nurse after breakfast. She opened the blister and found a lot of pus. Lucky that it hadn’t become really infected.
As I was standing in the door of the office I was surprised to have a man come up to me and ask if I wasn’t Miss Boedefeld from Elkhart. I admitted it. He was Harry Bickel and was going through with his wife. He asked me to tell Mrs. Baumgartner I had seen him. I told him Mother would as I wasn’t going home [to Elkhart, Indiana].
We went up to take some pictures of the formation and then it was time to go. Mother and I bought some food at the store while Fred went to the garage. The road leads up a long hill out of Mammoth past the terraces so that we stopped and got some pictures of the Angel Terrace. Then it winds along past Bunsen Peak and thru the Silver Gate into the HooDoos. This weird formation looks like giants had been having a battle with rocks. It is probably an ancient spring formation broken to pieces in the glacial epoch, so the guide book says.
We saw the old Shaw-Powell camp at Willow Park. We made the Norris Basin at about noon, so we stopped and had our lunch there. We built a fire, cooked beans, had bread and butter and also cheese sandwiches and lemonade made with the Apollinaris water, which was certainly good. We also had coffee and pickles. Fred felt somewhat better after being fed. We saw the Constant Geyser from a distance but did not stop to explore very much as a ranger who came up while we were eating said there wasn’t much of real interest to be seen.
Shortly after that we had the one thrill of the day, when a road drag forced us off the road in a narrow place. The car would have overturned had it not been for two trees. Some other cars coming the other way were in the same fix, so with the good comradeship of the road, they helped each other and us, and we all got out.
We passed the Chocolate Spring by the side of the river, and the Beryl Spring, which is the hottest in the Park. It looks it—I didn’t try to find out how hot. The Gibbon Falls looked just like their pictures and were very pretty indeed.
Then it was but a short time until we were passing the deserted buildings and frame work of the Gibbon lunch camp. Oh! memories of days gone by. After that we were on familiar soil [to Bea], but such a difference compared to the roads we once had to travel. Nancy may be a tough looking old girl, but she doesn’t kick up the dust at any rate, and Oh, that Old Park Dust that we had to eat in ‘16.
We didn’t stop at Firehole Cascades. After the Canyon they are very tame, and everybody was anxious to get to the Geysers—for they call the camp that again, Linnie Bartmess said. We saw the formation and a small spouter but didn’t get to see the Fountain itself as I hoped we might. It didn’t seem worth while to go the three miles to Great Fountain with no certainty that it would play either, and streams to cross, so after viewing the paint pots, which were somewhat dried up and not as pretty as in ‘16, we went on. It threatened rain and Fred put up the curtains, but it only sprinkled and Mother soon took them down again.
At Excelsior the old landing stage and steps are gone, so we had farther to walk to see the pool. We were fortunate in that the wind blew the steam off the great pool so that we could see it distinctly and get real thrills in imagining that huge volume of water suddenly lifted and thrown out into the river as the picture in the guide book shows. Fred got very enthusiastic over that. Turquoise pool was not as pretty as it would have been with the sun shining, but still it was lovely. There was too much steam to see Prismatic Lake distinctly, but we could get glimpses of the colors around the edges.
After leaving Excelsior, it was just like repeating ‘16 as we drove on past the post hole and all the rest until there was dear old Biscuit Basin as large as life. We didn’t stop then, as I knew how much more lovely it would be in the sunlight. We drove on past Artemesia, which had just played. I am fated never to see it too. I even saw the rock on its edge which was Ivan’s and my destination one long ago night. It seemed so far away somehow, with Fred there beside me.
Fan and Mortar were both playing as we drove up, but they don’t amount to much of course. Mother and I went to see Morning Glory. Fred didn’t come until I went back and dragged him down. He must have been feeling pretty punk, for he wouldn’t enthuse over anything, and he is generally so enthusiastic. I scolded him, for Morning Glory is one of the sights of Upper Basin. He explained that I said a pool back at Fountain looked like it, so he thought it wasn’t anything new—but while others resemble it, they aren’t Morning Glory.
Made my heart ache to see the old tent frames on the hill—the search light tower all tumbled down, the dance floor and the office and stile just ghosts of their former selves. There were two or three bungalow frames still up there that they hadn’t moved, and there were people camping in the ruins.
We were at camp—not our camp, however, but its distant cousin tho’ they call it Geysers too. We got tents where we could run the car down, rather round about but not bad. Then we changed clothes and went back to the office, and there was Rae large as life and twice as natural in the newsstand. I slipped behind her, leaned over and kissed her and she was so surprised. I introduced her to Mother and Fred. I learned she could be off the next morning and evening and so planned to see her later.
Then we went to supper. After supper the bears—we went to the old dump and sat around listening to cowbells on horses, being eaten by gnats and skeeters—no bears. We learned later they weren’t using the old dump any more.
Day Ten
Tuesday July 20, 1920
After breakfast we decided on a trip to Biscuit Basin with Rae in Nancy. She was willing. She apologized again, but I told her it was my fault which it was. Then the little monkey had to tell Mother what she’d done, and that was embarrassing.
[Editor’s note: they couldn’t have been doing more than kissing since Rae was evidently comfortable enough telling Bea’s mother about the incident. Anything more and the scandal would have caused Mrs. Boedefeld to insist on an immediate marriage despite the ages of her daughter and fiance.]
We saw the dear Sapphire and Jewel pools and I renewed some happy memories to myself. I told them the story about Doc and Nellie, the German and the log [see Aug. 17 in “Diary of a Wylie Savage” for the story]. How I wanted to try it again and find the old cow trail. But there wasn’t time for all that. I found out Fred is not much at walking, a disappointment, as I love it so.
After that, we went back for lunch. And after lunch we rested and then went to the hotel. We saw Old Faithful finally. Fred had missed it every time it played up until this time. We also saw Grand play at a distance, and Lion. We saw Beehive play just as we got back from Keppler’s. I explained geysers to some California dudes. Then we went to the Plunge, but I didn’t enjoy it as I got hurt as I was getting out and Fred had a fit. He must get over these tempers or they’ll cause us trouble. We rested until supper.
After the dance, I was sleeping with Rae, and she and Blossom (her work partner) walked down with us, so there was opportunity only for a simple goodnite with Fred. Then I didn’t get a chance for a gossip with Rae that I wanted, as her tent mates stayed up with company and then talked to Rae so long that I got sleepy. There will be no chance in the morning either, which made it a real disappointment.
Day Eleven
Wednesday July 21, 1920
Fred was in a temper again at breakfast because the waitress wouldn’t bring more eggs and the supply gave out before he got any. He wouldn’t drink his coffee. When I got him outside he said he wasn’t going to eat any more meals at camp. I whispered that the eggs were storages and very old and told him he was very silly, which he acknowledged. I told him we were going to Lone Star for lunch and would have dinner at the Inn as I had planned all along. Then we took a walk and had a little spoon out behind camp, and I got him straightened out. But these games make me wonder.
We had a really lovely day at Lone Star. We spread our blankets under the pines and read or dreamed. We had a fine lunch. We saw the geyser play five times. It plays to a much greater size and length than in ‘16. We got home about 4 o’clock. Rae was having to work.
After dinner at the Inn we started for a walk over the formation. Fred complained bitterly at having to walk but was really interested, especially when we got to Giant and it looked like it might play. I insisted that they wait and see Daisy play. It was longer than I thought, but the same old girl nevertheless. We got back and had ice cream.
Then I found Rae and it was bedtime. I took my things to her tent, got my coat, and came back, and then Fred and I had our first real misunderstanding. I whispered that if he’d come with me, we’d have a goodnight kiss. He thought I meant only one kiss and declared he didn’t want just one and wouldn’t come. I told him I could stay out quite a little while without putting Rae out, but he was stubborn, and I got peevish too and walked off and left him without a word. When he said “You’d better go on to her,” I knew he was jealous. But he had kept wasting the precious time trying to fix a light on the car, and even if I only was offering one kiss, he ought to want that. I came near going back afterward but pride interfered.
It hurt me terribly. First time he’d ever treated me that way and I found out what he means to me, for though I didn’t cry, I couldn’t sleep for hours. Then I had cruel dreams about him and stayed awake the rest of the night.
Day Twelve
Thursday July 22, 1920
By morning I was feeling really abused. Mother guessed something was wrong with us. I could hardly keep from crying at breakfast, and when after breakfast he asked me how I felt, my eyes brimmed over for sure. I went into the tent; he followed and took me in his arms and let me cry on his shoulder. I knew I could make him feel worse that way than by reproaches. Mother came in and asked what the matter was. “I’ve been mean to her,” Fred said. He was tender and gentle and kissed me so I felt better. But I paid for the sleepless night all day and was nearly dead when we reached Cody that night, with nerve pains in my neck and shoulders.
We stopped at Lake for lunch. Fred seemed to think --------- was in the neighborhood. Kept away anyhow.
We had no trouble crossing Sylvan Pass, but shortly after passing Pahaska we had a puncture. I got a nap on the river bank and it was awfully hard to wake up. We stopped at one place and Fred took me in his arms so sweetly for a minute. Finally had to get Mother to change with me and let me lie in the back seat.
We got through Shoshone Canyon without trouble except that Nancy’s high gear was stripped. But going down the last hill, we slid at a rough place and crashed the frame and that broke the radiator connection. That finished Mother’s nerves. We got out. A truck came along and took us and our bags to town. We tried to send garage men out to Fred but I wasn’t sure they’d go. We got the last room at the Irma Hotel. I had just got washed when Fred knocked at the door. He had patched her up and driven in. He got the nite clerk to let him have his room. We have an annex between us. We went to supper and had cream. We agreed that Mother and I better take the train home in the morning. I went with him to get the stuff out of the car.
“Why did you spoil last night?” I said. And when he understood I really wanted to go out with him, he was so contrite. Begged me to forgive him a little, or at least to forget how he’d hurt me if I didn’t forgive him, and he promised over and over that he’d never refuse to listen to me again. He wanted to know why I didn’t come to him and said he knew he’d hurt me and was sorry 15 minutes after I left him. He’d have come to me on his hands and knees if he’d known where to find me, and more dear foolishness like that.
Of course I realize that the peril to our happiness lies right there—that there will be other scenes like that. If I can ever keep from getting proud myself—keep my sense of humor when he’s cross—. But we were both tired and I can’t give in always—I know it.
Day Thirteen
July 23, 1920 Friday
So Mother and I took the train home from Cody to Casper. It was a long, hot trip. We played cards with some school teachers. I got pictures of Wind River Canyon. And we got home safe and sound.
Saturday, July 24, 1920
We spent Saturday resting and getting stuff Ruth wanted. I found heaps of mail waiting for us.
Sunday, July 25, 1920
We woke early and got up and ready, finding we are the only people here [at Bea’s boarding house-hotel]. Just as we were leaving for breakfast I met Fred—unshaven and looking like a tramp—on the steps of the hotel as I came out. He’d gotten to the place that comes out of Casper Saturday night by taking short cuts by Meeteetze and Lost Cabin and then got stuck in the mud near where they are improving the road and had to leave Nancy and come in with someone else. He was going back for the car. We went to Sunday school and church and then stayed in the house and lunched on cookies and lemonade instead of going out to dinner. At 4 o’clock Fred called with stuff and wanted to take us to dinner at the hotel.
Monday, July 26, 1920
Mother went away [on the train back home to Indiana]. We went to a show in the afternoon and in the evening to dinner, then humming out with Nancy to City Road. There was a lovely moon. Home.
[The written story ends here. Fred and Bea married in Casper the week after Christmas. They did not go back to Yellowstone for their honeymoon. They went to Thermopolis instead!]
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