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"And We Came From Illinois
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| "And We Came From Illinois"
O, memories that bless and burn O, joy and mirth and youth still held I've wandered far from my birth place dear And at this time when nature is sear I joined the non-residents of the states In written language, my life to relate. Southwest of Sumner, but near by Where prosperous farmers live content There’s where my first eight years were spent I wandered and happy as a child, O’er hills and dale As free from care as the rushing gale And all nature smiled to see And enjoyed life with others and me. Yes, I was born and lived on a farm, And had no thought of care or harm Until on a bright October day My father called us where he lay And told us "goodbye" we must say For us he must leave before next day. My mother, sister, brother and I with others Came to bid farewell to him Who forgot self in doing for others Deeds, one would do for only brother; Then, with that expression known only To those whom the death Angel hovers nigh We saw him past to that home on high. Friends gathered from far and near And many with a loving touch, memory and tear He was laid to rest in Mount Olive cemetery Near the church where he loved to tarry Little sister, only two Could not understand why this we must do. Soon after, to the west we went Where the remainder of our life must be spent Not because we do not love Illinois But because the west affords us health and joys And now however far we roam The Press seems to keep us at home. From Illinois to Colorado that beautiful western state A year spent here and joy and health was ours Yet one night in early fall The Rockies rose up, white and tall and bid farewell as we crossed the state line to see in Nebraska a familiar sign. As from the car we watched day draw nigh Distant wheat fields seem to meet the sky This and the corn we saw on this date Proclaimed Nebraska an agricultural state Such we found true since living here For failure in such they need not fear. Now three children, 11, 15 and the other 10 plus 8- quite grown Have made some progress, you must own To graduate this year from Kearny High My brother, a sophomore in the same and sister a seventh grader in Normal training school. The present is full of sunshine and work But from the future I must not shirk So a school mam next year I'll be Then the Nebraska Kearney State Normal and University for me If this I do, then I will be Teaching domestic economy. In this educational state Lanake Excelsior my aim And though I've fall to reach the top I'll try and try again And as I try I remember the day when at Mulberry I learned to say A. B. C., etc In my future life I must go forth Thus forth we go, my mother, Brother, sister and I to real life and determination To have a part in bettering the nation. Now you who read this may remember us and if there are any of my long ago schoolmates who remember me I will say there are many of you whom I remember, but do not know as to your whereabouts and hope you will note my address and please let me know you received this message which I have decided is to you, if it not sent privately. Wishing you a Happy New Year and waiting anxiously for your letters and Home-coming, I am Your non-resident cousin, Miss Pearl Haynes, 124-30 Street, Avenue B. ------------- Trenton, North Dakota January 15, 1918 L.M. Wood's and Sons: I will once more make a report to the old home paper, which is greatly appreciated once a week. Wish it would come oftener. The woman and children have taken up quarters in Trenton again, so the kidlets will be close to school. I am on the ranch, feeding the stock. Say, we have a pile of Sundays out here. Every day has been Sunday for a long time. Hauled hay and coal in the fall. All there is to do is feed, burn coal and feed your face. Hoover and Garfield may have you folks by the heel that have to buy your coal, but we have them by the nose. We can dig our coal. Coal is plentiful in the hills. When I left Sumner nine years ago, I thought I'd come back there as soon as I proved up my claim. Nevertheless, I am no closer than when I first moved on my homestead and think a great deal less about coming back. While there are drawbacks here, yet they're are great advantages to offset them. I oftimes think I'd like to go back to the old home for a visit, but not to live. I wish for some of my old friends in the fall when I meet a band of full-blooded Indians. They are great people to visit. There is an Indian reservation east of us and one also west of us. We were favored with a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Willie Whitesides and Mr. and Mrs. John McCausland, former suckers, but now of Patton Hill, Montana. You folks back there I know wonder how us freezerites pass the long winter evenings. I don't mind telling you we sometimes sit and think and sometimes we just sit. That's what I'm doing now. I'm sure I can't think of anything else to write. Will close by wishing all a happy and prosperous new year. I remain,
Earl Irwin P. S.-The Jack rabbit ears will do as a souvenir from North Dakota there are lots of them. Here are pretty plentiful also. ------------- McLeansboro, Illinois January 28, 1918 To the Editor, Friends and Readers of the Press: Another year has come and gone and we are looking forward to the reading of letters from friends and old schoolmates. How we prize them and with eagerness peruse everyone. When I think of the many happy days spent in old Lawrence, I almost wish that I might call back a few years and live them again, but alas! They are in the past, only to be remembered and fondly thought of. Since leaving the dear old home place of our birth, there have been many things happened, some that make the hearts rejoice, while others cause pain and sorrow. Since living in the west the few years we did, I think more of the old home County and while finding many pleasant places and people, also the spot of our childhood days is the dearest. I am the happy mother of four boys-Otis, Hubert, Walter and Paul. All are strong and well, which is so much to be grateful for, and oh! The great anxieties of a mother's heart. We are now serving the McLeansboro Station work of the M. E. Church: have a fine, large brick church and nicely located in the city. We have a fine Epworth League and a pretty good sunday school. I have a sunday school class of the young married ladies, which I enjoy very much, and am always so happy when doing work for the Lord. There is no work that lies quite so close to my heart as God's work, and if I may be able through him, to accomplish anything, the glory belongs to him. We had a nice town, although I have lived places I like much better. I must close, wishing the best to all. My parents are Henry and Caroline Wright, still living on the old home place of my mother. I attended school at old White Oak, which is a very dear spot to me and my memory holds dear the teachers, schoolmates and classmates, as well as the happy times.
Addie Wright Ivie ------------- Judyville, Indiana February 4, 1918
I, with pleasure, remember long and long substantial Wallis Vangilder, the acme of local common sense. Tom Hoopes, the poletic and quiet, who visited me at my Indiana home. The Club Brothers, the sturdy sure, safe and strong; "Ella" Club the practical posted and kind, who writes me the news about once a year. The Lewises N. E. and the active businessman of Sumner for 50 years. My own Judy kin: cousin Charlie Judy, who is yet looking after that B. & O. Southwest Main line and the beyond-if it needs it, so faithful to a trust is he. All the Judys are relatives, good or bad, drunk or sober, no matter where they are. I thus boasted and I had for reply "but the Judy I know is a Negro." He had taken the name of his Judy master in Kentucky during slavery times. I remember a little old "swimming hole," north part of town, in 1865, with a log across it. I was pushed off the wrong side of the log and a man with citizens clothes yet on, saved my life. Many days I do not know whether I was in the "hole" ‘steen times a day or all day, but I learned to swim and have kept my life longer on two occasions because of that "hole" education. Some Sumner girls stole and hid our clothes. It would be news to some, but if I tell you who did it, some old ladies of Sumner my feel a blush of shame at their "wild oats" boldness. Up the cut grade west of Sumner the shortest weed obtained by lying close to the track of the O. & M. told what boy got the game after the downgrade fast lines went. Daredevil practice, needed later on in business with the trains of men and things. I was transplanted from all those childhood things to a country (Warren County, Indiana) of high productiveness, among rich and arrogant people. The boys tried to lord it over me; some bloody noses they had for it, but I gasp in awe of the great cattleman and land owners. I long thought I was inferior. My father and invalid. I the eldest had a big family to look after. A neighbor girl, the first graduate in Warren County, loaned me books. I dug up $21.25, which was my school cost just 60 days. I got the best certificate given in Indiana later. Taught five years country school, worked on a farm in summer. The wealthiest man in the County, who I did not think knew me, asked me to his home. He just pushed and shoved into my hand $1600 and said, "go by cattle with this I will buy of you at a profit, if you buy right." I bought the first cattle of Club Brothers near Sumner, made $500 did not sleep for a week. Success is harder to bear than failure besides it entails so much responsibility. I sold him thousands of cattle in five years of his life. Later, a man worth half 1 million, signed notes to banks in blank, and trust me to use the notes for as much or as little money as I wanted. I used for little only. A banker invited me to over check. I did for 25 years, until by change of law the bank examiners frown. All had more confidence in me then I had. I afterwards twice saveed the bank from having to close its doors. I saved the schoolgirls home farm (the one who loan the books) from Sheriff sale, 120 acres, and she afterwards sold it for $225 per acre, $27,000. The man who signed the notes was pleased with his neighbors use of credit notes, and the wealthy man who loaned money to me made piles of money out of cattle I shipped in and sold to him. He died, his farm was worth one and one and a half millions. The man up likes to help the man down-up. I also know what most help given and becomes such a load, that material prosperity is too big for most people, and to help them only lowers them or nails them down because of the use that is made as a help. That to help is a dangerous game, both to the helper and to helpee, if success is the purpose of help. I have helped a few to fortunes, a lot of people to homes, and plenty money and means to do with. Much of my effort to help has resulted to the bad. But those who succeeded it is evident the credit all belongs to the helpee and not to me, the would be helper. Most things, most propositions are all right if you can get on the right side of it and stay right. Most people get under help and stay under wanting to be helped. The Judys of Sumner and elsewhere in the United States are originally from Switzerland. See Encyclopedia ("Tusda"), but Judy's-not who were our dads but who are we, is the important joke we play on ourselves and on other people. However, heredity is something, and we had something in Switzerland-we might build something here. We did well in Switzerland, we ought to do well here, and we will do well in that other "There." I know we get a weak start in life, we just must grow-the something. "Our ingress into this world is naked and bare Our progress is trouble and care Egress out of it is-we know not where But if we do well here, we will do well there." What is "doing well?" I think doing well means dividing self among three purposes and pushing those purposes all together: the material-(things). People, books, (the intellectual). I am almost 2/3 failure. In this rich country I started poor-and I went to seed almost on dollar chasing the grabbing and neglected high-class cultivation and my fitness for cultivated people and the intellectual acquirements. Yet I did not wholly fail. Perhaps sometimes yet, I may know more. While I have been able to help friends and folks-sometimes, I have made more mistakes than any person I ever knew, because I have tried often and often tried wrong. I have great energy that sprouted about Sumner, took on big growth in translating to rich, Northern Illinois Prairie, whether Prairie extends into Indiana, I live close to the line. I have lots of energy. I meet some men with more brains, some who do not use their big hammer (much brains) as well as I use my little hammer (little brains). But I did not divide right, so what follows is not boasting. A lot of it is only deplorably true, because of what I have missed-like so often I hear people tell what they lost. That we never had. I guess I am here in that, impractical. Like the fellow who said "he loved and lost." Not true-if you loved, he had it. I have the biggest and best farm in Indiana. Railroad from Russellville Illinois to center of it my farm and town-Judyville. No one owns land within one fourth of a mile of my town but me. I sell everything a farmer uses. $500,000 automobiles, two years ago, $400 on time. I never sell, trade or put up a note as collateral. I keep the notes until paid. Had sale days every Wednesday and Friday for 30 years. Keep 100 to 200 horses, make all harnesses and a lot of other things in shops; land nearly three by four miles, worth $200-$300 per acre, tax over $20 per day; two dollars per hour, ouch! Have notes and mortgages more than 12 feet high (six suitcases full). Never take a note. I do not give the payer a chance to pay; one month or 20 years. I have been on every railroad in North America except in Alaska-to be my next trip, and never have been away 30 days. My diversion is thinking and traveling. I write some for fun. Will send printed matter to anyone who wants it free for asking. This is not an advertisement. I can write an ad in 10 minutes, without further personal attention, that will bring 8000 people to my office door wanting to see me. Only wrote one in 1917. I do not want business; I have it, yes, too much. I want to go on living, working, loving and learning. I have decided to work myself to death as the slowest way to quit the mortal act. Yet working and more in love with life than ever before, for here and for-the beyond.
------------- Gentry, Arkansas January 16, 1918 Editor Press: It is with great pleasure that I once more respond to my countries call for a letter to the Pink Press. If you should see northwest Arkansas just now, you would surely think we were having Illinois weather here. We have a 15 inch snow on the level, the deepest snow that has fallen since my first winter here some 35 years ago. We are living on a fruit farm at the foot of the Ozark Mountains. We have six children, four girls and two boys. One girl, Mrs. Etta Deatherage lives in Wellston Oklahoma; Mrs. Nora Perkins, in Decatur Arkansas, four miles north of us. Our oldest boy, Thomas Henry, has been with the colors since August 12, 1917. He is now in Camp Beauregard Louisiana. Battery the, 142nd Field artillery, preparatory to going to France one a few hours notice. We have two girls and one boy at home with mother and I. I was born and raised on the old Levi Lathrop farm, Lawrence County, Sumner Illinois. I have one brother (George Lathrop), living in Sumner. He has furnished me the Press for some years. It would be useless to say how very glad I am to get it each week. I am hoping this letter will escape the wastebasket, so my Illinois friends may know I am still alive. Yours very truly, Francis Marion Lathrop. ------------- Eldorado, Kansas February 4, 1918
I am the daughter at J. J. and E. E. Wagoner, and now reside at Eldorado, Kansas. I responded to the call last year, so will write only of our (unreadable) during the last year. The best thing of all the Lord has been so kind as to let our family circle remain unbroken and blessed our home with health and joy, but we never shall forget our friends, relatives and pleasures we enjoyed in the home community and church work. My husband is employed by the Tidal Oil Company at a salary of $110 per month and house and fuel furnished. This company donated a new school building to this district in which we organized a Sunday School last Sunday afternoon, called the Tidal Sunday School. It is certainly a grand opportunity for us to study Christ's word in one body. There is a large cement cave to be put in here for the company's employees at once, which is an accommodation in Kansas, with some of its high winds. Our little daughter, 18 months old, is learning to talk fast, so without much doubting she can before long sing "Kansas Land," as she has spent her last 16 months Kansas with us. Our first interest is our hope in Christ, second to have a happy home, third the Red Cross work and I sincerely hope all our relatives and old friends belong to the Red Cross. Back in the boys in the trenches by every means of support, as we can then do little to what these boys are doing for their country, which is our home, and theirs, to protect. Wishing all prosperity I will close,
Mrs. B. M Longenecker ------------- Olney, Illinois January 14, 1918
I was born in Lawrence County, Christy Township, March 9, 1855, 2 1/2 mile south of Sumner. Lived on the same farm till the fall of 1883, then moved to Olney, worked at whatever I could get to do till the spring of 1886, then entered the service of the O. & M. Railroad (now the B. & O.) and am still with them. Have worked long enough to get an annual pass over all lines. I am serving my fifth term as coroner of my County and as I look over my old school days I see only two of my teachers left-T.M. Stevens, of Sumner, and James Eaton, of Bridgeport. Great changes have come to pass in the short years from the old blue dye pot on the hearth and the spinning wheel in the corner in the old loom in the shed has come the automobile and the flying machine and the good Lord knows what next. Joseph A. Miller ------------- Bloomington, Illinois February 4, 1918 L.M. Wood: I understand you are preparing for a special edition of the Sumner Press for February 14. As a former citizen of Lawrence County, I would like to take the opportunity of speaking to some of my boyhood friends and acquaintances. My father's people have always lived in Lukin Township, Lawrence County. I lived there until I was 10 years of age. The Hopewell Methodist Church was where I attended Sunday school and other religious services. There was a time when almost the entire Township of Lukin was related, either by ties of flesh or marriage. I presume many changes have come in recent years and yet from reports that reach me from relatives, many of the old families are still represented by their children and grandchildren. The tendency for me in this letter is to make it long. I can think of so many things of interest to me that I might tell you about, then I am reminded that it would be of interest to very few of your readers and so I must abstain from this pleasure. My father used to run a huckster18 for Marion May’s store in Sumner. I have accompanied him on many occasions as he brought his produce and took back a load of goods. On one occasion my father told Mr. May to let me eat all the sugar I wanted and he would pay the bill. I ate until it began to taste sour and then I quit. I don't know how large the bill was, but if it was in proportion to the amount I a, it knocked a large hole in father’s purse. I don't think I have never had as much fun in my whole life as I used to have riding across the country on the huckster wagon. In the busiest days of my life I long for the scenes of those days. There is another matter that I think I ought to mention. I suppose Lukin Township still votes the Democratic ticket. I used to be almost unanimous and not very "still" either. As a boy I can remember how Lawrence County would always be in anxious expectation awaiting the returns from "Lukin." If any of your readers feel that I have unwisely injected politics into this letter I know you will pardon one who hails from Lukin. The best wishes for all the good people of Lawrence County and with warm personal regards for you and your family, I am,
State Secretary, Illinois Christian Missionary Society ------------- Liberty Center, Indiana January 12, 1918
The circuit here is composed of two churches. One is located here in Liberty Center, Liberty Center a town of about 500 inhabitants, is located on the main line of the Cloverleaf Railroad from Toledo to St. Louis. Our other church is located three miles out in the country and with direct interurban connection with our town. The Parsonage is located in Liberty Center area it is a nine roomed house, equipped with all modern conveniences. Our people did not forget us at Christmas time. They presented as a beautiful fur auto robe, besides a donation of provisions which accounted to about $40. In addition to this, our hearts were made glad by so many of our friends at Chauncey remembering us with a Christmas and New Year postcard shower. It seemed good to be remembered by so many people back home. Directory: ~illchgs -> letters -> old files old files -> From Former Sons and Daughters of old files -> L. M. Wood and Sons: In response to the general invitation extended to former residents of Lawrence County, I proceed to write briefly, if possible concerning the few "wanderers," in this section Download 1.59 Mb. Share with your friends:
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