From Former Sons and Daughters of

January 15, 1916

Editor Press:

It has been more than 45 years since I left old Lawrence County. My father moved to Bridgeport in 1858. However he had lived in Lawrence County 20 years before, near where old Mt. Zion now stands. In that neighborhood he married my mother Jane Turner. He taught one term of school at a place called Spring Hill, not far from where old Shiloh now stands. He taught school through the week and preached and reasoned with the people, who assembled at the school house, on Sundays. He moved out of that neighborhood, but for several years he visited and preached at that point occasionally.

Then he went to another state for a number of years and returned on a visit in 1858 and held a very successful meeting in an old schoolhouse there were Mt. Zion now stands and also at the White House. Those two churches then prevailed on him to come back to old Lawrence County. With the aid of good citizens of the community they built a home in Bridgeport, where he lived for about 10 years.

The Christian church at Bridgeport was first started under his care. For some time, however, the organization at the White House included the Bridgeport folks, and they held their meetings alternately at the White House and at Bridgeport in an upper room over a business house. But as soon as the meeting house was erected they met there. I remember my father held a meeting in the house before there was any floor in the building. The piles of lumber lying on the ground served the congregation for seats. This was just before the Civil War, when people were crazy on politics. Even church members were not always sane.

In 1869 I purchased some land on Oblong Prairie in Crawford County, and in 1871 I married Mary Fyffe, whose parents, Wilson and Lucy Fyffe lived on the state road near the White House.

In my letter last year your printer made me say I was married in 1877, probably mistaking one of my ones for a seven. Also you made me say that we had here now 100 acres of land when I wrote 160. But the worst wreck of your devil played on me was leaving out the words ”son o", in describing that boyish trip to the Lawrenceville depot, I said I asked William Lanterman, son of the proprietor to go with me, (a boy about my own age) but the printer makes me say that I made that trip with a dignified proprietor of the town. Now I know this must have dealt a staggering blow to my reputation for truth and veracity with my old friends, whom I remember something of those times. So now I demand satisfaction or you must suffer the consequences. I am peaceable.

S. W. Baird

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Danville, Indiana

January 26, 1916

The Sumner Press:

While I never made my home and Lawrence County, we always call Sumner our home town. I was born and raised in Crawford County, Southwest Township, and Landes having been our post office.

I left there in the spring of 1906 and came to Hendricks County, Indiana and located in Danville, the County seat which is 20 miles west of Indianapolis, and engaged in the medicine business.

Silas was born September 30, 1841 Andrew and Jane (nee Turner) Baird. On February 27, 1872 he married Mary Adaline Fyffe (b. Feb. 1853) daughter of John and Lucy (nee Lathrop) Fyffe, in Lawrence county. The following children were listed n the census files: children: Eliza A. (b. abt. 1872); Andrew W. (b. abt. 1874); Calvin L. (b. abt. 1876); Charles (b. Oct. 1880); Ira (b. Jan. 1885); Kate (b. Apr. 1887); Henry (b. May 1890: Everette (b. Dec. 1896); . Mary passed away December 1, 1932 and Silas on October 23, 1934.

Mr. Baird’s 1915 letter wan not readable due to the condition of the newspaper however In 1917 he wrote: ” It is a pleasure and delight to read in the Pink Press letters from old friends, neighbors and relatives, who like ourselves have wandered away from the scenes of our childhood. Few of the writers will realize the satisfaction they give their old friends by telling the simple story of their present conditions and future prospects and of their children who have made this world brighter”

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Charles Baker was the son of John Northrop and Alice (nee Wurtzbaugh) Baker. Born December 17, 1879 and passed away on September 29, 1962. He was married to Shirley Rodrick May 2, 1908 and Shirley died on May 30, 1967. Charles is the grand son of Mahalia Wurtzbaugh who wrote the Pink Press in 1915.

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Charles N. Barekman was Born in Lawrence County on January 11, 1875. He was united in Marriage to Ella Fitch Broughton. Ella was born February 19, 1886. To this union the following children were born: John W. (b. abt. 1908); Inez (b. abt. 1909). Ella died November 15, 1970 and Charles died June 12, 1974.They were laid to rest in the Acacia Memorial Park, Modesto, Stanislaus County, California.

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Yours truly,

Charles E. Baker

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Flagstaff, Arizona

January 28, 1916

Greetings to all my friends in Lawrence County:

I was born in Lukin Township 41 years ago. My father Isaac N. Barekman, died when I was four years old. Three years later my mother died, leaving my sister, Ella, my brother Isaac, and myself, neither of whom were old enough to shift for ourselves.

Fortune favored me. I fell into the hands of the best man in Lawrence County, J. A. Barekman. He and his good wife reared me as their own and the kind treatment they extended me and the sacrifices they made for me shall never be forgotten.

After completing the eight years work at White Oak, attended the Sumner public schools, the Union Christian College at Merom Indiana and the Southern State Normal at Carbondale Illinois.

After teaching four years in Lawrence County, I was seized with a roving disposition, which is never forsaken me.

Leaving Sumner in the early spring of 1868, I travel my way of St. Paul, Minnesota, Victoria, British Columbia and Seattle, Washington, to San Francisco, California. There I enlisted for five years in the US Marine Corps in sailed for the Philippine Islands. I spent a very pleasant week in Honolulu, Hawaii while the ship was undergoing repairs.

After three years of active service against Filipinos, I return to Boston, Massachusetts, stopping en route to Nagasaki, Japan, San Francisco, Washington D. C. and New York City.

After seven months service as guard at the U.S. Naval Prison at Charleston, Massachusetts and a few months service at Washington D.C. I was honorably discharged from the US military service and entered the railway service.

Visited the exposition at St. Louis secured a job as motorman and held it seven months, when I resigned to accept the position with the East St. Louis Suburban Company. After six years of service with that company during which time I made a couple of trips to Colorado and one to the exposition in Seattle. I resigned to take my wife west for her health.

My wife was formerly Miss Ella Broughton of O'Fallon, Illinois. It was in 1911 that we immigrated to Mexico. After spending one year at Los Lunas, New Mexico, where we lost all we had in an irrigation venture we came to Flagstaff, Arizona, and entered 160 acres of government land.

In the spring of 1914, we went back to Illinois and took up our residence at Granite City, where I was employed as conductor for the Illinois Traction System.

We have two children, Inez who is seven years old in the second grade and John Willis eight years old who is in the fourth grade. Flagstaff is a thriving up to date little city, among the scenic pines and snow-clad mountains, and ideal climate for lung diseases and the center of many interesting scenic and prehistoric places, including San Francisco Peaks, the amount of perpetual snow; Sunset Mountains and Lava beds; the painted Desert; Bottomless pit; Ancient cave dwellings and Cliff dwellings; and petrified forests etc.

It is also the county seat of Coconico County, the seat of the northern Arizona State Normal School and the great trading post of the Navajo Indians.

There are thousands of acres of government prairie land within a radius of 20 miles of Flagstaff yet open for homesteading. This land is surrounded by National Forest, fuel and fencing are free and plentiful.

While we have not accumulated much of this world goods owing to our roving dispossession and severe sickness which has overtaken us in the past that we are now healthy and happy, free and content, and permanently settled until the spirit moves us again.

Most respectfully,

Charles N. Barekman

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Sedalia, Missouri

January 17, 1916

Well Mr. Wood, as I told you, I will try to send you a few lines for the Pink Press.

I enjoyed the other so much I am yet on praying ground and pleading terms. I am 85 years old in September, and nearly lost the use of my right arm and can't write in ink at all. Hardly readable with pencil.

I hope my friends haven't forgotten me.

Philo Bell was born near Sumner in 1830, where there were no schools, no town, no churches so I did not get much education. Well I lived in and around Sumner till 1904. Mr. Bell died and I went to West Salem Illinois to live with a daughter, Mrs. Draper. Lived there three years and she died, then I went to Sedalia Missouri, to live with my youngest one , Mrs. Dr. Staats and have made my home here ever since.

I have reasonable health for one of my age, have practically lost the use of my right arm, can't write or do much else. I don't enjoy this cold weather very well.

I go to Sunday school and Church most every Sunday, just across the street and am so thankful I can. If you make this readable all’s well, if not put it in the waste paper basket. I wish you, Mr. Editor, success in your business, and wish all my friends health and happiness in this New Year.

Mrs. Philo Bell

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Andrew Jackson Berlin was born in Lawrence county to Andrew and Hannah (nee Landis) Berlin in 1867. He was united in marriage on January 16, 1890 to Mary F. “Minnie” French, daughter of David and Emma (nee Stevens) French. Mary was born in January 1871. The four children referred to in the letter are: Nora F. (b. Apr. 1891); Ruth H. (b. Apr. 1896); Marie (b. abt. 1902); Vernon (b. abt. 1906), a son Everett A. (b. Feb. 1899) is listed in the 1900 census and presumably may have died. In 1920 he worked in a brick factory. A. J. Berlin died in 1954 and is buried in Rockfield Cemetery, Veedersburg, Fountain County, Indiana

Ozark Jack

Friend to the Indians

January 15, 1916

Editor Press:

It is with much pleasure I have the privilege of writing to the good old Sumner Press and my dear old schoolmates and friends of good old Richland and Lawrence counties. My home place was about six miles southwest of Sumner, about two miles east and a quarter miles south of the Mt. Olive Church and three quarters of a mile east and north of Mulberry school house, the only school I ever went to in my life, and there remain some of the dearest friends that I could hope to meet any place.

In the spring of 1884 my father sold the old home place to George Haynes. Now I think his son Bud owns the place. At this old home we used to have some of the grandest times each autumn. My father ran a cane mill and it was a busy time for us boys and most every week during the sorghum making the young people of our good neighborhood would gather in and have a taffy pulling and play party and we played the usual old games such as weavely wheat and skip to my lou and wading the cedar swamps and so forth.

When my father sold his farm in the spring of 1884 he left dear old Richland and moved to Ford County, Illinois. I being about 17 years old and rather a husky lad, my father picked on me to take a team through to Ford County, a distance of about 200 miles. It was in the month of February. I remember too well the day I started, the snow was falling thick and fast and I had a team of horses and a team of small wild mules, and the last ones I told goodbye was my good old aunt, Mrs. Mitchell Berlin, who lived quarter of a mile of our old home place, after bidding her and the children and cousins goodbye. I put spur on the horses and started on my journey. The weather turned out fearful cold and the snow was deep. My trip was anything but pleasant. The rest of the folks came by railroad.

We farmed in old Ford County for two years, my brother David, being general manager of the farm, and we did real well during the two years. The winter of 1885 we had an awful cold winter. One cold winter day my brother David and myself each took a load of corn and started to market with it at Melvin and after we sold the grain it was late in the afternoon and the thermometer was registering 20 degrees below zero. On our way home we had a stretch of raw Prairie to cross which covered with sloughs, ranging from one foot to six feet in the depth and as they were frozen over and covered with snow it was hard to determine where they were. Night had come on and we were making our way home when I was driving ahead with a great surprise I heard an awful crash and down went my team and the front wheels of the wagon and we soon discovered I had driven on a slough about four feet in depth and my good brother and I jumped down into the water unhitched the team and took the neck yoke and double trees and broke the ice until he made a road to the edge of the slough where the horses could plunge out. We then pried the front part of the wagon out and had about two miles to the nearest house. We were all but frozen to death when we reached fire.

My father sold his farming machinery and stock and went to Bellflower, Illinois and bought a nice little home in town. This was the last earthly home he ever owned and he and my good mother both passed away there and they rest in sleep in the cemetery about one mile north of Bellflower, Illinois, in McLean County. My parents were good Christian people and belong to the M.E. Church up to their death; my mother's maiden name was Hannah Landis. Was closely related to the Landis in and about Sumner and the Brians.

Now I will give you a little more of my biography. After my father and mother passed away as children we were left to shift for ourselves and in the summer of 1887 I hired to Adam Forepough’s Big circus. It was a largest American circus at that time there I had the pleasure of meeting old Sitting Bull, the notorious Indian chief and we put on a wild west performance with each show and played the Custer massacre. I stayed with the circus till the snow began to fall and then they went back to Philadelphia to their winter headquarters and I stopped off in the west.

Being fond of gun and saddle I worked for a few ranchers and then dropped back to the Ozark Mountains where I was an out and out hunter for a long time. While hunting here in the mountains I always got my part of the game. When I was only a lad down in the dear old Richland I used to go coon and possum hunting with the older hunters and we would meet in the evening to make our plans and they said that we would go in cahoots and that they knew the best market for furs and they would sell them and give me my part of the money. I don't know if they have found the market yet up to this date I received nothing but the cahoots. A few years ago I was in the vicinity of Sumner and was talking to one of my cousins and she laughed and asked me if I remember the time I ate my mother’s sugar, and I told her I had forgotten it. I didn't want to get her to get the joke on me I say I hadn’t forgotten it for my mother took me out in the back room and use the elastic part of her slipper on me.

I wish to say to my old chums that I never go back on my friends so I won't say anything about us playing wild animals and chicken roosts and so forth. No I won't mention it.

Well we have grown up to be men now. I am living in Veedersburg, Indiana. I have four children three girls and one boy, who is the baby and he is ten years old. My children are getting along good in their schooling and music. I employed with the New York Central Railroad as bridge carpenter. I work between Peoria Illinois and Indianapolis Indiana at home every Sunday.

No one loves their old schoolmates better than I, and dear friends, my wishes are tonight, that we may all so live that when we are called to the great beyond we can honestly and earnestly say: Over the river, the peaceful river, the Angels of death shall carry me to that land far away mid the stars, we are told where we know not the sorrows of time.

A. J. Berlin

A. J. “Ozark Jack” Berlin

Adam Forepough’s owned and operated a circus from 1865 through 1890. He was the first to incorporate a "Wild West Show" into his circus. In search of new talent, he sponsored a $10,000 beauty contest in 1881, looking for the "most beautiful woman in America". Many believe this was the first "beauty pageant" in America.

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Essie Vanatter was born on February 27, 1891 in Lawrence County to Royal Fremont and Sarah (nee Piper) Vanatter. Essie was united in marriage to William Bodine on August 18, 1909 in Knox County, Indiana. William was born June 8, 1892. To this union the following daughters were recorded in the census records: Mildred (b. abt. 1912); Billie (b. abt. 1918). William died in July 1985 in Yakima, Washington. Essie died in March 31, 1965 in Oklahoma. She was laid to rest in the Magnolia Cemetery, Bristow Creek County, Oklahoma.

Carrie (Vanatter) Gregory

Essie’s sister mentioned in letter

Sarah (Piper) Vanatter

Essie’s Mother

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January 21, 1916

Mr. Editor:

As I am a former resident of Lawrence County, I will endeavor to write a few lines for the Pink Press.

It is just two years since we left Sumner for the Oklahoma oilfields, and during that time have lived in the vicinity of Olive, Drumright and Oilton, all new towns built in the last few years. My present address is Oilton, Oklahoma, Box 918. Oilton is quite a large town, but has no completed church or school house, and let me say right here, if you never lived where there are no churches, you don't know how much they are missed. Our little daughter, Mildred, will soon be five years old and we hope to be near some good school by the time she is old enough to attend.

My husband has steady work, drilling for J. H. Markham, Jr. since coming here. We are all well and happy and getting along fine.

My youngest brother, Russell, came out in November and learned tool dressing. He is now working with my husband Will. He seems perfectly satisfied and thinks six dollars per day is pretty good wages for a boy.

We have only one neighbor, and as there is no place to go, or not much to do, my neighbor and I visit and crochet, while the men work.

My sister, Carrie lives about 2 1/2 miles from us, so we visit quite often, it's only down one hill and up another, but they are sure long ones.

We had sleet, snow and ice the same day you folks in Sumner did, but now it's just like spring.

I like it here very much better than at first, but believe me; I still have a warm spot in my heart for dear old Illinois, and would be glad to hear from any of my old friends.

If the editor had let me write about the country and oilfields, my letter would have been more interesting.

I will close with the best wishes to all.

Mrs. Essie (Vanatter) Bodine

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January 25, 1916

Once more we are called on to report to old home paper, the Sumner Press.

I was born in Lawrence County Christy Township, September 26, 1843, when wolves and deer were plentiful. In those days neighbors were few and far between. Father’s closest neighbor was James French, two miles east, William Leathers two miles west. But soon people commenced moving in and then there was a schoolhouse built on fathers land. There I graduated. My first teacher was Marion (now Shick), and I believe she is still living.

A great many great men graduated from that little log schoolhouse. Just a few names refresh our memory: Jesse P. Jones, Doctor Z. B. French of Lawrenceville, Sanford Kocker, Lipton Johnson, Riley Turner, Polk French, Hyat and Eli Bunn, Marion Combs, Fred Moore, Thomas Jones and many others. We had one room and one teacher, and he did all the whipping and heard all the classes reside and our daily average was about 55-75 enrolled. Now if anyone doubts what I say just ask Eli Bunn if he remembers the evening when he was shot out of the persimmon tree.

Those were great days. I love to go back in my mind and converse with all that I was once acquainted with but now we see them as old, gray headed men and women, and many have left us and gone onto their happy reward.

Just last week, when I opened the Sumner Press I saw the name of Peter W. Shick, an old-school master and neighbor who had answered the summons that we all will have to obey sooner or later.

Well I remained on fathers farm until I was 19 years old, then I enlisted in Company B, 98th Regiment August 1862. Served three years in the Army of the Cumberland, and most of the time in the 14th Army Corps, commanded by General Thomas. I had good health all three years that I was in the Army, I was in 21 battles, taken prisoner once, but made my escape. After I came home I worked for father and then went to school at Olney Illinois 11 weeks, then came home and went to grubbing out the young trees and making rails. Helped to run a saw mill two winters, then married John Milligan's oldest daughter, the best woman on earth. Moved on the place known as the Caleb Hoopes farm. Improved it and then went into the milling business, and that put me out of business and now I am living in San Jose and working on a salary.

May God bless all of my old friends, and neighbors and enemies, if I had any, is the wish and prayer of one who loves to know and greet all.

Fred Brian

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3730 Westminster Place

St. Louis, Missouri

January 20, 1916

Dear Mr. Editor:

My sister Anna and I are hardly non-residents, as St. Louis seems so close to Sumner, but as we often come home and do not get to see our friends, I will take this chance of telling them we are busy and happy. Anna is delighted with her work as a registered nurse. Besides affording her a means of livelihood, she has many interesting and amusing as well as pathetic experiences. After all, human nature is about the most interesting thing in the world.

Fred wrote a Letter in 1915:

Jan Jose, Illinois

January 12, 1915

Editor Press:

I am a son of Lawrence County and have read the Press from its first issue and am still reading it. I don't like your politics, but as you don't say much we will let it pass for this time. I was born in Lawrence County Christy Township, in 1843. Lived on a farm four miles southwest of Sumner. When I was 18 I enlisted on the fourth day of August 1862, in company B, 98th Regiment Illinois volunteers and arrived at home July 7, 1865. I was in 21 battles, taken prisoner and made my escape. Was never wounded nor sick while in the Army. Chickamauga, Georgia was our hardest fight. My first schooling was in a log schoolhouse on my fathers farm taught Marion Shick (Marion Jones) and she is still living. All the rest of my teachers are dead.

I am now living in San Jose, Mason County, Illinois manager of a general store.

Fred Brian

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(Edna Carlisle)

Edna Dean Carlisle was born in Lawrence County in October of 1876 to John N. and Alice (nee Goodman) Carlisle. She worked as a stenographer in St. Louis until she retired in 1950 and returned to Sumner where she lived until her death on March 21, 1958. Edna is buried in the Chauncey Cemetery next to her parents. She was a member of the Presbyterian Church in St. Louis. At the time of her death she was survived by two sisters Susanna Roberts and Alice Seibert both of Sumner.