This is a FREE page on the Grundy County ILGenWeb site (http://grundycountyil.org/).
If you arrived here via a pay site, please click here to visit Grundy County ILGenWeb

"Let the record be made of the men and things of to-day, lest they pass out of memory to-morrow and are lost. Then perpetuate them not upon wood or stone that crumble to dust, but upon paper, chronicled in picture and in words that endure forever." --Kirkland

MEMOIRS OF LAURA COOPER GONNAM
Written by Laura Cooper Gonnam 1957-1964

Transcribed by Kerry L. Gonnam 1994

Part 1 -- Part 2 -- Part 3

PREFACE

Between the years of 1957 and 1964 my Grandmother Laura Cooper Gonnam set down in writing the memoirs of her life as she remembered them. These memoirs contain facts of our family's history that would likely be forgotten had she not recorded them. They also contain glimpses of a life that now, at the end of the Twentieth Century, we find fascinating, but foreign to our lives. I wanted to transcribe these words to the printed page so that the descendants of Laura Gonnam might share with their family what I've been able to share with mine.

While in the process of typing these pages I noticed something interesting. Grandma Gonnam continually points out how much things have changed since the time of her youth, the late 19'th century and the early 20'th century, and the time she wrote these passages, the early 1960's. Only 30 years have transpired between then and now, (Jan. 1994) and if she thought things had changed in the first 2/3 of this century; it's a good thing she wasn't around for the last 1/3. Some of the problems she pointed out in 1963 such as the break-up of the family lifestyle have become headlines in today's world. And if she thought radio was a bad influence on people, I wonder what she would think about television, modern movies, and videos.

Grandma Gonnam was a very opinionated lady and I think used these memoirs as an opportunity to express feelings she maybe hadn't had an opportunity to before. She was very proud of both the Cooper family and particularly her husband and his accomplishments. Her feelings toward the church and the place of the church in her life are also pretty evident. While some things are repetitive, all in all I feel this manuscript gives a substantially accurate picture of life during that time and how it shaped Grandma Gonnam's life.

While assembling this manuscript I became more actively involved in the family history than I have been recently. When I contacted members of my Father's family for birthdates, etc; I was pleasantly surprised to receive from my Aunt Jean Wooden a copy of a Cooper family history she had written with the help of Laura in 1941. Following a lead from that history I sent a letter to DePauw University in Indiana and was rewarded with the following: Official life histories of Samuel C. Cooper and his son Samuel T. Cooper and their activities in the Methodist Church of Indiana; another Cooper Family History written by another descendant of Samuel C.; and a copy of the journal of Samuel C. Cooper during his travels as a circuit rider for the Methodist Church. Through these I have conclusively traced the Cooper family to Baltimore, Md. at the beginning of the 19'th century and believe to an indentured servant landing there from England in 1775. As time and circumstance permit I will continue to follow up on this and other branches of the family. I have included copies of these documents at the end of these memoirs so all can share in the history of this pioneer family that we are descended from.

I hope these memoirs and other material serve you, the descendants of Laura Cooper Gonnam, well.

INTRODUCTION

The way of living and farming in the 1880's was so different than 1961 that our young people will hardly believe that people lived as they did.

My Grandfather bought the home farm in 1856 and my husband and I bought it in 1919, on Feb.18, the day our youngest son was born, William Jesse Gonnam. My Grandfather's name was William Cooper. My Father was Alfred Bruce Cooper. My Mother was Mary Funk and was related to the Funks that raise seed corn in McLean Cty. now in 1960. Her Father's name was James Funk and her Mother's maiden name was Sarah Ross. My Mother was born in 1856 and died in June 1934.

BOOK I

I REMEMBER......

When I was 4 years old I remember one day being left with my Aunt Lida Funk(Marsh) and I must have been sick as we stayed in the parlor and I had a bed on a couch. My Father, Mother, and Grandfather Cooper had all gone away, and I later learned it was to my little brother William's funeral. He had died with membranious croup. When they came home later that day my mother seemed to cry a lot and it made me feel bad to hear her cry. We were living in the large house with my Grandfather and across the road to the east of it was a small 4 room house where I was born on June 28, 1882. That small house was occupied now by a widow woman, Mrs. Sarah Millet and her 2 sons, Sherman and Irvin. The older boy was large enough to help with the field work and the younger one spent much of his time in the timber joining our farm and the Jonathan Wilson farm on the south, and the timbers that run to the Illinois River 5 or 6 miles north of where we lived and extending 20 miles west and east both ways along the river. At one place along the river we were only 4 miles from the river. Mrs. Millet helped my mother with her house work as my Aunt was a school teacher, but our house was her week-end home.

My brother William's funeral was held at the Zion Methodist Church 3 1/2 miles east of our home and he was buried in the Bishop or Anderson Cemetery 5 miles southeast of our home. He was only 8 months old and was buried beside my older brother Stephen who died when only 4 days old.

The next early summer I remember a bad storm. Grandfather slept in the large south room upstairs and my folks downstairs in an east bedroom off the large dining room. I had been asleep in the bedroom in my small bed and Mother had been baking bread & cookies in the kitchen and Father was churning with the big barrel churn near her. Was about 3 PM when a terrible clap of thunder and a sharp report like a gunshot that rattled all the windows and woke me up screaming, bringing G'father rushing downstairs and meeting Father rushing up to see what each one was trying to do--making such a terrible noise. Realizing the house must have been struck with lightning they ran out to look around and discovered the large lightning rod on the main part of the house almost bent double and blackened and the air smelling of sulphur and 3 calves dead out in the orchard just west of the house yard and a large pear tree on the north side of the house split right down the middle of the tree. Mother took her large pan of cookies out of the oven and gathered me up in her arms and ran out to see what had happened that the men were so excited about. It was not raining just then but a short time later, rain came down in sheets and torrents. Of course it had been raining some earlier or the men folks would not have been in the house.

Two years before this all happened my Father's youngest sister Frances and her husband William Granby( a younger brother of Theador Granby who married her older sister Mary and lived 2 1/2 miles southeast of our home) with their two children; Ray, 4 years old and Ruby, 2yrs old and an Aunt of Father's and sister-in-law of Grandfather's, Mrs. Mary McMellen had lived in the large house and us in the smaller one that replaced the log cabin that had stood southwest of the small house and was the first home of the family when they came to Illinois from Indiana and Ohio.[ Aunt Frances and Ray and Ruby all died in one week of scarlet fever and were buried at one time in the Anderson Cemetery where my 2 small brothers were buried.] At that time Indians roamed the country and often stopped to get something to eat, many times giving wild game and quail or prairie chickens to Grandfather for cured pork and bread; even bringing him fresh killed deer and asking for pork in exchange. The woods around were the Indian's' real hunting grounds, the women gathering wild berries and roots of various kinds for food and medicine. Deer often came to feed with the cattle and their numbers often reduced a haystack to mouthfuls in one night's raid. Grandfather put his hay close to the house so the family dog could keep the deer away at night.

My Aunt Frances was about 5 years old when Grandmother Cooper died and it was then Aunt Mary McMellen came to keep house for Grandfather Cooper. She was a widow with 2 grown daughters. I do not remember anything about the older girl, but Ellen, the younger, later married William Rolley who was Justice of the Peace and a lawyer in Morris for years. They had two children; Eutice( who was living in Chicago in 1955) and Edna who married Ed Ruteuber, a photographer in Morris and now lives in Waukeshau, Wis. with her daughter Garnet Tolbert. Edna is a cripple but gets about very well with a cane having broken her hips several years ago, was 77 years old in 1955. They often visited our home and we girls grew very fond of each other. One of our favorite play houses was under a large apple tree in the big orchard. My Grandfather believed in raising everything he could to help feed his family so had planted about 50 apple trees of different kinds as well as other fruit trees and berries. In those days no farm was complete without a huge garden and many long rows of potatoes( both white and sweet) and grapes, both colors of currants ( red & black and sometimes white), gooseberries, blackberries, red and black raspberries, long rows of rhubarb, beds of asparagus and herbs of all kinds...sage, dill, thyme, and mint; many of these used for medicine as doctors were many miles away. I feel today that many of the old simple remedies are far superior to lots of the drugs used now. Long rows of sweetcorn which they dried as well as popcorn for those long winter nights in-doors. Another thing the Indians liked to trade the settlers was maple syrup and sugar and Grandfather learned to make his own later on. At one time Indians were camped in the timber just west of the house and Shabbona's boys used to come and play with my Father and my Uncle Owen. One time Grandfather had made his boys some stilts and all the boys had fun with learning to walk. The next day the Indian boys came with some nice fish for dinner and asked that he make them some stilts, so he did. He was always ready to help his boys make different things and taught them to share their homemade toys with the Indian boys. Both Father and Uncle were very handy with bow and arrows and learned to ride the Indian ponies bare-back with the one rein, Indian fashion. Grandfather often said when they were some distance from the house it was hard to tell which boys were his. After my father got old enough to work on the farm he and my uncle did much of the work and Grandfather could take things a little easier--as he was not well. Uncle married Miss Selina Tuck and for a few years they lived on the farm once owned by Lester Sutton; they later moved to Hansen, Nebraska where they lived till they died and are buried near Hansen. They never had any family and Aunt Lina was very active in the W.C.T.U. and both in church work. Uncle gave the land for a large grain elevator and a spur of the Northwestern RR that runs thru Hansen, also the ground for the church and many of the other buildings there.

Father was first married to Grace Reniff but she died when her baby boy was born dead. Then, after several years he met my mother, Mary Funk, from Wing, Ill. and married her. There were 5 of us children: Stephen, William, Howard, Clinton and myself. As I have said, Stephen and William died in infancy, but we other three grew up. Both boys had asthma very bad, and at the age of nineteen Howard was sent to a dryer climate to live with my Uncle Owen near Hansen, Nebraska where he has lived ever since, settling in Hastings, Nebraska where he was married. Our youngest brother Clinton had a long sick spell when two years old that left him almost an invalid, very frail and not able to attend school, so Mother taught him at home. When able he would help her about the house and learned to cook very well after getting the entire meal for Mother and Father while Mother was canning fruit or vegetables for winter use.

In those days farm people raised nearly everything that went to feed their families and during the growing time canned or dried or preserved all they could for use in the winter months. Hogs were butchered with some of the meat put in salt brine, then smoked and some meat was ground and seasoned with salt, pepper, and sage or other spices according to the families' taste and some was put in cotton bags and smoked and some was cooked and put in stone jars and covered with lard to keep out the air and used during the summer months. Beef was also killed and salted down very much in the same way as pork and many of the farms had buildings where the meat hung in large pieces all summer or until it was used up. These buildings were made as near air tight as possible and were called smokehouses. A small fire was made in the center of the small room in an iron kettle or pot and green hickory bark was put on it to make it smoke and the smell of the hickory smoke would penetrate the meat and would help preserve it to be used all summer or until time to butcher again in the cool weather. Some farmers built ice houses and would have sawdust to pack the ice in and keep it air tight and that lasted all summer. It was a real job filling those ice houses and neighbors would help each other as well as helping to butcher the meat. Large iron kettles were used to make the lard. The fat of the hog was cut up in small pieces and placed in the kettle, a small fire was made under the kettle and the fat melted. When the small pieces were a certain brown color the liquid was dipped off into large jars or cans and allowed to cool. The reason the fire was started slowly under the kettle was to keep the fat from burning and turning a dark brown that had a burned taste and smell that made it useless to use in cooking, so the fire was carefully watched to avoid that trouble. If such a thing did happen, it was turned into soap by using lye made of wood ashes from the stoves or fireplaces.

This was done by using a barrel of wood and putting it up on a platform of boards and filling it with straw, then ashes a layer at a time till the barrel was full. Then a board was put on the top and a 1/2 barrel put up on it and filled with water. 2 small holes had been made in the side near the bottom and a small elderberry stick placed in the hole letting the water slowly drip down on the ashes. Then a large jar or another iron kettle was put under the ash barrel and two flat boards put under to catch the dripping lye and let it run into the jar or container at the bottom. Children and animals had to be kept away from the lye drips as it was very strong and would cause terrible sores on humans and kill anything that drank it. I always loved soap making time and when older I helped my Mother make barrels of soft soap. Salt was put into the hot soap to make it into cakes like one buys today. Since I have become grown I have made many lbs. of lovely white soap, but have used the canned lye called Lewis Lye. This can be used for any purpose of house cleaning or laundry. Have made many lbs. for my neighbors. The soft soap my mother made was a brown honey colored and was used besides laundry work and general cleaning by blacksmiths on horses' hoofs to cure a disease called scratches or hoof rot caused by contact of dirty stalls and muddy yards.

In those days horses and mules were used for all farming and road work. Fancy drawing horses were sold for a good sum and any horse quiet enough for women and children to ride or drive brought large sums of money. My Mother could handle any of our horses and could harness and hitch a team as fast as my Father could, so as I grew older I too learned to handle them. I have a side saddle that belonged to my Father's youngest sister, Frances Cooper Granby and which I expect is almost 100 years old. It is brown fancy leather with a red velvet seat and I used it as long as I rode any of our horses.

When I was 6 years old I went to school with my Mother's sister, Lydia Funk, who was teaching at the Gorham School near Wauponsee Station and she drove a little light colored sorrel horse called Prince hitched to a road cart, a 2 wheeled buggy or cart. We sat up on a high seat and put our feet down on a slatted frame hung between the wheels and we got up on the seat from the back and side on a step fastened to the frame back of the wheel. That was in 1888 or 1889 and often there were 25 to 30 pupils in all grades from kindergarten to college or high school age and the wages were $25.00 to $30.00 a month; very different from the wages of today(1958). There were schools of one room every 2 or 3 miles so children could walk to school every day and never had any rides unless the weather was very bad and their fathers unable to work in the fields. When I was about 9 years old my Aunt Lida got married and moved to Livingston County to live; so, I had to attend our home school called the O'Malley School. The children were all strangers to me and we had a new teacher every three months as during the winter months there were large boys, some of them 20 years old, who had to work during the spring and summer months and late into the fall on the farms, so all the schooling many of them got was during the winter months.

One spring we had Miss Gertrude Waterman for a teacher from April till the last of June and during the month of April there were just 2 pupils, the teacher's sister, 10 years old, and myself. The water was so high in the creeks that it ran over the floors of the bridges and folks were afraid to let the children go over them or even take them to school. Edna and I had lots of play time when our lessons were over and we learned very fast. The teacher brought sewing to school and when it rained so bad we girls could not play outside we played mumblety-peg on the floor with an old jack-knife. The floor was soft pine and we had the blades fixed so we could flip the knife in a certain way and it would stick in the floor. It made a difference in what way it stood up; one way counted 5, another 10, so we made quite a game of it. We also took our dolls and the teacher taught us to make dresses for them. The rains quit about May 15'th and the rest of the neighboring children came back to school so our playtime was over but never forgotten.

There were no gravel roads then and the mud was thick and black and sometimes rolled up on the wheels so bad that it had to be pushed out of the wheels with sticks and deep ruts were made all over the sides of the roads and many buggies and wagons had broken wheels. My Grandfather Cooper loved to sit on the front porch and tell me stories of when he was a boy, and one day he said that someday there will be a gravel road past this house and you will be able to drive many miles and not be in the mud. I have often wondered what he would think if he knew my husband would be the one to get a petition out to gravel all the roads in Vienna Twp. to everybody's door. I must have been about 7 years old when he told me about the gravel roads. I often wonder what he would think if he could see the changes that have been made since that day many years (70 to be exact) ago. Some are for better, some are not. Also to know one of his great-grandsons would be a supervisor for Vienna Twp as Byrl is now as I write this on Jan. 25, 1960. Also that my husband had fed many head of fine cattle and farmed the land Grandfather thought so much of and had brought his family to many years ago. Also to know that our youngest son was farming and feeding cattle the way Grandfather had dreamed of doing. How well I remember the time he had so many nice fat hogs (over 100) and cholera took all of them and the men hauled all to a spot in the timber and burned them. I saw Grandpa kneeling by his bed during the day and praying that help would come to cure such things before others had such losses, and how glad he would be to know not only hogs but humans are being helped in many ways by prayers and new medical methods.

Grandfather had 2 brothers and one sister that visited us. I can remember the sister, Aunt Sarah Parker, coming to Morris on the train and Grandfather going to meet her. She was a large woman and they looked so much alike. I asked mother if they both had the same birthday. She laughed and told them what I had asked and they all had a big laugh for I did not know how to say twins. Aunt Sarah knitted all the time she visited us; me some mittens, also some for Mother and socks for Father and Grandfather and some pretty lace for a underskirt that is still quite pretty(but badly worn now). Mother used it on my 2 younger brothers' baby clothes for in those days there was little money for lace or pretty ribbons and everything was put to good use. One of Aunt Sarah's favorite stories was about their Father's life as a circuit rider Methodist Minister, being gone for weeks at a time riding a horse and going from place to place preaching, marrying people and holding funeral services for people who had passed away weeks before and had been buried, but the services had to wait till the "Riding Minister" came, as he was called. How their mother had sent them to work for different people; Grandfather to learn the tailor trade and help measure the people for new clothes. How her other brothers were sent to help the grocer and the butcher and to school. Later the older brother, Steven, studied to be a minister and preached in many towns in Ohio and Indiana. The other brother Samuel soon followed the older brother and went to Michigan to be the headmaster of a college or "prep school" as they were called in those days. He studied hard and later became a minister and married a very wealthy lumberman's daughter and took over the management of a wooden box and basket factory. I have the picture of that place and buildings. Grandfather seldom heard from Uncle Steven, but Uncle Sam wrote often and came to visit us and Grandfather would return his visits.

At one time they had a family reunion at Uncle Sam's home. I think this was in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They were all there; Uncle Steven and his wife and some of his family; Uncle Sam and all of his family; and Aunt Sarah and two of her sons, Abe and Frank Parker; but only Grandfather of our family as there was only money enough to take him up there. We were always poor, but had plenty to eat, clothes to wear , "not fancy but comfortable", and many friends who count more than money, many times. One of Grandfather's favorite sayings was, "It's no disgrace to be poor, but often times very inconvenient and very discouraging." Two of Uncle Sam's boys were there that died in the Iroquois Theatre Fire in Chicago on Nov. 23, 1903, Charles and Willis Cooper, who had gone to see the play put on to see if it was all right to take their Sunday school classes to see it. They were caught and suffocated by the smoke helping people out of the building. Our neighbor Mr. Harry Hough and his wife and a friend of theirs were in the theatre at the time and right by an exit door and he often tells us of the tragedy and how he helped many to escape. Mrs. Hough died in 1958, but he still lives across the street from us, a sad and crippled man. My Father never cared about writing letters, but was always glad to hear from relatives and friends; so after Grandfather's death we never heard from any of the relatives in Michigan. Uncle Sam's wife's brother, Mr. Wells, was the manager of the Cooper Wells and Company Hosiery and Needlewear factory and some of the relatives still run the business and the name still is used yet in 1960.

Grandfather was born in Granville, Ohio--on May 11, 1820 and died when he was 72 years old. His funeral was held in the Zion Methodist Church and he was buried in the Anderson Cemetary, Rev. H.A. Ewell being the Pastor of both Verona And Zion Churches and lived in the Zion Parsonage just north of the church. Our Grandmother's name had been Frances A. Garrison and they had been married on March 23, 1843. She died in 1856, the same year he bought the home farm. Grandfather often told me of her and spoke of her as Adaline, never as Frances and said she came from Kentucky. I often wished I had known more about her or had been old enough to remember more of what he told me. He died on the very day my younger brother Clinton was born. In his will he left my brother Howard $1000.00 for his schooling and to me the old family organ and told Father he must arrange for my younger brother just born.

When I was about 5 years old I went with my Grandfather to Verona, and the bank then was in the front end or side of the Hardware store and the business of both was run by Mr. Douglass Renne and Mr. Dan Beal, whose grandson Nelson runs the bank in Verona now in 1960. Grandfather drove a large gray mare called Kate, hitched to a one seated buggy, so he tied Kate to a hitch rack (a pole put across two posts) and we went into the building. Mr. Beal came forward and said, "Well well, now just who is this little lady and your name is____?" and waited; but not for long for I piped up "Miss Laura Belle Cooper" and bowed very nicely to him. He never forgot that and as long as he lived he always called me by that full name. Of course every one in the store laughed and I felt very smart to think I had made them laugh; but, Grandfather in telling about it when we got home said, "I had a good notion to spank her good." and Mother said, "I wish you had. Next time she does such a silly thing you do just that and good and hard where it will do the most good. You have my permission." But he never did and my Father just looked at me and shook his head as if he thought me hopeless or disgusting.

I often went with Grandfather to Wauponsee Station, a small but lively country town on the K & S R.R. that ran 4 trains a day from Kankakee and Seneca. One that went east in the morning to Kankakee about 7 A.M. and returned at night to Seneca about 6 P.M. The other came west at 10 A.M. and returned to Kankakee about 3:30 P.M. All kinds of grain, lumber, coal, and livestock was hauled and always there was a baggage car and a passenger car with upholstered seats of red velvet and a pot-bellied stove in one end for heating in the winter and a water cooler of water with ice in it for summer in the other end and a toilet and washroom at that end, too; so if the train had to stop and unload any cinders or railroad ties in the way the passengers could be comfortable enroute. At Wauponsee there was a large country store, an apartment above the store that often one of the store clerks lived in, a blacksmith shop, an ice house, a church (Universialist), 7 houses, a large grain elevator, several corn cribs, the depot (in one end sometimes lived the agent), a large long building holding lumber, several coal bins (some covered, some open), and a stock yard where farmers yarded their hogs, sheep, and cattle while waiting for the stock cars to be put on the siding to load into. In the store we could find most everything that was needed for living in those days. All kinds of canned goods, sugar, coffee, and a large grinder run by hand for those who wished it ground before taking it home; a long counter filled with shoes, rubber boots, boxes of thread, cases of laces, ribbons, shelves of yard goods, writing paper, pencils, pens, ink, tablets of paper, and farther down were pans, kettles, dishes, and barrels of crackers, pickles and salt meat. Also, a place where the farmers could set their butter jars, baskets of eggs, buckets of lard, and any other produce they wished to trade for flour, sugar, beans and salt; great rolls of rope and leather straps, harness, nails, bolts, hand rakes, hoes, shovels, axes, scythes for cutting grass, and anything a farmer might need. A wagon went out into the country twice a week and gathered up the eggs, butter, and chickens that could be spared and delivered the flour, sugar, and coffee that had been ordered the trip before. I can see the big glass jars that held the sticks of candy and peanuts we children all wanted sitting up on a certain shelf in the dear old store, just as plain as if it were yesterday. The post office was at the east end of the building and one of the owners of the store sat at big desk and when a wagon of grain pulled up on the scales he would get down and weigh the outfit. And when the man unloaded at the elevator, he would weigh it again and then tell the man how many bushels of grain he had had on. One of the owners names was Guardie Newport and the other, Henry Gorham, both are dead now, but the Gorhams have a grandson that lives on the home farm 1/2 mile east of the old store and the Newports have a son that is an artist in California. I know little about him or any of his relatives

I went to school at the Gorham School just 1/2 mile south of Wauponsee Station until I was 8 years old and that was where the older Gorham children went. Harry and Mabel and their Aunt Jessie Gorham most always brought them in a nice buggy. To have a nice quiet horse and a nice buggy in those days was a real luxury and most families only had the heavy work horses that were very quiet and any woman could handle some times because they were so tired from field work. They did not care to more than jog along anywhere the reins of the driver guided them.

One of the games we played at that school was "Store" and we had so much fun. The building had been re-shingled and the old wooden shingles had been tossed into the tall Osage hedge along the south side of the school yard and were often used for starting fires on cool mornings, so we children could play with as many as we wished. So we made little farms, perhaps 2 ft. by 6 ft. and enclosed with the shingles put along like a fence and broken pieces pounded into the ground like posts and then we used small pieces of cloth and sold it to each other for pins. As all the clothing worn those days was made in the home there were plenty of scrap pieces we could use. Scrap velvets sold for one small safety pin, cotton pieces for one common pin, and some lace or ribbon was 2 to 4 pins. Some times the boys got tired of playing and would sell the entire box of his scraps for 1 large safety pin and then go and play ball, so the lucky buyer had to enlarge their shingle farm and get a larger box to hold the new purchases. Every one carried their noon lunch in a tin pail, sometimes a boughten one, but often an empty lard pail; and we would set in the shade of the hedge row and eat, sometimes trading a pickle for a cookie or piece of cake if our mothers had not put in our favorite kind. One girl who always ate with me and traded was Elsie Windsor. She drove an old bay horse and tied her to the hedge. I loved to help her hitch up at night and unhitch in the morning. We girls grew to be the best of pals and went thru life more like sisters than just friends. Elsie's only sister had died young and she had no brothers and I was the only girl in my family.

My older brother and the next one to me had both passed away and I was 9 years old before I had another brother and 2 years more and I had another. Both of these lived to manhood, but the younger one was a cripple and both had asthma very bad. The older boy had to be sent to Nebraska to live at all and now lives in Hastings, Nebraska, but the younger brother died in 1924 from pneumonia and a hard attack of asthma, so there are only we two left of a family of 5 (4 boys and 1 girl). But I guess I kept everyone as busy as the 4 boys would have done, as Mother always said I could get into more things in the shortest time than any child she ever saw, and she came from a large family herself (11-6 girls and 5 boys), and most of them had large families.

Her father had died in his 40's, but the mother was determined to keep her family together and being a good clean Christian woman, the county decided to help her and set aside 40 acres with a small house on it. 2 of her boys went to the Civil War and came back as well as a son-in-law. Her oldest son who helped her farm the land was a sickly person so did not go as a soldier. They kept 3 or 4 cows, a few hogs, 1/2 doz. sheep, some chickens (Perhaps 65 hens), 4 or 5 turkeys, 1 doz. ducks, and 6 geese, so Grandmother made butter and cottage cheese to sell and also buttermilk, cream, eggs, chickens, and offspring of the other poultry. She always had a large garden; also a herb garden, and gathered and dried herbs for the doctors to use for medicine. She was very careful to dry only the best and was well known and doctors for miles around came to purchase her herbs. As soon as the girls were old enough and Grandmother thought they could be of help she let them go and work for people not too far away. Sometimes they only got $1.00 for a week's help, sometimes only board. She insisted they all come home for Sunday and all attended the church in the little country town close by now called Wing.

I went with my Mother to visit her folks and one place I loved to go into was the cave that Grandmother kept her milk and butter in. It was a hole dug down about 4 to 6 ft. and logs to make a roof and then old boards put over the logs and then dirt piled onto the logs., and dirt steps cut into the side so one could go down into the small building. At one end there was a window covered with a screen like any window has today, to make the cave light so one could see all the fruit on shelves built into the sides of the room. On the floor of dirt sat jars of lard and canned meat. Up on the ceiling hung hams and bacon, home cured of course, and wrapped in old sheets to keep dust and bugs off. There was a screen door and it opened into the inside and during the day was kept shut, but at night was opened and a large door let down from the outside to keep animals out. The inside of the cave was white-washed and very clean and bricks were put under the jars to let the air go all around and under them keeping them cool. The butter was very firm and the milk was nice and cold.

Most all farmers had caves like that as many houses were not built with basements and no one ate oily butter or drank milk or buttermilk warm that kept things in the cave. When an old hen brought off a brood of baby chicks Grandmother took a long string of cloth and tied it to one of the hen's legs and staked her out in the garden with her chicks during the day, but at night we caught the chicks and took her and all to some building to keep rats and wild animals like fox or skunks from getting them. How I wished I could go back to that little old home and have a drink of cold milk from the crocks in the cave.

Everything used on the tables in those days was raised and either dried or canned during the winter days. All that was bought was coffee, tea, flour, sugar, and soda. They even made their own yeast cakes and Uncle would go into the timber nearby and tap the maple trees and they would boil the sap down in a huge iron kettle out in the yard and make their own syrup. Many raised sugar cane and would cut and haul it miles to a mill and trade it for the dark syrup that was called sorgum. Sometimes the maple syrup was boiled down into sugar, but that was a long hard process and had to be watched and stirred for hours to keep it from burning. Wild berries, wild grapes, and crab apples were gathered as well as nuts in the fall and several rows of popcorn were planted each summer that the winter evenings were happy ones. Every farmer had his own orchard and raised all kinds of fruit. The late pears and apples were put in a deep hole in the ground and covered with straw and leaves and later the men would go out to the fruit pit and dig into the side of the pile and get a big paw full while the rest were popping corn and making some molasses candy. I think many had a better time in those days than now as the family spent more time together and made their own fun. Now there are just too many out of home activities to take the children away nights, in fact, most of the time.

Now many only think of their parents as the people who furnish the money for clothes, cars, etc. They have no part in the earning of any of it, nor have they much respect or love for those that do. Boys speak of their fathers as "The Old Man" and the mother as "She" or "Her" and they call their Aunts and Uncles by their first names, seldom saying Aunt or Uncle before the other name such as Bill, Henry, or Tom. Such things would not have been allowed 60, 75, or 80 years ago. Children were taught in those days, not allowed to raise themselves or copy after the things they see and hear on radio or TV like today for those things were unheard of in those days. Few newspapers were taken and they were mostly weekly or monthly ones. The ones I can remember were "The Chicago Inter-Ocean", "The Prairie Farmer", "The Youth Companion" "Christian Advocate" (published by the Methodist Church) , and the "Morris Herald", then a weekly paper 5 times as large as the one published now in 1960 and containing all the news of the entire Grundy County and towns and townships. Each town and community had a person that wrote the items of interest in their part of the community and people visited each other often, so reported the deaths, births, and marriages to the local reporter and they sent it to the paper to be published the next week.

Life moved very slowly but happily in those days and the neighbors near were treated like relatives and helped each other in the winter, at butchering time and wood sawing time, for nearly all burned wood, cutting the dead or fallen trees and hauling it to the farm home and later cutting it up into pieces to fit the various size stoves that were used to heat the homes. Kerosene was used for lighting the homes and lanterns were used in the buildings and carried from building to building as needed, but nearly everyone tried to arrange their evening work so it was all done in daylight hours. The lamps varied in size and were generally glass bowls having a burner with a cotton woven wick attached that could be turned up or down to give more or less light as the user wished. There was a glass chimney to keep the air from blowing the flame out. Candles were also used and were made each winter in the homes as soon as the butchering was done. Sheep and beef tallow were used with the juice from some trees and herbs added to make a brighter light. At one time I helped Mother make candles, but cannot remember the names of the herb-roots she used as I was very small at that time, but like many youngsters I always wanted to help with many things when I should have been playing with my dolls.

Two long to be remembered things that happened when I was very small left scars that I will carry to my grave. First, a neighbor lady and her small son had come to spend the day with us while her husband helped my Father with some field work. The lady was helping Mother tie or make some comforters to be used on the beds in the winter. Mother had pieced the tops of many pretty cloth pieces left from her dresses and mine and the inside was either to be cotton rolls or woolen bats she had carded from the wool Father had taken from our sheep. We children were sent out to play and the boy, being 1 1/2 years older than me, took the lead. After playing with the swing and in the sandbox we decided to look some of the farm buildings over. Going into a small granary he saw my sled hanging up on the wall and decided that would do to pull me on the grass as was summer time. So, I obligingly climbed up to get it down and slipped and my bare foot came down on an axe and cut my foot almost in half. Of course we screamed when we saw the blood and our mothers came running to us. I do not know just how they stopped the blood, but I still have a ridge on the bottom of my foot to show where the cut was. I do not remember if they took me to a Dr. or not as Drs. lived in towns several miles away and horse and buggy travel was slow and then perhaps the Dr. would not be there, often away to some home helping bring a baby into the world. Anyway, I will never forget the day Mr. and Mrs. Henry Granby and their son Benny spent at our house. All of them have passed away now, as well as my parents, so that is just a memory now as I was only 4 years old.

The other happening was when I was 5 1/2 years old and in March. A snowstorm and high wind had blown down the straw stack in the feed lot and buried two cows and some hogs, but all were saved as was discovered and quickly removed. My Grandfather Cooper and my Father decided to put the straw into the new barn just built the fall before and too late to put hay in. So the long rope was put at one end of the barn on a track running the entire length of the building and one end fastened to a large fork that closed around a big bundle of straw and the other end was at the end of the barn and went thru a window and onto a pulley and down to the ground and into another iron pulley and the end fastened to a piece of wood called a singletree and the tugs of the harness of the horse fastened to it. Grandfather had Old Kate hitched to that arrangement and my Father was at the other end getting the straw into the big fork. When that was done he called "All Right!" and Grandfather started the horse up and the straw was pulled up into the barn and Father would pull on a small rope and the big fork would open and drop the straw on the big barn floor upstairs. When the fork disappeared into the big door Father would call "Whoa." and old Kate would stop and turn around for another load. Child-like I watched several loads go up and seeing Kate getting warm I decided to help her pull the next one. Grandfather said, "Stay back out of the way. You might get hurt." But as soon as Kate started up I grabbed the big rope with my mittened hands and my left hand was drawn into the pulley. I screamed and pulled my hand out but not before my first finger was crushed and my hand badly torn. Grandfather had stopped Kate at my scream and all the men came running around the barn and Mother out of the house. I ran to her and she covered my hand with her apron and took me to the house. She had been making doughnuts and got flour all over me, but the Dr. said that was able to stop some of the blood. Father jumped onto his riding horse and rode away at breakneck speed to Verona (6 miles away) and the Dr. jumped onto another horse and they raced back to me. The Dr's. name was Elliot, a young man, and he looked at my hand and had mother get warm water and put carbolic acid into it, clipped off my crushed finger, pulled the flesh and skin over to cover up the torn parts, and took 27 stitches in my tiny hand. As my finger was disjointed at the knuckle it never gave me any trouble at all and daily bathing in Carbolic Acid water soon healed it up. Later, at about 12 years old, I learned to play the organ and piano well enough to play for Sunday School and Epworth League at the Zion Church, 1/2 mile north of Wauponsee Station.

That church served the community for over 80 years and then the Meth. conference decided to close it as they could not understand the Bible where it says, "If a few are gathered together in my name, there I will be also." Yes, there had been a time when that little country church would not hold the people that came to Sunday services to worship God in their own way. Many times, driving many miles in lumber wagons drawn by slow plodding farm horses tired from the week's work in the fields. Many who were not Methodist faith, often Catholic, kind friendly people who felt they must worship someplace and this church was not too far away and they could meet their neighbors. I have heard my Grandfather say many times that these people were always very kind and always listened very carefully and never once made a sound that they felt what the leader or minister was wrong or unreasonable in his words or thoughts, and that they were glad to sit and listen to some other religion tell what they thought and felt was the truth. It seems that some still feel that way, but many use hateful words and ridicule any other ideas but those set forth by the priests sent to guide them and teach them to love one another and help any one who needs help as our Lord and Master Jesus Christ taught. But, they some times show their disapproval of what others have been taught and try to live as they have been taught and often act very hateful to people of other than Catholic faith.

As my Grandfather had been one of the farm people that started the idea of building a church it is needless to say when the church was closed by the Meth. conference and put up for sale I felt almost like it was my own birthplace being auctioned off. It was the first place I remember being taken to and being baptized there and attending services for many years, seldom missing a service no matter what the roads or weather were like. I was married at my Father's house by our church minister and later on took all my family there to worship. Our youngest daughter was married there and as we lived for many years in the neighborhood, I met my husband there as we attended Sunday School and until the church was sold, torn down, and moved to Ottawa by another faith; we supported and attended as often as we could.

We left the farm home where I was born and moved into Mazon, a small country town 9 miles east of our home place when our youngest son Jesse returned from World War II. At first I felt I could not leave my country home and move into town, but my husband was none too well, had always worked very hard since a young boy, and I felt I might be helping him if I went, but he went out every day to work the same as always and I was the only one left behind by myself; day after day. I often grieved for my country home, but knew my daughter-in-law would not want me out there every day; much as we loved each other it would not work. My husband was out in the fields and timber and not at the house very often. He came in every day 9 miles to his dinner (lunch) making it a 36 mile drive each day. I tried hard not to let him know how home-sick I was and always tried to have meals ready, cooking the different foods he liked; but, perhaps I did not do a good job of pretending to like town life. All our children were married and in homes of their own. In the summer and fall I kept outdoors among the flowers and worked in the yard. I visited some among our neighbors, but often I was so blue I shut the house up as if I was away and had a good cry. I suppose many would say I was very silly to do that, but if any one has been truly homesick they will understand. I had been born on the farm and lived there nearly all my life until I was married, and we had been married 51 1/2 years when my husband passed away on May 30th, 1957.

About ten years before he left us one of the boys asked him why we did not close the house up in town and go south for the winter months. He told his father he felt he had worked long enough to take a few pleasures before we got to the place he could not drive a car or enjoy seeing new places. So, one night at supper he said' " Laura, how would you like to take a trip?" Of course, I hardly knew what to say as it was so unlike anything he had ever suggested before and I answered," Might be real nice. When do we start and where do we go?" , never thinking he really meant to go. He answered by saying, "Let's shut things up and take a trip thru the Southern states and if we find a place that suits us we can stay till warm weather here." After I understood he really was in earnest I said' "All right, let's go." and he wanted to know how soon I could get ready and I said, "By the first of the week, we will need to have our clothes clean and pack a few things for we may want to keep house down there." And so it was arranged and we started off early one morning. It was not the first visit down south as several years before we had taken our youngest daughter Jean during holiday vacation on a trip to New Orleans and around the coast to Miami, Fla. and then home by way of Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennesee. Of course we were only gone 10 days, but saw many interesting things: saw a plane come into Miami Airport, also a turpentine camp in Fla., visited with an old Negro man over 100 years old, and many other sights to enjoy and talk about for days no end. For ten more years we packed up each fall and went to Lakeland, Fla. and came home by April 1st nearly always bringing all the fresh and canned oranges and grapefruit we could haul. Billy enjoyed every moment down there and was so glad to get back home safe and sound; and we met many lovely people from many states about our age. Some still write to us and sent wonderful letters when he passed away.

Now I will tell you how I met Billy Gonnam. I had been keeping company with a home boy and my folks liked him real well; but, one night he came to take me for a buggy ride and smelled so strong of liquor and talked so silly I pretended I was sick and made him take me home. Truth was I was scared of him as none of my folks drank and I was never allowed anywhere there was anything to drink. When I got home I told him to go on home and when I wanted to see him again I'd write a letter. I never wrote and he told so many lies about me that disgusted my folks so they told me I was not to go anywhere with him again or have anything to do with him. That fall they sent me to my aunt at Saunemin and I started to high school. I helped my Aunt with everything about the house as they had her husband's Mother & Father living with them and the old gentleman had a stroke some years before and was in a wheelchair or in bed, unable to even feed himself. I had to walk a little over a mile on the Wabash RR track to reach school and worked at noon in the hotel and restaurant for my dinners. My folks knew the lady owner and she had stayed with my Mother when my second brother William was born. One day in January I got a letter from Mother telling me to come home that my youngest brother Clinton had pneumonia and they doubted he would live. I had gotten the letter at 11:30 when I went to help Mrs. Brown set the tables for dinner and when I showed her the letter she said, "You are needed at home; go out to Marsh's and get your clothes and be back here at 2 PM. and you can get the train at 2:15 and change trains at Essex to the K & S and be home by 6 o'clock tonight. Your folks will be there to meet you I know." So, I never waited to eat, only a beef sandwich she gave me to eat as I walked home, and when my Aunt saw me come in she was very angry and said so many mean things I dashed upstairs and packed everything I had. They never offered to take me back to town, so I had to walk and carry two heavy suitcases and wear three coats I could not carry otherwise; so, was near exhausted when I reached town. I went at once to the hotel and told Mrs. B. my story. She sent one of the men boarders to the depot with my luggage and to buy my ticket and made me lay down and rest while she packed a lunch for me to carry and eat on the train. The man was very kind and went with me to see I got on the train and told the conductor on the Wabash Rd. my story. As the 2 roads crossed about 1/2 block from the K & S depot the porter had my suitcases ready and the train slowed down long enough for another porter to help me off and I did not have to walk far to take the other RR. I had perhaps 1 hour to wait so ate my lunch, bought my ticket to Langham near my home and was soon on my way home. Father was there to meet me and all seemed glad to have me home. Poor Mother had been up and down for several nights and was so tired she could hardly walk. Tired as I was, I sent her to bed and I cared for Clinton. He was a very sick boy, but we pulled him through. When I told Father how mad my Aunt was because they had sent for me, he said I was not to return to school at all; so, I wrote to Mrs. Brown and her sister got my few books at school and sold them and sent me the money.

One day in real late January we had done a big washing and I had ironed a few needed pieces and as my brother was better and needed no one to sit up with him, we all went to bed. In the morning Father called me (I was then 19.) to get up and help Mother get breakfast and get the two boys up and dressed. I tried to get out of bed but found I could not move my limbs at all. They felt like sticks of wood and seemed badly swollen, so I called to Mother and she came in and when she saw my feet and legs she raised a window and called Father telling him something awful had happened to me. He came running to the house and up to my room and told Mother to wrap me in a wool blanket and get a big rocking chair and he put me into it and pulled me to the stairs. Then he sent Mother on down and told her to get another chair at the bottom of the stairs and he put me down on the steps and he walked in front of me and he steadied me as I bumped my way down the stairs. Then he put me on a couch and I laid there for months except when they lifted me to change my bed. They called our family Dr. who lived in Seneca and described my condition and he said to keep me as warm as they could and give me something warm to drink, that he would come quick as he could. He drove a team and had several horses to change when they got tired; so, in about an hour he drove in, his horses white with lather. Father covered them over with blankets from the Dr's. buggy and came in to hear the verdict. Dr. Wilcox was a very large man and he quickly looked me over and took my temperature and said, " Well young lady, you are in for a long siege of laying on your back. You have rheumatic fever along with inflammatory rheumatism. If I can do it I'll help you walk again; but, I don't know where to begin first" He asked Mother for a large roll of cotton batten used for comforters and quilts, and some old sheets he could tear in strips. Then he oiled my feet and limbs with a nice smelling oil and wrapped me in the cotton and then put the strips around to keep the cotton in place. That eased the pain and he ate breakfast with my folks and then went to make more calls in our neighborhood telling us a young man on the Wilson farm next to ours was down with the same thing, but not as bad as I was. His name was Ole Anderson and we had gone to school together just before I took the 8th grade examination. Ole had not had a chance to go to school as I had so was in the 7th grade. He had several brothers and sisters. Often during the summer Father would put me in the top buggy and Mother would drive me over to see Ole and his Father would come and lift me out of our buggy and lay me on a bench by Ole's cot outside and we would visit awhile. When I got tired Mr. Anderson would lift me back into the buggy and Mother would take me home. Sometimes they brought Ole to see me. He got so he could walk long before I could and the next spring they moved to a large farm north of Morris and I never saw them again. I understand Ole's brother Julius was the one who went to S. Dakota and told friends there I could not live long and would never walk again; but, the following spring, a year after I was taken sick, I got better and could walk some without help. And about July or August I could get about again real good.

I put in my spare time sewing carpet rags and doing all the mending for our family, helping fix vegetables and doing all I could to help Mother with the work. I could wash dishes and my brothers would dry them and reset the table and run errands to help her. In September of that year I was able to visit several girl friends in the neighborhood and stay overnight as many had come and spent several days at a time with me. One of the girls, May James, was rather like a relative as my Mother had stayed with May's Grandfather's family for 2 or 3 years before she and Father were married. May's own Mother had died when she was just a tiny girl and her father had married again, a lady who came from Kentucky. She had divorced her other husband and he and their one child, a boy, had gone to Chicago to live and she had kept house for Mr. James and May and he at last married Mrs. Green. She was a lovely woman and a good cook and had begged Mother to let me come and stay a few days with May, so I went. It was real warm and a nice full moon shone many nights; so some of the neighboring young folks walked down to see May and I. They were Martha & Mary Pyatt and Ed & Alfred Reeves who all lived with the boys grandparents, Mr. & Mrs. Moses James, and the girls were her neices she had raised since their parents had passed away. There was another young man with them that was working for Frank Holroyd who had come from Indiana the spring before and had helped the James during corn husking and had gone to Holroyd's on Dec. 6 to work for them. He was a rather small, shy fellow and had very little to say. We sat out on the back steps and laughed and talked. At last Mrs. James came out with a large pitcher of lemonade and a big pan of cookies and at last they decided to start for home, which was about 1/2 mile away to the north. May said, "Do you think you can walk a ways with them, Laura?" and I said I could and we started out. They all went along laughing and talking and the new young fellow dropped back beside me and asked why May had asked if I thought I could walk with them. So I explained how I had not been able to walk for so long. So he slowed up and took my arm and helped me along. At last they all stopped and by the time we had caught up to them, he had told me how he had came to come out to Illinois and we became real well acquainted. When May and I turned back he shook hands with me and said he hoped he would see me again someday as he liked Illinois well enough to stay awhile. His name was Billy Gonnam.

I had told him I thought it would be nice if he would come to Sunday School on Sunday as all of us were in the same class and he would get to meet a lot more as our class was real large. So I was not too much surprised a few Sundays later to find him sitting with the Reeves boys. My Mother taught the kindergarten class and I played the organ for them to sing and we always got into the back room and started long before the big room did so I could go out to my class and get back to play closing numbers. A few Sundays later May told me Billy had a new buggy and that he was breaking horses to drive for other people and she heard him say he hoped to buy a horse for himself soon. But I wondered just how long it would take for him to pay for the horse and buggy on the $25.00 a month he earned. Of course I did not know how much he was being paid for breaking those horses; in fact, I never did know. There were several parties among the young folks, but I did not try to go in cold weather as the Dr. did not want me to catch cold. On July 4'th the S. School was to hold a picnic at the James Winsor home. There was a large lawn and plenty of shade and a large house so we all expected a gala time. One evening, just after supper, two boys drove in with a horse hitched to a cart and to my surprise found it was Billy and a boy that worked at Holroyds. As I was shelling peas and sitting out on the milk tank he drove right up along side the fence and came over to where I was and left his friend watching the colt. He asked if I would go with him to the picnic at Winsor's and I told him I would. He said he would come for me about 10:30. I thanked him and they drove off almost before I had time to think. Father was separating the milk in the milk house and came out just as they drove out of the yard and asked me who they were and what they wanted. I told him and he said they were quite a ways from home if anything went wrong with their new horse. He went on to feed the calves their milk and I went to hunt Mother who was working and packing butter in the basement, for we made and sold hundreds of lbs. of butter each week in Morris to regular customers and the next day was delivery day. Sometimes I went with Mother and held the horse while she went into the homes with the butter they had ordered when we were there the week before. But it had been very rainy and the river was up very high so Father was going with her this trip. We had a telephone and one of the neighbors called and told Mother that it would be impossible to go with a team, that people were going over in boats to the bridge and walking the rest of the way. So that ended butter delivery for that week. Later we heard Billy and Mr. Holroyd had gone into town in a boat to get new rubber tired wheels for Billy's new buggy. They all tried to find out just who would be the girl to get the first ride in his new buggy and Louisa and Mildred Holroyd guessed every girl in the S.S. class, but he only laughed and told them they would find out July 4th and not until then. Mrs. H. said she never thought of me, but thought it one of the Piatt girls; so when we drove up to the Winsor home the girls ran screaming to their Mother with the news I was the one. So she came right out and told me how glad they were; because she felt he was a real nice clean cut young fellow and that I was not making a mistake. I just laughed and told her I might not last very long as perhaps he might get tired of looking after me with my aches and pains, as I was still quite lame at times and walked with a limp quite often. After we had dinner at long tables we played games and later Billy and I drove down to Seneca to watch the fireworks. After that he came every Sun. night and sometimes would drop in for a few moments during the week as he was still breaking horses to drive for different people. My Father always visited a few moments with him, but Mother was not so pleased as Billy smoked cigars and she was a staunch W.C.T.U. woman and did not believe young men should smoke. But Father always had and cigars were his favorites, so Billy found a kindred spirit in my Dad.