Sometimes we had the school teacher boarding with us also, we lived on what was called the ridge as it was higher than some of the surrounding country, it was called Irish Ridge, the school house was locate down over a hill in Hoover Hollow and was called Hoover Hollow School. From our house the quickest way to get to the school was to go through our pasture and down a hill that was so steep that it was called Tumble Hill and when I started to school I was small for my age and I have been told I would inveigle someone [generally the teacher] to carry me at least part way up the hill in the evening as we came from school. I remember going for the cows down over these hills with a sister or brother when I was older and being sort of afraid, also gathering ginsing and blood root with Harley, my older brother, who sold it in Boscobel. Sometimes when the weather was right we would come home bringing the cows and also our aprons filled with mushrooms. Lots of lovely flowers grew in these damp rich woods too. But back to the school ... it was a one room school house and the students ranged from four years old to eighteen or older if it took them that long to go through the grades [my mother had been a school teacher and she has told us of experiences she had as a teacher trying to control the big boys who were larger and stronger than she] We would bring our tin lunch pails to school each morning and the smell that came from them when the tight lid was opened at noon wasn't very appetising and especially at four o'clock on our way home from school when we foraged crumbs to ease our hunger until we could get home and have our supper. There was a big flat rock on the upper edge of the school grounds and we always tried to be first to get to that place to eat and it was like having a picnic every day to eat our sandwiches under the trees with the curious squirrls chirping at us waiting to clean up what ever crumbs we left as we hurried off to play. In the winter time at noon and recess the bigger boys and girls would square dance. I remember Skip-tum-a-lou and Happy as a Miller Boy and it was a real RED LETTER day if I happened to be asked to dance by one of those older boys.
On top of the ridge and in the other direction from our farm, up past the cheese-factory lived Uncle Bill's. Uncle Bill was our fathers oldest brother, they had a large family and a big house and I remember many good times spent there... they were the rich ones in the family... at least in dollars... than the rest. I can remember their house almost as well as our own, upstairs there was one room that was just used for a play room and dolls, games, toys, play cupboard with table and dishes. They had a home made doll that was large enough to wear real baby clothes and they had a ring on its cloth finger which was really something that I envied. Aunt Ella was small and wore her hair plainly drawn back from her face, and oh how hard she worked all the day through. Agnes, one of the older girls used to like to comb my hair and she had such a gentle way of combing which I liked. I always wore ringlets so there were lots of snarls and probably my mother and older sister were not so careful. At Uncle Bill's we drank separated milk it was kept real cold and really tasted , because it was different than I had at home I use to think it was better than the rich whole milk we uses. Aunt Ella made a steamed pudding with a clear sauce over it too which was different than we had at home and I thought it was good.
Uncle George, another brother of my fathers lived on another road about a half mile from the cheese-factory but he was a bachelor for many years. He lived on the old Green original farm and later married one of our school teachers, much younger than he. Later in my life I lived in their home for a winter and went to school with their daughter Ruth, so our lives entangled again. On down the road lived other relatives, nieces and nephews of my father and mother, and then on the old home place of my mothers folks, probably three miles away lived Uncle Lintner who was fathers brother and his wife Aunt Rene who was my mothers sister. In Boscobel lived a sister of Dads, Aunt Bec and Uncle Vic, and another sister lived in another community on a farm, Aunt Clara and Uncle Oakey, they had a large family but the children in this family were mostly older than we were but Aunt Clara was a woman who loved children and we loved her and enjoyed being in her home.
I do not remember at all my fathers parents. I know his mother was a very industrious woman and came to America from Ireland when a young woman, Elisabeth McGrath was her name, and Tompkin Greene was my grandfathers name. Mother told us lots about our black-haired grandmother and praised her highly, she was a devout catholic, but Grandfather according to mother was rather shiftless and not so praiseworthy.
I do remember my grandmother Steele of course as she lived in our home, her name was Rebecca Wanamaker before she married Chauncey Steele. My impression of grandmother was that she was small and dainty and liked to be waited on, which my grandfather did. I remember grandfather a little bit and I know he walked with one foot turned out slightly, also I remember his funeral.
I would like to tell you about Old Jack, a horse that grandfather had given to my mother to be used to the single buggy and so when she wanted to go somewhere he was there for her to use. He was a bay horse with a black mane and tail, very old and very gentle. Of course horse drawn vehicles were all that were used then and often neighbors as they went down the road would stop and chat for a while before driving on and Jack liked this idea as it gave him a nice rest and regardless as to whether it was a friend or a stranger he would come to a complete stop when he met another team and to mothers embarrassment he would not go until the team had gone on past. So there was lots of joking and laughing at her expense because of it. Her mother and father lived in a small house on the old home place as long as grandfather was alive and so mother drove down there often to help with keeping the house work done etc.
We nearly always had a hired man and sometimes a hired girl, one summer, mother, our little brother Robert, Hazel and I went on the train to Missouri to visit Father's youngest sister and her family there. Velma and Harley stayed home with the hired man and hired girl who at this particular time were brother and sister, Amos and Orsie Bartles. In Missouri we met cousins we had not known before and there I saw my first negros. They were a very kind people and they worked for such small wages that Aunt Mary had them in to do most of the work. Aunt Mary's health was very bad and it wasn't many years until she died and her husband was left with their five children. Amy was a good girl and mothered the others and kept house for Uncle Tom.
I remember the first car I ever saw or rode in. Our neighbors Joe Yanna and his wife bought this car and they came over to take us for a ride. We rode down toward the school house but when we tried to come home again up Tumble Hill we all had to get out and push until we got to the top. But it was really a thrill to ride in a vehicle that went with out horses.
We drove over a toll bridge when ever we went to Boscobel. This bridge was over the Wisconsin River and part of the bridge was enclosed and dark and as we drove through, the horses hoofs made a hollow noise which echoed around through the enclosure, there was a road, you might call a levee or dugway from the bridge across the swampy land, which was a road built up solid across the swamp and in the spring when the river was high the water came up to and even over this road and sometimes washed it away, so there was excited talk when the river got high as to whether the road or even the bridge might go.
Then the life which I had known was changed as our father decided to leave Wisconsin, and our farm was traded for a farm way down in Texas. Uncle Bill and dad went to Texas to see the farm, and when they came back the deal was made and they started making preparations to move. I was nine years old then and they crated furniture, packed dishes and fruit in big barrels and after while the house was empty and bare. They had chartered a freight car to take our belongings to Texas. After the house was empty the neighbors came in for a farewell dance and the house shook as they do-se-doed in their square dances which were popular at the time. Joe Yanna did the fiddling - it was winter time and in the middle of dancing some one looked out over the hills they saw the Bill Kincannon home burning. The men were sweaty from dancing but they ran to the barn in the icy cold where the horses had been blanketed and stalled and jumping on them rode to the fire but nothing could be saved by the time they arrived. I remember how hushed the house was in comparison to the noisy fun that had been going on - Bill's wife Donny, who was my cousin about fainted so she had to lie down and some of the ladies fanned her, all of which I didn't understand. The last night in Wisconsin we spent with the Yannas if I remember right and then we were off to Texas. We were to spend Christmas day on the train so mother got us books, games etc. for our Christmas. They packed a large canvas box they bought for that purpose full of food for our eating on the train and when we arrived in Texas we went to a hotel and stayed until they found a house to rent. It was strange to go into a big dining room and eat with strangers at the large table. Father hired a team and surrey from the livery stables and we made the trip to the farm. Some german people who talked broken were living there and father decided to go on renting the farm to them and we would live in town - the name of the town was Hereford. We found a house to rent on the outer edge of town and moved in and were settled by the time school started after the Christmas holidays.
The day we started school was a very cold one for the mild Texas climate. Bob was too young to go but Velma, Harley, Hazel and I walked to school, it was probably about a mile to the school and I had never been to school in a town before and I just walked along with my big brother and sisters and paid no attention to my surroundings. After we had been in school for a while the principal and teachers decided the school building was too cold and dismissed us all. Well I didn't know the way home and had been told anyway that I should just stay in my room until one of the larger ones came for me, so I did, but no one thought come and get me. The teacher questioned me and when she found I didn't know where I lived she and the janitor decided I should go down to the furnace room where it was warm and wait and that is where my father found me. Velma, Harley and finally Hazel had found their way home against the cold north wind and then Dad started out to find me. He carried me most of the way home, bless his heart, a nine year old must have been awkward and heavy to carry so far, against the wind. Those Texas winds were ferocious as we found out on the first Easter Day there. Our grandmother had gone to live with Aunt Rene when we left Wisconsin and about this time she passed away and I feel our mother must have felt very disheartened and homesick and maybe father was too and the older of the children and this Easter Day almost finished it. Mother had fixed a special dinner and tried to make it as cheerful as possible but we went through our first dust storm in the Texas Panhandle that day. The homes there were built as what they call box houses, very flimsy, and the dust rolled in thick on everything - we were a gloomy group as we huddled around the kitchen, too miserable to fix the dust covered table but eating from our hands the food she had prepared for our Easter dinner.
But we learned to like our life there. The house was small compared to the homes they build in the east, There were three bedrooms, kitchen, dining room and front room, a large fenced in yard - there was a small barn and later we had a cow, chickens, and a large garden, there was a windmill with a well house and storage tank for irrigating. We learned to plant vegetables foreign to the ones we grew in Wisconsin... Peppers, watermelon, sweet potatoes, okra and many others.
Father hired out as a carpenter and painter and continued to rent the farm, mostly so we children could have the advantage of a city school. Mother must have learned to like it there, the people of the south are very hospitable and she made friends in the neighborhood. I remember more however that people came to visit her rather than she go to their home to visit much. Across some vacant lots lived the Rices and they had one child, a girl about a year younger than I. Mother and Mrs. Rice became friends and Ethel and I also. Ethel being an only child had her own special room upstairs in their home and also a playroom with as many as 20 or 25 dolls. I used to stay overnight with her but I don't remember of her being at our house except in the day time until later when we moved to the farm then she would stay with us for a week at a time during summer vacation time. Mr. Rice ran a garage in Hereford and he never ate breakfast which was odd to me raised in a home where breakfast was a large meal. Ethel and I used to eat cold cereal and she would be so excited over our breakfast of pancakes when she came to stay with me.
Get your own Free Home Page