Minnie Forsythe: My Life as a Single Girl

Christmas 1894 had come and gone and the present my mother expected had not arrived. [ 1 ] The boys, Artie and Wayne, had retired for the night but my father and the maid, Liddy Hocksworth, were awake and alert. My father had a roaring fire in the big Round Oak stove in the dining room and some little heat trickled through the iron register in the ceiling to the main bedroom upstairs. Doctor Searles' rig, which consisted of a horse and one seated buggy, was tied to a small hitching post in front of the house, on South Prairie Street in Galesburg, Illinois. The doctor had been there for several hours.

About four-thirty in the morning of the twenty-sixth of December, 1894, my mother gave birth to a baby girl. I was that baby. My fifteen year old brother Artie was not happy about having a baby sister, but my seven year old brother Wayne could care less.

Liddy Hocksworth had been my mother's maid in Maquon, Illinois, when Wayne was a baby and she had come several months before to be with her again on account of my mother's temporary affliction. Mama had lost her eyesight for several months during her pregnancy.

My mother had lost twin boys at birth a few years prior to my arrival. Both my mother and father were forty years old and they thought that they were never going to have a daughter. But, I surprised them, here I was, a healthy, howling baby girl. The doctor left and my father came into the kitchen where Liddy was cleaning up after a hectic Christmas day, and was talking to himself as he usually did. He was saying "What do you know, what do you know?" and Liddy asked, "What do you know, Mr. Humphrey?" and he answered, "We finally, after all the years, have a baby girl."

...

My parents, Phoebe Jane Compton and David Henry Humphrey, were married in Avon, Illinois, in 1878, and my brother Artie Randolph was born in Avon in 1879.

They moved to Maquon, Illinois, where my brother Hershel Wayne was born in 1887. Eventually they moved to Galesburg, where I was born. They named me Minnie Elizabeth, Minnie after one of mama's sisters and one of papa's nieces, and Elizabeth after papa's mother.

...

While my parents lived in Maquon, they took a little eight year old girl to live with them. Her name was LaVina Jennings. She came from a very poor family. Her mother was dead, her father was a drunkard, (we would call him an alcoholic now), and she had several brothers and sisters. Her father was glad to have her live with my folks. She was never legally adopted, but when the folks moved to Galesburg, they brought Vina with them. She attended school with Artie and Wayne. My folks loved her as if she were their own.

When Vina was about fifteen, she had an unfortunate marriage. Her husband was only seventeen years old. Vina went to live with Allie and his mother, who wasn't happy having Vina there. Allie tried to be good to her but his mother compelled her to work hard. Vina washed clothes on the wash board, scrubbed floors on her knees, ironed, cooked and cleaned. Vina was pregnant. When her time came, Allie's mother would not call a doctor. Vina had a very difficult delivery. She had a healthy baby boy, but she was very ill. The baby was a few weeks older than I. Allie's mother told Vina that she and the baby would have to leave. Vina and her young husband decided that since he was too young to get work and support her and the baby, they would put him up for adoption. The folks were shocked that she had given up her baby. My father went with Vina to the adoption agency to see about getting the baby back, but since both Vina and her husband had signed the papers legally, and the baby had already been taken by a family, there was nothing they could do. My father brought Vina home and she helped my mother care for me.

I didn't know for many years that Vina had been married, or had had a baby, or that she wasn't my own sister. Many years later Vina's son came to Galesburg from California looking for his mother, but she was then living in the State of Washington. He found the house where she had lived with my folks and me, his Aunt, and I met him also. He got Vina's address, wrote to her, and the corresponded, but he never did get to see her.

While I was still a baby in arms, my father sold the house where I was born and moved his family to a new sub-division in Galesburg, Hyde Park. My Aunt Sorelda and Uncle Jim Cunningham bought the Prairie Street house from him.

The property my father purchased in Hyde Park was an eight by twelve rod lot on the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Grove Street, with a small four-room house. We were a family of six people. This is where I grew up.

I can still remember the house as it was when we moved in, as papa did no remodeling for several years. The little white house faced east on Lawrence Avenue, with a narrow porch, no railing, across the front. There were two rooms on the front, the corner room was the "front room", with a door opening onto the porch. There were two windows in this room, one on the east, and one of the south. Mamma and papa slept in this room on a folding bed. The bed was made of black walnut, and when it was folded, it looked like a wardrobe with a large full length beveled plate glass mirror on the front. There was a dresser and a rocking chair in this room, and a flowered rug on the floor. There were no closets in the little house. The other room on the front was a very small bedroom with a window facing the porch. The chimney that went through the house from the cellar was between these two rooms, and jutted out into the small bedroom. This is where Vina and I slept. There were hooks on the wall for hanging clothes and we had a small dresser. There was no room for a chair. Those two rooms had doors leading into the dining room. This was a very dark room. There was, at that time only one window on the west. There was a door on the south leading into a small square hall. There were doors in this hall, one to the kitchen, one to the cellar steps and one to the little small south porch.

In the dining room was a square dining table, a side board, and mamma's Domestic Sewing Machine, and a number of dining chairs. The sewing machine was a pedal machine, the wood was oak, and there was an oak box cover that fitted over the top of the machine. The cover was seldom over the top as mamma made all our sheets and pillow slips, and hemmed all the barber towels for papa's barber shop, and Vina made most of our clothes. Papa was a barber.

...

The boys, Artie and Wayne, slept in the kitchen, which served as their bedroom. There were two windows in that room and a door on the north which opened into some steps that went down into the lean-to, or summer kitchen, where the wash tubs and stoves were kept.

In the cellar were two rooms with brick floors. In the front room was the cook stove where mama and Vina did the cooking and carried the food up the stairs, through the little hall into the dining room. My mother was a rather tall person, perhaps five-five, and she could not stand up straight in those cellar rooms. It must have been very difficult for her in those days.

There was a barn on the property with hop vines growing on the side of it. Papa had a black horse that he called "Jack". My mother used to hitch Jack to the surry and I would go with her when she would take papa on visits to sick men to shave them or cut their hair, on Sundays.

...

I don't remember much about Artie when he lived at home. While he was in high school he worked after school and on Saturdays in the Shop with papa, learning the barber trade. Papa, at that time, operated a four-chair Barber Shop in the Union Hotel. This was the largest and busiest hotel in the city. It was located on the Public Square, across the street from the Auditorium. Many actors came to papa's shop for shaves, massages and haircuts. The shop was also only a block from the Santa Fe Station, and dignitaries, such as Senators, or Congressmen would stay at the hotel and would patronize papa's barber shop. Artie would leave early in the morning with papa, they would walk one and a half miles to the shop and school, and Artie would come home with papa at night. The shop closed at eight in the evening, and I was in bed when they left in the morning, and when they returned at night. By the time Artie was eighteen, he had learned the trade, and he worked full time as a Union Barber with his father. Carl Sandburg, the Author and Poet, who was about Artie's age, worked for papa a short time as a Porter in the Barber Shop.

...

In the Summer, on Sunday evenings, after papa was through working in the yard and gardens, he would bring his rocking chair out on the front porch and he would hold me on his lap and sing sad songs and recite poetry. I can remember one song was about "Grandpa's Chair is empty: and ended by "By and by we all must die like the fire in the grate". Another was about "you will have no father to guide you on your way." And his favorite song was "My Poor Nellie Gray, they have taken her away and I will never see my darling any more." I loved to hear him sing, but sometimes it made me sad. Some of the poems he recited where, "Maud Muller", "The Barefoot Boy", and Poe's "The Raven". I could almost recite those poems myself, I heard them so many times.

Papa called me "Toodles" and he called Wayne "Buster". He read the Sunday Funnies to me, "Mutt and Jeff", "Happy Hooligan", The Katzenjammers and "Toodles". Perhaps that is where he got the nickname "Toodles" for me.

One day mamma had a lady visitor who had a little girl about my age. We played on the narrow front porch. The little girl sat in my little rocking chair and I didn't want her to, so I gave her a push and she and the rocking chair went crashing onto the lawn. She cried, and I cried. She cried because she was hurt, I cried because I was frightened. Of course, I was scolded, but the fright was enough punishment for me.

...

Mamma painted with pastels, in those days, and there was usually an easel standing with an unfinished picture on it. I would go with her when she would drive to a store on Seminary Street, where she placed her pictures for sale. She painted many pictures, everyone in the family had at least one, and papa had several in his barber shop. When she finished her business in that store, she would go to the store next door and she would purchase a bag of rock candy for me. Painting on china was a fad and she painted china plates and cups also.

...

Mamma was raised a Baptist but she attended the Christian Church in Galesburg. She would take me to Sunday School there. In the Sunday School room was a circle of little red chairs and the little children sat on them and the teacher stood in the center. I didn't know any of the children, or the teacher, and I didn't like to go, but I did like the pretty little holy card the teacher gave us each Sunday. Finally, because I left the Sunday School room and started home more than once, mamma decided is was no use to take me. I would go to Church with her sometimes, but not to Sunday School.

...

There was lots of fruit on our lots. There was a small orchard of about six apple trees at the north west corner of the property. There was a hen-house and a fenced in chicken yard where mamma raised her chickens, and she also had a strawberry bed. Papa had current and gooseberry bushes along the south side of the back yard, and behind the barn was a garden, and raspberry bushes and strawberry rhubarb. There were several cherry trees, a couple of plum trees and a pear tree. Mamma made delicious gooseberry, cherry and rhubarb pies. From the north side of the house to the north end of the place were three long grape arbors. We never wanted for jellies or jams.

A short distance from the rear of the house was a pump, this water was used for drinking and cooking. In the yard behind the house was a cistern where mamma would let down a pail on a rope and bring up water for washing clothes, dishes, hair and people. There was a board walk from the kitchen to the privy, and by the side of this walk was a large tree where papa had hung a rope swing. I had not little girls to play with so Wayne played with me. He would swing me high in the air and I would squeal. I adored my brother Wayne.

One time eleven year old Wayne, who loved to tease, buried my bag of marbles under one of the grape arbors, and I cried and ran to tell mamma. She told Wayne to go get my marbles for me. He dug and dug and dug and he couldn't find them. He got some clay, made some marbles and baked them in the oven and put them in a sack for me and I was satisfied. It didn't take much to make a little four year old girl happy.

There were no pavements in Hyde Park, and no sewers, so there were ditches along side of the roads. There was a ditch all along Grove Street and Wayne and I would pull snake grass from the ditch. It grew in sections and Wayne showed me how to pull the sections apart and put them together again and we would see who could make the longest piece. Of course, Wayne always won. I would follow Wayne around the yard, and he would pull carrots, turnips, or rhubarb, and he would wash them under the pump and pare them with his pocket knife, and we would eat them. If Wayne ate them, I was sure they were good, and I ate them also.

Neighbors where few and far between. There was a house directly across the street from our house where a lady lived by herself. Across from her, on the south-east corner, was another house where renters lived with no children. On the south-west corner was a large cow pasture which took up most of the block. Grove Street had not sidewalks either east or west of our place. Lawrence Avenue had a brick sidewalk on the west side of the street in front of our house.

...

My brother, Artie, was nineteen, going on twenty, when he was married to Margaret Cunneen. They were married in the Rectory of Corpus Christi Church by Father Costa, as Maggie was a Catholic. The following spring my sister, Vina, who was now free, was married to my cousin Thomas Adelbert Lindsey. Dell brought me a big sack of candy. I didn't even want it as I thought that he was trying to buy Vina from me. That evening, mamma had a wedding dinner for Vina and Dell, with just the immediate family present. This, of course, included my brother Artie and his new wife Maggie, Aunt Sorelda and Uncle Jim and their children Arthur and Ora, and of course, Wayne and I and Papa and Mamma. The young people from Hyde Park congregated outside the house and had a charivari , with all kinds of noise makers. The charivariers were invited in and they came through the house, in the front door and out the side door and they were each given a small piece of wedding cake. That was my first experience at a wedding. Dell owned a little farm in the country near Middle Grove, and that is where he took Vina.

...

I was very lonely. My sister was gone. She had been my constant companion all my young life. I followed mamma around asking her to play with me. I would rap on the door, and she would say, "Come in, Mrs. Feelebob, and have a sugar cookie. They were warm, I have just made them." Sometimes she would say "Oh, I thought you were Timothy Tugmutton". She tried to amuse me. Of course, I had Wayne, but he was a big boy, twelve years old, and he had a bicycle, and during the school year he was in school. In the Summer he delivered papers or was with his boy friends. At night when I was alone, I would cry for my sister.

...

Mamma started working as a cook in Massey's Boarding and Rooming House. She would take me with her and I would take my doll to play with. This was a long frame building on Cherry Street, down town. On the front was a long dining room and an office. There were stairs that went up to the sleeping rooms. In the center of the house, back of the dining room was a large kitchen and a long, dark pantry. Next to the kitchen was a large bed room where Mr. And Mrs. Massey slept. I sat on the floor in this room and played with my doll, while mamma cooked. On the other side of the kitchen was a door leading into the living room and behind it were family bedrooms. Looking back, I think they were a family of characters. One of the children, a young man, was an actor, and one sister was an actress. They played in a Stock Company, one night stands. Mamma wouldn't let me eat there as there were so many roaches. I saw her more than once blow roaches off the pies that she had baked before she would cut them for serving.

Mrs. Massey was a short fat lady, very pleasant. Mr Massey was tall, dark and thin. One day they went to an auction at the Express Office and each bid in a package, unseen. When they got back Mr. Massey offered to trade packages and Mrs. Massey agreed. When they opened them, Mr. Massey had a pair of hip boots and Mrs. Massey had a crate of whiskey. He wanted to trade back but she said, "Oh no, no sir". They had lots of laughs about that. Mamma didn't work there very long.

...

My father started remodeling the house and there were carpenters tearing out partitions and putting in new windows. The wall between the dining room and the cellar steps were removed and a trap door put in the floor so the cellar steps could be used. The nice windows were put on the south side of the dining room. It wasn't a dungeon any more. All the windows in the house formerly had tiny panes. Papa liked lots of light. Now the house had modern large panes of glass. The lean-to was moved and papa had two rooms added to the north side of the house. A door from the dining room opened into a large parlor and a parlor-bed room. Now Wayne had a bed room and mamma had her kitchen upstairs. The wall between the two bedrooms was removed and the old chimney taken out. Mamma and papa had a larger bedroom and two closets. I lost my bedroom, from then on I slept on a couch in the dining room. I didn't care. If I had to sleep alone, I would rather be in the dining room.

One night, I had a bad dream. I thought I was standing in the "front room" and mamma was walking toward the full length plate glass mirror in the folding bed as if she were going to look at her reflection, but she just kept on walking right through the mirror, and disappeared. I awoke crying, and ran into mamma and papa's bedroom and there she was sleeping soundly. That dream haunted me for years. I thought it was a bad omen, but nothing ever happened to mamma.

Papa gave Artie the north four-by-twelve lot for a Wedding present, and he built a two story house on the north half of his lot. The grape arbors were all taken out except one in the back. I would go over to their house and Maggie would make candy for me. I liked Maggie but she didn't take the place of my sister. They had a little brown dog named Geaser, and I like him too.

...

My folks purchased a beautiful organ for me. It was blond wood. I had to pump the pedals with my feet. I could barely reach them by sitting on the edge of the organ stool. I had to use my knees to make the music loud or soft, and there were many stops to push in or pull out. I started taking organ lessons before I was six years old. I liked my organ and like to play, but I didn't care for my teacher. She was a widow, a friend of mamma's, and she had catarrh and she had a very, very, bad breath. Because she was mamma's friend and I was a five year old girl, I was too young to complain.

That Summer, we got some new neighbors. A friend of mamma's and her husband and two sons moved into a house on the street back of us. One little boy was near my age, so I finally had a playmate. His name was Frank Hawley. There was a ditch between our properties, with a plank across for a bridge. We ran back and forth from one yard to the other and on Easter our mothers colored eggs and hid them all the way between their yards for us to hunt.

Papa hung a barrel slat hammock in our front yard from the porch to a cherry tree. Frank and I played there. One Halloween, a group of big boys carried the hammock a whole block away and put it in Mr. Hawkinson's yard. Because it was so heavy, make of wooden barrel staves, papa told Mr. Hawkinson to keep the hammock.

My folks belonged to the Court of Honor, a Fraternal Insurance Lodge. Papa, mamma, Maggie, Artie and I would walk one and a half miles to the meeting on Main and Seminary Streets one night a month. Of course, being a little girl, I had to sit in the anti-room until the meeting was over. Several other little girls and boys sat out there also. I could hear the piano and the marching as they had a Drill team. Maggie was one of the leaders of the drill team. They always had a little entertainment after the meeting, which never interested me, unless someone played the piano. We all walked home along toward midnight. My father was in pretty good condition in those days.

When a Circus came to town, we would usually stay all night at Aunt Sorelda's (we called her Aunt Freddie), so we could get up in the wee hours and watch the circus unload about a block from her house. It was fun to see the elephants doing the heavy work. We would also go the next morning downtown to see the parade which would go right down Main Street and around the Square, with bands, elephants, camels, clowns, and even the wild animals in cages, and at the end the calliope.

Ringling Brothers Circus came to town and papa took me to the Circus. He bought popcorn and cotton candy for me and when he handed the doorman our tickets, the man said, "Hello Minnie". I asked papa how that man knew my name and papa pointed to my gold locket which hung around my neck and had my name "Minnie" engraved on it.

Sometimes on a Sunday, Mamma, Wayne and I would go to Aunt Freddie's. Papa usually didn't go with us as he had so much to do in th yard and gardens. We usually took some fruit and vegetables with us. I though this was an exciting trip as I could hear the trains coming into Galesburg, and the switching of railroad cars in the Railroad Yards. She lived only a block or so from the Yards. I could see people walking by her house and they would stop and lift the tin cup off her pump and get a drink of water then hang the cup back for the next one by to get a drink. Her pump was on the front terrace between the walk and the street. The Abingdon and Monmouth Inter-urban cars went by her place and on Sunday afternoons the street cars with several open trailers would go by loaded with people going to the ball game at the Illinois Ball Park. This was a contrast to our quiet place in Hyde Park. My Uncle Jim had a Victrola with humorous records that he would play for us. He also had a dog named "Fido". I didn't like his dog.

Some Summer days, Aunt Freddie and Uncle Jim and the children would come out and papa would have a big watermelon in the tub under the pump getting cool. He would cut it and we would all sit in the shady yard and eat it. Later, nearer Fall, they would come out and Uncle Jim and papa would dig horseradish, tie their faces in bananas and grind it, out in the back yard. They would bottle it with vinegar for table use.

...

I didn't get to go to Vina's the first Summer after when was married. But I did go to Avon with mamma for a few days to visit my Grandmother Compton, who was a widow. My Aunt Katie Hodson lived in Avon also, and I spent most of my time at her house. Grandma was a sweet old lady with snow white hair. Her home was a large frame house on the Main Street. The main entrance was at the side of the house. The door opened into a hall with stairs going straight upstairs. If you turned east, you entered a parlor with two windows facing the street. I could hear people waling on the board walk in front of her house going to the stores. There was several chairs in the room and a walnut center table on which was a photograph album with pictures of relatives that I had never seen. A bed room was next to the parlor and had a bed and dresser of black walnut. Mamma and I slept in this room while we were there.

If you turned west from the hall, you entered a very large dining room, the whole width of the house. Grandma had a long dining table with a white table cloth and pretty glass jars with fancy lids at each end. One contained oyster crackers and the other contained ginger snaps. I liked neither. There were some rocking chairs in this room as she used it as a sitting room. In the kitchen were built in cupboards full of heavy dishes, work tables, sink, a pump for cistern water, and a big coal range. The pump for drinking water was just outside the door on the porch. She had formerly run a boarding and rooming house. Upstairs were a number of small bed rooms off a long hall, each contained a narrow bed, a commode, a slop jar, a chamber and a chair. A towel hung over the top of each commode. I used to peek into these rooms and wonder who had slept in them.

Sometimes I would run along her board walk to the alley, past her privy, (it was a double one, on one door was painted "Ladies" and on the other "Gents".) Then I would run down the alley and across the street to Aunt Katie's. Other times I would go along the board walk on Main Street to the corner, past a hotel that had a porch on two sides with chairs, and occasionally people would be sitting on the chairs. I would run across the street, turn west and past the Livery Stable where Uncle John Hodson worked, and then to Aunt Katie's.

She lived in a large ten room house. She had raised a large family of eight girls and one boy. They were all married and gone except Mae and Mildred. Mae was an old maid, and Mildred was about Wayne's age. She also had two grandsons that she was raising. Earl was a teenager and Drewry was a year older than I. I followed Drew around and I am sure he was glad when I went home.

If we went to Avon on Memorial Day, we always went to the cemetery where Grandpa Compton and several of mamma's sisters and brothers were buried. There would be a flag on Grandpa's grave because he had been a Union Soldier in the Civil War.

It was September 1899, but since I was not quite six years old my mother did not start me to school that year. Wayne was in the seventh grade. After school Wayne had a paper route and he would not get home until supper time. Frank had started to school, so I had no one to play with. Mamma would make paper dolls for me, color them and make fancy dresses for them to amuse me. I spent much of my time with Maggie. I would watch their dog, Geeser, sit between the two houses watching to see who would have the meal ready first, then he would run over there for a handout.

...

Christmas came, and so did Vina and Dell. I was thrilled to see them. The house was more roomy now since it had been remodeled and the folks decided to have a Family Christmas party. Papa cut a large limb from an apple tree and set it up in the parlor. Mamma and Vina decorated it. They put cotton on the limbs to look like snow, and popcorn and cranberries were strung, and papa even brought home some tinsel for trimming. I made little lanterns out of wall paper and paper chains. Then cotton was strung on thread and hung from the high limbs to looks as it if were snowing. We had no lights on the tree. The folks began putting presents under the tree several days before Christmas. Wayne and I were not allowed to touch them. Aunt Freddie, Uncle Jim, Ora and Arthur came out for the day. Vina and Maggie helped mamma with the big meal and after dinner we had the exchange of gifts.

Artie belonged to a club that owned a Santa Claus suit and Artie borrowed it and with the red suit stuffed with pillows and with false white whiskers he looked like a little old fat man. He came into the room Ho Ho Hoing and I cried and clung to Vina, and I wouldn't look at him. Finally he had to take off his whiskers and cap and show me who he was. I quieted down. I had asked for and was expecting a big doll for Christmas, and under the tree was a big doll box, not wrapped, but tied with a big red bow. I could hardly wait, but wait I had to. Artie handed out the gifts, all the long back cotton hose that papa had bought for all the ladies. I even received a pair. I don't know what the boys or Ora got, but Wayne probably got books as he didn't play any sports or didn't skate. Wayne was a bookworm. At long last Artie looked at the tag on the doll box and called out "Dell". I said "No, no, that is my doll", but he ignored me and gave the box to Dell. Dell opened it and there was a nice pair of bedroom slippers for him. I couldn't believe it, my tears flowed. Then Artie read my name from the tag on a stuffed pillow slip, and when I pulled the crushed paper out, there was my beautiful twenty-four inch doll with eyes that closed, jointed arms and legs, and pretty dark hair. I was happy, and as far as I was concerned Christmas was a success.

It was a nice party and Aunt Freddie and her family left early as they had so far to go on a snowy Christmas night. The closest street car was a quarter of a mile from our house and it would only take them within a quarter of a mile from their home. So they walked.

...

In September, 1900, I was six years and eight months old, and mamma entered me in the first grade at Bateman School, about one-half mile from our house. Wayne was in the eighth grade. I would walk to school with Wayne and he would watch for me and bring me home a noon and after school. One afternoon he waited for me and I didn't come out with my class. Finally he went back in the school and looked in the first grade room and he saw me sitting in my seat with tears in my eyes. My name was on the blackboard. My teacher, Miss Long, saw him and said "Hello Wayne", then, "You may go now Minnie". I don't remember why I had to stay, but Wayne never finished teasing me about it. I think it was the only time I ever had to stay after school.

Wayne and I both came home for lunch at noon. Mamma tried to teach us some manners. If we put our elbows on the table, she would crack them with her knife. Wayne would tease, her, of course. He would put his left elbow on the table and point his figure at her while he was eating and follow her with his finger as she went to a fro to the kitchen. She would just say, "Oh, stop that Wayne". And we were supposed to excuse ourselves if we left the table. I didn't understand, and if I left the table "last", I would say "Excuse me from the table please." Wayne would double over laughing as there was no one to excuse me.

Mamma was jolly and usually sang as she did her housework. I liked to hear her sing the old songs of her childhood, many of them were Civil War songs.

At Christmas time the folks gave me a girl's sled, painted bright red with my name across the middle in gold letters. On all the snowy days, and we seemed to have many of them, Wayne pulled me to and from school on my sled.

...

Our house was always very warm. We only had five rooms and there was an oval wood stove in the parlor, a round oak stove in the dining-room and a coal range in the kitchen. Every morning papa would get up early, bring in well water and cistern water and have a hot fire in all the stoves before he would eat and walk to work. As soon as he left, mamma would open the doors and let the cold air in. Papa wanted us to be warm and he would usually get the house too hot for comfort.

...

On Memorial Day, mamma and I went to Avon on the train to see Grandma Compton, who had had a stroke and was confined to a chair as her legs were paralyzed. Grandma was getting forgetful and she would ask me time and time again, "Whose girl are you? Jennie's or Sorelda's?" Each time I would say, "Jennie's" and she would ask what grade I was in. I couldn't understand why she couldn't remember. Grandma's half-sister, Aunt Colista, lived with her and took care of her.

As usual I would go to Aunt Katie's. One day Aunt Katie sent Drewry and I with a big basket of food for his Uncle Elijah Hodson. This old man lived alone in a little two room cabin on the far side of Avon. I had not seen him before. He was a small man, with long white wavy hair and whiskers. I thought he looked like a hermit. Aunt Katie had sent him fresh bread, meat, fruit, etc. He was her husband's brother.

Mamma and I went from Avon on the train to the next station, which was about three miles, and was Prairie City, where we visited with my Aunt Susie, my father's only sister, and her husband Uncle Perry. Uncle Perry and his son Tony were carpenters.

When school was out in June, Mamma and Wayne took me to Vina's farm. We went downtown and took a inter-urban car to Abingdon, where we boarded a train that took us to Middle Grove. Dell met us at the little station with a horse and buggy. This was my first trip to Vina's. I thought Avon and Prairie were small towns, but Middle Grove didn't seem like a town at all. There was a General Store, a Barber Shop, a Blacksmith Shop and a Grain Elevator. A few houses were scattered here and there, and a little Church with a steeple was nearby.

Dell drove us out a narrow, dusty road, up a steep hill and down a sharp curve, past timber land, across a narrow bridge, over a creek, and finally came to a wide gate by the side of the road. Wayne got out and opened the gate. Dell told him to get back in the buggy after he closed it as we had a short distance yet to go. We were now on the private lane. We passed two coal banks, and came to a two story house at the foot of a steep hill. My cousin Tad (Perry Addison Lindsey), Dell's brother, and his wife Angie and their two little daughters were standing in the yard waiting to wave to us as we passed by. We waved but we kept on going, past a large cornfield on one side and vegetable gardens and a lot with pigs and another vegetable garden on the other side. We came to a second gate and Wayne got out and opened it. Dell didn't wait for him this time as Vina's house was only a short distance further. She was waiting at her gate, which opened into this pasture. I was excited and happy to see her again.

They had a cute little five room house tucked away at the bottom of a steep hill, a half mile off the main road. The pump for drinking water was on the large covered back porch. Along side of the house was a long covered tank for rain water. It looked like a boat to me. Dell had a cave in the side of the hill behind the house and this is where they kept things cool. Vina had laying hens and some hens with baby chickens. There was a barn for the horses and cows and a privy. In the pasture in front of the house was a corn crib and a corn grinder to which Dell would hitch a blind horse and the horse would go round and round grinding the corn for feed. This corn grinder looked like a huge coffee grinder. Across the pasture from the house was another gate to more pasture land, where Dell's cows grazed. Littler's Creek ran through this pasture. This was a wooded area with walnut and hickory nut trees, Hazel nut bushes and blackberry bushes.

Tad's daughters, Hazel and Ora, and I played together all Summer in the sand along the bank of Littlers Creek. There were some deep places in the creek but it was shallow at the bend where we played.

Besides farming, Dell and Tad operated the two coal mines which were on their property. Once Dell took Hazel and I in a little car than ran on a track and we rode back into the dark mine with him. It was scary and I was glad to get back out.

One day Dell took me on the coal wagon with him when he went to deliver a load of coal to "Shin Town". I wore a painters cap on my head a cotton dress and went barefoot. When we got back to the farm, Vina made me take a bath on the back porch.

That Summer a Medicine Show came to Middle Grove. All the farmers and their families for miles around came to town to see the show. Tad and Dell and their families, including me, went. A large tent was erected on a vacant lot and inside were wooden planks for seating the audience, and a platform for the entertainers. The Company put on two shows, one each night for two nights, and we went both nights. They played "East Lynn" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Between sets the medicine man explained how his medicine could cure anything and everything and he would sell the bottled stuff to the country folk.

On the Fourth of July, Dell and Tad told us all to stay on the porch and watch while they went far over in the pasture and dynamited a large tree stump that needed to be removed. There was a loud explosion but they were miners and were used to handling dynamite. They had been waiting until the Fourth to do it as a celebration.

Several times we three girls walked into Middle Grove, barefoot, on the dusty narrow road, up and down hills, to spend a few pennies at the General Store. When I went with Vina and Dell, Vina purchased dress material, shoes, flour and sugar, and also kerosene for the lamps, and Dell purchased hardware, and equipment for the farm, all the same General Store. Then they bought a tablet, pencils and crayons for me.

In August, Wayne and Maggie came to take me home. We were all sitting in Vina's dining room visiting when a storm came up. It rained torrents, and the creek overflowed and water came across the field from the creek all the way to her front gate. There were sharp flashes of lightening and loud crashes of thunder. All of a sudden a blue flash went through the house and a terrific crack of thunder. We were all frightened, but no one was hurt.

Soon we saw Tad coming down the lane from his house, wearing hip boots. The water was above his knees. He called, "Is everyone alright?" We were! The lightening had struck a telephone pole near Tad's house. The flash was from the telephone wires from that pole to Dell's house. The storm subsided, and although I protested, I had to return home with Maggie and Wayne.

In September, 1901, I went back to school, alone. Wayne was now in High School. I made some little friends, Gladys Larson, Irene Lofgren, Harold Hawkinson, and Loreda Munson. We lived in a Swedish neighborhood and all my new little friends were of Swedish decent. We would play going to and from school. There was a deep ditch all along the sidewalks and paths, and we played "ditch tag", jumping back and forth across the ditches. When we would get near the school, and we would see Mr. Anderson the janitor, coming out to ring the big hand bell, we would run to keep from being tardy. I came home for lunch every day, and usually I would meet the postman at Lawrence and Losey Streets, and I would ride the last block with him standing in his horse drawn mail cart. It looked like a chariot, it had not seat.

Now I was eight years old, and I roamed the neighborhood with my girl friends on weekends. We all played with eight and on-half inch twenty-five cent dolls. We would congregate at one or the other houses and bring our dolls and sewing materials. Mamma's dressmaker saved her pretty scraps for me.

Gladys was my closest friend and sometimes I would be invited to eat dinner with them. The Larson girls sat on "youth chairs" which I thought were wonderful. When I was smaller I sat on the Family Bible. We could see Larson's house from our side porch through the fields. Only a few people had telephones then. We did, but Larson's didn't. When someone wanted to talk to Mrs. Larson, they would call mamma, she would take the call and hang a dish towel on our lilac bush in our side yard. When Mrs. Larson would see it, she would come over and use our phone.

Larson's had a large dome like grape arbor in their backyard, with an arch doorway and two benches inside. Gladys and I played in this arbor. The vines produced large luscious pink grapes, which we would eat while we were playing.

Loreda's and Harold's fathers were carpenters also. Irene's father was a machinist at Frost Foundry. Sometimes on Saturdays Irene would take her father's hot lunch to him in a tin lunch box. I would accompany her. We walked about a mile and a half and had to pass through a colored district. We would see colored women sitting in front of their rundown houses and children and dogs playing in the yards. No one ever spoke to us.

Irene had two older sisters, Florence and Marie and a brother, Harry. When I would go there after school, her mother would give us all a thick slice of homemade bread and butter. Irene called it "butter and bread". Her brother, who was about eleven years old, raised bees. When we played and sewed for dolls, Harry would play with us and he would sew also. I never ate dinner at their house, as their father always came home drunk from work and he was cruel when he drank. I saw him knock Florence off her chair once, and I got frightened and ran for home.

I still played with Frank. He would build a furnace out of bricks in his yard and I would take my little iron kettle and skillet over and we would cook eggs. He made me a doll swing for my doll that she would really swing in.

...

The first of May, which was May Day, we girls made little May baskets out of wallpaper and filled them with flowers, whatever flowers were in bloom, sometimes apple, cherry or plum blossoms, or wild flowers. Then we would steal up to a porch, put the May basket on the porch, rap loudly on the porch and run and hide. Usually the lady of the house would open the door, see the pretty basket, and make a loud exclamation such as, "Oh, see the pretty May Basket". Of course, we were pleased.

In the Summer, there were Street Fairs in Galesburg, with platforms built at the edge of the Main Street at each block, down town. There was free entertainment. Programs were handed out and we girls would run from one block to the next to see the next act. This was great excitement for eight year old girls.

My girlfriends and I would walk downtown, stop at Papa's shop and I would ask him for a nickel or a dime, and we would shop for lace or baby ribbon for trimming for our doll clothes. We walked close to the buildings as horses were tied to hitching posts at the curb along the sidewalks on Main Street, and we were afraid of them.

We stamped white horses, licking our thumb, putting it on the palm of the other hand, and then hitting it with your fists. When we stamped one hundred white horses, we would get our wish - we thought. I don't know if we ever stamped one hundred. There were a good many white horses around in those days. Sometimes the children talked about their father's occupation, and Wayne told me to tell them that our father was a Tonsorial Artist. I did! All the children in the neighborhood would come to our side door to see "Auntie Humphrey" and mamma always had a sugar cookie for them.

One beautiful sunny Summer afternoon, mamma invited all the little girls to come and bring their dolls and we would have a doll party. She gave prizes for the largest doll, the smallest, the oldest, the shortest and fanciest dressed doll, the longest dress on a doll, the shortest dress on a doll, etc. Every little girl got a prize. Mamma served them fresh homemade cookies and lemonade.

I went with mamma and papa to a party on Halloween. It was my first experience at a masked party. I was almost afraid. One ghost was so tall that he had to bend to get through the doorways. I discovered later that he had a false head on a broom stick that he carried under the sheet and he wasn't tall at all.

Papa was popular with all the neighbors. On one of his birthdays, they neighbors had a surprise party on him. When the people arrived, they found him with his feet soaking in a foot tub. Everyone had a big laugh. They gave him a rocking chair as a gift.

...

Our horse, Jack, had been sold, the barn had been torn down so papa would have more garden space, and the big tree, where my rope swing had hung, had been felled. Papa then purchased a lawn swing, and put it in our side yard. I would stand in it and swing it, pretending it was a train, and I would call out the several stations from Galesburg to Prairie City.

Whenever Jack's name was mentioned, mamma would shed tears. She loved the old horse. Wayne was a terrible tease. One day he came home from High School and said, "Well, I hear they took old Jack to the Soap Factory". Mamma burst into tears. Of course, she knew he was teasing her, but the thought made her cry. Wayne loved mamma and he didn't want to hurt her.

Papa now operated a four chair Barber Shop on South Cherry Street. Artie was still a barber in the shop. Wayne worked around the shop after school and on Saturdays, but he had no desire to be a barber. Some of papa's friends liked Wayne, especially Colonel Clark E. Carr. He told Wayne that he should become a lawyer, and that wen Wayne finished High School he would see that Wayne would get a scholarship to Knox College. Wayne had always been interested in Newspaper work, and he took journalism, English and debating in High School.

...

I was about nine years old when Artie and Maggie decided to sell their home and go, with another couple, Addie and George Maher, to Red Lodge, Montana, to live. Their house was sold to a widow with tow sickly little boys. I was very unhappy that they were leaving us. They entertained at a lawn social before they left. Artie strung wires from our house to his house and Japanese lanterns were hung on the wires. There was no electricity on our block so the lanterns were lighted with candles in them, to light up the yard. It was very dark at night around our places as there was no street light on our corner. There were street lights only every two blocks, and they were only are lights, not much illumination. The yard was full of friends and neighbors, and Maggie served them ice cream and cake.

...

Sometimes on Saturday, when we would visit Aunt Freddie, I would go over to the Boyer Broom Factory, where my cousin Ora was manager and bookkeeper. She had a high desk with high stools, and I would sit on a high stool and pretend that I was an office girl. She also typed and I would watch her fingers fly and I was sure that I wanted to have a job like hers when I grew up.

...

One night when I was preparing for bed, Wayne said, "Mamma, there's a big fire, I think the grocery is burning." I ran to the window in my nightie and I could see the flames shooting sky high. The grocery was about three blocks from our house. Wayne hopped on his bicycle and headed for the fire. Mamma and I watched from the window. Hours later, when Wayne finally came home, he said, "The fire, it was my High School, Galesburg High School burned down." The school continued to hold classes in nearby buildings. This was in 1904. Wayne graduated from High School that year.

...

On my next vacation, Mamma took me to visit Vina again. I loved being with Vina, I loved playing with my cousins, and I loved the country. I didn't know then that that would be my last visit at my sister's farm. On the Fourth of July Mamma and papa met us in London Mills, where there was a celebration. I was to return home with them, but it was time for my folks to leave to catch the train, I begged to stay longer. Then Dell put me on his shoulders and waded out into the river and I waved good-bye to them. In a couple of weeks Wayne came after me and took me home.

One day papa took me to the Fire Station to see the fire horses and wagons. The Fire Chief told us to stand up on the stairs to watch. The fire bell was rung, firemen slid down a shiny pole from the second floor, gates opened and the fire horses came dashing out. The firemen dropped the harness, that was suspended above the horses, on them, and they were ready to dash out. But, since there was no real fire, the horses were unhitched and returned to their stalls.

...

On Sunday's, mamma always had a big dinner. Early in the morning she would go to the chicken yard, catch a hen, wring it's neck in the back yard. She would pluck it's feathers, clean and dress it for cooking. She usually cooked it with light dumplings. She would cook many vegetables from the garden, or if it was Winter, she would open vegetables that she had canned. There would be cucumber pickles, or Tomato pickles, and preserve that she had made. And, always there was a delicious pie. Papa would say, Jennie, why don't you have more on week days and not so much on Sunday". This really didn't make sense as papa didn't eat lunch or dinner at home except on Sunday. His comment didn't change mamma, she still cooked the big dinner on Sunday.

Mamma had about eight or ten very unusual fancy Ancona hens. They were black and white, with a top knot on their heads. One morning there was a knock on our side door. Mamma answered the knock and there stood two Hyde Park boys, about ten or eleven years of age. They had three Ancona hens with them and they said, "We have three chickens, just like yours, Mrs. Humphrey, would you like to buy them?" Because these boys were sons of a friend and neighbor, mamma didn't suspect foul play, so she paid fifty cents apiece for the hens. When she took them to her chicken yard, she discovered she was short three hens. These were her own hens that they had stolen and sold back to her.

...

Mamma was usually employed at some work away from home. She was a milliner by trade and operated a milliner store for several years, but she had not worked at her trade since I was born. At times she had worked as a door to door saleslady, something she like to do and was successful at. She was always home when I came home for lunch, and usually when I came home from school. If she wasn't home, I went to Maggie's until she moved away, then I would go to a friend's house and play until mamma came home. If mamma wasn't home when Wayne came home, he would go all over the neighborhood calling her, until he found her.

While I was in Middle Grove during the Summer, mamma organized about eight Larking Soap Clubs. They were a popular and profitable thing at that time. The clubs would meet in the afternoons and the ladies would visit, sew, or play games. They would each give mamma an order for one dollar's worth of Larkin Products. Each lady would get a ten dollar premium from the catalog during the ten months. They would draw to see who would get the premium that particular month. Mamma would get a dollar's worth of products each month free with each club, and also a ten dollar premium with each club during the ten months. That meant that eight afternoons in each month, her clubs would meet and I would have to go after school to the club, usually a home in the neighborhood. The ladies would serve beautiful home made cakes with delicious frosting, but I would hardly ever even taste a bite. Mamma worked these clubs for several years.

...

Wayne graduated from High School, the Colonel did not forget his promise and Wayne received his scholarship, to Knox College. He was an excellent student but he had mixed feelings about his education. He had no desire to be a lawyer, but still entertained thoughts of getting into the Newspaper business. He was impatient. After a year at Knox College he suddenly left home. He went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and became a cub reporter on a newspaper there. I cried. How could by brother Wayne go away.

Papa was disappointed, as he wanted Wayne to finish Knox College and go into Law. Mamma was worried about Wayne. Mamma and I went to Cedar Rapids on the train to visit Wayne. This was my first out-of-state trip. While we were there, Mamma cleaned Wayne's room, took care of his clothes, and other needs. Wayne took me with him to the Newspaper office. The other men thought he had found a lost child, but Wayne proudly introduced me as his little sister.

...

One weekend Vina came to Galesburg and visited the Free Kindergarten with the hope of finding a child to adopt. She brought a red haired, freckled face, plump little girl to our house for the night. Everyone fell in love with her. She was from a large family, the mother, a widow, was unable to care for her, and was anxious for a good family to adopt her. Vina and Dell came back to Galesburg and met the little girl's mother at the Court House, and papers were signed. Little Irene Conners became Irene Lindsey. Soon after that, Vina and Dell, along with another brother of Dell's, Bert, and his family and their mother and father, left for Oklahoma. Now my sister was gone far away. They did not stay in Oklahoma very long, but moved on to the State of Washington, where the continued to live.

...

The children in the neighborhood were going to Summer School to learn to read and write the Swedish language. They wanted me to go also. So mamma gave me money to buy my book and I attended class a few times, but I couldn't keep up with the Swedish children. I couldn't pronounce the words. I was a "Drop Out".

I did attend the Trinity Lutheran Sunday School with my girl friends on Sunday mornings. This was a Swedish American Church. I attended the Sunday School Class with them and learned the Catechism lessons. When the class was ready for Confirmation, I ceased going, as I did not intend to join their Church.

Many times, when I was a little girl, on a rainy or snowy day, I would sit in the rocking chair in our south window, and look out across the pasture, and wonder how I happened to be me, how I happened to be born to my parents instead of some other people, maybe rich or poor, or even of another nationality. I had no real religion. My mother went to Church but my father did not, although he was religious minded. He believed in his "Maker" and could quote scripture, especially when mamma would turn a tramp away from the door, who asked for food. Or, when she would criticize one of her friends. His folks evidently read scripture in their home when he was a boy and they lived in the cabin back in Cato County, Missouri. Everyone was papa's friend.

In the late Fall, Larson's little baby boy, Roland, passed away, and Mrs. Larson took me in their parlor to see him. He looked like a little wax doll in the little white coffin. That was my first introduction to death. I was not eight years old and I was awe-struck. I thought I should say something but I was dumb, and couldn't say a word.

During the Christmas vacation, the children had a surprise birthday party on me. Mamma kept me busy elsewhere while the children congregated in the parlor. Mamma sent me into the parlor and the children all jumped up and yelled, "Happy Birthday, Minnie". That was too much, and as usual, I cried. There were twelve children and each child brought me a fancy little cub and saucer. It was a beautiful collection, which I kept for many years, until finally I let my boys play with them having tea parties, and all the pretty cubs and saucers were all broken and gone.

...

I was about ten, mamma started working at the free Kindergarten. At first she only worked on Saturdays, and some afternoons. But later she became a steady employee. She was the cook, and she also did the ironing. There were about twenty-five or thirty children there. Miss Brainard, the Matron, was a maiden lady of uncertain years. I used to think that her face would crack if she would smile. Miss Fuller, a young lady, was a teacher. She worked eight hours a day, the same as mamma did. The children that were old enough to go to school, attended the public school which was just across the street. Many of the children were too young to go to school. Miss Fuller took care of them. There was a housekeeper and a cleaning woman, Mrs. Columbo. I spent lots of time at the Kindergarten with mamma, sometimes after school and sometimes on Saturdays. I would sit in with the children in the recreation room when Miss Fuller had them drawing, weaving, etc. and I would draw and weave also. The older children looked after the younger ones.

The children would line up to wash, and line up for their food. The older children would dish up food on their plates which they would carry into the dining room to eat. Older children carried the plates for the little tots. In the dining room were little tables and chairs. About six children sat at a table. A child had to eat everything on his plate or he would get no dessert. Mamma used to say that the dessert wasn't worth it. Sometimes it was fruit, often pudding, and sometimes only a gingerbread.

One mamma made a gingerbread, and had it in the oven baking, when she noticed that she had used the cough syrup instead of the molasses. Both were on the same shelf in the same kind of container, not marked. Mamma called Miss Brainard in and told her what she had done, and what should she do about it. Miss Brainard said, "Serve it. There isn't enough cough syrup in it to hurt them." So they were served the gingerbread for dessert. Surely it must have had a peculiar flavor.

New neighbors moved into the house diagonally across the street from us. They were "The Doreys". There were three little girls, Mona, Minnie and Elizabeth, who they called Babe. Minnie was about my age, ten years. I was elated I could have a playmate so close to home. Minnie and I became friends.

Mr. Dorey was a non-union carpenter. Pap was a strict union man and wouldn't patronize scabs. When papa had carpenter work to be done, Mr. Larson or Mr. Hawkinson got the job. Mrs. Dorey was always ailing. The girls did what housework was done, which was not much. They lived there several years and they never fully unpacked.

This was a pretty house, with a reception hall in the front. There was no furniture in this hall. In the living room was a couch on which Mrs. Dorey was usually lying, and a couple of straight chairs. A double door led into another room in which was a piano, a piano bench and a violin. The piano stood out about three feet from the wall and coats, hats, dresses and other things were thrown behind it. When the girls were looking for wearing apparel, they dug into the pile behind the piano. There were no curtains at their windows or rugs on their floor. I was never in their upstairs bedrooms.

In the dark kitchen was a long table on which was an ugly dark brown oilcloth. The girls did the cooking. I was there more than once at meal time when I should have been at home. Usually the girls boiled potatoes with the skins on, and fired meat or eggs, nothing fancy or tempting. Mr. Dorey would pray before the meal, a long, long prayer. The sugar, butter, salt and pepper shakers were never removed from the table. Often the soiled plates were left until the next meal, when one of the girls would take them off, give them a quick wash, and return them to the table. They didn't bother to wash the oilcloth cover. The girls even baked the bread, which often smelled sour. I never heard the parents complain.

My girl friend, Gladys, delivered milk to Doreys. One morning when she was there, one of the girls was making breakfast and she dropped a raw egg on the floor. Gladys said it was there for many days until it dried up. Minnie washed the clothes by hand, in the cellar on a wash board, and hung them on a line in the yard to dry. The girls did what ironing was done with sad irons.

I had never seen such a family, and I was fascinated. All the mothers of my Swedish friends were had working, excellent cooks, and kept scrupuliously [sic] clean houses. Dorey's way of life did not keep me from being Minnie's friend.

Mrs. Dorey played the piano, so did Minnie, and Mr. Dorey and Mona played the violin. The girls were musical and liked to sing and sang trios, three parts. They could harmonize well. They often entertained at Church festivals and political parties.

One evening we were playing that we were Salvation Army ladies, wearing long dresses and old hats and we walked fast to the next corner where there was a street light, and we stood and sang to the top of our voices, "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder", and "Count Your Blessings". Out came Dr. Olson from his house on that corner, and he shouted at us, "Go home, my child is in bed and trying to sleep." We ran for home. We thought we were entertaining people, as well as ourselves.

Doreys owned an Indian pony, and a "Trap", a pretty little buggy with seats back to back. I rode all over the city with the girls. Mr. Dorey also had a small wagon that he used for his work. One day Minnie and I were taking his lunch to him. Minnie was driving east on Losey Street, no pavement, with the wagon. There had been rains and the road had dried with deep ruts. A dray (?) passed us, too close, scraping our wagon, and the pony was frightened and ran away. I was carrying a white silk ruffled parasol and I and the parasol were thrown from the wagon. Minnie fell to the floor but hung on the reins and after a rough ride the pony was stopped. Some kind people took me in, bathed the holed in my hand, and in a short time we went on our way and delivered Mr. Dorey's lunch.

Doreys attended the Congregational Church and the girls attended Sunday School. Sometimes I would go to Church with them on Sunday morning. They would all sit in the front pew. I attended Sunday School and was in Minnie's Sunday School class. I enjoyed Sunday School.

Once an evangelist, "Gypsy Smith" came to the Church. I went with the girls and we sat in the balcony. When the evangelist called to the people to come to the front and be converted, many people did. It was almost like a show.

There was a Home Talent Show at the Galesburg Auditorium. School children took all the parts. The show was "Alice in Wonderland". Minnie and I, along with about eight other little ten year old girls, were "wax dolls". We wore white dresses and came on the stage and stood in a row and sang "I'm nothing but a big wax doll". We pretended to fall at the end when we sang the words, "and often let me fall". We thought this was fun.

The seventh and eight grade public school children participated in a Cantata. We practiced at different grade schools over the city. We performed in the choir loft at the Congregational Church. This Church had a large choir seating capacity and could accommodate the many school children. Mona was an alto and Minnie and I were sopranos. We sang two long pieces, "The Birds" and "Largo".

...

In the Summer, after our seventh grade, Mr Dorey was working in East Moline. The family was going over there for the Summer and was to camp at Campbell's Island. They invited me to come with them. Papa said I could go, so when Mrs. Dorey and the girls left, I went with them. I expected this to be exciting.

Mr. Dorey rented a Carpenter Shop in East Moline, with a room behind it where there was a table and an oil stove, for cooking, and a bed for Mr. And Mrs. Dorey. There was a loft above with pallets for the girls to sleep. At night, I climbed the ladder and slept on the pallets with the girls. We stayed there a few days and the girls and I would take the pony and trap and ride into Moline or Davenport, Iowa. There was a Carnival in East Moline and we girls attended and had our pictures taken "on the moon" and "in a balloon". I was having fun.

Mr. Dorey and Mona set up camp for us at Campbell's Island. They had a large tent, no floor, and folding cots, an additional screened-in tent with table and benches and an oil stove. They pitched the tents near the beach where all the campers swam. The Rock River was low and Mr. Dorey drove us across the Dam to the Island. It was a very rough ride.

Mona had a swim suit and swam in the river but Minnie, Babe and I just sat on the beach and watched. Mr. Dorey had a very strong telescope that we would take turns looking through. When the big boats would go down the channel on the far side of the river, we could see the features of the pilot standing in the Crows Nest of the boat.

I enjoyed this for a few days but I wasn't used to their way of life. There was no place to keep our dresses. I felt mussed and dirty. The bedding smelled musty and as usual I didn't eat. I couldn't eat the greasy bacon and eggs, and I didn't drink coffee. I would eat a slice of bread and butter, but the butter was rancid. Once a day Minnie, Babe and I would walk to the pavilion and I would buy a five cent Hershey Bar. I got an infection in both eyes and they watered until I could hardly see. My eyes were angry and red. I would wet my handkerchief and keep it over my eyes. Neither Mr. or Mrs. Dorey suggested a remedy. I wanted to go home.

Finally, after about three weeks, Mr. Dorey and Mona took me to the train and I went home. Mamma met me at the train and I clung to her and cried. After a bath, (in our kitchen), and a hair wash, I relaxed. Home never looked so good. I noticed the crisp clean curtains, the pure white table cloth, and the clean dishes that were not sticky. I had clean clothes again, (the crickets had eaten holes in some of my dresses at the camp). Mamma took me to the doctor and he gave me an eye wash and an iron tonic. I took piano lessons again, and I saw Gladys often. Gladys played the piano also. The Dorey's returned at the end of the Summer so the girls could go back to school.

...

All through the grades I would carry books home to study at night. I would sit at the dining room table and study by the light of a large kerosene lamp. I didn't get any help with my school work at home. I didn't ask for any. Mamma went through the eighth grade in a small school in Avon and Papa went to a country school until he was twelve years old.

My friend, Irene, had quit school at the end of the seventh grade to work as a kitchen helper in homes on the north side. Her brother, Harry, and her sister, Florence had also quit school in the seventh grade. I went with Irene once to see Florence at work and felt so sorry for her. She was hot and perspiring from the terrible heat and steam. She was only sixteen years old.

Gladys, Harold, Minnie Dorey and I went into the eighth grade. At the end of that year, Gladys did not pass her exams and she took the eighth grade over. Loreda was two years younger than I, so she still was in the grades. Minnie moved with her family to Colorado to live. But, Harold and I would go on to High School.

In June, 1909, I finished the eighth grade. There were no Graduation Exercises in those days for eighth graders. We just received our report cards, we either passed or we failed. I passed! I was a big girl now and I went to Middle Grove in July alone to visit my cousins Hazel and Ora. Hazel was going to come to Galesburg and enter Galesburg High School with me. My cousin, Angie, was sewing, making dresses for both Hazel and I to wear to school.

One hot night in August, I was sleeping with Hazel and I awoke very hot and itching all over. Hazel opened the window wider, she fanned me, and she rubbed by back. In the morning I was too sick to get up. Hazel called her mother and Angie called a doctor from Farmington. There was no doctor in Middle Grove. The doctor drove several miles with a horse and buggy to see me. He diagnosed my illness as Scarlet Fever. I was immediately isolated, confined to a room from which everything had been removed except the bed. My mother was notified, and she came to take care of me. The doctor only allowed her to come in to bring me food and water, and she had to wear a big cover-all apron while she was in the room. I wasn't very sick, except for the first day or two, but Scarlet Fever was a dreaded disease in those days and great precautions were taken to keep the disease from spreading. The girls would stand in the yard, under my second story window, and call to me. I had nothing to read or to do and I was not allowed out of the bed. I was isolated for a whole month.

School had started and here we were still in the country. At long last the doctor released me, and Mamma, Hazel and I left immediately for Galesburg. Hazel and I entered Galesburg High School two weeks late. All the seats in the Freshman section of the Study Hall were occupied so we were issued seats in the Senior section. Two dumb Freshmen in the midst of all those brilliant Seniors. We survived.

Hazel decided to stay with Aunt Freddie that first year, but we were together every day. We studied together, pouring over our Latin, Algebra, General History, English, etc. Hazel was preparing to be a teacher, but I had no future plans. I took Domestic Science, which was cooking, that first year, and I learned how to peel a potato and make fondant. My father told me I could learn more than that in my mother's kitchen if I was so disposed.

Our High School was a three story building with class rooms on all three floors and also on the third floor of the adjoining school. There was a bridge on the third floor from the main school to the adjacent school. We had seven minutes between classes and we had to hurry from class to class. Sometimes one class would be on the main floor and the next one on the second or third floor. When I ran up and down the stairs my ankles cracked at each step. I imagined that the other boys and girls heard them, but if they did no one every mentioned it. Often after school, Hazel and I would go to a five cent silent movie to see Marguerite Clark or Mary Pickford. They were our favorite movie actresses. We knew a boy that ushered at one movie and sometimes he would let us in for free. We saved our nickel for another day. Nickels for us were very scarce.

When vacation came, we applied for jobs at the Boyer Broom Factory. Since our cousin, Ora, was Manager, and her brother Arthur was a Foreman we had no difficulty in being hired. Neither of us was sixteen years old. I made broom covers and labeled brooms and Hazel sorted broom corn. At noon we ate our dinner at Aunt Freddie's. Arthur and some of the other men from the factory ate their meal there also. Aunt Freddie would serve vegetables that we never had at home and I would stay that I didn't like them. She would ask, "How do you know, you don't even taste them?" The men teased me so much that I began to eat whatever she set before me. During the noon hour, I would play Ora's piano and Hazel and I would sing until time to go to work.

One day some inspectors came to the factory, unannounced, and they found five workers under sixteen years working there. The factory was fined. Papa got permits for Hazel and I and we continued to work. One of the boys quit that operated a machine that trimmed the broom corn on the brooms and Arthur put me on that machine. I would put the broom in the machine and then I would pull a lever across, operating the machine by hand. It was heavy work and papa made me quit in July. We had been working eight hours a day, six days a week, for six dollars. Hazel quit in July also and she went home for the remainder of the Summer.

...

Hazel came to stay with us our second year. We both like this better. However, Hazel had her girl friends and I had mine. She continued with the College Course, but I changed over to a Business Course. I knew that I was not going to College, and I didn't intend to be a teacher.

Papa became very ill that year, and had a very serious operation. He was not able to go back to work for several months. He decided to move closer to town so he could go back to the Barber Shop. He rented our house and we moved into an apartment. This apartment was about five blocks from the Shop, about four blocks from the Kindergarten where mamma was still working, and three blocks from High School. We lived there the rest of the school year.

There was a young couple living across the hall from us in the apartment, and Hazel and I would visit them and we would play carum. Hazel always played partners with the man, and they would always win. I had no boy friends, but Hazel had a 'beau" who would come up from the country near her home to see her. I didn't like him, perhaps I was jealous, and I treated him badly. He probably didn't like me either.

...

Summer time came again, and Hazel went home for the Summer. A school teacher and her two nieces lived next door to us. One of the nieces taught elocution and she knew that I had been taking typing at school. She asked me if I could type some papers for her. I had no typewriter, but I rented one and did many papers for her.

Occasionally I would see Gladys. We had continued to be friends as we both played the piano. Once I was invited to a party that was to be far out on East Main Street. The girl who was having the party played the piano in the silent movie theatres. Gladys and some of the other Hyde Park girls were going and they coaxed me to go. They promised they would walk me all the way home if I went, although it would be a little out of their way. After the party we all walked west on Main Street until we came to Academy Street, the street on which was our apartment, and then the girls decided that they would go on home and not walk home with me after all. That was a dirty trick as it was past midnight and I had to walk three blocks alone, and had to go past Hope Cemetery.

During the Summer we moved again, to an apartment downtown, above a store, across from the Congregational Church. Hazel came back from the country as school would be starting soon. It was strange living up town for both of us. In the evening we would watch for someone to walk by and we would drop a penny from our upstairs window. The person would stop, look to see what they dropped, and finding nothing, would go on. Then we would run downstairs, recover our penny and do it again. We were a couple of silly sixteen year old girls. Before school started, papa moved us back to Hyde Park. I was happy to be back home again.

...

I heard often from Wayne, from Cedar Rapids, later from Kansas City, and then Enid, Oklahoma, where he worked on newspapers. Finally, in 1909, we received word that he was married to Pearl Risley, and in September 1910, we received an announcement that they had a baby boy, named Hershel Henry.

In July, 1911, mamma and I boarded a Santa Fe train for Enid, Oklahoma, to visit Wayne and Pearl. It was my first long trip. We rode all night, got pillows from the porter, and slept fitfully in our seats. We changed trains at Kansas City, and had quite a long wait there. Mamma was so nervous that she wouldn't move from her seat in the station to get food for fear of missing her train. I had never been in the South before, and I was surprised when all the colored people had to move to another coach. I had expected to see nice scenery going from Kansas City to Enid, but all we saw as miles and miles of barren land, occasionally a small farm, few trees. It was a slow, hot, dusty trip. I thought, "Why does Wayne have to live in such a terrible place."

We met Pearl for the first time, and we thought little ten months old Hershel was the cutest baby ever. He was mamma's and papa's first grandchild, and my first nephew.

It was hot and dry in Enid. Once when I walked with Wayne to his work at the Court House, we found the Park filled with Indians, in from the Cherokee Reservation. They were wrapped in Indian blankets and looked forbidding to me. Wayne told me to go on back home. I discovered that in Enid the colored folks had a section of their own in the streetcars, lived in their own section of the town, and had their own stores. They even stepped off the sidewalk when they met you.

Our house had always had stove heat, a wood stove in the parlor, a round oak coal stove in the dining room, and a coal range in the kitchen. Now papa had a coal furnace installed in the basement. That was a great improvement. Papa also had the wide doorway between the parlor and parlor bedroom closed with a new wall, and a door was installed from the dining room to the bedroom. Now my bedroom was more private. I still slept on a single cot. I had a wardrobe for my clothes and one each side of the window was a dresser and a dressing table. Mamma had hung a crisp white tie back curtain on the window. I was happy with my little narrow room. Also, I had a "tin roof" over my head. The rest of the house had roofing except over this small room. I liked to hear the pitter-patter on the tin roof when there was a light rain, but it was quite noisy when it rained hard.

...

When school started again, Hazel got a job as Mother's helper with a family that had three little boys. She got her room and board and a small salary. She would watch the children after school and fed them their dinner. When she got them to bed, her time was her own. Mamma wanted her to stay with us again. She would not have to work and all her time would be her own. But, Hazel wanted to take the job. She was only five blocks from us. Some evenings I would go over there and we would sit in her room and study and visit. We were in our third year in High School now.

I belonged to the Gregg Shorthand Club and proudly wore a Gregg Shorthand pin. There were fourteen girls and six boys in the Club. I had two new girl friends, Gertrude and Fern. We lived in three different parts of the city but we got together at each others' houses on Saturdays and Sundays. Our Club met twice a month at School. We also had a few evening parties, some in the school and some in the home of our typing teacher, who was a young woman. At one party we drew halves of paper hearts to find our partner with whom we would eat lunch. The other half of the heart that I drew was drawn by a boy, named Ray, so we ate our lunch together. Ray like me and after that he would be at a corner waiting to walk to school with me. I wondered how he knew exactly when I would be at that corner. I later learned that his house stood on an incline and he would watch out the window and he could see me coming several blocks away. I never had a date with him. He worked after school and Saturdays as a Bundle Boy in a Department Store.

Sometimes Hazel could get the children in bed in time to go with me to a Basket Ball game. I would go to the Track Meets in the afternoons with my other girl friends as Hazel could not get away.

...

June 1912, my cousin Hazel and my two friends, Gertrude and Fern, graduated. At that time a student could graduate in three years with less credits. Hazel went on to Teacher's College and taught in a Country School near her home. She eventually married Willard Barclay, the "beau" that I had treated badly. I had decided to continue on, to a four year course.

Vacation time was here again. My folks had word from Enid, Oklahoma, that Wayne and Pearl were quite ill and a neighbor was caring for little Hershel. Mamma prepared to go to Enid and see what she could do to help them. She travelled to Enid all alone this time. Mamma found them both in bed, under a doctor's care. She stayed about two weeks, until they were on the mend. Then she came home and brought little Hershel with her.

While mamma was gone, I stayed home with papa. Papa had not been feeling well, and he stayed home most of the time. He did the cooking. He cooked what he liked, "Sun-of-a-Gun" (a Southern dish), and hominy, and other dishes that were not tempting to me. Cherries were ripe and he had me pick the cherries from our three trees. I didn't know what to do with them, as he and I couldn't eat them all, and mamma wasn't home to can them and make pies. Papa had me carry them all down to Aunt Freddie's for her to can. I couldn't see why Aunt Freddie, or Uncle Jim, or Ora couldn't have come out for them when they were all picked. But, I didn't complain.

...

I decided to go to Prairie City and visit my Aunt Susie, papa's sister, and my cousin Minnie Taft, her daughter, who lived in the country a few miles from Prairie City. Minnie, and her husband Enos, had two children, Albert, who was several years younger than I, and Eunice, who was just a little girl. This was prairie land, flat, rich fertile land, so different from the hilly, wooded areas around my cousin Hazel's home. Enos was a grain farmer, as was most of the farmers in that area. Their home was a long rambling house, with five rooms downstairs, and two rooms upstairs. The house sat very far back from the road, with a large front yard, that Albert had to mow. He was about twelve years old.

They had a large barn, corn crib and other out buildings. Enos had several horses, work horses and driving horses, and much horse-drawn farm equipment. There were five cows, Minnie would milk three and Albert would milk two. She had lots of chickens. She churned butter, and she would take butter and eggs into Prairie City to the stores to trade for flour, sugar, and other supplies. They had a large farm, three hundred and sixty acres.

Albert wasn't much of a companion for me. He was a farmer boy and I was a city girl. He had an Indian pony, and one day he drove over to his Aunt Daisy's, Minnie's sister, who lived in Bushnell, about five miles from Prairie City, and I went with him. A paper blew across the road and the pony became excited and tried to run away, but Albert was able to hold her back. Albert said, "She just looks for excuses to get frightened."

The weather was hot and dry and most of my visit I stayed in the house with Minnie and little Eunice. I watched Minnie cook, on a coal range, and I helped her peel potatoes. She told me that I would never be rich because I peeled too much potato away with the skins. I discovered that Albert had a set of Horatio Alger's boy's books, and I read every one of them while I was there.

My cousin Minnie took me back to Aunt Susie's, as I was preparing to go home. A neighbor girl, that lived with her grandmother, came over to see Aunt Susie. She was barefoot, wore a little cotton dress, and her hair was in braids. She seemed shy. She said that she was leaving the next day for Galesburg, to live with her mother and go to High School. We decided to ride together on the train. Her mother was a widow, and a hair-dresser, and had recently married Old Doc Morris, who was quite wealthy. Helen thought that we would be friends in High School, but she never went to High School. Her mother enrolled her in a preparatory course in Lombard College. I never saw her again.

...

September came, and I went back to school. I was a Senior now. I missed Hazel and my girl friends. I made a new friend, Ruth Knutson. Loreda was in High School now, and I palled mostly with her, although she was much younger than me. We walked home at noon, the mile and a half, for our lunch. Loreda was short and chubby and had two blocks further than I to go. Her folks had an old horse and surrey, and on Saturdays Loreda would drive old "Pet" to the Track Meets, or games, and I would go with her. Gladys never went to High School. She did finish eighth grade, and as soon as she was sixteen, she went to work in a Book Binding Company.

I had other girl friends from Hyde Park that went to High School, Ruth Sandburg, Pearl Moore, and Hildegarde Hawkinson. Hildegarde's father owned an Ice Cream Plant, and a Candy Factory on the Public Square. Sunday afternoon we girls would patronize the "Crystal", an Ice Cream Parlor that Hildegarde's father owned down town on Main Street. We would get Hot Fudge Sundaes for ten cents. That was the regular price for them at that time. Sometimes after school we would go with her to the Candy Factory and watch the girls dipping chocolates, and she would get some fresh chocolate candy for me. Ruth's father was a City Policeman, and Pearl's father was a City Fireman.

...

In May, 1913, my Grandmother Compton died in Avon. Mamma and I went to the Wake and the funeral. The wake was in the home, and wakes usually were in the homes in those days. The services were in the Baptist Church. Grandma looked so peaceful and sweet. I really didn't know her too well, as we only went to Avon about once a year, and only stayed a day or two. We came home the next day, and I was going to graduate in June and I couldn't afford to miss school.

...

As soon as Wayne and Pearl were able to travel, they came to Galesburg. Wayne soon got work as a Reporter on a Galesburg Paper, and they found an apartment a block from our house. I was happy to have my brother Wayne back home again. I still adored him just as I did when I was little.

I graduated from Galesburg High School in June with the class of 1913. Our Graduation Exercises were held in the Galesburg Auditorium on North Broad Street. The girls all wore ankle length white dresses, and the boys wore dark suits. Several of the smaller boys wore "short pants". My friend Harold Hawkinson was one of them. Boys did not put on long pants until they were tall. We had a Graduation dinner in the dining room of the new Methodist Church. I wore a new blue silk dress and attended with my friend, Ruth Knutson. High School Graduates did not have Proms in those days.

...

The girl cousins of Hazel's lived in Hyde Park also. One was my age, one was a little older. They belonged to a group that were having parties. They invited me to go along and I did. I attended several parties at different homes and met several new girls and boys. One boy, Fern Wyman, who lived only a block from me, brought me home from a party. He came to see me Sunday evenings often that Summer, and always brought me a box of Morris Chocolates. Mamma said that he was trying to fatten me up as I was extremely thin. At one party, Fern was cool to me, and another boy, Clarence Bradly, brought me home that night. He lived next door to Fern and was his buddy. I had a number of dates with Clarence after that.

...

In the Fall of 1913, I was restless. I had been taking piano lessons again but now I thought that I could improve my voice with vocal lessons. So I enrolled in "Madam Groff-Bryant's School of Music" at Lombard College. I practiced scales, and exercises, probably driving my mother and neighbors crazy. My voice didn't improve, but I met some College boys. Madam Groff-Bryant's nephew, Joe, would call on me on Sunday afternoons. We would walk to town, go to the Goodie Shop and get chicken salad sandwiches and hot chocolate. Occasionally we would go to an afternoon Silent Movie. When we returned home, we would sit on our front steps and Joe would sing. I like him, he was always happy and full of fun. I never had an evening date with him.

It was late Fall now, and the temperature was dropping. One evening I had a date with another Lombard Music student. He arrived at my house wearing a Winter coat. "I borrowed a coat from another student in our Fraternity House. He will probably be angry, I didn't see him, I just took it." He said. "Anyone I know?" I asked. "Earl Hodson" he replied. "Oh dear", I said, "He is my cousin." Earl told my cousin Ora Cunningham, and she told mamma that I shouldn't be having dates with those College boys. I didn't think it was any of Ora's business, I don't even remember that boy's name.

...

I was palling more with Pearl Moore now. We had been friends for several years, now we were chums. On Sunday evenings we would go to Church, a different Church each Sunday evening. She was an Episcopalian, I didn't belong to any Church. When the congregation sang, we would take the hymn books and sing also. We both liked music, so when we would hear that there was going to be a recital of a Knox College Music student, at Beecher Chapel, we would attend. Madam Shuman-Heink came to Galesburg, and sang at the Methodist Church. We attended but we were disappointed. She was getting old and we thought she should have quit singing while her voice was at it's best.

...

June, 1914, my cousin Earl Hodson graduated from Lombard College. He had majored in Music, both Piano and Voice. He was a baritone, and he accompanied himself on the piano. Pearl and I went to his recital. I was proud that he was my cousin.

...

In the Summer of 1914, I worked as stenographer for Lawyer, John Kost, while his stenographer was on vacation. Although I liked stenography, I found that I didn't like to work for a Lawyer. I was glad when his steno returned. I then got a job in Bartlett and Robbins Saving and Loan Office for a few weeks. I liked it there. Mr. Robbins was a customer and friend of papas, and one day he came to the Shop and suggested to papa that I should attend Brown's Business College. I had been out of school for a year and hadn't had shorthand or typing for two years as I took them my second and third year in High School. So, I enrolled at Brown's Business College.

Ruth Sandburg, one of the girl friends, enrolled with me, and we went to and from school together, and we studied together. One evening we were dictating to each other when Ruth became suddenly very ill. She was taken to the Hospital and had an operation for appendicitis. She had to quit school for a while. I continued, and completed the course, and graduated October 13, 1914.

I accepted a job as a stenographer and office clerk for the Y.M.C.A. This was a week before I was through school, and I attended night classes until I finished and passed my exams.

There had been a campaign to raise funds to build a new Y.M.C.A. building. Pledges had been taken to raise the money for the project. My boss, Mr. Stafford, a Canadian, had office space in the rear of the Lindstrum and Arnold Saving and Load Association. We only had desk space, and a typewriter. The typewriter was an old "Fox", and the shift key was tied on with a string. Quite often I would have to repair it. My job, besides taking dictation from my boss, was to type a daily route of names, addresses, and amounts pledged, for our collector each morning. The people lived in all parts of the City, and I had to consult a map of the city in order to lay out the route. I mailed out notices once a month reminding the people that their pledge was due. I kept books, banked money, and answered the phone, and the window when they came into the office to pay. For all this, I received thirty-five dollars a month, and worked eight hours a day, six days a week. This was not low wages in those days, the girls in the Loan office that had been there for several years only received ten dollars a week.

Our desk space was in the rear of the building. There was a seven-foot high partition dividing our part from the Loan office, with a small doorway between. A Wholesale Jobber had desk space farther back in a corner of the big room. All the light we had came over the partition We each had a small desk light. My light had a goose neck so I could turn it from the desk to the typewriter. The Jobber was in and out of the office, he only used the space for the phone. He called me "Liz", so the girls in the office called me Liz also. I called them Pete and Smith.

My boss was seldom in the office. He would come in to dictate a letter or ask a question and out he would go again. I hated sitting in the dark room with the little desk light. In the center of the big dark room was a large table with a glass top under which was the map of the City. Above it was a nice strong light with a pull cord. This was the map that I consulted when making out the routes. That light would light up the whole room, and sometimes I would neglect to turn it off.

Mr. Lindstrum was a very nice, kind man. But Mr. Arnold was a Stuffed Shirt. He sang bass in the Congregational Church Quartet. I didn't like him. I don't think he either liked or disliked me, he acted as though I didn't even exist. Whenever I would leave the big light on, he would always have to go to the wash room, which was also in the rear. As he passed the table, he would pull the chain and douse the light. He looked cross but he didn't say anything. I expected him to admonish me, as I was deliberately turning on the light. This went on all the time I worked there. Mr. Lindstrum would leave the light on, and he treated me the same as he did the girls in the their office.

It was also hot in the Summer as there was no window in the big room. There was no Air Conditioning in those days. Occasionally I would open the alley door to let some air in. One day I stepped out into the alley and got a breath of air, and Fred, the Jobber, shut the door quickly and locked it. I rapped but he wouldn't open it. I took off my apron and my black sleeve protectors, put them under my arms, ran down the alley to Main Street, walked a half block to Prairie Street, and back a half a block to the Loan Office, and came in the front door. Fred laughed at me, and said, "Where have you been, Liz"? I didn't step out in the alley any more.

...

I worked in another Saving and Load Office while I was working for the Y.M.C.A. One afternoon there was a very heavy rain. I met Pearl after work and we were walking home together. We walked down North Broad Street and discovered that Cedar Park, which at that time was an open sewer, had over-flowed, and water was knee deep on the crossing. We backtracked to Main Street, and went west to that crossing. There were several other girls standing there. We found the same situation, except there were a few young men there offering to carry us across. We had no other way to go home and we wasn't about to wade knee deep through dirty water, so we were carried across. The fellows waded across, carrying us, their pants wet above their knees. I wasn't heavy, about ninety pounds, but the one who carried Pearl across carried more of a load. She wasn't fat, but she was tall, and not skinny like me. The fellows were having fun carrying all those girls across.

...

Friday evenings, Pearl and I attended Farrell's Dancing School. After the short class of instruction, there was a dance. We didn't mind walking back a mile and a half to the dance and home again after walking to and from work. We were young.

One night, Pearl had a date with a teacher from Brown's Business College, and he brought a blind date for me. We met at Pearl's house. My date was the son of a Lawyer in our town and I had known him slightly in High School. He was nice looking but he had one permanently stiff knee. As we were leaving her house, we met her father, the City Fireman, coming home. Pearl's father was a big, fat, jolly man. He made some joke as he passed us, leaving us all laughing. That was our only date with them, but every time I met Pearl's father after that, he asked me, "How is Limpity Click"?

...

Wayne and Maggie had returned from Montana and were living in an apartment near our home. The folks had a birthday party for him. He was thirty-four years old. All our family were there, Wayne, Pearl, little Hershel, Aunt Freddie, Ora, Arthur and his wife, Ellen, Mamma, Papa, and I, even my cousin Earl Hodson was there. He never did mention that coat episode to me.

Wayne was a Sports reporter now for the paper. Wayne never played any sports, knew next to nothing about Baseball, so he took Artie with him to the games to report on the games. Wayne gave Pearl and I comps to the Ball games.

Galesburg Ball team played other teams at the Illinois Ball park and Pearl and I would ride out there on the Inter-urban cars that passed by my Aunt Freddie's house. We didn't understand much about the game but it was fun anyway.

Galesburg had a District Fair each year, and this year Wayne gave Pearl and I free cops for the Fair. It was interesting, we looked at all the live stock, the booths with food, and needle work, we watched the races and the entertainment and danced at the pavilion. The last day of the Fair, a Saturday, Pearl and I decided to go early in the afternoon and stay late. At the pavilion we met two boys, one was Lane Bridgeford, who was there with his father and a string of beautiful Shetland Ponies. The boys danced with us, and brought us home, Lane with me. I didn't see him again.

...

I had not worked a whole year at the Y.M.C.A. my boss gave me two weeks vacation. Ora and I decided to go to Chicago and Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was my first trip to Chicago. I had never been to a city larger than Galesburg. Ora had worked a short time in Chicago and knew her way around. She took me to all the big buildings, the museums, Art Galleries, the pretty parks, the conservatories, to River View and White City. I thought White City was beautiful, all white and bright with lights. We rode on double-decker buses, and saw policemen on Michigan Avenue on horseback. We stayed at a big Hotel downtown and I couldn't sleep because of the horses and drays clattering on the cobblestones and the drivers yelling at them. I was like a babe in the woods. We ate at King-Joy-Los and other fancy restaurants. I purchased an Anaco camera before we started on the trip and I took a few pictures, but I was too busy seeing the sights to take many pictures.

Ora thought I would like a Lake trip, so we boarded a Liner that would take us across the Lake to Holland, Michigan. I was looking forward to that trip. As soon as we left shore, I became sick, and was sick all the way across. I never wanted to see Lake Michigan again. We took an inter-urban car to Grand Rapids, and Uncle Dave Hamill met us there. We stayed at Aunt Minnie and Uncle Dave's several days. On Sunday they planned a picnic, and Aunt Minnie, Uncle Dave, their son Jay and his wife, and their daughter Leta, and their twelve year old son, Verne, and Jay's wife's teenage brother, and Uncle Dave's mother, Aunt Colista, the half-sister that took care of my Grandmother Compton for several years. They packed picnic baskets, and boarded streetcars, and went to John Ball Park, where we had our picnic dinner. We watched the canoes riding the rapids on the Grand River, and we went to an out-door theatre and saw Florence Tempest in top hat, tails, and cans, signing "I Love the Ladies". She was popular at that time. There was dancing in the pavilion, and Jay and his wife, and her brother and I danced. When Ora and I returned home, we rode the train all the way, no more boat rides for me.

...

In late August, Pearl's girl friend had a date with a Monmouth boy and he asked her to bring two girls over for his two boy friends. Pearl and I went on this blind date. We went over and back on the inter-urban car. The boy I was with asked for another date. This was Emory Hawcock. His folks owned the Ice Cream Factory and also a nice restaurant in Monmouth. He attended Monmouth College. He invited Pearl, Mae and I to come over for a dinner, and we all went. He had the other two boys there also. He had a table for six set in a private room in the restaurant, and he had cooked the dinner. There was wine, and food that I had never tasted. He came home with us, and we all walked from the inter-urban waiting room to Mae's house. Just as we arrived in front of her house, I lost my dinner. I was embarrassed, since Emory had cooked the dinner himself.

Emory invited me to a College Dinner Dance, and I accepted. I never should have gone. I had my very most embarrassing moment, which lasted a whole evening. I had a new dress made for the occasion. He met me at the stop in Monmouth and we went to the Monmouth Hotel. One arrival, a lady took me to a room, which was full of College girls, all strangers to me. My dress was as nice as any of the girls, but every girl was wearing long white gloves. My arms were bare. The lady pinned a bouquet of red roses on my dress, all the girls had a like bouquet. We all went to the dining room and I sat between Emory and another boy. Someone had said a short prayer, and then all the girls simultaneously removed their gloves. I wished I was home or could crawl into a hole. Emory never mentioned the incident, but I never forgot it. After the dinner, was the dance, and I was introduced to and danced with boys. I only wanted to go home.

I did not go with Emory long after that. We agreed to disagree, and we had no more dates.

...

In the Fall of 1915, the money had been raised and the new Y.M.C.A. building was ready to move into. My job with Mr. Stafford was finished but I could go to work in the new building if I wished. I didn't wish.

There were rumors that there was to be an opening for a stenographer at the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Division Superintendent's Office. I decided to apply for the job. Papa tried to discourage me as he said the Chief Clerk that I would be working for was a bear. I said that I wasn't afraid of him and I applied and was hired. I found myself in an office with fifteen young men, no girls. In fact, I was the first girl ever to work in that office. Although it was all work and no play, it was interesting. I worked from eight to five, with one hour for lunch at noon. I took my noon meal at my Aunt Freddie's. My boss, Ed Tobin, had a desk facing the room. My desk and typewriter was facing the wall next to my boss, and my back to the young men. Next to me, also facing the wall, was the stenographer for the Division Superintendent. This was Leland O'Neal. I was in his bookkeeping class in High School.

One weekend I got a pass and went on the train to Chicago to meet Wayne who was spending a few days in Chicago. I rode on the train with Lee and Wayne met me at the station. Wayne took me to the Auto Races and then we toured the big hotels where political speeches were being made. I wasn't interested in the speeches, or speakers, but I was interested in seeing the different hotels. Wayne and I came home on the train Sunday night.

...

I had been going steady with Curtis Verene, a Swedish young man from Hyde Park. Curt had a Swede friend, also from Hyde Park, that kept calling me on the phone for a date. He would say, "This is Bob Flodin on West North Street". I would turn him down. He was several years older than me. Once, however, I decided to accept, and he called for me. It was a bitter cold Winter night. He walked me to town, took me to a five-cent silent movie, and walked me home. He called me many times after that, but I never went out with him again. The folks teased me about "Bob Flodin on West North Street."

...

One day while I was busy typing my many letters, our office door opened and I looked up and saw Lane Bridgford standing at the counter. I had not seen him or heard from him since the Fair the year before. He had gone to the Loan Office where I had worked for the Y.M.C.A. and the girls told him where I was working. We weren't allowed to have visitors and I hurried over to the counter and told him to leave, and that I would not see him again. I was embarrassed, my boss was glaring and all the fellows in the office were grinning.

Among the fifteen young men in the office was a handsome young man working as a Timekeeper, (Bill Forsythe, of course), but I didn't know how I was going to meet him. Offices didn't have coffee breaks in those days, straight through except for the noon hour. But, he solved the problem for me. He lived on South Cedar Street with his mother, who was a widow, so he walked the same direction as I did at noon going home for his lunch. I was taking my lunches at Aunt Freddie's. He overtook me one noon and said, "If we are going to work together, we might as well know each other." This was Very Romantic. Soon he asked me for another date.

I had had several dates with him but we were not going steady when I learned that there as to be a Knight's of Columbus dance soon. I was sure that he would ask me. Another boy that worked in the office, George Donovan, asked me to go to the dance with him but I turned him down. In a day or two he asked me again, and again I said "no". Finally George asked me a third time and before I could answer he said, "I don't think Bill is going to ask you." So I went to the dance with George. When we arrived at the dance, there was Bill with another girl. Of course, he had made that date with her before he met me, but I didn't know that. I danced with Bill, and also with my boss, Ed Tobin. George took me to and from the dance in a cab.

After that, I was Bill's girl. And, on Christmas, 1916, he gave me a pretty diamond lavalier for a Christmas gift. And that same evening, he gave me my diamond engagement ring. I was too happy for words, that night.

Bill was taking vocal lessons from Frank Kells and I decided to try vocal lessons again. Mrs. Kells was teaching also, and I took my lessons from her. Somewhere she found an old song, "With The Old Whip-Poor-Will I Will Wait For You Bill", and she gave the piece to me. She was fun, but my voice didn't improve. I should have stayed with the piano. Before long, I gave up my vocal lessons.

The Knight's of Columbus had had several talent shows that Bill had performed in, all before I met him. But he sang in one show while we were engaged. He sang bass with a quartet and also sang a solo in this show. My friend, Pearl Moore, and I went to see the show, at the Gaiety Theatre, I was very proud of him. I didn't see too much of Pearl now as she was engaged to be married also, and we were both pretty busy.

One evening, when Bill came to see me, Pearl and Wayne were at our house, and when Bill rapped on the door, little five year old Hershel grabbed Bill around the knees and asked, "Are you Aunt Minnie's beau"? Bill assured him that he was.

There wasn't much amusement in Galesburg outside of the Silent Movies. Occasionally Bill and I attended them. On Sundays we hiked, sometimes to First North, which is now Lincoln Park. We rode the street car to Highland Park, watched the boating and swimming races, or in the evening listened to the band concert. Once, another couple went with us out to the old Purington Brick Yard. Not too exciting, but someplace to go.

One evening, St. Patrick's Church was having a Carnival in a Hall downtown. Bill's mother was working in a booth, so we went up to see her and I was introduced to her for the first time. We only stayed a few minutes. I am sure she was disappointed that Bill was not going with a Catholic girl. Bill called me a "Heathen" but I had promised him that I would join his Church.

Sometimes when Bill would bring me home, he would try to catch the last car, at 11:30, into town. He would wait until he would see the car go west on Losey Street, and if he would hurry he could catch it on its return. It only went one block beyond Lawrence Avenue and there the motorman would turn the trolley around and they would start back. One Saturday night, he was running down our dark street, over the uneven bricks, when all of a sudden he ran into my father who was coming home from the barber shop. Bill grabbed him and they went around like they were waltzing, and Bill said, "Sorry", put on extra speed and swung onto the car as it passed Lawrence Avenue. The conductor remonstrated with Bill, said he might have been hurt swinging on a moving car. When my father got home, he said, "Tell your young man to leave a little earlier after this, so we won't collide.

On Easter Sunday, Bill's mother invited me to dinner. Bill came and got me and we rode over on the streetcar. It was beginning to snow and by the time we got to his house there was a blizzard. I was wearing new mustard color spring coat with a soft hat to match. Edna was home from Nurses Training in Chicago, and I met her for the first time. Bill's mother had a lovely dinner, but of course, I only picked at it. I had no appetite and I was nervous. When it came time to leave, there were no streetcars running and we couldn't get a cab. I stayed over night and slept with Edna. I don't think that made her very happy.

...

We had decided to be married in June. Bill transferred from the office to Tending Switches. Although he would work from eight in the evening until eight in the morning, he would receive more wages, and he didn't want me to continue working. Most married women did not work away from home in those days. I had a vacation coming, so I got a pass and went to Peoria to visit my dressmaker, who was also a friend. She was an artist, painted with water colors. She did dressmaking for some of the Elite in Peoria. I spent almost two weeks at her apartment. We shopped and poured over pattern books. She didn't use patterns, just picture, taking a neck line from one, sleeves from another, bodice from another, etc. She made a suit for me, several dresses, including my Wedding dress, petticoats, blouses, nighties and two kimonos. In the morning I would have my hair in a little knot on top of my head, and Tom, Mae's husband, called it a "Sophie Wilson" knot. Sophie was a Swede lady that used to live near them when they lived in Galesburg. Now she lived near my home on Lawrence Avenue. Mae was a Swede, but Tom was Irish.

When I got home, I started instructions from Father Doubleday. I had to learn the Catechism. Maggie was a kind soul and accompanied me to the rectory for my instructions. Each day Father would ask me the questions and I would have to give him the answers. Learning the Catechism wasn't too hard, as I had gone through a similar catechism when I was a little girl at the Trinity Lutheran Church. When I finished the instructions, Father said, "Now, Will will teach you all about your religion". One Sunday afternoon, in May, I was baptized in Corpus Christi Church, by Father Doubleday, with Maggie as my Sponsor. Because my mother was a Baptist, we children had not been baptized. In the Baptist Church they did not baptize the babies. One was supposed to be old enough to decide for themselves if they wanted to be baptized in that Faith.

At the crack of Dawn, on the morning twenty-two years and six months after I was born, I arose. I had much to do, finish packing my bag, bathe, comb my own hair, and with mamma's help, dress for the biggest and most important day of my life. This was my Wedding Day. I was beside myself, but mamma was calm. Artie and Maggie came, and we went to the Church in a cab.

Bill and I were married in Corpus Christi Church, in Galesburg on June 25^th, 1917. Maggie was Maid of Honor, and Artie was Best Man. After the Wedding Mass, we had pictures taken at a photographers, then took the cab home. Mamma, with the help of "Sophie Wilson" had prepared a lovely and beautiful breakfast for us, and the immediate families. Mamma had previously broken her arm, and it was still in a sling. We were off in the afternoon for Denver, Colorado, for our Honeymoon.

This concludes the story of my life as a single girl.

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