The day before Christmas was a busy one in Prairie City, Iowa in 1896!
Many of us get sentimental for simpler times, but this article shows that things weren’t that much simpler, just maybe on a smaller scale.
Our Roberts-Murrell ancestors may have been a part of the crowd, looking for a place to hitch their horse and buggy: John Roberts, Elizabeth Ann (Murrell) Roberts, George Anthony Roberts, Ella Viola (Daniel) Roberts, and Edith (Roberts) Luck.
Iowa winters are cold and blustery, and getting in to town on December 24th would have had its challenges:
How to keep warm in the buggy without a button to turn up the heat?
What would the horses eat if the ground is covered with snow and the grass under all dead/dormant?
What if big trees were covered with ice and fell across the road?
Waterways were often used for travel in winter, but how do you know the ice is thick enough to hold a heavy sleigh and team, and then all those gifts one might bring back from town?
Somehow these questions make jockeying for a parking space at the mall seem much easier, and exhausting fingertips on a computer keyboard (or phone) for online ordering almost too easy!
Next week- a description of a trip to town during the winter of 1906, by Edith (Roberts) [McMurray] Luck. Have a Merry Christmas!
Notes, Sources, and References:
Monroe Mirror, [Jasper County, Iowa], 24 December 1896, Vol. 25, No. 9, Page 4, Column 2.
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Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.
Farm in Snow, Grundy Co., Iowa, via Library of Cogress; Farm Security Administration. This is NOT the Roberts family farm, but gives an idea of what it would have looked like in winter.
When the ROBERTS family went into town in 1906, it was not just a fun trip. Part of the reason for the journey was to sell products made on the farm to grocers in town.
As Edith M. ROBERTS told the story sixty years later,
“We lived ten miles from Newton, Iowa. Once a week, weather permitting, we made a trip to Newton, winter and summer. Mother made butter to sell, and the store, where mother took her butter, had regular customers for it, so we had to make this trip weekly if at all possible. It was said: “If for any reason we did not get to town, or were late in arriving, her butter customers would wait until mother did get to town.”
The “workday” of Edith’s mother concerning the butter they were taking to town actually took more than one day when one considered all the different tasks that ended up becoming beautiful, creamy butter. To start with, each day of the week would have begun early for Ella V. (DANIEL) ROBERTS, with a cold trip from the house to the warm barn with the milch (milk) cows. She would be carrying pails for the milk and likely one with water she had heated up on her stove, so that she could wash the udders of the cows and relax them, so that milk letdown would occur. Although a heavy, short and stout woman, Ellie sat on a small 3-legged stool, and would use her warmed hands to coax the white milk full of fat out of the udders. The two daughters (Ethel and Edith) would have helped at times, and maybe even son Georgie when he was young. The pails full of warm milk would be carried carefully to the house, trying to not spill what was likely about 40 lbs. of liquid and pail. The trip to the house would have started to cool the milk in the cold winters, and the high-fat cream would be rising to the top as they entered the warm kitchen. This whole scenario would be repeated again in the evening- and every day, every week, every month, every year. Cows must be milked when it is time.
Edith continued her story:
“During the week mother would have churned the butter from thick cream, and worked and worked it with a wooden butter paddle to get out all the salt and brine.
Butter paddles, AKA Scotch hands, butter pats, etc, via Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.0.
They say, that Mr. Hough, (the grocer where we took our butter,) would finger-test each role of butter for saltiness. (Not very sanitary, now is it?)
We had a special market basket that mother lined with newspapers, and then a snow-white sugar sack was put in, to hold the well formed oblong rolls of butter. Each roll had daisy design pressed in the top. Mother would carefully fold over the sack and set it aside to put in the bobsled in the winter, or in the buggy in summer, when we were ready to leave the house for Newton. These sacks had been bleached during the summer with salt and lemon juice. We always bought our sugar in 50 pound sacks, and flour in sacks or hundred pound barrels.”
Butter was not the only farm commodity brought in to town folks. Ellie made cakes and pies too, and,
“In the summer we had eggs for sale, but our flock [of] Plymouth Rock chickens did not lay well in the winter. Some said we should have a flock of Leghorn chickens, but dad would not have a fluttering Leghorn on the place, nor would he have any guineas, ducks, geese or Jersey cattle on our farm. My dad was pretty definite [sic] in his ideas.”
To be continued…
Notes, Sources, and References:
“A trip to Town 1906– Wintertime” by Edith (Roberts) [McMurray] Luck, written for her grandchildren in the 1960s-1970s.
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We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.
Although the above image is not for Jasper County, Iowa, and was taken much later than 1906, the view would have been much the same for little Edith Roberts [later McMurray Luck] and her family as they drove to town in the long, cold winters of her childhood.
Edith wrote stories, spurred on by her dearest granddaughter, of her years growing up on the family farm. People travelled and visited more than many of us thought they would in those days, and in Iowa in winter, that would mean a horse (or two) carrying them through ice, snow, blizzards, etc. (They took the train to some places, but with living way out in a rural area, one would have to get to a larger town or city for a train depot.)
“We lived ten miles from Newton, Iowa. Once a week, weather permitting, we made a trip to Newton, winter and summer. “
Edith’s parents were George Anthony ROBERTS (1861-1939) and Ella Viola DANIEL ROBERTS (1866-1922). Edith’s big brother, whom she adored, was George A. ROBERTS, Jr. (1889-1965). She loved her sister, Ethel Gay ROBERTS ROBISON (1891-1969) very much too, even risking the wrath of their father as she passed notes to Ethel from the boyfriend her father did not like. (Ethel married that boyfriend, Bert ROBISON, and her father disowned her, never speaking to her again or acknowledging her children.) But I digress, and we need to get back to 1906, when Edith was just seven years old, and the family was heading to town.
Here is a description, in Edith’s words, of some of the preparation for their trip:
“Brother would be outside getting the horses and bobsled (or buggy) ready. To make up the bobsled they would put a wagon box on the two sets of runners and two sets of sideboards on the wagon box to cut down the wind blowing across the wagon box. Then they dumped a lot of clean straw in the wagon box and scattered it around, making it a foot deep at least. It smelled so fresh and clean.”
Getting ready to leave meant dressing for the weather, as well as wanting to look good when one got into town.
“While mother was hurrying around seeing that I got dressed, and sister too, Dad would still be warming his back at the oven door. He was always so cold. He had had sciatica-rheumatism before I was born and had had to learn to walk again.”
Edith was the baby and beloved by her father, who had red hair, as she did. (Her brother Georgie had red hair as well.)
“I would be would be wearing either a blue dress or a red one, whichever was the older. The newer one would be kept for special occasions. Every winter I would have one new dress, just one. When I pranced out for my dad’s admiration, he would say; “Well, well, my girl is a red bird today, what is yours?” or a bluebird, if I was wearing the blue dress.”
Ethel was fifteen in 1906, so was very concerned with how she looked before the trip.
“Mother would be insisting that sister put on a sweater as she was never dressed warm enough. She would say; “Button up your coat, and tie that fascinator closer around your neck.” A fascinator was a long wide scarf very soft and warm. Sister had worked on her hair all morning and did not want to spoil it.”
Leaving the house was not as easy as checking our programmable thermostats (ok, who even bothers with that??). One had to plan ahead, as they knew they would be very cold by the time they got back home:
“Dad or mother would bank the fire in the cook stove so that all we had to do when we got home was just stir it up, and with some corn cobs and a dash of kerosene the fire would be going in short order. No one was allowed to use kerosene except mother and dad.”
To be continued…
Notes, Sources, and References:
“A Trip to Town, 1906–Wintertime” by Edith (Roberts) [McMurray] Luck. Written in the 1960s-1970s for her grandchildren.
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We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.
Shared headstone of Jane (SALYERS) ROBERTS (1806-1880) and her husband John S. ROBERTS, in West Fork Baptist Church Cemetery, Ripley County, Indiana. These photos were taken for the author in the 1990s.
The headstone for Jane (Salyers) Roberts is shared with her husband, John S. Roberts. Jane’s side reads:
JANE
Wife of
JOHN S.
ROBERTS
BORN
Oct. 3. 1806
Died
Mar. 7, 1880
Aged
73 yrs 5 [mos?]
[?? d?]
Detail, headstone of Jane (SALYERS) ROBERTS (1806-1880) in West Fork Baptist Church Cemetery, Ripley County, Indiana. These photos were taken for the author in the 1990s.
Notes, Sources, and References:
Photos taken for the author in the 1990s. The child is the cute grandson of the photographer, and not related- as far as we know.
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We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.
Sorting out men named Charles Steward/Stewart who may be related to our ancestor Rose (Steward/Stewart) Roberts is challenging since we are back to the early 1800s and even late 1700s, and records are scarce and not very informative at times. Add in the fact that these folks migrated multiple times, living in at least 3 states, and we have some detailed work to do.
Because of the time period, we decided to see if Charles may have been a Revolutionary War soldier, as there might be some records from that service. Following are some summaries of a few of those records, and how they could relate to the Charles Stewart of interest to Roberts descendants.
Charles Stewart, Jefferson County, Indiana
Pension Roll of 1835, Vol. IV, 3 Indiana, Jefferson County
Private, Pennsylvania Continental Line; Age 73 but unknown what date they completed the roll.
Placed on Pension Roll 19 Nov 1832, with pension commencing 4 Mar 1831 (all others on page have same notation and were put on roll in 1832 or 1833; probably received back pay) $80 annual allowance, $240 received
Of the 20 men listed in Jefferson County, 2, including Charles, served in the Pennsylvania Continental Line, and 2 served in other PA units. Eleven of the men served in Virginia units, and 5 from N. or S. Carolina.
A Charles Stewart is found in the 1820 Jefferson County, Indiana US Federal Census.
Research Note: Search for Charles Stewart in Pennsylvania about 1776
Served as a Private, 1st Regiment Virginia Line, also a Marine under Capt. Gabriel Jones, Col. George Gibson
b. 1759 Virginia, d. 4 Feb 1845 in Ripley Co., Indiana
Pension Number *S16261, Ancestor #A135172
Resided Spotsylvania Co., Virginia, spouse Ann X, child Charles Stewart and his wife Mary A. Beckley
The above is from the DAR application available on the website for free.
Research Note: 1) Purchase one of these DAR applications, possibly getting oldest as later applications may have cited it; not always good research in early documents, however, so we must use the information as clues, rather than fact, and verify them. 2) Research Beckley family as there is a Beckley-Christie-Roberts family connection- see “Sorting Saturday: Which Charles Stewart?” http://heritageramblings.net/2017/12/09/sorting-saturday-which-charles-stewart/
In 1936, a Mrs. Iva Hisle of Madison, Indiana, wrote to the Pension Office requesting information about Charles Stewart who was pensioned in 1832 while living in Indiana. A.D. Hiller, who worked for the office, replied to her concerning pension S. 16261. He stated,
“The date and place of birth of this soldier are not given, nor are the names of his parents stated.”
Mr. Hiller continued with more information:
“Charles Steward (as the name is found in the claim), while residing in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, enlisted in 1775 and marched down to Hobbs Hole under Lieutenant Stubblefield, and there went into the marine service and served eighteen months. He enlisted December 20, 1776, for three years, served in Captain Gabriel Jones’ company, Colonel George Gibson’s Virginia Regiment, was furloughed, May 17, 1779 on account of sickness.”
The pension was approved on 13 August 1833. Charles was 73 years old and living in Ripley County, Indiana, per the Pension Office.
In 1810, a Charles Stewart was listed in the US Federal Census in Bedford, VA. There was 1 male 45+ yrs old, 1 female 45+, and 15 slaves. A Nathaniel Stewart, Thomas Stewart, and a Louis(? hard to read) Stewart are listed on the same pages.
In 1830, Charles Stewart of Bedford, VA is listed in the US Federal Census, 1 male 40-49, 1 male 70-79, 1 female 70-79, and 20 male and female slaves of various ages- including 2 females 55-99. This is likely the same Charles as the 1810 listing. (There is also a Charles Stewart listed in Switzerland, Indiana, and Montgomery, Indiana, in 1830.)
Research Notes: 1) The 1810 and 1830 censuses for Bedford VA are probably not our guy since we know he was in Kentucky after the war when he signed the Stewart-Roberts marriage bond. He could have just been visiting, however… 2) Purchase the actual pension file. 3) Research Virginia for this Charles. 3) Review and compare 1830 censuses for each of these men named Charles, trying to find the date the census was completed.
Charles Stewart, Indiana, Ledger of Pay for Pension
A Charles Stewart was listed on the Indian Ledger Rolls for Revolutionary War Pensions. He is noted as dying 6 Feb 1845, but unsure what remaining notation states. See both images in post, and there is a center section that indicates pay continuously between the above months.
Research Notes: 1) Identify remaining notation; 2) Determine what the numbers mean in the columns- is that the day of the month paid? Or actual pay amount? One document stated $80 annually which would be almost $7/month.
Some of the family records state that the Roberts family was from Maryland, so Cousin Jon looked on Fold3 for a pension from a Charles Stewart from Maryland, on the off chance they may have known each other before the war and later migrated together. There is a Charles Stewart who enlisted in Georgetown, Maryland on 15 August 1776. His pension number is S.15656, and he was granted 100 acres of bounty land on Warrant No. 457, issued 12 April 1809. He later was allowed pension on 22 June 1818 when he was 65 years old and living in Scott County, Kentucky. His wife was Mary M. Stewart, age 50 in 1820. Charles died December 1834, actual date and place not included. He had no widow to receive his pension but he did have one child, Ann, who was married to Robert F. Nicholson in 1851. This information is from A. D. Hiller in response to Lucy P.S. Thompson of Brooklyn, NY. The letter was dated 17 Mar 1939.
Research Note: 1) Determine where the Kentucky land was from Bounty Land Grant. 20 This person is a reach as far as being “our” Charles since there does not seem to be an Indiana connection, although he could have stayed in KY when Edward and Rosy (Stewart) Roberts migrated north.
Revolutionary War Pension, Indiana– https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/1116/T718_7-0384?pid=21564&backurl=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll
Fold3, a pay site, for pension research and letters from the Pension Office.
Special thanks to Cousin Jon Roberts who has done a lot of this research!
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We would love to read your thoughts and comments about this post (see form below), and thank you for your time! All comments are moderated, however, due to the high intelligence and persistence of spammers/hackers who really should be putting their smarts to use for the public good instead of spamming our little blog.
Original content copyright 2013-2017 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.
Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright or use of our blog material.
