OLD SETTLERS DAY PART 3

BENNETT

Posted By: Stacey McDowell Dietiker (email)
Date: 2/15/2004 at 13:16:26

Garden Grove Express
August 30, 1894
Garden Grove, Iowa

Rev. G. H. BENNETT address continued:

In those days of hospitality no one went home hungry; and often, at her home
have many from a distance spent the night, sleeping on the floor.

We know but little in these days of hardships imposed by an unstable
currency. When my father was in his teens, he hired out at $10 per month. His work
was clearing land of beech and maple timber - no mere child's play either, by
the way. He worked twenty-six mortal days and then received his $10. He then
walked twenty miles to the nearest town to buy some clothing, only to find the
bank had suspended and his wild-cat money worthless. He trudged home again
with some misgivings!

To-day we are proud of our schools and universities and of our splendid
educational system. The facilities for gaining an education are so complete that
illiteracy is practically extinct in Iowa. But in pioneer times schools were
far apart and the time and strength of the robust youth were demanded on the
farm in the conquest of nature. Up to his nineteenth year my father attended
school but nine weeks. A few years ago, while acting as deputy clerk in the
county clerk's office, I found some old time-stained documents certifying that
John H. BENNETT (then about sixteen years old) had brought in the scalps of
several wolves and received a bounty for them. I looked for his signature. He
had made his mark. I related the incident in his presence at dinner one day
before a house full of company. You may imagine his confusion! But it was all
excusable for afterward, by dint of economy and hard study, by candle and
fire-light, after the labors of the day, he entered college, graduating from the
Syracuse University and Berkshire Medical College in medicine and surgery. He
followed his profession nearly thirty years. He also studied civil engineering
and became a division engineer on the Delaware & Lackawana R'y. By private
study he became assistant state geologist. He also served several terms in the
legislative halls of his state. I do not relate this because it is my
father, but because these achievements illustrate what energy and strength of
purpose can accomplish. The youth of 50 years ago overcame just such obstacles and
are an object lesson to all succeeding generations. In this age of school
houses and cheap text-books, there is no excuse for illiteracy. If the youth of
our day do grow up in ignorance, it is because, amid the showers of knowledge,
they prefer to remain in blissful ignorance.

To be Continued....

Copied by Stacey McDowell Dietiker
January 19, 2004