Lucas County, IA history, cont.

AGAN, BALDWIN, BINGAMAN, BLIZZARD, CURRAN, ALLEN, GITTINTER, GOLTRY, HARVEY, HENRY, JOLLEY, KENT, KING, LANG, LINCOLN, MCGILL, NEWSOME, NOBLE, PEDIGO, PERSHING, SCOTT, SCOVELS, STOUT, TROWBRIDGE, VAN GILDER

Posted By: Luise Poulton (email)
Date: 6/17/2005 at 17:31:31

The following is a partial transcription of an article published in the Herald-Patriot, Chariton, IA, Thursday, Jan. 1, 1948. For beginning of article refer to posting dated 06/09/05. Transcriber has placed surnames in caps.

Pioneer Teacher --
(Continued from page 1)

long black riding skirt.
Even Russell was in its infancy then and we could see only the VAN GILDER and the KING homes south from the state road. The failure of the railroad to pass through LaGrange killed it and brought Russell into existence about 1867.
"Uncle Peter" YOUTSEY was the oldest settler west of LaGrange and the TROWBRIDGEs and Charlie NOBLE was the leading blacksmith for many years. Uncle Peter entered large tracts of land and he settled his four daughters in a row on each side of the state road, Mrs. E. STOUT, Mrs. Simon SCOTT, Mrs. William GOLTRY, and Mrs. Tobias MCGILL. Senator MCGILL was a descendent of hers. None of the families remain in Lucas county at the present time except the GOLTRYS.
It seems to me that in the period preceding the Civil War the most potent fact was the great dearth of equipment and machinery of all kinds. No work was done except by hand or by horse or water power. Small grain had to be sown broadcast out of the hand, and reaped by hand, with a scythe or cradle. Corn was dropped by hand, and was cultivated with hoes. This was done for years before Cyrus McCormick's invention. It was a red letter day when the first reaper we had was set up on the farm. I witnessed all the changes in the fields, but I was a participant in all the housework done by use of what we call crude instruments. Every farmer's family made its own soap, making the lye of wood ashes and using scraps of fat not usable for food. They made all their butter in hand-dash churns by drawing the dash up and down, and molded their candles out of home grown tallow. That was one of my jobs and a steady one, for we had no other light. Candle molds are now sought only as souvenirs.
The house wife helped to wash the part of the wool kept for their own use. It was sent to the carding mill, ours was near the twin bridges on U.S. Route 34, to be made into rolls for spinning. Then I helped to spin the rolls into yarn, out of which we knitted our mittens and socks. Now the wool is never even seen after being sheared from the sheep's back. It becomes an article of commerce and we buy silk and rayon and nylon hose.
We now press a button and our bread is kneaded, press another and our clothes are washed, refrigeration obtained, our houses are heated, etc. I remember well our first clock. Previous to that day we told time by the shadows of the posts at the southeast corner of the southeast porch. How long ago that seems. And such a contast [sic] to our present day electric clocks, almost as dependable as the sun, even in the kitchen. And the fabulously expensive wrist watch on milady's arm.
But the shadow needed no labor, and cost nothing but sunshine. In the frontier life of the pioneer were many other privations there is not time to mention. But I recall one incident which simply could not be duplicated in travel today. To me at the age of nine it was a pleasant episode. To my parents it was exasperating. As a family we were starting on a visit back home to my grandparents. First we had to be taken to [...]covered wagon to take the train. The next morning we had to transfer to LaFayette, Ind., involving a wait of several hours which we utilized by getting a lunch and going to a park to eat it, so the trip of 500 miles required the better part of two days. Compare that, if you please, with a three-hour airplane ride. Could anyone be induced to return to the horse and buggy days or even farther back?
It seems to me that nonogenarians of the present are not the ones who bore the brunt of the hardships of the earlier settlers in this country. It was our parents who were entitled to whatever credit or honor there is due. It was they who maintained homes, under such stern conditions, and trained the children for useful Christian citizenship in the next generation. We of Lucas county are glad to pay tribute to their worth and dignity.
Little wonder that neither time nor energy could be found for reading matter. However such a life was conducive to self reliance and stimulating to inventive genius. I suppose that we did not miss what we had never possesed until the inventors showed us a better way.
But we did all those years have schools and churches. Our first school house was located on the northeast corner rise or hill now owned by the CURRAN Livestock Sales Co. It was in plain view of the S.N. VAN NICE home. It, too, was a log house but it was heated by a big, long stove. The seats were long slabs with legs inserted, and would seat about five pupils each. They had no backs, nor desks in front, and they were movable so you can imagine the quiet maintained. There was one long broad board attached to the west wall.
We practiced penmanship in relays. My mother had taught me to read before starting me to school at the age of six and, believe it or not, I learned to read from the new testament and a child's paper, as did some others. So great was the lack of literature suitable for the use of children then. When each grade now is simply deluged with books adapted to the child's age. I have devoted an undue amount of space to this because I believe it to be a typical school of its time, and it must have been a good one, because I was admitted from it to Professor BALDWIN's nationallty known normal school, without having taken any high school course. However, a new school house had been built, in the meantime. While I was a junior there General PERSHING was a senior in the same school. All I did for him was to fill out his diploma, insert the names, etc., in the printed form. He was not entitled then to the affix or prefix of "General."
About all I can remember about our first house was that it was built of hewn logs and had a huge fireplace. When I was four years old we moved to a new frame house a quarter of a mile farther south. And one more move in 1868, put us into the present domicile on the place, which is still in possession of my brother, A.J. ALLEN.
Our parents must have been proud of our large school and its progress, for they came one fine day and took us in lumber wagons to LaGrange to have a daguerrotype made in Herman YOUTSEY's studio. That was in Civil War days and only a few years ago Mrs. Laura GITTINGER had an enlarged photographic copy made of it. If you were in school there about 1864 or 1865 you are probably in it.
Miss Nina JOLLEY was my first teacher and for several terms. One morning, early in April, she came out of the house, her eyes filled with tears, to tell us that there would be no school that day because President LINCOLN had been shot and was dying. Her emotion probably impressed us more forcibly than if we had heard much ado about the event. There could have been no dispatch the same day for there was no station nearer than Eddyville and there was only the stage coach mail.
I had always majored in education and my life has been spent in schools. After completing my normal course I taught in Lucas county schools for several years, then I was elected county superintendent of schools, in which capacity I served three terms.
I was the first woman superintendent in Lucas county. It was while in that office I broadened the scope of my acquaintances throughout the county among teachers and other school people and their friends. I still recall with pleasure the many times I was so cordially entertained over night when I was too far from town to return each evening. Among the many were the following: the SCOVELs, BLIZZARDs, HENRYs, and NEWSOMEs in the southwest part of the country; the KENTs, LANGs, HARVEYs, and PEDIGOs in the northwest; the AGANs and BINGAMANs in the northeast part. At the close of those six years I not only knew more about schools and their needs, but I knew the county better, its terrain and the location of homes, etc. Those were literally "horse and buggy days" for me and for the horse I drove, "Black Sue." The latter learned to turn in at every country school house, but she could not tell the difference between a school and a country church.
When about to leave the county office, an unexpected privilege came to me. It was that of sharing the home of a former co-worker, who was studying at Chicago university. So I spent six months taking a refresher course preparatory to continuing work in high school. Whle there I thought I might as well take the annual examinations for Chicago public school teaching, which I did. On returning home I obtained the Iowa state license to teach, thus placing myself on the eligible list of teachers in either state.
But when a choice was to be made between Corning and Chicago, I chose the latter because of the advantages a city affords for further education and in other lines as well. Exercising the right of choice had always been difficult for me, but this choice was one which I have never regretted.
I spent 30 years as a teacher in the Chicago public schools, then I doffed the teachers' mantle for "good and all." But life there had many opportunities and pleasures which were not only pleasant but were preparation for something better yet in service and righteous living. In childhood I was taught a saying of Carlyle, which ran like this, "Do the duty that lies nearest to thee, which thou knowest to be duty. Thy second duty will already have become clearer." I find that to be true and good advice to live by.
Previous to my leaving Lucas county, Chapter N, Iowa, had honored me with membership and when I settled in Chicago I obtained a demit to Chapter P, Illinois, is the city, where I made many new friends and social contacts.
While in the city the university's centers were always accessible and I enjoyed courses in various subjects, as the years passed.
A chance remark concerning the facilities offered by the Newberry and city libraries in history and genealogy interested me, and the results, coupled with some notes sent by an ancestor, led to the research which I have been able to make in our own family history and for some connected with it. So, next to teaching, genealogy has been for many years my most fascinating work and interest. It was for this delving in old records and documents that the "Certificate of Merit" was awarded me some years ago.
The help of the libraries was invaluable also in proving eligibility to membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution and the S.A.R.
Another great source of pleasure was the Art Institute and when at a later date I had the privilege of a two-months tour of Western Europe with my brother and wife, I found my pleasure in the art gallaries [sic] of Paris, Brussels, the Hague, Munich and Rome all greatly enhanced by the little I had imbibed in the exhibits at the Art Institute of Chicago at odd times during my stay there.
And now, in retrospect, I must acknowledge that my life seems to have been a long series of openings or opportunities awaiting entrance for further service. However, all had not been bliss, nor has it always been easy, but the tragedies have been few, and the road not overly stormy, although left strewn with the regrets of bad judgement and mistakes. So I can truly say, "The lines have fallen into me in most pleasant places."