Mrs. E. B. Sample

SAMPLE, FRAZEE

Posted By: Gloria Dodds (email)
Date: 10/19/2002 at 15:43:36

In August of 1935 several of the Older townspeople were asked to submit a biography of their lives. The paper was an 80 year anniversary edition dated from 1855 to 1935. One of the submissions was from Mrs. E. B. Sample as follows.

Page Four The Keosaugua Republican Thursday August 15, 1935

Over Ninety Years Of Age

Mrs. E. B. Sample 92 Years of Age May 26, 1935

Life Of Mrs. Sample

My father and mother, W. R. and Mary Frazee, came to Iowa from Perry county, Ohio, in 1841, crossing the Mississippi river at Keokuk. They came directly to and settled on what is now known as the J. C. Murdock farm west of Pittsburg. My father had made a previous trip to Iowa at which time he had selected this place for a home.

There it was that I was born on May 26, 1843, being the fourth child of a family of ten children: Almeda Loftiss, Melvina Bell, Metilda who died at the age of 18, and Serene who passed away when but 12: Mary Cretcher who died in 1934, Caroline Hazelett, who died in 1915, and Nancy Elizabeth who died in infancy. My sisters are all dead. My two brothers, Wm. and Stephen now live near St. Johns, Kansas.

In 1855 mother and father moved into Davis county where they lived when father died, in 1860. Mother moved back to Van Buren county in 1860, settling on a farm about a mile below Kilbourne. I went to a school called Leach and later to one named Bell when we lived near Pittsburg. There was a three months winter term and a three months spring term. I remember that George Wright's brother, John was my school teacher at the Leach school in 1855 just before we moved to Davis county. One time while he was crossing the ice on the Des Moines river,for he walked to the schoolhouse from his home in Keosauqua, he broke in, and I can remember that he sat near the stove drying his wet feet at various times during the morning.

After my father died I earned my own living by doing housework in several different homes. I also helped my mother with her household duties. When I began working I made 50 cents a week, and the last place I worked I made $1.50 a week which was a higher salary than most of those paid at the time for this kind of work. The money was practically all silver; paper money was scarce.

I was 18 when the Civil war broke out. Like many of the other women in the community I knit sweaters and socks and sent them to the soldiers. I remember how we used to go to Bonaparte to watch companies of soldiers leave. We traveled in wagons drawn by horses or sometimes ox teams.

When we lived near Pittsburg we used the ferry to cross the river so we could go to Keosauqua to do the trading. There were no bridges then. At some places where the water wasn't deep we could ford the river, but when the water was high we went across on the ferry.

Although there was never a very wide variety of food, we always had plenty to eat. There were always potatoes, beans, meat, pork and beef, and turnips. There were few vegetables and no fruit except the wild fruit when I was a young girl. However, most of the people cultivated fruit and later there was plenty. If we ran out of meal, we grated our own.

I was at least twenty years of age before I saw a kerosene lamp, at Trible's one of our neighbors. We always used lamps which used lard for fuel, and candles.

I was married to E. B. Sample on St.Valentine's Day, 1864, and went to housekeeping on a farm in Van Buren county near Hillsboro. We moved to Kansas the following year, returning to Iowa in the fall of 1865 and settling on a farm near Lebanon. In that neighborhood we lived until the death of Mr. Sample on October 5, 1910.

At the time Mr. Sample and I were married there were three children in the Sample home, David, Clark and Stewart; their mother having died in 1860. Of these children David and Clark are now dead, while Stewart lives at Denair, California. Of my own children there are five: Mary Atkins of Milton, George W. of Ann Arbor, Mich., John C. of Flushing, N.Y., Jennie Muir and Arthur F. who live near Lebanon. All my children attended the Keosauqua school.

Upon five different occasions within the last 20 years I have visited my son John in New York, going each time by way of Ann Arbor to visit my son George also. I made the last trip when I was 87 years of age.

While I have reached the age of 92, I am enjoying good health, as well as my friends and family. I have six grandchildren and five great grandchildren.