James W Drake

DRAKE HILL

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 4/19/2010 at 23:19:03

Woodbury County History 1984

J W Drake
By Mr and Mrs Frank Ashley

Isadora Hill, daughter of Mr and Mrs Ira Hill was born near Rockford, Illinois, August 23, 1846. When she was nine years old, the family moved to Winnebago, Minnesota. They lived there only a short time, then moved to Belle Plaine, Iowa.

James W Drake, son of Mr and Mrs Kelly Drake, was born July 15, 1846, near Warsaw, Indiana. In 1853, the family moved to Benton County, Iowa. Isadora Hill and J W Drake were married at Belle Plaine, Iowa, on January 2, 1868. The first ten years of the Drakes’ married life was spent near Belle Plaine, except for a year when they lived at Winnebago, Minnesota. Six of their seven children were born at Belle Plaine.

In 1879, Mr and Mrs Drake and their family moved to a farm in Wolf Creek Township, Woodbury County, Iowa, about five miles northwest of Anthon (just north of the Yockey Corner and known in more recent years as the Peter Behrens farm). J W Drake, leaving his family in Belle Plaine, had come to this area by covered wagon in the summer of 1878, bought the forty acres of land and here built a two-room house. While building the house he lived with a Thompson family in a log cabin located in a grove just south of the present Donald Fey farm.

Their house was covered with upright boards with narrow slats covering the cracks between. There were two rooms, one used as a bedroom. They had only one bed – the two boys slept with Grandpa and Grandma, the girls on the floor. That winter Mrs Drake and the children, Kelly, Ella, Eva, Nettie and Bert, came by train to Battle Creek and from there by bob-sled to Lucky Valley, a country settlement about five miles west of Anthon. Their youngest daughter, Austa Jane, was born September 16, 1881, near Anthon, and a son, Roy, died in infancy.

The Drake family bought with them a barrel of salt pork, a half-barrel of molasses, and a grain sack full of flour. Their furniture consisted of a bed, a table, some straight chairs, and a cook stove. They had two cows and only one team of horses and a walking plow to begin farming the yet unbroken prairie land. When they fenced the farm, Grandma put the barbs on the wire by hand. She made a heavy coat for Grandpa of feed sacks, with dye made by boiling elderberry bark.

There were very few roads in those days- people traveled across the prairie between homes or to town. Sometimes Aunt Eava and one of the other children (most often Uncle Kelly)were sent to the Lucky Valley store to trade home-churned butter for a few groceries-perhaps a quarter’s worth of sugar, a box of matches, or some soap. They walked to Lucky Valley, following the creek, with a pail of butter carried on a stick between them.

Aunt Eva and the other children attended a one-room school just up the road north of their home, about one-fourth mile. They studied five books: Reading, Arithmetic, Writing, Spelling and Georgraphy. Aunt Eva had only five years of schooling, then had to go to work in the fields except or a few winters months.

Small bands of Indians were seen quite often as they traveled from Nebraska to the Little Sioux River to fish. The Indian men rode horses; the children and the women (some carrying papooses on their backs) walked. One afternoon, a group of Indians stopped at the school house. The teacher had seen them coming and told the pupils to sit quietly at their desks and to give them anything they wanted. The Indians came in the school house and examined everything, being especially interested in the books with pictures. These they took with them. It was a scary experience, Aunt Eva said. She also told of an Indian man who camped quite a few nights on the creek bank east of their home. They would see him ride into the area just aobut dark and later see the light of his campfire.

Mail was received only about once a month. They walked five miles east of their home near the Little Sioux River to get their mial. Most of the Lucky Valley Settlement was disbanded when the railraods were built to Correctionville, Moville, and Anthon. The store building was moved to Anthon and the hotel to Moville.

The Drake family was engaged in farming in the Anthon vicinity for thirty-one years, their children growing to adulthood and establishing homes of their own in the area. Kelly married Tena Brown. Ella became Mrs Seymour Smith. Eva became Mrs George Ashley. Nettie became Mrs Amos Rogers. Bert married Grace Smith. Austa became Mrs Bert Ashley.
In 1910, Mr and Mrs Drake moved westward, stopping first at Bancroft, South Dakota, and later homesteading near Lusk, Wyoming. Mr Drake passed away at Lusk, Wyoming, on February 5, 1920; and Mrs Drake on March 21, 1934, at the home of her daughter, Mrs George Ashley, near Anthon. She had made her home with her daughter, and with her son, Bert, at Bancroft, South Daktoa, following the death of her husband.

Aunt Eva continued to live on the farm known as ‘Sleepy Hollow’ after the death of her husband, George, who passed away in July, 1952. Aunt Eva, as she was lovingly called by all who knew her, passed away February 13, 1962.