A Short Narrative of My Life
By J. A.
Howard
In undertaking to give the reader of these pages the story of
my life, I will not undertake in a solemn strain to narrate
this narration, but will try and put as much sunshine in these
pages as possible.
I am
the son of my Father as all of my Fathers were. I was born
very young and have never been ashamed of it, and have never
desired to grow old, so at this writing from the best of my
recollection, and the evidence set down in the old family
Bible, I am now nearing the age of sixty-eight years. That old
family record says 1 was born in the year of our Lord on the
16th day of January 1853, so you see I was born in an early
day of my life near New Providence in Greene County, Illinois.
My Father's name was simply John Howard, and my mother's name
was Marjory Ann, her maiden name being Bell. My mother died
when I was but five years of age hence my memory concerning
her is rather vague. My mother was a beautiful woman being one
of the Bells of the community in which she lived, I think I
will always hold it against my mother for my good looks,
therefore I am not responsible for them. My father lived to be
76 years old and anxiously passed to his reward in my own
arms.
As I was born very young, I married correspondingly young, at
the age of nineteen, and have been married to the same woman
ever since. I was very fortunate in my marriage, having found
a beautiful girl in my own community who was willing to take
me just as I was. I suppose she thought then that it was a
cheap bargain, and now she knows it. The most of our troubles
have been little ones, eight of whom have grown to man and
womanhood and they seem real glad that they have been thus
fortunate in having us for their parents. I did not have to
leave my own community to find a lady girl that would have me
as many young fellows do. I never have been a giant in
physical strength or mental ability, or a financial success,
but when I die I will take about as much with me as anybody
that I know anything about. 1 brought nothing into this world
and it looks like I am going to take precious little out.
The
people that I have known have been very good to me, and that
have not been a few. I am proud of a large circle of
acquaintances, whether they are proud of it or not. I am glad
of the fact that I have known quite well many other great and
talented men and women, and the most of them have been willing
to acknowledge my acquaintance in public. There are a great
many great and good men that I have never met (not yet). I
have known and remember to have seen such men as Peter
Cartwright, who was quite as noted preacher in early days of
Methodism in Illinois as I have been in later days in Iowa. I
also knew Peter Acres of Jacksonville, Illinois. I do not
suppose he remembers ever knowing me for I was just a lad when
he was an aged man and a friend of Abraham Lincoln. I have
never seen Abe Lincoln but I remember there was such a man
living in my day (will wonders never cease) two such
characters living at the same time and in the same state, but
he never lived very long after I came upon the stage of
action. I have lived to see the Republican Party come into
power at a time when great men were needed. I have lived to
see the demon rum throttled by the throat and driven into
holes in the walls and into the dark places of the earth and
hope to see it driven into Hades where it belongs and where it
originated, for John Barley Corn is surely a child of the
devil, but he has been buried with his face down and the
harder he attempts to get out the deeper he will get in.
I have known, seen and heard such great Christian teachers and
workers as Dwight L. Moody, R. E. Torrey, Billy Sunday and
Joseph Wells. I will not burden the reader's mind with the
names of those men I have never known, for they are many.
My
earliest impressions were very impressionable, the first was a
longing in my stomach and I have never been clear of for only
a very short while at a time since. There is a saying that
early impressions last the longest. It would seem then, that
the stomach is the most sensitive part of a man. I think,
however, that my little wife is a very sensitive part of me
for she seems to understand perfectly what is good for my
stomach and a good many other things that are good for me. She
has labored very hard for many years to satisfy the longing
of, and early impressions of my stomach and life. She has not
always succeeded from the fact of limitations which were not
her own, therefore I do not lay it up against her, arid I
forgive her as I wish to be forgiven. My wife has assisted me
very materially in bringing forth and securing what assets
that we together do now possess, and the good book says "She
shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house and
thy
children as olive plants about thy table." Psalms 128:3, and
if her children who may sometime read these lines will turn
and read the whole of the 128th Psalm will find almost a
perfect fulfillment of these words in the life of their
mother. These olive plants about our table have tried the
ability and proved the sagacity and ingenuity of one who has
indeed proved herself that fruitful vine in meeting the needs
and requirements of so many little olive plants about our
table who resembled their father when it comes to things good
to eat, and many other things that were just as important, for
which her children do now "Rise up and call her blessed." And
now at the age of sixty-eight she still retains the ability to
prepare things to tempt the appetite not only of her children,
but her grand children and great grandchildren, of the latter
there are two already.
This leads
me to speak of our marriage more specifically, as I have
mentioned before occurred when we were young folks in the
month of April, the 30th day, eighteen hundred and
seventy-two. We lived quite cozily together, not in a cottage,
but a cabin of two rooms that let in plenty of fresh air and
some sunshine and in this cabin four of our children were
born, in the almost ten years in which we lived in it. The
oldest and first was born on a beautiful June afternoon the
14th day. She lived to bring the brightest of sunshine and
sweetest of disposition to bless and cheer our young hearts
until she was almost 22 months old when one day in March 1874,
we carefully laid her away to rest until that day that God
shall call us all home to be with him forever. We do not think
of her as dead but alive forevermore. Her name was Mary Lela.
In this
humble cabin home Cora Elizabeth, Nellie Minerva, and Orville
Francis were born, all who for many years have enjoyed the
family estate and are now living in different parts of the
country, Cora and Orville in Iowa, farmers, and Nellie in
Kansas.
On the 15th day of Oct., 1882 we (my wife's brother, George
Clark and myself) started in our frail bark, a light prairie
schooner, for Harrison County, Iowa, the mother and three
children coming through later on the train. We landed the
first day of November and began husking corn the next day for
our oldest brother who had been living in Iowa for about three
years. In the spring of 1883, we built us a cottage and
settled down for the life of an industrious farmer, where we
lived, toiled, and mingled with the people, neighbors, and
friends until the fall of 1889, when we moved to Logan, the
county seat of Harrison County. On the farm we raised corn and
cows, chickens and children. While living on the
farm,
Hattie Florence was born, who is now the wife of a popular and
progressive Methodist preacher in Denver, Colo. Also on the
farm was born the future literary artist of the whole family,
when she gets started, but she has hardly got started yet, but
she is still young and always will be, she is somewhat like
her daddy, real modest, and does not let the people know what
she does know and think (O, I suppose her husband R. G. Conrad
knows some of the things she thinks about). He is a man of
some rare accomplishments and ability when it comes to fixing
up cast off Overland cars and making them hit the pike with
limited speed. So we might truthfully say the most profitable
productions on the farm were as usual, children. Our neighbors
were also productive in this
line while we lived in the neighborhood.
In the spring of 1888, we left the work of the farm to a hired
boy who did well and we were commissioned as a Sunday School
Missionary of the American Sunday School Union, so we left the
hard work on the farm for a more strenuous labor among the
good, bad and indifferent people of Harrison County. We
labored in this capacity in Harrison County until August 1893.
After the lapse of thirty years or more the effects of our
feeble efforts are still visible. We went everywhere striving
to do good and finding plenty of opportunity for Christian
service. We plead and planted and prayed for the seed that we
endeavored to sow to bring forth a harvest.
Some of the marvelous productions of our home while living in
Logan, IA, were the coming to bless and bring sunshine were
first Naomi Merle, now the wife of a prosperous farmer living
in Sidney, which town we have chosen for our present home for
a time at least. Also while living at Logan, a little wee bit
of a midget came whom we called Carrie Fern, she is yet but a
midget in size but a full-sized woman in talent and capacity
for many things that are good and noble. Her husband, who is
but a pint larger than she is sells pills and apothecary’s'
productions for the sick and weary and ice cream and soday
water for the frail and faint as well as some others . . .
There (sic) home is in Story City, a part of Norway, IA,
where, they hold bazaars and successful fish dinners
frequently, where they feed the people on pancakes made out of
potatoes, they look flat, seem flat and are flat and taste
flat to a man who is accustomed to eating good pancakes.
In August 1893, we were transferred to Fremont County, Iowa,
where we spent eleven years in Sunday School work, mostly
raised and educated the little family of the seven children
that still remained with us. Cora, the eldest daughter having
married in Harrison County a husky young farmer. The youngest
of the family was born in Fremont County at Sidney, IA, on the
8th day of September 1895. She is now 25 years old and wife of
an industrious young farmer in Greene County, Iowa. Being the
youngest we were loath to give her up but all our lives we
have believed in the doctrine of the multiplication table, and
the scriptural injunction given to Adam after he had secured
for a wife the best looking woman upon the earth at that time,
"to increase and replenish the earth." We feel that in this
regard we have not been slow, and some of the children have
started out well in this regard. By living decent and
respectable lives and teaching our children to do so we have
been enabled to see them all married to quite respectable men
and women. Some twenty grand children have come to gladden the
homes of our children, but two have passed on; two great
grandchildren have come to take their places.
In the year 1904, we started out to shape and sharpen the
moral and political interests and atmosphere of Fremont County
by purchasing an interest in what was then known as the
Fremont County Sun. We let our light shine by soliciting
subscriptions and job work throughout the county, but to our
astonished amazement we found many who had had all the
sunlight they desired and politely asked us to give them a
receipt for back subscription and to please stop the paper,
and we foolish like stopped the paper. At the end of two years
and six months we found an opportunity to sell out to our
partner by taking his note for all we had invested in the
plant and we have his note yet and he is dead, so not knowing
his location we prefer keeping his note rather than looking up
his location. However, we feel sorry for him because he lost
more money than we did all because he had it to lose. This
experience to us was one that was worth all it cost. The
Fremont County Sun perished in the hands our successors, and
has never been resurrected although another publication of
like character and political persuasion is now being published
successfully in the same building known as the Sidney Argus.
In April 1907, we took charge of a Methodist Church in a
little town, Exira, Iowa, in Cass County; for five months we
preached to a few people each Sunday morning and evening and
to quite a few empty seats, and the seats were almost as
responsive some of the people to our exhortations at any rate
they kept still during the service. In September of the same
year we took charge of the Little Sioux
charge in Harrison County. This charge consisted of three
appointments, Little Sioux, Pisgah, and Soldier Valley, and
most of the time while there we preached at River Sioux. We
were getting back into our old territory where we had served
the people as Sunday School Missionary for several years and
we went not among strangers but warm hearted and solicitous
friends. We termed this practically our first charge as a
Methodist pastor, and we served four more or less successful
years, and they only owed us about $100 and they owe it yet,
but according to Methodist policy they will never pay it. I
suppose they paid all they could afford and all that I was
worth. While living at Little Sioux two of our daughters and
our only son were married, and another caught the malady and
married a Little Sioux gentleman. Merle married Wayne W. Polk
of Sidney, IA, and Hattie married Homer A. Fintel, now of
Denver, Colo., and pastor of Barnum Church.
Leaving
Little Sioux in the fall of 1911, we were sent by the
conference to Pilot Mound in Boone County, Iowa, the hardest
circuit in the Des Moines Conference, and we served this
charge for five years. It was a three-point charge, 20 miles
long and correspondingly wide, the parsonage being located at
Pilot Mound, the extreme west end of the charge west of the
Des Moines River, and the other two points directly east in,
almost a straight line. Although this work was hard and
cumbersome we pulled through and left it with many friends,
both in and out of the church, and with our minds in full
swing and active operation. The man that followed us almost
lost his mind but through the aid of a former pastor
accomplished a good work on the charge. Here Fern met, wooed
and won her present husband. Here also Lennie lassooed the
young man she had larietted at Little Sioux, and they have
lived quite happily ever since, though they have passed
through much pain and suffering, especially while living in
Waterloo.
Leaving
Pilot Mound we moved in September 1910, to Paton, a one-point
charge or station, serving this charge three years. The first
sermon we preached was a funeral of a little girl brought in
from the west. In all these charges we received many
commendations for our sermons and labors, and we feel we left
each charge at least in as good a spiritual condition as we
found them when we went to them. In Pilot Mound we did not
know a single soul. On entering the town we prayed the Lord to
give us the hearts of the people in the charge. We found them
a warm-hearted people toward us and very responsive to our
appeals in many ways. It is a great comfort to us to know that
all these charges have had gracious revivals after we moved
on.
In Paton,
the baby daughter was married to Mr. Earl Beaty, who is at
this time erecting a beautiful cottage home for his wife and
two little children, Martha Louise and Robert Earl. It will
soon be ready for them to move into.
We
certainly can say that we can go back to all of these charges
and receive as warm welcome from the most of the people as any
one could wish.
Feeling in
the fall of 1919, that our usefulness as a pastor was about
done, we loaded our goods and shipped them back to Sidney, our
former home, where we also knew we had many warm friends, with
the intention of spending the remaining days of our pilgrimage
among some of our children and friends, and do what good that
fell to our lot to accomplish. It has never been my
disposition or custom to complain of our lot in life. It might
have been far worse than it has been. We know many have done
better and a few have done worse. We have in a measure
cherished the good will of good men and sought earnestly the
approval of God upon our work, and pray yet for his divine
favor and smile to rest upon us in these declining days of our
life. We will be disappointed if in the end of our days we do
not hear the approving words of our Saviour "Well done". God
has understood the motive of our lives and the desires of our
heart. We will rest assured that He will bring no
disappointment to us or to any of His servants.
I have just
mentioned a few of some of the interesting things that have
come into our lives during the almost 48 years of our
pilgrimage. There are many interesting incidents and
interesting times that have occurred in my labors as a Sunday
School Missionary and preacher-pastor. One thing that 1 have
escaped very largely as a pastor and that is the whining
complaints of those touchy people and jealous wives and
husbands who sometimes seem to think a pastor can relieve them
of all their troubles by pouring into his ear their tale of
woe. It never was my disposition to dig into those things. I
always felt the more you stirred a rotten thing the worse it
would stink.
Some day I
may go into the records of my more than 75,000 miles of travel
in Christian labors here and there and put in typewritten form
some of the incidents that might be refreshing to my children
and grandchildren, to remind them there once lived in the
world such common folks capable of doing some uncommon things
and bringing to pass some great and good results. May the dear
Lord bless whoever may be permitted to read these lines, which
have given me great joy to here transcribe.
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
TO MY CHILDREN AND THEIRS
The Rev.
John A. Howard
November 17, 1920
John and
Martha Howard celebrated their golden wedding anniversary
April 30, 1922, at their home in Sidney, Iowa, all of their
children and families except Hattie and Nelle being present.
George and
Cora Norman also celebrated their golden wedding anniversary
March 9, 1942 in Farragut, Iowa. |