Muscatine County, Iowa FAMILY STORIES

Christmas 1958
Dear Margaret:
    Some years ago your Mother asked me if I would like to write some little stories about my grandmother and others connected to my childhood, so you would know some thing about them.
     After all – it is your back ground too and you should know your people.
     Lucia is typing the book and I will send more stories from time to time. They are yours so do not return them.
     Love from “Yady” (Almira Louise Olds Beckerman)

BELOVED GRANDMOTHER

    Her name was Theresa Louise Herron and she was born and lived, until her marriage, in Urbana, Ohio. The Tafts of Ohio are descendants of her two brothers.

     When she was two years old, and the baby of the family, her father went away to fight in the War of 1812 and was killed.

     Grandmother didn’t have much to say about her growing up except that life was hard without a father. The farm meant daily chores and sheep raised for wool so in the winter they could spin and weave cloth for clothing. It was called “Hopsacking” or “Homespun”. They also raised corn and tobacco to sell or trade.

     When she was twenty she married Dr. Benjamin Strong Olds, an Englishman, whose grandfather came over and settled in Connecticut. These people were called “Landed Gentry”. The newly married couple left Urbana in a “Diligence” or “Prairie Schooner”- also called a “Covered Wagon”, and it took three weeks to reach Bloomington, Iowa, where they were going to settle along with about a dozen other couples. Later the name was changed to “Muscatine” after an Indian Chief.

     There I lived with her until I was thirteen. I lost my best friend when she died and I hope she knows how I feel.

Picture of my Sister, Nell, and Me. She was five and I was three. It was taken just before Nell went to live with Auntie Dayton and Cousin Ettie in Kansas.

    My Grandmother was seventy-one when I, a Motherless baby of about two was dropped in her lap by my Father who was in his forties. He died when I was three. My Sister, who was five, was living with our only Aunt in another State. We really have never lived together.

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    The first things I remember about life with my Grandmother was the big, black cat with a white horseshoe mark on the front of his neck (a regular breast pin), a canary which sang all day, a woman called “Emma” (she was taken in by Grandmother when her stepmother turned five children out to look after themselves), a hot brick wrapped in flannel and put in bed at my feet on cold winter nights, and having measles and drinking hot milk with nutmeg on top out of a beautiful blue glass tumbler (the latter was for sickness – on other days I had a yellow glass). I have seen some of that glass in Antique Shops in New England sixty years later.

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    Grandmother always explained things to me. There was an odd-looking star with a long tail. She said that was a comet, - very seldom seen, and perhaps we would never see another………

     I wonder now if that could have been “Halley’s Comet” for it was in the eighteen-eighties.

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    My Grandmother was pure Irish. My Grandfather was English, but somewhere in his background was as Indian Princess. I imagine she was just princess of her tribe. She was said to be “fleet of foot” and sure with the bow and arrow. In my “Olds” genealogy book she is listed as:

     “Via Smith, married to Benjamin Olds, 1758 and died 1820”

     (Benjamin Old was in the Revolutionary War from Granville, Massachusetts. We have a long record of his war services in 1777)

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    Grandmother took me everywhere with her, -to the store, to Church, to see her old friends and on walks outside of town where she gathered herbs and special roots which she made into remedies for coughs, cramps or sores.

     I remember people coming to the house to ask her advice. One man had a “felon” on his finger and should have it lanced. The pain was intense and he had to hold his hand upright. She looked at it and said, “That‘s a ‘run-around’ – I’ll fix it”. I watched her cut a thin slice of yellow kitchen soap, lay it on a clean strip white cloth, rub a wet finger on it and sprinkle sugar on it. Then she bound the finger in it, sewed it to stay and told him to come back. He came in twenty four hours because his finger was so wet. She removed the bandage and found that the finger was no longer red and had emptied it-self without having to be lanced. I had one myself years later. She cured mine, too. It is the best finger I have to this day!

     We used to dig up wild flowers and plant them in our own yard. The ferns and violets grew but not the bluebells and the jack-in-the-pulpits. She said that maybe they didn’t like people because they had been stepped on.

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    Always “I must put my hands behind me when I smelled flowers that were not to be picked, just looked at”. She showed me a certain beautiful, blue flower which was “Deadly Nightshade”, a strong poison, commonly known as “Belladonna Lily”. I have since learned that the “Amaryllis” is called that, so don’t ever chew the stems.

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    Grandmother told me there were Indians all around when she was young. They would sit on her porch quite often and sometimes leave some freshly caught fish wrapped in wet leaves. When they heard about her new little baby girl who was named “Kate”, they asked Grandfather, Dr. Olds, if they could see her. One day when he was Home, he brought two of them in. They brought gay beads and a fur pelt for her. They looked in wonder at the pink and white baby with blond hair. One of them put two fingers against her cheek and said, “Fairchild”, then the other did the same – so Grandmother said, “Let’s have her baptized “Kate Fairchild Olds”.

     She lived just six weeks.

     Ellen Olds died the day she was born.

     Almira Louise Olds lived to be 71. (She was my Auntie Dayton).

     Benjamin Franklin Olds died in 1884. (He was my Father and died when I was three).

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FIRST TIN-TYPE

    When I was seven, I noticed a funny little house on wheels near us, a horse grazing nearby and people going in and out. A Mr. Heaton who collected rents, came for ours and said to Grandmother, “Let me take the little girl to the tin-type gallery and have her picture made. I’ll bring her back in “half an hour.”

     So Emma dressed me in my best, combed my hair and put my doll in my arms and off we went. They sat me in a swivel chair, put clamps on my head and took two pictures, which I still have – sixty-nine years later! The original tin-type is only 2 1/4” x 3”.

     Upon reaching home, I became drowsy and lay down on the sofa. Suppertime came, still asleep; bed time, all night and morning – then I was wide awake and starved! The ether fumes at the gallery had been so strong and I must have been unusually susceptible to them.

     The doll had a china head with black china hair, leather hands and feet, and a cloth body with a corset painted on it. (Now these dolls are so rare that I read of a woman who was paid $200 for hers!

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CAT

    I mentioned the big, black cat with the white horse shoe mark – it was eleven years old and was given to Grandmother to keep while its owner spent a year in California. It had been in our family for some years and the woman was never heard from again.

     Every morning the cat would sit by the wardrobe door and meow. Grandmother would open the door lift the lid of a big glass candy jar and take out one piece of candy for kitty. One morning he didn’t get a piece for he had climbed up the “what not” shelves and jumped of the bird cage and eaten the bird. Kitty crawled under the sofa and stayed all day. He knew why he was punished.

     One day a man who worked in the livery stable nearby came over and said, “I am sorry, Mrs. Olds, you will have to tell the little girl her black cat was asleep in the straw on the floor of one of the stalls, - a horse kicked it and it is dead.”

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FIRE

    That same livery stable caught fire, one night, and it was so near that Emma picked me up out of bed, wrapped a blanket around me, and the three of us watched the men try to get all the horses out. They had to tie blankets gunny sacks or anything over the horses’ faces so they couldn’t see or smell, then they could lead them out. I guess I was about five then and it was the first fire I had ever seen.

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JACKET

    My Cousin Ettie, made a jacket and sent it for me, - a beautiful plaid with a deep, pointed hood hanging down the back. The hood was lined with red silk and there was a beautiful red silk tassel on the point. Emma took me for a walk and I was so proud. Every once in a while I would look around at her and say, “Why did you poke me?” and she would say, “I didn’t.” So I said, “Something bumps me in the back.” When we go home, she shook the jacket upside down before putting it on the hook under the closet shelf and out dropped a fat, dead mouse, which had probably fallen off the shelf and couldn’t get out of the hood.

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    Grandmother liked boys and at one time had five in her house (before my day). One lost all his people with cholera; two were real orphans; one was turned out of his home because there was no room for him, and the fifth one was frail and stayed a year to get medical treatment from Dr. Reeder.

     The boys went to school and she got part-time jobs for them from the business men who knew her well and had great respect for her.

     They had good, sturdy meals. Emma baked bread, gingerbread, pies, cookies, rolls, etc., and did their washing. When education was finished and they left for other jobs, Grandmother handed to them all their money which she had saved for them. She said she kissed them and gave them her blessing.

     Every single birthday, even her last one (eight-four years old) letters came from all over the country, and quite often a big five-pound box of her favorite candy.

     One boy was the eldest of twelve children and only fourteen years old himself. One day his father said to him, “Here is one dollar, - we have so many children, there is no room for you, so you must do for yourself.” The boy was so astonished and broken-hearted that he walked out, saying nothing, and walked miles until he came to Muscatine and entered a store to ask a place to sleep. The owner of the store liked his looks and manner. He told him to go to Mrs. Olds (my Grandmother) as she had several homeless boys who were happy there, and he could go to school, then work Saturdays and summers for him (the store man). The boy used his middle name all the rest of his life (Bowers) and never a word of letter passed between him and his family for they had turned him out when he needed them most. A Californian for years, he came back to Muscatine to visit and always came to see Grandmother.

     Another boy was named “Marshall”. During the terrible cholera epidemic, people who were sick were put in skiffs or boats and shoved away from shore to keep the plague from spreading. It was terrible! Grandmother’s Son-in-law, Dr. George Reeder, was busy night and day. Help was short and the town women were gathering food, bedding, etc., to he handed out. Dr. Reader said that the whole Marshall family had been put in a boat which was tied to a building on the water front. “One of the worst cases and they needed help badly”. Grandmother gathered up things, had a man row her to the boat, got into it, fed, washed, and solaced them the best she could. Mr. Marshall died; then the smallest children. Mrs. Marshall was taken ashore and died in a boat house. The only one who survived was a boy of twelve and Grandmother gave him a home for years.

     Grandmother’s only Son-in-law, Dr. Reeder, rode out to make calls on the sick. One patient had cholera. Dr. Reeder left his home on horseback at twelve noon. At two o’clock his horse came back without him, so the family looked for him and found him dead on the ground – of cholera.

     Dr. Reeder came from Maryland and went inn partnership with my Grandfather, Dr. Benjamin Strong Olds. He fell in love with my only Aunt, Almira Louise, and married her when she was fifteen and a student at the “Young Ladies Seminary” in Muscatine. She finished school when she was seventeen and when she was nineteen, my Cousin Nell was born, then Will, Esther and George.

     Dr. George Reeder founded the first Medical Society in Iowa. His picture hangs in the State Historical Building in Des Moines, Iowa.

     When the Society was to celebrate the one Hundreth year anniversary, they had no picture of him and advertised in all the Iowa papers. Some one from Muscatine notified my Sister, Nell, and me and I had a small oil painting of him done by his widow after his death and given it to me after her death. I sent it and it hangs on the wall in the Historical Building.

     After Dr. Reeder’s death, my Aunt who had inherited quite a bit of property in Muscatine from him, had it sold and invested in six parts so each child and herself could receive income to pay for educations. As she had always wanted to be an artist, she studied in Boston and New York - also made one trip to Paris. She had pictures on exhibition in New York, then came home and had pupils. Hers was a busy life for she sketched, painted, did beautiful embroidery, beadwork on chamois skin, and raised rare flowers.

     My Aunt’s second husband was Frederick L. Dayton, the only Uncle I ever had or knew. He was nine years younger than she was and had always admired her and he told me once that she was the most beautiful woman he ever saw. She was tall, blond, and slender with the bluest eyes and pretty skin. Her hair turned white from the shock of Dr. Reeder’s death. Many a time I brushed her hair and wheeled her in her chair when she became an invalid. I even made some of her “wrappers”, a sort of tea gown they wore then. They had to be pretty or she would not have them.

     The Daytons had a Son who died in 1955 – Rear Admiral John Havens Dayton. He married a Virginian who we all loved. They had no children. She was presented at Court in England (by request). She wrote in one of her last letters, “We have met just about all the queens and “Jack” played golf with most of the Kings. He loved King Gustave of Sweden, and let the aged King beat him.”

     My Aunt’s elder daughter, Ellen Olds Reeder, (called “Nell”) was dark-haired and gray-eyed like my Grandmother. She had wonderful musical talent – was a gifted pianist and singer. She had pupils for years while studying under well-known teachers. One summer one of her teachers took her seven most gifted pupils on a two-month tour of Europe, mainly France, Italy and Germany.

     In Germany old Emperor William, who had heard they were there, sent a request for them to come to his castle to play for him. Cousin Nell couldn’t sleep a wink that night - couldn’t eat the next day – so afraid that she would be beheaded or put in a dungeon. But on the afternoon he and the Empress were just like her own grandparents. She did most of the playing and he wanted more – so she found herself playing and singing old Southern songs and he beat time on the arm of this chair. Emperor William died the next year, then his son, Frederick, took over, but he had cancer of the throat and died four months later. Then came the Kaiser this Country did not like.

     My Aunt’s younger daughter was Esther Butler Reeder, called “Ettie”. She was rather frail from a spinal deformity which was not noticeable at all on account of a well-made brace. She raised my Sister, Ellen Reeder Olds, also called “Nell”, from the time Nell was five. When Ettie married Dr. Frederick Hoffa Little, he wanted to keep Nell for he had known the family all his life and liked Nell and me. In latter years our children called him “Gramps”.

     Grandmother died when I was thirteen and I was sent to Kentucky to live with Cousin George Reeder and his wife. They had a little girl about one year old. Loving dolls the way I did, I found it nice to help with the care of a real one. In the fall I started to school and loved it too. I had three girl friends who for the next six years meant everything to me:

     1. Hildegard Rolfe, who was a descendant of John Rolfe and Pocahontas. Her Grandfather was angry about something in England and came over here, knocking an “l” out of his name.

     2. Emma Wallace, a grandniece of General Lew Wallace of Kentucky who wrote the books “Ben Hur”, “The Prince of India”, and “Fair God”.

     3. Georgia Vinson, a real beauty whose little Brother became Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson of the Supreme Court.

    Six years later I went to Iowa to live. My Aunt was an invalid, Dr. Little’s Mother had died, and Cousin Ettie was sick, so I had plenty to do. They had all done for me, so I could thank them. Anyway I had another year to go before graduating and found out that I would have to have two years of German and go for two years because of rules in transferring. I would need the German if I intended getting work in Muscatine as the town was three fourths German…..so, I am the dumb one in the whole family beside being deaf.      (hand written note: How untrue & how sad-)