1838-1938
| West Liberty History 1838-1938 | |
Source: One Hundred Years of History
* Commemorating a Century of Progress in the West Liberty Community * WEST LIBERTY, IOWA
LOG CABIN HISTORY Chapter XXX
CONCLUSION
With the whistle of the first locomotive engine that arrived in the Wapsie valley in 1855 was sounded the death knell of the log cabin era. Then began a new life in the community, and this narrative must come to a close, for the rush and push and roar of a new and strange era was upon us. Ere this time many of the log cabins had fallen in decay, or replaced by more modern structures; and many of those early settlers had moved on to newer scenes, while many more had taken their journey to the unknown country. Those that remained, mostly boys and girls when this history began, have grown old and gray, and must soon move on to join the caravan that has preceeded them, and like the cabins they inhabited will be numbered with the things of the past. But their work remains, and though their early possessions have passed into the hands of strangers, the race has become a brotherhood and the sowing of the few is being harvested by the many. In the final summing up, when the great day of settlement arrives, when to everyone will be meted out just recompense for labor accomplished who shall say but these pioneers, though sometimes rough in speech and ignorant of the finer subleties of life, may not have accomplished more for the benefit of the race than many others, who with the greater opportunities the pioneers made possible, have only achieved distinction through sordid gains, and left no monuments of their virtues but gold that perishes. The temptations of the pioneers because of their environment to laxity of effort, physically, mentally and morally, were great, and the generations of their descendants may rightly claim a noble heritage. As I have listened to those venerable men and women recounting the story of those early times when this region was still unscarred by man and the virgin soil had never been marked by passing wheels of a vehicle, and there proceeded to carve out homes and set up the standard and maintain the dignity of the American home life in the presence of loneliness and privation and sickness and death, not disheartened by toil and suffering and danger, but patiently and faithfully laboring on, firm in their faith in the future prosperity of their adopted land, I have realized as never before the magnitude of the undertaking and the thoroughness of the work accomplished.
Of all that band who came here so long ago with families there remains but one member, Mrs. Eliza Phillips *, now nearly ninety-five years of age. Let us uncover our heads as we speak of her, for who of us are worthy to stand with covered head in such a presence? Let us remember the storms and hot sun and labor and care and suffering and sorrows that have whitened her hair and wrinkled her features, that have palsied her limbs and bent her form. Let us remember that she had passed through the burden of bearing a numerous family, and just as they were becoming of an age to aid her in her work, they came to this wilderness, here to undergo the privations and toil of pioneer life, and gave over active labor only when her sun was low down in the west. For sixty-three years has she seen the seasons come and go over the Wapsie valley, and is now waiting for the summons of the Master to take her last journey.
Nor let us forget Mother Nyce, the first white woman to make a permanent home here, who so soon became a widow, but undaunted by the affliction, toiled on in faith and came to an honored old age, loved by all who came to know her. Or Grandmother Smith, who amid the adverse circumstances of her environment, kept the welfare of her children ever in view, and but a few years ago laid down her burden at the ripe age of ninety-three years. Or yet the many others, men and women, who early fell victims to the vicissitudes of their surroundings, some of whom sleep their last long sleep in unmarked and neglected graves in our cemeteries. As we sit around our firesides, enjoying their many comforts, or ride over our beautiful valley, amid it's fruitful fields, past it's beautiful homes that dot the landscape, or loiter on the streets of our villages, noting their evidences of thrift and prosperity, their churches, their schools, their libraries, and the happy animated faces of the school children as they pass and repass daily, let us kindly and greatfully remember the pioneers of the log cabin days, who, lacking all these opportunities for comfort and culture and a close contact with their fellow men---which is the great educator---yet by their labor and their loss made all of these things possible to the generations that were to follow them.
* Died May 29,1903, aged 94 years, 8 months and 10 days.
