A note from my grandfather:
Any attempt to put in writing any facts regarding my mother and her ancestors has to be based on a very hazy memory. She was twenty years old when I was born: so that would make the year of her birth 1872. She once told me she was born in Baldwin City, Kansas while her family was working its way westward from Pennsylvania. The family eventually reached the area in and around Woodland in Yolo County, California. She finished all the available schools ( no high schools then) and after qualifying in an examination, received an elementary school teacher's certificate. She taught in a small country school in the Capay Valley. She recalled one question in the examination which stumped her. It was : why is the earth, sun, moon etc. round? Her answer was: 'To keep the corners from being knocked off'. This apparently was satisfactory because she passed.
My mother was a very hard worker and during the first half of her adult life on the farm was often call upon to act as midwife. I can remember three babies delivered before the doctor could arrive in his horse and buggy. Once she nursed and kept house for a whole farm family stricken with typhoid fever. She pulled all of them through the ordeal and came out healthy herself.
