Elda Jane (Phillips) Craig (1893 - 1990)

Born 28 Jan 1893 in Brumley, Miller, Missouri, United States

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 9 Dec 1990 at age 97 in Osage Beach, Camden, Missouri, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Stacey Martin [send private message]

Biography

Elda was born in 1893. She passed away in 1990.

The following pages of recollections were found in Elda's trailer after her death: "I was born on a homestead farm. My dad worked on the farm through crop time and we raised cane and our dad made molasses. He would make molasses for the whole neighborhood and in the winter he would make ties our uncle Ed lived with us several years. Our dad put out a big orchard and we lived in a small log house with just one room it had a loft in it and a big fire place. We carried water from a big spring and in the springtime we would have spice wood tea to drink. My mother would gather different kind of herbs and hang them up to dry to make tea out of if we had a cold. The Dr. lived so far away and no telephones, no electric lights only coal oil lamps and lanterns when I was 8 years old our father built a new log house up on the hill one room with an upstairs room and a lean on kitchen.

Our mother would have a big ash hopper that we put ashes in through the winter then she would put water on the ashes an make lie, then she would make soap to use my dad always had sheep and cows and horses. Mother raised lots of chickens we would walk to Kaiser which was about 3 or 4 miles and carry eggs to market and I remember we got 5 cents a dozen but then we could buy coffee for 25 cents a lb, sugar for 10 cents, We would get 25 cents worth of sugars and it would last quite a spell we bought what they called calico material to make our dresses it was 5 cents and 10 cents a year. We always dried apples, peaches, and pumpkin and green beans. We didn’t have to buy many groceries. We raised a big garden would make a barrel of krout. We would have plenty molasses and we raised our own meat. My dad would butcher not less than 4 or 5 big hogs and once in a while a beef (they were 10 of us children.)

We had our dogs we would rabbit hunt and we would hang up the hind legs of the backs of the rabbits to dry and we would smoke our own meat to cure it in *fule* When I was about 12 years old my bro and I used to saw timber and make rails. I helped saw tie timber when I was only 8 years old

When wheat harvest came my mother would leave my oldest sister to take care of the little ones and she would bind wheat one of us children would bunch the wheat and she would bind after two crandles. I would hitch up old Bob and I would plow all day with my older Bro. I was 12 years old and our father had what they called a Cattar in his hand and we almost lost him and several years he wasn’t able to do much work and us kids tended the crop, helped mother with the garden and our Father peddled Wilbur stock food. He would sometime be gone a whole week at a time. Us girls would work for other people to get a dollar a week. I have did many a big washing on a board when it would take all day for 50 cents.

We used to walk to Brumley and go to the encampment. Our dad would give us 25 cents a piece and we would stall all night at our Grandpas Robinetts at night and walk back home the next day (10 miles). Then we could ride the merry go round for 5 cents.

When my dad build the new house he made a lime kiln and burnt his own lime and would dig a round home to stack the lime that he used to paint the house with and we would white wash the inside with lime when I was 16 I cut my big toe off on my left foot chopping cook wood. Every spring in Feb and March we would hafto burn around the pastures we mostly did that a night when they would not be much wind. Sometimes someone would set fire in the day time and we would have to work to keep it out of our rail fences. I remember one Easter Sunday someone set out fire in the Henderson holler and we had to fight that fire all day and our neighbors had to keep it from their places and the wind was hi and it was pretty cold – our uncle Ed Phillips lived with us and he was always teasing my younger bro so one day uncle was in the crib shucking corn and my bro slipped up and pegged the door on uncle stayed in the crib till about 8 o clock and my mother went to feed the chickens and uncle asked her to unpeg the door. He never kidded my bro anymore.

Us kids and the neighbor kids used to walk to new hope to church at night about 5 miles. We attended school at the Fletcher school. Sometimes we only had 6 month school, we walked about 2 miles, waded snow, wet rain or shine and never knew what a pair of boots were. On Saturdays my bro and I would hafto brake off corn and haul it in and we would hafto have fodder and rido it in a pen to feed the cattle. My bro and I sometimes our mother or our neighbor kid would go opossum hunting.

We used to go to Barnett church it was about 3 miles from where we lived and the preachers name was Simon Peter Cox. They was a man lived in the neighborhood named John hiRonamus and we always went by Buggy Henderson’s it was nearer and a pig path to follow. My father and mother were both baptized in the little Bear Creek, near where we used to get our mail it was a Bolts Place then we got our mail at Pisgah and they had a little stove it was only about 1 mile from our place when I was a girl."

Elda Jane had illegitimate daughter whose father was Perry Richardson. About five years later she met and married Walter Craig. Walter adopted her daughter, Charlottie, and raised her as his own. They had no other children.

Sources

• Social Security Administration. Social Security Death Index, Master File. Social Security Administration.
• United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623, 18
• original copy of Elda's recollections currently held by Stacey Martin