Location: [unknown]
By Nellie Baker Stewart
The following text has been transcribed exactly as written by Nellie Baker Stewart.
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My parents were "Easterners". They were from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They were married there Sept. 11th, 1883 Some years before, my father's folks had migrated to Missouri so of course, my father knew something of the West as Missouri was called in those days. Mother, of course, knew nothing of pioneer living and had much to learn when she and father decided to go West also. Father bought mother a riding outfit, a pony and a nice little side saddle, which did much to soothe her feelings as she was learning to rough it.
In those days there were no trade Unions as we know them today. The mills would be closed for months at a time when the owners so desired and there was nothing the workers, either skilled or unskilled, could do about it. The money saved for a rainy day always had to be spent because the rainy days always came. My father was a skilled worker, a puddler, a maker of wrought iron in Pittsburgh, the iron and steel center of the U.S.A., if not of the world. In those days the puddler had charge of the furnace and hired his helpers.. My parents, thinking of ways to overcome the unemployment situations that came every so often, bought a farm in Missouri, on which was a good log house, a log barn and other out buildings, and a wonderfully fine bearing orchard. I was three years old at the time.
In order to pay for the farm my father would go back to Pittsburgh when the mills were working: and we would go with him if the term of work would justify, or if he would be gone for only a short time, we would remain on the farm. Hence we lived in Pittsburgh as much as we lived in Missouri and called both places home. Most of our schooling, however was in the East, although I have memories of some wonderful terms in our country school in Missouri.
At one time in our lives my father was Superintendent of a mining operation which was only about twenty miles from our farm but across the river from us, and through a through a wooed area where the road was little more than a trail. My father would come home for the week end and leave for work on Sunday afternoon by horse and buggy, first fording the river. Father taught mother to shoot in case she should have to protect us during his absence.
In the winter evenings by the light of an oil lamp, I would be playing on the floor and mother would be rocking the baby and singing. The floor boards would occasionally creak under the under the rocker as the rag carpet did little to muffle the sound.
All would be well until mother would stop both rocking and singing. When that happen, I would look up to see my mother quietly listening. Then is when I would fly to her side and she would put her arms around us and assure us that all was well, even though she, herself was not so sure
The behavior of the watch dog would tell us if something unusual was happening out doors. Sometimes the squawk of a chicken would indicate an intruder in the hen house and my mother would fire a few shots in that direction and we could hear the sneak thieves hastening away.
One night, our dog, Spot came to the door and barked until mother opened the door, then he would advance a few yards towards the orchard and look back to see if she were following. If she hesitated he would run to her and bark some more, then run on toward the orchard. He was so insistent and seemed to know that she should follow so she went back to the house for the gun.
Our early apples were ripening so some natives were helping themselves. they were too proud to ask for some but were not too proud to steal. Mother fired a few shots in the general direction of those apple trees and we could hear them scrambling over the fence in their haste to get away
Years later when I was old enough to climb the big tree, I saw the culprits' initials cut in the bark up near the top. Most little girls love to play house and we were no exceptions. There seldom any little boys around and my playmates were all girls so in order to have a daddy we would use a long stick.
Our dolls were our children and if we wanted more , we would dress up anything available. Perhaps it would be a stick of stove wood or a pumpkin or squash or perhaps the old cat, who was tame and lazy. They were very real to us and we enjoyed our play as much as any child could. Sometimes we played store and one favorite game was playing millinery shop. I love to trim hats and the hats were large leaves of plantain or rhubarb and the trimming was to be found in abundance. Wild flowers of every hue and chicken feathers galore, which we pinned on with thorns. Lily Dache would not be more proud of her creations than we were of ours.
Mother had been a dress maker before her marriage so of course her sewing was much in use as she made all or clothes. I cannot remember when I didn't sew on the machine. Mother declared that I could sew at three and I have been told that on one occasion the needle went through my finger.
When I was older I was always busy trying to make doll dresses out of scraps and one day I was very unhappy because the scraps were too small. Mother said, "How would you like to ride to town and buy some material to make your doll some pretty dresses?" As my face lighted up, she said "Ask Uncle Will to saddle Prince and you may buy some pretty prints at the store." Prince was saddled and off I went into town a very happy girl and my dolly had some pretty new dresses.
I must tell you about Prince. We had him when he was a little colt, he followed us like a dog. He loved us and we loved him and petted him so much that he didn't seem to care when we first put a saddle on him. The three of us children would climb on his back and go for a ride. We still had mothers side saddle and I sat in it as I was the oldest of we three children. I held my little sister Elvy on my lap and my sister Gertrude rode behind me and held onto my waist. Of course I held the bridle and guided Prince.
Some of the children of the neighborhood, a little more experienced than we, were riding without a saddle to show of there ability to stick on their horse with only a saddle blanket to sit on. We pleaded with mother to please let try to ride without the saddle. She doubted that we could stay on the horse but finally allowed us to try and hoped that Prince would take care of us.
We were sent on an errand about three or four miles away. We went horse back on a road through the woods. My sister who rode behind me loved to pull leaves from the branches as we rode under them. We had been warned not to do that, especially when we were not using he saddle. But she forgot and held onto a branch a little too long and the three of us slid off and right under Prince who stood still and didn't step on one of us. We used Prince as a lawn mower because he would eat the grass but not eat the shrubs or flowers.
One hot night, I was sleeping in a hammock at the end of our big porch. I was awakened and when I opened my eyes I saw two big eyes right over me. It was Prince, of course. He came to check on me. He often did that but the first time was a little bit frightening.
There was a lot of sorghum cane raised in Missouri in those days and the making of molasses was one of the fall chores. Some one in the neighborhood would make it for all the families of the neighborhood and would keep some of the molasses for payment. Most families had a barrel of molasses in the smoke house. Molasses taffy parties were held and taffy pulling was a lot of fun.
When I was eleven, I had a big baby sitting experience. My mother was called away one day on account of sickness and a family of four or five cousins, all younger than I, came to our house. Our uncle Will had kept an eye on us but it fell to my lot to try to entertain them and my two sisters.
I decided to make molasses cookies because we had a whole barrel of molasses. Reading from my mothers cook book I made what looked like molasses cookies. I don't remember how they tasted.
When a batch came out of the oven I lined up the youngsters and sat them in a row along one kitchen wall and doled out the cookies. I did that every time a batch came out of the oven. Needless to say, Mother had a very sticky kitchen to clean up and both my mother and my aunt had sticky youngsters to bathe and shampoo.
One morning I was sent to the smoke house on an errand and when I opened the door I sensed that something was wrong. The floor was all shiny and looked like a pool. I found that a stray dog had tunneled under the sill and pulled the spigot from the molasses barrel and the shiny floor was really molasses - a whole barrel of it.
The cousins nearest my age were boys. They sometimes came to our house and would entertain me with tales of their camping and fishing trips and some of their physical fetes. They told me that they had jumped from one of our upstairs windows and implied that girls could not do that. Time and again I would go to that window and wonder if I could really do it. It was a long jump and I would think about it awhile, then decide I had better not try.
But one day I felt rather brave and out the window I jumped. I lit on both feet but Oh how I wished I hadn't because both feet became numb and it was a while before i felt normal and I'm not sure that I didn't really injure my feet. I didn't tell anyone about it for a long, long time because I knew that I had done wrong I hope that no children will do anything like that.
I could have broken bones and caused myself suffering and my parents much concern. We girls must let boys brag about their physical prowess and remember that girls don't do things like that.
My father was a wonderful teller of tales. He had read "Gulliver's Travels" so he would tell us about the travels, only he substituted himself for Gulliver. He would say, " Now children get your geography and find the map of Africa." Now find Zanzibar or some other place and we were sure he had made the trip because the places were real. When he would tell us about the cute little Lilliputians, who were only six inches tall and the giant Brodbignags and the men who only had one eye in the middle of their foreheads and the ones who were half men and half horse. He could tell other tales equally well and he could make wonderful hand shadow pictures on the wall.
Our Grandmother Jones spent some eighteen months at our home and in the winter evenings she would have me read aloud from "The Story of the Bible" while she sat by knitting and helping me with pronunciation.
I don't think children of today enjoy the lovely swimming pools more than we did our swimming hole in the creek by our farm. We didn't have the nice swim suits of today but we used an old dress and stopped for some neighbor children and had a swimming party any hot day. I think the creek was more enjoyable because the water was running and we loved to build dams and make boats out of pieces of wood or leaves. All of these stories are about our life in Missouri.
Our life in Pennsylvania was more formal and we lived there when we were very young and when we were teenagers and it was more cut and dried as compared to our life in Missouri where we had to rely on our ingenuity for our toys and pleasure. I am glad we lived in Missouri, because the life there, while lacking in many material things, really gave us a sense of values and really prepared us for life.
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