Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-01-03

held at Burlington in December Of that
year and father attended those sales
/ He had no money to buy land but he
borrowed 1t of Mr.. Barrett who had
money to loan at so per cent per an
! mum and built a house and stable, fenc-
! ed and broke some prairie. and moved
onto it. Of course he could not pay the
money back SO Barrett held the land.
/ Then a man came along, who had some
money, and he bought fathers notes 80
| we had to move Off. Most Of the early
| settlers were very poor people. have
! heard father say, many, times, that
when we left old Kentucky that he had
only $50 in money. Just think of a man,
with a big family, starting to move to
| a new country 700 miles away with that
! little dab of money. A person nowadays
wouldn't move into the next county
| without more than that to show.
We got so hard up mother had to
cut up blankets to make us younger
1 children something to wear. The first
heifer we raised and had to sell when
| she was 3 years old, father sold to
Mr. Cooper Of Illinois, for 81, now such
an animal would bring $50. The first
pork we had to sell was along in the
early forties. Father and Enos HUFF
butchered our hogs and hauled them to
Churchville, now Alexandria, in Mis-
souri,, and got all Of $3.50 per hundred
for. them, one half cash, the other half
| in dry goods. You couldn't get groceries
on the last half. u sT,.~ n
| Boys in those days did not wear many
shoes. Father made ours and they were
pretty rough ones too. We only got one
pair year at that If they wore out
before warm weather We, had to get
along without any; with tow linen
pants in summer and linsey In winter.
Say, Mr.. Editor, did you ever pull flax,
or see a flax brake? Ifyous didn't YOU
have missed lots Of fun. Our mother
spun the wool and flax and wOye it
into clothing. and 1 was as proud OF
them as any clothes I. have ever had
since. -. = .5 Il, . 5l
In the spring Of 1889 there was
band of Indians making sugar on Big
Cedar: they would carry cakes Of sugar
around to the white settlers and trade
it for pork and other things to eat.
mind one Sunday my brothers and the
neighbor boys visited their camp, as it
was about two miles from our house.
For some reason they took me along
and I expect l wanted to 60. While
there the boys struck up a sham trade
with an old squaw to trade me for an
Indian boy. But it didn't sound to me
much like a sham trade for 1t just
about scared the wits out of me, for the
squaw talked trade just like she meant
it. But the sugar was sweet If it wasn't
very clean. Is .&
My wife's name was Eberet and her
family came to Iowa in 1857, from Fay
cite county, Pennsylvania. near Union
town. They bought the Paul Brattain
farm. on which we now live and were
married in the same house that we
now live in, fifty-six. years ago the 18th
of last November. In 1866 I bought this
farm for $50 per acre, and perhaps
would now sell for 500. Mr.. Ebert
paid less than 50 per acre when the
bought The government sold all this
land here at s1.25' per acre. There was
only cabin along the edge of the tim
Der when we came, not house on this
fine prairie and then thought by the
settlers that there never would be, but
it has, and Is one Of the wealthiest
farming communities in the state.
We left Kentucky twelve strong and
I am the only one this side of the river.
I am over so years old and sometimes
I feel lonesome for some one to'talk to
of old times for there is no one living
here that can talk Of old times. can
say as one Of old said,- this is not my
abiding home but seek one to como
whose maker and builder Is God.
A. H Morris