Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1918-12-24

gave each of his seven children twen-
ty thousand dollars for a wedding
present. was born along toward
morning exactly in the middle of the
nineteenth century near Bellefon-
taine, Ohio. My father was cabi-
net maker and by the time was
twenty | had earned fifteen hundred
dollars working in his shop, starting
at two bits a day. We came west in
1870 and | wanted to invest my fif-
teen hundred dollars in 40 acres ad-
joining Kansas City, that being the
price of the tract, but father would
not let me have the money. We
settled at Ft. Scott, Kansas, where ]
attended high school couple OF
years and later bought 500 acres Of
land. Here / put in the best years
of my life developing fine farm,
with big fields of hay and grain and
hundreds of hogs, horses and cattle.
Ny special pride was a 4O-acre apple
orchard. When the trees were in
full bearing the estimated crop Of
5000 barrels was sold in advance at
fancy prices But the hot winds
came and not only cooked the fruit
on the branches but killed the trees.
"This was the beginning OF series
of misfortunes, financial and other
wise. Prices dropped during the
panic of '93 until | was forced to
sell cattle at a cent and half per
pound. Three hundred hogs died Of
the cholera. About this time, when
lost all the property accumulated
by quarter of a century of hard
work, | went to Kansas City with a
chipment of livestock and saw the
40 acres which | could and would
have bought covered with four and
six-story buildings, the land probably
being worth million dollars.
Mrs. Pellet, our two little girls,
Lille and Ocean, and | arrived at
Florence, Colorado, with just $3.50
in money. For awhile | worked at
my trade and finally went to Ver-
majo, N. Mex, to make built-in fur
niture for a f-million-dollar sum-
mer resort. While taking the place
of an outside carpenter who had got
ten hurt, the scaffolding broke and
| fell, striking on the back OF my
head. They hauled me 20 miles to
the railroad, on which | was taken
60 miles farther to Trinidad, Colo
rado, where the nearest doctor was
located. 1t was three weeks before
| regained consciousness and for
three years | was nothing but a ply
steal wreck.
About year after the accident
we came to Ashland. where my wife
made our living by taking orders for
curtains and ladies' furnishings
After awhile | was able to do little
orchard work, but everything still
looked double, unless exactly on a
level with my eyes, One summer |
bought Winner Cove Orchard for
$500 and paid for it with fruit that
was then on the trees. Four years
later | sold the orchard for $1,000.
This seems big price for less than
three acres, but two years ago the
crop brot nearly half that amount
A ten-acre tract just west of the city
was next purchased, six acres plant
ed to apples and a $4,000 house built.
Last year we picked 1900 boxes of
Yellow Newtowns from those young
trees.
MY faithful, hardworking wife
has for four years been in the State
hospital at Salem, where she is
forced to stay as result of being
given morphine for asthma, from
which she used to suffer greatly. Lii
lie is at San Pedro, the wife of Frank
Greaser, a carpenter employed in
ship building, Ocean lives at Yreka,
where her husband, o. Q, Diebert,
has a position with the Siskiyou
Light and Power Co.
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