Journal
Patty is here tonight to start me on a journal. We have had a fun weekend with dinner up on the Shack above Snug Harbor watching the pelicans brigade and the traffic on the bridge. We enjoyed breathing the fresh air and seeing the smoke from the brush fires in the distance. Tomorrow we will go to church and see how the new community building is coming along in Fort Myers.
Patty says to pick a story I feel like telling again. I find it interesting that my Dad grew up in central Illinois in Abraham Lincoln territory to very young parents on a very poor farm with no hint of ever going on to school. Yet, he was known as one of the greatest educators in central United States when he died. There is a football stadium named after him in Burlington, Iowa. He built this stadium in a ravine in downtown Burlington Iowa with concrete steps. These steps hold two thousand people. The night lights were the first ones installed in the country in a high school west of the Mississippi River. This was a former lumberyard. The seats go up one side of the stadium and the wooded hill on the other side of the stadium has the glory of autumn leaves right during the football season. The high school has been rebuilt out on the edge of town but they still use this football stadium.
While he was growing up he went to grade school (eighth grade two years as most boys did) because they spent most of their time helping their father. They had very little equipment and very little if any fertilizer. I think one year my grandfather gave my grandmother six dollars from the fall crop to buy clothes for the family for the year. My grandmother went to the woods to find something similar to yeast to raise the bread dough. They had very little dishes or silverware. My grandfather really did eat peas on his knife probably because he had no other silverware. I think they had three children by the time they were twenty.
to be continued--tomorrow I am going to explain how my grandfather's sister was his mother in law. Think about that.
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Mom's mother
My mother's family were from Morris IL. The men in Morris IL mostly worked in the tannery for $9.00 a week. What we call a paring knife when I was little was known as a tannery. A tannery is a place where you take skins and peel off the fur and soak in salt or something to get all the fur off and turn it into leather.
My grandfather Frank Edward Effting was on a wagon to move the family to a farm in Kansas when he fell off the wagon; had a compound fracture and died of blood poisoning. They amputated his leg but not in time. So my grandmother had $1000 insurance and she took that and built the store with an apartment in back of it and an apartment over it. She and her three little girls lived in back and her parents lived in an apartment upstairs.
carrying on with stories from Mom's past
I don't know how legal the ownership was of my grandfather's farm was. They were all spread around on different hills. My father lived here; my grandfather lived on another hill. I don't think they went more than 20 miles in their whole life. My oldest known relative is Elijah Spencer or Elishah Spencer and I have seen his tombstone in the region of Jacksonville IL. They lived in what we called Meridosia IL in that area. Elijah was my father's grandfather.
Philomena
hen nts put her in acatholic orphnage she was about a young child. her pare while her father fought in the civil war. After the war when they went to get her, she had mistakenly been put out for adoption and theyn didn't have any recordof who had her, but they
They knew somebody from Cincinnati(not sure of town) hadadopted her. So whwn mygreat grandmother Sattler went to look for her she.
Great grand ma Sattler and her brother Ed Sattler sert out in a wagon to Cincinnati to fuind her. Their plan was to go toevery parochial school and ask if they had a student named Philomena. They road around in their wagon from one catholic school to another, but the principal of each school said they had no student by that name. At every school he brotre Ed said thiswill never work and wanted to go home. She said just one more school. over and over again, but finally she meant it. At the last school, the principal said yes, there was a student named Philomena there. So they said tell her her mother is here. The principal wondered of course because this wasn't the mther she knew, but did say her mother was her. Philomena expected to see the women she was living wilth, but when she entered the room, there was no doublt that this was her REAL mother! When the lady camer to pick her, she didn'twant to give her up, but she agreed to. She was so excited and happy, that twhen they put her coat on and pinned her mitten of one hand to her coat it pinner her skin ans she didnn't say a word. They drove homein the wagon and she remembers her brother Ed runningto meet them them with his trouser legs flapping behind. It was the custom then for girls to be put out to live with another family to learn house keeping. so when she slept in a trundle be at the foot of the ved of the lady where whde was the lady said "Philaminer, kiver me feet." Her brother Ed took all his sisters to the barn dances bringing them one at a time. he'd go home and get another sister taking them one by one to the barn dances. she saiys they danced the "Shodish" all night til dawn.
She marrid her husband Frank Effting. Heworked in the tannery as did most of the men in town.
The Store
They sold penny candy, school supplies.
Philomena
Her parents put her in a catholic orphanage when she was a young child. She was gone from the age of 7-11, while her father fought in the civil war. After the war when they went to get her, she had mistakenly been put out for adoption and they didn't have any record of who had her.
They knew somebody from Cincinnati (not sure of town) had adopted her. So when my great grandmother Sattler went to look for her she was gone.
Great Grandma Sattler and her brother Ed Sattler set out in a wagon to Cincinnati to find her. Their plan was to go to every parochial school and ask if they had a student named Philomena. They road around in their wagon from one catholic school to another, but the principal of each school said they had no student by that name. At every school her brother Ed said this will never work and wanted to go home. She said just one more school, over and over again, but finally she meant it. At the last school, the principal said yes, there was a student named Philomena there. So they said tell her her mother is here. The principal wondered of course because this wasn't the mother she knew, but did say her mother was here. Philomena expected to see the women she was living wilth, but when she entered the room, there was no doubt that this was her REAL mother! When the lady camer to pick her up, she didn't want to give her up, but she agreed to. She was so excited and happy, that when they put her coat on and pinned her mitten of one hand to her coat it pinned her skin and she didn't say a word. They drove home in the wagon and she remembers her own brother Ed Effting running to meet them them with his trouser legs flapping behind.
It was the custom then for girls to be put out to live with another family, a neighbor, to learn house keeping. so when she slept in a trundle bed at the foot of the lady where she staying, the lady said "Philaminer, kiver me feet."
Her brother Ed took all his sisters to the barn dances bringing them one at a time. He'd go home and get another sister taking them one by one to the barn dances. She says they danced the "Shodish" all night til dawn.
There were 10 children in Philomena's family, 7 girls and 3 boys. One boy died. Uncle Ed (older than Philomina) and his wife Mary, got married, but had no children. The third was Uncle Dennis and wife Maim who was married and had 3 daughters. So Philomena's father, Dennis as well, had 10 kids and no one to carry on his name. No more Sattlers.
She marrid her husband Frank Effting. He worked in the tannery as did most of the men in town.