Alzina Boone, widowed at a young age and with a family of four children to support, finds herself struggling to be a teacher at school, and a mother at home. In the early days of Kansas settlement, life was not easy for anyone, much less a single parent. Her faith in a caring God, and sheer necessity kept her going when others might have given up. She was my great grandmother and these are her true stories.
1906
Another move. Alzie, still searching for a school for that term, was convinced to uproot the household and go to Iowa. The promised job there in Trenton, was not at all to her liking and they agreed to pay her way to Tabor, a nearby town, where she had friends. Stanley stayed in Eskridge, supporting the family with his newspaper job until he was sent for.
“We went, “not knowing whither we went” or what welcome awaited us. Another adventure of faith. But I was borne above any fear by a supernatural assurance that God had a place for us there, and I reasoned that each of us could earn at least our board somewhere.
We arrived at Tabor on a cold, snowy day when snow was about two feet deep. We found paths made to the Faith Home and were given a Christian welcome there. Friends we had known in Eskridge who now lived across a ten acre pasture from the Faith Home offered to rent to us two rooms, one upstairs and one downstairs.
Folks told me that the Wildwood School, three miles west of the Faith Home wanted a teacher, and Elder Weaver recommended me to them. They came into town to meet me and gave me their contract for the school, which was to begin the next Monday, at $35 a month for three months. A horse and buggy was loaned to me by a friend of the Faith Home. The Training Home offered to give Stanley a job in the printing office, no salary, but board and lodging, so I sent word for him to come, using his money for fare. I promised to give him money later to buy a camera which he had long wanted. Both of my boys disliked to leave one place for another.
That three month term of school was pleasant and I was engaged for the next year, eight months at the same salary. During the summer vacation I found work easily in the homes of Tabor and so did the girls. John got steady work on farms near town, and Stanley got work in the Tabor Beacon newspaper office at $5 per week. My mother wrote to me “you are eating your white bread now”. It was marvelous to all of us the way God had opened for us and prospered us. “They that trust in the Lord shall not be confounded.”
Along in July 1906 we rented a seven room house from the same man who loaned us the horse and buggy. That was a happy year. Fruit was plentiful and we secured enough to can more than 100 quarts, beside a lot of glasses of jelly, We gathered apples on shares, and had ten or twelve bushels of apples stored in the cellar – Jonathan, Winesap, and Grimes Golden. We had potatoes and pumpkin and vegetables also stored, enough for more than a year.
Ethel had become quite proficient in cooking and ventured on many a new recipe to our great delight in eating. Both girls were neat housekeepers and very careful with their clothes. They earned most of the money they used for clothes. Esther’s joy was almost unbounded when she could dress with “everything new that she wore” one Sunday. They did much of their own sewing too.
John kept the yard and garden clean and neat, and took care of the horse and chickens. He also kept the wood box filled. All this besides working by the day for neighbors on vacation, or in occasional jobs.
Stanley used his out-of-office hours either in camera work, or studying telegraphy or engineering, or in some kind of athletics. He was growing so tall and yet was so thin that he was ashamed of it, and exercised a great deal to develop more muscle. He had established a five mile run that he made two or three times a week in good weather. He was ambitious to become able to support the family without my having to teach school or work out so much. He liked telegraphy and corresponded with some schools about taking a course. “
Alzina Boone, widowed at a young age and with a family of four children to support, finds herself struggling to be a teacher at school, and a mother at home. In the early days of Kansas settlement, life was not easy for anyone, much less a single parent. Her faith in a caring God, and sheer necessity kept her going when others might have given up. She was my great grandmother and these are her true stories.
1904 – 1905
Alzina moved the family 45 miles away to Eskridge for this fall term. Her brother-in-law, Ora, was trustee on the board of Eskridge Bible School and she contracted to teach there in return for $15 a month and room and board for herself and the four children. She was not always paid when it was due and things got tough.
“The trustees failed to pay me the $15 agreed upon, and the matron of Faith Home objected to my discipline of her twelve year old daughter and tried to get the trustees to dismiss me. Two trustees stood for me, so the matron and her daughter left about the middle of the year. I had become inspired with the vision that more than half of the supporters of the Eskridge Bible School had for the future of the school, and I decided I would stay with the work as long as I had evidence of God’s approval and of these good people. I had the work of the Faith Home to take care of after the matron left. There were four children beside my four, all near the same age as mine. In addition to this was my work as teacher of four grades.
Alzina (far right) and a group of her students.
There were times when we didn’t know where we would get anything for the next meal. It was truly an adventure of faith for me, but I had felt that God wanted me there, and would see me through. So I didn’t complain to my parents, or to Ora, my brother-in-law, though he was a trustee, but was having his own tests and persecutions and adventures of faith, of which we may write later.
The trustees sent a basket of bread to us each Tuesday, and my cow gave two gallons or more of milk each day, and pasture was provided by friends. The closest test was one day when, at noon, we had eaten the last boat of bread or any kind of food in the house. I told the children about it and said that we would meet in the dining room right after school to pray as did the orphans in the London Orphan’s Home, of which much had been read and told in the Faith Home Circle.
At 4 o’ clock, after all pupils had gone home, I put away my papers and closed my desk to go home. As I passed through the door from my room to the hallway, Mrs. Cody, who had seemed to join in opposing me, was coming down the steps, and she handed me a 25 cent piece, saying “The Lord told me to give this to you.” So I was happy to tell the children to thank the Lord for answering before we even called.
I bought a sack of cornmeal and we had mush and milk for the evening and the morning meal. And the basket of bread came before noon next day. I cannot say that God would have one teacher bear such a load of responsibility and faith with so little cooperation, but I am glad for this experience which proved that God honors those who dare to sacrifice for his cause, and trust his promises.
In the spring when school was out, we rented a four room cottage in the northeast part of Eskridge at four dollars a month, where we lived six months or more.
As Stanley had learned to set type in the office of “The Old Paths”, founded by Ora as organ of the Eskridge Bible School, he applied and secured a job at the Eskridge newspaper office at $5 a week, ten hours a day for six days a week. While Stanley had a job, it seemed best that we should stay at this place until something else opened. Thus the three other children could be kept in the Bible School. I was not invited to teach there.
John raised some garden and chickens, and took good care of the cow, and by little jobs here and there, he usually had some money in his pockets. It seemed almost magical and we laughed gaily about his always finding money to his surprise in his pockets.”
A family with 9 children survives life on the Kansas prairie in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The experiences they have illustrate the joys, sorrows, hardships and everyday life of the Midwest pioneers. This faith filled series of stories is true. The eldest child was my great grandmother Alzina Pomeroy Boone.
Summers in between teaching contracts found Alzie reconnecting to her children. In addition she was often taking on extra work sewing, cleaning or giving music lessons as well as studying and keeping up her teaching certificates.These are summer stories from the years 1901 -1906
Alzie and two of the children in the back of the boat.
The Things Children Say, as told by Alzie
The milk from our Jersey cow was rich and made yellow butter, but the children had been accustomed to milk from a Holstein cow while they had stayed with Father and Mother. Ethel voiced the disappointment of all when she said querulously, “Why can’t we have nice, white butter like Grandma has?”
We rented pasture for the cows during the summer in Emporia. In the pasture were a number of “sloughs” or ravines which wound around so the cows were sometimes hard to find. One evening when Timothy (Alzie’s brother) was visiting us, the boys had reported they couldn’t find the cows, and Timothy had spoken incredulously of the sloughs hiding the cows. Charles (another brother) spoke defensively, turning to John for confirmation “Why, the sloughs are so crooked that a snake could hardly follow them, could it?” And John answered “‘T’would break its back”, convulsing Timothy and all of us in a long spell of laughter.”
A Salvation Story, as told by Alzie
“Often on summer evenings in 1902, when bedtime prayers had been offered and the children were tucked into bed, I would sit at the side of one of the beds and we would talk awhile. One night in June something was said about Christ’s second coming. As the children asked questions, I answered as best I knew, stressing most the joy his coming will bring to those who are saved. Suddenly, Ethel wailed with a tearful voice, “I want to be saved, but nobody has ever told me how.” As I told her to pray, to tell God how she felt and what she desired until she knew she was saved, Stanley called out, “Mama, come here,” and he whispered the same desire. John did too and they began heartfelt seeking God, with my help. After a few moments, Ethel said happily, “Mamma, I have such a happy feeling here,” placing her hand on her heart.
Soon the boys, too, expressed their assurance that they were saved. Ethel too, joined in the prayer and the general expression of happiness and confidence that we were ready for Jesus’ coming. The next Sunday was “Children’s Day” and the pastor gave a good sermon and invited all children who were saved or wanted to be saved to come forward, and my children went joyfully with ten other children, most of whom confessed the Lord as their Saviour and their faith that he had saved them. “
Going for a Ride, John’s story as told by Alzie
One week in August, our neighbors north of us engaged John to take their calf to water each day while they were all at work. The calf was about six months old, a thoroughbred red, and well fed and strong. The calf had been snapped with a long rope to the clothes line south of the house. John had to unsnap the rope to get the calf over to the well for watering. The calf got to feeling playful after drinking, taking off so quickly that it caught one of John’s feet in the loose rope and jerked him down. With the calf skidding him around the yard at a lively pace, John seized the rope with his hands and attempted to ride in a sitting position while trying to free his foot. They went around the house three times, the calf bellowing and John calling for help. As they passed under the clothesline each round, the seat of his trousers got well “greased” so he continued to slide, until at last the calf darted into the open barn door and John’s foot came free of the rope. He was left sitting at the barn door threshold, looking sheepishly to see if any neighbors had seen the episode. A neighbor boy called out kindly “Are you hurt?” and John answered that he was okay.
Punishment Averted, Stanley’s story as told by Alzie
“At another bedtime session, Stanley had done some wrong to the other children and they were crying. I set him on a chair to wait till I comforted and quieted the others, and then I must punish him. As I descended the stairs after all was quiet with the others, I heard Stanley singing softly to himself (he was a sweet singer),
“Just say there is no other, can take the place of Mother, And kiss her dear sweet lips for me, and break the news to her.”
Published in 1897, a popular song during the Spanish American War
A family with 9 children survives life on the Kansas prairie in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The experiences they have illustrate the joys, sorrows, hardships and everyday life of the Midwest pioneers. This faith filled series of stories is true. The eldest child was my great grandmother Alzina Pomeroy Boone.
1899 – 1904
The next few years Alzina worked hard to secure teaching contracts in schools near her supportive family in order to stay close to her children. It wasn’t always possible. Her parents were her primary help, and the children’s memories are largely of being raised by their grandparents. In 1901 it became clear that she was not going to be able to keep the farm. Her parents also had to leave their “prairie home” and go to the city of Emporia, where grandfather Emerson Pomeroy went into the blacksmith business, in which he prospered.
Grandfather Pomeroy’s blacksmith shop in Emporia
Alzie’s children went with their grandparents to Emporia, which created a painful separation for Alzie, who stayed with her contracted school. She joined them there the next summer. She taught the next few years at various schools in the Emporia area. The children were all old enough by this time to be helping with work at home. The boys even worked on farms in the summers. The following story took place in 1904. Alzie was teaching at the Waterworks School and they were all loving being together in their own house… until this happened.
“The four children had the measles that winter while I taught at the Waterworks School and we were glad that I could be at home every night. With Emma and Mother so near through the days, I did not miss a day of school. But another teacher secured that school for the next year and before the annual school meetings were held I became ill with smallpox.
My illness and the quarantine that was imposed on us took so long that all the desirable schools were taken before I could visit any. The two boys had been vaccinated at school, so Mother and Father kept them while I was quarantined, that they might be free to get employment during the summer. Ethel too, had been vaccinated, so she and Esther devoted themselves to caring for me. They fumigated the house and our clothing and obeyed all rules of sanitation. They were so successful, that even Esther who had not been vaccinated was immune to the disease.
The rash covered my entire body and all membranes of my mouth and nose and gave me such internal misery the first two days. I was relieved from pain after prayer at family worship the second night, but then broke out profusely with pox within and without. However, I was completely delivered from every pock, though I counted 66 on my face in the mirror. The rest of my body was as profusely pocked as my face, but all got well without a scar. And this smallpox proved to be one of the “all things” that work together for good, for all those picks or boils had so purged my system that never since have I been so tired and worn out at the close of the school year as I had been the previous four years.
No one had taken the smallpox from me, for which we were all grateful. Stanley and John had earned a good reputation as gardeners and farmers, beside earning quite a bit of money. Johnny had so pleased a farmer north of Emporia that the farmer offered to adopt John, and John wanted to stay with him, but the farmer cared little about God or heaven, and I couldn’t consider leaving John with him.”
This year of teaching was summed up by Alzie in a way that teacher’s today can probably identify with. Alzina’s teacher checklist:
“That year at the Waterworks School was fairly pleasant and successful. Father secured a horse and buggy for me. When I got into the buggy after my boys got “Fanny” hitched up, about 8 o’clock each morning, there were some things I learned to check to save embarrassment: 1. My school door key. 2. My glasses (spectacles) 3. My false teeth. 4. My watch. 5. My lunch.”
Alzina and her students. What were they all looking at?
A family with 9 children survives life on the Kansas prairie in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The experiences they have illustrate the joys, sorrows, hardships and everyday life of the Midwest pioneers. This faith filled series of stories is true. The eldest child was my great grandmother Alzina Pomeroy Boone.
And so Alzina Boone, widow, stepped back into teaching to support her young family. She was able to keep her children with her, thanks to her sister Sadie who stayed with them the first spring. The next year she persuaded Sadie’s beau, Park, to marry Sadie and move in with them and help with the farm as well. Most of the time she took Stanley, her oldest boy age 5, and John, age 4 with her to school while the girls stayed home with Sadie, or occasionally with her mother. She had all the worries of a mother, and a breadwinner, and a teacher. Children got sick, food got scarce, bills couldn’t be paid, but through it all, they stayed together and were glad for that.
The school teacher, Alzina Boone
Alzie’s story continues:
“Sadie and Park moved to his father’s farm the following autumn, 1898. I hired a girl, Mamie, to stay with me and my four children at Elizabeth Town, where I was paid $33 per month. I rented a two story house about a half mile from the school house, and close to neighbors, and my father and brothers hauled my household goods over to the new place. With my buggy and good driving pony, Kate, we thought we were well equipped for a prosperous year. But we had some exciting events, which spoiled our joy of living there, and tested our faith and courage.
I ordered some fresh hay delivered inside the barn door about the first of the first week we were there. I asked Mamie to fill the three ticks with fresh hay to be used as mattresses on the three beds. She filled the ticks during the day and let them lie on the hay pile till I came home to help carry them in. It was almost dark when we got the beds made. Our rooms were lighted with kerosene lamps.
I had put the children to bed, and they were soon asleep. Mamie and I sat on the top step of the stairway, talking over tomorrow’s plan when suddenly Ethel, the oldest girl, screamed in fright, as in a bad dream. I sprang to my feet holding the lamp in my hand and saw a dark snake about a foot long wriggling up and down her right arm, and off onto the floor. I exclaimed, “Oh Mamie, it’s a snake!”
Then she sprang to her feet with a scream and whirled me around, which motion put out the light, and without a match where we could find it . I started down the stairs for a match, but she wailed, “Don’t leave me up here!” So I commanded her to get a match. When we got the lamp lit, there was the snake darting up and down the wall from the floor. I seized a mop and stepped on one side of the bed and struck at the snake, but it vanished.
We hunted for an hour or so, but never found it. We decided it must have jumped out of a low open window beyond the foot of the bed. But it was very hard to give up looking for the snake and go to bed. A neighbor woman jokingly said next day, “I’ve heard of men having snakes in their boots, but never of women having snakes in the beds.”
A family with 9 children survives life on the Kansas prairie in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The experiences they have illustrate the joys, sorrows, hardships and everyday life of the Midwest pioneers. This faith filled series of stories is true. The eldest child was my great grandmother Alzina Pomeroy Boone.
Alzina was left a widow with four little children, a big blow for a pioneer woman. But as many brave people do at the start of a new period of her life, she made some resolutions and set about keeping them.
A long, but revealing, letter from Alzina Pomeroy Boone to her Uncle Wilbur Fisk, dated July 8th, 1897. The pouring out of a grieving heart…
Dear Uncle Wilbur,
It really is too bad that I have waited so long to answer your good letter with the generous gift enclosed and I am almost ashamed to write now. Two weeks after Milford’s death, the members of the school board of Lyon County District came to me, and offered me a chance to teach two months of school at $30.00 a month. At first I thought I could not possibly take up teaching so soon. I had little heart to do any kind of work, and teaching calls for so much energy and spirit. I had not taken an examination for a certificate for seven years and had not studied much either. And my children seemed so small. Their father always spent most of his time when was in the house, petting and playing with them and always made so much over them. And it seems hard that they should have to do without both father’s and mother’s care, while I am gone all day.
But after careful and prayerful thought I decided to take courage and do the best I could for the children’s sake. I want to keep them together, and I want to keep them out of town while they are so young and I very much desire to pay for this farm that Milford had partly paid for and improved. So I commenced the school April 18th. I hired Sadie to take my place at home and I drove from home to school all the time – five miles. I took my two boys with me. There was considerable business to be seen to on Saturdays and as we raised chickens and garden stuff as usual, you can see that I had no time to spare.
I had to go to considerable expense at the beginning in the way of clothes, taking examinations, mending harness, etc… before I had received any wages, so your gift was a timely help to me and I felt very grateful for it. You said it was for the children, and so when I got my first month’s wages, I got them all a pretty waist or dress for Sunday wear and some other clothes they were needing. I got a half dozen photographs of them taken and I send you one. I felt I must have a picture of them as they were when left fatherless. I look forward to having a stone for his grave, and choice plants upon the grave and his picture enlarged, but these I can get as well ten years hence as now. But to have the children’s picture as when he left them, I must have them now. I hope it was not an extravagance.
This, most likely, was that picture. Stanley was 6, John was 4, Ethel was 3 and Esther was 6 months old.
The question of supporting my family does not look so hopeless to me, as some of my friends feel it is. I have a good garden, a good start in chickens (for I had only five hens last year) and ducks, and a fine prospect of corn. The haying business is beginning to look up and if I can sell my hay press at $65 (Milford gave $100 for it two years ago) that will clear the chattel mortgage, and I will have my two horses clear. I would rather sell one of them before winter, if I can’t get more than $10 for him – he has several slight blemishes. But perhaps I can hire them out this fall, and thus earn something. I have a plow, cultivator and mowing machine to sell, but of course, such takings do not sell easily. I have $7 left from my school money, and have paid $15 on the principal of the first mortgage on the place and got that renewed for another year. The principal was $150. Fifty dollars being due last December, fifty next December and Fifty in another year. The second mortgage amounts to $150 also. The mechanics lien on the house is for $90, and they promised to extend it two years.
I sold my hay sheets for $15 and paid $7.50 of it to the doctor who attended Milford. There are two accounts in Milford’s favor which will amount to $12, and I think they will pay them before long. Mr. Hilton has Milford’s thoroughbred bird dog and her pups and Milford expected them to be worth $20 before winter. Milford’s gun and gun implements are at a store in Colony for sale. I felt that I never wanted to see them again, though all other personal belongings of Milford’s are very precious to me. I want to pay $23 for the coffin, and then whatever else all these things amount to will be mine to use for our support this winter.
I think I will get 7 months of teaching at $35 this winter. They will not be able to pay me until January. I can’t tell how much of the school money I will save. I will have to hire a girl to take my place at home, and it is no small matter to provide for six, and I will have to hire some work done on the house, and building a stable and hen house. But the way seems quite open to me, and back of it all, I know that God is ruling all things, and with better judgement, by far, than I could ever have.
The hardest part of life for me is the awful loneliness and the dread of the long years before me. But I compare this separation to that of seven years ago, after we were engaged and before we were marred, when he was in Missouri. Of course, I heard from him often the, but I remember it seemed to me the months would never pass. I looked forward to our wedding day with such joyful anticipation, although I knew there were severe trails in married life.
Now it seems to me the years are so long, but I look forward to joining him in heaven some day, with a far holier joy, and there will be no sorrow or disappointments over there and we will understand each other fully. I believe he knows more now of how much I loved him, than he ever knew while living here, and yet I did all that human weakness can do to prove my love to him.
My only unhappiness the past seven years has been my anxiety for his soul’s welfare. Perhaps my anxiety was a hindrance to him, but I exercised all the wisdom God gave me, in regard to this and I couldn’t help caring, you know. And if I had had my mind and heart engrossed in the petty things of life, the house work, the question of what to eat and wear, I know I would have given up to grumbling at our circumstances, and thus made his life unhappy.
What comfort or assurance could be mine since his death, if I had never prayed for him? But my only desire, my daily prayer or vow to God was that I would take uncomplainingly any lot on earth if he would hold me up and save me and my loved ones in eternity. And so, with the faith I have in God’s promises, and the few words Milford spoke, I know he is among the redeemed ones.
Just one question I sometimes might ask, that is, is he enjoying now more than the joy and comfort he enjoyed with his children? Or, do the spirits of our departed ones linger until the resurrection morn? You know, so many in speaking of one who is gone say “poor boy” and “he wanted to have this or that pleasure, but now it is too late”. Such expression started the question in my mind. Searching the Bible, I find nothing yet assuring us that our spirits go to heaven before the resurrection day, except Christ’s assurance to the dying thief, while he was on the cross. But leaving aside these questionings, with the knowledge that my prayers for my darling’s salvation are answered, the glorious hope of a happy meeting someday, and the consciousness that round about me and underneath me are the Everlasting Arms, I can not be sad.
It is only when I look at my own life from a human standpoint, that the burden of sorrow becomes more than I can bear. I have all the petty cares of a mother’s life – wakeful nights, teaching baby to eat, adjusting the difficulties of the older ones, and looking to the ways of the household, and added to these are the vexations of business life, receiving dunning letters, collecting accounts, being “jewed” down on the price of what I have to sell, quibbling about wages, looking after fences, feed, fuel, etc… and sometimes I feel that it is a very heavy burden, and wonder why he was taken when we needed him so much. Ah! If this world was all there is for us, how dark and despairing my heart would be.
I received such a good letter from Uncle Pliny last week and I ask you would send this one to him, as a partial answer, for I don’t know when I will get to write again. And I shall be so glad when either of you find time to write to me. I know I have the Bible, and I believe all the truths of salvation but someway it cheers me up, to have some one I know tell me personally of these truths. And now I must close this long, though tardy letter.
A family with 9 children survives life on the Kansas prairie in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The experiences they have illustrate the joys, sorrows, hardships and everyday life of the Midwest pioneers. This faith filled series of stories is true. The eldest child was my great grandmother Alzina Pomeroy Boone.
March 1897
“Milford was away from home a great deal that winter, engaged in the business of hunting and shipping game. His crop of corn to which he had planted 30 acres had not yielded well, and he was discouraged with farming as a way to get ahead. That autumn and winter he gave his time and attention to making a living with his gun. In his absence, we saw some hard times when food and fuel were scarce. We bought groceries on credit till the bill became so large the merchant demanded payment. I had to sell our last hog to satisfy the merchant. Occasionally we had only cornbread and water for our meal, but we made merry over it, playing we were birds, taking a bit and a sip, then “flying away” to return for another “bite and sip, etc.” The little house often rang with childish laughter. “Prattle and smile made home a joy and life was a merry chime” for the little ones, though I felt many misgivings and fears for the future, and nervous foreboding. I prayed much and God strengthened my heart, so when the blow came, I was able to bear it bravely. “
“About two weeks later, on a Sunday, Milford asked me if I wanted the driving horses kept in the barn after breakfast so I could take the children up to my folks, as he and a visiting hunter were going to another hunter’s for the day. I had so hoped he and the visitor would attend church at our schoolhouse that day with me. I told him pleadingly that I’d stay home if I could “make it like Sunday” for him. But he patted my cheek and said, “I guess we will go down to Daniel’s”.
“Monday, about ten o’clock, Milford was hunting about four miles from home. His partner’s gun went off accidentally and shot Milford just above his left hip, and he lived only 20 hours. He was conscious most of the time and told the partner and those who came to help him, “I can’t live. Take me to Father Pomeroy’s. I want to see Alzie and the children.”
More details of the sad day are told in Alzie’s sister’s account. Sadie wrote: “My brother-in-law had gone out before daylight the morning before with an 18 year old boy, to slip up to a big pond to shoot ducks. They were 4 or 5 miles from home and in a big pasture. They had shot into the flock and now were still in hiding and loading their guns. The boy’s gun went off accidentally and hit Milford in the back of his hip. The boy ran a mile to the nearest house to get help. The man was away from home, then all tired and scared he ran almost another mile further for help. He couldn’t talk plain and the woman thought he was a crazy bum and shut the door. When he got back to the first house the man was home and they drove into the pasture and brought my brother-in-law as far as my father’s home.”
Alzie finished the story this way: “The helpers got a good surgeon quickly, who dressed the wound carefully and relieved the pain for awhile, but he couldn’t do anything about the shot that reached internally. Milford’s last words were the prayer “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” but among sentences he tried to say before were “can’t you make Sunday?” And “I know Jesus can help me.” It was awful to see him suffer so cruelly, but I was thankful that he had those few hours of consciousness and could give such assurance of trust in Jesus. I’m so glad he wasn’t killed instantly as so many hunters are with no Christian hope.
He was buried in Geneva, Kansas, seven miles from our home. The text of the funeral sermon was John 13:7 “What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.”
I have met Milford in my dreams since, and always he seemed so happy, so serene, so heavenly. These dreams comforted me so much, and I believe God sent them to me.
Father and Mother invited me to stay and live with them, but I felt a longing to live in the house Milford had built for us as soon as we could get adjusted. I thought the children would grieve most to death for him, but being so young, and accustomed to his being away from home often, they didn’t keep him in mind very long. My grief was softened by my responsibility for my children, and by my assurance that I will see him again in heaven.”
A family with 9 children survives life on the Kansas prairie in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The experiences they have illustrate the joys, sorrows, hardships and everyday life of the Midwest pioneers. This faith filled series of stories is true. The eldest child was my great grandmother Alzina Pomeroy Boone.
A pistol shot at 12 noon on September 16th was the signal to start. Thestory, as told by Alzina Pomeroy Boone in her memoir “Me and Mine”
“In the autumn of 1893 the government acquired the western part of what had been Cherokee Indian Territory and opened it for settlement. A quarter section of land in rural sections, or a town lot in the cities that had been laid out by government surveyors was offered to the first person to drive a stake as a claim to that piece of land. A signal shot was given for starting.
Milford and a young man who had worked for my father each purposed to secure a quarter section farm in the “Cherokee strip”. Milford had traded a young three year old black horse for a fleet footed sorrel mare, which he drove hitched to a two-wheeled cart or buckboard.
I consented to this trade (the black horse was mine), but I was not very enthusiastic about the venture. We had lost on so many ventures on the farm, and I would have preferred his teaching school. Milford was not successful. He never liked to talk about it.
He and the other man went about September 1, as they wanted to explore the strip beforehand and get some idea of where they wanted to see land. They had to register at one of the booths which were set up along the borderline. Also, they needed to hold that place in line. The strip was 165 miles from east to west, and 58 miles from north to south. One could begin the race anywhere they could get in on one of the four borders. Many spent three days and nights or more holding their places. Some men spent three weeks on the line. Probably they were with covered wagon outfits and close to water. They must have gotten pretty tired of it.
In this race, said to be the “biggest horse race that ever had been”, the purse was the Cherokee Strip, larger than the state of Massachusetts. There were thousands of horses, and thousands of drivers and riders. Most of the horses were under saddle. The others were hitched to every kind of a rig – light buck boards like Milford’s, spring wagons, and sulkies, and covered wagons too. There were one thousand people in the run and they came in from all four directions.
At the pistol shot, Milford started from a point not far from the Sedan on the north border. The horseback riders took the lead, passed Milford and other drivers. When he had gone about 15 miles with the crowd, he turned to the east where he saw the top of a string of trees. That meant a stream, an asset of great value to a claim. After crossing two dry creek beds and mounting the rises, he saw the welcome sight of the trees he had seen when he first turned east.
He rode onto a draw while he followed the creek which was ten or twelve feet across, and was just about to drive his stake when a rider appeared over the bluff. The man was leading his horse from which he had removed his saddle and informed Milford that he had already staked his claim to that land. Milford rode with the man to higher ground and saw the flag and pup tent where the man had driven his stake, so he knew he had been beaten to the claim.
On some quarter sections there were as many as 300 claimants, and contests after contests for those who could afford law suits, and some who had won fair and square never got a thing. Milford had no money for a law suit and was too honest to deny this man’s right to the claim. He spent several hours driving around but did not secure a claim. He had left the farm in care of his brother Samuel before crops were harvested and didn’t return until December.
After a few days at home, he went to his boyhood home in Missouri on a business deal which was also a disappointment. I looked after the harvesting as best I could for Sam didn’t stay long, but had to depend much on my father. The oats got too ripe so that they fell to the ground and we didn’t get enough to pay for threshing. I got so hard up that I had to beg the two cent stamp for writing Milford, urging him to come home. He came on horseback within 24 hours after he got my letter, two days before Christmas. He never again left me in such need and was sensitive about any dependence on my folks.”
A family with 9 children survives life on the Kansas prairie in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The experiences they have illustrate the joys, sorrows, hardships and everyday life of the Midwest pioneers. This faith filled series of stories is true. The eldest child was my great grandmother Alzina Pomeroy Boone.
The title “Over the Edge” refers to the event at the end of this post. Had the story turned out differently, I would not be here to retell it.
“Our second boy was born on May 4, 1893 at the Holland farm. We named him John, with the middle name of Milford. He had a sense of humor, the youngest I ever heard of. When only two weeks old, he smiled broadly at Sadie as she patted his cheeks. We could not decide on a name for him for nearly two weeks. Sadie declared she would call him “Jack” if we didn’t name him soon. As we began to urge Milford to suggest a name, he said casually, “Call him John”. I thought he was just joking, but when he showed real earnestness, I didn’t wait long to ask that his middle name be Milford.
All four of my children were well behaved in company because of the reticence they inherited from their father. They had very little sickness, except occasional colds, and the usual complaint when teething and in their second summer. I seldom used any drugs for medicines for any of them. Foods such as oatmeal, tomatoes, fruit and vegetables could be used, I found, to cure about all their maladies. The most serious illness was when Esther had pneumonia every winter her first three years. Onion poultices on her chest cured her within a week. The first two winters, Ethel and John often had croup, which was soon relieved by packing ears of corn around them which had been taken out of hot water. Usually, if I began in time, I could stop the croup by hugging them close and wrapping them warmly. I awoke easily when an ailment disturbed some one of the children, and our God was always quick to answer our cry for deliverance.
North of the path leading from barn to pond and east of the house was the vegetable garden. Here, of evenings, all through the summer, one could see Milford working with the three older children close at his side. They loved to drop the seeds for him, or pluck up weeds, or anything to be near him. And, he was fond of them and proud when they preferred him to “mamma”. But, the new little girl (Esther) was somewhat coquettish in her manner. She was eight months old before she would go from “Mamma” to “Papa”. How proud he was though when the day came that she cried to go to him while her Mamma was holding her. I was pleased, too, for I loved my husband and wanted our children to love him most, and was happy to see them all so happy.”
In 1895 Milford bought a 40 acre farm across the road north west of my parent’s farm. Here he built us neat one and a half story cottage, 12 x16 with an attic. At my parent’s home, there was an old well or cistern. It was old, but oh what refreshing water the buckets brought up from the depths of the earth. A feed mill was near the well, where grain was a ground, enough for a half day at a time.
“In the winter of 1896 a near tragedy occurred. Wilbur Pomeroy, one of my younger brothers, aged about 11, was drawing water with a pail and rope to fill a tub for watering the horses. Another of my brothers, Charlie, who was about 6, and my little John were near by playing. John, who was only about 3 and a half, came over to the well and wanted to see how full the pail was. He slipped and fell into the cistern head first!
There was no curb, the rocks around the edge of the cistern were level with the ground and covered with a coating of ice. Water spilt on them made them very slick. The wall of the cistern was of shell rock about the size of a dinner plate and one or two inches thick, and was six feet down.
Wilbur jumped into the cistern after Johnny, and by straddling across, found footholds at the waters edge. He grabbed Johnny when he came to the top of the water. Charlie, anxious to help, slipped in and fell on top of Wilbur and Johnny. It looked hopeless and that all would perish, but Wilbur somehow held Johnny with his right hand against the side of the cistern and pushed him to safety, with Charlie’s help. Only God could help Wilbur climb those ice covered slick walls of the cistern and get all of them out safely. Although water soaked, the wind coming strong from the north, and freezing temperatures, they made it into the house.”
These stories were put together from “Me and Mine” by Alzina Pomeroy Boone and Pomeroy family letters.
A family with 9 children survived life on the Kansas prairie in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The experiences they had illustrate the joys, sorrows, hardships and everyday life of the Midwest pioneers. This faith filled series of stories is true. The eldest child was my great grandmother Alzina Pomeroy Boone.
1891
From Alzina’s own writing: “On October 15, 1891, a Thursday morning, our first born, a son was born to us. We named him Stanley Emerson. Milford wished to name him Stanley for the first name, and I wanted his middle name to be Emerson, after my father. “
“I had always liked babies that were old enough to play, but felt awkward with tiny babies. But, this one was different, and so were each of my babies, charming from the very first day. After he had been bathed and fed, and admired by all present, he looked up at me with wide-open eyes as we lay in bed, seeming to study my face and read my mind. Mother said, “We’ve been telling what we think of him. Now he is finding out what he thinks of you.” I felt the responsibility of being mother to an intelligent, immortal soul, and prayed as I had prayed for several months that I might train him in the way of eternal life.”
“He was a healthy baby. We were very happy parents. I had only a few of the ailments common to young mothers, though they seemed very serious to me then, as I had never suffered real pain in my twenty years of healthy girlhood. Stanley was usually smiling or crowing when awake and comfortable. When he awoke in the morning, we each raced to be first to take him up. On cold winter days we kept him in the warm kitchen where I cooked and worked. We fixed him a bed with pillows in our large arm chair rocker.
He was usually awake when Milford came home from school and at the sound of his father’s voice, or even his step, the little fellow would twist and turn his head till he caught sight of him, and then how his feet and arms would fly to express his delight. If Milford stepped out of sight, Stanley would again twist and turn and watch till Milford appeared again, and then he would kick and crow in delight.”
“Often I laid him on the table while I washed dishes, or ironed, or I laid him on the bed while I made beds, and he showed the same ecstasy whenever I spread a cloth or sheet over him and then removed it . Our days passed happily and swiftly by.”
“At Christmas time, 1891, we spent a few days at my parent’s home. The first night there, Stanley was very restless and cried quite awhile in the night. I made sure that there was no physical ailment to distress him – just nervousness at being in a strange place. He would not be consoled by his father’s caresses as he usually would.
Finally, Milford turned him over and spanked him. Oh, it seemed to me he spanked so hard! But, I did not interfere. I had determined to never do that, for I had seen so many children spoiled and homes made unhappy by such interference by one or both parents.”
“I knew Milford loved the child, and I could trust him to punish wisely. Of course, he cried more loudly and in a frightened way for a minute or two, but when Milford spoke again, sternly and with a little, but firm, shake, he hushed his cries and nestled in his father’s arms quietly and before long he was asleep. It was the best treatment for the baby, but oh he was such a little fellow and too young to punish, I had felt. It took real self-control and determination for me to refrain from crying out in protest. I am sure this experience made us parents to have more confidence in each other, and the cooperation that makes parenthood happy and successful.”
Stanley grew in stature and in favor with God and man. He learned to creep as fast as I could walk, by the time that the paths out of doors were dry and warm enough to him to creep on. Before long he learned to walk. Every new accomplishment of his was a delight to us.
We both found much pleasure in talking to him and trying to imagine his jabbering was meant to express thought, and was talking. But he began to talk in sentences. I noticed that he made the same series of sound in a pleading, teasing tone as I set the table for the noon meal to be ready for Milford. When he drove home with the team, Stanley began that same cry, “t-i-i-i-e-e-e.” I told Milford, “He has been crying like that for the last half hour or more. What does he mean?” Milford caught him up and placed him in his chair at the table, saying, “It’s time to eat”, Milford’s usual call to him for dinner. Then we began to notice that he spoke whole sentences that way.
The family grew to four. John Milford (my grandfather) was born in May of 1883. Ethel Philena was born in 1894and Esther came along in 1896.
Stanley and John, standing Ethel and Esther, seated
I Just Have to Say... 