"Just A Thinking of the Past" (Part 3)

Great-Great Grandma and Grandpa Rasmussen with Bina, Anna, Ide, Bill and Tilda (the cute little girl, my great-grandma), Circa 1890

COMING HOME

We could hear the cowbells jingle all around what was the old old depot. We were going to Greenville. Father expected to meet a stepson of his Uncle David Hansen of Adams Grove. The word Greenville was misunderstood and called Grandville. So father and Uncle John Rasmussen hired a man, team, and truck to take us to Grandville. Thirteen persons counting the children, on one wagon with all our boxes, we found that Grandville was the wrong town so we were loaded up again, and went from there to Rockford, and from there to Greenville.

There we landed in the back room of old Lars Hansen’s store among boxes, vinegar barrels and molasses barrels. Sister Anna had the measles, before we landed there. We were there several days. Finally, Gilbert Palmer came with his ox-team and wagon and moved us out to where the Gleaner Hall in Fairplains Township now stands. There was an old empty log house and a straw stack. The ride from Greenville and out there was a long one. Gilbert Palmer walked by the oxen’s heads twirling his whip around in front of the oxen’s faces. Whoa! Haw! Gee!

They were breaking new ground out along by Jake Despelder’s. On the other side of the road was standing pine and Hamlins lived in the tiniest log shanty.

Mrs. Loren Palmer had prepared dinner for us – mush and milk and Johnnycake without sugar. We fooled our mouths thinking we were going to have a nice piece of cake. That was the first time we ever ate corn meal. Straw from the straw stack was spread on the floor the whole length of the log house and the bedclothes laid on it. Father had just enough money left to buy an elevated oven cook stove.

Sister Anna was all over the measles by this time and the rest of us children came down with them the day we came into our new home. Father and Uncle John found work in Trips lumber mill just west and a little north of us on the creek over on what is now N.J. Rasmussen’s. (Leon said he has seen sawdust there.) The measles used us hard. Sister Line and brother Peter died. They are buried in the Monroe Cemetery. A year from that time father and Uncle John moved out here in the old log house down on the old farm in Sidney Township. A year from that time, I think in March, we children all had scarlet fever. Sister Anna died and Dorthea 1 year old born here, also died.

Uncle John’s little Josephine, also born here, died. All are buried in Sidney Cemetery.

Uncle John and Father cleared their farm. Not much to do it with, but a crosscut saw, and an ax. Uncle John worked for Sam Toby by the month. He was to have some wages and once in a while the use of an ox team to clear and put in a few crops. Father did the work here at home. Some distance to go for a team. The cows ran loose in the woods and one had a bell on – most of the time they came home at night, but, if not, we had to hunt them up. My mother got lost once hunting cows. She came out by Englehart Johnson’s.

Once when they first came out here an Indian came and wanted an ax. Mother and Auntie were alone and terribly frightened. He got the ax and came back with a coon and held it up so they could see it.

The first summer in this country I worked out, and when I came home I told about some animals called skunks. I told them how they defended themselves. Father did not believe it. Later on he found some kittens. “Kitty, Kitty,” he called. They convinced him.

Just think how those early pioneers paved the way for the younger generation, the hardships they endured for the sake of a home for themselves and their children, just stop and think, let us always love and honor their memory.

Uncle John Madison’s family came over from Denmark a short time after we did. Out of that first group of which I was one, only two are living, Mrs. Albert [Bina] Madison and myself.

Read my previous post: "Just A Thinking of the Past" (Part 2)
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