AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT WILLIAM WILLIAMS (1880-1973)

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT WILLIAM WILLIAMS (1880-1973)

Robert in his 90th year

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This is an edited version of Robert’s own account of his life.

The original version was written between 1966 and 1968 and was started at the request of one of Robert’s grand daughters, who had been given a school assignment….. …… One of my grand daughters was given a task at school to write a life history of a person or a pet or any animal.

She wrote to me saying she wanted to write about me and requested me to write my life story and “Send it to me pronto” and “Thank you so much”.

“When did you come to America and why? Where did you live at first? What work did you do? And please send it to me right away. I must have it finished by next Wednesday.”

The incidents here recorded are not in consecutive order. One incident suggests another and a name brings to mind other incidents perhaps far away fore and aft in time. All incidents and stories are written whenever they occur in memory – related in interest but not necessarily in time….. …. It was at short notice, and I resented the assumption that this sudden interest could be satisfied at a moment’s notice. I responded saying I would need much more time for such an undertaking and was sorry to disappoint her at the time but promised to begin writing my story for her…..

Julia E Williams, wife of Robert’s grandson Morgan Glen Williams, deserves much recognition for patiently typing out the original manuscript. I hope she will forgive me for transferring this fascinating story to the digital age and for my edits.

How does this edited version differ from the original? What has been changed?

I have added illustrations, including some family photographs and some informative notes, which are in italics.

I have rearranged some of the stories into a more chronological order, deleting some repetitions.

I have also corrected some minor factual inaccuracies and some typos/spelling mistakes.

I have hopefully improved some of the grammar to make it a more enjoyable read.

If Robert’s descendants read this I hope they will not be offended by my decision to alter some of the Americanisms. After all Robert was extremely proud of his Welsh heritage!

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Grandfather's Migration from the Island of Anglesey Birthplace, Parents, Brothers & Sisters I was born in Rhosllanerchrugog in the county of Denbighshire, Wales on 15 July 1880, and this autobiography was started in my 87th year.

Robert Williams aged 3 My parents were Benjamin (1845-1906) and Jane Williams (1849-1924) of Mona House, Rhosllanerchrugog.

Benjamin and Jane Williams

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1942 Aerial view of Rhos showing Mona House in the centre

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the tores in Mona S 1950’s ttages to the o Mo n a C t? righ

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Father was a storekeeper selling groceries, ironmongery and drapery. I was their fifth child. I had 8 brothers and sisters. My sister Elizabeth Ann (1872-1873) died at 9 months due to infection from impure vaccine. Then Robert (1873-1878) died when he was just 5. Hywel Morgan (1876-1882) was 6 when he died. Sanitation was poor in those days. Measles, whooping cough, typhoid and scarlet fever swept the country periodically. Sewer systems and piped water were introduced in my childhood.

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Editorial Notes Elizabeth Ann died aged just 9 months on 26 January 1873. According to the death certificate she died of convulsions, which were often associated at that time with Tetanus. Whooping Cough also caused convulsive coughs. It is also possible of course that these convulsions may have been brought on by taking an impure vaccine.

Robert died 10 October 1878 aged 5 years following 23 days of Scarlet Fever. This is recorded on the death certificate together with Desquamative Nephritis, which is failure of the kidneys as a result of Scarlet Fever.

Hywell died 2 June 1882 aged 6 years, following 4 days of Croup, another common cause of death amongst children in the late 19th century. Croup (properly known as Croup Pneumonia) was often linked to diphtheria.

Headstone of Elizabeth, Robert and Hywell in Penycae cemetery

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Next was my sister Elizabeth Ann, the second (1878-1960).

She died 31 December I960 at 80 years of age.

Elizabeth Ann

Robert and Elizabeth Ann with Benjamin

I was next, born 15 July I880, then Caradawg (1883-1963) a couple of years later. He died on 30 April 1963 also have reached the age of 80.

Caradawg at Mona

House.

Caradawg Then came Jane Ellen (1885-1972) who is living today, past 80 years old, a widow living alone near the old home and but a short distance from Caradawg's widow Kate (nee Edwards 1909-1993), and many friends.

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Caradawg and Jane Ellen with Hannah Dodd

0 Jane Ellen c.192

Jane Ellen c.1958

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Caradawg’s widow Katie in 1992 Finally came Ernest Morgan (1887-1964), who died in Vancouver, British Columbia on a Sunday evening 17 May 1964.

Ernest Morgan (Although he preferred to be known simply as Morgan)

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EMW Medicine Hat 1920

Margaret (1891-1924) was the ninth and last. She died on 17 January 1924 of pneumonia and Mother died about three months later on 5 April 1924.

Margaret

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Family photo taken on holiday at Rhyll in1888 with the children’s nurse Mary Ann Davies - Margaret had not yet been born

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Grandfather's Migration The following is a story about my Grandfather’s migration, with his family and possessions, from the Island of Anglesey to the new coalfields in Denbighshire where he and his sons hoped to find employment.

Grandfather and his ancestors before him had been farm labourers and part time fishermen. When rumours of possible employment in the new coal fields reached the outlying parts of Wales and other parts of the British Isles, many abandoned their homes on the land to seek a share of the promised fabulous wages.

Everything I write of about my youth and childhood is, of course, from memory, as I have no way of checking on my accuracy. The story of their migration came to me in fragments picked up from listening to the conversations of family members on many occasions, mostly while we sat around the fire in the evening. Before radio and TV families used to gather in the evenings and relate stories about the many happenings and events of "the old days."

My grandfather Morgan Williams had been born in Llanddona, Anglesey in1805 and I remember he lived at Mona House for some years before he died in 1885. He was a fixture there when I first became aware of him. He and I were good friends, and I remember many things about him. He used to carry me on his shoulders when I became tired on our walks in the fields and country lanes.

Morgan Williams

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I believe this to be a photo of Ann

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Morgan was 80 when he died, and I was just 4. Caradawg and I used to sing at his bedside during his final illness. My cousin Sarah Ann Willis, the daughter of Father's sister Mary (1838-1919), who had come to live with us after her father died, had taught us some church tunes. One was "Dare to Be a Daniel. " Another was "There Is a Happy Land Far Far Away. " Editorial Notes Standing by a purpose true, Heeding God’s command, Honor them, the faithful few!

All hail to Daniel’s band!

Refrain: Dare to be a Daniel, Dare to stand alone!

Dare to have a purpose firm!

Dare to make it known.

Many mighty men are lost, Daring not to stand, Who for God had been a host By joining Daniel’s band.

Many giants, great and tall, Stalking through the land, Headlong to the earth would fall, If met by Daniel’s band.

Hold the Gospel banner high!

On to vict’ry grand!

Satan and his hosts defy, And shout for Daniel’s band.

There is a happy land, far, far away, Where saints in glory stand, bright, bright as day; Oh, how they sweetly sing, worthy is our Savior King, Loud let His praises ring, praise, praise for aye.

Come to that happy land, come, come away; Why will you doubting stand, why still delay?

Oh, we shall happy be, when from sin and sorrow free, Lord, we shall live with Thee, blest, blest for aye.

Bright, in that happy land, beams every eye; Kept by a Father’s hand, love cannot die; Oh, then to glory run; be a crown and kingdom won; And, bright, above the sun, we reign for aye.

It was sometime in the early 1850’s that the move happened.

My Grandfather and Grandmother (Morgan and Ann Williams (nee Hughes 1805-1876) his wife were natives of the village of' “Gaerwen" which translates into English as The White Fort. Gaerwen is near the town of Llangefni on the island of Anglesey, off the north coast of Wales. Grandfather was a labourer on a large farm, quite probably permanently bound to the land or landlord. He lived in a two-roomed, thatched stone cottage.

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I believe this to be Morgan and Ann’s cottage in Gaerwen Tyydyn Uchaf – before recent modernisation His wages were 6d a day in cash. In addition he was given about a ¼ acre of land enclosed by a stone wall for a garden, in which he grew potatoes and broad beans and other vegetables. In addition, each labourer was entitled to two suckling pigs each spring and autumn, to be raised and fattened for his own use, with enough straw to bed the pigs and the family. The children slept on the stone floor. The parents usually had wooden bed frames and home made woollen blankets. In those days there were weavers in every locality weaving blankets and cloth in their own homes from the wool of sheep. Barter was a common method of distribution of such goods. In addition, each labourer was allowed sufficient garden space to grow potatoes for the pigs.

Grandfather had acquired some old oak furniture. I remember some chairs and a tall Grandfather clock. He had also acquired a horse and a two-wheeled farm cart, and on this cart he loaded all his earthly possessions and started off for the “Promised Land”. It was a risky venture and a long trip, three days if lucky with no breakdowns and with good weather. I don't know what they managed to bring along, for there was a baby, Father's youngest sister Margaret (b1851). My father, known as ‘Benja’, sometimes had to ride piggyback on his older brothers' shoulders. He had a very cosy bed. The old Grandfather clock was just right.

Morgan’s two older sons William and John walked, as well as the girls Mary and Anne. My Aunt Elen was already married, and she stayed in Anglesey. Grandfather, of course, never rode. They averaged 20 miles a day, in total about 60 miles.

William (1834-1921) and John (1830-1905) soon found jobs in the mines and the girls in domestic labour. Mary went to Cheshire and married an Englishman. Anne married a coal miner and lived in Acrefair. Grandfather lived on Yew Tree Farm for a while, but later came to live with us at Mona House, probably after the death of Grandmother. Grandmother Ann had died before I was born, though there was a large photo of her on the parlour wall, also one of Grandfather, as was the custom in those days. I don't recall that I ever inquired about her, but many times since I have wished that I had.

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Yew Tree Farm was a small farm about a mile or two uphill from Rhos on Mountain Road. It was on level land, but bordering on a ravine on the upper side. The buildings were dismantled well before my time. This was a practice of the big landowners to force the people to go to the coalmines, and is similar to what occurred in Ireland.

Father was the only one not to go to work in a coal mine. Instead, he found a job in one of the stores owned by the wealthy coal mine owners, who also owned the houses where the miners lived, and who had the miners coming and going. A miner worked in company mines, lived in company houses, bought everything in company stores, his old home on the farm dismantled.

Mother's Family and Early Memories I remember women carrying water on their heads in big cans from the spring up above the sewer plant down stream from Pant. Oddly enough this spring was almost at the top of the small bluff that the stream had cut. Women stood in line to take their turn dipping from the little hollow in which the water collected. I do not know how permanent the flow was but it was not a big one. The women wore aprons to go to the spring but used to twist them to make circular pads to put on their heads. On these they carried the cans, which contained from 2 to 4 gallons, I imagine. Some women could climb over the styles without spilling any of their loads.

Rhos Farm Mother was Jane Roberts, daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Roberts of Rhos Farm. I know nothing at all about Grandmother Elizabeth, except that she must have died a long time before I was born. (She must have died before 1861, as that year’s census shows Robert as married to Elen). Elizabeth had three children. There was Robert, who died at 13, my mother Jane and William, who was in New Zealand when I first became aware of him. He later came home and took over from Grandfather Robert’s second wife Elen. Grandfather must have remarried soon after Grandmother's death. ‘Grandmother’ Elen was a very competent farmer, for she operated the 40-acre farm very profitably, with the aid of her nephew Robert Lloyd Thomas, ploughman Tom Dunn, and chore boy Sam Phillips. Robert Lloyd Thomas was 18 when he came from Bala, or ‘high country’, as we called it, to take charge. This was presumably after Grandfather died. Uncle William was still in New Zealand.

Also living in the house, besides Grandmother Elen, was my mother's half-sister, Mary Elen, who was about 20 when I first remember her. Mary Elen did a lot of sewing, perhaps for other people. As a small child I spent almost as much time at Rhos Farm as at my own home, operating the sewing machine for Aunt Mary Elen, playing dominoes with Robert Lloyd Thomas and Tom Dunn in the evenings, making paper ‘spills’ to serve as pipe lighters by twisting pieces of newspaper. Spills were also used to light candles and oil lamps. I remember gas lighting being introduced later in Mona House, but not at Rhos Farm.

There also was a maid, whose duties, apart from keeping the spill box replenished, included tending the kitchen fire, fetching water from the pump in the back yard, tending and feeding the pigs, chickens and ducks, the cats and ‘Perro’ the dog, scrubbing the floors and tables, washing the dishes and milk pails and hanging them on the tree near the pump, as well as milking 8 cows and feeding the calves.

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I remember the pump being installed. Before that there was a lid of oak planks over the well on which one had to stand to haul water in pails on a rope.

One of my favourite errands was to go to Duce's shop to buy a big box of Lion matches for the men who used to sit around the fire in the big kitchen in the evenings. The matches were much larger than present day wooden kitchen matches. The containers also were much larger. The picture of a Lion on the box impressed me. I can still see him.

The men smoked clay ‘churchwarden’ pipes. These cost a penny a piece and I proudly ran errands to buy these, especially for John Dodd, a later ploughman who used to nod and doze and let his pipe fall and be broken more often than he could afford.

I remember once ‘Grandmother’ Elen taking me with her up Rhos Farm fields to ‘Cae Dan Y Coppv’ (Field below the Coppies) to get water from a depression in the streambed. It was a dry summer and the Afon Rhos (the Rhos River) had little water flowing.

As I climbed up on the fence above the bank, the fence broke and I fell about 6’, striking my forehead on a sharp stone. Grandmother dipped her white dotted blue apron in the water and wrapped it around my head. Luckily Robert Lloyd Thomas and Tom Dunn were reaping oats in an adjoining field. Sam Phillips was binding the sheaves by hand using a handful of oat straw for a bind, an art I was to learn myself at a later date. Robert Lloyd Thomas carried me in his arms to Rhos Farm. Sarah Jones, wife of my Sunday school teacher Charles Jones met us and insisted on uncovering my face, remarking, "Then, he's not dead!"

My brother Caradawg was also at Rhos Farm that day. He had stayed with Aunt Mary Elen, who was sewing on her machine. He was sent to inform Mother, but he was so frightened that he did not speak a word of the accident. In the meantime, the servant girl was sent to bring a Doctor. She knew but one, the furthest away of all, Dr J C Davies. He was out on calls, so she sat waiting until he came home. Finally the doctor came, stitched me up, and I slept. When I woke I remember seeing Aunt at her machine. I got up from the bench at the

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fireside on which I lay and tiptoed up to her from behind tickling her under both armpits with my two index fingers. I still have the scar from this accident, and it was used as identification on my emigrations papers when I came to America in 1911.

During my early years at school I think I spent more time there at Rhos Farm than at my parents’ home. As often as not I went to Grandmother's for noon dinner. The school was quite near the farm. In fact, the school buildings were on land that had originally been a field belonging to the farm.

Years later I remember that when working in the garden at my uncle's, who occupied the farm after Grandmother, I would often hear the voices of children at singing practice, or at Prayers at 9 o'clock and would stand silently, listening to their sweet voices. Although a harsh disciplinarian, Mr Powell the headmaster was a very good choirmaster.

At Grandmother's, Robert Lloyd Thomas built a two-roomed pigeon house for me. On the front of it he painted my initials in red. He hung it on the wall of the loft above the entry connecting the inner yard to the outer yard through which the cattle and horses had access.

Someone gave me a pair of pigeons and I kept them at Grandmother's. Soon I had several pairs and found I could not keep them all. I used to bring ‘Indian corn’ (maize) from Father's shop. I don't ever remember asking for it, but helped myself. Didn't everything of my father's belong equally to me? Every four to six weeks I would kill and dress a pair of the squabs, just before they were ready to fly. They were heavier then than their parents, but once they started to fly would lose weight. I sometimes gave a pair to Grandma and sometimes took a pair home to Mother.

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Editorial Notes

RHOS FARM

The orientation of this small diagram is not clear. What is sure is that this track, whichever way it is meant to be, leads to Mountain Street and there is a stone wall on the right hand side of the track, at least to the end of the adjoining chapels.

This is a more detailed plan of the farmyard itself and relates to the other diagram of the whole farm. To match the other diagram it needs to be rotated 90 degrees clockwise. The pond must have disappeared before 1912.

Rhos farm is indeed on a small elevation as RWW notes and the present day farmer confirmed that the water does drain northwards as referred to by RWW. There still exists an original wall between the house and the wash house. RWW mentions the wall but does not indicate its exact position.

Is this what he has drawn as a vertical line with horizontal hatching?

The current farmer remembers a well in the position indicated. It was filled in many years ago. He remembers many artefacts being found there including old clay pipes! (RWW mentions the farmers using these!!)

There is no obvious sycamore tree still in this position, but there is a very old ash tree standing on its own a bit further to the right.

The fields still lie in the direction of RWW’s arrow.

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Editorial Notes

RHOS FARM Rhos Farm approaching from Owens Street. To the left can be seen the new house recently built on what was the garden on RWW’s diagram.

The farmhouse had been rendered with pebble dash covering the original stone work. On the photo below the plaster on the gable end show signs of the recently demolished ‘cottage’.

The original garden wall, the cheese room or whey room and the wash house with original chimney still standing.

To the left is the extended rear of the farm house.

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Editorial Notes

RHOS FARM

The original farm buildings viewed from what was originally the covered entrance to the yard and looking back towards the farmhouse.

The rear of the farmhouse.

The modern extension can be seen clearly.

To the right is the cheese room or ‘whey’ room.

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There was a large pond forming one side of the back yard. This yard was enclosed on another side by the rear walls of cattle and horse barns and part of the rear side of the house. I write later about the ponds that were usually a part of the scenery around farm buildings in Wales and England. Almost every farmyard had a pond or a stream passing through it. Rhos Farm was on a slight elevation, though that was barely noticeable. I remember that the land drained in the direction shown by arrows in my crude sketch. No doubt the country had been much wetter in an earlier age and probably heavily wooded as well. Yew, Elm, Oak, Sycamore and Ash trees were numerous, but these were mostly gone before I left Wales. There were apple and damson orchards too, though barely living, dying from the coal smoke which was becoming quite a menace to all life as the town increased in size. During the coal miners' strikes in the 1880’s and 1890’s I saw many fine old Elms and Oaks cut down by the miners to be used as fuel. They also dug shallow lignite veins 10 to 20 feet deep. The owners of the land dared not protest!

Farm Ponds in Wales I remember many farm ponds. Besides Rhos Farm, there were two at Ty Gwyn Farm and one at Ellis Phillip's Farm. There was LIyn Spring (Spring Pool) and Llyn Mawr (Big Pool). There was one pool on top of the hill east of the Grammar School at Ruabon. It was long and narrow, occupying the ditch of Offa's Dyke. It was on the south side of the road between the road and the farm buildings nearby. I forget whose farm it was. There were two such pools near Trydelyn, FIintshire, in a farmyard on the roadside. The farm was named "PwII Budr" after one of the pools - Dirty Pool Farm. Another was near the top of Mynydd y Bugail (Shepherd Mountain) and this had a considerable stream flowing from it, which disappeared in a pile of stones. This may have been a terminal moraine. Another was in the farmyard at Pentrellewyn, AngIesea, near Traeth Coch (Red wharf Bay) Pentrellewyn was the place where my great grandfather John AP Williams had been born.

These ponds may have originally been dewponds about which I have read in scientific articles. They are not to be confused with ponds behind dams, of which there were also many.

The Rhos Farm pond and the one at Pentrellewyn were later filled with earth, so no trace was left, the remaining space merely adding to the yard. My father had urged for years that the one at Pentrellewyn be filled. He was certain it was dangerous for children, as it narrowed the yard entrance between pond and some buildings to about 10 feet. It was filled after a 4 year old boy drowned in it. He was son of father's cousin Ellen and husband Thomas Ellis Thomas who lived there.

Uncle William Roberts and Aunt Mary EIen My Aunt Mary Elen married William Jones a very prosperous tailor in Rhos. He had two or three men working for him. He built a house on Hall Street, Rhos, quite near Rhos Farm with attached shop and workroom. They had several children, one or two of whom died in childhood. Those that survived were Emrys, now a schoolmaster in Rhos, Morfudd, pronounced Morvith, EIen and Dora.

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Uncle William Roberts returned from New Zealand and took over the farm when Grandmother retired and went to live with Mary Elen, her husband William and their family, Grandmother died in 1911. My son, Morgan and Hywel went with me to see Grandmother Elen a day or two before we left for the USA. After visiting her we went to see a picture show in Rhos Public Hall. She died soon after this.

1895 entry on Rhos trade directory (Slaters) Robert Lloyd Thomas became a foreman in Rhos brick works, where he stayed about ten years. He then rented Ty Gwyn (pronounced Tee Gwin) Farm. He died about 1910, from injuries to his head and chest caused by kicks from a horse. I had reason to think he was in love with Aunt Mary Elen, but she had other ideas. He never married.

Editorial Notes

TY GWYN

The farmyard at Ty Gwyn.

To the left is the rear of the farmhouse.

The farm is still worked.

The old farmhouse at Ty Gwyn, now derelict. The present day farmer lives in a much more modern property on the land. When the High School was being built there was a fear that the farm would have to be demolished.

The school grounds now extend right up to the boundary of the farm.

According to information from the present day farmer, this old farmhouse used to be three separate residences.

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Uncle William Roberts was not as good a farmer as Robert Lloyd Thomas. He married his cousin Kate Jones from near Bala. They had two children, Elizabeth (Lizzie), and Maurice. Aunt Kate died of cancer about 1912. As a boy, Maurice had been stricken by a creeping paralysis but he insisted on helping his father. As he could not hold himself on William would tie him on the horse's back whilst he worked the mower, binder or cart. In later life he was a total wreck and died moaning and screaming with pain.

Lizzie kept house for her father and they moved to a smaller farm in Tainant. She had a suitor who used to visit her and she would go out as he was leaving to say goodnight. One morning uncle discovered that her bed had not been slept in. He found her head down in a rain barrel. It was assumed that it was an accident. No legal investigation was held and the young man was not questioned, but I have had my suspicions ever since.

In about 1912, my uncle went to live in a little two-room addition to a house belonging to my mother and which was next door to Mona House. He wrote to me when I lived in Long Lake, Minnesota, wanting to come to me, but I was not in any financial condition to encourage him. He did not live long for many years after that. He had been almost totally deaf in addition to his many other misfortunes.

Family Doctor: Dr J. C. Davis Dr Davies married a daughter from Moreton Inn, between Johnstown and Ruabon. The Inn was built on or very close to Offa’s Dyke, which had been constructed by King Offa of Mercia to define the border between the English and the Welsh. The dyke extends from sea to sea from North to South, and can still be traced except in a few places where modern buildings and other improvements have destroyed it. It was conspicuous on the Northern edge of Ruabon Grammar school cricket field, for which it provided a convenient grandstand during my time at the school.

Dr Davies introduced about 2000 children into the world, including all of Mother’s children and my own Blodwen and Hywel. Not Morgan, though. Great aunt Harriet George delivered him.

Welsh Boys in World War One Dr Davies was colonel in the Volunteer Army and used to train Rhos boys in drill sessions. In World War One Dr Davies and two of his sons served in the trenches in Belgium and France. All three suffered from frozen feet caused by the appalling conditions.

Tom Jones, a boy who was in Rhos Grade School with me, was killed in France. His father was Trevor Jones, one of my teachers. Others who were killed were Gwilym Jones, the son of one of Mother’s cousins and Jack Sparling, son of the vicar of Ellesmere. He and I were at Ruabon Grammar School and later at Bangor College together. He and I were granted scholarships for two consecutive terms at the University College of Wales to study English, Arithmetic, Surveying, Chemistry and Agriculture. We tied for first place in our class.

A coalmine explosion in September 1934 at Gresford Colliery took the lives of 266 Rhos men and boys including members of the Rhos Male Voice Choir.

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Education I went to the Infants School and moved up to Rhos Board School in November in1886 at nearly 7 years old.

The Infants' School was mixed and the teachers all women. After the lower classes, boys and girls were separated, which I think is not the proper way. Boys and girls should become acquainted and learn to live together. That is the natural way and the American way.

Children at Ysgol y Wern, Rhos Very similar to the classroom that Robert remembered.

At 11 I was awarded a Scholarship to attend the Ruabon Grammar School, an old endowed school established ages ago by a nobleman ancestor of Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn of Wynnstay Hall.

My playmates at Board School were boys whose homes were near Rhos Farm. Joe Owens and Absalom Davies were two whose names occur to me at the moment.

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Robert’s name appears in the Admission Register for the School Other boys who went to Rhos Board School were Robert Isaac Rogers, Isaac Daniel Hooson, James Thomas, Johnny Bailey, Jonathan Francis, Caradog Roberts, John Daniel, Peter William Owen, Thomas Pritchard, William Jones, (‘Cross Foxes’) and six other William Jones’.

Editorial Notes This is the same Caradog ROBERTS who became a noted musician in the Rhos area and beyond.

Caradog ROBERTS was born in 1878, which would make him just a bit older than Robert.

Caradog ROBERTS

Caradog Roberts

I D Hooson

Isaac Daniel HOOSON became a renowned poet. During his lifetime he published only one collection, Cerddi a Baledi, in 1936 but a second collection of his work, Y Gwin a Cherddi Eraill, was published after his death in 1948. Hooson is best known for his poems written for children and he also wrote a Welsh language adaptation of The Pied Piper of Hamelin under the title Y Fantell Fraith in 1934.

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Games and Play I can’t remember playing games in which boys and girls played together except very rarely in games like ‘Ring Around the Rosie’, and Maypole Dances, which were not dances, but just sedate walks. All dances were taboo in the fundamentalist, stern, unsmiling Methodist community to which we belonged. Boys and girls had very little opportunity to chat and become acquainted, except on the sly. And which was the better, in public company or surreptitiously in dark alleyways?

Board Schools and Punishments According to the seriousness of our offences we were given few or many strokes on our outstretched palms. One stroke was the punishment for being late for prayers. The doors were closed on the hour at 9 am and 2 pm, at which time the whole school of about 350 boys recited The Lord's Prayer in unison. Then the whole assembly sang the Morning Hymn, the doors would be opened and the miserable unfortunates in the vestibule would walk dejectedly to the Headmaster's desk to receive their deserts for dawdling one extra moment on their way to school. R L Powell seemed to enjoy seeing us suffer but the majority of the boys refused to show any sign of flinching and kept their faces stoic like and immobile, although the pain of even one stroke was severe. Powell would yell at us in a rage.

Sometimes a boy would take 10 strokes on his upturned palm and still hold out his hand after the cane splintered and the teacher was too tired to beat him any more.

A Hero at School We had one hero. One day, after a severe caning, a boy named Gomer Jones turned on his tormentor and shouted defiantly, "I'II pay you for this some day!" Gomer was almost 14, the legal age when he could leave school. He went to work in a coalmine, shovelling coal into the little trucks underground. That's a job to develop muscle! At that time coal miners worked 8 hour shifts, from 6 am to 2 pm. On his way home from the mine one day he met his former teacher on a footpath crossing the fields. He blocked the teacher's passage, reminding him of the beatings and of his promise, then proceeded to give him a good thrashing with his fists.

I read recently that boys at Eton and other public schools must still submit to canings and, on the playing fields, juniors are made to stand up on the side lines to provide shade from the hot sun to their seniors sitting on the grass.

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After the Lord’s Prayer at 2 pm our school session opened with a communal hymn.

‘We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food, but most because of Jesus' Blood’ Editorial Notes

This could be the hymn that Robert is remembering….

Be present at our table, Lord; Be here and everywhere adored; Thy creatures bless, and grant that we May feast in paradise with Thee.

We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food, For life and health and every good;

By Thine own hand may we be fed; Give us each day our daily bread.

We thank Thee, Lord, for this our good, But more because of Jesus’ blood; Let manna to our souls be giv’n, The Bread of Life sent down from Heav’n.

Afterwards we all went off to our separate classrooms, of which there were only two. The other classes shared the assembly hall with only the lanes between the rows of desks separating classes. There was a terrible din, each teacher and each class shouting to be heard.

The playground for about 150 to 200 boys was only a 100’ or so square and on rainy days was a sea of mud, which hardly dampened our enthusiasm and fun. We played horses and riders, tag and racing. Collisions and falls were common.

Sanitary Conditions at Board Schools Most of us never used the toilets, which were always out of order and filthy. The stand up urinals stank. Those for the girls I knew to be just as bad. At the infants school sanitary conditions were fair and the playground was more than adequate.

Grammar School and Fellow Students My fellow students in Ruabon Grammar School were Isaac Daniel Hooson, Robert Isaac Rogers, Mathew Henry Williams, John Morris and David his brother, the Lockey twins, Tom and Harry and their younger brother, Jack Harding, Caradawg Williams, somebody Johns, somebody Edwards, Evan Roberts of Maes-y LIan Farm, Freddie Morrish, Albert and Owen Peters, somebody Douthwaite, Peter Ellis, brothers William, Walter and Spencer Taylor of Johnstown, (we called Spencer Penny), Oswald Hughes, Shirley Jenks, Ivor Howel Jones and Howel Ivor Jones, (one H. I. J. the other I. H. J. and both of Johnstown) and Reuben Haigh.

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Teaching Staff I remember were the Reverend A Lloyd Taylor, MA, George Taylor, (lower forms), Hughes, (Shorthand and French) another Welshman Fred Jones and later David John Bowne, (Welsh, Music and Chemistry).

There was a fencing class, but only well to do families could afford this. It was a special subject, as were cricket and football. I don't recall a single Welsh boy in any of these special classes. Many of us Welsh boys could not have gone beyond Board School without the awards and scholarships given by the County Councils.

The motto on a shield on our caps was Welsh: "Y Daraig Goch a deru Ddychryn. " “The Red Dragon that Strikes Fear” These caps had to be paid for. The motto and picture of the Dragon was in silk, red on a blue ground and was the only sign of our membership of the school.

Above the massive fireplace in the main assembly room, high on the wall was a motto chiselled on a big stone inserted in the wall.

WITHOUT EFFORT NOTHING ABSQUE LABORE NIHIL

We used to refer to Mr Hughes as Carrots, owing to the fact he had red hair and beard.

His class, Shorthand, had about 10 red headed boys out of 17 pupils!

We referred to Mr Taylor as "Yr Hen Delar" (the old Taylor). Fred Jones and DJ Bowen were the only teachers I can think of right now who treated us pupils as human beings and who did not abuse us either in words, or by beating us on our shoulders or hands with canes, like Board School teachers had done.

Home Lessons Only in Grammar school where attendance was not compulsory, did we have Home Lessons. We had arithmetic, geography and history textbooks to read and memorize, and sums to be written out in detail in our best handwriting. We were given marks for correctness

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and tidiness. Each sum in arithmetic was outlined in squares or rectangles with black or sometimes red ink.

At recitation a class would stand in front of the teacher who would point at random to a pupil. "You begin, Robert.” Robert would recite from memory until halted, sometimes in the middle of a sentence, by a sigh or nod. "You, Tommy." Then Tommy took over until a sign would halt him and another boy would continue. Since we never knew who would be called upon next, we all did our best to memorize our lessons. We did not relish the caning that was the inevitable punishment for failure.

Evan Roberts, Schoolmate I started at Ruabon Grammar School on Sept. 12th, 1892 when I was 12.

I D Hooson, who was 6 months younger than me, preceded me by one year. He was a brilliant scholar and I never caught up with him.

Bob (RL) Rogers entered the school on the same day as me, I think, and we kept abreast the whole 5 years there, both aiming to enter Pharmacy later.

Evan Roberts of Maes-y-llan Farm also started the same day, but he was unable to attend for more than one term, as his scholarship was not renewed. He was first in our class in freehand drawing and was good in arithmetic. Soon he left for Saskatchewan to farm, just as his two brothers before him. He was a hopeless stammerer, which barred him from what could have been a fine career. He is retired now and living in New Westminster, British Columbia. He is the only one remaining of the family. Both his brothers and his only sister died many years ago. The 3 brothers served in the Hussars and also became successful farmers.

Evan and I became acquainted on the first day. The desks were enormous structures.

Boys in the same class sat facing each other. I noticed Evan who sat opposite me getting red in the face and slipping as low as he could under the desk. Then he was kicking me in the shins. When I asked him why, he said that I had kicked him first. I soon persuaded him I had not and the hostility evaporated quickly when we realized we both spoke Welsh. We further discovered that our mothers had been friends as girls. We became firm friends and still correspond occasionally. We both kept rabbits and each of us had a dog. He taught his dog tricks jumping through hoops. He also had a donkey, on which he would ride sitting on the donkey's rump facing backwards. I collected birds’ eggs and had a display of them in a glass case. I got a beating from Evan for taking just one egg from the many nests about their farm buildings. He knew from day to day the number of eggs in each nest. Evan's stammer interfered with love affairs and he never married. I visited him and his brother Edward near Neepawa, Saskatchewan once when I followed the threshing in the fall of 1920, I think. Lloyd George was in Winnipeg the day I passed through but I did not stop to hear him.

In those days there was a definite awareness of class standing between sons of clergy or the landed gentry, civil or government officials and sons of common tradesmen or manual workers. This hearkened back to much stricter divisions of earlier times, but the tendency over the years has been towards alleviation of this feeling on both sides. The many wars in the past 80 or more years, especially the two World Wars have accelerated this tendency.

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I remember one example from World War One that I heard of. The son of a baronet who was drafted into the British army returned as a sergeant, while his father's gardener was a colonel when he returned to his old job. From then on they treated each other as equals.

Llewellyn Bowyer Our headmaster halted all other school activities to listen to Llewellyn Bowyer recite his previous evening's homework of Greek verbs, one verb each day. He would recite a whole new verb every morning.

He left school at 14 to work in a coalmine, but later returned to the Grammar School to study, having received an award from his church. He was studying for the ministry and later became Minister of one of the Welsh churches in London.

Pharmaceutical Exam I think it was in the spring of 1897 that Robert Isaac Rogers, David Morris, Albert Peters and I went to Shrewsbury to sit for the Students Exam of the British Association of Pharmacists. Was it Mr Hughes, teacher of Shorthand that looked after us on the trip? No, it was Fred Jones. It was quite an adventure for us. We were awed by the ancient and imposing buildings and by the number of boys assembled for the occasion. One of the examiners' names was Alabaster, which relieved the solemnity and stuffiness to a small degree. That name was recompense for all the rudeness and ridicule poured on us Welsh boys by the English because of our Welsh names and language.

Gardening When I was about 10, Father bought a lawn mower and I began taking care of the garden at Mona House. Mother had been a maid at a wealthy family's home in Wrexham, ‘Fairy Mount’, and ‘Hillbury’ are the two names I recall and when we were small she took us, probably just my sister Nan and brother Caradawg and me, to visit there. Mary Ann Davis was maid at Mona House then, and she was with us that day. I don't remember much about the trip, but we took the horse car from New Inn, Johnstown and I remember we walked some distance along a narrow country lane.

The horse car outside New Inn.

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We were frightened out of our wits when a frantic cow being led to slaughter came galloping to meet us. We scrambled up the bank and pushed ourselves through the hedge into the field beyond, but by then the cow was far on its way into town and dragging some men along holding on to a rope. I'm not sure if Mother had worked at both places or only at Hillbury.

I think Father had been used to walking the 4 miles or more from Rhos or perhaps Cefn Mawr in the evening to see her. I do remember him telling of once being stopped by some bullies near Croes-foel Farm one night and escaping by calling loudly to someone else who could be heard following behind, pretending that he knew them. The ruse worked and the bullies left him alone.

Two men used to come to work in Mother's garden in the evenings. Mother paid them very well and gave them a big meal afterwards. They were Head Gardener and his helper from the gardens of a big country place, the home of Mr Davis, the owner of a mine near Rhos.

I learned a lot about gardening from them. Father built a conservatory and a potting shed, and planted a dozen trees including Birch, Ash, Weeping Willow, Apple, Apricot and Cherry. There was also a rock garden, as well as lawns and flowerbeds.

Later on I did all the garden work. I would pull radishes early morning and prepare my own lunch for school, washing and peeling the radishes. Then when I worked at the Francis & Co., I would dig in the garden before breakfast. After this I would walk the 4 miles to work in Wrexham with Dick Edwards, a chum from New Street, Rhos. I called for him every morning, as I had to go past his home. He worked at Hughes and Son's bookshop. Dick and his brother Teddy came to Mona House often of an evening. Caradawg, Jack Garding and sometimes Ernest Morgan, Jane Ellen and Maggie would join us and we would sing song after song until bedtime. Sometimes other boys and girls would come too. Then Mother and Sarah the housekeeper, who worked for many years for Mother, would prepare a big tasty lunch for us all.

Once I filled a two-bushel hamper with mushrooms and Father sold most of them in the store. Mother got all she wanted and we had mushrooms toasted with butter - all we could eat.

Â

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Editorial Notes

Before her marriage to Benjamin, Jane had worked as a cook at Hillbury for the Bury family. She had clearly developed a strong relationship with the family.

THE BURY FAMILY ‘HILLBURY’

John

Eleanor Edward

Sarah Jane

Edith

Alice

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Francis & Co. - Druggists Some time in June 1897, Father took me to Francis & Co. Pharmacists, Wrexham, to be apprenticed to them and learn the business, having successfully passed the first examination in Shrewsbury that year. I did not have any desire to go there but had promised Mother to do my honest best to pass. I decided that passing the exam would be a sign that fate had determined me to become apprenticed there for 3 years.

Wrexham – similar to how it would have been when Robert worked there.

I was supposed to learn the business from one end to the other. Instead they treated me from the very beginning as an errand and chore boy. The firm consisted of the two older sons of the founder of the company, James Bridge and John Herbert. There were several other younger sons, and at least two daughters. One of the sons was Arthur Llewellyn, manager of a branch shop on Town Hill, with whom I worked many a busy market day when he phoned for help. He was the only one who did not treat me as a slave and I enjoyed working with him as much as I disliked working in the main store. Their mother too seemed to be a very likeable lady and a younger daughter Annie was also a kind girl. Mrs Francis, Arthur and Annie lived together. Living with them also was the little daughter of James Bridge, the eldest son who had remarried.

It was I believe in 1899 that Mr Arthur went to London for 5 weeks to take a course and examination to be an optician. I was sent to be in full charge of that branch. Arthur wrote to me regularly during that five weeks and he was a great encouragement to me. Mr Johnstone, one of the assistants, came to help me on busy days when I needed help. There was a telephone connection between the two shops and also to Mr Arthur's home. Every Saturday Â

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night Miss Annie and her little niece would bring a basket of lunch and make tea for ‘Uncle Arthur’ in the dispenser's booth. Even when he was in London they came and I got the lunch.

The day came for Mr Arthur to return. The little girl and Miss Annie came but Mr Arthur had not arrived and, though we hunted under the counter and in all the drawers and cupboards we could not find him. At about 10 pm he came straight from the railway station to see me and after talking with his mother and sister by telephone and learning that his niece had already gone to bed, he decided to go straight to bed himself, as he was very tired. He went home. I closed the shop and went to my lodging.

Tragedies Little Francis Girl Burnt The following morning, Sunday, the maid and the little girl were in the kitchen, the little girl in her long nightgown in a high chair. The maid went out to the front door porch for the morning milk. She heard a scream. Running back, she saw the girl in a blanket of flame running down the hall and attempting to climb the stairway, calling, “Oh, Uncle Artie, save me, save me." Arthur was running downstairs and used his overcoat, which had been hanging in the hall, to wrap about the child and put the fire out. She died mid afternoon.

No one but I knew of the scars on his arms where he had been burnt. I treated him at the shop until he recovered. He came to work everyday, except the day of the funeral.

Mathias Hughes Died Then another tragedy was upon us. A friend of mine was fatally injured in a mining accident. Mathias Hughes, 22 years old, and newly elected to be ‘Codwr y gan’ the ‘Song Raiser’ at our church, Bethel, Ponkey, where I was organist.

Father came to Francis' one Monday for my apprenticeship papers to be signed by one of the firm, Father and myself. This was rather tardy since I had been there for some months.

Then Father told me of the accident, and I knew it was bad by his manner.

The following Friday afternoon I went to see Mathias at the Ruabon Hospital. He seemed quite cheerful, although he knew that his spine and pelvic bones were crushed.

Despite this he felt very little pain, which was another bad sign. When I told him it had been raining hard for hours and looked like continuing all day, he said, "I wish I were out in it." I promised to come again soon but he said, "I wonder who will lead the singing in Heaven, and who will be playing the organ." I did not see him again. It was the longest funeral procession I have ever seen. Occasionally a group would start singing and the song would be taken up down the line before and behind us and when one group stopped singing we could hear other groups singing far away, different hymns being sung by groups who could not hear each other.

I played the organ at the burial service. Tenor Tom Edwards was leading the hymn ‘Bydd yn Canu yn y nefoedd’, ‘There will be singing in Heaven’. I realized that the whole church was filled with weeping people. Tom Edwards stopped singing in the middle of a word and all were weeping quietly, no sound to be heard but the chords of the organ. Then, too, that trailed off.

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Organist Successors I became organist when I was 12 and resigned after going to work for my uncle at Rhos Farm, in favour of Joseph Dodd, a gifted singer and organist. Joseph held the position until after I had come back to Ponkey to work the Grango Gardens where my children Howel and Blodwen were born. It was while we lived there that my younger brother came one evening, announcing through his sobbing that Jo Dodd had died suddenly of appendicitis. He and Ernest Morgan had been great friends, both of them musicians, singers and organists.

Caradawg became organist at BetheI and held the position until he went off to fight for his country in France.

I remember Joshua Davies of Smith Street played an old harmonium at Bethel. I played a solo on it at some church activity but was too short legged, so Joshua pumped the pedals for me. Soon after that the church was enlarged and modernised. A two manual American reed organ was installed. I was appointed organist at just 12 years old and held the position until I was 20. I received no remuneration, though I played every Sunday, morning and evening services, Sunday school, any service on weeknights and special meetings at any time. I was brought up believing it to be everybody’s duty to offer freely any gift or talent to the service of God and mankind, trusting to Providence for a living. All my life I have been quick to drop my own work at a moment's notice and put all my efforts towards helping anyone in trouble whenever it appeared plain they needed help. I have yet to begin to make my fortune and come back to Wales, which was my mother's parting wish for me.

Lack of Understanding Father and I never did get along that well together. From my earliest childhood I had a violent aversion towards any work in the store and whenever an opportunity appeared I would disappear for hours to avoid doing anything to help Father. I have a vivid memory of once being pushed roughly out of the door leading from the store into the living quarters, stumbling and falling on my face under the kitchen table. I was no more than four years old at the time and I have not the least memory of why Father did that to me. I must have done something to upset him very much. I think that incident may have influenced my future response to any request to cooperate with him. We had many conflicts after that in which I would stubbornly resist him in spite of his rough handling.

Helping in Father's Store - Store-Keeping 70 Years Ago. My violent aversion to working in the store does not mean that I did no work at all there.

I remember each one of us had our own duties to perform and generally we did these chores quickly and willingly. There was a little counter where people would bring bottles and cans for paraffin. I don't think we ever sold more than a quart at a time for none of the containers that I recall would hold more. Most sales were for a ‘penny's worth’ or a ‘ha'pennys worth’, for which we had special measures.

We would accept the containers, memorise the orders and run through the flour room at back of the store and to the far end of the yard to the oil house, where barrels containing linseed oil, boiled and raw, paraffin and methylated spirits lay on their sides in a row. Each barrel had a tap inserted in the bunghole, and a bucket underneath to catch the drips or

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overflow, which was quite often considerable due to error or accident. Small orders were quite often filled from that bucket. We most often had to wipe our hands and the container, the cloth for which was hanging on a nail. A paraffin lamp hanging on the wall lighted the room. The door was seldom shut, except in stormy weather or a snowstorm.

On Saturdays this paraffin oil business kept two of us busy running forth and back, and we were not allowed to serve at the other counters. The only complication occurred with the paying and making change. The cash drawer was under the grocery counter. There were cups and partitions in the drawer and each coin had its separate compartment. I don't think Father ever put a gold sovereign in that drawer, but I recall seeing a half-sovereign there.

Inevitably on Saturday night the furiously busy night of the week, the coin drawer smelled strongly of paraffin oil.

Later Caradawg and I graduated to selling pancakes. They were very similar to American pancakes, but baked to a consistency so they would not break apart in handling, but not to a brown colour. A baker down a nearby side street used to bake these and deliver them on Saturday afternoons. He would have a large basket on each arm, and his two daughters would carry a large clothes basket between them full of these half baked pancakes. The baskets would be lined with newly laundered linen cloths and covered with the same immaculate covers.

They cost us 1½d for four, and sold for a ½d a piece. We were in business. We put all our takings back into the business, pyramiding our stock each week. The fourth week we had more than we could sell and had to donate our surplus to Mother who was the recipient of whatever perishables of groceries were unsold by 10 pm. There would normally be pieces of bacon, links of sausages, scraps of cheese, cracked eggs etc.

These pancakes were a delicacy we looked forward to all week as a treat for Sunday afternoon tea, which was the only real treat of the week for the children of the miners and all the families of our mining village. They were impaled on forks in front of the open fire, toasted on both sides, buttered and eaten by hand or, better still, cut into quarters and spread with jam or marmalade.

On my 21st birthday my father presented me with a cheque for one £100, which seemed an enormous amount to me and upset me greatly. Had I known sooner about this I would have made some very different decisions. I had declined proposals to take a University course in Agriculture or Horticulture or Forestry at the University of Wales in Bangor, aware that Father had four younger children to support. He had kept me in Grammar School for 5 years. He had also supported me for 3 years while I was at Francis & Co., where I received no income at all. Scholarships were worth only about half of what board and tuition would be.

All this investment of course was wasted when I rebelled and refused to carry on.

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Farm Life in Wales - Wages, Meals & Food After working for Uncle William at Rhos Farm for a while I came to realize it would be a long while before I would be able to acquire enough capital to begin farming on my own.

Uncle was paying me 5/- a week plus full board. It would be interesting to add here a few lines about life on a farm in Wales at that time, about the turn of the century.

Living on the farm were Uncle William, his wife Kate, daughter Lizzie, about 10 years old and son Maurice, about 5, me, the teamster, whose name I have forgotten, and a servant girl. At meals it was customary for the family to sit apart from the servants. As I was considered family, I sat with uncle, aunt and the children. We sat around a small round table, which was covered with a linen tablecloth and positioned in front of the kitchen fireplace. The servant girl tended to us at the meals, but she ate at the big table with the ploughman and chore boy (when there was a chore boy). At that time I was doing a chore boy's work. The big table was a heavy solid one, evidently a homemade product, which must have been handed down from former generations. It was very well made with wooden pegs instead of nails. The top was of solid boards 2” or more in thickness and probably made from Sycamore trees grown on the farm and sawn by hand, like all the old furniture in the house, including the doors and window frames, stairs and wooden floors.

This big table usually had no cover, the dishes being placed on the bare boards. The table was washed and scrubbed every day until the boards were white and shiny. On special occasions the boards were covered with coarse sackcloth I think.

Bara Ceirch The food for the help was homemade bread, baked at home from home grown wheat, ground and milled at a local country mill. Sometimes a little barley was used for bread making. Oatmeal was used too and was made into thin flat round cakes about 12“ in diameter. It was the custom for the women to get together and have a day's “bee” to make these oatcakes together. Bara Ceirch they were called. At each farmhouse the finished cakes, dry and crisp, were stacked in a special wooden cupboard equipped with a device consisting of four wooden plates attached to a central spindle. The finished dried cakes were stacked two or more feet high. This was the supply of breakfast food for the family and help until the next “bee”. The cakes were baked on a big iron sheet over a coal fire, just like pancakes. Old fashioned home ground oatmeal with very little wheat flour and salt, made into batter by adding buttermilk. Very thin batter, the thinner the cakes the better.

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For breakfast these cakes were broken into a bowl and buttermilk poured on. Not fresh milk. In my time we had sugar on this, but earlier times there was no sugar. Honey perhaps, for every farm had bees too. But all of this was passing in my childhood and old customs and methods being discarded. We ate those cakes buttered also. Delicious.

More Wages Wages for labourers on Welsh farms were small, but of course wages for women were even lower. Mother paid a mature woman 7/6 a week. This woman did practically all the work, including the cooking, in our big six-bedroomed house. She was a first class cook and also did most of the laundry. Some contracting coal miners made 10/- a day, but common labour was worth only 4d an hour.

I suggested to uncle that I would like a little more. He said that, on the contrary, it was usual to lower wages when the sowing and planting was done. That evening I heard of a market gardener that needed help. I went to see him and hired myself to dig in his garden. I left uncle next morning and went to work in Grango Gardens. Ten hours a day, six days a week for only 15/-. My hours were 7 am until noon, and then from 1 pm to 6 pm. On my third payday he surprised me by giving me 18/-. I do not recall how long I worked for him. This job did not include room and board, so I simply moved back home. It did not occur to me for quite a while that I should pay Mother. No one mentioned it.

Handmade Nails It must have been the following spring that I change employment yet again, this time working for James Connard, a nailor, i.e. he manufactured nails. This craft had only a short time before been abandoned in favour of factory machine made nails. A nailor made nails by hand with a hammer on an anvil. Mr Connard had 5 daughters who at one time had all made nails in his workshop. His eldest daughter had become a schoolmistress.

Robert Lloyd Thomas Accident One evening on my way home from work I came to a crowd of people on the street.

Nearby were a cart and two horses that I recognized as belonging to my friend Robert Lloyd Thomas. I found him in a house near by and was just in time to prevent someone from pouring liniment into a wound in his head. He had been kicked in the head. The wound looked bad to me. I soon found members of the colliery ambulance team who took charge until a doctor arrived. I said I would run home to fetch Father's pony and cart while someone went to the railway station to ask that the train that was due to leave soon should wait for us.

It was but a short distance and Caradawg helped me hitch up the pony. When I returned to the scene of the accident the doctor and ambulance team had Robert Lloyd on a stretcher ready to go. The four men slid the stretcher and patient on to the cart and, with two of them walking and two on the cart, I led the pony to the waiting train. The four colliers put him in the baggage car and went along with him to the hospital in Wrexham.

Ty Gwyn Farm Rhos. Farming in Wales 1901. Potatoes. Rent After taking Father’s pony home I walked to Ty Gwyn (White House) Farm and found several of Robert Lloyd Thomas' friends there including Rev. Robert Jones, minister of Robert Lloyd Thomas’ church. My duty was plain to me. I offered to come to stay at Ty Gwyn

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until things were sorted out. Everyone seemed to agree that this was the right thing to do.

That night I occupied Robert Lloyd’s bed and took charge of all the farm work. There was Miss Thomas, the housekeeper, Thomas, Robert Lloyd’s 14 year old nephew, who was chore-boy, John Dodd, the teamster and a maid of all work. There were three horses, eight cows, a bull, some young stock and chickens. There was also another man who helped load manure carts, for it was potato planting time and there were about 10 acres to plant.

I worked hard at Ty Gwyn, doing whatever had to be done. Miss Thomas and the maid did the milking and took care of the milk, which was mostly sold at the door to people who came from Rhos and Ponkey, (on foot of course). The price was 3d a quart, though few people would buy that much. A pint was 1½d. Smaller measures sold for as little as ½d.

Unsold milk was made into butter and buttermilk. Butter was sold according to scarcity at anything from 6d to l/- a pound.

Miss Thomas and the maid did the housekeeping and cooking for all of us, as well as taking care of the 50 or so chickens. Eggs were sold at the door, the price varying greatly according to season. No young chickens were fattened on the farm. The hens and one or two roosters had a house for themselves. They were free to go in and out at will but the door was locked at night. The little hole in the door through which they passed in and out was seldom closed at night, but on some farms there was a little door on this hole as well.

The hens were free range and largely foraged for their food. A few handfuls of grain scattered towards evening was about all they got. The old hens and young cockerels not needed for breeding were mostly eaten at home.

Two brood sows were kept on most farms. These usually raised two broods a year.

Litters ranged from 6 to 21. Piglets not needed at home were sold when they were 4 to 6 weeks old. Coal miners rented space from farmers to plant potatoes for their families. Even the small potatoes were saved along with the split ones and deformed ones. They were used to feed the pig or two that they kept in the back yard to be butchered for winter's meat for their families. The colliers bought straw at the farms to bed their pigs, as well as Indian corn, barley meal or wheat middlings to supplement the potatoes for the pigs. The potatoes were always boiled and mashed for the pigs, as was the meal. A handful of small coal was sometimes thrown down for them. They seemed to relish this very much as a treat.

Keeping the pens and the cow barn clean was the chore-boy's job. The ploughman took care of the horses and stables.

At Ty Gwyn I kept records of the potato planting. Each tenant was allotted land according to his need. The plots were measured in square rods, markers being set in the row to indicate where each tenant's plot began. A surveyor from the village did the measuring and I never recall his word being doubted. The tenant planters mixed coal ashes and any garden trash with the manure from their pigpen, and the farmer sent the ploughman with cart and team to haul this to the field. It was dumped in piles at regularly spaced distances and the tenant would spread it along in the rows. If a tenant did not have enough manure of his own, the farmer would haul it from his own farmyard. That cost the tenant twice as much in rent for his measured space. I do not recall how much this rent was. The surveyor sent out the bills and after planting was all done, there would be a pay night. Every tenant would come to a big dinner provided by the farmer and the colliers' wives would help to serve. They

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would provide boiled potatoes, boiled cabbage, boiled fat, home-cured bacon, and rice pudding as well as tea, coffee, buttermilk, and occasionally a keg of beer. Every tenant made great efforts to pay his potato rent on time, or he would have his allotment cancelled next year. There were always plenty of prospective tenants.

We were up at 5 am every day. Milking was first. Occasionally I would help, but my main concern was the feeding of the cows and young stock. One of the horses was 27 years old. Sometimes he was unable to get up, but I soon found that if I got hold of his tail and he and I co-ordinated and I yelled "UP," he seemed to get up very easily. Then he seemed to depend on me and I had to get him up every morning. John Dodd cared for the horses, currying them lovingly. He washed their hooves every evening, oiling them and blacking them with lamp black. John Dodd blacked his own boots after washing them under a tap every evening, as did the chore boy and I. For some reason the 3 or 4 year old mare would torment the old horse when they were turned out to pasture on Sundays. In a lane leading to one of the fields was an old half dried up pond. I had not thought this might be a hazard, but one Sunday the young mare started after the old horse, which failed to negotiate the bend around the pond. It’s a wonder he didn’t drown. We had to put a stout rope around his ribs and with a loop around his neck and with the help of the 2 mares, haul him up onto dry land. He was covered with slimy mud and we had quite a time getting him on his feet. But after a few hours he was cleaner than he had been for a long while. Later on that sunny afternoon I went to him and twined the hair of his tail around both my hands. He pricked up his ears and neighed joyfully. I yelled ‘UP NOW,’ and he was on his feet. He was none the worse for his ordeal.

A dignified friend of Robert Lloyd Thomas came to offer help. I asked him to fill a few bad holes in the lane to the potato field. When Robert Lloyd returned from the hospital some three weeks later I got a scolding for that. Evidently this friend considered this particular job to be below his dignity, but it was the kind of work I was doing myself in my spare time. That spring I loaded by hand about 80 loads of various kinds of manure, including the contents of outside toilets, for very few houses had flush toilets then. Coal ashes were used to soak up liquid and soft or wet manure in the outhouses.

There were several local carriers with 2 wheeled traps or 4 wheeled waggonettes. On Saturdays they would drive half a dozen or so passengers, usually women, the 4 miles or thereabouts into Wrexham to shop. The fare was just a few pennies each way. These carriers also picked up and delivered parcels at 2d a parcel.

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This is perhaps a bit bigger than the type of waggonette Robert can remember.

I think every kind of manual labour is dignified. It is false pride when a man feels he is above any kind of work. It was men in overalls doing hard labour who built America.

Robert Lloyd Thomas returned from the hospital in 3 weeks. I was hoping that he would ask me to stay permanently, but after another 2 or 3 weeks he explained that he had a duty to keep his nephew with him, as it was the boy's only home. He was therefore obliged to let me go. He paid me the same as I had been earning at the Gardens, about 18/- a week, plus room board and laundry. Once again I was out work.

My Brothers Caradawg and brother Ernest Morgan both stayed in the business. Caradawg went to serve in France in World War One and very soon returned home from a stay in half a dozen hospitals after a severe wound in his shoulder. ‘He suffered painfully for 47 years’, Jane Ellen wrote to me after his death. Caradawg continued to play the organ in Bethel Chapel for many years after his return from France, but his wound hindered this. "Still, I can play a little with one finger, " he wrote to me.

Postcard sent home from France by Caradawg

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The first page of a letter from Caradawg informing of injuries sustained, his hospitalisation and imminent return to ‘Blighty’ Editorial Notes - People at Bethel I have spoken to, those that could remember Caradawg, said he played very well. He was always very smartly dressed and liked to wear a bowler hat and leather gloves. They knew that he had been wounded and that it had affected the use of his left hand.

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Ernest Morgan was married and in business for himself before World War One. The military confiscated his delivery truck and because of this and scarcity of people to help with the business, he went bankrupt and was sold out. ‘They even sold my piano,’ he wrote in a letter to me. He was a music teacher and trained a choir of children with whom he travelled afar in Britain to concerts and Eisteddfods. Later on he emigrated to Vancouver, where for 20 years or more he was a church organist as well as teaching and writing music.

Some of Ernest Morgan’s music He was also a copyist – Cuckoo Reel is written by hand!

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At Dick Pate's Farm I went back to my uncle at Rhos Farm for a while, then went to Dick Pate's, near Tryddyn. Dick’s wife Sarah was my cousin, the daughter of Father’s eldest brother John.

Benjamin’s brother John Morgan Williams and his family at Tainant Farm.

John is centre, his wife Sarah is sitting to his right.

Richard (Dick) Pate is third from the right on the back row and Sarah his wife is directly in front of him with their baby son Richard.

Dick and Sarah Pate, later in life, with their daughter Sarah and two sons Richard and Thomas.

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Cae Carregog Farm Dick and Sarah moved later to near Nant y Ffridd, renting a little farm and working part time for Mr Kirk of Nant y Ffridd Hall. The place the Pates lived on near Tryddyn was called Cae Carregog, which means ‘stony field.’ It is sometimes referred to as Cae Creigog, meaning Heathery Field, which is wrong. Cae Carregog Farm really was very stony. I believe it is situated on a small glacial moraine. I worked for Dick Pate at both these places, learning all he knew about farming, which, as I soon found out, was not very much. I received no monetary compensation at either place, only my room and board.

Bryn y Gwynt Farm I rented a small place, partly from a Mr Kirk and partly from a Mr Lloyd, a butcher in Bwlchgwyn. It was 10 acres in all, and known locally Bryn y Gwynt, which means Windy Hill a very appropriate name I found out. I renamed it Bryn Meillion, which means Clover Hill.

I bought a mare with cart and harness. There was a four-roomed stone house, a lean to stable and a lean to cow barn for 3 cows. There was a spring on the Lloyd place, but it went dry in summer time. Lower down the slope, on Mr Kirk's property, there was a good spring of clear cold water that did not diminish in hot weather. I made a trough from long narrow flat stones of which there were plenty nearby. I covered half the top as well with these stones and soon had a nice and sure source of clean water. I made a depression downhill a few feet lower, from which stock in the pasture found all the water they needed. I paved the ground in front of my well also with flat stones, making it possible to get to the well without making the ground muddy. Cattle and horses naturally avoid walking on stones and so they drank from the overflow below. There were one or two bushes overhanging the well and one small poplar tree. I made a very attractive place of it. Of course I was not paid for this work. I also bought the hay stumpage on about 5 acres from Mr Kirk. I hired two good scythe-men to mow it, cured it myself, with the aid of a young boy, Tomos Bartlay, and hauled it to Bryn y Gwynt, stacking about 10 tons there.

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I hauled many loads of manure and spread it on my hay and pasture fields. I also picked many tons of stone, piling them on the roadway and on to the stone walls between the fields.

While at Bryn y Gwynt I bought, from my old friend Robert Lloyd Thomas of Ty Gwyn, an old brood mare for £5. It was in foal, but crippled from an affliction of the hooves. I raised one foal from her at Bryn y Gwynt, and one the next year at Rhyd y Ceirw Farm. My other mare was a much lighter horse. I raised 2 foals from her, one at Rhyd y Ceirw and another at Grango where I lived next.

I also had a trio of white Pekin Ducks at Bryn y Gwynt. One of the females met with an accident. Whilst trying to crawl under a gate she became stuck and I found her dead. The others laid over 140 eggs in as many days and I sold many of these to neighbours.

I lived at Bryn y Gwynt, Bwlch Gwyn (White Pass) for about a year. Tom Dunn, who had been grandmother's teamster in my boyhood, was a native of the territory between Bwlchgwyn and Tryddyn, near the border of Flintshire and Denbighshire on the road from Wrexham to Mold. He came to me one day saying there was a good farm, Rhyd y Ceirw, of 40 acres for rent near his home for £40 a year. I went to see it. It was about 2 miles from Bryn y Gwynt. There were adequate buildings and a substantial house and I decided to apply as tenant, provided the landlord replaced some gates that had disappeared. This he readily promised to do. The farm was swarming with rabbits that had thrived to a fantastic degree since the land had not been farmed the previous year. Also, adjoining land on three sides had been used for years as a pheasant farm, and there were pheasants by the hundreds in the bushes along the two streams that served as boundaries on two sides. I got Father and Robert Lloyd to come with me to view it, and they discovered nothing wrong. I talked to Tom Dunn again, but he seemed to have changed his mind. I thought that perhaps he wanted it for someone else, but later I believed he was sorry he had recommended it to me. He had been drinking when he first told me about the farm for rent and had unwittingly laid a trap for an unwary, trusting person. But it was my ignorance that was to blame and my absolute trust in all persons that I had known for so long. Previous to this I had had no experience in the buying and selling business part of farming. This lack has been a cause of loss to me all my life. I have not a drop of horse-trader blood in me.

I moved in to Rhyd y Ceirw Farm and brought my belongings, which included the two mares, 3 or 4 cows, chickens and ducks. I had a whippet bitch and a young collie. Then Tom Dunn offered me 27 Horned Scotch ewes, and loaned me a ram to mate them. I trusted him but should have known better. I was soon to discover that in the business world the rule is "Dog Eat Dog" and, "Buyer Beware." The sheep paid no attention to fences. A wall between two fields to them was just something to jump over, and a hedge was a very poor deterrent to a few sheep bent on reaching a juicy nibble on the other side. They were utterly heedless of the rights of my farmer neighbours. I found most of them one day halfway to their former home among the heather. Three disappeared without trace.

Having gained a little knowledge, I discovered they were all old and almost toothless and, according to all precepts of good ‘shepherdry’, should not have been sold as breeders but fattened for the butchers’ market instead!

I forget how many lambs were dropped, but it was far below a profitable percentage.

There were 4 or 5 very good ewe lambs. Most of the others were small or unthrifty. I had a

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man who came part time to help with the farm work. He butchered several for me and I peddled the meat in the surrounding neighbourhood spending more time doing this than the meat was worth. Some lambs I sold for cash to a peddler. The remaining old ewes were sold at auction at Mold monthly fair, bringing only a low price.

Years later in Minnesota I had unfortunate experiences with sheep twice more, but that is another story.

I had 2 ducks and a drake at Rhyd y Ceirw. A fox took one of the ducks one night. They had taken to staying on a tiny pool on the hill above the buildings, floating asleep on the water. A commotion brought me to investigate. I found scattered feathers and met the remaining duck and the drake very frightened and flapping their way home. The two of them never went up there again.

Neither ducks nor chickens produced many eggs for me at Rhyd y Ceirw, as the rats got to them first. I also had geese. They produced 16 goslings altogether, but a sudden hailstorm killed most of these one day when I was ploughing. By the time I got the horses in the barn the storm was over and little goslings were dead all over the yard.

I think I sold 5 dressed geese at Christmas that year, and 7 ducks. I had 5 milking cows, but no bull. I raised and sold 5 calves. I took butter to the village store to trade for groceries. I sowed oats and barley but rabbits and pheasants reduced the yield. I planted potatoes and Swedish turnips, and would have had a fair crop as I had spread manure heavily on root and hay fields from a big pile left in the yard by a former tenant. Sadly the potato crop was ruined by the pheasants scratching and pecking holes in the potatoes making them useless for sale. I had a machine do the threshing. We killed dozens of rats on threshing day and had a fair amount of barley and oats, which we stored in a vacant room in the house. The rats found out about that and soon invaded the house.

I had seed potatoes sprouting for planting according to good farming custom, but the rats found them and one night I found dozens of them on the stairway and rats upstairs in the loft above the milk room and back kitchen.

My dog ‘Quick’, half rat terrier and half whippet, killed a dozen of them. The rats had gnawed a hole in the front door.

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Esther Mary Leech. Margaret Oldfield. A marriage.

I married Margaret Oldfield, daughter of my neighbour Robert Oldfield, who had a small farm of about 10 acres just over the hill at Bryn Coch (Red Hill).

Robert OLDFIELD ?

Sarah OLDFIELD

I had wanted to marry Esther Mary Leech, who was related to a cousin of mine, from Hollin's Farm, near Utkinton, Tarporley, in Cheshire. I had met her on August Bank Holiday Monday 1899, I think. Esther Mary and I had corresponded fairly regularly and I had first visited her home by invitation, and later several times surreptitiously outside the house, but this part of my story had best be told elsewhere. The culmination was that we were forbidden to see each other at all, except secretly. Letters between us seemed not to reach their destination and both of us misjudged the reason. Each of us concluded that the other had lost interest and we both discontinued writing. The fact was that we both were brokenhearted. I was desperate, and, on the rebound, swore I would marry the first girl who made me laugh.

One evening at John Peter George’s home I met his cousin Margaret Oldfield, who had come home for a vacation of one week from Manchester, where she worked as a housemaid.

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ELD Margaret OLDFI

She stopped at her cousin's John Peter George’s on the way from the train. I had never known of her existence until she came into the house. There was a scarcity of chairs. I jokingly announced that I would not yield my chair to anyone and if she wished to sit down she must sit on my lap, which she promptly did. We all laughed. She tried to struggle away but I held her firmly. She had made me laugh. I walked her home that night and came to see her every evening. Three days later I proposed to her. She was reluctant at first but yielded.

That was in March 1905. We were married Wednesday 7 June that year. There was a shower of rain that day.

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Rhiw y Ial Bethel Chapel Llanarmon

Robert and Margaret were married here.

Mother had come to stay with me for a day or two before the wedding day. Caradawg came too and was also at the wedding. I went down to the river early, soon after dawn, where there was a 10’ high waterfall and a naturally formed trough about 10’ by 4’ and which was shoulder deep. I used to go for a dip quite frequently there. I remember that Mother called me as she was dressing that morning. She had had a fainting spell and for a while I was quite alarmed, but she soon recovered and seemed to be her own self again.

My youngest sister came to stay with us for a few days soon after we were married.

One evening Maggie and I went to visit my in-laws, leaving my sister Maggie alone at home.

She was tired and preferred to go to bed earlier. On our return she was already asleep. In a conversation at breakfast she casually mentioned that, hearing some noise downstairs, she had come down to investigate and finding no one downstairs had gone back to bed. She showed no concern and had not been alarmed being alone in a strange place and hearing noises in the night.

Three days after I had married Maggie a letter came from my old sweetheart, Esther. I had not heard a word from her for months. It should be no surprise that such a brief courtship did not prepare Maggie and me for marriage. We had great differences from the beginning and we never did learn how to get along with each other, although there were brief periods when it seemed the sun was gaining ascendency over the clouds of our lives.

The following 27th March our son Morgan was born. Mrs George of Bryn Coch Farm, sister of my father in law, was midwife and I assisted Maggie in her pain, her arms around me while I knelt by the bed with my face on the pillow.

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The Old Brood Mare I had raised one foal from Brownie, the old brood mare at Bryn-y-Gwynt, and one the next year at Rhyd-y-Ceirw Farm. But the third attempt met with disaster. She had become blind. One day I watched her going towards a drop off, which was not fenced. She was headed for the stream below but had missed her way. She seemed to know it was not the proper path and was feeling her way carefully with her front feet, but since she was on a steep slope, when she finally stepped into empty space she could not recover her balance and she turned a somersault, landing heavily on her back about 10 feet below on stony ground. She was due to have foaled in a very few days. I felt her pulse but only briefly. I think she died quickly, her foal too. It might have been possible to save the foal, but I could not handle the situation on my own. I tramped many miles that day to find a man to come to take away the carcass. He came next morning with a two-wheeled rig and together we cranked old Brownie aboard. He gave me 5/- and went.

Maggie was standing in the yard and was much agitated, as she had seen Brownie walk to her death. She had been standing in the back doorway at Rhyd-y-Ceirw only a few feet from where Brownie fell.

Morgan, about 9 days old, had been in her arms. Morgan cried that day, all night and the next day as well. When finally he became quiet he became rigid and I could see his eyeballs were pulled upwards so no iris was visible. I massaged his back and limbs and prepared some liquid food for him with barley milk and water, a formula I had learned at Francis & Co. I managed to get him to swallow a few sips and he became eager for more.

Then I realized why he had cried. He was hungry. His rigidity only lasted a short while. It appeared that Maggie was producing no milk, though she offered her breast to him time after time. I took over his feeding and again walked miles to find a feeding bottle for him. He seemed to me to satisfy his hunger and refused to access food from his mother. From so much crying he developed a scrotal hernia and I had another day searching for a truss. The truss was no help. From then on whenever he cried the hernia would come and his mother would put him in his basket and run for me. I could always calm him, taking him on my knee with my right hand on his buttock and right thumb on the lump. Every time the hernia retreated I would follow up with my thumb until it was entirely retracted. Then Morgan immediately would fall asleep and I would hold him in that position, sometimes for hours.

Once Maggie called me while I was ploughing. I left the team in the field. By the time I had tucked Morgan in his basket, having heated his pillow and cover first, and then returned to work the plough had ended up by the barn doors, one horse inside the barn and the other outside. There was quite a tangle but, as they had not struggled, there was no harm done.

Moving to Grango Gardens Ponkey When Morgan was only a few months old we moved to Grango, a small place near my birthplace, about 1½ acres, with a house, small cow barn and 2 pens for pigs. I also rented a 3-acre pasture and a garden of about 2 acres from another landlady, also a garden and greenhouse from someone else.

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Grango House Father had been enthusiastic about this move and had promised to finance me to get a good start in the business of market gardening, and I went ahead, dependent on him for financial backing. But here again my luck failed me.

Father, Mother and my brothers and sisters, were all helping us to move into the house at Grango. Maggie, baby and I were staying temporarily at Mona House until we became settled at Grango. My 2 fat pigs were also there as Father had suitable accommodation for them.

On 1 December, Father's birthday, he called at the garden where I was planting broad beans, telling me he was going to our church to see about repairs to the clock, which was not operating properly. We also talked about the financial help he was arranging for me. That was our last conversation about the business.

Father's Death Later in the day I went to Mona House, going in through the back door. It was strangely quiet. There was no one around. Looking into the kitchen, I saw Mother ironing at the table.

She did not look up. Tears were falling on her work. She continued with her ironing and whispered, ‘Your father is ill. He is in bed. His hernia is worse. You go up.’ Father died of a strangulated hernia. A simple operation in time would have saved him. I have often thought I could have done this myself as I have done similar operations on horses, pigs, goats, cats and dogs. Of course I was not a doctor, but I often thought later I should have taken a chance.

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The doctor soon came, but for some reason he would not operate without having another doctor present. Our family doctor hesitated for 12 hours until another doctor arrived to help him operate. By then the intestine was strangled and ruptured. Soon gangrene developed and the case became hopeless. I was with Father almost constantly. He was very quiet and patient and spoke very little. I think the doctor kept him sedated. He asked to see his little grandson. We brought Morgan to him and he reached out to fondle him with his hands. Morgan was about 9 months old then, father's first grandchild.

I was with father almost the whole period of his illness except for necessary rest and meals. He lived about 10 days getting weaker and weaker daily. I was alone with him the final hours, keeping his lips and tongue damp with a camel's hair brush. His breathing became shorter and fainter, until finally I could detect it no longer. He had been still and apparently unconscious the last day or two, sinking oh so slowly.

The last time our Doctor came to see father 2 or 3 days before the end, he sat on the side of the bed holding father's hand and I saw his tears falling as he bent his head low.

Then he got up and said, "I can do no more" and departed. Then I went to waken mother who was asleep on the little bed in the nursery. She took the news calmly and bravely. This was in December 1906, I believe, shortly after his birthday. My son Morgan would be a year old the following 27 March.

I think father was born in 1844, the same birthday as Queen Alexandra of England. He was 61 years old.

Dr J C Davies was the son of Benjamin Davies, Post Master of Rhosllanerchrugog, whose daughter Mary was later Postmistress I believe. Mary was the widow of Dan Owen, organist of Rhos Parish Church and my piano and organ teacher. Mary's sister married the eldest son of Edward Tunnah of the Eagles Inn and Brewery in the High Street. Edward’s youngest son was a few years older than me. He, Robert Isaac Rogers and I used to play in the cavernous empty storerooms of the then disused brewery.

I did not trouble mother about father's plans to help me. She had plenty of trouble of her own. She and Caradawg got most of their business troubles straightened out soon, and after mother took charge she proved to be a better businessman than father. I struggled along with my own problems as best I could. Maggie had very little idea about my difficulties.

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Off to Canada I stayed at Grango until Christmas 1910, when I sold all my private property, cows, horse and tools and went to live in a tiny, two-roomed stone cottage.

What little money this brought me I invested in a one-way trip to Canada. Morgan was then 4 years old, Blodwen was 1 and Hywel was 3. I left from Liverpool on the Allan Line ship Grampian, arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia on 14 January 1911 and Minneapolis a few days later, having changed my mind about destination.

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Advertisements like this were common at the time in local newspapers.

Extract from the Grampian’s passenger list which shows Robert’s name, also that of Anna Rautio.

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The Grampian I don't remember very much about the ocean voyage. There were many Jewish people on board, also many Finns, mostly young men and two husky red faced and red armed girls.

There was one dark-haired refined looking Finnish girl who occupied a seat next to mine on the train. Her name was Anna Rautio and she spoke good English, the only one of the Finns who did.

The Finns kept together in a group and danced and played games, mostly pretty strenuous and rough. They also sang their own national folk songs and, hearing that I played piano, they picked me up in their arms and put me on a piano stool. I soon learned a few of their songs and accompanied them. They were a little rough and some of the boys a trifle on the crude side, but all jolly and friendly. One of the girls got off near Rhinelander, Upper Michigan. We stopped briefly at a lonely whistle stop. The moon was very bright. A man driving a cutter was waiting. The girl got her few belongings and ran through the snow to the cutter. The man tucked a hairy robe about her and they were off. It was bitterly cold.

A horse drawn cutter.

The train stopped for customs right on the bridge over the river at the Sault St. Marie. It was a terrifying sight. There was an ice dam and in places the water was rushing furiously.

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I got to Minneapolis in the daytime. A young Swedish man helped carry my baggage.

We found the way to my uncle Robert Powell’s house by following the numbered streets and avenues. I have forgotten the address but it was in a Welsh section of the city. Uncle's wife was amazed that I had found my way. I had a hot bath and a good meal. Uncle, who was really mother's cousin, had visited Wales and had stayed at Mona House. I had written to him, explaining that I was planning to go to Nipigon where advertisements in English papers said that work was plentiful on railroad construction. He had written to me and Mother asking me to come to him and offering to help me get settled.

I stayed with uncle Robert, who was son of Mother's aunt Ellen, for a few days. Another Welshman, Dave Roberts, of Long Lake, Hennepin County came one day and I went with him to his berry farm, where he lived with his wife, son and father. Snow was on the ground.

The berries (cane raspberries) could not be seen at all. There was a square house built in the British style with a full basement, a single wall barn, and a pumping engine on the well.

Uncle and Dave Roberts were partners in the plastering trade and quite evidently, as I found out later, had planned before my arrival to let me have the 10-acre berry farm for no money down. Uncle paid Dave Roberts the full value of the place and got me to sign papers, binding me to live there and improve the property. All I had to do was to pay the interest on the purchase price, taxes and repairs and go to work growing berries.

That looked like a good deal to me. Since the place was now mine the Roberts were tenants. I thought I was getting along pretty well when, on top of everything else, I got room and board from them as well!

I took over 2 horses, 2 cows, a heifer, 25 Barred Rock hens and a rooster.

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A Barred Rock Hen Soon Dave built a house on another 10 acres nearby, west of Classen’s Lake on the way to Maple Plain. I dug a well for them at 25c an hour, an unheard of wage in my experience.

When they moved away Dave took me to the Station Master in Long Lake, who loaned me $300. This I sent to Maggie to pay for her and the children to come to me.

The Rhos Herald of 6 May 1911 records:‘Mrs R W WILLIAMS, Mona House, Rhos, together with her three small children, left the neighbourhood for the USA. Mrs WILLIAMS intended to settle at Long Lake, Minnesota, where her husband has resided for several months.’

The newspaper wished her a ‘pleasant and happy voyage.’

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The passenger list entry for Margaret and her three children Morgan, Howell and Blodwen on the Tunisian 4 May 1911

SS Tunisian Â

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Souvenirs of the voyage kept by the family Margaret and the children arrived in May 1911 and I went to meet them in Minneapolis, where the Powells welcomed them. They arrived unexpectedly in the middle of the night.

Maggie was exhausted and thin from caring for the children on the long journey. I am not certain but I think I went to Long Lake to get my wagon and Dick, my horse, and next day drove to our new home about 20 miles away.

Farming the Berry Farm Then I began preparing the land. I ploughed a piece of about one acre and planted strawberries. I believe I planted 5000 plants for which I paid cash at $3 per 1000. As I was finishing the planting a neighbour, Manuel Hartman, came over to talk. During the conversation he remarked that, had he known what I was doing, he would have advised against planting strawberries there. "The ground is full of weed seeds, and there will be millions of cutworms, always is in weedy ground.” In a day or two I found many plants wilting, the crown cut off from the roots, and in less than a week only one plant was flourishing.

Oddly, that one plant bore a large crop. But I acquired a stalk of yellow corn, which had two ears. I used those two and planted the acre with them, finishing the acre with some other corn. I hoed and cultivated diligently, for the weeds came up thick as a grass lawn and I kept that acre clean. Very few weeds survived. I raised the best acre of corn around there, and picked out the best seed for next year from two eared stalks. The second year on the same acre I raised a big crop of two eared corn and sold much of it for $5 a bushel to my neighbours.

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The young family at the Long Lake Berry Farm

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Margaret and Robert

The raspberry patches had also been neglected. New canes had been stunted, choked by weeds, and were only a foot to 18” high and 4’ to 6’ apart. I failed to do a good job keeping the weeds down, but by fall there was a fair stand of young canes. There were two rows about 100ft. long that had been kept clean and were about 4’ or 5’ high. "Grampa" Ed Roberts came to offer help with the topping of these two rows. He cut off about half their height, which turned out to be far too much. Consequently they produced much less than they should have. The crop was so poor that no professional picker was interested and, as I had my hands full with cultivation and weeding, I had little time to pick. My total crop the first year was only $120. I joined the Local Berry Association, from whom I bought containers and I delivered to the Depot at Long Lake my 1, 2, or 3 crates a day. We were only a mile from the Depot, but it takes exactly as long to harness a horse and drive 2 miles with one crate as with 10.

Also the potatoes were in weedy ground. I worked hard on them too but they would have done better in cleaner ground.

I had to abandon the onions, peas and beans but finally raised a huge crop of hay from the wild millet, the predominant weed. I raised a good crop of vegetables for the family in a little fenced garden.

I went down into the swamp on the edge of Classen's Lake, where no one else bothered to go, and scythed hay by hand. I carried that hay by hand to solid ground and hauled it home with my one horse wagon.

I had 2 nice stacks of hay, mostly wild millet and swamp grass. These were circular, and at first I worked alone, moving the wagon around in circles and throwing forkfuls of hay so they overlapped and keeping the centre high. Then my son Morgan came to see. He was 5 the previous March 27. I asked him if he wanted to help. He readily and proudly agreed. So I found two straight Tamarack poles about 4” by 20’ and drove the thick sharpened end down in the centre of the stack and about a foot below that into the ground. I gave him detailed instructions for his own safety, to step up and stand on top of each forkful as soon as I laid it in front of him, to hold on to the pole with one hand, and to use the other stick I gave him to balance himself. He became quite proficient in very little time. We built better stacks quicker that way. They shed water beautifully. I had a short ladder about 8’ long, and one about 15’ that I had made from Tamarack poles and narrow pieces of 1" x 4" not finished.

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I always put more labour into a garden or farm than one years crop would pay for, especially when the land was foul with weeds. Increased crops the following years would have repaid me. In addition clean, weed free land is easier to keep clean, which means fewer hours of labour. The effect of good farming is cumulative. Neither the loss nor the profit is much to be noticed at first, but it is certain and is noticeable in future years. In each case I lost out just because I was unable to stay on to reap the rewards.

That was why I determined to go on a Homestead. I decided I would go away for a while to earn money so I could stay home for a period to clear land without fear that a landlord would turn us out and deny me the benefits of my labour. All improvements I made would therefore be my own.

Also on the Berry Farm I had planted an orchard of apple and plum trees. I paid cash for these and planted them on the south side of the 10 acres. They did well and 30 years later I saw them when, in 1947, my second wife Nell and I drove 7000 miles to see my children in Minnesota and my brother in Vancouver.

RWW and EMW 1947 Garibaldi Lodge CA

Robert with brother Ernest Morgan - 1947.

The house on the Berry Farm had burned down, but the apple trees were all under heavy crop. I had braced some branches to prevent splitting by twisting opposing twigs together and the owner at that time was pleased to meet the person who had thought of doing that. The union was by then solid and performed the purpose I had intended. I have seen only one other example of this method and that was in Bonny Doon, California, in the orchard of some Italian people.

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Stories about the Children On the first day Maggie and the children had a great time wandering about investigating their new surroundings. They found a hen's nest and carried the eggs to the house.

Blodwen, about 18 months old, had one in each hand and managed to climb the 3 steps without breaking them, but when she came into the kitchen, she was so excited that she shouted, "Look, Mam, eggs," and dashed the eggs together as she clapped her hands.

I remember many other humorous incidents and some that, but for luck, providence or angels could have been tragic. For example, there was a well at the edge of Classen's Lake where I used to dip water for the stock. In reality, the ground all around the lake was not land at all, but a sod of tangled grass and plant roots, and Tamarack roots all intertwined, but about 4’ below the surface it was pure mud.

One day I went to see what the children were up to. It was lucky I went. I found the three of them sitting around the well with their feet in the water, having taken off their shoes and stockings. I picked up a Tamarack stick about 15’ long. There had been a fire sometime previously and there was a tangle of windfalls in parts of the swamp. I let this stick sink into the well under its own weight. It sank slowly in the mud until I had the tip in my hand and when I let it go it sank out of sight.

I think it must have been the second summer on the Berry Farm that an elm tree fell across our little fenced garden, blocking the wicket and smashing the fence. I cleared the leafy branches and smaller branches, but left the trunk and main branch so as not to trample on the vegetables. The main part of the trunk was suspended about 2’ above the ground all across the garden and I used it as a path in the garden walking on the tree. I was doing something in there one day when I heard a scream and turned to see Blodwen upside down on the barbed wire fence. She had followed me and slipped off the elm and was hanging on the wire held up by one barb embedded in her leg just between knee joint and calf. I got hold of her foot and lifted her free. She was not hurt much. The skin was only torn and gaping with her weight.

Someone in Wales had given my children a little purse and some British coins. There were a copper penny, a halfpenny, and 2 or 3 farthings. Farthings were no longer used in trade, but were fairly common, mostly of sentimental value or as curiosities or emblems of good luck. The children played shop with these coins and the little leather snap-purse, but it got lost. The following spring I was ploughing and I saw the purse being turned up and stopped my horses. The leather was rotten, but the coins were all inside. The children were overjoyed. It disappeared some time later and nobody has thought of it since.

Then one day at a neighbour’s Blodwen climbed up on a waggon standing in the yard.

As she peeped over the top of the box, a dog that had been sleeping inside jumped up and snapped at her, putting two teeth through the tip of her nose. It never occurred to me at the time that there might be danger of rabies. I believe Blodwen still has a little scar.

Another time I was on my knees husking corn from a shock and heard a voice, "I'm coming, Daddy." Blodwen was toddling towards me among the corn stubble where the stubs of corn, about 6” high and sharp as spears, were all about. I jumped up and ran to meet her shouting, "Stop, stand still." But before I could reach her she fell face down on the stubble. I

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was almost afraid to lift her, fearing that a stub had entered an eye. But she had struck in the middle of her forehead. There is a scar there too.

During the first year on the Berry Farm Blodwen had the hives. That scared us almost to fits. About the same time I was puzzled about Blodwen tossing and moaning in her sleep.

Several nights I sat by her bed for hours watching. Then to my horror and despair the cause became plain. Bed bugs! I had bought second hand furniture on the advice of Uncle Robert Powell. I had heard vague references to bed bugs, but this was my first contact with them. I used kerosene to spray mattresses, springs and wooden frames. In a week or two we were rid of them. I saw no more bugs until we went to the Homestead in Potamo Township in Lake of the Woods County (It was Beltrami County at that time, but later divided.) There we were constantly invaded by colonies from less finicky families.

Children’s language problems and the solution The children were at first confused between the US English alphabet and the Welsh alphabet. When I had taken them to Long Lake School in 1911 they came home disgusted and rebellious, saying, "Those people don't even know their A, B, C. They say ‘aye’ for ‘a’, and ‘see’ for ‘ce’ and ‘ee’ for ‘e’. They don't know anything!"

I soon realized the difficulty, and the hopelessness and confusion of bilingualism in one isolated family. So I decided once and for all that the only thing to do was to drop the Welsh language and adhere to the language of our adopted land. From that day to this, English has been the language of my home wherever we went. I love the Welsh language and am more proficient in it than any of my sisters and brothers who stayed in Wales ever were, in spite of my isolation and lack of contact with Welsh people over the past 55 years.

When I think how my children intermarried with people of so many different origins in culture and language I think I am justified in saying that my policy of adhering to an established language in any one country is the best policy. There would only be confusion and misunderstanding if people insisted on using their ancestors' language in all cases, worse than in the original Babel. In my own family for example there are English, Welsh, French, Indian, German, Polish, Norwegian and Finnish.

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More stories about the children In 1911 Morgan, picking raspberries one Sunday, said, "Aunt Nan said in Sunday School we were not to work on Sunday, but we pick berries on Sunday. Why?" I explained that we had to ship berries every day because of the market. Berries became ripe every day and had to be picked every day or there would be no berries for town people on Monday.

After thinking this over for a while Morgan concluded, "Oh well! P'raps God gave up Sunday in America!"

When their mother and I were picking we took the children with us to the field. On one occasion, on an exceptionally hot day, with the temperature in the 90's the children were lying naked on blankets in the shade. When I went to see if they were OK, Hywel, then four, remarked, "Aunt Nan told us God made the sun in the old country. Did he make the sun in America too?” “Yes." "Well, he wasn't 'sidering little children like us when he made it so hot."

One of Blodwen's twins many years later on the homestead was playing ball with his father and twin brother. Someone either hit or threw the ball to an unusual height. We all stood still and watched. The twin whispered a remark quite audible in the momentary stillness, a look of awe on his face. "Look, it's going straight up to Jesus.”

Elwyn, saying farewell to Vern Ralph in Magnolia as he was leaving for the long trip to Graceton, Minnesota, had the following conversation with Vern. Vern said, "I won't see you for a long time." "Oh! yes, I’ll come to see you." "But how will you know the way?" I’ll just follow the railroad tracks."

Ellen was 3 years old and on her first trip with me in a buggy to Graceton. Dave Cooper gave her a dish of ice cream as a treat after dinner in his restaurant. "Well, how did you like it, little girl?" She hesitated for a moment then said, “Oh! It was good alright, but I wish you had warmed it up a little."

Reflections upon my Farming - Now a Gardener in Minnesota My experiments in farming and gardening in Wales in three different locations were financially disastrous. There were definite reasons for my failure. First, I’d had insufficient training in either farming or gardening. Second, I had actually no conception of the relation between costs of production and profits. I put great emphasis on doing good careful work in preparing ground and in caring for animals and insisted on putting in all the work and expense necessary to raise, feed and care for animals, or to raise the most excellent vegetables and crops. Thus my receipts were always lower than expenses. Another item causing great losses was the fact that no allowance was made for the improvements I made in all three places. All three places were in badly run down condition when I took charge of them. I improved all of them immensely by annihilating weeds, applying quantities of fertilizer, removing stones, building fences and increasing the certainty of profitable production in future years. Had I received compensation for all these, I would have made a reasonable profit on all of my ventures. This was true of the Long Lake berry farm too and of course of my homestead farm also. Occupiers and owners of all the gardens and land I worked on profited from my work. I put work into the land bank, and left it there. Others mixed it out and profited immensely putting no deposit back into the land. No landlord or

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subsequent occupier ever acknowledged any credit to me for my labour or investment. The fact that I left too soon prevented recovery of these credits.

I would spend 30 years making a good farm out of 160 acres of swampy forestland in Potamo Township, Lake of the Woods County, Minnesota, but that did not mean I stayed there continuously. I was obliged to find work elsewhere for short or long periods in order to support my family.

After I failed to become legal owner of the Berry Farm I found work around Long Lake and Minnetonka Lake as gardener and common farm labourer. Wages were $35 to $65 cash a month, out of which I had to pay house rent and support my family. My endowment insurance had lapsed. On my arrival in Minneapolis in 1911, I had sent my last few dollars to pay the yearly premium. I was then penniless except for my daily labour. For a while I borrowed from Peter to pay Paul.

I found the people around Long Lake very kind and understanding. Several of them helped me by finding work and offering credit for necessities. As I related previously, one of them had loaned me $300 at 6% interest in April 1911 to pay for steamship and rail fare for my wife and 3 children to travel from Wales to Minneapolis. I paid interest only for the first 3 years. When I found a job at $65 a month and with other creditors agreeable, I put by $60 a month for 5 months and paid it in one lump. I was soon out of debt.

The young family in 1913 World Wars One and Two - Odd jobs to win food for family When World War One broke out I was laid off in the fall and only found occasional work at 25c an hour.

During that period I lived in about 6 or 7 different houses. I moved so often because the houses were attached to the jobs. When I lost one job I had to look for another job and for another house. None of these houses had running water. None had bathrooms. All were Â

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heated by coal or wood burning stoves or cooking ranges. These I had to move with my furniture whenever I changed jobs. Rent for these unfurnished places was about $5 a month.

Wood was $5 a cord. Poor coal was I think $8 to $15 a ton, but I’m not certain about that. It usually didn’t cost me much for moving. Usually we moved on a Sunday, for then neither fellow labourers nor I had to work, and they or neighbours volunteered to help. Employers usually loaned a team or wagon without charge.

At the beginning of the war I was working as gardener and cowman for C D Velie, Crystal Bay, Minnetonka for $55 a month. The foreman James Shreve’s wage was cut by $20 a month and all the other men cut by $5, from $65 to $60. To recompense himself, Shreve laid off 3 married men who lived away from the property, and retained the 3 single men who boarded at Shreve's and slept in rooms attached to the stables. So we 3 married men who had rent to pay were out. We were still called occasionally to help at 25c per hour, sawing wood (gas engine powered, fast, heavy work), cutting and hauling and storing ice or baling hay. John Dixon had two children. I had four. Herbert Graves was known as Happy Herb, because he was always singing while he worked.

John Dixon and I took a contract digging a ditch through a swamp. This was a typical Minnesota swamp bordering Lake Minnetonka. It was a small contract. We conceived an entirely new method of digging. We used axes and 6-tined forks. After marking out the outline of the ditch we chopped down through the frozen mud and roots to unfrozen mud. We chopped the blocks into sections and pulled them out and away far enough so they could not float or slide back into the ditch. We continued chopping and removing. It was about zero degrees Fahrenheit and a bitter cold wind, so we worked hard, and in a surprisingly short time finished our contract and got our pay. I wonder if the ditch worked.

Though often idle, I worked at various places around Long Lake and Crystal Bay, Minnetonka at whatever job I could find, and always at hard tasks with low wages. I was very much depressed. I never stayed long enough anywhere to develop friendships, though I found many who were kind and helpful.

Magnolia and Farm Labour - Decision to Apply for a Homestead.

I decided to go visit a cousin of Mother’s who lived in Magnolia, Rock County, Minnesota. I recognized her instantly. She resembled Mother very much, except she was taller and larger. I stayed around Magnolia until the fall of 1915. I met several Welshmen there, but nothing developed to give me any prospects of earning anything more than low wages at hard uncertain employment. I was out of work mostly all winter.

An Irishmen let me have me a house for no rent and allowed me to cut some of his dead trees for firewood. Bill Jones, a Welshman from PwIl-y-Mwg (Pool of the Smoke), Betws y Coed (Prayer House in the Wood), took me to a bank and borrowed $10, endorsing my signature on the note. Then he took me to a store and we bought $10 worth of groceries, paying $5 down and $5 on credit. Then we did the same in another store and I was fixed until spring. My Irish landlord loaned me his team to haul wood and some 2 loads of oats, which was so poor in yield it did not pay for threshing. That fed my cow all winter. Bill Jones bought a small mare and a buggy at a sale. He said he had bought it for me because it was a bargain a $10. I loaned this pony to a farmer for its keep after his bull had killed 2 of his horses. After I left Magnolia Bill Jones sold his pony and buggy for $8 and sent me the money.

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For the year before we left Magnolia I had worked for Mr Fred Baker as a farm hand for $40 a month and a little two-roomed cabin. Hours were 5 am to 5 pm with a one-hour rest at noon for the horses. I had to feed and water them. Then there were evening chores, delivering the milk from 7 cows to my employer’s house, feeding about 30 pigs, then walking the cows to pasture. That was 4 miles night and morning, 8 miles a day doing chores. That was not the work, just the chores!

I was also expected to feed, curry and water 7 horses and then harness them. Mr Baker drove 2 horses. His son drove 2. I drove 3 or occasionally 2. None of the horses were properly broken and 2 of them were runaways.

I was given a ½ acre to grow potatoes and garden, but I was expected to do that work on Sundays. No other work was expected on Sundays, except of course if the weather was threatening, we would naturally go to pick up a load of hay or fix a fence or grease some machinery that we had no time to do during the week. Once the boss suggested I leave the cleaning of the barn gutters to Sunday as we were getting behind with the spring ploughing.

I grew corn and potatoes on my ½ acre, and cultivated them whenever I worked the balance of the 40-acre cornfield. The house we lived in was on this 40, adjoining the barnyard. Besides the corn and potatoes I grew peas, beans, squash and carrots etc. In the fall I sold my excess vegetables for about $40 cash. I had saved a considerable sum from my $40 per month wages. I bought groceries and other articles from my employer Fred Baker on credit the first month. When the second month was well on its way I asked him for the balance of my first month's wages. He was reluctant. He intimated I should wait until my season was ended and he would settle then, but I insisted. I put the money in the bank and from then on he paid me regularly. After this I paid my bill at his store and all other bills each month. He and his wife and family gave us a big dinner the evening we left.

I left Magnolia with Maggie and the children, headed for Graceton, Minnesota, now in Lake of the Woods County, but then part of Beltrami County. We travelled by passenger car on the railroad and shipped a few tools and articles of furniture by freight.

Arrival in Graceton We travelled by way of Minneapolis, then St. Cloud, Red Lake Falls, Warroad, and Williams to Graceton, arriving late at night. We found rooms at the hotel near the railway station, and found there was a wedding dance and celebration going on. This lasted until the early hours. Mr and Mrs Knutson, whose homestead was south a mile or two, ran the hotel. I noticed a young mother with a baby. She was Mrs Roy Sorrels and the baby was EImo, their first born. I held him and put him to sleep until her husband came on the late train and hustled them off to their homestead. Mrs Sorrels was then free to dance.

We stayed in the Hotel a few days. Then William Rulien, a land dealer, offered me a house for free in exchange for feeding a few head of cattle, so we moved to the Kelly homestead one mile north of Williams.

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I had gone to work in the timber yard at Graceton, peeling posts etc. and earned a few dollars, but not enough to pay for hotel bills, though rates were very reasonable. We all occupied one room with two beds.

What I found on the Homestead There was a marker at the section corner, which was in the centre of the 160 acres I claimed as my homestead. One could file on any four 40’s as long as they lay contiguous.

This caused a little unfairness to latecomers. For example, Aimie Filiatraux filed on four forties in the middle of section sixteen in Potamo Township. That left him without a legal road to his property, since all section lines had been declared by law to be public roads. These roads were to be 4 rods wide, a 2-rod wide strip on each side of the section line. All the land had been filed on, but some had been abandoned by those who had filed on the land simply as a means of legally cutting the timber. Many men made fortunes in this manner, removing the timber and then relinquishing their claim. They could then file on another piece. There were others, especially women schoolteachers, and many men and women, who were dazzled by the dream of a 160-acre farm, just for living on it for a brief period. Some women succeeded, teaching school for the homesteaders' children for a living. But many quit from loneliness or lack of funds after spending all.

The only piece of land containing 160 acres remaining when I arrived on the scene was a square of four 40's comprising the SW quarter of the SW quarter of Section 16, the SE quarter of the SE quarter of Section 17, the NE quarter of the NE quarter of Section 20, and the NW quarter of the NW quarter of Sec 21. So when eventually we did have roads, there was a cross road in the centre of my farm and I lost 4 acres instead of two that would be the case if my land were in one Section. And of course double the amount of fencing. Joe Blackbird, who I had been told was an artist, had filed on this land. His wife was a painter.

He was a brother of Mrs Aime Filiatraux, and son of Old Man Blackbird, who had filed on land to the west of mine. Old Man Blackbird's proper name was La Toureau. There were several daughters of Old Man Blackbird married to surrounding settlers. Most of these had left after proving on their claims. One was Mrs George Bancroft, the youngest daughter, who lived a mile north of us. They too left a few years later.

Filing on the Homestead It was Aime Filiatraux who told me that Joe Blackbird's claim could be contested, since he had not completed his necessary obligations. He had cut the best of all the marketable timber and then abandoned his claim, as many others did, neglecting to perform any of his obligations as a genuine settler.

He had built a very small cabin 13' x 13' out of poles not over 6" in diameter, with a pole roof covered by tarpaper. There was a cellar, a hole dug under the floor in which to keep vegetables, stove pipes, board floor, two windows about 2' x 4' each and a door. But when I came in the summer of 1917 intending to live in it with my sons Morgan and Howell, all that remained were the bare walls.

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There was a colony of interrelated settlers in and near Section sixteen who were mixed Indian and French. I always thought they were descendants of Acadians who had been driven from Canada when the French lost out to the English. I do not know now of a single one of the breed still remaining in Potamo Township.

John F Clark, who was later to become treasurer of Lake of the Woods County, kept a store in Williams and he helped me at that time. Aimie Filiatroux charged me $25 for going with me one Sunday just before Christmas 1916 to show me the location. We borrowed a horse and a rude stone-boat from John Russell Stone. The stone-boat was made of part of the stem and two branches of a swamp cedar tree. A chain was fastened to the pointed end and the nose was hewed so it sloped upwards in order to slide over the ground like a ski.

The horse had ordinary farm harness with whiffletree, to which the chain was attached.

There was no shaft, no breaching and the stone-boat often bumped the horses' heels or even slid sideways behind the horse, depending on the slope of the ground.

A stone-boat It was a cold wintry day. We crossed the river on a temporary logger's bridge of poles.

There was a box on the stone-boat in which we sat. We had blankets and hay to sit on, but the horse ate the hay while we looked at the location. It was about 20 miles round trip.

When I mentioned to John F Clark about the homestead vacancy, he said, "Why don't you file on it before someone else takes it?" I said I intended to do so as soon as I could earn the money. Immediately he insisted on loaning me enough to file and to pay for my train fare and overnight board in Baudette. I went to Baudette by 9 pm train and started proceedings to cancel Joe Blackbird’s filing.

I filed on Joe Blackbird’s 4 40’s, contesting his claim. I paid a lawyer $10 for the legal work, and the US charged me $1 for the cancellation.

It all went through quickly. I sent the filing fees to the US Land Office and soon received the acknowledgment. Some years later I received the grant signed by President Coolidge.

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Robert’s homestead certificate signed by President Coolidge

Any Kind of a Job for Bread - House and Garden in Williams In the meantime I found work peeling poles at the railroad shipping yards and also took a contract to clear land for Charles Raimiller about 2 miles east of Williams. I also paid $5 down on a ½ acre near town and built a cabin on it in which we lived, having moved from the Kelly house. I cleared a large part of this ½ acre and planted vegetables including a lot of potatoes, of which I hauled 20 bushels at digging time and stored them in the cellar of my new cabin on the homestead. This was October 1917.

John F Clark, the Lundsten Brothers and Axton Levandoski all offered unlimited credit at their stores in Williams, but I bought nothing but essentials. John Norris of the lumberyard gave me lumber, nails and roofing felt to build my town cabin.

I paid off all these debts a few dollars at a time. When I moved to the homestead in October I still owed some on the ½ acre and town cabin. I let another family into the cabin on the promise they would pay $5 a month into the bank on the lumber and land purchase

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deals. It was several months before I realised they had paid nothing on the deal and to satisfy my creditors I deeded my equity in both to my creditors and was even with the world once more.

The land-clearing contract with Charles RaimilIer was for 25 acres at $10 an acre. I completed all but 5 acres that summer of 1917. I also hired his horse by the hour to pull stumps. I received about $175 for the deal.

On the homestead I had fenced and planted about ¼ acre of potatoes without fertilizer.

It seemed every plant produced only about 3 potatoes the size of hen's eggs, but that helped. Eslie Sorrells and Charlie Johnson came one day in October to help haul my possessions to the homestead cabin 10 miles south east of Williams, having travelled about 10 to 12 miles already. Maggie made a good dinner for them. Another neighbour Harry Besiot was also there for dinner, having ridden to town with the teams. We loaded my belongings, Maggie and the children and we were off. The way we had to go made it about 12 miles or more each way. Eslie's team gave out in a sandy spot and we unloaded the 20 bushels of potatoes, piling them in a sandy roadside ditch, and covering them with horse blankets, carpets and bed blankets. Charlie Johnson made it with his lighter load to his own home about 2 miles east where there was a good bridge near the Besiot home.

Home at Last - Neighbour Eslie Sorrells Eslie left his team at George Bancroft’s', who had very kindly invited Maggie and Elwyn also, I think, to stay overnight. Morgan and Howel and I slept across the road in a vacant house that had a bed and blankets. The owners of this house never did return to occupy it.

Margaret - RWW carrying

Ellen

Margaret 1928

Eslie had walked to his own home about 2 miles away. The boys and I were up early and walked to Charlie's place and had breakfast there. Eslie was back early but George Bancroft had already fed the horses. I also went back to Bancrofts and to the wagon. We loaded the potatoes and had no difficulty starting the wagon out of the sand. From thereon to Charlie's we had no trouble. We had a good lunch at the Johnsons and started across the

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swamps and sand ridges with both loads. The road was very rough and bumpy, with Tamarack roots and stones in places making it very bad for the horses with the tongue and neck-yoke jerking from side to side all the time. We got to my cabin and unloaded before dark without further mishap. This was the second day of the trip.

I kept the cooking stove and the airtight tin heater going all night for the stiff north westerly winds that had been blowing all day had brought a little snow, and as I had not yet chinked the walls, snow blew in between the logs all night. But we were warm and slept comfortably. Charlie left just before dark and I could hear his wagon bumping over the Tamarack roots as he crossed the swamp going east. His team would have travelled about 26 miles since daybreak the previous day, about half of it with an empty wagon.

Eslie Sorrels left his load and waggon where we had covered the potatoes and went about 2 miles to George Bancroft, where he put the team in a barn and walked the last 3 miles home, and then back next morning.

Homesteaders are the most hospitable of people. The Johnsons, Bancrofts and all the rest always offered food to anybody and everybody that called, and would often work for days helping new neighbours to build a cabin, clear a piece of land for a garden, build a bridge across the river, cut a supply of firewood, haul groceries and supplies from town, deliver mail etc. and the whole community would gather to help in times of misfortune or tragedies, which were frequent in a new country. They never expected payment for this.

Indeed they would be offended if one offered money, but naturally everyone was paid in kind when their share of misfortune was meted out.

I had plenty to do to prepare for winter. First was to secure the potatoes and canned fruit from frost. I dug a cellar under the main room for them. I found what seemed to be pure marl, sometimes pure white, often grey, just a few feet under ground. I had first found this when digging a well and later in ditches and on slopes where foxes or badgers or marmots had their dens. When digging ditches or digging deeper for water in later years as the water table lowered I found this marl was in alternate layers grey and white, and the series descended for many feet, evidently laid down in calm deep water. I imagined the white was purer lime and the grey less pure, the grey deposited in flood (spring) periods and the white between two flood periods (winter-frozen). This purer white marl made an excellent plaster to fill the cracks between logs in the walls, mixed one part marl and five parts pure gritty sand, which I also found nearby. Some of this original first plastering was still as good as ever and as hard as concrete when I last saw the old cabin. The only fault of this mixture was that it would dissolve if wetted, but the eaves were wide and rain did not strike the walls except during bad storms.

On the Homestead Cutting Cordwood There were standard cord piles, sixteen of them, that had been cut in winter of 1916-17, that I only discovered when I set fire to the grass in the watercourse in spring of 1917. Had I known about that, I could have sold the lot for at least a few dollars, which would have helped quite a bit. I did discover later who had cut it. He told me later, but as he was stealing it, he had hesitated to approach me at the time. In town 16 cords were worth at that time about $4 or $5 a cord. The usual deal was that the owner gave the hauler half the price. I could have gotten $32 for it, a windfall in those days. And he could have cut much more, but it was all burned up. Â

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1927

But he was friendly, and we got along well and we helped each other as long as he stayed on his homestead. He was the best friend I had of all the neighbours and I was sorry to lose him as friend and neighbour. He sold his cattle and team and machinery just when things were coming his way. When the auctioneer told him how much they had netted him he wept and said to me, 'If I had known they would sell for that much I would never have quit."

He went to Oklahoma to take over his father's homestead and I never saw him again. I cut and sold a few cords myself, but the price was low and I only averaged one dollar a day for my labour and that included my ox team. I cut less than one cord a day but I cut what firewood there was and brought that home each evening along with the saleable cordwood.

When I had enough for a load I would take it to town. The first load I took to Graceton I sold to Dave Cooper for $4. Dave kept a little restaurant where the haulers used to eat. He had been a camp cook when timber was valuable and easy to get. After the good timber close to the railroad was gone he opened his little restaurant. He charged 25c for coffee and all the boiled potatoes and roast beef or pork (or was some of it deer or moose?) you could eat.

Sometimes he would have a tub of ice cream, and if stormy weather hindered hauling, he would have ice cream on his hands and no buyers. So he would hand a big dish of ice cream to anybody who strolled in just for a cup of coffee, "just to save it from spoiling," he said.

Â

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One day I was dickering (bartering) for a horse and buggy. To try out the horse I took him to Graceton to buy groceries. Little Elen begged to go along. So I took her with me. That was her first trip to Graceton and she was three years old. For a treat I took her to Dave Cooper's and he handed her his usual big dish of Vanilla Ice Cream. When we were leaving he asked her, "Did you like the ice cream, little girl? "Oh! Yes," she responded, somewhat grudgingly I thought, "But I wish you had warmed it for me." That was her first taste of Vanilla Ice Cream, and her last for many a day for we did not go to town often, nor did we have money to buy ice cream when we did go.

I had built the homestead cabin the previous summer. The boys and I (Morgan was then 10 and Howell 9) had walked from Williams several times to the homestead, carrying an axe, saw, hammer and nails, and one time bringing a small one-hole oblong wood-burning heating stove on a wheelbarrow, the boys pulling on ½” ropes tied to the braces of the wheelbarrow and me at the handles. The boys needed to pull only in sandy places. We brought blankets. Before we had the floor in I dug a bench in the sand on one side to sleep and a pile on the opposite side for a fireplace. We cooked potatoes on red-hot coals in a kettle and boiled water for coffee. We had all the blueberries we could eat and an occasional grouse or rabbit.

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Elwyn aged 13

The young family in 1919

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There was an old well dug by Joe Blackbird but I did not trust that until I had cleaned it out. It was lined with small pine poles driven into the ground and braced by cross pieces of pine. It was about 6’ deep and 2’ square.

I had two 8-quart pails, which I used to carry water from Fred Larson's about 1½ miles southwest. The trail was narrow and some times the brush would tip the pails so they would usually be half empty when I got home.

I chose a low ridge on the southeast quarter for building. It was thickly covered with young jack pine and I had to dig out a dozen stumps before beginning to build. I chose the largest of the pines for logs, taking care to leave some of the shapeliest trees for future shelter and shade. I had to cut a road to the site through the forest. The boys helped me all they could by tending the fire, picking blueberries and wild red raspberries, piling and burning tree-lops and cleaning up the surroundings.

I found some lumber in Williams on the riverbank that had been under water and covered with sand during high water. The owner, one of the Gillie boys, offered to haul a load of it to my homestead for $10 cash. It was a deal. There was enough to roof and floor the big room, to frame the door and window, with enough left over to make a high chair for Ellen when she came to need it later on. The chair was untippable and heavy and very comfortable even for me, though a trifle narrow. It was of my own design, built to make use of the pieces left over from building the cabin.

I bought 2000’ of local handmade shingles (swamp cedar) from Charlie Koski, about 2 miles east, for $5 delivered. That gave me a good roof. This was the following summer after a bad hailstorm had destroyed my first covering of tarpaper.

The homestead – known as Grove-Girt

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The homestead in the 1980’s Nothing remains of the building today The lumber I bought from Gillie was pure white pine with very few knots, boards 8” to 18” wide, 12’ to 16’ long. He brought about a 1000’ of it down the "Range Line Road" south from Williams and followed the Bancroft and Blackbird trail. From Mr La Tourneau's to my cabin was about 1 mile, and rather bumpy across my west 40. I paid Gillie $10 for the lumber including delivery. It was the best lumber I had ever seen and a long hard days work for man and team.

When Eslie Sorrells, who was driving by along a trail from the Finn settlement to Fred Larsons', heard noises of building at my place, he stopped his team and came to investigate.

He could not drive much nearer than ⅛ mile to the site and he left his team, spring wagon, wife and two children. After introductions he said he would come next day to help. I went over the trail and cut out the worst of the stumps and interfering trees and bushes so he could get to the site. He came very early, bringing potatoes, vegetables, an axe and a saw.

He worked a full day and came again every day until we had the ridgepole and rafters in place. He also brought a 72-gauge shotgun and we had all the partridges we could eat. He then offered to haul groceries or anything else and did so for the next 6 years or so, until he sold out and left to farm his father's place near Fort Sill, Oklahoma, his birthplace. He was the best friend I had during those years and we exchanged work continually all that time.

Whenever he needed help he asked me, and he always came to help me when I needed it.

He ploughed some land for me, hauled my firewood and he and his brothers Forrest and Roy came to haul my hay with their three teams. I did the stack building, as they had never done that. They did the pitching and unloading and caring for the teams. All I did was place the forkfuls in the proper position, but they considered they had the best deal. I stacked at all four places. I helped dig ditches for EsIie, helped dig his potatoes and cut and loaded his firewood just as he did for me.

Names of other settlers I became acquainted with or that I learned about were his brothers Roy and Forrest. Some younger brothers came visiting but did not file on homesteads. Other names were Fred Larson, Levi Bancroft, Merle Johnson, and his brother

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John, Lee Mahood, Ed and Anna Mahlum, his sister OIe VaIsvick, several DoIIarhides, Charlie Johnson and his father, John F Clark, Oscar Lundsten, John R Stone, the elder KelIy, his son Austin, OIe Aiken, John LaIli and his brother Matt Hanuksela, H. Rwbish, Jack Johnson, Horatio Brown, the Smith family including two daughters and four or five sons, who all proved up on 160 acres each. They made good farms on their homesteads. George Bancroft, Joe Hanzlik, Mr and Mrs Beisiot. Harold Adams filed on an eighty adjoining my north eight.

Howell, Elwyn, Morgan 191

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Co-operation - Elmer Meikle We had been on the homestead but a year or two when a new neighbour arrived, Elmer Meikle and wife. He had bought a partially improved place from a Finn who had proved up and left for greener pastures. Few of the once prosperous Finns stayed once the marketable timber was all gone. There were very good log buildings on the place.

Elmer was from near Estherville, Iowa, and he possessed cattle, mules, machinery and money. The wagon was in the street when I came from the Post Office. I climbed up and sat

by Elmer, He was driving and I was high up above the mules.

It was Spring Breakup, with soft spots in the road to be avoided and ditches running full to the brim. We had gone about 4 miles on the Range Road when I noticed water ahead flowing across the road. The mules also saw it and pricked up their ears as I called "Watch it.

Elmer, they're going to jump," which they did. Just as he woke up to what they were about to

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do, the front wheels dropped a foot and bounced again. Elmer landed on his feet and held them from running away, but I came down turning a somersault. My head struck the mule's tail, my face toward the wagon, and I landed on the ground with my right arm over the tug, my hand beneath the tongue and the bale of hay jammed in my ribs holding me tight against the mule's hocks.

I remember that I realized my right arm was my problem. I must have managed to get it free, for next I remember was I was behind the wagon and trying to get up on my feet, bumping my head into the end of the reach and fighting to start my lungs working again. I had a sharp pain in my ribs and back.

Someone spoke. "Well, he's not dead, anyway. Elmer was still standing with the lines, holding the teams from going off again.

I heard a man saying, "I'll take him to town and put him on the train for Baudette to see a doctor." He was a half or quarter-breed Indian, son of Indian Mary, who lived south and west of Williams town, and was driving a team of piebald ponies hitched to an ancient phaeton.

I was quite willing. He put me down by the old hotel run by a Frenchman on the main street. Someone took me in and gave me something to eat and I went outside to sit on the benches in front. I never saw the Indian again.

There was no train until after 10 pm. I had recovered from the shock of the experience and was beginning to get impatient, since it was still only about 3 pm.

Seeing John Knutson, driving the school bus, going by headed towards the school, I yelled, "How are chances for a ride home?" "Hop in," he shouted. But I was slow, as my back now really hurting, and he was back at the corner by the time I came there. He did not want to stop, but seeing me make no move to climb on, he did stop for an instant and I managed to grab the handrail and get my feet on the step. It was a homemade bus with a door at the rear, and two steps up to the door. Eventually a boy motioned John to stop the team and I managed to get inside and the horses began to trot. The motion was torture. A boy called "Johnny, this man is sick, I think." The team stopped and I managed to get down on my face on the bench. Then the pain was not too bad.

5 miles from town the last children got off and John was turning in a direction away from my home. I was getting off and only then he realised I was hurt and insisted I go with him to his home and he let him drive me in his brand new Model T Ford to a point only a mile from my home. I went with him and he made a dinner for us, but first he had to tend to his horses. It was getting dusk before we started off in the car, after he had filled the radiator. It was 3 miles to the end of the road. From there it was a mile to my place. The road was just a winter-hauling road, full of stumps and roots under water. Besides, first I had to get across the river. John found his radiator was empty and steaming. There had been a plug of ice, which had held it from leaking, after which the ice melted and emptied the radiator. The proper metal plug was in the toolbox and we found plenty of water in the ditch. Then he was off, for still he had chores to do. I walked towards the river.

I was dismayed when I came to the water. There was a secondary channel, usually dry, between the main channel and me. But now it was a wide river to the far bank. I could see Â

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the handrail, but the bridge was a foot under water. I broke off a couple of stout dead clubs from a fire-killed willow and entered the water, cautiously and step by step feeling the bottom in front of my feet before moving ahead. I stopped where the water was up to my hips realizing I could be swept off my feet in deeper water. But one or two steps further it was shallower and a few feet further I felt the poles of the floor under my feet. The bridge had been made originally by woodsmen using four big logs reaching across the river and then packing sticks and twigs and hay tramped down in snow which soon made an excellent bridge for the heavy 4-horse teams and loads of logs. I helped the first summer on the homestead to put a floor of 6” poles on the four logs, crosswise, adzing inequalities to level them a little, and this was the bridge I crossed that evening.

I still had a mile of treacherous swamp to go. But I got to my cabin just as Maggie was lighting the kerosene table lamp. She was alarmed when I called as I approached the door and was weeping when I came in. "I thought it was your ghost calling," she said. "Elmer came about three o’clock saying you had gone to the hospital after being run over by a wagon-load of furniture and being kicked by a mule." I didn't tell her then how I came across the river. To have the fear of death in my guts twice in one day was a little too much.

1927

Maggie Leaves One day I walked to Williams and carried two 50lb sacks of flour as far as Mrs Brown's place, 2 miles west of my cabin. I left 50lbs at her place and carried only one sack home.

That was the day I found Maggie had gone and taken the children and all our household furniture and possessions and had gone to live in the vacant log cabin abandoned by George Bancroft 1¼ miles north of our homestead. She left me an old iron bed frame and a few broken fruit jars. Elwyn did not want to go. "But what can I do?" he said. "Someone must look after them."

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There was a broken bedspring abandoned and lying on a pile of trash in the grove. I put that on the frame and went to my son Morgan's place to get a pair of horse blankets I had loaned him.

Next day I carried 50lbs of flour to the Bancroft’s cabin, gave it to Maggie and walked home, then to Mrs Brown's for the other. I brought in a broken-tipped cast iron cooking stove and some old stovepipes, and with a cracked cup and an old kettle managed to get something to eat. I borrowed H. Eickhoffs mare and stoneboat to get this old stove from a deserted cabin near John Rohners.

I walked to Henry Eickhoff's place, round trip 12 miles, and got a few things like tea and sugar. My daughter Blodwen also brought me a few items. I got packing cases and padded the bed with corrugated paper. I had my axe and saw, my shovel and garden tools.

After Maggie left I lived alone for 10 years.

Episodes on the Homestead Joe HanzIick's Bull Gradually I acquired the essentials and settled down to continue clearing more land. I had no horses nor farm machinery but had 3 cows about 50 chickens. I had a good garden and, in season, plenty of berries. And I had my 12-gauge shotgun and a Winchester singleshot gauge .22 rifle in which I used short shells only.

I would get from 1 to 4 grouse with one 12-gram shell, and seldom missed a rabbit or a woodchuck with the rifle. Shells cost money and I never wasted shells for practising.

Woodchuck or Groundhog

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One afternoon, soon after my wife went away, I took time off to destroy some woodchucks that were destroying my hay crop. They found admirable castles under the rock piles I had accumulated while clearing land. I would sit on one rock pile and wait.

Woodchucks have a great sense of curiosity. After their initial alarm at my approach they would very cautiously peep between the stones, and after a while some of the boldest would stand up on top of the pile. They were easy targets, for I was ready for them. Occasionally one, a little wiser, would just show his forehead and eyes in the space between the upper stones. If the bullet went "zing" I knew I had missed, but mostly it was a dull "plunk" I heard.

This particular time I had heard about half a dozen "plunks" and" started for the cabin.

Coming to a small field of corn I saw about 8 head of cows and heifers eating and trampling the crop. I ran and waved and shouted and they started off with their tails in the air. Then I heard a noise behind me. It was a bull, almost full grown and bigger than any cow in the herd. And he was not running away but coming towards me, very deliberately coming straight at me, pawing earth and grumbling for me. I always carried one shell in the chamber, a precaution that was to save my life that day, and I had 3 more shells in my pocket. I dared not run, for I knew he would have overtaken me. I stood still, slowly raised my rifle and aimed at his forehead. He continued to paw clods that went 10 feet or more up, some falling on his back, and he let out his bugle call, or scream as I call it. His forehead went down almost flat on the ground, and I was aiming at the depression between and behind his horns.

I fired and he went down like a sack full of water, his nostrils and mouth between his knees, his tail stretched straight out behind and his hind legs tucked up under his belly. I stood dazed for a brief second, then quickly reloaded and gave him another, but there was no further movement and blood slowly seeped from where his nostrils were out of view. I sat on the ground and cried, in relief, I think. I dug a deep hole alongside the carcass, rolled it in and buried it. The flies were there like a cloud and their wings roared like a thunderstorm.

The following day Joe Hanzlik came when I was eating breakfast. He was very abusive.

Suddenly he struck me in the mouth. Then I told him I would shoot one of his cows every time they came to my place, but only one a day, so he’d better start building a fence. He went away.

Next day I saw them coming and got one cow into the barn and tied her up. Then I drove the rest back home to Hanzlik's. Later he came again, but I did not unhook the screen door. Then he went to the barn, saying he was going to take the cow home, but I had nailed the door shut. I demanded $2 to let her go. He said he did not have any money. I reached for his hand and shook it, withdrew the nails from the door, turned the cow loose. That ended the trespassing.

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Smart Dealings of Others - My Lack of Horse-Trading Instinct Verne Ralph of Magnolia held some pieces of furniture of mine and finally sold some of it but could find no buyer for the rest. He sent me money for what he sold. Another farmer bought my cow but sent no money. I finally wrote to the sheriff of Rock County who collected for me. First the man sent me $25 then the sheriff sent a $45 cheque. I did not receive this first cheque, although I had proof that it had been in the Post Office in Williams, Minnesota. It was addressed to Bob Williams. I never saw it, although the banker at Williams claimed it was paid and the sender claimed it was returned to him from his bank as paid. Then the sheriff's cheque went missing. He stopped payment and finally sent me another which I cashed. That was all I got. The cow's price was $80.00.

Some years later I cut some cedar posts and poles for a Frank Wyman. He did not pay me at the time, promising to send a cheque. I waited several weeks then met him in town.

We chatted for a while, and then he said he had to go. I asked him about the cheque. He was surprised and went with me to the Post Office and showed a bank cheque stub. The postmaster Anton Levandosky told me he had put the cheque in Bob Williams’ lock box.

There was a Bob Williams, Robert A. Williams, and I walked in a rainstorm to his house 2 miles out. He was home and when I told him my errand he immediately produced the cheque, remarking he could not guess why Frank Wyman had sent him any money. I returned to town and cashed the cheque, counting myself very lucky.

Another time a year or so later I was on my way to town with my backpack for a supply of groceries. I met George Bancroft who was hunting deer. He claimed he had probably saved me a lot of trouble the day before. He had met the sheriff of Beltrami County who had enquired about a Bob Williams. George had assured him that I was not the person he wanted for the theft of a double set of harness and the Sheriff had returned to town on another trail. Just a few days later I heard that Bob Williams was in jail.

I cleared some land for a Finnish neighbour. After I had finished he owed me $45 on a $50 contract. He tried to prove I had not finished. I bought a piglet from him for $5. That left $40. He was returning home with a load of horse feed one night, drunk and asleep. His horses missed the trail and were trapped in some two 2’ high stumps and upset his load in the snow. Next day son Elwyn and I found an 80Ib sack of oats. We called at his house and informed him of our find. He declared he had not lost anything. I did not argue. I took the sack home. He still owes me the balance.

Another neighbour went bankrupt and I lost my pay for 45 days at $1 a day. I was cook at his lumber camp. The only recourse I had was to see a lawyer, who lived in Baudette, 20 miles away. I would need to walk the 20 miles each way and pay for meals and lodging etc.

There was no profit even if I won my case. I still have that owing to me.

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Ellen and Gra

ce

Road and Living Conditions in1916 in North Minnesota There were no real roads in the County at that time, October 1916, just winter roads for sleighs. In winter these roads were smooth and level with deep packed snow and ice over all the stones, roots and stumps. In summer they were just muddy canals with unseen impediments and hidden mud holes where a wagon-wheel could be broken or a horse founder and break a leg any moment. I packed groceries on my back many a time those days, walking for ten miles in mud, with water over my shoes and often stumbling over a hidden root.

Once I fell on my face into soft snow a foot or more deep and my pack hit the back of my head. As my arms were in the straps I had great difficulty freeing them. It was the first snow of winter and it had rained a lot before it turned to snow, so my chest was in ice-cold water and my nose and ears were packed with wet snow. I had a glass globe in the packsack, ten pounds of sugar, a package of soap powder and a few pounds of nails. I managed to struggle loose, pick up the sack and, after lifting it on to a nearby stump, get back into the harness. It was dark by then but I could see a tiny light ahead. Home. I was shivering almost uncontrollably for I had been perspiring under the load on the long tramp. I reached home. Maggie felt like scolding me for coming in and bringing all the dripping clothes into the house. I backed to the table to rest my load and knocked the table lamp to the floor, breaking reservoir and chimney and we were in darkness. I emptied the load on the floor. Nails all over. The sugar and soap powder mixed and sodden. But the glass chimney was intact. Now, if we only had a lamp‌.

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I left the mess and my wet clothes on the floor in a puddle of water, undressed and went to bed. I was utterly exhausted and slept until late in the morning.

It was several years before we could go to town dry shod. There was only a narrow trail from my cabin north to the river. It was named Winter Road River I was told because in former days the river was an easy though long and tortuous trail to follow in the dense forest that existed until white men cut down and burned the timber, destroying the beavers and their dams.

Son Morgan's Accomplishments as a Farmer Eva and Morgan were sweethearts in High School and Eva worked as a maid at Grand Rapids Experiment Farm while going to High School. Morgan worked there too and was herdsman in the "second" cow barn and took private lessons and completed his four year course in just three. He was head of sales for the Graduation Year Book, and sold a record number. He was an Honours Student and took an active part in extra curriculum activities and his picture was in several groups, and was highly regarded by the faculty and the Experiment Farm Superintendent and staff. I found him a job for the summer after graduating from High School as caretaker and guide at a place on Trout Lake, 2 miles across the Lake from where I was gardener for Cincinnati lawyer Mr Joyce for 4 years (1926 to 1929).

Morgan and Eva were married while at Trout Lake.

Morgan and Eva with Morgan, Donna and Duane about 1937 shortly after they had built the cabin

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In winter Morgan ran a 20 mile trap line trapping mink and weasels. He would go south one day, sleeping in a tiny cabin 10 miles from home. On the next day he would run another line north and so home.

Another time he bought stumpage from the Forestry Service and cut and sold cordwood, including his own supply of firewood. The bigger logs he would haul to a saw mill about 20 miles away. He had a little barn on long skid-poles that he took into the woods to stable his mules or horses and at first for a few years stayed during the week in the woods while Eva and the children took care of the half-dozen cows, chickens and turkeys. He and Eva usually got a big fat deer buck each every winter. Sometimes he had one or two men to help load the saw logs. Eva always canned up to 200 quarts of meat. She also picked hundreds of quarts of blueberries and raspberries and strawberries and even canned milk, carrot juice and bushels of tomatoes. The children all helped. The whole family became crack shots for rabbits and grouse and prairie chickens.

The barn just after construction Howell and Elwyn can be seen Ellen is in the haymow Morgan later bought Harold Adams' 80. Glen, their eldest son also bought another of my 40’s from me for $250 dollars in 1947.

Morgan built first a very crude board building for a barn with double walls and sawdust packing between for insulation and board roof with "asbestos" roofing. It was warm with the body-heat of 2 mules and 3 or 4 head of cattle, some chickens and a pig or two. This was intended as a temporary barn, and he immediately began planning on a modern barn and house. For a house I helped him move a well-built log house, abandoned for 20 years' from a tax-delinquent homestead. With a little room added for a bedroom, they lived in this until his death.

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The new barn was ready except for details that could be done after the cows were in.

Cement floors and feed troughs, automatic steel stanchions, individual drinking cups and there was a modern hay barn adjoining.

It was then that he developed cancer on the brain. He had suffered from severe headaches for some time and was losing weight. His headaches suddenly became much worse and he was rushed to Duluth hospital. A medical examination disclosed a tumour and he spent a short time there before returning home. Although the operation itself was successful and apparently he was recovering, he suddenly collapsed while eating a meal and talking with one of Eva's cousins who had come to see him. I believe it must have been a blood clot that was the immediate cause of his death.

Eva still lives in the house. It has a full set of buildings including the modern barn for about 40 head of stock, hay barn, machine shed and potato cellar. There is a complete set of hay-making equipment and a tractor.

Editorial Notes

Robert finishes his story here. Morgan’s untimely death was a great shock to the whole family and I wonder if it was too difficult for him to continue after writing about this.

Of all of Benjamin and Jane’s children, only Robert, Benjamin and Jane Ellen had children of their own.

Jane Ellen married Frederick Ellis and they had one son Llugwy, who had no children.

Ernest Morgan married Grace Lloyd and they had one son, Tudor, who had two sons, of which I am one.

In contrast to this, Robert and Margaret had six children. Morgan, Hywel, Blodwen, Elwyn, Ellen and Grace. At the time of writing, Grace is still living in Graceton, Minnesota.

Morgan and Eva had 6 children.

Hywel and Jenny had 3 children.

Blodwen and Henry had 5 children.

Elwyn and Anne had 11 children.

Ellen and Clifford had 4 children.

Grace and Russell had 7 children.

There are numerous grand children and great grand children.

Steve Williams Edited 2015 I would be pleased to receive feedback. Please feel free to contact me at:mrstevewilliams@hotmail.com

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