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Chase County Kansas Historical
Sketches
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Prairie Story As the Kettle Would have told it.
By Esther Viola Doll Jones
Transcribed from cassette by Roberta Marie Jones Ridgway, Grandaughter of Esther
Like most youngsters I do not know how nor where I came into existence. A man by the name of Mr. (Albert & Catherine Wagoner) Layton built him a big house on a new place near Canton, Illinois and surveyed the township and named it the same as the township where he had lived in the east. One of their girls named Lydia Layton married a Robert E. Bledsoe.
They went to Dearborn County, Indiana to live in a log house with a big fireplace. This was on a small farm near plenty of woods. They used wood for the fireplace and usually kept me, the kettle, near or hanging above the hot coals. They used me to heat water, to stew chickens, squirrels or any other kind of meat they chose to cook. Mr. Bledsoe would take a sack of corn on horseback to the mill and the miller would grind it and keep part of it for his work. Then they would have a lot of boiling water, salted, stirred in some of the meal, and cooked it well.
Then for supper by the light of the fireplace and lighted tallow candles we would feast on mush and cold sweet milk. The fireplace produced the heat for their comfort. Sometimes they baked their bread in me while I sat on the coals or hung above the coals. Some evenings they sat around the fireplace and shelled corn by hand to have ready to take to the mill. Other times they shelled popcorn to have ready to pop. Sometimes they put the corn in hot ashes and stirred it with a stick. Then kernels would jump out on the clean floor and be gathered up. They roasted apples and potatoes in the ashes.
William Bledsoe and Annie Bledsoe were born in Dearborn County, Indiana, 50 miles south of Cincinatti, near the Ohio River. Lydia Bledsoe died when she was a baby.
They would gather nuts and apples and keep them on hand and enjoy their evenings eating them around the fireplace in the winter. Mrs. Bledsoe had a spinning wheel and loom to weave cloth. Most of the clothes were made of home woven cloth and sewed by hand. Sheep were sheared, yarn was spun, and socks knitted by hand. They braided black straw for hats and sewed the braids together and bleached them with sulfur. People dried apples, corn and etc. for winter use.
Mr. & Mrs. Robert E. Bledsoe decided to go back to Illinois. Then Mrs. (Lydia) Bledsoe went on ahead, but Mr. (Robert) Bledsoe took Willie and Annie with him in a covered wagon and camped on the way. Here is where I became very useful. In the wagon they had a box of food. They called this a grub box and tied me, the kettle, in the feed box outside the wagon when traveling. The feed box was fastened on the back of the wagon and the horses were fed grain in it when they camped.
Little Annie had heard the whip-poor-wills and people told her that they said, "Whip poor Will". Mr. (Robert) Bledsoe fixed a bed under the wagon for the children and those birds kept up their crying during the night, "Whip- poor-will" over and over. Little Annie was so afraid. She was afraid they would hurt her little brother, Willie. Next morning Mr. Bledsoe built a campfire and put me, the kettle, over the fire to heat water for his coffee and fried his meat and eggs in a skillet near me.
While living in Illinois the Civil War broke out and Mr. Robert Bledsoe had to go, or went, as a soldier. Mrs. (Lydia) Bledsoe took care of her children and raised garden and chickens, etc. They had a fireplace there also and cooked in me, the kettle. They got hickory nuts and walnuts, and hazel nuts and pecans from the woods and had plenty of fuel and still made corn meal mush and had plenty of good milk and butter. When the war was over and Mr. (Robert) Bledsoe came home, his beard was full and long same as all the men wore at that time.
Robert E. Bledsoe Family
Now, when Will Bledsoe was a young man he went to Idaho to work on a ranch for his uncle and from there to San Bernadino, California where he took pneumonia from exposure and died. He was a good scholar, There was Lydia, who died young, William, Annie, Joe, Allie, Tom, and Nora, of which at this time, April 27, 1953 all have passed away except Nora Bledsoe Vogelsang who lived in Peoria, Illinois. Later, in 1955 in an old peoples home, Nora is 67 years old, this year.
They, Robert E. Bledsoe and family went to Iowa at one time from Illinois. They also took a trip to eastern Kansas near Olathe, where there were lots of Indians. They used to tell a story that the Indians told them. He said, "When white man shoots, birds or ducks fly away but when Indians shoot, birds fall". Ha ha. Of course he acted it out. They went back to Illinois.
In those days schools were not graded and some terms only lasted three to five months.
In 1875 Annie Bledsoe and Erastus Sanford Doll were married in Peoria County, Illinois. Hugh Jones, for a wedding present, gave a clock. They also lived in a log house. Mrs. (Annie) Erastus Doll inherited me, the kettle, and Mr. Doll's father, Joseph M. Doll had made an iron hook that had been handed down to Erastus which they used to lift me to and from the fire. They had some garden and Mr. (Erastus) Doll worked in a coalmine near Breed's Hill or Breed's Station and wore a cap with a little lamp on the front of it, as they did not have mines lighted with electricity. One evening Annie saw Erastus coming home from work and she hadn't started supper. She said, "Here comes your pa" and ran out to chop some kindling. Little Esther ran out behind her and as she swung the axe it hit Esther just above the eye. It bled a lot, and left a scar but that was all, but she thought she had killed her child.
They had a stove at that time. One time little Esther took a notion she wanted the pretty tail feathers of the old red rooster so she ran and ran but whenever she let up to rest a little the rooster would quit running too. Finally he ran out in a briar patch and she lost track of him. Then he ran out in the pasture and Esther gave up the chase. She could see a neighbor's house and smoke rolling out of the chimney and the woods beyond, when she was about 2 1/2 years old. She told her mother some years later and her mother said, "Yes, that was the way it looked". This was Patton's home. She gave little Esther a knife and fork. Esther has the fork among her keepsakes.
Louis Smith Doll was born and died that same year. The next year they decided to come out to Kansas. Grandma Doll Jones (Esther Wheeler Breed Doll Jones) who was Erastus' mother, and his brother John and Amos Jones had come before that and settled in Kingman County not far from what is now Norwich, and his sister Charity and husband Will Roy had come and settled in Harper, Kansas and had a store and home in town. They had also filed on a pre-emption up in Kingman County. There is a letter here that Mrs. Esther Breed Doll Jones wrote back to Illinois dated (it is missing).
Erastus and Annie Doll decided they would come to Kansas, too, so they took their trunk and baggage and maybe some freight and went on the train to Harper, Kansas. Of course they had the kettle among the other things. Among their belongings was the clock, the wedding present by Hugh Jones. Among the things were some trinkets of Esther's that she had kept until Esther could take care of them herself. In 1951 she still had a bead covered pocketbook her grandmother Esther Breed Doll Jones, had given her, and a bib with Esther Viola embroidered on it which was given to Grant Jones' (Sanford Grant Jones) girl, Flora Esther Jones. Also a white dotted swiss dress her grandmother had made and Esther gave it to Neva Jones Pudge. It had kept well.
I, the kettle, was used almost constantly. When coming to Kansas they landed at Harper, in Harper County, Kansas on the 9th of February, 1882. The depot was made of a boxcar with a bay window on the side where the agent sat and received telegrams, etc. He had a coal oil light on his desk for a light. There were no seats but Mrs. (Annie) Doll and little Esther sat on their trunk while Mr. (Erastus) Doll went down town to find where his sister, Mrs. Will (Charity) Roy, lived, for Will and Charity Roy had come to Harper some time before and had a store there. When he found them he came back. He got Mrs. Annie Doll and little Esther. Her (Mrs. Roy's) house sure looked nice after being on the train. Soon Mr. Erastus Doll got a job in a stone quarry north east of Harper working for a man by the name of Richardson. He had a little, one room, shack to live in but he and his son, Charlie, slept out in a tent or a wagon and let the Dolls move into the shack and gave them their board for Mrs. Doll doing the cooking. This shack leaked when it rained so Mrs. Doll tacked a quilt up to the rafters over the bed and let it hang down behind the bed to turn the water that leaked through.
There was a tribe of Indians who lived over east, not far from there. There was a slaughterhouse between Mr. Richardson's and Harper and also the cemetery. The Indians passed by on their way to the slaughterhouse. They got the entrails at the slaughterhouse and cleaned them and ate them. They also passed going to town. They walked single file and the women had their babies strapped on their backs. When they went to town they would put their hands up to the windows and gaze into the stores. Of course they were uneducated. The Indian women sold beads. One day Mrs. (Annie) Doll saw a group of them coming and was afraid so she fastened the doors and sat by the window. They came to the window and held up some strands of beads and said, "Buy beads, buy beads" but Mrs. Doll opened her hands and said "No money, no money". Then finally they said "Buy beads for papoose" but again Mrs. Doll said "No money, no money". After they had gone, little Esther, who was standing by her knee, said "Mamma, what is a papoose?" and her mother said, "You are it" and just laughed and laughed.
Of evenings, when Charlie came home from work he would bring Esther a nice red apple. One day he said "Which would you rather have, apples or candy?" and she said, "Candy", so the next night he brought candy, but she still wanted the apple too.
They didn't stay there long and Mr. (Erastus) Doll Mrs. (Charity) Roy had a claim with a little sod house on it and Mr. (Erastus) and Mrs. (Annie) Doll moved up there while Mr. (Erastus) Doll was making some improvements on his claim.
One morning little Esther was out by the house and came running in to tell her mamma there was something out there. Her mamma went and there was a great big rattlesnake coiled up ready to strike. Mrs. (Annie) Doll killed the snake but it was just the goodness of God that Esther was not bitten.
A neighbor lived about 3/4 of a mile from there and between Mr. (Erastus) Doll's place and (Will & Charity) Roy's. Of course I, the kettle, was unpacked and used, both at Mr. Richardson's and at the Roy's place. They could never have gotten along without me.
The sod houses and dugouts were made first to live in while proving up a claim until they could build better. Mr. (Erastus) Doll's claim was between two creeks. The one on the east was called Spring Creek with high banks and the one on the west was just a narrow branch that never went dry. They flowed together about a half or 3/4 mile south of there. There was a little hill or slope about the. middle near the road, which was at a section line. On the east side of this rise, Mr. (Erastus) Doll made a dugout with an east full front and a shingle roof. The roof just came to the ground at the back side, that had a window in the gable, but a full window on the east and a door. Inside this they had a stove, a fuel box, a cupboard, two beds, a trunk, table, some chairs, a coal oil lamp and a lantern.
At first they had to carry all their water to drink across the creek, which was a mile or less east. I, the kettle, sat on the shelf or on the stove and was usually in use. Mr. (Erastus) Doll would work by the day for neighbors to make a living. Soon as they got a place to keep them they had chickens, turkeys, pigs and a cow. Then they dug a well, 40' deep. One could buy and ox for $16.00. At first he got a walking plow and team of oxen, measured from the road or cornerstone, put up a pole with a flag on it, measured at each end of the field and plowed his first straight furrow looking at the pole at the other end. Little Esther liked to go barefoot and walk in the nice cool furrow behind the plow.
George Leslie Doll was born June 10, 1884 while they lived in the dugout. Mrs. Park came to care for the new baby.
Mrs. Doll had a nice garden and it grew well without irrigation. Grandma Bledsoe came and Erastus put up four poles and tacked a quilt on top by the corners for a shade.
It was so hot and inside Mrs. Bledsoe sat in that shade and peeled potatoes for dinner. They spread the clothes on the grass to dry as they had no clothes lines nor clothespins. When they dug the well they came to solid rock but put in a fuse that cracked the rock and water came up. It was good water, 40' deep. They built a platform around it and a curb, and had a rope, a pulley wheel and bucket to draw water. In hot weather Mrs. (Annie) Doll would hang buckets of milk and also butter down several feet and it would keep nice and cool. They had no refrigerators in those days.
Later, they built a new frame house with nice windows and two doors. This was built on higher ground near the well. They used me, the kettle, all the time to boil their vegetables and their meat or chicken, and also to make their cornmeal mush. Mr. (Erastus) Doll planted a cherry orchard but it didn't seem to do any good. He also set out peach trees and made another garden. He sat out poplar trees and box elders along the driveway and made flowerbeds on each side of a path to the road south of the house. There was a barn down east from the house. Later he built a lean-to or a side room on the west side of the house.
Before this time Mrs. Annie) Doll's father, Robert Bledsoe and family had filed on a claim and moved about a mile south on the west side of the creek and they also had a dugout in the bank. On the east side a family by the name Elroy had settled and had part house and part dugout. They decided to have Sunday School at their house one Sunday so Dolls went. They sang "Shall we Gather at the River", Esther's earliest recollection of a Sunday School. One Sunday Mr. & Mrs. (Erastus) Doll went to Mr. Elroy's and while there, there was a cloudburst up north and the creek raised so they borrowed a couple of horses to ride home and the water was so deep the horses had to swim. The water had run into the dugout. This was the big creek on the east side of Mr. (Erastus) Doll's place. Several things in the bottom of the trunk were ruined from the water running into the trunk.
One time when fording the river with oxen, George was a baby, Mr. (Erastus) Doll had a team of oxen to a wagon and Mr. & Mrs. (Erastus) Doll sat on the spring seat and little Esther on a little box in the back of the wagon. They started to Harper, which was about eighteen miles but had to cross the Chickasaw River on the way. There were no bridges in those days and just below the crossing was a deep hole and people said quicksand there too. As they drove in the water the oxen got turned and started downstream. About that time just their noses and horns were sticking out and the water was running through the wagon box at Esther's feet and her screaming. Mr. (Erastus) Doll jumped out on the higher side and pulled the oxen back and saved our lives.
Mrs. (Annie) Doll had baby George on her lap in the spring seat. Of course Mr. (Erastus) Doll was good and wet but he pulled off his pants and hung them on the wagon standard and as they had about thirteen more miles to go and as the wind was hot, they were about dry by the time they got to town so he could put them back on. Oxen walk very slowly so it took a long time to make the trip.
They raised some corn and would use the cobs and any little nubbins for fuel. They didn't have much luck raising wheat as the winter wheat had not been introduced yet.
One of the oxen was hot from working and drank too much cold water and died. That was after the well was dug. Mr. (Erastus) Doll sold a forty acre piece of the land and bought a Studebaker wagon, a team of white horses and later he bought a new six hole cook stove. It was very nice and he also got a nice suit of clothes and a good violin. He was a fine fiddler and was induced to play for dances at $5.00 a night. He did not dance but he liked the music and $5.00 was a lot of money in those days when common work hands on a farm got about 50 cents a day.
There was no church for several years and when they voted bonds and built the Sunrise Schoolhouse about Ya or 3/4 mile west of Doll's house and Sunday School was started.
When Mr. and Mrs. Doll went to Kingman to prove up their place they let Esther stay at Grandma (Lydia Layton) Bledsoe's a mile south. She had to sleep at their feet and dress in the room where Grandpa (Robert E. Bledsoe) and Joe and Tom were eating. Grandma stood between them and Esther.
Mrs. Clark was Esther's teacher. Mrs. (Annie) Doll always sent Esther to Sunday School. Several years later a young preacher by the name of Kirkpatrick came out there on Sunday afternoons to preach. No graded roads in those days and just wagon tracks, and the grass was as high as Esther's height. Esther started to school the first year the schoolhouse was built when she was not five years old until November of that year, 1884. The first teacher was Mr. Clay Elliott.
One time Tiny Jones, Uncle Eli Jones' girl (now Eli was a stepbrother of Mr. (Erastus) Doll,) who was about sixteen years old was staying at Doll's when Annie Bessie Doll was a baby. She and Esther went fishing. Esther caught one, wee, tiny little fish, her first one.
Once upon a time Uncle Amos Jones, who lived about five miles or more from there, rode on horseback and came in the night to tell them the Indians were on the war path and was coming from Oklahoma this way burning everything on their way, said it was in the Wichita paper that day and that Grandma and Aunt Charity and others had already gone, said to hurry and to go to Cheney. Mrs. (Annie) Doll looked out and saw no signs of fire and said "Oh, pshaw, don't you know if they started before that paper was printed they would be here by now?" But he said he had stopped at Marfield's and they would be here to get them. Dolls just had oxen then. So Mrs. (Annie) Doll got ready, took her trunk with her clothes and her precious things and then went to Cheney. They came back in a couple days but no sign of Indians but a little flour on the table where someone hand made some biscuits. That time was always remembered as the Indian scare.
One time Mr. (Erastus) Doll took Esther and George with him to the creek to fish for a while. While fishing he saw snakes and said to Esther "You watch Georgie while I kill the snakes". Well, she watched awhile then she heard her father beating the snake so she looked around and Georgie fell in. The water was deep, but Mr. Doll was a tall man and he jumped in and rescued Georgie. Then he really beat up on Esther. That ended the fishing that day. Esther bawled all the way home and had some welts for her carelessness.
There was tall blue stem grass nearly as tall as a horses back inter-mixed with bunch grass and in places between, there were spots of buffalo grass. This made ideal places for playhouses for Esther and field daisies in both blue and white were very plentiful in the spring of the year. Esther would have all the vases and old cracked teacups full of bouquets.
Once someone let a fire get away from them and burned miles and miles of grass before they could get it put out. People would plow a strip around their places called fireguards to help keep wild fires out. There were bumblebees, snakes, lizards, coyotes, prairie dogs, turtledoves, ground squirrels, quail, prairie chickens, snow birds, etc. and rabbits, and there were meadow larks and turtledoves. One winter Mr. (Erastus) Doll made a trap to catch birds and Mrs. (Annie) Doll dressed them and made pot pies. Of course I, the kettle, was the container. Esther liked to look for flowers and she had found out that sheep sorrel tasted good, so while rambling around she found lots of it up on the north side of the place. It had a lavender pink flower on it.
One day she gathered all the plants she could carry in her dress skirt, like an apron gathered up, and took them to her mother. Her mother washed them and made the best pie that you could think of. Now, in our windows we call them boxall ( ?). When her Grandmother Esther (Wheeler Breed) Doll Jones came to visit she would go out with Esther and tell her about different plants that were used for medical purposes. One time she came and brought her lunch and she and Esther sat in the shade of the well curb and ate it. Shade was precious then before the house was built. While living there, Mr. (Erastus) Doll raised some sorghum cane and stripped it and took a load to the neighbor who had molasses mill. Esther went along and by the time the juice was boiled down it didn't make much.
In the summer they had lots of roasting ears and garden stuff. Mr. (Erastus) Doll would go fishing sometimes in the creeks nearby. They were not very large but so good. In the winter Mrs. (Annie) Doll used me, the kettle, to make hominy and Mr. (Erastus) Doll always butchered some hogs and had plenty of meat. Mrs. (Annie) Doll canned tomatoes in tin cans with sealing wax to fasten the flat lids on and earthen jars with the same kind of lids sealed on; not many glass jars if any. Mrs. Doll also dried lots of corn for winter use, and peaches that they got at Grandma's (Esther Wheeler Breed Doll Jones and Uncle Amos Jones'. They had come a few years earlier and their trees were bearing.
Mr. And Mrs. Robert E. Bledsoe didn't live in their dugout on their claim very long. They moved to Anthony, Kansas. Mrs. (Lydia Layton) Bledsoe died and was buried at Harper, Kansas. The gravestone was broken in two when a tornado swept the cemetery there in about the year 1893. Uncle Thomas Bledsoe came to get Mrs. (Annie) Doll, his sister. Afterward Mr. (Robert E) Bledsoe and (daughter) Nora (Bledsoe) came to live at Doll's but Nora (Esther's aunt) was a year older than Esther. The two made so much noise that Mrs. (Annie) Doll just couldn't stand it, so Mr. (Robert) Bledsoe got a neighbor to board Nora. Don't know where Tom Bledsoe went but at one time Joe Bledsoe stayed at Doll's. Then he enlisted in the standing army and went to Washington and Idaho. Sometime Mr. (Robert) Bledsoe went back to Illinois. He must have taken Nora with him.
A little creek west of the house about a fourth of a mile had a little stream of water, about two feet wide, which never went dry. Mr. (Erastus) Doll piled up some sod on each side of the creek and laid a plank across to make a little footbridge for Esther so she could go to school. Her brother George followed her part way to school one day but his mother got him. But he did go to the school there a little while. The country schools were not graded then and a child could go just as far as he wanted to in any subject, and may be very bad in another. People would ask, "What reader are you in?" instead of asking, "What grade are you in?".
One day Mrs. (Annie) Doll got the Norwich paper and in it was a notice that there would be an all day meeting and a basket dinner in a grove near Belmont which was several miles northwest, the next day, so she hurried and dressed chickens and fried other things and the next day they went. They had plans fixed for seats and during the service they passed the Sacraments of the Lord's Supper. This was the first Esther had ever seen. Not many things happened in that community; Sunday School on Sunday afternoon, usually a program the last day of school and a basket dinner, sometimes a supper at the schoolhouse where all the neighbors went and put their supper together. They called it a festival.
Once when they were preparing for a festival Esther went across the road from the schoolhouse for water for the school or something and Mrs. Hobson, who lived there, was preparing chickens to cook. She skinned the feet, which Esther's mother had never done. When she got home her mother was dressing chickens, too. Esther said, "Mamma, fix the feet. Mrs. Hobson likes the feet". Sometimes Mrs. Doll couldn't go but Mr. (Erastus) Doll carried a lantern to find the way through the tall grass and took Esther. In 1886 there was a terrible blizzard in Kansas. Mr. (Erastus) Doll tied a rope to the doorknob and around his waist to go to the barn lest he should be lost in the storm. It is said to have been the worst ever in Kansas. One time when it was quite cold the children all hurried out of the schoolhouse to go home. Somehow Esther couldn't get her mittens on and was still trying to do so. There were six or eight going the same road and one great big fellow looked back and saw Esther and ran and picked her up and carried her the rest of the way home. But her hands were frozen. It was about three fourths of a mile.
When George had his first suit (the boys wore dresses for several years), a linen card suit, that his mother had made. Esther was so proud of him and took him by the hand and led him out to the garden or the orchard where Mr. Doll was working and said "Pappie, see your little man". That was a great event in Esther's life.
One of the oxen got too hot working and drank too much cold water and died. Later, Mr. (Erastus) Doll sold a mortgaged part of the land and bought a team, a wagon, a stove, a fiddle, etc. Mr. (Erastus) Doll had a team of white horses and a green Studebaker wagon, new harness and decided to go to Wichita County, Kansas and filed on a homestead, as homesteads were being opened for settlement. He got wagon sheet and bows and got ready and started. I, the kettle, was always in use, but especially on those camping out trips.
They went through Greensburg where Mr. John Jones, half brother of Mr. Doll, had a real estate office. They also went through Ford, Kansas where a milk deliveryman had a cart and a little pony or mule hitched to it. He had his milk in a big can and quart tin cup. People would take their buckets of some kind of container out to him and he would measure with his cup the amount they wanted and sell it for 5 cents a quart. We went on to Fort Dodge where just an old dilapidated fort remained which was used by the soldiers the year before to protect people from the Indians. The portholes they used to shoot out of looked plenty spooky.
Mr. (Erastus) Doll said as they camped for the night "This would be a good place for horse thieves. This was near the river where Ft. Dodge is later and trees were near the river, too. Esther was very scared but finally went to sleep. At Dodge City (they saw the stagecoach going southwest across the country with passengers), from there to Garden City, Kansas where they had lamp posts along the street, where the lamps had to be lighted before dark, then across the country with just a few tracks for roads and water was scarce; scarcely any wells. They came to a place with a dug well and a big rope and a pulley. They were allowed to have water to water the horses if they would hitch the team on and draw them some, too. They drew it up in a keg or small barrel. Sometimes objects were magnified until it looked like a lake of water and trees by it, but when they got there maybe a sunflower by the road and the lake was miles of buffalo grass.
A neighbor family had gone before and made improvement. This was the same family who lived across from Sunrise Schoolhouse and peeled the chicken feet. Mr. Doll filed on a place on White Woman Creek in Wichita County but never proved it up. On the trip they could get nice baker's bread for 5 cents a loaf and fresh chipped beef for 10 cents a pound, other things accordingly.
Some time after this Mr. (Erastus) Doll decided to move to Kingman. I don't know what he did with the team and wagon. In Kingman he worked at a lumberyard for his cousins: Lincoln, called Linc and Byron Doll. Their mother, Margaret Doll, a widow, lived in Kingman, also, an aunt by marriage of Erastus Doll.
Esther went to Sunday School while there. While living there Esther went to school but it was a graded school. Esther knew the Third Reader by heart and had been promoted to the grown folks spelling class but had to go in the second grade as was not up in all the required subjects. While there, next spring, a tornado struck town. Esther had gone several blocks to a Mr. Von Hemel's to get milk. She usually went in the morning but this time it was afternoon. The clouds were roaring and tumbling. Esther ran in and said "Mamma, a cyclone is coming, don't you hear it?".
But Mrs. (Annie) Doll had been troubled with neuralgia and said "I don't hear anything except the roaring in my head that I have all the time", but when she looked out she ran to get the clothes off the line and Esther took the tubs and the boiler inside and just as Mrs. (Annie) Doll got inside with her arms full of clothes Esther locked the porch door and then the storm struck. Mrs. (Annie) Doll went into the middle room and picked up George and held him on her lap in the rocking chair. Baby Betsy (Esther's little sister), was in her cradle and Esther stood by her mother.
Mr. Doll was soon home from work and told his story. He saw a storm coming and headed for home. On the way he dashed in behind a house and clutched the window still with his hands and the wind lifted his feet up and down from the ground. He said he could see wagons and chickens and other things being blown over the house above him, but no one was killed in that storm but lots of damage to property.
While in Kingman little George laid down on the sunny side of a snowdrift and took pneumonia. Esther went to a temperance Sunday School in the afternoons for a while. In the spring, Dolls decided to go back to the country. So, they moved in with a widower and his son who lived about one-half mile north of the Sunrise school house. Mrs. Doll had a sick spell while they were there. Later they moved to the Marfield place. That's the place from which they carried water when the first had their own home. Mr. Doll farmed some but corn was very cheap. They used lots of cornmeal and I, the kettle, was in use most of the time as they made lots of mush both to eat with milk and to fry.
While living there a little baby girl born to Mrs. (Annie) Doll but she died when about nine days old. Some people who lived on Aunt Charity Roy's place were good neighbors and she, Mrs. Cochran, came and took care of Mrs. Doll. Soon Cochrans moved away and Dolls moved to Roy's place. It had a nice two room white house now and a stable and a chicken house and also an old fashioned pump. They got a cow to milk, raised pigs and chickens, got a team and raised corn. That was the main crop.
Then Dolls dug lots of peanuts when they first moved there that had been left in the ground. There were lots of corn stalks in an abandoned field and they, Esther and George, would carry them to the house and with a hatchet cut them into stove lengths to burn. That was their principal fuel, especially in the summer. The next year Mrs. Doll had a wonderful garden, which consisted of onions, radishes, peas, beans, beets, potatoes, sweet potatoes, sweet corn, tomatoes, cabbage, etc.
Mrs. (Annie) Doll dried lots of corn for winter and canned tomatoes in tin cans. They also raised lots of popcorn to have in the winter. Mrs. (Annie) Doll would put some lard in the bottom of the kettle, that was me, and pour in some popcorn and a little salt, put on the lid and stirred the corn under my lid. Oh, how the corn did pop and so good. They still used me to boil potatoes, make the mush, to boil the roasting ears, the cabbage and other food. In peach season, Dolls would go to his mother's Mrs. Esther (Wheeler Breed Doll) Jones' and his brother Amos' and get peaches by the bushel and bushels. Then Mrs. (Annie) Doll would dry a lot of them, some with peelings on and some would be peeled and dried. Of course, the peeled ones were extra special and so good in the winter with cream.
In August of 1889 Sara Martha came to live at Dolls (was born, their 5th child). After Esther and George had been to a funeral, they would take the little dead chickens up in the sandy draw and bury them, make a mound over them and put joints of cornstalks up for grave stones. Poor kids! They didn't get to go many places and didn't have much to read but Mr. Doll was a good fiddler and many evenings they had music and they would sing hymns out of the old gospel hymnbook.
When Dolls left the Roy place they went a little further east and lived on the Shinburger place. There was a windmill there. It was the first place where there was a windmill where they had lived. The closest school there was the Ashton School near Grandma (Esther Wheeler Breed Doll Jones) and Amos Jones' place. Then they decided to go back to Illinois.
So in the fall of 1890 they fixed up a covered wagon and they started. This was some time in October and the trip was long, landing in Illinois about the 6th of December. At first it was lots of fun for the children. Sometimes George and Esther would walk a long way behind the wagon and the first place they camped a lady gave them a lot of apples to eat. One place, east of Wichita, where they camped at noon an old, old man lived and they found out he had been Grandma Esther (Wheeler Breed Doll) Jones' teacher back in Connecticut. This Grandma Jones was Erastus Doll's mother (Esther Wheeler Breed Doll Jones).
The children enjoyed crossing the streams where there was timber. In eastern Kansas, where they camped, there were lots of wild grapes and such fun picking and eating them. Mrs. (Annie) Doll even stewed some and fried bread on the campfire, and all that campfire food tasted so good. I, the kettle, was in use every time they camped. There were lots of good ripe persimmons, too, in some places where they camped. Then over in Missouri there were large apple trees and could get apples for just picking them up under the apple trees and picked ones were only 15 cents a bushel, and great big ripe tomatoes in the garden and almost got them given to us.
We went through Ft. Scott, Kansas and over in Missouri it came big rains and the roads were so muddy that could hardly travel. No cement or blacktop highways then, so Mr. (Erastus) Doll decided to camp and work in the mines until the mud dried up, which was about two weeks. Some people let them live in the old tobacco shed, which had been home for slaves in the slavery days. All of the trip was very interesting. I, the kettle, was in use everyday they were there.
They then traveled on through Missouri, crossing the Missouri River on a sailboat. It got cold weather before they got to Illinois. They would hang a lantern, lighted, on the wagon bows at night and put a quilt over the opening in the front to keep the frost out. When they got to the Mississippi River they crossed on a steam ferry boat, but great chunks of ice would grate against the boat. They planned to go to Peoria, Illinois but someone at Quincey told them to go elsewhere to find work. This was the 6th of December, 1890.
They went to Hancock County, had a good dinner, and were directed to the Richardson Brothers at Paloma, Illinois, so they went there. They gave Mr. Erastus) Doll a house to live in and a good job out in the timber, cutting cordwood and making railroad ties. Then he would bring hickory sticks home and make axe handles of evenings to sell. The people gave them lots of nuts, and they were very plentiful. Next spring they got another house in Paloma with great tall shade trees in the yard and a big clover patch between them and the church. On the other side of the street were lots of fruit trees and across the corner, a family, by the name of Ogles, lived and they had a cherry orchard and raised lots of bees. They also had a raspberry patch. They would get Esther to pick fruit on the shares. One day the bees were swarming and Esther was up in a cherry tree picking cherries. Then Mr. Ogles, who had never seemed cross, but that day he yelled out "Get out of that tree in a hurry". She didn't know why he acted like that but she obeyed. In a few seconds the bees had lighted in that tree. The tree was covered, then she knew why he had spoken as he did.
They were wealthy people and had a piano. The young lady would play and Esther could hear it while she was picking fruit. The first one she had heard. There were lots of hedge fences around there and lots of wild gooseberries under the hedges and Esther would gather lots of them for her mother. Then in places under the railroad bridge wild strawberries grew and she gathered lots of them. Then later in the summer Mr. (Erastus) Doll would take big buckets and Esther a small one and go out in the country where there were lots of wild blackberries and dewberries. Of course, Mrs. (Annie) Doll didn't can much fruit but had plenty to eat all the time. This was sure grand for Esther after having lived in Kansas on the plains.
That year was one of the bright spots in Esther's young life, but Mr. Erastus) Doll's health wasn't so good in that low altitude and in the early fall he decided to go back to Kansas. He had weak lungs and said he felt like he was breathing cotton. Mrs. (Annie) Doll stayed home most of the time as she had George, Bessie and Martha to take care of. But she used me, the kettle, every day about her cooking. Some rich people out in the country wanted to adopt Esther but Mr. (Erastus) Doll said "No", said he could not spare one child.
They traveled back in the wagon, same as they came and found a house in Norwich and sent Esther and George to school, and maybe Bessie, too. Miss Edith Wilson was Esther's teacher. A revival started with an evangelist by the name of Rev. Miller. It lasted several weeks and Esther went with a neighbor girl about every night. The preaching was so interesting, the Bible illustrations so good. But one day at recess the teacher, Miss Wilson put her arm around Esther and said" Wouldn't you like to be a Christian, Esther?" and from that time on it seemed, she said, like the preacher was preaching to her. She kept getting under worse conviction all the time but just couldn't go to the altar.
Then one night the preacher said "The altar won't save you, you can get saved anywhere" so Esther thought she would try getting saved at home and no one would know it. Now the devil had made her think that if people or especially her schoolmates at school found it out they would make fun of her, so she read the Bible, prayed out at the barn or chicken house and beside her bed after everyone else was in bed but no peace came. It just didn't work in her case. She felt like she would drop into hell if the house should blow over or if anything caused her death.
Then the last day of the meeting in the afternoon she decided to go to the altar. An old lady came to instruct her and she believed the scriptures and the word directed. Peace came into her heart and she knew she was saved, born again, made a new creature. Mrs. (Annie) Doll was not able to go and take the little ones but Mr. Doll, who had been a backslider for years attended the meeting and he, too, got back to God. Later Esther joined the Methodist Church on probation but after reading and studying the New Testament some nights until 2:00 A.M., she decided she wanted to join the Baptist Church and be baptized by emersion as she thought from reading the Bible that Jesus was baptized that way.
Mr. & Mrs. Doll had been Baptists when they were young, so they united with the Baptists at Norwich. Esther Joined later and the next February 26th, was baptized in Wetherd's pond out in their pasture, by Rev. David I. Howard, the Baptist preacher. Years later her boyfriend, John Clark Jones, was saved in a Baptist revival and joined the Baptist Church. They were Baptists for years, although, they were married by a Methodist preacher by the name of Max Milan (or could be Maximilan).
In March of 1892 Johnny Doll (Joseph John Doll) was born and that spring Dolls moved out north of Norwich on a farm. Mrs. (Annie) Doll had a fine garden and used me, the kettle, continually to cook her vegetables. They had neighbors by the name of Dunigans, who had plum trees. Esther picked plums there and they also had a daughter by the name of Mrs. Jordan. She had two sets of twins and sometimes Esther went there to help take care of them. In the spring and sinter Esther stayed with Mrs. Strong and went to school, and fall of 1892 or 1903 while Mr. (Erastus) Doll was husking corn out of the shock he took hemorrhage of the lungs. Esther ran to Dunigans and one of the boys went to get the doctor. The next year they lived in Norwich and Mr. (Erastus) Doll worked plastering houses, building chimneys and even painted the Baptist Church but finally he had hemorrhage of the lungs very bad and at last bled and strangled almost to death.
He lived about three days after that last spell. Esther ran in her nightclothes, and barefooted, to get the doctor but Mr. (Erastus) Doll was unconscious when the doctor got there. The doctor lived in the next block, but by going around the next street made about two blocks. That was a sad time. Mrs. Annie Doll had been sick several weeks and Esther lay on a pallet at the foot of the bed where she could get up to wait upon her father. When he passed away it was when the Cherokee Strip (in Oklahoma) was opened for settlement, and Uncle Amos Jones, Mr. (Erastus) Doll's half brother, had gone down there, and his mother, Mrs. Esther Doll, was at her daughter's, and Mrs. Will (Charity) Roy in Hennesy, Oklahoma. They sent a telegram but it was late in being delivered. They held the funeral back as long as they dared to. Uncle Amos had got home and bought the casket.
Then, as no undertaker, and as warm weather, they buried him in the morning and had the memorial service at the Baptist Church in the afternoon. Uncle Amos Jones took the children to the cemetery in a farm wagon in the rain. Mrs. (Annie) Doll was not able to go as she had been sick but she went to the church in the afternoon. Rev. D. l. Howard, the Baptist preacher, preached the funeral sermon. When Mr. (Erastus) Doll had his first bad hemorrhage he thought he was dying and said to his wife, "Annie, train up the children to meet me in heaven".
After Mr. Doll's death it was lonely times for the family. Mr. (Erastus) Doll had family prayers and after he was gone Mrs. (Annie) Doll and Esther continued. Mrs. (Annie) Doll taught a Sunday School class and Esther began teaching a Sunday School class of little children at 14 years of age. She had been the Sunday School secretary since about 13 years of age. Mrs. (Annie) Doll took in washings. Esther stayed in other homes; Hamiltons, Potters, etc; wages $1.50 a week and the board, and during school term just board and 25 cents a week. Mrs. (Charity) Roy, Mrs. (Annie) Doll's sister, sent dresses, hats, veils, gloves and other things to Mrs. (Annie) Doll. Later, Mrs. (Annie) Doll moved over to the east side of Norwich. She still worked, also made gardens and bought skim milk at the creamery for almost nothing. She finally married a man by the name of Sampson Beals, and went to Oklahoma to live, but she gave me, the kettle, to her oldest daughter who had married John (Clark) .Jones. George Doll worked too, when he was just a small boy. That house was sold for a creamery where Mr. (Erastus) Doll had died.
Esther lived at Potters, and went to school and then came home to be married to John Clark Jones, March 14, 1896. I, the kettle, was transferred to Esther. She and John rented a three, room, house across from the public school. My new mistress made good use of me as everyone else had done. She learned to make plum Jell in me and me metal was so good that it didn't make the jell taste bad.
That November they moved to a house in the north part of town but they kept me and used me continually. John Jones worked on the railroad. The next spring, March 14, 1897, (Sanford) Grant Jones was born. In 1898 John and Esther bought their first home. They built a new, two room house in a peach orchard. It was painted and a shack outside for a store room. Mr. Jones was appointed section foreman at Belvidere, Kansas. He could not get a place to live at first and boarded at Charlie Owens' hotel. Later he bought a house and Esther moved there to live in 1899 just before Christmas.
I, the kettle, was always taken along. January 4, 1899, they got baby Neva Margaret Jones, Ida May came in 1900 on April 16, and September 5, 1903 another girl Wilma Fontella came to live there. In May 1905 Mr. Jones went out to western Kansas and filed on a homestead. Before leaving Belvidere, Mr. John Clark Jones got a free (train) pass for himself and family and went to Oxnard, California for a visit. They built a two, room dugout and moved out there on the claim (Western Kansas, Stanton County) in April 1906. They lived in it about three years then built a house, 18 x 32' and several years later built three bedrooms and two clothes closets on the sides.
Leona Bessie Jones was born December 12, 1907 in the dugout. Gracie (Grace Esther Jones) was born March 3, 1912 in the new house. Aunt Bessie Doll (who had married Henry) Beals and (son) Albert were living with the Joneses when she died March 30, 1912, while they were still using the dugout for bedrooms. Grandma Doll also lived with them. Roger Cecil Jones was born April 20, 1915. Soon after the new side rooms were built, Rev. Waddell came in the winter to live with them, before Elverda Opal was born March 7, 1917. Grandma Annie Doll died June of 1917.
Brother Waddell preached the funeral. The next pastor, Rev. Preston Pridgen came to live with them. He married Aunt Martha Doll August 28, 1918. Vernon Melvin Jones was born November 28, 1918. The Armistice was signed November 11, 1918. Ida May and Floyd Morgan were married June 9, 1918. Neva and Harry Pudge were married on December 25, 1918 and all this time, I, the kettle, was a witness.
P.S. Later they built a small house down by the Sandy Arroyo Creek and moved down there and took me, the kettle, along and I was still in use. Mr. John Clark Jones died at the new place down by the creek, May 18, 1937. Mrs. (Esther Viola Doll) Jones was sick nearly all summer, then was at Carl and Gracie's in Fredonia, then she went to Big Bow. Then in December 1937 of that year went to Oregon with Ida May. Then the next year, 1938 she went to Colorado Springs, Colorado to live and make it her home a 712 N. Cooper Ave. I, the kettle, was resting safely in Roger's basement, at the old homestead in Stanton County.
P.P.S. In March 17, 1907 Mrs. Jones organized the Sunday School at Walnut Grove School House. Later it merged with Valley Falls Sunday School and was moved to Big Bow, Kansas. In 1957 they celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Sunday School. My mistress Mrs. Esther V. Jones died November 12, 1966. In July of 1970 some of her children met at the old home near Big Bow, Kansas and found me still resting safely in Roger's basement and took me out and had my picture taken with them then put me back in my resting place.
Notebook: written on the train as they went to California
WHEN WE WENT TO CALIFORNIA By Esther V. Jones
To California on the train: Started from Belvidere, KS March 1, 1906 at 8:50 A.M. Arrived at Wichita about 2:00 P.M., Saw Mr. Purdy (Aunt Clara's dad)
At Coats saw Burt Purdy at Rego, KS.
Saw Bessie Doll and Henry Beals and Albert at Clearwater, KS
Saw Delia Jones Clever (John Clark Jones sister) at the Wichita depot.
Changed cars and arrived at Newton, KS at 3:20 P.M. Westbound on the California Daily; It was delayed 8 hours so we saw Mr. Henry Sprat at Newton. Mr. Sprat has been night watch or Police in Newton for eight years.
The afternoon of March 1, was exceedingly warm and about suppertime we had a good warm shower.
We left Newton, Kansas at 1:20 A.M. Friday, March 2, 1906
Arrived at Dodge City, KS at break of day.
At Dodge City it commenced to snow and it continued to snow and blow sand and snow until noon when we arrived at Syracuse.
The western Kansas and Colorado towns are very pretty. The little Colorado town after leaving Kansas has the sign in bold letters "Saloon, Christ's Place".
Large alfalfa fields adorn the valley of the Arkansas.
We arrived at La Junta about 6:00 P.M. Here we reached the foothills of the mountains with small evergreens covered with snow.
As we traveled along we could see the outline of the mountains but did not reach Trinidad, Colorado until after dark about 9:00 P.M.
Leaving Trinidad, Colorado we ascended the mountain. The train was being taken up the mountain by three large engines. The next station up the mountain, 3,000 miners had their campfires burning. We went through the Raton Tunnel about 11:00 P.M. at night.
We arrived at Las Vegas, New Mexico at daybreak Saturday morning. We are now in the Rocky Mountains covered with evergreens.
Leaving Santa Fe, New Mexico we went through desert and mountains dotted by little Mexican adobe towns.
Nearing Albuquerque, New Mexico there were a few orchards with irrigating ditches.
The Harvey House was very nice. Most of this was yellow sagebrush.
Sedona, New Mexico, a small Indian town, mostly adobe houses and near the mountains.
(some pages scratched out, must have been Wilma, she was about 2 1/2 )
The train stopped for dinner at Gallop, Saturday the 3rd of March.
One the train, were two car loads of Mexicans from Old Mexico.
We passed through large deserts all P.M. Saturday. Took supper at Winslow, Arizona.
We were at Flagstaff, Arizona after dark.
Arrived at Needles, California where it was very warm about 4:00 A.M.
At daylight we were in the desert of California.
Light colored sand speckled with small cedars, a few white flowers were in bloom along the track.
At Center, ( California ?) was a white mound with red letters lying flat on the white. Here in the desert was a house surrounded with evergreen, fence and trees in leaf and palms around the yard. The mountains were visible from here and very nice in outline. Mountains and desert prevailed until we reached Barstow, California. Here the train stopped for dinner and John, Grant, and Esther then wet to see Mrs. Coberhouse. From Barstow we passed orchards and timbers and green patches all along. Peach trees are in bloom. Then we passed over pure rock mountains and crossed a river then through large timber. Mrs. Coberhouse was Tiny Jones, Uncle Eli Jones' daughter. Her husband was a roadmaster on the section. Eli Jones was Erastus Doll's stepbrother who lived at Spivey, Kansas. The Indians at Albuquerque were dressed with moccasins, leggings, short skirts, shirtwaists and shawls selling their wares. Expenses on the train only: Mentholatum 25 cents Milk 10 cents Perfume 10 cents Coffee 20 cents Gum and cookies 10 cents Figs 15 cents Coffee 15 cents Bananas 10 cents Candy and coconut 10 cents Coffee 20 cents Popcorn and gum 10 cents Indian dish 10 cents Salmon 30 cents Post card 25 cents Crackers 25 cents Coffee 20 cents Candy and Coffee 20 cents Apple 25 cents Cheese and apples 25 cents Pickles 5 cents The End
Note: This has been a work of love. I have inserted a few words in parenthesis to help clarify who these people were and a few words to make a sentence complete. None of this story has been changed. Some portions of the cassette were difficult to hear so I did my best to transcribe this story to the best of my ability.
Roberta Ridgway
PS: Annie Doll and new husband Sampson Beals had a son named Sammy who drowned when Annie lived in California.
by Lorna Marvin
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