I was caring for my aged parents and their minds kept wandering to the years of early life and so I made the decision to copy as much as I could recall of that, to me, at least, very interesting life history.

 My mother was a woman who gave her life whole-heartedly to her home and family.  Married when but a girl, who was approaching her sixteenth birthday, she entered a pioneer home where much strength and capable hands were needed to cope with the hardships of the early pioneer days.  The year was 1880.  The marriage date, July 21.

 Much of the land in Fulton County, Ohio was then covered in woods and swamps.  Bear, deer, wild cats and even puma were seen.  Ague was a prevailing illness.  Also, scarlet fever and black diptheria often took their toll.  But her girlhood had already prepared her and given her much helpful training.

 Her father, Henry McDole, born in northwestern Ireland in the year 1818, was of typical Irish ancestry and sternly taught his children very early in life to make their own way.

 She was one of the younger of a family of three boys and six girls, most of whom died rather early in life, leaving few descendants, while she became the last of the family to die at the age of ninety-two years.  She was born in Henry County, Ohio, lived all her married life in Fulton County, except for a very brief migration to Erie County, Ohio, where my father's people had returned and lived their later married years.

 Mother was born near Ridgeville, Henry County, Ohio where her father owned a good eighty acre farm at that time.  Though married so young, she had already worked as a hired girl for at least a couple of years in the Meeker home and also in the home of Rev. Valentine, whose descendants for three generations have become well known ministers of Fulton County, Ohio.

 This gentleman wore stiffly starched white bosom shirts, requiring a skilled hand to launder and one accomplishment of which she was justly proud was her ability to launder these garments in a manner to merit praise.

 She received the high wage of that day - $1.50 a week. 

 Going back to her girlhood, I can recall of her talking of visiting her Grandmother Guyer who, I believe, lived in Ashland County, Ohio.  She went with her mother and youngest sister, Lucy.

 Let me add here that this sister married George Bracy and three of her small children suddenly died and are buried in the old part of the Winameg Cemetery back near the fence in or near the northeast corner.  There are no markers and while they died, likely before I was born, I can recall, as a child, going with my mother to place flowers on the three little graves.

 Theirs was a hard life with often not enough food and I recall being told that the father brought home a sack of peanuts which they ate, shucks and all, causing their death.  I think perhaps the father was a drunkard and it was not uncommon in those days for such fathers to treat their families brutally hard and often a lack of food and clothing was prevalent.  Perhaps luckily, this family all died very young, and I believe are all buried in that same plot of ground.  I can see my mother standing, sadly gazing down at that plot of ground and saying sadly, "Poor Lucy."  She was her favorite sister.  My mind seems to wander, but to get back to the journey of which I started to tell you.

 Mother said they went by train and stayed all night in Oberlin, Ohio.  When they reached their destination they were met by a man named Yocum...(I assume this man to be an uncle).  He was driving a horse drawn covered wagon, containing three seats...two big seats in the back and a smaller seat for the driver.  It was driven by a beautiful span of big bay horses.

 I can still remember the beautiful span of big, fat, iron grey horses owned by my Grandfather McDole at the time of his death and the gentle fat cherry red cow my grandmother milked and the golden homemade butter and almost ice cold milk, kept in the spring house through which flowed a cool stream of running fresh spring water.  When she died, dad sold the cow.  Entering that spring house and drinking that cool milk and buttermilk with little islands of golden rich butter floating on top, gave me a thrill no deep freeze or refrigerator can ever equal.  But again my mind wanders.  I must get back to my story.

 I laughed at being met by a covered wagon and mother said, in a surprised tone at my misunderstanding, "Oh, no, it was new, very nice and the standard driving equipment for that day".

 While there, they received a letter from home telling of the killing of a big black bear in a hollow tree, close by the path where the children went to and from school.  I asked, "Were you not afraid to go to school?", and she replied, "Oh, no!  The country was all woods then, but there were clearings with cornfields and the bears never bothered the children."  She said they had a wonderful visit with relatives, all Germans with large families.  I have always thought my Grandmother Mary Ann Guyer McDole was of Pennsylvania Dutch extraction, but I guess, though, they were sometimes called German.
Grandma Guyer and Aunt Barbara, who never married, lived alone at that time.

When about to return home, Grandma Guyer took her new double woolen shawl, cut it in half, and gave her daughter, my grandmother, the half to take home.  The single or double shawl, usually black or grey, was the standard wrap of those days.  They were all fine cashmere wool and very warm. 

I also remember my great aunt and Grandmother Derby's paisley shawl.  These were beautiful and it may have well been one of these, as I have no description, except that it was new.

This closes the tale of the only trip I ever heard my mother mention.  It was, perhaps, the only trip ever taken by her, as travel was not frequent in those days as it is now.  This short journey that took two days by train then, would now be taken in a few hours.  Such are the changes in one generation.

When my mother and dad were married, his father and brothers helped him build a clap-board house, consisting of a kitchen, living room, or as it was then called, front room, two small bedrooms, pantry, a large closet, and an unfinished attic.

They had purchased 40 acres of swampy land from my uncle for $1.50 an acre.  Interest was at 6%, compound interest.  Compound interest was legal in those days.  This small debt mounted rapidly into an increasingly large debt.  It was a land contract, purchased from my father's only sister's husband, (Elmore S. Hart), and he cagily told my father not to worry about payments, just to give him whatever he could spare, after providing for his increasingly large family. 

Very little reckoning was made regarding payments.  Uncle always insisted not to worry about it, so dad seemingly did just that, sending a bushel of popcorn, five bushel of potatoes, apples, etc.  But each year, at the close of school in the city, each relative sent their children to the country to spend the summer with good Uncle Frank and Aunt Maggie. 

There was Kenneth & Hollis, Uncle Roswell's children from Cleveland.  There was Grace & Elwood, Uncle Hiram's children from Cincinnati.  Elton & Ruth, Aunt Muriel and Uncle Elmore's children from Elkhart.  And, also my cousin Lily, Uncle Joel's daughter and Rozelle, Uncle Darwin's eldest son.

There was always a barrel of salt pork and these pigs I remember well for one of our daily chores was to pull big baskets of pursley and what we called pig weed to feed and fatten these same porkers.

Our revenge came later, but I just never could understand dad's liking for that fried salt pork.  The fatter it was, the better for him.  But the hard physical labor which he did made that diet very acceptable to him.  And the rich brown gravy made by browning flour in the pork grease, then pouring in rich milk, stirring and boiling to smoothness, made a delicious accompaniment to freshly dug potatoes, boiled in their jackets.

Mother's good homemade bread, famous sugar cookies with big scallops, a big garden and truck patch to provide fresh melons, sweet corn, and other vegetables and three or four cows to furnish fresh milk and cream for fresh homemade butter and a big pitcher full to pour over the big blue berries, gathered from the woods and the luscious fresh peaches and black berries from our garden, to say nothing of the freshly churned buttermilk with dabs of butter floating on top --- well, few tables were better spread than was our own.

Pies were baked in batches as often it would take two or three to go around the long stretched table, for at vacation time in came the parents to feast on good country living and enjoy, especially the fine ripe watermelons and musk melons.  We did not call them cantelopes.

After a visit of two weeks, they would gather their well-fed robust childred and go home to enter thenm in the fine city schools while they contgempuously stated,  "Poor Uncle Frank's children would never amount to anything, being raised away out there in the sticks and attending only a one room country school".

For all this hospitality, my parents were given absolutely no recompence, but were told "You raise your living.  It does not cost you anything, you should see what our grocery bills are!"  But each year, the compound interest was religously added to the debt (6%), until it assumed great growth.  My parents' only recompense was a yearly box at Christmas time and the old clothes discarded by my city cousins, which mother made over to provide our clothing.

My greatest treasure, in which I had my picture taken (a 
family group), was a dress made from an older cousin's discarded wedding gown.  It was made from two materials of fine cashmere, navy blue and a multi-colored striped material trimmed in fancy braid.  I ware it very proudly.

After I grew up and from that scoffed at country school, I became a teacher and was told it was my duty to pay off the mortgage on that 40 acre farm that had been nearly a lifetime source of income for my uncle and aunt.  This early clapboard house was to be only a temporary home, but its remains may still be seen on that same 40 acre farm in Fulton Co, Ohio, and a great many of the seventy three years of my parents' married life were spent there, living within those same walls with only few changes made.  The red rambler rose still climbs above its sagging doorway.

Dad worked in the Hank Miles Sawmill for many years, did day labor from .50 cents to $l.00 a day and was also road supervisor for Fulton County for many years, building many of the gravel roads of his day.  For him, at that time, farming was mostly a side issue.

School debates, neighborhood dances and occasionally a Pedro card game provided entertainment, but I think his greatest joy was to hitch up his horses to the old boat sled (he cared but little for the bob sled, but always took a log to the mill to be sawed into a plentiful supply of boat sleds) and gathered up the neighbors to attend the revival meetings held at various churches during the winter.

He loved to leave the tongue off the boat sled and swing it off the graded road to the side and hear the occupants scream at the thrill of being almost swept overboard.  Sweeping through the frosty air, sitting cross-kneed on a bed of straw with blankets smelling of the sweat of the horses, over which they had been placed while we were in the church, and with the horses hooves throwing the hard-packed snow our way, occasionally we watched the glittering stars and raised our voices above the jingle of the sleigh bells to sing good old gospel hymns of long ago.

Those days are gone forever, but their memory brings a rich glow to my heart.  I forgot to add that a temporary home was also built on this farm for my grandparents.  This later became our barn.

On the eighty acres adjoining our forty was an eighty acres owned by my grandparents and given, or sold, to their Eldest son, Roswell, a school teacher, who later became an attorney, living in Huron County, Ohio.  When I started teaching, my 
first school was the Edgar or Robinson, as it was also called, 
in Royalton Twp., Fulton Co, Ohio and my uncle Roswell had 
also been a teacher in this same school.

Older residents who recalled those days gave me interesting high-lights of the doings of the young Whitcomb and Derby boys and I clearly recall one old timer saying, "Those Whitcombs had Indian blood."

That brings to mind an old book of my father's that I remember reading.  It told of an Indian uprising in New York State, in which all the settlers were killed, except one small boy who hid in a brush patch.  The settlement was burned and the boy found and taken to be raised by a tribe of Mohawk Indians and I was taught, or rather told, that his boy who grew up and married an Indian girl was our ancestor and that my Great-Grandmother Butler was a half-blood Mohawk Indian.  This would have been my Grandmother Derby's grandmother, no doubt as her name was Whitcomb.

Some deny, others affirm this belief, but to my rememberance, they bote Indian characteristics with their prominent high foreheads, high cheek bones, etc.  One cousin in college fully acted the part and was called an Indian by all his classmates.  It seemed to give him a great thrill.

But to get back to the eighty acre farm.  My uncle and the family built a permanent home on this farm which is still inhabited and the two farms are now united, so I never saw my dreams realized, for from my youth I had visions of seeing the old forty acre farm tilled, farmed and adorned by a small neat home with neat white fences and buildings, green growing crops, and orchard filled with choicest fruits, etc.  Perhaps because there, on that forty acre farm, my childhood days were spent and where love seemed to flourish and abound, in spite of what was, shall we say, modest poverty.

So many memories come surging to my mind as I write, some gay and humorous, some filled with tragedy, such as an early birthday party when I was four years old.  I recall the long table in the front door yard, filled with mother's good delicacies, her white frosted cake, top covered with red cinnamon candies, fried chicken, homemade ice cream, her sugar cookies, etc. (eggs pickled in beet juice) and the girl who filled her large skirt pocket with goodies to take home to her mother.  Mother saw her, but said nothing.

The worst tragedy was the sudden death of my baby brother, eighteen months old. He died of cholera-in-fantum, as it was called in those days.  I recall his lying on an improvised bed, made by placing pillows and comforters on two chairs, placed with backs at opposite ends, his flushed face, the burning fever, the horse white with foam that dad had rode so fast to Lyons, Ohio, to call old Dr. Brown who grqavely shook his head saying, "Too late.  Nothing can be done to same him."  But when he was still alive the next morning, dad again made the trip, but after a two day illness, he was gone.

I was too young to know, or to realize it all.  I thought he looked so beautiful, dressed so prettily and sleeping so sweetly in the pretty white crib with its silken lining, so much better than those two chairs, I thought.  The house was filled, a bountiful dinner was served, the minister was there and a beautiful white coach, drawn by two beautiful white horses was standing out in front.  Yet mother held me tightly in her arms, sitting in the old rocker and crying.  I thought it was all so gay and beautiful and I could not comprehend why she was crying.  I think I was three or four years.  I can recall playing together, but have no recollection of missing him after he was gone.

Though all my life I have had a feeling of aloneness, and I have so many times though, "If Harley had lived, I would not have lived so alone" as I think it must be a subconscious missing of the little brother with whom I was a constant companion. 

Later, in my teens, Clara, a sister five years my senior, became so close to me, but her death, at the age of twenty-nine, was again a great shock to me and again, the aloneness was with me, greater than before.  At the death of my eldest sister, age forty-six, I can recall mother standing by the open grave looking sadly at dad and saying, "Three out of seven".  But the four left are all surviving.

A brighter memory is the big eighty acre woods across from our home.  This was owned by Dwight Stoddard, a very successful pioneer farmer.  He owned a two hundred and forty acre farm and his family consisted of all girls.  He often hired my father to do day work such as hoeing corn or helping make hay.  He addressed my father in this manner.  "Frank, I want you to take your hoe and go over there in my corn field."  Dad often went and proudly came home showing mother the shining silver dollar he received for his day's labor.

But this woods was a delightful playground for us children.  We had a play house near its entrance.  This was shared with the neighbor children, the Miller family, and roaming the woods, gathering wild flowers, wild fruits, especially wild plums and huckleberries and cow-slip greens, from the swamp edge, also huge milk pails filled with sponge mushrooms gave us delightful thrills.  Also, going with my Grandfather Derby to gather the yearly supply of herbs for our winter's medicine was a thrilling experience. 

I also recall seeing Dr. Finney's one horse wagon busily occupied in the same manner and at night heading toward Delta, Ohio, 
the wagon filled to overflowing with the many herbs used for medicines in those days.  Some were Bebam for fever, horehound for colds, skunks cabbage for whooping cough, curly dock for the blood, boneset and a host of others, but the one I hated most of all was culver root.  This my Grandmother Derby steeped to a thick vile bitter tasting tea and kept almost constantly on the back of our wood burning range and as often as I ventured near the area I would meet her outstretched hand holding a huge tablespoonful of the black bitter potion and be told,  "Swallow it,  It's good for you."

Another time, I think I had whooping cough, mother tried to give me a spoonful of skunks grease.  I placed my hand over my mouth in protest.  A young man who was calling on my sister helped mother by saying, "Oh, take it.  It's good.  I eat it on my bread and butter."  I thought him a pretty fine fellow and very quickly opened up and tried to swallow, but disillusioned, gasping and choking, I spat out all I could.  I can still hear him laughing at the trick he had played on me.  Later in life, he bacme a preacher, but I never forgot the lie he had told me.

Mother always insisted we carry a hoe when we went back in the woods to hunt turkey nests or to play.  We often saw snakes, blue racers, spotted adders, and sometimes rattle snakes, but the little harmless garter snakes which seemed most numerous made us run just as fast as any.  Our hoe was seldom used, and we were never bitten.  Perhaps we could run faster than they.

Once mother scared us by making a noise like a cat.  We were deep in the woods swinging from trees.  We thought a wild cat was after us.  Did we ever run.  Once more fond memories cause my mind to wander from the story that my mother told us.  But, I will return.....

Tending the home, cooking for my grandparents, uncles and the builders of that home was my mother's introduction to married life.  She said my uncle did bring a sack of beans and a slab of salt pork...otherwise, they never could have managed.  Also, my uncle paid them a small amount of cash, no doubt to bnuy the staple groceries.

Then babies came in somewhat rapid succession, but not yearly, as in some homes.  Her expression in telling me of those early days of married life was, "Oh, God, it was a hard life."

Remember, she was a girl of less than sixteen years, but being young, strong, capable, she was determined to succeed in the task allotted to her.  That it was a hard life, I can well believe.  But love was there and it lasted all through the seventy-three years of married life.  My parents remained lovers till the end of life.

Father, at ninety-six, told me, When I married, my mother said, 'Frank, you have brought me just a little girl'," but with eyes sparkling, he added, "But she found out differently and grew to love her and admire her ability."  My aunt paid her tribute in saying she was a very good mother.  At first they all just laughed at dad for wedding...just a little girl.  But the hardships of those early years took their toll and dwarfed her spirit.  She seldom was seen outside her home, except during the days of the Model T Ford.  Henry Ford succeeded in lifting the care-worn house wives from their mire of hard work and despair.

When they acquired their Model T Ford, both of my parents fully enjoyed the thrilling adventures it afforded.  And it pleases me to remember that one of the first things they did was to go to the little Winameg Christian Churlch and proclaim Christ as their Savior and attempt living a Christian life.  Mother had already, before her mqarriage, become a member of the Christian Church at Tedrow, Ohio and was immersed in baptism there. 

She was a good mother.  Her home was always neat and always her table was wide spread and bountifully furnished.  I can recall assisting her, about the year 1910, when we were living on a rented farm east of Ottokee, Ohio, cooking for a large barn raising.  It was before the days of electric power.  All the men of the neighborhood would gather and help lift the heavy timbers in place.  Time was donated.  It was very exciting, also much hard work. 

All water was carried from a well outside, usually pumped by hand or drawn from the well with a bucket.  A coal or wood range graced the kitchen.  All baking was done in the home.  I can still see and smell the huge loaves of homemade bread and see the rows of freshly baked pies, cakes, and cookies.  While the kitchen gave out its fragrant odors, our bodies were also bathed in perspiration.  We knew mothing of the dainty toiletries of the present.  A clean towel was used to wipe the beads of perspiration from our face and often our clothing was soaked with perspiration, but it was accepted as inevitable.  No one paid it any attention.

Mother and I did all the cooking and baking for this occasion.  The first day we had fifty men for dinner.  The next day, thirty-five, and the next day the threshing crew came and we had only fourteen men for both dinner and supper.  But that same evening, our city relatives did not forget us, for after the evening chores were done and father had gone after a load of lumber for the next day's buklding, the phone rang and a telephone call announced that a train had just pulled in and would we come and get them. 

Mother told them they would have to hire a hack, so they did, and about nine o'clock a three seated hack drove up, the tired travelers announcing they had had no supper and were about famished after the long train riade, etc.  It was my Grandfather and Grandmother Derby, Uncle Hiram and two of his daughters, Aunt Mariel Hart and Aunt Jane Benjamin, my father's aunt and my great aunt.

We were a family of seven at that time, also had a hired man living with us and in addition to feeding them, we also had to supply sleeping accommodations.  Fortunately, at that time we were living in a large spacious house with four large bedrooms, but even so, adjustments and improvised beds were necessarily made.  And in those days, there were no super markets.  We used farm products, fresh vegetables from our own garden and truck patch and as I before stated we did all our own baking.

The grandparents stayed on for an extended visit and grandmother contracted pneumonia, but would not let us call our family doctor.  Instead, sent dad to Delta after Finney Powders from old Doctor Finney, who was then still living.  Yes, she recovered.  The pioneers had very strong constitutions.

It was not until the year 1918 that we were able to buy bakery bread for home use.  Then trucks started delivery and our local grocer was able to supply us. 

It would take volumes to describe the hardships, toil, and often the bleak poverty of the pioneers early day living. 

I like the scripture text...I Thess., 11-12.  Taken literally and applied to my mother.  "And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hads, as we commanded you.  That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye have lack of nothing."

This admonition seemed beautifully exemplified in my mother's life.  Her devotion to her home and family was complete.  Her hands were never idle.  Her later years, though lived in what many might consider very humble circumstances, were to one who had vaced so much hardship, as she expressed it..."The best I have ever known."

Income to meet necessities.  The modern comforts of life.  Time for hands to be folded in repose. "...work with your own hands.  That ye may have need of nothing".

"Enter thou into my rest."
"I have lived long enough:  my way of life
Has fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf.
And that which should accompany old age
As honor, love, obediance, troops of friends,
I must not look to have."
"There are hours long departed that memory brings
Like blossoms of Eden to twine round the heart.
And as time rushes by on the wings of his might
They may darken awhile, but they never depart".

But life, with its paradox of living, its mingling of joy and sorrow, hope and despair, leisure and toil, still is in retrospect, a very pleasant memory.  And ever in my memory loving thoughts will ever linger about that swampy wilderness home, where lusty, strong-hearted pioneers so bravely fought and won.  The clapboard house, with its unpainted, weathered siding, so sturdily resisting the inroads of time, so filled with the joy of living, the red rose climbing above the doors and windows...who can forget...

THE HOME WHERE CHILDHOOD WAS SPENT

Dear country home:  Can I forget
The least of thy sweet trifles
The red rose vines that clamor yet
Whose bloom the bee stile rifles.
The huge sweet black berries, growing-ripe-
And in the woods --- The Indian Pipe.

Dearer that little country home
In land with trees beside it
Some peach trees with their luscious fruit
A well, with weeds to hide it.
Some flowers, only such as rise,
When from love's sweet hand are guided.

Happy the one who tills their field
Content with rustic labor
Earth does to him its fullness yield
Come what may to his neighbor.
Well days.  Sound nights, oh, can there be -
A life more rational and free.

Thus ends my tale of a happily married pair whose lives were so closely intertwined through out their seventy-three years of married life, and whose descendants filled the little country chapel when last earthly rites were given.  What a monument of love, faith, and integrity for young people today, who have so much, yet lack so much, to gaze upon.  Well done!  Good and Faithful servants!  Enter into rest!  With hands still clasped in unity, march on, throughout Eternity, in happiness and peace.

My mother's hands labored for me long before I could provide for myself.  Up through the long lean years those loving hands toiled early and late for the sake of her home and family.  They are now wreathed in lines and marked with wear.  Some of the love marks she carries for us.  Never did she spare herself. In helpless infancy, or in growing youth, and neither shall I deny myself the pleasure for caring for her now.

"Oh, mother, when I think of Thee
'Tis but a step to Calvary
Thy gentle hand is resting now
As Jesus soothes They tired brow."

She was a woman of whom we can say, "She had so little, yet had so much.  We can forgive her weaknesses, yet admire her strength."  The strength of a woman who in her early teens, pledged her life to love, honor, and obey the man of her choice and who had the courage and integrity to be true to that vow, all through the long seventy-three years of wedded life in the midst of pioneer hardships, the raising of a large family and the rugged toil of the age in which she lived.  The careworn toil of the age in which she lived, even at times a struggle to eke out a bare existence. Yet her loyalty and courage was ever firm.  Truly a heritage of which to be proud.  She faced poverty, toil, weariness and pain and at times a broken spirit, yet she faithfully carried on, loyally and ever firm.

Her purpose in life could well be expressed by these lines ...

"I live for those who love me
Whose hearts are kind and true
For the Heaven that smiles above me
And awaits by Spirit too
For all human ties that bind me
For the task my God assigned me
And the good that I can do.