Wilson Family Genealogy
Laura Burmeister’s Story
My parents were born in Germany; they came to the United States. While still in their teens, they located at Lyons, in Clinton Co., Iowa, where Mother gat a job as "hired girl", first in the home of a lawyer, and later, in a doctor's home. While there my father, who was working somewhere in the locality, came to court her and in due time they were married and had a little home of their own. Two daughters were born to them there, Elsie and Alma. Not long after the birth of Alma, they decided to come to Northwest Iowa, where my grandparents had already located on a farm they had bought. My parents located o a farm in the vicinity of Larrabee, Iowa. Here four more children were born, Louise, Laura, Olga, and Otto.
My father wasn't content to stay in one place for very long, so when I was four years old father sold the farm and moved us to Roseburg, OR. He soon discovered things weren't as rosy there as the name implied. Farming was altogether different from what it had been in Iowa.
We children enjoyed ourselves there, a creek flowed by a short distance from the house, and we spent a lot of our time catching minnows, frogs and crawfish. Louise decided crawfish should be good eating, so she brought the tea kettle out and put some crawfish in it, and put cold water on them, and set the teakettle on the kitchen stove. When the water began to get too hot for comfort the crawfish started crawling out of the spout, and Louise was chastised for her cruelty.
We also had our first schooling at Roseburg. I was only four, but there were no age rules then. The teacher, Mrs. Smick, was not very young anymore. She held me on her lap when we came to class. I thought she was alright. But our schooling there didn't last long. After a year at Roseburg, father was ready to move again, this time to Camas Valley, about twenty-five miles from Roseburg. He bought a small farm, mostly covered with timber.
I well remember the first night we spent in our new home; it was an old log house with a lean-to attached to it, where the horses were kept. We didn't sleep much that night. We had been told there were bears and mountain lions in the woods near by us. As I lay awake, I could hear the horses munching their feed; it gave me a sense of security to have them near us.
My father soon busied himself cutting down trees, and clearing some of the land to put into crops. He also had to build a better house or us to live in. There was a saw mill in the valley where he got the lumber to build, but the shingles he made himself.
I was a small girl, about six years old then, but I remember watching him split the shingles off big blocks of wood he had sawed. Well, he got the house built, also a barn. We were very poor, but never went really hungry. Father liked to hunt and brought in lots of wild game. There was an abundance of blackberries, gooseberries and strawberries growing wild, on which we feasted and the folks always had a good garden. We had no fence around our garden, and we had a cow, which ran at large. Early one morning a neighbor came to call, so father told me to watch the cow, so it wouldn't get in the garden. But I didn't obey my father's orders, so later when father went out; the cow was in the garden and had eaten off most of the cabbages. What I got then isn't very pleasant to remember. My father didn't believe in "sparing the rod and spoiling the child." I sat in the garden weeping for a long time. Sister Elsie came out to the garden to comfort me.
Another incident I have never forgotten. We had just one hog, and it was to be butchered for our own use. So the day father butchered it, he hung it up in a tree to cool overnight. Mother cautioned him to hang it high enough so no dogs or wild animals would get at it. “Sure it is safe enough,” said father. The next morning all there was left was the two hams. The rest was eaten off clean. Poor Mother wept. She often cried. I used to wonder what she was crying about. I can see now.
We were young and carefree then.
At one time Father had been sick abed for some time. We were out of meat. Mother looked out of the window and saw a deer a short distance from the house. Father got out of bed and shot it from the doorway. Some of us children had to go and get a neighbor to come and bring the deer up to the house and dress it.
One day as some of us were out playing, something came rushing toward us. We thought it must be a panther. Sister Alma pushed us younger children into a little coop, similar to the hog coops we have now. She barely got in herself when the creature jumped right over the coop. It turned out to be a big buck deer. But got away, sorry to say.
While we lived on this place, two more were added to our family-- Paul; born the 25th of June and about two years later Ruth was born on the 29th of May. Paul had blond curly hair and Ruth had brown curls.
Mrs. Pettit was the only attendant when Paul was born, and Mrs. Noah when Ruth came. We all loved the little new babies.
By this time Father was getting restless again. He had a chance to trade his farm for one in Nebraska, so the deal was made unsight and unseen. The new owner wanted to take possession right away, so Father rented a farm for two years and we moved onto it, from the farm Father had put so much hard work on, and the new owner of our farm moved in. His name was E. K. Cluster from McCook, Nebraska. He had a wife and six children, and when they landed in Camas Valley, they came to where we lived, for about a week, and there were already ten of us, so Mother turned the upstairs over to them, and we slept wherever we could find a place to lay our heads. I don’t know how Mother ever got enough to eat, to feed us all, for that length of time. But we all survived.
We had a chance to go to school again after we moved. We were so far from school where we first lived, the younger ones couldn't go. The school was a ramshackle, old unpainted building, among the tall pine trees. The pupils ranged in ages from 5 to 17. The teacher was a sister of two of the older boys. One day eight or ten of the boys, including the brothers of the teacher, failed to come in when the bell rang. So when they finally came, the teacher lined them up in the front end of the school house. They were all to have a whipping. She started with the youngest on up to the oldest, who was her brother. He fought back. It was quite a battle. I was scared to death, and cried worse than any of those who got the whipping.
The last day of school we had a program. The parents of some of the children came. The teacher thought she might stir up some enthusiasm over building a new school-house, so she composed a little song for us to sing. It went like this--
There's wood enough to make the boards.
There are saws enough to saw with,
If Uncle Sam or somebody else
Could find a team to draw with.
Chorus: Stamp, Stamp, Stamp
We'll make this old house ring,
There’s no use freezing to death
In this poor old shell of a thing.
We all had to stamp our feet as we sang the chorus.
I never was an angel myself. I was always doing something I was sorry for afterwards. But one time I was blamed for something and I wasn't guilty. I was up on the hill side, some distance away from the house, when brother Paul, who was about three years old then, decided to climb the rail fence around our barn yard, went part way up, lost his footing, and was hanging on and screaming at the top of his voice. I was on my way to him. I could see he was only a short distance from the ground, so I called to him to let go and drop to the ground. Father heard me, so consequently I got the promise of a good whipping. I didn't know what to do. I felt I didn't deserve it, so I crept in the house, went upstairs and crawled under the bed as far as I could get. Mother told me to come out and get something to eat. After much coaxing, and the promise that I wouldn't get a whipping, I came out.
One day I went home with our teacher to spend the night. They had a lot of little ducks. The teacher took me out with her to feed them. They were soft, fluffy little things. They crowded all around me, and nibbled at my bare toes, and I accidentally stepped on one. I was horrified! My teacher didn't see it happen and I was afraid to tell her. We went to the house, and pretty soon her brother came in with the poor little dead duck, and she accused him of stepping on it. Of course he denied it, so quite an argument went on, and I was crying and she asked me what I was crying about. For awhile I wouldn't say anything; then she asked me if Ern, that was her brother, had hurt me. I said 'Yes, he hit me,' which he had not. Then the argument really began. I was too scared and bashful to own up I had told a lie.
We all felt badly when Father traded off our good old faithful milk cow for a less desirable one. He needed money badly, and could get the other cow and some money to boot. The new cow turned out to be a very poor milk cow.
One of my big disappointments was when Alma found out there was not Santa Claus, and there were no rabbits which laid eggs. She promptly told me and some of the younger ones about it. I felt like there was nothing left to look forward to, although at Christmas we seldom got anything but candy and nuts, and Mother always baked cookies for us, too. But we always had the pleasure of hoping for something more.
Fourth of July was another important day. There was always a picnic somewhere in the valley. Some of the men would decorate wagons with flags and flowers, and they would pick up the children in the neighborhood to take them to the picnic. I remember one year, Mother made wreaths of roses to wear on our heads.
The wife of the man who bought our farm died within a year or so after they came there. She
left seven children, one a small baby. Mother and Elsie used to go over and sew for the children. All the sewing was done by hand; very few had sewing machines.
In January 1899 Mother gave birth to her 9th child, a boy named Henry, after his father. I well remember that night. Father went to bring Mrs. Wylie, a neighbor woman, over to stay with Mother, while he rode a horse over to get the doctor who lived some miles from us. The doctor came back with him on his own horse. He stayed until daylight, as he hated to ride in the dark. He ate breakfast with us. I remember we had fried mush for breakfast. He said it was the first time he had ever tasted mush fried. He loved it.
My father learned the shoemaker trade when he was still in Germany, so the doctor asked him if he would fix his shoes for him. So Father fixed them for him. When the doctor asked father how much he owed him Father said 'nothing.' Then Father said to 'How much do I owe you?' The doctor said 'nothing.' Few doctors would do that now-a-days.
Spring again: Plans are being made to go to Nebraska via covered wagon. There is lots to be done. Tent to be made, cover for the wagon, furniture and machinery to be sold, clothes, bedding and food to be packed. We had just four hens left, which Mother dressed, to be eaten after we got on our way.
It is June 5th 1898. There are four covered wagons lined up, ready to start on the journey across country. The four families are--besides us--Wilsons, Cox and Thrush. There were about twenty-nine or thirty, children and all. It was a bright, sunny morning. Many of the neighbors came to bid us farewell, and a safe journey. As we took off, Chas Cox took the lead. As I remember him, he was a tall, broad shouldered bearded man, a typical pioneer, looked up to as one who knew the way. He had been constable of the settlement in the valley.
That night we got to a place called Diallard's about twenty miles from the home we left behind. We children wondered if we were about to Nebraska, but we knew little of the endless, weary days we had to travel before we got there. Father took three horses, one a spare to hitch on in front of the other two when the load got too heavy. One of us would have to ride the lead horse. I hated to ride the horse.
At one time I wasn't holding the reins tight enough and the horse fell down with me. I had a bruised elbow. I thought surely Father wouldn't make me get back on, but I was mistaken.
Thirty miles a day was about as much as we could make. The roads were rough in many places in those days. There were many hot days and feed and water was often scarce. When we got to Paradise Valley, Nevada, we were getting low on money as we had only $30 when let Camas Valley. So the man decided to stop there, to work in the hayfields. The men and the boys who were old enough all worked. We stayed there two weeks and then went on our journey again. We children enjoyed our stay. I remember some amusing incidents that happened there. One was when Charley Wilson had his eleventh birthday. Mother baked him an apple pie, so when she presented it to him, he told her he would like to have sister Louise help him eat it, but she was too bashful to sit down at the table with him, so he finally took a piece of pie and took after her and made her eat it. She didn't dream then, that years later, Charley would be husband.
When we got to Humboldt, Nevada, Father and Hiram Thrush decided they would stop there for a couple of weeks to work again in the hay fields. Coxes and Wilsons didn't want to stop, so they went on.
There were quite a number of men working in the hay field. They had a big tent where the men ate. An Indian woman did the cooking. Sometimes she would bring us some of the leftovers. She would come and sit in our tent and Mother would talk to her but she would only grunt or chuckle. One day our little baby brother was sick. When Mother told her about it she only laughed. I thought 'What a cruel old woman she is to laugh because a baby is sick.'
One day while we were there Bob, our spare horse, was grazing near the railroad track. A train came along and Bob took after it. He ran along a barb wire fence and cut a big ugly gash in his shoulder. Father washed it out and doctored it the best way he could, but it didn't heal. Then after we had left Humboldt and were nearing Salt Lake City, Utah, there was no water but salt water. Father hated to use it to wash the wound; he thought it would smart so. But he used it anyway and from then on it healed as if by magic. By the time we got to Ogden, Utah, the wound was healed and he was able to work again.
Mother made us all dress in our good clothes, which were only outing flannel dresses when we came through Ogden, Sister Alma was riding Bob, and as we were stopped on the street, in front of a grocery store, a lady came out with a basket full of pears. She said 'These are for the girl on the horse; she looks just like an angel.' Alma had long blonde curls then.
We traveled many miles over deserts and rocky roads. At one time we were two days without water. We would see mirages in the road ahead--it looked like water, it seemed like we could smell water, the horses would prick up their ears and fairly run, only to be disappointed.
In Wyoming we traveled mile after mile without seeing a soul. We older children had to get out and walk many miles to make the load lighter for the horses. We were barefooted and going through the hot sand we would run -- we didn't feel the heat on our feet so much. When night came, the tent had to be pitched, beds made and supper prepared. One night we had only sweet potatoes. I didn't like sweet potatoes, so I wouldn't eat. For punishment I had to wash up the supper dishes. I thought that wasn't fair.
We saw many train loads of troops go by as we traveled near the tracks. It was during the Spanish-American War. We were afraid of the soldiers, had the idea they would shoot any one they wanted to. So one day a train stopped near where we were stopped and some of the soldier boys brought us half of a big water melon and boxes of crackers. We weren't afraid of them after that.
In the wilderness of Wyoming, folks used to beg us to stop a few days, they were so glad to see folks. I remember one lonely little spot miles from anyone. We stopped for water. A lady came to talk to us. She begged so hard for us to stop awhile. There was a little plot not far from the house with a barb wire fence around it. She said 'There is the grave of my only son; he died of spotted fever.' We hated to leave her, she looked so lonely but we must go on, endless days. We don't ask any more 'When will we get there.' It seems almost hopeless. We are now in the mountains. The folks worry for fear we get snowed in. One night it did snow; the horses had been hobbled and turned loose to browse for feed. The next morning they couldn't be found. But to our relief they were found in a ravine, some distance from the wagons, where they had gone to find shelter.
Then we came through Laramie, Wyoming, Mother sent Alma and I to a house with a pail to get drinking water. The lady of the house was so sorry for us we had no shoes on and it was getting a bit cool. It was September by then. So she hunted around for some shoes for us. They were women's shoes, rather big for us, but we had never felt so lucky.
In a few weeks we came to Ft. Collins, Colorado. Shortly before we got there, Alma was walking with our baby brother in her arms, which we often did when he got restless riding in the wagon. He was now about ten months old. He saw something on the ground that she hadn't seen. He wanted it. It was a pocket book. We were out of flour and money. It contained enough to buy a sack of flour.
Father felt the need for earning more money. As it was potato harvesting time, he stopped to ask for a job and had no trouble getting one for himself and also for Elsie, Alma, Louise and myself. Elsie helped with the housework, Alma and Louise picked up potatoes, and I had to scatter sacks along the rows, so many feet apart to empty the potatoes into. At one time I was getting rather lazy and the pickers had to wait on me to bring sacks, so the boss told father I would have to do better, or I would be fired. With a good scolding from Father, my energy returned and I kept my job. We stayed there a month and then continued our journey.
We were alone now. Hiram Thrust wasn't in favor of stopping there and went on to Nebraska. Mother wasn't well all the while we were at Ft. Collins. She blamed the water. It had alkali in it. As the days passed she felt better and stronger. We were still about 250 miles from McCook, Nebraska and our new home was about twenty-five miles east of there. So at the rate we were traveling it would take at least ten more days to get there. The day finally came. As we came in sight of a sod house, all by itself, there was nor a bush or tree near. A dugout on the side of a low elevation, with a sort of a thatch roof over it, was a short distance from the house. It served as a barn for the horses. It was not what we had anticipated. It didn't seem much like a home to us.
It was about noon when we arrived, so the camp stove was set up and a fire built in it of sticks and corn cobs and whatever we could find. One of our neighbors to be was out hunting and noticed the smoke, so came over to investigate. He had two hounds with him. He was talking to Father. Mother was preparing dinner and mixed up the sour dough biscuits, and had cut up the last of the bacon on a board. She had the frying pan on the stove which was set up outside. She had put the biscuits in the oven of the little camp stove, then turned around to get the bacon. The hounds had licked the board clean. Mother was almost in tears. There was nothing but dry biscuits left for dinner.
Well, we got moved in, we were on the way from June 5 to Nov. 17. Had nothing to start housekeeping with, except our stove, and few cooking utensils and dishes, bedding and clothes. Father was twenty dollars richer than when we left Oregon, but fifty dollars wouldn't go very far for as many as there were of us. We were out of provisions so Father, Mother, and all the children except Elsie and Alma went to McCook to get groceries. It took two days to make the trip. While they were gone, Elsie and Alma ran clear out of food, so they brought a few ears of corn from the field, ground it in a coffee mill, and cooked mush for themselves to eat. There was no salt, sugar or milk, just mush. The folks accumulated enough furniture for us to get along with, also two cows and several dozen hens. He must have had a hog or two. I don't remember.
Our land had been rented to a neighbor on share rent so Father was kept busy getting the corn picked. Alma was always so thrifty. She made herself a sled, and put a box on it, and pulled it up and down the corn rows, and gathered the ears of corn that Father had overlooked. She went out with her sled day after day and had quite a pile of corn when she got done. Elsie got a job working in the hotel in McCook. She was fourteen and felt quite grown up. Louise and I both had a chance to help at some of our neighbors. She helped for a Mrs. Sheafer, who lived near us, also attended school there. I stayed with a Mrs. Wilson; her husband had been called to Pennsylvania by the death of a relative. She was afraid to stay alone. I helped her do the chores. She made me carry bucket after bucket of water to the hogs, at least it seemed like a lot. We got our board and a few articles of clothing.
When Christmas came, also my tenth birthday, there was a program. I had to speak a Piece. I got a story book from the Wilsons. She also made me a tam o shanter hat. She put a metal flower on one side of it. After I went back home I got the mumps, the other children had them before I came home, but I got them anyway.
We had been in Nebraska about three months when Father got a telegram from our Uncle Charlie saying our grandpa had died suddenly of a heart attack and Grandma would like father to come to run the farm. So plans for a sale were made soon after, and our few belongings were sold, and soon we were ready for another move—this time by train—to Sutherland, Iowa. Our Nebraska farm was rented for a few years and then sold.
Life was a bit better in Iowa. We went to the same school our cousins were attending. We had very little schooling while we lived in Oregon, se were way behind the other children our age. We lived with Grandmother for about a year, then father bought a farm adjoining hers. After moving to his farm, we were in a different county, so had to go to a different school. A good two miles to walk, through pastures and streams. The teacher and children were all strangers to us, so we didn’t feel much at home there for awhile. I felt like the others in my class were so much smarter than I. There was a certain boy I used to envy. I thought he could read better than anyone I knew of. On the way back and forth to school, he had to go the same way we did for about a mile. Then he had to turn south and we north. We used to pick the tall sunflower stalks that grew along the road, and chase each other with them. One evening, as Olga, myself, and this boy, whose name was Laurence, were having quite a lively battle, armed with sunflower stalks, a man working in the field quite close to the road, called to Laurence 'Which one of those two girls is yours?' Laurence emphatically replied, 'Taint neither one of them.' It seems he changed his mind later.
Another time as we were at school it started to rain. By the time school let our, it was pouring. The teacher was boarding with Laurence’s folks, so they sent their hired man over to the school with a team and buggy to bring them home, so the teacher insisted that we (there were five of us at school that day) should come home with them, so we went, but reluctantly, and spent the night there. When it came time to go to bed, Laurence’s mother got a pail of water ready for us to wash our muddy feet. We were all bare footed. Laurence washed his first, as he was told to, then the five of us followed suit. I think the water was rather dirty by the time the last pair of feet were washed.
We missed many days of school because of bad weather, and having to help with the work on the farm. Corn picking was a long job. Alma, Louise and I used to pick at one long wagon and Father had a shorter wagon. We girls worked hard at it. We liked to bring in all we could pile on the wagon. Farther had to scoop it all in the crib by hand. There were five girls in our family before any boys arrived. Some of us girls did all kinds of field work, milked and did chores, until the boys got old enough to take over. We milked quite a number of cows and we girls still helped with the milking.
Since coming back to Iowa, four more had been added to our family—Emory, Andrew, Alice and Archie. Now there were thirteen children. What a houseful! Father had an addition built on our house. We needed more room.
One center of attraction was the Hyland Church, the first church we ever attended regularly. All the neighbors went there. Those were horse and buggy days. Folks couldn’t travel as many miles as we do now. It was through this church’s influence that Elsie decided to become a missionary. They had Epworth League on Sunday evenings. One Sunday night some of us girls drove to the church to attend League. We went in the surrey. After the meeting, some of the young fellows offered to bring our team and buggy to the church door for us. When they got to where our buggy was, they all started to laugh. They called to us to come and see something, and there on the running gear of the buggy sat two hens
and a rooster, quietly sleeping. They had gone to roost there before we left home, and drove the two and a half miles over there without making a sound. We didn’t disturb them and they rode all the way back home.
Elsie had been teaching country school for several years, while the rest of us older girls were still going to school, when we learned there was to be six weeks of summer school in Cherokee, to prepare those who decided to become teachers. Alma, Louise and I enrolled. Alma’s eyes started to bother her so she returned home after several weeks. At the end of the term Louise took the exams and passed. I wasn’t old enough, had to wait until October to take them, which I did and got my certificate. I took a school for the winter term. There were twenty-three pupils—some big boys, almost as old as I was. I had never given a thought to the discipline part of teaching, but soon found out how important it was, by that time, I couldn’t do much about it. I stayed there for the winter term, then looked for another school. In those days the school year was divided into three terms. We hired out by the term, not by the year. After my first term of teaching, I was very careful not to let my pupils get the upper hand. I got $35 per month, $10 for room and board. I had taught several years when I decided to take a business course in Storm Lake, Iowa. I ran out of money before the course was finished, so went back to teaching. $45 the last two years.
During the summer vacation in the year 1912 there was to be a big 4th of July celebration in Sutherland, so a number of us were going for the evening program. We girls were upstairs getting dressed to go when a car drove in. Brother Paul came to the foot of the stairs and hollered, 'There is someone here to see you, Laura.' It was the same Laurence I have mentioned before, who we used to fight with on the way home from school. He asked me if I would go to the celebration with him. It was quite a surprise, but of course I was very willing to go. We had more dates, but they were far apart. But as time went on, they became more frequent until after almost two years, we were married the 24th day of June in 1914.