Seedtime and Harvest:
Our Lives 1

Mary E. Heldenbrand

December 1941

PREFACE

In dedicating this, my life's story to our posterity, I want to acknowledge with gratitude the work and effort of love in typing and binding this volume, of our grandson Elton and his wife Marjorie, with a prayer that it may inspire all who read it to a more worthy effort and the dedication of lives to God, the giver of every good and perfect gift.2

In writing the family history of James and Mary Heldenbrand we have endeavored to go back as far as records and memory take us. Both sides of the house came from the pioneer settlement of Pennsylvania, with the exception of the grandparents of Mary Heldenbrand, Conrad and Anna Sophia Feller of Nedda Hessen Darnstadt, Germany. They were a wealthy family of high German birth.

A bit of 16th Century Reformation history helps us here in regard to the origin of high German speech. We quote ``Prior to the 30 years war (1618-1648) the language of Germany had been a confusion of dialects. Out of these was gradually evolved the speech known as High German. In translating the New Testament Doctor Martin Luther fixed forever the standard of German language.'' In this bit of history we may find why Conrad and Sophia Feller were of German Luther persuasion.

To them were born three children, George, Mary, and Elizabeth. In 1847 just prior to George's 21st birthday the parents left Germany for America, to save the son from compulsory military training. Due to this hasty departure Conrad placed all his property under his brother's supervision. Upon arriving in the United States they settled in Louisville, Kentucky. About 6 months later, he was walking down the street one day when he was struck back of the ear by a brickbat which had been aimed at another man. He was knocked unconscious and soon passed away. The brother who had charge of his property proved untrue to the trust, as he confiscated the property, thus leaving this widow and her family penniless in a strange land.

Mary married a thrifty German, William Unz. They soon moved to Livingston County, Illinois, 65 miles south west of Chicago and 20 miles west of Kankakee, Illinois, at the time of the opening of that section of the country to agriculture. George married and lived on an adjoining farm. The widow and Lizzie, as Elizabeth was called, lived with the daughter Mary and her husband William Unz until Lizzie was married at the age of 17.

There were 12 children in the Unz family and all were workers. Their thrifty management soon made them a well to do family. The large farm house had large rooms without carpets (except the parlor) which were scrubbed with sand and soap by the girls, on their hands and knees. The milk from twenty cows was strained into one-gallon milk crocks set on the basement floor. The skimming, with a flat perforated skimmer, and washing and scalding of milk crocks, was heavy work. Each child had his share of caring for the horses, hogs, and cows. Butter was shipped to the Chicago market once a week in wooden butter tubs holding twenty pounds each. Twelve to sixteen were shipped every week.

Mary Unz boasted she could outdo any man in the fields - which she did. Her mother did the cooking for their large family, except when the Preacher would come; then Mary would take the kitchen to the hurt of Grandma Feller who said, ``she thinks I am not good enough to cook for the Preacher''. (More about the ``Preacher'' later on.) The oldest son, William Jr. died of a sunstroke in the field where his mother was at work. A heavy thorn hedge was planted around the field that intensified the heat. The new prairie sod yielded abundantly, the virgin grass grew as high as two feet in the slough that lay west of them a mile. Grandma Feller never learned to use the English language. She died at the ripe age of ninety three at her daughter's home, date not known.

This neighborhood was settled by German families such as the Kriebel, Boyers and Rieke families, and was known as the ``Unz neighborhood''. Their religious persuasion was the German Reform Lutheran. A large county church was built on the Boyer farm joining the Unz' to the east. There they worshiped in fervency of spirit; a singing school was held winter evenings to teach the young in voice music and such singing as they could develop. One feature of the family altar worship in the Unz home was as follows: The father would read a chapter in the Bible, the family seated in a circle around the large dining room. After reading, all would stand up, face to the wall, and sing a short hymn; then kneel while Father prayed with earnest petition. The mother would ``Amen'' at times. Although in a German tongue, I could never understand, yet the spirit of earnest prayer impressed my young heart, never to be erased.

Now comes the sad part of this fervent group. The Preacher was held in very high esteem among the Lutheran and is to this day. A division came up between two of their high preachers. The contention was carried to this community, and brought such division among them, some clinging to one preacher, and some to the other, till husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters were at odds with each other. The damage never was repaired, the church went into disuse. The fervency of worship was lost to God.

Biography and History of the Curriers

John Currier was born in Pennsylvania in 1810. Anna Robinson was born in Pennsylvania in 1811, and they were married in 1833. Eight children were born to them. James was the second oldest, born in 1836. John and Anna Currier moved to Illinois not long after the Unz family came there. They settled in what was called ``Round Grove'', Illinois some five miles farther west. The land was level except for a small creek that was timbered and hazel brush bordering the timber that furnished nuts for the winter. The creek could be easily forded except in the spring floods. Their house was build of logs that stood for many years.

Little is known of John Currier other than that he was very religious. He died in 1862. At the time of his funeral this creek was over its banks. Water came into the wagon box that carried the corpse. I was two years old and was thrown out of my mother's arms into the water, and would have been drowned only for the rescue by my Uncle Phillip Clover. These were some of the experiences of the brave hearts that opened the frontiers from state to state. Mrs. Ben Nedham, Mrs. Mary Whitmore, and Mrs. Henry Dolandson were sisters, all Curriers, John Currier being their brother.

Anna (Robinson) Currier was of Scotch-Irish parents and she bore many traits of her ancestry, a brilliant mind, a clear and honest conception on business affairs, a conscientious Christian to her convictions of a woman's place in the home, as wife and mother, never meddling in another's affairs. We cannot refrain from referring to a contribution she gave me, ``The Happy Man's Pedigree'', which is rich in truth and doctrine. This is found in my scrapbook of Christmas, 1939, a gift from Rose. It also has the picture of Anna Currier. Isn't it fine? 1811 - 1904.

Her son, James Currier, came to be of age, twenty one, in the new home in Illinois. As land adjoining could be preempted, he needed a wife to help him build a new home. He sought the hand of Elizabeth Feller, age seventeen. They were married November twenty second, 1857 in Livingston County, Illinois. There began a very eventful life to each of them, being of American and German birth. They started in a very humble home of one room on the 160 acres of land.

At the very start James set up the family altar, and was diligent in its practice until his death. He, as his parents, were very strict Baptist and firm in regard to baptism by immersion. One characteristic of his life was to be firm even to a fault, but he was of a kind disposition, ever seeking to do good to whom he came in contact. His one passion was the Scriptures, and he brought comfort to many that made the Word more real in life. He read the Bible with a desire to find out what it taught, not what one can make it teach. His giving diligent heed to the Scriptures made a deep impression on his children. In time he built a larger house with an upper story and sold the forty acres with the small house on it. Of this moving we will speak later.

Elizabeth Currier had not found life very smooth for her timid nature; not much kindness had been given her by her stern brother ``George'', who took the place of a father over her in a measure but without the support. She took a step in their disfavor to marry an American. But to her, it meant faithfulness to her death. She was very kind and loving, having a retired, home-loving disposition. She was always ready to do more than her part to make ends meet. As her education was in the German tongue she set herself to learn to read by comparing her English Bible to her German Bible. She not only learned to read, but became an efficient Bible student all her life. She was convinced by reading and comparing her Bibles that it taught baptism by immersion, and was immersed, which severed her from the Lutheran faith, but brought harmony to her husband's convictions. She fully gave herself to her husband and home building. She never attempted to teach her children her mother tongue. Her people used the English language except in worship and in church services. The attachment between the two families was very close. Mary Unz could not do too much for Lizzie's children.

Grandma Feller never acquired the English language so that she never could talk to the children except Annie, the oldest, who went to live with Aunt Mary after she was sixteen and until she was married in 1878 to Samuel Kriebel of that neighborhood.

Ten children were born to James and Elizabeth Currier, Annie, Mary, Lewis, Henry, Emma, Lilly, Lucy, Eugene, Mabel and Bernie. Four died in childhood and six grew to manhood and womanhood to bless their parents.

The early life in Illinois was in patient toil, as all pioneers meet, doing the best with what you have. Tanning hides for leather, making soap with lye run off of leach barrels of wood ashes, using wooden tubs that had to be soaked up before wash day, Mother knitting the socks and stockings and mittens for winter; all this was a part of that life. Mother's first sewing machine was a Singer Head fastened on the table and was run by hand; it was a chain stitch. It was replaced by an upright Singer with foot treadle. This Mother could not readily do. Though only a little girl, I could tread the machine like a duck takes to water. So I would tread while Mother would guide the work, but not for long, for Mother would take to any kind of work readily. She often did stitching for neighbors less fortunate than she.

Later in life she turned to weaving rag carpets. As ever, her work was so well done she could not keep up with her orders. The money earned was spent in doing good for her children and grandchildren. Her greatest delight was to help along the great work of the Kingdom of God. As she always said, ``There is such need''. A noble life was hers and she died at peace with God and man Dec. 26, 1914.

To be fair to each as husband and wife, we must mention that Father was not very strong in body, and after several years of farm work, they left the farm in 1868 and moved to Dwight, Illinois. After one winter there, they moved to Gardner, then in 1874 moved to Adams County, Nebraska. Of this we will take up more later. The move urge was so great that later he went to Oregon alone and spent some time there. At his last illness, Mabel, his youngest daughter and his brother Lewis went to him to care for him. His heart turned with all the old earnestness to be right with God and everyone. He died in peace Dec. 29, 1909 and was buried in the family lot in Juniata Cemetery, Adams County, Nebraska.

The ancestry of the Heldenbrand and McConnell families lay in Pennsylvania as well as the Currier family. Both sides of the house came from Pennsylvania. Just what part of the state is not known.

Adam Heldenbrand and Anna Smith were born in Pennsylvania. To their union seven children were born, John, Henry, Mary, William, Lizzie, Harry and George.

James McConnell was born Sept. 22, 1809 in Pennsylvania. Hanna Bowman was born March 24, 1807 in Pennsylvania. These were the parents of Permilla McConnell. There were six brothers and sisters, Boam, Fletcher, Ned, George, Emma, and Tillie. The noted Bishop Christian Bowman of the M.E. Church was father of Hanna Bowman. He died in 1831. Permilla M. McConnell was born on Bishop Bowman's farm at Brier Creek, Pennsylvania, March 11, 1835 in Columbia County. It is not known where the rest of the McConnell family were born.

The Heldenbrand and McConnell families moved to Stark County, near Massillon, Ohio, in a very early day by the account of the settlement there. Adam and Anna Heldenbrand were strict Lutherans in faith. That had tendency to harden the hearts of their children, at least son Henry, toward church services. He rebelled against compulsion, and in mature years did not attend any kind of church services.

Hanna Bowman was under very earnest spiritual influences as the M.E. Church was at that time, and Permilla was very tender to the attitude of Christianity. She was of a very refined nature, much given to poetic verse. Her soul chaffed under the rougher element of the world. She had expressed in her later years, how she had hoped her only boy, James, would grow up to be a preacher, only to be disappointed so far as his calling went. Preachers are born, not made.

Adam Heldenbrand bought a farm in Stark County, Ohio of 1400 acres of land. A good part of it was in timber, and a small river or stream ran through the timber land. This was in 1830. Sheep raising was the main objective of the farm. Usually there were around 300 acres of wheat grown. The object was more for the straw to furnish bedding for the sheep barn. More care was given to the sanitary condition of the sheep to grow clean wool.

The grain was cradled; a man with a scythe cut the wheat, another followed to gather it up in bundles and bind the grain; then the shockers, to shock it. There were required as high as sixty-six men in the harvest field on the Heldenbrand farm. The custom of the neighborhood was to see that every man was through the harvest before stacking began. If any farmer started his stacking before this, men would gather by night and scatter his stacks over the field. These men in harvest time were gathered from the factory labor in Massillon. The factories were shut down during that time. The men would choose a leader to go out and find the needs of the farmer and to see how many men were needed; then place the men to their jobs. The stacking was done by first filling the large barn loft. Then the rest was stacked into the barn lot.

The thresher was kept inside the barn, and the horse power sheltered just outside under a shed. They threshed wheat every Saturday, rain or shine, just enough wheat to bed the sheep with straw for the week.

There were three Russell brothers who owned three flour mills, one seven story mill at Massillon, the rest were warehouses at Buffalo, N. Y. The wheat was moved on canal to Lake Erie on boats. The Russell brothers were wealthy grain dealers and a ready market for wheat.

Henry was well acquainted in the care of sheep and shearing. He tells how the sheep were washed in the river before shearing time. A platform was built out in the water about waist deep, and a plank floor made to keep out the mud. Sheep do not like water and the only way they could be forced into the water was by the help of a noble sheep dog. He would get four or six in at a time. After the sheep were washed they had to be kept in the lot till a rain would settle the dust before driving them to the shearing lot. Wool was from $1.00 to $1.25 per lb. Henry has driven a four horse load of wool to Massillon that netted $6000.00.

The first invention of a type of reaper was tried out on this farm. It was a straight blade the length of the cycle. It simply pushed the grain down and would not cut it. That rig was pulled into the fence corner and left there. By the next year the company came with a cycle bar that proved to cut the grain. The reaper had two tongues. A horse was hitched between the tongues and two horses on the lead. Two men were on the reaper; one to drive and one sitting on a seat over the drive wheel to rake off the wheat in bundles for the binders; next improvement was the adding of the reel to feed the wheat into the cycle. Several years later came the self-binder; then a platform to carry the bundles till enough to form a shock. Every improvement in machinery has cut down man power till today the combine cuts and threshes the wheat in one operation. A man a team, and even trucks, follow up to release the grain from the bin on the combine; tractors take the place of horses. Housewives rest from heavy cooking and yet are we the stronger?

We have with us today samples of all wool, double ply counterpane and wool blanket that Grandmother McConnell carded the wool from the sheep, spun the thread, and wove the cloth. All sewing then was done by hand. Knitting socks, stockings and mittens was the recreation for old and young in their time.

The year's supply of Ohio apple butter was a home product. Adam Heldenbrand had a large copper kettle that would hold thirty or forty gallon for outdoor boiling. A wooden ladle was adjusted over the kettle on a pivot to be used in constant stirring a young boy's job, but very confining at that. Ten barrels of apple (butter) cider to one barrel of peeled and cored apples was the formula. No sugar was used. The cider was boiled down and the apples added later, till all was a smooth butter and boiled down to a thick spread. It never spoiled, and improved with age. It was stored away in wooden apple butter kegs, about the size of nail kegs. Laundry tubs were made of wooden slats held by wooden bands. These tubs had to be soaked up before using every wash day. Tub and board was the only way of wash day. The clothes were put through two suds waters before boiling.

Henry A. Heldenbrand and William McKinley were school boys together. Henry's sister Anna married Ben Cunrod and their home was one and a half blocks from Mr. & Mrs. McKinley in Massillon, Ohio, when McKinley ran for president in 1896. Ben Cunrod was a rank Democrat while Henry was a strong Republican. The campaign issue that year was ``free silver'' or, sixteen to one.

Henry came to be one of the most gifted pen-men in his day, and taught penmanship much as vocal music was taught in singing schools. His great love for horses made him a wonderful man in his care and training of horses as long as he was active on the farm.

Henry A. Heldenbrand and Permilla M. McConnell were married November 14, 1852 in Salem, Ohio by Rev. Nesley of the M.E. church. Their five children were born in Ohio. They are Ida, Nov. 7, 1853; Alta Rena, July 15, 1855; Anna Eliza June 16, 1858; James Adam Dec. 4, 1859; Josephena E. Dec. 1861. Ida and Anna died when quite young and are buried in Mud Brook Cemetery, Stark County, Ohio.

While a young man at home Henry bought a gray horse, named Bill, of a neighbor who for some reason was jammed in the barn by Bill, and he got afraid of the horse and sold him. Henry rode Bill into Massillon to see the first train pull into town. Bill was so frightened at the sight of the locomotive that he lay down with Henry on his back. The great object was to find a match for his horse, and especially with this one.

One of the Russell brothers of the mills lived in Massillon in a fine residence. He owned a gray driving mare for his wife to use, that so perfectly matched Bill that Henry dickered for two years to get Mr. Russell to sell Doll. It was a long story.

Mr. Russell wanted Bill and Henry wanted Doll. Every time they would meet they would ask ``will you sell?'' Russell offered $175.00 for Bill and Henry offered $185 for Doll. At last Henry offered $10.00 for the chance to choose which should own the team. That did not work, for Russell felt sure which way it would go. He gave in, and said the team should go together. Henry rode to the home to get Doll. When he came back to the store and tied the grays to the hitch rack, Mr. Russell threw down on the counter a bag of $500.00 in gold and said, ``Henry, if you would rather have the bag of gold than that team, you take it, and leave them tied where they are.'' That was a test, but Henry kept the team. The offer was still open if he should change his mind in any near future. When fly time came next summer, Russell ordered a buckskin fly net made for each of the grays, that cost him $25.00, and gave them to Henry for the team.

Now came the course of training that is best told in a contest one fall with a $25.00 purse for the best plowing team in the country round. Henry entered with Bill and Doll. The land was staked off and numbered. Each contestant was to plow six furrows around his own layout of a field. One stake was driven at each end of their field. When Henry's number was called, he hitched Bill and Doll to the plow, with the four traces to the double tree, and folded the lines to the hames on each horse and started to lay out his field. After he had plowed three rounds, he unhitched and changed sides for the horses, and plowed three rounds more. The crowd cried, ``Give Hank the $25.00 prize, there is no use any of us trying to beat that''. His only way to direct his horses was with his voice in ``Gee'' and ``Haw''.

Henry worked this team of grays for twenty three years and then gave them their freedom from labor. They lived to be over thirty years old. James tells of watching his father take Bill and Doll to pull out a stalled threshing machine in a slough in Iowa that six horses failed to move, and this was after they had their freedom. Sister Joe has a tin-type picture of old Bill and Doll in her keepsake now.

Adam and Anna Heldenbrand had seven children, John, William, Henry, Harry, Mary, Elizabeth and George. John and his family was the first to move to Iowa, settling in Benton County. Henry was preparing to move to Iowa in 1863. His brother John and son Harry were cutting timber. As they were loading logs on a bob sled, his son struck the ax into a log. The ax flew out of his hand and struck his father in the ankle. Infection set in, and word came to Henry that they would amputate John's leg.

Henry sent word back not to operate till he got there. Henry had his car chartered. At this word he packed his belongings into his car with Bill and Doll and a pure bred ``Chestnut'' Morgan mare, called Mollie, and the train started for Iowa. The first stop was Chicago. He took his horses out to water and feed, then took his grip and went to a hotel. When he went back to his car he found two railroad men dumping his goods out on the ground. Just as he was coming near they had his large tool chest on the end and as it lit on the ground it burst open. Henry demanded of them what they were doing with his goods. They said his things had to be transferred into another car on another line. Then they demanded him to show his papers, to show the goods were his. There were hot words between them, but he got loaded into another car and pulled out again.

His troubles were not at an end yet, for when the train arrived in Bell Plain, Iowa it was in the night time. Henry asked the train men to leave his car where he could get his horses out, but they went on and left his car along a side track. He went to the Depot and found it locked, then he went to a residence to find where the Depot agent lived, but when he called him out of bed, he was told he would have to wait until day light to get his horses out. Henry was there to get to his brother John as soon as he could, and he did. He went back to his car and began to make a way to get his horses out onto the ground. He cut the door off the car and laid it down for a bridge to the car, got his horses out, and started for John's, some ten miles from Bell Plain. When he had seen the condition of his brother's leg, Henry rode back to Bell Plain and wired to a physician and surgeon, Dr. Mansfield of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. On his arrival Dr. Mansfield said there was no need for the man to lose his leg. He took the case, and saved the leg for John.

Permilla and her three children Ella (as Alta Rena was called) James and Joe followed by train and stopped in Chicago to visit her brother Ned. For some reason Henry took his wife and the three children to West Irving, a small inland town. They stayed at a Travis Hotel. Mr. Travis about adopted Jim, as he was only four years old. They were there some two weeks.

The farm where Henry and his family lived that first winter was on his Father's land about seven miles northeast of Bell Plain, Iowa. The house was in poor condition, and the horse stable only a shack built of poles for frame and a hay roof. There these pioneer parents met one of Iowa's worst blizzards which lasted three days and nights. Wood was the only fuel, and a cook stove the only heat. Henry kept fire day and night, while Permilla and the three children slept on the floor near the stove. On bringing in wood from the wood pile Henry found a pigeon frozen stiff and covered with snow. He took it into the house. In time it thawed out, and flew up on the secretary or book case. Snow completely covered the stable for three days. The horses had no food or drink. What that would mean to one like Henry with his horses and the hardships for Permilla we can know only by like experiences.

They bought the ``Gould'' farm, 160 acres, in the following year. It was two miles north of Grandfather's farm. Then Adam and Anna Heldenbrand came to Iowa and built a large brick house, two story, four rooms above and four rooms on ground floor. A full basement divided into four rooms. Two large halls separated the rooms above the basement. One daughter, Lizzie, never married and lived with her parents till she died in Iowa. George and his wife Sadie lived with the parents for some years, but moved back to Canton, Ohio.

John had first come into Iowa with 5,000 sheep he drove overland from Ohio to Benton County. These were for his Father's farm. Large barns and stables were never built there as they were in Ohio. The house on the Gould farm was a two story; four rooms and a pantry in the first story, and two rooms above.

Henry and some of the neighbors got busy and organized a school district. A school house was built on the corner of this farm of 160 acres. Here is where James started to school with Ella and Joe. In time settlers came in of German stock; some of the High Dutch and some of the Low. Dissatisfaction arose, and the school house was moved one mile north. The Dutch children picked on Jim and his sisters till one day Jim threw water over one of the girls at recess. When she came in her teacher called her down for it. She answered, ``Kin I no emp it, he makes me all mid water''. Ella was of a quiet disposition but Joe had a fiery nature, so there was trouble. Permilla was dissatisfied.

In time Henry sold out to a German by the name of Prusier. He put up a plea that he could not get his money just then, but wanted to move in part of the house to put in the crop. Henry let him in, with one promise as good as another, and at last he put his hand on his pocket and told Henry, ``I have my money in my pocket, you get it if you can''. That brought on a law suit, and for five years it was in court. The wife in Iowa could hold one 40 acres by law. Permilla would not sign over the 40 with the buildings. The Judge, the lawyers, and jury-men were Masons. At last the Judge told Henry, ``You join the Masons and this will soon be settled''. That made Henry more wrathy than ever. He would never do it if he lost all, and he did lose all. After it was over they sold the 40 and moved in with the Grandparents in the brick house, and the children went to school in that district. In this neighborhood lived Mr. and Mrs. O.H. Wright, Mr. and Mrs. Ben Roberts, Mr. and Mrs. P.C. Funk; all who later came to Nebraska as neighbors in Adams County.

Etta Rena Heldenbrand and Dewy J. Roberts were married Sept. 12, 1875 by Rev. Wheat of Bell Plains, Iowa, and left for their new home in Nebraska six miles south and one half mile east of Kenesaw, then an unbroken prairie. Their house was in the side of a draw, part sod and part dug out. One room, with dirt floor, and dirt roof. This was the home of the newly weds, and no doubt the dream of future prosperity, but happy in that of a pioneer spirit that knows no defeat.

Henry and Permilla Heldenbrand with the two children, Jim 17 and Joe 15, left Iowa for Nebraska in the fall of `76. Dewy's younger brother, Harvey Roberts, came with them. He had a team and wagon and seven cows to bring for his Father, Ben Roberts. There were the two covered wagons, Jim rode old Mollie, the Morgan mare they brought from Ohio, and drove the cows every mile of the way. He did not dismount to ferry across the Missouri river at Nebraska City. Henry had given a pair of mules to Jim while farming in Iowa. These he hitched onto the tongue with his two bay mares in the lead. Then he tied a young mare and Dutch, a black colt about 2 years old, onto the back of the wagon. Harvey and his team followed. Jim and the cows brought up the rear. Here we have a typical picture of a caravan ``westbound'' to open up homes in the new State of their choice. These were familiar scenes in the pioneer days and brave hearts that were able to meet hardships unexpected and unsolicited as they might come, and our own families were no exception to this rule.

Henry and Dewy Roberts had made a trip to Nebraska in 1874 when Dewy bought the land that he and Ella came to as their home. Henry bought 160 acres of raw prairie land four miles southeast of Kenesaw and this trip was moving the family to Adams County. The party arrived at Dewy and Ella's on Nov. 8, `76, the family together again after one year in Nebraska for the young couple just after they were married.

We have noticed the house for a home but there must be some preparation to bed the family. Father bought some boards and laid a floor in Ella's one room house, and beds were made on the floor. Joe and her father and mother slept in the house. Jim (and) Harvey slept in the covered wagon all that winter. In three days less than one month Ella gave birth to her first born, a sweet girl they name Decia Elta Rena. Dr. Ackley of Juniata, a young doctor, was in attendance and this was his first maternity case. He did not know what do to help contraction and Ella left her babe just four hours old. We would draw the curtain if we could on the sadness of this scene. Elta Rena Roberts died Dec. 5, 1876 and was laid to rest in the Juniata Cemetery. A tombstone marks her grave. Death is hard to meet any time, any place, but this one seems most tragic. Ella was a beloved daughter.

Now Decia took the first place in her grand-mother's heart. The family lived with Dewy over the winter; in the spring of `77 they moved into Ira Dillan's farm one mile east of Juniata. Decia lived with her grandparents in Kenesaw as Dewy had given up the farming and lived with his parents in Kenesaw. The school was some advantage over Juniata school for Decia. In the winter of `91 an epidemic of diphtheria broke out in Kenesaw and took Decia Oct. 14, 1891 aged fourteen years and ten months. Decia was laid to rest beside her mother in Juniata cemetery. Thus another dart of pain was rent in the heart of Permilla, for Decia was her dearest charge since she was born.

We can read some of these experiences of sorrow in the verse poems by Permilla's pen. The first year or two on the Dillan place was hard for everyone. There was only 80 acres but the buildings and shed barn made a home. Henry and his boy rented a quarter of land from Charley Jones just east of town as well as worked the land southeast of Kenesaw. That was put into corn.

There was a prairie dog town just east and a small part on this place. Henry and Jim went one fall day to cut and shock this corn for fodder. After larietting out the team on the edge of this dog town, the men took their corn knives out of the buggy and started for the corn field. Jim said to his father, ``Here is a rattler'', and cut him in two. His father said, ``Here is another'' and another, for they were in a nest of rattle snakes. They slashed and killed till they had eleven rattlers. The last one made for a hole, the home of the prairie dog. Jim smashed his foot over the hole and held the snake fast. He could not get his head out to bite so Jim took hold of his tail and cautiously pulled him out till he thought he was near enough to his head to be safe, then cut the snake in two, and let him go. That was enough snakes for one day.

This reminds me of an experience I had while on the homestead at Lodge Pole. Daddy had gone for barrels of water. Rose and I were alone. We had a small hay stack 6 or 8 feet from our cave. As I passed this hay stack going to our cave, I saw quite a large bull snake lying by the hay. I cut him in two about the middle with the hoe, and forgot about it. Next day I went into the cave and there lay the half part with the head on the cave floor. How it got there was a mystery to me.

The first reaper used in Nebraska was made for two men to ride on to bind the grain and one man to drive the team, or double team, in some cases, if the ground was soft by recent rains. The crops were good as the ground became tilled. Mr. Dillan stood back of his renters in the first hard pull of getting started to farming.

Jim and Jo attended Juniata school mostly in the winter months, for Jim was in the fields much of the year. He drove the horse power for Phil Funk threshing crew, after they moved from Iowa to Juniata. The had old friends coming from Iowa that settled around in Adams County that added to the comfort of the pioneer life.

The land Henry bought was purchased from the railroad at $4.25 per acre, and not far from the old Oregon Trail. The poisoned well along this Trail was about one half mile west of Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Roberts an uncle of Dewy's where Jim stayed when he worked the land. He claims the Government marker for this well site is one half mile south of the original well. The hostile Indians had poisoned this well to catch the white men on their way. The ``Lone Woman's Grave'' a few miles north west of Kenesaw marks the grave of one of the victims of this poisoned well. Her husband returned to Omaha and brought back a tomb stone on a wheel barrow, walking all the way, to mark his wife's grave. What devotion. It is now an historical site, protected by the State of Nebraska.

As we follow on the farming life of James from his boyhood, we learn he began to plow in the fields when he had to reach up to hold the plow handles, and it was all he could do to manage to throw the plow out of the ground to turn the corners. His father's team, old ``Bill and Doll'', was able to help their young driver turn the furrows and do it straight. He has worked with every kind of reaper from the cradle to the binders. His only exception is the combine. Like his father before him, he did his work well, and the barn was kept cleaner than many house wives keep their houses. His father excelled in stacking, bound or headed grain. That, Jim never took up as his part of field work. There is dignity in honest labor, and they made it so in their attitude of work. This brings its reward in any field of labor, city or country life.

Josie E. Heldenbrand and Hugh A. Moreland were married March 25, 1881 at Phelps Center, Nebraska by Rev. A.G. Magill. They had four children. Imo H. H. or Chubby, Frank Niemeyer, and Clyde Harrison. Chubby died in infancy and lies in Juniata cemetery. Hugh died February 1, 1922 in Tijuana, California and was buried in Campton Woodlawn Cemetery, California. Josie and the children have lived in California for years.

The two families of Heldenbrands and Curriers are so interwoven in the fuller account of James and Mary's family record, we leave it there.

In taking up my own autobiography it is with a sense of deepest gratitude to God for His love and mercy toward me, and for an influence of home training that has been so great a part in my life choice, to be a Christian in deed and in truth. I was the second oldest of my parents James and Elizabeth Currier. I was born in Livingston County, Illinois July 28, 1860. I seemed to inherit from mother a very timid, tender nature, for that is what I have always seen in her. My older sister Annie was two years older. Mother has said she did not want me, till my Uncle Phillip Clover called to see ``the new baby'' and he said, ``Why, Lizzie, what a pretty baby you have''. Her mother heart was so awakened in love for me, our life has been as deep in love and sympathy as could be between mother and daughter. I was named Mary Elizabeth, after mother and her sister Mary. By this account I hope some day, my great granddaughter, and name sake Mary Elizabeth Howland, will learn where her name sprang from; and may her life be blessed with the grace and love of God as ours have been.

Being the two older of our family, sister Annie and I have been true companions in life from our early childhood, while there has been the deepest band of affection among all the children that grew with years. My earliest recollection was 1863, moving from the small one-room home to the two story house father built on the farm a few rods west, and sold the 40 with the small house on it; loading all our household goods into the wagon and lifting Annie and me on top of the load, awakened something in me as to what it all meant. The unloading at the new home. Annie and I standing in the bare room, saw our parents open a door and begin to go up, and up. I must have been anxious for Annie said, ``don't be afraid, Mary, they will not fall''. Here was where we lived and improved the farm for some years.

My next memory was when I saw some wheat in the bin. The wheat was ground to make our bread, father explained, to my query, ``What is that?'' Annie and I liked to go with father to do chores, and very early in life we were left to do the chores and the house work when our parents made trips to town on business. We were just like other children, would sometimes play before we would wash the dishes. We would expect, and generally get, 5 cents worth of stick candy when the folks came home. One day it was a little iron stove with some dishes to cook in, and how delighted we were. There were no toys for us in those days. One day mother sent me on an errand to Mrs. Wentzl on the 40. They had one little boy 5 or 6 years old. As I came into the yard, Mrs. Wentzl stood with her back to me, her right hand behind her holding a switch, with her left hand stretched out, in pleading tones, she said to her boy standing a safe distance from her ``Come, Johnny, come Johnny, when I go to town I buy you a stick of candy''. I took it all in, and thought, if my mother wanted to punish us they would not take that way of approach. One more laughable incident was when a neighbor came to call. Mrs. Wentzl met her in the yard with a swill bucket and said, ``You just go home. I go feed my pigs''.

The pastures were not fenced, and we had to herd the milk cows out in the prairie across the creek. It was tiresome for Annie and me. One day we went to a small house of one room and asked for a drink of water. Our Norwegian neighbor could not talk to us very well, but took us up a ladder to the loft and gave each of us a cookie from her cookie jar. Kindness to a child is never lost. Mother would say at times, ``come girls; go to the timber and gather greens for father's dinner''. It was not work but a pleasure out in the pure air, with the trees and hazel brush so green. We often went fishing. I do not remember catching fish but did see mother prepare them to cook. In the fall we gathered hazel nuts for the winter. These activities helped us feel we were doing something to help supply the family needs, a sense of duty that never left me, so that in later years I helped care for the younger children. At the age of 13 I cut and fit and made my own dress without mother's aid. Since that I have followed sewing all my life, at least to 1940 this present time.

We had many pleasures in life. One of them was when father took Annie and me with him to some meeting services held in a neighborhood 5 or 6 miles from our home. From my first recollection I wanted to be a Christian when I grew up, and all the attitudes of the Christian people toward worship held my attention and interest. A singing school was conducted in our country school house. Father took us or let us go with our neighbors a few times. I was too young to take lessons to learn notes but singing has ever been a spring of joy in my soul, though I never had a lesson.

Another inward urge within my being was the gift of elocution. In my school days I did take a few lessons in elocution, but my timid nature was overcome by stage fright. The appreciation of an orator has stayed with me. Especially the ministry.

At the age of 5 years the startling news spread over the country that President Lincoln was shot. Father told mother a telegram came to Gardner that ``Lincoln was killed''. I wondered how a letter could travel along those wires and get by the posts. That was my conception of a telegram. How the people mourned at the President's death. Father commented, ``It was because he went to the theater with his wife''. Father was very conscientious about Christian living.

His earnestness in reading the Bible was a lasting impression upon me that the Gospel was God speaking to us, as it truly is. When father prayed in family worship and came to his petition for his children, it had its bearing on my tender heart. I thank God today for those prayers. God hears and answers prayers.

Soon after the war Uncle Lewis Currier was married to Lydia Pratt in Round Grove, Illinois. Father and mother took me with them to the wedding. After the ceremony when dinner was being prepared, mother asked me to go over and kiss my Aunt Lydia. Say, I was too bashful to do that. Annie was visiting at Aunt Mary's, and when they told her ``Uncle Lewis was married'' she said, ``It is not so, for Uncle Lewis is an old batch''. He was 24 or 25 years old. A picture of father and Uncle Lewis just after he came home from the army is to be found in my scrap book. How times have changed.

I would love to stay on the memories of childhood for they are very real. We did not murmur at hardships or privations. Children were not to have everything old people had to enjoy. One thing I cannot account for, but it brings out the point. Father took the family to Gardner to a 4th of July celebration. We arrived early and few were in the brush arbor erected for the celebration. While we were waiting, father bought one dish of ice cream and gave it to mother. Dear mother, mother like, gave each of us a taste of her ice cream. That was my first taste of ice cream. We had some apples and dried wild grapes for our fruit in the winter time.

Times were better later on however. Mother was always patient, and father never seemed very strong. He moved off the farm in 1872 to Dwight for the winter. There my first opportunity to attend a Sunday School came. The teacher offered a prize for the greatest number of Bible verses committed to memory in a given time. I learned by memory the 2nd chapter of Matthew and received the prize. It was a very small green back book of Scripture verse for every day of the year. A real treasure to me now.

In the following summer we moved to Gardner a distance of 12 miles. Yet it was my first train ride, a wonderful ride to me, I am sure. In the next two years in Gardner, father was moved with that urge of moving to pioneer Nebraska. He came with a Mr. and Mrs. Griswold and brought back glowing accounts of the possibilities in the new country. Fine vegetation, but weeds did not grow in Nebraska. (They came later.) Home loving mother felt reluctant to move so far from everybody, but gave consent. Aunt Mary asked that Annie stay with her and she would do well by her when she married, and so it was. Annie stayed as one of the family till she was married to Samuel Kriebel of that place in 1879. My heart was so lonely, only a sister knows. It was better for Annie, and she learned to talk in German in one winter. She was then able to talk to Grandma Feller, something I could not do.

In company with Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Faribee and 5 children we set out by covered wagon for Nebraska. We left Gardner, Illinois September 1874 and arrived at our destination, Juniata, Adams County, Nebraska in October. Just six weeks on the road. There were three teams. Faribees had one heavy and one light wagon. There were five of us children, ages as in order given; myself, Henry, Emma, Lilly and Lucy. Ida Faribee was about my age, and we were together either riding in their wagon or with our family. Some one sent us with a letter to mail in an Iowa town. While we were looking for the P.O. the folks pulled out, each family thinking we were with the other. As we came out to find the folks going down the road west all we could do was to run till I got in calling distance to wait for us. Tired, yes, we were plenty, and frightened too.

Our part of Illinois was very level, and our team did not know hills any more than we children did. One of father's horses started up the hill on the jump and when the other did not come the same way, she balked. That was my first time to see a hill and a balky horse. Father traded for a cheaper horse but a faithful one. It was slow traveling, and what a hearty appetite we had by camping time. Mother's fried apples over the camp fire were ever so good. The worst road we found was in Iowa, over the ``devil's washboard''. No doubt it is a paved highway these years. It was then made of logs laid crosswise over the road side by side through a bog or slough in the timber land.

We ferried across the Missouri river. Our camp at Crete by the Big Blue river one day for noon was a time never forgotten. Father hobbled his horses to let them eat grass while we cooked dinner. Each one was tied by the halter to one front leg below the knee. The best horse went to the waters edge to drink and plunged into the river. Every lunge would draw his head under water. Some how he got turned back to the bank and Tom Faribee grabbed his halter and saved the horse. Those were anxious moments out on the road, and what if we should lose a horse. Without further accidents, we made the trip in six weeks.

When we passed through Hastings, there were only a very few horses. Juniata was the larger town, being the oldest town in Adams County. Father had purchased a 160 acre farm 2 1/2 miles south of Juniata. Tom Faribee bought a farm 4 1/2 miles west of town. It was good to be at our journey's end, even if it was all so new. Here again our family was to face pioneer life, only I was beginning to know more of what it all meant to our living with limited means. I tried more than ever to be a comfort to mother and a help to father in some work in the fields. Farming is a delightful work. What is sweeter than new-mown hay and more fascinating than to see it drop from the cycle to cure for the horses and cattle that provide so much for the needs of man.

A room 12 by 12 was the only improvement on the place to be our home. Father made a larger room by digging it in the bank. The front was to the east and there we had the windows and one door. One thing about our bank room, it was very warm and served for a few years.

Mr. and Mrs. Stark lived to the north of us, and they were so hard up for means, they sold the only cow to father for $30.00. They used lard on their bread for butter after that. This cow proved to be an excellent cow for cream. Her first calf a heifer was given to me and went so far in our family in excellence I cannot fail to mention her merits. After I was married, I churned 6 lbs. of butter to one gallon of cream and her only feed was buffalo grass. As to her breed, she was simply ``cow'', yet there never was a poor milker from her stock as long as we had any, and that was into 1920. We did not have 4H clubs then, but I took great delight in ``Flora'' as I named that young calf, and staked her out on the best grass I could find. I romped with her as a pet, for Flora was my first possession; she proved to be a blessing to me as 4H club work is to boys and girls of today.

Mother was so homesick the second year we were in Nebraska that father took what would have bought coal for winter, and sent mother back to Illinois on a visit. We burned corn stalks for fuel. I got a large carbuncle on my knee from breaking corn stalks for the stove to replenish the fire. It was the last time mother ever wanted to go back to Illinois to live, for Nebraska was our home.

One summer day in the afternoon, we noticed the sun become darkened; mother and I went out to see the cloud. But instead we saw grasshoppers lighting all around us.

The ground was soon carpeted thick with hoppers. While we stood there we saw them devour everything in our garden. The hole in the ground was all that was left of the onion bed. After the feed, the hoppers left as they came, in a cloud. I think it was that winter our main diet was fat and bread, bread and fat, till my appetite longed for a change, yet we did not complain. Hope ever sprang anew in those brave hearts of our pioneer families.

A neighbor living near Juniata came in to the general store and asked for a sack of flour, promising to work it out, for they were without any flour in the house. The store keeper bluntly told him he must first go out to his farm 2 1/2 miles west and do the breaking, then come and get the flour. Another neighbor overheard the conversation, and spoke up, ``You give Mr. _______ the flour and I will stand good for it till he gets the work done.'' He got the flour.

In a few years my brother Henry and sister Emma were able to help father in the field work, and times were better as we had good crops, if nothing happened to destroy them.

Our schooling began in the rural school house 1/2 mile from home. I had the younger ones in my care. Henry, Emma and I started to the opening of school. By noon Henry was so homesick he left for home, but was afraid to let mother know he left school, so he hid in father's grainery. I had missed him, but thought he had gone home. We found him later in his hiding place.

The Indians from the Omaha Reservation made their autumn trek to the Blue river to hunt and dry their meat for winter. We had some experience with them as they passed our farm. It was the Indian men that did the begging. Only one of a company would call at the house. They had a large blanket strapped around the waist, and anything given them was put in above the belt as a pocket. Mother was too afraid to refuse the asking, though we were needing what supplies we had.

One time the Indians were passing as usual, and came to our door at a new addition on top of our one room basement home. Father was with us that time. As the Indian could not see anything to ask for, he noticed me ready to go down the steps if he should attempt to come in. He grunted a laugh and said, ``Papoose afraid''. He spied a litter of very fat puppies in the yard and asked for one. Father gave him one and away he went very contented for the ``stew'' they would have, I suppose. After the roads were opened and more settlers came in, we did not see any more of our friends, the Indians.

Because of ill health, father later rented the farm and bought a small acreage joining Juniata on the North. I entered high school in Juniata with more boys and girls of my age. I never finished the 8th grade. I went to work to earn my own support. I felt my parents had the support of the younger children and needed my help as well. The fact that father did not value education very highly did not help me to stay in school. However I was in school long enough to meet the one of all others to me a life interest we will say more about later on.

Before we left the farm, father took his team and wagon and moved Rev. and Mrs. O.A. Buzzell and family from Gibbon to Juniata. Rev. Buzzell was the first pastor of the Baptist Church in Juniata, and remained there as long as they lived. We were members of the church, in name only, although Annie and I had gone forward in a revival in Gardner, Illinois and had been baptized. Nothing was said about a change of heart, or being saved from sin, though I never lost that desire from childhood to be a Christian.

The boys and girls in high school would play ``Pump, pump, pull away''. I think there is where we first met to notice each other this new pupil, Jim Heldenbrand, and me. There were some parties among the school age, and a temperance lodge in Juniata of which I was a member. I noticed one night of lodge, they were initiating a new lodge member, Jim Heldenbrand. There was a reason. I had other company on lodge nights, but that evening Jim escorted me home. As his home was 1 1/2 mile east of Juniata and ours 1/2 mile north, he generally walked over on Sunday evenings. One time he rode his pony a coal black steed called Dutch, and tied him to the wire clothes line post. Whether Dutch thought it was getting late and time to go home, I don't know. But that is what he did, and as he passed under the clothes line, the wire hooked onto the saddle horn and went with him through town. Elisha Robertson, a school boy of our age (and an uncle of Morris Sergeant) waylaid Dutch as he passed their place and tied him up till Jim came by walking home. Needless to say Jim never heard the last of that, and I thought it worthwhile to tell his grandchildren on him.

In two years or more, father sold the farm south of Juniata and bought the farm 2 1/2 miles north of Kenesaw, there to improve another new home. That meant nine miles to go by horseback or horse and buggy. Yet Jim never failed to make the trip every two weeks even through ice and water in low places at times. His devotion never slackened. During this time I was working at sewing or domestic housework when not helping mother on the farm. Brother Henry was taking the lead in the field work for father. Emma was attending school in Kenesaw.

It was on this farm that we were married Sunday, December 4, 1881, Rev. O.A. Buzzell officiating, assisted by E. A. Crause. Ida Faribee was bridesmaid and Christ Buehler (her intended) was best man. Only the immediate families were guests. Sister Annie and Sam Kriebel and oldest child, Nellie, had moved to Nebraska the year before. They had a homestead four mile north of Kenesaw. They were present, as was also Jim's sister, Josie and little daughter, Imo, in addition to the parents.

To give some anxiety to the occasion that turned out all right, I must relate some of the experience of the minister in charge of the ceremony. Rev. Buzzell went to Gibbon the day before by horse and buggy. The ceremony was to be Sunday at 2:00 P.M. When he was half way to our place on Sunday, his horse got sick and he started to walk the rest of the distance. About 2:30 P.M. this Rev. Crause called at the home, not knowing what was going on, but to invite the family out to some protracted meetings he was holding in the country school house. Not knowing what had delayed Rev. Buzzell, he was invited to stay the afternoon, as we thought he could come in very handy. Rev. Buzzell came walking in at 4:00 P.M. He must have been very tired. Well, we were tired waiting too. This explains why we had two ministers at our wedding.

Our folks served an oyster supper after which the bridal party attended the services at the schoolhouse three miles east of us. My Sunday school class of young folks learned then why I was not our to teach the class that Sunday morning. No pre-nuptial showers or announcements were made in those days. Our one and only wedding present was a drop-leaf black walnut table from my parents. I still had ``Old Flora'' the cow, and Jim owned one span of mules. Our honeymoon trip was the distance between my home and his home. My little sister Mabel, 2 1/2 years old, gave the deepest expression of sorrow when she clung to the spokes of the buggy wheel, trying to keep Jim from taking Mary away. Her devotion has never waned.

Our new home was with Father and Mother Heldenbrand one and a half miles east of Juniata. The traditional custom of the Heldenbrand family had been for the young married folks to live with the old folks. To Father and son, this seemed the right thing to do. Father needed son, and son needed Father for support. To Mother Heldenbrand, it had been the sorrow and disappointment of her own life, and she did not want her boy to make the same mistake. However she did think much of her new daughter in law. Mother had one standard of life that had a great virtue in it which helped me to develop self reliance. Through force of circumstance, she turned the cooking over to me with no reserve to dictate what I should do, or how I should do it. To my timid nature it seemed rather severe, but I was not a stranger to the culinary art and was quite at home in the kitchen. We had one room for our own private use.

Here began a new life with its responsibilities, and here began to bear the fruits of our home training. Courtship was past, and real tendencies of life began to develop, as we follow on to note, the real nobler traits of our being fidelity and trueness to our marriage vows and to try to make the best out of our circumstances.

Our first born, Chester A. was a fine baby boy, the picture of his daddy. He was born August 28, 1882. When he was six weeks old, an epidemic of cough, near to whooping cough, took the children in Juniata. Through we never took Chester away from home, he took the cough. The more we sought to shield him from colds, the more he failed to be relieved. At near six months old, he developed pneumonia and left us to be with the angels and to beckon us on to a better world.

It was late in the following winter that a most remarkable answer to prayer was granted us by our Father in heaven, and for His glory alone, we want to relate of his love and mercy. It is not to be wondered at since we remember the times in which the fore parents lived, that there was a teaching that it was just as honorable to go into a saloon as any other business place if one so desired. So it was that husband spent some of the winter days with his brother in-law down town. One memorable evening just before supper, the two came home and husband called out to me (he was not a drinker or a drunkard) ``Supper for six!'' The voice and manner turned my blood cold from my head to my feet. I could not speak. After supper, I took husband by the arm and led him to our room and down on our knees to a chair. There I poured out a passionate prayer to the God of heaven for companion, to save him from the bondage of such a course in life. As we arose from our knees, I asked that he promise me he would not go back to town that night. He promised, and to the present has never tasted beer or any strong drink.

Here is the nobility of his life, and the definite answer to prayer of one who was not saved at the time. God hears and answers the penitent prayer that leads to salvation. Oh, the goodness and mercy of God. May this confession of our need inspire many hearts to trust in God, our Savior, in the crisis of life for we will be either crushed by them or raised to a higher plane. A saying is well applied here. ``Not what is believed, but what that belief impels one to do, that counts.'' From this time on our life was fast developing in to deeper channels. The influences of my home training were bearing fruit for it brought the Word of God to bear upon our lives in decisions for victory over the power of sin.

That God answered prayer gave me a sense of deep obligation to Him. One of my deepest disappointments was that companion dropped all interest in church attendance soon after we were married. As it was only 1 1/2 miles to Juniata, I walked alone to services. Soon after this incident, husband had an offer to learn blacksmithing and we live in town. He asked me my wish as to whether he take up this work, or we go with Father Heldenbrand on his homestead at Ringold P.O. Dawson County, Nebraska. (He had homesteaded in 1880, but Mother had not felt she could live there because of the alkali water on the Platte Valley). As great as my desire was for a home by ourselves, I aid, ``We will go to Dawson County.'' It proved a wise choice, we have learned to know.

Before this winter was over the Baptist church in Juniata held a revival by two lady preachers, 1884. I attended what I could, and felt much burdened for companion, yet more for my own soul's need. One evening as the Word of God went forth on a real Christian experience, I saw myself a sinner before God, and in my heart made a perpetual covenant with God through Christ that if he would save me through His atonement, I would serve him all my years of life. Right there, sitting in my seat, I was born again, glory and peace filled my soul. The first thing I wanted to do was to lead someone to the Savior. After services I went across the street to Sister Josie Moreland's home, and threw my arms around her neck and asked her to come to Christ. At the close of the revival, they had a testimonial meeting. I was on my feet and quoted this scripture, ``The wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof but cannot tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth, so is every one born of the Spirit.'' John 3:8. The minister looked at me in amazement, but such has been my testimony ever since. I do not know when or where I had heard or read that scripture, except it was through Father's family worship reading. How often we read our experience in the Word of God. From that time I had a new hold on life, or God had a hold on me to guide in the way of life. My one motto seemed to be ``What would Jesus do?''

Father had been going out on his homestead every year and had spent some time on it each year, at the same time farming at Juniata with Jim's help. He had built a one room sod house. To this we moved in the spring of 1884. that summer he built a frame house of one room, one bedroom and a pantry for Jim and I to live in. He retained the soddy for his sleeping quarters. This new house seemed like a palace to me and we were very happy. Here on July 22, 1884, our second child was born. My Father and Mother with Mabel and Bernie came by spring wagon to be with us for the expected guest of our home. Father took Mabel and Bernie with him to get our neighbor, Mrs. Dutton. She had just rolled out biscuits for her harvest hands for supper, but neighbor-like in those pioneer days she came and with Mother welcomed our little daughter into this world. No physician was needed. God bless our Mothers. Our folks stayed with us two weeks. I had thought to call her ``Violet'' but Grandpa H. said, ``No, sir, her name is Rosie'', and her Daddy said, ``Her name is Zuella after a cousin in Ohio.'' So it was I called her ``Zuella Rose.'' Zuella was her name till school age, and she took the name of ``Rose'' which she preferred. She was the idol of her Grandfather Heldenbrand and a very ideal baby in disposition. My work was little hindered by her attention. I had followed dressmaking and sewing as a means to earn my own money so as not to be a care on my husband's parents. It always has been a pleasure to be a help in a financial way in place of a burden. I have carried that effort on down through our family relations, always striving to help, besides being able to lay up treasures in heaven where the bank never fails.

One virtue I wish to mention here is the deep respect of Father Heldenbrand which he showed to me and my convictions of right attitudes toward God. He was a great storyteller and used profane language (not in a vicious way, however.) Never did he use such language in my presence or before our children. He was always kind, never a cross word. We will come to his life more later on.

That part of Dawson County was fast developing and became the garden spot of the world on alfalfa production since irrigation was possible in all that valley. Vegetation was wonderful. The first years we lived there, our garden was beyond description. I planted what I thought was watermelon seed and it proved to be pie melon. The vines would grow overnight till the leaders would look like a snake head tall above the vines. I tried to take a melon to the house to make a pie for dinner and I had to roll it on the ground like a nail keg. It was too heavy to carry. The men raised broom corn one summer. What a beautiful crop it was.

Father hired extra hands to top the broom corn. One was a young man from Indiana who had come west hunting work. He never had been out of his County before and never had ridden on the railroad before in his life. He could not write, so he had Father write his love letter to his sweetheart at home. Father called him ``Jerusha Jane.'' Rose was old enough to sit in her high chair, and when the men came in for dinner, she would look at him without a blink, and Jerusha Jane would blush behind his ears. Father was a real friend to such boys.

One time a college student set out to work wherever he could find a job. He was unaccustomed to what a man might run into on the road. He was with a Mr. Dillon in haying and was tormented by itching. He came to help a day or two and Father saw him scratching at his shirt. He examined and found he was full of body lice. The boy never heard of such a thing and was so ashamed, he wanted to run away. Father said, ``No, we will clean you up right here.'' He came to me and explained what trouble he was in . I had to boil all the bedding and all the clothes, and then we with him were free as before. What a kind act to a stranger. The world needs more human kindness.

There was a union Sunday School in the neighborhood, but only an occasional sermon by some passing minister. I was put in S. S. Superintendent for two years. My heart was very tender toward the Kingdom of God and winning souls. It was in the first summer there that I had a vision of the second coming of Christ. It was so scriptural that it was as real as I expect to see in the last day. In my dream I was cooking supper, and something arrested my attention. I stepped to the door to see what it was and there in the east I saw Jesus coming in the clouds of heaven with a multitude of heavenly hosts. I left all behind to meet my Lord. As He drew nigh there was a beam of heavenly smile on Jesus' face as He welcomed me. I looked on the right of the earthly multitude to meet the Lord and there stood husband with them. To me that vision held two witnesses. One, that I was accepted of Him, and second, that of husband's salvation, a promise to be. Thank God, no wonder my heart is filled with praises.

When Rose was 15 months old, I made a visit to Kenesaw to see Father and Mother. Brother Henry was doing the farm work. One morning at breakfast time the folks were telling of a lecture tour by Addison Kriebel, a brother to Sam. He had stopped over and lectured on the effects of alcohol, tea, and coffee on the human system, proving that they were harmful. I said to Henry, ``If you will quit, I will quit''. He answered, ``I will.'' We each pushed our cup of coffee aside, and I have never tasted tea or coffee since 1885 to 1940 so far. Mother had violent headaches if she did not have her coffee, and had those headaches if she had coffee. So she cut out coffee and was free of headache. Sure as she ventured a cup, she had a headache. She let it alone the rest of her life. While it is not a doctrinal standard, it is a healthful one.

I had a very dear friend in our closest neighbor, Mrs. Wich Shanifelt who lived 1/2 mile north. They had a large family and lived in a one room sod house. She was a very neat housekeeper in spite of all the handicaps, no screening to windows or door. As Mr. Shanifelt would say, ``When the flies went to roost, the mosquitoes came out, and in the night the bedbugs and the fleas.'' This patient mother told me how they each came from well to do families in the east, yet the parents were greatly opposed to their marriage. They eloped and married, settled in Dawson County. Her husband was shiftless and a drunkard. It was her pay, she said, yet her patient life to endure privations and hardship was to be admired. Our neighbors to the east were John and Allie Spencer and Uncle John and Aunt Rachel Heldenbrand. Mr. and Mrs. Stickley, near the bluffs had a daughter named Qula. This is where Qula Fulwider got her name through sister Annie.

A very deep canyon lay in the bluffs one mile south of the homestead. This is where we went to gather wild plums and canyon currents. Cozad was 4 miles north and across the Platte river a bridge one mile long was built. We had to pay 25 cents toll every time we went to town. In later years the toll was revoked. Father proved up on his homestead in 1885, and Husband filed on a homestead 4 1/2 miles southeast of Lodge Pole and 20 miles east of Sidney, Nebraska in that same year. We made a trip every spring to our homestead to make some improvements and put in some small crop to conform with the homestead law. Things would grow fine up to June, then the rains would cease and everything dry up. We continued to help father put in and harvest his crops till we proved up on our land in 1890. Our trips were by covered wagon. It took five or six days to cover the distance of about 225 miles. We had some experiences we will never forget, and yet they help to make a life and mold a character.

Our first summer on our homestead Rose was two years old. We put down a cistern and built a cave. The first night on our trip we stopped with friends, Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter. During the morning family worship as we bowed with them in prayer, I so longed for them to remember us in prayer. Mr. Carpenter prayed for the work, home and foreign, but never mentioned their guests in their home. Through my disappointment, I learned a lesson to pray for those in our home, let them be saved or unsaved. Other hearts are much like our own hearts. The way to receive is to give.

Mother Heldenbrand came out more often to their home in Dawson County. The following summer they both went with us to help build a one room frame house for us. We never did plaster it, for we did not spend our winters at Lodge Pole. Father took his two young horses with him that had never been broke. He was a lover of horses and a master of good care for them. While the men drove to Lodge Pole to haul water in barrels for the cistern, we waited in the yard. We saw a small cloud rise over us, and since we could never tell what a cloud might do out there, we went into the cave to see if it would rain. A bolt of lightning came down about two rods back of the cave and took one of those fine young horses. The ground was torn back. It chilled my blood, it was so near us, and it was the only flash of lightning in that cloud coming or going, strange as it may seem. The lightning there seemed to strike the earth so frequently. Buffalo grass was the only native grass but it was very rich. Pebble stones covered the knolls, and the land was mostly rolling. Antelope would come very near our dwelling and look at us without fear. Rattlesnakes were a plenty. I never went out to stake Old Flora on the grass but I carried a hoe to be ready for a rattler. We had a shepherd dog named Rover. He was death to a rattler. He would grab them so suddenly and shake them to death. Rose never went out the door but Rover was right by her side. One time I was in the yard and she came out to where I was. As we went into the house, there lay a young rattler just outside the doorstep, another peril past. Another time, daddy was hoeing in the potato vines and found a rattler under the tall vines. He called me to bring the gun from the house, while he tried to keep Rover from attacking it. I was too late. Rover jumped for the snake and the mate took him in the nose. We did not see that there were two rattlers. After shooting the snakes, daddy tried to save Rover but he had to go. He groaned just like a human being before he died about 1 1/2 hours later. Our little Cecil that was born two months after would groan in her sleep at times just like Rover.

That summer we did not leave till late in October. Neighbors were all friends in these new settlements and our nearest was 1 1/2 miles away. On September 17, 1889 at 2:00 A.M. daddy was awakened to hitch up the team to our wagon and drive over pebble stones and through prairie dog town to bring our neighbor Mrs. Barton, for I was alone with Rose. Mrs. Barton heard the rattle of the wagon and was dressed by the time husband arrived, so they were soon home again. The only doctor in Lodge Pole could not be trusted because of his drinking, and so we did not call him. God was with us, and kind neighbors. Cecil Mae was a sweet little girl, with light curly hair and blue eyes, a little angel in disposition. I was able in two weeks to take care of the house and family with the help of a loving husband by my side. There was one sorrow that came to me early that summer that I shed tears over, though afterward it turned out all for my good, to better understand the ways of the Lord. I had longed to be active in the work of the Lord ever since my experience of salvation, and thought it needful to belong to some denominational church. Yet, it was a constant longing to know what church Jesus built that filled my heart. I had laid plans to place my church letter in the Baptist church of Chapel nine miles east of us. The Sunday came and husband declined to take me to Chapel and said, ``You do not need any more church than you are in''. I repented for grieving and was content in knowing I was saved. A cheerful countenance is well pleasing to God. I felt Jesus would do that in time of trial.

The following summer we were again on the homestead. As I put Rose to bed one evening, she complained of itching. I rubbed her back and scarce noticed it was a very fine rash in color. I thought nothing of it. In just two weeks she became very sick. For two weeks she could not keep water on her stomach. For the same reason I mentioned about the Lodge Pole doctor, her daddy went to Chapel for an aged doctor who proved to be a fine man. He diagnosed her case as Bright's disease from scarlitena two weeks before. Also said only one out of 100 ever lived through. Those were days and nights of constant vigilance in care lest she chill that brought Rose through to recovery. Father and mother, with Mabel and Bernie, drove by team to Lodge Pole to help us care for Rose as the Chapel doctor said careful nursing was her only help or chance for life. As we look back upon the loving care our parents have given us, we more readily see the only way we can repay our parents is to raise children ourselves. God bless the parents and the children of every generation. What a high and noble calling if devoted to God and to one another.

There was one trip which we made to spend the winter with brother Sam while sister Annie went on a visit to Illinois. Their farm home was 2 1/2 miles north of Kenesaw. Rose was about three years old. We made the trip by covered wagon, taking our tent for camping at night. We covered the distance in eight or nine days. Most of the trip was uneventful until we passed old Fort McPherson some distance east of North Platte on the south side of the river. We turned to one side of the road to camp for the night. The team was unhitched and tied to the hind end of the wagon where a feed box was fastened to feed them grain. The tent was pitched and it was growing dusk when a herd of range cattle spied us and came to investigate. They surrounded the wagon and soon our dog Rover under the wagon. Daddy saw the herd was of white-faced Hereford bull. He said, ``We better get out of here''. He pulled up the stakes and hitched up the horses. Rose and I stayed in the wagon for safety. It was then getting dark. We drove back to the road and drove on and on to get out of the range of cattle. The hills were to the south of us and we were traveling east down the valley. Husband noticed the team start toward the bluffs. He stopped the team and lit the lantern to see why the team left the road. He found the track was a new road and that the old road was not being traveled. In his investigation, he run into a hole three or four feet across and old well which had caved in. He scrambled out but his lantern was put out by the fall. As daddy came back to the wagon, we were glad for our rescue from harm another time in the same night. The new road led us over a bridge that had been recently built over a gorge from one of the bluffs. We must have traveled until midnight. We turned the team to the wagon and made a shift bed in the wagon box for the rest of the night. They say ``It all goes in a life time'', but what a different life in activity. We had time to think in our travels.

These were eventful years in our lives and in the thinking of the nation. A spiritual awakening had gripped the hearts of devoted souls till it spread from the east to the west. While we were living in Dawson County, some leading ministers of the M. Church came to hold a short meeting in our school house. One thing he said I never forgot. He was speaking on a pure heart, a something they had experience in the east. He remarked, ``You folks out west are way behind the folks in the east''. I thought, ``If you have something, why don't you tell us about it?'' I invited the preachers to dinner at our house. I was so in hopes they would talk about spiritual things but they never alluded to the scriptures. Since, I have learned of the Holiness movement among the Methodist during that time in the east.

During the same spring that father and mother came to Lodge Pole to help us care for Rose, there were two ministers by the name of Haner and Willis who came to Kenesaw holding meetings and preaching the doctrine of two works of grace. ``Justification and Sanctification, and the unity of all God's children from sectarian confusion and doctrines of men''. This was just the knowledge my hungry heart was longing for, but how little we sometimes see the hand of God leading us to that which we desire of Him. My desire was to know ``What church Jesus built''.

Mother told me of the preaching of these men, and Kenesaw was stirred by their message, so bold and fearless. One report was that they said, ``There were no Christians but themselves''. To this I said, ``I know that is not true, and mother, if I ever go to Kenesaw, I will never go near them.'' This was a false accusation but I did not know it. I did know of my acceptance with God through the knowledge of sins forgiven which was an abiding peace by keeping the commandments to all the light I had. How wonderful are all God's ways. How faithful and true to all our trust. As Jacob said on Mount Horib, ``God is here, and I knew it not''. The great power of God was visiting his people in the last Reformation, sometimes referred to as the 20th Century Reformation, though better expressed as the restoration of the Bible doctrine as Jude gives it in Jude 3. ``The faith once delivered unto the saints''. It is well known that the 16th Century Reformation regarded the doctrine of justification and sanctification as a second definite work of divine grace, but did not restore the doctrine of the body of Christ, the Church, or unity of all the saved through Christ. I would love to go into church history, but I started out to tell how church history found me. I had said, and not wisely, that I would never go near this message. The Lord took a hand in my behalf. God knows the very thoughts and intents of our hearts.

It was in this August of 1890 that we proved up on our homestead and moved back to Kenesaw to rent the 80 acres of father's farm 1 1/2 miles east of town. Until we could get possession on the farm, the folks gave us the south part of their house in town to live in for the winter. Rose was six and Cecil Mae was past one year. An epidemic of sore throat broke out in Kenesaw and run into diphtheria. One afternoon, I called on our neighbor, Mrs. Marvis. She was sick with a sore throat only, but very soon I came down with what proved to be black diphtheria. Mother took Rose and Cecil Mae in their part of the house and we were put under quarantine. Husband sent for his sister Josie Moreland at Juniata to come and help him nurse me. Sister Joe would give me doses of whiskey, the stuff I detested, and joke that I could never get up off that bed and be a temperance woman again. I answered her that I would. I came right down to death's door. Companion came into my room and told me the doctor said I was liable to go any time. He walked the floor in self-control and we talked of what was best to do about the children if I should leave them. How vivid is all that scene before me. I was as calm as I am today. I knew my peace was in God but after companion left the room I was alone, and I remembered Hezekiah. I turned my face to the wall and talked with God. I said, ``Lord, is there one thing standing between me and thee?'' The Spirit answered, ``Are you willing to go with the Band?'' I well knew who that meant for the company of believers who had taken their stand for the Word of God in unity and holiness were called ``The Band''. Sister Annie was one of them and had tried to talk to me, but I refused to converse on the subject. In fact, I was not willing. I answered the Lord there on my death bed. ``Yes, Lord, if it is Thy will.'' All was at peace with my soul and my Maker. At that Sister Joe came in and I said, ``I am so weak''. I felt my bed would fall out from under me. She said, ``Shall I give you some whiskey?'' I said, ``No, give me some milk''. She warmed two tablespoons full of milk and gave me to drink. That milk seemed to penetrate to every part of my body with new life, and life it was in place of death. I never took one more taste of whiskey to this day, and I am here to witness a stronger temperance woman than I was before.

We learned that at the very hour of the day I was so low, sister Annie was ironing and did not know I was so low. She felt she must pray for Mary. She fell on her knees and asked God to spare my life that I might see His great salvation. God heard and answered that prayer. After I was up and doing light house work I lost my voice for some time and have had a weak throat ever since.

Our darling Cecil Mae came down with diphtheria croup in two weeks after I was about the house. I was able to help daddy care for her. It was heart rendering to see her slowly choking to death. The doctor could do nothing to check the disease. Father wanted us to have the saints pray for her healing, but I did not know our inheritance in the promises of God and said to him, ``I have asked God to bless the means used to help her''. When her little heart ceased to beat on December 30, 1890, I said in my soul ``Praise the Lord''. We were out of quarantine and had a house funeral. Rev. O.A. Buzzell, who had married us and had preached little Chester's funeral, was with us for Cecil Mae's funeral. Daddy had to go alone with the relatives and friends to lay our little one beside her brother Chester in the Juniata Cemetery. What a brave soul husband has been to face many hardships. We have shared them together.

Shortly after this there was a traveling evangelist who came to Kenesaw. His name was G. R. Achor. He later moved there and took up the first pastorate of the Church of God in Kenesaw. He called on father and mother. I stepped into mother's rooms, and she introduced me to the minister. After shaking hands in introduction, he said, ``Are you saved?'' I answered, ``Yes, sir''. He said, ``Praise the Lord''. This was a surprise to me after what I had heard. In leaving he laid on the table a small tract entitled ``The Second Work of Grace''. I took it with me into our room and decided to see if there was anything to the claim of sanctification as a second work of divine grace. The first and the second time I read it, I said that there is nothing more than I knew before. The third time I came to Paul where he said to the Corinthian brethren, ``I am coming that he may receive a second benefit'', then Jesus opened the eyes of my understanding so that I might know the scriptures. With that came the conviction that I was not sanctified. I was willing and anxious to go to hear brother Achor preach. The very first sermon was on the need of a cleansing. ``For this is the will of God even your sanctification''. I Thess. 4:30. How the message touched my very need and my heart said amen to all the will of God. I consecrated to all I knew of His will and all I did not know. Only one condition I could not see my way through. I said I will leave that in your hands, Lord. Then the Holy Spirit came into my heart and I was sanctified just as definitely in a second work of grace as the forgiveness of my sins six years before. My heart was clothed in humility. No altar call was made but testimony followed. I was the second one on my feet to tell what the Lord had done for my soul. God made my heart pure for the in dwelling of the Holy Spirit. How my dear sister Annie rejoiced. She said, ``Let us sing, we are marching in Zion''. Our hearts were made one and the Word of God opened to my understanding like a new book. This is according to the scripture in John 14:26 ``But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you''. The gift of the Holy Spirit did something more for me. I was freed of that timidity of childhood and was able to testify before great or small, high or low of the saving power of Jesus to save from all sin and cleanse the heart and make it pure.

We moved on the south 80father's 160 acre farm 1 1/2 miles east of Kenesaw on March 1, 1891 and began anew our life of farming. There was a good orchard of apple and cherry trees. What a treat this was to have bearing fruit trees. I felt it a privilege to walk into town to the meetings held by the saints in a little hall. My ardor was so strong for the fellowship of the believers in Christ in the one body.

Our little girl, ``Permilla Mabel'' was born May 22, 1891. We named her after her grandmother Heldenbrand and sister Mabel who loved to take care of her so well. Millie is what we always call her. Mother was with me, and all I needed. We hired Eliza Chezem from Hastings to work for us two weeks. Crops were good which we appreciated.

In that following August, father Heldenbrand became sick with the grippe, or flue as we call it. He sent for daddy to come to him. He went but took the same disease and came home so as not to be caught so far from home when sick. He was so very sick with grippe and pneumonia that he said to the doctor, ``What are you doing here?'' This was when he came to himself. For over a week he did not know any of us and it was hard to keep him in bed. Chris Buehler was doing the chores and caring for the span of mules, but husband did not rest at that, he must get up to feed his mules. The doctor told him, ``I am here to take care of you and don't you try to get up for two weeks''. He said, ``There is nothing wrong with me''. Yet as he tried to sit up he fell back with weakness. God was good to spare his life and in time he regained his strength.

I well remember my first experience of trusting the Lord as my physician after coming in to the experience of embracing all the word of God as our inheritance through Christ. I learned Jesus heals, for He is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. It was in March or April of the spring we moved that I was take with symptoms of the grippe. Daddy said, ``Do you want me to call the doctor?'' I said, ``No, I want you to call for the elders of the church'' which was according to James 4:15. Call Sister Annie. She was used of God in beginning to preach the Word. Annie and mother came. They anointed me with oil, prayed the prayer of faith and I was healed. Praise the Lord for His wonderful promises. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. This was the beginning of a new life of faith and trust in God and His Word.

It was in the summer of 1892 that D.S. Warner, the first editor of the Gospel Trumpet, and E.E. Byrum, a young man in the work with Bro. Warner, were making their first trip to Denver. They stopped over for a few days in Kenesaw, holding services in the afternoons and evenings. One afternoon husband had some errand in town and that gave me a chance to attend the afternoon services, a great delight to my hungry soul.

Brother Warner was a frail man with weak lungs. He sat on a chair while preaching, at least that afternoon. He used as his scripture, II Cor. 4:111. If any who read this scripture could get the depth of its meaning as that man of God brought out the richness and fullness of the Ministry of Christ. I never heard the close of that sermon for the hall door opened and husband looked inside to let me know he was ready to go home. I gathered up baby Millie and in leaving, Bro. Warner stepped to the door and bade me good-by with a ``God bless you''. It was a real benediction to me. I had never met him before or ever have seen him since. He is resting from his labors and his works do follow him.

Companion was not in sympathy with the ``Reformation'', and his expression to me about the proposition of joining the denominational church in Chapel, he did not identify the church free from sect-ism, when we heard the truth on the body of Christ. I say ``we'', no, husband did not go to hear the preaching of God's word. No doubt that was a real cause of opposition, but ``prayer changes things'' as we have lived to see.

Daughter Rose started to her first school in Kenesaw. She walked with Mabel and Bernie to town school. Life on the farm is interesting and what we both enjoyed. It has in it much of an inspiration of faith and hope in God's goodness. Crops were fair up till 1894. A serious drought came then until many did not grow feed for the stock for over winter of `94 and `95. We were blessed by the gift of a son born to us August 27, 1894. We named him Rex Raymond. He brought such joy to daddy's heart that the first time he went to town, he brought a sack of pears as a treat to me. Mother again was the faithful mother she ever had been. Artie Eberline was our help in the housework and even in the drought, we were able to pull through, for we had some crops except corn. Our life was wrapped up in our family and in making an honest living.

Meanwhile father and mother Heldenbrand had moved from Dawson County to Juniata, having sold the homestead so we, as a family, were once more centered around Juniata and Kenesaw which lay nine miles apart. Nine miles by team and buggy meant 1 1/2 hours at the best in travel. We have seen these towns grow from a very few houses to larger trading points. They mean much to us. They bear some historic incidents, such as Hastings stealing the Courthouse records at two P.M. one day, and making Hastings the county seat of Adams County which has caused Hastings to grow into a thriving city at the cost of unjust gain we well remember. Mr. W.H. Burr of Juniata owned and broke the only buffalo team to be broke in for driving. We have seen them in action.

Then there was the poisoned well southeast of Kenesaw, 1 1/2 miles from the 160 acres of land father Heldenbrand bought. The ``Lone Woman's Grave'' a few miles north west of Kenesaw marks the grave of a victim of that well. The well had been poisoned by Indians to catch the travelers on the Oregon Trail through that part of Nebraska. What a true illustration of the poison of sin concealed in the pleasures of this world which God designed for a blessing.

We account the year of 1894 as a drought year but it did not compare to our droughts of 1934 - 40. The following years gave us good crops again. We were blessed with good health generally and work was a pleasure with seasons for seed time and harvest. In the autumn we put up our meats and fruits for the winter. Sewing for the growing family covered all their wardrobe, even to making the baby's shoes out of the soft leather from women's shoe tops, up to the time the baby could walk. All the under garments and outer dresses were made by mother's hands.

$10.00 was laid aside to cover the needs of the expected little guest. If a doctor was called, $10 was a normal charge, or $20 to $25 if instruments were used. A great contrast to later experiences in raising a family. People talk about not having time for family worship in these times, when clothing is ready made and canning is done mostly at the factories, even bread ready sliced from the stores. I admit these are not the full practice of the people yet all too common among the poor.

Touching on family worship, our little ones never knew anything else but the regular family worship. It was a very part of our life. The freshness of the spirit of praise will not cause a child to fret if they are taught to be reasonably quiet for a little while ``'till we read God's word'' as I explained to them to gain their attention. And then not impose on their patience.

It was on November 6, 1895 another little girl came to us. We called her Dorothy Ruth. The Ruth of the Bible was always a beautiful character to me when she said to Naomi her mother in-law ``Entreat one not to leave thee. Thy God shall be my God, and Thy people my people''. Rex was scarce able to sit alone in his high chair, and daddy had to take the place of mother at least at the table and during the night. Yes, our hands were quite full. I still had the promise ``As thy day so shall thy strength be''.

One amusing incident happened while the three children were quite small. We had a gentle horse I could drive in our single buggy. It was the week before Christmas I took the babies in the buggy to town to do a little Christmas shopping. I was in Mr. Ragsdale's Drug Store. Millie was about 3 years old. She spied a little red rocking chair or it was a straight chair for a child. She sat in that till I was ready to go home. Baby was in my arms and she refused to leave the red chair. What was I to do? I had spent all my change but 18 cents and was I embarrassed? At last I asked Mr. Ragsdale to trust me for the balance of the cost and took Millie and the chair home with me. She had her present before Christmas that year.

When Rex was one year old he awakened us one winter evening with the membranous croup. Daddy went in haste for the doctor. He became very serious. The membrane had formed to choke him. Dr. Williams came the next day to find him out of danger. He told husband afterward, ``he never did understand how that boy got rid of the membrane''. I understood, for I was in my bedroom in earnest, praying that God would spare our boy and heal him. The following winter that same membranous cough awakened me first, for Rex was sleeping with daddy on a cot as I had baby Ruth with me in the bed room. I went to him and that awakened daddy. He asked ``What I was going to do''. I said, ``I am going to pray for Rex''. I knelt by his bed and laid on hands asking the Lord, in Jesus' name, to heal the membranous croup. I believed God, and went back to bed. Rex went to sleep and was healed.

When the Lord brought me into the light of the full word of God through ``sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the Truth'' I saw the great promises of God through faith, and I asked God for the gift of faith. These incidents of divine mercy are just some of the fruits of faith, and that ``a gift of God''. I have had my testings, as all will have. Abraham was not exempt of testings although he had faith, and his testings did not come because he had no faith, but because God honored his faith.

The company of believers in Kenesaw found their Bible name as individuals was ``saints'' I Cor 1:2, and collectively, as the ``Church of God'' Acts 20:28. Since coming back to the word of God, we were not ashamed of our name in His word. During these years when the children were small the saints held their meetings in the old red school house, 3 miles north of our home. Two evangelists, George and Mary Cole brother and sister, also pioneers in the reformation, came to hold a short revival. They were entertained in the homes of the saints. Sister Mary Cole was the subject and person of the book ``Trials and Triumphs of Faith''. She said in a sermon, ``I don't know why God sent us here. I only know God sent me''. She did not see the evidence of work done for God in the immediate present.

But ``God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform''. I had taken Sister Cole home for dinner that day, and while I was washing up the dishes, Sister Cole said to me, ``Do you feel an inspiration when you are writing?'' I answered, ``I cannot write as fast as my mind works''. She said, ``You ask God what you can do for Him''. She told me of her first writing in articles for The Gospel Trumpet, edited by D.S. Warner. I had taken the Trumpet since 1891 and knew the inspiration of her mind on articles for publications. I did ask the Lord and then trusted the Holy Spirit for the subjects and scriptures for the subjects. That was the beginning of a more active life, and how God did help me. I knew why God sent George and Mary Cole to Kenesaw. It was to awaken a gift within me wherein I could work for God and the church that He revealed to my soul. ``True evangelism is the work of bringing persons into such relationship with God that He can release the potential powers inherent within each one''. Gospel Trumpet of March 16, 1940. This was indeed true in my case. In the first letter I assured the Editor that all or any work of my pen was consecrated to the waste basket, yet it did not go there. I relied wholly upon the Holy Spirit and how God did help me. One of the workers told me in later years that she had little to correct in proof reading from my pen. God shall have all the glory. this work covered some 12 or 14 years of my busiest years with our growing children, besides distributing much literature. We had a horse and buggy and I could use that. It gave us much pleasure. Some of these trips we will write of later.

Along during these years a sleek Morgan mare walked into the yard of Sam and Annie Kriebel farm 2 1/2 miles north of Kenesaw, to get a drink at the water tank at the barn. She was tame and gentle and in good condition. No one ever knew where she came from. They advertised her in the local paper but no one ever answered the advertisement. After they waited a year they sent $60 to the Gospel Trumpet Company to be used in Foreign Missionary work. That was the first money ever sent in for the Foreign Missionary work. And note the extent of it today. Several years later sister Annie gave the Morgan mare to me for a buggy horse and her usefulness continued on in a good cause. One day she got into the barb wire fence and cut a very deep gash in one front foot just above the hoof. She kept bleeding in spite of all I could do and it was evident she would bleed to death. I thought of her helpfulness and asked God to stop the bleeding. It was one in answer to prayer. Did not John Wesley pray God to heal his sick horse and God healed it? Yes, bless the Lord.

While Millie was yet creeping she got into sister Rose's box in the bedroom and broke some of her glass beads in her mouth. They were a long, flat-sided glass bead. As I came to her, she swallowed the glass and began to scream and cry. I knelt in prayer right there with her in my arms, asking the Lord to save the child from harm. I remembered the scripture, ``If they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them''. I said, ``Lord, I believe thy word. Amen''. At that I arose and the baby ceased crying. I never knew any ill effect from the broken glass in the child afterward. If we trust God for the lighter afflictions, it enables us to trust Him for the greater dangers of life as they come up before us.

Sister Annie and I had grown together, and fellowship in the spirit of Jesus made our associations together more complete while she became more active in evangelistic work, winning souls to Christ. I was active through the printed pages of the Gospel Trumpet.

In the year of `96 father sold the north 80, intending to move on the 80 we farmed. We rented the Ed Allen 80, 1 1/2 miles due south of Juniata, and moved there the next spring, living there from 1897 to 1906. Husband rented extra ground that brought us fair crops as the average year runs. It was in the little red brick school house in Juniata that our children started to school in their primary grade, except Rose who attended in Kenesaw for her first years.

So many things happened along those years, some of which we want to remember. Our trips up to mother's house meant so much to us all, and equally the joy of Annie and her two girls, Lora and Etta, who came to visit us. The trip was tedious by horse and buggy. How many times we have traveled these roads since the section lines were surveyed. As the place we went to had no fruit trees, I would go up home to pick cherries for mother and for our fruit, taking the three little folks, Millie, Rex and Ruth, in the one horse buggy. But some of the time it was our Kate mule for my buggy horse. On one of these trips to grandma's house, I was talking to the children to interest them and help pass the time for them. Rex was about 3 years or more old. He asked, ``Mama, where are we going?'' I answered, ``To grandma's house where you, Millie, and Ruth were born''. He said, ``Where was daddy born?'' that gave me a thought. I said, ``Daddy was born in Ohio, mama in Illinois, Rose in Dawson County, Cecil Mae in Cheyenne County and you in Adams County''. He exclaimed, ``Why mama, how did we all get together?'' Many times I would sing to them along the way.

Here is where some of our happiest days were spent. Rose being the older, was my real standby with the heavy farm work. That, together with her school work, was hard on her young shoulders. She drove to school taking oversight of the children as they became of school age. On Saturdays I would drive to Hastings with butter and eggs to buy our groceries and shoes for the children, often selling butter to private customers at a slight raise in price to make it go farther.

The harvest time was a busy time, but the joy of bringing in the grain and husking the fine corn still looks good in our memories.

There was a large ice house near the water tank in the yard. It had been covered as a roof by heavy tree timbers and straw, then dirt to a depth to keep it cool. Daddy put up ice for the summer use. One afternoon he went for ice, and not more than 15 minutes after, we looked out to see the roof caved in. How close a call that was of being buried alive. How many times daddy has escaped serious accidents.

Just south of the house was a sloping hill to the draw in the pasture. What delight the children had in the winter sliding down that hill on the scoop shovel for a sled. In the cold winter days daddy would make two snow men in front of the window where Rex and Ruth could watch him build them. These he named ``Punch and Judy''. These were the days of our first base-burner heating stove. Christmas was a delight, for we did not try to deceive our children about Santa Claus, but we did have them hang up their stockings and would fill them with treats and a simple present. We never needed to call the children on Christmas morning, for they would awaken us with their joy around the base-burner's warm fire.

One winter daddy surprised me. He bought a set of sad irons for me. He took Rex into his confidence and said, ``Now don't you tell anybody or mama about it''. Rex was very little but he never whimpered a word about it.

Canning, preserving, and drying was a summers' job. We have dried as much as 3 or 4 gallons of sweet corn for winter use. It was heavy work gathering it, and cutting it from the cob. Rose knows much about that. It all went to provide for the family store. House wives did not buy so many can openers those days, or use them either. All of our sewing was done at home. Rose made her own graduating dress you may see it in her picture and the graduate gave the oration. This particular evening during the program there was a very deafening hail storm with severe lightning and loud thunder that frightened a baby in the audience till it cried lustily. Such conditions tried the nerves and courage of our graduate, yet Rose carried her part through.

Let us go back a few years. The Rural Mail Carrier system was introduced out of Juniata Post Office. We lived on Route #2. Harry Hoover was carrier on #2 past our place. It was amusing to see Rex and Ruth make a race through our large front yard to see who would get the mail first. Ruth beat sometimes by going early and sitting on the pole beside the mail box till Harry would come by. To have the Rural Mail Delivery was a far step to rural conveniences, but only the beginning of marvelous developments.

One evening daddy was reading in his paper that they had invented a carriage to go without horses. I said ``How could that be?'' yet the paper said it was true. One afternoon in the next year we were all excited, for coming down the road from the south one of these horse-less carriages was really going past, down the hill and up again on its own power at about 15 miles an hour. It was Dr. Ackley with his auto.

In 1910 - 15 the telephone came into use - talking over the wires. Then the Wright brothers made an airplane to fly through the air. Later the radio to talk through space without any conscious connections. All this, and much more in the short span of our own lives, till we wonder what next in the power of man to invent. I love to go back to the power of God and his mercy to those who love and serve Him. We marvel at the power of man to execute his will. Should we marvel at the power of God to fulfill His word and keep His promises? Let us exalt His name together.

Brother Bernie worked for us the first two summers we lived on the Allen farm. One wash day it was 4:00 P.M. and I was hurrying to get my clothes on the line so I could have supper ready for the men when they would come in from the field. I was using the hand wringer on a tub of clothes, the little folks around me, when Millie said, ``Mama, you have got Rex's finger in the wringer''. I looked over the tub and there was his little finger under two cogs of the wringer. It stunned him so he did not cry out. All I could do was to turn back the wringer to loosen his hand. As I took him in my arms I saw his finger was cut slantwise just above the first joint, only a piece of skin held the end of his finger to his hand. I stood beside the work stand and I wrung out a rag in the water, laid his finger in place in the wet rag and fell on my knees in prayer to God to heal the wound. The power of God was there to knit the wound so that the wet rag was not bloody to speak of. I very lightly wrapped the finger up and then the spasmodic pains caused the child to cry out. I asked the Lord to take all the pain away and he was soon asleep. I covered him with mosquito netting, but a fly got under and caused him to throw up both hands, yet his finger did not open. As daddy and Bernie came in for supper I told them I had cut off the end of Rex's finger, but God healed it. Rex felt no ill effects till Wednesday evening. Bernie accidentally stepped backwards and right onto this finger; that made it bleed through the rag wrappings. The following Saturday one of the children playing with the hammer struck it and burst it open again. In all Rex came out with a new nail and the scar to show for life where the finger was cut off. God ``is a very present help in trouble.''

All parents need discipline in the home, and ours was no exception. When Ruth was about 2 years old the three children were playing in the house. I went out on the porch and down cellar on some errand. I just stepped in front of the stairs that led down cellar. I saw Ruth stand at the head of the stairs, and Millie step up behind her. With both hands she gave Ruth a shove down the stairs. She was not seriously hurt, but when I got up the stairs, Millie was gone. I did not take the trouble to hunt for her. At supper time she came to the house. Only this winter Millie was telling me how she does not remember the punishment I gave her, but the 1 1/2 hours she hid in the corn crib. I tried to instill in the hearts of the children the need of asking forgiveness when they willfully wronged one another. Till I think it has stayed in the conscious need of the heart and helps all through life. It is Jesus' way of life.

During that summer sister Annie came one day to visit us. With her was Lora and Etta to see the children, which meant a pleasant day for all of us. After dinner was over, sister told me why she had come; that she was sorely afflicted with female weakness and she wanted me to pray for her healing. We wanted to be undisturbed in our petition to the Father in Heaven, so we went into a nice clean stall in the horse barn and there prayed the Lord to heal Annie of all her affliction, receiving it by faith, and she was permanently healed. The humility and childlike faith was all the demonstration there was about it. God be praised.

Toward the spring of `98 I came down with pneumonia, both lungs filling up. I seemed worn and tired and longed for rest. Brother Henry drove to our place at midnight thinking I would not be there in the morning. Daddy got a doctor from Hastings that put a shot in my arm and left medicine. Daddy gave me that. I lived but did not have the natural function of the bowels, I was so near dead. Next morning I asked daddy not to give any more medicine I wanted to trust God. He set it down and let me have my request. Then I had faith for my need and the Lord touched me with new life. Still I could only sit up long enough to have my bed made. Will Heldenbrand called to see me and said, ``You will do well to be up in two weeks''. However the next morning I sat in my chair and cut out aprons for the children and on the third day I was running the machine. Nellie Thompson worked for us. It was so hard on Rose, being in school. Rose was not very strong from her childhood. Faith in God put me on my feet again to help raise our little ones to manhood and womanhood. Oh, the goodness and mercies of God!

Seed time and harvest came true to the seasons and we were well favored. One very cold February day, the 9th, 1901, a sweet plump baby girl came to add to our love store. It was too severe cold to make a trip to bring mother from Kenesaw. Daddy got Dr. Ackley and Mrs. Robertson, the grandmother of Morris Sergeant, to be a nurse until mother could come. Even they were very cold, coming out from Juniata. Our faithful base burner brought cheer and comfort indoors. We named the baby ``Doris Ione'' after Miss Doris Evans, our primary school teacher for Millie, Rex and Ruth at the little red brick schoolhouse in Juniata. Miss Doris moved to California and married before our Doris started to school. She gave a fine doll to her namesake. Only two of the children had curly hair, Rex and Doris. Doris' curls hung down well on her shoulders. One day she was very quiet in the front room. I looked and there she sat by the stove, scissors in hand, cutting chunks of her curls to put in the ash pan. I must give it here to the glory of God. Monday morning, September 1, 1902 found us all in a hurry at our house, it being the first day of school in Juniata, and also Ruth's first day at school. Daddy took the children to school, leaving baby Doris and I alone. I had the boiler filled and on the stove for wash day. Also had the children fill the galvanized bushel basket with water on the porch for me. We were to attend the wedding of brother Henry to Miss Anise Triplett of Pauline on Wednesday. After the folks left for school, I thought I would roll out a pie for dinner while the oven was hot. Just as I put it into the oven, I thought, ``Where is Baby?'' I went out the door and along the porch to look for her. When I saw her feet above the bushel basket of water on the end of the porch, my blood turned cold to my toes. I said, ``Oh! My God''. Yet it was not of fright as one would think it to be. Had not the Lord been with me in accidents? Yes, indeed. And my soul looked up even before I could get to my child. Doris had overbalanced and went in head first, hands spread out on the curved bottom of the galvanized tub. She was just as black as a stovepipe, her eyes glassy and filled with matter. Foam hung out of her mouth, two or more inches long. There was no sign of life. I carried her in my arms and walked the porch in audible prayer for I was alone with God and was glad I was alone. The very atmosphere was filled with the presence of God. I remembered Hebrews 11 and told the Lord about ``Women received their dead raised to life again''. ``Through faith, bring baby back to life''. I saw the corners of her mouth twitch. Then I began praising God. ``It's life and not death.'' As she came too, the breath would go a little deeper every time until the lungs began to expand. She then began to cry out with pain. I had gone in to the hot oven by that time. I asked God to heal her lungs. I wrapped her in dry flannels and color came back to her and a warm sweat broke over her forehead. She lay in my arms in peaceful sleep. Will Heldenbrand came to the door and asked what was the matter with the baby. I told him, still praising God. I could not keep him from rushing to Juniata for daddy. He brought Dr. Hubbard out with him, who examined Doris and found her well in lungs and all right. She slept most of the day, awoke twice for something to eat. When the children came from school, she got out of her rocker bed and played all evening. Her eyes were sunken in her head for two weeks afterwords, but was well. We drove in the carriage to the wedding 23 miles on Wednesday and was able to tell the family what God had done for us.

Two weeks later, brother Bernie and Miss Ruby Smith were married at the bride's home 17 miles southeast of Juniata. We were also present at their wedding. Our two-horse carriage was quite comfortable and we felt it to be a real luxury.

In the next spring, Doris came down with pneumonia. Her daddy hurried off for a doctor, but for two days she grew worse. On the fourth night, sister Joe and Mrs. Ed. Hubbard came to sit up with her for she was so low. Joe urged me to go lay down for a short rest, but first she would fix the bed. She handed baby to me while she arranged the sheets. Sister Joe said to me, ``Her little back is all spotted''. I knew I smelled the death smell, but I went to my room to re-consecrate the baby to God, whether by life or by death, she belonged to Him. I rested in sleep an hour. When I came out, sister Joe said, ``Baby is better''. I said, ``Praise the lord''. She rapidly regained health and is with us today. Who can doubt the mighty hand of God over all and the One who we owe our very life in His service?

There was one practice in our family during those years on the Allen farm that I was diligent to keep. The years of childhood are the years of heart-tenderness. Each Sunday morning I would wash and dress up the children for Sunday School, and myself with them. Then we would gather in our front room, there to sing. Then a scripture lesson to apply as a child could understand and draw out the interest of the child. Then have them kneel with me and pray with them and for them. The influence on their young lives I will leave them to tell it.

As Rose was in the teen age, she attended the Baptist Sunday School in town with her school chums, and dear friends they were and have remained so through life. It was with those young friends in decorating a Christmas tree that Rose met the boy who became our son in-law, Frank G. Howland, of Juniata, son of a pioneer family we had known for years.

Rose's last four years in high school were studious years, the more so since my body was not very strong. The younger ones were now all in school. In the winter of 190405 I had a sick spell with pneumonia again and daddy said if I lived through that, we would try another climate for my health. Rose finished her school and in view of the plans for us to leave soon, Rose and Frank were married on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1905 at our home. Only the immediate family were present. They had their little home all ready to go into the same evening. It was touching to us all, the breaking up of the home circle and committing our dear children to the untried voyage of life. How well it is that we can trust them in a loving Father's care.

In the spring of 1906, we sold at public auction all our personal property except what bedding and clothes, with a few keepsakes, that we shipped in boxes to California to a little town called Gault, halfway between Stockton and Sacramento. A new colony was being laid out there and mother Heldenbrand had long wanted to see that colony and its prospects for locating. Plans were laid that we would go together to see Gault, California. It is almost as bad as a fire to sell at auction the machinery and stock one accumulates on a farm with household goods so necessary for home keep, but broken health made it necessary twice in our life. This was the first time, and more than that, was leaving Rose behind although she was happy in her new home.

We prepared what grip and grub we could carry with us. Our company was composed of father and mother Heldenbrand, daddy and myself, Millie, Rex, Ruth and Doris, who was then past five years old. We set out by train March 1 over the southern route of the Santa Fe Railroad. Not much of interest through the desert only as we could watch the Indians that came to the trains at the larger stations. One old Indian was looking in our car window. I never saw more homely features. I called to Doris to look out of the window. She raised up from her pillow and only said, ``Boo'' and lay down again. Poor child was car sick most of our trip. The porter was so kind to bring pillows to make a bed for her to lay on. The stop of 20 minutes at Albuquerque, New Mexico gave us a chance to go into the Indian quarters in the Depot and watch the Indian squaws weaving rugs, with no design before them for a pattern to go by. A girl of 11 or 12 years of age was at her loom weaving. Little papooses of 12 to 18 months old sitting by their mothers, quiet, and nothing to play with whatever. There was one Indian on the platform about gone with TB.

As our train approached the Rockies, the road wound round and up through sometimes three tunnels. Grandpa was happy with Rex in the seat with him to talk to about the scenery along the way. Rex said to grandpa, ``We looped the loop and shot through a hole'', referring to a tunnel. Grandpa laughed. At times we could look out and see the tail end of our train. We passed through the Needles at midnight so could see nothing of the line between Arizona and southern California. We soon were delighted to see the flowers blooming on the mountain sides and soon came into the sunshine and flowers in the first of March. Southern California is a lovely place, at least in early spring.

We found Gault a small place with two or three stores, no faculty of keeping vegetables fresh or much stir in any business enterprise. The citizens seemed to be taking it easy. The housewives did not bother to can fruits for winter. All this was so far from our custom of living. It was easy to see why they did not have much to live on or to live for. There was one hotel. We put up at this hotel for two days, till we could locate a couple of furnished rooms in a private house and the privilege to cook in the kitchen. Mr. Marks of the Colony project took us out to see the layout in 5 or 10 acre lots to be developed into orchards and homes. He courteously served a free dinner to everybody. There was one family settled on a plot. The land was hard to describe. It seemed to be made up of round sink holes from a foot to 18 inches across and not very deep and the rain would stand in these low places. Rain and rain, as if the showers came from the ocean, but one could walk out right after a shower by stepping on higher knolls. We did not feel favorably impressed so did not buy, and the folks would not buy where we would not. One night I had a lung congestion. Daddy did not sleep a bit, for fear of what that meant to me with pneumonia. I prayed to God to spare me and heal my lung. Bless the Lord, He touched me with healing and I was free. That settled it as to our stay in California. Gault was only 50 feet above sea level. The folks said that it was a pity to be so near the ocean, 75 miles to San Francisco and not go to see it. Daddy left it with me whether we go or start back to Grand Junction, Colorado, for he had made a trip there once before. I said, ``It is not becoming for us with our children to go sightseeing when we should be hunting for a home for us.'' The next day that we would have been in San Francisco was the great earthquake of 1906. As we were on the train for Colorado many refugees were on the train, riding free to their people east or south. Most of them with nothing but the clothes on their backs. One young girl, an actress, was near me in the coach. I ventured to say to her, ``You ought to thank God that your life is spared''. She answered, ``Yes, but what I regret is I had quarreled with my husband just before I left last evening for the play, and he, with our baby, were killed with all that were in that building''. She was on her way east to her people. Father Heldenbrand said later, ``If it had not been for `Molly' (he always called me Molly) we would have been in that earthquake''. Again we felt the hand of God upon us.

Our trip into Colorado was to take less than 24 hours, so daddy asked me to check everything we could. I took no changes of underwear for Doris, as I had before. She was in her long-sleeved underwear. She became car sick as before, only this time it went the other way while she was sitting on grandpa's lap. I took her into the ladies toilet, and washed her up the best I could, and threw away the underwear. To make sure she would not take cold, I had her wear her coat over her dress till we could get to a town store to buy her underwear. Only a mother knows some of such embarrassing moments.

We made a stop of two weeks at Delta, Colorado, just over the western stop from Grand Junction. Delta nestled in a valley with the Uncompahgre river running through the valley. The table land was under irrigation, and in the sharp sides of the hill there was a stream of water 3 or 4 feet wide just like a large spring of water rushing down to the river. It was the seepage water from the table land under irrigation. The cured alfalfa was as green as the fields. The horses were broad chest-ed and of fine strong body. The air was so bracing, I could breathe with delight in the high altitude.

The Neffs lived on the table lands 2 1/2 miles from town. Thaddius Neff, our Missionary now to Egypt, was a young man of 17 at home then. We were entertained at their house one night. Father and mother stayed at the hotel. We rented a vacant house and set up light housekeeping in town. I and the children attended the Sunday School and services at the Church of God in Delta. The old chronic trouble that impaired my health, (constipation), from a child, was affecting me again. I asked the church to pray for me that I be healed. Old brother Swinburn led in prayer, asking God to heal me. He said this: ``Oh, Lord, give Sister Heldenbrand an eternal rebuke against this thing.'' I knew in my heart that was what I needed, and God gave it to me. That meant a healing for life, a wonderful power of God over disease in my behalf.

I had kept up my manuscript writing for the Gospel Trumpet along this trip. The water, or homesickness, no doubt both together, was making daddy sick. He would have been on his back if we had tried to stay in Delta, Colorado. I could see plainly, and felt it, so I said, ``Well, if you can't live in Colorado, I can live in Nebraska''. We bought our tickets for Kenesaw, Nebraska. Father and mother to Juniata their home was there as they left it. We landed in Kenesaw April 1st. Gone one month, not any richer, but wiser for our adventure. Brother Henry met us at the depot and brought us to sister Annie's and mother's. Everybody was glad to see us back home. Well, so were we glad to be back. We had to wait a week or more for our boxes to follow us. How foolish they were not worth the freight. We collected second-handed furniture to set up housekeeping and rented Mary Morgan's house across the street from Charley Schleigle's home.

We are still using a large tin dipper that Uncle Lewis and Aunt Lydia Currier gave us. They had used it for years, but did not need it. They called it ``rustproof''. It is still in constant use these 40 years.

We lived here six months and bought a 5 acre place in Juniata 6 blocks south of Frank and Rose, which made it seem good to have Rose come in quite often. Their first baby boy ``James Porter'' was born while we lived on the corner. Daddy was buying up teams and tools to get back to farming. We were both born farmers, and not really happy at any other kind of work. During the 18 months we lived there, daddy worked out for other farmers, mostly in winter husking corn. He easily made his 60 bushels a day in husking. The children were back in Juniata school.

One winter day, though it was pleasant, we had the most perfect illustration of faith through Doris. Daddy was going to drive the team and wagon to Hastings in the afternoon. Doris had wanted a sled. She went to daddy with her request ``Daddy, will you buy a sled for me?'' But no answer. The third time she asked as patient as could be the same request. Her daddy simply answered, ``Yes''. That was sufficient. She knew her daddy would do as he promised. A more carefree and happy child I never saw. I noticed toward evening she would look down the road once or twice to see if her daddy was coming. Yet never a word she possessed her sled by faith, and when he came she got her sled out of the wagon in a hurry. Let us older ones honor God in His word just as fully and simply as a child believes the parent.

Our first Christmas on the place in Juniata was to be a family dinner. Sister Emma Rieke living at Sterling, Colorado, could not be there, but she sent a turkey and a fat hen dressed for the dinner. They were the most perfectly prepared fowls I ever had seen. I learned from Emma how to properly dress a chicken. Just before Christmas, Doris came down with the whooping cough. That settled it about her being with the family gathering. Sister Mabel sent a piano a foot long to Doris for her Christmas present. No doubt that was the very nicest present she ever received, for she has kept it while other toys have gone with age. Mabel has always been like mother, ever seeking to make others happy, especially the children. Our home gatherings at mother's always were the greatest pleasure, and helped the children to build for the same harmonious feelings in each growing family of their own.

Our stay in Juniata of one and a half years was more of a preparation to larger work in farming. Brother Sam Kriebel had wanted us to take the farm, their home place 2 1/2 miles north of Kenesaw, some time before he died, but it was our intention to move to another climate about that time. Brother Sam left us in 1903. Sister Annie, left a widow, felt more impressed we should take over the farming. We had sold our homestead at Lodge Pole and in the spring of 1908 we moved onto the Kriebel farm which proved a very congenial and helpful move for all concerned. Sister Annie with Lora and Etta lived in Kenesaw. Also mother and Mabel. We lived on the farm 10 years, and they were the most fruitful ten years of our family life in so many ways. I will not follow up in dates so closely, but hope to get in events that helped to shape our lives so much. The latter part of mother's life was in her own home in the north part of Kenesaw. Our privilege to attend the Saints' meetings regularly was a great joy, though they were held mostly in private homes.

The farm had a large black walnut grove, a large apple grove of Genitan, Ben Davis, and Whitney No. 20, and very large wild plum grove some most delicious plums. Brother Sam had planted the beautiful cedar trees in the front yard and a winding driveway. A very large barn and six-room house three bedrooms upstairs. A wash house and other outbuildings, with alfalfa hog lot. My health had improved. It was a real home to us. Most of all, sister Annie was near. The fruits with garden and harvest gave us plenty to do. Just as a side line, I took up canvasing in town for the Racine Hosiery Co., Racine, Wisconsin, and added the Stuarts ``Noall'' (no alcohol) food flavors. The goods was the best, and the Lord blessed me in what little time I could put in, so I was able to get several pieces of furniture, besides something for the Lord's work. That was more my delight than new furniture. Sister Annie built on an addition on the west that gave a much needed room for our growing children.

It was in Kenesaw that Millie, Rex, Ruth and Doris finished high school. They drove with horse and buggy as they did to Juniata school. Millie and Ruth took up teaching, Rex took up college work in York. When the war broke out and America entered in through President Wilson's 2nd term, our boys were drafted. The Red Cross was using every woman that could cut bandages, sew or knit. I did all three, and had knit sweater, mittens and helmet to fit out our boy Rex, though he was praying God would overrule, so he should not be compelled to go to war. Indeed we did pray. Rex was called home, and had his grip packed ready for orders to entrain, when the Armistice was signed. Such rejoicing we never will forget. Bells were ringing, whistles blowing, everything to make a noise from morning till night. Dear mother Heldenbrand was with us and the noise near got her. She tried going to bed, and lay pillows over her ears to shut out the sounds. Rex said, ``God answered my prayer''. To think that was 22 years ago and the world is in another conflict worse than before, an exclusive proof that war with carnal weapons never did or ever will end war. But I am getting way ahead of our story.

After Millie, Rex and Ruth were in high school, one spring day Ruth awoke in the morning with a very badly swollen sore throat. Daddy called Dr. Nowers to determine what was the trouble. Dr. said at first examination that it was scarlet fever. We were placed under quarantine and took every care to keep her in a room upstairs away from the rest of the family. I alone was to nurse her. For a day she was very sick and could not swallow even water. Our trust was placed in the Great Physician. Ruth was with me in the choice of her physician, Jesus, our Savior. I prayed the Lord to heal Ruth of scarlet fever and any evil effects resulting from it. Also to keep any one from taking the disease in our family or the community. That prayer was so fully answered that her case was the only one heard of. Ruth was more able to be taking care of me than I was to carry her food and care for her. We did everything to keep from exposing others. The town was so frightened they would not let us even send our kerosene can to town to be refilled. The Lord was fully able for every need.

I remember how gracious was the help of the Lord when it was necessary to have my teeth extracted for new plates to be made. I sought the Lord in prayer for two weeks to give me faith for the ordeal of extracting my teeth. I still had 19 left in my mouth. I received the assurance of God's presence with me and rode to town with the girls going to school for the afternoon. Elza Parmenter was dentist in Kenesaw at the time. I took the chair and told him to pull as many as he could. He would give me hot water to stop the bleeding so he could go on but he asked me to put off finishing the job as my gums bled so freely. I said, ``If you can stand it, I can; I want them all out.'' He took out the last of the 19 teeth without using anything to deaden the pain. The Lord did that for me and caused my mouth to heal very quickly. To Him be all the praise.

We had several stands of bees. I usually took care of the hives to remove the honey. I had a bee veil on and as attempting to remove a section of honey when the bees became very angry. The one necessary thing in working with bees is to keep very calm and move slowly. Well, I confess it was real hard to do so when bees are angry, aiming at your head. A couple got inside of my veil. I had heard to go into a horse barn and bees would soon leave. I managed to walk slowly to the barn some distance away I thought, as the bees inside my veil were trying to get out. They did not sting me and presently the rest left the barn. I got out of the veil and never tried it again. Too nerve racking for me.

Rex took over the care of the bees. Occasionally he got stung, but to no serious hurt till one day he came in and said, ``Mama, what is good for a bee sting?'' I answered, ``Soda is said to be good.'' I applied wet soda to his hand. I saw he was getting very sick. He got to a cot and lay down. He was swelling and turning spotted. He said, ``Pray for me.'' I knelt by his side and laid on hands asking the Lord to heal the bee sting on Rex. He said, ``Mama, it is better, I am healed.'' I answered, ``Praise the Lord''. ``And, Rex, do you not feel God talking to your heart?'' He answered, ``Yes, but I don't want to make a start again and then not hold out faithful''. I assured him, ``Jesus died to keep his own faithful unto death.'' He slipped onto his knees and rededicated himself unto the Lord and has stood firm in the strength of full salvation up to the present time.

Our children were now full grown and it was for them to make decisions for themselves. Millie was the first to finish school and take up teaching. Her first term was in Roseland. The next summer she was required to attend Teachers Normal in Kearney. While there she with four other teachers came down at once with typhoid fever. She came home and we called Dr. Nowers to consult and advise care and nursing. I asked Millie what was her desire, to employ the doctor or trust in Jesus to heal her. She answered, ``Mama, I want to trust Jesus. God could not talk to my heart till this came upon me, for I had lost my experience of salvation''.

Her daddy was very kind and wanted Millie to choose. He stayed right with us. Millie became delirious and fever ran very high. I was in constant attention and much prayer. Sister Annie often with me, the church praying also and the neighbors threatening us if Millie should die. Just when she was the worst, God touched her body and healed her fever. I bless Him to this day for His mercy and power to heal. Millie was so wasted away we carried her on a sheet down the stairs so we could better care for her. While her case of the fever was the most severe, she had recovered so rapidly and went back to her work full two weeks before Blanche Young who had a light attack of typhoid the same time Millie came down and was attended by a doctor from the first. Blanche was two weeks later in opening her school. Millie was able to stand for the Lord after that.

There was one great blessing that was mine every fall. Daddy and the girls made it possible for me to attend the Nebraska State camp-meeting at the various places over the state. I can never tell what those Church of God camp-meetings meant to me and to others. When only a child, I was at the camp-meeting where Aunt Mary Unz and the church there held their camp near Kankakee, Illinois. They had rough cabins to cook and sleep in. It was all new to me yet very attractive because they had preaching there under the trees. Thank the Lord for camp-meetings and revivals.

I, with helpers, have taken over the cooking for a few camp-meetings. Sister Annie cooked for the first Church of God camp-meeting in Nebraska. For years she was a real mother to the camp. Her last camp-meeting was in Bethany Park, at Lincoln, in August 1932. She told me she never missed but one state camp-meeting and that was when they were in Oregon on an evangelistic tour to the west. We now must come back home and to the events of home activities.

One Christmas time out on the farm, four or five of sister Emma's children about the age of our young folks came to spend Christmas with us. I think it was Esta, Pearl, Louis and Ray. What a fine time that was. The young folks put up a Christmas tree and exchanged home gifts. They had a home program. As the girls were taking all plans into their hands, preparing for the Christmas tree, I was very glad to leave it to them.

A few days before Christmas they asked me if I had purchased any present for daddy. I answered, ``No''. They said, ``Daddy needs a new hat. You better buy him one''. I fell for the suggestion readily and bought the hat. After the presents were given I understood `Why' and daddy never knew how I came to buy him a hat. One of the most surprised was myself. A beautiful ``Pony fur'' coat that fitted me perfectly. I could not see how that could be till they told me two weeks before daddy went to Hastings and took Ruth with him. He fitted the coat on her. I have the coat though it is too small for me now. Never could cold winds pierce through my coat. Thanks to daddy.

I am using the sad irons of so many Christmases ago. How happy the young folks were and carefree. At their parting all of us gathered around the piano in our front room with Esta playing. We sang, ``God be with you till we meet again''. They never have met as the same since. The young people began to marry and settle in homes of their own. Death has not claimed one of that circle so far.

Ruth seemed inclined to piano, and her daddy traded a most beautiful young mare he raised for a ``Story Piano'' and had it delivered as a surprise to our girls. How delighted they were. Ruth, Millie and Rex took piano lessons of Mrs. Howard Long. Ruth was the one who stayed with it, and daddy had her take the piano with her when she married. To me her touch was the sweetest. She tells me she never could set down to another after that one was gone. It held such cherished memories. The graduation of Millie, Rex and Ruth came in their respective turns. Each had class friendships that only graduates can appreciate for they generally last for life.

One quite unusual condition was manifest in Rex's class. There were only three boys and, I think, five girls. The three boys Leslie Stoner, Elwin Burroughs, and Rex were all Christian boys. Never used tobacco, profane language, or bad habits of any kind. So far as I know all are real Christian men and heads of families to bless their homes and the community.

Ruth had a home wedding with forty guests present. Dorothea Ruth Heldenbrand and Andy Sorenson of Holstein were married June 1, 1916 by Rev. J. M. Harrington. Rex was best man and Miss Jessie Osler was bridesmaid. Preceding the ceremony, Winfield Howland sang an appropriate song for the occasion. A two course supper was served and they took up their residence on a ranch west of Holstein. I think that was the first and last farming Andy ever did. They soon moved to Lincoln where their first child was born, Fauna Faye. Our first visit to Lincoln was to see Fauna Faye. It was at the home of Andy and Ruth in Lincoln that Millie and Henry Schellenberg of Albion was married by Rev. J. M. Harrington. Only the immediate families were present. This was February 18, 1917. They moved onto a farm near Albion. Have continued farming near Holyoke, Colorado ever since. Of their family, Lyle, Lois Mae, Masyl and Glenda are at home, two sweet children 3having gone to the better world to beckon them on.

After the armistice was signed, Rex went to Lincoln, working for the Board of Education, first as janitor and later promoted to the office of accountant where he is still employed. Rex was married to Miss Grace Hutton of Lincoln, August 23, 1925 at Chautaugua Park camp-meeting of the Church of God in Beatrice. Rev. L. C. Chaffee of Lincoln officiated at the ceremony. They took up their residence in Lincoln at 449 South 30th and have continued to live there to the present. Jimmie, Dickie and Arla Mae are the three children that love to come to grand daddy and grandmother's in Kenesaw.

By this time all of Rose and Frank's boys, James, Winfield, Kenneth and Elton are married and living in Lincoln. Sister Mabel and Frank have lived there since they were married, all due to the fact that Bernie and Ruby moved there first and took Andy and Frank Fulwider with them to find employment.

Our trips to Lincoln have been very many and several times in our later years have spent much of the winter among our children. Could anyone be more blessed than we have been and are still the most favored of parents? The Lord help us to be worthy of such love.

Millie taught three terms and Ruth taught two terms of school before each were married, but where is Doris all this time? She was in high school in Kenesaw till she graduated and then followed teaching six years when she took up beauty parlor work and has owned and operated a beauty shop in Greely, Nebraska to the present time. Doris was married to J. E. Cruse of Greely on January 4, 1933.

Doris came on some later in school life than the three older ones. She had a pony to ride to Kenesaw school. She had for her friends, Mabel and Edna McNair. they lived across the road just south of us. One evening after school Doris had been to the McNair place with the girls. It was just turning dusk and the girls were in the pasture. Doris started to run home and ran into the barb-wire fence. A barb cut a gash just above the eye. One could lay a dime in the width of the gash. She came home, her face all bloody and looking bad. I washed the wound out and took our trouble to the Lord to heal the wound. It was so healed that Doris was back in school the second day after the accident. She carries the scar to this day.

Etta and Lora loved to come out to be with us on the farm, for it was their old home where they were born. Etta was saved when she was 9 years old. She and our girls always knelt beside their bed to pray before retiring. One evening they with Doris went upstairs to bed and as Doris did not kneel, Etta said, ``Why Doris, don't you pray?'' Doris said, ``I used to did, but I don't now''. It was sad but true, and Etta had to tell me about it. I never forced the children to pray but taught them to love God so they would want to pray.

Rex, Ruth and Millie were baptized by Bro. J. M. Harrington when they were in their teens. I hope to live to see the day when Doris will say, ``I used to did not, but I do pray now''. She was the youngest and has held a very close place in our hearts. She has a loving disposition and is an all around talented girl. Any kind of work could come her way, with talent to do it, except it may be music, for she never cared to take it up.

While on the farm (the Kriebel farm was always the-farm for us) the picking and harvesting of apples began in early fall until frost. One morning before school I went out to pick up windfalls for the children to take with them to town in the buggy. As I alighted from the buggy I stepped into a hollow with my full weight on the one foot. My ankle turned and I fell to the ground; the ligaments were torn all through my ankle. The girls helped me into the house. I moved around all day with my knee on a chair and got to bed that way in the evening. I prayed the Lord to heal my ankle and slept well. In the morning I awoke but could not move my foot. I told the Lord, ``In Jesus' name I arise''. I did and was getting breakfast when the girls came down stairs. Millie said, ``Mama, what are you doing here?'' I said, ``I am getting breakfast''. I walked from that time on with no pain or distress. Two weeks after my ankle was a sight to behold, a witness of the severe injury I had sustained. Picking those apples in the fall was a hard strain on my body, on the step ladder and reaching just a little farther for the next apple, I knew I overreached. I was taken with nervous prostration in 1909. I could only let the family talk to be in a whisper. I lay in an upstairs bedroom.

Father and mother Heldenbrand were living in their home in north Juniata, since father had retired from farming in Dawson County. His health had not been good for some time. He had come out in harvest time to help in stacking grain, for he was an expert stacker in shock or headed grain. His heart was wrapped up in his only son ``Jim'' and he was also a real father to me. At this time of my illness, he came with his horse and buggy to see how I was. After we talked awhile, father went out to the barn and began to crack and eat black walnuts. We had so many walnut trees on the farm. He had read that walnut meats were good for a body and he had nothing else to do. He became ill before night so he could not go home. The next afternoon sister Annie came out to pray with me and lay on the anointed handkerchief we had sent for that I might be healed. I was touched by divine healing, so after Annie had left, I went into the bedroom where father lay and said to him, ``I wish, father, you could trust the Great Physician I have trusted''.

After I lay down again, he called Millie and said to her, ``Tell your mother she can pray for me, and that other woman too'', meaning Annie, for he was a very sick man. We assured him we would pray. It was only an hour or so till he lost consciousness and passed away that night. Doctor called it acute indigestion. Jim had sent to Juniata for his mother and sister Jo. They stayed all that night. This was April 24, 1909. Daddy had to attend his father's funeral held in the Baptist church in Juniata alone, for I was too weak to attend. Burial was in Juniata Cemetery.

This left mother alone. She was not able to stay alone, and went to live with sister Jo for a short time, then came to live with us on the farm. It was not easy for mother to live with her children, for she so desired to be by herself. She did not want to be a burden on anyone. It is pitiful for the aged parents to give up the place they call home. With mother Heldenbrand it was doubly hard to adjust herself to another's home. She wanted to be self sufficient. She wanted to do as she pleased, but had the virtue to grant others the same privilege. It was a real virtue. In that attitude, we were able to grow together in harmony as mother and daughter in-law. We did grow closer as the years passed by, a heart of sympathy wrought much comfort.

It was a great pleasure when her sister Emma Schoulders came to visit mother at our place on the farm. They had not met for years. Emma had come from California to visit her son, Jim Schoulders and family in Kearney and they in turn brought Emma to see her sister Permilla. The Ed Schoulders have visited us several times, but I think that was the last time the two sisters were together. It is a pleasure yet to know that visit was possible. Mother held a deep profession of faith in Christ, yet one that never reached out in outward testimony, for everyone had the right to believe what they pleased, as well as her own right to do the same. Many there are who hold the same. It has its influence, but not a sound one on Bible doctrine.

Extensive farming was becoming hard on each of us. Daddy had in mind buying a small place, and Ed Jones of Kenesaw had in mind selling his 39 acres adjoining town on the north. It seemed the hand of the Lord was in it for two years to hold this place for us. In the spring of 1918 we bought the Ed Jones place for $6,250. With $1,000 I had from my parents, daddy was able to pay cash for our new home. It has truly been home to us so we were able to carry on our work on a smaller scale. The crop was mostly in corn, and the first few years we sold milk in town. The house of five rooms was not what we needed, so in the second year we build a roomy kitchen, so light and airy. That gave mother a private room with an outside door. Mother was with us 12 years. She was taken by a stroke and lived only 24 hours. Died December 16, 1922. We had a house funeral and she was laid to rest beside her husband in Juniata Cemetery to await the resurrection. Her last days were peaceful at 87 years.

Daddy has done much to improve the house by filling up the yard and laying cement walks, piping water into the kitchen. For many years we enjoyed the benefits of the current for lights, and telephone service. One year hog cholera took a heavy toll of our 20 fine hogs. It looked pitiful to haul out and bury such fine hogs, but such is life.

While I had been building up in health and strength since my breakdown with nervous prostration, the healing power of God came to me. I put in my faith for better health from 40 to 50 and on to 60 to 70, I gained in weight and general health.

Not so with daddy, for he was conscious for two years that he would face an operation, yet never disclosed his fears to his family until the spring of 1930. He was under the care of Dr. Nowers of Kenesaw, who advised him to have an operation to remove an enlarged gland. As he was 70 on December 4, 1929, his chances were slim for any assurance of a recovery. His soul was awakened about eternity, and his final destiny. He made his peace with God, so he felt clear, whatever should be the outcome of his critical condition. On April 24, 1930 he went to the Mary Lanning Hospital in Hastings for a few days in preparation for a final checkup of his true condition physically. Dr. Uridil told him it must be a two-step operation but in no way could he take both at the same time. Doctor would not give any assurance he would survive the first one. As that was what daddy fully desired, they went on with the first. His kidneys were so far gone they run away in chunks. Daddy lay there wasting away for fifteen days. Doctor and nurses having no hopes of his recovery. I and the children visited daddy every day that we could. I felt if only daddy was at home, our God who had done signs and wonders in our family so many times could come to our help for daddy now.

Dr. Nowers said at last if I could get help for me to nurse him, they would release him to me. I made the necessary preparations at home, and Rose took me to Hastings. The release there was not complete until the next day, so I stayed all night with Bernie and Ruby. Bernie took me to spend the early evening with daddy in the hospital. A very severe storm was coming up, so we left for Bernie's on east sixth street. We just pulled into the garage when it struck. Ruby was frantic. We all started for the basement and all lights went out. A cyclone was upon us. We clustered near the west wall of the basement and tried to console Ruby and Viola, they were so frightened. It did sound as though the roof was falling in, but proved to be the brick chimney falling down. Only one half block east, homes were wrecked and Hastings was shattered in many sections. Some streets were blocked by debris and fallen trees. Bernie took us over part of the town and to the hospital to see how daddy stood the shock. He assured us all was well with his soul if he would be taken. The lights were out all over the building, but no other damage done there.

About 11 A.M. the ambulance from Kenesaw, Mr. McEntire brought us home, daddy and I. What a comfort it was to be home. Three men carried daddy on his cot to a new bed I had bought for him. I cooked some potato soup for his first dinner. That tasted like home cooking to him. His one greatest trial in the hospital was his eats, seasoned with vanilla or chocolate. It haunts him still. Rose came soon after dinner and stayed the first night with us. While daddy was more restful at home, a very serious condition existed that meant sure death whether he was here or there. In the hospital they had used the strongest force pump to relieve his bowels. I had used every means Dr. Nowers showed me and quarts of water by syringes, all to no avail. The third day daddy was convinced human aid could not avail for him. Then man's extremity is God's opportunity. I said, ``Daddy, there is only one hope for you. God can help you.'' His heart said, ``It is so''. I laid my hands on his head to pray to God for his power to bring relief, all in Jesus' name. The Lord answered that prayer and brought relief that saved his life.

A real miracle of healing for daddy began from that moment, to gain in weight the next two weeks at a pound a day; his kidneys still running off but new ones building up. The Lord did give me wisdom and strength to nurse and care for daddy. Ruth sent Vera Spencer from Lincoln to help in the work for two or three weeks. Our worship and devotions were precious together with daddy in his room.

The second week we made a public sale and sold off the horses, cows, and machinery. That was the second public sale we had that does not bring its values. These things come in life. Shadows as well as sunshine. It was certain that daddy was through farming. We have rented out the acreage ever since, except the garden and barn lot.

Our devoted children were such a comfort to us, and the oldest of our grandchildren are Rose's boys, now well-grown, just as devoted as our own children. We are rich in affection, brothers and sisters, friends. Above all our Heavenly Father watching over us enriching our souls with His grace. Daddy gaining and rebuilding in body so that in two months time he went back to the hospital to be examined for the second operation. Dr. Uridil and the nurses were so astonished to see him again, and when he was found to test far above the required test, they gave him the major operation in removing the gland. He was not so weakened this time. This was in the hottest weeks of July, and I think we suffered more making the trips to visit daddy than he did with his electric fan to keep him comfortable. His greatest suffering now was the nerve in his right hip at the slightest move the pain was terrible. He was there just three weeks the second time, when he was released. With the exception of that injured nerve, daddy rested very well and gained along steadily.

I was feeling the strain of the hot weather and nursing, helping him up and down with that lame hip was hard on each of us, but what glad hearts we looked to his recovery. Doris was able to be home with us for a week. I had the chance to ride to Mascot with a cousin, Will Heldenbrand. From there I took the train to Beaver City to see sister Annie and husband, George Droll, and rested for three days. Just to be with sister was rest for me. Our life and experience held such harmony in the love of Jesus, few could excel.

Coming home refreshed, we took up the convalescent period with daddy spared to us, gladdening our hearts daily. We well remember the day daddy could discard the rubber tube he had worn in his side for over four months. Nature again restored to normal was a cause of praising the Lord from our hearts. It was all so wonderful.

In the following year, December 4, 1931, we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in the M.E. Church hall in Kenesaw. All but two of the family with brothers and sisters were there. A beautiful program was given by children and grandchildren in songs and recitations suitable for the occasion. Sister Annie gave a contribution that was so sincere. Her words started out like this: ``In life, we measure success according to the ending''. The full address is kept in our scrap book of cherished memories. Sister Mabel gave a test of her art in the table decorations, a beautiful work by her own hands and her composition in poetry is also in the scrap book. The love and sacrifice that was represented in over $70 in gold by those present and absent ones made our hearts to sink in humility. May heaven reward each one.

Fidelity to the marriage vows is a living testimony of the all-wise purpose of God to bless the earth, and if we are spared one more year, we may celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary. So good God has been to us. To have daddy just as willing and anxious to attend every means of grace as I had since I was saved had been my cherished hope. It was fulfilled after fifty years in supplications to God for his salvation.

Our children have never tired of doing all in their power and beyond their power to make life comfortable and restful for us. With their love and financial support, we have retained our home in Kenesaw. Special occasions on our 55th and 58th anniversaries, on Christmas and Mother's Days, with daddy too, has made it so good to be here.

Only last February 1940, our family planned a home coming as a surprise to us. We wonder yet how well they carried it out. First Millie wrote a card that she and Lyle would be home February 12. I called up Rose the first thing over the phone to give her the news and said I must write Doris, for I feel sure she will come over. Yes, Rose felt the same, she would come. The thought, ``What a pity Ruth cannot come from Chicago''. But Ruth had come to Rose's on the 11th. Frank and Rose came to see us next day; as they so often come, I did not wonder. I was at the neighbors, so did not see them come in. Daddy was in the house. Ruth hid in the front room; as I came in there was a mysterious air about the room. Frank said, ``We thought we would come to see you''. Well, I seated myself not three feet from Ruth behind the curtains. She could stand it no longer, and said, ``Hello, mother''. Say, I took her on my lap and she got a spanking, but not like when she was little. We found later that all this was planned for some time ahead.

All the girls were together most of the week, and Rex and Grace came with Jimmie, Dickie and Arla Mae on Saturday evening at home with us. Sunday the entire family worshiped with the Church of God in Hastings to hear Brother H. H. Kissinger give one of his deep sermons to feed the soul. It was a happy family together with father and mother. Winfield, Neva and Ronnie, Elton and Marjorie were home from Lincoln and took several snapshots of the group. This was one more of the ``never to be forgotten'' times together.

Some of our circle are dropping out along the way but going to a better country than this. Dear sister Annie took her flight to be with Jesus in 1932. This was the first break in father's family since we were grown children with homes of our own. I had the precious privilege of spending two weeks in helping care for our sister in her last illness caused by a leakage of one of the lower lobes of the heart. Her passing was in peace and victory. ``Beautiful in the sight of the Lord''. May my last end be like hers.

The first of May, 1937, sister Emma came to visit a month in Nebraska among us all. She drove from Sterling in her new Plymouth coupe as fresh and spry as a young girl in her 70th year. Her visit was outstanding in every way as all of us have felt it most enjoyable. Emma said, ``I am coming to Nebraska every spring; I have so enjoyed my visit here.'' Emma had a strong constitution and never had been sick since a child, yet the following February a violent attack of the flu took her suddenly. All was done her that a devoted family of children could do, but after several relapses, she passed on to her eternal rest, peacefully and calm in Jesus' love, as she had lived.

In February, brother Henry and Anise came with Oletha and Marmie to see sister Emma at Haxtun, Colorado, with Grace Crist, her oldest child. Henry's visit with us in Nebraska was so much to be appreciated and the weather was fine so their trip from Medford, Oregon and back home was with comfort. Elton and Winfield took pictures with their moving picture cameras of all these scenes in our gatherings. In that, we have the folks with us so real when we see the pictures. The last of February, sister Mabel got us stirred to make a trip to see Emma. She came in her car to Bernie's and next morning Bernie, Ruby, and Mabel picked up Rose at Juniata and took me with them from Kenesaw. The day was fine. We went by the way of Ogalalla to see the Kingsley Dam in construction, a real work of achievement when it is finished. We called up Millie when we came into Julesburg, inviting our company to supper and to stay over night with them. Good natured as Millie is over company, we had a good visit, attended the Union Sunday School with her, for it was Sunday morning. In the afternoon Millie went with us on to Haxtun to see our precious sister Emma. She was able to know each one and talk some with us, her same sweet, patient, cheerful spirit filling her countenance. We, with Henry, will ever be thankful we went to see our sister Emma. She died March 3, 1939. Our ``Good-by'' is only till we meet again. Blessed are they that have such hope of a life beyond the grave in the presence of Christ, our Savior.

In our passing review of life, we have scarce touched on the delight and pleasure that has been ours with our growing grandchildren and great grandchildren coming to grandparent's home. They can remember, as they recall, scenes of childhood delights in the walnut groves and orchard, and play hunting squirrels before they were old enough to use a gun. Or in mature years how it is still a supreme delight to go to grand daddy's house to see how we do and are being made comfortable by acts of kindness even to the limit of thoughtfulness for our welfare. Words fail me here to express our gratefulness. Only God our Father can reward each one. One heritage we strive to leave with our posterity, one that we trust will always bless the lives of old and young is the family altar of grandparents' home where God is owned and honored.

Our twelve grandchildren are Rose and Frank: four boys, James, Winfield, Kenneth and Elton. Millie and Henry four: Lyle, Lois Mae, Masyl, and Glenda. Rex and Grace three: Jimmie, Dickie, and Arla Mae. Ruth and Andy one: Fauna Faye, and our eight great grandchildren. James and Mary Helen have Bernice Rose and Helen Marie. Winfield and Neva have Ronnie Winfield and Delbert Dean. Kenneth and Vivian have Joanne, Mary Beth, and Patricia Lee (Patty for short.) Elton and Marjorie have one son born on my 81st birthday July 28, 1941. Of course he is a fine boy!

How rich we are in our family associations, they who will be the men and women of tomorrow. On September 6, 1941 Fauna Faye was married to Lieut. Harold L. Wrightson of Randolph Field, Texas. It was a great event in life, as all matrimonial vows should be, with God to bless the home. Millie and son Lyle of Holyoke, Colorado, Doris and Joe of Greeley, Nebraska, and sister Mabel of Lincoln went in their cars to Chicago to witness the very impressive chapel ceremony, and welcome our new grandson into our love and esteem, which we do most heartily; and hope to meet Hal and Fauna Faye in their new found joy.

The parting from the home nest meant so much to Ruth that she returned with Millie for a short visit and a needed rest. The came by home just for over one nite's stay, for Lyle must get back to his farm work. In one week Frank and Rose took daddy and me out to Millie's to bring Ruth home for a week's visit. We have often made such trips in years past, and this one was a pleasant one also. Frank drove out over Highway No. 6, just 3 miles south of Kenesaw, now paved from coast to coast. Our trip covered some 225 miles going out. Coming back we took Highway No. 30, also paved through from east to west. We detoured from No. 30 to Ogallala Nebraska to view the Kingsley Dam, said to be the second largest earthen dam in the world, and very near completion at this time. A real monument of man's achievement with modern machinery. Ruth took several snap shots with her small camera, that are good.

Our trip down the north side of the Platte river over Highway No. 30 was most interesting to us for the changes that have come over the valley since we traveled it in the early '80's. Daddy's splendid memories of times and places were more fresh in the mind than events of recent years. He entertained Ruth with stories of places she never heard of before. Rose was with us on some of those trips in the covered wagon, but too young to remember them. One I have mentioned before was when the range cattle caused us to drive most of one night. This trip we were making 45 or 50 miles an hour in a closed car. A ``Chevrolet'' if you please.

Highway No. 6 follows up the Republican river, very scenic, and a fine country. It had been some four years since we had visited Millie and Henry, and our stay of two days was all too short a visit for all we wanted to say and do. Masyl and Glenda had grown to be so mature for their ages of 12 and 7 years. Lyle and Lois Mae are young people now.

We were interested in watching Henry's combine pick up out of the winrow the millet and thrash it out; also dumping the straw in piles, by a contraption Henry had made as an addition to the combine. It is well named. While riding into Holyoke one afternoon we saw in a large field (200 acres or more) a man with a ``Caterpillar Tractor'' drawing seven seeders hitched by some means, one parallel to the other, so that the one trip across the field would sow seven drills-width of wheat. I take it that only such broad expanses of level farm land are suitable for such hookups.

How I love all eastern Colorado. While we were at Millie's, Grace (Rieke) Crist, Tom and their daughter, Lucille, came to spend the evening with us. That evening our ``Round Robin'' was hatched, and has grown to be a cherished bird among us. Millie had tried other times to start a round robin, but he got pigeonholed. Grace and Ruth promised support. Now we have 12 names on our mailing list, embracing Nebraska, Colorado, Illinois, Texas and Oregon. It is intensely interesting, and a fine way to promote love harmony in the family ties, so desirable in these troublous times. So essential to a nations peace are our homes of harmony, built on faith in God, the Father of us all, and just in all His ways.

Ruth did not stop long at home in September, for the prospects of coming back for Christmas, which we will account later. This December of `41 had much in store for us, for it brought us up to our 60th wedding anniversary on December 4th, and daddy's 82nd birthday. There is something about these wedding anniversaries that means so much from the 1st to the end, for we hear of a few at 65 and 70, so we are not at the top yet.

Our plans were laid out all right by our children. We have let the daughters take the lead in all such activities long since, and only glad that father and mother can keep the home fires burning for the children to come home to at times. Life is more uncertain as the years slip by. We found it so, for on November 4th I became ill with the influenza. We felt the need of the telephone in our house, to be able to contact Rose and Frank at Juniata, as well as long distance calls as we might need. That day we had the lineman hook us up again. It had been seven years since we cut out the phone, during the great depression following World War I. We have found what a blessing a phone is to all of us.

At first I was not bed-fast, but in three days my fever run to 103 and 104. The Great Physician of Heaven has been our healer for years, and with the same trust in Jesus, we called the elders of the church, as in James 5:14, 15. Brother H. H. Kissinger of the Church of God in Hastings, also Rose and Frank at Juniata, came and prayed for my healing. God touched my body and the fever left. Daddy called in a trusted Dr. Nowers to advise as to my diet and care.

While I was in no distress or pain for two weeks, I was on a fruit and liquid diet, and lost eight pounds in weight. Rose and Doris took turns at first in staying with us. Daddy was greatly strengthened by his great care for me and God did care for them. My strength was slow returning, yet a steady gain after two definite answers to our prayers to stay off a relapse from solid food giving trouble. I love to give praise and thanksgiving to our Lord and Savior for His great mercy in sparing my life and healing my body.

My illness fully changed our plans to hold a family gathering for December 4, yet we did hold ``open house'' to our friends from 2 to 4 P.M. Etta Sergeant came with Rose in the morning, and assisted by Mrs. Hazel Mainey, served a dainty lunch from 1:30 to 5 P.M. to some 45 who called to greet us with good wishes. As many letters and cards came by mail, messages of congratulations. Rare gifts of roses and flowers from brother Henry and Anise, Bernie and Ruby, Rex and Grace and some others, till we can only say with the Psalmist, ``My cup runneth over''. Our celebrating followed on through December and over the New Year. Andy and Ruth came the week before Christmas and what a fine time we had, with their coming. Frank and Rose came often for a dinner or an evening. Doris came for a couple of days. Bernie and Ruby and Maurice and Etta called. Andy and Ruth would make the rounds to see them. Christmas day was too stormy for any one to get here, so Andy and Ruth were with us. They had set up a tree in the front room and decorated it with candles and trinkets. Carol singers came and sang for us Christmas Eve. Over all was the true Christmas spirit that filled our hearts with gladness.

Our family get-together that had been set for December 28 at the M. E. hall in Kenesaw was set aside because of my health, as I was not able to leave home. So we served dinner at home cafeteria style. The joy of the children coming home filled our hearts, as well as their hearts in meeting one another. Due to colds and bad weather, Rex and Grace could not be home at this time. Millie and Henry with the four children made the trip from Holyoke, Colorado on the 27th. They arrived at 4 P.M. The same evening they, with Doris, Andy, and Ruth, were entertained at Etta and Maurice Sergeant's at Juniata for an oyster stew. Needless to say the girls made extra beds in the front room ready for them when they would get home that night, though Millie's girls stayed with Etta's girls all night, just as Etta and Lora used to stay with our girls; and what a treat it was. They will never forget.

Sunday morning the 28th, Millie and family attended church in Hastings with Etta's and Rose and family. Millie remarked that Bro. H. H. Kissinger's sermon was worth all their trip from Colorado, to hear it. Ruth and Doris were here in the kitchen all morning, preparing the dinner with what others brought, which made a real feast, with all the children here except Rex's family. Kenneth and Vivian with Joanne, Mary Beth and Patty were all the grand children that were here. Phyllis and Clarice came with Lois Mae and Masyl. Joe came over from Greeley that morning. Doris had been here since Friday. There is always room for one more, so in the afternoon Bernie and Ruby, Aubry and Viola, and Velma came. Etta and Maurice, Dale and Lucille came and later Mr. and Mrs. Al Osler. Jessie and Joe Young and two sons also.

The joy and chatter of such a gathering reminds us of times our brothers and sisters gathered at mother's home, till poor mother could not get in a word edgewise. Ruby knows, for she was with us. All of these are bright spots in our family life. Millie and Henry returned home next day. Lyle had to enter a welding school in Greely, Colorado on the 30th. The rest went home on Sunday evening. Andy and Ruth remained for a longer stay. New Years Day we had a howling blizzard that blocked the roads with snow through Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois, so Andy did not venture the trip to Chicago. They made trips to Greely and Lincoln with a week at home. On January 15th they left Hastings for Randolph Field, Texas to see Faye and Hal, taking with them Etta to visit Eleanor and Edwin Wiltrout at Coleman, Texas. Eleanor was a bride of last July, and Edwin was stationed at Coleman Air Port as an airplane mechanic. Such a surprise visit would be fine for mother and daughter. It worked, but not as they had planned. The same time, Eleanor had a ride with friends to come home to surprise her parents on a visit. She arrived at home four hours after Etta had left for Texas. Surprises all right. Etta remained in Texas till Eleanor returned a week later. It is said ``all is well that ends well.'' This incident came out all right.

A card from Ruth tells us they arrived home in Chicago January 26th from their six weeks' vacation. Daddy and I have settled down to our usual peaceful home activities with the clouds and sunshine of a normal life. As light is stronger than darkness, and the sun is stronger than the cloud, so it is possible to have peace in the midst of strife, and joy in the midst of sorrow. Some of our own have, and are, passing through deep troubles, yet God is greater than all our troubles. The world is in a conflict greater than any we have ever known. December 8th and December 11th will pass in the world history as the United States is being involved in the conflict of World War II. December 8, 1941 President Roosevelt officially declared war with Japan because of Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor Sunday night December 6. On December 11th, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. But why pen these events? Because they involve ourselves, our families with all the families in the world, and history is only in the making of the outcome of it all.

EPILOGUE
Now as I take up my pen in November, 1943, to continue this history in part, I am made to wonder at the rapidity of time in events of our lives. The great changes that have come to many of us, and how small a part we are to the vastness of the world in which we live. There is evidence of a new day dawning on the earth out of this global war, with all its hor...

THE END 4


Footnotes

... Lives1
Copyright © 2001 by Mary E. Heldenbrand, Gary D. Howland and John E. Howland. Permission to copy without fee is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear and the entire document is copied.
... gift.2
Minor editorial and formatting changes have been made by Gary D. Howland and John E. Howland to our Great Grandmother Heldenbrand's original manuscript.
... children3
A pencil-led addition here in Ken & Vivian Howland's copy in an unknown hand: ``Dorothy L. and Naomi Ruth''
... END4
(Ed. Note: Marjorie Howland) Only a few sentences were written by Mary Elizabeth (Courier) Heldenbrand in November 1943. She must have realized her story was almost finished. Changes were impending. She and James went to Omaha to be with daughter Ruth. There James died on Christmas day, 1943. Mary lived on in the homes of her dear ones: her daughter Ruth for more than three years, and her sister Mabel. On the evening of May 30, 1947, at her sister Mabel's home, she neatly folded and put away her sewing for the last time. The phrase - Asleep in Jesus - is very appropriate here.


2002-02-14