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I have written about the first break in our family circle with the death of my father on June 15, 1946. So seldom was he ill in his lifetime that we thought of him as a source of unfailing strength for the entire family
He disliked the thought of getting old and on his birthdays no mention was ever made of his age. In his moments of being irrational after the stroke, which eventually caused his death, he blamed it on his birthday. It occurred on May 4th - the day he was 75 years old. Six weeks later on June 17th he was laid to rest in Grace- land Cemetery in Morningside - a suburb of Sioux City. Years before he had bought the lot, large enough for 8 graves. For 15 years our family did not know the heartbreak of another death. And then we lost Mamma. She had suffered excruciating pain in her legs for years and occasionally had very sick spells caused by thrombosis, blood clots from the varicose veins, which doctors at that time didn't seem to be able to cure. Deep ulcers developed and remained open. Always when a crowd was around everyone, especially children were cautioned "Look out for Grandma's legs." Most of the time after Papa's death, she stayed at the homes of Blanche, Angie and Madge. In May 1961, she was with Blanche. I knew she was having one of her sick spells and as soon as my school was out I went to be with her. She looked so fragile and tired but insisted she was all right. On May 24th, Blanche and I spent a lovely day with her. She talked more than usual, telling about her family in Sweden. She wanted us to read from the Bible to her. The last I remember reading to her was Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, which states there is a time for everything. This was a favorite passage. Another favorite we read was the Beautitudes, Matthew 5:3-10. We took her supper to her and she told us to go downstairs and watch "Wagon Train" on T.V We felt uneasy about leaving her alone and soon went back to her room. She had finished eating and asked us to help her to the bathroom and leave her alone. We thought it was a good chance to change the sheets on her bed. She had often told us to be sure the sheets were fresh on her bed, before she died. We could get no answer when we called to her from the hall. Hurrying into the bathroom we found her slumped over. Somehow we managed to get her back into her bed. While Blanche ran for help, I held her in my arms and she was gone. The light left her lovely eyes but a new light shone in Heaven. Mamma's prayers had been answered; she had gone to meet her Maker. She had requested to be buried in white. Madge, Blanche and I shopped for a simple white dress and white gloves to cover her work-worn hands that had cared for us so many years. Mamma was a proud lady. She would have been happy to see how beautiful and peaceful she looked. We buried her beside Papa in Graceland. For three years, our immediate family remained intact but not without concern. Madge had a lump removed from a breast, which proved to be malignant. She bravely fought her way back from the devastating effects of this radical mastectomy. Never would she mention the word cancer. Once as I sat with her in an office waiting for Ward to get his check from the sale of a load of hogs, a large poster on the wall pertaining to the signs of cancer was very visible. She looked away from it saying she hated that "ugly" word. She had been told that if she went 5 years with no reoccurrence she was cured. Faithfully she had the necessary examinations. Five years passed - 6 years - 7 years and then tests showed the malignancy had returned. This time in spite of treatments it progressed to the stage where her bones became honeycombed until moving her was painful and difficult. In spite of a courageous battle with the culprit, Madge died on March 5, 1964. We buried her in Graceland Cemetery - not in the family lot but in one Ward had purchased. No man ever cared more lovingly for a wife then did Ward in the long months of her illness. Caring for her at home and taking her to the hospital when he could no longer keep her comfortable. I often wonder how he managed. He operated a milking program and raised many hogs along with the regular farm work. He cooked, cleaned, washed and ironed, even did some canning. He sometimes said in the humorous way (that was part of Ward's make up) that he would make a good housewife. Noel was 17 and helped a great deal, especially with the farm work. He had operated a tractor since his legs were long enough to reach the clutch. I could write pages about Madge. Before her marriage to Ward, she was absolutely hopeless as a cook but she became a culinary expert. Her table groaned with delicious food, quarts of canned fruit and vegetables. A huge freezer was always filled with food-meat-pies-cakes (she could make a burnt sugar cake that was un- equaled.) She even made soap, something the rest of the family never attempted - not even Mamma. After several years Ward married a friend of Madge's - Myrtle Leibbart and he took care of her through a long illness, similar to Madge's. Ward remained a true member of our family. He was always there to give help and moral support when needed. He died April 29, 1983. He is buried in Graceland. Nine years after Madge's death, we lost Lelia. My fondest memories of Lelia are of a pretty, lively, red- headed young lady. She was nine years older than 1. She wanted an education and had dreams of living a different life than that of a farm wife. I remember her buying a fox fur neckpiece from her first paycheck as a teacher. The first camera in the family belonged to Lelia. It was a small box Brownie. She took pictures and developed them herself. So often when she returned from a trip to Sioux City she brought me a little gift. When other young people started to wear glasses, Lelia bought a pair. They were attached to a chain that was pinned to her shoulder - that was the stylish kind girls wore at that time. She seldom put them on. I doubt that she needed them. She attended high school in Hinton, Ia., long enough to get a teacher's certificate. The only school where she taught was the Woolworth school where she rescued me from the fate of repeating over and over what I already had learned and encouraged me in my quest of gaining the knowledge I so wanted. On trips to South Dakota to visit Aunt Em, she met Pratt Cameron, a neighbor boy. A love developed between them, which endured through over 50 years of married life in spite of illness, poverty, and the hard work on the South Dakota prairie. Twelve children were born to them over a period of 20 years. They answered the difficult life of failed crops, blizzards and rainless summers meted out on the prairie land of South Dakota. Moving near to Minneapolis, Minn., the life as a farm couple with 12 children in the depression years was no less trying than their years in South Dakota. They left the farm and Pratt got a job as custodian at a hospital in Minneapolis. For the first time in their married life, times began to improve for them. Their children grew up, married and began living successful lives. They left Minneapolis, moving to a small farm further north. Both of them were in failing health. On Jan. 9, 1973, Lelia wanted her daughter Garnet. As they sat talking, Lelia in bed and Garnet beside her on a chair, Lelia suddenly sat up, fell back and was gone. Pratt was devastated. Theirs had been a marriage not experienced by many. Their life was probably more full of stress, worry, unrelenting hardship than most. But the love and respect they had for each other was strong enough to survive any difficulty life could demand of them. He went on alone for a short time. He sent me a picture of the marker he placed on her grave. It was the shape of a heart. How typical of him to choose a symbol of love to mark her resting place! Pratt died Dec. 12 1974 and is buried beside her at Oakgrove Cemetery, Harris, Minnesota. Now there were 4 of the Stewart family left. Floyd had been afflicted with crippling arthritis in his knees for some time. But a new and more deadly problem had developed. Tests showed lung cancer in an advanced stage. He was a heavy smoker but not once did I ever see him smoke nor did my parents. I never heard a swear word from his lips either, but I was told he had quite a vocabulary! My remembrance of Floyd will always be the brother who protected me even when I didn't know I needed protection. He liked to play practical jokes on his sisters. Getting him awake in the morning was not an easy task. After being called many times, he would reach for his shoes, let one drop heavily on the floor to pretend he was up, and promptly go back to sleep. No matter how late he stayed out he always stopped by our parents bedroom door to tell them he was home. From the time he was a teenager he liked to work with cars. He would tear an engine apart and usually put all the pieces back together and make it run. As I've mentioned earlier in the story he loved to play baseball. Often our whole family, except Mamma, would have a baseball game marking off a diamond in the pasture. His first job was running a milk route, picking up the neighbor's milk cans each morning and delivering them to Robert's Dairy in Sioux City. Later he drove a semi-truck for Holcroft's Transportation Co. and then became their mechanic and dispatcher. A job he held for many years until health forced him to retire. He married Laura Harward, a widow with two small children. He never had children of his own but he was the only father Marlin and Glenda knew and they adored him. He asked not to be buried in the family lot in Grace- land but chose an isolated country cemetery in Hungarford Township, Plymouth County, north of the 80-acre farm where he spent his teenage years and became a young man. Laura passed away in 1987 and her children chose to bury her beside Floyd rather than their biological father. November 15, 1982 and it was time for Blanche to go. I loved all my sisters and my brother but I wondered how I could give up Blanche who had been my constant companion when we were little girls and young ladies. Perhaps if she hadn't been so protective of me I would have been better prepared to meet a world that isn't always gentle and kind. We sometimes were mistaken to be twins although our physical appearance was quite different. She resembled my father and I, my mother. Mamma often dressed us alike and once when we were in our forties we shopped together and bought dresses that were alike. I married before Blanche and when she and Butch (Warren Shriner) were married she chose to have the marriage ceremony at my home in Arnolds Park, Ia. Son on Aug. 31, 1929 she and Butch were married by Rev. Reese - a Quaker minister, at our home. The ceremony was somewhat different and Blanche said later she wasn't sure whether she married Butch or the minister. They made their home in Lake Park, Iowa, on the shores of Silver Lake. Butch ran an ice business in the days before electric refrigerators spelled the end of delivering huge chunks of ice to homes where a sign in the window indicated to him how many pounds were needed in the ice box. Harvesting the ice from the lake and storing it in the icehouse required expertise and extra helpers much as harvesting crops grown by farmers, it was hard work, both harvesting and delivering it. Butch ran the route through Lake Park and neighboring towns and Blanche sold to customers who came to the icehouse. When the ice business was no longer profitable, they with their two daughters, Betty Lea and Jean, moved to Sioux City where they spent the rest of their lives. Blanche's health began to fail. Eventually the diagnosis was myelofibrosis - a type of leukemia. Blanche was a survivor. She took the diagnosis and prognosis as she had all her problems, and there were many, with her chin up and poised to meet them. Uncomplaining as she always had been, she endured the illness bravely. I was able to spend some time with her at various stages of her battle with this unrelenting enemy On Nov. 7th, she called and I had my last long visit with her. She was to enter the hospital the next day for blood transfusions. In the past the new blood had helped, this time it did no good. Her condition worsened. On the 14th, I called the hospital several times to talk with her. The last time her words just faded away as she was telling me not to worry that she would be all right. Next morning at 2:15 a.m. Betty Lea called that the long vigil was over. On Nov. 18, we buried her in Graceland beside Butch who had died March 1, 1982. Now only Angie and I survived. It seemed strange the oldest and the youngest of the family. It is said that children with the same parents are as unlike as night and day. In many years of teaching I found this to be so true. As I wrote this I find my family was no exception. Our hopes, expectations, dispositions and life styles took en- tirely different routes as we traveled through life. Angie was nearly 12 years older than 1. Being the oldest in the family I'm sure she was expected to grow up fast and take responsibilities while she was still very young. I have some fond recollection of her caring for me. We had an outdoor toilet and one of her jobs was to see my needs were met. The family often told of Angie taking me down the path to that little house so often one day she complained. My response was "I don't think this cloud will ever run dry." She completed 8th grade when she was eleven years old. High school attendance was practically unknown at the turn of the century - especially for country boys and girls. I always admired her quick wit. I feel that had the opportunity been there she having the sharpest mind of any of us, would have made a good teacher or perhaps a lawyer. I remember one Valentine Day when I was little she took me to visit school. I remember one Christmas when she made a little chest and filled it with clothes for my doll. She was an expert seamstress. A trait passed on to her daughters. She could drive 4 horses hitched to a gang plow - a team on a cultivator - milk cows - put up hay - whatever needed to be done to help Papa with the farm work - she could do. Emery Pigg - a young man from Ohio, came into the picture when she was about 16. I've written elsewhere about Emery. He started coming to see Angie. We thought it was great, except Blanche and I liked to cut out pa- per dolls and she objected to the mess it made. He might drop in unexpected! Once he called and said he would be there directly. We got the dictionary and looked up the word directly. It meant immediately without delay. I remember her anguish when Emery was drafted into the army soon after they were married. That day in Hinton, la., when the boys all gathered to be sent to camp. She stayed beside him as long as she could and as he marched away she said, "I may never see him again." I was 10 years old and had to grow up and face heartbreak myself before I really knew how she must have hurt. World War 11 ended and Emery returned safely. They took up their lives again. Eventually they became parents of 6 children. Their first son was stillborn and is buried in our family lot in Graceland. As a family they experienced all the problems of raising a family in the depth of the depression of the 30's. They farmed my father's farm, moved from there about a mile west to a farm owned by the Townley estate. While there they lost most of their household possessions when the house burned. They moved to a larger farm owned by the Townley's on highway 20 east of Sioux City. After several years they moved near Home, Neb. Their family grew up there. At retirement time they bought land across from our family home, we always call it the 80. Here Angie had the first opportunity to do something she always wanted to do, grow flowers. The place blossomed with all kinds of flowers. It seemed every plant she touched grew into a lovely blossom. How she loved those flowers. Here they enjoyed their retirement, enjoying the company of many friends and the relaxed days they so de- served after years of hard work. Agnie's knees were very painful with arthritis and Emery suffered a severe heart attack from which he recovered, but on Oct. 30, 1967 while digging a trench to repair a sewer line, a fatal heart attack took Emery's life, It had always seemed to me that Angie was so self-sufficient - so in control of her life, but after Emery's death she seemed to lose heart and become dependent on her children. She moved to Homer to be near her family and they cared lovingly for her. Her health failed rapidly. After Blanche's death she dwelled on the fact that no Stew- art ever lived as long as she and that only two of us were left. On July 11th, 1987 she celebrated her 90th birthday and on Oct. 15, 1987 she passed away. I had gone to see her shortly before the end, she barely recognized me but said my name once. It was difficult for me to give up the last member of my family - there is a feeling of loneliness in being the last member of your original family. She is buried in Graceland beside Emery. Now as Paul Harvey says, "For the rest of the story" but that will have to be done by someone else. Perhaps Sonny or Johnny will write recollection of me as I have tried to do for the members of my family. My diaries of the past 30 years contain many incidents of my life but mostly they are hard, cold facts of daily living. Perhaps there is another part of my life with more meaning. I love this prayer by St. Frances of Assisi and will close with it. Lord, make me an instrument of peace, where there is hatred, let me sow love, Where there is injury - pardon. Where there is doubt - faith. Where there is despair - hope. Where there is darkness - light. And where there is sadness -joy. |