Monday, February 28, 2011

"Show my son Cyrus your bullet wounds"


Frank and Jessie James
My Papa King told me a story about a day when he was with his father 
took him to town and at the general store in Montevallo, 
Missouri in 1900 they saw a man named Frank James.  



My great grandfather Charles Elmer King said "Hey Frank lift up your shirt 
and show my son Cyrus your bullet wounds". 

So Frank James lifted his shirt and my Papa King saw the scars from the 
bullet wounds on his chest and back.

That was a pretty unforgettable experience for that little boy named 

Cyrus Elmer King who became the Chief of Police in Vacaville, CA. 
Cyrus Elmer King about 1942


Love,
Grammy T.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

My "Good News Minute"

My "Good News Minute" 
for today is that I found
 a website to get cute coloring 
book pages for my 
CTR 5's.

I just entered in a word that I was looking for 
and whalaaaa 
there it was a cute page 
for me to print out 
for them to color.

http://ldscoloringpages.net/

PS: So now you tell me your 
"Good News Minute"


PPS: How do you like my new page?
I love It!!



Saturday, February 26, 2011

"Well and faithfully done. Enter into My joy.” ~ Aunt Kate

As I imagine Aunt Kate 
sitting at her table writing her stories.
But her dress wouldn't have so much sparkle.


Dear Reader's, 
I am going to finish this story tonight. I know it has been a long read but I hope it has given you a taste of what it would have been like to live in Aunt Kates day and time. 

Chapter 19

I am thankful to be able to write that I had no failures in the fifteen years that I was there. The "not so bright" were worked with until they were able to pass on with there class. The second year I was there I had a ninth grade in addition to the regular eight grades. And I often wondered how I did it, but thankfully I did. 

At the close of my last year in Eureka, I went to Stockton and applied for the Lammersville District School in San Joaquin County. 

I shall always appreciate the favorable recommendation that the Superintendent of schools gave me. And another thing which will always make my heart feel grateful is the remembrance of the kind reception given to me by the trustees of Lammersville and their gracious wives. I wonder if they realize how much their warm welcome meant to me a stranger.
Lammersville, like Eureka, is a one room school, and has all the grades. When I first came here, the homes in the district were owned by the families occupying them. Now those people are no longer here and practically all of the places are rented for different periods of times, as dairy farms, thus making a floating population in this district. 

As in Eureka, I had a receiving class at the beginning of each year and a graduating class at the close. Out of the fifteen graduating classes that went from Lammersville, there were but two pupils that had been mine through all of the grades. 

While teaching at Lammersville, I boarded three years with a family in the district, and the other twelve years in Tracy, which is about four miles from Lammersville. I rode to and fro on the high school bus traveling around the country in morning for miles and miles before I reached my school. And then four miles back home in the evening. I enjoyed the ride and the new faces that came aboard at the beginning of each new year to take the places of the departing group. 

Conclusion

Those thirty one years that I spent in the school room were very busy years. I almost always had a large school, the attendance hardly ever fell below thirty pupils and several years reaching forty five. It meant work, patience, enthusiasm, diplomacy, and then victory. I cannot describe feeling of exaltation in my soul when after months of trying, the boy of long ago, recognized his first printed word. And when Freda, a few years later, could find the word "come" among a page full of other words, it was a glorious feeling to know I had accomplished something that had seemed, to all who knew her, impossible. For all of these opportunities of the past, I am truly thankful today. 

I entered the school room in 1907 at the age of forty six. I had raised a family who were now all old enough not to need my care in the same way that they had required when they were younger. I ended my teaching career in 1938 at the age of seventy seven. I have written this account of my life at the request of my friends who say that it is inspirational. To me it doesn't seem so. It has been doing my best from day to day with the best of my ability and in the most part trying to avoid feeling sorry for myself. There are thousands of other women who have done and are still doing Life's Work as it comes to their hands. 

I do not say that my work is finished. No one's work is ever done until the call comes to close Life's book. When that call comes for me I hope to be able to say in the words of the old hymn, "I have fought my way through. I have finished the work Thou dids't give me to do." May my ears not be too dull to hear the blest words, "Well and faithfully done. Enter into My joy.”

Daniel Hackett Pillsbury and Bridget Delia Curley were my Great Great Grandparents and the first Pillsbury's in California. 

Love,
Grammy T.

Friday, February 25, 2011

The last time I saw her she was reading the Bible to her father.~Aunt kate

Niece and nephews of Aunt Kate celebrating their Irish


Chapter 18 (cont.)

Another pupil at Glen Ellen, a girl, was born feeble minded. I taught her to read, write and spell, and when she left my school, she could write a very interesting letter. The last I heard of her was that she was caring for some of the younger children of the institution, washing and dressing them in the mornings and reading to them and putting them to bed at night. I know how happy that must make her. The last time I saw her, ten or twelve years ago, she was reading the Bible to her father. 


Another pupil, a bright boy, was stricken with infantile paralysis in the first part of his forth grade year. His parents moved into a house quit near to where I lived, and when he was able to stand it, they carried him across the street to my place and during the years he finished the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. When he reached the seventh grade he was able, with the aid of a cane, by starting his journey by seven thirty o'clock, to arrive at the school house in time for school. 


There were others who were handicapped in other ways, by poverty, home conditions, by a low order of mentality, and on account of these circumstances they were persecuted by their more fortunate school mates. This I was able to stop very easily. There were some pupils in the school with very good dispositions and by appealing to their sense of kindness and fair play, they were brought to see how very cruel they had been and were willing and eager to make amends. 


Wednesday, February 23, 2011

"The little children had come, baby teeth shining, and faces glowing"~Aunt Kate

Aunt kate

I know it is hard to have the time to read a long page. I am going to split Chapter 18 so that you can read it faster. 

Chapter 18

Leaving this home place was not easy. This part of the country had been my home since 1875. In the Eureka District I had passed the greater part of my school life and a number of my school mates were still living here. Here I had been married and my children born. In this place I have known about the joys and sorrows that usually enter into any one persons life. The people had been as my own people for so long a time that it was hard to part with them. 

During the fifteen years of my school teaching here, at the beginning of the term those trusting little children had come, baby teeth shining, and faces glowing, and had gone on from one grade to the next until they had graduated, and had known no other teacher. For fifteen years at the beginning of every term a beginner's class, at it's close a graduating class. What a glorious opportunity I had for doing good. 

During those years I had more to do for the handicapped children than falls to the lot of many teachers. There was a boy who was sent to me, and as I see it now, if God hadn't been with me every minute of the time, I could never had done anything for him. As it was I took him through the grades to the sixth, when his parents moved away. He is now a man thirty seven years of age, and anyone not knowing his history would think he never could be anyway but normal. 
(to be continued)

You were so awesome Aunt Kate, I love you!!

Love,
Grammy T.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The voice said "Get out of here NOW!"

Rail Road Flat, CA : Miners shack -downtown Rail Road Flat, CA
Old Miners Shack in Railroad Flats, CA
Railroad Flat Cemetary
In 1980 I went to Railroad Flat to do some poking 
around and to hunt for the Pillsbury property 
to see where my grandfather had been born 
and where his father had died. 

First I went to the Calaveras County Courthouse 
to get directions and other information. 

I was very excited to go. I was alone 
and had enjoyed my trip so far....
until I got into Railroad Flat. 


There I got a foreboding feeling right away 
that I didn't like and then down one 
of the roads I found 
the graveyard. 

I had been poking around looking at headstones
for a few minutes when a voice said to me 
"Get out of here, 
NOW!" 

Maybe I'd better I thought.

Just then a truck load of guys came 
tearing down the dirt road. 
I pretended like I wasn't
paying attention to them 
at all but I was watching 
them with my 
peripheral 
vision.  

They had gone down to the end of 
the road and I knew they 
would be turning around 
in a few seconds. 

I didn't have far to go to get to my van, 
thank goodness, so when they 
were out of sight I ran 
as fast as I could, 
jumped in the van, 
locked the door and got 
the heck out of there 
before they could 
make it back 
to where 
I was. 


By the time they returned 
I was turned around and 
on my way back 
to town. 

(that is using the term town loosely).

Whew!! 

A few days later I went to Sacramento 
to see my dad and I told him that I had been 
snooping around Amador and 
Calaveras County. 

I told him "No way" on the 
"We just grew potato's" 
theory.

I told him that I had been spooked
 and was so disappointed because 
I had to leave RR Flat 
without finding my family's 
property.

Guess what he said???

"Your grandfather would never go back to RR Flat 
for hunting or fishing or anything... ever. 
He hated the place and felt like 
it was haunted."

"Good to know just a little too late"
 I said.

So my question dear readers is... 
Was my Papa Pills the one who 
told me to get out of there 
and to be quick about it 
or did I just pick up 
on his vibes?

Or what?

All I know is that it was a 
close call!!

Love,
Granny T.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

"The doctor said I had tuberculosis and wouldn't live three weeks"~Aunt kate

CALIFORNIA SCHOOL 1870

Chapter 17
What a blessing is work and what a comfort it has been to me. Monday morning I resumed my school duties and there was plenty to keep both myself and the pupils busy. But the work seemed to tire me more than formerly. For some reason the walk uphill to the school house wasn't as easy as it had been and my breath became shorter. But I was never one to pay attention to such minor afflictions so I kept right on without doing anything about it and it seemed to pass on its way. 

When school was out in June, I went to Stockton for a rest and a change. During the summer I felt far from well, and suffered for weeks with neuralgia. At the end of vacation I went back to Eureka to open school. It would be my fifteenth year.

When I returned in August, as far as I knew I was feeling all right, just a little shortness of breath, but not anything serious so I paid no attention. In September however I developed a cough, something I had not been troubled with since girlhood. After a very severe attack of fever in my nineteenth year, I was left with a bad cough. My father called a doctor who frightened him very badly by saying that I had tuberculosis and wouldn't live three weeks. Since that time I had been free from coughs and it was hard to understand why this was so persistent. In October, Institute was held in Sacramento and while attending I consulted a physician who said I would have to be very careful as my heart was in a dangerous way. He prescribed treatment for me which I followed very carefully, but without any good results. I bought many kinds of cough remedies but nothing seemed to help me, and so many drugs were hurting me in other ways. All of this time I taught everyday, and often locking my school house at four o'clock in the evening I wondered if I would be there to unlock it the next morning. At last I realized I was not getting better but worse, and I quit all medicine and recovered without it. It was a strenuous battle and I would not like to have to fight it again. 

When school closed in June, as far as health was concerned, I was better, but I knew it would not be fair to myself to return to the old surroundings. I had spent too many lonely and pain racked hours alone at night in that cabin, fighting sorrow to ever want to return to the scene. I realized a complete change was what I should and must have. 
(to be continued)

Saturday, February 19, 2011

The Boat

A 93 Buick Roadmaster Estate
We went to see the SC Thompson’s for Thanksgiving in 2011.  


They had a boat for a car with a bad disposition 
and it loved to shed it’s windows. 

They had to wait for a week for the fixit man to come and 
replace the big window in the back door of the car. 

The fixit man said “It’s all done, let me just tighten it a little.” 

You guessed it, the glass shattered.

My daughter in-law had to put a plastic table cloth 
over the gapping hole for another week. 

To which my sweet grandson Jake said 

“Mom that’s not going to work.”
 she replied' 
“That's what I did last week honey.”

Jake .....
“Oh, how embarrassing for you mom.”  

While we were there the little back window feel out 
just in time for the storm to dump ton of water. 

Oh my gosh!! 
I wanted to just take that thing and 
"Shove It"....You know for a cute little family van.


 When my ship comes in I’m going to have to do just that.

We had so much fun with The SC Thompson's.

We went to the football game for the 5th (Ellie) and 6th (Daniel) graders. 

Miraculously it was a tied game.

Ellie made a huge tackle on her big brother Daniel. 
A Huge tackle!

We watched all of the children dance on the field at rest time... 
Baby - Baby - Baby OHHHH...
I loved it. 

At home we sang karaoke, played bowling and Jeopardy on the Wii 
and we played a great game of baseball out in the big front yard
with Nana and Papa Jimenez and Uncle Patrick and Aunt Laura

Let me tell you, they know how to party!

We love you SC Thompson’s "You Rock"!!

I'm Just Sayin'




This disclaimer was so cute I had to share.

I am a mom. 
That means I have kids. 
Three. 
Under the age of five. 

When I’m not designing shabulous goodies, 
I'm wiping noses 
and peeling Cheerios off 
my kitchen floor. 

I’ll do my best to get back to you 
and answer your questions, 
but take it easy on me. 

I’m just sayin’.

Friday, February 18, 2011

"It Was All Over" ~ Aunt Kate

Chapter 16

Well, it was all over. Jim had passed on. The farm was placed in the hands of a real estate dealer for sale by the boys, the car disposed of, and the time had come for me to return to my school. It wasn't easy to go back to the cabin at Railroad Flat where I had lived. It held too many memories.



I arrived at my hometown on Saturday and once again I stood alone before my empty cabin. Everything all around looked so desolate that it was depressing. I unlocked the door which was chilled by the cold of weeks, made a fire in the stove, put on the tea kettle and rubbed off the steam that was now dimming the windows. 


I took the broom and gave the house a vigorous sweeping. I did everything I could to keep from thinking. The long lonely evening was coming and I dreaded it. I prepare something to eat and planned to bake the next day. "Maybe I'll bake a pie. I know little Charlie will like a piece Monday when school opens. It is lovely that I have cords and cords of nice dry wood and that everything for my meal is ready. I'll not set the table that would make it too lonesome. I'll just sit here by the fire in the big chair and eat out of the kettle. I don't think I'm very hungry, though, but I'll drink the tea. No I don't think I want any tea. I'll just sit here and watch the fire, and maybe take little catnaps. I'll not think of those dark days just passed. I am glad that he is at rest, he suffered so. Never again will he be wracked with that awful cough, nor suffer such pain. I'll not think of him as dead. He is just away."


And so my thoughts wondered on and on. At twelve o'clock I was prepared for bed but hour after hour I lay there awake until night brightened into day, and I arose and began another day. 

Love,
Grammy T.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

"They Did Dabble"

Grammy T's Amazing Adventures: "They Did Dabble"

Dad used to say that his people didn't mine for
gold or ore, nope, they grew potatoes.

Well, they may have grown potatoes
but as we can see from 
Aunt Kate's story
they did dabble.

Love,
Grammy T.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

"No one knows what war really is until it comes to him." ~ Aunt Kate

My Bouvier De Flanders
Fannie

Chapter 15

During these years many changes came into my life. The two older children married and went to live in Stockton. Then along came the World War (ONE) and Harry, my youngest, enlisted. Many of the boys who had gone to my school were in training camps and there was scarcely a home in the district that had a boy old enough to go but that had its vacant chair. Although I have tried I cannot forget that awful evening I returned home from school, the day Harry left for the war. I stood before the door and couldn't open it to go in. A feeling of indescribable sorrow possessed me. It seemed as if......I can't explain the feeling. It was war and no one knows what war really is until it comes to him. May it never happen again is my fervent prayer.

Jim, after repeated failures and using up the best years of his life in the mine, gave up trying and went to San Joaquin Valley. Here he bought a ten acre farm and planted almond trees. This was a very unwise move for he knew nothing about farming. Well, the inevitable happened, and trouble again. His trees grew well and blossomed full, but developed no fruit because they had not been pollinated. 

One Sunday afternoon, while he was absent, the hundred chickens he had bought, his chicken house, his own living quarters, the feed house, pump house and everything else that was flammable, in fact everything was reduced to ashes by a tramp from the hospital for the insane in Stockton who was touring the country by himself. It was just one unlucky thing after another, and it hurt Jim because he was so very anxious to succeed. The summer of 1920 was a very unprofitable one, and when his cough came in October, he came up to Stockton to Kathryn's. He wrote me that he had a cold but would be all right in a few days and able to go home. 

That was a very stormy winter and my school wouldn't close until Christmas. On the Friday before that I went to Mokelumne Hill with the R.F.D. driver. The roads were in a dreadful state and we just made it. In some places in the road, the mud and stones could be heard grinding on the bottom of the car, and in others the car wasn't able to move although the wheels were turning. 

That was the last trip the car made for the next two weeks, so I was very lucky to get through that day. I arrived in Stockton that morning at eleven o'clock. The train was early and I expected that there would be no one to meet me, but Jim had insisted on the train being met. A few minutes more and I was with him and he was so glad. But the minute I looked at him I knew that the time I had dreaded for years was near, yet I knew I must not let him know. 

A few short days more and it was all over. He fought the idea of going to the hospital and it was only four or five days before the end that he consented. I have no record of the date on which he died. I know it was some day in January of 1921. I have no desire to know what particular day. I think I would hate it.
(to be continued)

Love,
Grammy T.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

"I Would Kill Every Rattlesnake In The Yard"~Aunt Kate

A. W. Pillsbury at the graves in West Point, CA. 

My dad,  A.W. Pillsbury and his sister 
Patricia Ellen Pillsbury Youmans  
at the Pillsbury graves in Sutter Creek, Ca.

You could see why the rattlesnakes could be a 
problem in that country. 

Chapter 14

I have said that I did not intend to teach. I intended to continue to keep my home running smoothly, work in the garden and among my flowers, look out for the sheep and cattle of which we had a good many, and doctor them when they need such attentions, that the chickens went to roost at the proper time every evening, and if there were no men around, kill every rattlesnake that ventured into the yard. But according to the old adage, "Man proposes and God disposes". The old order of my life passed from my hands that year.

At that time there was a big water project, the construction of a dam, going on high up in the Sierras at Relief, and Jim Jr. and his father, went there to stay until operations should close for the winter. After working for a month or so, the work was stopped, and the men laid off. My men came home, the elder Jim being filled with the idea of building or quartz mill on his own mine and crushing his own quartz. It all sounded very promising. There was rock enough at the dump on the shaft to make a net cleanup of a thousand dollars if it could be crushed in his own mill. 

Well, the mill was built. Timbers had to be taken out, a mortar block furnished, shakes made, lumber and machinery bought, and living expenses for five persons. I couldn't see anything else but that someone had to go out and get a job. I applied for the primary department of the West Point District School and was hired at sixty dollars a month. My board and room at the hotel were ten dollars. I went home every Friday night in the low back-cart behind old Bill, wearing the same hat and shoes that had done me duty in Sonora. On Saturday I laundered my clothes and did the family washing, starched and ironed my one school dress, a gray chambray, and Sunday afternoon went back to West Point. I was at this school eight months and I think I proved satisfactory.

When I went out to teach I thought it would be for one year only. By the time school would be out, the school would be finished, the rock crushed, and we would be on easy street. When all was done and the clean up made, there wasn't enough left to pay the mill man. Just another one of those things that came our way. 

The failure of that rock was a keen disappointment to us all. Jim felt it worse than anyone else, and for that reason I hid my emotions all that I could, in order to keep his spirits from falling. He was anxious to try it again, so the next year I taught at Railroad Flat in the Eureka District. I was here fifteen years. 
(to be continued)




Love,
Grammy T. 

Monday, February 14, 2011

"We Rented A Room For Six Dollars."~Aunt Kate

Happy Valentines Day Everyone!!

At Rhonda's in Penryn, picture taken by Lori...Gorgeous!


Chapter 13

The examination was to begin on Monday at 9 o'clock, so it behooved us to start early. On Saturday morning, after harnessing old Bill to the buggy, and with twenty dollars, borrowed money, in my purse, we started on our journey and reached Murphy's that evening. 

That old Bill was a character if there ever was one. His driver never knew what he was going to do next. Sunday morning instead of continuing our journey with Bill for our buggy horse, my brother put one of his horses in Bill's place and Kathryn rode Bill. 

We rented a room for the week for six dollars and the next morning entered the examination room, there to find ourselves in company with twenty two or three applicants from the Western Normal in Stockton, all primed for the test. I did not have any expectation of passing. Each applicant had to pay two dollars, and I shall never forget the pang in my heart when I put that money down and whispered "Good-bye" to it. Well, after laying down the dollars, we began the examination, not as I thought, from a printed list, but by copying each question as read by the superintendent. This was the first test I had ever taken in my life and my first thought was, "I can never do it." My second thought was, “and lose the two dollars? No, never. I will do my best."

It was a very difficult test and so long it was tiresome. When Mr. Morgan read an example of a question I knew right away if I could answer it correctly or not. And the greater part of them I could. 

The test was finished on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning we started out on our home journey expecting to reach Murphys that evening but we couldn't make it. Bill had been in one of the best stables in Sonora where I had paid first class rates for his board.  On getting away from town he acted as if he were starved. Every bunch of grass or weed the poor brute saw he would stop and eat and as our journey proceeded he seemed to get weaker and his temper uglier. We had crossed the bridge at Parrot's Ferry and were on that part of the road that had been built up on a level with the bridge,  when like a flash of lightening, that animal whirled half way around and pushed the buggy over to the edge of the wall between the road and the bed of the river. Kathryn by this time was out and grabbed him by the bridle in time to save us from going over a drop of twelve or fifteen feet to the rocks below. We straightened horse and buggy around and looked at the road, all up hill, that was facing us now. By this time Bill's head was almost down between his feet and we realized he was never going to be able to pull us and the buggy up those hills. The only thing to do was for us to walk up the hill and help Bill with the buggy. It was almost sundown when we gained the top of the grade and stopped again for Bill to rest and for us to decide to go down to Angels or up to Murphys. We decided to take the down grade hoping the weight behind him might help to push him along. When we reached Angels it was getting dark and I took a back road instead of the main street. I felt that I would be arrested for cruelty to animals if I dared drive Bill through the main street. The next day Bill acted as if he were going to die. He lay down all day as if every minute was going to be his last.  He was able to make the trip to my brother's after a good rest and from there to home on the following Wednesday.

Two weeks later we heard the results from Sonora. There was a very nice letter to Kathryn from the Board saying that they were sorry to tell her she had failed to make the required number of credits to pass, but not to let that discourage her. In a separate envelope addressed to me, was a certificate giving me lawful permission to enter the schools of California as a teacher. Of course I was glad that I had not failed, even if I did not intend to use the certificate. Kathryn had taken the test in Calaveras County the year before and had a good standing so it was just up to her to work during the summer and take the examination again in August. She did that and got her credentials and commenced to her first school assignment that fall, on the same day that I entered the school room in West Point.(To Be Continued)


Nieces and Nephews of Aunt Kate



Take The Tractor Another Round 
Another Round

Amy and her two oldest boys at our home in Loomis.