"It seemed very quite and almost lonesome."~Aunt Kate

Nieces and Nephew of Aunt Kate

Chapter 12 

It seemed very quite and almost lonesome now that so many of our summer family was gone. It gave me time to think. One thing I had to think about was the question of school. How was I ever going to send my children to a school four miles distant. When I thought of the long miles through the woods, facing wind, snow and rain, the wild animals they might meet, to say nothing of snakes in the summer, I turned sick with dread. But something had to be done. They could not be allowed to grow up in ignorance. For awhile I tried to teach them at home but didn't meet with much success with James Jr. He was somewhat of a problem pupil, and when he did go to school I felt a great sympathy for his teachers. Finally he and Kathryn went to Railroad to school. 

Ever since her first school year Kathryn wanted to become a teacher, and I encouraged her in every way I could. But the obstacle that had hindered me from climbing higher in my girlhood days was still hindering me from giving my daughter the thing we both valued and longed for more than anything else, - an education.

In our school at that time we had an excellent teacher, a man who had inspired many of his pupils to go onto something higher and had helped them all in their preparation. He coached Kathryn in all the subjects for her teachers’ examination and advised her to take the test in Sonora in May, this was 1907. She did not want to go until I told her I would go with her and take the test too. When I gave her that promise she was delighted. 

It had been twenty eight years since my last day in school and my life had been spent in cooking, sewing, gardening, mining, surveying, cattle and sheep raising, and a thousand other things so necessary to make a home run smoothly. 

The next question was what to do about clothes, but I managed that. I had a skirt belonging to a suit that cost four dollars, fifty cents in 1898, and a pair of shoes of the same vintage. I bought enough cotton cashmere for blouses and made them up according to a Delineator illustration. Kathryn was already supplied with shoes and for hats I sent to Sears Roebuck and Company and bought two at fifty cents each which were really quite nice. The weather was warm so coats didn't mean much, fortunately. It was sort of tempering the wind to the shorn lamb, and we got along nicely. 

(to be continued)

Love,
Grammy T.

"We Were Left In The Woods Alone" ~ Aunt Kate

Aunt Kate

Chapter 11

The winter was very rainy but not cold. As the long walk, four miles, was too much for Jim before and after a days work, we moved to the mine in February. There was a cabin, eight by sixteen feet wide by sixteen feet long on one side, which had belonged to the former owner. Jim replaced the windows which had been stolen, also put in a rough board ceiling, and I papered the black boards with clean newspapers. We had a nice heater and wood was to be had for the cost of picking it up, so we were warm and comfortable if one didn't ask too much. Of course we didn't intend to stay there very long. It was a sort of get-rich-quick proposition and we would soon be out and away.

My brother Dan was a partner in the mine with Jim, and they went right to work to take out a crushing. It wasn't long before they had ten or fifteen tons of quartz on the dump, all of which prospected well, and they were in good spirits. Poor boys, when the returns came back they received less than forty dollars on an expected two hundred fifty or more. Of course they said what most everyone says at such times, the gold was allowed to run off the plates, or the mill man helped himself. What a year that was, and the years that followed. 

They kept on summer and fall with no better results. In the fall sometime, a mine at Railroad had been bought by some capitalists and Jim and Dan got work there. Before going to work Dan moved his family, and we, my sister Anna Finette "Nettie" Pillsbury and I, and the children, were left in the woods alone. 

(to be continued)
Love,
Grammy T.

"That Night A Premature Boy Baby Was Born." ~ Aunt Kate

Nieces of Aunt Kate, Jenna, Alex and Marki in New York

Chapter 10

In November Jim wrote that he was coming home. They had removed all the debris and found, when they reached the river bed, that it had already been worked by someone. Those huge rocks and been deposited in that place in the river by a flood, a cloudburst probably higher in the mountains. So that was that.

One afternoon I saw someone approaching the house with a little bundle on a stick over his shoulder. I didn't recognize him. As far as dress was concerned he bore no resemblance to the spic and span Jimmie Ham who left West Point in June. But it was Jim arriving just in time to summon the doctor. For two or three days I had been feeling sick, and at the time of his coming, I was suffering such pain that medical help was imperative. At twelve o'clock that night a premature boy baby, who lived but a few minutes, was born, our fifth and last child.

Now that Jim was at home with empty pockets and I was able to be up and around, what to do next was the problem uppermost in our minds. It was a period of hard times, the depression of 1893 in its second year. There was no work to be had and Jim's thoughts turned to mining for himself as a solution. There were a number of prospects in this mining district on which the required assessment work had not been done, and according to mining law, they were open on the first of January, for any person to relocate. At one minute past twelve o'clock on January 1st, 1895, Jim put a notice of location on the Crown Point Mine. This mine had been discovered and worked in the early days by a company of men from New York, and it had paid very well. They abandoned it for better prospects closer to a mill. Since then it had been "jumped" a number of times by different parties and was open to relocation when Jim took it. 

(to be continued)

Love,
Grammy T.

"It Was A Matter Of Keenest Regret" ~ Aunt Kate

Chapter 9 

Before the summer was very far advanced I became aware that another baby was on its way. This meant that more than ever a little money was necessary. Then the women from whom we were renting our house decided that she wanted to occupy it herself and gave me notice. As I was in no condition to go house hunting I concluded to return to the home belonging to us in Rail Road Flat. 

We moved in September, leaving our store bill unpaid, a matter to me of keenest regret. Many a night afterward I lay awake planning how to get enough ahead to pay that bill. It was years before I had the money, but at length I succeeded in raising the amount and sent it with a joyful heart and straightened shoulders to the merchant we owed, who received it as gladly and as thankfully. He wrote that it seemed as if the money had come from God to help pay for medical help for his sick wife. "God moves in mysterious ways." (to be Continued)

Love,
Grammy T.

She thought I Was Her Mama

Miss Patti and Jenna

Patty was my favorite 

black sheep 

and 

she thought I was 
her Mama.

Of course I was there 

when she was born 

on St. Patrick’s Day. 

I named her Patti for the occasion.  

Those were happy days 

before the mountain lion, 
wild dogs and coyotes came to 
break my heart. 

I loved pulling lambs, spinning wool and 
everything else that had to do with 
my sheep. 

I loved that I could think of The Savior Himself 

when I took care of 
the sheep. 

He said “come follow me” 

and I found that with the sheep 

that it was so much easier to have them 

“follow me” with my bucket of grain 

than to try to push or pull 

them anywhere. 

Children are like that too, you know. 

They don’t like to be pushed or pulled.

I sure didn't like to be pushed or pulled. 

So “come follow me” works the very best

every time. 

Try it you'll see.

Love,
Grammy T.

"What Wonderful Golden Dreams People Have"

I am so glad that I can stalk my grandchildren's

Facebook pages and get cute old pictures. 

Nieces and nephews of Aunt Kate;

Jenna, Marki, Timothy, Tanner and Alex. 

Chapter 7 


Since the birth of my first child I had never felt very well and the coming of two more babies into the family did not make me feel better. I was in no condition to engage in any kind of work, but our financial circumstances were such that I felt ready to grasp at anything. 


The hotel was the best offer and we took it. At that time there were six permanent boarders in the house besides my family and quite a few transient customers. The morning after our arrival we took over the management. My sister Nettie, who made her home with me now that my father was gone, helped me prepare breakfast for a dozen people. Our sleeping quarters were on the upper floor, and there was no way of warming the rooms to make them comfortable for the children, but we dressed the two older ones and rolled the baby in a blanket and brought them all down stairs. I made a bed in an old fashioned rocking chair for my baby and put it close to the stove and went to work.


That was forty seven years ago and more was eaten for breakfast in those days. At the hotel a three course breakfast was always served from six to eight o'clock. My sister and I did all the work, cooking, dish washing, waiting on table, and chamber work. I did the cooking myself which included the baking of bread, pies, cakes, in fact, everything that comes out of an oven. I often wonder how I did it. A women scarcely able to walk, nursing one and caring for three children the hours filled the with work from morning until late at night, it seems almost incredible, but - I did it. 


Chapter 8 


During the summer and fall months times were fairly good but by October, everything was at a standstill. It would not pay to keep the hotel open so we moved to private life, and Jim took a job at forty dollars a month for the winter. In the Spring he went into a mine with some of the other men, one of those specimen rock mines that were never known to pay, and came out in June with the usual outcome, - nothing.


It is said that hope springs eternal in the female breast and maybe it does, but about that time hope was lying quite dormant in my heart. With Jim it was different, bless him. He and my brother Dan were going to try a place on the Stanislaus River that had never been touched. Above and below this place fabulous sums had been taken out but this part of the stream was just as nature and formed it. This story had been told to my brother by a very aged Mexican who had been in the neighborhood since the earliest of days, perhaps prior to 1849. A fortune waited for those who would go there, blast out the rocks, as large as a house, some of them, get down to bed rock in the river bed, and take out gold. What wonderful golden dreams people have. Before going, Jim made arrangements with a store in town to supply his family with whatever was necessary, and in June 1894, he and Dan left to find a fortune in the Stanislaus. (to be continued)

Love,
Grammy T. 

"I was afraid all of the time"

Nephew of Aunt Kate
Arthur Wayne Pillsbury 1921-2009 

Chapter 6

After our visit in San Francisco, we went to Angels Camp where Jim went to work in the Angels Mine. We were there from May to October. Those days were not very pleasant. In fact they were horrible. I was afraid all of the time, afraid that every time Jim went down into that dreadful mine he would never come out alive. It's something I don't care to think about even now.


Our next place was the Union Mine about three miles south of San Andreas. He and some other miners took a contract to sink the shaft a certain number of feet at a certain sum per foot. But to get a house to live in we were obliged to board the men at the mine that had no home close by. Before April, when we went away there, I had twelve people to cook for. But Jim made money on his contract and was able to carry away a thousand dollars.


In July 1888 my baby Kathryn Grace Ham was born and I tried to feel well again, but I had worked too hard in those months before her coming to gain any health. It looked as the months passed on as if I would never be well again. Fifteen months later another baby was born, a boy , now I had two babies to care for and no health.


My father was aging fast and it made me feel rather unhappy to have to recognize the fact. He was sixty three when he passed away in April 1889. After my father's death, we moved from the home place to a small house in town, and in October of 1889 James Jr. came. 


Jim Sr. had had a bad cough every once in awhile for a long time and it was coming more frequently and getting worse with every recurrence. That spring the La grippe first made its appearance, he coughed so hard that I made him go to San Francisco to consult a physician. The doctor examined him and said that his lungs were perfectly healthy: the trouble was his throat and was nothing to worry about. It was hard not to worry. 


Time passed on until 1893. There was another baby in the family and no money. Jim's cough was worse and he was not able to work in the mine. The outlook was very dubious and what to do was the question. When the baby was six weeks old we heard of an opening in a hotel in West Point and we took it. The winter had been very stormy and the rivers were very high. The south fork of the Mokelumne River, which we had to cross, was unbridged and the water came into the bed of the wagon. We crossed over safely however and reached West Point. (to be continued)

Love,
Grammy T.

"My wedding day was the most unhappy day of my life."

 

A GGGreat Niece of Aunt Kate

I was married on April 10, 1887, to a man named James Ham, a native of England. I think my wedding day was the most unhappy day of my life. For months afterward I couldn't think of it without tears. The wedding took place in the sitting room that I had worked so hard to make presentable. There was a nice group of friends present and everything should have been happy. But it almost broke my father up. If it had been my funeral he couldn't have felt worse. When congratulations were in order, he shook Jim's hand and said, with tears coursing down his cheeks, that Jim had taken the best spoke out of his wheel. It almost broke my heart and I would have given anything to have reconciled my father to my leaving. 

After the wedding we went to New Almaden in Santa Clara County to visit his brother and their families. We stayed there a few days more and than a month. During that time I had my first contact with real English life. As far as I know I was the only American in the community. All were English born the children of English born parents and they talked, ate and lived as in England.

When we left New Almaden we were weighted down with silver dollars. While he was there Jim worked in the quick silver mines, and as they paid off in silver dollars, a month's pay amounted to some weight. He managed it though by putting most of the dollars in one of the trunks and the remainder in several of our pockets.

From here we went to San Francisco on a sort of delayed wedding trip. This was my first visit to the city and was on of the most memorable events of my life. We stopped at the International Hotel on Kearny Street. At that time it seemed to be a family hotel and the people whom I met there were all very nice people. 

While we were in the city we took in as many of the points of interest as possible: Woodward's Garden, Golden Gate Park, The Cliff House, the seals and the seal rocks, and the theaters. We also saw the panorama of The Battle of Waterloo. Even now, after all the years since then, I have only to close my eyes and in fancy see that wonderful picture. It was glorious to me.

(to be continued)

Love,
Gammy T. 

"I Was Everything I Should Not Have Been."~Aunt Kate

The answer to the poll, that I tried to post last week, was that Aunt Kate sewed jumpers for the Chinese workers at the saw mill in Calaveras County.  The Chinese are a huge part of the history of California. 

I once asked my dad why there was not a Chinese burial grounds in the foothills of California. He didn't know the answer but I found out later when I took a class in Placer County. The Chinese sent the remains of their dead back to China to be buried. If you take a moment to Google Chinese in California you will find out the rest of the story. So for Aunt Kate to make their clothes for them was an act of human kindness and a blessing to her as the story will illustrate. 

  

Chapter 3 


In my neighborhood in the 1870's and 1880's there were some ladies who made a god out of housekeeping. They appeared to have no charity for anyone that was not as capable of a housekeeper as were they. They said I was lazy and preferred reading the New York Ledger when I should have been helping to prepare the evening meal. I was a tomboy and instead of assisting my sister in doing the family mending and other household duties I played outdoors with my brothers. In short, I was everything I should not have been and nothing I should have been.


How many times in the days since then I have been thankful I read the Ledger and everything else readable that came my way. It is thrilling even now to recall the enjoyment and sometimes the feeling of horror I felt when reading those long ago stories. Books by Dickens, Scott, Thackeray, George Elliot, Washington Irving, Cooper, The Scottish Chiefs, Robinson Crusoe and other tales which took me along wonderful paths of pleasure and gave me glimpses into the life of worlds before unknown to me. 


In the Ledger Mrs. Emma D. Southworh, a native of one of the Southern states wrote most entertainingly of life in the slave states before the Civil War. Mrs. Harriet Lewis of the same paper laid the scenes of her stories in England and Scotland and far off India. Sylvanus Cobb, Jr., another Ledger contributor, took one back to the stirring days both before and during the Revolutionary War, while Leon Lewis chose New York and islands of the Atlantic, the Bermudas, Jamaica, Madeira and Azore Islands to engage the attention and charm the mind of his readers.

Those books were not only interesting stories to me, they were also books of travel. Where else even today can one find such vivid scenes of home life in England and Scotland as are to be found in the novels of Elliot, Scott and Dickens? In one of Mrs. Southworth's books, I accompanied a young married couple on their wedding tour. From their home in Virginia we went to Washington and registered at the Willard Hotel. - A new Willard has replaced the one we stayed in. - We visited all the points of interest in that city and I was no more surprised at the magnificence and strangeness of the big town than was Gertrude, the little country bride from Virginia. From Washington we went to New York. After a week there spent in visiting picture galleries, going to theaters, riding in Central Park, eating in places so gorgeous that one's breath was taken away. And partaking of food so delicious and at the same time queer, it was rather startling to both Gertrude and me when Gerald told us that he had engaged passage on a Cunard steamship and we would leave on the next day for Europe. 

This trip is still fresh in my mind. It was a wonderful experience. And this was just one of the many that were mine and of the many people I became acquainted with. I shared their joys and their sorrows, called them by their given names, and was really one of them.

Chapter 4

When I was no longer a school girl but a homemaker in earnest, I turned my attention to the work with the greatest zeal. I would show my fault-finding neighbors I knew how to run a small three room house as such a place should be run. I have to admit that it was an uphill undertaking, but I never gave up. With the aid of broom and scrubbing brush, newspapers and plenty of elbow grease, I made that shack, if not exactly blossom as the rose, show up as a model of neatness and comfort. The cooking was not quite so easy. It was conquered, though I eventually became the best pie maker in the community. It all took time and effort to do it, and with the means at hand it often seemed impossible.

In 1880 my father bought the farm adjoining us on the east and we moved into the house there which was much larger than the shack we were occupying. There were five rooms on the lower floor and two in the attic. In the attic room on the eastern side the walls and the ceiling had been covered with rough pine lumber, but the western room had been left untouched. There was neither paint nor paper here and the imagination had to be stretched almost to the breaking point to see any beauty in these rude surroundings. The lower rooms were more hopeful and I went to work with vim to see if I could improve them. With a little money I could have worked wonders but there was no money to be spared for anything but the - must be paid fors.

Luck threw in my way a chance to earn a couple of dollars. Ah Hoo, one of the Chinese working in the sawmill decided to have some jumpers made. I was only too glad to do the sewing and by this means I earned enough to by paper for the border and walls. Each little job of sewing gave me enough to buy muslin for the ceiling and paper for the walls of the sitting room. When I finished those rooms they just looked lovely to me. I was enthusiastic now in housekeeping and flower gardening as I had been in my school work.

At the head of the stairway was a large box filled with magazines and papers. They were accumulations of several years left there by the former owners. There was a wealth of good reading among them. I have forgotten most of the titles, but I do remember Godey's Ladies Magazines. I wish I had those now. They would be quite antique.
(to be continued)

Love,
Grammy T.

Chapter 2 - Aunt Kate The Pioneer

Our Youngest Grandson Tate
This is the cutest picture so I posted it to make you smile.

More of Aunt Kate's Pioneer Story

Chapter 2

During all of these years the specter of poverty still followed closely. When apples were in season our school lunches consisted of the fruit and bread eaten without butter. I was the pilot of my family so seizing the ten pound lard bucket that held our lunches. I led the little fry to a nice quite spot remote from the eyes of the rest of the school. There we feasted joyfully without any remarks or curios glances to interfere with our pride or our digestion. 

During the first fifty years of my life I never knew anything but hard times. The only difference was that every once in so often times froze up so very solid that it seemed to me a battle axe was the only thing that might cause them to thaw. 

In 1879, my oldest sister Mary Delia Pillsbury, who had been housekeeper since my mother's death, was married and went to a home of her own. I tried to take her place and go to school also. But it was too much for me to do. We lived at least a mile and a half from the school house and by the time I had prepared breakfast, finished the housework, baked the apples for lunch, dressed myself decently for school and hurried to be on time, I was too tired to do justice to my studies. I went about six weeks of the fall term and then quit. 

It seemed queer to think of the studies I had in that one room mountain school in the 1870's. I don't know if there was a course of study or not because a pupil could take up or leave out anything he or she wished. But I think that all had to learn to read, spell, count and to write at it. Other subjects were their own choice. I took all the subjects usually included in a grammar school course and in addition I took Algebra, Geometry, Physiology, Philosophy, Botany and I read Astronomy. As there were no other pupils in school taking those subjects, it just depended on me, myself, whether or not I got anywhere with them. I think I must have had a streak of scholarly ambition, for the teachers said I did very well. 

It is with a heart full of gratitude that I look back to that fine group of men who were my teachers, and who made school life so interesting and pleasant for me. Namely: Mr. Swank, Mr. Wells, and Mr. Coulter. They knew how to arouse ambition in a student. I hope in the Great Beyond to which they have passed, they are still leading other pupils on to higher things.
(to be Continued)

Love,
Grammy T.

If Ye Do It Unto The Least Of These My Brethren

Cute little Fleece Blankets for trauma victims at the hospital.

 Mr. Alligator, Thank you Linda.

Cute Rag Quilts

Today you will notice a change to my blog.
 No more ads.
If  you clicked to help me you are awesome, thank you. 
But I told my assistants and my Bishops cute wife a month ago
 that I felt that Heavenly Father would make my funds last like the 
flour barrel that never went empty. 


(1 Kings 17.1-15) Elijah the prophet came to the town gate, he found a widow there. She was gathering up a few dry, dusty sticks.


Elijah said to her, “Please, would you bring me some water in a jar to drink?” As she was going to get some water for this complete stranger, Elijah called out to her, “And please, bring me some bread!”


“Sir,” the woman said to Elijah, “As sure as the Lord your God lives, I don’t have any bread!” At least the poor widow seemed to know there was a God in heaven, she just wasn't sure who he was, or why he was making life so difficult.


The widow said, “All I have left in this world is a handful of flour and a little jar of oil. I am gathering up these sticks so that I can make one last meal for my son and me. And then we will die.”


Elijah said to the widow, “Do not worry. Go home and do just what you planned to do. But before you do, make a small loaf of bread for me. And then, from what you have left, make a loaf of bread for you and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel has promised, ‘The flour will not be used up and the jar of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.


And so, that is exactly what the widow did.


And day after day there was water to drink and food to eat. The flour was not used up, and the jar of oil did not run dry - just as God had promised! 


And yesterday it happened. My Humanitarian barrel is not empty or 
near empty anymore. 
And I am so thankful for that and I know that the Lord is 
mindful of our little gifts. 
One of  my favorite scripture says:


Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it 
unto one of the least of these
 my brethren, 
ye have done it unto me. 
(Matt. 25:35-40). 

Love,
Grammy T.

The Story of A Pioneer Named Kate

The full story is here.

Kate Emily Pillsbury - Lammersville School 1927

These Pictures are of Kate's nieces and nephews

a few generations down the line
and they are Daniel Hackett Pillsbury
and Bridgett Delia Curley's
GGGG grandchildren.

Love,
Grammy T.

The Big Yellow Lion

Berchtesgaden in Bavaria

My daughter Jessie and I were talking about prayer the other day. And we agreed that many times the prayers of tiny children are answered. 

As I was thinking about this phenomenon the story of The Big Yellow Lion came to mind. 

When we lived in Germany we were able to go to Berchtesgaden in Bavaria for an Area Serviceman’s Conference with meetings and lodgings at the Eagles Nest.

(I love it there) 

Hitler's Eagle Nest

Marion D. Hanks was a visiting General Authority and he told the story of a little boy that seemed to get himself into big trouble all of the time, 

for telling fibs. 

This is how the story goes:

When Johnnie was out playing in his backyard he saw something so awesome 

that he just had to tell his mom.

He rushed in the house and told his mom that he saw a big yellow lion in the neighbors backyard. 

"You know what I said about telling lies," she said.

And sent him to his room.

Later she told him he could come out of his room if he had learned his lesson. 

He put his little head down and didn't answer.

"Well, when you were in your room didn't you learn anything?" His mom asked.

"While I was in my room I said a prayer." 

“That is a very good thing to do.“ She said.

"Yes and Heavenly Father said...that the first time he saw Tommie’s new dog, 

He thought it was a Big Yellow Lion too.” 

Love,

Grammy T.