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Jessie C. Stewart Rehder |
The following account was written by Jessie C. Stewart Rehder in approximately the early 1950's in Wilmington, North Carolina. It tells of her early life in Holton, Kansas from about 1888 until 1892 when she was about six to nine years of age. It is transcribed from a copy of the original on 10/15/97 by her grand-daughter, Julia Louise Rehder (Krupicka) who lives near Raleigh, North Carolina. Corrections have not been made to spelling or grammar. Where the copy is not clear, a blank space has been inserted. If a logical insertion can be made it is inserted and underlined.
The original of the narrative exists and is owned by Jessie Rehder's 87 year-old son Henry B. Rehder who lives in Wilmington, NC, near the Atlantic Ocean. Jessie Rehder moved to Wilmington in the early 1900's to attend nursing school. She married Carl Frederick William Rehder and had four children. Her youngest son, George Stanley Rehder is now 75 years old and also lives in Wilmington. Stanley Rehder is the father of Julia Rehder.
Pictures of the family during this time were taken at two photography studios - W. M. Oaks of East 5th Street and W. R. Ireland whose address is listed as being on the West Side of the Square.
Perhaps you would like to know what your Grandmother's life was like so many years ago when she was a little girl.
It is nearly 66 years ago when I believe I first realized how terrible a fire can be. Mamma had gone to prayer meeting. Daddy or "Papa" as I called him was still at his grocery store which was called "The Checkerd Front Grocery Store" and was on the main streets of the square in a little place called Holton, Kansas. The maid was a young girl from one of the ranch houses that were scattered through the wheat sections of those vast prairies - and she was baby sitting until my mother came home. Leaving the baby on the couch in the big back parlor she tried to light the large standing lamp in the bay window of the room, but the ____ lace curtains caught the blaze and soon the whole place seemed to be enveloped in flames. The maid caught the baby and me up in her arms and we were soon out on the street with many older people - but something had happened to me. For the first time in my life, I was desperately, deeply afraid. Here was something I hadn't known. There was fear in my heart and the only thing that I wanted was to be held in my mother's arms and never to let go. She soon came, the fire was soon out, and the house I so loved was till my home and all was well.
I must tell you about that house. It was colored or painted a nice green color. It sat in a very large yard. We owned a quarter of the square and because I want to remember it I am going to tell you all about it. There was a fence all around it and the fence was made like this (picture drawn here) and was around all four sides. There was a gate like this (another drawn picture) in the front which through most of our young lives we could swing on but never open to go outside unless someone was with us. From the side porch across the long yard to this fence was a great lattice fence which divided the side front yard from the side back yard - and on the lattice grew a very heavy vine which was called a trumpet vine and thro' the summer great clusters of red trumpet-like flowers brightened this side of the yard. Behind this fence was the barn - not too large a barn with a hay loft in it. Our two seated buggy and the love of our hearts was in the stable - "Dolly" a completely black horse except a star in her forehead. We were often allowed, when someone had time to see to us, to ride on her back around the big yard. She was very gentle and it was treat to be on her back up so high. There were other buildings - a wood shed and tool house, etc. Around the inside of the fence grew great maple trees and in the early spring the tree bark was cut - little troughs driven in and kettles put underneath for the sap to drip in. Then when the time came, that was gathered and put in a large, very large black kettle. The fire started and the men would make the maple syrup we used. The smell of it and the excitement of it I will never forget. We had some apple trees also and when the apples were ripe this same immense kettle was used for our apple butter we - we used thro' the winter.
The long sidewalk from the (street connected?) into the side porch and opened both into the dining room and the back parlor. All the furniture in this back parlor was polished bentwood. The seats were of rattan. There was a big round table, a couch, some rocker, a bookcase, Mamma's sewing basket, our games, and if we wanted to, we could go to the big bay window and look up and down the street. We spent much of our time watching out those windows. In the front parlor was the baby grand piano and because our mother could sing and play we spent much time there. When she would sing sad song (or what sounded like sad songs to me) I would crawl under the piano and wish she would soon sing the hymns I loved or the Scottish songs she could sing so well using the brogue of Scotland and sounding so different from our mother. I almost feared to look at her for fear she would be someone else.
The furniture was very heavy with black horsehair material all over it. It stuck into my legs like pins, so I did not like to sit on it. There was a very tall grandfather clock which had heavy stone weights on one end of some chains and great big brass disks on the other. When you open the long door in the front, the top had moon and sun and earth and star pictures. At the time of the moon changes all those things in some mysterious way moved about to indicate what change it would be. I loved the old clock. There was a "whatnot" in one corner with some wooly sheep in a huddle, a pretty ivory fan - all open to see the intricate work some patient soul had taken. There was a black marble bust of Beethoven, many little odds and ends of miniature cups and saucers - memento's of mamma's girlhood. You could spend a long time over the big marbles, and other things, with ships in the center - the tiny baskets carved out of a peach seed. There were too many things there on the shelves - one never got through looking. Over the couch between the windows was a picture called a "sampler" in a big gold frame and all under glass was worked out in tiny bright cross stitches, by a very patient person of our family "God Bless Our Home." There was another picture in that room of a man and a woman with a long ribbon of gauze over their head which they held very tight - a black cloud behind them and a terribly stormy looking background. It was called "Fleeing Before the Storm." The mantle had a brass coal kettle and a fender - which I later learned to hate for it became my job later to polish the fender and all the lamps - chimneys. We used kerosene lamps all thro' the house but the one in the front parlor was the prettiest. It hung from the ceiling and had prisms all around the china shade. To me the big roses on the pink background was something which was very satisfying.
But the mantle piece held the wonder of wonders to me. Under a glass case were two gold figures with a clock of gold and carved and sitting on shells of gold. The draped sitting figure on the right was a woman - the other a man and every quarter, half, three-quarter, and on the hour, with their gold hammers they would strike. I have watched them by the hour or sat on the thick flowered heavy carpet and wondered how they knew the right time. The three bedrooms were in the back. The middle bedroom had a trundle bed in it in which the two younger children slept. It would fold up to look like a wardrobe and I never went to sleep but I feared I might be smothered to death if the bed should suddenly fold. The walls were all marked by straight lines on the white plaster and the names and dates we each one were just that tall that year. (This is a reference to a growth chart of the children.)
There were no conveniences at all. Chambers were in every room in a little built-in closet. We took our bath in the warm kitchen in a big wooden tub. The water was always heated for each bath and the pump which was in the kitchen was kept going always until late Saturday night. Bricks and heavy irons were on the stove to take to bed with us and get our sheets warm if it were in the wintertime.
The dining room was immense with a long square tables that was always kept set just as the coffee pot was always kept on the kitchen stove. We always had plenty to eat and I suppose you remember the things you really like the best. I liked fried bread and plenty of maple syrup. I liked pound cake and angel food - we had plenty of these. My recollection is of being in the cornfield -- which seemed to me that the stalks almost reached the sky -- bringing home arms of corn for Mamma to cook the next day. Gathering much of the (husks?) of the corn and (then the?) very select ears to make our corn dollies.
One of our apple trees was right at the back picket fence. We could climb up and get one or two at a time but never were we allowed to waste any. Later on this tree became my study room and my dream house. I could pretend I was anybody up there and nobody would know. I loved to be Miss Padgett my teacher more than anyone. I would talk kindly to my S.S. (Sunday School) scholars and tell them God and I would love them to study their Sunday School lesson. It wasn't always too easy to be alone for the little girl next door came over too often to tell me her father said since the limbs of the apple tree were in their yard it was their apple tree and she could come climb it and pick the apples. I am afraid altho' I was a very great Sunday School teacher, I was not a good neighbor for I chased her away whenever I could.
I had quite a disaster. A circus came to town. After seeing a circus performer walk the tight rope, I came home to try the high picket fence only to fall and injure myself quite severely.
A farmer always brought our hay in a great high fenced-in wagon made in the shape of a V. Our great joy was to go up in the barn and jump into the hay. Sometimes we went too deep into it and had to be helped out. As the days grew cold we got our ice skates ready and prayed for a night of real freezing weather. Then we would get our crowd together and go down to the bridge. If others found the ice strong enough under the willows to skate on, we were allowed to go on.
My father, as I told you, owned the corner General Grocery or as it was called, the “Checker Front.” The store had everything in the world in it. A sleigh hung from the ceiling. Over a high platform was a bicycle, one very large wheel, one small one. Then in another place there was a tandem. The shelves were filled with yard goods - men’s and women’s hats were everywhere; in cases were pins and needles and notions and all kinds of patent drugs and lineaments. The front of the store was lined with barrels, all light wood with great tin bands around them. Soda crackers, the round heavy kind, were in one barrel. Gum drops - green, red, and white, in another barrel. Chocolate drops - my favorites - were in another. Out front there were baskets of apples, or oranges, and cabbages and other things. In another place were long pressed black, white, and pink coconut candy strips. Long black licorice ropes twined around everything. There were peppermints galore. Schoolbooks, paper, pencils, and twine were near. Buckets of eggs were everywhere. There was a cash register and big yellow-papered account books. For most of the stores, business was charge from year ‘till year until the crops came in - they could get money from them. This was the ruin of my father’s business later on.
The town of business was on the square - stores all around the center on the four sides with the County Courthouse in the middle of the center. Underneath the courthouse was the jail. All the windows were barred heavily but there were always men’s faces at those windows. We were afraid to death to go on the sidewalk that led around but sometimes for a big venture we would bravely walk clear around with our heads high in the air.
The place I loved to go to get the treat my father gave me for good schoolwork each week was Bobbie’s ice Cream Parlor. Bobbie made his own ice cream. It wasn’t at all rich but to us -- with the homemade cookies he also sold it -- there was never anything better. There was no ice manufactured in those days. The ice was cut that formed on the Great Lakes - packed in sawdust and shipped out of Chicago in freight trains. Every small town was privileged to get some as long as it lasted. It often did not last, but when it did, Bobby would advertise there would be ice cream and the whole town would take there pitchers and bowls and get their share. I have never tasted any ice cream that could come up to it.
The bank was on that same side. My Grandfather was the President of the bank and about that time the Governor ordered the Indians paid for their land a certain amount every quarter. There were Indians of the Pottawatome tribe and we live not too far from their Reservation. My family had gone to the Reservation many times and seen their sun dances, their corn and snake dances, and were always fond of telling of their weird ways and dress, and dance. The squaws came into our town with their little papooses tied on their back. They must have brought their horse and wagons to some part of the outskirts of our town and walked in. They had a sort of soft skin skirt and blouse always trimmed with beads - their hair in two braids with bands of beads around and bands of beads around their forehead. They had moccasins on. The men who were always together were dressed in brightly colored shirts most red or green cotton with shirt tail hanging out and more strings of beads then the women. They had bracelets on their arms and always feathers - perhaps straight from their forehead on back down their backs or just stuck in the side of their band of beads. They drank a great deal of whiskey and we were afraid of them. My mother would let us say “Howdy-Howdy” to them but we must never go outside the yard when any Indians were in the town. Their ponies were the prettiest colors - white and brown spots - black and white - yellow with brown dots. We loved to watch them. They bought their groceries and the things they needed and from somewhere got two long sticks, somehow bound these together like this (drawn picture) and pulled the packages back to where they came from. My father used to say they still were fighting the white man for they did not like their land taken from them.
Not too far up our street was the Hotel where the actors used to stay who came to our theatre to play for a week at a time - a different play every day. Sometimes it was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” or “Ten Nights in a Barroom” and many others. Sometimes it was the Punch and Judy show people who would set up their little theatre on the street corner and when Judy would knock Punch over we were told to get our nickels ready for they would soon come around to take up a collection. Sometime it was patent medicine. I remember one name “The Kickapoo Indian Medicine” that they claimed to cure everything.
Farther up was our Presbyterian Church. My happy recollections of going to Sunday School, Church, and prayer meetings with my precious Mother makes it the dearest place to me. It was there I came to know Jesus when I was nine years old. I made up my mind I wanted to join the church and be His child. The one thing that worried me so much and just had to ask help was how could I fear and love Jesus all at the same time. I had many happy childhood days there - still have part of a picture of my class and my teacher. (A PHOTOCOPY OF THIS PICTURE IS ATTACHED - I HAVE THE ORIGINAL - JLR)
We loved our May Day celebration. We would make paper baskets and fill them on the first of May with little roses and small carnations - pinks - and in the late evening hang them on doorknobs and ring the bell. No one could run faster than we would.
Sometimes our father took us out in the country to get fresh meat. Some farmer would send word in he was killing some of his livestock on a certain day. I never again will taste such juicy steaks or such wonderful great tender roasts as my Father would buy.
My mother put up much fruit and vegetables and there was always a pantry jammed to the top with glasses of jelly. We had fresh homemade bread twice a week and on Sunday homemade buckwheat cakes. A little piece of dough was kept back for the next rising. We made sausage and it was good - all pork sausage we ground at home. One day a new teacher came to our school and said it was now the proper way to write straight up and down. We had always been trained to write the Spencerian way -that is this way. (She give an example of left to right with the words “Always be true to yourself,” and we were now to write “Always be true to yourself” (straight up and down) But I could not be true to myself and my old handwritings so I ended up by writing this way, “Always be true to yourself” (done with a left slant)
The Oklahoma Territory was to open up soon -- that was the Governor was to open up new land and people were to come and make claims. It wasn’t so far away from us and for days and weeks people came through from somewhere on horses. Some had horses and buggies. Some had wagons and the thing we loved to come by -- and there were many of them -- was the “Covered Wagon” some called the Prairie Schooner. It was all encased in a tight cover over great bent wood hoops - generally there was a man with a big black hat on the back seat set far back in the front. The woman would have a sun-bonnet on and a big old Mother Hubbard dress and an apron. We did not see the inside but underneath hanging down from the wagon were pots and pans, iron kettle, basket after basket of things. It seemed to me there were more things underneath than could possibly be inside and as they swung and swayed we couldn’t understand why they didn’t fall off. Always there were two or three old dogs underneath the wagon. Sometimes there was a cow tied to the back. I always hoped they would find some nice land to live on and have a home.
People named Elliots owned a seed store and back of their house was a great storing house or barn for bags of wheat and corn. We loved to go in there - climb up high and jump down on the soft bags, or we played house and visited each other pretending we lived far, far, away.
I want you to know about the prairies. You have seen the ocean. Well, the prairies are oceans of yellow grain. They blow constantly in the wind and are very beautiful to look at. Great waves are seen in the prairies too as you see them in the oceans, but they are grey waves of shadows from the clouds as they pass over the sun. The men come to cut down and thresh the grain when it is ready. Great threshing machines were on every farm for the great _____ men came to stay until the grain was gathered in the big barns. Our white mad lived on one of these immense farms. One weekend she took me home with her. We drove in a buggy for hours before we got there, just at suppertime. There was a tremendous big red barn -- many horses and cows were in their stalls -- our maid gave the reins into the hands of a man and we went right into the house and the dining room. Here was a long, long table all laden down with dishes of food -- meats and potatoes, vegetables, cakes and pies and platters of bread were everywhere. There were a great many men around the table and all were laughing and having the grandest time because the days work was over and the meal was good.
These then were those very first years -- all happy years -- and years there were to be always gladly remembered.
Nana
Added later -
I must tell you about our (weather?). There were many terrible storms called cyclones and most houses had a cellar in the back yard. There were always some candles in there and some cans of food. Sometimes we could see the great black could far in the distance and as we had no radio or no way to know whether it was coming our way, my father would take us all down the cellar and close the heavy wooden doors. We were always scared and glad when the storm was over and we could get out.
Christmas
We started early for our Christmas decorations threading popcorn
and cranberries on long strings about a week before. We also made
a lot of green and red paper decorations. There was always a
flour sack of black walnuts around which we cracked between two
stones or two bricks and picked the nuts out for Mamma.
Our tree was pretty. There were no electric lights but we had little candles in small tin holders that would clamp on the tree. There was always plenty of oranges and hard candy in our stockings and underneath the tree, just as your are, were always our presents. I loved Christmas best of all.
We lived in a town that had a big Railroad running through it. There were always tramps riding underneath the freight trains. When the cars would have to stop there, the tramp or tramps riding that train would get off and come up in the town to ask for food from the housewives. My mother never refused. She would always give them a big plate of food and a paper bag with something in it. Whey you were kind to them they would always stop at your gate, take a piece of chalk out and make a mark on your gate, just to let the next tramp know “here you could get something to eat.” They always were terrible looking creatures and we were very much afraid of them.
Her full name was Jessie Carleton Stewart Rehder. She was born 8/29/1883 in Des Moines, Iowa but lived her early years in Pittsburg. She moved to Wilmington, NC in 1903 to attend nursing school. She lived in Wilmington until her death, May 11, 1961. Her parents were Henry (Harry)Morris Stewart DOB 5/28/1850 and Mary Clifford Chrisman Stewart DOB 2/19/1855. Her siblings in Holton were Mary Ellen, Robert James, Harry Hunter,and Martha Susan. Jessie was the next to the youngest. Another baby was born in Holton, Willie (DOB 6/9/1888) but apparently died in infancy.
My grandmother died in 1961 so I only knew
her as an old woman but in discovering many of her letters and
pictures from various periods of her life, I have found her to be
quite a charmer. Her eldest child, also named Jessie, went on to
become the head of the creative writing department of the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for more than 25
years. Maybe some of the creative writing ability is a
combination of genetics and the love of a "good story"
to share.
-Julia Louise Rehder (Krupicka) Email Julia
HN1599@handsnet.org