Shortly after we moved into our new house, we got a letter from Isom Haworth saying they were coming to California. Jake was so glad that he went right to work building them a house on our other lot next door. Several months later, we got another letter saying that they had instead decided to move to Kansas. (Later on they ended up moving to Nebraska). Anyhow, they didn't come to California. Oh, Jake was so disappointed. It was too bad because he was so anxious to have his brother come to California. Jake counted so much on their family coming and he had gone to a lot of trouble and expense in building a home for them during those hard times. He went ahead and finished the house. We moved our family into it, and rented the big house out. Just before moving out of the big house, we had quite a scare. Jake and I slept downstairs and the children all slept upstairs. Along in the night, Jake woke up and said he smelled smoke. We had a big fire in the fireplace before we went to bed but it seemed to be mostly out. We couldn't imagine where the smoke was coming from. Jake got up and looked around and couldn't see any flames any place. He kept looking around the fireplace and finally he saw a little stream of smoke coming out just above the hearth on one corner. He went outside and looked under the house. Right under the fireplace, he saw red embers. He got the axe and came inside and started chopping the firebed out. Cement and brick were flying all over. He got to that fire in a hurry. The boards under the cement were all on fire as soon as they got air. He caught it just in time and we had quite an exciting time putting out that fire by ourselves in the middle of the night. We guessed it was God's will that he had woke up just in time to smell that smoke or some or all of us would have been burned to death. There would have been no way to save the children all the way upstairs. I have always been thankful that we found out in time.

Jake and I looked forward to the Camp Meetings every year. We only missed one Camp Meeting in ten years. We started going when Walter was just a year old. One year, Jake pitched a tent for the older girls and they stayed there for the entire meeting. Jake and I could only go on Sunday. The last week, we went on Saturday and stayed until Monday morning. Jake was so good to always make a way for us to go to Camp Meeting. He loved to go to. One year he had a plastering job near the Camp Meeting in Downey. He said we could all go and camp before the meeting began and then he could go right to his work from there. It was closer than driving all the way from home. I hadn't got all my sewing done for Camp Meeting yet, so we took the sewing machine and I did the rest of my sewing in the tent. We left on Wednesday and the meeting started on Friday night. We all enjoyed our little camping spell. There were always large crowds, a big encampment, and wonderful meetings.

My mother and father loved to go to Camp Meeting. Father was not feeling well and started showing signs of paralysis. Mother had a horse and wagon and she could drive. She hitched up their wagon, loaded their things, and away they would go to Camp Meeting. Grandpa lived about ten years after the paralysis set in but the last four years he was almost helpless. Grandma had to feed him and wait on him like a baby. Poor mother had her hands full and one day she mentioned to me that she wished my brother, her son, Al, would come home. She told me that she had been praying to have the Lord put the idea into his heart. Amazing enough, shortly thereafter, she saw him coming up the road. She shouted out, "The Lord has answered my prayers." Al told her how it happened that he come home. He said he was working at Williams, Arizona for the Railroad. He said he was out in the railroad yard sitting on a barrel when all at once there came a feeling over him. Something told him that he must go home and that he was needed. He got off the barrel and walked right down to see the boss and told him that he was going home to his family.

I remember a funny thing happened one Sunday at Church. A pastor named Goings, who was a colored man, gave the sermon. After church this 15 year old boy that we knew came up and shook hands with Grandma. He put out his hand to shake her hand. She noticed that his hand was all black (He had been picking walnuts), and she asked him how they got so black. He said, "Oh, I just shook hands with Preacher Goings." Grandma couldn't help herself from laughing! The boy's name was John Miller.

One time at the Downey Camp Meeting, a man come on the grounds who was a traveling photographer. Alva was about ten years old and he came into our tent quite excited and wanted to have his picture taken. I told him he could and he went and washed up and combed his hair like little boys do, just in front. The picture turned out pretty good. Later on he wanted to buy a bible from a man who sold books at Camp Meeting. I bought him one and he kept it for his entire life.

A fellow named Kelly ran a Faith Home Mission in Los Angeles for years. When Camp Meeting time came, he ran a Faith Home Mission eating place on the grounds. It was a sort of restaurant and people could eat there rather than cook for themselves. They paid whatever they could afford or they sometimes just made an offering to help. We camped right close to this restaurant. One of the ladies that helped in the restaurant had a little boy. Our Walter had the whooping cough the previous spring and still coughed even into the summer. I was so afraid that this lady would think that Walter still had whooping cough and was going to pass it on to her child. She never said anything but it still bothered me. Walter was about six years old and while we were at Camp Meeting, he took some change that I had saved in my sewing machine drawer. I think it was a nickel or two. He went to a stand just outside the grounds and bought some candy and gum. I found out about it and I made him take the things he bought back. He had to tell the man what he had done. That was a hard thing for him and me, too. I thought that this would teach him a lesson he would never forget. The same year, Alva and some other boys went off the grounds and went into an orchard nearby. They took some apples and other fruit without permission. Sheriff Witherspoon, who patrolled the grounds at Camp Meeting, found out about it. He gave the boys quite a scare and I don't think they ever tried that again.

That summer we went down to the beach to have a little vacation with the children. We went in a big wagon and it took several hours to drive there with a team and wagon. The children got tired and laid down for a nap. We had bought the children some hats before leaving so they could keep the sun off their faces at the beach. While they were asleep, their hats blew out of the wagon someway. When they woke up, their hats were gone. Sue said she thought she saw them fall out a ways back and we wondered why she hadn't told us sooner. Jake walked quite a ways back to try to find them but to no avail. Oh how sorry we felt to think they hadn't taken better care of those hats. We gave them a good scolding but that didn't bring the hats back. The beach we went to was at Anaheim Landing. Just as summer was almost over we went camping again at Long Beach. A friend named Foster took us down with his team and wagon. We camped there with come other friends. It was kind of late in the season and the nights were pretty cold. The children would go bathing and they collected little clams and we made soup out of them. They sure tasted good. Sometimes they would get extra ones and sell them. We bought crackers with the extra money and sometimes bread. We stayed about two weeks and I even did some washing for some people we met. We couldn't hardly stay there that long unless we all helped to make extra money. It was a good outing and we all enjoyed it. It did get a little cool in that tent. These little outings were the best we could do at the time. Money was scarce but we always made a way somehow.

At the Camp Meeting of August 1895, our daughter Effie met John Fisher and they got acquainted and shortly after started going together. That fall they started planning their marriage. We moved from the little house back to the big house to get ready for the wedding. The marriage took place on the 19th of November, 1895. It was a nice home wedding and just the near relatives were present. Brother Thomas Armstrong of the Friends Church performed the ceremony. He was lovely old man and a good preacher, too. They went to Los Angeles to live with John's mother who was a widow. After they had been married for some time, we got a letter from Effie saying she was very sick. The first thing Jake wanted to do was go see her right away. We took a chicken and some other things we thought would please her and away we went to visit our first-born who had left the family circle. I guess I was a selfish mother because I found it so hard to give her up. When we got there, she was better and we stayed just one night and went home the next day and took her with us for awhile. A little time later, John came out and decided to stay with us for awhile. Finally they bought a lot on Comstock Avenue and moved a barn building on the lot. John had built this building for Jake and then Jake sold it to them and they converted it into a house. It was all new lumber. They built a room and added on a kitchen. They lived there until their baby Eddie was born. That year we all had Christmas together. I remember John bought me a blue glass tooth pick holder that I kept for the rest of my life. In the next few years two more children were born to Effie and John. First there was Howard and later on, came Alfred.

One evening in July of 1896, Mother came over to visit before going to prayer meeting. We lived close to the Church. She found me not feeling well, so she stayed and didn't go to prayer meeting that night. Around 11:00 pm that evening, July 9, 1896, our baby daughter, Lillie Belle was born. Well, she was so sweet and cute and we all loved her so. When she was about 3 weeks old, she took a cold and was real sick. We were so uneasy about her and we sent for the doctor. He came and looked at her and I told him what I had been doing for her. He said, with tears in his eyes, that I was doing all that could be done. He couldn't give her any medicine because she was too young. Well, I just kept on with my home remedies, prayer, and trusting the Lord. It pays to serve Jesus, because she soon got alright.

In August, Camp Meeting time arrived. I couldn't take the baby so young, so Jake went down and made our camp and the older girls went and camped and attended the meeting. Jake and I, and the little folks, just went on Sunday. After Camp Meeting that year, Preacher Morgan took a tent and went to San Jacinto with a band of workers. Alta felt called to the Lord's work, so she went as one of the workers. We took her up there and stayed a few days for meetings. Mr. Morgan was a wonderful preacher and we felt happy to have Alta serve with him. We took Walter with us and we got along fine until we got near Pomona. We were driving along the railroad tracks and we heard a train coming. Jake didn't know how our horse, Kit, would act being so close to the tracks. When the train passed, he got out of the wagon and held Kit by the bridle bit until the train passed. Fortunately, Kit just trembled a little and everything was alright. We drove though Chino to Charlie Haworth's and stayed the night with them. The next day we drove to Riverside and stayed with our friends, the Clarks. The next day, we got to San Jacinto in the afternoon, and we stayed a few days. When we started home, we came by Redlands and stopped there for a few days and visited Ephram Pearson's folks. We took a little sight-seeing trip up on Smiley Heights and looked all around the town. We went to a prayer meeting at the Holiness Church on Wednesday evening and Frank Hill was the pastor. We then left for Whittier. We came in around the point of Puente Hills. Jake said to me, "Lets not say anything about where we are and we'll see if Walter recognize anything." We came into the edge of town, and all at once, Walter said, "that looks like the school house where the girls go to school." That really tickled us. We were all glad to get home from our long journey. After that meeting, Alta went several more times with different groups of workers.

We moved back into the little house again and Jake took a notion to trade the big house for some acres out in East Whittier. There were five acres all set to trees-- orange, lemon, peach, apricots, and walnuts. There wasn't any water on the land. There was a water plant not far away but there was so many wanting to use the water that we couldn't get it too often. There was a waste water ditch that ran down on one side of our land. We used it but it didn't amount to much. Jake was working all the time at his trade, so Harry and I tried to work this little ranch. We planted potatoes, but used the ditch water to water them at the wrong time to water them and they were spoiled. We had quite a crop of apricots. The boys picked and peddled those. Just before we were going to buy lumber and build a house on the property, Jake decided he couldn't live way out there and work at his trade in town. It was a very long ways to go back and forth everyday. I was so disappointed; I wanted to get out of town so bad and I thought it would be so much better to have the boys out on the ranch. I could hardly give up the idea of us building our home there. I was so depressed and while at Grandma's one day, she and I were in the kitchen talking about the situation. Grandpa was in the other room sitting by the fire, and he overheard our conversation. He called to me and I went in to see what he wanted. He looked me in the eye and said, "Jake always made thee a living, didn't he?" I said, "Yes." He said, "well thee better just let him alone." Well, that settled it for me. I felt better satisfied to give up the idea of living on the ranch. Jake sold the property shortly after. He bought a lot with a barn on it just one block south of where we had lived on Newlin Avenue. He fixed it up to live in, and we moved there. While we lived in the barn, as we called it, there was a Camp Meeting held at Santa Fe Springs. I think it was at this meeting that Jim and Alta got acquainted and started going together. One time Jim came out to see Alta and she wasn't home. She was working in East Whittier at Charlie Scott's doing housework. Well, Jim went uptown and hired a horse and buggy and drove out to see her and they took a little ride. He came back and stayed all night with us. There came a big rain that night and it rained so hard, that the bridge on the river went out and he couldn't get across. He had to stay several days with us. I felt sorry for him, but it couldn't be helped. Jim Adam's father was a preacher and he held a meeting at Carminita near Norwalk. Alta was one of his workers. We had and to our house for breakfast and I made biscuits. Mr. Adams and his wife were nice people and we enjoyed having them to visit us.

One evening, we were at the dinner table and a man came by and asked to take our picture. We just got up from the table and went out in the front yard and let him take our picture. We didn't doll up a bit and he took the pictures just as we were. The children were mussed up with food on their clothes. Lillie had a string around her leg that we didn't see. The man just snapped us and went on his way. We just had to laugh when he brought the pictures, of how we looked. The picture was pretty good at that.

Our baby, Eva, was born on March 8, 1898 about 4:00 PM in the evening. We named her Eva Mary. When she was just a few days old, she took a cold and was sick. Helen was very fond of her and would come and sit on the bed and talk to me. She was afraid that Eva would die. She soon was well, however.

When Eva was a year old, Harry had a hard spell of typhoid fever. He was so bad for awhile that we though he couldn't live. We called the doctor one night. He came and we told him how he was. He did what he could and went home. Harry came to the crisis period of the disease and finally took a turn for the better. I got so worn out trying to take care of him that we had to get some help. John's mother, Mrs. Fisher, came and helped me. One day when I was so weary, I tried to rest, but couldn't. I saw the Bible lying by my bed on the stand table. I picked it up and lifted my heart to God and asked him to give me something in his word to comfort me. I opened the Bible, not knowing what I would find. The words I found were, "Behold I am the Lord the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me?" Jeremiah -Chapter 32- Verse 27. It seamed to me that the Lord was asking me a question and it seemed a great comfort. I knew there wasn't anything too hard for him to do if he saw fit. My prayers today are that we may be an unbroken Family in Heaven.

When Eva was about four months old, my sister, Dora's husband burned his hands with black powder. It was the 4th of July, and a cartridge he was examining exploded and injured him. The burn was so awful, that he only lived for twelve days. They lived in Los Angeles and they sent the word to us that he was in the hospital. Before we got there, he had passed away. It was so sad, they just had a new baby, and it was only six weeks old. They also had three other little children. Dora was left alone to try and care for them. It was too bad because they were young, and quite happy together. My brother Al stayed with her and the children for awhile and latter on she moved the family to Whittier.

One summer, one of Jake's relatives named Reese Haworth came to our house. He was looking up all the Haworths he could find in California. He told us of a Haworth Reunion that was to be held in July or August in Kansas City. They wanted all the Haworth tribe to try to be there. We had talked previously about making a trip East to visit various relatives. We could hardly afford to go to the reunion and make the trip East besides. I guess I was also rather selfish, because the Reunion would fall right during the summer camp meeting, and I didn't want to miss that. Well, I can see now what influence I had on Jake. He was a strong-minded man -- I think sometimes he knew better what we should do than I did. He wanted so badly to go to the reunion but instead gave into me so I could attend the camp meeting. After the camp meeting was all through, we came home and began to get ready for a trip East. We left on our trip on September 1. We went to Los Angeles to take the train. We stayed all night at Uncle Fred, did some shopping to get things for our journey, and prepared to leave the following day. Jake got himself a new suit and I got a new dress. We had Lillie and Eva with us and the rest of the older children stayed at home. Our first stop was at Mojave. Jake got off the train and got me a writing tablet so I could take notes of our trip. When we got to Sacramento, Jake and the children got off and walked around a little. I was writing while we were climbing the mountains. We had the window up and cinders were flying back and lighting on my paper. I could hardly write. We arrived in Salt Lake City in the middle of the night. As the lights shone on the water, we could see a little of the lake. Next stop was Denver, Colorado. We got there 8:00AM in the morning and waited until 11:00pm that evening to catch a train into Nebraska. We wanted to go to the Maddred, Neb. to visit Uncle Harmon. We left our luggage in the Denver Depot while we waited for next train. We went up town and did some shopping. We got Lillie and Eva some jackets. We strolled around town until evening and then went to a restaurant and had a good supper. We boarded the train again and around noon the next day we arrived in Sterling, Colorado. We changed cars again and at 4:00am the next morning, we arrived at Maddred. It was still dark, so we stayed in the Depot until it was time for people to start getting up. This was just a small railroad town and Jake went and found a man to take us out in the country about four miles to Uncle's place. They were just having breakfast, so they fixed some for us too. We stayed with them for two weeks. They lived in one-room house that wasn't even finished. Jake plastered their house for them while we were there. One day, we went to the trading point near there called Grant Center. Uncle got groceries and Jake bought a large head of cabbage. The store keeper said the cabbage was from California. We all got a good laugh from that. I bought some black satin to make the little girls dresses to wear on the train the rest of our journey. The house we stayed at was located on the barren plains area. There was nothing to see but little hills and buffalo grass for as far as you could look. The main industry was cattle raising. Uncle's oldest son was the foreman on a large cattle ranch. Uncle had several acres planted in corn and his place looked like an oasis in the desert. The whole area was thinly settled and there are was miles and miles between neighbors. We visited with the son, Everett, and his wife one day. I was surprised that the wife could ride horse quite well and even helped round up cattle sometimes. These people all seemed to enjoy their kind of life -- it wouldn't have suited me at all.

One morning they took us to train station. We hated to leave them but we had so many places we wanted to go. We said our good-byes and went on our journey. Our next stop was to be at Jake's sister's down in Missouri. She lived several miles from St. Joseph. We went to Kansas City and took a train from there to Mound City, Missouri. The train stopped in a little station called Napier. While we were waiting there for the train to Mound City, Jake saw a man working on top of a house roof. He was building a fireplace chimney. Jake naturally took interest, since he knew that trade. He walked over to talk to this man in the conversation mentioned where we were headed, and that we were waiting for the train. Jake told him that we were going to visit his sister, Mary Coates. Well, would you believe it, the man said he knew her well and lived not far from them. Come to find out, he had a team and a wagon and said he would take us up there on his way home. When he finished his days work, we went with him and he took us right to their place. When we arrived, his sister, Aunt Mary Coates, wasn't home. Her son and daughter were there. Aunt Mary had gone to one of her other sons places. Her son John hitched up a team and went and got her. It was after dark when they came. John hadn't told her who had come to visit, as he wanted it to be a surprise. As she came in the room, Jake was sitting down in the chair. There was one small light burning. I stood not far from the entry door, and when she came in, she spoke but did not know who I was. She was partially going blind her old age. She went over to the chair to speak to Jake. She stooped down and looked him right in the face. She then put her hands on his head and all over his face. She studied him closely and then said, it's Jacob. It was really pathetic. She was so glad to see him. When she found out who he was, she then knew who I was. We hadn't seen her since the year after we got married. She had certainly aged. We stayed with her for two weeks and visited the married children in their homes and one grandaughter in her home. One day the menfolk wanted to go to a stock sale at Mound City. Mary and I and the children when along. We looked around and did a little shopping, while the man went to the sale. I bought some candy for me and the children. I was eating a hard piece and broke a tooth. I felt so bad. We had a good time otherwise. At the end of our visit with them, they took us down to little town named Oregon. One of the daughters lived there. Aunt Mary went along and we all stayed overnight. The next day, the train took us on to Toronto, Kansas to visit my sister's family (Sister Mattie Close). We bought Aunt Mary some wool stockings and wool underwear before we left for Toronto.

My sister, Mattie, lived out in the country 4 or 5 miles from Toronto. We had written her telling her that we'd be coming. She was the only one we had told ahead of time -- the rest we took by surprise. I felt that I had let Mattie know because she had had so much sickness in her family that spring. They lost two of their children -- a girl 12 and baby boy about 2. Mattie and two of the other children had almost died too. I didn't want to shock of us coming to be too great. I was surprised to see her looking so well and cheerful. The day we arrived, she was doing some cleaning of the house. She said, "I'm not going to finish now, I'm going to visit while you're here and work after you were gone." They lived close to a river called Verde Grease. It was rightly named because the water looked almost greasy. The big rains had caused the river to overflow. Right after that, people in the area came down with a sickness similar to Cholera. Lots of people died including some of Mattie's children. We stayed two weeks with them and Jake helped Barry dig his potatoes. One day, the children were playing out by the chicken yard and Eva climbed up on the chicken house and was afraid to get down by herself. She cried and Mattie had to climb up and get her down. I doubt that she ever forgot that experience. One day, we all went to town to have some pictures taken. Many knew the photographer and told him, "we want to have some good-looking pictures." The photographer looked at Jake and Uncle Berry and smiled. He said, jokingly, "I'll have to have better looking subjects than this, to get good-looking pictures."When we got the pictures, they were "good-looking."

One Sunday night, we went out in the country to a revival meeting. It was being held at the schoolhouse and a large crowd had gathered. It was a good meeting and I enjoyed it. On the way home, the mules that were pulling our wagon got scared at something. They just took off running. Barry and his son Jess, thirteen, both held onto the lines to try to stop them. The mules paid no attention to their pulling. They ran and ran and then finally stopped on their own. One good thing was that they stayed on the road and no harm was done and we all got home safe and sound. The mules were fine too. One morning before I got up, I heard Mattie in the kitchen getting breakfast. She was singing so sweetly. I went into the kitchen and she told me that she wanted to go to Missouri with us. She said that Barry had told her he'd let her go. We had planned to go to Alba, Missouri to visit some of relatives. They were mostly Grandfather Frazier's folks. One family was Uncle Milton Johnson's. He ended up marrying one of grandfather's daughters, Aunt Rachel. I loved her so much. Milton Johnson was one of mother's relatives. We made ready for the rest of our journey, as this was going to be the last place we would visit. As it ended up, we also visited some people in Reed Station 30 miles east Carthage, Missouri. The people we visited were named Blankenship and they were the father and mother of a good friend of our's who lived in Whittier. He had wanted us to visit his mother and father and deliver them some cans of fruit that he had sent along. When we opened the trunk, one of the cans and split. The people were so nice and treated us royally. We stayed all night there and they gave Jake and I their bedroom downstairs. We put Lillie and Eva on a couch in the front room. Along the night, Eva started coughing and was all choked up. I didn't know just what to do. I hadn't brought any medicine and this was a strange place. Their daughter came downstairs and asked was wrong, I told her my little girl had the croup. She came right down and they made a fire in the heater and gave me an atomizer spray for her throat. We worked with her for little while and then she seemed all right and we went back to bed. We bid them goodbye the next morning and went back to Alba to Aunt Sarah. The weather started turning cold in Alba and we heard the several families had diphtheria. I was anxious to get started for home. Before the left, we went to the cemetery and visited Grandpa and Grandma Johnson's graves. We also went and saw the place where lived when I was a little girl. The house was gone, but I knew it was the same old place. It was a pleasure to see the old place just once more. Mattie left for her home before us. Aunt Amy, Aunt Sarah, and Aunt Nancy share hated to see us leave.

One incident I forgot to relate happened when we left Toronto for Missouri. We arrived at the train station only to find out that no trains would be going out for some time. They told us we could go on a freight train out to the main line 30 miles away. We decided to do that and they put us in the caboose. It wasn't so bad. The train pulled out and we were happy to get started. We had brought our lunch and it was lovely. We couldn't have enjoyed it more if we had been in the dining car on a Pullman train. We rolled along at a slow gait all afternoon and in the night we got to Pickway Station and changed cars. The train wasn't going to pull out until morning so we went to a rooming house and put up for the rest of the night. Everybody was tired from traveling on that pokey freight train. We got on a faster train in the morning and arrived in Joplin, Missouri after dark the next day. From there, we took a train back to the edge of Kansas to Galena. We thought George Mills lived there. He moved to this town when he left California. In Galena, Jake went into a store to inquire about where we could find George's place. While Jake was talking to the storekeeper, a fellow came up to him and said he had overheard the conversation. In and that being one of Ephraem Pearson's brothers. He told Jake that George now lived in Joplin, Missouri. The fellow was Ben Pearson and he was a relative of Jake's. He took us home with him there in town and we stayed that night. The next morning, we took a streetcar from Galena to Joplin and found George's place. We visited and stayed two nights. We went into town and did some shopping. We got the girls some dresses and some scarfs. At one store some English people took a liking to Eva. I just loved to hear the man talk. He talked so ‘Englishy." We told him that Eva could sing. He was trying some shoes on her and he kept trying to get her to sing for him. He told her that he would only give her one shoe if she wouldn't sing. He finally coaxed her to sing him a song. She sang "the little black train." She sang sweetly, "there's a little black train a comin'; get all your business right, better set your house in order, for the train might be here tonight." She was so cute and they thought she sang pretty fine.

The hard part of our long journey to the East, was the parting; the saying goodbye. We knew that most of these people we would never see again in this life. We have always been glad that we got to see them that last time. We got on a train and headed for home. The name of that train was the "Katie Flyer." We arrived in Ft. Worth, Texas and had to change cars about midnight. The children were asleep and we had our baggage to carry. It was quite a job managing everything. We got into the new train and were soon speeding along on our homeward way. We stayed all night in El Paso, Texas the following day. While in El Paso, we took a streetcar across the border into Juarez, Mexico. I didn't enjoy that little trip and I was glad to get started back into Texas. Things didn't look too good to me in Mexico. The people looked too much like Indians to suit me. I was always afraid of Indians. It was also very dirty looking there. I bought a few pieces of Spanish lace work to bring back to the older girls. We stayed overnight at a hotel in El Paso. The desk clerk was a big burly looking fellow who Jake claimed was part Indian. I didn't like his looks at all. We all ate supper and then we went to our room. Jake wanted to go out and take a look at the town. I told him I did not want him to go because I was afraid to stay there with children alone. I was also afraid something would happen to him. This was a rough looking place. He told me that everything would be all right. He made me lock the door and off he went. I put the children to bed and sat there trembling until he got back. The next morning, we were ready to resume our journey. We boarded the train at 9:00 a.m. and traveled all day long. Out the windows, all you could see were hills and desert. Our porter took a liking to the girls. He knew we were going to Los Angeles, and he called out all the little towns along the way. He said them so many times that I remembered them myself for long time afterward. We got to Los Angeles in there, transferred to the train for Whittier and home. We had a wonderful trip and many lovely visits. Recalling the trip here in this story gives me the great pleasure.

Effie had come and stayed with the older children while we were gone. Her husband, John, was working on the railroad not far from Pomona. Alta also stayed with them some. One time, Jim came to see Alta to but she wasn't home. She was working with a band of workers at a tent meeting in Pomona. Jim had rode his bicycle all the way from Sunland to see her in Whittier. He stayed at our house for little while and rested in and pedaled on to Pomona that evening. He said he was bound to see his girl. Later on, Jim and Alta were married on July 2nd, 1901. We moved into our new house on North Newlin just awhile before they were married. The house wasn't quite finished. It wasn't plastered yet, just lathed. Alta and Harry put paper on the walls in the front room over the lath to make it look more cozy. We got everything as ready as we could for the wedding. Brother Washburn performed the ceremony. We invited just near relatives. Jim and Alta stayed home for the night of the wedding and the next day bid us goodbye as they left for Catalina and their honeymoon. After they got back, they moved to Sunland to Jim's home. That took another child from the family circle. Oh what a wonderful plan God made for people to get married and make a home together.

In August 1904, we moved to Los Angeles. This was right around the time of Camp Meeting. Jake got a man named Newhouse to move us. We had a big load besides, so Jake and I and some of the children went on this load. Jake had sent Alva and Walter on ahead earlier that morning with the cow. They had to walk along leading the cow the entire way. When they got to the edge of Los Angeles, there came up a storm over the mountain. The wind blew almost like hurricane. It blew down trees and blew over delivery wagons. Mr. Newhouse turn our wagon with the end to the storm to keep our load from going over. We all got out of the wagon and sat down under some bushes for shelter. Soon the wind passed, but then the rain came. We had two little pups on our load so we took them out and Helen had to hold them. She never cared for dogs but she did look out the pups that day. After awhile we were underway again. When we got to our house, there wasn't a sign of the boys or the cow. We had felt uneasy when the storm came up because we knew the boys would be scared. Later on, we found out that they found a shed to put the cow in during the storm. They then proceeded to the new house on Savannah Street. They had no key so they borrowed a key from the folks next-door. They went inside the house and took off their wet clothes and borrowed some dry one's from the same neighbors. They then took a streetcar to Effie's place in Highland Park. They were scared and worried that something had happened to us. We were proud that such young boys could take such good care of themselves. When we got to Effie's, she told me not to scold the boys. Well, I was so glad they were safe, that I surely didn't want to scold them.

The rains had done a lot of damage at the camp meeting. The wind had blown down the tents. Aunt Dora and her children left the camp meeting and had come to Effie's to stay the night. We all went together the next day back to the meeting. We stayed for the entire meeting that year.

After that, we all went home and started to get our new house fixed up for living in. Jake and Harry went to work together. Sue and Helen went downtown and got jobs in the ten cent store on Spring Street. The rest of the children, Alva, Walter, Lillie, and Eva all started school near home on First Street. We lived on Savannah Street about three years. I had quite a bad sick spell while we lived there. The night I took sick, I heard the sweetest music I ever heard. It was an old hymn and it's hard to describe the sounds. It was almost heavenly. I think I must have been near death's door, but the Lord saw it fit to spare my life and soon I was all right. Walter also had a very sick spell well we lived on Savannah Street. He had an infection in his face and head. We had a doctor over and he bathed him in soda water every half-hour and painted his face with iodine to keep the infection from going to his heart. I could barely sit up from my illness so Helen had to take care of Walter and wait on him day and night. He also finally got better.

Jake decided after three years that he wanted to build a home up on higher ground. We looked around and bought a lot up and Euclid Heights. The name and the street in those days was Ezra. It is now called Grande Vista. We paid 600 dollars for a bare lot and Jake started building a house up there. It was a large house with seven rooms. A front room, a large dining room, four bedrooms, a bathroom, and a large kitchen and pantry. There was a front and back porch. It took quite a while to build because he did a great deal of the work himself. He put in the foundation, built the chimney, and did the lathing and plastering. He also did quite a bit of the other work. In the meantime, he had to take care of his contract work for others. He just spent his spare time on our house. He hired out a plumber and carpenter. Jake and the boys did the shingles. When the house was almost done, Sue and I walked up to see the new house. As we walked on Ezra toward the house, a strange feeling came over me. When we got to where we could see the house, I felt even worse. A terrible sadness struck me and it was hard to account for. Sue said she felt strangely also. We walked into the house and I went out onto the front porch. There was a house that was very old and stood on corner. I looked over at this house and I saw this ghostly image their inside the window. It sort of looked like somebody was staring back at me. This was evening time just about dark, and I could see this ghostly form quite plain. Nobody lived in this house which made all the more strange. I was so unnerved that I went inside and sat down on the window seat in the dining room. Later on, I went on the porch again in that same form stared back at me. I felt so bad that I could hardly get over it. It bothered me so bad after that, that I told Jake I wouldn't care if he sold the place and never moved there. I didn't tell him why because he would have just laughed. I'm not one to believe in ghosts, witches, or spirits, but what I saw and felt that evening, I will never be able to understand. Sometimes I feel it was a warning of an awful thing about to happen.

We moved into the house in January 1907. Jake began failing and health and I felt anxious about him. One day, I was cutting his hair and I noticed how hollow he was in his temples. He was getting so thin that it alarmed me. He was such an ambitious person and he kept on taking plastering jobs and working even though he wasn't well. He took a little job even after he was so sick that he could hardly stand up. He let the boys do most of it and just made sure that they did it right. He grew worse everyday. Finally, he realized he was in serious condition. He wanted his brother to come. He wrote a letter to him in Nebraska and asked him to come and that he would send him a ticket. He answered and said he would come. Jake sent him the fare and he came right away. Jake was so glad to have him and so was the whole family. He got to Los Angeles in time to be a comfort to Jake, during his last days. I don't remember how many doctors we had to prescribe for him that none of them could help. Dr. Fisher in Highland Park told him he thought it was the symptoms of cancer of the stomach. Another doctor, named Burley, suggested that we take a trip and travel some. Uncle Harmon came and we bought a team of little mules and a light wagon. We got bows and put a cover on the wagon. We got ready for little trip, wondering how long Jake could stand it. He, Uncle Harmon, and I started out by heading for Pomona to see one of Uncle's daughters. We arrived and stayed a day or two and then from there, to Garden Grove to visit some other relatives. From there, we went to Long Beach to visit their oldest sister's son George Mills. We made quite a visit with them. After a few days, we could see that he couldn't take much more traveling. I felt so sad to think that we couldn't do anything to help him. He couldn't eat but just a little at a time. He said he felt hungry and I think the food tasted good, but his stomach wouldn't hold but just a few teaspoons of food. I would fix his meals for him and he would eat a few bites and no more. He literally starved to death.

In April 1908, some important events took place that meant so very much to me. We had gone together to the spring camp meeting in Whittier. Brother Adams talked quite a bit with Jake about his spiritual needs. They prayed for him and he seemed to feel better mentally. The elders of the church came in prayed for his healing and Jake made a wonderful prayer himself that made him happy. Unfortunately, he didn't get healed. I guess that was not the Lord's will to heal him. One night, after we got home, Pastor Washburn from the Boyle Heights Church, came up to the house and baptized him and recorded his name in the Holiness Church book. We all felt so happy had done this himself at his own request. He told Helen that if the Lord saw fit to spare him, he would go to the hills and hollows of Missouri and become preacher himself. He told Helen that he wanted her and Alva to accompany him. A specialist named Pillsbury came from Hollywood to see Jake. He said Jake was feeding on his liver. He prescribed medicine for him but it didn't help at all. The last two weeks of his life, he didn't eat a mouthful of food and took just a few sips of coffee. He wouldn't go to bed; he would set up and go out on the porch. After he got so weak we would have to help him so he wouldn't fall down. It made me feel so bad to think that I couldn't do a thing to help him. One Sunday evening near the end, Lillie and Eva and I were sitting with him in the dining room around the fireplace. Jake sat there like he was in deep thought about something. Pretty soon he said, "well, if I don't get better soon, you'll be taking me over to the cemetery." Eva, as small as she was, noticed what he had said. It was so sad. He mentioned that he was glad that the Lord had given him enough time to think before taking him. I think he meant that he had time to prepare for the change from Earth to glory. I said to him, "if you go, what would I do?" "Oh," he said, "you have the boys. They will take care of you. I'm so glad that I have a home to leave you." Our home was all paid for before he died. He finally got so bad that he had to go to bed. He was conscious all the time. We got a nurse to take care of him. She stayed a few days. He complained of being so cold. Mother was there and she took a woolen skirt and heated by the fire. She wrapped around his legs to make him feel warmer. One night, he asked me to come and sit by him. I put his head in my lap and it slowly started getting dark outside. We lit the light in the room but he complained of room being so dark. I suppose the death film had started to blind his eyes. He lay there quiet with his head in my lap. I dozed off to sleep a few minutes and when I awoke, I saw he was almost gone. Someone went and woke up the children who had gone to bed, but they didn't get to his bedside until after he was gone. I had Lillie and Eva stay next-door neighbors that night. I didn't call them. Our neighbor called the undertaker for us. When undertaker arrived, he said we keep him home or he could take the body to the parlor. I kept him home. He had died on July 1st, 1908, Wednesday morning around 1:00 AM. We had the funeral on Friday afternoon in the Boyle Heights Church and buried him in the Evergreen Cemetery. I trust that he is with the Lord now.

I had to now start thinking about what we would do without him. We had to take up the business affairs decide what we could do to carry on. Jake was a man that looked after all the business himself. I didn't know much about it. The children and I do the best he could. Harry and Effie were not able to be at home tonight Jake died. Harry worked downtown as a conductor on the streetcar. He lived down there where he would be close to work. When Jake got so bad, Harry took off some time and came home for a few days. Jake just lingered on, so he felt he had to go back to his work. Effie usually came over every day. The night he died, she had been there all day and through the night. When she finally went home she said she would not see us until the funeral because Viola was a baby just a few weeks old. Several days before he died, all the children stood around the foot of his bed and he said he thought they were beautiful sight to see. Before Jake died, one day Harry brought his girlfriend, Laura Belle Vedder, to meet us. Jake talked to her so nice and told her he supposed they were going to be married.

Shortly after Jake died, Harry had to come home and stayed for a spell. He had an attack of inflammatory rheumatism and felt awfully sick. He stayed with me for several weeks and then went out to Murrieta Hot Springs and bathed in their springs. He felt much better after that.

Jim Adams came to see me not long after Jake's death. He proposed that we rent a few acres with a house on it near Sunland. The man named Crane owned this place. I was so broken up about Jake's death that hardly knew what to do. I finally said alright and Jim rented the property and moved us up there. There were quite a few young chickens on the place and we took them too. Jim knew something about farming and we left that to him. The boys helped that they could. I think it was sometime in September that we made this move. We planted a bunch of late corn but it didn't amount to anything. When the olive season opened, the boys and girls all worked in the olive groves picking the olives. There was a big olive orchard in Sunland. They pitched a tent and they all lived in that. They slept and ate right there. John Merritt came and stayed with us for awhile. He and I and Lillie and Eva stayed on the ranch and took care of things there. John worked some at the olive orchard but stayed at home nights with us and did the chores around the house. Eva and Lillie went to school about three miles from the ranch up in the hills. They had to walk unless someone was going up that way with a team. One morning, John had been out before the girls left for school. He saw a coyote in the brush right on the road for the girls usually walked. He said, "Aunt Belle, I wouldn't let the girls go to school this morning because I saw a coyote and he looked quite cross." I think someone came by later and took the girls to school.

That winter, Mr. Crane decided he wanted his ranch back for himself. We gave it up and moved back to Los Angeles. I had rented my house before we went to Sunland so we decided to rent a place in Highland Park near John and Effie. We moved to Highland Park in January. I remember that it rained and rained and rained some more. The house that we had rented was on quite low ground and we had trouble with flooding. The girls, Sue and Helen, got jobs in a laundry and went to work. Lillie and Eva started school. We hadn't lived there long when I got sick with something like malaria. I couldn't seem to get over it. The doctor said I had to move to higher ground. We also found out that the water from the well we had been using was bad and unhealthy. We decided we would have to ask our renters to move so that we could move back into our old house that was on higher ground. Helen went over and told the folks the situation and they moved out right away and we moved in. I began to feel better right away and we were all so glad to be home again.

Harry went up to San Francisco to meet Laura's folks. She had also moved up there with them. While he was there they decided to get married. The date was November 15, 1909. They stayed until Christmas time and then returned to Los Angeles and stayed several weeks.

Helen, Sue, Alva, and Walter all stayed home and worked and helped me carry on until little girls, Lillie and Eva graduated from grammar school. I don't think I could have carried on alone without their help. I'm so thankful for having such dear children — they have been such a blessing. The older girls, Effie and Alta, were married, of course, and had their own families to care for. Effie and John sold their house in Los Angeles and bought a place near Sunland. Effie had a bad spell of rheumatism and suffered awful. The doctors couldn't seem to find anything that would do her any good. She went to Murietta Hot Springs and took Sue with her. Sue stayed a week and then felt that she must come back to her work and her family. She worked the curio store. I went up to Murietta and stayed with Effie for the rest time. She took a full course of baths but got very little relief. I took some baths too and they felt so good. I didn't have rheumatism though. I went up there on the train and had some trouble getting there. The rain had washed out some tracks near Riverside. They fixed it temporarily in the train slowly creaked through. We both came back on the train and poor Effie was just about as bad as when she started. Sometime after that, she and her husband were out the Highland Park Church. They had a healing preacher there. She walked up to the alter and asked to have him pray for her. She was instantly healed, got up from the altar alone and walked around in the church. She just shouted and praised the Lord. I wasn't there, but everyone told me what happened. She never had another spell of rheumatism as far as I know.

Alva became acquainted with a girl named Louise from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She worked for lovely family in Pasadena named Ormsby. He kept company with her for quiet a while. They got married on November 15, 1915. The Ormsby's gave Louise and Alva a lovely wedding in their home. They had a nice home and were so good to Louise. Before they were married, Al had built a home for them down on 69 Street in Los Angeles. After the wedding, they moved into their own place. They lived in that house for quiet while. They had four children there, Ruth, Richard, [LIVING], and Lucille. Later on, they sold the house and bought acreage in Lancaster.

Sue became acquainted with a fellow named Earl H. Rogers and they went together for a while. After that, he went back East to his home in West Virginia and was gone for several years. When he came back, they renewed their acquaintance. We had a saying back then, "Warming up the cold broth." On May 27, 1916, they were married. We had home waiting for them it was very nice. Pastor Tom Smith of Azusa performed the ceremony and it was beautiful. Sue and Earl went downtown and stayed the night. The next day, they bid us goodbye and left for Santa Barbara. Earl was working there and so they made their home in Santa Barbara for quite some time. We hated to see her go so far away. She got a nice husband who loved her and she was able to give up her work in San Gabriel. She used to have to go back and forth on the streetcar and it was hard for her.

Lillie graduated from grammar school and then went to work at Parker Brother's furniture store down on Broadway. She worked for them for short time and then went to work at the California Furniture store. She met a fellow named Walter Plumb through a friend of ours. They kept company for a short while and then got married on October 17, 1916. Pastor Washburn performed the ceremony. Close relatives and friends came to the house just like Sue's wedding. After the wedding, they moved to Highland Park to live. Another child gone from the family circle. Three children had left in about a years time.

Eva graduated from grammar school and went to work. Helen, Walter, Eva, and I carried on as best we could and we got along just fine. Eva had gone to intermediate high school for a short time after grammar school. She then went to Sunland and stayed with John and Effie to work at the olive factory. She came down with diphtheria and our house was quarantined. I stayed one night but they made changes clothes before leaving the house. The rest of the family could come in the day and talk to us from the outside but not come in. She got well and later on got a job at Bishop's Candy Factory and worked there for a long time. She got acquainted with some lovely girls and they all became great friends. The girls names were Lena, Amelia, and Alma. Lena was older than the rest so she rather mothered the other girls. She and Amelia were sisters. Eva had been out to the house sometimes for dinner and to stay the evening.

I went to Oxnard to stay with Sue and Earl when their baby was born. He was still-born. They named him Stanley Hamilton. They took the little body down to Los Angeles and buried him in Evergreen Cemetery near Jake's grave.

Walter was working up and Tracy, California when he took sick with a terrible flu. They took him to San Francisco to a hospital because he was so bad. I was feeling so uneasy about him and I asked the Lord to spare my boy. He began to get well after quite sometime. Walter got acquainted with a girl named Stella in Tracy while he worked there. She had a little boy named Johnny. When Walter got well, he brought Stella and Johnny to my house to visit. I told Johnny to call me Grandma. He was so cute. I always loved him and he loved me. Walter and Stella got married in Los Angeles on September 24th 1917. They just got married with no family or folks present. They then moved to Arizona.

In 1921, Alta and Jim were sent to the church to Owensboro, Kentucky. Jim was to be the pastor of the church. In July of that year, our church picked the delegation to go back to camp meetings in Oklahoma and Kentucky. Helen and I were two of the members picked to go. The church chartered a road car for just our party. We had our own way in the car. We had the porter leave our tables down so we put our books on them into our writing. One day, after we had eaten in the railroad car, Helen took our dishes back to the dressing room to wash them. She set them down on the counter and train gave a lurch. The dishes flew off onto the floor and nearly every one broke. We all laughed but we didn't even have a cup to get a drink of water. One night, we were all singing in the porter was putting down our beds. He worked very slowly and said, "I don't know if I can work if you all don't hush." He was joking and enjoyed listening to our songs. He was very nice to us. We told him to leave our beds down so we could lay down in one end of the car if we needed a rest. Before we left Los Angeles, my sister Dora suggested that we sing a song on Sunday about the same time she would be in church. The song we sung was, "The Mountain Railroad," and it went like this:

Come Sunday morning, I told the other folks about singing the song. We sang this and many other songs while we were speeding along over the desert. When we got to El Paso, Texas, the train stopped for a little while. Some of the delegation got off and went to a restaurant and had supper. Helen and I went too. We had been eating just cold meals and I could hardly stand that all the time. The train stopped again in Houston, Texas and we changed cars. The porter got off their also, it was his last stop. We all had a picture taken the platform. One picture was taken of me and the porter and everyone laughed. I didn't care, it was all right with me. We finally got to Pawnee, Oklahoma where our first meeting was to be held. Jim Adams came up to Pawnee from Owensboro to hold this camp meeting. They had built an arbor to hold the meeting in. This was located near the schoolhouse so we could use the bathroom. Our delegation was placed in different homes. Helen and I stayed in Henry Brunson's home. It was a lovely place to stay and was way out in the country. We drove back and forth to the meetings, about 2 1/2 miles each way, in a big wagon. There were no lights to see anything on the road. There were only lightning bugs and they didn't help much. They sure looked pretty in the dark though. the meeting place was about eight miles from Pawnee. The day we arrived, a wagon took them in and baggage, and the woman folk got to ride in an automobile. They had a nice chicken dinner waiting for us at the Davis house. Jim was out in the yard waiting to greet us. We unloaded our things and cleaned up a little bit before we had dinner. The first meeting was that night in a large crowd turned out. Sunday, they had a basket dinner there at the arbor. People brought great baskets of food and spread out along the huge table under the arbor. Everyone just had a feast of good things for the body as well as having their souls fed during the meetings. One night, Pastor Dixon was preaching and everyone started feeling uneasy because a huge black cloud had appeared from the southwest. It was a fearful looking cloud and it looked to be bringing the bad storm. People from those parts knew what was coming and they became restless. They began getting up to go fetch their wagons, buggies, horses, and what have you. It looked odd to see everyone leaving, but you couldn't blame them for being scared. We got in our wagon and left too. The storm, as it turned out, didn't amount to much. Lightning and thunder rolled but the storm wasn't bad. One day, we had a picnic down the river. The folks wanted to show us a good time socially while we were there. We took a nice lunch and we ate down near the water and spent the whole afternoon.

The meetings finally closed, and we began to prepare for our journey on to Kentucky. We said our goodbyes at the Pawnee Station. Jim had gone on before the rest of us. The train stopped at Fulsey, Oklahoma and we changed cars. We stayed there a short time and Helen left me in the depot while she went out in town. She bought a little tin pail and some cups for us to use on the train. We got hot soup and hot water from the diner to bring back to our car. The next stop was St. Louis, Missouri. We met up with Sister Moyle, one of the delegates from our church. She had left Los Angeles before the rest of us and had made a visit with her son, Theodore. She joined us in St. Louis and we all went on from there. The next arrived in Evansville, Indiana. There were lots of colored people in that part of the country. I noticed that the railroad had put a special card on one of the train car doors. It said that the car was for colored people only. They called it the "Jim Crow" car. I felt bad that they treated colored people like that. That afternoon, we arrived in Owensboro and Jim and Alta were at the depot to meet us. They had set up a big and several small tents for the delegation to lodge in. It was a nice shady spot called Central Park. There were lots of trees and grass. We took our meals in a boarding house. Ms. Butler, the lady who ran it, was a lovely cook. It was just like a big family and you could help yourself to whatever you want to eat. I don't think I've ever drank so much iced tea before. One afternoon, a terrible rainstorm came up and water just poured down. Water collected on the tops of the tents until they sagged down. Jim walked into the tent, and just as he entered, someone took a pole and pushed underneath a pool of water. The water came right down on his head and all over him. He looked like a drowned rat. Water came in all round edges of the tents. They had put sawdust shavings down the ground, and the shavings swelled up like sponges. The meetings went on nevertheless. Later on, the sun came out and we hung our things out in the tents and outside to dry. That night, people came from all directions for the night meeting. People just kneeled right down on those wet sawdust shavings. When the meeting closed, all the delegates went each his own way. Some had some visiting to do before going back to California. Some of Jim and Alta's friends planned a picnic for Helen and I out in the west in the town. It was a beautiful day a nice place and we had such a good picnic dinner. We even had homemade ice cream. Helen and I stayed several extra days in Kentucky. We observed the Ohio River (Owensboro is on this river) and noted that was a large deep river. The water looked muddy all the time. Helen and I decided one day to take a pleasure boat down the river. We went in the afternoon to the boathouse and just happened to be looking around. We decided to go aboard and take a ride. They took us ten miles down the river and back. We enjoyed our ride very much and would've enjoyed it more if we would've had something to eat while we were riding along. We wished we would have taken our lunch. Another day, Jim took us back about nine miles into the woods to visit a man named Mr. Simpson and his two daughters. His wife had died. The house wasn't much and was partly made of logs. The girls were good housekeepers and all was nice and clean. They made a nice dinner for us. The house was near a river and lots of wild blackberries were growing. I never saw so many in one place in my life. They were just thick and they tasted luscious. We picked berries and more berries. We used pans and pails and buckets. There was some wild plum trees nearer the house too. We helped ourselves to these plums. The trees were just loaded with ripe plums. The front yard had a wild cherry tree and it was filled with cherries. They looked awful nice but they didn't taste too good. They were very bitter. After spending the day, we got ready to leave. The man said to Helen, "you can stay if you want to." I think he was looking for a new wife. We teased her about it on the way home. Some people named Moore took Helen home with them one Sunday afternoon to spend the day and evening. The next day, Jim, all the, a lady named Grace, and I all drove to the Moore's house to pick up Helen. The Moore's were quite old and they had to old maid daughters to take care of them.

Some colored people had come to the camp meeting at Owensboro from Fulton, Kentucky they were from the Holiness Church in the South. The pastor of the church had lived in California for some years before they moved to Kentucky. He had lived in Pasadena. He had felt the calling to go to work with his people in the south. They were going to have a camp meeting in their town soon. They invited us to come. We all agreed to go to Fulton. It was about hundred miles away. We had to big rivers to cross. We used ferryboats for the crossings. One ferry was operated by motor and the other by hand cable. We got to Fulton and found the tent. It was after dark and meeting was going on. Someone came out to greet us and show us in. After meeting they secured a place for us to stay. It was with a white family named Macey. The camp meeting was right on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee. The tent has section roped off for white people sit. They allowed us to sit right up front on a side seat facing the platform. They asked him to speak one night and they brought up Alta, Helen, and I to say a few words. They treated us just royally. One day at noon, they spread a little table under the edge of the big tent for us to eat dinner on. They had a nice hot dinner from the cook house or kitchen on the grounds. Just Jim, Alta, Helen, and I sat the stable and ate. Two colored girls waited on us and we sure had service. We stayed a total of three days. They had wonderful meanings and everyone knows, Lord, how they can sing! On the way home, we had to cross the two rivers again. One was called Green River and it was so deep that you could hardly see the water flow. The other River was called Pond River and that one hand cable ferry. The man that operated, didn't stay down there all the time. He had a post fixed up on the other side of the river from where he lived. He had a big bell and a rope hanging on the pole. You pulled the rope and rang the bell when he needed him. When we got to this river, the man wasn't there. Helen got out and ran beside the bank, where the bell was, and pulled the rope. The bell sounded and shortly the fellow came and took us across the river. After we got back to Owensboro, Jim said that he would take us to Lafayette to see some relatives there. I wrote my cousin and hold her we were coming. We got up bright and early and started off to Lafayette. We got to Terre Haute and stopped for breakfast. I thought I would eat a good breakfast and tide me through the day. I ordered eggs and fried potatoes. The potatoes were not good at all. They were just warmed over potatoes, and I was so disappointed that I will never forget it. It took us all day until 8:00 in the evening to get there. Some of the roads were just dirt but we traveled along at a good rate of speed. We crossed the Wabash River thirteen times, most the time there were old covered bridges. I guess the river must have been real crooked. They were looking for us when we arrived. My cousin, Aletha, fixed a nice supper and we had a refreshing time after our long days ride. Next day, Aletha phoned over to Frankfurt, about 25 miles away, and invited some of my cousins from that town to come and visit. These were all my mother's people. Two of these girls were mother's sister's daughters. One day, we went for a ride to some little towns and I remember them from when mother and I visited them during the Civil War. The next day Jim and Alta left for Owensboro, and Helen and I stayed one more night in Lafayette. The next morning we left for St. Louis, and then for home.