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Family Stories UNCLE
ARLEY'S STORY I was born on February 12th of that year on a farm which we always called the Angle Place. Since my father rented it, I suppose it was owned by the Angle family. It was located about one half mile west of the Vermillion river in Illinois at what was then known as Sandy Ford, as there was no bridge at that time. Sandy Ford is about ten miles northwest of Streator, Illinois. The nearest Doctor was in Grand Ridge which was a good ten miles Northeast of our place. When my approach was evident my father had to phone the Doctor and then go down to the river and wait for him to drive that far by horse and buggy. He would then row across the river and bring him back to our side and then take him in our rig to our place. I don't know who had the phone but suppose it was the Elliots who lived one mile West. The Grandson still does. When I was born the river was in a good mood but when Emma, my Sister, arrived it was very high and he met the Dr. at night. I have heard him say the river was 22 ft. higher at the time of her birth. He lost his hat and the lantern but apparently the Dr. arrived in time. Of course I don't remember any of the events of that year so can only record those things which I recall being told me by my parents or other relatives. My Mother's sister, Emma King, we always called her Auntie King and her husband Uncle Will, lived about 3 miles East of us on the same road on what was known as the Graham Place. He rented too, 310 acres. My folks said he was holding me on his lap during a thunder storm that Summer. Lightening hit the line somewhere near and came through the phone knocking me off his lap. No harm done. Another event was the building of the first bridge across the Vermillion river at Sandy Ford. My Grandfather Smalley was apparently visiting us at the time they finished the bridge. He hitched our horse to the buggy and taking my Mother, Sister, and I drove down to the bridge. As they laid the plank floor he followed it across. When it was complete he turned around and drove back. So we were the first to cross the new bridge which was a steel span. It has since been torn down and a concrete bridge built. Mr. Smalley was not my real Grandfather. A few years after my Grandmother, Emma Hayward left my Grandfather, Phillip Hayward, and came to Streator Phillip froze to death coming home from the mine one night in 1885. It was after this that Emma married Mr. Daniel Smalley, but we always called him Grandpa Smalley. They are both buried in the Riverview Cemetery in Streator on the same lot as my parents and Auntie & Uncle Will King. Emma was struck by a car and killed in 1913. Late that year my folks had a group picture of the four of us taken. They also had a single picture of me taken in my long embroidered baby dress. Apparently they had also had a picture taken of Emma when she was about the same age. These pictures were enlarged to about 18 x 20 inches and placed in fancy white frames. As long as my Mother lived these pictures stood in the parlor, each on its own white easel. I don't know what became of them. (Footnotes added in 1995, by Vera Cote' Tripodi) Uncle Arley's mother and father were Matilda and Nathan Morse. Matilda had been Matilda Hayward before her first marriage (to William Kenzy), and Aunty King had been Emma Hayward, before her first marriage (to George Shepard). The two ladies, Matilda and Emma, were sisters, daughters of Emma Elizabeth Ellaway Hayward. Aunty King, the younger sister, was obviously named after her mother, Emma Elizabeth Hayward, (who later married Dan Smalley). When Arley speaks of the Emma who was struck by a car and killed, he is referring to the mother of the sisters, Emma Smalley, Arley's grandmother. Then, to confuse things, there is Arley's sister, Emma Morse, Matilda's second daughter, the baby born when the river was high. (Matilda's older daughter was Tena Smalley, who was to take (or was given) the last name of her beloved step-grandfather). The name "Emma" has followed the family here in Illinois through two more generations that I know of. Besides that, Matilda and Emma, the two girls mentioned above, had a brother, Alfred, who married a lady named Emma Jane, and among their ten children was a daughter named Emma. So Alfred had a mother, sister, and wife, and a daughter by that name! Alfred lived in Pennsylvania, and as far as I know, his descendants still do. Although Uncle Arley wrote the name "Angle" in the first paragraph, he meant "Angel". For the sake of authenticity, I am leaving it as he wrote it, but making the correction in these notes. It should be mentioned too, that although we had originally heard that his grandfather, Philip Hayward, had died on the way home from working in the mine, recent letters from Philip's descendants in Pennsylvania write that he was actually on his way home from buying groceries when he sat down by a pine stump and died in the bitter cold. In the last line of the first paragraph, the ten miles northwest of Streator mentioned, did not mean "as the crow flies". I think "5 miles north of Streator, then four miles west", would be more to the point, although if you were driving - and you surely would be - the distance does add up to almost ten miles, so he was right in a way. In the second paragraph, when Uncle Arley speaks of Grand Ridge being "a good ten miles" northeast of their place, it was probably more like eight, although I'd never know the difference if the roads didn't have numbers now, which they didn't years ago. Arley lived by East 1325 road, which runs north and south, and their house was actually on what is now North 18th road, which runs east and west. To go east to the north/south highway (which is East 17th road, or Route 23), would be four miles. Then they'd turn north and go on Route 23 to Grand Ridge, which is three miles further on. Grand Ridge is laid out along North 21st road, which runs east and west. On the first page, when Uncle Arley speaks of the new "concrete bridge", he means the floor of it is concrete; the new top is a steel span similar to the old one. The new concrete floor might be more durable, but it lacks the personality and a certain usefulness that the old plank floor possessed. It even had a voice of its own, and announced in advance the approach of any visitors to the King farm more than a mile away. It was really a lovely sound, a friendly rumble, and remains to this day, a pleasant memory for those of us fortunate enough to have heard it. (Although Uncle Arley used single spacing between the paragraphs of his hand-written story, I have taken the liberty of double-spacing to facilitate reading. Otherwise, the story remains as he wrote it). Sources and Acknowledgments 1. The many conversations I had with my mother, Tena Cote' and the resulting heaps of notes, on zillions of scraps of paper - stashed away in boxes, envelopes, and drawers. 2. Late-night conversations with my brother, Lloyd Lyon, which kept the telephone lines between Illinois and California buzzing till the wee hours. 3. Long talks with my cousin, Mildred King. In person, and by telephone. 4. Letters from a new-found cousin in Pennsylvania, Gene Kenney, who furnished me with details of the beginning, as I could furnish him with information on the later years of his - and my - great grandmother, Emma Elizabeth, and her descendants. 5. Articles - real treasures, actually - written by my uncle, Arley Morse, and sent to me by his sons. David and Keith also came up with their family dates; if they hadn't been so cooperative, I could never have completed the lists for that part of the family. 6. Date lists from cousins Kathleen Askew, Betty Scott, Betty's daughter, Ann Marie Ramoino, Geneva Hayes, Geneva's sister, Jean Ficht, and Mildred Meyer, and all the other cousins that they sent the lists on to, to be added to and verified. 7. The date list of my sister Irene's family. I don't have it yet, but my niece, Molly, promises she'll track down and send me all those dates that I never thought I'd ever forget - those of her six brothers. I knew all their birthdays once upon a time! 8. Mrs. Kaley, Emil Nieratha, and Mrs. Skawinski, the kind and friendly folks of Park Falls, Wisconsin, who were such a help to me on short notice, almost a quarter of a century ago. 9. Mary Jane Wilkinson, LaSalle County Clerk, and her staff, who must have cringed every time they opened yet another one of my requests for records. (Hang on, Mary Jane; I don't think I'm done yet!) 10. Corrie Marquette, of the Price County Title and Abstract Co, of Phillips, Wisconsin,, who recently went beyond the call of duty to obtain information and copies of maps and records for me. To say nothing of taking pictures to send to me of the old home-site near Park Falls, right under the nose of a very unfriendly dog! 11. I can't forget a non-family member, a friend, who is as much "family" as she is a neighbor. Without Connie Brandow to take me on my errands to get paper and other supplies, where would this project be? And Harriette, I haven't forgotten whose car Connie sometimes had to use for these errands, when her own wasn't up to par! Thanks to each and every one of you - I couldn't have done it without you! Now, some of you family members can take up the family torch and carry it forward; I am convinced that each one of you has something that you can add to these pages that will be of interest and usefulness to your own descendants in years to come. Besides, it's sort of therapeutic, in a way, writing down and remembering things as they were years ago. Maybe our future can benefit from remembering the past. And as time goes on, don't forget to keep the "date pages" up to date, as births, deaths, and marriages occur. I'm counting on you! Thanks again to everybody - I love each and every one of you! Sincerely, Thanks to Michele Tate who provided the above story Copyright 2005 Gerald Majumdar |
