CAMPBELLs, LUGGs, & BLACKWELLs of Nelson, PA

According to a letter written by my father, Sept. 23, 1899 I was born three days previous, Sept. 20th, 1899, on a Wednesday at 11 o'clock at night and I weighed 8 lbs 11 oz. I was born on the old home farm in Long Lake Township, Crow Wing County, Minnesota, about six miles from Brainerd.

After scrutinizing me for three days, my father had decided that my skin was fair and my eyes were blue. Perhaps he had the old rhyme mixed in his mind and credited Wednesday's child with fairness or perhaps he was one of gentlemen who really prefer blondes.

"Monday's child is fair of face
Tuesday's child is full of grace
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child works hard for a living
But the child that's born on the Sabbath day
Is happy and blithesome, loving and gay."

At any rate, I soon belied his words by absorbing so much of the tawniness that sun and exposure bestowed that I could scarcely be rated fair, and my eyes turned a fairly dark brown, rimmed by rather long brown lashes. They must have been the must have been the most attractive part of my face, for I do not recall anyone ever ever saying that I was a pretty child, but often, though they would look again at my eyes and make some remark about them. Those remarks ceased when I covered my eyes with spectacles at the age of

Our house was not beautiful. At the time of my birth, it needed new siding and painting and likely re-shingling. A picture I have of my mother and me, taken when I was a year or less, shows the weather beaten old house with a rough board shed built onto the west. That old shed had a great fascination for me as a child. Boxes of old clothes afforded me costumes to dress up in. Hazelnuts and butternuts were kept in cans out there and I could help myself and as long as the supply lasted. The Old magazines accumulated there and contained much to interest me. Many of my most treasured paper dolls came from their pages. Old copies of the "Youth's Companion" were read and reread. I was truly sorry when the homely old shed was torn down, to be supplanted by a "west bedroom."

I suppose it was a bit of the regret that I felt with its passing that made me put it into a little poem which I wrote when I studied composition under Roger Sergel, in Moorehead State Teachers College in 1922. Here's the poem:

"There's a black cloud in the west,
Big drops begin to fall,
The wind has whipped a board
From off our shed.
The hens go by with huddled wings.
Grandma looks anxious,
But Grandpa, reassured, looks overhead,
"Just a mere squall, the clouds are partin',
Shet that south winder," was all he said.

The picture of mother and me shows the rain barrels in the corner. We always had them with long boards which had to be arranged just so, at every shower, to catch the drip from the eves, for we never had eave spouts.

In rainy seasons we could be more lavish with the precious "soft water" for "washing up" in the morning. This was a luxury, for our well water was very hard, and soap would curdle it and cause our skins to feel gummy. It also aggravated a grimy ring on the wash basin, which became my job to scour off.

When there was plenty of soft water in the barrels, one would go out with the big gray enameled dipper and dip it up, full slightly yellow water, maybe from the roof shingles or from the barrels, I don't know. I remember it as having a yellowish cast, and with a soft water smell. That was one of the smells I liked and cherish. The lake water smelled similarly. with the addition of the smell of rushes. So did the cistern water which we had down at the "shop" in the cistern. The water in the barrels often had wrigglers in it. Little patches of gray mosquito eggs appeared on the water, from time to time and no one thought to watch and destroy them before the wrigglers hatched--to soon become mosquitoes.

Once I attempted to teach some kittens to swim in the rain barrels and I received a lecture from my father who forbad my ever trying that again. A few years later, I was truly horrified when an orphan boy who lived with us for awhile, tried the same stunt in the lake. He had taken my baby niece along for an audience. She could not have been more than about three years of age. They had gone out in the boat and he had thrown the kittens into the water, from the boat. When the frightened creatures would try to reach the boat and scramble in, Walter would push them back with the oar. Whether Irma cried and attracted my father or what, I don't know, but he appeared on the scene, and doubtless, Walter got the same lecture I had gotten.

The old picture of mother and me shows a grape basket hanging near the eaves at the back door. I can't say "on the porch" for we never gave the back entrance so fancy a name. It was the "stoop" and "stoop" it remained for many years. No one needs to tell me what was in that basket. I'm positive it was clothes pins, for she kept it hanging on the stoop where she would grab it on the way to or from the clothes line.

The "stoop" was nothing of beauty, but it boasted one thing of which my mother was proud. The little steps at the end were made by my brother Edd and my mother thought he showed much skill for a boy. I doubt if the steps which show in my picture are the ones that Edd made, for my memory tells me they were likes stair steps which these in the picture are more like a slanting ladder with steps instead of rungs.

We children lost a few treasures in the cracks between the floor boards of the old stoop. Marbles rolled through and evaded our reach. When the stoop was torn up and a small back porch was built in its place, I remember watching eagerly to see if I could spot any of our lost treasures, but I do not recall finding anything.

Knot grass covered the back yard, except where the wash water had been thrown and where the paths were made.

Our house had only four rooms until we built on the west bedroom. The kitchen was the most used room. Everyone came to its door. Family and company alike ate around the large table. Many a time I hurried across the field, coming home from school with a hungry eagerness to see what mother had been baking. "Riz biscuits," best of all, when flavored with cinnamon and sugar. They were the chief delight. Hot, covered with sweet fresh homemade butter. I can't tell you how good they tasted! I've often tried to make biscuits like them, but they never seem the same. Maybe the butter helped make a difference. Mom won the prize year after year at the county fair with her butter--butter that always took first place no matter how much competition she had.

Mother and her mother before her were the greatest cooks in the world! No cooking school turns out better ones. Never will I forget the family occasions when we gathered at Grandmother's to enjoy such a variety and quality of food as would put any expensive meal I ever ate in a hotel to shame.

There was a pantry off our kitchen. Sometimes we called it a "buttery." (I think Grandma Bixby always did.) There the food was kept and on the highest shelves the best dishes were stored, also, on one shelf the medicines for man and beast were kept.

The cookie jar was a large stone crock which was always within easy reach and never hidden. We children were never refused cookies for lunch, as long as they lasted. Neighbor children, too, knew how good mother's molasses cookies were. Nor were those cookies the dainty, tea table variety. They were big, round, thick, cookies, worthy of the name, sometimes iced with a boiled white icing, made by beating hot syrup into the beaten whites of eggs.

Mother's recipe for the cookies called for:

1 C. sugar	1 C lard (creamed together)
1 C molasses	1 C sour milk
2 tsp. salt	4 eggs beaten
Plus sufficient flour.
If the cookies were to be frosted, six eggs were used and the whites of three were saved for the frosting.
Frosting
1 1/2 C sugar with sufficient water was boiled until it made a stiff syrup. Then it was taken from the stove and folded into the well beaten egg whites.

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Many of those cookies topped the lunch we carried in our buckets to school, and sometimes Mother tucked in an extra one for us to give to the best chum, or to "swap" for a bit of Swedish or Norwegian cookery.

About half of our community were Scandinavians: Swedish, Norwegian or Danish. My father called them all "Swedes" and despised their foreign ways. It irked him to hear them exchange their "j's" for "y's" and he blamed them for all the lack of progress our community might suffer. Local politics made semi-feuds of every school meeting when one faction, led by my father, voted for "nine months of school and higher taxes," while the others thriftily considered the value of a little extra help at planting and harvesting time, so voted stubbornly for eight months and a lower school tax.

Dad had some boon companions, among the Danes particularly, however. "Sam Hansen" and Dad would meet on the street corner every week in Brainerd and talk for hours until both families would wonder if they were ever coming home. They did not go into saloons or pool halls. They simply met, perhaps at O'Briens Grocery, and talked offer the township, state and nation. It never occurred to them to visit one another when in the country. "Going to town" seemed to provide the opportunity and an excuse to loaf. Saturday was usually was farmers' day in town. Horses were tied to hitching posts or, if the weather was bad and the stay long, "put up" in Purdy's Livery Stable. I believe it was Purdy's. At least I know it was Mr. Purdy who admired our matched team of grays and would willingly have bought them for his livery.

My earliest memory is of the time when Aunt Minnie and Uncle George Hepperly came to visit us. I remember the day. Aunt Minnie took my picture with her big plate camera. Water lilies and other wildflowers made a background and I was posed in various ways.

I took smallpox while they were there, as did Uncle George, and, when convalescing days might have dragged tediously, they were shortened and made more pleasant for me by Uncle George cuddling me in the old hammock out under the pines. There, somewhat shunned by others, we comforted and amused one another. I was about 1 1/2 years old, but I do have a few vivid recollections of some things, which though trivial, perhaps, for some reason impressed me and so have loomed large in my memory. I remember crying the day Aunt Minnie and Uncle George left us to go back to their home in Salt Lake City.

I remember the day I was vaccinated a few. months later, and it didn't "take" for I had had smallpox. I remember the doctor pinched my toe and remarked about my button shoes which had red stitching for trimming.

I think I have one recollection, which antedates these, but I hesitate to tell it for my brothers would always whoop in scornful glee of my insistence that I do remember when I used the teacher's combination hot water bottle and enema bag for a sled and came dragging it out into the living room to the consternation of everyone present. Also the quick, but horrified action of my mother, who bundled me back into the bedroom "in a hurry." I think the teacher was Lydia Neighnabour (or Neighnaubor) (Carrie wrote this for my information) as we called her. I can't spell her name.

Mother made for me a beautiful little soft, bright, red cashmere dress when I was three. It had a lace yoke edged with gold braid and it had a big soft red satin sash. I wore it to Grandma Bixby's one day and stood too close to the big round heater. The pungent smell of scorched wool made someone whirl me around, but not soon enough to save my dress which was burned all across the back of the skirt. That dress is the one I wore when our family group picture was made. How I delayed things that day by not keeping my hand on father's knee, as was posed! The photographer would no sooner get under his black cape than down would come my hand. Harry had to stand on a box to be seen properly, but he stood very straight and obedient, with his shiny celluloid collar and knee pants. The photographer finally gave up and let me rest my hand on Mamma's knee, where it was more at home anyway.

Father was always kind to me, but I never felt at ease with him when I was a little child. He liked to tease and was unpredictable. He thought it was good fun to rub his scratchy chin whiskers against my face and I hated it so, I avoided him. What a lot of fun and companionship we missed because I endeavored to keep a safe distance from him. He was a great reader and I soon learned that he did not like to be bothered when he read. I never really got acquainted with my father until my senior year in high school when he was in Montana with my brother Edd. That year and the ones following while he was on the claim, I cherished for the correspondence we carried on. experience.

Those letters revealed my father to me in ways which were a precious

There is one childhood remembrance of Dad, which I'd like to relate. The Christmas I turned was four, Santa Claus came to our house in a "big way." Papa (that's what he liked me to call him)mp took me in the kitchen Christmas Eve and turned down the lamp. Then he and I sat in the corner and he held me there in his arms while telling me to be just as quiet as I could be, so Santa wouldn't hear me. It wasn't long before we heard bells, sleigh bells, coming on the road! Nearer they came and louder, and soon we heard noises on the roof, that to my childish ears were nothing else than the traditional pawing of reindeer's hoofs. Voices in the living room were interpreted to me by my father to be Santa Claus and Mamma in conversation. In a little while, the bell went down the road again and Mamma opened the door between the kitchen and living room and said we could come in --that Santa had been there and was gone.

We went in and there was the most beautiful tree we ever had. But at first. I hardly saw the tree, for there on one of the lower branches, with outstretched arms toward me was Julia, beautiful Julia, with rer thick brown curls of real hair and eyes that would go to sleep. Julia, in a brown wool suspender dress, a white blouse, full petticoat wnceith embroidered flounce, under pants that buttoned around the waist, as did the petticoat, just like a real lady's, trimmed with rows of fine tucking on each leg. Also, an under-shirt or vest that buttoned down the back. Her clothes were as carefully made, and as stylish, as one could wish. Julia also had a beautiful wool cap or "tam o'shanter" crocheted of red woolen yarn. On the back of her neck was the name "Floradora", which I couldn't ignore, so I gave that to her as a second name, but Julia was her first name, after a city girl I admired; Julia Wilson, my idol, the daughter of the County Superintendent of Schools for Crow Wing County. I kept Julia carefully until I was past 40, then I had mother's switch made into a wig for her and gave her to Donna Mae. Later, I got her back again to keep. At present, Julia is with the Museum in Port Townsend.

Grandmother Hughey died Jan. 29, 1904. I remember the night. Mother held me in her arms and I   looked down at poor Grandma as her breathing became more difficult. Someone from time to time would moisten her lips. Grandma had been an invalid for about four years having had a stroke.

My earliest recollection is of Grandmother sitting in an old fashioned high backed rocking chair, her white hair parted in the middle and drawn smoothly back to a "bun" in the back. I remember sharing apples with her.

In season, we were never without a barrel of apples in the cellar. Relatives in Pennsylvania would ship them to father. Carefully packed, choice apples with raisins and nuts placed carefully in the center of the barrel. After years, when the relatives had moved to town or died and no longer sent the barrels, we would buy a barrel of apples and store it away in the cellar. Hardly a winter evening  passed without Dad going "down cellar" to get a bowl of apples, which we ate while we were gathered around the old round oak heater . Perhaps Dad or Mother would read aloud. Many an interesting book was shared that way.

Jack London, Eleanor Porter, Gene Stratton Porter and Harold Bell Wright were popular novelists of those days and we enjoyed any of their production that we could get. "The Call of the Wild," "The Sea Wolf" and " The Winning of Barbara Worth" were Dad's favorites. The last named book fired Dad's enthusiasm for California--the land where he longed to live.

After the great San Francisco earthquake [1906], Dad went to California and worked on R.R. Bixby's carpenter crew. R.R. Bixby (Russell Rock Bixby) was mother's first cousin and was married to that wonderful woman, Annis, whom we children never met, but she was definitely our favorite relative. After dad had worked in California for about a year, living with Rock and Annis at 2447 Webster St., Berkeley, California, Mother went out for a visit and to join him on the return trip to Minnesota. We never tired of hearing Mother tell about that trip. I am sure Annis exerted a wonderful influence on Mother, for she was always quoting her and in ways which showed she had grown and expanded in her companionship.

To go back to our family reading circle--we never failed to identify ourselves with the characters so that every sad scene brought on a shower of weeping. "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come" was almost more than Dad or Harry could stand as they blew their noses and wiped their eyes.

Harry and I "fell in" with the current juvenile vice of reading Alger books and exchanged gifts of them. For a time, we had a complete understanding that we would buy each other nothing but them, so we accumulated quite a library. We cared not that our choice of reading lacked literary merit. We dreamed of the day when we might strike riches or gain fame. Thinking back on them, they seem mild compared to Dick Tracy. (I wish I had kept a few.)

How fortunate we children were in many ways. Our farm of 140 acres had so many interesting and beautiful spots. Around the house was the grove of white pines--towering at least 60 ft. high--of which we were so proud. They were a landmark! Grandfather Hughey -- had planted two rows of spruce trees on either side of the walk or road in he front yard. They too, were beautiful.

Both pines and spruce yielded me an adequate supply of gum. I could nearly always find a piece of pitch or resin which had hardened enough to be good gum.

Birds galore nested in our yard. The pines were the special haven of the purple grackles. Mother and Dad knew the birds and flowers, so we children grew up knowing and loving the beauties of nature.

Besides the pines and the spruces. there were a red oak, a white oak, a basswood, a mountain ash, a box elder (Harry got the crooked little sapling from Rhodes, I believe, and by carefully tying it to stakes induced it to grow straight,) a Norway pine by the windmill, a red maple by the shop, several crab apple trees and one "big apple" tree. The "big apple" had big green apples, good for cooking. Down by the chicken coup was a plum orchard, with several varieties of plums. Below the chicken coup were several butternut trees that grandfather had planted.

We had a lake--on the map it was named "Russell Lake" after the man who had homesteaded our farm and from whom Dad had bought the farm. More than half the shore line, I would say, was ours. At one end was the John Peterson place. Across the lake were the Lang brothers, Walter and Elmer--two old Danish brothers who never married. Land of other owners touched the east shore. beautiful white birches, wild cherries, both red and choke, and a mixture of oak were on the side of our shore. The red cherries called "pin cherries" were large and tasty and made delicious jelly.

A small tamarack swamp with its special treasures was at the west end of our shore line. A few wild blueberries could be found there and I counted them as my special find in season.

Back of the barn, extending to our west line, was a wooded lot, liked a park. The sheep which Dad had pastured there had cleared out the underbrush. Graceful poplars, oaks, and a few other trees grew there and along the fence were luscious wild blackberries.

Between our buildings and the road which marked our north boundary were fields and meadows. A wild meadow occupied quite a piece, next to the road. Bob o'links loved to haunt this spot and red winged blackbirds. Quite often a bittern would take his stand there, probably to watch for one of the green frogs who lived there in abundance. Where the tame meadow came to join the wild one, bear berries and wild strawberries grew.

What a joy it was to go berrying there with Mother. There was always a strawberry shortcake with plenty of cream at the next meal and no shortcake ever tastes as good today.

Mother made two kinds, one like baking powder biscuit dough, slightly sweetened, the other a richer, sweeter dough, almost like cake. We liked either, but perhaps the biscuit variety had the greater favor.

How the good things on Mother's table come back to us, haunting our taste glands 'till we nearly want to turn time back again. No one makes "Minute Pudding" anymore--a smooth blanc mange made with flour and little or no sweetening. Sugar was sprinkled on or put in the cream with nutmeg. Pity the pour souls who never sat down to a supper of milk toast - a heaping platter of it, covered with thickened, sweetened milk, or bowls of golden cornmeal mush, sprinkled with sugar and covered with rich country cream.

When autumn crept in with chilly fingers, Mother would bannish the chill with a big crock of home baked beans and her famous "steamed Boston Brown Bread" - recipe she loved to chant and she remembered when other memories failed. It went like this:

3 C cornmeal	2/3 C molasses
1 C flour	1 tsp. salt
1 C sweet milk	1 tsp. soda
1 sour
Steam for 3 hours