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Re: Zula, Eldon, Edith, Earl - IA, SD
Posted by: Linda Martin Date: January 01, 2001 at 21:57:45
In Reply to: Re: Zula, Eldon, Edith, Earl - IA, SD by Karen (Kepford) Batchelder of 81

Long reading, but thought you might be interested:
Interview with Lizzie Lockwood
{Begin handwritten}

FORM A Circumstances of Interview

NAME OF WORKER Edna B Pearson ADDRESS 108 E 18 So Sioux

DATE November 11, 1938 SUBJECT Interview No. 20

1. Name and address of informant Lizzie Lockwood 716 B Street So Sioux

2. Date and time of interview November 11, 1 P M

3. Place of interview 716 B. Street, South Sioux

4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant no one

no one

6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Miss Lockwood lives in a nice little 1 1/2 story house, rented, owned by a loan company; consequently newly painted and papered. Her living room has an organ and is litterally covered with framed and unframed mottoes and religious pictures and verses of scripture.

Name of Worker Edna B Pearson ADDRESS 108 E 18 So Sioux

DATE November 11, 1938 SUBJECT Interview No. 20

NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT Miss Lizzie Lockwood, 716 B St. So Sioux
1. Ancestry William Lockwood Della Wright Lockwood

2. Place and date of birth Waukon, Iowa 1865

3. Family Miss Lockwood never married; had twelve brothers and sisters

4. Place lived in, with dates Iowa from birth until 1870; Dixon County, Nebraska from 1870 until 1913; Dakota County, Nebraska from 1913 until present.

5. Education, with dates Not above Eighth Grade

6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates; taught school from the time she was 17, and taught for 17 years; since {Begin deleted text}comingt{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}coming{End inserted text} to South Sioux City very active in church and religious work

7. Special skills and interests: is a wonderful woman with children

8. Community and religious activities; Seventh Day Adventists; until the last year or so she has had classes of children meet at her home and would teach them verses out of the bible and teach them to make useful articles out of every-day things around the house; has been a wonderful friend to the poor and needy

9. Description of informant: is rather a tall woman, and is somewhat fleshier that usual; blue eyes, and brown hair with very little, if any, gray; reads part of the time without glasses
10. Other points gained in interview: Her only concern is for others

{Begin body of document}
My parents came with an ox team across this river 68 years ago the 9th of last June; we had four teams of oxen and a covered wagon and had two other wagons; we crossed the river on a ferry boat with all our stock, cows, chickens and household goods. We lived in a dugout with no floor until the following year. We came from Waukon, Iowa. It took us three weeks and three days to come. We stopped one day each week to do our washing and to bake.

A Catholic family moved into the neighborhood. They had white pillow shams and bed spreads. Over one window was a motto "Honor thy father and thy mother" and over another "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Mother used to send me to her house on errands. I thought the mottoes were so nice and wanted some so bad. I started working out before I was thirteen years old and spent my money fixing up the house. I got my mother the first window shades she ever had, and sewed rags and made the first rag carpet we ever had.

I never went to school until I was 10 years old, then I taught the same school where I went to school, for seven years. The first school near Allen, Dixon County, was held in a granary; a sister of mine taught there six weeks; I learned my letters on the stove; taught when I was seventeen, and taught for seventeen years, and never went above the Eighth grade; my brothers went to school to me after they were 21. There were only four families who had children in school in a private house where I went to school. I didn't see a blackboard until one or two years before I started to teach. Mothers wouldn't think of sending their children to school without a slate rag any more than they would now without a handkerchief.

I remember when I was little there was only one lead pencil in the neighborhood and the neighbors used to borrow it back and forth. When a child was sent to the neighbor for the pencil they were cautioned to be sure and not fall and break the lead off the pencil. The pencil was always wrapped in paper and very carefully guarded.

The first school at Harmony Hill, near Allen, Dixon County, about one and one-half miles from my home, was built in about 1878. It was a sod school house and had windows that slid from side to side.

I taught there at the time of the blizzard of 1888, and stayed in the school house all night with seven of my pupils. My father had always told us that in case of a blizzard never to go out of the house looking for anyone else. The blizzard started in Dixon County about 1:15 in the afternoon. It got so dark we had to put our penmanship away as we couldn't see. My father sent my oldest brother, Martin (Better known as Pat) after us. He wandered about until 7 in the evening and finally came to Will Benedict's house; he had passed right near the school house several times and didn't know it as he couldn't see on account of the blizzard. He had two horses and my sister was to ride one of them and I was to ride the other. He had a [nubia?] around his face but it was so cold that his face froze and all the skin came off. We were about out of fuel and all we had to eat was what remained from our noon lunch, which wasn't very much. We kept our coats and overshoes on all night; had no light except by keeping the door of the stove open; I read to the children and we played games. We weren't worried until my father came in the morning and wanted to know where Pat was. Father brought a big pail full of biscuits and molasses. Mr. Benedict got to the school house around noon and told us that Pat was at his house. The parents came after their children in sleighs.

Our school always had the name of having the best programs in Dixon County; we had a program every Friday afternoon. I used to wade in snow up to my knees going to school, and had to make my own fires. The big boys wouldn't disgrace themselves by going to school when they could work.

The first school I taught was twenty miles from home. I rode a horse home every Friday night and back every Sunday night to school. I worked for my board; boarded five miles from school and rode the horse back and forth; people used to watch for me to go past their houses Sunday afternoons as there weren't many people going past; there were no roads like we have now; just sort of trails.

When I was a girl we couldn't keep house without a scouring brick. We had a soft brick and would hold our knives and forks and spoons on the brick and scour them until we had deep grooves in the brick; we didn't have scouring powder then as we do now; we couldn't keep house those days without a scouring brick any more than we can now without a dust pan.

One time I started Easter Sunday morning milking seven cows and milked them night and morning until New Years day, and only missed once.

Came to Dakota County in 1913.

It used to take three days to come from Allen to Sioux City by ox team with our eggs and butter. Jackson wasn't built when we came here; there was a small store at Franklin, about four or five miles from Jackson; we used to stop at Franklin when we went to Sioux City to do our trading. Tom and Jerry were the names of one of our teams of oxen. Father was always very proud of his stock and always had good looking stock and good driving horses.

One time one of our neighbors took two loads of wheat to Sioux City by ox teams; it took him three days to make the trip; with what money he got for the wheat he bought his wife a pair of shoes and a sack of flour and had a dollar left.

We always killed and dressed our own hogs; one time father killed sixteen hogs. If we would be out of meat we counted the days until he would butcher again; the liver was always the first part of the hog that we cooked.

We used to get one pair of shoes a year, in the fall, and they had to last us a year. We would go to school barefooted and dampen a rag and wash our feet a little and put our shoes on before we got to school. After school, as soon as we started home we would take our shoes off and go home barefooted. We were always heartbroken if we tore a new dress.

School teachers were chosen for their economy. The teacher and children would cut off big weeds and sunflower stocks, break them in certain lengths and cord them up to be used for fuel.

If a girl hadn't started to piece a quilt by the time she was eight or ten years old we just didn't have anything to do with her.

My father would buy up old horses and would doctor them up and sell them; you couldn't hire him to drive a poor looking horse.

I used to make my brothers' and sisters' stockings; never had seen any stockings from a store until I was about twelve years old; Never saw a loaf of baker's bread until I taught school. We made our own soft soap; would take wood ashes and boil them and strain them through a cloth; then boil that with tallow to make soap. We used to have to carry the water the night before we wanted to wash; had to cleanse the water with wood ashes before we could use it to wash clothes.

We couldn't run to the store and buy something for a quick meal if company came; but we would bake twelve mince pies at once; always had hominy on hand; and would bake a big kettle of beans and put them and the pies in the attic where they would freeze and keep; we would have to chop the beans out of the kettle and bring some of them down stairs and heat them; and we always had our own meat.

My mother had the first organ in Dixon County; mother and father would take our organ in the wagon and go and play for dances; I was the oldest of thirteen children and had to stay at home with the rest of the children. Everybody worked hard but my folks were never too tired to sing when people came in; we used to pop corn and pull taffy almost once a week.

Of course, those days there were no elderly folks out here. Finally the mother of one of our neighbors came out; she was quite elderly, about seventy, and I used to look at her and hope I would never get as old as she was.

The grasshoppers used to come in clouds; my father always wore shirts made out of ladies' cloth, which mother made for him, and he was always careful of them because they were so nice. One day mother had washed; it began to get dark and father came running in from the field and told mother to take in his shirts as the grasshoppers were coming, and they would eat holes in his shirts.
We were hard up in those days; couldn't borrow much money and couldn't buy on the installment plan like they do now.

Before we came the Indians had been bad, but we were always anxious to see them as they went by our place about twice a year visiting other tribes. We could hardly wait until they came through. If one would get into the house they would all come in or as many would come in as could get in, but if they knew they couldn't get in they would go through and wouldn't bother us. They would camp about a quarter of a mile from our place and would trade with my father. Father would tell us if we were real good and worked hard he would take us to see the Indians.

Once, when I was about eight or nine years old, father and mother were getting ready to go away. They wanted to go and get back before the Indians came, as they expected they would be going through in another week or so, and they wanted to be at home when they came through. They hadn't been gone very long when the Indians came through; I ran and shut and locked the doors and we children hid between some hay stacks; when they found they couldn't get in the house they went on by. We never were really afraid of them.

The reason my father took a homestead in the timber instead of going out on the Logan, was that he wanted to get where there would be plenty of fuel.

We would cut wheat with a cradle; would cut corn and shock it and husk it afterwards.
Some of my mottoes that I teach, or have taught, the children are:

"He is a coward who never turns back,
When first he discovers he is on the wrong track."
{End handwritten}


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