Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

58
ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
Aunt Julia Ann Kilgore lived here and took care of her parents
and her large family of children, for our mother gave her sis-
ter this home for taking care of their parents in their last days.
The house must have been well built, for when I saw it
after the lapse of more than fifty years, and when it had stood
for more than seventy years, it seemed to be still in a good
state of preservation. It stands just where our mother caused
it to be built. When I was there with Brother William in
1896 I could see the garden fence, the grapevines and fruit
trees; among the latter I thought that I recognized pear trees
from which I ate pears at Aunt Julia Ann 's when a child. Long
ago the large family of my mother's only sister scattered from
that little home. They went to Kansas after the War of the
Rebellion, and thus we have lost track of them. I think Aunt
Julia Ann died of bronchial consumption, and her death must
have occurred about 1874. Grandfather Keeler died in 1848,
and grandmother many years before of what people called in
those days "bihous colic;" in these it probably would be pronounced
appendicitis.
While mother was in Indiana and Ohio came that agitation
in religious circles which so influenced her life. Alexander
Campbell had come to the front with a still more advanced
idea than Barton W. Stone and the "Old Christian Order."
"The Bible and the Bible alone" and the "Unity of all Christians"
appealed to her as it was about the same time stirring
the mind and heart of the young man she was soon to meet,
Benjamin U. Watkins. The Trowbridges were soon identified
with the Campbell Reformation and were early advocates of
the movement. Our mother and her friend, Maria Trowbridge,
agreed on this advance and became members of the church
then called simply "Christian." The entire country was
ablaze with the new doctrine. There was much of discussion
concerning creeds, and debates were frequent and heated.
Alexander Campbell was a profound scholar and stood
high as a logician; indeed when a granddaughter of Sophronia
Keeler was in Glasgow a few years ago, a fellow-traveler of
hers, in looking over the old prize lists in the University of
Glasgow, found where this Campbell had one time received
the prize in Logic, and further in his record it told of his work