Beacon July 2023

Page 10A THE BEACON July 2023
The following excerpt is
from a book written in 1930
by a lifetime resident of Ripley
County, Yorkville, and Manchester.
The BEACON is honored
to share another chapter
of the book each month thanks
to Mary Randell’s descendants.
Previous chapters are
available online starting with
the August 2022 print edition
at goBEACONnews.com/
print_edition.
By Mary M. Greiner Randell
Chapter XII- Part 1 of 2
At the first place where I
worked, I was left alone many
times. The rats were so thick
Author
Mary Randell
there that
when the
two-year-old
child went
out of the
house with a
piece of
bread they
would try to
crawl up her
dress.
Children’s clothes were long
in those days. Then she would
holler and we would go to her.
Here is where I had to settle
down and learn to sew. A lady
that had come from Germany
into the backwoods with
her husband taught me hand
sewing. My mother went to
see her and made the arrangements.
Then she came home
and told me, “You will have
to make your next dress.”
It was just before I was ten
years old. I took my dinner
and started out. The teacher
was very good to me. She
asked me if I knew anything
about sewing and when I told
her not, she said she was glad
of that, (because she would
not have any bad habits -editor’s
notes by DWJ.) I learned
very fast. I got up very early
and walked three miles to take
my lessons. First she taught
me to sew, then to cut out
patterns. In four weeks I had
made a dress for myself. My
lessons were 50 cents a week.
When I had gone six weeks I
began to sew at home.
At this first place I worked I
used to have to gather dandelions
for dinner. The family
had a sawmill and four men
were hired to work in the
woods getting out some logs
to be sawed into lumber. Well,
this man bought me a revolver
and laid it by my plate when
we were all around the table
eating dinner and said, “This
is yours to protect yourself.
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Now you practice on rats
and the first fellow that says
anything to you to harm you,
point your gun towards his
head and kill him because
I can’t always be here and
sometimes Mary and Baby go
with me.”
I didn’t have the gun very
long until one day I was down
the valley gathering dandelions
and a man hollered at me
to come up there to the fence.
This was a man from Cincinnati
that was working for a
farmer. He was on the other
side of the fence. I yelled
back at him that I wasn’t
coming up there, and he had
better not come down where
I was. I went to the house and
got my gun and put it in my
pocket and went back to get
the rest of my dandelions. But
he didn’t come down where
I was. Mr. Bowers (the man
that got the gun for me) told
me to watch him; he said he
was “no good.” No doubt the
boys told him that I carried a
gun. I was only about twelve
years old.
Another time at this same
place, the folks were all gone,
work hand and all. He hired a
fifth man to help get out some
logs because the boss had to
haul some lumber that they
had on hand to Batesville.
The man who had had that job
was sick from worry. Once it
had been very warm, in July,
and when he drove through
Laughery Creek he had let
both horses drink. First thing
he knew they were too warm
and one fell over and died.
That worried him so that he
had to go home until he got
over his fright.
This fifth man was no good.
He didn’t live near there so he
couldn’t go home as the rest
of the boys, so one Sunday
when they were all gone he
came home drunk. I heard
him yell before he got to the
house. When he got to the
sawmill he began to pound
the outside of the mill weather
board; then when he got to the
door he began to pound on the
door. I had the door locked so
he went to the window and
began to pound on the window
sill. So I stepped over to
the window and pointed the
gun at him and told him that if
he broke the window I would
shoot him. I told him to go out
to the barn and sober up. So
he went to the barn and I suppose
he went to sleep hungry.
When Mr. Bowers’ folks
came home I told them how
he had acted and Mr. Bowers
said, “He won’t worry you
again.” On Monday he got
his “walking papers” and we
never heard from him anymore.
One time I was working for
two families when the house
caught fire. They discovered
it when they opened the stair
door to take some washing
upstairs. They dropped the
basket of clothes and ran out
of doors to their men. They
left one baby in the crib and
one on the floor. I took the
two out of doors and ran into
the kitchen and grabbed two
buckets of water. I ran up a
few steps and threw it toward
the chimney. By throwing on
two more I got the fire out.
It was lucky that there was
water in the house. So, when
the women came with their
men they picked up their
babies. The men said that I
was brave, but that the women
were cowards.
This was the place where
they had their mother living
in a log cabin with only one
room. In one corner she had
her bed and in another corner
she had a stove; in another
corner she had her wood,
and in the last corner was her
trunk. In the middle of the
floor, a ground floor, there was
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a table. There was a stream
between her house and their
house, and when it rained she
couldn’t cross it. They were
not very good to her; she had
very little to live on. They
would hitch up two horses to
a big wagon and both families
would go away early in the
evening to a dance. The men
they had working for them
would go along. This was
another sawmill outfit. But
they did farming too. They
used to go to dances and card
games and not get home until
morning. So before I went to
do their chores, feed two ox
teams, milk four cows, and
feed ten hogs, I hung a little
white cloth on a pole. She
knew what that meant, so she
would always come over and
I would cook supper for us.
I would cook coffee and fry
eggs and have cookies and
bread and butter and I would
open a can of peaches for her.
When she went home I would
give her some cookies and
give her corn for her chickens.
She only had six chickens. I
stayed all alone in a six-room
house.
After this I went to Greensburg
to work for a family by
the name of Cover. He had a
store. One day I got a letter,
that those men who didn’t
provide for their mother when
they had plenty, one had
fallen off a wagon and broken
his back and the other fell off
in front of the wheel and had
his leg cut off above the knee.
So, all who read this book, be
kind to your mothers and fathers
for you will surely reap
what you sow.
Another place where I
worked was with a private
family who had three children.
I was to plant corn and help do
the housework. The lady of the
house was not very strong. The
lady had to go away to take
care of her sister who was sick.
She was gone three weeks
and I had the children to take
care of and the cooking to do.
We had potatoes and cottage
cheese and fried ham or bacon
to eat, milk to drink and butter
to put on our bread – three
times a day for three weeks.
I had to do the washing for
the children and myself. The
man did the churning and
tended to the milking. When I
didn’t do housework I worked
in the garden and took care of
the children, planted corn in
the field and herded the cows
away from the crops, when
the pasture got short. This
man would go to the field as
soon as it was light enough to
see and work with a team until
seven. Then he would come
home with his horses and feed
them and we would all eat
together. Then he would milk
the cows. He would go out
again in the evening before he
went to bed and fill the horses’
mangers full of hay. You can
see that his horses were fed
before he got up and could eat
while he was currying them
and harnessing them.
We could sleep until six
o’clock in the morning. When
the mother was home she
would fix breakfast and I
would wash the children and
dress them. Her mother baked
our bread. At this time I was
twelve years old.
Please read the next issue of
The BEACON for the continuation
of Chapter XII of The
Story of My Life.
Next
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