Beacon Oct 2023

Page 12A THE BEACON October 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 XIV
My husband had bought a
place before we were married.
My folks bought a cow
and calf and fifteen bushels
of wheat, and lumber to fix a
room upstairs, as a wedding
present. My father told me
that he had spent all his
Author
Mary Randell
money when
he was
young, and
that, if I
would save
my money,
he would
take care of
it for me. So
I had saved
my money,
THE STORY OF MY LIFE
Life on the Farm
from nine years old, and sent
it home. When I was married
I had four hundred dollars
saved up. My father gave it to
me, but we had such a big
debt on the farm, that instead
of buying nice furniture, we
paid this money on the place.
In those days, money that was
borrowed cost eight to ten
cents on the dollar.
I bought geese and dressed
them and went to market
with Grandpa Randell and
sold them. I could buy them
for sixty cents and sell them
on the market for one dollar,
and the feathers for seventyfive
cents a pound. With the
money I made I bought some
furniture. My mother gave us
a bed, when I was married,
and a lot of nice clean carpet
rags. I cut these into strips and
sewed them together making
carpet balls which I took to
the weaver to have a carpet
made. Then I sewed some
more that my mother-in-law
gave me and sold them for
eight cents a pound. With
this money I bought more
furniture. I got only one piece
at a time and we went to the
factory for it. In those days
nobody bought second hand
furniture. Everybody kept
what he had.
My husband’s parents took
the two front rooms at our
house. They had a stairway
built so they could have the
front room upstairs. That was
the best part of the house. I
had one large room and two
small ones. When I wanted
to go into the bedroom, I had
to go through two doors. The
first room had a little transom
above the door. The bedroom
had a big window and it was
so small that the bed just fit
between the two walls, so I
could barely move it out to
sweep back of it. One day,
when my husband and his
mother went to a Democratic
rally at Lawrenceburg, I had
a carpenter take out a partition
that had a big door in it.
Then I had a plasterer come
and plaster the ceiling and the
wall, where the partition was
half-way down. The other
half on each side I plastered
myself. The plasterers were
gone when the folks came
back from the rally. They
weren’t in a very good humor
about it, but it was no use
because I had another doorway
out.
When the boys all left home
I had the room where they
slept for my kitchen and had a
door put between the kitchen
and the bedroom. Otherwise I
would have had to go through
the big room to get to the
bedroom.
Our house was poorly arranged.
There was no chimney
outside the kitchen and
the big room, and we had to
cut an opening in the wall
and run a stovepipe through
the upstairs to the chimney.
By cutting the wall between
the kitchen and bedroom for
a door, I could leave the door
open and watch the children
while I was cooking breakfast.
So, when my husband’s
father and mother died I had
another door put between
my bedroom and her kitchen
and made a spare bedroom
out of it. Then I had a parlor
room and a dining room and
a bedroom upstairs and one
downstairs. There was also
a spare room downstairs and
a big kitchen. I never have
seen such a foolishly built
house before my marriage
nor since.
The year after I was married
I raised geese and ducks
and chickens and milked
cows and worked in the
field and garden. One year I
drilled in eighteen acres of
corn and did my housework
by night, baked bread when
the rest were asleep, canned
cherries all night and sometimes
didn’t go to bed until
the next night. When I had
little children I used to put a
cover on the ground and put
them on it and dig potatoes
or shuck corn for the hogs
that we were fattening. At
threshing time Pa would sow
his wheat by moonlight and
the next day I would hitch up
two horses to a harrow and
put two children in the box
on the harrow as a cushion
and harrow the wheat that
had been sown the night
before. In those days they
didn’t thresh out in the field
as they do now. They always
got the fall wheat ground
ready before they threshed
the wheat. Then most people
threshed out of barns or
wheat stacks. Then they
would sow the wheat that had
been threshed.
In those days, when we
DEAR
MARIE
By
Marie
Segale
marie@goBEACONnews.com
Dear Marie,
I have eight grandchildren.
When they come to visit, I often
see them killing their free
time on their phones. I would
like to interact with them,
but I feel like their devices
are far more interesting than
spending quality time with
Grandma. I guess I had better
step up my game and become
more interesting. However,
sometimes when I see them, I
am thankful for the quiet time
the devices provide.
I am concerned about how
much screen time all of my
grandchildren are allowed to
have. I believe our young people
are losing the skills they
hired hands, we had to bring
lunch to them in the field.
Nowadays people don’t have
to do that. The men have dinner
at eleven o’clock in the
morning, and don’t have to
work so many hours. When I
wasn’t working in the harvest
field myself, I would have to
carry lunch on one arm and
a baby on the other, perhaps
also a two-year old child with
another walking behind me,
holding to my dress.
Please read the next issue of
The BEACON for the continuation
of Chapter XV of The
Story of My Life.
need to interact with other
people and survive in life.
Marie, what are your
thoughts about this battle of
screen time vs. spending time
in human contact?
Connie in Morris
Dear Connie,
I am also concerned about
the amount of screen time all
of us spend on our phones. It
has reached the level of addiction.
As with any addictive
behavior, we have to realize
that a problem exists before
we can begin to change the
behavior.
I strongly recommend you
make changes when you are
with your grandchildren. You
can say, “ Let’s all put our
phones away for a set amount
of time.” Then spend time on
a board game or learning a
new game or craft. As grandparents,
we are old enough to
remember how to have fun
without a cell phone or the
internet. We spent our time
building relationships.
Have a pressing question?
Contact Marie@goBEACON
news.com
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