Trials Of Pioneer Life

Two weeks after G.W. and his wife, Margaret, were married they loaded up all of their personal belongings into a covered wagon and headed west to their new home. G.W. had built a log cabin next to an ever cold spring that flowed down the ravine to the creek. He had broke down some land using a plow and two yokes of oxen. Being young and in love they were excited to get there. "Oh my, thought Grandma Lu. They were either in love or crazy; probably both." The newspaper said that on the the last day out there was a high wind which tore the cover from the wagon. "That wind must have been something. They made those covers or in those days they called them bonnets out of heavy canvas." They arrived after dark at the the ford in the Little Sioux River known later as the Scurlock Ford. Still later the Scurlock bridge was built near there. As they could not see to cross over by night they camped on the bank and the next morning, November third they crossed to the west side only a few miles from their new home."

Their first winter their was a long cold one. The chimney blew off the roof and when it was replaced it blew more smoke inside than out according to the letters. "Hmm, I guess my great grandfather wasn't much of a mason, or he had little to nothing to work with. The latter, I am presuming."

The Indians were sometimes curious and always hungry. They frequently would come to the one tiny window of the cabin and make motions with their hatchets. Her husband's young brother said, "Just ignore them. Then he yelled, "Go away there's no man here, but Margaret hushed him and yelled, "Go away or my husband will shoot you." Some of them left but there was one man that was insistent on coming in and made menacing motions with his hatchet. She faced him, but dodged every time the man swung the hatchet at her. Her young brother-in-law said, "Why dodge? He won't hurt you." About that time the angry Indian swung the hatchet and broke the glass and sent the broken glass scattering across the room. As the story goes she told her family she did not think that last man was an Indian, but a white man; a renegade.

"Oh my, sighed Grandma Lu my great grandparents not only survived angry Indians, blizzards, and so many other hazards, but soldiers! They were hungry and one day came to their cabin and took all of their homemade laundry soap ( a great big barrel of it )and canned goods as well as 200 chickens and a baby cradle. (They had moved far away from their cabin because of an impending war so the cabin was unattended.) The story went on to say that shortly thereafter G.W. enlisted in the Army and fought in the Civil War leaving his family behind.

Grandma Lu thought and thought of her immediate family and wondered what G.W. would think if he knew that many of his male and female ancestors also had joined the Armed Forces; Army and Navy that she knew of. Her grandson was the youngest. He would be my great grandfather's great great great or something. Mercy on us! Just think of that!"

When the small village of Cherokee was finally considered a town Margaret Banister, my great grandmother, helped to sew the very first flag for it. "Well, she didn't have a sewing machine so all of the stitching had to be done with poorly made thread and a needle. (Nell was the lucky one. She had one of the very first on the market.) The flag in 1856 had only 31 stars and there was no particular layout that was used. 

The interesting thing about those ladies and their sewing is that I have actually seen my grandmother's beeswax ball that she used to keep her thread from tangling and knotting. In those days the thread was of very poor quality. They called two strands of thread a ply. It was called two ply, six ply etc. as the years went by and the quality became so much better because of the machines used to weave it were improving. My mother kept her mother's bees wax ball for many years. I wonder if that was also because of the poor quality of material she had to use. I think she also had some needles stuck in that bees wax.  Many of my dresses were made from flour and feed sacks. That material was not smooth and soft, but had to be starched and ironed. Oh my those were the days." she said to herself.

Grandma Lu was so involved in her family's history and her mother's saved newspapers and letters she almost didn't hear the door bell ring.