ON THIS MONTH --  1683

                              THOMAS ELLIS - Born May 27, 1683
                              Proginator -- Ellis Family in the United States
                              Fifth Great Grandfather of Warren Ellis, Rose
                              Nuernberger, and Bobi Andrews
                            
Immigrated from Wales to Pennsylvania in 1707.

5/26/1757-Bonds in the hand of Thomas Ellis ordered lodged in the
hands of his son, Mordecai Ellis.


Thomas Ellis was the leading Elder of the Society of Friends
in all Pennsylvania in 1736. He belonged to the Exeter MM. He
reprimanded Sarah Boone sister of Daniel Boone (father Squire
Boone) who was also a prominent family in the Exeter community.


Exeter Monthly Meeting Memorial for Thomas Ellis:


Thomas Ellis of Exeter meeting was born in or near Merionethshire
in the north of Wales in the year 1683 and came to Pennsylvania
about the 24th year of his age, and soon after was Convinced
of the Truth, married Jane Hughes, of Haverford meeting in the year
1712. (Thomas was from Gwynwedd; Jane from Haverford). Their
wedding was witnessed by David Meridith, Edward Rees,
Edward Roberts, John Jones, Ellis Lewis, Ellis Pugh, Evan Pugh,
David Pugh, John Hughes, Ellen Hughes, Ellis Hughes, Margaret
Hughes, Gainor Hughes. On the Ellis side were Humphrey Ellis,
Rowland Ellis and Caderwalder Ellis.


He was a hearty lover of Friends and an Elder upwards of thirty
years; spent some time in accompanying traveling friends to visit
Friends in the back parts of Virginia; was of an innocent life and
conversation, a diligent attendant of our meetings both for worship
and Discipline, whilst of ability of Body, and Exemplary in Humble
Waiting therein.


Although towards the latter part of His Time he was pretty much
deprived of His natural Faculties and became like unto a child yet
in the main quiet and Still to the end of His time here, which was
11th of the 6 mo, 1760, aged about 77 years.
Signed on behalf of Exeter meeting held at Maiden Creek, 7.29.1762.


Lightfoot, Clerk.

A CHILD'S FANTASY

Bobi Andrews

This little bird lit in my fig tree and watched a dragonfly dart back and forth in the

Koi pond below.



THE PERFECT CAMP-OUT

1884 STYLE

Written in 1936 and 1957 In the Words of

Ida Elna Ellis Morris

Daughter of Hiram Ellis and Mahala Trent

Copy Courtesy of Roger Shepherd

Family Tree for Story

Father (Hiram Ellis, brother of Cephas Ellis) believed in taking a vacation with his family. He made what they then called an “overjet” for the farm wagon, making it wide enough and long enough to place the bedsprings in the back of the wagon at the top of the wagon box. Then he had a cover made for the wagon. We placed our boxes of clothing, our tent, and all equipment under the bedsprings in the wagon, put the spring seat on, hitched up the horses, and we were ready to start on our almost annual trip. We had only a wood-burning sheet-iron stove to use when we stopped to camp, but it had an oven and mother used to bake biscuits in it sometimes.


The year I was eight (1884), my father, my two brothers and my brother-in-law, Bennet Moore, each fitted up such a wagon but we used the same tent and stoves. That made four wagons. There were father, mother, my sister, Flora, who was thirteen years old, and myself in our wagon. My oldest sister, Wealthy Jane (Ellis) Moore, had four boys, the oldest nine, so there were six for their wagon, but some of us rode with my brothers most of the time as they were alone in theirs. Father had leased our farm for the summer and we started on a trip through Nebraska and Kansas looking for cheaper land as my brothers wanted to buy farms of their own and father wanted them to see the land first.


It was not much like traveling then as it is now. We made only a few miles a day. We bought vegetables, milk, butter, and feed for the horses from the farmers each day. We always asked the farmers about land, working conditions and so forth, but we found no land to compare with the farms in central Iowa where we lived.


By the time the wheat harvest began, we were in Furnace County in western Kansas. I can see it yet, after all those years, when I think of it. Acres and acres of yellow grain as far as one could see almost.



Western Dug Out (Hogi)
Rose Nuernberger Water Color



Flowing fields of wheat.
Rose Nuernberger Water Color










 Only occasionally could one see a house as so many lived in dugouts. A dugout was a bit like a cave except more above ground- enough to allow windows above the ground. Some were plastered and were very comfortable and also were safe when the cyclones came. I do not know the route we took, but we crossed the Republican River and also the Platte River and then on to Crete, Nebraska, and to Pilger, Nebraska, where my father’s brother, Cephas Ellis and his family lived---not far from the Missouri River. The men all went fishing and had very good luck. We usually visited them or they us once a year. My uncle was a minister and his son-in-law was, also. One of his grandsons, Emery Buckner, was District Attorney of New York City and I had a letter from him while he was there. He would be sixty four years old now (1941).


We left there after a few days to return home and crossed the Missouri River at Omaha. There weren’t too many places to cross at that time. We were home in a few days; now, in 1941, we would have been there in a few hours in a car or on a train.


This had been an all summer trip. It was getting quite frosty at night when we returned. My brothers were happy to buy Iowa land and glad they had been able to see the great advantages of Iowa land over Kansas and Nebraska land. My father lived only a few years after this. He was only 57 years old when he left us, but he left us with the love of the outdoors and also of singing and reading.

Doors

A Devotional in Response to Previous Post on Doors

by Rose Nuernberger

As we think about doors . . . do we often think of the Revolving Door and the Swinging Door? Seldom do we see poems or pictures of these doors.

One might ask, “What do REVOLVING DOORS AND SWINGING DOORS do for us?

Perhaps the first thoughts that come to my mind for REVOLVING DOORS are:

                  #%^^&@ Frustration
                        . . . When do I jump in?
                            . . . Will I get stuck with someone bad?
                                . . . What if I stub my toe and fall?
                                     . . . Will I be squished into mincemeat by someone?


And SWINGING DOORS:


                     . . . Will I be slammed against the wall?
                             . . . Is someone pushing hard the other way?



The good of these doors is to direct the entry of people into a more organized way. But stand outside the doors at five o’clock of a large building and watch. It takes more than revolving and swinging doors to slow down the ever-hurrying people. All they think is that they “have to get here, there, and everywhere.”

For a moment, consider the opposite, the ever-soothing Bible verse:

BE STILL, AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD.

Kooky thinking in this day and age? Well, I invite you to think about it for a bit. In His time, many people did believe that Jesus was kooky, and they went to the extreme of executing Him on the Cross. When I feel sorrow and frustration that I might never get through the revolving doors of my life,

I must remember that Jesus does know my every need and I must remember

                     . . . I won’t get stuck

                                    . . . God is the great “Pusher”

                                                   . . . Jesus swings the doors open for me.

Trees - A Historical Essay



Courtesy of Rose Nuernberger
Original Watercolor - 2011



Trees


A Historical Essay

What is one of the most common things we see everyday? From the beginning of time (well, at least 145 million years ago) there were trees—sequoias for one species—and many others. Some redwood trees still in the ground today were seedlings 2000 years ago. When we stop to think about it, we sometime marvel about the things we take for granted. However, the impact of trees is gigantic—food, shelter, recreation, even one of the important ingredients of rain. A threat to a hundred-year-old oak gets regional and national attention. Woods are romantic, spooky, or dangerous. Nothing compares to the colors of maple and gum trees in Vermont and New Hampshire in the fall.

I got to thinking about the impact of trees for our immigrating ancestors, and trees kept coming up as a factor in the research completed for my historical novels.


Our immigrants coming to the colonies found a heavily forested country, and after a few short years in America, they developed an adverse view of trees. Once they migrated west from the edge of the east coast, trees no longer were their friends—they were a burden for the settlers who cleared land for cabins and crops. For some, it took a lifetime to clear four hundred acres. Here is what happened to one of our ancestors:

 Back before 1730, John Miller and Mary Ignew (sixth great grandparents to my generation and fourth great grandparents to E. F. Hutton of New York financial fame), owned considerable land in Chester, Pennsylvania, near the Quaker New Garden Meetinghouse. He was the largest land owner in the settlement and built the first mill along White Clay Creek. A story is handed down (Smith Ahnantafel Tables – Rootsweb) about a simple adventure in the trees for Mary Ignew Miller.


When Mary was in her early fifties, she went out to get the cows and got lost in the woods. She wandered hopelessly. At length, she came to a house. She knocked on the door and pleaded if she could please spend the night. She had gotten so scared in the thick woods that it took her family some time to get her to realize she had come to her own house.

Having previously lived in the area for a number of years, I know Delaware and eastern Pennsylvania well. Except for the heavily treed Iron Hill and Chestnut Hill near Newark, Delaware, that part of White Clay Creek has been urbanized for years with manufacturing and residential development. Natural trees do exist in northern Delaware and the piedmont of Pennsylvania—but so thick as to get lost? Never.

********

William Sherrill, the protagonist of The Sotweed Smuggler novel, immigrated to America perhaps on a ship of prisoners exiled to the Barbados Islands for misdeeds committed in England.


He became known as the Conestoga Fur Trader and was credited with opening up land for settlement near the Susquehanna River, purchasing sizable tracts in both Maryland and Pennsylvania. Clearing land was a horrendous hardship for both he and his sons. When there were too many trees for any one family to fell, they cut bands around the tree trunks and waited for the trees to die before burning. Tree branches stacked lengthwise in piles simulated fences and kept cows from wandering.


William and his sons were the first to cross to the west bank of the Catawba River in North Carolina. His first encounter with the wilderness and forested land is described in the Inglitchman and the Pioneer, an unpublished manuscript. The published stories of his great granddaughters, Sarah Sherrill Simpson (Dear Mama, Love Sarah) and Bonnie Kate Sherrill Sevier (The Frontier Princess) tell the amazing lives of two women of the Sherrill clan.




Pascal Lando. Printed from http://www.trekearth/ com/gallery/Europe/France
Photo 154913.htm

 Here is what William had to say as he stood in the wilderness:

‘“Admit it, you old coot. You are afraid.” Tell-tale voices resound in my head like a sharp clap of thunder. Everywhere I look, I find nothing to silence the voice. The wind is blowing out of the north freezing the air billowing between my skin and buckskin leggins. I started the day with yesterday’s fatigue unabated. As I look out to the vastness of trees and snow, there is no trail to follow, just an inner sense that exists between man and his prey. And food so scant that a rabbit crossing my path will provide a feast. Night is closing in fast blurring the distinction between who is hunter and who is prey. I am alone on my quest.’

*****

From research for my novel, The Frontier Princess, I describe through the eyes of Bonnie Kate Sherrill, the migration of her family from Sherrill’s Ford, North Carolina, through the squabble lands to the Watauga Fort (eastern Tennessee) when they passed through fortresses of trees. Today the area is adjacent to the Smoky Mountains.


The scene goes as follows.  “After slipping by and leaving the ghosts undisturbed at Hickory, Bonnie Kate, with new curious eyes, envisioned ahead the sharp rise of the mountains with beauty and peril in measured balance. The purple haze reflected many shades like the changing colors spiraling from the throat of a spring crocus, with each ridge stacked behind the other, like petals on the flower. The highest layer radiated a deeper purple. The closer ridges were covered by green shadows from the tops of endless trees. At a distance smoky mists blurred the line between mountain and sky.




Courtesy of Rose Nuernberger
Original Watercolor - 2011

 “In a short while, Bonnie Kate, anticipated they would wind their way upwards and around the hidden trunks, which appeared like a mighty sequestered army barring any one from squeezing by. She suddenly realized the obvious—the number was few of settlers traveling through the mountains.”










                                           *****
Our Ohio-bound Quaker ancestors, Mordecai Ellis and sons, found forests so thick that they traveled days without seeing the sun. There were no roads—nothing but Indian and deer trails which only packhorses could navigate. Once settled in Fairfield, Ohio, they with other settlers cleared their land and found an overabundance of squirrels to be a serious problem with their crops. Settlements set quotas and accepted squirrel pelts as part of the taxes owed. Any boy who could shoot was eager to be sent into the woods on a squirrel posse.


The Ellis’s migrated from Fairfield, Ohio, to Wayne County, Indiana, then to Tippecanoe County, Indiana. One woman, Frances Sterling, the wife of Thomas Sterling, relates the following story of their migration and the role of a basswood tree for a coffin.1


There were a number of Quaker families making the trip. They left in February, 1825, and the journey lasted fourteen days. It rained every night except two. The story starts after they had lost a wagon which had to be abandoned after it was determined it could not be repaired.


“My husband went to the South Fork of Wildcat Creek to old Mr. Odell’s after a wagon. We camped at Potato Creek for the night. The next morning, we started with Mr. Little for his home on Flint Creek which was 25 miles distant. I was on one horse with a baby in my lap with Mr. Little, holding the reins, on foot for an entire day. The fatigue was almost unbearable. Sometimes it rained and snowed as fast as it could come down.


“The next day, March 2, my husband came back with goods and immediately took sick which lasted six weeks. There were no doctors or medicines. We gave him a dose of tartar emetic and blister flies along with butternut pills and a bottle of Bateman’s drops. We struggled to get to Mr. Little’s home on Flint Creek.


“I was confined on August 21 for the birth of my baby, but had to get up and perform work as best I could. A man named Luce took sick and died. Almost everyone was sick. My husband was also sick and my babe was only a week old. Mr. Luce died and we succeeded in getting help to dig the grave for Mr. Luce. Mordecai Ellis made his coffin by splitting a basswood tree, dressing the boards with a broad axe and jack planing and painting them black. He made quite a decent coffin.


“A brief time later, I shook with ague for forty days. I then got some quinine and improved for ten days. Then when I was thrown by a horse, the ague came back stronger than ever. I never saw another woman for three months.”
_______________________
1Extracted from Odell, John C. “History of Carroll County, Indiana.” B. F. Bowen, Publishers. 1916. Crawfordsville (Indiana) Library, April 2005.




Another account of an Ellis migration the same year to Tippecanoe County: 2


This was the family of Jehu Ellis, his wife Phoebe, and their eight children. They settled in the trees near a creek and lived in a camp with boards standing upright with a quilt for an opening. In reaching Tippecanoe, they had been able to travel by wagon and as they passed through the Indian village of Thorntown, Indiana, Indians came around the wagon in which their daughter Lizzie was riding with one of her brothers. They wanted to buy her with tobacco and whiskey. Frightening her very much, the Indians were entranced by Elizabeth’s long golden curls. Wolves came from the woods at night and so alarmed Lizzie that she was afraid to sleep next to the boards for fear the wolves would tear the boards off.
_________________________
2 As told from the memory of Sarah Ann Brockus Ellis to Ms. Sadie Keever, her granddaughter on September 7, 1879.

*****



Flint Creek Trees, Tippecanoe County
Greenfield Farmer's Academy
Bobi Andrews Photo

A few years ago, I traveled to Indiana to trace my Quaker Ellis ancestors in Tippecanoe County. Here Flint Creek, draining to the Wabash River, winds around hilly farm land, and interestingly, was a route of the Underground Railroad when slaves sought freedom by escaping to Canada. I found Greenfield-Farmers Academy near the intersection of Buddell Sleeper Road and Route 660. Buddell Sleeper was known as one of the “station masters” along the underground route. Mordicai Ellis’s original land was but a mile or two further up on Flint Creek. This was an abolitionist area of Quaker safe homes with false walls, closets for no particular purpose, barns with trap doors, and wagons loaded with cut wood covering an escape hatch leading to the bottom bed of the wagon.   



Bobi  Andrews Photo
Greenfield-Farmers Academy



The grounds of the Greenfield-Farmers’ Academy were surprisingly barren, there being but two fledging trees braced upright by poles and twine. Don Naylor, the caretaker, said that many of the old trees on the grounds, which he estimated to be 150 to 200 years old, had rotted and he was attempting to replace them by moving younger saplings from the nearby creek to the grounds. He said that the two trees had become a major controversy to get the members of the meetinghouse to approve. Seems that families passed down through their descendants the same grudge against trees—it had been so difficult for the original settlers to clear the land that they stipulated for all of posterity no trees be planted on the academy grounds.



*****

The year 1886 found Cephas Ellis and his wife, Rachel, living in The Grove section of Pottawattamie County, Iowa. Cephas was the grandson of the Mordicai Ellis from Tippecanoe County. An area map shows a large grove abutting his land intersecting sections of farmland with the Wheeler Christian Church at its northeast tip.  This area, too, was known to be part of an underground railroad running from southwest Iowa to Iowa City and then north to routes leading to Canada. At this point, Cephas Ellis was a lay minister for the Wheeler’s Grove Christian Church. Not only does it appear that he parted formally from the Quakers, but he moved across the Missouri River to the prairies of Pilger, Stanton County, Nebraska.

Elllis Family Photo
Cephas and Rachel Ellis

Here the tree saga ends as Cephas’ son, Charlie, soon migrated across the knee-high blowing prairies to treeless Cheyenne County, Kansas, and then back to northeastern Nebraska. The adage at this time was that it was easier to make a farm from the prairie and raise timber than it was to clear heavy timber and then get it under cultivation.  Once on the prairie, many felt that in breaking through the deep, tough root system of the prairie, they had met their limit of endurance. One can only hope Cephas and Charlie didn’t think breaking prairie sod with an ox-drawn plow was easier than felling trees.





Our Family Doors





Funkhauser Cabin located in the Ripley County Historical Society Museum

Doors are
common and
taken for granted; yet
they speak of past times
or open a gateway to the
future.

A door may squeak open

A door may slam shut

A door may keep others out

A door may invite others in

                                                               

A door may be simple

A door may be ornate

A door may be French

A door may be Dutch

A door may separate lives

A door may create boundaries

A door may create wonder

A door may punish

A door may let the dog in

A door may let the cat out

A door may be for a barn

A door may be for the outhouse

A door may be bolted

A door may have its latch out

A door may be open a crack

A door may be shut tight

A door may catch the mail

A door may have a bell

A door may have a peep hole

A door may have a step

A door may be for the future

A door may hide the past

A door that is open, we walk through

A door that is closed is one to knock.

A door may be much more . . .

As we listen to our families talk.

                                                                            —Bobi Andrews, July, 2006

Funkhauser Cabin
Jacob Funkhauser-Nancy Showalter Funkhauser
1834
Third Great Grandparents

“But it will be different this time,” Jacob argued. “When we moved from the Shenandoah to Beaver County, all our children were small. Ekikam, our last, is now eighteen when last time four were mere babies and you were six months expecting.”

“But Indiana is the frontier and we will have to start all over,” Nancy wailed. “I just want to grow old right here and have this house instead of a cabin. I don’t want to leave any of my things behind.”

“Our children and neighbors are moving,” Jacob countered. “There is no land available here for them and they must do as we did in leaving Virginia for the land. Do you want to be left alone here? What about your grandchildren? You won’t be there for their weddings and their babies.”

“But the cabins are so cold and the door and the logs don’t keep out the wind. And what will we do until the cabin is raised? I remember the lean-to we built from the wagon and the blanket that draped the door. When you went to the mill, I sat inside the door all night long with your old hunting gun just waiting for a wolf or bear to smell us out and barge in. The wind blew the loops apart and the ground anchors gave way. I’ll never forget the sound of the flapping blanket and the howling of the wolves and the wind.”


“Your have had raw courage all these years,” Jacob acknowledged,tenderly putting his hand over hers. “If you will agreeably come to Ripley, I will see to it that you have a door the very first thing! David Eli will build it here and have it in his wagon. It will have the rope latch you can pull in as well as the crossbar to secure the door.” He chuckled with an afterthought, “Although with our children living next to us, the latch will probably be out more than in.”


“I, too, am not up to camping with a lean-to,” Jacob admitted. “The boys and their families will take care of us. They want us to be with them in Indiana. And you know God will be with us as he always has been. We will offer tonight our prayer for God’s will.”

########

              Western Kansas Soddy
William F. Owens-Rosetta Elvira Jane Funkhauser
1885-1889
Grandparents

“But, Will, can we possibly survive without trees? I dreamt about trees all last night. All we have is dust and mud and if it doesn’t stop raining, everything is going to be ruined,” lamented Elvie wringing muddy rags from water swishing in from the top of the door.

“No trees here, except a few cottonwoods along the Republican River. Soft cottonwoods do not make strong cabins,” Will stated. We should thank God for rain. It doesn’t rain much here. Drought is worse.”


"I don’t know which is the worst, mud, or the flies, mosquitos and snakes that come after the rain stops.” Elvie said. “They live better than we do.”


“This is our land, Elvie, and once we get a crop or two, we will be able to fix things up around here. I’ll go see if I can chink up the door and windows better. The chinking just dries up and I can’t seem to keep a tight enough fit with the sod to make the difference.” Will shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. “The cottonwood poles and framing warp both in sun and rain.”


“At least this shower will dampen down the dust.” Elvie peered through the door to see the clouds moving on to the east. “By noon tomorrow we will have the dust back blowing through these cracks.”


“Elvie, neither dust nor mud will take our land away. All we need is a crop or two, our mother cow to calve soon and our oxen to pull the plow.” Will stuffed rags at the top of the door. “I know you are heartbroken with Mertie getting sick and dying, but James and Bertha are healthy and the baby you’re carrying will be our new blessing.”

Elvie raised herself up from the floor and stood at the soddy door. With Will’s strong arm on her shoulder, she looked to the clearing sky to the west and to an uncertain tomorrow on the prairie.

########

                   Welsh Home and Barn in Wales

                  Thomas Ellis - Jane Hughs Ellis

        1729

                  Fifth Great Gransparents

“I just don’t see how we can manage with our cabin so small. I have been remembering my old home in Wales, never realizing how much having elbow room meant. I can’t even open the door with this cabinet sitting here,” Jane Ellis scorned defiantly at the cabinet and the door.

Thomas responded, “But thee had cattle living in thy house in Wales. Do thee want that thy cattle be lodged here.”


“Thou are right. I should be satisfied that we have our cabin and that the children are healthy and growing.” Jane bent her head to talk to God. “I pray that thou will grant me wisdom and patience to serve thee instead of complainin’. Amen.”

“Amen. I’ll get Morris on my way to the meetinghouse and he will come and help thee move the chest. Maybe it would fit next to thy fireplace,” Thomas offered.

“Only if God be willing. Will thee be long at the Meetinghouse this afternoon?”


“We have to settle the matter of the Evan’s marriage and record three new certificates. Our meeting is growing,” Thomas boasted.

“Do thou suppose we will have a proper stone house with a strong door anytime soon?” asked Jane, edging the door past the chest.


“When we build a proper meetinghouse, we will then consider building us a proper stone house. By that time, we will have plenty of help as our sons know to honor their father and mother. They will help.”


                                                                       ########

Grandma Owens--Up Close and Personal

         REFERENCE TREES FOR OWENS/FUNKHAUSER FAMILIES                                                   

John Owens - Rosannah Mason
   Samuel Owens - Polly Kilgore
      Franklin James Owens - Elizabeth (Betsy) Baker
          William F. Owens - Rosetta Elvira Jane Funkhauser

Jacob Funkhauser - Mary Richardson
   Charity Funkhauser - Robert Martin
   John David Funkhauser - Dora Gallaher
   Benjamin Funkhauser - Unknown
   Ephraim Funkhauser - Priscilla Robinson
   Martha Funkhauser - Abel Boydstun
   Rosetta Elvira Jane Funkhauser - William F. Owens
              James, Myrtie, Bertha, Walter, Robert, Jacob and
              Joe Owens - Vasta Parker
                    Janet Owens - Paul Fredstrom
                    Eugene Owens - Unknown
             Mary Owens - Wesley Leland Ellis
                   Warren Ellis - Mardelle Larsen
                   Rose Ellis - Kenneth Nuernberger
                   Barbara Ellis - Alvin Konopik/Robert Andrews
            Grace Owens - Harold Wynne
                  Molly Rose Wynne - Bill Barber
                  Robert  Wynne - Unknown

                                                           *******

                      GRANDMA’S SECRETS



(As told by Grandchildren Mollie Rose Wynne Barber, Jan Fredstrom, Warren Ellis, Rose Nuernberger and Barbara Andrews)

                                                       Rosetta Elvira Jane Funkhauser Owens



The signs were all there. Like most of us asked to describe our grandmothers, we echo the stereotype of a grand old lady who led a life devoted to her children and grandchildren. Her granddaughter, Molly Rose Wynne Barber, relates, “From the earliest age that I can remember, I fully believed that my Grandmother (Rose Owens) whom I was named after, sat on a throne up in the sky somewhere right between God and Jesus.”

Molly continues: "How could I believe otherwise?  Not only did my mother extol her as God's No. 1 Saint, but went on to say that when her mother died the world would hear the Heavenly Choir sing, and just as the Dove of Peace alighted on Jesus when He was baptised by John the Baptist, this same Dove would sit on top of her mother's casket."

Today, Rose Nuernberger, and I nod in agreement remembering Grandma’s picture of Jesus (standing at the door knocking) hanging in the parlor, her devout beliefs, and her social views matching earlier days of her Mennonite ancestors. No one would think of uttering profanity in her presence and the sacredness of family was her anchor. A Free Methodist, she was totally against liquor, believing strong drink was leading the country into ruin. Of course, boys and girls should dress modestly and never, never swim together in a public pool or meet without a proper chaperone. She probably never uttered the word “Sex,” but made it clear to her children that physical contact between a man and a woman was proper within marriage and the only way for a woman to enter heaven. Her Parker House rolls were legendary. . .sometimes we by-passed the meat and potatoes and made whole meals of the rolls. In her eighties, when we visited her, she’d walk a few blocks to a neighborhood grocery store on Greenwood Street and buy a half-pound of bacon for breakfast and make her famous rolls.

Rose adds:  Dad always teased grandma because she ran out of bacon one time.  When leaving, he quipped, "Too bad you ran out of bacon, Grandma."  It would take her a minute to realize he was joking.

Her children revered her since it was her strength that held the family together. So crippling was William’s injury, that in order to walk, he had to work up so much momentum that the only way he could stop himself was to extend his arms straight out in front of him until his hands hit the wall. The three youngest children, Joe, Mary and Grace, took turns being with her for many years after William died in 1934.

Molly relates, “My mother said she believed everything that she learned at her mother’s knee and never thought differently through all the changes that took place in her lifetime.” Rose Nuernberger and I remember our mother writing to Grandma every week even when she had to borrow from her mother-in-law the three cents for postage during the depression. On Greenwood Street, Joe Owens, our uncle, lived next door and checked on her every morning and stopped by every evening after work to kiss her good night.  Jan Fredstrom remembers packing her bag like she was going to Mars and "sleeping over" next door at Grandma's.  She said they played checkers while Grandma told stories of her past.  And you don't need to guess twice--homemade biscuits and honey for breakfast!

By now, you get the idea—Grandma Owens was a grand old lady who led a pious life devoted to her children and grandchildren.

BUT, who was really Grandma Owens? Read on.

First a little about her ancestry and early years. She was born, the youngest of six children, on September 9, 1866, in Ripley County, Indiana, to Jacob Funkhauser and Mary Richardson. The Richardsons were basket makers and caners and Jacob took up the trade. Most probably, they maintained a garden patch and a cow or two; probably pigs, chickens, and a horse.

                      (Funkhauser Cabin located in the Ripley County (Iowa) Historical Society Museum)
                                                                             
Sometime after 1860, Mary Richardson contracted tuberculosis, and in the late 1870’s the family moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, for the climate and hot springs. Mary Richardson Funkhauser died in 1880, when Rosetta was fourteen years old. Jacob remarried Agnes Pope, but a few years later (1886) he died. We know Rosetta (we call her “Rose,” her family probably called her “Elvie”) lived with her parents because she too contracted the highly communicable tuberculosis sometime before she reached the age of twenty. During Mary Richardson’s extended illness, Rosetta’s oldest sister, Charity, (“Chat”) was probably the “mother” in the family at least during Rosetta’s first seven years.

Did Rosetta live a happy childhood? The burden of their harsh circumstances and of her mother’s illness hung daily over the household. Life, with seven children in a small cabin, mirrored their plain, Mennonite heritage. One could imagine that providing for a family of nine by basket weaving was a constant challenge for her father, which left the means for pleasures few and far between. Although there is evidence that Rosetta as an adult rarely complained, her childhood was difficult and left her yearning for a different life. When she was about fourteen, she and a neighbor boy stole her father’s horse and buggy, and fled for parts unknown. Was this a romance or an adventure?  We can only guess. Two or three days later Jacob found them and literally drug the unwilling Rosetta home.

Either because she was unwilling to accept a new mother, or her father could not adequately care for her or her invalid mother’s illness, or because she wished to live with Chat, she followed her sister to Utica, Nebraska, where she struggled to recover from tuberculosis. During her years at Utica, with the Martins adopting the Brethren church, she immersed herself in the foundation of heart-felt religion. She knew her scriptures and was an active participant. It was in Utica that she met William Franklin Owens whom she married in 1885 when she was nineteen. When friends warned William that his new bride-to-be might be dead within a year, he replied, “If that be so, then she shall die mine.”

                                                                                    William Franklin Owens



Land speculators advertised Utica as the garden spot of America and the town became a popular place for homesteading. However, grasshoppers arrived and devastated farms leaving families with insurmountable hardships. Seeking better prospects, William and Rosetta followed the Chicago/Kansas rail lines to Goodland, Kansas, where they homesteaded and lived in a soddy for seven years and bore three children.

Later about 1889, they proved up a homestead, but subsequent drought made their dream of prosperity unattainable.

                                                                    

                                                                                         Typical Wagon Train on the Prairie



In an essay, “Our Family Doors,” Barbara Andrews writes the following describing “soddy” life in Goodland, Kansas:
                                  
                                            Will and Rosetta (Elvie) Owens
                                                            1885-1889

                                                      Goodland, Kansas

“But Will, can we possibly survive without trees? I dreamt about trees all last night. All we have is dust and mud and if it doesn’t stop raining, everything will be ruined.” Elvie continued to wring from rags the muddy water swishing in from the top of the door.


“What do you expect me to do? No good trees here, except a few cottonwoods along the Republican River. Soft cottonwoods do not make cabins,” Will responded. “We ought to be thankful. Doesn’t rain that much here and drought is worse."


“I don’t know which is worse, this mud, or the flies, mosquitoes and snakes that come after the rain stops,” Elvie answered. “They live better than we do.”


“This is our land, Elvie, and once we get a crop or two, we will be able to fix things around here. I’ll go see if I can chink up the door and windows better, but they just dry up again.” Will’s face showed no hope. “I can’t seem to keep a tight enough fit with the sod to make the difference. Cottonwood poles and framing warp regardless of sun or rain.”


“At least this shower dampens down the dust.” Elvie peered through the door to see dark, ominous clouds moving on to the east. “By noon tomorrow we’ll have the dust again blowing through the cracks.”


“Elvie, neither dust nor mud will take our land away. All we need is a crop or two, mother cow to calve soon, and our ox to pull the plow. Noticing Elvie’s grimace and muddy hands rubbing her protruding belly, he added, “I know you are heartbroken with Myrtie getting sick and passing, but James and Bertha are well and the baby you carry will be our new blessing. God is our salvation.”


Elvie put down the bucket of muddy water and stood at the soddy door. With Will’s strong arm on her shoulder, each looked to the clearing sky in the west knowing an uncertain tomorrow lay ahead on the prairie.

                                                                    Typical Western Kansas Homestead

                                                                            *****

Joe Owens in his autobiography states that drought starved them out of Kansas. With her brother, John Funkhauser, and the Martins living in Holyoke, Colorado, William and Rosetta pulled up stakes and moved with their yoked ox and three children to Holyoke where they lived ten years on rented land. Sons Walter, Robert, Jacob and Joseph were born in Colorado.

Left to Right:  Rosetta, Brother John David Funkhauser and wife Dora, Chat Martin

Front Row:  Robert Martin

At Holyoke, William suffered a serious accident with a runaway horse and hayrack that left him cantankerous with constant pain and crippled for the remainder of his life. Rosetta’s burdens increased as William became despondent, sometimes taking out his pain on her and his children.  It was a hard life.

Early in 1901, the family packed wagons again and moved to Cambridge, Nebraska and then relocated by oxen to St. Edward, Nebraska. The St. Edward years were the teen and young adult years for Joe, Mary, and Grace—their older brothers and sister married and gone from home. It was during this time that Joe, Mary and Grace supported their parents before moving to Lincoln, Nebraska. Joe and Mary attended Nebraska Wesleyan University with Joe first working to pay for Mary and then Mary working to pay for Joe. Joe became credit manager for Miller and Paine, Mary a teacher in Cedar County, Nebraska, and Grace a bookkeeper for a light and power company.

Mary, Rosetta, William and Grace

Joe Owens

Excerpts from Mollie Barber: “I know from a letter I found that Mother had saved that Grandma suffered from severe headaches for which relief or cure were never found. Mother said that Grandma would take to her bed every so often for several days at a time from sheer exhaustion and illness.”

“Grandma Owens did beautiful quilting and embroidery as well as crocheting. My mother said that she had as many ruffles on her dresses as any of her classmates. Laundry day was every Monday and there were a lot of clothes to wash. Then everything dried on the line, most things heavily starched and ironed with those old heavy ugly non electric irons. Grandma made a fun party out of laundry day with extra goodies and a big pot of ham and bean soup. Though a snobbish playmate once told me in an effort to diminish my family that ham and beans was only meant to be an incidental side dish, I put no stock in her words and consider them to be the grandest of means clear till today.”

Mollie Barber further tells us that her mother (and probably the other children) were highly embarrassed to be in church with Grandma because she would not just sit in the pew and confess sins simply and quietly. Rather, she would go out and kneel in the center of the aisle as she asked for God’s forgiveness, and in a very loud voice she would enumerate all her sins recent and past one by one.

Throughout her life, with the realities of living on the early prairie, lack of medicines and doctors, and the hard times of the depression, she battled illnesses and disease—her mother’s and her tuberculosis, her daughter Myrtie’s meningitis, her daughter Bertha’s cancer, her son, Robert’s early death, Grace’s scarlet fever, and William’s infirmities. A tiny, frail woman, she birthed nine children and with her incapacitating headaches, she may have suffered migraines or possibly fibromyalgia, the latter uncharacteristically suffered by two of her granddaughters and a great granddaughter.

Grandma was intensely independent and rarely changed her mind. "Attention to appearance was a staple. It seemed to be that taking care of the presses and creases could get you anywhere you wanted to go. Included in Grandma’s personal grooming, she faithfully brushed her hair one hundred strokes every night and cleaned under her fingernails.”

Warren remembers:  "I remember the one time we were at Grandma Owens for Thanksgiving.   The picture of everybody was taken except for me. (same picture as below)  Does anyone remember the Ellis car? It had no heater so Mom heated several flat irons and wrapped them in towels to keep our feet warm.  It was cold the day we left.  Lots of blankets and warm clothes, we made it to Grandmas okay.  On returning home, the brakes broke so Dad ran the car into the bank to stop it.  I don't remember how he fixed the brakes but we made it home okay.  I do remember eating Grandma's parker house rolls  (That makes Grandma's rolls unanimous!!!).  You were probably six or seven years old and I was probably eleven or twelve and Rose eight or nine (just guessing)."

"There was one other event that I remember--Gene played the trombone so we all listened to him play."

To everyone’s teasing—especially to Leland Ellis, her son-in-law—she frugally saved every bit of string even those too short for any useful purpose. She kept a mother-lode of quilting scraps in her bottom chest of drawers. She was a meticulous housekeeper until late in her eighties, when her aged faculties faded and the family arranged for her to enter a Lutheran nursing home in Lincoln. She died in 1959 at the age of 93 years, believing that William would be waiting for her at heaven’s door with Myrtie on his shoulders.

1947 Family Reunion, Lincoln, Nebraska

Living Children

Mary Ellis, Jake Owens, Joe Owens, Walter Owens, Frank Owens, Grace Wynne

1947 Family Reunion, Lincoln, Nebraska

Living Children with Husbands/Wives

Grandchildren

Front Row:  Molly Rose Wynne, Janet Fredstrom, Rose Ellis, Barbara Ellis and

Robert Wynne.