[or-roots] HISTORY OF A PIONEER FAMILY

[cchouk]

Written by Florence (Courtney) Melton 1857-1926

    My mother was topping turnips to bury in the root cellar for stock food
through the winter.  A band of Indians came along, stopped and began eating
turnips.  She had a small pile of the most perfect ones for seed.  One
Indian wouldn't take any from the large pile.  She told him, "NO!", jerked
the turnip out of his hand, threw it down.  Father saw there was something
wrong.  He came to the door of the shop, hand axe in hand.  The Indian
raised his gun to shoot, but Mother struck the gun down.  She called Father
to go back in the shop, then turned to the Indians and told them to
"pockochee", which is Sioux for "go home!".  The other Indians took no part
in the squabble.  Some of the neighbors thought we would be massacred, but
no notice was ever taken of it.  Mother was kind to the Indians but she was
the master; they had to come to her terms.  In looking over the timber on
the farm, several sugar maple trees were found, so it was a regular job
every spring making maple syrup and sugar.

     The severe winters proved too much for Father's health.  They both
longed for their Ohio friends.  On the thirtieth of September, 1857, I was
born.  The other children were so near grown that I was hailed with delight.
No doubt I was a fund of pleasure during the long cold winter.  To
illustrate what the winters were like, the thermometer froze up the six
winters we lived there, with the exception of one.

     Sarah was seventeen the twenty-third of November, 1858.  They had a
dinner and invited friends.  The guests came in sleds and drove over a stake
and ridered fence in safety.  When she married [Jacob Houk] the eleventh of
March, 1859, the same snow was on the ground, and the still drove over the
fences, and it snowed so hard the day of the wedding that some of the guests
had a narrow escape from being lost.  The family became more dissatisfied
with the cold and snow.  They had an opportunity to sell the farm, and
September 1860 saw us bound for Iowa.

Jacob Houk was my great grandfather.  Their next move would be to
Oregon.  Sarah and Jacob would settle near Lebanon.

The "rest of the story" starts at:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cchouk/courtney/

Cecil Houk, ET1 USN Ret., AG6I
PO Box 530833
San Diego CA 92153
res San Diego CA 92154-3654
NEW EMAIL ADDRESS mailto:cchouk at cox.net
ANDERSON-BLAKELY-EGGERS-FORD-HOUK-KIMSEY-MONTGOMERY-RULAFORD-SIMPSON
Searchable GEDCOM: http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/~cchouk
See also: http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/~donhouk
My Web pages menu: http://members.cox.net/cchouk/