The Moves of Matie
or
MEMORIES Of MAMMA

(Mary Melvira Holbrook Taylor.
3 September. 1856-
19 January 1944)

by Fannie Taylor Grover

It seemed to me that much of the life she lived on farms with primitive equipment which did not fit into the cultured nature of my mother. Having her nine babies and losing all but three was a heavy load over many years.
This no doubt accounted for her seeming discontent in the home life at times. It was Mama's nature to take life easy. She could spend the whole day doing the laundry, leaving the washboard any time she chose to write
a letter or to turn to some other pastime. It did not bother her in the least to leave the dinner dishes am lie down for a nap. This way of conserving her strength probably was what kept her in good health until three
or four years before her death at 87, when she broke her hip and her knee became stiff, so she could not walk and be active.
Mamma was born September 3, 1856, at DeWitt, Michigan, to William E. Holbrook and Melvira Millicent (Wright) Holbrook. She was named Mary Melvira but always called Matie. Her family followed the trend to move west. When she was two years old, they went by train to the Missouri River crossing by ferryboat andcompleting the trip by ox team to Kansas three years before it joined the
Union settling on a farm near Geneva in Allen County.
Working their small farms with a plow and primitive implements required heavy physical labor, compared to the way it is handled now with large plots of land worked with-motorized equipment. The houses are large
and modern as compared to the small house the Holbrooks lived in with the children's upstairs bedroom entered by climbing a ladder on the wall. Little Geneva is no longer a town. There are some vines and tree-
covered areas where houses have tumbled down or been moved out and well-kept farm lam surrourds the area,
An incident that happened in Matie's early childhood was when her mother was teaching her not to say "leg" but to say "limb." A few days after that lesson she came in crying, and on being asked what her trouble
was she said, "I fell down and hurt my tree-top!"
Three years of her girlhood were spent during her father's service in the Civil War. He returned without wounds.
There were bands of Sioux Imians farther north, sometimes friendly and sometimes on the warpath. At times a few would come to some of the surrounding small towns just to see what they could see. and saftetimes take. something that interested them. They had been known to take a child,
so when there was a rumor that they were coming to Geneva. some of the children of Matie's family and neighboring children were put on horses and sent by their parents to a place of lowlands near Colony. The raid did
not materialize. so the children were returned. safe am sound. Others were not so fortunate. In 1864 a friend of Matie' solder sister. Fanny Kelly and her husband , had left Geneva and were in a wagon train heading for Idaho. Somewhere beyord Fort Laramie they were attacked
by a band of about 250 Si oux Indians. Some of the party were killed, and Fanny Kelly was taken captive. Her husband was one who was lucky enough
to escape. The Kellys had with them a little adopted niece, Mary, who was taken along with Fanny. After completing their pillage the Indians
mounted ponies, placing Fanny and Mary on one, and started on their way. After dark Fanny told Mary she would help her slide from the horse
and instructed her to follow the trail back to the camp a few miles distant. This she did, undetected by the Indians. A few days later an Indian rode up beside her. From his saddle was hanging a well-known little shawl and a child's scalp of long fair
hair. The shock was so great that Fanny fell unconscious from her horse. When she recovered consciousness. she was clinging to an astonished squaw.
and the Indian, suspecting the cause of her emotion had removed it from sight.
It was not until after her rescue that she learned more about the sad fate of little Mary. She had spent the night on the trail, then sat
resting on a bluff overlooking the read and watching for friends. She was seen by three or four passing soldiers, holding out her hards for help. The soldiers had been pursued by Indians and feared the little girl might be a decoy to lead them into ambush. Then a party of Indians
came into sight, and the soldiers fled.
Fanny Kelly wrote a book. "My Captivity Among the Sioux Indians " in 1871 telling of' the terrible hardships she endured during her five months of captivity:
Matie attended the "Academy" where parties and good times were enjoyed with classmates. Group singing and charades were favorite past time. The group would meet New Years Eve am write letters to a friends
or date who was present, the letters to be opened one year later. It was great fun to see how near one came to guessing the future. Years later the Geneva Academy group wrote "Round Robin" letters, a good way to keep up on the news or the members. A poem describing hardships of farming in undeveloped Kansas was
written by Ann Frances Beale, grandmother of' Harry Grover. She lived in Brown County. The poem, written in 1874, follows:
POOR BLEEDING KANSAS
We're all in a muddle out here in the West
And poor bleeding Kansas has had no rest;
For all the low vermin the tongue can name
Are b1eeding the soil of this land of fame.
Chinch bugs by the million to eat up our wheat;
The sweet-smelling squash bug and 'tater-bug neat,
While grandaddy long-legs in corners convene
To talk of the weather and vent their spleen.
Now here' s Mr. Gophe r , corne in f or a share;
An underground railroad he' s built with care;
His striped lordship goes in for the best,
Ard grubs am the bugs consume the rest.
Last but not least comes the pest of the year,
The yellow-legged grasshopper brings up the rear;
This fellow has such a digestion. they say
He eats the stone bridges that come in the way.
Old Sol gazes down with his fiery eye.
With molten heat from his furnace on high.
The 1anguishing earth tries in vain to survive.
And nothing but creeping things live am thrive •

It is time for the white man to vacate the soil;
The ghost of the red man cries, Give back my spoil!
The mad prairie wind bears his shriek of revenge;
He's out on the warpath his wrongs to avenge
Come back. Oh ye Digger. Ccmanche and Sioux;
Come back to your grubworm and grasshopper stew,
We'll give back the heritage gladly to you,
And thankfully bid Bleeding Kansas adieu.
The Holbrook family moved to Colorado by covered wagon when Matie was 19 years of age. She was afraid of bodies of water and terrified when it became necessary to cross streams and rivers, as sometimes the water
would reach to the bed of the wagon. She would cover her face with her hands and bury her face in her lap.
They stopped at a place called Hardscrabble near Colorado Springs. In the fall they started homesteading on the Divide near Monument. living in a dugout. Not much later, Grandfather was appointed postmaster at Monument.
In the meantime Matie was teaching in the vicinity -- salary, $30. a month -- and boarding, at $2 a week near her school. At one place there were bed-bugs, and she would sleep with her stockings on and as much of her body covered as possible to keep from getting bed-bug bites.
Grandfather got the contract for carrying mail over a 20 mile route, and Grandmother attended to the Post Office. He made the trip out one day and back the next with his team and wagon. " For these services he
received $600 per year. The ranch on the Divide was sold in the early 20th century for five or six hundred dollars. Since the Air Academy has
been built north of Colorado Springs. most of the land sells at $1100. an acre. Matie met William E. Taylor who, with his brother, was working at building a road on Mt. Herman. Later Willie went to Arizona Territory.
where another brother was a minister to the Hopi Indians.
The little band of friends, members of the Monument Literary Society, met on Christmas, 1880. Since Willie Taylor had already gone to Arizona,
Matie Holbrook's partner was Mr. Woodward. Each person of the couples wrote a letter to the other to be opened one year later, mostly prophesy-
ing the future of the ones in the group am other friends. Quoting fromMatie's letter to Mr. Woodward. which I have among mementos,

"I shall venture to write my own future, or will your curiosity lead you to break this seal before the appointed time? I will risk it anyway. As you suggested in the "Rocky Mountain Phonograph," I have
become tired of my occupation and am no longer a teacher but a Taylor. I am not a resident of Monument but am living in Arizona among the Maquis. I do not expect to make this my permanent home but am very
well pleased with sojourning here for awhile." Evidently Mr. Woodward returned the letter to Matie sometime later. to commemorate the accuracy of her prophecy.
Matie had a wedding dress made, packed her trunk am went to Keems Canyon, Arizona, where the two were married April 13. 1881, by the Rev. Charles A. Taylor.
The two couples had many interesting experiences with the friendly Hopis. Often there would be a shadow cast across the room and Matie would see an Indian man at the open window, just curious to see what she was doing.
The Hopis are famous for their Snake Dance, a prayer for rain. It is held in August and was originally a secret ceremony, but the year my parents and uncle and aunt were there, they invited them to attend. My aunt was ill, so, as far as I know, my mother was the first white woman
to see the dance. The Indians believe the snakes are messengers from that plain inhabited by the rain-gods. I will give a description of the dance as related to me by my mother when I was in high school.
" A good many days were spent in collecting the snakes, which were of different kinds, some being rattle-snakes, and perhaps as many as 200 or 300 altogether. The Indians then returned to the mesa and confined
the snakes in a hole in the ground, or a snake-den, as it might be called. The dancers, all of wham were men, fasted a few days before the dance. When it came time for the dance, the men went by twos in a circle and to the snake-den. One would put his head into the den and
re-appeared joining the dance with one, two, or three snakes, alive and squirming in his mouth, his partner all the time stroking the snakes with long feathers. They held them by the body a few inches back of the
head in such a way that the snake could throw its head down under their chins and over their faces.

"The dancers kept time to the monotonous jingle of gourd-rattles, turtle-shells am sheep-hooves. " After awhile, with a little toss of the head, they threw their snakes into the center of the ring, and women standing near sprinkled them with meal from baskets which they
held. This must have had a tendency to quiet them. It was now the business of the medicine-men to catch them. If they were coiled, they brushed them with their feathers until they began to run when they caught them just back of the head. Some they handed to little boys,
who, no doubt, were taking a lesson in bravery. One little boy stood crying while the large black snake which he held coiled itself around his leg. One of the men quickly took it so the boy would not became panicky.
"When the dance was finished, the men took the snakes and ran at full speed to the edge of the mesa and dropped them over. They never kill a snake as they think it would cause their own death immediately. "And the rains came down. The water was so high in the little branch that Papa and Mamma had to wait some little time before forging
it with their horse and buggy."
They returned to Monument for Artie's birth in November, 1882. From there they went to a farm at Bush City near Garnett. Kansas, in Anderson County.
In 1889 they lost their first three children with diphtheria when Otis was two months old. They then moved to Grandpa Taylor's old home 4 ½ miles northwest of Butler, Mo., where I was born Karch 17. 1891.
They have told me they nearly had a fire in the morning a short time before my birth. A girl they had with them to help had left some clothing on a chair against the stove-pipe that went up through her up- stairs room. Someone smelled smoke and prevented a fire. They named
me Fanny because a 12-year-old neighbor girl with that name asked them to name the baby after her.
The farm was a pleasant place to live, with large maple trees in the front yard, a peach orchard and black-berries. There was some timber on the farm. and a big creek and a little creek. One of the high-lights of Matie's life was to receive a letter from
Ma and Del, her mother and sister in Monument. Either in the fall of


1893 or the spring of 1894, the former being the time of her youngest sister's death and the latter being the time of her father's death, she, Otis, our baby sister Monnie, and I went by train trom Butler to Monument. It must have been a trying trip, especially as they say I was
crying with the hives, and Mamma would put my tears on them to soothe the itching.
Mamma made her own yeast for her good home-made bread. We children were always delighted when Mamma would say, "I think we had better go and pick hops. I need to make yeast." The hops would be on vines that grew up on shrubbery in the woods. Mamma would make a tea of the hops
and thicken it with cornmeal, then make a roll of it and slice it off into "cakes of yeast," and let it dry, using one cake for each batch of bread.
She was not the kind to work outside much but helped a little at gardening sometimes, but she would never milk the cows like some neighbor women did.
In those days many babies died of dysentery or "bloody flux."
Mamma had a recipe for humanized or peptomized cow's milk which she had
obtained from a druggist. A neighbor's baby was not expected to live
until morning, but Mamma took care of it, giving it the humanized milk.
Before morning it was better and eventually well.
Recipe for Peptonized or Humanized Cow's Milk
1 gill fresh cow's milk 1 gill water
2 tbsps rich cream 200 grains of sugar of milk
1 ½ grains extractum panereatis 4 grains common soda
Put this in a nursing bottle. Place bottle in water made so warm that the whole hand cannot be held in it without pain longer than
one minute. Keep the milk at this temperature for exactly 20
minutes.
The milk should be prepared just before using. Get the pancreatis
and sugar of milk at drug-store and have a dose or two weighed out
to use for a guide as to the amount.
I had two younger sisters, Monnie and Ada. Monnie died at the age
of five as the result of burns.
Uncle Henry's brother-in-law in Kansas City pastured his horse on
our farm one summer. In the fall he wanted him, so arrangements were
made for Mamma am the children – Otis, Fannie, and Ada -- to make the
trip in the buggy with the horse tied back of the buggy. Several times
we discovered the horse wasn't with us, and Otis would go back and find

him around a corner grazing. So he would try harder to tie the knot so
it wouldn't come loose again.
As evening caae , we stopped at a farm-house and were welcomed to eat
with them am sperd the night there. Before meals all stood behind their
chairs in a moment of silent prayer, the children wondering at the un-
accustomed procedure, since at home the blessing was asked by our father
after we were seated. It turned cooler in the night. The children had
coats, but Mamma had no wrap, so the kind hostess insisted that Mamma
take her shawl and leave it on our way back.
We looked for the "Mounds" as we neared Kansas City. They were
supposed to be rouming hills, burying places of Indians.
We reached Kansas City in the afternoon, and Uncle Henry met us
there and did the driving. The noise of the street cars and the many
buggies and clamor around us were frightening to the children.
We were in Kansas City at the time of the Priest of Palace parade.
As the waiting crowd was crossing a foot-bridge, the people were so
packed one woman said, "0, they'll kill my baby," so Uncle Henry held
the baby above his head to keep it out of the crush. While waiting on
the curb for the parade, a colored woman was interested in Ada and
talked to her. In talking about her later. Ada called her a "blackie."
Of course the parade was grand, with its decorated horse-drawn
floats. After the parade one float was passing Uncle Henry's house,
which was on a slope. The float ran up against the horses and two of
them fell down. Men came from all around and pulled the float back am
helped the horses get on their feet. It was a great deal of excitement
for us country people.
We lived on Grandfather's farm for ten years, but finally the estate
was settled, and Papa had to find another place for us to live. We moved
to a farm two miles from Welda, Kansas, in Anderson County, another move
for Matie. She was so disappointed with the little four-room house that
the first thing she did when she saw it was to put her face in her hands
and cry. But it soon became home. She always made friends with neighbors
and enjoyed them wherever she lived.
we children did not have access to a library and had not formed a
reading habit anyhow. We enjoyed having Mamma read to us, sometimes a
continued story from the Kansas City Star. one being "The Keeper of the
Bees." She read poems from "The Casket of Poetical Gems," a book which


had been given to her for a wedding present. Another favorite of ours
was Alexander Selkirk," by William Cowper. She would sing the poem to us.

After we left Grandfather's farm with the fruit trees, there
wasn't quite as much food on the table after garden seasons, although we
always had the cows, pigs and chickens to furnish food. Some things
prepared frequently and which we always liked, were johnny cake, baked
on the griddle, pop robin, stick-to-the-ribs, biscuit pudding, am
bread and milk. When we came home from school, which was two miles
distant, Mamma would give us slices of bread and sugar wet down with
top-cream from a pan of milk.
Mamma always used a feather chicken-wing that had been cut off at
the first joint to brush dust up onto the dust-pan.
She made butter, wrapping it in cheese-cloth in 1 lb. rolls, and
sold some in Welda. In warm weather, since we had no ice, it was lowered
by a rope in a bucket into the well within a few inches of the water,
which kept it cool enough to keep its shape during the trip into town.
Four years after we moved into that house, it burned, catching fire
from a faulty flue between the ceiling and roof. Papa was employed away
from home. Cousin Rose Taylor was visiting us, and Mamma, Rose, and a
young neighbor man who was working in the field carried out quite a bit
of the furnishings, but the contents of the kitchen were all burned. We
children saw the big smoke from the school-house during the noon-hour.
One article that was saved was Mamma's trunk that she had when she
went to Arizona to be married. We children had many a horsey-ride on
that little round-topped trunk with a Navajo Indian blanket spread over it.
Papa worked in Kansas City or some other place part of the time to
supply cash that the little farm didn't produce. We children didn't have
enough activities to keep young minds busy, so we did quite a bit of
quarreling. Mamma, lonely herself, despaired at the wrang1ing and would
say, "Whatever will become of you children?"

Soon, we two older ones finished the grades at the country-school.







Papa traded the farm for two four-room houses in Gas City, Allen
County, Kansas. One house was rental property. Otis and I attended high
school, and Ada was in the grades.
Two or three summers we took a train for the wheat area in Central
Kansas. One place Mamma worked in the cook-shack, and Papa worked with
the harvesters, and Ada was with them most of the time, but sometimes she
stayed with a family who had a baby for her to watch.
When Otis and I were seniors in high school, Papa began to think
about making us independent. He was working in Bartlesville and sent for
Mamma to come and help where there was a baby expected. Besides the
schoolwork, I struggled along with doing the cooking, washing, etc and
baked some pretty sad-looking bread. Then we got the whooping cough,
and one night I woke up am had quite a struggle to get my breath, so I
wrote that I wished Mamma could came home, and she did.
By the end of the school year, Papa had traded the houses for a small
farm twenty miles from Mountain Grove, Mo., with a post office and store
called Graff, a mile or so from the home. Mamma disliked that kind of
living very much. There was so much scrub-oak, and the little corn patch
was more of a rock patch. There were many wild blackberries, but many
ticks to go with them. There were neighbors whose houses you could not
see because of the woods.
We had not been there long until Papa said it was no place for us
children. We didn't know anything to do but go to school, so we went to
the State Manual Training School at Pittsburg, Kansas. Ada starting high
school there. Otis soon went to Denver and began learning the block-
system operator's work on the Santa Fe. After a part of a year in college,
I followed him. We stayed with relatives until we were called for rail-
road jobs.
Matie soon adjusted to the children's being gone. She enjoyed the
few neighbors though some did seem queer. One woman living by herself
was called the doctor, because she had lots of home-remedies, and if' some-
one was ailing, they would depend on her for help. The door to the little
house was so narrow that she and anyone who happened to be a little broad
had to go in sideways.
Only once or twice Mamma went with Papa to Mountain Grove, over the
rocky road in the wagon. She said she had to hold to the wagon-seat
with both hands to keep from being thrown out.
Papa got tired of the rocks and the ticks and traded the place, Sight
unseen, for some acreage in the western edge of Kansas. The description
said there was a small cement house on the land. So, another move for
Matie! They loaded their belongings into a covered wagon, fastened a small
crate of chickens on the back, and started west.

Excerpts from Mamma's diary.
"Trip from Wright Co., Mo., to Wallace Co Ks," started Feb. 7. 1913:
The roads were snowy and rocky, and there were some bad hills to
pull up. We traveled 10 or 15 miles a day. After about three days, the
country was more prosperous-looking and less timber and hills. We spent
the nights with farmers, and the pleasant experience of meeting new ac-
quaintances seemed mutual. Once in awhile we would sleep in the wagon.
One time a tire came off a front wheel, but we were fortunate enough to
be only ¼ mile from a shop where Papa took the wheel for repairing.
On the evening of the 16th we reached Pittsburg and Ada met us at a
designated place. Ada was working for her board and attending the Normal
High School. We spent the next day with Ada and visited the Normal
building. The 18th Ada rode with us to the end of the streetcar line,
then returned to school. It seemed more like leaving home than it did
when we left Wright Co.
As the roads got better, we went as much as 27 miles a day. We
went through Parsons and Independence. There were a few days of intermit-
tent snow, rain, frozen ground and mud. Sometimes we would put the team
in the livery-barn and sleep in a rooming house. "Mother Ames" at the
rooming house at Moline started us off with a good lunch and good wishes
for the trip. Coat of ice over everything for awhile. Trees broken by
the load of ice, and wires down.
Passed the asylum near Winfield and arrived at Winfield about noon
the 26th. We received mail there. The next day it snowed a little but
was too cold to snow much, and the roads the worst yet, about like driving
over a freshly plowed frozen field. We lost the coop of chickens from the
back of the wagon. A medicine an found them three miles back and later
over-took us and returned them.

.


March 1st - Saw a coyote and scared up several jackrabbits.
March 3rd - Snow drifted on east and west roads so we stopped early
as the horses were pretty tired. Stopped at Mr. Oshel's farm and found
they used to live on Wall St. in Gas City. Seemed like meeting old ac
quaintanes. Next day went two miles farther north and came to the auto-
mobile road, went through Wellsford, Haviland and Greensburg. Roads
smooth and well-traveled. We bought a dozen hard-boiled eggs for lunches.
We have reached the short-grass country, and the country is thinly-settled.
Saw the first train on the Santa Fe extension. Passed by miles and miles
of unimproved land. Crossed the new railroad and went straight west toward
Santa Fe. Land about here worth from $12.50 to $25.00 per acre. Roads fine
and land looks good. Immense crops of roughness all through the country.
Passed but very few houses. Got mail at Santa Fe. Slept in wagon and
paid 25 cents apiece for a slim breakfast with the post-mistress. On account
of county-seat fight am the new railroad town, nearly all of Santa Fe
has moved to Sublette.
March 10 - Got into Grant Co. before dinner-time. This county looks
like a desert -- very sparsely-settled and but little cultivated land.
Yucca (soap-weed) and Russian thistle (tumble-weed) are the principal
natural products of the country and there are immense quantities of these.
March llth There is a fierce wind from the southwest blowing clouds
of sand, making a regular sandstorm. We see miles am miles of land
covered with yucca looking like great herds of cattle on the hillside in the
distance, and piles and drifts of Russian thistles banked up against fences
or anything that will stop them in their mad rush, as they go rolling and
tumbling over the prairie before the "Kansas zephyrs." It is amusing and
interesting to watch them chase each other along like living beings. They
say there is good land here although it looks so barren. We wind in and
out among the big sand hills that surround Syracuse.
March 12th - We started early this morning and drove about 5 miles and
stopped at a farmhouse and got a cup of coffee and ate breakfast in the wagon.
Passed by six houses in a distance of 30 mi. Ate dinner at the half-way
house. The "landlord." a big, fat bachelor, served a bachelor dinner in a
bachelor den, one dirty little room, but put on a high-class price -- 25;
each. Arrived at Syracuse before sundown, put horses in barn, ate our lunch
and took a walk over town by lamplight. Quite a pretty place.

March 13th - In our 36-mile drive to Tribune we passed only 3 houses
and one little school-house. We ate our dinner by an abandoned shack where
there was a well and windmill. We got in company of a trapper in a covered-
wagon who was going to Tribune. There were heavy clouds in the sky and a
strong cold wind from the northwest. We were afraid of a blizzard so pushed
on as fast as possible against the wind and reached Tribune after dark, put
the team in the barn, got supper at a restaurant and went to bed in the
wagon. Couldn't sleep much because of the terrific gale that continued all
night and growing worse.
March 14th - Got up soon after daylight and went to hotel, ate break-
fast and waited for the storm to abate. Snow and dust flying so thick at
times we could hardly see across the street, a genuine western Kansas blizzard.
We have passed many abandoned shacks showing that this country has been
more thickly-settled in years past. Good land, but not farmed much on account
of lack of rainfall, stock-raising is the principal occupation.
March 15th - Clear and bright so decided to start traveling on toward
Sharon Springs. The wind got so strong that we stopped 5 miles out of Tribune
at a farmer's home and stayed until the next morning.
March 16th - started again for Sharon Springs 30 miles away. Roads
good but some snow. Got into a drift on the north bank of a draw about noon.
The horses got down. Unhitched and went to a house a mile away. Got shovel
and rope and dug out. Hitched the rope to the end of the tongue and pulled
out without any trouble, and we were on dry ground at once. Went on without
further adventures. Arrived at Sharon about 5:30. Got mail here.
March 17th - started on the home-stretch about 7 o'clock. Arrived at
Mr. Curtis's about 4 p.m.
March 29th - Began keeping house or "camping" in the Spriggs sod-house.

So ends the diary. Mamma did not state their feelings when they found
the "cement house" on the farm was only four walls with no roof and no doors,
so the cows could go in and out when they took the notion.
They lived temporarily as tenants on the Spriggs farm. They soon found
a place that could be homesteaded. Home was a 1-room half-dugout on the side
of a little hill. Some dugouts had dirt floors, but this one had a board
floor am was quite a comfortable place to live, warm in winter and cool in
summer. Neighbors were friendly, and a deaf -mute couple living some little


distance away would come to visit. Fuel used was coal and cow-chips.
Papa and Mamma would occasionally drive out over the prairie picking up cow-
chips and bring in a load.
When Otis came home from World War I came from Colorado with my
little girl and there was a large gathering of neighbors the following Sun-
day. It happened there were 7 baby girls in the gathering
After a few years my parents built a four-room sod-house on the hill.
In 1921 Papa died of heart trouble.
Ada was teaching school and Mamma went and made her home with her at
Solomon, Cottonwood Falls, and the last 18 years of her life. in Kansas City,
Kansas.
Mamma had had trials, discouragement and hard times but took it good-.
naturedly and adjusted to circumstances. Now she was able to enjoy cultural
surroundings, arts, band concerts and living in comfort that it seemed she
was more fitted for, a sort of triumph or reward for hardships she had under-
gone.
In June and July of 1931 Mamma and Ada went by train to Long Beach,
California. They stopped over at the Grand Canyon on the way. From one of
her letters -- "Last night we returned from a 2-day trip to Catalina. My!
But we are busy having a good time! We went on the S. S. Catalina which will
carryover 2200." They visited Mamma's sister Della in Sacramento and her sister Eva in Portland, Oregon, then on to British Columbia visiting Victoria
and other scenic places. She and Ada spent most of the summer vacations at
our house, some with Otis, and sometimes, if Aunt Della was visiting in
Colorado, they would go there.
She died in 1944 and she and Papa are buried at Kanorado, Kansas.

Expressions used by Mamma and Papa --
After sudden pain. as a burn. Mamma would say "Crackie." or '!Murder,! or
Mercy!
Sometimes she would say "Fiddle-sticks." or "Oh, pshawt" or "That beats the
speckled Jews." And sometimes. "Don't have a conniption fit."
If a garment she made had a little mistake or didn't fit just right. she'd
say, "It'll never be noticed on a galloping horse."
Papa. would say. Gee whillikers
After eating a sour pickle. "It's sour enough to make a pig squeal."
He called our navel our "peedle doodle." Our soft palate was our "little
toe.