"Ruby was the youngest of eleven children born to Quimby Weeks Pierce and Virginia Painter Pierce, on Aug. 11, 1893 at Clark County, Osceola, IA. When a small child, she was very sick with lung fever. The doctor told them to get out in the country with her, so Father and the three boys came to Clay County, Peterson, IA, in a covered wagon in 1896. Mother and the three girls, Fay, Della, and Ruby, came by train to Peterson to the farm where Walter and Helena Terrell now live, known as the Braasch farm. Ruby lost her front teeth so young and they were out for so long, a neighbor man would say, "Hello, Little Grandma," every time he saw her. It would make her so mad, but that neighbor man in later years became her father-in-law.
Ruby can't remember the first time she saw Allie, but does remember that he, Dick Borland, and her brother Tom would go hunting. This one day they came home for lunch on a windy March day. She climbed on the back of Dick's chair, saying "Dickie, Dockee, Dover, Got enough dirt in your ears to plant a potato patch" You know what that noughty girl got! Allie always remembered it.
One year there was no teacher at the Deegan school where Ruby went to school, so her father asked permission of the directors to let her go to the Rock Forest School. Moreau Kirchner was teacher. Then Ruby and Allie went to school together.... The school terms were dfferent then than they are now, so the big boys would pick corn. Allie picked corn for Ruby's father in order to buy the shot gun which he asways kept.
Allie had joined a temperance lodge, the I.O.G.T. Lodge, so instead of calling her, he wrote a letter asking her to join and go with him. She accepted and joined, also. They went every Sat. Night. Sometimes he came to see her on his bicycle. He bought a carbide light to put on it. Later he put this light on the dashboard of his new buggy." Pg 406 [PETERSON IOWA 1856 - 1980 Walsworth Publishing Company Inc. Marceline, MO 64658]