Pamela Frances Craig Benschoter

The funeral services of Mrs. Benschoter, who died Nov. 15, were held at the Baptist church Sunday, conducted by the regular pastor of that church. A large concourse of relatives and friends were in attendance, as Mrs. Benschoter was well known and highly respected.

Jasper County Democrat, Carthage, Missouri
Friday, December 13, 1907, Page 5
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Biographical Notes:
When you say her first name, remember that the emphasis was on the middle syllable, Pa-ME-la. It may have come from the name Permelia.

Pamela Craig and Burgess Benschoter were married on September 28, 1862, in Richardson County, Nebraska, near Pawnee City. The couple would have 10 children together, each equally loved.

Memories about this fascinating woman were preserved in a history of her family written by Edna Lett Stauffer entitled "A Day in My Life". The history gives an insight into the workings of a large family farm, and the fun that Pamela's granddaughters, Edna and Belva Lett LaRue had when spending time with their grandfather Burgess and grandmother Pamela on the farm. Edna and Belva were daughters of Laura Benschoter and her husband Beverly Ward Lett.

"Grand-mother, Grand-mother, Grandmoth-er-er-er!" "Here I am down at the old turkey nest." So two little tow-headed girls skipped happily down into the old apple orchard, for they knew where turkey-mama had her next in the brush pile grandfather had left when he trimmed the orchard. Hadn't they been in the hunt when Grandmother was trying to find where turkey-mama had hidden her big, brown-flecked eggs?

Then they must never, never let Grandmother get away from them too long. The things she was doing were much too intriguing.

Flowers, galore though Grandmother had no water system other than drawing it from the well and lugging it to them. But they were worth it! Here is when I gained my first knowledge of flowers and my love for them. Watching Grandmother's devotion was all it needed. She had a huge box lined with layers of newspaper, into which she placed her house plants when old winter threatened to blacken their faces. A big fire was kept in the heating stove but the house was old and none to easy to heat, so the added protection.

Many of the names of the old-fashioned flowers were a delight! Pretty-by-Night, Love-in-a-Mist, Tuberoses, Touch-Me-Not, and the fierce ones like Tiger Lily and Snapdragons. We spent happy hours making the dragons snap, finding the dove in the columbine, the little man in the violets, and pressing on the seed pod of the Touch-Me-Not to watch the seed fly.

She would come out as we started to school and with great ceremony and much satisfaction would pluck a rose and pin it to my pinafore.

One day she had cooked some fish and saved the back bones. They were about the right size so she colored them and strung them and made beads for me. She told me if any of the children at school asked what they were I was to tell them they were vertebra. She knew I wouldn't want to say fish-bones. So I told them and one girl said, "Oh, they are not either. They are fish bones." So that was that! They were pretty anyhow.

After school was out we flew to grandfather's house to spend the summer. Grandmother could hardly wait for us to get up in the morning. She would come to the door of the west bedroom and wake us. It seemed like night time yet to us, but Grandmother insisted that we could never be morning glories unless we arose right then, washed our faces in cold water and ran around the house two or three times.

One of the first entries into the narrative Edna wrote was about the creation of a bonnet made for her, called a "Kiss-me-quick", and a tightly knitted jacket called a "Hold-me-tight". Great names which bring an immediate vision.

I wish you all might have known our Grandmother!! Full of stories and things for little lassies to do. Songs to sing and games to play. It was lost time to us to have to lie down and take a nap in the drowsy afternoon. But right after the noon dishes were washed Grandmother took her nap so we must too. She stretched out on the floor, which was covered with a layer of straw over which was pulled and tacked with much heaving and grunting and mashed fingers, a rag carpet. It was soft and springy and made an excellent pallet.

We had a playhouse out in the cherry sprouts. Grandmother contributed to its furnishings. I can see her yet as she came smilingly out with the bottom from a broken goblet which would make us a beautiful glass plate. No store-boughtin' dishes for us. No little rich girl could have enjoyed her playhouse as much as we.

Grandmother always took time to do things for us and enter into our games. After all, she was only thirty-nine years old when I was born and still retained the zip of younger years. She was large and fat but could skip the rope as daintily as a fairy. She never would weigh after she reached two hundred and never dieted, as I remember. It may have been the indirect cause of her in death in the fifties [sic].
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Belva LaRue wrote about her grandparents, too:
During my school years my summer vacation were spent on the farm with Grandfather and Grandmother Benschoter. I have always had a feeling that I made a very sagacious choice of grandparents. My merry Scotch-Irish grandmother seemed to me to possess an inexhaustible store of folk-tales, ballads, and nonsense rhymes together with a fund of stories from her own experience, all of which we called for over and over. I can see her now energetically moving the churn-dasher up and down, her eyes twinkling in enjoyments, as keen as our own, as she recited for us a nonsense rhyme or sang an old ballad.

Grandmother was never too tired or too busy to plan things for our pleasure. One time she had grandfather catch a sparrow, which small bird she dressed so that we would have a real roast "chicken dinner" for our dolls. She was full of fun.

I remember one time she dressed us up, Edna as a witch, with a bonnet and shawl elevated on a broom to make her appear very tall, and with a long black skirt, and me in white "longies" stuffed to their capacity so I became a short, fat brownie. In this garb she sent us giggling down the road to Uncle George's place, a quarter of a mile away.
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