Memories of Emeline Tyler Roper, Part 2

Town of Winfield
Herkimer County, N.Y


page 33 her was with them his name was SHELDON GRAHAM and my brother Charley had his sister (Charles married Emeline Graham, sister of Sheldon) and my brother Wells had the girl with him that he was going to marry and they had four horses and a man to drive that was use to driving four horses(.) I think there was seven couple(s) in that waggon they all went to Waupun to a dance when they came home they came to our house and they was a jolley coumpany and the boys said that they wanted to be married then and the girls was willing and so they sent for a man his name was DEACON ANDERSON of corse he had the right to mary them and my oldest brother Wells was married first and then my sister Carley and Shelldon Graham was married and then my brother

page 34 Charley and EMELINE GRAHAM was married all in our house the same day what a jolley time they all had and my sister Modenia and I had to help mother do the work but we was just as happy as we could be for we had two new sisters and one new brother I think that was 1850(.)[this date was more likely 1848 or 1849] the next day after New Years then of corse after a fiew days they all went away my sister Carley went to her home her husband had farm east of Horicon and my brothers went to Plainville, Adams County it is near Kilborn and us younger children worked out in the summer and went to school in the winter and of cors my sister Modenia and I was getting to (be) quite young ladys and then there was a lot of young girls and boys of our age

page 35 then I was sixteen and my brother Bruce was eighteen and there was all kinds of partys around some was big dances in Juneau and some was little partys in there homes and my sister Modenia and brother Bruce and I was always to all the partys and at our home partys and if we did not have any music then I would sing for them to dance sometimes we would have some one come that could play the acordian I tell you we was all happy (.) after sister and I was older then we went to the big dances with the young men and I comenced going with AUGUSTUS ROPER and my sister Modenia went with MARTIN RICH I was seventeen in July and I went with him at Christmas and sister was fifteen and she went with Mart Rich they was

page 36 was very near of an age of corse he was called little Mart Rich and he and Gust Roper always went togeather every Sundy they would get a nice span of horses and double carrage and come to our house and take sister and I out riding my fathers house was small and they always came togeather and always took us to all the partys and of corse after we went togeather a long time we was engaged to be married how well I remember the Christmas before we was married Gust took me to Watertown to a dance his brother FRANK ROPER lived there and we went to there house that was the first time that I had even see(n) them they had two children WILLIE and LOUESA(.) Willie was five years old and Louesa was two they was little children Gust had two sisters there MARY ANN and LOUISA and

page 37 we all went to the dance togeather that was the first time that I had ever seen the young folks walts it looked so nice to me to see them but I never could walts very good that was the first time that BEN PAY saw Mary An Roper and he asked Gust to introduce him to his sister and he fell in love with her then and he was married to her the next December and Gust and I was married the seventeenth day of April 1853 his brother Frank Roper went from Watertown to Juneau and he and Gust took the Juneau House (I believe that they bought or managed it) it was a big Hotel(.) there was five coupal(s) of us went to our ministers house and Gust and I was married it was a lovely day and we all had nice horses and carrages and after we was married we went to Bever Dam

page 38 it was ten miles we was married at noon we stayed in Bever Dam and had our supper and then came home to the Juneau House for Gust and his brother was keepeing the Hote(l) and that was our wedding trip(.) there was twenty five sleepeing rooms in that house and a big long dining room and a big siting & (she inserted a word that I think is "room" but it's too small for me to be sure) down stairs and a big seller khitchen where all the cooking was done it was three storrys high and sometimes we would have it full of boards (boarders)(.) I tell you we all had to work we kept three girls and a boy all the time and if one of the girls had to leave us it was so hard on us until we could get another girl we had so many men that was survaing for our new

page 39 railroad we staid there two years and then we left and went on a farm my first childe was born in the big Hotel it was a little daughter but she onely lived eight hours we felt so bad to lose our baby we lived on the old farm two years our little FRANKY was born there he lived one year and ten months and he was taken sick with puenmonia and onely lived one week how well I remember one Sunday morning befor he was taken sick of getting ready and putting him in his little buggy and walked two miles to see my sister Fidelia she married CHANCY BABCOCK and when I got there I found such a pretty little girl baby two weeks old and they was so happy with it

page 40 how glad I was go find it there and Chancy took me home(.) after our little Franky died I had a little daughter her name was GLENDORA when she was ten months old Gust and his brother JOSIAH ROPER he married Chancy Babcock sister MALISSA and I all went to Minnesota in a cover(e)d waggon I had my baby ten months old but Sy and Malissa did not have any childe I tell you we all remember that trip it was the first of May that we started I think it was 1859 we was on the road over two weeks Ben Pay and wife had gon to Minnesota two years before we went they was on a farm in Blue Earth County three miles from Mankato and that was

page 41 whare we wanted to go and it had rained all through April and May and the roads was all mud and our horses had a hard time to get through and when we got through the land was so wet that no one could do any work on there farms and it kept on raining and Gust would not stay there and we went back to Wisconsin in September then we went on a farm near Juneau and when my little Dora was two years old she was taken sick with disentary and she lived two weeks and died that seamed terriable to us then we had lost three children but we had to live through it all and how well I remember when our

page 42 new railroad was finished to run from Fan Du Lac to Chicago it went through Juneau and there was so many of the nice people and there familys was invited to go on the excurtian some in Juneau went and they all felt so happy and when the train got by Watertown as they was runing through a field where there was a lot of cattle one big bull saw the train comeing and it made him mad and he ran on the track and the engin struck him and it threw the train off of the track and there was sixteen killed and a lot of them hurt that was a sad time Gust was well aquainted with some that went from Juneau and he was in Juneau when the train came in with the dead and wounded it was a sad

page 43 sight and a fiew years after that thare was a beautiful large boat build in Milwaukee and the same was the "Lady Elgin" and the first time that she saild there was so many of the grand people from Chicago and Milwaukee again on that excursion and the boat was loadid and they was all so happy and after she got out the boat took fire and burned up and there was three hundred lives lost I tell you that seamed terriable and in 1861 the Civil War commenced and then that ws terriable for four long years our country was in mourning no one thought of anything but war in the spring of sixty one the Tenth Wisconsin regment was got up and all the boys in our neighbour hood was going

page 44 and Gust wanted to go but I was not well (she used this phrase to indicate when she was pregnant) and he did not go and he did not enlist but if he had ben drafted he would of went but he was not drafted(.) I had two brothers that went and when my youngest brother went it nearley broke our hearts for he was the youngest and one of ten children of corse he was our baby and he was not eighteen years old but he wanted to go with the boys that he had went to school with and he was very small of his age I never can forget the day that he left us my mother shut herself in her room and she could(n't) eat or speak to any one she felt so bad but we went and our country was full of sorrow after every battle that we read of there was mothers and widdows and orphans

page 45 to mourn all we ladys would get togeather and work we would make comeforters and knitte socks and make plasters and bandages and send boxes to the soldiers(.) my youngest brother went in September 1861 in Company K in the 29th Wisconsin he was gon four years and that December my little DENIA was born my oldest brother went in the Thirty Third Wisconsin regment our whole country was in trouble every one was in sorrow but my brothers was not sick much or was not killed and when our youngest brother came home he was six feete tall (I sent for and received his Civil War records and he was 5 ft. 8 in. tall. Grandma was a tiny little thing so he probably looked like 6 ft. to her!) h(e) had growen so tall in the Army how happy we all was when the terriable war was over and

page 46 our dear brothers and all of our loved ones was home and there was peae in our country again that ws in April 1865 and then that terriable thing happen(e)d our Dear President Abraham Linco(ln) was shot and then our country was in sorrow again and our Dear HATTIE ROPER died with diptheria she died Tuesday morning the eleventh dat of April 1865 and my little daughter Denia was taken sick with diptheria the next Sunday after and she died the first of May 1865 we all felt so bad that when I think of it seams like a terriable dark dream in a fiew days after our dear little Denia was burried I was taken very sick but

page 47 I got better in a fiew days we was liveing on the old farm it was a double house Father and Mother Roper lived in one part of the house and there daughter never had ben married and she lived with them and took care of them and Gust and I lived in the other part of the house ang Gust run the farm and we took care of all the hiard men but our country was in trouble for during the war our President had to free all the slaves and after the war was over something had to be done with all them slaves and our President was killed and the head men at Washington did not know what to do with them and they had some trouble with them but after a fiew years every thing got all right but I was so

page 48 sad and lonesome for I had lost four children and each one that died left me without a child but in two years I had another nice little daughter and how happy we was and when she was two years old I had a son and then we was so glad to know that we had two children and in four years I had another son then I tell you we was so happy for we had three children and then in three years more we had another little daughter then our family was just right two sons and two daughters I tell you we was so happy and when our second son was twelve yers old (ca. 1885) I had to take him into Chicago to have his throat operated on the docters there had to take his tonsils out we had a niece live in there

page 49 she was Frank Ropers daughter Louesa and she was married to JOHN PULLIN and they ahd two children HORACE and GRACE and of corse we went there and that wsa the first time I had ever seen electrick lights and they did look lovely to me we went to all the Parks and to so many beautiful places everything looked beautiful to me for I had never lived in a big city and when he got well we came home(.) when we had ben married twenty five years all the married people that we was going with would get up surprise partys and of corse when we had ben married that long they had a surprise party for us and they was afraid that we would expect them to come and they

page 50 waited until the next night and then they all came and I tell you we was surprised there was over forty came from Juneau and Horicon and they brought us all kinds of silver and they had a fine time and in a fiew years Mother Roper was sick and died and then in five months after her death Father Roper was taken sick and died and then we moved to Horicon and then in one year our neighbour ERVIN EDWARDS came and got Gust to go on his farm and we went and staid there one year and it cost us so much to run that farm that we went back to Horicon and we bought us

page 51 a home there and Gust and our oldest son MART (GEORGE MARTIN) worked at what they could get to do and our children JOHN (JOHN AUGUSTUS, JR.) and DAISY went to school and when John graduated he taught school near there and in two years my nieec and her husband JUDDIE and CORA CORNISH came to visit us and Juddie was in buisness in St. Paul and gave John a good job so John went to work for him he went in the fall and in the spring that Phillipyan War was and I was so afraid that John would go that I went to St. Paul but he did not want to go I staid there with my nieces and my sister Fidelia was there and her husband we went to see the soldiers getting ready to go to the Philliphens it was a sad sight to me for I had seen

page 52 such a terriable war that it made my heartache to see those nice young men so ancious too go I had a nice visit there with my John and my sister Carley came to St. Paul and sister Elizabeth was there and her daughter Georgy had married and lived there she was the dear little girl that we all loved so much I had a fine visit there and I went home and before this my oldest daughter BELLE (LURA BELLE) had been married to JAMES McINTYRE and they was liveing in Horicon and my youngest daughter Daisy was going to school there my son Mart went to work for the Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad company and when Daisy graduated from high school she taught school and

page 53 and then in one year our oldest son Mart was married to GRACE FARLOW and they lived in Horicon but Grace did not feel well and she wanted to go home and stay with her mother her home was at Minnesota Junction that was not far from Horicon and she went to her mothers and Mart could go up there every night and there little son MAURICE was born there and after she was well they went to Horicon again for Mart had to be there for he was baggage man for the railroad and that year Mart and his father built our house over and built a flat on the first floor above and then they built one story above there flat so we had three bedrooms and a hall built above Marts flat and Mart had nice rooms in

page 54 his flat he had two beadrooms and a dinning room and sitting room and kitchen they had everything nice and handy up there and we was so glad to have them live there(.) after Daisy graduated she was all hard out and we had her go to Minnesota and stay with her Auntys a fiew months and when she came home she was all right and then she got a school and taught one winter and the next winter she was studying with Professor Johnson so she could get a first grad(e) surtificate he had a class and how well I remember one Saturday morning they sent for Daisy to go for the docter for Mr. Johnson and I went right down there and he was up stairs and I went up and Mrs. Johnson was kneeling b(e)side

page 55 his bead a holding his hand and begging him to speak to her but he was dead he had taught his school all right Friday and at noon Saturday he wsa gon that was a sad time for us all and poor Mrs. Johnson was almoste crazy she had two little boys I tell you we all felt so sorry for her(.) (Emeline then wrote "two years after...", then she crossed that out.) in 1895 my daughter Belle husband sold his lumber yard in Horicon and went to California and took his family and that nearley broke my heart for they had two dear little boys and how we did love the dear little grand children they went in the spring and that was a lonesome summer for me but we had to live through it in nineteen two my daughter Daisy was married to EDWARD

page 56 MATTHIS she lived in Horicon(.) and in April 19(0)3 we selebrated our golden wedding then we had ben married fifty years we had a splendid time there was seven there that that was at our wedding and the minister that married us was liveing in Minneapolis he was not able to come and in September 19(0)3 I went to California I wanted Gust to go with me but he was night watch then in Horicon and he did not want to leave his work when I got there every thing looked beautiful to me the great Orang(e) orchards just loadid with the bright yellow fruit I never had see them before the trees looked so lovely I had a brother liveing in Los Angeles and he had six sons

page 57 they all had familys but one he was not married my daughter Belle and family lived in Glendale so I had a good many of my owen folks there and I never had seen the ocean before and that was a grand sight to me Belle and I and the boys would go to the beach and stay a fiew days and I would sit near the ocean and watch the tide come and go and I would think how it had done the same for millions of years and I would think of all the trouble that ocean had caused the people it was a wonderful sight to me of corse I staid with Belle in Glendale but I would go to my brothers and stay a coupal of weeks at a time and then

page 58 Belle would come for me to go home with her and brother Charley and wife would come to Glendale to visit us and of corse I had a find time the weather there was lovely all winter and in June I went to Roseburg, Oregon I had two nieces liveing there and my son John was workin in Portladn Oregon and he went to Roseburg to meete me and we made a visit there and I went to Portland with him he was workin for a railroad and navagation company I staid with him we boardid with a dear friend of ours and we had cousans there that we visited(.) I staid with him three months and we had

page 59 cousans and I had two nieces and a nephew liveing in Spokan Oregon and John got a pass for himself and me and we went to Spokan and visited our folks there I had a sister liveing in Anaconda Montana and John had to go back to Portland(.) I went to Anaconda and visited my sister Fidelia she and her husband was liveing with there daughter MATILDA WOOD her husband was workin in an office there(.) Anaconda is where the great copper works are and Matilda and my brother in law and I went all through the works we saw seven million dollars worth of machinery all runing and we saw five great furness whare they melted and run the

page 60 the copper ant we saw the great dishes that they run the hot copper in and then it went dow(n) in cold water and we saw them draw the big cake of copper that they drawed up out of the water there was a man went with us and explained about all the works he said that each cake of copper weighed three hundrid and twent(y) five pounds and he showed us the arsnick that they saved from the copper all that great machinery did not stop they haderues(?) of men that worked night and day they worked eight hours each ereu(?) I tell you it was wonderful to me to see it and one day while I was there my niece and I went to see the hot

page 61 we took some eggs and boiled them in one of them but it took an hour to boil them but it was a wonderful sight to me to see all those five springs a boiling and to sit and think that where is the fire and from Anaconda I went to Little Falls Minnesota to visit my sister Carley Graham and my oldest sister Elizabeth EDSON came from Winnegago to meete me there and she was very sick there but she got better in a fiew days and we had a good visit the great paper mills was there and my niece and I went all through and saw them draw the logs out of the water and saw them in blocks and then grind them and then they was run in great vats

page 62 and then it was passed over great roolers and then it was great sheets of paper it was corse heavy paper that they mad(e) out of wood but it was very interesting to see how they made paper and then from there I went to Minneapolis my son Marts wife came there to meete me and we had friends and realtives there that we visited and then we went home and they was all so glad to see me for I ben gon from one year and two months but it was a grand trip for me(.) that was 19(0)4 and in 19(0)7 we sold our home in Horicon and went to Spokan our boys Mart and John was there

page 63 Mart wifes father and all there family and Marts wife and there little son all went to Spokan togeather Gust and I staid in Horicon with my brother ELON TYLER two months and then we went to Spokan and we lived with our son Mart we liked Spokan and we lived there three years in 19(0)8 my daughter Belle McIntyre came from California to Spokan to visit us and my daughter Daisy came to Spokan and then my family was all togeather and in 19(0)9 my son John was married to BELLE FARLOW she is my son Marts wife sister my son

page 64 Mart went to work on the Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad and his run went to Tacoma and he was going to move to Tacoma for he could be with his family every week if he went there and Belle wanted her father and I to come here to Califronia and visit her and we came here in June 1910 and here we have staid we ike California very much in the year 1899 before we sold our home in Horicon my daughter Belle came from California to Horicon to visit us and in nineteen hundread she had a pair of twins bous (boys) born they was lovely babys but one onely lived three days and we all felt so bad for

page 65 to loos one of the dear little babys for we always thought twins was no nice of corse her husband came to Horicon and staid with us until she was well and he had to go back home to California and she staid with us until September then she had to go home to California how we did hate to have her go and take the dear children but her husband was so ancious to have her home again that she went and I never can forget that summer after she and the children was gon I felt so bad that I could not sleepe but after awhile I felt better but when that dear little boy was one year old he was taken sick and just lived one week and died then she had lost both boys

page 66 my sister Elizabeth Edsons daughter MRS. EMMA BUTLER she and her son bought a ranch in Soledad Monteray County California and they was liveing there and in ninteen fifteen I went to Soledad to visit my sister and I had a grand visit up there in the mountains I road horse back up the mountains and down in the canions but I had a nice time for I had not road on a horses back before since I was a girl how they did laugh to see the old woman on a horse and of corse they took my picture on that horse my sister could not go with me for she had rheumatis

page 67 now I am going back and write about the PAYS of corse after Ben Pay married Gusts sister Mary Ann we all got aquainted with the Pay boys and Bens father he was such a good man we all liked him very much he loved all little children and he was a very good singer and he trained twenty of the children in Horicon from eight to twelve to sing and speak and then he gave a consurt in a big hall there and the hall was croudid and the children done fine his two sons TOMAS and ROBBURT Tom sang bass and Rob sang tenor and there was two HUNTLY girls one sang soprano and one alto(.) They did sing lovely and they gave consurts how we did like to hear them sing that was back in 1853

page 68 this happened in the year 1912 the grandest boat that ever was built and the largest one that had ever ben built she started on her first trip acrost the Atlantic Ocean and she had one thousan(d) and five hundread and ninty five pasingers aboard her boat and they was so many of the richest people on both sid(e)s of the ocean on board of that grand boat and they was all so happy and thought that there could not anything happen to that grand boat but when she struck that ice burg it toar her side all opean and of corse she had to sink and they did not

page 69 have life boats enough to save one third of the people that was on the ship there was onely seven hundread and forty five people saved from that terriable disaster on the ocean and the ones that was saved suffer(e)d terriable from the cold a floating around in the life boats before they was picked up by the good "Carpathia" ship that came to there rescue some of them died just as soon as they got them on that ship and all the hundreads that was left on the "Titanic" went down with the ship and that beautiful band that was on the ship just stood and played "Nearer My God To Thee" until it sank

page 70 and here I am eighty four years old and I have lived to see this terriable war of nineteen and seventeen the wors(t) war that our dear old world has ever known and now we have got to see our dear boys taken to Engeland and France to suffer and die in the trenches or be blown up and sunk before they get there we fell that it is such wicked thing for our head men in Washington to do if they want any fighting don we wish they would go over there and do it themselves not send our dear young boys over there but all we can do is to hope and pray that it will soon be over but we must wait and see

page 71 and now I am eighty five and I have lived to see my dear grand children drafted and had to go to this terriable war three grand sons and one son in law all in the war one of my grand sons is in France now and he has seen all sid(e)s to this war he has ben in the terriable battles and in the trenches and he has had to sleepe in the water when he was so tiard out that he could not help it and he has had to ware his same cloths for weeks at a time but our Dear Lord has kept him from death and now the war is over and he can come home and how we do thank our Dear Lord for takeing care of our boy

(These next two pages are not numbered)

page // here I am eight four years old and I have lived to see this terriable war of ninteen seventee(n) worst war that our dear old world has ever known and they are takeing our young boys over there to be shot and die in the terriable trenches we all feel that this is a terriable wicked war but all we can do is to hope and pray(.) my oldest grandson PERCY McINTYRE had to go in October ninetee(n) seventeen and my second grand son WILMOT McINTYRE (this was my grandfather) is a fine chemest and they tooked him to Cleveland Ohio and put him

page // in an arsnal of corse to make gass he was working in a very dangeras place but that is where all the chemist have to work and he and nine other boys was terriable burned he was burned all over except his face and hands he had on a mask but he was in a hospital for months two of the boys that was burned the same time he was died but he is home now and all right but our dear Percy is in France and he is so ancious to come home he wrote his mother that it is the hardest part of the war waiting to come home




If anyone recognizes this family please e-mail Sue Wood.




Sue gratiously offered Emeline's memories to us last spring, waiting patiently for me to work on this presentation of Emeline's memories. She's also submitted a copy of Emeline's handwritten memories to "Notable Woman Ancestors", http://www.rootsweb.com/~nwa/index.html , a Rootsweb site worth bookmarking. If you're descended from persons mentioned in Emeline's memories, please contact Sue.




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Created: 1/1/99
Copyright © 1998 - 2002 Suzanne (Brandenburg) Wood
Copyright © 1998 - 2002 Patricia (Brandenburg) Seabolt
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