If I had time and talent, I know 1000's of wonderfulstories, I could write. Many are like Steinbeck and
Faulkner tales. They would make you weep. The
books are in my head. If I could get them on paper,
I would be a rich woman. You could say, I know an
old lady that got rich writing true stories of old.
The picture is of Lidia Margaret Standridge. She
married Charlie Cagle in 1865. She was Granny
Renfroe's "own" Aunt. Granny said Aint. What
Granny meant was Lidia her father's sister and
of direct kin.
In 1879, Charlie and Lidie left Newton County for
Oregon with a wagon train of Newton County hill
folk. By the 1880 census, they are out west. Lidia
is working washing clothes for miners. No pot
of gold was found at the end of their rainbow.
All the families decided to trek home. At Americus
Kansas, the wagon train contracted typhoid fever.
Several were sick. Lidia died there. By this time,
Charlie was flat broke...not even a dime, but He had 7
little children, one born 2 weeks before Lidia's
last breath. Charlie sold Lidia's long, dark, plaited
hair to a Kansas buggy whip maker. Her hair was
braided into buggy whips to crack the back flanks
of horses. And Charlie used this cash to give Lidia
a proper burial there in a cemetery!
6 comments:
Well if you write a book I would not put this lady's picture on the cover...Just looking at the old pictures you post make someone want to weep.....Do we not have any good looking relatives....Remember that picture of (I think Richard Powell) Fleta had reprinted to 8X10' for all of us to hang on our walls....My Mackenzie was 2 and everytime she looked at it she cried....He did look mean...helen
Sister, I almost cried just reading this. What a hard life they used to have! When are you going to retire and write that book?
sad.
that was henry powell, helen and he may have looked mean but he wasn't mean. he was a family man who looked after his daughter in law and her children after his son died in the civil war. he helped feed and cloth your greatgrand father , richard powell. if he had not took care of sarah and her children we might never have been on this earth.
The Pink Sky at Night means sailor's delight, pink sky in the morning means sailor's warning.
Lives and deaths of our ancestors always fill us with awe, don't they. Life was lived much closer to the edge then.
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