Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

"The name of Dad's mother-in-law of his first wife (Francis Cossins) was Etta. She came to visit Dad when I was 10 or 12. She smoked a corncob pipe.

"Grandma Jessie Olson died when I was about 9 to 11 years old. I can remember her. Grandma and Nellie drove a horse and buggy. When I was about 8 or 9, Grandma and Aunt Nellie (Olson) drove their horse and buggy down, and we picked strawberries for them. We had a big patch that Dad watered from the millpond. We'd pick them by the washtub, and took home plenty. Grandma didn't last long after that. Grandma Jesse had one of those stereoscopes you could look through, and we kids would head for the old house and sit and look at those pictures."

"One time, we kids had a little wagon, that we would ride down the hill, back of the garage on the house by the mill, and George went under the hayrack and cut his lip open. I took him to the house and Mom asked what happened, I said, ` Oh nothing!' Bill and I got a spanking and we deserved it."

"Mom was washing, and how we hated to turn the old washing machine. We thought we could get out of it, so we went after the mail. Dad was waiting with the razor strap when we got back. He scared us worse than it hurt."

I remember Shobel's store in Bloomington, it had almost everything, in the spring of 1922, when I was 12, Shobel's had a contest for kids 12 and under. Their north window was full of dolls. The one who guessed the closest to its weight got the doll of her choice. My sister Elsie and I got a catalog and we found one about the size of the doll. I went in and wrote the weight down. Well I won it, and Pat Shobel tried to tell my mother that I was too old. After some discussion I got my doll. I would have been 13 in July.

"I remember the Bloomington Equity Store or Exchange, where the folks always traded. It was in a building just north of the opera house, between it and Billy Cole's office." The opera house sat across the street and a little south of the current Lamplighter Inn.

The more I am getting into this small book, the more it just falls together. Its sort of like Mary took the pictures as she told the stories of her life. I am learning about Bloomington area and the way area life progressed down through the years by following Mary's life.

There is more from Mary Anderson's memory in the form of hand written notes.

"I also have memories of the old flour mill at Bloomington. Ben Siegel ran it and lived in the third house down the lane, which later became Pat and Emma Sharp's place."

Mary's son, Howard Hill, remembers his mom saying she and Elsie went swimming in the millpond. "Dad took wheat and corn there to be ground and we kids all went along.

"Mom was sick in bed when I was 13 years old. I had to do the cooking for us all and I don't remember what I fixed. Elsie must have been in school and Hazel was working out. She worked for Charlie Gardner and Charles Howells.

Aunt Lois and Grandma Anderson came to visit from Missouri when I was 13. Aunt Lois told me I was big for my age and that I had long legs (Aunt Lois was A. C. Anderson's half sister).

"When I was 13, Ted and his Dad were farming our place. Dad cut one field of Alfalfa and it needed to be stacked and there was no one there to help so they took me. We got it up okay, but when it settled, it didn't look very good. Anyway I tried.

"I loved to drive the horses and help Dad with anything that needed to be done. We cut wood at the north end of our place, along the creek. We'd saw it and then Dad and I would each take a team and wagon and haul it home for the winter. He would always go first and I'd follow, this usually took about a week. I shucked my share of corn along with Dad and Bill."

Today if you go to this place by the old Bloomington Mill you won't see any activity. I have been told that there were numerous houses with people living in them. Where the old mill stood there is some foundation and one of the old burrs on the hillside. Where the Morlans lived, the house still partly stands, and that won't last long, for the sides are falling out. A. C. Anderson's family made so many good memories there. There are just foundations with trees growing in the middle. The original house is gone where Ben Siegel lived. Later, Pat and Emma built a new small house on that site by the mill and stands in the south part of Bloomington, just to the east of Fern Schegg. It is slowly going the way of ruin.

When the house sat at the mill site in 1967, my husband and I took our two youngest sons to visit Emma Sharp. We sat in the living room by a window. My youngest son, Brian, had on a blue outfit, and the sun was shining bright in the south window. I was only in that house once, but I will never forget the welcome we received from Emma. The house faced the east, and just to the south of the front door stood the washhouse. It seemed to me the yard was over grown with brush. Emma Sharp was a very elderly woman at that time, probably unable to take care of her yard. Some of us in the Bloomington area remember Emma's usual quest to get to town, she would walk on old legs that were worn out. I am sure there are many of you reading this that gave Emma a ride to town many times. She was a dear lady and I remember how she would visit my mother in law, Verna Donovan, before she would try and make the long way back out to her home by the Mill. Emma's maiden name was Voight.

Pat and Emma were my husband Duane's great aunt and uncle. Pat grew up on our present farm, which is located about a mile and a half from Bloomington along highway 136.

There is solitude in seeing you, Followed by your company when you are gone. Witter Bynner

Rena Donovan, For Another Day

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