While living there too, my eldest brother who is eighteen months younger than myself was on his way home from school, which was only a half block away. He and one of his schoolmates were playing, and he was thrown in a way his leg was broken in three places, one place below the knee and two above the knee. He was in a plaster cast for some long time and the weather was hot and he was covered with boils. He was so patient some of his friends called him Job.

While living there I started to a Pen Art Hall and attended evening classes, as I was going to school, and I also attended Saturday afternoon and evening classes. I continued on there for a couple of years and graduated in both plain and ornamental penmanship with honors. And received prizes on my work at two county fairs in Ohio and two fairs in northern Indiana. I also received second prize on one piece at one state fair. This was later in 1884.

Then we moved to a small home for one summer until we could get a house we wanted which was to be vacated in the fall. We moved into this home we waited for till about September, 1881. It was a large brick house on a beautiful street. We had all the room we could use down stairs and beside the family a girl of old friends roomed and boarded with us and went to school, and graduated from High School. And upstairs we had four large beautiful rooms. Each room opened into the hall and there were two stairways, one from our living room and the other from the outside, up into the hall. It was a wonderful arrangement for roomers and as we lived in a college town, mother roomed college students nine months of the year and often some of them stayed permanently.

It was while living here that I graduated in Penmanship. We had a lovely commencement at the large city hall auditorium on September 21st, 1882. After graduation I continued to attend classes as often as I could with my schoolwork for which I was well paid afterward.

Shortly after our commencement my future husband came there to school. We soon became fast friends and before he left we were engaged.

Then our home was sold. The father-in-law of the lawyer who had been our neighbor bought it so we moved out of the house and the lawyer, his wife, son, father-in-law and his wife moved in. Also two daughters.

This was in the fall and as my father was to do some very nice work in the same small town twelve miles east, Sundale, (where we had lived when I was a baby) we moved into a house at the side of our town until spring. Then we took part of our furniture and went to the little town, Sundale, again, only for the summer.

While living in the little house at the edge of town for the winter not much of note took place. My boyfriend had obtained a good position in northwest Ohio and gone there to work and I did not see him for a year. He was a telegraph operator and agent.

While living in the small town of Sundale, the summer there was not much to see or to go to. I kept up practice of my writing and ornamental work.

There were three churches there. The Methodist had a good church building and held their Sunday School at 9:30 am. The Baptist also had a good church building and they held their Sunday School at 12:30 pm. The Presbyterians had no church of their own. There was a large Town Hall in the center of an entire square. The whole block was park, with businesses facing it from all four sides on the opposite sides of the four streets. The Presbyterians held their Sunday School in the Town Hall at 3:00 p.m. The town was small. The best group of young people and children in town attended all three Sunday Schools every Sunday, so the same ones were at all three Sunday Schools and we were very happy. Since the same group attended all three Sunday Schools we seemed to all belong to three denominations.

We only lived in the small town from April 1st to October 1st, as father finished his work which was to cut marble and build some private mausoleums, so October 1st, 1883 we moved again about twenty five miles northwest to a larger town of Merton, but at that, not very large. Here my father did the same kind of work and built several nice private marble mausoleums here.

We attended Methodist Sunday School and church. While here I became assistant teacher of Penmanship in a Pen Art Hall and business college. I enjoyed my work very much. After about 18 months the principal decided to move to Chicago. There he was very successful in the same business. Through an accident he lost his eyesight and was blind many years. His wife was very efficient and helped him carry on and they were very successful. In after years, he regained his sight. Then his wife passed away and after a couple years he too died.

After the college moved to Chicago, I secured a position with the County Probate Judge as deputy. I did copy work and record work, and issued marriage licenses. Later I was invited to help out the County Recorder and was able to keep up the books in both offices.

While living here I had an uncle, aunt and three cousins living two miles west. Whenever I had a day to myself I would go over and visit them.

While living here my boyfriend came to see me. He had gone to Indiana and secured a position on a railroad as Station Agent and telegraph operator as soon as leaving school, and I had not seen him for a year and two months. From that time I saw him only once a year. We were engaged nearly four years and I saw him only three times. The fourth time he came home we were married, but after moving back to our old home and larger city. Then we moved back to our own home in Dover, the County Seat, in October. Again we took a house too small until April 1st when we moved in a nice very large home.

On leaving the last place where I had been assistant in the business college and in the Probate and Recorders offices, that town being a small County Seat. Both Probate Judge and Recorder gave me such an excellent recommendation that I at once procured a position as deputy Probate Judge again in my own hometown. Here I worked about nine months and then was married. That was July 27th, 1886.

I went home with my husband where we stayed about a week. His father was a physician and the family lived in the county on a nice farm. He had a nice practice and hired the farm work.

My husband had three brothers and one sister. There were three of his father's sisters living at the home with them. They had their own apartment but took their meals with the family. When I went home with him first there were eleven around the table, now fifty-five years have passed since I went home with him and all are gone but myself. My husband passed away twenty-one years ago. One of the aunts at his father's home was a widow and two were married.

His family were all very fond of me and always kind to me clear through to the last. After a week at his father's we went home to my father's home for a week.

We went to a very small town in northwestern Ohio to live. My husband was station agent and telegraph operator at a small depot. I would have been lonely, as there was no place to go, after living in a county seat and college town, but was very happy with my husband.

My husband's brother Tom came and boarded with us and learned telegraphy.

Here I had a class where I taught embroidery of different kinds also lace making. I also had classes in two towns not far away. And could ride on passes on the railroad.

We lived here nearly two years on a salary of forty dollars a month. We lived within our means and bought a lot for which we paid two hundred dollars. And when we moved from there, it was clear. If we had stayed there would have no doubt built a little home.

While living here I made my first trip to Chicago. A lady and I went together. We visited her Uncle and Aunt and also we visited my uncle, aunt and boy cousin, Walter. We took several nice trips over the city and went to opera a few times. That was in summer.

The following winter my sister and my sister-in-law came to visit us and we went to Chicago. We visited my uncle and aunt.

In the spring my youngest brother came and stayed with us for a time. He kept the budget and tried to keep us within thirty-five cents a day. Our rent was $4.00 per month, but our house was very small and only two stories. No church in town.

We were offered another station in Indiana at forty-five dollars a month, which meant a lot to us at the time. So we moved farther west. We managed to buy a nice little home of four rooms downstairs and two upstairs, nice large lot. We also had the good luck to trade-in our lot we had bought, at the price we had paid for it two hundred dollars on our home. It was on the main street in a fine location. Brother Will came and lived with us two years and learned telegraphy. His life work was as a train (fine line time ??) dispatcher.

Before we bought this home we had the misfortune to live in three houses which were sold and we had to move. So our own home was the forth house we lived in, in the town and only lived in the town four years to the day. We bought our own home and only lived in our home we bought nine months. We loved it but was offered another station twelve miles farther west with another raise of five dollars more, which was fifty dollars a month. While living here I started painting pictures. First in oil and soon in watercolors and also pastel. I have always enjoyed it as a hobby and kept it up to now. That was 1889. It is now 1945.

I should have stated that while living in the above town the four years, my little son was born. We were then living in the second house of four houses we lived in, in the town. Each house we went into was sold so we bought one of our own.

I was not well and my mother came out to us from Ohio. She wanted to take me home with her, thinking I would have better care and better doctors. I went home with her in August and my baby was born December 20th, 1889.

In February I took my baby home to Indiana and my sister went with me. She stayed two weeks. My baby was the crossest baby I ever knew. He cried all day and all night. When he was but two weeks old he had what was then called influenza. That was the cause of him being so cross. Was not well and could hear his breathing day and night.

We moved as I stated before twelve miles west on April 4th, 1892. This move to a slightly larger town and fifty dollars a month.

Here we rented a house, which we lived in a year. December, 1892 my mother and a girl friend came to spend Christmas with us. While they were with us my brother Will came and also my husband's brother Tom came to be with us so we had a very Merry Christmas. My little son was then three years old. Mother brought him a pretty little gold ring for a Christmas gift, and I left it on his finger and put him to bed the first night. In the morning it was missing. I asked him shat he did with his ring and he said, "I eated it up". I found it on the floor where he had thrown it chewed in a little wod.

After Christmas mother and Nan kept the little fellow a couple days and my husband and I went to Chicago for a little trip. It was before the Worlds Fair opened in the spring of 1893. The buildings were mostly finished. We saw many of the buildings and some of the grounds. All was very beautiful but everywhere snow and ice.

The following April we sold our little home where we had moved from and bought a new home in our new town. It was a new house not finished of five nice rooms and later we added two more rooms and a cellar. Piped the well and cistern water into the kitchen and a sink to carry away wastewater. We moved into our new home about the middle of April, 1893. We planted flowers, lots of fruit, grapes and flowering vines. I was not very well and about 1895 was a very serious tubercular case. I was treated by a physician in Indiana, a specialist, and after a few months was cured. In September 21st, 1896 our little boy was taken seriously ill with diphtheria. We had five doctors and specialists who held counsel over him.

He lay for weeks with little hope of his life. The doctors used antitoxin at two different times injected in the arm. It was the first ever used in northern Indiana. When he recovered the doctors said he was the worst case they had ever known to live. His throat was healed long before he showed signs of recovery, but the condition after caused lung trouble and also heart trouble.

After he was able to be up he could not walk, but crept on the floor like a baby and also lift his eyes and hearing affected. After a time he overcame that trouble. He was seven years old while he was still very sick, which was December 20th, 1896. Paul's sickness continued into the fall of 1897. During his sickness I was expecting another baby which came February 14th, 1897. A fine little girl.