Grandma

Today's Blog is brought to you by my Grandmother.

Eva May Weller
Childhood Stories



On Christmas Day in 1911 Iza Noah and Webster were united in marriage at the Henry Noah home south of Palco, Ks. Iza was teaching school and Webster had been staying with his grandparents just south of the schoolhouse. After they were married the grandparents went back to Missouri and Iza and Webster lived in the house south of the school house. I remember that school being called the Hawkins school as the Hawkins family lived just west of the school.

In the fall of 1912 on September 2 a little girl was born to the Weller’s. She was named Eva May Weller. She had red hair and was naturally a special person as she was the first grandchild on either side of the families and the first great grand child for the William Noah family. Ralph Emerson Weller was born into the family on 2/25/1916 then Robert Lee Weller was born 7/18/1917 and Dale Henry Weller was born on 6/13/1919. My mother had her hands full for awhile. Dad was a horse trader besides farming and was gone some on trading deals so I remember trying to help mother care for the babies. Mother said Robert cried more than the others and she thought he probably thought he was neglected sometimes. Dad had his first car, a Buick, when I was 3 ½ years old. I think they were really proud of it as we had several pictures taken, then later Dad went to Fords.

When I was 5 years old, Ralph was 1 ½ and we had a stomach disorder called summer complaint and all we could eat for about two weeks was oatmeal gruel as there were no refrigerators in those days or ice to keep things cool and a stomach disorder was very serious. We recovered satisfactorily, it was a long time before I could eat oatmeal again.

Sometime between my fourth and fifth birthday we moved on the place where the Noah Great Grandparents had lived. I can remember we ran out of coal and the town was out too. There were no trees to burn to keep warm just wide open prairie at that time, so we had to go to grandfather Henry Noah’s to live until some coal came in on the railroad. Whenever the car load of coal came in the telephone operator gave the line ring, which was a five or more long rings and everyone would rush to their telephone and hear the news. Then everyone would get their team and wagon and head for town to get their share of coal and then we could go back home. I think this coal shortage happened just before Christmas sometime as I remember on Christmas morning at Grandma’s when I go up there was a doll with a porcelain face sitting by my stocking and it was the most wonderful thing I ever saw and I knew there had to be a Santa Claus but I was a little disturbed because my aunt Violet and Verna who were fourteen and sixteen years old just got big long ribbons to wear in their hair, and they thanked each other for the gifts. I also remember when I was about 5 or 6 years old my mother had made me a heavy brown wool plaid coat. It had a big circular collar on it and I thought it was a grand coat. It was early spring and cool and I was wearing my coat outside to play. There was a little pool of water below the barn and I was throwing things in and pushing them with a stick when all at once I slipped and fell in. My coat absorbed water by the gallon and I was so heavy I thought I would never get out of that pool. I went to the house, a sorry looking little girl. I can’t recall any punishment except the feeling of ruining my lovely coat.

When I was in the first grade, our house burned down one night in February. We were sitting in the living room reading and keeping warm when we heard a noise upstairs. Dad ran to the stairway and the upstairs was afire. They thought probably it was started from a faulty flue or chimney, the line ring was given and the neighbors came in but there was nothing they could do except carry out a few pieces of furniture. Now this home was two houses joined together just at one corner and the other house did get most of their furniture out. But my folks lost all of their valuable papers as marriage papers, birth certificates of the children, records keepsakes and other things that could never be replaced.

Then we moved to an old three room house that no one was living in, about one mile north of where we had been living while they were rebuilding where we had been living. I recall while we were living at this old house we had a terrific blizzard with a terrible strong wind and lots of snow it blew in one room that had a north door until there was a snow drift clear across the room. The storm was so bad Dad wouldn’t even go out of the house for 1 ½ days because he might not be able to find his way back. He thought the cattle might be dead or covered up with snow as they were in a draw in a little shed, but they were all right when he went out after the storm.

When I was able to go back to school after the storm I walked across ravines that filled with snow clear above the fence posts. I picked armloads of wild daisies in that pasture after the weather warmed up that spring. I recall one time I walked home from school and no one was there. I sat on the door step and looked and looked until they came home when the sun was going down. There were some neighbors just a little ways from our house, but I wouldn’t go over there. I think they watched me from their house until my folks came. That late summer or fall we moved back to a new house where the old ones had burned down. We lived there several years.

I recall that we had a total eclipse of the sun one of those years. I think it was in August as the threshing crew were there for dinner and mother was cooking so much as that always meant quite a few men would be there for dinner. I remember I laid down to rest a while that afternoon and when I got up about 3 O’clock it was getting dark and the young chickens came in and sat on top of their coops where the usually roosted in summer time when it was hot. Mother had to explain it all to me. I also recall we went to a Chautaugua or two in Palco during the time we lived in the new house. These were programs put on by people traveling through the country and were a very special occasion. I don’t think we children were in town too many times when we were small, it was always a big occasion.

When I was in the fourth and fifth grade we moved to a house that was built in the side of a hill and we had lots of trees to play in. Soon after we moved there, my great uncle Lon Noah & wife and his family moved in across the road from us and his children were Myrtle, Enos, Lila, and Eddie. Lila and Eddie were about the age of Ralph and myself so we had lots of good times playing together.



I had a playhouse under some trees. It was ground swept clean until it was a hard floor then I had boards all the way around it, to make the different rooms. I had stakes driven in the ground with boards standing on their sides. Boxes and various things found on the farm were the furniture, stove and some toy dishes. White shale rock was abundant and that decorated all the cakes, pies, cookies and so forth that were made of mud, then baked in the make believe ovens.

One time Bob was coming up to my playhouse and was bitten by a snake. We couldn’t find the snake so mother had to take him to the doctor. Nothing serious happened so it must have been a bull snake.

I remember another time at this place when we had a big hailstorm that came in early morning just as Dad had cut 2 rounds around the wheat field with the binder, that was all the crop we had that year.

I loved to read books when any were available and Dad would come in and scold me for not helping Mother. I got so I really hid my books quick and would be working if I heard him coming. We were two miles from school so Eddie Noah drove a horse and buggy and Lila, Eddie, Ralph, and I rode to school in that, sometimes we picked up Eleanor Hawkins and she had to ride in the little box behind the seat as there was no room left in the front. She only lived ½ mile from the schoolhouse. I was in the fifth grade by myself and I liked that. (Mom had inserted a note here stating: Forgot to tell about running off and Phillip making syrup from corn cobs)

The next year when I was in the sixth grade we moved to the Bass farm which was closer to Palco. We had to walk about 1 ½ miles to school. There was a herd of Holsteins with a big bull in a pasture that we walked by. We children would look for that bull then wait until he went over the hill before we would walk on home. Sometimes he got out and came to our farm and Dad would chase him off by riding a horse and hit him and stick him so he wouldn’t come back. Dad had a riding pony that was high strung and then an old white mare that we children rode. One time Ralph and Bob were riding the two horses in the pasture after the cows and Bob’s horse the high strung saddle horse became frightened at something and started running toward the house as fast as he could go and Bob was hanging on for dear life, Mother (with Dale in her arms), and Dad and myself stood there and watched scared stiff as the horse turned two corners and Bob hung on until the horse came into the lot. We were so thankful. I wore my hair in a braided pigtail at this time. One day Mother decided to cut off the pigtail and I have it in a box to this day. Dad wasn’t very happy that she cut it off. She didn’t tell him she was going to do that as you know fathers love their little girls long hair so much.

This place had a big house & barns on it and we children really enjoyed playing the barns but Dad just rented it so it was sold in about a year and the owner came and lived in part of the upstairs until we moved the 1st of March. The man fried a big pan of potatoes and onions for himself and his hired man every evening and that was the most wonderful smell. I wanted Mama to cook that every day too. Then we moved a mile north to the Rake Straw place. The next fall Dad got a horse and buggy for we children to drive to school as it was 2 ½ miles. The horse would sometimes get out of the barn and go home and then we would have to walk home. I recall Dad made us two pairs of wooden stilts and w had lots of fun running races against each other. Also he got us a Shetland pony to ride. We called here “Queen”. I took music lessons from a Tucker girl that lived 1 ½ miles east of our place and I always rode the pony to this place. One time I got sick on the way to my lesson as my pony got stubborn and wouldn’t go for awhile. So the music teacher had be lay on the bed for awhile , it was there I saw my first bed bugs. I never got sick again.

I remember Dad harvesting wheat that year with a header pulled with horses and a stacker to catch the wheat and put it on the stack. We were really getting modern. We raised Turkeys and I always had to set outside and watch where the turkey hens went to lay their eggs. The next year when I was in the seventh I had a man teacher “Truesdale” was his last name, but he was fired before school was out because the boys of the school said he smoked in their out house. I think Naomi Germany finished the term. I got the mumps four days before school was out and missed the last day of school dinner, and that was always a highlight of the year. Then the next day the boys were playing in the barn and set the hay on fire, Dad wasn’t home, Mama and the boys carried water from the tank close by put it out. Since I wasn’t over the mumps I couldn’t help. I think some boys got some punishment for that trick from their Dad when he got home.

All seventh and eighth graders had to go to a certain school and take exams sent out by the state. I really dreaded that, but took my bucket of lunch and went to a school on the Old Red Line road and I did pass. I don’t know how. Maybe they didn’t read our answers. That summer Ralph and I rode horses about five miles to practice for Children’s Day Program at the Nazarene Church south of Palco. (end of pages that Mom had written about her childhood)

Other misc. Items she had notes written on small scraps of paper.

At the age of 9-12 going to church and Sunday school were the main things in my life. I would have girl friends visit me on Sunday and I would spend a Sunday with them when we went back to Church that evening we would each go home with our parents. I can recall how the valleys had such a damp smell as we went to and from Church because we were riding in an open Model T.

Henry Noah was born in Glenwood, Iowa July 19th 1866. His parents came to Mitchell County Ks in a covered wagon in 1871. on Lived at Walnut Grove until he was married to Lola Wallis. Lived on a farm there for short time. Went to Wichita County in south west Ks, it was so dry there they went to south east Ks and lived for awhile. Henry chopped wood and took it to the city in the fall to get enough money to bring winter supplies. When he was gone which took several days to get to the trading post and back, my grandmother slept with a butcher knife under her pillow as she was always afraid of waking up and an Indian looking down at her. Ray was born here, later for one year lived south east of Hill City in a house owned by a man who had just lost his wife and said they could live with him. His house had 3 rooms and he said they could have two so grandmother and grandfather put wires across the room both ways making separate rooms for beds and used the other room to eat, cook, and live in. The worst thing about it was the old man had fleas and all the children got measles, then a boy stopped there and had an epileptic fit which they had never seen before. The children found a toy wooden horse at this place. The girls knew where a gun was and Verna said “let’s shoot the horse” and Violet didn’t want it shot so she put her foot by the horse, Verna shot the gun and hit her foot. It was 19 miles to town so they dug out the bullet and dressed it themselves and she recovered with no infection. They lived at this place one year .

(This is the end of the hand written notes I have from Mom)