I am so glad that I was interested in family history 40 years ago when there were lots of older people around who were willing to share family stories with me. Both of my grandmothers, Mabel Rachel (Jones) Clark and Mildred Mae (McCauley) Corbin were excellent storytellers and had an abundance of tales to pass along. My cousin, Bonnie Lou (Thomas) Mitchell (Mrs. Charles) was also a wonderful storyteller. When my maternal great uncle, Robert M. McCauley, came to visit, he also would spend a lot of time telling me about his parents and grandparents and also about my paternal great grandfather, Leander E. Jones, whom he worked for as a water boy on a steam threshing operation.
I do want to offer a word of caution. I belonged to the American Oral History Association for many years. Once, I attended their conference in Portland, Oregon where Dr. Walter Menninger, whose family were all famous psychologists in Topeka, Kansas and whom I knew personally, was the keynote speaker. Those attending had high expectations but Walt gave them all a jar. He cautioned that research indicated that people remember only about 25% accurately after only 20 years. After 50 years, their memories are usually very distorted and they tend to remember events in terms of what made them happy and/or what made them sad. They remember the tragedies and the weddings but they don't remember the in between. Menninger cautioned oral historians that the information they were collecting was valuable, and provided a framework for history, but could never be relied on unless it had been written down in a diary-like manner within hours of the event.
I don't remember either of my grandfathers, or my father, really being interested in family history nor did they tell stories that I remember but both grandfathers died when I was young. My paternal grandfather, James Peter (Jim Pete) Clark died on Christmas Eve in 1948 when I was 5 and my maternal grandfather, Robert Corbin, died in April 1958 when I was 14.
I do remember Grandfather Corbin talking a lot about his service in World War I. He and his brother-in-law (my great uncle) Robert M. McCauley, were both "doughboys" in France, and enjoyed visiting about their experiences there. Did you ever wonder where that expression came from?
The expression doughboy, was in wide circulation a century before World War I in both Britain and America, albeit with some very different meanings. Horatio Nelson's sailors and Wellington's soldiers in Spain, for instance, were both familiar with fried flour dumplings called doughboys, the predecessor of the modern doughnut that both we and the Doughboys of World War I came to love. Because of the occasional contact of the two nation's armed forces and transatlantic migration, it seems likely that this usage was known to the members of the U.S. Army by the early 19th century.
My grandfather, Robert Corbin, drove an ambulance pulled by mules. It was very dangerous and he often talked about shells exploding all around. Mules were used for several reasons. Grandfather said that they didn't scare as easily as draft horses. Horses would bolt when a shell hit nearby and often run away but mules didn't do that. He would joke that mules were more likely to just sit down and not move when shells hit. Mules were slower than horses but they had more stamina. Mules could work at a slower pace all day long while horses would ware out and become lame. Having said all that, Grandfather Corbin had nothing but disgust to say about the mules. They were stubborn and often needed "coaxing" which I won't describe here for fear PETA would have me arrested :)
Grandfather's World War I records should be available on-line now, his service was 85 years ago, but I haven't been able to find them. I suppose I'll need to get them the old-fashioned way and order them from the National Archives. Towards the end of the war, in July 1918, Grandfather was picking up wounded near the front line when the Germans fired gas-filled shells. Grandfather said he knew they were coming because they made a special whistling sound. They all tried to get away but didn't have time.
Grandfather was gassed. The mustard gas used was yellow in color and caused serious burns. Many were killed because when they inhaled the mustard gas, it burned the inside of their lungs and caused either immediate death or a slow, agonizing death from asphyxiation. Grandfather said that he didn't remember what happened between being gassed and waking up in the field hospital, he was just glad he had survived. His lungs were damaged by the mustard gas but after several months, he was sent back to his father's home in Wichita, Kansas.
My great uncle, Robert M. McCauley was in the infantry and fought in several of the major battles in Europe. I don't remember him having a specific role, or talking about anything other than being in the trenches where he fought with a rifle and bayonet against the Germans. I wish I had written down the names of the battles when Grandfather and Uncle Bob talked about them, but I didn't.
Grandfather Corbin smoked and the combination of the mustard gas damage and the tar from cigarettes eventually took their toll when he contracted lung cancer in 1957. He died in April 1958 and is buried in the Old Stone Church Cemetery at Maple Hill, Kansas.
I have already related several stories from the Lemon Family, but there are two I have not yet mentioned and need to be shared. Keeping in mind what Dr. Menninger said, we must remember these stories are from the mid- and late-1800s and have been passed down through several generations. Without a doubt, the context and drift of the stories are true but the details have likely been lost.
L-R: Lucy Mae (Lemon) McCauley-Bonta-Strong, Lucille (Corbin) Clark, the author, Nicholas L. Clark, and Mildred Mae (McCauley) Corbin. Four Generations: my great grandmother, my mother, me, and my grandmother.
My great grandmother, Lucy Mae (Lemon) McCauley-Bonta-Strong was the youngest child of Stewart Montgomery and Luroncy Louisa (Grandy) Lemon. She was born at Eldora, Hardin County, Iowa on December 8, 1873. Her oldest brother, Charles Montgomery Lemon, had been born in 1851, twenty-two years earlier and the story I'm about to tell involves only the younger children of Stewart and Louisa Lemon born before 1861. I heard this story from my great grandmother Lucy, and also from James and George Lemon, the sons of George Washington Lemon, who lived in Spokane, Washington when I visited them.
It was a cold winter day. The family lived near Winona, Minnesota and the Mississippi River. Stewart Lemon had a team of oxen and used them to pull huge logs down the frozen river to the saw mill. He would often be gone for a week or two at a time leaving Grandma Lemon to care for the family in their little home in the woods.
A tintype of my maternal great great grandparents, Stewart Montgomery and Luroncy Louisa (Grandy) Lemon. Judging from their appearances and age, I would guess this tintype was made in the 1860s.Unlike now, when we go to the grocery story just about every day, Grandma Lemon would go to Winona once a month to get supplies and bring them back to the farm. They had a team of horses and a large lumber wagon with a white canvass cover. She would heat large flat rocks which she gathered along the Mississisppi and put them in the bottom of the wagon. The rocks were covered with comforters, which were generally made of two wool blankets with cotton batting sewn inbetween. She would wrap the children up the best she could, and put them in the wagon to try and keep them warm.
The trip to town was made without too much difficulty and she bought the supplies that were needed. By the time she was finished, it was mid-afternoon and the sun was starting to go down. As she headed the wagon home, she and the older children were singing to pass the time. All of a sudden, she saw a huge bull moose standing in the road ahead of them. She knew that these animals could be troublesome and she did not have a gun with her. If a moose got mad and charged, it could easily use it's huge antlers to tip over the wagon. Grandma Lemon had already lost one child, her namesake, Luroncy Louisa Lemon, in a wagon accident in 1852. She knew full well how dangerous it could be, especially with a bull moose charging and pushing the wagon around.
The moose moved off to the side of the road and trumpeted loudly. The horses were frightened and it was all Grandma Lemon could do to keep them from tipping the wagon over or running away. The wagon inched forward and Grandma Lemon could see the moose pawing the ground and lowering it's head, a sign it was getting ready to charge.
Grandma looked in the back of the wagon and remembered that she had just bought a big can of black pepper. She tied the harness reins around the brake on the wagon and climbed through the opening behind the seat. The children were all frightened and crying but she now had a plan. She would open the can of pepper and if the moose charged, she would wait until it was fairly close and then throw the pepper into it's face.
A tintype of the author's maternal great great grandmother, Luroncy Louisa (Grandy) Lemon. This tintype always makes me feel very sad for some reason. I would judge this to have been taken in th 1870s when times were very hard for Stewart and Luroncy Lemon. Her face shows the effects of hard work and too much sun. Lucroncy was only 13 when she and Stewart were married in 1847 and had 10 children over the next 26 years. Life must have been very difficult.
Sure enough, the moose began to charge towards the wagon. Grandma Lemon lifted up the canvass on the side of the wagon and prepared to throw the pepper. The moose was a little faster than she thought and it reached the wagon and caught one of its antlers in a back wagon wheel. It started to tip the wagon over. Grandma and the children felt the read side lift off the ground as she threw the pepper into the moose's face with all her might. It worked. The moose began to bawl and shake it's head. Then the huge animal began to sneeze and turn in circles. It dropped the wagon and sneezed and sneezed. Within a few seconds, the moose ran back into the woods, bawling and sneezing as it went. And that's the story of how Grandma Lemon saved her family with black pepper!
And now a Grandpa Lemon story. I've heard this story from my maternal grandmother, Mildred Mae (McCauley) Corbin, and from so many of my cousins. Vernie and Bill Miller, sons of Margaret and William Miller told this story. Sarah Jane (Caruthers) Yingling told me this story. Charles Mitchell, son of William and Mary Jane (Lemon) Mitchell told this story. So there can be little doubt that something close to this actually happened.
The Lemons moved their family from Winona, Minnesota to Norton County, Kansas during the mid-1870s. My maternal great grandmother, Lucy Mae (Lemon) McCauley-Bonta-Strong was born in Eldora, Iowa in 1873 where the family worked in harvesting broom corn. They moved to Norton County, Kansas in 1874 where they arrived in the midst of a horrible pandemic, The Great Grasshopper Plague.
The ethic of the prairie in those days was to help one another. Nearby the Lemon homestead, was the German Miller family. They befriended the Lemons and helped them build a sod house on their claim. The United States Government provided homesteaders with 80 or 160-acres of land, but the homesteaders had to build a house and improvements on the property within five years of filling out the paperwork at the land office.
The U. S. Census in 1870 and 1880 lists Stewart's profession as "stone layer." I've never heard how he acquired these skills and I've always wondered how he was able to do the work if he was disabled. None-the-less, the story goes that Grandfather Stewart Lemon was dry laying stone fence in Norton County. The State of Kansas payed a bounty of fifty center per rod (16 feet) of fence completed. This was hard work and for not much money. Many of these stone fences still exist however, and provided a way to fence off grain crops and gardens from cattle, deer and antelope.
One day, Grandfather Lemon dropped a large stone on his toe and crushed it. The toe became infected and gangrene set in. Grandma Luroncy urged Stewart to go to the doctor in the town of Norton. So they hitched the team to the wagon and made the trip into town. Grandpa Lemon talked to the doctor and he told him that the toe would have to be amputated immediately and that it would cost $25. Grandfather Lemon laughed at him and said he hadn't seen $25 in years.
So Stewart and Luroncy returned home. Stewart didn't say anything to Grandma Lemon, but he went directly to his sack of stone tools and took out a large chisel, used to cut and shape stone. He got out his whetstone and began to carefully sharpen the chisel putting on the finished possible edge. When he was finished, he walked by the back door of their sod house and caught Grandma Lemon's attention.
In one hand, he had a stone mason's hammer. In the other he had the chisel. He walked to a large stump at the back of the house where wood was split. He hadn't been able to wear his shoe in several days so he removed his sock, put his foot up on the stump, put the chisel on his toe, raised his hammer and gave it a mighty blow.
This is a photo of a set of stone mason's chisels. These were generally made in blacksmith shops by village blacksmiths.Grandma had seen him walk by with the hammer and chisel and grabbed a can of flour and some lard from a bowl near the stove. It all happened so quickly she barely had time to get there before the deed was done, but she found Grandpa Lemon on the ground. He had been successful in removing his toe but had fainted from the pain.
Grandma Lemon tied a rag around his foot and stopped the bleeding as best she could, and then applied the grease followed by flour. Fairly quickly, the bleeding stopped and Grandpa Lemon regained consciousness. Some of the children helped her get him into the sod house and in several weeks, his foot completely recovered without any further infection setting in.
With that story, I think I'll bring this episode of stories to a close---but there are many more from different sides of the family which I'll share in the future. Happy Trails!
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