Long before the Civil War occurred, a little group of emigrants took
passage on a sailing vessel which left the dock at Liverpool for America, where
they expected to find and make a home.
One of this little group was Mary
Nangle, my great-grandmother, the one about whom this story is written.
She left her home, her father, mother, brothers, sisters and all those she
loved, to follow her young husband, who a year before had gone to America to
make a home for himself and young wife in the new land.
Realize how
lonely she must have felt, she a young woman of twenty-one years, and of all
those on board the vessel knew but two young women like herself who were going
to join their relatives across the Atlantic, and in all probability would never
see their old home again.
Their voyage across the ocean was far from
pleasant, as on two different occasions the captain gave up hope of ever
reaching their destination. One night, in particular, when a great storm was
raging and the waves, mountain high, rolled over the little vessel, the captain
called the passengers together and told them that he had lost all hope, because
the ship had sprung a leak and would soon sink to th^ bottom of the ocean.
Imagine my great-grandmother's feeling when she heard his words and thought
of her folks at home who would never hear from her again; and her young husband
fondly waiting for her in America would wait in vain. She, with her two friends,
sat down on the floor of their little cabin, clasped in each other's arms, and
wrapped in my great-grandmother's shawl, waited for the end.
But God was
good to them, and the little vessel weathered the storm. Exactly thirty-five
days from the date the little vessel sailed from Liverpool it cast anchor in New
York.
Immediately on being discharged from the ship, which took some
time for her baggage had to be inspected and she had to get a doctor's
certificate of good health, she boarded a train for Ottawa, in La Salle county,
and five days later she arrived at that town, which at that time consisted of
only a few hundred inhabitants.
Here she met her young husband, and they
at once set out for their home in a raw, almost unbroken prairie, in the
northern part of the county.
My great-grandmother's husband had gone
there a year before and built a small one-room cabin of green timber and covered
it on the outside with green sods cut from the prairie. Covered on the outside
in this way made it proof against the bitter cold of the long winters.
The cabin contained a fire-place made of brick and stone, a home-made table, a
few chairs and a bed.
On one side of the cabin was a dugout, in which
the stock of potatoes, cornmeal, and whole wheat flour and vegetables, raised on
the little patches of soil, were kept.
My great-grandmother's life on
the prairie was a lonely one, the winters were long and the snow fell and
covered everything; drifts piled about the little cabin and stable. The wolves
would come and gather about the cabin. Their howls would keep my
great-grandmother awake at night, but she soon became accustomed to it.
When her husband loaded his wagon with grain and drove his team of oxen many
miles to the grist-mill at Dayton to have his grain ground into flour and meal,
my great-grandmother remained at home alone. Her husband would be absent several
days, and very often when others would have arrived at the mill ahead of him he
would be kept away much longer.
During his absence she would have to
milk their cows, feed their calves and pigs and do all the work which was done
by him when he was home.
In the third year of my great-grandmother's
stay in her prairie home her husband was taken suddenly and violently ill. My
great-grandmother was alone with him, and as night came on he lapsed into
unconsciousness. She became greatly alarmed and started out to go to the home of
their nearest neighbor several miles away; when she returned with this kind
neighbor her husband had passed away.
A few kind settlers on the prairie
took charge of the funeral arrangements and two days later the body was taken by
these kind neighbors and buried in the cemetery at Ottawa.
Three years
afterwards my great-grandmother again married and moved to a larger house.
Years passed and she became the mother of five children, who grew to manhood
and womanhood around her.
Great-grandmother died over twenty years ago.
The last years of her life were peaceful and happy.
My grandmother has
in her possession a chair in which my great-grandmother always sat to sing her
children to sleep, and also her little trunk, which she brought to America with
her, and which contains many little mementoes of her early days.
My
grandmother has often told me that the dearest memories of her childhood days
are those when she sat at great-grandmother's knee and heard over and over the
stories of her pioneer days.
Extracted 08 Nov 2018 by Norma Hass from Stories of Pioneer Days in La Salle County, Illinois, by Grammar Grade Pupils, published in 1932, page 25.
| Lee | DeKalb | Kane |
| Bureau |
 |
Kendall |
| Putnam | Grundy | |
| Marshall | Woodford | Livingston |
