PREPARED BY SARAH GROMMON
(Told by Uncle Robert Wightman who heard it from the Clow Uncles)
Over ninety years ago when Uncle Jock was a little boy his mother had several young bachelor brothers and when they first came they were all at Grandfather Clow' awhile. On day Grandma or Aunt Sarah Clow went out to get little Jock who was with his uncles. She said, "Come awa' to the hoos, Johnnie." Sturdy wee Jock stoutly insisted, "The hoos is noe place for the likes o' me, there's naebody there but wimen and children".
(Told by Sarah Wightman to Sarah Grommon about 80 years ago)
When Uncle Ad was a very little boy his sister Sally said she used to take care of him and when he did not get what he wanted he used to threaten to run away which used to frighten her so she always give in to him and he knew it. However Aunt Betty had no fears and when she heard him she used to call his bluff. He would say "I'll run away," Aunt Betty would say, "Awa' wi ye." Then he would run out behind the hedge east of the orchard and they could see his white head bobbing along and his sister would cry. Aunt Betty would call to him, "Run, Addie" which seemed so terrible to Sally that she cried louder, then Aunt Betty would say to her, "Hoots, Sally dinna greet, ye needna fash yoursel he will nae run far. He will be back oor soon."
Great Grandmother Jane Hall Patterson was held in great respect and esteem by her children. They all told that three times every day she went alone into her room and shut the door and prayed, a nephew of hers who was an evangelist spent a few months there and said the household at Kirtlehead was the most Godly one he was ever in. Uncle Dan said many times that he doubted if he ever would have learned to read had it not been for the patience and persistence of his mother. They had very good common schools in Scotland--I suppose teachers varied--and all learned to write and speak good English tho with a Scotch accent, and seem to have had very good times both at home and at school.
One time on the farm Uncle Ad was laid up with a sprained foot. John Haas came and wanted to buy hogs, because Uncle Ad would not go out to dicker with him he went off in a huff. Stopped at Fred Sagers told him he tried to buy some of that lazy Irishman with the red-headed wife, which Fred never forgot.
(Told to Jennie Fraley by Mary Patterson of Kirtlehead in 1910)
Our Grandmother Patterson was a very fine Christian woman. She had been sick for some time but one day she called all her family together and said "In life I have tried to show you how a Christian should live and now, my children, I will show you how a Christian should die." She closed her eyes and passed away.
(Told by Uncle Jim to Sarah Grommon)
Once when we were walking across the field from our place to their place when we got about half way across the section he pointed with his cane all around the west from where we were standing as far as the eye could see there was nothing but prairie grass, not a tree to be seen.
Once some of us were riding past Strykers and Uncle Jim told us that the year after he came he walked to Morris to visit some friends he would take his boots off and run awhile in the prairie grass. When he came home he got to Strykers just at nightfall and staid there all night.
Our Grandfather Mungo Patterson told us several times that when he was about 14, which would be in 1828, a rich lady offered two prizes of a Bible, each to cost a pound which was a very large sum in those days. The girls were to learn and recite the Book of Ruth which was four chapters. The boys were to do the same with the story of Joseph which was twelve or thirteen chapters. The prize winner in the girls contest was selected without trouble. I think there had been preliminaries and in the finals Grandpa and another boy were tied, both had it perfectly memorized but in the opinion of the judges, both made the same number of mistakes in failing "to mind the pauses," that is observe the punctuation marks. A terrible controversy raged for weeks and ended with the committee taking the pound and buying each contestant, each a small Bible which Grandpa said "pleased naebody." (He still could repeat a few years before death)
June 9, 1844.
Incidents in the lives of a few individuals with whom we have become acquainted in and around Naperville.
Mr. Ridler and his wife are Schotch folk, they live in the village. He was formerly a merchant in Aberdeen: failing in business there he gathered together what remained to him of his somewhat shattered fortune and resolved to come to New York.- Accordingly eight years ago in September he sailed from Liverpool in a merchant ship loaded and crowded with passengers and of all passages I have heard of for length and disaster his beats. They were four months from Liverpool to New York. They ran short of meat and water. For a long time they lived on about half a meal per day, many of the steerage passengers for a long time had to subsist on a single herring for three days, in consequence of which 14 of them died on the voyage and many more after they came to the hospital at New York. Many of the passengers as they came past the Azores were for the Captain to put in to take in provisions and water but he reckoned that if the wind continued as it was at that time they would be in New York in four or five days and to stop there would put off too much time so they went past. They had not sailed more than a day and a half, the ship was going ten knots an hour when suddenly, almost in a moment there came a tremendous squall which broke every mast on the ship nearly close by the deck and laid them overboard. Then there was dejection on every countenance and not one expected to be saved alive. However after much labor in about two days time they got a jury mast rigged and set sail again and finally reached New York sometime in February in a most deplorable condition with dirt, vermin and hunger.
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