MEMORIES OF BERTHA CAREY GILBERT

Bertha Carey was the youngest daughter of William B. and Rhoda (Jennings) Carey, some of the earliest settlers in Kossuth County.  I recently came across an article written by her in 1948 in which she shares her memories as one of the first children born in the county after settlement.  Her descriptions of the countryside and daily life are delightful and even bring back a few memories of my own childhood. 

OLDTIMER TELLS OF 1856

92 Year-Old Woman, Born Near Algona, Writes of Past

By Bertha Carey Gilbert

El Reno, Okla. – I was born in a “log cabin” right on the banks of the Des Moines River, about three miles northeast of Algona, Dec. 8, 1856, and was named Bertha Carey.  A 3-day storm leaving snow eight feet deep on the level greeted my coming.

The road from Algona ran past the Zahlten farm, then past the Roan house, and through the timber (later owned by the Dickensons), and on through part of our farm, crossing, or “fording” the river at our house, and running northwest to Wm. Moore’s and the Riebhoff place, with a branch turning off for Fletcher Hofius, Blanchard,and Schenck farms, now the Frank Thompson farms, and ours was the half-way stopping place.

Portion of Union Township
where Carey farm was located
from 1896 Kossuth Co. Plat Book

I grew up there, with 460 acres to ramble over.  What wonderful place in which to bring up a family of children!

A Wonderful Fireplace.

We had a very large fireplace, its jambs and walls built of “niggerheads” taken from the fields.  From above the mantel the chimney was all on the outside, built of split sticks imbedded in clay mud by Clara Zahlten’s father, who had just built one for himself; and that chimney stood for years, long after the house ceased to be occupied, in fact.

Such wonderful fires as we made in that fireplace; the blaze lighted the whole room.  Think of the nightly family gatherings around that hearth, often with some neighbor, or a stranger who had “stopped by” to discuss national problems while we popped corn over the blaze or roasted something in the ashes.

There were hills for hand-sledding and there was ice-skating, and when spring came there was the long, hollow boom of the ice cracking and breaking up, later to form an ice jam at the bend.  High water, and another great cake of ice would come peacefully down the river, strike the jam with a crash, one end shoot under, the other rise high in the air—20 feet or more.  I’d love to be there to see the ice go out this spring.

Summer’s Pleasures.

In summer we could wade and swim and fish.  We could watch the fish spawn on the sand through the clear, shallow water, and watching the polliwogs or tadpoles when they were just ready to turn into frogs was interesting.

We caught turtles, and some time mother would make turtle soup for us.  We gathered snail shells and glued them on pasteboard for picture frames.  Probably no one in this cultured age would think them beautiful, but we did.  We gathered clamshells of all sizes, cleaned and scraped and polished them thoroughly, and used them for dishes in the playhouse we built ourselves.  Their beautiful opalescent colors outshone anything you put on your tables today.  The caps from red-oak acorns served for cups and saucers.

We had an Indian canoe, round and thin and light, and my sister Allie and I would sit flat on the bottom, one at each end, each with an old broom for a paddle, and how we could make that canoe “swish” through the water!  And we trapped muskrats, otter, mink, and beaver, occasionally a big horned owl.

Justice for an Owl.

One night, around 9 p.m., we brought in an owl and sat him down on the hearth by the fire.  He looked at the fire, his big eyes stared round the room, and at us, as much as to say “Now you’ve got me, what are you going to do with me?”  He didn’t try to get away.  Mother answered his question.  He had been killing her turkeys and she thought he deserved a like fate.

One year my brother sold $300 worth of furs.

We hunted birds nests to see the size and color of the eggs layed by each kind of bird, and we were always pleased to find an oriole’s hanging nest, so different from the nests of other birds.

We climbed trees and looked in the hollows for little squirrels.  We gathered nuts, and stored them to crack by the fireside on long winter evenings.  We had an old grey horse in the pasture which we rode standing up on his back like circus girls.  We went Maying with the Zahlten girls.  Mary and Theresa (we called her Tracy), and in early seasons on May-day we would find windflowers open, wood violets (Johnny Jump-Ups), the delicate hepaticas, the white bloodroots, Dutchmans breeches, and jack-in-the-pulpit.

Iowa’s State Flower.

Later there would be the Sweet Williams, the red honeysuckles, the Maiden-Hair ferns, and the June roses—timber roses different from prairie roses.  Every Saturday in June we’d go into the timbered bottom and cut rose bushes—armfulls of them—take them home, set stone jars filled with water in the fireplace, and stand our rose bushes in them.  You’d think the lovely odor would scent the whole house, but the draft carried all the odor up the chimney, and we had to be content with just looking at their beauty.

Flocks of mallard ducks would light on the river, and the boys would shoot half a dozen for mother to cook.  Great flocks of wild cranes and geese went flying over, honking their calls, often alighting to feed.  Then we had roast goose to eat.

Quotation From Bryant.

William Cullen Bryant must have seen many flocks like these, for he wrote “Lines to a Waterfowl,” the last verse of which I quote:

He, who, from zone to zone

Guides through the boundless sky they certain flight,

In the long, long way that I

Will guide my steps aright.

When I see the children of this town (El Reno) idling in the street, crippling birds, and breaking windowlights with slingshots, building fires under sidewalks, and picking up everything they find lying loose, I can not blame them too severely.

I pity them, because they have no substitute but a movie show, nothing else to do, no place to play.  The same old street must get very monotonous.  We in pioneer times found something new and interesting almost every day.  We didn’t have much ready cash, those days, but we certainly had a rich living.

If I should live another century I would choose to spend it there in a log house.

Bertha served as county school superintendent in 1889 and went on to marry E.L. Gilbert who grew up in Plum Creek township.  Eventually Mrs. Gilbert moved to El Reno, Oklahoma, where she lived out her final days, passing away December 25, 1951.

Until next time,

Kossuth County History Buff

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