A COVERED WAGON STORY

(This story is written by Loraite Teays, as told to her by her husband, James D. Teays. It is written as if Jim himself were telling it.)

In the year 1918, my parents, Forrest and Luttie Teays, were living in a little house near Martinsburg, Missouri. They had five children--John, age 9; Lula Belle, age 7; James, age 5; Pauline, age 3; and baby Woodrow, age 8 months.

Grandfather and Grandmother Johnson (John and Mary) had a small farm nearby. Dad worked on the farm and did other jobs to help support his growing family. Some of the jobs were shearing sheep, cutting hair, and working a coal mine.

A year before this time, in 1917, Dad read an ad in a magazine about rich bottomland being for sale on the St. Francis River, near the small town of Fisk, Missouri. It was about two hundred miles south of Martinsburg. He went down and looked at it and at a house that went with the small farm. It looked good to him, and he returned home with plans to buy this farm and move his family down there. It took about one year to get ready for the big move and to make enough money for a small down-payment on the farm.

He built a cover for the farm wagon, out of canvas, and planned out what all he could take with him, besides Ma and the five children. It included enough beans, in large burlap bags, so they would have some food all through winter, until a crop could be harvested. Of course they took some bags of oats for the horses that would pull the wagon. They also took a young colt that would follow along by itself.

Household goods consisted of a few pots and pans, tin plates to eat off of, cheap silverware, bedding, and a few clothes. There also was a lantern for light at night, and a few odds and ends.

By October of 1918, we were ready to leave. Other family relatives were sorry to see us leave. Aunt Bryan, Ma's sister, entertained us children the day before we left. She took us down by the "Little Lutter" River and let us play in the water and climb on the rocks. At the end of the day, she gave us each a 50-cent piece. I only had mine a few hours. I put it in my mouth for "safe keeping" and accidentally swallowed it. later, when someone asked me where was my 50-cent piece, I just said I lost it. I really looked for it, but never found it.

The next day, it took all morning to load the wagon and get everything in place just right. After a noon-day meal at my grandparents' home, all the relatives gathered to bid us good-bye.. Besides the grandparents, there were Aunt Bryan and Uncle Bill, and Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Ira. We only traveled two or three miles that day, to the home of some friends, where we spent the night.

We were fortunate to have lovely mild weather for the whole trip. it didn't rain one time! Ma, Dad, Pauline, and Baby Woody rode in the wagon, but we three older children could hop out and walk whenever we wanted to. We only traveled about twenty miles a day, as it was a heavy load for the horses to pull. At noon-time, we would stop and rest and have a bite to eat. The horses would be unhitched from the wagon and hobbled so they could graze. We followed a trail along the St Francis River, so there was plenty of water for the horses and for bathing. Many times we would stop at a small grocery store and Dad would buy bread and cold meat for our meals. Persimmons and papayas were in season and grew wild. We had all of this good fruit to eat just "for the picking."

We always stopped near someone's farmhouse, and it was Lula Belle's and my job to take two pails and ask for drinking water for the family and carry it back to the wagon. Many times we would be invited into these kind people's homes and be treated to muskmelon, watermelon, or whatever they had available. It made our job more pleasant.

At bedtime, Ma, Dad, and Woody would sleep in the wagon. The rest of us children would sleep under the wagon--covered with homemade quilts when they were needed.

The days went by slowly, even though there was lots of pretty scenery. One day, the trail was hard to follow, and Dad lost his way. We ended up in a grove of trees. We could not turn the wagon around until he cut down several trees. After that, we retraced our tracks and finally found the correct trail, along the river.

One day, John and I were fooling around in the wagon, and John put a bean in my ear. Try as we might, we could not get it out. It had to stay in my ear until we reached Poplar Bluff and Ma took me to a doctor, who removed it. Luckily, no damage had been done.

The trail we followed was rather rough at times, and there were some steep hills to go up and down. When we had to go down, Dad would stop the horses and put chains on the wagon wheels, so the wagon couldn't go fast enough to bump the horses.

After traveling for eleven days, we reached our destination. We were disappointed to find out that the house on the farm was still occupied. Dad had to rent a small house for us to stay in for the winter. It was poorly built and hard to heat.

There was a very bad flu epidemic going around in the winter of 1918 and 1919. Everyone in our family came down with it. John was seriously ill with it and never completely recovered, until the doctor recommended that he return to Martinsburg, where the weather was drier. Some friends of Dad's came down in the spring to see how we were doing and to do some fishing. John returned to Martinsburg with them and stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Johnson, where he finally got well. I finally recovered, but the illness caused me to have many painful boils on my neck. I recall lying on top of the large bags of beans that were stored behind the heating stove. it was a warm place to rest and nap.

When Spring came and it was time to put in crops, the rains also came. The St. Francis River overflowed, and all our farmland was flooded. The rain seemed never to stop. No crops could be planted. Dad was lucky that he had a good team of horses. A new road was being built in that area, and he got a job driving his horses with a scoop for moving dirt. When I would see him coming home at night, I would run and open the barn door so he could get the horses inside.

We were able to move into the house on the farm that Spring, but we didn't live there very long. When Dad had earned enough money to get out of there and could buy train tickets for the family to get back to Martinsburg, he quit his job working on the road.

Dad heard that there were lots of jobs on farms near Oxford, Michigan. he left Fisk before we did and took a train to Michigan. he stayed in the Burt Rooming House on Washington Street in Oxford for a few days. He found a job on the Shoemaker Farm, east of Oxford. There would be a tenant house available when the rest of the family arrived.

We finally left Fisk for Martinsburg and stayed with our grandparents until we left for Michigan. Woody had been ill with a rupture and had to have surgery. It was done in Mexico, Missouri, while we stayed with the grandparents. It was October, 1919, before we all went to Oxford, Michigan, by train.

The past year had been quite an experience for all of us. Luckily, Dad only lost the small down-payment he had made on the Fisk property.

(--written by Loraite Teays, March, 1992)

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