My Grandparents
written July 21, 2022 by Harry Stewart
Grandma Stewart was known as Bessie by anyone on a first name basis, but not by me. It was always grandma. She was short and died at the age of 92. Her mother went by the name of Adelaide, was two or three inches shorter and I attended her ninetieth birthday party in Dysart, Iowa.
Adelaide was known to me as "great-grandma" and came to live with us the three short months we lived in O’Fallon, MO. Since we had a large orchard, she helped mom can assorted goodies from the many fruit trees. She was married to Milton Ford.
Of grandma’s seven children, only one was female, Aunt Margaret. She too was short and lived for 104 years. I was present when she celebrated 100 years of life. I was also present the day she died at age of 104. The hospice nurse had her room blocked off and was giving her a bath. When the nurse finished and was leaving her room, I asked “How is she doing?” It was a short answer and I remember it well, “About the same!” The reason I remember the exact words is because the next day I called Mickie to inform him that our aunt just died. When he answered the phone, I asked him how he was doing, and he said, “About the same!”
Marybeth was also the only girl born into a family of seven children. She is also short, and that’s why I think she will outlive all of us.
Grandpa was easily two heads taller than grandma. When she wanted to get his attention, it was always a sharp, “Dwight!” Never to my knowledge was she anything but subservient to him. She ruled the house and he ruled everything outside the house. He was a builder, a barber, and a Justice of the Peace. So, in an obtuse way, I took after him. He told me about the Barber School he ran.
Haircuts and a shave were priced the same. He was good at shaving and prided himself in keeping his razor honed properly. He would have his student’s line up their customers for a shave and he would shave each one in turn without stopping to strop his razor. “More money that way” he would say.
As a Justice of the Peace he would rake in money holding court in Raymond, IL. When he joined couples in holy matrimony, he and grandma would sign the marriage license as witnesses. No one seemed to question his authority. And as far as I can remember, no one appealed his judgment.
I never saw him build anything except a corn crib. However, I did marvel at his oversized garage/workshop behind his house, the outhouse I used and the chicken coop where I collected eggs for lunch.
At mealtime, he always called on a guest to pray, and no one bucked his Seventh Day Baptist tradition. I never knew either of them outside of Raymond, IL.
On the other hand, Grandma and Grandpa Davis lived a block away and I visited them frequently. Both were Southern Baptist and grandpa prayed before every meal that grandma prepared. I can still hear his gravely old voice pray but not what he said. She was a good cook and fixed iced-tea the southern style. She had a button collection down in the basement that I found mesmerizing. Don’t ask me why, but I would spend hours with that collection. Grandma also had a marble collection and we spent hours playing Chinese Checkers.
They were a great team and charter members of Hope Baptist Church. The Davis clan along with five other families bought the former Concordia Lutheran Church who developed a mega-church on Kirkwood Road (Lindbergh) and Woodbine. The pastor’s wife was teaching a Sunday School class attended by Jimmy Hummrich and me. The two of us were misbehaving. He would do something that tickled my funny bone and I would laugh. Just about the time I got my outburst under control, Jimmy would start a fit of laughter that grew out of control. We went back and forth like the juveniles we were until Bonnie Raye lost control. She did not reprimand us. She didn’t need too. She went directly to the Chairman of the Deacons: Grandpa Davis. I never knew this even-tempered saint to lose control. He marched us (Jimmy and me) out past the Sunday School building (in back of the church) and introduced us to the wrath of God.
Moral of that story? Never mess with a preacher’s wife.
Grandpa had a landscape business that allowed no time for games of any sort. He was a workaholic that kept his family employed and they and theirs branched out on enterprises of their own once he retired. His was an example of the American way. We are free to pursue our own goals for our own sake and keep the fruits of our labor. In other words, capitalism!
My Grandparents
contains memories related to
Bessie Mae Ford Stewart
Dwight Thurston Stewart
Lura Davis
Charles Davis
Bessie Mae and Dwight Stewart
Grandpa's Wanderings
Posted Aug 9, 2023 by NoraYahl
Dwight Thurston Stewart was the youngest son of an Minister in the Advent Christian Church who carried the gospel to many places during his career over the north east and upper Midwest America. This can be seen with the birthplaces of his children. It might be assumed that this would be the genesis of his wanderings. Almost seen as being in two places at one time.
He was born in Anoka, Minnesota, lived in Michigan, Lake Mills, Iowa as well as Waterloo, Iowa. He was a part of a westward movement of many of the Stewart Clan to Wyoming. His siblings moved about Iowa . He was married first in Hardin County to a woman who residence is given in Colorado and his residence on the marriage document is Omaha, Nebraska. After a divorce, four years later he is married in Garwin, Iowa and his residence for a time is Waterloo. 1910 was a busy year because that second marriage took place in June 1909 and he would slated to become a father in March 1910, and two weeks before the birth of his first son he was in Sundance, Wyoming signing homestead papers. The baby arrived on the last day of March and the 1910 census was taken on 20 April the census record shows him living in Waterloo in his mother's house....his father had died, but the record shows his mother, his wife and son and his sister and son.
Maybe a bit crowded, but he had to go back ro Wyoming to "prove up" his homestead so by their first anniversay the Dwight Stewart Family were neatly housed in a dugout somewhere between Moorcroft and Rozet, Wyoming. It must have been a bit much for his new wife and son as they were soon on the way back to Iowa! That move date has not been determined but the ties had not been broken in Iowa. Dwight owned a Barber College and sold it to an unreliable source. He did not get what he expected of the deal and many things went awry. His trip home (Iowa) went in spurts and he seemed delayed in Omaha for a period of time. Just as a researcher of lives past, would wonder if he was present for his first son's birth, one would wonder first, when he had time or presence to take part in the birth of the second son's arrival.
After finally arriving in Iowa, interesting enough his mother was planning the move west so Dwight and family were in Garwin, not Waterloo when number two son arrived. Probably as guests of his mother-in-law. And the family had grown to another son and daughter by 1915 when he had finished building the house on Rider Street in Garwin. That was a long stretch of living in one place until he became restless again. His salvation was that the doctor told him he would get better if he moved to the country.
That was a strange diagnosis, but he did move them all to a farm near Gladbrook, Iowa that kept his boys busy. The last boy was born there and doing little chores for the baby kept his daughter busy. Their mother had her ups and downs but wasn't happy until she had her house back. Dwight got "healed" and they spent the next five years on Rider Street. Times change and Dwight had built all the barns the town needed. Being out of work he had heard the St. Louis, MO area was needing carpenters so he went exploring.
He found property on the western edge of the city and settled in by 1925. It was a developing area and a golf club was nearby that would provide work for his houseful of boys and that in turn helped with the household expenses that always was a problem. Also it fascinated all of his sons except the eldest who liked being out of doors and doing solitary things like hunting and trapping small animals. Besides he was a growing young adult and Grandpa chose to put him on a train to Wyoming to help his aging mother. When his son returned, he was still interested in solitary things but still had to earn his way in the household upkeep. Before long he was back in Iowa with his other grandmother who treated him royally as he was her first grandson.
Grandpa slowed down as he aged but now Grandma was getting restless. The neighborhood had built up considerably and she longed for space. Many of her sons had gone off to war and were back. She had tried her hand at a number of things but church work topped the list. She helped the neighbors and then took in foster children. Probably to fill the void of her children marrying and starting their own families and unable to bring in household money. Later she took in elderly ladies but that further spurred her desire too move because that brought rules and regulations from city officials.
Finally the day came when Dwight came home and said that he had found the perfect place about 100 miles east over the river in Illinois. Eight acres in the small town of Raymond. He had looked at it and found what he thought would be a good place to live and all without discussing any of it with his wife, bought the house built in the mid 1800's.
As always each were on their own paths and one of them would have to submit. Grandma came to grips with it. They both had mellowed over the years and each found what they could accept. There was enough ground for Dwight to work at his carpentry. He built a large garage for his car and many tools. He was in his 70's when he built a duplex to rent out for some income.
Then came the day when his sister-in-law decided to move to be nearby and asked Dwight to build her a house and he did just like he wanted but she did not like it and bought another in town. There were squabbles between the two sisters as it had been the same during their growing up years. One too many and she packed up and moved to Iowa near her other sister.
Dwight and his sister-in-law died the same year. That was the end of his wandering, and he had lived in Raymond almost thirty years! A record!
Dwight Thurston Stewart
Born March 11, 1884, in Anoka, Minnesota
Died January 5, 1973, in Litchfield, Illinois
Bessie Mae Ford Stewart
Born September 1, 1885, in Whitelake, South Dakota
Died April 3, 1977, in Raymond, Illinois
Life's Work
Posted Jun 13, 2010 by NoraYahl
Bessie was the oldest in a family of seven children and probably carried a good load of responsibility. She was brought up in Garwin, Iowa. She went to school there, married there, and had most of her children there.After high school she taught for awhile, but found it not her cup of tea and not long after married. She and Dwight lived in Garwin for about fifteen years and then they moved to St. Louis County, Missouri. Her children were growing up and at least her oldest son was married and her youngest in his early teens when she decided to adopt a little boy who had been living in the home of a neighbor. She always seemed to have a "people" project going. During the War years she took in foster children and later while still living in Kirkwood she took in elderly ladies.Caring for the needs of others was her life's work. She once said that she had wanted to be a missionary and a doctor. She probably fulfilled the former working in the home-fields with both children and elderly in spite of the fact she never achieved the latter.
Milton Eber Ford
Born June 21, 1860, in Long Run, West Virginia
Died July 25, 1928, in Garwin, Iowa
Adelaide Vincent Furrow Ford
A Strong woman
Posted May 2, 2012 by Nora Yahl
Grandma Ford was a very strong woman both in character and in physical ways. Though she stood probably a bit shy of five feet, she was busy all of the time. She was 74 when I was born in her home in Garwin, Iowa. My father was her favorite grandson and he had lived with her at different times as he was growing up, so when he and my mother Thelma married it came natural that they would live in her house. She spent the winters in other places and was only there in the summers.
It was the 1930's and the "Depression" years were hard. We moved away after a couple of years to St. Louis where Addie's daughter Bessie lived. Oh yes, Bessie was my grandmother. Grandma Ford came to visit often, even though we had a very small house there was always room for her. Mom would save up the mending for her. Grandma always needed to be doing something and that was easy work for her. She had learned to sew with only a needle and thread and could make the best patch or darn the sock just right.
Grandma was full of sage advice and there many "sayings" she had. "You can tell how good the housekeeping is by the soap dish. If it is not clean but has dried soap in it, then someone wasn't doing their job." "If something is worth doing, it is worth doing it right". When you had a situation that was particularly difficult she would say, "You might as well spit in one hand and sh__ in the other. This was the only "bad" word you would ever hear her say. She was a religious woman. She was a Seventh Day Baptist and her roots were in West Virginia, although she was born in Ohio and lived most of her life in Iowa. Church was on Saturday and that was that!
When Grandma was well into her eighties, staying at her daughter's in Raymond, Illinois she noticed that the flower bed was overgrown with weeds. By this age, she wasn't able to bend or stoop very well, but she managed to get to the ground and Grandma Stewart found her mother lying on her stomach pulling the weeds. When admonished for doing something so foolish as to lie down on the ground, she replied, "The bed needed weeding".
Grandma Ford left this life nearing 95 years. She fell asleep while sitting and reading the newspaper and never awoke. She was staying with daughter Gertrude in Alfred, New York. She had raised seven children who gave her many grandchildren and great grandchildren. She was a role model for many of us.
Jacob Babcock Furrow
From Garwin Centenniel Book published by the Garwin Historical Society edited by Dorothy Heiberger, page 13:
The Seventh Day Baptist Church was chartered December 8, 1863, with thirteen members. At first services were held in the homes of members and later in a School house north of Garwin. A church was erected in 1880. This was not only the first church home for the Seventh Day Baptist Congregation, but it was also the first church building in Garwin. At the organization meeting in 1863, the following were listed: Elder Maxson Babcock, Pastor; John W. Knight, Deacon; Bethual Babcock, Clerk; and Alfred Knight, Chorister. The constituent members were Elder Maxson Babcock, Bethuel Babcock, Philathea Babcock, Granville Babcock, John W. Knight, Mary Knight, Lydia S. Knight, James M. Knight, Lorenzo D. Knight, Jacob B. Furrow, and Elizabeth D. Furrow. (my note): Elizabeth Furrow was the daughter of John W. Knight. and Jacob B. and Elizabeth D. Furrow were my great great grandparents. - Nora Stewart Yahl
Born on February 26, 1833 in Saint Paris, Ohio
Died on September 7, 1908 in Gentry, Arkansas
