“March is the time to make ready for Spring. The windy month blows way the staleness of
Winter and with it we cast away the things we need to remove from our lives.” ~
The Old Crone Corner
In the early spring of 1857 Elizabeth looked around the place
she had called home for the last forty years.
A large stone fireplace was on one wall where she had cooked for her
family a multitude of meals and two wooden rocking chairs were sitting in front
of the hearth. Inside the fire place a
fire crackled, tickling her nostrils with the pungent aroma of burning wood
accented by pine sap, while the yellow flames leaped toward the chimney turning
to smoke that escaped out into sky above the forest. A primitive wooden table for meal time with a
bench lining each of its two longer sides sat in that same area of the
room. Elizabeth’s mouth watered as she
remembered all the hearty stews and coarse breads she served her family at that
table. She could still taste the
sweetness of fruit cobbler which was often what she made on Sundays to serve at
the end of the meal when the blackberries were in season in the nearby woods. A bed was under a window that had no glass
but instead was covered with a wooden shutter.
She saw the ladder going up to the loft area where all six of her children
had slept. A quilting rack was near the
ceiling on one end of the room patiently waiting for her to lower it and attach
a quilt top with the other layers to join onto it. A spinning wheel sat in one corner and a loom
was lumbering along the south wall. This
was her home. She had shared it with her
husband George from the time of their marriage in 1815 until this prior October
when he had passed away. Now 69 herself,
Elizabeth was tired. She had spent the
winter living with her son Samuel and his family at their nearby homestead and
today Samuel had brought her here to gather whatever she wanted to bring back
and have with her. Well, he would have
to understand this was not a one trip event.
It would take time to look through items and decide what she would bring
with her. It would take time to remember
as she sorted and cleaned. Spring was a
natural time to do this cleaning and choosing.
It was the time to say good bye to the old and usher in the new. Today was the first day she would begin the
process of moving on.
Samuel was her first born.
She had already buried his brother Peter who had been born a year after
Samuel but only lived to reach 31 years.
A year after Peter was born her son George had arrived. Two years later along came John and then two
years after that her first daughter Catherine, but Catherine only lived to age
28. Annie was born 4 years after Catherine. Elizabeth realized she was extremely
fortunate to have four of her six children still alive and nearby. She was lost in these memories as she was
packing her sewing basket and sewing supplies into a wooden trunk. Samuel was already loading the spinning wheel
and loom onto the wagon. Elizabeth
noted that he was sure in a rush for someone who was 41 years old. Samuel’s son George, now 18, was along to
help move items from the cabin to the buckboard wagon.
Elizabeth began to pack the few books her and her husband had
owned into the trunk, stacking them at the side of the sewing supplies. She placed a prayer book and a book of poems
into the trunk. She fingered the cover
of a very large German Bible that had all the births of her children and grandchildren
carefully recorded along with the deaths of Peter, Catherine and George and
then placed it into the trunk. She
pressed a smaller German bible to her chest that she had used to teach George
to read and that he had taken with him on his 26-week preaching circuit
throughout the Alleghany Mountains surrounding their Pennsylvania home. Rarely was he able to travel on horseback
but instead usually walked. He had to
swim streams and travel in all types of weather. Twice he had walked clear into Ohio. George had begun his ministry in the 1820’s
when their son Samuel was a small boy.
Elizabeth and the children kept the farm going, doing all the outside
chores while George went from meeting to meeting. She had maintained their home in his absence
and kept up with her spinning, sewing and quilting while she tended to the
children. After placing the small
German Bible into the trunk Elizabeth picked up a bible that was written in
English and held it to her cheek. After George had learned to read the bible in
the German language his congregations began asking him for services in “The
English” so she had taught him to read in English from this bible. After that he had carried both bibles with
him. The books were both very worn and the covers had
gotten soft and supple. As she placed
that third bible into the trunk she was brought back to 1857 with the voice of
her grandson saying “Oma”. Looking up,
she saw young George standing near her with his round hat in his hands. Samuel and George were done disassembling the
quilt rack and its pieces were loaded onto the wagon. Also on the wagon were stacked the benches
and the kitchen table.
“Father and I were talking Oma. We have the wagon full for
now. Would you like young Elizabeth to
come back here with you in a couple of days?
The two of you could spend several days here if need be going through
things and sorting out what you wanted to keep. But now we should head home as
we are finished for today.”
Elizabeth’s heart leapt.
Her grand-daughter and namesake was eleven and spending a few days here
at the cabin with her would be a treasure.
How wonderful it would be to have
such an important part of her new life with her as she packed away the old one. Elizabeth smiled and nodded at her grandson. He smiled and nodded back as he shut the trunk
she had filled and began to carry it toward the wagon.
Elizabeth stood up.
She was a small woman. Her black
skirt and blouse were very plain. Her
long hair was gathered in a bun at the nape of her neck and a plain bonnet was
on her head in the manner of the old order people that were her family and
friends. She straightened her shoulders
and took a deep breath looking around the cabin. It was the month of March. Soon spring would be here. It was time to blow away the stale air of
winter and begin to celebrate the newness of life. She could smell the
freshness of the mountain air and hear the breeze as it rustled the trees as
she began to walk deliberately toward the waiting wagon and her son and
grandson.
Epilogue:
The proceeding is a work of fiction that has been woven around
a frame of fact. Elizabeth Bair Rairigh
was my 4XGreat Grandmother. I know the
details of her husband’s ministry and the fact that she taught him to read in both
German and English from the information I found in a book called Two Centuries of the Church of The Brethren in
Western Pennsylvania 1751-1950 by the Historical Committee and published by
The Brethren Publishing House. I know
the birth dates and death dates of her and her husband and where they are
buried. I know the same information
about her children and grandchildren.
And I know Armstrong County was the county in Pennsylvania where she and
George lived. I know Elizabeth migrated
to Darke County Ohio with her son Samuel when he (also a preacher) moved his
family there in 1863. But I have no
idea of the details of the contents of her home or what it looked like. I have no knowledge of when she moved in with
Samuel and his family. I completely made
up her thoughts and actions in the above story.
I have found no description of what she looked like. It is a fact that Samuel was affiliated with
the more conservative Old Order Brethren Church and would have dressed in the
manner they did. I do not know what
spring meant to Elizabeth. But to many,
including me, spring is associated with spring cleaning. And
since family history is what I am interested in writing about I chose this
format to engage the theme of this month’s topic “What does spring mean to
me?”.
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