Earl's Account of His Family History

   While I was visiting my mother, we found many pages of family history.  Among these was this account given by Earl McIntyre in 1972.  It fills in some blanks for me. 



John R. and Elmyra McIntyre

     My information about the McIntyre family is rather limited prior to my dad and some of that is kind of limited also.  My grandfather is John R. McIntyre and I don't recall just where he was born.  I never saw him but about two or three times in my lifetime that I remember of.  He died when I was about eight years old.  I think he died in 1902.  My grandmother then came and lived with us for awhile after he died, and then she went to California where she lived for several years afterward.  She died in California in about 1906, I believe.  She fell and broke her leg and her hip, and she never really recovered from it.  That's the information about my grandfather.    


      I have heard some stories about my grandfather that might be of interest.  He was a carpenter and the name means son of a carpenter.  He worked the carpenter trade quite a lot.  He built some houses anyway, and he built the house that you were born in. In the early days they didn't have the sawmills and things to get the lumber that they have now and didn't have the nails as we have now.  So he would go out in the timber and cut down his timber for the sills and beams on the houses and things.  Maybe some of them were for studding and rafters, I don't know.  He would put them together with mortise and tenon joints.  He would square up the logs with a broad ax, and then he would use an auger (he had two augers, a 2-inch auger and a 1-auger) to cut the holes in the logs.  Then he would saw down on the other log a ways on each side and split it out and fit it into the holes he had cut in the first log.  He would put them together and take an auger and drill holes through both of them.  Then he would use a hickory pin to hold them together.  He'd drive a wedge down in there and hold them together.  That joint stayed pretty good, better than nails would ever stay.  There was a barn on that farm where you were born that made that way, out of those that he had made, and it stood up longer than a shed that was built at the end of that barn several years later.  It was still standing when that other shed fell down that was built with modern ways of building.

Mortise and tenon joint

       I was attending church over in Decatur, Nebraska, one time, I know a gentleman there.  I was a young man then.  An old gentleman came up to me and asked me if I was related to John McIntyre, and I told him yes that I was his grandson.  He said that he was one of (I don't recall his exact words) the best men that ever graced God's footstool.  I can remember that part of it.  I understood someone to say that he had told them that my grandfather had helped him more in sickness than any doctor he had ever had.  In the early days, there were no doctors, and I guess my grandfather had a little knowledge of medicine.  They used to call on him to set broken bones.  I don't know whether they called him for baby births or not, but at any rate, he was a kind of doctor around the community where he lived.  He was one of the early settlers close to Woodbine, Iowa.  When they had the Centennial celebration at Woobine, Iowa, he and his brother-in-law, Amon Fry, were both mentioned as some of the early settlers there. That's about the extent of my knowledge of him.
    
       My father, of course, kind of followed the carpenter trade.  He built quite a few houses and buildings up around Moorhead [Monona County, Iowa]. He had been in business, a number of different kinds, but he wasn't cut out for a businessman.  He was cut out more for a carpenter.  He did that better than anything else, I think, that he ever tried.  He moved to California in about 1890.  I'm just not sure when it was.  It was after Lewis was born, and Lewis, I think was born in 1889.  I thought he was born in 1888, but Charlie [Earl's brother] told me that he was born in 1887 and Lewis was born in 1889.
    
      There was quite a bunch of people who left Iowa and went to California.  Most of them belonged to the Reorganized Latter Day Saints Church.  And while I'm on that, my grandfather was a member of the old Latter Day Saints Church, and I think he was an elder in the church.  But when Brigham Young took the church to Utah, he left it.  He did follow another fellow that went out to Preparation, Iowa (that's just a little ways northwest of Woodbine) and started a colony there.  The reason it is named Preparation is they were preparing themselves to go to heaven.  Then he got the followers to sign the property over to the church.  It was kind of a communistic government that they had.  My grandfather became dissatisfied with his teachings and with his actions.  So he and a bunch of others left and brought suit to get their property back, and I guess they got it back.  He owned that farm where you were born [near Moorhead, Iowa].  Then he moved down by Woodbine at Biglers Grove later on.  It was 1860 when my dad was born at Biglers Grove in a log cabin there.  I have seen that cabin.  Dad took me by there one time and pointed it out, that that was the house he was born in.  It was just a small log cabin.  I don't think it had as much room as my trailer has here.


Pear label from Santa Clara County, CA

       Like I said, they went to California.  They traveled quite a little bit over California, I guess in a covered wagon.  Mother said that they moved several times in one year.  They finally settled in what is called Santa Clara Valley up close to Gilroy, California.  It was the county seat of the county.  I don't know what the name of the county is now, whether it is called Santa Clara or what.  At any rate, we lived out south of Gilroy fairly close to the foot hills of the mountains.  Dad started a fruit orchard there.  I don't know just how many acres he had, but he built a house, put down a well, and had a windmill on it and a tank up in the windmill so we had running water there in those days.  When I was born, my mother came back to Iowa, and I was born in Iowa in house that Rowena Lamb lives in now.  Then we went back when I was a few months old.  Then, when Wayne was born, he was born in California.  And if I remember right, my Grandmother McIntyre came over there when he was born, but I'm not positive about that.  Grandma Adams might have come out there at the time.  She was out there at one time.

        Dad used to trim his fruit trees and plow the ground in the spring of the year, and then he would float it down and break up the clods so as not to lose any more moisture than he had to because that was a semi-arid country there.  He would then take a covered wagon and we would go over the mountains into the San Joaquin Valley where he worked in the hay fields there.  They raised a lot of hay there and irrigated at that time over there, and they still do, of course.  Now, the San Joaquin Valley is a very fertile valley.  It's wide.  I was surprised at the width of it and the greenness of it.  Everything was green when I went through there the last time.  There is parts of it that are still kind of desert like when it gets to higher ground.  As you go up from Bakersfield on the north, you can go clear to Red Bluff.  It goes into the Sacramento Valley and then on north without hardly seeing a hill.  You don't go over a hill of any kind.  It's just as level as a floor all the way up through there, and a lot times, you can't even see the mountains or the hills of any kind.  So, it's quite a wide valley up through there, and quite fertile.  So, Dad used to go over in there and he would work in the hay fields, alfalfa.  They raised lots of alfalfa there.  When it came time to pick fruit, we would come back over the mountains in a covered wagon to our valley and pick his fruit and dry it.  He had a fruit house that had big bins in it, that he would put his fruit in.  He had to sort it out and put it in there.  He raised peaches and pears and prunes.
    

       I guess I didn't mention that my Grandfather and Grandmother McIntyre are both buried pretty near straight west of Woodbine [Iowa] out in what is called Biglers Grove Cemetery.  There is a big stone there with their names on it.  There are quite a few other relatives buried there in that cemetery.  That would be my great uncles and aunts and probably some distant cousin and things like that.  That's about five or six miles straight west of Woodbine.  I have taken some of the children out there to see it...[at this point, Earl lists which of his children have been to the cemetery]...It's out in what used to be called Biglers Grove. There used to be a settlement out there, but now it is just farm land and a distant cousin of mine owns most of the land around there, I guess.

     I also talked with two of my uncles this week.  They told me that although she did die four days after Veryl's birth, Ada Mann was a victim of the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919.  Estimates are that between twenty and forty million people worldwide died in one year.  More people died in that period  than in the four years the Bubonic Plague raged in Europe.  It is considered the worst epidemic ever recorded. 

Blizzard of '54, page 2
     
       At this point, I am tempted to post the remainder in a few days, but since you all know that we survived, I guess I'll finish today.-Cheri

       When we decided it was morning, Bill tried to open the window. Each time he cranked down the window a little he had to push the snow back with his hands. It was like being in a snow cave, but finally we could see daylight in one small area as he broke through the surface of the snow. Bill was able to crawl through the window and with the help of the little shovel and a lot of arm waving and foot stomping he was able to get out of the ditch onto the road.
       Looking at the plowed road told him what had gone by us at dawn. Bill came back to the car and said, "We're all getting out of here. Come on, you first!"
       I protested, "But I thought that you were going to walk and get help!"
       Bill explained, "When I got out and looked back at the car I changed my mind. We're all going, so come on out here." He grabbed my arms and pulled me out of the window. Then he reached back in and took baby Cheri, blankets and all, and handed her to me. I was standing in snow almost to my knees, even though he had partly cleared a path for me. After he reached back in and pulled Billy into his arms he told me to get started walking. "Go on up to the road. It isn't so deep there."
       It was ankle deep at the road thanks to the plow, so it was easier walking. We were pretty certain there was a house not too far away, but it still meant a walk of nearly a mile. Once we turned the bend, we could see lights. Better yet, smoke was coming from the chimney. The wind was blowing and the bitter cold drew us toward the fire and the warmth.
       As we trudged toward the house, snow was blown across my face so hard and fast that it felt frozen, it was taking my breath away. I lowered my face into the baby's blanket to try to use my breath to help warm Cheri, as well was warming my face. By the time we reached the entry to the yard, I was staggering. Six weeks before I had surgery when Cheri was born, and the doctor had just released me the day before out trip to return to normal activity. I don't think he would consider any of this normal!
      "I can't go on! You go ahead, Bill and someone can come back for me and the baby."
      "NO, if you stop we all stop. Do you want us all to die right here so near the house?"
       I thought of him and the children and said, "NO!"
      "I'll break the path for you, Sal. Just try to step in my footprints."
      "Okay," I replied, "But don't take too big of steps." Because of the snow and wind, it was impossible to see drifts clearly. Bill would start and have to back up and go around, but finally we made it to the porch. The door flew open and out came a man and woman.
      "I'm OK, but help my wife, she is having problems."
      The woman took the baby from my arms, and the man put his arm around my waist, pulling me up onto the porch and into the house. I don't think I could have made it on my own. He sat me down on a picnic style bench in front of a plank table covered with oil cloth; everything about the place was neat and clean. A cup of coffee was place in my hands even before my coat was off.
       They said the had seen us wading through and the drifts in the yard and couldn't believe their eyes.     
       "Where did you come from?" they asked.
       "Up the road a little ways," Bill replied.
       "We're having biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Can I make you some?" she asked. "Have some more hot coffee to warm you up!"
       How good that coffee tasted; and I don't even like coffee! That is the only time it has ever tasted good to me, and the biscuits and gravy were delicious.
       I could tell by looking around that the family was very poor, but they were very willing to share what they had. They had a small scraggly tree cut from the land and decorated with popcorn and paper chains. Their children had some homemade toys and new pajamas for Christmas presents.
After Bill warmed up a while, the men took the tractor and went back to see about the car. You could see nothing but a snowbank where we had slid into the ditch, you would not even guess it was there. We realized how lucky we were to get out and find help and were very thankful. They pulled the car into the yard and put about five gallons of gas in it, and we loaded up and drove the two and a half remaining miles to my sister's house.
       "We thought you weren't coming when you didn't make it last night," my brother-in-law Virlyn said.
       When we told them where we were last night, they were shocked.
       "I would have come after, had I known," Said Virlyn.
       The next day we went to the store and bought toys for the children of the family that took us in from the storm. They would not take any money for their help, so it was out way of thanking them for their kindness. The spirit of Christmas was alive and well on that Christmas Day.

      I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did.- Cheri

     My mom, Sally Push, wrote this account of the harrowing Christmas that occurred not long after I was born.   She sent it to me in a booklet put together by her writing group.  I thought it was interesting, a little off my normal focus, but thought you might enjoy it.

The Blizzard of '54

by Sally Push

     Every year as was our custom, we would take off from out home in Nebraska and travel to Oklahoma for Christmas with my sister.  She and her husband had children about the same age as ours and it got to be a habit.

     This year they were predicting a snowstorm for middle Kansas, and said that it might become a blizzard.  Out daughter, who had been born in November, had pneumonia, and we decided that if she was released, we would again try to keep the custom alive.

     Bill said, "Look Sal, it is only a couple hundred miles where they are predicting it, and they expect that it won't hit till midnight. We should be through there and long gone by then."

     His reasoning was sound, and when the doctor released Cheri, we quickly loaded the car with presents and the two kids, age two years and six weeks.  When we got to the southern edge of Kansas, we both breathed a sigh of relief.  We were going to a small town north of Tulsa, so we had forty more miles to travel, but we had made it through the predicted storm path.  We had only gone a few miles when the storm hit.  It kept intensifying until you could hardly make out the front of the car in the swirling white haze of snow.,

     The lights didn't seem to reach far, but thankfully, we were only about twenty miles to our destination.  We crept along slowly, watching the side of the road as well as we could.  When we turned off the highway on to a gravel road, we were going so slow that we thought we were further along, and when the road branched, Bill put on the brakes.  The car slid into the bar ditch along the side of the road.  It wasn't even the road we wanted, but the one before it.  We tried to pull out of the ditch, but it just sat there with the tires spinning.

     Bill said, "Come and drive and I'll try to push it out!"  So I scooted over and took the wheel while he tried pushing.  No luck.  We were definitely stuck.  Bill crawled back in the driver's seat and I scooted over.

     As he was warming his hands I asked, "What are we going to do?"

     "Well," he said, "I didn't see any lights close enough to walk to, so I guess we stay put till another car comes along." Since it was only about 10 o'clock at night, we both thought another car would be along soon.

     At first we kept the car running, but then decided that we should turn it off, and just run it every hour or so to warm up.  We took clothes from the suitcases we had used to build up the backseat for the kids, and put layers of clothes on both Billy and Cheri, putting them to sleep on the back seat covered with blankets.  Bill and I decided we would talk to keep each other awake.  Each time we were going to start the car, Bill would go out and use the little camping shovel to remove the snow away from the tail pipe.  By 2 AM, he could no longer get the door open because of the snow, and we were about out of gas.  As the snow drifted higher and higher on the windows, it helped the car stay warmer.

     Bill said, "At first light I will try to crawl out of the window and make my way to the road." We were doing a lot of praying that night, and I kept praying that he could make it to the road. 

     Just before dawn, we heard a noise an we thought that maybe it was a car.  When we finally made it out, we discovered the snowplow had gone by without even seeing us since our car was completely buried in the snowdrift, deep in the ditch.  Evidently, he wanted to get it done so he could be home for Christmas morning.  

Re-posting of Marriage Records

 I had a little time this morning, so I took down the previous posting with the transcriptions of Earl's marriage records, and put them up in a different format.  These should be much easier to read.
Cheri

Changes in Marriage Records

These are from a transcription of the original images.  I did not make any corrections, simply did a copy and paste.

A Few More Sources

     Though I still have some challenges with the blog appearance, I've decided that I will, for the moment, ignore those problems and continue to post. Instead of images for Earl's first two marriages, I found just a listing of the information contained on those images. Looking at the previous posts, I noticed that there are auto-correct marks.  It's after midnight and we're in the month of December.  Maybe, it will be fixed later, but since my goal is to post new information on a regular basis, it is what it is.
     Grandpa McIntyre married his first wife, Ada Mann, in August of 1916. The couple had two sons: James "Amon" and Veryl.  I searched in vain for the cause of Ada's death until I noticed that she died four days after Veryl's birth.  Earl sent Amon to stay with his grandparents for a time while the 1920 census says that Veryl lived with his father. 
      Earl's second marriage was to his housekeeper, Nancy Belle Watters McLane. When the couple married in 1922, Belle was a widow with a daughter named Mildred.  The two had nine more children, eight of whom lived to adulthood.

Here are a few sources.