Memories of Ann Elizabeth Powell Hibbard - Episode 6

After my grandmother and my grandfather were married they lived on a farm. I suppose it was the same one where my mother was born. Grandmother churned the butter and took care of the chickens and the surplus was taken into town and sold. With her “butter and egg” money she bought extra things she wanted. One of the first things she bought when she had saved enough money was the bed room set that Dad and I have in our bedroom. We are just using the head board now but Dad had extended the sides to hold a double bed mattress but originally it was much smaller, probably 3/4 size and the chest of drawers is the only other piece I had. I don’t know whether there was a wash stand or not. The dressing table with the marble top and the little drawers was something we bought later for a little more than $100 which I thought was pretty extravagant but which would probably cost over $1,000. It is from a later period, I’m sure, even if the drawer pulls are similar. The chair at my desk also came from my grandmother Howe’s home. I don’t know when she got them but there were four of them and they were used in the parlor. After her death when they were breaking up her home each one of the girls took one of the chairs. Both the bedroom set and the chair were covered with a heavy dark varnish and the seat was out of the chair but Dad refinished them and brought out the walnut and made them the beautiful pieces they are now.

Jane's Notes: Until I read this I never knew the history behind their bedroom set. Missy has those pieces now.

Memories of Ann Elizabeth Powell Hibbard - Episode 5

Now I think it is time for me to fill in the story of my mother’s life up to this year in 1907 as well as I can remember from what I have heard and read. She was born on her parent’s farm in Iowa, just across the state line from Minnesota and near the town of LeRoy, Minnesota. In fact she said the barn which was across the road was in Minnesota. She arrived on Oct. 10, 1876. She said they called her a centennial baby. Jane’s Bryan is a bi-centennial baby. Many, many years later, Dr. Sun Yet Sen established the Republic of China on Oct. 10 and it became their “4th of July”. When my father was working for Mr. Polanca (a Chinaman) there was always a big celebration with many fire crackers on Oct. 10 and a big many course Chinese banquet. So for quite a few years my mother’s birthday was celebrated Chinese style!

My mother’s father was named Edmond David Howe. When she became a member of the DAR she traced her ancestors back to the Revolutionary War through her father’s side. Much to our delight, she also discovered that she was related to the British brothers General Howe and Admiral Howe who were “the enemy”. She established her relationship to the Howes who ran Howes Tavern which is still standing outside of boston and which was the sight of Longfellow’s poem “Tales of the Wayside Inn.”

She has told me that she remembers her father’s mother living with them when she was small. She remembered her as being a small sort of dried up old lady who sat in rocking  a chair, smoking a long clay pipe for her “dispepsia.” (I like to think that perhaps the rocking chair she used was the wicker one that Edee has that she painted black.) She used to tell them stories about her trip to Minnesota by covered wagon and of their trails and encounters with Indians. I don’t know whether this was after she was married or whether it was when she was a child so I don’t know whether my grandfather, Edmond David, was born in Minnesota or not. Perhaps it is in some of my mother’s records. When he was 18 he became a soldier in the Union Army but I don’t know what year that was but again that probably is in my mother’s records some place. We have a picture of him in his uniform with a bare trace of a beard beginning. We also have a tin type of him at that age that my grandmother carried all through the war and we have a companion tin type of my grandmother Howe in long curls at age 16 which my grandfather had through the war. They were married after the war. My grandmother’s maiden name was Thompson and her parents had come to this country from Edinburgh, Scotland. I have no idea how they ended up in Minnesota. When Dad and I went to Europe in 1965 we visited St. Cuthbert church in Edinburgh, where Ann Lawrence was Married to William Thompson. We have the marriage certificate and listed on the back the names and date of birth of their children. The first ones were born in Scotland. My grandmother, Ann Thompson, and I think there was a  younger brother, were born in this country but i don’t know whether it was in Minnesota or not.  However some of them must have settled down around LeRoy, because my mother had a whole raft of Thompson cousins that she grew up with.

Memories of Ann Elizabeth Powell Hibbard - Episode 4

At the turn of the century when the Spanish American war started, my father and his friends were at the age to enlist to see some of the world. Many of them did but my father came down with typhoid fever and wasn’t able to go with them but by the time my father was finally graduating from Normal School the government was sending out an appeal for teachers to volunteer to go to the Philippines to teach English. Since he had missed the war, here was his chance for adventure. He never talked much about those early days but he had many friends who I later knew as a child who came to the house and who also stayed in the Philippines. The first load of teachers went out on the Army transport Thomas. In later years there would be reunions of those original Thomasites who stayed in Manila. The Thomas was a regular transport to Manila from San Francisco for many years and there were lots of tales about those trips. My first trip back to the States when I was two was made on the Thomas because my father was still working for the Government.

One of my father’s friends in those days was a man named Fisher. I believe he was someone he knew in Kansas who went out during the war and decided to stay. Later a number of my friends in school were sons and daughters of American soldiers who decided to stay in the Philippines. In 1907 my father and Mr. Fisher decided to come home for a visit and they planned to go on around the world instead of going back across the Pacific. I don’t know what their itinerary was but my mother’s engagement ring was an oriental pearl he bought on the way back before he had even met her. We had pictures of my father and Mr. Fisher taken on camels in front of the pyramids and he also brought home a beautiful cameo that he must have gotten in Italy and I do remember his telling about seeing the ruins in Pompeii. On this trip home my father met and married my mother. Mr. Fisher did not go back to Manila but many years later when we were back in the States on a visit we stayed a few days with the Fishers who were living in Seattle.

As I said earlier, my mother and Aunt Beth were good friends so when my father planned to come to LeRoy to see his younger sister, she became match maker and planned an all day picnic for the four of them, she, her husband, my father and my mother.

Jane's Notes: I have that engagement ring with the oriental pearl. It's a lovely old fashioned setting and if fits me perfectly. I enjoy wearing it.

Memories of Ann Elizabeth Powell Hibbard - Episode 3

My father had three sisters and his brother Harry who he has mentioned. I believe Hortense (Aunt Horty) and Blanche were the oldest and Harry was older than he by several years. Aunt Beth (Elizabeth, after whom I was named) was the youngest but I don’t know whether she was born before or after they moved to Kansas. It must have been in 1875 that they moved to Kansas. He told us of hearing about Indians still raiding in the territories when he was a child and of tornados striking near by farms.

Aunt Horty was married at sixteen. She was a grandmother while still in her thirties and a great grand mother while still in her fifties.  I only remember meeting her once also on the trip in 1929. She was a tiny wiry person. Aunt Blanche I think must have been a beautiful girl. She was more like my father, a calm person. She and her husband lived on Whidby Island when he retired and I had seen more of them. He was an Englishman, the younger son in the family, who could not inherit but he had a small inheritance and he came to America to learn how to be a cowboy. From things my father has said I think he must have been quite a romantic hero for him and a catch for Aunt Blanche.

Uncle Harry stayed on the farm and inherited it from Grandfather. He and Aunt Carrie had two sons, Gerald and Charles and when we visited them on the farm at Blue Rapids in 1929 the boys were in college at Manhattan, Kansas.