Alice's Journal

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Hi neighbors. Nothing goes better with a good cup of coffee than a good read.

This week I got a terrific present from a newly discovered cousin. It was a journal from my great-grandfather's sister, Sophia Alice Nickels.

It didn't take long to read the journal. It was written in simple prose but was colorful and included a lot of names of neighbors, family and schoolmates.

Even better, she included some insights into her father's family. The family lived in Indiana and Illinois and had been a mystery to researchers for years as my gr-gr-grandfather, James Robert Nickels, had been an orphan after the death of his mother and sudden disappearance of his father.

Through her journal, Alice gives a lot of information about the characters of people who had only been names on a tombstone before.

Alice describes her father this way. "Pap was high tempered but good. Raised us children all to be honest. I don't think he had a drop of dishonest blood in him. My Mother was honest like him." She recalled when her father went to war when she was five years old. "The first thing I remember was in 1861. Pap went off one morning and came home at noon. He told Mother something and she cried. My sister, Janie and I went out to get some apples. I asked her what Mama was crying about. She said Pap had joined the army. Well, I didn't know what that was. And I couldn't see what she wanted to cry about that for. The war started in 1861, I don't know what month. Pap was gone to war three years." Alice details the courtship between herself and her husband to be, including the fact she had told a friend that "he danced like a broken legged chicken." They married and set up housekeeping. "We had two mares and two cows, two hogs and meat killed. Lard and potatoes, two beds and bedding, pleanty dishes and other kitchen utinsels." When Alice was still a young woman the family moved by covered wagon from Indiana to Missouri and finally settled in the area of Polk County near Humansville, Dunnegan and Fair Play.

She wrote, "I think we started on Tuesday. Started to Polk County Missouri on the 16th of September in 1879. There were 14 of us. We had six horses, two wagons, two dogs, and two saddle horses. We ate our first dinner on the Bauld Knobs near Viann, Indiana." She admits she doesn't remember most of the trip as it was day after day of the same and she was pregnant and had two children to care for. But she does remember the people who helped them along the way. Often a safe place to sleep and a bit of warm food was a welcome treat after all day in a jarring wagon or on foot.

"We had good weather most the way. (She added later it only rained three times.) We found plenty of stuff along the road to cook with. When we came to Flora, Illinois there was no wood to be found and it was time to camp. We seen a man just as we got at the edge of town. Al asked where can we find some wood, he said there isn't any here. Go to my woodpile there and get what you want. We did. We used as little as we could. It was hard to get water to drink. You know some people will share every time with you and some won't share anything, but mostly we found good people." She adds, "We had a long ole ride. Didn't get there till the 13th of October." Through the years she tells of births, sickeness, weddings, deaths and sums her life up with, " Those were happy days but old Father Time has one bad habit. He sends one here and one there scatters up far and near. Some die, some live to be old, but God calls us all on the Judgement Day." At the end of the journal her daughter had added a postnote. " Ma never got her life all wrote. She died March 17, 1937." I doubt she could have realized how wonderful her little journal seems to her descendants today. I feel I know her now, and many more of the family that seemed so distant before I read Alice's journal.

Until the next time friends remember; take some time to write down a little about yourself, your friends and family and the important times and happenings of your life.

Knowing about you may be the greatest gift your descendants could receive.