Samuel Ridgeway Mitchell and Mary Elizabeth Adams

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1851 - 1899

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Samuel Ridgeway Mitchell and Mary Elizabeth Adams

This history was scanned and converted using OCR. No proofreading has been performed.

      Samuel Ridgeway Mitchell married Mary Elizabeth Adams April 5, 1880 at her father’s home outside Spickard, Missouri. Their first child, Simon Albert, was born February 25, 1881. Between 1883 and 1891, the family lived in Fairbury, Nebraska. Samuel was a circuit riding Methodist Minister when he was in Missouri, but it is uncertain whether he continued in this capacity after marrying and moving to Nebraska. He supported his family farming and as a blacksmith. During the time in Nebraska Lenna Leota, William Allan, Dora Alma, Samuel Curtis, Lesley Harrison, Lewis Lelan and Mary Jane were born.
      In 1893, the family packed their belongings into a covered wagon and moved to Chandler, Oklahoma. They did not remain their long according to Esta, the children all became ill. They left and moved to Oregon where Samuel’s brother, Judd (George Washington Mitchell) lived. At this point, there is a discrepancy in what was written and what my interview revealed. One version was that they took the train to Oregon the other was that they went via covered wagon. Lester Arlando was born in Milton, Oregon on March 20, 1895.
      While in Oregon, Samuel’s health began to deteriorate. The decision was made to go back to Nebraska. Mary Elizabeth was pregnant when they set out. She gave birth to Ira Lyman near Rawlins, Wyoming on November 12, 1896. Esta’s story states that they lived in Rawlins, Wyoming for a time, my understanding was that they decided to stay due to the weather (it was winter) and Samuel’s health. They continued their journey home and on November 13, 1896 near Sutherland, Nebraska Ira Lyman died.
      Esta wrote, “The baby was very small when the family started back home. The trip, I’m sure,’ was not easy, b’t only a few miles from home, the baby, Ira Lyman only 10 months old, contracted summer complaint, also then called “Blackberry Balsam,” (severe diarrhea and dehydration) and died. My mother, who was carrying me at the time, carried the lifeless body of her baby boy on her lap for a half day until they reached Sutherland, where he is buried in an unmarked grave. By this time, Dad’s health was very bad, and he could farm only part of the time. He decided the thing to do was to go back to Chandler where his blacksmith tools were.” He had to earn a living for his family.
      They once again left their home in Nebraska and headed south to Oklahoma. Samuel became gravely ill and could not continue. The family arrived in Caney, Kansas December 2, 1898. The first night in Caney was spent at Jake Mitchell’s, Samuel’s cousin, in the 100 block of North State Street.
      Esta told me that Jake Mitchell was Daniel K. Mitchell’s son. Dan was one of William Mitchell’s brothers. Jake was a good looking man who dressed well. He didn’t look much like Samuel Ridgeway, his coloring was different. His wife, Jesse, was an attractive woman. Jake Mitchell had a pretty daughter, Freda, who had a long beautiful braid.
      John Robert Mitchell (Samuel Ridgeways brother) was known as Uncle Jack. He had twins, Mandy and Marion, and Ulysses. Ulysses had a son, Lee Mitchell, who lived in Independence, Kansas and ran a Heating and Cooling business down the street from the courthouse. Esta remembered Uncle Jack having her stand up and sing for him.
      Uncle Bob Mitchell, Samuel Ridgeways uncle, was a Civil War Veteran and lived on Good Street in Caney.
      Esta said they would occasionally go over to his house. He was married for a second time and Esta’s mother (Mary Elizabeth Adams Mitchell) didn’t like him. She was bitter against strong drink and Uncle Bob had to have a little jigger of liquor at every meal, but Esta thought he was “a good old guy.”
      When Mary Elizabeth saw Uncle Bob coming she’d send the children to look for a tin can so he could spit his tobacco into it. He had a habit of saying, “I wonder, I wonder...”
      Uncle Bob knew she was an excellent speller so he told her to spell ‘chamois’ and when she did, he said, “Well, you can spell? Liza get her one of those pretty post cards in there for spelling that word.” She said she kept it for years. It had violets all over it. Uncle Bob and Liza later moved to Dodge City. He went to the Old Soldier’s Home and died there.
      Another of William Mitchell’s brothers, John, lived in Canada. He visited Caney when Esta was small. He had two boys.
      The Samuel Ridgeway Mitchell family later moved into a house on the corner of the second block of State Street. They lived there several years then moved to north Palm Street. From there they moved to 215 west Howard. Mary Elizabeth supported the family by taking in laundry and working as a chambermaid at the old Iowa House Hotel. She always brought the children bags of crackers. When she got home from the Iowa House, they’d be waiting for their supper so they would have soup and crackers.
      Mary Elizabeth spent most of her time at home ironing. Dorothy aid she would use “those little old sad irons” that had to be heated on the stove. Mary Elizabeth would have to use a pot holder to hold them in her hand because the handle got just as hot as the iron.
      She suffered most of her life from edema or “Dropsy” as it was called in those days. Her tissues would fill up with water then the doctor would have to come to the house and “tap” her stomach and let about a gallon of water out of her. Dorothy recalls the procedure, she thought that was about the most horrible thing she could imagine. Dorothy remembers that Mary Elizabeth’s feet would swell so badly she would lie down on the floor and put her feet up on the bed at night. Her Uncle Will would come home and say, “Well I see Ma has put her feet to bed.” Mary Elizabeth would be on the floor with her feet on the bed.
      Dorothy described Mary Elizabeth as a business like person that was always busy. Her hands were never idle. She kept a neat and clean house and raised lots of flowers. Dorothy loved the Sweet Peas she raised. An English Walnut tree grew in her yard, she would sit and crack the nuts then make a walnut cake. She embroidered a lot, tatted and sewed. She kept a cow so they had applesauce and cream for snack, had butter and milk. She always wore a little white apron and she wore her hair in a knot on top of her head. She was short and a typical little Dutch woman”, stocky built, blue eyes with light hair that wasn’t blond but wasn’t brown either.
      Dorothy remembers spending the night at her house at the time the armistice was signed ending World War II. It was early in the morning. They had just gotten out of bed and they were still in their nightgàwns. The bells began to ring and whistles began to blow and everybody in town came out of their houses. They just flocked up the main street and Dorothy remembers seeing her grandmother with the brown shawl she always wore wrapped around her. They were both in their house slippers just dancing all the way so delighted and happy that the war was finally over.
      While Mary Elizabeth worked taking in laundry and cooking at the Iowa House, the boys hired out as “day laborers”. On one census report, Lewis Lelan (Lee) reported “day laborer” as his profession. He was ten years old.
      George told me Curt was a good shot. He used to put .22 shells on a post, Lee would put his hand on the shells then Curt would shoot the sheOs out from between his fingers. Melvin (Yeager) and Curt used to throw mud on the buttons of their shirts, stand sideways and stick their chest out, then shoot the mud off the buttons.
      Once when Lee was working for a farmer in Oklahoma (Indian territory at that time) he got sick. Mary Elizabeth sent a letter to the farmer asking him to let Lee come home. The old farmer couldn’t read. He put the letter up somewhere and several days passed and Lee hadn’t come home, so Mary Elizabeth sent Curt and Less (Lesley Harrison) to bring him home.
      When they got there the old farmer wouldn’t let Lee go home.
      Curt had his rifle and said, “Well, Let’s just kill the old son of a bitch.” Just as he shot, Less knocked the rifle out of the way to keep him from killing the old farmer. After they left, the old farmer had someone read the letter to him and the farmer let Lee go home. Lee walked along the railroad tracks and he could see Curt and Less walking up ahead of him but could never catch up with them. He’d been so sick he could hardly walk.
      When Curt and Less got home they told Mary Elizabeth that the farmer wouldn’t let Lee come home. Then just a few minutes later Lee walked in.
      Mary Elizabeth said, “Well, we may all starve to death, but we’ll starve to death together, I’m not going to send you out like that anymore.”
      Lee had been working for room and board.
      Curt and Less bought a piano so the girls could take piano lessons. To pay for the lessons, Mary Elizabeth did the piano teachers laundry and Esta and Ada would carry it ten blocks to the teacher’s house. After the lessons and lots of practice, the whole family would gather around the piano and sing a lot. The girls liked to play “Beautiful Ohio”, “Let Me Call You Sweetheart’, and “Missouri Waltz.”
      They were one of the first ones in Caney to have an Edison talking machine. It had twenty four records with it. They used to put it out on their front porch and play it. It had cylinder records made of wax. Esta remembered taking the machine to visit with a man confined to bed with a broken leg. They played all the records for him.
      Grandfather Adams died in 1902 and it took a while for his estate to be settled. Mary Elizabeth got $400.00 and built the two rooms on the front of the house. They had had one big back room (about 14’ x 18’) and they all lived in that room. They added a kitchen later.
      The boys worked at the glass factory outside of town. At noon, Esta, Arlando and Ada would carry the lunch pails out to them. They thought that was the longest trip. Esta enjoyed watching them gather up the big ball of molten glass and pass it to the glass blower. He would blow a long bubble out then they’d take it on a car down to the flattening room and put it in the furnace and flatten it out and make panes of glass.
      Every Saturday if the weather was nice or on Sunday afternoons, the family would go on a hike. They would walk down the railroad tracks. The girls would place pieces of tin on the tracks for the train to run over then make the pieces into pairs of scissors.
      In 1905 the gas field caught fire down south of town. It burned for two weeks and Esta remembered going out there one night with a team of horses. She and Will couldn’t even hear themselves speak. It was as bright as day. It burned for two or three days before they got it capped off. It was near or just into Oklahoma.
      Mary Elizabeth objected to Lee marrying Fay. She sent word to the county seat in Independence not to allow them to marry until Lee was 21. He turned 21 in December and they married in February.
      There were hard feelings for a long time. All the boys had trunks to keep their clothes in. Lee came to the house and gathered his things then he and Fay moved in with Ma Yeager. Lee would come while the boys would be working in the garage. Mary Elizabeth would never come out. Dorothy was nine months old before the family ever saw her. That was when Esta said to herself, “If I ever get married and have children, I’ll let them marry who they want” She just couldn’t understand what happened.
      Peddlers used to go up and down the streets selling their wares. bne little old lady that sold products for the Larking Company had a black hat with red cherries on it. Ada and Esta would come up behind her and act as if they were going to pick the cherries off and eat them. There was a man that sold hominy in a big kettle. He sold horseradish and sauerkraut that way too. Mary was always taking the family to tent revival meetings. Several women got down and rolled in the dirt and “carried on something terrible.” It scared Esta with the people raving on about religion. Mary firmly believed in baptism by immersion. She attended Bible study and prayer meeting every Tuesday morning. Her husband had been a circuit riding lay preacher and Methodist men used to be like “Holy Rollers.”
      In 1916, Esta and Ada went to Fairbury, Nebraska to see Mary Elizabeth’s sister, Aunt Vic Baldwin (Emily Victoria Adams). They met their cousin, Isy (Isabell) Drake. They visited three weeks.
      Later, Isy Drake and her husband, Will, drove down with Ann (Sarah Ann Adams) Myers and her husband, George, from Fairbury, Nebraska.
      They went for a ride in the Dodge car of Mary Elizabeth’s and Anna insisted she ride in the car with her. They went to Oklahoma. When they got back, Ada wanted to take them over to Peru to show them the tile factory. She really wanted to show where the boy worked that she was going with.
      Mary Elizabeth said, “Well, I’ll go if I can ride in the front seat of my own car. She wasn’t going with Ann again. Lily May (Adams) and her husband, Charlie Kennedy her daughter, Goldie and granddaughter, Jolene came to Caney in 1929. Esta went back to Fairbury in 1956 to visit with Will and Isy Drake and her cousin, Mabel Mars.

ID	46
Linked to	Mary Elizabeth Adams Samuel Ridgeway Mitchell