I was born in Greene County, Illinois, in a one room log cabin. My parents were Charles F. Howell and Ollie Cain Howell. I had an older brother, Charles Elvin (Chuck), who was born in Mt. Auburn, Illinois, where my maternal grandparents were living.

My parents were married in Whitehall, Illinois, on July 28, 1901. Dad had just returned from serving three years in the Spanish American War. My mother was seventeen.

There were claybanks around our cabin, where dad dug clay for the Whitehall sewer pipe company. The clay was loaded on small cars and transported to the factory on a narrow gage railroad.

They moved to North Alton when I was about a year old. We lived in a small house on Alby Street where my brother Edwin Leroy (Bill) was born on December 6, 1907.

Bill weighed 1 l/2 lbs. at birth and was 2 1/2 months premature. His first crib was a large market basket. Dad removed the handle, then put jars of water that had been heated in the bottom of the basket and covered them with cotton.

Bill grew to 10 lbs. by the time he was 9 months old and was walking. They said he could walk under the table without bumping his head!

Dad worked at the brick factory for awhile. North Alton was not a part of Alton at that time, they had their own Town Board.

When I was about four years old, we moved to Wood River, Illinois, where we lived in a section of town called "Benbow" City. The sandy soil grew nothing but sand burrs.

Dad worked for the Standard Oil Company as a labor foreman. His work crew were mostly foreigners. The plant was being built at that time.

When it was in operation, the fumes were very strong. Mom complained of migraine headaches. She thought it was caused by the fumes.

I remember the only automobile in town. It was owned by the Superintendent. It was built like a buggy or spring wagon with large wheels like wagon wheels. The top folded back when it wasn't raining. The top speed was probably about 20 miles an hour. It was painted bright red. All the dogs and kids in the area ran after it when he came down our road.

After much complaining from mom, we moved back to Whitehall. There was an epidemic of scarlet fever there that winter and a small girl died from the disease.

Mom bought all her clothing from the rag man across the street. She tried them on me, without first washing them. I came down with scarlet fever, then I had rheumatic fever. I was ill a long time.

It was at that time when my parents parted, (the first time). I guess mom was tired of taking care of a sick child. She kept the boys and dad rolled me up in a comfort then drove across town in the snow to my grandmother's house. She and my aunt Mabel had new clothes for me, and they burned the ones I was wearing, so the germs would not spread.

In the spring, my folks decided to live together again. We moved back to North Alton. We lived on Elm Street, then we moved to Delmar, then to Delmar and Greenwood Lane. Delmar wasn't paved then. I can remember the big coal wagons being pulled by two teams of horses through the mud. Everyone used coal to heat their houses and for their cookstoves.

We didn't have running water or indoor plumbing. We bathed in a large washtub and used an outdoor toilet. We had kerosene lamps. I don't remember any electricity on our street.

When I was seven years old, my folks parted again. She had a friend that came every day after dad left for work. One day dad came back. That's when they parted again. She took the boys, but she said she didn't want me. We stayed across the road with a neighbor until he could ask grandma to take me again.

I was broke out from head to foot with poison ivy. The lady where we were staying bathed me several times a day in a solution the druggist sold dad.

Grandma didn't want to take me back, but Grandpa said I could stay with them. I was 8 years old that summer and my first job was to scrub the two long porches around the house and the boardwalk out to the back of the lot and the outhouse.

The next summer, I was given a tub and washboard by the side of grandma, that was the beginning of many years of laundry work. Grandma did laundry for the "uptown" people, washers and dryers hadn't been invented yet, so all the families that could afford it hired a laundress.

Grandma did excellent work, which was a long process. The water was drawn from the well with a bucket and pulley then carried in pails to the washboiler on the kitchen stove to be heated. The water was "hard" and lye was used to soften it. Then she carried the water to the tubs in the back yard, where the clothes were washed on a washboard. Since we didn't have a wringer, they were wrung by hand. The white clothes were boiled in the washboiler, then washed again and rinsed. (It was the second washing I did). Sometimes the heavy pieces took us both to wring.

When it came time to iron them, they had been starched, then sprinkled and rolled the night before, then ironed with flatirons heated on the cookstove. Everything was ironed. I started by ironing dishcloths and handkerchiefs. For all this, she received $1.00 for a large basket.

Grandpa worked at the sewer pipe company firing kilns in all kinds of weather. He worked six days a week for $1.50 an 11 hour day.

In 1915, we moved to Upper Alton, on Rodgers Avenue. Aunt Mabel worked at the Western Cartridge Company. She had told grandpa they were hiring men there at $3.00 per day. The company was getting orders for ammunition from Europe. It was when Germany had begun to move in on some of the surrounding countries. It was the beginning of what was later called W.W.I.

I started school at Milton School but later transferred to Horace Mann when we moved to a larger house on Washington Avenue.

Aunt Mabel and dad lived with us. Grandma wanted to move back to Whitehall. They had rented out their house when they moved to Alton. She told dad he would have to take me. Grandpa rented a room in East Alton, close to his work. He had been walking the 3 miles to work to save the 20 cent fare. Dad brought Bill to live with us and we moved to a house near the Glassworks. He couldn't afford to hire someone to look after us, so we were alone most of the time. We went to school that winter at Lowell, just off Washington Avenue. The next year dad sent Bill back to our mother and he took me to his Aunt in Jerseyville. Her family and I got the flu. I was sick with a sore throat and my ears were abscessed. I didn't go to school that winter, I couldn't hear.

The next spring, we moved back to Alton where we boarded with my dad's "lady friend". I went to school at Humbolt on Central Avenue.

When grandma was visiting Aunt Mabel, grandpa persuaded grandma to take me home with her. He was killed two weeks later in an explosion at Western.

I was 13 that summer. She received $3,500 for his death, but the money was still in the bank when she died. We earned our living by doing laundry, and she always raised a big garden and canned fruit from the peach trees. She would walk about a mile down the railroad track to pick blackberries. I couldn't go with her because I would have a rash. They didn't know about allergies then.

Grandpa had some nephews who were "brakees" on the railroad. When the big coal trains came by, they would get up on the cars and push off coal for the widow women in our block. There were several living there. We picked up the coal and put it in the shed

When I was about 14, grandma developed cancer of the throat. As time passed and the disease spread, I would stay home from school a day or two each week to help with the laundry.

Uncle Buell came home from the army in 1920 and we moved with Aunt Ethel, Walter, his son, and him, to Alton. They had been separated, so they didn't have furniture. They used grandma's furniture.

Aunt Ethel lost a limb, from cancer, and walked with crutches. She could do light work by hopping around on her one leg, and using the broom. She did the cooking. I was in the seventh grade when we left Whitehall and I never went back to school. I was behind two grades because of all the moves and time lost from school.

Grandma was bedfast and in a lot of pain. The only medicine she took was aspirin. I would heat salt bags to put on her throat when she couldn't sleep. She said it eased the pain.

She began to bleed and I kept dressings on her throat. We couldn't afford sterile dressings, so I used pieces of old sheets and I washed them. "Think of all the germs."

Shortly before her death, we went to live with Aunt Mabel. Her first child was about 1 month old. I took care of Grandma, did our laundry, and helped with the baby, who had colic and cried a lot.

When we came back from the funeral, Aunt Mabel told me, since Grandma was gone, she didn't need me, and I would have to go to my mother.

I had never been told the facts of life. They weren't taught in school, nor mentioned in polite society. I had Grandma to tell me what was right or wrong. When she was no longer able to direct me, Aunt Mabel took over. So, I went to my mother, who had married and lived in Chautauqua, a summer resort.

When my stepfather "Tom" came home, he told mom I couldn't stay.

The next morning, she gave me the fare back to Alton, to my Dad's house. He had married a month before. His wife was much younger than him and I learned later that she was of questionable character. She was upset when I arrived. She told Dad, a girl 15 was old enough to get out and earn her own living. I didn't have the 8th grade certificate that was required most places. I hadn't been trained to do anything but housework and laundry.

A woman in the neighborhood gave me a job taking care of her children and helping with the housework until they went to school in the fall. I had room and board, but no wages.

When she learned I had inherited $200 from Grandma's estate, she said she would take care of it for me. I trusted her with my money. She had a nephew, Bill Carpenter, who was living with her family. She had been given custody of him when his parents died. He was nearing 17 and she was anxious for him to leave and he wanted to be free from her control.

Without my knowledge, she plotted with him to talk to me about marrying him, then he could go where he pleased and she wouldn't have to return my $200. (Another aunt told me later of the plan, after we were married.)

The next week, I was 16, he suggested we be married. His aunt said it would be a good idea. I went along with the plan and we were married. She signed for him and told me to pass for 18.

When dad heard we were married, he had moved to Carrollton, IL, on a farm with his new wife. He took us both back with him, but Bill left soon after. Dad's wife ran off with another man, and we moved back to town. I was on my own, broke, with no place to go. I lived with different relatives, when they needed me, then they would push me out and I would have to find someone else to take me in.

I went to see my Uncle Jim, my mom's brother. My cousin and his wife took me home with them. She got a job for me the next day with an old couple across the street. I did the housework for $5.00 a week, with bed and board. The next spring, when that job ended, I went to East St. Louis to visit my Aunt Lottie, mom's sister. She had invited me. I found a job at a meat packing company, but they soon had a spring lay-off. I couldn't find anything else to do. Aunt Lottie suggested I go to see mom. Maybe she would be able to find work for me at the summer resort, that would be opening for the summer season.

I went to work at the Springs Hotel; $1.00 a day with room and board. My boss and I mopped rooms, made beds, emptied slop jars every day, then washed the bedding.

The main auditorium was across the road from the hotel. They showed free movies, so I went with my sister. She introduced me to James. He was my stepfather's nephew. He worked for the custodian driving the baggage wagon and digging clay for the tennis courts.

He had returned the month before from 3 years in the Army. He lived with his family in the next valley, they and my mother were neighbors, but they didn't get along.

During the summer, we sat together in the movies and took walks to our folks' houses, but we really didn't date. He was lonely and so was I.

Near the end of the season, as we were walking up the road, I told him I would be leaving the next week for Alton to get my divorce and try to find a job.

He said he would probably be leaving soon, as he and his brother didn't get along.

He had told me about the girl he fell in love with before he joined the Army, her name was Nellie Johnson. She was 17 and her mother wouldn't sign the papers for them to marry.

Then he asked "Why don't we get married?". I thought he was joking, but he assured me he was serious. He wanted a home away from the family squabbles and I was in need of a place to call home. I knew he wasn't in love with me, but we were friends.

I accepted his offer. The next week he went with me when I got my divorce, then we went on to St. Louis where we were married at the City Hall.

I had two proposals in two years. Each one said "Why don't we get married?".

But I felt James was different. I had grown up a lot in those two years. I had never been with a man until I married Bill. In looking back, I don't know what would have become of me if I had not met James. I owe a lot to him.

We stayed in Chautauqua the next year. I helped mom close cottages for 25¢ an hour, then the next spring we opened and cleaned them for the summer residents. I was pregnant with our first child. I continued to work until I was in labor, that continued from Friday until Sunday, when the doctor delivered her in the log cabin where we lived. She only lived 2 hours.

The next year, we moved to Alton. James, and my brother Bill, went to work at the steel mill. We lived on Stowell Street in Curdie Heights.

Two weeks before Marie was born, James was injured at work. His clothes were caught on some machinery and he was drawn into the machine. His thigh was broken.

When I went into labor, my brother Bill asked our neighbor, Nellie, James' former girlfriend, to come over. He was frightened. She, and the woman from the store, stayed with us from time to time for the next 3 days. The doctor delivered her at home.

It was about 3 months before James was off crutches and able to return to work, but he had been replaced. (They didn't have a union then.)

Bill took care of our living expenses until James started selling insurance. He didn't do well at it. He just wasn't cut out to be a salesman.

Later, he went to work at a chemical plant and worked there until he received a letter from his uncle's wife in Texas. She said she could get him a good job on a ranch nearby, as there was plenty of work in Texas.

We sold our furniture and moved to Texas. Bill didn't want us to go so far.

When we arrived, there wasn't any job. His aunt got him a job with a rancher who had come from Kansas. He wanted someone to plant a crop of corn, as an experiment, to see if it would do well in Texas. He advanced him $4.50 a week. That was all we had to live on. We picked wild berries, seined fish at night from a pond, and killed jackrabbits. We even dressed a hard-shelled turtle and ate the eggs from it. We used half of the $4.50 to buy milk for Marie. I was pregnant with Marvel at the time.

The corn was planted and came up nicely, then one morning he went out to the field and saw that army worms had stripped the whole field overnight.

We had been living in a one room building that had been used as a slaughter house. His aunt had loaned us some of their camping equipment, a cornshuck mattress and a kerosene campstove. She got him a place with a dairy farmer who milked and bottled the milk there on the farm, for $1.00 a day and board. They agreed Marie and I could stay there too, if I would help his wife take care of their three small children, one of them the same age as Marie, 16 months.

I wrote to Brother Bill and begged him to send me the fare home. He sent what he had, and the boss advanced the next month's wages to James.

When James had worked enough to pay him back and earn his own fare, he came back and got a job at the Glassworks, just before Marvel was born. We lived in a basement apartment. The neighbor ladies helped in the delivery and looked after Marie. I was up and around in a couple days.

When the usual winter layoff came, he rented an old house next to mom and moved me and the babies there. We didn't lave any furniture, but mom brought over some things she had. The house wasn't finished, just the siding with cracks all around. She took layers of newspapers and proceeded to nail them on the walls of one room, where we could keep warm.

Marvel was two months old and was ill with diarrhea. I thought she was dying. She wasn't very strong, no doubt due to those months when I didn't have the nourishment I needed when I was carrying her.

After James got a job, we went back to Alton. We got some used furniture and, after moving again a couple of times, we lived in a flat near the Glassworks where our daughter, Laura May, was born. She only lived four months.

When we moved to Madison Avenue, Margaret was born. When she was two months old, we bought the old house on Monroe Street for $695, no money down and $12.00 a month payments. It wasn't much of a house, but it was home and as long as we made the payments it was ours!

The big depression was beginning to affect jobs everywhere.

By the time Jim was born in 1934, James was only working half-time. I hung wallpaper, painted and did laundry to keep up the house payments.

Bill was born September 9, 1937. James had been laid off, with a lot of other people who worked at the glass company.

I broke my ankle and was unable to do anything for awhile. We had to go on Public Aid, we received $15.00 every two weeks for our family of 7.

My neighbor and I would walk about 2 miles to a place where they were giving out government commodities. Sometimes the line was so long we would be there all day. I remember one time, they closed the door and we had to come back the next day.

Mom gave me clothes for our children that the summer people gave her for her grandchildren.

Finally, when WWII had started in Europe, the factories in this country began hiring. James applied at the Western Cartridge Company for a job and was hired.

I took a course in Practical Nursing. After Martha Jane was born, September 13, 1941, a neighbor took care of her and I went to work at what was then St. Anthony's Infirmary. We paid off the old house and sold it for $2,700. We had lived there 15 years. Three of the children were born there.

We bought a five acre tract on Delmar Road and hired a carpenter friend to put the framework up to our new house. He told James how to finish it.

Since we had to give possession on the other house, we both worked on the new one. We used the lumber from an old barn on the property for siding and we moved in before it was finished.

We worked on it as we were able to get the material and had the time. We were both employed at that time.

Marie and Marvel had graduated and were married, we had three grandchildren. The first of many others to come.

I learned that I was pregnant with our ninth child and I was forty-three years old! I continued working through the fifth month, then quit to wait for the baby's arrival.

Margaret graduated that year and she took care of baby Mareen while I went back to work.

Jim graduated and got a job at the steel mill. Bill and Martha were in school.

Everything seemed to be running smoothly for a change. Then James became ill with cancer and died four months later.

Bill and Martha had several years of school left. Bill had one year and Martha was only thirteen. Mareen had just started Kindergarten.

James had just enough insurance to pay off the mortgage on the house, $1,640, and our outstanding bills. When that was taken care of, we had $356 to live on from Social Security for our family of four.

I had developed a rash that just wouldn't go away. I had been to several specialists, but they didn't know what was causing it. Finally, a dermatologist suggested that I move. He thought it might be from something in the allergy field in the surrounding area.

I sold the house and bought another. I was ignorant about buying property and I lost money. The house needed a lot of repairs and I didn't have the money for them. After two more moves, I was down to $5,000. We had to have somewhere to live. Martha and Mareen were in school and my rash had continued to spread. I worked in the evenings so I wouldn't be so noticeable.

Marie and Daniel took me around to look for a house, but all of them that we looked at were beyond my range. When we came to this house, we finally felt it was worth the asking price, but I didn't have enough to pay for it and I knew I could never pay the $3,500 balance. Daniel offered to pay it. I accepted his offer, if it was put in his name. I didn't want them to lose money.

Daniel died three years later, but because of his kindness, I have had a home here for eighteen years.

Martha married when she was sixteen. She was the strong-willed one among my children and needed a strong hand to control her. Her daddy wasn't here to keep her in line, so I signed for her to be married.

Mareen finished high school and one year of college. She met a young man who had joined the Marine Corps and they were married before he went to Viet Nam. Soon after, their daughter Jane was born.

I quit work for awhile and Mareen went to work. She was divorced later and she and Jane lived at home with me for the next twelve years, until she married Allan and they moved out of state.

I gave up my nursing license when I was sixty-nine years old. I was no longer able to lift the patients. I ironed for several families to earn a little extra to add to the Social Security..

Martha's daughters have stayed with me when they reached high school age, then after they received their diploma, moved on to start their own adult lives.¹

This is not a story for future generations to read. It is just an old woman looking back at the past 85 years and realizing I could never have made it, except by the Grace of God.

I thank God I don't have to live them over again. I'm looking forward to a Glorious Future, and seeing James again.

The "Grandpa" I have mentioned in my childhood was Dad's stepfather (without benefit of clergy), Elvin Buchanon. They were together 31 years but never married. Maybe that is why, she never spent his insurance money. I have only the fondest memories of him.

My Dad only went to school 2 years. He worked on a farm in Kansas when he was 14 and Grandma collected his wages to feed her new family, while Grandpa was ill with typhoid fever.

When he was 20, he joined the Army at the beginning of the Spanish American War. He was sent to the Philippine Islands for 3 years. His tentmate had been a graduate of West Point, but had been demoted for something and his stripes taken away from him. He decided to educate Dad while he was waiting to regain them. He taught Dad to read, write, spell and simple arithmetic. Dad must have been a fast learner, as he held jobs later that took an intelligent person to accomplish.

I wouldn't want anyone to think I didn't love my mother, I just wanted her to love me. She was good to me after I grew up, and was always good to my children.

In writing about all these things, perhaps it would be better to let them lay buried in the past. We all make mistakes. Some of us more than others, but if we learn by them, then they have served a good purpose.

Before I close this account of the past, I must tell of how my rash was finally healed. I heard of a young pastor in Cottage Hills who was having healing services. Bill said "Mom, why don't you go and be prayed for?". He took me, and before long, the rash I had for 4 1/2 years was gone. For this I thank God.

I have come to Him many times these past years, when problems seemed too much for me and He never fails me. I have come to depend upon Him like a child.

I have never been an outgoing person, I guess because I was rejected so much when I was young.

James and I never turned anyone away. There have been 5 brothers, a sister, nieces, nephews, grandchildren and some that were not related. We always made room for them. Some were grateful and others just left without a "Thank You". But I remembered those times when I was dependent on others.

I am contented and at peace in this small house that Daniel secured for me. I hope to remain here until God calls me home.²

The one thing that has brought me pride is my family. God has blessed me with 9 children, 20 grandchildren and 21 great grandchildren and one great great grandchild to date. They are all good folks and I love every single one of them!

I hope this is what you wanted me to write about. It is a true account of my life to this very day, as I remember it, or was told.

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