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Adelia M. Hoyt memoir and photographs
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UNFOLDING YEARS CHILDHOOD When one stand near the end of life's long trail and looks back over the winding road, there are parts utterly hidden from view and other spots which stand out clearly in the light of memory. As we recall scenes and events of our childhood, there is always the question as to just how much we actually remember of what happened and how much we have been told so often, that it seems a part of our own memory. Just when does a child begin to record things for future reference? Evidently there must be some intelligence and understanding to form mental pictures and these vary in different children. I have been told that I came into this world on a very cold, bleak Sunday morning, December 3, 1865. It was so cold that the big stove in the living room of the farm house could not keep the place comfortable. The frost was thick on the panes of the one window in the big bedroom where my mother and I lay. A doctor from Cedar Falls, two and a half miles distant, and a neighbor woman had officiated at my advent, but it was my sister Mary, aged fifteen, who was left to carry on. My mother was very ill and I have often heard her say it was my sister Mary's care that saved her life and mine. My father had married a widow with three girls. The oldest, Clara Anet, was married while I was still a baby so I have no recollection of her at home. But my sister Mary was a tower of strength in the family and even after her marriage, as long as she was able, she came to us in times of sickness and helped in all emergencies. She always seemed like a second mother to me. Of my sister Emma, who was eight
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UNFOLDING YEARS CHILDHOOD When one stand near the end of life's long trail and looks back over the winding road, there are parts utterly hidden from view and other spots which stand out clearly in the light of memory. As we recall scenes and events of our childhood, there is always the question as to just how much we actually remember of what happened and how much we have been told so often, that it seems a part of our own memory. Just when does a child begin to record things for future reference? Evidently there must be some intelligence and understanding to form mental pictures and these vary in different children. I have been told that I came into this world on a very cold, bleak Sunday morning, December 3, 1865. It was so cold that the big stove in the living room of the farm house could not keep the place comfortable. The frost was thick on the panes of the one window in the big bedroom where my mother and I lay. A doctor from Cedar Falls, two and a half miles distant, and a neighbor woman had officiated at my advent, but it was my sister Mary, aged fifteen, who was left to carry on. My mother was very ill and I have often heard her say it was my sister Mary's care that saved her life and mine. My father had married a widow with three girls. The oldest, Clara Anet, was married while I was still a baby so I have no recollection of her at home. But my sister Mary was a tower of strength in the family and even after her marriage, as long as she was able, she came to us in times of sickness and helped in all emergencies. She always seemed like a second mother to me. Of my sister Emma, who was eight
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