DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Adelia M. Hoyt memoir and photographs

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and a half years old when I was born, I shall have much to say hereafter for we were companions in childhood and have been all these many, many years. Being fourteen months old when her own father died, and only six when my father and mother were married, she knew no other father than mine and I am sure that he came to love her as much as if she was his very own.
        It was in the closing years of the Civil War that my parents arrived from Wisconsin and my father broke the sod on the Iowa prairie and built the little house where I was born. We might have been well at the end of the Illinois Central Railroad. Bess Streeter Aldrich in her book, "Song of Years," has well described this town but under the name of "Sturgis Falls."
        Even after these many years, how well I can recall every detail of that little country home. It consisted of one large room which served as living room and kitchen. A big cook stove separated the two parts. On the one side was the living room with its home-made rag carpet, a lounge which cold be made into a double bed, a few chairs including a large cane seat maple rocker which was my cradle; there was also a front door and two windows through which came broad shafts of eastern sun. On the other side of the stove the floor was painted and here was the table, a few kitchen chairs, and the big cupboard which contained our dishes and food stuffs. Here too was the back door and west window from which I often watched the setting sun. A lean-to back of this room served as storehouse in winter and as summer kitchen in warm weather, when the stove was moved out and we all felt the freedom of more space.
        South of the living room were two small rooms known as the big and little bedrooms. The big bedroom where I first saw the light of day was to the front of the house. It contained the large old-fashioned bed, one east window over which clambered a yellow honeysuckle, a  big closet into whose mysterious shadows I remember peering with vague, childish terror. There too was the old-fashioned bureau with

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and a half years old when I was born, I shall have much to say hereafter for we were companions in childhood and have been all these many, many years. Being fourteen months old when her own father died, and only six when my father and mother were married, she knew no other father than mine and I am sure that he came to love her as much as if she was his very own. It was in the closing years of the Civil War that my parents arrived from Wisconsin and my father broke the sod on the Iowa prairie and built the little house where I was born. We might have been well at the end of the Illinois Central Railroad. Bess Streeter Aldrich in her book, "Song of Years," has well described this town but under the name of "Sturgis Falls." Even after these many years, how well I can recall every detail of that little country home. It consisted of one large room which served as living room and kitchen. A big cook stove separated the two parts. On the one side was the living room with its home-made rag carpet, a lounge which cold be made into a double bed, a few chairs including a large cane seat maple rocker which was my cradle; there was also a front door and two windows through which came broad shafts of eastern sun. On the other side of the stove the floor was painted and here was the table, a few kitchen chairs, and the big cupboard which contained our dishes and food stuffs. Here too was the back door and west window from which I often watched the setting sun. A lean-to back of this room served as storehouse in winter and as summer kitchen in warm weather, when the stove was moved out and we all felt the freedom of more space. South of the living room were two small rooms known as the big and little bedrooms. The big bedroom where I first saw the light of day was to the front of the house. It contained the large old-fashioned bed, one east window over which clambered a yellow honeysuckle, a big closet into whose mysterious shadows I remember peering with vague, childish terror. There too was the old-fashioned bureau with