Aunt Effie's Life - Daughter of Supplina and Jane Hamilton

Memories of Effie [Hamilton] Darland, [daughter of Supplina and Jane Hamilton]

 

I was born in Waitsburg Wash. June 15, 1875 the eighth child of Supplina and Jane Hamilton during the first Christian camp meeting held in a cottonwood grove on the coppia [Coppei] Creek, it was an annual event for many, many years; my father was a minister of that faith, a pioneer, a black smith of no small repute in the early days in Washington where he lived for many years.

 

When I was about 6 months old the family moved to a homestead seven miles from Waitsburg, 8 miles from Dixie, and 14 miles from Walla Walla. Walla Walla was the county seat of Walla Walla County.

 

My oldest brother Duran [Duron] was married when about 18 years old. His daughter Olive was about 1 ½ years younger than I. We grew up like sisters, played, fought like sisters, and only I always got the blame and whipping for every thing that went wrong it seemed to me that Olive or my sister Ida 5 yrs. younger always got the lions share. The reason I was a fat little beauty cream and peaches complexion and abundant of blond hair good natured laughing kid a 9 years old. I could wash dishes, which I hated but a nice little switch which my mother always kept handy made me do them and good. She called it a dose of peach trey, that it was bitter but effective.

 

I could do most everything but ride a horse and I was so round that I always slid off till my father put a stop to my trying. As far as school which I started before I was 6 was in a one room country school where the teacher let the first grade out to play about 15 minutes before the older ones was dismissed for recess. A boy a little older, decided one day he would cut my ears off and he had a big pocket knife. I ran as hard as I could, he said I was to fat to run and he could catch me, but never did. When he tired of that he got the ax used to chop wood for the big wood stove to keep us warm in winter and said he would chop my head off/ I really believed him. Finally I got so nervous that I wouldn't go out to play, yet I never tattled. Then my older brother found out what was happening and told our father who went to Mr. Prose Frank's father and that stopped it but Frank always hated me as I did him. 

 

The winter after I was 9 was a cold long winter there was an epidemic of Diphtheria. I was very sick and had dropsy as an after effect, in bed for weeks. No Dr. closer than Walla Walla 14 miles away. Father had contemplated being a Dr. so had some Dr. books / They gave me gerits of pumpkin seed tea an also a tea made of hops, home grown, bitter as gall which was supposed to cause me to pass the water through kidneys if it even did me any good I never knew it, but nature and Gods will for me I recovered but still kept my fat.

 

The next year an epidemic of scarlet fever struck my neighborhood a number of children died, one swed family lost three , then  Mr. Burgeene came to father and said will you come Dr. my children I have Dr. from Walla Walla my children die you Dr. yours they get well. Father weht, he and a neighbor lady, I don't know just what they did  but the rest got well. Then after a while they gave me the little dead girls clothes also some of her play things. It was a big moment in my life. The Burgreenes were very well off and my father was poor. I never had such lovely dresses in my life and after they were worn out  never had any that matched them.

 

The next summer we had a big watermelon patch, some boys were stealing our watermelons. A lady was camped in a tent house near our house while her husband worked for my father in harvest, her nephew couldn't see her and said lets have some fun I will wrap up in a sheet and scare the boys. I was all in for it when the time came. All went well the boys were badly frightened away and he started back to the house. I [he] just had one [more] glance at the ghost and [he] started screaming and most went into hysteria. My prank born ill on me. I have never planned to frighten anyone since.

 

We had a neighbor, hot head Germans who became angry at father and I remember his abuse of father. One day we were coming home from Compnletting [Camp / Conf. meeting?] he comes to his front gate with a shovel on his shoulder, followed around his orchard fence almost ¼ acre til we got to our fence in front of the blacksmith shop. His final words after all the mean things he said , you dirty lazy lowsey son of a tinker. Father never said a word to him. Later Mr. Jeves died of T.B.  A neighbor asked his son of about 8 or 9 have you a coffin for your father, he said no he can't coff any more he is dead.

 

The next summer when her crop of wheat was ready to harvest she came to father and said..Mr. Hamilton will you harvest my crop, I am not able to get anyone to do it and it is all my children and I have to live on. Father forgave everything , but we children remembered the times that she would go up on the hill with a chicken and make it squak, throw it up in the air an yell at the top of her voice Chicken for breakfast. No one ever knew what she meant but fathers forgiveness made the family friends as long as we lived there.

 

At 15 I appeared to be a mature young lady, united with the church, and my first beau appeared at Conf. Meeting several miles away from home. My family had moved from Waitsburg to a farm on Union Flat in Whitman County  4 miles away from Endicott and 17 miles from Clfax [Colfax]. Thyere [their] my schooling was postponed for a year later a school district was formed between that and  a few months in Endicott I finished the 8yh grade. I had wanted to be a teacher but father said he couldn't afford more school.

 

Then I wanted to be an actress but dad said that no decent girl was an actress. Then I wanted to be a nurse, the same answer. By that time mothers health wasn't so good. She told one of my brothers when he wanted me to go home for a visit..Heman you might as well take the cook stove, how would we all eat if Effie went away. She is the cook, work woman, Ironer and general house keeper. I did all that, milked cows, feed pigs, but never hoed the garden but very little.

 

My sister Rena 8 years older was still at home part time. She sewing and fancy work she loves, also loved to tease me about any dates, open my love letters and read them before gave them to me..Until I ditched my first boyfriend, a nice religious boy who's heart was broken, so was mine, but I couldn't take the jokes she pulled, but hearts heal and a good thing so did mine, but I never found a man who loved the same things dear to my heart as the first boy friend. My heart mended as all hearts do.

 

[There appears to be a missing page in the letter.  The following seems to be speaking of Effie's father, Supplina Hamilton]

 

Where he put up a shop, shod the farmers horses, sharpened their plows, fixed wagons, made sleds and so on. Comfisted the brewed hop, bury their dead, married their sons and daughters.

 

As a young man had fought in the Amatilla [Umatilla] Indian was [wars]. About near the end of the war father and his bunch of volunteers took a chief and several Indians prisoner. As they were taking them to Portland on the boat the boys were having fun with the Chief told him they were going to hang him, he was badly freightened so father to make it complete fought the soldiers off  saying he and the chief were a Tillicuma (friends) and to all appearances saved his life. Years after when my oldest brother was a small boy the Chief found where we lived. The Dolls came to see him, brought mother about 10 yards of red ribbon as a peace offering.

 

I believe it is fitting here to tell a little about my parents early life. My mothers name was Jane Sumpter. Grandfather was in someway related to the Man Fort Sumpter was named after . While Grandfather was seeking gold in California in 1849 Grandmother and her three oldest girls My mother the youngest stayed in Missoura, cut logs and built a room on to their house. With oxen farmed and made a living while Grandfather was seeking gold in California, which he never found in Calif. Returned in 1850 the family crossed the plains.

 

Mother rode horseback all the way to Oregon where she met and married father who was a young blacksmith. He began his ministry a few years later, preached for 30 years never received a dollar for his services. He married about 300 couples, preached as many funerals. Always believing what Jesus said to his deciples [disciples] when he sent them out and said freely ye have received freely given. Kept that attitude all through life. He was 72 years old when death took him.