Lide's Blog – Part 3

This blog completes Lide’s story. We begin with school stories, as pupil and as teacher):

SUMMER SCHOOL IN THE EARLY 60’S (as pupil):
Teacher about 30. Children of all ages. Unpainted desks. Teacher brought her sewing along with her, a wool and silk log cabin quilt. During study and recitations she worked on quilt blocks. Little girls brought boquets of Poppies. Sometimes one immense red Poppy and pretty soon would be be asleep. No offense. Between times we, with a little rag and a bottle of water, washed our desks during study hour which was always when not reciting. One boy of 14 or 15 was a naturalist who brought frogs, bugs, butterflies and snakes and was making a real show which needed only 8 pins for admittance, and maybe later, silver. Finally he brought a copper head snake and soon the question was “Were she a southern sympathizer, out she would go.” The idea of any one allowing a copperhead snake to be on display in any northern school. I think by abolishing the naturalist show she was suffered to teach her term out.
    One girl 14 years old in this school wore a long dark brown calico apron buttoned down the back with white buttons, and hair long Dutch bob which was the style and read, like Pomona of the Range to Catherine only. One time while reading Pamona of the Range by Stockton I said to my brother Joe, ”Listen here Joe” and I mimicked this girl as well as Pomona. The teacher was usually too busy with her sewing to notice her pupils’ mistakes. Not all teachers were like her of course.
        (Here a sheet seems to be missing as it seems disconnected. note from C.E.S.)

(as teacher):
Frank, Ed,and Joe Jr. and the late Joe Penrod of Wenatchee, In this school were the grown up girls about sixteen and eighteen who always told me what I left undone. One was, why I swept the house after school instead of letting or allowing the boys and girls to. Let the sausages and pie, mostly apple, fall on the floor, etc. etc. etc. I always staid after school to review the lessons for the next day. One day during history class I mis-pronounced a  word in Spanish and they meekly told me that two winters ago they had a teacher who was fine in history and could pronounce all the foreign words, so after that they corrected all the mistakes. Along after the fall crops were in and wood cut about five of six young men came to school and asked me if I would let them come in and cipher through the arithmetic, and read history and spell, and they they would not ask any assistance in the book of numbers. But one day one of them came to me with an example he could not do; so [he] asked me to do it for him. The angels certainly were taking care of me as I performed the difficult task without any trouble, not knowing any rule or reading any note. Just did and thanked my stars I could. My ability with numbers: Were Jean Stratton Porter’s brother here today he could tell you what poor certificates I always had although I was always considered one of the best in any school I ever attended. But I had the tact to teach, which too many [trained] and learned teachers do not have,and as my Ben said about a very bright teacher sent out to teach our country school of about two in the winters, ”she knows much but is too lazy to impart it to her pupils.

Lide’s Final Years:
Clipping from Okanagan Wash, newspaper, May 30, 1939.

WANTZ’S TAKE NOTE OF THEIR WEDDING DATE.
Local couple married 65 years ago in Indiana; Golden wedding Club meet

    Sixty fifth anniversary of the wedding of Mr.and Mrs. J. P. Wantz was observed by the Golden Wedding club and a host of other friends at the Wantz home here Sunday. The local pair were married in North Manchester, Indiana.
    Mr. and Mrs. Wantz are both 89 years of age. Mr. Wantz was born at Lewisburg in Ohio June 13,1850. And Mrs. Wantz was born at Laketon, Indiana July 7 of the same year. They were married May 26, 1874. They are both in good health and are active and alert, mentally and physically.
    They came to Montana in 1882, arriving in Helena just as the Vigilantes had finished hanging the last horse thief who fell a victim to their law enforcement. Mr. Wantz ran a photograph gallery in Helena for a number of years and then they moved to a ranch which he operated until 1905.
    Montana was a mighty rough country when we first pioneered there, Mrs Wantz recalls.
    In 1905 they moved further west, settling at Cashmere where they lived until 1918 when they came to an orchard on Pogue’s Flat. For several years they have lived in Okanagan.
    Mr. Wantz has been a member of the Odd Fellows lodge for 69 years and Mrs. Wantz has been a member of the Rebekhas for 65 years. Mr. Wantz is a past grand patriarch of the former order.
    They had eight children, of whom three survive. They are Mrs. W. F. Kester of Great Falls, Montana, Mrs. Fred Young of Leavenworth (later of Wanatchee) and Katherine of Okanogan. They have two grand children and two great grandchildren.
    At dinner at the Wantz home were members of the Golden Wedding Club as follows: Mr.and Mrs. Jack Thorp of Okanagan, Dr. and Mrs. J. L. Pogue of Pogue Flat, Mrs. Wilson, president of Omak, Mr.and Mrs. Wootring, E. T. Dodd and Mrs. Emily Chedzey of Okanagan, and Mr.and Mrs.Wantz. Also present at the dinner were Mrs. Ella Watkins of Omak, Emma Proctor of Okanogan, and Katherine Wantz. Mr.and Mrs. Frank Butterbaugh of Manson, old Indiana friends , also were visiters.

    In honor of the occasion Mrs. Jack Thorp wrote the following poem:

We are growing old, dear friends, Our career is nearly done.
We gaze from life’s west windows  To the setting of the sun.

And away beyond the sunsets  We see a golden glow
As radiant from the Throne of God  Criter on waters flow.

We penetrate fair Beulah land  Where dwell the loved and blest,
We hear our Savior’s gentle words  “All come to me and rest”.

May we all trust our Pilot dear  Nor fear the surges dark.
He will lead and guide us homeward;  He will steer our fragile bark.

On Sept. 7, 1941 Lide suffered a heart attack in the presence of her family and passed in a few minutes.

On July 19, 1943  James suffered a heart attack and had already passed when Katherine came in.

Both are buried in the cemetery at Cashmere Washington.

Source: Eliza “Lide” (Hoover) Wantz (1850 -1941), (Okanagan, Washington), Charles E. Shafer (1867 - 1961), (Benton Harbor, Michigan), Lide’s ca 1938 Family History and Reminiscences, focusing on the 1860s and 1870s, Annotated transcription by Shafer ca 1943., Photocopies, supplied by Rae (Strickler) Underwood, (private address), to Sue W. McCormick, {August 2008}, Prime source(s); sometimes hard to read., My transcription is stored in the computer, the original and a printout are in the paper files.

The remaining information in these papers consists of family relationships as Lide recalls them. I plan to publish these in a fourth blog about Lide. I don’t believe that many of you are interested in who “Aunt Mary Eli” is; I am publishing this because these papers are a treasure trove of family history (and of how recollections illustrate history-book history). But the papers are also genealogical facts in full measure, pressed to the brim and flowing over.  Many of these genealogical hints have appeared in these first three blogs. The information at the beginning of the fourth blog based on Lide’s papers will present the rest of that information.