Chapter Six-Farming in Colorado:1903
Farming In Colorado-1903
By C. S. Line
Leaving Grand Junction next morning I reversed the route coming out, as far as Chicago, then I diverted it in order to call on Mr. Fishel, at Hope, Indiana. Arriving there, Fishel drove around to some of his farms, and that night I was put up in the spare parlor bedroom, unused lately, and seemed damp, and for the first time since homeward bound I began to feel the first symptoms of asthma that I had had for a month, and that night I had to use my stramonium, with a lighted match. There were no railroad connections out of the small town of Hope, and, the next day I had to walk several miles to the nearest logical railroad connections, which I made O.K., never-the-less, carrying my suitcase. I arrived home 13 days before Winfield was born.
Contacting Jacobs, he was inducting his wife into church membership the following Sunday, and wanted me to join her in the ceremony. I objected to signing any dogma of belief, but did welcome the opportunity to join the church from the social and service angle, and so Jacobs accepted me on that basis and he and the membership extended the right hand of fellowship. It was thus that I joined the church.
Jacobs, shortly after, left with his wife for their former home in Ithaca, where they lived their life out. We visited back and forth after we had later located in Howell. He was much older that she, forty-five, I think, at the time we took our trip. They had a daughter, who when grown, married an autoworker from Flint. When Francis struck that city on a lecture tour they met at the time of the sit-down strike at the Buick plant.
Apropos of our parting in Grand Junction, I had some qualms about permitting my friend to go home alone, but he assured me he bore no feelings of resentment along that line, for he was of the utmost unselfish character. That relieved my guilty conscience.
From the time of my arrival home my old trouble came back, and continued from then on, for a while in a mild form. I had had a taste of what a change of climate would do, and if I wanted to live out a normal life it behooved me to make a radical change in which Daisy concurred. Therefore we spent the rest of the summer planning the best procedure. After Winfield was born, we got right down to business, and upon the recommendation of Uncle George, we found a cash buyer for our Linesville real estate. Along with that heritage, was the sum of $400 that reverted to Fred and I, as proceeds from a policy that father had carried in The Templars of Temperance, after his death, then payable to mother, then, still hanging fire while books were audited, when mother died soon after, the credit reverted to us, and was paid, after due process of law. The fraternal order went busted, as did so many others, and our claim was about the last authorized. We felt lucky.
We sold all our real estate to Henry Hall, a war veteran, including the home, two city lots, and 7 acres of contiguous crop land, two barns, and all my chickens equipment, recently built, all for $2400. Out of this sum Fred allowed me in part payment of my outlay, $165, and then we divided the balance equally. Fred had previously had the proceeds from the sale of mothers detached 10 acres, not then in use, to finance his Slippery Rock schooling. We had tentatively agreed on the sale of our store stock, but wanted to hold over until after Christmas to get the benefit of that trade, after working to that end for a whole year. So, come the last of December, we lumped the stock, without inventory, to William Proctor and wife, for $1500 cash. You may figure our respective nest eggs each of us netted, we to move to Colorado to start a new life, and Fred to move to Canton, N.Y., to attend theological school in preparation for the ministry. From there he was assigned to the student parish at Winthrop, N.Y., and thence to his first regular pastorate in Junction City, Kansas, where, in addition to building a new church under his regime, he showed commendable civic spirit by building his own house instead of demanding a parsonage furnished by the membership. He was recalled twice to this pastorate where he died in 1950.