__
|
_John ALEXANDER _____|
| (1593 - 1673) m 1621|
| |__
|
|
|--George ALEXANDER
| (1620 - 1703)
| __
| |
|_____________________|
|
|__
Order from the General Courte of Boston, dated May 24, 1682
The Towne Book of Squakeheag orNorthfield, Where in is Recorded the names of ye petitioners for the PlantationWith the Grants and Acts of the General Court about . . . . With the Deeds from the Indions and the orders of the Comitey with the consent of the Proprietors Which Have taken upp Land there With the Grants and rerescript of every mans Land.
The names of those that presented their Names to Major Pinchon to bee presented to the Honored Gen Couret who engaged to doe yr indeuer to atend the conditions of ye grant
Elder John Strong Isark Shelden
Joseph Parsons Sen'r Matthewe Clessen
Samuel Wright Sen'r Joshuah Pummery
Joseph Dirkinson John Alexander
George Alexander Cornelius Merry
Thomas Bascomb William Smead
Robert Liman Richard Weller
Thomas Roote Sen'r John Kilburne of Wethersfield
William Jeanes John Hilleor
William Hubbard Micah Mudg
Nathaniel Phelps Sen'r Ralph Hutchison
William Miller Sen'r."
_Thomas Jefferson BALIS _+
| (1822 - 1899) m 1847
_John Charles BALIS ___|
| (1848 - 1887) m 1872 |
| |_Mary Malvina EWERS _____+
| (1823 - 1895) m 1847
|
|--Flora Lulu BALIS
| (1876 - 1951)
| _Franklin H. DERRICK ____+
| | (1824 - 1905) m 1846
|_Mary Lorinda DERRICK _|
(1853 - 1886) m 1872 |
|_Harriet A. BOSLOW ______+
(1822 - 1871) m 1846
[76]
April 13, 2004
Dear Children,
Tonight I want to tell you
The Flora Balis Story
She was your Grandpa's Grandma and he knew her. Flora Lulu Balis was the 3rd child of John and Mary Derrick Balis. She entered the world on July the 7th of 1876. The family was living in the community called Clarence, which was near the present day Brodhead in Green County, Wisconsin. Flora joined her two older brothers, Frank and Robert. Two years later a baby sister, Hettie, was born. Here is how Mary described her little daughter, Flora, in a letter to Belle Moore Derrick, wife of Mary's brother, Frank. " Skippie (Flora) is such a fat strong little Dutch woman. She is good as gold. " Flora was about 9 when her mother wrote those words.
We don't have any other words that her mother wrote about Flora. Nor do we have words that Flora wrote herself. We do, however, have two wonderful journals written by her next younger sister, Hettie, in which she describes many childhood experiences shared with Flora. The parts with quotation marks (''...") around them are from Hettie's Journal. You can imagine it's Flora speaking because she experienced the very same things. The words inside Parentheses ( ) are my additions (Granny).
"In May of 1879...they (our parents, John and Mary Balis) decided to migrate to Nebraska and homestead...Folks usually tried to homestead near a stream with some shrubs and small trees on account of fuel and water. On their way to Nebraska in a covered wagon... they stopped at Mary and Henry Reasoner's in Iowa. She was father's cousin. They got their washing all done up and replenished their supplies. They went on from there to Orleans, Nebraska close to the Kansas line. It was just across the Republican River. They homesteaded 10 miles, I think it was, north-east of Orleans close to a creek." (Flora was not yet three years old at the time of this trip.)
"They first dug a dugout back in a bank or hill. They roofed it over with poles from wild plum trees and choke cherries (from) along the creek. Then they plowed large thick (clumps of) sod and laid it over (the poles). Over that they put clay dirt... I still remember having pans set on the dirt floor to catch the leaking spots. The dugout was just one big room. Of course lumber was very high (probably, non-existent). Our floor was just the dirt. It finally got hard and smooth. "
(You might wonder why little Flora, would have to live in a hole in the ground. That's what a dugout was, a hole, or cave dug into the side of a hill or river bank. When pioneers got to where they were going, if they were among the first settlers, there were no hotels or motels. There were no stores. Often there were no neighbors to stay with til you got your own place up. Shelter, constructing a home, was usually the first order of business. If you were moving to an area with lots of trees, you could make a log cabin. Harlan County, Nebraska did not have a lot of trees. In fact it had practically no trees. In this area and other parts of the great American prairie a dugout was the quickest and easiest shelter that could be built in a few days. A room was dug from the side of a hill and the opening closed in by whatever was avaitable, often the wagon's cover. This type of shelter also had problems. For one, they leaked. Not only water, but also mosquitos and small animals could get in.)
"After that they built a better larger dugout and took the first one over for a chicken house. (They) also built a barn the same way. I can remember living in the second one but not the first one. Mabel was born in the second dugout and I don't know but Ernie was too. (Flora's sister Mable was born in 1880, and Brother Ernie in 1882.) (First we) lived on the homestead in a small dugout, then in a larger one, and finally they built a good sized sod house. I can remember quite well when they built the sod house. It's quite an improvement over a dugout..."
(To understand what a sod house is, you first have to understand a little bit about prairie plants. Prairie plants have thick deep roots. It is very difficult to plow prairie soil because of these tough roots. You can cut a block about a foot deep out of the prairie soil and it will stay altogether almost like a brick. And that's how the prairie settlers used it. They cut blocks out of the top layer of soil, called turf, and used the blocks just like you would bricks to build a house.)
" Two very troublesome things mother had to fight were fleas and bedbugs. They seemed to even be in the soil. We would have to take the bedsteads all apart and pour boiling water all over them. I guess they did not have bug killers in those days. We were not bothered by them after we moved into town and the frame (wooden) house."
"The folks from Wisconsin sent different kinds of berry plants and trees. Mother and father had a big garden down near the creek, as sometimes they had to water some things. They plowed their fields so each side of the property was protected from prairie fires that sometimes came sweeping across the plains." ( Why do you think a plowed field would protect against prairie fires?) "Father put down a well and had the first windmill I ever saw." (One problem the prairie pioneers faced was water. Rainfall can be extremely unpredictable on the American plains. But, with no forests to break it for a thousand miles, the wind is very predictable. A windmill was used to pump well water that saved the farm in times of drought.)
"Brothers Frank and Bob would herd the cattle, mostly cows and young stock, on the range bare footed. There was lots of cactus and rattlers but we were all quite lucky. The boys as they got a little older would (grow) pop corn (and) would have as much as a barrel of ears of pop corn. We raised sugar cane and would have a barrel of molasses. (We'd also have) a barrel of salt pickles. Just cucumbers salted down were not pickles till they were soaked out and put in vinegar and spices. But us kids loved to eat the salty ones sometimes. We would also have a barrel of sauerkraut, and potatoes and some vegetables all in the cave."
"Father always had hogs to butcher, also beef at times. But then they had not learned how to can beef or pork or vegetables. Pork, one could salt and smoke and keep it for some time. And lard would never spoil. But I have read letters my mother wrote to relatives in Wisconsin saying Father had been down on the creek and had cut a load of wood to haul to Holdridge, 15 miles away, to trade for groceries." (So there were at least SOME trees around. I think Hettie means that although they grew and raised most of their food, they were not totally self-sufficient.)
(Hettie tells about a number of experiences she remembered from Childhood that would have been experienced by Flora as well.) "Grandpa and Grandma Balis lived in a location where they raised apples and would send one or two barrels of apples. They were sure good." (Grandpa and Grandma Balis, Thomas Jefferson and Mary Ewers Balis, homesteaded about the same time as did John and Mary and their family.) And we always stood at mother's knee, each one waiting for our peeling, as she pared them for cooking. Twas always customary to eat the ones with a bad spot on them, of course, first."
"I remember Sister Flo and I washed the dishes...We used two chairs, one with a dish pan on it and one with a pan of rinsing water. I wiped and could just reach to get them on the table. We always took the chairs which were just plain wooden chairs outside when the weather was nice on Saturday and wash them."
"For fuel... two of us would take a bushel basket and start out and pick up cow chips if they were dry or turn the damp ones over for next time. (We) would also pick up buffalo bones or anything that would burn." (Remember, where Flora's family lived there were very few trees. There was no electricity. There were no natural gas lines. How could they cook their food or keep their house warm in the winter? They had to have fuel. Do you know what cow chips are? They are big blobs of cow poop. When it dries out it can be burned. It's hard for me to understand how they could get enough cow chips to keep the house warm all winter. It can get very cold and snowy in Nebraska.)
"While we were still living on the homestead mother was not very well and Father took us three girls (Flora, Hettie, and Mable) for a ride one Sunday over to the Sweed settlement. Another Sunday he took us up to Holdridge. A lot of men and mule teams were working and and using scrapers like the ones they used to move dirt with. They were putting the railroad through. I well remember. Ernie was a baby and I guess he took us so Mother could rest. I remember though, well, the men working. We did not see so many things in those days so we remembered it."
"Another time he took all of us but Ernie to Orleans to a circus on the 4th of July. The Andersons had moved to town and had invited us to come and stay all night. It may have been just us three girls, but Ernie stayed home with Mother. She was expecting Baby Ina at anytime. The part I remember is sleeping on the floor. There was a whole row of us. The next morning I could not find one of my stockings, a big loss in those days. I don't remember how I got by, but I was terribly upset. That was the first time I had been in town."
"Another time they were having a lodge dance in Orleans, Woodmen of the World - Father belonged and had $2000 invested in it. Women were to wear calico dresses. Father brought home the material for mother's. It was a sort of grey with a red crescent shaped figure and little tiny white flecks. The Andersons still lived in the country and their two boys and a girl were a little older than us kids, even my brothers. They left us all at our place. Ernie was the youngest and us girls took him up to the out house so he would not see them leave. There were six of us(Balises) and three of them(Andersons), some sod house full. We thought we saw a tramp coming down the road and we were scared. We all got into the house and shut the door. Then we piled the table and chairs against the door and went back into the boys room and hid so the tramp could not see us through the window. We imagined we could hear him banging around the house. We didn't dare stir for a long time. When we finally ventured out we could not see hide nor hair of him. It's the only time I can remember them leaving us kids. Mother was always home with us."
"(The school) was also built of sod. (It) had no desks or chairs or blackboard, (only) a bench with no back. (You sat) with your books and slate beside you and a rag to wash the slate with. There was no out house. You had to go out back or down to the draw - the foot of a deep ravine. There was a big pot-bellied stove. I can't remember what they used for fuel or if they even had school in severe weather. I know there were times though when the draws were full of snow so I guess they did. We went to the closest neighbor to the schoolhouse, the Gilcrests, a quarter mile away to get water by the pailfull. It took two to carry it. We had one dipper, one wash pan, and one towel. Believe it or not we lived through it and did not have any more colds or sickness than they do today. I can see Father and Mother yet with a spoon and candle giving us something for a cough or cold. (They) always put a cold compress on our throat and wrapped it good to make it sweat."
"My uncle, mother's sister's husband, taught the school at one time. (This would be Junius Lamson.) He was Pearl and Trella's father. But the one I remember best in the sod schoolhouse was Jessie Patterson. Her home was in Orleans and she boarded at our house when school was in session."
" After we moved to town the two boys stayed on the homestead with a hired man Father had had for a long time. I only remember him by "Shorty." (On the 1880 census, a hired man, Aleck Preston, age 21, is living with the Balis family.) We girls went to school in town. I think when school started the boys came in town, for I know they went to school too. It was a two story brick building divided into 4 rooms. The 1st room teacher was Miss Poor, 2nd room Miss Muchmore, the 3rd room Mrs. Treat, the 4th room was for the upper grades taught by the principal, Mr. Nicolas. Each room had more than one grade."
"When Ina was born Father took Flo, Mabel, and I to a neighbor by the name of Gleason. They had two children who went to our school, Clyde and a girl. We stayed all night and most of the next day til they came for us. Mother's sister, Aunt Hettie (Lamson), came to the door and said, 'I have a surprise for you. You have a new baby sister.' I can remember seeing a man with a black bag come out of the house, so perhaps that was when sister was born in May (1884) and passed away in November of the same year. We older ones were up at the sod schoolhouse, not far, just from one little knoll across the creek to the top of another, our house on one, the schoolhouse on the other. Father came out and called to us to come home, that little Ina had died. That was the first time I had ever encountered death. I can see her yet in her little white casket with a little white cashmere pleated gown on and little white button chrysanthemums in around her. I never smell them that I don't remember. She was buried in Orleans Cemetery in the spring. We all gathered wild white morning glories and made wreaths for her grave. Mother never got over Ina's death. (Ina) had convulsions and died before they could get a doctor."
"In the fall of 1885 or the early spring of 1886 Father bought a frame house in Orleans and moved Mother to town where she could have more care and comforts. But she was moved on a bed in the back of a spring wagon. She was never up and around again. She died July 4, 1886. I have never gotten over missing her. She was a wonderful woman and had many accomplishments. (She did) considerable writing, both prose and poetry. (She did) lovely pen and ink drawings and sketches. Out on the homestead she got the early settlers to join a literary society. (They) would meet at the sod schoolhouse with benches to sit on and debate questions and topics of that day and have children recite and take part. How she done it with her family and home, I will never know."
" After Mother died in July Grandma Balis and Grandfather stayed with us for a short time. Finally, it was too much for them and they bought a place just over the fence from a Mr. & Mrs. Davis. Father hired a widow with one small boy to keep house for him and us six children."
" Being a deputy sheriff, (Father) was sent down into Kansas to catch some horse thieves. It was cold, wintery weather, January, and he caught a terrible cold and it went into pneumonia. He was bedfast in Kansas, unable to get home for two or three weeks. A friend of the family of long standing, Shorty, went down and brought Dad home. But he had a relapse and passed away Feb 22, 1887 (In "Thoughts and Memories over the Years" p. A52 Hettie says the friend who went down to Kansas to get their father was 'Mr. Kent. He and Father worked together buying and selling and trading. He went down and brought Father home.')"
"When mother and father were gone we children were all separated. Grandpa and Grandma Balis then lived in a house close to ours in Orleans, Nebraska. A cousin of father's, Mary Frary Reasoner of Newton, Iowa and Uncle Frank Derrick of Brodhead, Wisconsin, mother's older brother, came...Sister Flora went to Grandpa and Grandma Derrick in Brodhead, Rob and I to Iowa, Mabel to Uncle Frank. Ernie and brother Frank stayed with Grandfather Balis in Orleans." (We have a photograph of the six orphaned children just before they were all separated. They all, even the girls, have very short hair. I think it may have been because of the fleas and bedbugs that Hettie mentioned earlier.)
That's about all we know of Flora's childhood. When her parents died she was sent back to Wisconsin to live with Grandpa and Grandma Derrick. Mary Derrick Balis's mother, Harriet Boslow, had died in 1871. In 1872 Grandpa Derrick married for a second time to Mary Ann Williams Northrup. It would have been this step-grandma that Flora grew up the rest of the way with. Flora turned 10 years old three days after her mother died and was not yet eleven when her father died. You can imagine how hard that was for her. I lost just my mother when I was nine and had terrible nightmares for years afterwards. Flora lost both parents and then essentially lost all her brothers and sisters on top of it. She probably got to see her sister Mabel as she also went to Brodhead, but not the same household. And Mable, at some point before adulthood, was sent to live with her mother Mary's older brother, Ted Derrick, in Kansas.
The next we know of Flora is when she marries Edmund Stevens - Edmund Stevens had come to Orfordville, Wisconsin from Nova Scotia, Canada in about 1878. He and Flora were married in Brodhead in 1899. Their first two children were born soon after their marriage, Kathryn Harriet on Oct. 24, 1900, and Paul Derrick on May 8, 1902. At that time the little family was living and working on a farm near Brodhead. Flora's sister, Hettie, visited them there and stayed to help while Flora was awaiting the birth of Paul. Here's how Hettie described their daily routine at that time and place.
"When Flo was expecting Paul I went to help her at $1.25 per week. (At this time Hettie was a single mother with a little boy. She was always looking for ways to live and support herself.) I helped Ed milk the cows night and morning. I cared for the chickens, carried water from the wind mill to the house for every use. We did the washing on a board for five of us, also ironing, cooking, housecleaning. We put in a garden and raked and cleaned up the yard. We baked all our own bread and churned our own butter. The extra milk, Ed took to the creamery in Broadhead."
In 1908 with their third baby on the way, Ed and Flora decided to try their luck homesteading in South Dakota. They settled near Redfield, South Dakota, and lived in a sod house just as Flora had done as a small child. It was there that Harold Balis Stevens, our ancestor, was born on August 25, 1908. Apparently life in South Dakota was not quite as wonderful as they had hoped, because in 1914 the family returned to Footville, Wisconsin, where Ed farmed, raising tobacco among other things.
After several more years of farming the family moved to Footville to a house across the street from the school. Ed opened a blacksmith shop in the back of the house and Flora took in roomers, mostly school teachers. One year in Footville there was a terrible epidemic of measles. Soon afterwards, Ed developed leukemia. He died in 1926, only 54 years old. Not long afterwards, Flora pricked her finger with a needle and developed a terrible infection in her right arm. It took a very long time for it to heal and she never had total use of it again.
About this same time Harold developed a disease called recurring erysipelas. Beset with both of these problems, as well as widowhood, Flora and Harold decided to move to Waukegan, Illinois where Kathryn was teaching school. That year was 1929. the year the Great Depression began. Flora bought a big old house right near downtown Waukegan on Utica Street and she took in boarders, mostly school teachers, just as she had done in Brodhead. We can only imagine how difficult it was to get through the depression as a widow with a handicapped arm. But at least she had a reliable livelihood in the boarding house, and the support of her son, Harold, and married daughter, Kathryn, nearby. Her son, Paul, had moved to Idaho. When Harold married one of those school teachers, Flora went to live with her daughter and son-in-law in Oak Park, Illinois.
From Hettie again, "Sister Flo was 75 in July and passed away soon after caused by asthmatic trouble and her heart just could not stand any more. She suffered for many years with severe asthma attacks, very serious ones. It finally wore her out. She died in the hospital in Waukegan. " She died August 8, 1951.
So this is the story of your great-great-grandmother, Flora Lulu Balis. She got to be a pioneer twice. As a small child she went west in a covered wagon. As a young wife she went pioneering a second time, both times living in a sod house. She became a widow at the young age of 50, and had to survive trhe Great Depression on her own and with a bum arm. But she did it and left her family with a female model of American independence and resourcefulness. Here's how you're related to Flora. She married Edmund Stevens and they had a son named Harold Stevens. Harold married Helen White and had Paul Stevens. Paul married Dianne Zimmerman and had Dawne Stevens. Dawne married Jason Pamplin and had...Sarah, Hannah, Timmy, and Becky Pamplin! Hooray for Flora Lulu Balis!
Love,
Granny
Line 43 Clinton St. Dwelling # 128 Household # 133
Stevens, Edmund head b. Apr 1872 m. 1 yr NS NS NS nat 1875 25yr ago occ: blacksmith r h
Flora L. wife Jul 1876 1 WI WI WI
Line 16 Dwelling # 28 Household # 28
Stevens, Edmund head OM 48 m n yr? NS NS NS blacksmith
Flora L. wife 44 m WI WI WI
Catherine H dau 19 s WI WI WI
Paul D son 17 s WI WI WI
Harold B son 11 s WI WI WI
Dobrow, Jessie boarder 27 s WI WI WI none
Jones, Brad (?) boarder 19 s WI WI WI store clerk
Line 45 788 S. Main St. Dwelling # 317 Household # 340
Stevens, Flora Head R $48/mo no radio age 53 wd WI WI WI occ: none
Harold son 21 s SD NS WI salesman - grocery store
Kess, Benjamin Roomer 30 S Mo MO MO laborer - Chevrolet motor co.
Line 5 Dwelling 195 Household 195
Stevens, Edward Head age 38 m1 10yrs Can/Eng Can/Eng Can/Fr Occ: Farmer-general
Flora L. wife 32 m1 10 3 ch born/ 3 living WI WI WI
Kathryn dau 9 WI Can/Eng WI
Paul D. son 8 WI Can/Eng WI
Harold son 1 6/12 SD Can/Eng WI
[11086] copy in files of D.Z. Stevens
_____________________
|
_John BROWNE _____________|
| (1628 - 1702) m 1654 |
| |_____________________
|
|
|--Ruth BROWNE
| (1667 - 1667)
| _Thomas MAKEPEACE ___+
| | (1595 - 1667) m 1620
|_Esther\Hester MAKEPEACE _|
(1634 - ....) m 1654 |
|_Alice BRASIER ______
(1597 - 1638) m 1620
[9700] James was an Iowa farmer
Line 39 Farm
Greenzweig, James F. Head age 38 IL PA PA Farmer rented farm
Priscilla A. wife 38 IA IL WI
_William August Franz Wilhelm KLUESNER KlesenerKleasner____+
| (1824 - 1899) m 1854
_William Rudolph Heinrich Wilhelm KLUESNER _|
| (1862 - 1934) m 1884 |
| |_Maria HenrietteWilhelmine Caroline WINDMULLER Windmueller_+
| (1831 - 1907) m 1854
|
|--Ruth Celeste KLUESNER
| (1903 - 1986)
| ___________________________________________________________
| |
|_Julia SCHUMAN _____________________________|
(1866 - 1952) m 1884 |
|___________________________________________________________
_Robert STEVENS ______+
| (1824 - 1898) m 1849
_John Roderick STEVENS _|
| (1855 - ....) m 1882 |
| |_Agnes Nancy MACLEAN _+
| (1825 - 1897) m 1849
|
|--George William STEVENS
| (1887 - 1958)
| ______________________
| |
|_Mary A. HAINES ________|
(1855 - 1924) m 1882 |
|______________________
[9905] George was a steam shovel engineer, per 1920 census Vallejo, Solano, California