2 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to leave such a record of eighty >ears, living in a world where many 

 make a failure in the achievement of human happiness and call it 

 "luck/' 



I know but few facts concerning my father's early life. His 

 grandparents were from Connecticut, and his parents were born 

 in New York state. When he was eleven years of age, they moved 

 to Lapeer Co., Michigan, about fifty miles from Detroit. He at- 

 tended school winters until he was sixteen, and then a term at a 

 private school in Pontiac, about twenty-five miles from home, 

 walking the distance both ways. At eighteen he was teaching in 

 the district where he had been taught as a boy, and where as 

 children he and my mother had played together. 



As a young man, he lived a studious, busy life, teaching school 

 four winters, helping on, the farm, and assisting his father in his 

 blacksmith shop, and the knowledge thus gained he made practical 

 use of in later years. The first horseshoeing done in Winona 

 County was by my father in the fall of 1852. He also brought 

 the first span of horses into the colony known as Minnesota City. 



As a young man at home, he was not only helpful on the farm 

 and in the shop, but the special care taker of an invalid mother, 

 whom he worshipped. He willingly learned to do "woman's work" 

 in order to help his mother, thereby adding much to the comfort 

 and happiness of his future home. He knew how to "do things," 

 and a boy kind to his mother will l)e helpful to his wife. Father 

 was certainly a model husband, ever kind and considerate. In case 

 of sickness or necessity, he could cook a meal as well and quickly 

 as a woman. His lifework seemed to be to help himself and to 

 be helpful to others. 



Father and mother were married at Oxford, Mich., Oct. 29, 

 1848, and had my mother lived a few months longer, they would 

 have celebrated their golden wedding. Although the following 

 lines were written in an hour of sadness and extreme loneliness, 

 they express in language I cannot the loving loyalty of my father 

 for the wife of his young manhood, and when left "alone" in old 

 age how much he missed her. She died in August, 1897. After 

 his death, I found these verses written with pencil on Avaste paper 

 and know he had no thought of presentation. To me the lines are 

 beautiful. 



The wintry night is b/j'gllt'.^iid 'cjeari '• [ \'' '^ 

 The lively bells, the mef-i*y laugh Ihear,'"' '' 

 And old time songs; .tliat onc-fe'were dedit, ' r ' : 

 Recall our happy me\2tings Filled- with cheef— -' ' 

 When we were yoilrjg. .', ' : .' 



