“FURNITURE WAS SCARCE.
“Our first housekeeping in Council Bluffs was in two rooms with bare floors and bare walls. The furniture consisted of two old wooden chairs, an old table, a bed made on the floor, and three trunks. The bedstead lent us with the bed went together with screws, but as the screws could not be found the bedstead was useless and the bed had to lie on the floor. To these borrowed things, we added an old-fashioned cook stove that we were so fortunate as to find here and a few common dishes. Here, with these surroundings, I received my first calls and made my first acquaintances. If more than two happened to call at the same time the two chairs were utilized as far as they would go and I and the others sat on the trunks. It was sometimes unpleasant and a little mortifying, but I made the best of it, knowing it would not always last.