The Red River carts used to be all day passing our house. They would come squeaking along one after another. Sometimes the driver would take his wife and children with him. These carts had no metal about them. One man would have charge of several.
Mrs. Anna E. Balser—1855, Ninety-four years old.
I was the only girl in our family that ever worked, but when I was ten years old I laid my plan to get myself out of my mother's tracks. She had so much to do with her big family. I could cry when I think of it now. So, when I was fourteen, my father, scared for me and holding back every minute, took me to the city to learn the trade I had chosen. I was through in six months and could do the heaviest work as well as the finest. I wish you could see the fancy bosomed shirts I used to make when I was fourteen! No one could beat me. I always had a pocketful of money for I got two and six a day. That would be 38c now. I went from house to house to work and always had the best room and lived on the fat of the land. It was a great event when the tailoress came.
I came to Lakeland in 1855. The prairies around there looked like apple orchards back home. The scrub oak grew just that way. I would bet anything I could go and pick apples if I had not known. I had thought of buying in Minneapolis, but my friends who owned Lakeland thought it was going to be the city of Minnesota, so I bought here. I was a tailoress and made a good living until the hard times came on. Money was plenty one day. The next you could not get a "bit" even, anywhere. Then, after that, I had to trade my work for anything I could get.
I brought a blue black silk dress with mutton leg sleeves among my things when I come. It was the best wearing thing I ever see. Cheaper to wear than calico because it would never wear out. I paid $1.00 a yard for it. It was twenty-seven inches wide. It took twelve yards to make the dress. For a wrap we wore a long shawl. I had one of white lace. We got three yards of lace webbing and trimmed it with lace on the edge. Or we would take one width of silk and finish that fancy on the edge. The ruffles on everything was fluted. When you shirred them you would hold them over the first and third finger passing under the second finger. That would make large flutings. If you had an Italian iron you could do it fast, but there wa'n't many so fortunate. An Italian iron was a tube about as big as your finger on a standard. Two rods to fit this tube come with it. You could put these heated, inside then run your silk ruffle or whatever you were making over it and there was your flute quick as a wink.
Mrs. Mary E. Dowling—1855.
As Miss Watson I came from Pennsylvania in 1855 and took a school to teach back of Marine. I got $36.00 in gold a month and so was well paid. Had from five to twenty-five children who came to learn and so behaved well.
When I would walk through the woods I would sometimes see a bear leisurely sagging around. When I did, my movements were not like his. All kinds of wild animals were very plenty. The foxes were the cutest little animals and so tame. They would seem to be laughing at you.
A band of Indians was encamped at a lake near. One brave all dressed in his Sunday best used to come and sit in the kitchen day after day. He used to talk to the men but never said a word to us. He could speak good English. One day the chief came in and went for him. Said he had been away from his tepee for days and his squaws wanted him. Like lightning he crossed the room to where I was and said, "Me got Sioux squaw. Me got Winnebago squaw. Me want white squaw. You go?" I was very earnest in declining.