More Way Back When

More of Donald D. Pointer's Way Back When
{Written by Donald Pointer} September 15,2007 and it is 7:05:37 PM

1914 Family picture
Center row LR should be Gram Julia (Shearer) Williams
Notice the tires on the old car on the right side of the picture.  They are solid rubber, before they had air in them.

Last night as I was making some notes to put on the 1914 family picture of Pointer - Williams - Bears - Shearer - Mcleese - Nokes and more I remembered and wrote a little about Grandpa and Sim. First I would like to tell what little I know about Granma Williams. She was a very frail lady and one of the older kids used to say she coughed a lot. Today I have learned from a very faded obit in Grandma Pointers scap book that my Grandma Nancy Williams was three years older than Grandpa Williams and she died in 1928 at the age of 70. Sometime in the early thirties brother Glen took Granpa and Sim down to Carollton MO and he took me along. We stayed at who I assumed was Granma Williams' sister's house and I do remember that that lady got up the next morning and fed us chicken and biscuits for breakfast. Her maiden(Granma Williams') name was Odell and she was from Missouri in the Carrollton area. 

Back: John and Mary (Williams) Bear, Harvey and Pearl (Williams) Pointer
Front: Alvis O. and Nancy (Odell) Williams

Sim was my Granpa's Williams' brother and never married so he had always lived at home with his mother also, and when Granpa Williams got married I guess Grandma Williams just moved in with them. As far as I know they always all lived together I don't know when my great grandpa Jordan Williams died but I am sure they were all living with him an Julia. By all I mean Grandpa and Grandma Williams and Simeon and Great Granpa Jordan and great grandma Julia Williams. So that made five at that time. No doubt it was considerably cheaper. I never heard Granpa and Sim swear at each other but they argued almost constantly and alway called each other cantankerous, contrary old cussess. They may have swore at each other when they weren't around us boys but they might as well done it in front of us because we all knew how to swear. This all happened before I was born but I remember Mom saying that the two grandmas confused my older brothers and sisters so Julia (who was Sim and Granpa's mom) was called Sim's grandma.

Jordan and Julia (Shearer) Williams
Parents of A.O. and Sim

Grandpa and Sim were always poor they made a living doing cement work, Carpenter work, Just handy man work like that. They had a cement mixer that was powered by a single cylinder gas engine. A team of horses and a buggy and a light buckboard type spring wagon which they used to go to work with and haul tools in. Spring wagon meant that the wagon had springs like a buggy or car which made them ride a lot better. Unlike the farm wagon which had no springs at all. We used to call riding in a farm wagon over frozen ground as gut jarring which it most surely was. They also built new and repaired fence. In those days all of the farms were tightly fenced because all the farmers had live stock. Cows, horses, pigs, chickens, sheep etc. so every thing had to have a fence around it. They also had a buggy that they got around in. There wasn't much work in the winter so I am sure it was slim picking then. They always raised a big garden and had a cave to store their fruit and vegetables in. Also they always raised a pig for meat. Their rent couldn't have been much seems to me it if I remember about 5 dollars a month. I don't know what they got for wages probably two to five dollars a day. I do know what my wages for going threshing pitching oat bundles up on a hay rack all day at least eight hours a day it was one dollar per day and the last year that I went threshing I got one dollar an a quarter a day. They had to buy coal to heat with in the winter. But they didn't have no light nor water nor gas bills to pay. They did have to buy feed for their horses because they have to eat whether they work or not. They also had to buy kerosene for the lamps. PJ Wetrich a guy that run a grocery store in Collins for many many years once told me that one day like Saturday maybe, he pulled a kids wagon around with small spouted kerosene cans similar to the older lawnmower gas cans only with smaller pour spouts and went from house to house filling up kerosene lamps. In those days the kids wagons had wood spoked wheels like farm wagons. So he wasn't the old lamplighter but the old lamp filler of long long ago. I really don't know who handled the kerosene and gasoline but my guess is that standard oil had a small bulk plant and it came in by rail. I think in the early days they did have some sort of tank wagons to deliver gas and kerosene to the farmers with because a lot of the farmers had cars and gas engines and oil lamps. The early tank wagons were pulled by horses. I do remember an old gas barrel at home that had Standard Oil Co or something like that written on it. The first gas tank wagon that I remember was about a 1923 or so International truck that had the head lights up on the cowl right in front of the windshield and the guy who run it was Buck Hienrich probably not spelled right. There were no big semi trailer trucks then so everything. groceries and all had to be shipped in by railroad. Granpa and Sim never owned a car. It was five miles from Collins to our place and in the early days the roads were mud not gravel just old black sticky mud. When the roads were muddy they were almost impossible for a Model T ford to go on because it only had two gears low and high. and if you had to run in low much they got hot and boiled fike a teakettle and also it wore out the low band. The model T Ford car engine whopped out a stunning twenty horse power the trucks like under the school busses were rated twenty three horse power to best of my recollections. So most of the traveling to town was with team of horses and an old farm wagon when it was muddy. Some of the farmers had spring seats that set on top of the wagon box, not us we just put a board across the box or stood up in the box. We had kids not money. 

A.O. and Sim Williams circa 1936
Cantankerous, contrary old cusses.

Hey I kinda got off of my subject of Grandpa and Sim. I don't remember when grandpa and Sim had two horses I only remember the one they had left and he was a spirited old horse and as old as he was once he was hooked up to that buggy he wanted to trot and trot fast. His name was Sam. He was a tall long legged black beautiful horse. Of course I didn't realize that at the time, like a lot of other things, but I do now. They used to joke about when Sam was hooked up to the buggy he didn't need tugs he pulled it with the lines that were attached to the bit that was in his mouth. I could explain that in detail but not today. Anyway old Sam could go anytime mud snow rain or whatever. I only remember him driving Sam out there very many times and then Sam died of old age and that left Grandpa and Sim afoot. Somtimes I do remember them walking out to our place but not together I think they needed all of their energy to walk with none to spare for bickering. Uncle Sim used to say that walking wasn't very crowded but it was kinda lonesome. Grandpa and Sim never owned a home nor car so I guess the only thing that they owned was their tools what little household furniture the had. They were both pretty good handy men and they definetly excelled in arguing especially with each other. Harold would to go in and get them and then take them back home in the evening. They used to come out and help us butcher in the fall. They would also help do any carpenter work that was needed. 

Front:  A.O. and Nancy Williams
Back: Mary and Pearl Williams
Appears to be taken about the same time they moved to Iowa.

I think Granpa and Sim were both born in Iowa and their folks moved to Missouri when they were small. My mother Pearl May (Williams) Pointer and her older sister Mary Etta (Williams) Bear were both born in Missouri and I think Mom said she was about seven years old when they came to Iowa they came in a covered wagon of some sort and the two girls walked all of the way only when the came to a town did they get on the wagon and ride through town. One of them said it was a seven day trip and the other said it was a nine day trip and if I were to guess I would say nine. Mom said they came to a mile west of Collins where Bill Wilkening lived later on. Gary and Lisa would know where that is. Gary Pointer and Lisa (Pointer) Mitchell that is. They must have had relatives living there Mom probably told me who they were but I wasn't paying attention as usual. That is why I am putting this in writing and on a CD because if it hasn't been thrown away later on in life someone might run acrossed it and by then it may have aged enough to be interesting. I'd guess this is enough on grandpa and Sim Williams. If I think of anything else I will just come back to them.

Now for my other Grandpa Daniel Pointer. I just found an error in his date of birth because I have a picture of his tombstone that is in the Iowa center cemetery. He was born Aug 29 1829 and died Nov 12 1909 so if he had lived he would have been ninety one years old when I was born. He was twenty two years older than my grandma Pointer (Emma). They are buried in the Iowa Center Woodland Cemetery approximately 100 feet west of the south gate on the south side of the road that goes through the cemetery. So my dad Harvey L. Pointer would have been about 20 months old when she (Emma Pointer) his mother died that is why my dad's Uncle and Aunt John Belcher took my dad and raised him. Grandpa Gilley told me once that he grew up knowing my dad as Harvey Belcher and he always went by that name until he married my mom. I have him down as born 1838 but he was born in 1829 in my family stats and my computer refuses to let me change the dates. So I guess he will just stay nine years younger than he actually was. He lived to be about eighty years old.