Leafa Numbers was my paternal grandmother. We had a chat this week. She was born in 1888 in a sod shanty in Kansas.
A graduate student doing research about the pioneers who settled North Dakota interviewed some nursing home residents in 1976. I got a tape of my grandmother’s interview back then and my cassette player promptly ate it. Technology returned her to me this week, in the form of a cd. I would have recognized her voice anywhere.
My great-grandfather Elias Numbers was just a bit too young to fight in the Civil War, like his older brother did. After he married and started a family, they moved from Kansas to Iowa in a covered wagon, then on to Illinois where he lost his wife and two of his daughters to Typhoid Fever. Then on to Missouri. Leafa hired out to work for other families and never finished school.
The interviewer asked if she knew how poor they were. She answered, “We knew work and hard times. He [her father] had nothing to give but he was good to us.”
Then at 17, she and her sister caught a ride in a wagon headed to North Dakota. They heard land was cheap and they could make their fortunes there. They both hired out to work on a cook cart. “I was always a big girl and I wore a long skirt so I could earn women’s wages.” That was $4 a day for the two of them and when she said big girl, her voice lifted. She was bragging.
She met a Canadian, Percy Blake. He was a farmer and a horseman and 18 years old. He had a Flying Dutchman Plow and a team of good horses. They married the next year, 1906.
Leafa and Percy moved a few times but finally settled on a farm and raised a big garden, chickens, pigs, cattle, and 5 kids. Percy contracted to build local roads, driving a 5-abreast team with a grating plow to earn extra money. “He was a hustler and I was a good manager. I delivered more colts and calves than any woman in North Dakota,” she said.
“The 30’s pert’near broke us.” A reminder; this was a few miles from Canada. The winters were brutal before the Great Depression knocked everyone down. She took pride, “But I always set a good table.” Farm talk for no one went hungry.
“We had good horses.” She said it a few times during the interview. It was what put them ahead. A couple of times a year, they sold a horse for $100. “That was a lot of money in those days,” she said. And Percy sold one horse for $3000. but before she could explain, the interviewer changed topics, leaving me wildly curious. Percy had a reputation as a horse trader, but who did he sell to for that much? What horse?
The interviewer asked if it was hard being a pioneer mother. “Well, there was a saying; North Dakota was hell on women and horses.” She had a self-deprecating laugh and as easy as common sense, she said, “It was a tough life if you was useless.” This might be my new mantra.
Percy had passed several years earlier and when the interviewer asked Leafa about re-marrying, “Oh, I should say not… My gosh, you get tired of waitin’ on men.”
“I’m satisfied.” She said that more than a few times during the interview, too. She was satisfied with her life, boasted that none of her family ever got in trouble with the law, and was proud that she and her husband had built something. She mastered the art of wanting what she had.
When Leafa called Percy a good hustler, I’m not sure of her meaning but my grandfather became a local horse-trading legend, wealthy by farm standards. He retired to smoke stinky cigars and shoot ducks out the window of his big black Cadillac. Satisfied.
I didn’t see my grandparents often but our family visited just before Grandpa Blake died. They were living in town then, in the nicest house I’d ever been in. Grandma kept store-bought canned apricot juice in the fridge and she poured some into a small painted glass for me. It was sweet and thick; I held it in my mouth so make it last longer.
Why does any of this matter?
Hearing Leafa’s voice, at this age, it’s easy to see how much alike we are. I’m grateful to live by and for good horses, too. It’s important to remember that most of us are just a step or two from being pioneers of this young country. Your family isn’t much different: We come from strong stock not afraid of hard work. It can seem like the best horse traditions are European; they have centuries more experience than us but we share a heritage the old world doesn’t. Don’t sell yourself short.
The last time I saw my grandmother was just after this interview. I was 22 and she was 89. I meant to flatter her by asking about the covered wagon trip from Missouri north. For a moment, she got distracted by a memory too juicy to share with the interviewer. She smiled like a girlfriend and her eyes lit up. She said the James boys used to drop by the boarding house where she worked to get dinner and flirt with the womenfolk in the kitchen. My head spun, that was the way our family referred to people; the Blake boys… the Johnson boys…
“Grandma, Frank and Jesse?” I asked, in the most incredulous voice ever.
“Yes, deary, but that’s a different story. Now, that wagon trip…”
Anna Blake, Infinity Farm.
wow wow wow, what a story that I never knew! I sure do see your dad in his dad, but your grandma has her own powerful face.
Yes, I can’t take my eyes off her. She did not pander to children, I wish I had more adult time with her.
This may be your best one yet, Anna!! I thoroughly enjoyed the read, and too had a grandmother (albeit at bit younger than yours) who recounted tales of living as a farmer’s wife in the Great Depression. They were cotton, cattle, and hay farmers in Alabama and were just married when the worst of it hit. When we moved her to an assisted living home in the early 2000s and were cleaning out her home for sale I came across a GALLON size zip-lock bag chock full of KEYS! I asked, “MawMaw, what are all these keys to?” to which she replied, “oh, old gates, trucks, barn pad locks, etc.” Yet when I went to throw them out she yelped, “That’s not trash! That’s scrap metal! You can make things with that, like hinges or stall door locks!” I guess you never get more inventive than when you have to reuse everything you have! Another good lesson for us all…being “green” is not a *new* concept. 🙂
Good for your Grandmother! Thanks. and oh no… I have a bag of keys too!
More, please? 🙂
I wish!! I want the horse history, too.
Anna, this morning, your story caused my mind to wander back through my memories & memories of stories of my elders throughout my life. It was a wonderful wandering. The value that Leafa had that “it was a tough life if you was useless” is one that I grew up with. Seems that there is much less learning to be satisfied with what you have (common thought with many or all of our grandparents) is uncommon today & many people today don’t have the drive to be useful or as my mom & dad said ” don’t be a burden on society”.
Wandering back for a visit… I used to hear the ‘don’t be a burden on society’ phrase but I haven’t thought of it for a long time. Seems to make more sense than ever. Thanks for the great comment.
Oh I LOVED THIS!!!!!! It’s so funny, I clicked on it and started to read, while I was reading, I thought, “Anna would LOVE THIS!” HA! Thank you for sharing! Big Love, Tammy
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I snuck up on you!
A great family story, Anna. In a broader context it’s a perfect little piece of the American story.
I have heard some of your family stories, and they are similar… it is all our story.
GREAT story, Anna. Thank you! Made my day. Barb
Barb Young
http://www.RainbowFarm.com Quality horse boarding and retirement on the Western Slope
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“It was a tough life if you was useless.”…That has to be one of the best phrases ever spoken:).
I’d love to know more about that $3000 horse too, I wonder if you might be able to find out more about it at the local historical society. I’d bet something like that would make a splash in a small town.
Good idea, thanks.
What would Leafa have made of today’s world? I dare say she’d find a kindred spirit in her granddaughter! Although we always used to roll our eyes at all the old “sayings” people used to trot out decades ago, it’s surprising how, now, they sound absolutely right about human nature – and you find your own opinions sounding pretty similar as you pile on the years. Thanks for a fascinating glimpse of your family history Anna 🙂
It was a surprise message from the past. The other things she didn’t mention were interesting too. Families are such ungainly contraptions. Thanks.
Wow; just wow. I’m going to forward your post to my parents; I know they’ll enjoy it, too.
Thank you!
Utterly fascinating! And lucky you, I never got to meet my paternal grandmother, but I reckon we would have had a lot in common.
Thank you. I feel like I learned more about her on this tape than I ever knew…
Reblogged this on Eremophila's Musings and commented:
Fascinating.
Such a beautiful story!
Two years ago, I went looking for the Kansas grave of my great-great-grandmother’s best friend. They had camped together on the Texas prairie east of Dallas/Ft. Worth, and then, for reasons I don’t quite understand, departed. My family went back to Iowa, while the friend and her family stayed in Kansas.
And, my maternal grandfather was born in a Nebraska soddy. You’re right. It is a story that belongs to us all.
We are such a young country… thank you for sharing this.