Welcome To Pilgrims and Pioneers!

After many years of researching my family geneaology I have been lucky enough to discover actual information about my relatives that lived in the Pilgrim Era and the Pioneer Era- while many people also have realtives from those eras- many do not know their names or where they lived- actually seeing the proof in print makes you much more aware of who they really were.
After discovering these relatives it of course made me curious to learn more about the eras that they lived in and what their lives were like as, the history I learned in grade school had long since been forgotten.
I decided to start this blog for others who are also interested in these eras.
Some of the information here will be actual facts about my realtives and some will be information about the eras in general that I have found on the web.
I hope you will enjoy traveling back in time with me!

Monday, August 25, 2008

Memoirs of a Pioneer Woman

About a year before she died my gggrandmother Sarah Jones Dow was interviewed by the local newspaper of the time.
This is what she had to say about life in the early 1800's:
Mrs. Dow says she never saw Indians around where they lived In Mc Donough county, but after they came up to Whiteside county there were still some of them living in the woods.
Carding wool and spinning flax and weaving them into cloth for clothing and household use.
The family lamps in those days, when not the open fire place, were candles.
These were made of beef tallow, poured while hot into moulds, into which first had been stretched a wick.
Bullets also were moulded at home for ammunition for the family rifles.
In the pioneer days of Illinois, instead of homecomings, camp meetings were held in the summertime, after the crops had been laid by.
These were the signals for great gatherings of people who came oft times long distances to hear the revivalists or missionary preach the word of God, Mrs. Dow says.
She does not rememeber of hearing Peter Cartwright, pioneer of methodism in Illinois, but heard much about him. It was on occasion of one of those revivials, about 70 years ago, that Mrs. Dow was converted and joined the methodist church.

2 comments:

~SkullBlossom~ said...

I'm so glad you are keeping these long-ago facts from being lost in these modern days. I really treasure the information you share about the days of Pilgrims and Pioneers.

Debra said...

Thanks Skullblossom!
I think we all can benefit about learning of simpler times!

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