Erma West's Journal - Post 2

(Date: 4-17-86, Page 4) I can only say a few words now. I would understand it all and my mother use to speak it too. But after we started to school she tried to speak English to us, she would talk half and half. My mother owned some land from her first husband between some relatives and neighbors. They pitched in and built a house, grainery and barn. My mother, my two brothers and two sisters lived there and myself. My brothers were getting old enough that they could do the farming.

My sister Agnes got married when she was 16 yrs, then my brother-in-law helped them farm. They didn’t live with us they rented a farm near Mitchell. My sister Mary went out to work so there were just my brothers, mother and I - I was 4 or 5 yrs old then. We lived there several years when Agnes had her first baby “Raymond”, that’s the one that now winters in Mesa, Arizona. She had 3 boys Raymond, Harry and Edward.

I was between 6 and 7 years old when my mother re-married and that was a sad mistake that she did – she just got herself a lot of work.

We were getting along nicely, some friends of hers happened to be friends of his also. He had about 11 kids and lived in Wessington Spring, So Dakota. which was in this same territory 20 or 30 miles apart. These friends introduced him and immediately he talked her into getting married and moving over to his place in Wessington Springs. So then my sister Agnes and Henry her husband moved onto the place where we lived and farmed it. All 11 of his kids lived at home and my poor mother just worked herself to death there. My mother passed away when she was just 55 years. I guess she worked so hard while there. I was about 15 yrs when I ran away from home while she was still alive. I went over to some neighbors. He came and got me and made me go back and 2 weeks later I ran away again. That time he let me go.