Erma West's Journal - Post 3 - Ran Away

(Page 5) My mother came over and gave me some money to get on the train to go to my sister Agnes place in Letcher. I lived there with them for quite a while a number of years. Now wait a minute I wasn't 15 when I ran away because I was 15 when they moved to Minnesota and I went with them. My sister Mary was living in St. Paul, Minnesota and they dropped me off there, and I lived with her and her husband Ed and worked my first job. I worked in a rooming house, cleaning and helping in the kitchen. Mrs. Temple kept roomers and boarders when school started in the fall. I went down to Hinckley, Minnesota to live with Agnes and family and went to school there. My nephews seemed more like brothers to me than nephews - because I lived with them so long - and raised with them, and I wasn't much older than them. When my mother took sick, I went back to So. Dakota. and took care of her – I didn't stay at the house much as there was a neighbor lady expecting a baby, I went to work for her – I was there when her baby was born her husband wasn't home. During that time my mother passed away – Sept. 16, 1916. After that I went to Woonsocket and lived with friends of hers by the name of Rude and Rose Kutil and worked in Woonsocket at the merchants Hotel waiting table. While my mother was sick I would go over each evening and sit with her – she could not lay down, had to sit up in bed so she could breathe. She had Dropsey and would fill up with water. Then also my sister Agnes and her youngest boy Edward came and stayed there also.