Amanuensis Monday- Hannah Lee's Overland Journal, Part 2

Hannah Hyndman Lee

For the second time, Hannah Lee and her husband Milton had left Iowa and headed west toward Wyoming. On this trip they were headed for the Jackson Hole area near where Peter Lee had gone to settle when Milton and Hannah had returned to Iowa after their first trip to Wyoming. Arriving in the Jackson area they acquired a parcel of land and built a roadhouse to take in travelers who came to the area. They only stayed in the Jackson Hole area for a few years before returning to Iowa for a second time but it was long enough that an area Ranger Station was at one time named for Milton Lee. The old roadhouse building stood for years and operated as various businesses. The well known Heidelberg Bed and Breakfast, which is no longer in business, stood on the exact spot of the old Lee roadhouse according to Teton County records which our cousin found some years ago.

Below is the continuation of Hannah Lee’s Overland Journal as her group departed the Fort Laramie area to push on westward. It is transcribed with all the original spellings. You can find the family background information and the first part of this story and journal transcription on Those Old Memories, located here.

                   HANNAH LEE’S OVERLAND JOURNAL-   PART 2

In the morning we started for Douglass, we are going up the North Plat River & find good camping places.  There we see a rabbit & once in a while some antelope but they are hard to get as the distance is so far one has to practice a while before they can get one.  Nothing will hit them but a 38 Winchester.  Here we find lots of sage chickens.  They are about as big as our Plimeth Rock chickens and are about as good.  We are coming to some hills.  Some days we have traveled threw quite a sandy country but their was plenty of grass for the horses but wood was scarce.  Some times we had nothing but sage brush & other times weeds, but we seen so many curyosities  that made us forget that wood was scarse.   Well here is Douglass a good sised town on the north side of the river & we are on the south.  We see Ft. Fetterman.  Here we stay 2 days, & we go on our way to Casper Wyoming.  We travel a number of days & is in a country where we don’t see but 1 ranch that any body lives in.  In about 12 days we are in Casper a nice little town on the plat River.  Here we meet Jim Lock of Fairfield, Iowa.  Jim is looking well & glad to hear from Fairfield.  Here we stay all nite.  This is July the 3 and they are decorating the buildings for a grand selabration on the 4^th.  We see a thousand head of cattle the cow boys are bringing them a cross the river & taking them back in the hills.  The horses gets scared & Mr. Oleary’s team starts to run away but are caught & no harm done.  We go on for Lander one hundred & sixty miles on our way we find some of the lovliest flours.  We gather some nice ones & press them & send them to our Friends at home.   We meet lots of Freighters halling wool to Casper as that is the nearest shiping point.  I have seen lots of Freighters with as many as twelve nice mules with fine harness on a Big heavy Mountain Wagon loaded with wool & 2 trail wagons fastened behind the other wagon.  At night when they camp, they unharness every mule as he stands in his place the harness is laid behind each mule & the collars in front.  They are fed & turned out to graze.  One saddle horse is larieted to drive the mules in, when fed they are soon in their places.  Here we are at the foot of a Mountain.  Mrs. Barger & I walk.  On the top we find 3 freight teams campt for dinner.  They have six yoke of Cattle, the first ox teams I have seen for many years.  Later on we find a freighter with one wagon wheel broke down & has to go back to Lander.  We camp on deer Crick & stay over Sunday.  There is a nice spring we find some wild goosberies.  There is know one lives here & we find it very lonely.  At night we are serenaded by wolves, one of our horses thinks she had better start back to Iowa & the rest all follow, but after a long chace are brought back & we go on. 

 Five oclock in the evening we camp at Lander quite a nice place, situated in a valley.  Groceries are very high.  We leave Lander to pass threw the Indian Reservation, the Shushonies.  We travel up wind River a Rough & Rocky road.  The reservation is 80 miles square we see lots of Indians the women & men are very dark Colord & have their hair Braided while the old Indiam men have their hair long hanging down over their shoalders & ware their over Coats most of the time all summer as it is cold out their.  The roads are so rough, we camp 3 nights in the reservation.  Wind River is not very wide but pretty deep on one side & is full of big & little rock which makes it dangerous to cross as it runs so swift a horse can hardly keep his feet.  We leave the reservation & travel up wind river over 1 hundred miles.  We camp & find a little store in the mountains.  Here flour is five dollars a hundred, but we have a good suply & glad we didant need any but coffee we have to get which is 33 cents a lb.  That’s good enough as it has to be freighted a long way.  We camp at a squaw mans & stay all night.  In the morning we start on for Old man Clarks, he is an old gentleman a bout 75 years old & lives all a lone in the mountains.  We meet him on the road & ask if he could tell us where Mr. Clark lived, & he said if there were any more Clarks lived their he dident know of any but told us which way to go & said he would be back soon & meet us up the river but we did not see him & went on & campt by the river 4 days to a wait the arrival of an escort to take us over the wind river mountains.  The boys went up the river a bout a quarter of a mile to his house & had a talk with him.  He had lived their a long time & always went by the name of Old Man Clark.  This was in ninety five when the Indian trouble was in the Jackson hole Country in Uintah co. Wyoming.  Here came a man a horse back from over their 8 days travel threw a heavy timbered Country & unsettled, not a house to stay in over nite, one has to camp out .  He tells us that he seen Mr. Lee & Spencer & that they sent word for us to stay there till we hear further news from the Indian trouble.  Well we all talk it over & all are in favor of going on.  We are at the foot of a mountain, & the Indians were out in the hills hunting.  About 1 oclock we cross wind river for the last time & go about 8 miles & camp.  We are to have Elk Stake for supper.  We are where the game is plenty.  We stay all nite, after supper we hang our old Camp Kettle on the pole & boil some for dinner the next day.  We will soon be at the foot of the Big Mountain.  Well here is a cabin this is old man Clarks gold mine.  We all get down & go in & inspect the place.  None of us has ever seen any mining done we all go down in the mine.  Here are all the mining tools & the rocker, but no one at work but they said it would pan out $30 dolars to the ton.  We start up a pretty steep mountain about 4 miles long.  Here is the heavy  pine timber the tallest pines I ever seen.  My but it is nice.  A bout 2 oclock we are all on top of the Mountain and glad to eat a cold dinner as all walked but the drivers.  3 or 4 miles farther & we camp.  We are all getting short of meat & have a bout 10 days to travel before we get over to the Jackson hole Country.  There is a trail one can go a horseback a shorter distance.  There is no stores & we will all do the best we can & flour is getting scarce.  All at once our road comes to an end.  The men get down & at last finds a wagon track.  We go down a small valley & here is a young porcupine he thinks he is hid he sits on a limb with his head tuckt under a few leaves.  We leave him & camp.  Here is a large herd of Antelopes.  The Boys slip a around the pines & took a few shots but they were to far away.

In the morning we start & go on down the mountains to green river as we go we pass 3 places like Big Meadows a beautiful place.  It is getting dark.  Pete Lee sees an antelope & gets his forty five ninety Winchester & killed 2.  We were all glad as none of us had any meat since Morning & Williams is out of flour.  The game is drest & we all have a share.  Here we stay till noon.  The next day in the morning Mr. Burlingham came with a lot of Dudes from Boston on their way to the National Park all were a horseback & about 30.  We gave them a hind quarter of the antelope & they gave Mr. Williams some flour.  They had a big wagon loaded with grub.  3 more teams joins us from the Big Horn.  There is 7 covered wagons now.   We leave green river. 

To be continued next Monday with part 3…

Source: excerpts from the original journal of Hannah Lee, © and owned by Kathleen Hopkins

Amanuensis Monday is a popular ongoing series created by John Newmark at Transylvania Dutch Blog.

Part 1 of this story is here. 
Part 3 of this story is here. 

 

"My Favorite Food"-- 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History

Oh boy, comfort food! MOM’S HOMEMADE NOODLES

From the time I was a little kid, this was it. My all time favorite was most definitely Mom’s noodles. On the days that Mom got up early to go to work and I was getting ready for school, she would roll out a batch of noodles in the morning to dry. Since I loved to eat anyway and her noodles were an extra draw, those days at school were some of the hardest. Watching that big old wall clock all day eagerly waiting for the three o’clock bell so I could hurry home knowing that chicken and noodles were on the evening dinner menu.

My Mom and her mother were great cooks and making noodles was just one of those things that were passed down from one generation to another. I had an Aunt who lived in California for years and she was also a very good cook but claimed that she could never make good noodles. Several times a year my mother would stir up a few batches of noodles, cut and dry them and then mail bags of them to Aunt Stella in California and  later after she moved to Arizona Mom still mailed noodles to her. Mom's noodles were always rolled out by hand, and cut by hand as she never owned one of those little machines to feed dough into that cuts them perfect. Perfect is a matter of perception, however, as Mom’s were as near to perfect as a noodle can get! My husband’s Grandma Alda made awesome homemade noodles too and we always asked her to make noodles when we would go to Wyoming to visit. I’m sure they were made nearly the same as my Mom’s and Grandma’s were wonderful even though slightly a different taste than Mom’s. They were distinctly Grandma’s. My own Grandma had a sister who lived in Broken Bow, Nebraska and as a child we would ride the train east and go to visit her. I can see and taste her noodles to this day, even though she has been gone for many years. I don’t know how hers were made or just what ingredients she used but I always called them “old fashioned” noodles. Great Aunt Kate would bring them to the table, thick with heavy chicken sauce (actually a heavy greasy or buttery type sauce). She always used good old country and farm raised hens and until her death she cooked on an old fashioned big heavy cook stove. She never owned a modern stove to my knowledge and her biscuits and noodles were really wonderful.

Some great things that my Mom cooked, I have never been able to duplicate to perfection but I do love to make noodles and mine do taste just like Mom’s. My youngest son now makes homemade noodles for his family of ten and even though his wife is a FACS teacher and an awesome cook herself, our son also loves to cook and the noodles are his to make when it is time for them to be on their menu. My favorite pairing is with chicken but on occasion I like to use beef tips instead as both are tasty and my Dad loved noodles stewed with fresh pheasant.  Noodles, like ancestors, are just part of our family!

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow- chicken and homemade noodles is my favorite, my comfort food, not only for the eating but also for the wonderful memories that always come to mind.

Mom’s noodles

No exact recipe as I don’t have one, just ingredients and a general how to:

6-8 eggs    whisked or beaten in a large bowl.

Add flour, a pinch of salt, and about 1 tsp of baking powder for the 6-8 egg recipe. Keep adding flour until a moist dough that sticks together good is formed. Turn the dough out onto a well floured pastry cloth and work in just a bit more flour by turning the dough over a couple times. The first secret to good tender noodles, according to my mother was not to handle the dough very much and not to add too much flour, making the dough overly stiff.

Roll out the dough as thin as possible and let it dry for 2-3 hours, uncovered.

Roll the dough up, sprinkling with enough flour to keep the layers from sticking together. Cut ¼ inch slices off of the rolled noodle log, then cut the pieces up again and spread them out on the cloth to air dry. I usually leave them to dry for 4-6 hours. They can then be bagged, refrigerated and used in a couple days or they freeze well too.

If you boil a chicken to use, remove the meat to a serving plate and bring broth to a boil, add the dried noodles, stirring to keep them from clumping as adding. When they start to just boil again, reduce the heat to the point of a low simmer as they will easily scorch and stick if cooked too high. Simmer UNCOVERED, as that is the second secret to tender noodles. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking and until they are soft. Add chicken pieces and serve over mashed potatoes.

(Click on the any photo to enlarge--)

A warning: freeze the dry noodles if you are not using them fairly soon, this is not a scientific recipe so use your own judgment as to preparation and storage!

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History – “Favorite Food” suggested by:

Amy Coffin of the We Tree blog (http://wetree.blogspot.com/)

Family Recipe Friday suggested by:

Lynn Palermo of The Arm Chair Genealogist(   http://www.thearmchairgenealogist.com/

Geneabloggers, weekly and daily blog prompts:     Geneabloggers

Amanuensis Monday- Hannah Lee's Overland Journal

Hannah Lee’s Overland Journal

Hannah Hyndman Whitten Lee was my husband’s Great Great Grandmother and an early pioneer in the settlement of some remote areas of Wyoming. She and her descendants took up land in several places in Wyoming which set down the roots for our Grandpa, Robert Earl Harvey, and others. Our family claims a rich and varied history in the state which the pioneering spirit of Hannah Lee and her husband Milton E. Lee left to us. Hannah wrote a journal of her travels and memories which will be presented here as it was written and in her own words but first a short story of her family and life to set the stage.

Hannah and Milton Lees’ families:

Milton Lee’s first marriage was to Hannah Osborn in 1859 in Iowa.  A daughter was born to this couple, after which they were divorced and we know very little of this daughter.

Hannah Hyndman was born in Jefferson County, Ohio and migrated with her parents to Iowa where she was married to Willard Whitten on 6 Aug 1856.  A son David was born 17 May 1857 and he died in May 1858 of typhoid fever and the father, Willard, died soon after on 18 September 1858.  Hannah was again with child and having no other place to go, went back to live with her parents William Hyndman and Sarah Ann (Stover) Hyndman in Jefferson County, Iowa.  Hannah’s daughter Sarah Emma was born 25 March 1859 in Jefferson County, Iowa. A beautiful little girl who was born under the shadow of her own father's death.

Milton Lee and Hannah Whitten met in Iowa and were married 24 July 1863. A second marriage for them both and to this couple five children were born. There were two little girls who died very young, but the other three children:  Fannie, Peter Smith and Mary Ellen lived to adulthood.  Milton and Hannah raised their children in Henry County, Iowa but later on resided in Jefferson County.  Their daughter Fannie married James William Harvey in Jefferson County, and Mary Ellen married John Jackson in Jefferson County.  Their son Peter Smith Lee did not marry until later in life.

The family migrations of Milton E. Lee and Hannah Hyndman Lee from Iowa to Wyoming: 

In 1889 Milton, Hannah and Peter Smith Lee who was Milton’s brother, and Peter Smith Lee, the couple’s son, made the trek by team and wagon to the prairies of Wyoming. Friends of theirs had earlier moved to Wyoming and had written them of the good possibilities of homesteading there.  Milton and Hannah took up a homestead in the vicinity of Albin,Wyoming.  For some reason, possibly due to crop failures, Milton and Hannah relinquished this homestead and returned to Iowa but Milton’s brother, Peter Smith Lee, continued on to the Jackson Hole Country of Wyoming and did not follow them back to Iowa.

In 1895 Milton and Hannah again made the trek by team and wagon to Wyoming and their destination this time was the Jackson Hole Country.  Here they either bought or homesteaded a parcel of land upon which they constructed a road house and took in boarders who were touring the country side.  They remained in Jackson for several years but by 1900 they were back in Iowa as they appear on the 1900 census there.  Upon returning to Iowa, Hannah wrote her journal or diary of their travels to Jackson Hole which I will now share some of the highlights from it with you.  My mother-in-law, who is in possession of the original diary graciously undertook the task of transcribing Hannah’s journal and has used all the original spellings.

                             Hannah Lee’s Overland Journal

Dear Mr. Edditor…As I am back in Iowa I will rite a short sketch of our travels threw the western Country to the mountains in 1895. My husband, son and I and Mr. Oleary started from Fremont County, Iowa to Marysvale, Uinta County, Wyoming better known as The Jackson Hole country, 60 miles south of the National Park.    On May the 19 we ate an early dinner & got a board our prairie schooner & was soon on our way to Nebraska City.  Nite finds us campt at Mr. Watsons farm on the Missouri bottom.  Wee ate supper & go to bed.  In the morning wee are soon ready & start on our Journey.  Now we cross the Missouri River on a tole bridge, the cars cross the same bridge.  (does she mean railroad cars)?  This town is a flourishing little town.  Here we pas some of the nicest farming country, nice buildings & plenty of water.  Now we are near Lincoln, Nebraska this town is longer than wide & is part in a valley & is quite a nice place.  We go on a few miles & camp for the nite.  In the morning we all ate a harty breakfast & are on our way to Seward Nebraska, this little town is in the hills here we camp & eat supper.  The boys are out attending to the horses a heavy rain is coming up the boys came in to camp about as wet as they cared to be but all in a good humer & were soon in a dry suit. In the morning we go north west for a few days then we cross the North Platt river to Grand Island Nebraska.  Here we meet a Mr. Palmer & family on their way from Lincoln going to Evanston, Wyoming so we all go to gether.  At North Plat Mr. & Mrs. Berger & 3 children join us, now there is five men 3 wimen & 4 boys.  2 days later five nice teams join us bound for Portland Oregon.  They are all nice people & we travel together more keep coming till there is 19 teams all rigged out in good shape.  Now we go up Plat river, have good roads no hills to speak of.  Nebraska is a nice country, that is in the east part.  We will have to go in to camp & here we turn our wagons with the fronts to the south & are but a short distance from the UP Railroad.  After supper the women are all seated talking about hard times & about those they had left behind, while the men were telling stories & examining their Winchesters.  At Sidney Neb we stay all nite in the morning after breakfast we are all ready to start & after shaking hands with our new found friends & wishing them gook luck on their Journey we leave them & start across the country northwest.  Here we travel a distance of 60 or 70 miles & find ourselves at Harrisburg. While doing some trading here we find Mr. Slingbaum an old time friend.  He said we go past his place & must stay over Sunday as he is in his buggy.  He drives faster & gets home to tell his girls & son & as Ed was a cowboy, it didn’t take him long to get  in his saddle & ride out about 3 miles to meet us & escort us to his home.  That nite he wanted to know if their was a fiddle in the crowd & we told their was & he said he would have a dance in honor of the occasion & away he flew on that poney and half past seven the house was full of girls & old people.  They danced till one oclock.   We awake in the morning to find a beautiful day.

We had a good time all day & my husband & Mr. Slingbaum put in most of the day talking of our trip to Laramie Peak in 1890.  Monday morning we start on.  Here we travel for miles over a vast country of Prairie where we see herds of cattle & horses & once and a while a large ranch.  Here we cross a railroad at a little station called Badger, then we travel on a good many days.  Here  we came to the warm springs in Wyoming.  We halt & camp for dinner.   We start up a hill.  Mrs. Berger & my self thought we had better walk as it was a bad hill.  We went up all rite & are on higher ground & can look as far as our eyes can see & there is nothing to be seen but a vast plain before us as beautifull a country as one would wish to look upon.  We travel for a few days longer & camp 2 days & rest.  Here we wash & bake enough to last about a week.  We soon find our selves at Ft. Laramie the old government Fort situated on the Laramie River in Wyoming.  Camp at noon & stay till the next day.  We visit the grave yard where there were lots of soldiers buried, then we go down to the river.  Here we see lots of old Canteens & camp kettles that reminds us of our Soldier Boys of Iowa.  As we go to supper we think of the day we said good bye to them dear Boys.  Some of them we never met again. 

Authors note: It must have been a  truly sad sight for Hannah and her family to see the remnants of the Indian wars, Ft. Laramie and graves which at that time were still quite new. A sobering reminder of those who had fought to open the country into which she and her family were headed.

A handwritten page from Hannah Lee's Journal

Hannah, Peter Smith Lee and Milton Lee

To be continued next Monday...

source: The original journal of Hannah Lee, © and owned by Kathleen Hopkins

Amanuensis Monday is a popular ongoing series created by John Newmark at Transylvanian Dutch Blog

Part 2 of this story is here.
Part 3 of this story is here.

Wordless Wednesday-- Grandmother, Pearl Mae Zehrung

Pearl Mae Zehrung Moore, about age 16. Taken in Alliance, Ne.

My Grandmother, Pearl Mae Zehrung was a beautiful young woman and being lucky to have several photos of her before she married, this is one I want to share. She was born 11 Nov. 1886 at Holdrege, Phelps Co., Nebraska to William Henry Zehrung and Ida Ellen Tharp/Thorp. Pearl was only 15 when her mother died leaving her as the oldest child to help care for her two younger siblings.William remarried to Martha Anne Watts in 1902. Grandma Zehrung as the family referred of Anne, owned a millinery shop at the time in Alliance, Nebraska where the family lived. I have a few photos of my Grandmother Pearl wearing some of her step-mother's creations. Hats certainly did frame ladies' beautiful faces!

Ancestor Approved

I am honored to have received the Ancestor Award for the second time from Ann of "Ann's Scraps of Time" Blog. Ann is also a family historian and she writes about family, genealogy and most of all about scrap booking and her love for that craft. She blends those very well into her blog posts. Please visit her blog, especially if you love scrapping!

Thanks Ann!

A NEW LOOK

Those Old Memories has a new look for 2011. My new header features photos of my Mom and Dad, Freddie and Irene Coleman and also reflects some of their personal interests. They grew up, married an raised their children in Alliance, Nebraska and as they are the inspiration for many of my stories, I felt that they deserved a prominent location at the top of my blog. My Dad loved to tell stories and held a wealth of knowledge about his family and ancestors and Mom loved nothing better than to learn about her ancestors and to pass along to her children the facts about her family that she knew about.She was proud of the genealogists in her family and loved hearing of new finds! Without their great interest in family and the historical heritage they passed forward, my life and that of my family would not be nearly as interesting nor filled with so much love.

The year 2011 will feature many of "those old memories" and photos from both my family and that of my husband's ancestors. He has been bitten by the blog bug so will occasionally write stories about his family and memories and I will feature those here on my blog site. We look forward to sharing with you all as we start the new year with a new look.

Cheri and Geoffrey Hopkins