To my daughters, Marjorie, Rachael, and Adrienne and anyone else that may be interested:
Due to my inborn inability to communicate readily you haven't learned much of your heritage from me, so I will try to give you a little abbreviated sketch of events that took place in my time.
Back in the mid nineteenth century, John Alexander Hogg and Margaret Hall were married somewhere in Pennsylvania. To them were born twelve children (two of them died very young).
It was after the first two were born, the urge to go west sent them to Iowa. After two or three years there, along with Grandpa's sister Sarah and husband Otis VanDyke they moved on to homestead lands in Nebraska. Now there was another adventurous young man Loyal Boyd VanDyke followed his brother and the others to Nebraska and it was not too long till he and the oldest Hogg daughter Mary Minerva and Loyal were married. To them were born nine children, the first, Blanche died of typhoid at 3. Inez was born.
Then came along me. My first recollections go back to the year of 1894; we were living on a sheep-feeding ranch. It was a very dry hot summer; the crops all burned up. I remember the hired men hauling the dry short corn by the house for feed. It seems that Inez and I spent lots of our time in the shade of the house. I also can remember the sheep dipping vats a short distance from the house. There was a barrel of sulfur we nibbled at.
I guess Dad must have heeded Horace Greelis advice for the next winter or spring he took us to Colorado. After a short visit with mother's cousin, we moved in a house in Grand Junction. It was so infested with bedbugs that we couldn't stay there. Dad got a job in a nursery at Fruita, near Grand Junction. We lived in a tent for awhile then got a nice house in Fruita, stayed there that winter.
Next it was up Plateau creek about forty miles east. There Inez and I started school. For a while we walked the three miles till dad got us an old horse to ride. Nearly everyone rode horseback there. There was a long hitching rail that we tied the horses to for the day.
In 1906, there was what they called a money panic, very little money in circulation at all; of course at my age I didn't know the seriousness of it. I knew no one had any money, just traded what they had. There was lots of fruit, no sugar to can with, our folks had bees so used honey instead of sugar. Ralph came along about that time, it must have been 1897 Ruth came down with scarlet fever she was bad it was a miracle that she lived, many died in that epidemic.
After that and another move, Sidney was born, and then Dad had a bad sick spell. Then they gave up back to Nebraska and rented a good farm. They had ups and downs but made pretty good gains. After ten years they took over a cattle ranch for five years, gained enough they bought their farm at Broken Bow.
Now comes another chapter of my own life, by that time I was land hungry. Found there was homestead land in northern Minnesota so went there. I was partly settled when World War One interrupted. Upon return, I married one of the most adorable girls in the world, your mother, Hazel Bourassa. We tried very hard there on the homestead but it wasn't to be. A power dam was built on the outlet of the lake that bordered us and caused too much flooding to ever make use of the land. Like most people when in trouble, one thinks of home, (to me Nebr.) By the way, we had three children by then, Marjorie, Rachael and Howard. In 1926, we rented a farm in Nebraska. It was a dry season with poor crops, then the farm changed hands and we had to move again, not much better next year.
1928 worked for Russell Adams until Sept then to ND for the threshing run. I thought I would like that grain farming up there.
Now Hazel's mother and stepfather were just over the line in Canada so in the fall of 1929 loaded the truck and on the way. All looked rosie, Hazel near her mother, Grandma enjoying the children. I worked through the threshing season with Dan McEachrans crew. Next spring 1930 farmed on shares with Fred Schroeder and some other rented land. Had a fair crop that year but by that time the great Wall Street crash had taken effect, prices dropped and the depression was on the way.
The next couple of years were pretty dry, small crops, low, low prices. Of course the greatest heartbreak was when we lost Howard, that seemed like the end of every thing.
1934 was near complete, crop failure so again loaded up the truck and took off, this time to the west.
John and Alvina Couture and Pete LaChapelle were at Spokane so took Grandma along for a visit there, when we go there liked so well would liked to have stayed there, but by that time the great depression had stopped nearly all industry and no jobs to be had.
I finally heard from Uncle Will Hogg of Salem and they needed a dairyman so on to Oregon. After a couple of seasons there, we bought that old rundown dilapidated little old farm at Dundee. By hard work on it and some outside work it got better and better. There were good schools for the girls to attend. We were living quite comfortable. Then the worst tragedy of all struck my dear wife Hazel died. I hardly knew what to do then, but stayed on but it was a little too much so I hired a lady to take over the household chores. Her name was Josie Watson, she turned out to be the most adorable and industrious woman so I married her and have been happy about it ever since. She also had a daughter Kay and son Walt that I love very much.
Whether I used the best judgement to offer the farm for sale at the time I did I don't know, there was a lot of hard hand work there and we couldn't go too long, Josie's health was not too good, I thought she would be better off in town, I doubt that she will agree to that. Well we bought a house in Portland; I worked here till retirement time.
We have had a lot of joys and pleasures here visiting friends, traveling around the country playing at the beaches and fishing. The infirmities of old age have slowed us down to a slow pace of living now but we are very thankful that we can still care for ourselves yet.
This will read like a continual take of woe, not so, there many many pleasures and joy all the way through life.
Now is the greatest joy in seeing our children and grand children develop into the fine citizens they are.
If I would rewrite this I might make it more comprehensible, but read it as is and try to guess at what I have tried to tell you.
Edgar Leslie VanDyke