USA > Iowa > Marion County > Down on the ridge : reminiscences of the old days in Coalport and down on the ridge, Marion County > Part 10
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Will Coffman I knew better than either of the Coff- man boys. There never was a man of better native quali- ties of heart and mind than Will, plain, open, unaffected, kind and trusting. To me it always seemed too bad that his lines in life should fall in such sad, sad places. I saw much of him in his last days. He always seemed glad to see me, and always felt better after having dropped a kindly word of cheer into his life, so full of sorrow and disappointment. I always carried to him some of the luxuries the world had denied him which he always accepted so gratefully. I do believe that God, after those sad years and his tragic end, has already recom- pensed Will with better and sweeter things.
Shull Coffman was always a home boy and then a home man. He was married to Nancy Davis, daughter of Aunt Polly Davis, one of the best women in this world. "Nan, " as we called her, was one of the best girls that ever went into a home of her own down there, and when
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Shull and she went to housekeeping both took up the work of homemaking as well. He was industrious and thrifty and kind in his home. They lived on the extreme south end of the Coffman homestead, where together these people labored and loved and looked forward to easier days when, by industry and economy, they would come with the fruits of their toil to enjoy their hard-earned reward. But in the midst of childish joy and laughter, when looking away down the road of life to coming castles built in happy pleasing mood, we lose sight of the tragedies and afflictions which lie hidden along the way. How glad a thought it is that this is true! So while these . people, Shull and Nan, were planning for material reward, a resting season in life's hard strife, Shull was taken away and poor Nan was left to endure coming afflictions which have been hers. She now lives in Knoxville.
Lovell Coffman, after returning from the war, married Eliza Bodine, a daughter of Peter and Amanda Everett Bodine. This newly married couple shortly afterwards moved to Pella, where Lovell was employed in the mercan- tile business. They afterwards made their home in Des Moines, whence after a number of years they moved to southern California. Lovell was never very strong after the war service he gave to his country, so the battles of life were always hard ones to him. Not long ago, worn and weary, he gave up the fight, and away out there on the golden coast he sleeps the sleep that knows no waking.
Don't you think, my kind reader, that in telling of this pioneer family who played so much a part of the social and religious life down there my simple story shall end without a parting word about Aunt Julia, who saw so much of life and in her always happy mood did so much to bring sunshine and cheer to heart and home. Her sunny disposition, like the sun's golden rays, brought light far in advance of the full-born day, so the cheering
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influence of that kindly, happy woman always heralded her approach. To all who knew her her presence was an inspiration. She laughed away sorrow. She led and compelled her associates to gallop away from care. Yet she was never frivolous nor unmindful of serious things ; while her heart had often been torn with grief, yet she never cared to hang her woes on the hearts of others. It was a part of her world work to make others glad. She played her part on the stage of life and played it well. She never wounded a single heart nor looked lightly upon another's woes. God, it may be, prolonged her life for the example it furnished and when eighty-eight years had written their story of joy and gladness and tears upon her life page, when the evening twilight had sent a fare- well salute to the departing day, Julia Reynolds Coffman was with God.
CHAPTER XIII
MENTION OF SOME NOTABLE CHARACTERS OF THE RIDGE WHOSE NAMES HAVE NOT PREVIOUSLY APPEARED
In the beginning I had intended to tell only the story of the boys of my own class who became a part of the com- munity life on the Ridge After doing this I found it extremely difficult to relieve myself of the connecting links running back into the lives of the people who back there brought the community from primeval life into a busy useful workaday world. So I have taken up and briefly told the story of those whose part in the activities of those far-away days were more prominent in my memory.
I sometimes wish I had undertaken to tell more than I have related concerning these people; something more of the girls of whom there certainly were a goodly number ; of Lois Martin, who "spelled everybody down " for miles around, and how she and Sallie later devoted so much of their lives to the moulding of thought and character and usefulness in life; of this one and that one who found here and there a life mate, either for weal or woe, and drifted here and there in the great tangled forest of life ; and how some of them have lived in sunshine and others in the shadow, and of others who have gone into that eternal sleep. But I had a lingering thought that if I undertook to tell of the girls I might get myself into trouble, not on account of any wrong I might tell, because
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as a whole no purer girls ever mingled with the birds and flowers in their mission of love and helpfulness in the old world's work than the good old-fashioned girls down on the Ridge; but in telling of their part of the life down there it would have been necessary to divulge, among other things, their ages !
It would require a large volume to contain what I should like to have said of the people of whom I have written, and a much larger one to contain what could have been said in relation to the early settlers down there, their sacrifices, their life work, and their growing aspira- tions for better things and more of the emoluments of ease and comfort growing out of their labors, freely bestowed upon their children. So, in the summing up of my story of the people who lived down there in the long ago, I shall only briefly allude to those not heretofore mentioned, that some day, when this simple story of mine is in book form and illustrated with the pictures of those pioneer people we think of in such loving memory, most if not all of that pioneer group may be recorded and not lost to human speech.
There was the Bodine family, who came to that com- munity about 1857, when they took up their temporary residence in a little house at the foot of the hill near the old potter shop. Here they lived until a home was prepared on land " Uncle Peter " had acquired adjoining the Uncle Jack Reynolds place on the south. These people were born, grew up and were married in New York state where some of their children were born. In this new western home these people lived and gave a family to the world. Uncle Peter was a typical Yankee, industrious and thrifty. " Aunt Mandy " was a sister of J. S. Everett. She was a woman of strong character and of rare intelligence, of good education and high ideals. She was always active in religious work, and her influence
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for good was felt through all the years of her active life. In this farm home they lived until worn out in life's conflicts they laid themselves down in dreamless sleep.
The Davis family came from Virginia in an early day, and though they made a home not exactly in the Ridge neighborhood, yet they became a part of its life. Mr. Davis died soon after coming to Iowa, and left " Aunt Polly " a lone widow in a new land with seven children to call her mother. Mr. and Mrs. Davis were religious folks, "' Aunt Polly " being over-zealous in the Master's work. Back in Virginia this good woman lived close to the Methodist creed. These people believed sprinkling to be the proper mode of baptism. Mrs. Davis arranged with her pastor back there to sprinkle James and Henry, bounding, mischievous twins, the solemn ceremony to take place at her home. These chaps caught on to the arrangement and determined to make trouble ; so, laying in wait, they observed the minister approaching when like rats they crawled under the house, from which hiding place they were coaxed out with long poles. I am not vouching for the truth of this story, but will refer you to Jim if you care to have it verified. This good woman down to a ripe old age lived a Christian life, and was in waiting when God took her home.
James Caldwell and Maria, his wife, were early set- tlers on the Ridge. I do not know whence Mr. Caldwell came, but I do know he was a good man and came to Marion County in a very early day. He was one of the organizers of the Coal Ridge Baptist Church more than sixty years ago. When I first knew these people they lived on a farm lying south of the Uncle John Everett place, near Competine creek. Mr. Caldwell was a patient, easy going, honest man. He worked hard but lived at the wrong time to accumulate a competency on his little arm. He was an ardent lover of the rod andli ne, and
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was a most devoted disciple of "Izaak Walton." I think he could sit on a bank longer, fish pole in hand, without a " bite," than any man I ever knew. His prayers in church were eloquent only in their sincerity, and the burden of every prayer was that his children should be reared in the love and admonition of the Lord. Mrs. Caldwell was born in Virginia, and was a relative of the Greenlees and also the Everetts. They had a large family of children, and, besides, Mrs. Caldwell was more or less ill all the time, so theirs was indeed a hard struggle in life. The last years of their lives on the Ridge were spent in the Nort Amsberry home on the hill, purchased by them from the Welches, and then the place where Lud and Adelaide lived so long and where Lud died. The arrow of desolation was shot into the hearts of this father and mother many, many times down there. More than one time the angel of death came in that home. No won- der then that frail mother's heart was torn and wounded and life seemed almost a burden to her and pain her constant guest. She in her frail condition was bowed down under the weight of sorrow and misfortune, while he, being stronger and more philosophical, bore his burdens just between himself and God alone. These people left the Ridge in the latter part of the seventies and went to Monona County, where Joe had already established himself, and out there under the winter's snow and the summer's grass and dew these pioneers sleep, and while they sleep they rest.
Of the Uncle Jack Reynolds family I know of only one living- Jim, as we called him- who now is ripening for the harvest. Uncle Jack was a brother of Aunt Julia Coffman, and was a pioneer on the Ridge. Both he and his faithful wife, Ruth, long years ago went into that dreamless land. Two sons these people gave to their country's service, John and James. When the war was
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over and peace had come to bless our land these young men returned to their old home by the side of the road. But the awful sacrifice had already been made; though some guiding hand had brought him home to his old father and mother and friends, fate's cruel decree had gone forth and so John, fresh from the blood-stained southland, withered away like a passing rose, and his soldier comrades bore his wasted body away, and laid it down in "God's Acre " out among the green growing oaks.
The Hardings were also among the early settlers there. They owned the farm where Wes Poffenbarger now lives, the east part of the farm then being prairie grass and hazel brush through which ran the road leading to Knox- ville by way of the old Breese neighborhood on the big "'hog-back." I played with the Harding boys at school in the old playground. Bill and John and Joe were great boys, rugged and strong. Bill and John went into the army, where John died. These boys were too young for war, but their country needed their services and they gladly went. About the close of the war Mason Harding sold the old farm and bought another home near Knox- ville, southwest of town. Joe lives in Knoxville, and in many respects is the same old Joe of former years, although Time is leaving his footprints upon his brow.
While I have mentioned Simeon Adams in these reminiscences, yet I must make special mention of this old pioneer and his estimable wife, Aunt Mary. The first I ever heard of this family was when they lived on the Taylor place on the hill. The sad incident which brought this family into my life then was the death of their little daughter, who had met a tragic end by being burned by exposure to the flames of a burning brush heap. These folks were Kentucky people, but came from Indiana to Iowa more than fifty years ago.
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Uncle Simeon was a typical pioneer character. He loved the woods. In nature's kingdom he took supreme delight, and his trusty old rifle was the idol of his heart. When a boy I was afraid of him, but when I grew up and had an opportunity to draw near to him and learn his nature it was then I learned the tenderness of his heart. Though a man of sudden impulse and passionate temper, yet after all his heart was warm and true, and no cry for help ever went up to him in vain. In his last sickness I saw him. He laid his fingers on the very spot where he in his suffering said the fateful arrow of the unseen archer had buried its poisoned barb.
Aunt Mary ! Good old soul, harmless as one of God's angels, everybody liked her. She came from a good old Kentucky family. Her name was Mary Fossee, a favorite daughter of Colonel Fossee, once a prominent figure in the political and social life of his state. A goodly number of years ago Colonel Fossee moved to southern California, where I had the pleasure of visiting him, out some miles from Los Angeles. He was then ninety-two years old, tall, straight and dignified. He was a man of great intelligence, and for one of his years very entertaining. The old colonel asked many questions concerning his Mary, and then his eyes, so bright for one so full of years, would be dimmed with tears. Now, several years ago, after so many years of struggle, Uncle Simeon and Aunt Mary are resting in the old churchyard down on the Ridge, where loving hands have marked with enduring granite the spot where side by side they rest.
Two more characters I would bring up from the faded past, and then my story is told : Lewis M. Woodyard and Lawrence G. Kimberling. Much alike and yet widely different were these two men. Both of these men came from Virginia when young fellows hardly old enough to go into the wide, wide world alone. "Lew," as he was always known in the early pioneer days, lived very much
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with Francis Everett, a brother of J. S., and an uncle of Lew. Lew married Sarah Hayes, a sister of my mother, who had come from Virginia with Nellie Hayes, my grand- mother, and family, who had settled on land in an adjoin- ing neighborhood. Aunt Sarah was a pretty woman, but in a few short months consumption faded the roses from her cheeks and her life went out, leaving the young hus- band and a sweet little babe homeless and motherless. Grandmother took the motherless baby and tenderly cared for it.
Left without a home Lew, on the discovery of gold in Pike's Peak, was seized with the gold fever and fitted up a team, and with others ready for gold, went to the newly- found Eldorado. Going it was "Pike's Peak or bust !" and returning it was both. Lew was not what you call shiftless, but he was manageless. He was always dig- ging into something, but accomplished nothing. He was naturally honest, but often powerless in the practice of that commendable virtue. His word was as good as gold if he could get the gold. The poor fellow made a mint of money in his time and died poor, but, better than all else, honest at heart. Lew was a great, big, stout, tender- hearted man. Adversity slashed him with a cruel blade for more than seventy long and eventful years, and then, covered with wounds, he fell.
Larry ! I wish I could tell you the brief story of this man just like God would have me tellit. Ina great many respects he was a remarkable man. Unstability was the distinguishing feature which robbed him of an influence in the world unparalleled as a messenger of God. Twice baptized and received into the church down there, with an earnest yearning to do the things God would have him do, yet, Peter-like, he always warmed by the fire and let the cock crow on and on and repented every time. Unschooled though he was, yet ordained a minister, I
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have never heard a flow of prettier language, filled with more rhetoric and easy, natural oratory than that which fell from this man's lips. He had a winning manner and everybody liked him. He married Elizabeth Reynolds, a daughter of Jack and Ruth Reynolds, and they lived in the beginning of their married life in Coalport, in a little frame house facing the river. It was painted white and trimmed in blue. It was a teenty little house, but it made a home for him and Betty. Once they lived near the roadside just north of the Bodine home, where Larry farmed a little patch of ground and worked at the car- penter's trade at odd spells. Larry was popular with the young element of the community. He was actively in- terested in music, and through his influence and efforts music became a prominent feature of church and social life in the neighborhood.
Poor Larry knew his weakness as well as anybody else. In his work as a preacher, in his pleadings for a higher and a better life, he often admonished his audience to do the things he told them to do rather than the things he did. Afterall he did nothing very bad. He was a preacher and still a human being, made of the same yielding material as other men; yet a standard of righteousness was prescribed for him by which none else was tested. His heart was as susceptible to the tender impulses as the heavenly harp to the sweep of an angel's wing. After all the powerful sermons he preached, after all the tender pleading prayers he sent up to heaven down there, after all the beautiful pictures hung on the riverside where he buried so many of the young people with their Christ in the flowing stream of that modern Jordan, after all the hands and hearts he bound with that beautiful tasseled cord that circles round the sacred altar where two lives are joined, after all the songs he sang that seemed to waft one's very soul to the throne above, after all the messages of cheer and hope and comfort he brought in
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the hour of gloom when a life had gone out -God tells me to say that after all these things the Ridge is better for his having lived there.
I should have been happy indeed if in these reminis- cences I could have given much more space, telling in detail of the old pioneer people who did much for God and humanity. In bringing up from the shadow land the characters of the past I have necessarily brought in my life pictures both the sunshine and the shadow of human existence. While sadness did come into those quiet rural shades, yet joy and gladness were regnant in woods and fields and glades. Somehow there was a simple honesty and faith that reigned down there. Men trusted men, religion was of the old "Simon pure " kind, each to the other seemed good and true, and God was served by truly upright and trusting hearts. No man in those glad days could have made me believe that any man was other than what he seemed to be, and to me all women were as pure and true and unsullied as the virgin flowers that so gaily decked the woods and hills and fields.
While we note the many changes that the rushing years have made in that old home-land, what a glad thought comes to us that, after all, this thing we call life in its varied influences for good or ill does not end at the grave. There leap from the silent villages of the dead down there beautiful lessons and splendid examples that mould a world and make mankind better. Out from the silent homes where our people sweetly sleep can never come the glad and cherished words as of yore, yet from out their quiet rest comes a helpful remembrance that no interven- ing years shall ever chase away. These people took life like men and women whose hearts were brave and strong and good. They took it as though it was- as it is-an earnest, vital affair. They took up their work just as
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. though they were born to the task of performing a glad part in the old world's battles.
The achievements of our fathers and mothers down there who builded so well bring this thought to me to-night, that the richest legacy we can bequeath to the generations succeeding us is an honorable life and a worthy example which sanctify and increase all other bequests. What are millions of dollars and libraries and other gifts without virtue and Christian life to sustain them ? If the lives, the motives and the methods of the philanthrophist do not stand the test of time, the verdict of history, the buildings they have bestowed will mock them after they are gone and be their condemnation and not their praise. Those with pure hearts and Christian lives and clean hands, like George W. Martin, the Ever- etts, W. D., J. S. and Francis, and their good wives, as well as scores of others, alone can make sacrifices to their God and their fellowmen.
A letter received recently from L. M. Martin, one of my boy companions of the good old long ago, says : " The longer I live to study men and women. the more I am convinced the place to lay the foundation for not only physical, but moral strength, is in places like the 'Ridge.' The early days had their hardships, but on the other hand we certainly had our full measure of innocent amusements and joys. The old-fashioned spelling contest, the school picnics, the singing-school, the neighborhood parties, and, last but not least, the old-fashioned dances, all contributed to our pleasure while we were building a physical foundation that has stood us well in hand for the many years of both physical and mental work."
These well said words of Lark's confirm what I have claimed concerning that people and that homeland and their influence upon the generations following them. I shall be very glad, indeed, if what little time I have taken out of my busy life to tell of joyous boyhood days down in
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the old homeland and of the dear dead who come in the twilight of the land of the faded past with their kindly, gentle presence, and of those who have drifted away somewhere under the stars, has brought out of memory land only the very best we ever knew of all that group of people who did so much for humanity, finished their work and then went to their eternal reward.
To-night, in full view of the dead and buried years, let me leave this parting thought, a testimony of my gratitude to our God for a childhood home, though hum- ble and poor it was, yet hallowed by a Christian mother's love and a father's restraining influence and care. With- in old Marion's border three score years ago there were no palaces. The hardy pioneers who had come from other lands to carve out for themselves a name in the new west were not rich, but most of them trod the wine-press of adversity and toil, yet they were rich in bravery, honest and true, and were happy in the greatest wealth that ever crowned a human life.
Only a few more words and my story of the Ridge is forever closed. Each of us has but one earthly life to live. It will do no good now to stop and bemoan our losses, our failures and our sad mistakes of the past; our only chance lies in the future. If I do not live to write another line, I want these words to linger with you long after I am no more. My mistakes are mine, and for them I have suffered. My disappointments and failures have been mine, and for them I have paid the bitter debt. I have no enemy on earth that I do not now forgive. How- ever cruel have been the wrongs done me I lay them down in sweet forgetfulness, and remember not the hand that inflicted the wounds. If we linger along the shore of peace and forgetfulness and love, there will be sunshine in our hearts in life's darkest storms, and angels will hover around our beds when love's last gentle kisses come with the final goodby.
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