Recipes for Living Esta Benson McGuire

ESTA BENSON McGuire
Great-aunt of Bob Horton, written when she was 100 years old.

In the year of 1620, 0/S (of the calendar), the Mayflower brought to America a colony of 105 persons. Of these, 41 were heads of families and Freemen. Among the crew were two brothers of the name Benson. One of these settled in what is now Massachusetts, the other went to Virginia, a descendant of the former. John Benson married Mary Winslow; their son John married Sybil Briggs. He was born there also December 20, 1762, which was just 142 years from the time of the landing at Plymouth, Massachusetts. They settled in what is now Rutland County, Vermont. He was among the first settlers and his memory is still retained in the name of the post office there. Of their seven children, Sylvanus with his twin brother, Sylvester, were the youngest. They were born October 23, 1801. At the age of seven years, the family settled in Bradford County, Pennsylvania. Sylvanus had a son, Willard Clark Benson, who today lives in Kirksville, Ohio - if he is still living.

The first two Benson brothers were crewmen on the Mayflower. Benson, Vermont was named after Egbert Benson (not related) one of the congressmen and was not from that area. Sybil was actually born December 20, 1761. I, Esta Benson McGuire am a great grand-daughter to Sylvanus Benson, as well as my brothers and sisters. Sylvester went to Massachusetts then to Vermont. He left Vermont and went to Ohio, then from Ohio to Iowa. He later bought a half section of land south of Wooburn, Iowa. (I do not know what year.) He paid $1.25 an acre for his land south of Woodburn. I think his three children were born and raised there. The other twin went to Pennsylvania. I do not know the history of Sylvester's family.

Now, about the Horton family's history: They came to Iowa from Pennsylvania. I think Chancy and Erastus Horton came to Iowa in covered wagons with oxen team pulling their wagons. They settled somewhere south of Woodburn, Iowa, too. I think when they first came to Iowa, Erastus, (John Devenport Horton's father), brought his two little boys, seven and nine years old, with him. He could not bring his wife with him at that time. She was pregnant and could not come then.

Erastus stayed about a year in Iowa, and then he left his two little boys with friends and walked back to Pennsylvania to get his wife and daughter and bring them to Iowa. He bought himself another outfit, I think a wagon and team of horses, and brought some things for housekeeping and tools, etc. back with him. Yes, he walked back to Pennsylvania, as that was the only way to get there, as we had no railroads then. I have often wondered if he might have met anyone coming west while he was going back to Pennsylvania. My! that was a long time ago. I forgot to say that the baby wasn't born yet when Erastus Horton first came over to Iowa from Pennsylvania. (This) was Cecil Horton’s grandfather, Robert Horton’s great-grandfather.

Now on my mother's family's side of the house (the Olivers), they lived in Missouri Lexington, Missouri, during the Civil War. I think Grandfather's family was all born in Missouri. My mother said while the war was going on they could hear the canons shooting. One day Grandfather was walking to the blacksmith's shop. The Rebels arrested him and took him prisoner. They thought he was a spy. The folks proved some way he wasn't and they turned him loose. They were bothered by the soldiers during the war. They would come to their farm and take anything they wanted. They would take their vegetables from their garden and cook it at their campfires or such. They would take their corn and oats, hay, etc. to feed their horses as at that time they used horses to pull their canons and wagons around when they were moving around and then rode horses in some of the battles too. They had to have feed for their horses and they had a right to take what they wanted and you could not stop them. They were fighting and very tired and hungry, hence taking your vegetables, too.

So my grandfather left Lexington and moved his family to Iowa to get away from the war as he couldn't make a living with them taking his crops. When they moved to Iowa, if I am not mistaken, he bought a farm south of Woodburn somewhere. I think it was south of Woodburn and somewhere east of where the old Lewis church stands today. The old church is about all gone now. I can just barely remember my parents going to church at the old Lewis church. There were a lot of the farmers going to that church at that time. They all came in their wagons or buggies - whatever they had to come in. They had picnics and basket dinners there and what nice times they did have. That was the only way of having entertainment for times were very hard in those days. People don’t know how to appreciate the blessings they have today. Many, many times I have wished I could have talked to my mother more about the Civil War and the other things of history when our families were growing up. It seems when you get interested in history, the ones you want so much to talk to are gone. I knew an old man that lived around LeRoy, Iowa when I was growing up. He was a Civil War veteran. He said when they were fighting they didn't shoot straight. They just didn't want to kill those other fellows. They just wanted them to free the slaves. It was a joyful time for the soldiers when that war ended. They just didn’t want to fight our own people. I never could figure out why the people of the south would be so cruel to those slaves. Most of them were just wonderful people, so nice and kind.

My parents moved from a farm south of Woodburn, Iowa to Indianola, Iowa and bought a farm at Indianola before I was born. They lived up there for several years. My mother loved to live there. I and two of my sisters were born up there. I was the baby when they left up there and moved back to (southern) Iowa. We lived on a farm south of Woodburn. After I was older, I never could understand why my parents came back to Woodburn because the land at Indianola was so much better than the hilly land south of Woodburn, but from what I can remember my mother saying and my older brothers and sisters telling me, my father got homesick and he wanted to come back to Woodburn where he was raised. I know my mother didn't want to leave Indianola as it was a better town and they had such good neighbors up there. We always regretted that move as their farm was so much better land and worth more.

The schoolhouse was a two-room school then and one teacher taught all grades up to eighth grade. When they finished the eighth grade, they could teach then. Our teacher had to get to school early and build her own fires so to have the schoolhouse warm when we children got to school because we were pretty cold by the time we got to school. She had to get in her own wood and kindling to build the fires. Later on they began to use coal for fires. It was heavy to carry the coal from the coal shed into the house where she built the fires in a large heating stove. Sometimes if she ran out of coal during the day, she would have some of the older boys go get coal and bring it in for her. She had time do that at evening sometimes, too, before they went home so she'd have it ready for fires when she got to school the next morning. There was no janitor at the schools then and she had to do her own sweeping and dusting. Their pay wasn't much then, either, as times were very hard then, but we had some very nice teachers then. Today people just wouldn't work for such wages.

Then later on my mother bought a restaurant at Garden Grove. I do not know just why she happened to do that (but now that's another thing, another question which I very much would like to ask her). It seems now when we get more interested in history, the ones we would like to talk to are gone. Oh! how I wish I could talk to them and find out more of what I have wished I knew of. So many things gone forever. It seems the farther back you can go, the more interesting things get. While my mother was in the restaurant at Garden Grove, she also had show cases in the office in front of the cafe. She sold candy, crackers, popcorn, cigars, and fresh baked bread every day. The bread was baked at a bakery in Ottumwa, Iowa. It was shipped by express in large baskets then. The baskets were made in Burlington, Iowa. The bread was taken right out of the ovens and put in the basket. It was in one pound size loaves and Mother sold it for five cents a loaf. (imagine how they could do that.) It was just awful nice bread and she sold all that was in the basket each day.

There were two passenger trains through Garden Grove each day - one going east and one going west. There was a man that lived in Garden Grove. He had a hotel and kept boarders and roomers. He also had a livery stable and he had a bus and would meet all the trains and bring the people that got off the trains to town. Lots of them were traveling men. They'd sell things to the merchants and take orders for more, etc. They would stay one night at the hotel, and then catch the train out the next day and go on to the next town to do their business. The bus driver also brought the bread basket to Mother's cafe and picked up the empty basket to go back to the bakery. That bread wasn't wrapped in plastic like our bread today; so many times I have thought about that bread being shipped and handled "raw," I would call it. Now figure for yourself.

When Mother sold the cafe later on, we moved back to LeRoy and lived on a farm east of LeRoy 1 1/2 miles, and then later on the folks retired from the farm and built a new house in LeRoy and moved there. I went to school there as well as my brothers and sisters.

I grew up and was schooled in Decatur County and we had nice neighbors and friends there. LeRoy, Iowa was quite a nice town one time. There was a depot and stockyards there and there were two passenger trains through there each day- one going west and one going east. There were two freights each day, too, and sometimes more. The farmers raised quite a few hogs then and they brought them to the stock yards there at LeRoy. There were shipped by freight to Ottumwa, Iowa. When some farmer had a bunch of hogs ready to ship, if he lived 1 1/2 or maybe two miles from LeRoy, he would get up at 4:00 a.m. and he would have maybe two of his neighbors help him. They would drive the hogs along the road to the stockyards early to get them there before the sun got hot, as the fat hogs could not stand to travel far in the heat. They were loaded in stock cars and shipped the same day sometimes. When they could drive them along the road to town it was better than to have to load them in the wagons and bring them in. They were hard to get into the wagons.

LeRoy, when new, had the stock yards, one creamery, a lumber yard, hardware store, one hotel where they kept roomers and boarders, a barber shop, two general stores, one bank, a millinery and dressmaking shop, one drug store, a barber shop, a blacksmith shop, one Methodist Church and one Presbyterian Church, an elevator where they bought all kinds of grain and sold coal, too, in later years. A man lived there in town that bought and sold horses. This was all in the horse and buggy days. Everything was dirt roads then.

The farmers milked quite a few cows and would get their milk in a large milk can and set it by the road in front of their farms, and a man would come along in a wagon and pick up the milk and take it to the creamery at LeRoy. I think after the creamery separated the milk, it was shipped to Ottumwa by freight or express. Now LeRoy is just like all the other small towns - they are all gone. People just had to leave and go somewhere where they could find work. All the old people I knew and grew up with are about all gone. At times I can hardly believe all those people are gone. I think it's best if we only have one life to live. I wouldn't want to live any of my life over. There was too much hard work and hard times.

I can remember real well when Thomas Edison invented the electric lights and what an excitement it was when they put that news in the papers. Now it was the same way when Henry Ford invented the Ford cars, and look what they both are today. We just could hardly do without either one. Young men were just so excited about getting those cars started so they could have one. I remember all the young men older than I was, they all began to drift to Detroit, Michigan, and Dearborn, Michigan, where the cars would be made, as that country was where the steel and iron (came from that those cars) would be made of. The men wanted to work in those factories. Now that was a long time ago.

Those first cars got stuck in the mud many a-time and at first they had to be cranked by hand. Sometimes men broke their arms trying to start them. What a joy when they finally got batteries to start them. What would we do without cars now???

This will be some of the history of Osceola, Iowa as I can remember it when I was a small girl. I remember coming to Osceola and at that time they still had the old courthouse and it was a beautiful building. I know the people of Osceola were proud of the courthouse and it had that lovely old clock on the top of it and I could hear the clock strike at that time, and always when the clock would strike, people on the street would stop to listen. If I remember right, it would strike the hour and half-hour. People did enjoy it so much.

After they tore the old court house down, I have often wondered what they ever did with that clock, but when they didn't use it anymore, people missed it so much, and then the Clarke County Bank decided to put up the clock and sign in front of their bank. I know shoppers and visitors enjoy their sign.

I can remember when they started the Clarke County Bank. Ralph McGee and, I believe a fellow by the name of Julian Frost started it in 1935. They started it first in the building on the northeast comer of the square. I think Mr. Frost had been with the bank at Leon, Iowa, and decided to change. Mr. Ralph McGee was superintendent of the schools in Leon. Ralph and his wife had both been going to Simpson College at Indianola, and both graduated at the same time, I think. Ralph got a job at the schools in Leon and that (was) where he met Frost. They got together and started the bank. They decided to move it down where the old Simmons bank was before it went bankrupt as that building had the vault left and they wanted that. That's the "Clarke County Bank" today, 1989.

After McGee and Frost started the bank, some other Osceola citizens bought some shares and it seemed to prosper and go right well. Both Mr. McGee and Mr. Frost are dead now. I think just before McGee died, Richard A. Robinson bought the controlling interest and today, Mar. 22, 1989, it is still the Robinson Estate. Robinson willed it to his son Craig, as long as Craig lives, then at his death it will be divided some other way.

Quite a few years back there was a spur railroad from Des Moines to Osceola. I believe the railroad belonged to the Rock Island at Des Moines. It ran through Osceola just east of the Osceola Sentinel and Tribune paper's building. It went on south through Leslie and Van Wert, on south into Missouri somewhere - I think maybe St. Joe, Missouri. Then it met a railroad going east and west at Van Wert. If you wanted to go to Weldon or LeRoy, you got on the Passenger at Osceola, then you had to change at Van Wert to go on to Weldon, LeRoy, and on into Humeston. That was the only way to get to those places unless you went by horse and buggy.

Those towns loved to have those trains go through their towns. There were two passenger trains through each day, one going west and one going east. The spur railroad from Des Moines came through every day. It carried mail to Osceola and then on south. The old depot sat right north of where the Fareway Grocery is today - right on the comer of the alley where the railroad went through, and Jefferson Street. Later, the Burlington Railroad built their depot where it is now, and the Talbot Grain Elevator bought or rented the old depot and bought feed and grain, and they also sold coal. Talbots also had an elevator branch office at LeRoy when we lived there. They bought a lot of feed and grain from the farmers around there. The Talbots were pretty wealthy people (at) one time. Their home here in Osceola was that large two-story house right north of where Nelson Fry lives now. I believe the land right south of Nelson Fry was the old Talbot ten acres Clarke County bought to build the Clarke County Hospital. I think that was a nice location for the hospital

Dr. Sells had a clinic hospital on the east side of the square quite a time ago. It was upstairs in the high brick building on the northeast corner of the square. Dr. Sells owned that building and he also had his hospital up there. He was a good doctor and his hospital was full all the time, but it wasn't a very good place for a hospital as it was so noisy, and there were so many steps to get up there. Later on Dr. Stroy joined with Dr. Sells. Stroy was with Dr. Sells for several years, and Dr. Shively had a hospital in the building right north of Dr. Harkens' hospital Dr. Shively wanted to retire, so Dr. Stroy bought his place and Stroy ran a hospital in that place until he died. That building sat vacant for a few years, and then Querry's garage bought it and tore the old building down, and now has a used car lot there. The building was too old and not fit for a hospital any more. Then later Dr. Harken died and now Clarke County is all the hospital we have.

We have a few nursing hospitals now. We have so many older people living in Osceola. I like Osceola and I like to live here. We have some awful nice people living in Osceola. I don't believe there are hardly any of the older settlers living here any more - they are all gone. The store buildings uptown have been built so long they are too small for the stores today. I have heard this old brick building south of me is where they used to keep slaves that were trying to escape from the plantations of the south.

The Life of Esta's Brother, a Cowboy

What I am going to write now took place, I think, about 83 years ago now. There were two wealthy men from England came over to Sheridan, Wyoming and bought ranches out above Big Horn, Wyoming, about 10 or 12 miles southwest of Sheridan at the foothills of Big Horn mountains. Those ranches are still there today. The men's names were William Moncrieff and Oliver Wallop. They came over to Wyoming because they wanted to find plenty of room as they wanted to raise horses and also cattle. They both built large houses and fenced some of their ranches in, built strong corrals so they could run in some of those wild horses that are running loose in Wyoming. They also built bunkhouses to have for the cowboys they would have to hire to help gather up the wild horses and run them into their corrals so they could saddle and bridle them up and break them to ride.

Now, as you would know, that was quite a task to get the horses together and get them into the corrals. Now I know this first hand, as one of my older brothers was one of the cowboys that was working for William Moncrieff and has told me how they did some of that work. It was tough work as those horses knew nothing only running wild all their lives. When they got them in the corral, they would pick one out of the bunch and get a halter on it, first so they could hold it till they could get a bridle on, which took some work, indeed, for the horse would be so scared. He just didn't know what they were doing to him. They would hold tight to the horse's mane to keep from falling as the horse would stomp them with their front feet if they fell. One would hold the halter and maybe there would be two or three others trying to get bridle and a saddle on. The noise of bridle and saddle would scare the horse. Sometimes they would throw a saddle blanket over the horses head so it could not see them throwing the saddle blanket and saddle over the horse's back, then they had to try to reach the strap that comes under the belly, that holds the saddle on. It was a job as they had to be near the horse's neck and head and not near its heels when they tightened that cinch. The horse hated that tight strap fastened.

When they'd finally get it saddled and ready to go, one boy would get on, they would open the corral gate enough to let him out and of course the cowboy would try to hang on and guide the horse. That horse would begin to pitch, jump up in the air and turn around trying to pitch his rider and the stuff on his back. If the boy couldn't stop the horse, he would just hang on and let it run itself down. Then some of the other boys would ride out to help him get the horse back to the corral. When they did, they would unsaddle it and catch another one and saddle it up, and do the same thing again only another boy would ride this one out. That was the way they broke these wild horses to ride. Then next day they would saddle these same horses up and give them another lesson till they got them broke. When they got them broke Mr. Moncrieff shipped them back to England and they used them for the English army.

When Mr. Moncrieff first came over to Wyoming, he brought a stud with him as he wanted to raise horses, too. He also raised lots of cattle when he came to Wyoming. They brought their help with them - cooks, maids and such. They built their large house to live in. It had a large basement and they had a large dining room down there where they fed cowboys and other ranch help. They never ate up at the main dining room. The cowboys and ranch help lined up and slept in the bunkhouse. They had to make their own beds and clean the bunkhouse themselves, but the boys had fun, too. Today Mr. Moncrieff’s ranch still raises lots of cattle but I don't know who owns it now, as Mr. Moncrieff has been dead for quite a few years, and so has Oliver Wallop, but Oliver Wallop's son lives on his ranch and I think he raises lots of cattle too today. Malcolm Wallop, the son, is a United States Senator from Wyoming from Sheridan County, Wyoming and when the Senate isn't in session, he goes back to Sheridan and lives on his ranch. Malcolm has a daughter. I don't know if he had any other children or not. His daughter married a fellow that takes care of Queen Elizabeth's horses in England.

About three years ago now, Queen Elizabeth had a horse running in the Kentucky derby. Elizabeth wanted to see it run, so she came over with her horse, too. Her horse won the race. While she was here, she wanted to visit Malcolm Wallop's ranch as probably she has heard of those ranches shipping horses to England for the Army, and then Malcolm Wallop's daughter was home on the ranch at that time. I assume she came over with her husband when he brought the horse over to Kentucky to run. Well, Elizabeth did come to Sheridan to visit the ranches. While she was there, the cars were so thick on the roads, and the school buses had to get the children to school and back home, the superintendent of schools said, "I expect we better close schools while Elizabeth is here." The sheriff of Sheridan County said, ''No, we will not close the schools at all. We have had other important visitors and we will treat her just like the others." And that was just the way she wanted it. She was just as plain and common as could be and the people of Sheridan treated her just wonderful They were so happy to have her while she was at Sheridan. She wanted to visit a store down in Sheridan where they made saddles and bridles as she rides lots at home. I have been at that saddle shop when I used to live in Sheridan and they make beautiful saddles and other leather things there, and when I was in there they had Charley Russell’s and Bill Galling's oil paintings hanging on the walls. They were beautiful.

Well, while Elizabeth was in that shop, she bought a saddle and bridle to take home with her. While she was in the shop, the owner of the shop gave her the best rod and fishing reel he had in the store and told her to take it home to Phillip, her husband. She said, "Oh! Thank you! He will be so pleased for he loves to fish." While Elizabeth was at Sheridan, Sally Jones sent me the Sheridan papers telling about the visit. It was quite a special time for them.

Sheridan is a nice town and a nice place to live. It is an old Pioneer Town. There is an old Trapper's cabin still there in Sheridan. It is made of logs and a sod roof. The people keep it up just like he left it. They want to keep it always.

Sheridan has wonderful water. There is a river on top of the Big Horn Mountains. Sheridan built a dam in that river and the river runs through that dam and they have lots of snow in the mountains. On "Pike's Peak" there is snow there that never melts all summer. Their water is nothing but snow melt and rain water when it rains. They have the water piped down to Sheridan and they don't have to have any chemicals to purify it. It runs through silting basins and some way that takes the dirt out of it. They have an awful good force. It comes so strong you can throw water clear over your house. It is good drinking water, soft and nice.