Recipes for Living Mae McPherson

MAE MCPHERSON

Interviewed by Janice Nannen in 1970

In November 1882, A.C. Rarick surveyed and plotted the town of Leslie. The land was deeded by Edin Yates and his wife Fern on October 29, 1884. These are the personal memories and recollections by a gracious lady, Mae McPherson of Osceola, who spent many years in Leslie:

My father came to Iowa in 1892. He loaded his possessions at Burlington in that state on the Rock Island Railroad in two big cars, to land in Leslie on the narrow gauge road. They had to transfer at Des Moines and his stock and machinery were loaded into narrow gauge cars of five, which landed in Leslie.

It was a little town with a depot, a store, and a blacksmith shop. Leslie was the man who first worked in the depot so that is why the town was named after him. Green Bay was on the same railroad three miles away. They wanted the depot and got it for awhile. That was before my father moved here. But Leslie got the depot back and that was where we got our mail.

My father had bought land two miles east of Leslie, so I rode my pony to get our mail there once a week. A.D. Seay owned the first store in Leslie, and he built the first store, his home, and the blacksmith shop. In 1891, he gave land for the church to be built there.

Leslie was growing and the stockyard was a busy place, as many cattle and hogs were driven in to be weighed and shipped out of there.

My father came here to buy cheaper land as the land was too high there to buy more land so he bought more land here when he came to Iowa. Every farm had a big orchard and there were a lot of apples shipped out of Leslie. My father had two big orchards on the farm he bought and we picked apples by the wagon-load and there were so many farmers that had the big orchards.

Many people had come here before that time. Before we came the family of the Thurlows had come in 1860, and the Yates had come before that time. They had set out a big grove of 20 acres, and a park sometimes, west of Leslie.

The church in Leslie was a nice place to go. They had Sunday school every Sunday, preaching every two weeks and a protracted meeting once a year for two weeks. There were many families I have known who went there: the Johnsons, the Lewises, the Wilsons and the Gardners.

The blacksmith shop was a busy place where the farmers brought in their plows and disks to be sharpened and the horses to be shod. D. M. McPherson; was the blacksmith at that time.

The narrow gauge railroad sold out to Burlington road and many Mexicans moved in and lived in their tent to widen the tracks. They had a boss and an interpreter, and I guess they ran him out of town. My husband, David, had to take him out. They were going to kill him. He was the interpreter and told them how to do their job and they didn't like it. It was a big day when they ran somebody out of town.

Leslie was on the Burlington Route now and the depot changed hands. Pearl Yates was the agent at the depot. A big store moved in there and Billy Warren from Weldon built it and built himself a house. He moved there, and set trees around to make it look like a town.

(Another man) put him in the store that was once a granary and built him an ice house. The farmers all helped to fill it with ice and everybody was happy because they had all the ice they could get. They took it from the ponds around town.

In 1908, I was married and moved into Leslie. I married D. M. McPherson, the blacksmith of Leslie, and lived there many years. I sent my children to school and to Sunday school. They grew up there. Leslie was growing and more houses were moved in and another big store had been built. Billie (Bohrn ?) built that store and he was also the International Harvester Dealer there for a few years. After he gave up that store and moved back to the farm, Verne Anderson moved into the store, and his father-in-law, Mr. Townsend, from Davis City thought Leslie might make a bank if he could move in a big safe. There was a big time in Leslie when that big safe was moved in on flat cars and set in the store to have a bank in Leslie. Everyone was excited over the new event. Leslie was growing.

A man came from Illinois and thought he could put in a chicken-picking plant at Leslie. So with a friend helping him, they moved in a big building and hired many men to pick chickens that were shipped out from there. They hired a lot of people. For a couple years everything went well but the refrigeration on the cars wasn't satisfactory and the poultry spoiled, so that was the end of that story. The building burned down.

My children finished the 8th grade in Leslie school. To go to high school, they had to furnish their own transportation because there were no school buses at that time. So their father fixed up a truck and Elywn, my son, drove this little pick-up and picked up seven children to take to high school in Osceola for two years. After that their father died, so we moved to Osceola and the children finished school there and graduated.

The railroad was taken up that year, too. Leslie had died. The depot was moved out, the stores were moved out and everybody moved out of Leslie but two old ladies. They still lived there and were told that the highway was going right down through the middle of town so that is the last I know of Leslie, except the wind was still blowing through the cottonwood trees.

Maxine was my oldest child. She married Warren Kimball, who had the International Harvester company in Murray. My son ran the International Harvester company in Osceola. Eileen was married to Wendell Smith. Eileen and Elywn were twins and grew up together. Eileen and Wendell, her husband, moved to Lamoni and ran the International Harvester company in Lamoni.