My Grandma Matheny was an amazing woman. Of course, I didn't realize this until I was a grown woman raising a family of my own. When I was a child, she was just Grandma, a sweet little old lady who lived on a farm in northern Minnesota and who loved me, her granddaughter.
Rachel Alzora Olmstead was born September 8, 1870 in Jackson County, Indiana to Alonzo Olmstead and Rebecca Welch Olmstead. As a young girl, Allie, as she was known all her life, moved with her family from Indiana to Minnesota, traveling in a covered wagon. The family settled in Eden Lake Township in Meeker County where her father farmed for a living. In the late 1890's, Allie met Clifford Alton Matheny, who was working as a farm hand, and on December 1, 1897 they were married at Darwin in Meeker County. After their marriage, Cliff and Allie settled on a rented farm north of Eden Valley where their first four children were born; Lois in 1898, Ronald in 1900 and their first set of twins, Veda and Vera in 1902.
In the early 1900's, Cliff heard the rumors of the vast pine forests in northern Minnesota, near Bemidji and Blackduck, and of opportunities for settlers to open new farm lands and do logging. He decided that he could make a better living for his family there, so he, his brother Harley, his brother-in-law Lester Kirkpatrick and Lester's brother Alva, made the journey in a mule drawn bobsled they had made for hauling supplies and to sleep in while traveling. There were no main roads as such at that time, so they followed Indian trails, logging roads or made their own trails, and crossed Leech Lake on the ice. Cliff worked loading timber onto railroad flatcars the rest of that winter, and in the spring, after building a barn on the land he was homesteading near Blackduck, he returned south by train to get household goods, farm equipment and cattle to bring north. Allie and the children joined him later after Cliff had built a log house on his property, and they all moved to their new home in 1904. It was there that their children, Clarice, in 1908, Bruce in 1910 and my Dad, Ralph, in 1911, were born. In 1906, Allie traveled back to Meeker County by train for the birth of their second set of twins, Keith and Kenneth. Cliff and Allie were to live on this land the rest of their lives.
Some time after 1911, a larger house was built for the family. Dad told me that the new house was built right around the old log house, tearing down the old house as the new one went up. It is this house that I remember from when I was a child. I never knew my Grandpa Matheny, as he died 10 years before I was born, but I have vivid memories of Grandma and her farm home, where my family would go to visit as often as was possible.
Life in Grandma's house seemed to center on her kitchen. It was a large room and the first one we came into when entering her home. There was no running water, and water was hauled in buckets from a hand pump located outside near the door. There was a small stool by the back door that held a white enamel bucket and a dipper. It was kept full of fresh water from the pump, and if I wanted a drink, I just dipped water from the bucket and drank from the dipper. People must have been tougher then, not worrying about germs as we do now. I don't recall hearing of anyone getting sick from sharing the water dipper. That was the best tasting water I have had, before or since.
On one wall sat a huge black cast iron wood burning cook stove. One side of the stove held a firebox where wood was burned to heat the stove. The rest of the top was flat and kettles were put there for cooking. There was a large oven that Grandma used for baking and roasting. She didn't go to the store for bread, but made her own, baking many loaves each week to feed her family of nine children. Dad told me that on cold winter mornings, he would get up early, coming downstairs to the kitchen, and usually finding his mother sitting on the open, heavy oven door warming herself while the stove heated up for cooking breakfast. He said that it was his habit as a small boy, to crawl up into her lap and sit there with her in the warmth of the kitchen. He said that he continued to sit with her even, in his words, when he was probably too big a boy to be sitting in her lap. I can understand his reluctance to give up this practice, for, as just a wee girl, I remember sneaking downstairs and finding Grandma, still in her robe and slippers, her hair in a long braid down her back, sitting on the oven door. Sitting there on her lap gave me a feeling of being loved that has never been equaled.
One summer when I lived in northern Minnesota, I took some blueberries that I had picked over to Dad and Mom's house near Funkley. We were talking about the blueberries that I had already canned that summer, and Dad said that he bet it was easier for me than for his family. When he was a boy, his Dad and brothers would load the heavy kitchen stove onto a wagon, along with wooden boxes full of canning jars and all of the equipment needed for canning. Then the family would go to a huge blueberry patch they knew of about a day's drive away in a horse drawn wagon, where they would set up camp and pick blueberries. His mother would fire up the stove, and can the blueberries right there in the wagon bed. They camped out and picked blueberries until she had enough canned to last the winter.
On the other side of the kitchen was an icebox. It was about the size of a small refrigerator, made of wood, with a large door on top and a smaller door on the bottom. The inside was lined with tin, and the top held food to be kept cold, while the bottom held blocks of ice to keep the icebox cold. Dad told me that in the winter, his Dad would hitch up a team of horses to a hay wagon, and he and his Dad and brothers would drive the team over to North Twin Lake. There, they would chop a hole in the ice and, using saws, would saw through the ice, making large blocks of ice. These were loaded onto the wagon, and when the wagon was full, they would drive the team back to the farm and unload the ice blocks, stacking them in a root cellar dug into the side of a small hill near the house, packing straw around them to keep them from thawing out when the weather turned warm. They cut enough blocks of ice to last until the following winter. When a block of ice in the icebox would thaw, they would drain the water, go out to the root cellar and bring in another block of ice.
Grandma kept a large vegetable garden, growing and canning the vegetables to feed her family. I think this was when Dad learned to enjoy gardening. He said that his Mother taught him a love of growing things, which he passed on to me. That, and the fact that this was time he could spend with his Mother made a chore enjoyable.
I remember Grandma Matheny as a quiet woman. I don't think I ever heard her raise her voice, although I am sure that she must have at one time or another while raising a family of nine children. The entire clan would gather at her home now and then for an occasion like Christmas or her birthday, and she would sit, quietly smiling at the antics of her grown children and grandchildren. There was always love and laughter at these times, and her children were prone to teasing and joking with each other. My memories of her are of an old woman, and thinking about it, I guess she was well into her seventies when I was born. She was a short lady who wore her long hair in a bun on top of her head, and was usually dressed in a housedress, apron and slippers. That is the picture I have in my mind when I think of her.
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Allie Matheny was an amazing woman. She raised her family on very little money, working hard to provide for their everyday needs. She sewed her daughter’s dresses, patched her son's overalls, and washed them on a washboard in a tin tub. Although when I was young, her house did have electricity, she had none of the modern conveniences. She kept chickens, hauled water, and did all of the chores required of a pioneer wife. And she did it all efficiently and without complaint. I don't think I could have coped nearly as well.
I wish I had had my Grandma longer. She died peacefully on May 16, 1955, and was laid to rest beside her husband, who died in 1936, in the Lakeview Cemetery in Blackduck, just down the hill from where my parents now rest. Even though I was only nearly 10 years old when she died, I still have many warm memories of this sweet lady who was my Grandma. And I still miss her after all these years.
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