Part 2
Last time Nellie Stanton shared her early life on her Dad’s farm just southwest of Cornelia in Harrison Township.
She noted that she lived a mile and one-half from Center School. We can estimate the location of her home, as School No. 6 was located east of the Cornelia Church where County Road O turns north.
Today she tells us of “the blow [that] fell that blighted my entire life and put an end to all childish joys and I began my life of pain and disappointments.”
“My Life Story: Nellie Stanton” CONT.
“It is 31 years (c.1897) since that dreadful day but I remember it as yesterday. It was a bright, beautiful day on Monday, the last day of August. Father and mother were obliged to go to Platteville to make some purchases, as they were to have the threshers the following day. In those days of horsepower threshing machine we usually had them with us a week and mother never had any help only one of the neighbor ladies would come and assist her serve dinner, so those occasions called for considerable preparation. Mother was a great home woman. She never went leaving us children at home, but this time it was necessary to leave all but the baby at home. My two eldest brothers, Ernest and Eldridge, were working at the barns, the next younger, Warren and Norman, were squeezing apples to make cider vinegar. We had a large orchard and many apples going to waste, so we used them in this way, thus supplying our own vinegar. I was to get dinner for my four brothers.
“Father and mother had not been gone long when two neighbor boys came into our yard with a 32 rifle. They were going hunting, but finding our parents were away they made themselves at home, helping themselves to fruit and cider. About eleven a.m. Warner and Norman went to carry apple squeezings to the barn. The eldest neighbor boy, who was 13 years of age, went into the house, thus leaving the other one, Victor, who was 9 years old and myself in the yard alone. He was handling the gun and boasting how he could shoot. I started to run into the house and just as I reached the door, just 18 steps from him, he shot me.
“The ball passed in at the back and clear through my body coming out in front. It cut the spine which paralyzed my lower limbs. I fell instantly and have never walked a step since. The ball that passed through my body was afterwards found lodged in the side of the house. When Victor saw what he had done he called my brothers and think of the horror for those poor brothers when they saw their only little sister lying bleeding and dying as they then thought.
“What was to be done? Father and mother were away and we had no telephone to summon a doctor. So Ernest, the eldest, must ride a horse to Platteville which was nine miles distant, to summon a doctor and take the sad news to our parents. After he had carried me into the house and made me as comfortable as he could, he started with all possible speed with his sad message. The milk hauler who had a milk route to Cornelia came along shortly after the accident and he spread the news among the neighbors and the house was soon filled with sympathetic friends, but none were able to help the suffering child.
“It seemed numberless hours to me until doctor and mother came. Ernest met our parents just starting from town. They knew as soon as they saw him that something terrible had happened, he was as pale as death, with blood upon his face. But when they were told the awful news it was worse than they thought.
“It was almost a death blow to mother to learn that her little Nellie was shot through the body, and they expected me to die before they could reach home. Think of the agony and suspense for that dear mother during that long journey home with their slow plodding farm horses. I knew them when they came and was able to talk with a slow painful speech. My speech was almost paralyzed as was my entire body for a time.”
To be continued
Last time Nellie Stanton shared her early life on her Dad’s farm just southwest of Cornelia in Harrison Township.
She noted that she lived a mile and one-half from Center School. We can estimate the location of her home, as School No. 6 was located east of the Cornelia Church where County Road O turns north.
Today she tells us of “the blow [that] fell that blighted my entire life and put an end to all childish joys and I began my life of pain and disappointments.”
“My Life Story: Nellie Stanton” CONT.
“It is 31 years (c.1897) since that dreadful day but I remember it as yesterday. It was a bright, beautiful day on Monday, the last day of August. Father and mother were obliged to go to Platteville to make some purchases, as they were to have the threshers the following day. In those days of horsepower threshing machine we usually had them with us a week and mother never had any help only one of the neighbor ladies would come and assist her serve dinner, so those occasions called for considerable preparation. Mother was a great home woman. She never went leaving us children at home, but this time it was necessary to leave all but the baby at home. My two eldest brothers, Ernest and Eldridge, were working at the barns, the next younger, Warren and Norman, were squeezing apples to make cider vinegar. We had a large orchard and many apples going to waste, so we used them in this way, thus supplying our own vinegar. I was to get dinner for my four brothers.
“Father and mother had not been gone long when two neighbor boys came into our yard with a 32 rifle. They were going hunting, but finding our parents were away they made themselves at home, helping themselves to fruit and cider. About eleven a.m. Warner and Norman went to carry apple squeezings to the barn. The eldest neighbor boy, who was 13 years of age, went into the house, thus leaving the other one, Victor, who was 9 years old and myself in the yard alone. He was handling the gun and boasting how he could shoot. I started to run into the house and just as I reached the door, just 18 steps from him, he shot me.
“The ball passed in at the back and clear through my body coming out in front. It cut the spine which paralyzed my lower limbs. I fell instantly and have never walked a step since. The ball that passed through my body was afterwards found lodged in the side of the house. When Victor saw what he had done he called my brothers and think of the horror for those poor brothers when they saw their only little sister lying bleeding and dying as they then thought.
“What was to be done? Father and mother were away and we had no telephone to summon a doctor. So Ernest, the eldest, must ride a horse to Platteville which was nine miles distant, to summon a doctor and take the sad news to our parents. After he had carried me into the house and made me as comfortable as he could, he started with all possible speed with his sad message. The milk hauler who had a milk route to Cornelia came along shortly after the accident and he spread the news among the neighbors and the house was soon filled with sympathetic friends, but none were able to help the suffering child.
“It seemed numberless hours to me until doctor and mother came. Ernest met our parents just starting from town. They knew as soon as they saw him that something terrible had happened, he was as pale as death, with blood upon his face. But when they were told the awful news it was worse than they thought.
“It was almost a death blow to mother to learn that her little Nellie was shot through the body, and they expected me to die before they could reach home. Think of the agony and suspense for that dear mother during that long journey home with their slow plodding farm horses. I knew them when they came and was able to talk with a slow painful speech. My speech was almost paralyzed as was my entire body for a time.”
To be continued
