NOTE: The following was written by Sarah (Bosserman) Rothrock at the request of her family. It is apparent that the "Holland origin" of the family is quite strong and it is little wonder that many of us have always been told that we were of Dutch ancestry. There may be several reasons for this. The third and fourth generations spoke "Pennsylvania Dutch", which is actually a peculiarly American form of German; also, the fact that our first ancestor, Michael Bosserman, settled from Rotterdam, which may have been the source of the tradition. However, Michael's listing on the ship "Hampshire" definitely shows him from Germany. The information was sent to me by cousin William "Bill" Ream. Many thanks to him.
March 9, 1923
SHORT HISTORY OF FATHER & MOTHER ROTHROCK WRITTEN BY MOTHER
I suppose would be better to go back several generations. My father's forefathers came from Holland about 200 yrs. ago and settled in Penn., at least that is where my grandparents were born. When they went to house keeping (sic) they crossed the line & settled in Ohio, and there my father was born and reared. I know very little of my mother's people but I think her folks came from Germany years ago, but Mother & Father were both reared in the same neighborhood in Stark Co. Ohio, near a little village called Louisville. After my parents were married several years, they wanted to go where land was cheaper to get them a home. They had 40 acres of their own. There was a colony of young folks got their belongings together and started west in their covered wagons traveled 150 mi. and settled down in the heart of the woods in Hancock Co. They bought government land, paid $1.50 per acre. My father and 5 of his brothers: David, Michial (sic), Jesse, Samuel, & Eleazer. Three of the Freed families: Pete, John, & Paul. Two of the Baughmans; Simon and Johnothan, and 3 of the Reams. That made up the first colony that settled together. Each had 160 acres and their farms joined. They all built log houses or cabins. My father was the only one that had a hewed log house, that is the logs were hewed off on 4 sides and than (sic) built up & the cracks daubed with plaster, while a cabin is just round logs put together and then daubed. They had a one story room built on the side of the house called a "lean to" which was the bedroom and a room over the main room which was a place for the children's bedroom. I was the 7th child of eleven children born to my parents. I was born in the log house and lived there till I was four when we moved in a large frame house that they built. So you see I was reared in the woods. Our folks cleared a piece of ground every year, & there was always a great deal of work to do to clear & roll the logs together & burn them and plow among the stumps.
My playthings (sic) were few. one thing I remember I had a little wagon that the older brothers made and whittled the wheels out with their jack knives & the doll I hauled around was a corncob with a white rag tied over one end & a face made with a lead pencil, a stick tied across for arms, then a dress, or a cloth wrapped around & I had a doll and I was a s proud & Happy, yes & I wouldn't wonder happier than the little girls now with their dolls a& buggies. The wood for the stove was all chopped & of course made chips & we children had the chips to gather every evening and after we were large enough had to keep the wood box filled with wood. The year after the house was built my parents built a large bank barn, & then there was a house built with three divisions, one for a wood house, one a wash house, and a room to smoke and keep the meat. They also built a wagon shed, hen house, & corn crib combined, and later a sheep stable built attached to the barn, also a hog house.
My father was an up to date (sic) farmer, always kept the farm in tip top (sic) shape, no broken down fences or sagging gates. The farm was one of the best kept in the neighborhood. One can be an artist in any line of work and father & mother were artists in all their work.
Mother was a good housekeeper, an excellent cook, hard working & frugal. They kept bees & we had our own honey. Then there was the sugar camp where every spring they made our sugar & Syrup. Had a fine orchard both apple and peach. How I wish I could eat some of those seedling peaches, have much better flavor than the large grafted ones of these days. Then those lucious (sic) apples one never tastes such apples these days. The western apple do not have the flavor of the eastern. Well I am getting away from my preamble. We also had a large garden where we grew all our vegetables. When we made sugar after I was old enough to help my brother next younger than I had to go through the camp and clean out the troughs after a rain, and upset them then if there was a freeze & get warmer again we had to set them up again and we often followed the men around then they gathered the sap, but the biggest fun of all was when stirring off came, when the syrup was just about ready to stir to sugar when we could eat all the sugar wax we wanted too. When the run was good the men folks would boil sap all night, the boys took the first part of the night and father the after part. My brother Daniel & I did lots of work together, there was 2 older boys than he and 4 older girls than I, & I had to help out of doors a good bit. After the logs in a clearing are burned there are always roots & pieces of wood that do not burn & it had to be gathered up & heaps made of them & that sometimes fell to our lot. The wood was charred & black & one day we got our faces black & then we blacked them all over by rubbing them on the black stumps, then went home. Mother hardly knew us, she & the girls had a good laugh but the next thing was to get soap & water and clean up.
We also worked together in the hay & harvest field, after we were older we two made a hand after the reaper, binding the wheat into sheaves.
I forgot to sy (sic) we had a washhouse down by creek that ran through our farm and there we did our washing. We also had a well that had a well sweep to draw the water. You no doubt have seen pictures of wells like that. When you pull the rope the bucket would go down in the water then the pole being heavy would go down on the ground & pull the bucket up. You know the song the "Old Oaken Bucket" the moss covered bucket that hung in the well. After we moved to the new house they dug another well by the porch and also built a milk house over the well then after I was a grown girl I skimmed milk & churned many & many a lb. of butter & No. 1 at that. They also dug cisterns after they moved in the new house. Being pioneers like my parents were was hard work, but all who have started first anywhere have had hard work whether timber land or plains. While the timber lands were to be cleared, they did not need to worry about fuel or timber to build with for all was at their command, & pleasure to be out in the woods, now memory goes back to my childhood days when I knew every tree by name the beech, hickory, walnut, & beech nuts for winter eats. Then we would dig the wild bean & crowfoot & ging sing (sic) & eat them & gather the may apple & put them in the mow till good & mellow, then when we went to school, gather moss for carpet in our play houses we made. We would gather wild flowers, & climb trees, etc. Well those were great days but gone forever.
Father raised sheep & from the wool our garments, blankets & coverlids were made. They would shear the sheep & take what was needed to the carding mill & were carded in long rolls, then brought home & spun in yarn & colored, & wove. Mother colored all the yarns with home made dye, the red was a root called madder that was grown in our garden. We dug & washed the roots, bruised them & boiled the color out & used that for red & it never faded. That coverlid you have was home dyed & that blue will never fade, but they did not weave the coverlids, had no loom for that, but the cloth for the men & dresses for us women were all spun and made by hand until we got a sewing machine and that was not until I was grown. We did all our stocking knitting yes, & all done by candle light & what we termed fat lamp, was a tin oblong vessel with a stand & closed all but on top a place to pour the melted lard & place in a cotton flannel wick. That made a better light than the candle but only used when needed as was more expensive than candles. When the civil war (sic) was on, cotton was scarce & high, then our parents grew flax & made linen cloth for towels, table cloths & for the mens (sic) trousers. Those times the men wore white shirts & after the linen was washed awhile and worn they would be white too & after a day in the new ground among the black stumps they were anything but white & were hard to wash. I was going to say too that we did not have kerosene lamps till I was a young girl.
Our people were busy folks. Father was always up by 4 in the morning & the rest had to get up too. We always milked 8 or 10 cows & they had to be milked & the chores done before breakfast when the other work began, but while we got up early we also were expected to be in bed by 9 in the evening. I was just telling the girl, Elsie, that works in the kitchen, how we used to do in our everyday work & she said they do a good deal like that in Va. yet. We got up early had early breakfast, the men went to the fields & at half past eleven had dinner. Then at one they again went out to work & worked till 5 o'clock supper. They brought the horses in & watered them then after supper they again went to the fields & the rest of us did all the chores, milking, etc. Then after the men came in & fed their horses we had an hour on the big porch which was built in on the south side of the house. There we sang & talked, ate watermelon etc. & sat on the edge of the porch & watched the stars. My brother Sam was never strong & watched the stars & nature. He pointed out two stars that are near each other in the southern heavens & called them twin sisters. If you look on a clear evening in the summer time you can find them, they are at the end of the scorpion. How vividly all this comes to my memory as I think back long years ago & yet seems almost as yesterday. When bed time came we sang a hymn knelt around the family altar in a word of prayer & then to bed to sweet sleep as only young life can realize. The reason we were talking about this in the kitchen was because I was remarking how different life was now & 60 yrs. ago. We never take time to enjoy life any more. It is rush, rush, from morning till night, yes & till way in the night before there is any let up. What I have written here did not apply to our work every day. In busy seasons we could not always have our evenings together, but we often did & when winter came we sat around the table & knit & mended etc. When we all went to school we did our washing & ironing evenings. They also had a long way to go to mill, take 2 days & a night. Time father was gone mother stayed by herself with the children who were small, no near neighbors & woods all around them. Often wolves howling around at night but mother said she was not afraid but would take her little ones & go to bed. You have heard the saying "come over & see me you will find the latchstring hanging out". That is the kind of latch they use in those days. The latch was inside & had a string tied to it, a small hole in the door & no one could get in when the string was inside, but that was hardly ever done. The string was put through the hole & left outside and any coming along could come in. I do not remember if mother pulled the string in or not when she was alone but I heard her say they never did when father was there. They had a fire place in those days & never was very dark & if anyone knocked they would just tell them to come in, no matter what time of night as they had no fear & often some one was traveling & would stop at the first place he came to. The colony that settled there had no preaching only as those who came through there on horse back & preached for them. Camplelites (sic), German Reform, Dunkards, Presbyterian & Methodists came at different times Mother was reared in the Luthern (sic) faith & father's people in The Brethren home. My grand mother was a member buy grandfather did not come to the church. In after years when grandmother came to live with us, she said grandfather found fault with some members who he thought did not live up to true Christian standard & made that for an excuse, but grandmother told him if someone put a finger in the flame of a candle & got burned was no saying that he should do the same, but one will find people these days with the same excuse. My parents joined the Brethren & were staunch members. Do not know what grandfather might have done in later years, but he met death on a R.R. Those days railroads were not plentiful & they were not so careful as now, often the train comes to a stand when they first call out the station & are not at the station yet where they get off, well grandfather went to get off & was killed. If you have never seen their pictures, that is my grandparents, go & see Aunt A. She has their pictures & don't forget to go. My parents never had their pictures taken. There was so much said against them at that time so they would not. I have often wished I might have them.
There was a long time we had no church house, but when the members built they had one large room & there is where we had our meetings in the winter time. Had benches without backs. In the summer time they were held in barns. Also the lovefeasts were held in barns. Had preaching every two weeks & held them at the different members. When it was close enough that we could walk we all went but when it was far only part went as some had to look after things at home as it took all day, & we took it turn about. Some went one Sun. & the next time the others. He had on S. Schools then & not till a good while after we had a church house. After we had a church house we always had all day lovefeasts. My father was a decon (sic) & Simon Rodabaugh a deacon & the two with their wives would take cooking utensils & bedding & stay at the church several days. There was a loft over the kitchen where they slept. We had lovefeast in the evening, then breakfast at the church & my parents & Radabaughs had to be there early to get the breakfast started. We had all day meetings & we young folks would go home before the evening meeting to do the milking & other chores, & back to church, then after church we would clean & scour & have everything spic & span & we would fill straw ticks and make beds on the floor for we always had our house filled. People from adjoining churches always made our home their stopping place. Next morn we were up bright & early & did the morning chores & all went down to the church for breakfast. Then preaching & dinner for those from a distance. If it was week day we stayed and cleaned up but if Sunday we went home and came back Mon. Our meals consisted of beef, apple butter & apple sauce, beet & cucumber pickles & coffee, & meals never tasted any better than those old fashioned lovefeast dinners. Bro Quinter, H. D. Davy, John P. Eversole, Robert H. Miller, Daniel Brower & others have been at my fathers home, how we enjoyed having them with us. Those sainted fathers that were called Dunkers, & today yet, when I want to tell something about our old Brethren I have to call them Dunkers, for I love & respect that name yet. There are so many things I want to say that I hardly know when I am thru. I did want to say about our home we had one of those outdoor bake ovens built out of brick with a roof over it. In those ovens is what we call bread when it came out of the oven. Large fine loaves & stayed moist till every crum (sic) was eaten. The flour was not all bleached & milled to death but made good wholesome bread. We only baked bread once a week & pie too. That was on Sat. We had what we called bread baskets. They were made out of twisted straw, had no handles, when the bread was ready to mould into loaves we spread a nice clean cloth in the baskets & sprinkle a little flour over & put the bread to raise in them. While the bread was raising we built fire in the bake oven, wood that was especially prepared for that. The oven had a smooth bottom built out of brick & the top was oval, also made out of brick, closed all around except a door & chimney. After the wood was all burned & in coals & laid awhile, the coals, were all raked out. Then we had a long pole with a cloth tied on the end and dipped in water then cleaned all the ashes out of the oven & put the loaves in on the hearth. We used a long handled wooden shovel & emptied the loaves that were in the baskets on that & shoved it in & gave it a little jerk & off it came. That like the apples I spoke of was so much better than bread now as the bread did not dry out, one would think bread would never raise by handling it the way we did, but we baked the finest large loaves. We had the pie all made & after the bread was in the oven 20 min. or 1/2 hour we put the pie in & all baked at once & in the fall of the year when he had apples we pealed, cored, and got them ready to dry & when the bread and pies were taken out the apples were put in on slates we had especially & were dried in that way. Our house & out buildings were still standing the last time we were back there. The barn had been struck by lightning and burned down. The ice house that was built to the milk house was torn down & the garden that led off from the yard was thrown in a field & all plowed up. The timber that all the buildings were made was taken from the farm & all were chopped down & made into logs & hauled to the saw mill to be made in the required length, width, etc. for buildings. When one thinks of the rails that had to be split & the fences built & kept & wood to be chopped & got ready for the stoves & for the fireplace, in the wash house, & wood for the bake oven & for building & all was sure a lot of work & then just as much work in house with spinning, & weaving & knitting & making clothes by hand, & piecing quilts & quilting them, beside the other work. When one compares the work that was done then & now looks as though we do not get much accomplished, but there was not so much schooling those days. No clubs, & socials & parties & no late hours. Singing & spelling bees was about all & sometimes apple coring gatherings, to boil apple butter or to dry.
Our meals too were simple not many frills, we had pie once a week, that is we baked pie once a week and they did not last very long, then when they were all, they were all, see! & cake was a very scarce article, & preserves & jellies were not very much in evidence.
Well I wonder if you re not tired by this time I think I am, altho I did not write this in one sitting you may know. When your father was 12 years old his parents & 3 Stonehill boys came to Western Ohio from Stark Co., O. The Stonehills were uncles to our father, brothers to his mother, they all settled near there, your father's parents too settled in the woods altho there had been a good bit cleared thru the neighborhood, but your father speaks of the time they began a plow among the stumps, he & his three brothers. Your father being the oldest, he had to hold the plow, one of the boys drove the oxen & one carried an ax to crop roots when the plow got fast, he says more than once the roots would break & would fly back & hit him on the shin. They settled near the place where the schoolhouse was later built. We had 1 1/2 mi. to go. Well I suppose we went to school together as all children do but I do not remember your father as a boy until we began to associate together which grew into more than friendship. There were other boys that I remember & run with as playmates & one boy always was very attentive to me & wanted to sit or play with me but I have not the slightest remembrance of your father when we went to school until we were grown. Well we went to spelling schools & singing schools & it was the custom for the young man in those days to escort the girls home even if they did not come to take them & we never rode in those days, always walked. We never thot (sic) anything of it to walk 3 mi. & back, in fall, or early winter, but in winter time every young man had a sleigh & horse & took his girl to church spelling school etc. & that is the way we went sometimes. Then there was the bob sleds. When the young men would get a sled and each take their girl and have a whole sled load, that was lots of fun. Sometimes would go 7 or 8 mi. to a spelling school and also to protracted meetings and always had several strings of sleigh bells and make lots of music. I spoke of protracted meetings, our people did not have them at that early date, but the shouting methodists (sic) did and I guess was not much to our credit for all we went for a sleigh ride and to see and hear the people shout and jump around. Your father and I only lived 2 mi. apart and attended the same church and we both received our spiritual birth. I came to the church at the age of 17 and your father at 21. Near the church is the cemetery where my parents, 3 brothers, & 2 sisters & other relatives are buried, also my grandmother & great grandmother. My great grandmother lived to be 91 years. and a few months. I remember of seeing her. I was about 8 years old. Your father's mother & grandmother are buried there, and a good many of his relatives. Your father taught school 7 winters before we were married, and did some work as carpenter of barns. He taught school the winter we were married. His school closed on Fri. He went for the license on Tues. The roads were so muddy he had to go horse back and the horse had to walk every step. It was 18 mi. to the county seat, Findlay, Ohio, and coming home there was something going on at a school house near home and he waited till they got settled so they would not see him. We were married on Thurs. following at about noon by my uncle Eleazer Bosserman about 30 guests all relatives. Had a regular old fashioned country dinner, chicken and all that goes with it. Next day we went to his father's home, a brother of his lived there, their mother had died there the winter before. They got a dinner for us. We had intended to go to Ada the next day to see a sister of his but it rained all day Sat. & Sun. We went to the Presbyterian church a mi. from my home. Our Brethren had preaching just every two weeks, and the Presbyterians every two weeks, and we had none that day. It was so muddy our folks could not get to town to buy our furniture. We stayed at Father's for several weeks then went to housekeeping on a farm my Father had bought. Had a log house on the place and there we moved. They gave us a bed & a few chairs & the old cupboard & we used a store box for a table until we could get others. I also had what people today call a "hope box" or chest but I had no box, but we all, us girls I mean, pieced quilts & made comforts & mother gave us 2 blankets, 2 comforts & a coverlet. We had no doilies, or fine embroided under waists & pillow slips etc. When my mother was a girl her mother died when she was young & she had to make her own way. She knew how to spin & girls that could spin got more per week than regular house work which was 50 cents per week & 75 cents for spinning. My mother said if a girl got married & did not have a chest full of bed clothes they were counted rather worthless. My mother had her bedding & $200 in money when she was married. I wonder how far a girl would get today, thrown on her own recourses & work at 75 cents per week. But times have changed in the last 100 yrs.
I said my father was a deacon, but was elected to the ministry, but he never preached as he did not have the ability & he knew it, but he would open the meeting or services & always led in singing, always started the hymns. My father loved music so well. There were so many young people in our church when I was young & we had good singing. At lovefeasts after dinner Father would get out among the young folks and get them to sing, and we did sing. Always at the lovefeast the adjoining churches would attend & there were so many young people in all our churches & that made quite a crows. Our church was called & is yet "Eagle Creek" & when you read in the messenger & see church items from there you can think that is the place your parents were reared & lived there, & if you folks ever go to Penn. make it a point to stop at Ada, Ohio, where your Father's people live & visit them & have them take you to New Stark & go to the church altho the old church has been torn down & a brick one stands where the old one did.
After the eastern colony had to have a post office & as they all had come from Stark Co. they named it New Stark & goes by that name yet.
Your Father's grandparents & two of his uncles also came to western Ohio. His Grandpa was a large man weighted 280 lbs & was six feet tall in his stocking feet. The children too were good sized and the Stonehills were large, do not see where Pa got his small stature. His brothers are all large. People often ask us if we are related to Edgar Rothrock. All we know is that all the Rothrocks we know came from the same family tree.. Do not know how long ago one of the Rothrocks settled in one of the Carolinas & Edgar's people are from that stock, while your father traces his people from Penn. Edgar's father told Pa that there were two brothers came over at the same time & one settled in the south & the other in Penn.
P.S. I did not say anything about your father coming to spend evenings with me. Yes, every two weeks on Sat. eve we spent together alone, but not till 12 & 2 like some do now. He also worked some for my father & therefore were somewhat thrown together besides other times I mentioned."
Written by Sarah Bosserman Rothrock and contributed by her great-granddaughter, Karen Yoder Okeson
March 9, 1923
SHORT HISTORY OF FATHER & MOTHER ROTHROCK WRITTEN BY MOTHER
I suppose would be better to go back several generations. My father's forefathers came from Holland about 200 yrs. ago and settled in Penn., at least that is where my grandparents were born. When they went to house keeping (sic) they crossed the line & settled in Ohio, and there my father was born and reared. I know very little of my mother's people but I think her folks came from Germany years ago, but Mother & Father were both reared in the same neighborhood in Stark Co. Ohio, near a little village called Louisville. After my parents were married several years, they wanted to go where land was cheaper to get them a home. They had 40 acres of their own. There was a colony of young folks got their belongings together and started west in their covered wagons traveled 150 mi. and settled down in the heart of the woods in Hancock Co. They bought government land, paid $1.50 per acre. My father and 5 of his brothers: David, Michial (sic), Jesse, Samuel, & Eleazer. Three of the Freed families: Pete, John, & Paul. Two of the Baughmans; Simon and Johnothan, and 3 of the Reams. That made up the first colony that settled together. Each had 160 acres and their farms joined. They all built log houses or cabins. My father was the only one that had a hewed log house, that is the logs were hewed off on 4 sides and than (sic) built up & the cracks daubed with plaster, while a cabin is just round logs put together and then daubed. They had a one story room built on the side of the house called a "lean to" which was the bedroom and a room over the main room which was a place for the children's bedroom. I was the 7th child of eleven children born to my parents. I was born in the log house and lived there till I was four when we moved in a large frame house that they built. So you see I was reared in the woods. Our folks cleared a piece of ground every year, & there was always a great deal of work to do to clear & roll the logs together & burn them and plow among the stumps.
My playthings (sic) were few. one thing I remember I had a little wagon that the older brothers made and whittled the wheels out with their jack knives & the doll I hauled around was a corncob with a white rag tied over one end & a face made with a lead pencil, a stick tied across for arms, then a dress, or a cloth wrapped around & I had a doll and I was a s proud & Happy, yes & I wouldn't wonder happier than the little girls now with their dolls a& buggies. The wood for the stove was all chopped & of course made chips & we children had the chips to gather every evening and after we were large enough had to keep the wood box filled with wood. The year after the house was built my parents built a large bank barn, & then there was a house built with three divisions, one for a wood house, one a wash house, and a room to smoke and keep the meat. They also built a wagon shed, hen house, & corn crib combined, and later a sheep stable built attached to the barn, also a hog house.
My father was an up to date (sic) farmer, always kept the farm in tip top (sic) shape, no broken down fences or sagging gates. The farm was one of the best kept in the neighborhood. One can be an artist in any line of work and father & mother were artists in all their work.
Mother was a good housekeeper, an excellent cook, hard working & frugal. They kept bees & we had our own honey. Then there was the sugar camp where every spring they made our sugar & Syrup. Had a fine orchard both apple and peach. How I wish I could eat some of those seedling peaches, have much better flavor than the large grafted ones of these days. Then those lucious (sic) apples one never tastes such apples these days. The western apple do not have the flavor of the eastern. Well I am getting away from my preamble. We also had a large garden where we grew all our vegetables. When we made sugar after I was old enough to help my brother next younger than I had to go through the camp and clean out the troughs after a rain, and upset them then if there was a freeze & get warmer again we had to set them up again and we often followed the men around then they gathered the sap, but the biggest fun of all was when stirring off came, when the syrup was just about ready to stir to sugar when we could eat all the sugar wax we wanted too. When the run was good the men folks would boil sap all night, the boys took the first part of the night and father the after part. My brother Daniel & I did lots of work together, there was 2 older boys than he and 4 older girls than I, & I had to help out of doors a good bit. After the logs in a clearing are burned there are always roots & pieces of wood that do not burn & it had to be gathered up & heaps made of them & that sometimes fell to our lot. The wood was charred & black & one day we got our faces black & then we blacked them all over by rubbing them on the black stumps, then went home. Mother hardly knew us, she & the girls had a good laugh but the next thing was to get soap & water and clean up.
We also worked together in the hay & harvest field, after we were older we two made a hand after the reaper, binding the wheat into sheaves.
I forgot to sy (sic) we had a washhouse down by creek that ran through our farm and there we did our washing. We also had a well that had a well sweep to draw the water. You no doubt have seen pictures of wells like that. When you pull the rope the bucket would go down in the water then the pole being heavy would go down on the ground & pull the bucket up. You know the song the "Old Oaken Bucket" the moss covered bucket that hung in the well. After we moved to the new house they dug another well by the porch and also built a milk house over the well then after I was a grown girl I skimmed milk & churned many & many a lb. of butter & No. 1 at that. They also dug cisterns after they moved in the new house. Being pioneers like my parents were was hard work, but all who have started first anywhere have had hard work whether timber land or plains. While the timber lands were to be cleared, they did not need to worry about fuel or timber to build with for all was at their command, & pleasure to be out in the woods, now memory goes back to my childhood days when I knew every tree by name the beech, hickory, walnut, & beech nuts for winter eats. Then we would dig the wild bean & crowfoot & ging sing (sic) & eat them & gather the may apple & put them in the mow till good & mellow, then when we went to school, gather moss for carpet in our play houses we made. We would gather wild flowers, & climb trees, etc. Well those were great days but gone forever.
Father raised sheep & from the wool our garments, blankets & coverlids were made. They would shear the sheep & take what was needed to the carding mill & were carded in long rolls, then brought home & spun in yarn & colored, & wove. Mother colored all the yarns with home made dye, the red was a root called madder that was grown in our garden. We dug & washed the roots, bruised them & boiled the color out & used that for red & it never faded. That coverlid you have was home dyed & that blue will never fade, but they did not weave the coverlids, had no loom for that, but the cloth for the men & dresses for us women were all spun and made by hand until we got a sewing machine and that was not until I was grown. We did all our stocking knitting yes, & all done by candle light & what we termed fat lamp, was a tin oblong vessel with a stand & closed all but on top a place to pour the melted lard & place in a cotton flannel wick. That made a better light than the candle but only used when needed as was more expensive than candles. When the civil war (sic) was on, cotton was scarce & high, then our parents grew flax & made linen cloth for towels, table cloths & for the mens (sic) trousers. Those times the men wore white shirts & after the linen was washed awhile and worn they would be white too & after a day in the new ground among the black stumps they were anything but white & were hard to wash. I was going to say too that we did not have kerosene lamps till I was a young girl.
Our people were busy folks. Father was always up by 4 in the morning & the rest had to get up too. We always milked 8 or 10 cows & they had to be milked & the chores done before breakfast when the other work began, but while we got up early we also were expected to be in bed by 9 in the evening. I was just telling the girl, Elsie, that works in the kitchen, how we used to do in our everyday work & she said they do a good deal like that in Va. yet. We got up early had early breakfast, the men went to the fields & at half past eleven had dinner. Then at one they again went out to work & worked till 5 o'clock supper. They brought the horses in & watered them then after supper they again went to the fields & the rest of us did all the chores, milking, etc. Then after the men came in & fed their horses we had an hour on the big porch which was built in on the south side of the house. There we sang & talked, ate watermelon etc. & sat on the edge of the porch & watched the stars. My brother Sam was never strong & watched the stars & nature. He pointed out two stars that are near each other in the southern heavens & called them twin sisters. If you look on a clear evening in the summer time you can find them, they are at the end of the scorpion. How vividly all this comes to my memory as I think back long years ago & yet seems almost as yesterday. When bed time came we sang a hymn knelt around the family altar in a word of prayer & then to bed to sweet sleep as only young life can realize. The reason we were talking about this in the kitchen was because I was remarking how different life was now & 60 yrs. ago. We never take time to enjoy life any more. It is rush, rush, from morning till night, yes & till way in the night before there is any let up. What I have written here did not apply to our work every day. In busy seasons we could not always have our evenings together, but we often did & when winter came we sat around the table & knit & mended etc. When we all went to school we did our washing & ironing evenings. They also had a long way to go to mill, take 2 days & a night. Time father was gone mother stayed by herself with the children who were small, no near neighbors & woods all around them. Often wolves howling around at night but mother said she was not afraid but would take her little ones & go to bed. You have heard the saying "come over & see me you will find the latchstring hanging out". That is the kind of latch they use in those days. The latch was inside & had a string tied to it, a small hole in the door & no one could get in when the string was inside, but that was hardly ever done. The string was put through the hole & left outside and any coming along could come in. I do not remember if mother pulled the string in or not when she was alone but I heard her say they never did when father was there. They had a fire place in those days & never was very dark & if anyone knocked they would just tell them to come in, no matter what time of night as they had no fear & often some one was traveling & would stop at the first place he came to. The colony that settled there had no preaching only as those who came through there on horse back & preached for them. Camplelites (sic), German Reform, Dunkards, Presbyterian & Methodists came at different times Mother was reared in the Luthern (sic) faith & father's people in The Brethren home. My grand mother was a member buy grandfather did not come to the church. In after years when grandmother came to live with us, she said grandfather found fault with some members who he thought did not live up to true Christian standard & made that for an excuse, but grandmother told him if someone put a finger in the flame of a candle & got burned was no saying that he should do the same, but one will find people these days with the same excuse. My parents joined the Brethren & were staunch members. Do not know what grandfather might have done in later years, but he met death on a R.R. Those days railroads were not plentiful & they were not so careful as now, often the train comes to a stand when they first call out the station & are not at the station yet where they get off, well grandfather went to get off & was killed. If you have never seen their pictures, that is my grandparents, go & see Aunt A. She has their pictures & don't forget to go. My parents never had their pictures taken. There was so much said against them at that time so they would not. I have often wished I might have them.
There was a long time we had no church house, but when the members built they had one large room & there is where we had our meetings in the winter time. Had benches without backs. In the summer time they were held in barns. Also the lovefeasts were held in barns. Had preaching every two weeks & held them at the different members. When it was close enough that we could walk we all went but when it was far only part went as some had to look after things at home as it took all day, & we took it turn about. Some went one Sun. & the next time the others. He had on S. Schools then & not till a good while after we had a church house. After we had a church house we always had all day lovefeasts. My father was a decon (sic) & Simon Rodabaugh a deacon & the two with their wives would take cooking utensils & bedding & stay at the church several days. There was a loft over the kitchen where they slept. We had lovefeast in the evening, then breakfast at the church & my parents & Radabaughs had to be there early to get the breakfast started. We had all day meetings & we young folks would go home before the evening meeting to do the milking & other chores, & back to church, then after church we would clean & scour & have everything spic & span & we would fill straw ticks and make beds on the floor for we always had our house filled. People from adjoining churches always made our home their stopping place. Next morn we were up bright & early & did the morning chores & all went down to the church for breakfast. Then preaching & dinner for those from a distance. If it was week day we stayed and cleaned up but if Sunday we went home and came back Mon. Our meals consisted of beef, apple butter & apple sauce, beet & cucumber pickles & coffee, & meals never tasted any better than those old fashioned lovefeast dinners. Bro Quinter, H. D. Davy, John P. Eversole, Robert H. Miller, Daniel Brower & others have been at my fathers home, how we enjoyed having them with us. Those sainted fathers that were called Dunkers, & today yet, when I want to tell something about our old Brethren I have to call them Dunkers, for I love & respect that name yet. There are so many things I want to say that I hardly know when I am thru. I did want to say about our home we had one of those outdoor bake ovens built out of brick with a roof over it. In those ovens is what we call bread when it came out of the oven. Large fine loaves & stayed moist till every crum (sic) was eaten. The flour was not all bleached & milled to death but made good wholesome bread. We only baked bread once a week & pie too. That was on Sat. We had what we called bread baskets. They were made out of twisted straw, had no handles, when the bread was ready to mould into loaves we spread a nice clean cloth in the baskets & sprinkle a little flour over & put the bread to raise in them. While the bread was raising we built fire in the bake oven, wood that was especially prepared for that. The oven had a smooth bottom built out of brick & the top was oval, also made out of brick, closed all around except a door & chimney. After the wood was all burned & in coals & laid awhile, the coals, were all raked out. Then we had a long pole with a cloth tied on the end and dipped in water then cleaned all the ashes out of the oven & put the loaves in on the hearth. We used a long handled wooden shovel & emptied the loaves that were in the baskets on that & shoved it in & gave it a little jerk & off it came. That like the apples I spoke of was so much better than bread now as the bread did not dry out, one would think bread would never raise by handling it the way we did, but we baked the finest large loaves. We had the pie all made & after the bread was in the oven 20 min. or 1/2 hour we put the pie in & all baked at once & in the fall of the year when he had apples we pealed, cored, and got them ready to dry & when the bread and pies were taken out the apples were put in on slates we had especially & were dried in that way. Our house & out buildings were still standing the last time we were back there. The barn had been struck by lightning and burned down. The ice house that was built to the milk house was torn down & the garden that led off from the yard was thrown in a field & all plowed up. The timber that all the buildings were made was taken from the farm & all were chopped down & made into logs & hauled to the saw mill to be made in the required length, width, etc. for buildings. When one thinks of the rails that had to be split & the fences built & kept & wood to be chopped & got ready for the stoves & for the fireplace, in the wash house, & wood for the bake oven & for building & all was sure a lot of work & then just as much work in house with spinning, & weaving & knitting & making clothes by hand, & piecing quilts & quilting them, beside the other work. When one compares the work that was done then & now looks as though we do not get much accomplished, but there was not so much schooling those days. No clubs, & socials & parties & no late hours. Singing & spelling bees was about all & sometimes apple coring gatherings, to boil apple butter or to dry.
Our meals too were simple not many frills, we had pie once a week, that is we baked pie once a week and they did not last very long, then when they were all, they were all, see! & cake was a very scarce article, & preserves & jellies were not very much in evidence.
Well I wonder if you re not tired by this time I think I am, altho I did not write this in one sitting you may know. When your father was 12 years old his parents & 3 Stonehill boys came to Western Ohio from Stark Co., O. The Stonehills were uncles to our father, brothers to his mother, they all settled near there, your father's parents too settled in the woods altho there had been a good bit cleared thru the neighborhood, but your father speaks of the time they began a plow among the stumps, he & his three brothers. Your father being the oldest, he had to hold the plow, one of the boys drove the oxen & one carried an ax to crop roots when the plow got fast, he says more than once the roots would break & would fly back & hit him on the shin. They settled near the place where the schoolhouse was later built. We had 1 1/2 mi. to go. Well I suppose we went to school together as all children do but I do not remember your father as a boy until we began to associate together which grew into more than friendship. There were other boys that I remember & run with as playmates & one boy always was very attentive to me & wanted to sit or play with me but I have not the slightest remembrance of your father when we went to school until we were grown. Well we went to spelling schools & singing schools & it was the custom for the young man in those days to escort the girls home even if they did not come to take them & we never rode in those days, always walked. We never thot (sic) anything of it to walk 3 mi. & back, in fall, or early winter, but in winter time every young man had a sleigh & horse & took his girl to church spelling school etc. & that is the way we went sometimes. Then there was the bob sleds. When the young men would get a sled and each take their girl and have a whole sled load, that was lots of fun. Sometimes would go 7 or 8 mi. to a spelling school and also to protracted meetings and always had several strings of sleigh bells and make lots of music. I spoke of protracted meetings, our people did not have them at that early date, but the shouting methodists (sic) did and I guess was not much to our credit for all we went for a sleigh ride and to see and hear the people shout and jump around. Your father and I only lived 2 mi. apart and attended the same church and we both received our spiritual birth. I came to the church at the age of 17 and your father at 21. Near the church is the cemetery where my parents, 3 brothers, & 2 sisters & other relatives are buried, also my grandmother & great grandmother. My great grandmother lived to be 91 years. and a few months. I remember of seeing her. I was about 8 years old. Your father's mother & grandmother are buried there, and a good many of his relatives. Your father taught school 7 winters before we were married, and did some work as carpenter of barns. He taught school the winter we were married. His school closed on Fri. He went for the license on Tues. The roads were so muddy he had to go horse back and the horse had to walk every step. It was 18 mi. to the county seat, Findlay, Ohio, and coming home there was something going on at a school house near home and he waited till they got settled so they would not see him. We were married on Thurs. following at about noon by my uncle Eleazer Bosserman about 30 guests all relatives. Had a regular old fashioned country dinner, chicken and all that goes with it. Next day we went to his father's home, a brother of his lived there, their mother had died there the winter before. They got a dinner for us. We had intended to go to Ada the next day to see a sister of his but it rained all day Sat. & Sun. We went to the Presbyterian church a mi. from my home. Our Brethren had preaching just every two weeks, and the Presbyterians every two weeks, and we had none that day. It was so muddy our folks could not get to town to buy our furniture. We stayed at Father's for several weeks then went to housekeeping on a farm my Father had bought. Had a log house on the place and there we moved. They gave us a bed & a few chairs & the old cupboard & we used a store box for a table until we could get others. I also had what people today call a "hope box" or chest but I had no box, but we all, us girls I mean, pieced quilts & made comforts & mother gave us 2 blankets, 2 comforts & a coverlet. We had no doilies, or fine embroided under waists & pillow slips etc. When my mother was a girl her mother died when she was young & she had to make her own way. She knew how to spin & girls that could spin got more per week than regular house work which was 50 cents per week & 75 cents for spinning. My mother said if a girl got married & did not have a chest full of bed clothes they were counted rather worthless. My mother had her bedding & $200 in money when she was married. I wonder how far a girl would get today, thrown on her own recourses & work at 75 cents per week. But times have changed in the last 100 yrs.
I said my father was a deacon, but was elected to the ministry, but he never preached as he did not have the ability & he knew it, but he would open the meeting or services & always led in singing, always started the hymns. My father loved music so well. There were so many young people in our church when I was young & we had good singing. At lovefeasts after dinner Father would get out among the young folks and get them to sing, and we did sing. Always at the lovefeast the adjoining churches would attend & there were so many young people in all our churches & that made quite a crows. Our church was called & is yet "Eagle Creek" & when you read in the messenger & see church items from there you can think that is the place your parents were reared & lived there, & if you folks ever go to Penn. make it a point to stop at Ada, Ohio, where your Father's people live & visit them & have them take you to New Stark & go to the church altho the old church has been torn down & a brick one stands where the old one did.
After the eastern colony had to have a post office & as they all had come from Stark Co. they named it New Stark & goes by that name yet.
Your Father's grandparents & two of his uncles also came to western Ohio. His Grandpa was a large man weighted 280 lbs & was six feet tall in his stocking feet. The children too were good sized and the Stonehills were large, do not see where Pa got his small stature. His brothers are all large. People often ask us if we are related to Edgar Rothrock. All we know is that all the Rothrocks we know came from the same family tree.. Do not know how long ago one of the Rothrocks settled in one of the Carolinas & Edgar's people are from that stock, while your father traces his people from Penn. Edgar's father told Pa that there were two brothers came over at the same time & one settled in the south & the other in Penn.
P.S. I did not say anything about your father coming to spend evenings with me. Yes, every two weeks on Sat. eve we spent together alone, but not till 12 & 2 like some do now. He also worked some for my father & therefore were somewhat thrown together besides other times I mentioned."
Written by Sarah Bosserman Rothrock and contributed by her great-granddaughter, Karen Yoder Okeson
NOTE: The following was written by Sarah (Bosserman) Rothrock at the request of her family. It is apparent that the "Holland origin" of the family is quite strong and it is little wonder that many of us have always been told that we were of Dutch ancestry. There may be several reasons for this. The third and fourth generations spoke "Pennsylvania Dutch", which is actually a peculiarly American form of German; also, the fact that our first ancestor, Michael Bosserman, settled from Rotterdam, which may have been the source of the tradition. However, Michael's listing on the ship "Hampshire" definitely shows him from Germany. The information was sent to me by cousin William "Bill" Ream. Many thanks to him.
March 9, 1923
SHORT HISTORY OF FATHER & MOTHER ROTHROCK WRITTEN BY MOTHER
I suppose would be better to go back several generations. My father's forefathers came from Holland about 200 yrs. ago and settled in Penn., at least that is where my grandparents were born. When they went to house keeping (sic) they crossed the line & settled in Ohio, and there my father was born and reared. I know very little of my mother's people but I think her folks came from Germany years ago, but Mother & Father were both reared in the same neighborhood in Stark Co. Ohio, near a little village called Louisville. After my parents were married several years, they wanted to go where land was cheaper to get them a home. They had 40 acres of their own. There was a colony of young folks got their belongings together and started west in their covered wagons traveled 150 mi. and settled down in the heart of the woods in Hancock Co. They bought government land, paid $1.50 per acre. My father and 5 of his brothers: David, Michial (sic), Jesse, Samuel, & Eleazer. Three of the Freed families: Pete, John, & Paul. Two of the Baughmans; Simon and Johnothan, and 3 of the Reams. That made up the first colony that settled together. Each had 160 acres and their farms joined. They all built log houses or cabins. My father was the only one that had a hewed log house, that is the logs were hewed off on 4 sides and than (sic) built up & the cracks daubed with plaster, while a cabin is just round logs put together and then daubed. They had a one story room built on the side of the house called a "lean to" which was the bedroom and a room over the main room which was a place for the children's bedroom. I was the 7th child of eleven children born to my parents. I was born in the log house and lived there till I was four when we moved in a large frame house that they built. So you see I was reared in the woods. Our folks cleared a piece of ground every year, & there was always a great deal of work to do to clear & roll the logs together & burn them and plow among the stumps.
My playthings (sic) were few. one thing I remember I had a little wagon that the older brothers made and whittled the wheels out with their jack knives & the doll I hauled around was a corncob with a white rag tied over one end & a face made with a lead pencil, a stick tied across for arms, then a dress, or a cloth wrapped around & I had a doll and I was a s proud & Happy, yes & I wouldn't wonder happier than the little girls now with their dolls a& buggies. The wood for the stove was all chopped & of course made chips & we children had the chips to gather every evening and after we were large enough had to keep the wood box filled with wood. The year after the house was built my parents built a large bank barn, & then there was a house built with three divisions, one for a wood house, one a wash house, and a room to smoke and keep the meat. They also built a wagon shed, hen house, & corn crib combined, and later a sheep stable built attached to the barn, also a hog house.
My father was an up to date (sic) farmer, always kept the farm in tip top (sic) shape, no broken down fences or sagging gates. The farm was one of the best kept in the neighborhood. One can be an artist in any line of work and father & mother were artists in all their work.
Mother was a good housekeeper, an excellent cook, hard working & frugal. They kept bees & we had our own honey. Then there was the sugar camp where every spring they made our sugar & Syrup. Had a fine orchard both apple and peach. How I wish I could eat some of those seedling peaches, have much better flavor than the large grafted ones of these days. Then those lucious (sic) apples one never tastes such apples these days. The western apple do not have the flavor of the eastern. Well I am getting away from my preamble. We also had a large garden where we grew all our vegetables. When we made sugar after I was old enough to help my brother next younger than I had to go through the camp and clean out the troughs after a rain, and upset them then if there was a freeze & get warmer again we had to set them up again and we often followed the men around then they gathered the sap, but the biggest fun of all was when stirring off came, when the syrup was just about ready to stir to sugar when we could eat all the sugar wax we wanted too. When the run was good the men folks would boil sap all night, the boys took the first part of the night and father the after part. My brother Daniel & I did lots of work together, there was 2 older boys than he and 4 older girls than I, & I had to help out of doors a good bit. After the logs in a clearing are burned there are always roots & pieces of wood that do not burn & it had to be gathered up & heaps made of them & that sometimes fell to our lot. The wood was charred & black & one day we got our faces black & then we blacked them all over by rubbing them on the black stumps, then went home. Mother hardly knew us, she & the girls had a good laugh but the next thing was to get soap & water and clean up.
We also worked together in the hay & harvest field, after we were older we two made a hand after the reaper, binding the wheat into sheaves.
I forgot to sy (sic) we had a washhouse down by creek that ran through our farm and there we did our washing. We also had a well that had a well sweep to draw the water. You no doubt have seen pictures of wells like that. When you pull the rope the bucket would go down in the water then the pole being heavy would go down on the ground & pull the bucket up. You know the song the "Old Oaken Bucket" the moss covered bucket that hung in the well. After we moved to the new house they dug another well by the porch and also built a milk house over the well then after I was a grown girl I skimmed milk & churned many & many a lb. of butter & No. 1 at that. They also dug cisterns after they moved in the new house. Being pioneers like my parents were was hard work, but all who have started first anywhere have had hard work whether timber land or plains. While the timber lands were to be cleared, they did not need to worry about fuel or timber to build with for all was at their command, & pleasure to be out in the woods, now memory goes back to my childhood days when I knew every tree by name the beech, hickory, walnut, & beech nuts for winter eats. Then we would dig the wild bean & crowfoot & ging sing (sic) & eat them & gather the may apple & put them in the mow till good & mellow, then when we went to school, gather moss for carpet in our play houses we made. We would gather wild flowers, & climb trees, etc. Well those were great days but gone forever.
Father raised sheep & from the wool our garments, blankets & coverlids were made. They would shear the sheep & take what was needed to the carding mill & were carded in long rolls, then brought home & spun in yarn & colored, & wove. Mother colored all the yarns with home made dye, the red was a root called madder that was grown in our garden. We dug & washed the roots, bruised them & boiled the color out & used that for red & it never faded. That coverlid you have was home dyed & that blue will never fade, but they did not weave the coverlids, had no loom for that, but the cloth for the men & dresses for us women were all spun and made by hand until we got a sewing machine and that was not until I was grown. We did all our stocking knitting yes, & all done by candle light & what we termed fat lamp, was a tin oblong vessel with a stand & closed all but on top a place to pour the melted lard & place in a cotton flannel wick. That made a better light than the candle but only used when needed as was more expensive than candles. When the civil war (sic) was on, cotton was scarce & high, then our parents grew flax & made linen cloth for towels, table cloths & for the mens (sic) trousers. Those times the men wore white shirts & after the linen was washed awhile and worn they would be white too & after a day in the new ground among the black stumps they were anything but white & were hard to wash. I was going to say too that we did not have kerosene lamps till I was a young girl.
Our people were busy folks. Father was always up by 4 in the morning & the rest had to get up too. We always milked 8 or 10 cows & they had to be milked & the chores done before breakfast when the other work began, but while we got up early we also were expected to be in bed by 9 in the evening. I was just telling the girl, Elsie, that works in the kitchen, how we used to do in our everyday work & she said they do a good deal like that in Va. yet. We got up early had early breakfast, the men went to the fields & at half past eleven had dinner. Then at one they again went out to work & worked till 5 o'clock supper. They brought the horses in & watered them then after supper they again went to the fields & the rest of us did all the chores, milking, etc. Then after the men came in & fed their horses we had an hour on the big porch which was built in on the south side of the house. There we sang & talked, ate watermelon etc. & sat on the edge of the porch & watched the stars. My brother Sam was never strong & watched the stars & nature. He pointed out two stars that are near each other in the southern heavens & called them twin sisters. If you look on a clear evening in the summer time you can find them, they are at the end of the scorpion. How vividly all this comes to my memory as I think back long years ago & yet seems almost as yesterday. When bed time came we sang a hymn knelt around the family altar in a word of prayer & then to bed to sweet sleep as only young life can realize. The reason we were talking about this in the kitchen was because I was remarking how different life was now & 60 yrs. ago. We never take time to enjoy life any more. It is rush, rush, from morning till night, yes & till way in the night before there is any let up. What I have written here did not apply to our work every day. In busy seasons we could not always have our evenings together, but we often did & when winter came we sat around the table & knit & mended etc. When we all went to school we did our washing & ironing evenings. They also had a long way to go to mill, take 2 days & a night. Time father was gone mother stayed by herself with the children who were small, no near neighbors & woods all around them. Often wolves howling around at night but mother said she was not afraid but would take her little ones & go to bed. You have heard the saying "come over & see me you will find the latchstring hanging out". That is the kind of latch they use in those days. The latch was inside & had a string tied to it, a small hole in the door & no one could get in when the string was inside, but that was hardly ever done. The string was put through the hole & left outside and any coming along could come in. I do not remember if mother pulled the string in or not when she was alone but I heard her say they never did when father was there. They had a fire place in those days & never was very dark & if anyone knocked they would just tell them to come in, no matter what time of night as they had no fear & often some one was traveling & would stop at the first place he came to. The colony that settled there had no preaching only as those who came through there on horse back & preached for them. Camplelites (sic), German Reform, Dunkards, Presbyterian & Methodists came at different times Mother was reared in the Luthern (sic) faith & father's people in The Brethren home. My grand mother was a member buy grandfather did not come to the church. In after years when grandmother came to live with us, she said grandfather found fault with some members who he thought did not live up to true Christian standard & made that for an excuse, but grandmother told him if someone put a finger in the flame of a candle & got burned was no saying that he should do the same, but one will find people these days with the same excuse. My parents joined the Brethren & were staunch members. Do not know what grandfather might have done in later years, but he met death on a R.R. Those days railroads were not plentiful & they were not so careful as now, often the train comes to a stand when they first call out the station & are not at the station yet where they get off, well grandfather went to get off & was killed. If you have never seen their pictures, that is my grandparents, go & see Aunt A. She has their pictures & don't forget to go. My parents never had their pictures taken. There was so much said against them at that time so they would not. I have often wished I might have them.
There was a long time we had no church house, but when the members built they had one large room & there is where we had our meetings in the winter time. Had benches without backs. In the summer time they were held in barns. Also the lovefeasts were held in barns. Had preaching every two weeks & held them at the different members. When it was close enough that we could walk we all went but when it was far only part went as some had to look after things at home as it took all day, & we took it turn about. Some went one Sun. & the next time the others. He had on S. Schools then & not till a good while after we had a church house. After we had a church house we always had all day lovefeasts. My father was a decon (sic) & Simon Rodabaugh a deacon & the two with their wives would take cooking utensils & bedding & stay at the church several days. There was a loft over the kitchen where they slept. We had lovefeast in the evening, then breakfast at the church & my parents & Radabaughs had to be there early to get the breakfast started. We had all day meetings & we young folks would go home before the evening meeting to do the milking & other chores, & back to church, then after church we would clean & scour & have everything spic & span & we would fill straw ticks and make beds on the floor for we always had our house filled. People from adjoining churches always made our home their stopping place. Next morn we were up bright & early & did the morning chores & all went down to the church for breakfast. Then preaching & dinner for those from a distance. If it was week day we stayed and cleaned up but if Sunday we went home and came back Mon. Our meals consisted of beef, apple butter & apple sauce, beet & cucumber pickles & coffee, & meals never tasted any better than those old fashioned lovefeast dinners. Bro Quinter, H. D. Davy, John P. Eversole, Robert H. Miller, Daniel Brower & others have been at my fathers home, how we enjoyed having them with us. Those sainted fathers that were called Dunkers, & today yet, when I want to tell something about our old Brethren I have to call them Dunkers, for I love & respect that name yet. There are so many things I want to say that I hardly know when I am thru. I did want to say about our home we had one of those outdoor bake ovens built out of brick with a roof over it. In those ovens is what we call bread when it came out of the oven. Large fine loaves & stayed moist till every crum (sic) was eaten. The flour was not all bleached & milled to death but made good wholesome bread. We only baked bread once a week & pie too. That was on Sat. We had what we called bread baskets. They were made out of twisted straw, had no handles, when the bread was ready to mould into loaves we spread a nice clean cloth in the baskets & sprinkle a little flour over & put the bread to raise in them. While the bread was raising we built fire in the bake oven, wood that was especially prepared for that. The oven had a smooth bottom built out of brick & the top was oval, also made out of brick, closed all around except a door & chimney. After the wood was all burned & in coals & laid awhile, the coals, were all raked out. Then we had a long pole with a cloth tied on the end and dipped in water then cleaned all the ashes out of the oven & put the loaves in on the hearth. We used a long handled wooden shovel & emptied the loaves that were in the baskets on that & shoved it in & gave it a little jerk & off it came. That like the apples I spoke of was so much better than bread now as the bread did not dry out, one would think bread would never raise by handling it the way we did, but we baked the finest large loaves. We had the pie all made & after the bread was in the oven 20 min. or 1/2 hour we put the pie in & all baked at once & in the fall of the year when he had apples we pealed, cored, and got them ready to dry & when the bread and pies were taken out the apples were put in on slates we had especially & were dried in that way. Our house & out buildings were still standing the last time we were back there. The barn had been struck by lightning and burned down. The ice house that was built to the milk house was torn down & the garden that led off from the yard was thrown in a field & all plowed up. The timber that all the buildings were made was taken from the farm & all were chopped down & made into logs & hauled to the saw mill to be made in the required length, width, etc. for buildings. When one thinks of the rails that had to be split & the fences built & kept & wood to be chopped & got ready for the stoves & for the fireplace, in the wash house, & wood for the bake oven & for building & all was sure a lot of work & then just as much work in house with spinning, & weaving & knitting & making clothes by hand, & piecing quilts & quilting them, beside the other work. When one compares the work that was done then & now looks as though we do not get much accomplished, but there was not so much schooling those days. No clubs, & socials & parties & no late hours. Singing & spelling bees was about all & sometimes apple coring gatherings, to boil apple butter or to dry.
Our meals too were simple not many frills, we had pie once a week, that is we baked pie once a week and they did not last very long, then when they were all, they were all, see! & cake was a very scarce article, & preserves & jellies were not very much in evidence.
Well I wonder if you re not tired by this time I think I am, altho I did not write this in one sitting you may know. When your father was 12 years old his parents & 3 Stonehill boys came to Western Ohio from Stark Co., O. The Stonehills were uncles to our father, brothers to his mother, they all settled near there, your father's parents too settled in the woods altho there had been a good bit cleared thru the neighborhood, but your father speaks of the time they began a plow among the stumps, he & his three brothers. Your father being the oldest, he had to hold the plow, one of the boys drove the oxen & one carried an ax to crop roots when the plow got fast, he says more than once the roots would break & would fly back & hit him on the shin. They settled near the place where the schoolhouse was later built. We had 1 1/2 mi. to go. Well I suppose we went to school together as all children do but I do not remember your father as a boy until we began to associate together which grew into more than friendship. There were other boys that I remember & run with as playmates & one boy always was very attentive to me & wanted to sit or play with me but I have not the slightest remembrance of your father when we went to school until we were grown. Well we went to spelling schools & singing schools & it was the custom for the young man in those days to escort the girls home even if they did not come to take them & we never rode in those days, always walked. We never thot (sic) anything of it to walk 3 mi. & back, in fall, or early winter, but in winter time every young man had a sleigh & horse & took his girl to church spelling school etc. & that is the way we went sometimes. Then there was the bob sleds. When the young men would get a sled and each take their girl and have a whole sled load, that was lots of fun. Sometimes would go 7 or 8 mi. to a spelling school and also to protracted meetings and always had several strings of sleigh bells and make lots of music. I spoke of protracted meetings, our people did not have them at that early date, but the shouting methodists (sic) did and I guess was not much to our credit for all we went for a sleigh ride and to see and hear the people shout and jump around. Your father and I only lived 2 mi. apart and attended the same church and we both received our spiritual birth. I came to the church at the age of 17 and your father at 21. Near the church is the cemetery where my parents, 3 brothers, & 2 sisters & other relatives are buried, also my grandmother & great grandmother. My great grandmother lived to be 91 years. and a few months. I remember of seeing her. I was about 8 years old. Your father's mother & grandmother are buried there, and a good many of his relatives. Your father taught school 7 winters before we were married, and did some work as carpenter of barns. He taught school the winter we were married. His school closed on Fri. He went for the license on Tues. The roads were so muddy he had to go horse back and the horse had to walk every step. It was 18 mi. to the county seat, Findlay, Ohio, and coming home there was something going on at a school house near home and he waited till they got settled so they would not see him. We were married on Thurs. following at about noon by my uncle Eleazer Bosserman about 30 guests all relatives. Had a regular old fashioned country dinner, chicken and all that goes with it. Next day we went to his father's home, a brother of his lived there, their mother had died there the winter before. They got a dinner for us. We had intended to go to Ada the next day to see a sister of his but it rained all day Sat. & Sun. We went to the Presbyterian church a mi. from my home. Our Brethren had preaching just every two weeks, and the Presbyterians every two weeks, and we had none that day. It was so muddy our folks could not get to town to buy our furniture. We stayed at Father's for several weeks then went to housekeeping on a farm my Father had bought. Had a log house on the place and there we moved. They gave us a bed & a few chairs & the old cupboard & we used a store box for a table until we could get others. I also had what people today call a "hope box" or chest but I had no box, but we all, us girls I mean, pieced quilts & made comforts & mother gave us 2 blankets, 2 comforts & a coverlet. We had no doilies, or fine embroided under waists & pillow slips etc. When my mother was a girl her mother died when she was young & she had to make her own way. She knew how to spin & girls that could spin got more per week than regular house work which was 50 cents per week & 75 cents for spinning. My mother said if a girl got married & did not have a chest full of bed clothes they were counted rather worthless. My mother had her bedding & $200 in money when she was married. I wonder how far a girl would get today, thrown on her own recourses & work at 75 cents per week. But times have changed in the last 100 yrs.
I said my father was a deacon, but was elected to the ministry, but he never preached as he did not have the ability & he knew it, but he would open the meeting or services & always led in singing, always started the hymns. My father loved music so well. There were so many young people in our church when I was young & we had good singing. At lovefeasts after dinner Father would get out among the young folks and get them to sing, and we did sing. Always at the lovefeast the adjoining churches would attend & there were so many young people in all our churches & that made quite a crows. Our church was called & is yet "Eagle Creek" & when you read in the messenger & see church items from there you can think that is the place your parents were reared & lived there, & if you folks ever go to Penn. make it a point to stop at Ada, Ohio, where your Father's people live & visit them & have them take you to New Stark & go to the church altho the old church has been torn down & a brick one stands where the old one did.
After the eastern colony had to have a post office & as they all had come from Stark Co. they named it New Stark & goes by that name yet.
Your Father's grandparents & two of his uncles also came to western Ohio. His Grandpa was a large man weighted 280 lbs & was six feet tall in his stocking feet. The children too were good sized and the Stonehills were large, do not see where Pa got his small stature. His brothers are all large. People often ask us if we are related to Edgar Rothrock. All we know is that all the Rothrocks we know came from the same family tree.. Do not know how long ago one of the Rothrocks settled in one of the Carolinas & Edgar's people are from that stock, while your father traces his people from Penn. Edgar's father told Pa that there were two brothers came over at the same time & one settled in the south & the other in Penn.
P.S. I did not say anything about your father coming to spend evenings with me. Yes, every two weeks on Sat. eve we spent together alone, but not till 12 & 2 like some do now. He also worked some for my father & therefore were somewhat thrown together besides other times I mentioned."
Written by Sarah Bosserman Rothrock and contributed by her great-granddaughter, Karen Yoder Okeson
March 9, 1923
SHORT HISTORY OF FATHER & MOTHER ROTHROCK WRITTEN BY MOTHER
I suppose would be better to go back several generations. My father's forefathers came from Holland about 200 yrs. ago and settled in Penn., at least that is where my grandparents were born. When they went to house keeping (sic) they crossed the line & settled in Ohio, and there my father was born and reared. I know very little of my mother's people but I think her folks came from Germany years ago, but Mother & Father were both reared in the same neighborhood in Stark Co. Ohio, near a little village called Louisville. After my parents were married several years, they wanted to go where land was cheaper to get them a home. They had 40 acres of their own. There was a colony of young folks got their belongings together and started west in their covered wagons traveled 150 mi. and settled down in the heart of the woods in Hancock Co. They bought government land, paid $1.50 per acre. My father and 5 of his brothers: David, Michial (sic), Jesse, Samuel, & Eleazer. Three of the Freed families: Pete, John, & Paul. Two of the Baughmans; Simon and Johnothan, and 3 of the Reams. That made up the first colony that settled together. Each had 160 acres and their farms joined. They all built log houses or cabins. My father was the only one that had a hewed log house, that is the logs were hewed off on 4 sides and than (sic) built up & the cracks daubed with plaster, while a cabin is just round logs put together and then daubed. They had a one story room built on the side of the house called a "lean to" which was the bedroom and a room over the main room which was a place for the children's bedroom. I was the 7th child of eleven children born to my parents. I was born in the log house and lived there till I was four when we moved in a large frame house that they built. So you see I was reared in the woods. Our folks cleared a piece of ground every year, & there was always a great deal of work to do to clear & roll the logs together & burn them and plow among the stumps.
My playthings (sic) were few. one thing I remember I had a little wagon that the older brothers made and whittled the wheels out with their jack knives & the doll I hauled around was a corncob with a white rag tied over one end & a face made with a lead pencil, a stick tied across for arms, then a dress, or a cloth wrapped around & I had a doll and I was a s proud & Happy, yes & I wouldn't wonder happier than the little girls now with their dolls a& buggies. The wood for the stove was all chopped & of course made chips & we children had the chips to gather every evening and after we were large enough had to keep the wood box filled with wood. The year after the house was built my parents built a large bank barn, & then there was a house built with three divisions, one for a wood house, one a wash house, and a room to smoke and keep the meat. They also built a wagon shed, hen house, & corn crib combined, and later a sheep stable built attached to the barn, also a hog house.
My father was an up to date (sic) farmer, always kept the farm in tip top (sic) shape, no broken down fences or sagging gates. The farm was one of the best kept in the neighborhood. One can be an artist in any line of work and father & mother were artists in all their work.
Mother was a good housekeeper, an excellent cook, hard working & frugal. They kept bees & we had our own honey. Then there was the sugar camp where every spring they made our sugar & Syrup. Had a fine orchard both apple and peach. How I wish I could eat some of those seedling peaches, have much better flavor than the large grafted ones of these days. Then those lucious (sic) apples one never tastes such apples these days. The western apple do not have the flavor of the eastern. Well I am getting away from my preamble. We also had a large garden where we grew all our vegetables. When we made sugar after I was old enough to help my brother next younger than I had to go through the camp and clean out the troughs after a rain, and upset them then if there was a freeze & get warmer again we had to set them up again and we often followed the men around then they gathered the sap, but the biggest fun of all was when stirring off came, when the syrup was just about ready to stir to sugar when we could eat all the sugar wax we wanted too. When the run was good the men folks would boil sap all night, the boys took the first part of the night and father the after part. My brother Daniel & I did lots of work together, there was 2 older boys than he and 4 older girls than I, & I had to help out of doors a good bit. After the logs in a clearing are burned there are always roots & pieces of wood that do not burn & it had to be gathered up & heaps made of them & that sometimes fell to our lot. The wood was charred & black & one day we got our faces black & then we blacked them all over by rubbing them on the black stumps, then went home. Mother hardly knew us, she & the girls had a good laugh but the next thing was to get soap & water and clean up.
We also worked together in the hay & harvest field, after we were older we two made a hand after the reaper, binding the wheat into sheaves.
I forgot to sy (sic) we had a washhouse down by creek that ran through our farm and there we did our washing. We also had a well that had a well sweep to draw the water. You no doubt have seen pictures of wells like that. When you pull the rope the bucket would go down in the water then the pole being heavy would go down on the ground & pull the bucket up. You know the song the "Old Oaken Bucket" the moss covered bucket that hung in the well. After we moved to the new house they dug another well by the porch and also built a milk house over the well then after I was a grown girl I skimmed milk & churned many & many a lb. of butter & No. 1 at that. They also dug cisterns after they moved in the new house. Being pioneers like my parents were was hard work, but all who have started first anywhere have had hard work whether timber land or plains. While the timber lands were to be cleared, they did not need to worry about fuel or timber to build with for all was at their command, & pleasure to be out in the woods, now memory goes back to my childhood days when I knew every tree by name the beech, hickory, walnut, & beech nuts for winter eats. Then we would dig the wild bean & crowfoot & ging sing (sic) & eat them & gather the may apple & put them in the mow till good & mellow, then when we went to school, gather moss for carpet in our play houses we made. We would gather wild flowers, & climb trees, etc. Well those were great days but gone forever.
Father raised sheep & from the wool our garments, blankets & coverlids were made. They would shear the sheep & take what was needed to the carding mill & were carded in long rolls, then brought home & spun in yarn & colored, & wove. Mother colored all the yarns with home made dye, the red was a root called madder that was grown in our garden. We dug & washed the roots, bruised them & boiled the color out & used that for red & it never faded. That coverlid you have was home dyed & that blue will never fade, but they did not weave the coverlids, had no loom for that, but the cloth for the men & dresses for us women were all spun and made by hand until we got a sewing machine and that was not until I was grown. We did all our stocking knitting yes, & all done by candle light & what we termed fat lamp, was a tin oblong vessel with a stand & closed all but on top a place to pour the melted lard & place in a cotton flannel wick. That made a better light than the candle but only used when needed as was more expensive than candles. When the civil war (sic) was on, cotton was scarce & high, then our parents grew flax & made linen cloth for towels, table cloths & for the mens (sic) trousers. Those times the men wore white shirts & after the linen was washed awhile and worn they would be white too & after a day in the new ground among the black stumps they were anything but white & were hard to wash. I was going to say too that we did not have kerosene lamps till I was a young girl.
Our people were busy folks. Father was always up by 4 in the morning & the rest had to get up too. We always milked 8 or 10 cows & they had to be milked & the chores done before breakfast when the other work began, but while we got up early we also were expected to be in bed by 9 in the evening. I was just telling the girl, Elsie, that works in the kitchen, how we used to do in our everyday work & she said they do a good deal like that in Va. yet. We got up early had early breakfast, the men went to the fields & at half past eleven had dinner. Then at one they again went out to work & worked till 5 o'clock supper. They brought the horses in & watered them then after supper they again went to the fields & the rest of us did all the chores, milking, etc. Then after the men came in & fed their horses we had an hour on the big porch which was built in on the south side of the house. There we sang & talked, ate watermelon etc. & sat on the edge of the porch & watched the stars. My brother Sam was never strong & watched the stars & nature. He pointed out two stars that are near each other in the southern heavens & called them twin sisters. If you look on a clear evening in the summer time you can find them, they are at the end of the scorpion. How vividly all this comes to my memory as I think back long years ago & yet seems almost as yesterday. When bed time came we sang a hymn knelt around the family altar in a word of prayer & then to bed to sweet sleep as only young life can realize. The reason we were talking about this in the kitchen was because I was remarking how different life was now & 60 yrs. ago. We never take time to enjoy life any more. It is rush, rush, from morning till night, yes & till way in the night before there is any let up. What I have written here did not apply to our work every day. In busy seasons we could not always have our evenings together, but we often did & when winter came we sat around the table & knit & mended etc. When we all went to school we did our washing & ironing evenings. They also had a long way to go to mill, take 2 days & a night. Time father was gone mother stayed by herself with the children who were small, no near neighbors & woods all around them. Often wolves howling around at night but mother said she was not afraid but would take her little ones & go to bed. You have heard the saying "come over & see me you will find the latchstring hanging out". That is the kind of latch they use in those days. The latch was inside & had a string tied to it, a small hole in the door & no one could get in when the string was inside, but that was hardly ever done. The string was put through the hole & left outside and any coming along could come in. I do not remember if mother pulled the string in or not when she was alone but I heard her say they never did when father was there. They had a fire place in those days & never was very dark & if anyone knocked they would just tell them to come in, no matter what time of night as they had no fear & often some one was traveling & would stop at the first place he came to. The colony that settled there had no preaching only as those who came through there on horse back & preached for them. Camplelites (sic), German Reform, Dunkards, Presbyterian & Methodists came at different times Mother was reared in the Luthern (sic) faith & father's people in The Brethren home. My grand mother was a member buy grandfather did not come to the church. In after years when grandmother came to live with us, she said grandfather found fault with some members who he thought did not live up to true Christian standard & made that for an excuse, but grandmother told him if someone put a finger in the flame of a candle & got burned was no saying that he should do the same, but one will find people these days with the same excuse. My parents joined the Brethren & were staunch members. Do not know what grandfather might have done in later years, but he met death on a R.R. Those days railroads were not plentiful & they were not so careful as now, often the train comes to a stand when they first call out the station & are not at the station yet where they get off, well grandfather went to get off & was killed. If you have never seen their pictures, that is my grandparents, go & see Aunt A. She has their pictures & don't forget to go. My parents never had their pictures taken. There was so much said against them at that time so they would not. I have often wished I might have them.
There was a long time we had no church house, but when the members built they had one large room & there is where we had our meetings in the winter time. Had benches without backs. In the summer time they were held in barns. Also the lovefeasts were held in barns. Had preaching every two weeks & held them at the different members. When it was close enough that we could walk we all went but when it was far only part went as some had to look after things at home as it took all day, & we took it turn about. Some went one Sun. & the next time the others. He had on S. Schools then & not till a good while after we had a church house. After we had a church house we always had all day lovefeasts. My father was a decon (sic) & Simon Rodabaugh a deacon & the two with their wives would take cooking utensils & bedding & stay at the church several days. There was a loft over the kitchen where they slept. We had lovefeast in the evening, then breakfast at the church & my parents & Radabaughs had to be there early to get the breakfast started. We had all day meetings & we young folks would go home before the evening meeting to do the milking & other chores, & back to church, then after church we would clean & scour & have everything spic & span & we would fill straw ticks and make beds on the floor for we always had our house filled. People from adjoining churches always made our home their stopping place. Next morn we were up bright & early & did the morning chores & all went down to the church for breakfast. Then preaching & dinner for those from a distance. If it was week day we stayed and cleaned up but if Sunday we went home and came back Mon. Our meals consisted of beef, apple butter & apple sauce, beet & cucumber pickles & coffee, & meals never tasted any better than those old fashioned lovefeast dinners. Bro Quinter, H. D. Davy, John P. Eversole, Robert H. Miller, Daniel Brower & others have been at my fathers home, how we enjoyed having them with us. Those sainted fathers that were called Dunkers, & today yet, when I want to tell something about our old Brethren I have to call them Dunkers, for I love & respect that name yet. There are so many things I want to say that I hardly know when I am thru. I did want to say about our home we had one of those outdoor bake ovens built out of brick with a roof over it. In those ovens is what we call bread when it came out of the oven. Large fine loaves & stayed moist till every crum (sic) was eaten. The flour was not all bleached & milled to death but made good wholesome bread. We only baked bread once a week & pie too. That was on Sat. We had what we called bread baskets. They were made out of twisted straw, had no handles, when the bread was ready to mould into loaves we spread a nice clean cloth in the baskets & sprinkle a little flour over & put the bread to raise in them. While the bread was raising we built fire in the bake oven, wood that was especially prepared for that. The oven had a smooth bottom built out of brick & the top was oval, also made out of brick, closed all around except a door & chimney. After the wood was all burned & in coals & laid awhile, the coals, were all raked out. Then we had a long pole with a cloth tied on the end and dipped in water then cleaned all the ashes out of the oven & put the loaves in on the hearth. We used a long handled wooden shovel & emptied the loaves that were in the baskets on that & shoved it in & gave it a little jerk & off it came. That like the apples I spoke of was so much better than bread now as the bread did not dry out, one would think bread would never raise by handling it the way we did, but we baked the finest large loaves. We had the pie all made & after the bread was in the oven 20 min. or 1/2 hour we put the pie in & all baked at once & in the fall of the year when he had apples we pealed, cored, and got them ready to dry & when the bread and pies were taken out the apples were put in on slates we had especially & were dried in that way. Our house & out buildings were still standing the last time we were back there. The barn had been struck by lightning and burned down. The ice house that was built to the milk house was torn down & the garden that led off from the yard was thrown in a field & all plowed up. The timber that all the buildings were made was taken from the farm & all were chopped down & made into logs & hauled to the saw mill to be made in the required length, width, etc. for buildings. When one thinks of the rails that had to be split & the fences built & kept & wood to be chopped & got ready for the stoves & for the fireplace, in the wash house, & wood for the bake oven & for building & all was sure a lot of work & then just as much work in house with spinning, & weaving & knitting & making clothes by hand, & piecing quilts & quilting them, beside the other work. When one compares the work that was done then & now looks as though we do not get much accomplished, but there was not so much schooling those days. No clubs, & socials & parties & no late hours. Singing & spelling bees was about all & sometimes apple coring gatherings, to boil apple butter or to dry.
Our meals too were simple not many frills, we had pie once a week, that is we baked pie once a week and they did not last very long, then when they were all, they were all, see! & cake was a very scarce article, & preserves & jellies were not very much in evidence.
Well I wonder if you re not tired by this time I think I am, altho I did not write this in one sitting you may know. When your father was 12 years old his parents & 3 Stonehill boys came to Western Ohio from Stark Co., O. The Stonehills were uncles to our father, brothers to his mother, they all settled near there, your father's parents too settled in the woods altho there had been a good bit cleared thru the neighborhood, but your father speaks of the time they began a plow among the stumps, he & his three brothers. Your father being the oldest, he had to hold the plow, one of the boys drove the oxen & one carried an ax to crop roots when the plow got fast, he says more than once the roots would break & would fly back & hit him on the shin. They settled near the place where the schoolhouse was later built. We had 1 1/2 mi. to go. Well I suppose we went to school together as all children do but I do not remember your father as a boy until we began to associate together which grew into more than friendship. There were other boys that I remember & run with as playmates & one boy always was very attentive to me & wanted to sit or play with me but I have not the slightest remembrance of your father when we went to school until we were grown. Well we went to spelling schools & singing schools & it was the custom for the young man in those days to escort the girls home even if they did not come to take them & we never rode in those days, always walked. We never thot (sic) anything of it to walk 3 mi. & back, in fall, or early winter, but in winter time every young man had a sleigh & horse & took his girl to church spelling school etc. & that is the way we went sometimes. Then there was the bob sleds. When the young men would get a sled and each take their girl and have a whole sled load, that was lots of fun. Sometimes would go 7 or 8 mi. to a spelling school and also to protracted meetings and always had several strings of sleigh bells and make lots of music. I spoke of protracted meetings, our people did not have them at that early date, but the shouting methodists (sic) did and I guess was not much to our credit for all we went for a sleigh ride and to see and hear the people shout and jump around. Your father and I only lived 2 mi. apart and attended the same church and we both received our spiritual birth. I came to the church at the age of 17 and your father at 21. Near the church is the cemetery where my parents, 3 brothers, & 2 sisters & other relatives are buried, also my grandmother & great grandmother. My great grandmother lived to be 91 years. and a few months. I remember of seeing her. I was about 8 years old. Your father's mother & grandmother are buried there, and a good many of his relatives. Your father taught school 7 winters before we were married, and did some work as carpenter of barns. He taught school the winter we were married. His school closed on Fri. He went for the license on Tues. The roads were so muddy he had to go horse back and the horse had to walk every step. It was 18 mi. to the county seat, Findlay, Ohio, and coming home there was something going on at a school house near home and he waited till they got settled so they would not see him. We were married on Thurs. following at about noon by my uncle Eleazer Bosserman about 30 guests all relatives. Had a regular old fashioned country dinner, chicken and all that goes with it. Next day we went to his father's home, a brother of his lived there, their mother had died there the winter before. They got a dinner for us. We had intended to go to Ada the next day to see a sister of his but it rained all day Sat. & Sun. We went to the Presbyterian church a mi. from my home. Our Brethren had preaching just every two weeks, and the Presbyterians every two weeks, and we had none that day. It was so muddy our folks could not get to town to buy our furniture. We stayed at Father's for several weeks then went to housekeeping on a farm my Father had bought. Had a log house on the place and there we moved. They gave us a bed & a few chairs & the old cupboard & we used a store box for a table until we could get others. I also had what people today call a "hope box" or chest but I had no box, but we all, us girls I mean, pieced quilts & made comforts & mother gave us 2 blankets, 2 comforts & a coverlet. We had no doilies, or fine embroided under waists & pillow slips etc. When my mother was a girl her mother died when she was young & she had to make her own way. She knew how to spin & girls that could spin got more per week than regular house work which was 50 cents per week & 75 cents for spinning. My mother said if a girl got married & did not have a chest full of bed clothes they were counted rather worthless. My mother had her bedding & $200 in money when she was married. I wonder how far a girl would get today, thrown on her own recourses & work at 75 cents per week. But times have changed in the last 100 yrs.
I said my father was a deacon, but was elected to the ministry, but he never preached as he did not have the ability & he knew it, but he would open the meeting or services & always led in singing, always started the hymns. My father loved music so well. There were so many young people in our church when I was young & we had good singing. At lovefeasts after dinner Father would get out among the young folks and get them to sing, and we did sing. Always at the lovefeast the adjoining churches would attend & there were so many young people in all our churches & that made quite a crows. Our church was called & is yet "Eagle Creek" & when you read in the messenger & see church items from there you can think that is the place your parents were reared & lived there, & if you folks ever go to Penn. make it a point to stop at Ada, Ohio, where your Father's people live & visit them & have them take you to New Stark & go to the church altho the old church has been torn down & a brick one stands where the old one did.
After the eastern colony had to have a post office & as they all had come from Stark Co. they named it New Stark & goes by that name yet.
Your Father's grandparents & two of his uncles also came to western Ohio. His Grandpa was a large man weighted 280 lbs & was six feet tall in his stocking feet. The children too were good sized and the Stonehills were large, do not see where Pa got his small stature. His brothers are all large. People often ask us if we are related to Edgar Rothrock. All we know is that all the Rothrocks we know came from the same family tree.. Do not know how long ago one of the Rothrocks settled in one of the Carolinas & Edgar's people are from that stock, while your father traces his people from Penn. Edgar's father told Pa that there were two brothers came over at the same time & one settled in the south & the other in Penn.
P.S. I did not say anything about your father coming to spend evenings with me. Yes, every two weeks on Sat. eve we spent together alone, but not till 12 & 2 like some do now. He also worked some for my father & therefore were somewhat thrown together besides other times I mentioned."
Written by Sarah Bosserman Rothrock and contributed by her great-granddaughter, Karen Yoder Okeson
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