Family history, Albright

Catherine Albright Stetzel biography

[excerpted and adapted from Albright Family History, 1727-1977, compiled by Elzora Stetzel Clifford Coulter Weston, granddaughter]

            In her early childhood, much was expected of Catherine Albright. The girls in the family were expected to work long, hard hours in the fields and in the home caring for the younger children. The boys in the family were allowed more privileges and were encouraged to attend school.

            Grandmother had only three days of schooling in her early life. They always said it was a waste of time and money to educate a girl; they would only get married. So, no education for the girls in her family.

            So, I admired my spunky little grandmother when, at the age of 60, she learned to read and write. It was a great day when she could read the “Evangelical Messenger” and the Bible, and many a time I sat on a little footstool near her chair and listened as she read the children’s story from the church paper.

            Grandmother milked the cows many times when the men were busy in the fields, and oft times she helped to tie the grain into bundles and stack it. Also, the corn was cut with the corn knife and shocked into large shocks that later would be hauled into the barns to be shucked, and again she always got into the action but always had lots of hilarious fun.

            After Grandmother finished milking, she carried the milk to the house where she strained it into crocks through clean, white cloths that were washed out in water until clean and hung up to dry. The milk was left in a cool place for the cream to rise to the surface. Grandma would skim it, taking the cream off and placing it in a crock or jar, stirring each day until there was enough to churn.

            The churn was made of crockery, and the dasher was wood, placed inside a crockery top with a hole in the center to allow the handle to slip through. So, Grandma had plenty of experience as a young girl at home in churning cream into butter, working the beautiful yellow curds until no more milk or water came out, then molding it into balls of a pound or more.

            It was traded for such grocery items as sugar (not much, though, for more sorghum was used to sweeten their food, which was made by her dad and the older sons, who spent days cutting the cane grown in the fields, pressing the juice from the stalks, cooking the juice in a huge, iron kettle until, by testing, it was decided it was the right consistency and flavor).

            The big, iron kettle was a much-used item for cooking in her day. After the butchering scene, where water was heated to boiling to scald the hogs to be butchered (usually three or four hogs supplied sufficient meat for the year’s food supply), the kettle was used to render lard. It had to be stirred, often with a large paddle whittled to the proper shape, while cooking until it was cooked just long enough, but not too long, to be a beautiful white when cold, then stored in 5- to 8-gallon crockery jars in the cave, covered with a clean lid made of boards by the father and boys.

            During apple season, much apple butter was cooked in the kettle, and Grandma told how the older children in the home, herself included, were pressed into the job of stirring as it cooked, for it must not be allowed to burn or scorch, which would have spoiled the whole batch. Dan and Henry, her two oldest boys, got into the act after she married.

            Then there was the cooking of large quantities of plum butter. Grandma told how they went to the timber picking large quantities of ripe, wild plums. They were sweetened with sorghum, as was the apple butter.

            Then, too, hominy was a much-liked commodity in Catherine’s early life. They grew white corn for the hominy, shelled it by hand, washed it and put it into the great iron kettle with enough water to cover it. Then water that had been poured over wood ashes was added to the corn and water and stirred until the skins came off the corn.

            Then it was washed in cold water, which was poured off until all vestiges of gray color and skins were washed away. It was then canned in jars, and I believe Grandma said a salt brine was added to keep it from spoiling. They had many crock jars to store foods in in those days.

            Then there was the sauerkraut session, for loads of cabbage were grown and made into sauerkraut by the barrel. The men took the wagon and horses to haul the large heads of cabbage into the cutting shed, where the women and girls, armed with huge butcher knives, trimmed the nice, white heads out of the green outer leaves and cut them  into fourths and sometimes eighths (according to Grandma, they often raised cabbages as large as a large kettle).

            They must have had sauerkraut cutters in those days too, for she told how there were a few women and, yes, men who speedily cut the cabbage by placing the cutter over a barrel. Someone who know how much coarse salt to add sprinkled it on the sliced cabbage, then a stomper was used every so often to bring the juices over the sliced cabbages.

            (The stomper was made by cutting a large limb from a tree as smooth as they could find, about a foot and a half in length, drilling or whittling a hole in the center from top to bottom, and inserting a smaller, smooth limb into the hole as tightly as possible. My dad made one of the end of a wooden fence post and a broomstick.)

            Grandma told also of the blackberries and raspberries they picked in the timber, large pails full of wonderful, sweet berries. She had much training in the art of canning and cooking before she married Grandpa.

            Then there were the nutting parties, when they went to the timber to pick hickory nuts, hazelnuts and walnuts. They had wonderful times on those outings, and how they sang. (All of Catherine’s family were good singers.)

            She always loved company, and many a good meal she served them. She loved to cook and bake, and in earlier days, what wonderful, big loaves of bread she baked. When she and Grandpa lived in Johnson County, Grandpa took wheat and corn to the mill to be ground into flour and cornmeal.

            One day, the miller asked Grandpa if he would bring one of Grandma’s large loaves of bread to the mill for him to show the other customers that good bread could be baked from his flour. A lot of the men and their wives had been blaming the miller for their bad bread. So, the loaf was sent, and the complaints stopped.

            Catherine filled ticks for the family’s beds with fresh, clean straw. That must have been a real task, since her family eventually included 16 children.

            She also helped to make down comforters, pillows and mattresses, which were filled with feathers plucked from geese raised specifically for that purpose. The attic where the children slept was cold in the winter, and it must have felt very nice to snuggle into those downy feather beds.

            She told of the marvelous revival meetings and the camp meetings that lasted as long as six weeks. She and Grandpa and the children old enough to walk went to the meetings night after night. In those days, soul salvation was considered more important than all the houses and lands they could achieve on earth.

            I loved to hear her tell of those wonderful times of refreshing from the Lord. The Stetzel family was brought up in the Evangelical faith, and Grandma told of Grandpa’s conversion from the form of Lutheranism of his early training in Alsace-Lorraine to a real experience of heart cleansing at a camp meeting altar, where he sought to be redeemed from sin through the cleansing blood of Jesus.

            Once, when he stood to tell his story of winning over Satan, all the young men who sat far back in the shadows began to jeer and mock him at his use of the homey, Germany expression, “I got my blind eyes opened.” Grandpa stood his ground, turned and, with hands uplifted, pled with his tormentors to seek the Lord and find this joy that had come to him.

            She told of one camp meeting in the Johnson County timber when old Grandma Green was lost. She had wandered away from the camp, and all the men at the camp were called to go searching for her. My dad was one of the fellows pressed  into the search. They searched and covered much ground that was far away from the campground, and came to a very lonely and wild part of the grounds near a little stream. There, sitting on a log, was Grandma Green [Elizabeth Green, mother of Rebecca Francis Green Moreland?], with her lap full of rosebud seed, which she was picking over. When they came up to her, she said, “My, the blackberries are nice this year.”

            Grandma Stetzel was imbued with a deep passion to see souls saved, regardless of the feeling of contempt some of her grandchildren had for her because of it. She serenely went her way telling of her many experiences to those who would listen, and I was one of her devoted listeners.

            One incident she told me of, gesturing with her tiny, expressive hands, was of receiving word from some relative on horseback that one of her brothers was near death’s door. The relative pleaded that she and Grandpa go at once and pray with him and talk to him about his soul’s relation to the Lord.

            Grandma went to tell Grandpa to get the team hitched at once. “Brother is dying and not saved,” she told him with very expressive tones and much hand-waving.

            How they drove over the uncharted trails at breakneck speed to her brother’s home. Once they arrived, they did not take time to tie the team, instead leaving young family members to put blankets on them until they cooled off enough to be watered.

            They rushed to his bedside and talked and prayed with him until at last his face lit up with the saving presence of the Lord. He wanted them to sing one of the grand, old hymns of the church, and her face beamed with the glory of a “saved soul.”

            She told glowingly of gatherings of all the Albright relatives to her parents’ home, of the food prepared with love, of the doughnuts they baked that would melt in one’s mouth, of the old roosters and hens that lost their heads to be plucked so that nary a pin feather remained on their carcasses, then dressed and cooked in various delectable ways that the “Pennsylvania Dutch” could cook.

            She told of pies of gooseberry, blackberry and pumpkin. She told of the hours, after the feasting was over, spent gathered in the old-fashioned parlor with one of the girls playing the organ and everyone singing.

            In my mind’s ear, I can hear “Old Time Religion,” “Rock of Ages,” “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” “Amazing Grace,” “When We All Get to Heaven,” and “I’ll Walk Up and Down the Golden Streets.”

            Then Grandma would start singing, “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder, I’ll Be there.” Then she would march up and down the room, clapping her hands and shouting, “Bless the Lord, praise His holy name,” and I saw the glory of the Lord shining from dear Grandma’s face.

            As always, in their feasts and gathering, the minister and his wife were there. Often, the presiding elder and perhaps the Bishop were there.

            A story Grandma would tell that intrigued me was how my dad lost the index finger on his right hand. He was 2 years old or a little older. His brother Henry was 4 years of age, and they were quarreling over a pumpkin. Henry had the axe raised to cut the pumpkin in two, but Dan kept his right hand on the pumpkin.

            Then, “Wham!” Down came the axe, and Dan held up his poor little hand, minus the index finger. Henry stood near, his black eyes flashing, saying: “I told him to get his hand off, but he wouldn’t.”

            Grandma doctored the little guy and bandaged it all the very best she could. Thus, Dan grew up without an index finger on his right hand, always a grim reminder of a childish quarrel.

            After several years and several more children, a spiritual friend and adviser, Job Yaggy, who had been to Audubon County several hundred miles west of Johnson County and established classrooms where religious services were held, persuaded Grandpa to sell his farm in Johnson County near North Liberty and go to Audubon County and buy a piece of land where there were new opportunities for religious advancement.

            Grandpa went to Audubon County and bought an 80-acre farm in Douglas Township, where he moved Grandma and all the family and where they found friends and established their home. The Rev. Job Yaggy visited regularly in their home when he held services in the nearby Rose Hill schoolhouse.

            Later, an Evangelical Church was built in Audubon [predecessor of today’s First United Methodist Church], and Grandpa and Grandma and all the children became members. Grandma told how times got better and then Grandpa got a better laying, more productive farm in Cameron Township. But he was not permitted to move there himself, for death came in January of that winter [1900 to 1901].

            So Grandma, with the five younger children who were still at home, moved to the new home in the spring. Ira was the youngest, at 17 years of age, Rose the next oldest, then Sarah, Lewis, Wesley and Charles. The boys were trained in farming and well able to take on the operation of the farm.

            Dan lived close by and was able to help at times, perhaps to give advice, which I doubt was ill-received. He always said the younger brothers never knew what real hard work was, for in Johnson County, Dan and Henry had worked long hours to grub out the low-growing scrub oaks and other trees so the productive land could be worked and planted to crops.

            I recall some of Grandma’s girls saying that Grandma never knew what it was to do a washing or an ironing, but Grandma often told me of how she washed the clothes in a tub, no washing machine to do it as these girls had after they grew old enough to take over these duties.

            Anyway, I wondered, why should their mother, who had washed their diapers and clothes when they were young, be compelled to do what they were now able to do to help her after she had grown old?

            Grandmother raised chickens from her earliest day of married life, and one day when she gathered the eggs, she reached under a cranky hen, who pecked her on the back of the hand. Grandma had had that happen oft times before so paid no attention until a few hours or days later when her hand began to swell and throb.

            It was very evident that blood poisoning had set in, but being several miles from a doctor, home remedies were the rule. She had heard of someone who recovered from such a tragedy by skinning cats and pulling the skin side over the offending spot, so Grandma got the men busy killing and skinning cats. After the cats’ skin was pulled up over the hand and arm, it turned green and almost fell off, it was so rotten from the poison that had been drawn from the infected limb. It took nine cats’ lives to save hers.

            Another time she told of how Rose was severely scalded as she prepared to wash the dishes. She had set the large dishpan on the heart of the big, old-fashioned cook stove and poured the boiling water into the pan. It upset and scalded Rose’s leg or legs very deeply all over. I don’t recall the remedy they used, but I remember Rose saying it was very painful.

            Life on the farm was peaceful and pleasant for the years Grandma lived there. She had a driving horse that was gentle and could get over the road at a good clip, and she would have the horse groomed and harnessed and hitched to the buggy whenever the missionary meeting of the women was held in Audubon.

            She would sally forth with the high-stepping horse, and on Saturday afternoons, a case of eggs and pounds of butter would be hauled to town and sold to the grocery, where she bought certain commodities in exchange.

            Many times I would ride along when she took eggs, butter, milk and, yes, even cream to a daughter who was a widow with several children.

            Grandmother was a wonderful gardener. She certainly had a green thumb, for anything she planted always seemed to flourish. Even her houseplants were wonderful to behold. I loved to watch the Christmas cactus burst into bloom.

            In later years, she could no longer take on the amount of work required to live on the farm, so she bought a very comfortable home in Audubon, where the sons and son-in-law moved her. She had many conveniences that she did not have on the farm, including a furnace and bathroom. Her health failed and the infirmities of age came on, so something else had to be done.

            Uncle Luther Long [Catherine “Cassie” Albright’s husband] came and took her out to York, Nebraska, where he cared for her as he would have for his own mother.