Elizabeth Wilhelmina Gaines was born in 1876 in Wilson County, Kansas. She and her sisters were born about two years apart beginning in 1872. Their mother was a German immigrant, and her grandson LeRoy Morgan remembered her being quite religious, proud and strict. The girls’ father and both grandfathers were ministers, so it would seem that their upbringing might have been rather somber, but later in life, the four girls each wrote memoirs that tell a different story.
The quotes from the girls come from a booklet compiling the genealogy and family history research of Lucille Gaines o’Brien. Most of the images in this post were made using AI by Lloyanne Wallien.
This picture was taken not long before the second to youngest child, Alvis, seated in front of the pillar, died.
Back row: Bessie, Marietta, Lydia, Second row: Elmer Garfield , Father: Luther M. , Mother: Mary Werner holding Luther O, front Alta and Alvis. Photo from the collection of Arthur LeRoy Morgan
In the beginning of time for me, I came to a little house on a farm with a large hill on the north, timber and a creek on the south. Some farm land, but mostly too poor to raise anything. Perhaps that is one reason we were so congenial. It was located three and one half miles southwest of New Albany, on Coon Creek. Just one hour’s ride in the old spring wagon to the Baptist Church at New Albany, Kansas to which we drove twice each Sunday and to Prayer Meeting mid-week. “Hot or dry, rain or snow; Fording the river, high or low.” –Alta
It seems that I was the leader in most of our play. One day our little pig (we called him Simple Simon) died and we decided that we should bury him, so we wrapped him carefully in a gunny sack and dug a hole for his grave, then I gave instructions what each one should do and I would walk behind and cry. We buried the pig, and erected a monument that showed us for several days the last resting place of our dear little pet. –Marietta
I started to school in a small log schoolhouse that had been built only a short distance from our house at the food of the hill. Memory carries me back to many happy hours spent there making play houses on the top of the hill, under blackjack trees.
But along with our pleasures we always have sorrows, for one day along late in the fall, mother had bought be a new pair of shoes of which I was very proud, so much so that I decided to grease them (folks had told me that would make them wear longer) and after doing so I set them in the oven to dry the grease in, intending to leave them there only a minute, but I forgot them and went to school. About 11:30, I happened to think about my shoes. With the teacher’s permission I ran home, arriving there in time to find Mother dragging them out of the oven burned to a crisp. All my hopes of saving my beloved shoes gone up in smoke. –Marietta
One of my early recollections is sleeping in the old trundle bed. Perhaps to make it clear to the younger generation, I had better explain what a trundle bed is. It is a little bed made with rollers on the four legs and low enough to roll back under the larger bed in the day time. I can so clearly remember how at times I would wake up in the night so frightened I would just scream. Mother would roll over, pat me and say, “Now don’t cry, Mama is right here. First it was Marietta that slept in the trundle bed then I came, next Betty and then Alta. My! What a bed full! –Lydia
I came to see the light of day on a little farm about three miles west of New Albany, Kansas in the year 1876. I think my father and mother were in hopes that I would be a boy, but as I was not, they decided to keep me anyway. I had two older sisters at that time. When I was about eighteen months old, another baby girl came, and we kept her too, but we always longed for a baby brother. –Betty
Already three little sassy girls had arrived and each time Father had wanted a boy, so I was just another disappointment, but I loved my daddy and he loved me, after he had recovered. — Alta
When I was five years old, there came a baby boy into our home. How happy we all were! I can remember the first time I saw the little brother, cuddled up by Mother’s side his head so black and his face so red, but ho, how sweet! I can still see my father walking the floor saying, “His name shall be called Garfield!” But it wasn’t. It became Elmer. — Betty
My first remembrance was the arrival of a baby brother. They sent me from Grandmaw’s to see him and I was sorry for him because he was so red and ugly. But he and I grew to be great pals. I was very proud because I could skin the cat the best, run the fastest, climb the highest, or ride a horse the fastest, until one day Old Kate ran under a tree and brushed me off; she thought I was a fly, I guess. I was a runt. We had a sow that had seven pigs and one of them was a runt too. (Daddy said we sucked the hind tit.) –Alta
I was always a very imaginative child, which caused me much fear and many scoldings and sometimes severe punishment. I remember one day, my father had sent me to a neighbor’s to borrow something and told me to hurry home. on the way I had to pass a field, where some black roots were all different shapes. As I walked along the road these stumps were out in the middle of the field. Seeing a queer looking one, I began thinking that it
might be the Devil, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was the Devil. I began to run, and the faster I ran, the more I thought the Devil was right behind me. I was too scared to look back for fear he would grab me. I was so tired when I got there, they insisted that I must rest before going home.
Then I sat down to rest. The children brought in some fresh peas to shell for dinner, and of course I wanted to help them. While we were shelling the peas the old family dog came into the house, walked right over to me and bit me on the wrist, drawing blood. My how it did hurt and how frightened I was. They bandaged it up and poured arnica on it and had me sit down to eat. Of course I thought I should eat with them after they had bound up my wrist. But, when I got home, Mother met me at the gate with a switch, and what a switching I did get for not minding what I had been told. I felt awfully abused for a little while because I was punished after I had been dog bitten. –Betty
Lydia and I were always thinking of something out of the ordinary to do. One day were talking about angels, and I said I wondered how in the world they could fly. We did not know anything about airplanes then. Lydia said, “Why, that’s easy, all you have to do is jump and keep your arms going up and down and you just fly right along.” I told her I did not believe you could fly that way and she said she would show me. We climbed up on the roof of the old shed [summer] kitchen, and Lydia went to show me how to fly. She did jump alright, but forgot to wave her arms, so she fell and fractured her collar bone. That ended our trying to fly. — Betty
The two things of which I was most afraid was mad dogs and bad men. One evening after it was dark Father sent me to the barn to feed the horses and bring some corn to the house for the pigs that were in the yard. Being afraid, I wanted Lydia and Betty to go with me, but they didn’t want to go. After I had gone, however, Father sent the girls down to the barn and on the way there they decided to hide and scare me. They hid behind the barn door until I was ready to start back to the house. Just as I stepped out the door, thinking scary thoughts, they grabbed me– Was I scared??? I ran so fast they couldn’t keep in sight of me, the joke was on them though, for they were as badly scared as I was.— Marietta
Another time I thought Satan himself was after me when Betty came into a dark room where I was sitting alone, with a lighted match between her teeth, and again my screams scared her as much as she had scared me. — Marietta
Lydia wasn’t afraid of things, but she often had what we called the wash day headache. One day Betty and I planned a trick on her. We would slip away in the afternoon with a neighbor, telling her if she found out that we were going, that she was sick and couldn’t go, but Mother spoiled our plans and made us take her with us, as her head had quit aching by that time. –Marietta
As far back as I can remember, I loved to play with dolls, but our dolls in those days were mostly rag dolls, not the high priced fluffy kind that little girls play with today, but we loved them just as much. One day Betty and I made some rag dolls out of some dresses of Mother’s and Marietta’s, we made big dolls, little dolls and all kinds of dolls and went out to play under a big old walnut tree, where Father was cultivating corn; sometimes he would come to the end of the row by the tree and stop and rest a bit and come over to see what we were doing. One time when he came he caught Betty and I fussing over which had the prettiest doll. Well, I can never forget how he shamed us for fussing and talked to us so nice about how naughty it was for little girls to fuss. –Lydia
One of the outstanding things in my memory today was a time when I took the hiccups in school and believe me I had ’em too. Every little while the teacher would look at me with the awfullest frown and shake her head as much as to say, “Be still over there.” But I kept right on. After awhile she got enough of the rest of the pupils looking at me, then at one another and breaking out in laughter. Then she looked at me and said, “Lydia, come here.” Just as I got up to go she reached over the blackboard and took down a hickory switch and by that time I was at her side, the big tears falling down my cheeks, expecting every second to feel the switch come down upon my back, when suddenly she smiled and said, “Now where are your hiccups, Lydia?” –Lydia
I always felt that I was so much older than Alta, I never thought she would play any pranks on me, so I never feared anything she might do to me. But, one day I had a very loose tooth. Father wanted to pull it and I was afraid to let him. He said if it wasn’t out by a certain time he would pull it anyway. I did not want him to pull it, so I tied a string to it, thinking I might get it out by myself before Father would have to pull it. Then Alta said, “Come, Betty, lets go out and slide down the cellar door.” We went and Alta slid first. Just as she went down, she grabbed the string on my tooth and away she went and out went my tooth, and oh, how I cried. Not because the tooth was gone, but because of the trick she played on me. — Betty
My first new dress I plainly recall. I have told you before that I was a runt and the fourth girl, with three young brothers there were eleven to feed, so most of my dresses were what the others outgrew. One Fourth of July we were to go as usual to a celebration in a grove near New Albany. The evening before the Fourth, Mama suddenly awakened to the fact that I had nothing to wear. The elder girls’ wardrobes were hastily inspected, but there was nothing to make over. The eggs were quickly gathered, sent to town, and how thrilling, there was a new dress for me. Mother sat up most of the night making that dress and no queen was ever prouder of the raiment she wore than I was of that dress. It had a light background with a small pink leaf and was made with a sash. Oh, was I proud! –Alta