When
she was 61 years old, my Great-Great Grandmother Emma Austin wrote
about her life. My favorite parts are when she talks about her
husband who she always referred to as “prince charming.” She
called her five children “fairies.” Below is a couple clips from
her story...The first is when she got engaged to prince charming and
the second clip is when they got married and the last clip is when Prince Charming died. Sometimes I think that
fairy tales really can come true...
I well
remember the day I drove away and left my brother David and "Prince
Charming." We just looked at each other - no goodbye. I think
then it came over me how much he meant to me and what life would mean
without him. Things went on very quiet and peaceful after the big
Indian scare excitement and one day in July (yes, I remember the day
and date - July 25, 1885) "Prince Charming" and I and some
others were out on the prairie picking sand plums that grew wild on
little bushes. And some way "Prince Charming" and I
wandered off from the others, and he told me he loved me and asked me
to be his wife.
I had
known I think from the first that I loved him so I did not need to
ask for time to think about it so I said "Yes," and then he
kissed me for the first time.
***
Prince
Charming and I decided to get married in September. My Mother and
brother would not hear of me going away far. They persuaded us to
build on this 120 acres deeded to me so just 40 rods from my Mother's
house, "Prince Charming" build a house. It was 14 x 16',
had shingled roof, real siding, was lathed and plastered, had three
large windows that opened, two boughten doors, a real hard pine floor
(not rough wide boards like most had), doors and windows were cased.
It also had a mop board all around the floor, was painted in and
outside, and a cellar under the whole room.
It
was a fine castle "Prince Charming" had to take his
Princess to. There were only three other houses in all that country
that were built that way: the Jim Murrays and Mr. Tull and W. S.
Hustins. "Prince Charming's" brother Frank and my brother
helped him do all the work. The lumber and all the material cost $87
and it was hauled from Attica, Kansas. There were no
announcement parties or showers or luncheons for the bride.
Everything went on very quietly. We raised a lot of onions that year
and one day in August my brother and I pulled 15 bushel and went to
Medicine Lodge and sold them at a general store for one dollar a
bushel. Oh! what wealth!
I
got me a white pattern lawn dress, embroidery, and all in the pattern
had sold early in the summer for $5 but as it was late in the season,
it was selling for $3 - my such a wonderful bargain. I got a white
corset for 50 cents, some lace and white ribbon for $1.00, a pair of
black cotton hose for 20 cents and my outfit was complete. I had
lots of nice underwear. I made my dress myself. I had a nice pair
of black toe slippers that "Prince Charming" got me for a
present early in the spring.
"Prince
Charming" never sent me costly flowers and fancy boxes of
bonbons. We did not go to ice cream parlors. Instead he bought a
cow and traded his nice set ring he had for a cow and his gold watch
for a horse.
I
think I will mention this right here that one day in the early summer
of 1886 he came over while I was washing and wringing the clothes out
by hand, and he said his mother had a clothes wringer. And a few
days later he came from Medicine Lodge one day and gave me a clothes
wringer. I think I appreciated that gift more than most girls today
would a dozen large American Beauty roses. I used that clothes
wringer many many years. "Prince
Charming" said I looked very sweet to him in my new white
wedding dress.
***
We
were planning on a happy Christmas with Mary and family, but on
Christmas evening at 9 o'clock, December 24, 1925, my dear "Prince
Charming" bid me goodbye and went home to God. His last words to
me were "I am ready to go."
No one
but my God knows the heartache and loneliness, but I will try and be
brave and go on to the end, and try and live each day so I can say
when He calls me, "I am ready."
Our
little home is broken up. I am at my daughter Mary's. They are good
and kind to me, and I feel God is good and I knew He will not forsake
me. I feel that He has touched his hand on mine when my dear "Prince
Charming" left us, and as I have written all this bit of history
of our early life, his face and form as he was younger, is ever
before me.
My
thoughts seem to go back in the past, and they are the pictures that
are plainest. He was 65 years old when he left me, and I am 61. And
now as I come to the end of this story, my one thought is that God
was good to us all the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment