... This is part six in a series. Please see the initial post for explanation.
The Lee Family at Silver Creek, Nebraska
Lottie Mae Lee Houston
Mrs. Andrew Houston
1964
Church
Soon after the town was settled, a small
Episcopalian Church was organized, and the Lees attended. However, their
Congregational background soon caused them to consider organizing a church of
that denomination. Many other settlers were interested, and a congregation was
organized which at first met in the school house. The group developed a fine spirit
of cooperation and fellowship, and applied for Congregational membership under
the American Board of Commissioners. This was granted, and it became a thriving
home mission church, receiving some help from the Board for a number of years.
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Silver Creek First Methodist Church
Photo Courtesy of NEGenWeb Project,
Merrick County |
Sometime about 1878 or ’79 I remember our mother
being gone on a trip to Chicago, to raise money for a church building. Our
father was well acquainted with a Chicago wholesale dealer who was a
Congregationalist, and whose name, I believe, was Bennett. He was interested in
the little prairie town which needed a church, and had invited Mother to come
to Chicago by train, to speak in Churches there, seeking the financial aid of
Chicago church people for the building project. Mother was an attractive young
woman, 28 or 29 years of age, keenly interested in religion and in missions.
(She told us later in life that while at Oberlin College she had been intending
to go into missionary work.) She was a forceful speaker and was very cordially
received by the church people of Chicago. The Bennetts entertained her as a
house guest and introduced her to many of their friends. She returned to Silver
Creek with the church building guaranteed, and soon the architect’s plans and
the lumber were shipped from Chicago.
The church was built by a carpenter, with the help
of donated labor. The men turned out with enthusiasm to help with the masonry,
to lay floors, to shingle the roof, to paint, etc. Dad Lee, Uncle Tom, and all
our family helped. The church was all ready for occupancy when a violent
windstorm put the whole structure flat on the
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ground in one night. It was very disheartening to
the Silver Creek people to see the work of many weeks destroyed in a few hours,
and discouraging too, to the friends in Chicago. However, the people rallied to
raise more money and labor, more help was sent from Chicago and from the Board,
and a second building was soon erected. Material salvaged from the damaged
building was used as much as possible. The first church had had a high steeple,
but the second was built low, to avoid further chance of wind damage. I
remember the church dedication and the pride and pleasure we all felt in the
building. It was set on a large lot, the front portion of which was kept mowed
as a lawn, the back portion equipped with hitching posts for rows of horses and
buggies. The church was painted white, a bell was installed and trees were set
out. There was an organ with foot pedals, a simple but dignified pulpit desk,
open pews and a center aisle. It served the community for many years. Lucile
and Florence were both married in this church, and many of our funerals were
held there. Our father was the superintendent of the Sunday School and a
trustee of the church for many years. He was a friend to countless ministers
and home missionaries. He used to say jokingly that he “kept a preacher’s
hotel”, because most visiting church officials were guests at the Lee home,
sometimes for long periods, when special meetings were to be held, or when
trips were to be made to outlying church off the railroad lines.
I don’t see now how we ever did it – providing beds
and meals for so many visitors. Sometimes there were large groups such as the
Doane College Glee Club, and many homes were opened to visitors. Our parents
were always exceptionally hospitable and wanted to bring good things to the
community and to the family. We children herad stimulating conversation concerning
important issues of the times in areas of religion, politics, education and
economics, and we listened eagerly. Our town was far from being isolated or
backward at that time. It was a thriving, growing community, populated with
young families arriving from the east. Four passenger trains of daily passes
through, connecting Chicago and San Francisco. Two of these were “fliers” and
our town was a flag stop. One could take a train easily to Omaha for shopping,
and return that evening, or the next day.
Although these new towns were pioneer towns they
were not the uncouth, ignorant sort of places often portrayed on western movies
of the present. There were rough elements, to be sure, and sometimes violence,
but in general they were law abiding communities. There were many settlers who
had good educations, were well read, and brought cultural interests from their
homes in the east, or from overseas. I do not remember exactly when the “Lyceum
Courses” started, but I know that these planned programs brought speakers and
music at regular intervals during the winters of the 80’s and 90’s.
Uncle Lemuel Squier, Grandmother Lee’s brother, and his
wife, Aunt Caroline, lived on the edge of town in Silver Creek. We children
took milk to them daily and usually stopped in to see them on our way home from
school. They were dear old people,
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always so kind and gentle and so good to everyone.
Their house was so neat and clean, and always so well kept. They themselves
were neat, also, and very well groomed. Their clothes were not expensive or
many, but were of good quality, and they wore them with distinction. Aunt
Caroline always wore a bonnet to church, tied with silk ribbons, and trimmed in
summer with flowers, in winter with beads or velvet. I can remember them so
well going to church or prayer meeting. Uncle Lemuel often rose to speak at
prayer meeting, as they did then, and what he said was always to the point,
never “long winded” as some were.
Aunt Caroline was a Schmerhorn and was often visited
by her brother Charles, a well to do man from the east. Their youngest son,
Lemuel (Cousin Lem) also came to visit them from Michigan. They lived just
north of us, across a little ditch or creek, bridged by a foot log. Lem stayed
a long time and came over in the evenings to play games or read to us. He was
15 to 18 years older than I, as I remember. He would read “Harpers Young People”
aloud to Lawrence and me, or play “Authors”. Later he came to live permanently
in Silver Creek and had a dry goods store there until about the time of World
War I. His oldest sister, Ellen Squier Hicks later lived in Seattle, and my own
children were privileged to know her. The Squiers were not only relatives but great
and good friends to all of us. Lem had two daughters, Dulcie and Myrtle, who
were little girls when I was a young lady. His first wife, Rika, died when they
were small. His second wife, Jessie, was also a fine woman and Lem and Jessie
made us welcome in their home many times when we visited Silver Creek from
Benedict, after I was married. I happened to be on a trip to see my parents in
1924, when Jessie died in Lincoln, of pernicious anemia, shortly before the
newer treatment for the disease was developed. I had a lovely visit with her
and Lem just the evening before her death, and I think it was a comfort to Lem
that I was there at that sad time. I was always very fond of Dulcie and Myrtle
and I took my baby, Ruth, and went to Silver Creek for her wedding, about 1915.
Lem lived until the early 30’s, a very fine man in every way. The Squires have
a plot in the Silver Creek Cemetery.
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Silver Creek Cemetery.
Photo courtesy of www.findagrave.com |
Sunday
School
Our father and mother were active in Sunday School
throughout life. In all, Dad finished a total of forty years as a Sunday School
superintendent, in Nebraska and later in Florida. He taught classes of every
age and could manage the rowdiest youngsters with force. He knew David C. Cook, the great publisher in
Evanston, Ill., who did so much to make S.S. material available to young churches,
and he kept abreast of new publications. He had a good singing voice and
usually led the singing in Sunday School. He also lighted the fire at the
church, early on Sunday mornings. We lived a scant half mile from the church
and it was regular routine for Dad to walk in early, get the building warm and
the supplies ready before time for the service. I usually walked with him, as a
little girl, and sometimes by brother Lawrence too. We helped distribute
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song books, air the building, etc. Mother arrived
later with the younger children, riding in with the horse and buggy.
Mother taught the “infant class”, all those below
school age, and she often held a baby on her lap while telling the Bible story.
The class was held in a corner of the sanctuary. All the children loved her and
called her “Auntie Lee”. As long as she lived, whenever she returned to Silver
Creek she would meet me and women who had been her pupils and who would make a
special effort to come to see “Auntie Lee”.
After Sunday School came the preaching service, and
our whole family sat together in a pew. It was usually a service about an hour
and a half long. Sometimes we had excellent ministers, sometimes not, but our
parents were always loyal, no matter what. I remember a saying of mothers at
times when some especially unpromising young candidate for the pulpit would
appear, “Well, it’s wonderful what the Lord can do, considering what little he
has to work with.”
In the evening we had Christian Endeavor, as soon as
we were old enough to go, and after that the evening church service. Dad and
the older children went to evening service. Mother went after the younger
children were old enough to go, or when there was a relative or reliable girl
living with us to stay with the children. Evening service was less formal than
morning, had a great deal of good congregational singing, and was much enjoyed.
The people were friendly and we had frequent church
suppers, basket socials, strawberry festivals, etc. I remember especially one
Sunday School picnic held at our home, in the maple grove. I wish you could
have seen it! The trees were small – perhaps fifteen or twenty feet high at
that time, for Dad had set them out when he built the house, and had watered
them faithfully during the dry summers, to keep them alive. They gave a lovely
shade, and we mowed the grass to prepare for the picnic. People came in
buckboards, buggies or wagons, unhitched their horses for the day and tied them
in the barnyard and along the fence. There was much laughing and talking, the
children tumbling about.
The mothers brought huge baskets of food, ice cream
in wooden freezers packed with ice, milk in covered tin milk cans. Long tablecloths
were laid on the grass under the trees. There was fried chicken, baked ham,
potato salad, sandwiches, pickles, jesslies, cabbage slaw, sliced tomatoes,
cookies, cakes, pies and so on. Oour mother made a huge kettle of coffee on the
kitchen stove, and our father made a while barrel of lemonade. He brought a
clean wooden barrel from the store and plenty of lemons and sugar. We had an
ice house, where we stored ice cut during winter time from the river. (No doubt
this was not always sanitary, but the theory then was that “running water
purified itself every 100 yards”.)
We children all helped with the lemonade, rolling
lemons until they were soft. Dad cut them and squeezed them with a long handled
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wooden lemon squeezer with a perforated center. It
was very efficient, and we soon had dozens of lemons ready. He added sliced
lemons, sugar, ice and very cold well water. A large dipper was used to ladle
the lemonade from the barrel to big pitchers which were carried around to fill
cups and classes. Dad Lee took great pleasure in having the lemonade good and
having plenty to last through the afternoon. Everyone agreed that it was the
best lemonade anyone could imagine.
In the afternoon there were contests and races for
both children and adults, three legged races, sack races, foot races, peanut
contests, etc. The men and older boys had a baseball game in our field, with
lots of excitement. The women sat under the trees or on the porch, looking
after the babies and talking. In the evening we had another supper on the lawn
before everyone went home to do chores. There were many such picnics, but I
remember this one especially.
...to be continued...
