Tag Archives: Pioneers

Ohio Strong

21 Saturday Mar 2020

Posted by in Miss Elaine E. Usz

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Hello fellow Ohioans!

Are we having fun yet? No, well, there are lots of reasons why we can be strong and tough right now. We have weathered many storms in the past and we will do the same right now. We have been through tornadoes/Xenia, blizzards/Columbus (other parts of Ohio I assume, I was a teen then). We have gone through concert crashing for the Who in Cincinnati. We have been through a terrible shooting at Kent State University. We have lost two policemen in Westerville a few years ago and I am sure that is not the first time policemen have been killed in action in Ohio. We got through all of this because we are Ohio Strong and we are tough Mid-western people who have ancestors from Europe, who were farmers, who are Appalachians from down south, we are strong spiritual people, we are from so many different backgrounds now and so we are a combination of strength, resilience, perseverance. We will look back on this virus very soon as nothing but a memory. We will talk about how we coped, we will show photos of empty shelves and we will tell people what we did during this very uncomfortable and annoying time.

I have been talking to people in my family to check-in – by phone (landline) and see how they are doing. Everyone is coping very well. Most of my family and friends are Hungarian and they have already migrated here after the revolution of 1956 or later. They have crossed borders in the coldest months of the year. They have left behind families and brought with them whatever they could carry to the U.S. I have a family member who took political asylum before the wall came down and had to live in Germany for a year before being admitted in the U.S. I have friends who came here more recently. Being raised in this mindset makes me one tough cookie. “Don’t vorry about us, ve are fine,” they will say to me and this is why I call them because it reminds me to stay strong.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a BIG difference. Winston Churchill

My cousin Maria/Marika, is at Children’s managing a unit in the infectious disease area. She tells me she is being like Churchill right now, commanding her troops and keeping them informed as well as empowering them to be tough and stand strong. I am a psychotherapist for a living. I am channeling Dr. Viktor Frankl who was a psychologist that survived Auschwitz. Dr. Frankl went on to write a great many books about being resilient in times of struggle and unrest. Who better than he could share the answers to this? I am teaching my clients to focus on well-being, safety, and to stay away from the news media and only pay attention to the facts on the science websites. I am encouraging them to look at this as temporary and that this will end soon. If we see a crisis as short-term and take it one day at a time; we can focus on being here and now instead of panicking about an uncertain future.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Dr. Viktor Frankl

Women have been in the trenches since time began. Not taking away from men’s roles or their contributions; but we have done this without freedoms. Without being able to have rights to ourselves or our children. We have been on battlefields nursing the wounded. We have been in impoverished areas tending to the sick. We have put the rights of our sisters ahead of our own families and traveled around the country and the world educating others about the rights of women. We have crossed the great divide while our husbands went in search of gold and maintained our families with no income – creatively figuring out how to make money. We have launched campaigns to protect women and children with our prohibition speeches. We have escaped slavery in order to help others escape. There is nothing women haven’t done in history in order to protect, serve, educate, fight, and this virus is not going to stop us now.

It is not going to stop any of us here in Ohio because we are Ohio Strong.

Tips for managing this world war where there is no escape. Though it will end soon.

  1. Don’t listen to the news media which is full of propaganda and fear mongering. Listen to Science websites and focus on the FACTS not the possibilities. You can only work with evidence not probabilities.
  2. Try not to focus on going into the Black Market business. Unlike WWI and II, we will not be struggling for years with this virus. The shelves will be re-stocked tomorrow. If you don’t need it, don’t buy it.
  3. Stay off of social media as much as possible because this is filled with conspiracy theories and fake news.
  4. Focus on the safety of your families and doing what is in their best interests. The panic will cause more conflict than the virus and there will be a surge in crime in the coming weeks no doubt. The unemployment rate is much higher and those without work are mostly those with the lowest paying jobs. This is unfortunate but you can’t be in denial. Takes steps to keep your house safe and walk in public with your head held high and very aware of everything around you. I learned this from living in L.A. and never had anything bad happen to me as a single woman.
  5. Use this time to be creative in your homes. Dust off your instruments and play some music, sing songs, get out the board games, take a walk in the parks – together, have cooking contests or bake-offs, learn to bake bread, pull out your sewing machine, learn a language online as a family.
  6. Wellness is key here and some old family herbs, vitamins, regimes are a good thing to allow to re-surface. Honey is a nice preventative medicine as is vinegar (both by tablespoon once/day). Echinacea is a good treatment when you are feeling a little low. Pull out grandma’s cures and remember her advice. A good pot of chicken noodle soup always does the trick.
  7. Prayer and Meditation will help with anxiety and fears. Having faith is one thing that has always kept people in balance.

With every ending comes a beginning. Each time we have faced a crisis things changed as a result. We will learn so much from this time period and we will grow as Ohioans. Let’s let this period be like no other. We will come out on top because again, we are OHIO STRONG. O-H-I-O Never forget and never give up!

Interview with Tracy Lawson, Ohio Writer

10 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by in Ohio Women

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This is my first interview, here on Ohio Women’s History Project and I am starting with Tracy Lawson, whom I met at the recent Ohio Local History Alliance Conference. Tracy is an Ohio based writer who is known for her most recent work “Pride of the Valley,” which is a historical account of her ancestors. Tracy won “Best Non-fiction History,” in 2012 from the Ohio Professional Writer’s Association. In 2013, she was selected to present at Ohioana Book Festival. She also holds a 5-star selection from Reader’s Favorite Book Reviews. Tracy has written in several genre’s which you can find on Amazon and by clicking the book photo above. The following is the Q&A format I submitted to her:

  1. How long have you been a writer and what made you choose to go in this direction?

I always wanted to be a writer, from the time I learned how to read. But I finally found the time to try when my daughter was in high school. My first book was published in 2012, and since then I’ve published six more, and have two in progress.

  1. What plans do you have for your next book?

My next book is historical fiction, based on events in the life of my 6x great grandparents. I’ve written nonfiction history books, and also thriller novels, so this is like the perfect mash-up of what I like to write—a thrilling tale of a woman thwarting a conspiracy that could have changed the course of the American Revolution.

  1. What struggles did you face while working on your books?

I sometimes wrestle with writer’s block or, perhaps it’s better called writer’s insecurity. First drafts can be messy, and often the story doesn’t fully develop until it’s been through a few drafts. It can take a while for the story that’s in my head to emerge on the page.

  1. What woman in history has inspired you and why?

When I was younger, I found the story of Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller’s teacher, fascinating. It showed just how vital it was to be able to communicate, read, and study to develop one’s mind. I’m also a huge fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder, both as a pioneer and as an author.

  1. What woman in your ancestry inspired you and why?

Anna Asbury Stone, the subject of my current work-in-progress, inspired me      because she was willing to risk her safety—not only to come to the aid of her husband and brothers, but to deliver a dispatch to General Washington while she was being pursued!

  1. What advice would you give young women about tackling their future?

Don’t be afraid of hard work and don’t expect to land in your dream job right away. Study something that will allow you to earn a living and support yourself. My daughter loved dance and theater—but she majored in economics in college, and is now in grad school and planning to be a college professor.

  1. When you think of the upcoming 100th anniversary passing the 19th amendment, what sticks out in your mind?

Wow this is a tough one. I wonder what the women who fought for our right to vote would think if they could see the candidates we have to choose from. I think they’d be disappointed.

Tracy Lawson

Eliza Hill Helps Settle the Ohio Frontier

09 Wednesday Oct 2019

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While researching and writing my book Pride of the Valley: Sifting through the History of the Mount Healthy Mill, one of my goals was to profile each of the six generations of families that owned the business during its one hundred thirty years of operation.

I discovered many discrepancies and the understandable muddling of facts that happens over time, and felt compelled to set the record straight wherever possible–and especially when it came to the women in the story. Of course the women of the first two generations–Eliza Hendrickson Hill and Rachel Maria Hill Rogers–were the hardest to get to know.

It saddened me when the names of the women were incorrectly reported, for the women I mentioned in my book didn’t hold jobs that distinguished them in the community. They didn’t leave wills or journals, and the first surviving photograph of one of them dates to 1866. Their mention in historical records is seldom more than a report of to whom they were married. I figured the least I could do was make sure their names and their spouses were sorted properly.

Throughout much of history, a young woman’s first duty was to marry; her family often wielded more influence over the choice of husband than she did. Eliza Hendrickson was eighteen years old when she married Jediah Hill in 1815. Rachel Maria Hill, Jediah and Eliza’s only child, was a mere sixteen years old when she married Henry Rogers, who was ten years her senior. I’ve often wondered if that marriage came about because Jediah decided Henry, who was his hired hand, was the man he wanted to take over operation of his mill one day, and offered Rachel’s hand as part of the deal.

As it turned out, I would locate much more detailed information about the women in the four subsequent generations, but in this article, I’d like to focus on Eliza Hendrickson Hill, the family’s matriarch.

When Jediah and Eliza migrated to Ohio with their three-year-old daughter, Rachel, in 1819, Eliza made the first essential contribution to establishing the little family’s home and business. They left a well-established community in New Jersey and started from ground zero on the frontier.

While we may marvel at Jediah Hill’s acumen in siting and building a water-powered sawmill, women like Eliza were no less skilled. Trained in household management from an early age, by the time a woman was old enough to marry, she had vast stores of practical knowledge essential to their family’s survival.

Though they lived only a mile from the town site, Eliza likely would have been responsible for managing all her daily tasks—food preparation, laundry, planting a garden, minding their toddler, and more—without help.

On a typical day, Eliza may have set out to accomplish one major task—perhaps laundry. But she would still have to begin that day by stirring up the fire, cooking breakfast, washing dishes, airing bedding, and caring for her child and the stock—perhaps horses, chickens, cows, pigs, and sheep—before tackling the larger job. Laundry required hauling buckets of water to heat, scrubbing the clothing with homemade soap, and then boiling everything to kill any lice or fleas in the fabric.

There was no spin cycle, so everything had to be lifted, dripping wet, from the rinse water, wrung out by hand, and hung up to dry. Depending on the size of the family and the number of hands to help, this labor-intensive enterprise could take all day, bearing in mind, of course, that the lady of the house must budget the time to cook the midday meal for her family.

Should she finish before it was time to start supper—one wonders what she might choose to do with her leisure time. A bit of mending? Adding a few lines to the letter she was writing to the home folks? Helping one of the children learn their letters? Weeding the kitchen garden? Drying herbs to use for seasoning and for treating illness?

The old saying, ‘Man’s work is from sun to sun, but women’s work is never done’ surely rang true for nineteenth-century women everywhere.

Once the supplies she had brought from New Jersey ran out, Eliza would have needed to grow or make more—not just to sew the family’s clothes, but likely to grow the flax and raise the sheep that would provide the raw materials, spin the thread, and either weave the cloth herself or take it to the nearest webster.

As the community grew, the division of labor allowed both men and women to specialize in what they did best. What a blessing it must have been to be able to purchase items in a general store!

There is evidence that Jediah took his wife’s needs into consideration when building the large family homestead, which was likely completed in time for their daughter Rachel’s wedding in 1832. In the stone-floored cellar, Jediah dug a well so it was not necessary for his wife to go outside to fetch water.

As the family’s business prospered, Jediah and Henry, his son-in-law, sought to expand the sawmill to grind flour and cornmeal. In August 1838, all four family members took a working vacation to New Jersey. Though travel in antebellum America was distinctly unpleasant, I am so glad Eliza and Rachel went along on the trip, for it would have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Henry kept a journal of the trip, and mentioned someone in the family having an upset stomach or headache nearly every day. Traveling in a wagon, they suffered through both the heat of late summer and cold temperatures as summer turned to fall.

Thankfully, the trip was not all misery. Henry mentioned seeing the sights in Columbus, Zanesville, Philadelphia, and Trenton, and paying extended visits to family in three different cities. He noted that Eliza and Rachel had written ahead to a dressmaker in the city to have new gowns made, and that they had taken their bonnets to the milliner’s to have them trimmed in the latest fashion. Everyone in the family enjoyed shopping at the extensive market in Philadelphia.

You can learn more about the family’s experiences on their trip. Henry’s journal is the subject of my book Fips, Bots, Doggeries, and More: Explorations of Henry Rogers’ 1838 Journal of Travel from Southwestern Ohio to New York City.

 

 

 

 

Pioneer Women of the Ohio Valley

31 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by in Ohio Women

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This photo is the inset of the book, “American Grit” Edited by Emily Foster – University Press of Kentucky

Women’s rights were of little importance to early settlers of the Ohio Valley. Survival in a territory inhabited solely by Native Americans, who’s land they had “purchased” (approved for passage by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787). Women were given the task of “dealing with them,” while their husbands were off clearing the land, building homes or foraging food.  Of course missionaries were in the territory shortly before purchasing land was allowed and so the first “white” child to be born in the Ohio Valley was a German girl. Her name was Johanna Marie Heckewelder, born in Salem, near the Muskingum River on April 16, 1781.

Much like what I had read in the book “They Saw the Elephant,” about women travelling cross country to California for the Gold Rush – 1849, women made their living the best they could. In the case of Ohio settlers though, women and men were working together – for the most part – as a team. Unfortunately the division of labor meant that women would do anything that was needed but not so for the men. This means that men did not step over into “women’s” roles so it was not entirely equal. Early pioneer women might be called upon to “fell trees,” or build homes, or clear a path to their homes but they still had to cook the meals, give birth, and tend to the children at the same time. How they compared to the California women is that they figured out how to make money or barter for goods so that they could have food to put on the table for their children. The California women might not see their husbands for months on end (while they hoped to win the “lottery” at that time which was a chunk of gold). The Ohio women had their husbands nearby, though not always.

Constructing a Lean-to

It was interesting to note, but not surprising, that Depression was a big issue in this time period. Many times these settlers had purchased land in lots that might include 120 acres. This meant being close to town was not always the case. And, as such, these folks would become very isolated from a social life. They lived in fear of the Natives due to an inability to communicate and, after British soldiers left the valley in 1812, a wave of kidnappings and raids began (between 1812-1825), leading to the “Indian Wars.” If this weren’t enough to worry about, until their home was built, living in a lean-to meant being in fear of wildlife. Sometimes men deserted their families and women were left to figure it all out, on their own, with their children. In other cases, women had to become nurses or healers and had the additional task of figuring out which herbs would work best to cure what ailed their spouses.

A more formal lean-to

American Grit, is a book edited by Emily Foster (University Press of Kentucky), which is based on the letters and journals of Anna Briggs Bentley. Anna was a woman who came from Maryland and was raised in a somewhat affluent household. I say somewhat because her father, Isaac Briggs – a friend of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, just didn’t seem to be very good with money management or good ideas. When he died, he left the family deep in debt. Anna, the oldest child, and her husband left Maryland to try and establish a life in Ohio.

Anna and her husband, quickly learned how to establish roots in Ohio – which would have been hard for a woman used to servants. In their case, they were nearer to other people and she seemed to be very good at petitioning family or guests travelling in her direction to bring her things. She, like other women, also became handy in the art of bartering.

Anna’s family was of the Quaker faith and so, on top of building a homestead, she was eager to get this community going as well. What is interesting about this book is that while she was properly educated, she is poor at spelling and grammar which the editor, Ms. Foster, chose to leave in. Therefore, I found it quite humorous that Anna was chosen to be a schoolmarm for the children of their village. I imagine if any of her students went off to college, they would have been prepared for a rude awakening.

Geauga County couple

If you would like to read learn more about early pioneer life in Ohio or many other states around the country, there are a lot of books written about this. The Ohio History Museum, in Columbus, features many artifacts from this time period as well. The first chapter of the book “The History of Ohio’s Daughters” subtitled “Buckeye Women,” by Stephane Elise Booth gave a very good account of this time period. She mentions several women in this chapter and what they were able to accomplish as a Pioneer Woman in the Ohio Valley.