April 2, 2013 - Recollections of Pearl Cavenee

I'm going through, page by page, of the materials that cousin Gwyn sent me.  Some of this has already been included in this Blogsite, but a second, or third look is very beneficial.  I recognize the following article as being included in the Wilson Family Book, edited by Bonnie Cavenee Runge.  I've met Bonnie and her daughter Verna a few of years ago in Wessington, SD.  I'd love to see them again.  Verna had done the typing for the book...without the aid of a word processer. 

"The following was printed in the Daily Plainsman in March, 1961.  They are the recollections of Pearl (Wilson) Cavenee of Pioneer Days.  Pearl was 85 years of age when she was interviewed.

'It took us about a month to come in our covered wagon from southern Iowa in 1883.', said Mrs. Frank Cavenee, Huron.  'I was six years old then and recall we brought quite a herd of cattle, two yoke of oxen, and four horses.  Several calves were born on the way and we put them on top of a rack of hay.'

'One night I got so excited I was sick.  We had such a hard time getting the cattle quiet after they had been frightened by a train'

'Our four-room house in Nance Township was boarded up in the inside and had sod on the outside.  Since Mother (Lydia Enke Wilson) had the only oven in the neighborhood, the neighbors came over to make biscuits.;

'My first teacher was Hattie Daugherty Place who taught four generations of our family.'

'I recall that most of the neighbors went to one place during an Indian scare.  We stayed home but remember being frightened when I heard the women and children at Pierre had hurried out of town and went east as fast as they could.'

Then at the end of this page, Bonnie has the following comment:  "NOTE: It was interesting to me while gathering this information to notice that Rosella and Rosetta (Wilson) were twins.  Then there were no twins in the next two generations.  Then in the following generation, there were three sets of twins;
       Marlys (Fernholz) Bonebright and Marilyn (Fernholtz) Fitzgerald
       Patrick Cavenee and Tricia (Cavenee) Kelley
      Sandr and Cynthia Stewart (daughters of the former Neva Brachvogel.)"