May 1881

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1881 May Day     5 years to day I have kept a diary     Sunday beautiful day the first of May    Frank and Mollie come    Lillie gone home with Ida to night going to Start to School in the morning    I want her to go to School but dread to do with out her
[BTM] Rhoda is pleased that she has continued her diaries for 5 year’s and so am I, Thank you for this wonderful gift, Rhoda.  I just wish we could tell her how very much we appreciate this look into her life today.   Frank is the son of Rhoda May (Spradling) and Captain Francis Marion TOTTY, his wife was nee Mary Elizabeth “Mollie” Springer.   Lillie was a big help at home to Rhoda along with good company, I am sure she would miss her being at home all day as a companion and helper.

2 Day   Now May is here with its beautiful flowers
            And to day we are haveing those growing showers
            Which we always expect to have in May
            And they are comeing this very day
Bart and Pea plowing in the corn    grass growing like 2 40
[BTM]  Rhoda is still writing poetry and rhymes for us to read.  Rhoda’s son in law Barton “Bart” Traylor was married to daughter Matilda “Tilda” Jane Totty.   “Pea” was the nick for son Lewis Pete TOTTY, brother in law to Bart.   They were plowing in the cornfield to keep the grass from over taking the corn.

3 Day    Cap’n went to Chads to get pills    Bart and Pea plowing   misting rain this morning 
[BTM] Most likely Chads is the William Chadwick family found in HH#350/351 as neighbor’s to Captain and Rhoda Totty.  Wonder what kind of “pill’s” Captain was going after.   Son in law Bart and son Pea still working in the corn fields. 

4 Day    Bart gone home left Tilda and the children      her and I walked,    thundering round hope it will come here 
[BTM] Bart Traylor went home after helping “Pea” in the corn fields, leaving his wife Matilda “Tilda” Jane (Totty) TRAYLOR to visit with her mother Rhoda.

5 Day    Betties birth day 28 to day..    I went to Taylors   Saw the pet squirrel Sucking a cat  never seen any thing like that before      rain this evening all hands quit the field   and Still it rains cap’n Seting out cabage plants
[BTM] Rhoda always remembers to mention her children on their birthday, “Bettie” was Mary Elizabeth (Totty) TILLMAN who married Jason A. TILLMAN 5 years earlier.  Rhoda did not mention which TRAYLOR family had the pet squirrel  That must have been a site to see.   I wonder if it was more than likely their neighbor and Uncle George and Mary TRAYLOR who had the squirrel.   Spring time is a busy time working in the fields and gardens for the TOTTY families.

6 Day     Pea carried Tilda home and come by the School house and brought Lillie home   rained a big day to day
[BTM] Brother “Pea” brought his sister Lillie home from school.

7 Day     go to Sams    Lou comes home with us  love to go there and See Sarahs children
[BTM] Rhoda went to visit Sam BAIRD and brings his daughter Caroline “Lou” home with her.  Rhoda is speaking about loving to see “Sarah” Sandal (Totty) BAIRD, late wife of Samuel Baird children.   Sarah was the sister of Captain Francis Marion TOTTY and sis-in-law of Rhoda.  Both Sarah Sandal and Francis Marion were the children of Robert and Matilda (Easley Estes) TOTTY.

8 Day Sunday     Lillie and Lou go to High Point  Albert Stays with us   Sam comes while we are eating dinner   him and the Cap n gone out this evening to look at the crop   gals not got back  rained a big rain last night
[BTM]  Lillie and Lou BAIRD made a trip to High Point while Lou’s brother Albert Baird stayed with Capt. and Rhoda Totty.   Sam and Capt. were good friends as well as in law’s.

9   Day    Louisa and Mrs Taylor Spent the evening..   we went to Mr Springers at night  heard a hard shell baptish preach   and he was the Smartest one of the kind  I ever heard (poor thing at that)
[BTM] Louisa may likely have been Louisa Chadwick, wife of William and neighbor of George and Mary Taylor, friends of Rhoda.  They went to the home of Franklin Anderson Springer, their daughter Mollie Springer married Frank Totty, son of Capt. & Rhoda Totty.  Rhoda did not seem to think to much of the “preaching.”

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May 10 Day    Captan finished planting corn   Frank Sowed his millet   Mrs Springer Spent the evening
[BTM] Mrs (Elizabeth Zilphia) Springer was the mother of Mollie Totty, wife of Frank. 

11 Day      Frank and Mollie gone home   Pea and his pop planting cotton   I am going out to plant mine
[BTM] Frank and Pea finished plowing the cotton & corn field’s and now they are hard at work planting the season’s cotton crop. 

12 Day of May..  No it is not Annas birthday now..  for She has gone where She will get no older  She would have been 31 to day if She had lived..   yet it will be remembered by me as long as I live   as her birthday   Captain and Pea finished planting cotton gone to plowing corn  I think it is the biggest corn I ever Saw of its age   I go to See Dolly find her pottering round nearly as thick as she is long  She said She would come and Stay all day with me one day next week
[BTM]  Anna has been gone less than a year, but Rhoda is still broken hearted over the loss of her daughter.   According to Rhoda, they must have had a bumper corn crop this year.   Dolly is the wife of Hunt that Rhoda mention’s several times in her diaries.

13  Day     made a pair of pants for Pea   him and his pap plowing corn   This is fry day   look for Lillie this evening   her and Duck come 
[BTM] At first I thought Rhoda was saying it was fry day, ie to “fry” food for the meal.  But on further reading the diary she most likely mean “Friday” end of that week and time for Lillie to come home from school for the weekend.   Rhoda’s daughter Lillie and Julia “Duck” Springer, sister of Mollie Totty, came home from school as expected. 

14 Day    Lillie Sewing making her an apron..   (warm)  Ida come staying all night     Lillie Said She had rather See her than to See her Self 
[BTM] Seems like Ida Marshall was the best friend of Lillie’s.   Lillie always busy with some chore or sewing project.  She must have been a very good seamstress.

15 Day Sunday  get in the wagon and go to high point   read a leson in the Testament  come home with Bettie   enjoy my Self very well come by the camp in the vally captain hires one of the men…………………………………………………………………………… 
[BTM]  The last line was blotted out, could not make any of the word’s out.   Rhoda & Capt. went to study the Testament at the little town of High Point, then went home with daughter Bettie Tillman.   Capt. needed extra help on his farm and hired a helping hand at the Valley camp

16 Day    layout moved over    Strange time to be moving round    I think there is Something wrong about it..   well John Williams Set in to hoe      I went out to the camp     like the women very well..  very warm today 
[BTM] Who and what was a “layout” used in this terminology by Rhoda?  John Williams was the newly hired hand by Captain Totty.  Rhoda went to visit the women in the camp and most likely swapped stories about living on the trail between homes.

17 Day    Bettie and Mollie come    I Sewed for Bettie   Cap n plowing   Pea and Williams hoeing corn   the women out in camp   heard Josh Gage is at Bens    warm and cloudy this evening   think it will rain don’t care if it does
[BTM] Dau Bettie Tillman and dau-in-law Mollie (Springer) Totty came over for a visit.  Captain had, son, Pea and his hired hand John Williams taking care of the corn.   Joshua Gage was the Uncle of Ben Gage, husband of Louisa (Totty) Gage.   Joshua Gage was the brother of David Ferdinand GAGE, father of Ben.

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May 1881
The 18 Day    put up my fire Screen looks better  Frank Edge. Williams and Pea hoeing corn     Cap n plowing     the Mrs Williamses washing at the well   baby crying   I am Sorry for it   got on ball after dinner rode up to Bens  Saw Josh Gage and family..   (thundering looks like rain)
[BTM]  Frank Edge was living in the HH of A. J. Cross, next door to the Totty’s, as a laborer on the 1880 census of Montague Co., TX.    There must have been more than one Mrs Williams in the camp.   Rhoda listened to the baby cry while the mother was doing the washing.  I wonder if she is speaking about the old famous well in Uz.

19 Day   rain last night and this morning      the Mrs Williamses come to the house Spent the evening  Coffee come to trade with Williams 
[BTM] This may likely be James Coffee from Cooke Co., TX, found in the 1880 census.   Were the Coffee and Williams trading goods or land?

20 Day   cool and Still cloudy     Cap..n and Pea plowing cotton     Seems to me that this is the pleasantest May I ever Saw  reckon it is because we had So much cold weather..   we apreciate this Month..   every thing growing and flourishing..      been out and Set awhile at the camp  like those women 
[BTM] Again, Rhoda mentions that she like the women she was visiting at the “camp.”    All the rain must have been a big help in making good crops this spring.

21 Day   Campers gone..   Bart and Tilda Come  Captain and Pea gone to the Burg   rain the biggest rain we have had   got a letter from John  Sarah has an other girl   that was Lizzy born be first 
[BTM] John Williams and the other campers have now moved on.   Rhoda was just now getting notice of the birth of Mary Elizabeth Totty, who was born on May 1st, to son John and wife Sarah (Yandell) TOTTY in Arkansas.  I wish my great grandfather John would have been quoted more by Rhoda from his letters on our ancestors.   They moved to Sebastian Co., Arkansas in 1879 from Montague Co., TX.

22 Day  Sunday Bart and Tilda Pea and Lillie gone to the Burg to meeting..   Cap..n and I alone cooking Cabbage and english peas..   all got back hungary  as usual  from Forest burg  Dutch come out till bed time
[BTM] Family was all gone to a church meeting at Forestburg, TX.   Rhoda and Capt. Totty stayed home.  Rhoda must have been feeling “poorly” since she did not go to the meeting.

23 Day  cleared off    all glad had enough rain   Pea and his pap hoeing in the millet and cotton    I cut out my black dress..   Coffey and family took dinner 
[BTM] Sound’s like they were grateful for a break in the weather, so they could catch up on the work in the millet and cotton fields.   Rhoda making a new black dress, wonder if this is a replacement dress for her basic black dress or for some special occasion.

24 Day  Cap..n and Pea hoeing Cotton   cant hardly write  dead and numb feeling in my hand and arm   think it is from milking   another surprise  Mrs Edwards and children and Garfield (a dog) come and She talked Some  She is a grass widow and talked about that until my head got to wool gathering 
[BTM]  Rhoda was having problems from after effect of her chore of milking the cow(s).  She had quite large a workload compared to our lives today, where we only have to hop in the car and go to the store for our milk now.  Makes me appreciate all our luxuary of today.   Mrs Edwards was most likely Nannie (Offutt Kelley) nee Mrs. Edwards.   She was the mother of Leonard Thomas, Ortho B. and James E. KELLEY.   After she became a widow, she married Thomas Jefferson EDWARDS and they were living in Cooke Co., TX in 1880 on census records.   Leonard Thomas KELLEY married Mary Malena TOTTY, the daughter of Lewis Henry and Louisa Jane (Wheeler) TOTTY.  Ortho B. KELLEY married Ada Irene TRAYLOR, daughter of Bart and Matilda Jane (TOTTY) TRAYLOR.  My grandfather Green Whitfield TOTTY was found, as servant, in HH of Ortho B. KELLEY in the 1900 Montague Co., Census. 

25 Day  thundering round but has not come here yet  Cap..n and Pea plowing   in their young corn and cotton

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May the 26 Day   had our first mess of Irish potatoes   Mrs Taylor and Mrs Long Spent the evening we Sewed awhile and then wound up on a little healthly gossip it does a person good to gass a little Some times 
[BTM]  Mrs (Mary) Taylor was the wife of Rhoda’s Uncle George Taylor.   Mrs Long was another neighbor to the Totty family.

27 Day Captain and Pea plowing..  Corn over the horses backs   Some of it..   all looking fine growing fast..   big rain this evening 
[BTM] Corn was growing taller than the horses back, so the Totty family proud of its growth.

28 Day  Storm of wind and rain last night Corn and oats blown down long faces this morning  Cap..n and I go to Franks See Mollie and Bettie and the babys   Lillie gone home with Ida to night   Dick Coffey and Pea gone to Montague Springs 
[BTM] After all their hard work, it was a shame that one storm could do so much damage to those tender plants after they were growing so good.   Rather than mope around they all went to visit the grandbabies and children.   Lillie was staying with her best friend Ida Marshall a neighbor.  Dick Coffey has been unidentified so far.  Any idea’s who he was, other than a friend of Pea’s.

29 Day  Sunday   another Storm last night not quite So bad as the other..   we all go to High point to hear Campbell preach and we heard him   he Spoke of the condemnerisence of the law and in his prayer of the Augustus presence and asked God to take him as an emty blank..  and I thought if he was taken at all he would be very near an emty blank
[BTM] This is a new word for me “condemnerisence”, could she mean condemnation? Any thoughts?  I believe Rhoda ment to write empty instead of emty, but I have no proof of this thought.

30 Day  Sim and Dick come in the night   Ida went to Springers on business last night  rain again last night   Cool to day  Pea and Dick gone to Hesters   Captain to the Shop 
[BTM] Sim, is likely Sim Hester and Dick Coffey mention on day 28.  Pea Totty and Dick Coffey later went over to the Hester place to see Sim. 

31 Day  and last of May..   then will come June with its long Sunshiney days and Short nights
---June the first Day------ brother Sam bless his old soul come again glad to See him looks better that he did when here last    Rainy come with him   Spent the day   had my first mess of beans (I mad a mistake So I Rub out June)
[BTM] Samuel Spencer was the half brother of Rhoda.   “Rainy” was Loranie M. White Spencer, wife of Daniel SPENCER, son of Sam and nephew of Rhoda Totty.   Daniel and Rainy were living in Wise Co., TX when the 1880 census was taken. 

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Transcribed from Original Diary by Birdie (Totty) McNutt ©2002