Call Her Courageous
The Story of Ruby Leona
Hoagland
The Hardships Continue
I do not know if Mom had fully recovered but in March of 1912 another tragedy
struck the young family. Her mother Mattie, still a young woman of only 29
years, died of pneumonia.
The Hoagland Children:
Loren, Walter, Ruby and Edith, 1911 or 1912.
Double click photo for larger image..
Mattie was buried at Emmett, Idaho.
In those days, or possibly just in this instance, the graves were not always
marked well. There were five or six graves in the section where Mattie was
laid to rest, and although several family members searched the area repeatedly
during the time from 1985 to 1995, even going through the cemetery records,
the exact location of her grave was never found.
Grandpa Jonathan was unable to take
care of four small children after losing his wife, so the kids were more or
less farmed out to different family members. Probably a more tactful way to
say this would be to say they were cared for by various relatives. However, as
years passed and stories were revealed, I believe that "farmed out" is a more
appropriate description. I am not sure who went where or for how long but they
spent five years with different family members. I was recently told by my
older sister, Fay, that Mom had spent most of that time with her Grandma and
Grandpa Dunn, Mattie’s parents. Mom, however, had told me of staying with her
"Aunt Mary." (On checking in the Hoagland genealogy book, I came across two
Mary Hoaglands; one was a sister of Jonathan and one being a sister-in-law).
The years from the time of Mattie’s death until Mom was nearly grown cannot be
accurately documented as to where she lived, with whom, or what year. For that
reason I have simply elected to tell her story as we heard it and not to be
overly concerned with the times or places - just the stories. One such story
Mom related to me was of one Christmas where her present consisted of a pencil
and a five cent tablet, which I am certain came from her grandmother Dunn.
This was not due to the fact that they were poor, I don’t think that was the
case. I have always felt this was because even though they were family – they
were not their children and there were always a lot of children. Also, the
reason I have these feelings I suppose was because Mom had told me that as a
young girl her hair was kept short, just cut straight across and her clothes
very plain while the other little girls in the family where she was staying at
the time had their hair fixed in ringlets and wore frilly little dresses. She
had been told there was not time to iron frilly dresses for her too, or to
curl her hair. To the best of my recollection she was telling me this as we
were looking through a photograph album at a picture of two small girls, so I
always felt this was probably when she was staying with her Aunt Mary.
My great-grandparents on Mattie’s
side of the family were Martha and Samuel Crandall Dunn. Mattie was the fifth
child born to Crandall and Martha but the first four children, a boy and three
girls, had all died. The firstborn, Thomas, lived to be 12 years old but the
others had passed-away in infancy. Ultimately Mattie became the oldest living
child in the family. Crandall, as he was always called, was one of the largest
ranchers around at that time, owning several ranches down in the area known as
Three Creek. This is an area down by Hollister and Rogerson in south central
Idaho, situated between Twin Falls and the Idaho-Nevada border. I am told that
it was the custom in those days that when a son marries the father makes a
gift of land to him to help them get started with a ranch of their own.
Crandall and his wife Martha had five grown sons who also settled in that
area. I do know that wherever Mom was staying that there were other children
nearby so some of these events had to have happened at her granddad’s ranch at
Three Creek. A particularly funny incident that she told many times was when
she and one of her cousins would sneak out after the men had left for work,
get in their granddad’s car and go for a ride. Since Mom was still quite
young, and never learned to drive, I assumed this was probably her cousin Isma,
who was the only one that I knew of that was a few years older. At any rate,
they thought they were being very clever about this and always left the car in
exactly the same spot as they had found it. They had done this a few times and
one morning when they were ready to go they noticed the car had a flat tire.
Did this stop them? No… it only slowed them down a little. At that time they
had simple tires, (what we would think of as bicycle tires) so they went to
the tool shed, got out a tire pump and proceeded to pump up the tire and then
took off. They had no idea that their Granddad was onto them until the next
time they decided to go joy riding and found the car had been chained up to a
tree! Nothing was ever mentioned by the family that they had been found out.
Jonathan & Frances Hoagland, 1917.
Double click photo for larger
image.
Edgar, Ruby Buchanan with Fay & Sis,
1926. Double click
photo for larger image.
Fay, Eldon & Sis Irene, 1931.
Double click photo for
larger image.
Lois & Mildred 1939.
Double click photo for larger image.
The Old Homestead, 1936.
Double click photo for larger
image.
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