HALLIE PEAVEY
Autobiography


(Transcribed as written with punctuation added for ease of reading)


Hallie Peavey, born June 28 1899 at Kelerton Iowa. Lived on farms most of my live except the year of 1917. I caried mail on a daily Rural Rout of 30 miles out of Cathay, North Dakota.

My father, Everett Peavey bought a farm in Faulkton, S Dak. In the fall of 1908 we formed a wagon train of 8 covered wagons and made the trip from Taylor County, Iowa to Faulkton, S. Dak. This was quite some trip. Dad took most of our things in an Emigrant car on the railroad.

For the rest after my marriage to Lula C. Schlaser, refer to her copy.
(Hallie Peavey)





LULA SCHLASER PEAVEY


Autobiography



(Transcribed as written with punctuation added for ease of reading)

My sister Pearl introduced me to my husband of over 50 years, Hallie Peavey. Pearl married Hallie's brother, William Cecil Peavey ( Bill).

Hallie, before I met him, had some narrow escapes with death. He was setting track for houses to be moved over when he got life threatening ruptures. He also remembers being kicked in the cheek by a horse as a child, getting Tetnus and almost dieing. Finally he remembers a bunch of the boys he was with went into the pool hall to enlist and he almost went with them, not many of them got home alive.

Hallie was tall, handsome with blue eyes, and was wearing a bluish pin striped suit at our wedding. We decided to get married in Aberdeen South Dakota on December 5th 1922. Hallie borrowed a 1918 Ford Touring car from his Brother In Law. It had no heater and was open except for curtains that hung down. I was wearing a tailored brown velour suit, fur scarf and brown hat, with coats bundled over that.

We started out with the snow blowing heavily. A cold wind blowing made the temperature read 22 degrees below zero. The storm hit hard and before we got into Ipswich the car had frozen up and stalled. We walked to the nearest farm house, got warm and got the car running again. By this time it was to late to make it to Aberdeen before things closed, so we bought our license and were married in the Congregational Church in Ipswich. After the wedding we bundled back up and drove on into Aberdeen where we ate fried oysters and stayed in the Ward Hotel, then retuned to the Schlaser farm the next day.

Two nights after the return the town folks showed up to chivery us. Hallie had bought a large box of apples (a real treat back then). We also served cake and candy. I remember Wilson Filback who owned the hardware store, offered us a choice of a coffee pot or a tea kettle for a wedding gift and we took the tea kettle.

Hallie leased a farm half way between Steele and Bradock
(North Dakota). Hallie?s brother Frank and his wife Fern had gone West to Idaho and stored a house full of furniture. There were several very nice oak pieces, I still use the old oak cabineted treddle sewing machine as we bought it all. We got a gasoline powered washing machine and were doing fine at farming when our first daughter Virginia was born.

Then came the ill fated year of 1926. On Feb 16th Hallie was rushed to the hospital in Bismark, North Dakota with a ruptured appendix. He almost died and was not released until April 8th.

That year the misquitoes were waste high in swarms and nothing grew but thistles. We did not reap one grain for all our planting work. In the fall we could still see the drill marks left in the dirt last spring.

Meanwhile, Hallie?s brother Frank and his Nephew Ulace Lerew were out west at the Peavey homestead with Hallie?s Uncle Arthur and Aunt Alice. They mailed huge heads of Timothy and wheat to his parents. Hallie saw the heads and said to his folks that he was selling out and moving out west. His Dad told him to wait another year then go but Hallie was determined. He said he could ride out now and he was going before he had to walk out. Bill and Pearl decided to join them so Hallie?s parents accompanied them for a visit then returned.

Hallie planted all his land into fall Rye so he could have something to return to if things did not work out in the west. He made arrangements for his father and older brother Charlie to harvest the crop for him if he did not return.

We held a public sale and sold all except the sewing machine. Hallie bought a new 6 speed International Truck. Rigged a light in the back from a battery, put a mattress on the floor then covered it with a tarp. We took only food of canned goods, cooking utensils, bedding, clothes and personal items.

Bill and Pearl traveled in Everett Peavey?s 1924 Rickenbacker. At night they hooked a tent over the car edge making a shelter to sleep under. Charlie and Bertha were left to care for the farms.



It was late afternoon October 15th when we started west. We traveled through Bismark then on to Mandan ND. After eight continuous days of travel we pulled into Clarkston,WA. Here we found that Hallie?s Uncle Arthur and Aunt Alice had become very prosperous. In addition to the homestead in Nez Perce they owned several houses in Clarkston and also Lewiston ID plus a Lewiston business.

Hallie found a farm for lease not far from the Peavey homestead in Nez Perce, ID. It had been a log house but had been added onto and was quite large and comfortable. The next year we leased the Johnson estate at Fix Ridge, Juliaetta Idaho. It was a nightmare trying to move our things up a steep winding trail to get there. This was the depression times and things were really rough. Eggs were 8 cents a dozen, wheat was selling for only 28 cents per bushel.

The sudden heart attack death of Uncle Arthur saddened the family and Hallie was placed on the Peavey Homestead. We were renting it on the shares with Aunt Alice. It was 160 acres of excellent rich farm land plus 150 acres grazing and timber. It had large barn and huge work shop, grainery, hog sheds, cellar house and back house. Totally stocked with all machinery, beef and dairy cattle, horses chickens and pigs. Had beautiful large ponds, three bedroom house with huge kitchen flanked by massive pantry.

We put in some fruit trees and planted a huge garden in the most furtile soil in the nation created by minerals deposited when the ash from molten rocks blew over from the coastal volcanoes of old. It and the Palouse areas near by are called the Bread Basket of the Nation. I loved the flowers and huge Hollyhocks that lined the fence. It was shady with fir and locust trees.

With PV company ruling the grain industry headquarters in Minneapolis Minnesota they were out here speculating on a port for Idaho. We knew them as cousins because Hallie?s Grandfather Charles had hired a report done on the family connections because he was looking for a missing Peavey inheritance said to be an immense fortune left in England to Hallies Grandfather?s line.

Aunt Alice was trained by her brother Arthur to be an astute business woman so I remember Alice required one half of all increase. Cattle, cream checks, grain and all. Once we butchered for beef in the heat of summer and I remember Alice wanted her half all canned. I can still feel the heat from the wood cook stove with no air conditioning.

We both worked harder than one can imagine and we made a huge success of the farm. Hallie was in the fields from sun up until after dark. I was cooking and cleaning for the large harvest crews. I baked all the bread, milked multiple cows, raised and hoed the huge garden, canned the produce and fruit plus sewing our clothes.

The biggest drawback on this farm was no well. We had to haul the water in from town and dump it in a buried cistern then us the hand pump to get it back up. All this water had to be packed to animals and people. Our baths were all taken in the large kitchen by the heating stove in wash tubs filled with hot water from the copper boilers attached to the sides of the wood burning cook stove.

Virginia had died of blood poisoning from a blister she got on a hike down Six Mile Canyon with a group of relatives. I miscarried over and over again. Hallie appologized to me saying he didn?t know what it was but it was just something to be expected with the Peaveys. I really cried when I lost the twins. (We know now that this is the R H Negative blood in the royal lines that passes in the peaveys and aborts the babies.) Finally at the end of child bearing years, by 1941 I was blessed with three living children.

Our health was failing us and the three little ones an added chore. The rest of the family came west and Alice sold the farm to us. We retired and bought a three acre place in Asotin WA with orchard, pasture, huge garden, bought a new Nash car and raised our three children.
Hallie copied his Uncle Arthur and invested in real estate. We moved to Clarkston to be close for Hallie to care for his aging parents and have been very blessed with a happy Christain life.




signed
Lula Caroline Schlaser Peavey


Submitted by Hallie June Peavey Patterson

Hallie Peavey & Lula Schlaser Marriage Record

Hallie and Lula 'Schlaser' Peavey Family Page

Everett & son Hallie Peavey Auction in North Dakota

Peavey Migration Continues

Hallie's Harnesses

Hallie & Lula Peavey's Golden Wedding Anniversary

Vineland cemetery


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