GRANDMA STEINERS JOURNAL
Another page of rememberances by Grandma Steiner.
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Grandma and her husband, Harry Steiner
with Lawrence and Effie Pacher
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The following is from Grandma Steiner's journal. A copy of which was given to Joe and Nan Steiner by Aunt Sissy (Steiner) Kemery in1989. Thanks to them for this submission.
Things to Remember
I remember the day I was surprised most, I believe, in my whole life. May 11th, 1958. When I was nominated Mother of the Year by Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Swinford, and my children who helped to keep it as a surprise from me. (Note*: Grandma was only 64 years old at the time) I am afraid I cannot take all the credit for keeping my family together.
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Grandma at her Mother of the Year celebration, May 1958
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I was as much at sea as anyone could be at how I could manage, but my boys helped. Fred stepped into his fathers shoes as you might say. Ervin stationed at a C. C. Camp contributed. Tom and John had paper routes, helped keep things going. I had, at the time of my husbands death, nine children in school and two under school age. For the first four years the State Aid of Fatherless Children contributed $30, then down to $18 a month as help in 1940. I started to work as the last two children were in school and the last of my older sons married. My aid stopped altogether when I started to work. I wish to give Rev. Paul Schmitt some credit for my determination of keeping my children together, as he prayed and visited my husband at the Hospital and baptized him in November 1936. And on his death bed, Harry asked me to try to keep the children together and in the Church.
I did the best I could.
Mom
Read a war time Mother's Day letter Grandma received
from her son's (Robert "Erv" Steiner) commander
Dr. Donahue took care of my children when they were in this accident and since has been our doctor always. One of the most shocking times of my life was Dec. 11th, 1935 the days of the fall. My three daughters, Selma, Hazel and Katherine started to school together. Anna went later, Tom left early for school and John went to his boyfriends house. First, I was at home with my husband's aged Mother and three smaller children, Virginia, Irene and Joseph. When John came running back home telling me that his sisters had been hit by a car on Eighth St. off of Union St. near St. James School where they attended. They were dragged down by a car driven by Beatrice Ball which ended up on the sidewalk. Ran the girls down, dragged them back in the ditch. Broke Selma's back, both of Katherine's legs and Hazel had bumps, no bones broken. Was in Hospital 2 weeks. Katherine and Selma were in 4 mos. 20 days. Selma wore a brace on back a year.
Their Father's health began failing then.
(Copy of actual newspaper article detailing accident)
Father's Family
Henry Burgess
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Harry Steiner
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Foster Father, Henry Steiner
and Foster Mother, Agnes Steiner
Real Mother, Mary Marie Burgess was Mary Marie Scanlin, before marriage to Henry Burgess. They were divorced when Harry was four. He was adopted by Henry and Agnes Steiner when 5 years old.
My Husband, Harry Henry Burgess was placed in an orphan's home in Chicago when he was about five years old, by his Father, Henry Burgess. He had deserted his wife Mary Marie Scanlin Burgess and son Tom and daughter Agnes, sons Harry, John and baby daughter Hazel. Also his aged Father and Mother, who had always lived with them. Then according to what Harry's Mother told me, after I met her for the first time in 1920, after I had been married to Harry for four years, he, Harry had been adopted by Henry and Agnes Steiner, owners of Cataract Falls, at Cataract, Ind. He was raised there and left at eighteen to go on the railroad. His boyhood friends, William and Everett Leanord had went on the railroad. And the Steiners sent him to college when he graduated from High School. He ran away from college and went on the railroad. From there he came to Lafayette, where he and I met and four years later we were married.
Mrs. Agnes Wallace Steiner, his foster Mother, was a half sister to General Lew Wallace. They had the same Father but different Mothers. Harry was disinherited after Mr. Steiner's death and his foster sister Agnes Stuckey, divorced wife of Harold Stuckey. She had son and daughter.
(Copy of Agnes Steiner's obituary)
Harry left the railroad was working on a farm near Buck Creek and Americus, George and Anna Trieda, when Tom (his brother) located him. He found his brother John in Kansas. His sister Agnes who had married Arthur Strang. They had one son. (Mr. Strang) he died. She married a man named Stovall and had one daughter, Etta Jean,. His sister Hazel and his Mother at the Odd Fellow's Home where she was Chef or Cook. He had a reunion for them all in Chicago at his home.
Harry and I were married in 1916. I met his Mother four years later. She came to stay with me when my third son, Tom, was born in 1920. She was a good, kind Irish lady. And loved her children very much.
According to what I have been told by my husband's Mother and his brother, Tom, who died in California during the Depression days and W.P.A. days, that when their Father left or deserted his family, he, Tom, left home and joined a circus. Traveled with them for several years then came back to Chicago and started to search for his Mother and brothers and sisters. He married a girl in Chicago, Bessie. He located his Father in Chicago who had married again and had a son Henry. He told Tom where to find Hazel. He had gave her to a lady Dr. and she lived in California.
He (Henry Burgess) had come to their home in Buffalo, NY where they lived when he left them. And while Mary Marie was working as a seamstress and away from home the children in the care of his parents and he stole them away. Agnes ran away from the people he gave them to and was sent to the Orphan's home. John was give or sold to a German farm family in Gossel, Texas. Harry to the Orphan's home and he was adopted by the Steiners who was childless at the same time they adopted a baby girl Agnes. She went to college and was Mrs. Steiners favorite.
(From another few lines about her Father's Family...)
My Father's Family (by Edith Nelson Steiner)
My Father was one of twelve living children born to Andrew Jackson Nelson and Katherine Archibald. Another child, a brother, died when an infant. His Father came with his Mother from Ireland. I know not at what age. His Mother was ninety-nine when she died. He married Katherine Archibald and my father, Burchard Allison, was next to the eldest child. My Father was near eighty-nine when he died. There are now one son and one daughter living. All of the children lived to a great age. One is ninety-one and one eighty-eight and one died just last March at ninety six.
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Grandma dressing up with a friend
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Edith Steiner - born Dec 1-1892 to Anna and Burchard Nelson. She married Harry Burgess Steiner, Feb.15, 1916. Who proceeded her in death Dec.3rd, 1936. They were the parents of eleven children. Five sons and six daughters. The eldest child, a son Fredrick, died Oct. 25, 1966 after a short illness. Surviving children are Robert Ervin Steiner, Thomas Burgess Steiner, John Walter Steiner, Joseph Arthur Steiner (sons) and (daughters) Mrs. Anna Marie Kemery, Mrs. Selma Agnes Moore, Mrs. Hazel Leona Braun, Mrs. Katherine Louise Troxel, Mrs. Virginia Alto Wagner, Mrs. Irene Ruth Hawk. Thirty-eight grandchildren and sixteen great-grand children as of this date Oct. 14th, 1973.
All I know of my fathers family. He was one of thirteen children born to Andrew Jackson Nelson and Katherine Archibald Nelson. Mr. Nelson and his Mother came from Ireland and Katherine Archibald was Irish and French Canadian. She was short with long black hair that reached the floor when she sat in one of her favorite chairs and combed it (my memory of her) when I was a child. She was always mild. Nothing ever riled her. My grandfather Nelson was a saloon keeper and drank heavily. My father and none of his brothers or sisters used liquor in any way. But one brother, he drank heavily. My Father died Nov. 8, 1948 at the age of 88 . He would have been 89 in February 17 following. Some of the children lived till they were 97 . There are two children of that family still living . A son, 94, and a daughter, 91, at this date, Oct. 14, 1973. My Father and Mother were married July 14th, 1886. I believe they were married when my Mother was nineteen. She was Joannah Hanson, she died Nov. 8th, 1929. They were the parents of 5 children. Their first child, Dora Charlotte, died when a few weeks old. Then a son, Claud James, was born March 2, 1888. A daughter, Effie Leona, June 21, 1890. Then myself, Edith Jenevieve, born Dec. 1, 1892. Then when I was 8 years old , another girl, Margaret, was born. She lived only six weeks, when she died of a child's disease that went around at that time. That leaves my sister Effie Emrick, age 83 and myself.
I will be 81 on Dec.1 1973.
(From another few lines about her Mother's Family...)
My Mother and Father were married July 14, 1888. My Mother's name was Joannah Hanson, daughter of Joseph Hanson, a Civil War Veteran. She had two brothers and two sisters and a twin sister, Susannah, who died at birth. I had a brother Claud James and a sister, Effie Leona, a sister who died at 6 weeks, Charlotte, and a younger sister, Margaret, born in 1890. Margaret was blind and she died of a child's disease that was an epidemic in the neighborhood died at about 5 or 6 wks. My Father was a farmer and then a country store keeper in his later years. I helped him in the store. My brother helped him in his farming. My sister was married before he built the store. We were a very close family. My brother died in 1969, New Years Day. He was 80 years old, March 1, 1968. My sister was 83, June 21, 1973. I will be 81 on Dec 1, 1973. My Father died Nov.8 1948.
My Mother died Nov. 8, 1929.
My Mothers family was, Civil War Veteran, Joseph Hanson and Mary Jane Steed. They were the parents of Mary Jane Hanson, she married John Shuckers. The had four children all deceased as of now. Daniel Hanson, married Susie Deboy. No children. Micheal William Hanson he married Sharilla Schnepp. They had a son, Earl and a son Otis. And a daughter, Minnie and a daughter, Fay. Minnie married Roy Jordan and Fay married Albert Kauffman. All of them are deceased., but Fay and her family. Flora May Hanson married Enoch Cruea a civil War Veteran with two sons. They, Enoch and Flora, were parents of six children. All are deceased but one daughter, May Sisson who at this time is 86 or 87. Joannah Hanson, she had a living sister, Susannah who died in infancy.
My Mother, Joannah Hanson Nelson died Nov. 8, 1929 and my Father died Nov. 8, 1948. Nineteen years after. My sister Effie and I are still hanging on with Claud's widow, our dear sister-in-law. Effie is now 83 last June 21 and I will be 81 Dec. 1, 1973.
Claud and Zora Miller Nelson had three daughters. And Effie and Lawrence Packer, her first husband, were the parents of two sons. After Lawrence died and her sons were grown up, she married Clarence Emrick, a boy we grew up with. He died several years ago. Now she is alone again.
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Effie (Nelson, Packer)Emrick
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Grandma in the Cafe
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I have been a widow since Dec. 3, 1936. My eldest child was nineteen when his Father died. My youngest was 3 ½. I had seven children in school, three under school age and one son working and in C. C. Camp when their Father died, he was forty-six and I was forty-four. But my sons helped till I got work in a restaurant after my youngest reached school age. My husband died before Social Security came in existence, so I applied for Mothers Aid and finally they gave me $30 a month. And when the boys graduated from High School they helped then . Then the eldest boys got married they cut my help to eighteen dollars a month which would not keep my children in shoe leather let alone feeding them. I went to work full time to make ends meet. I received a notice from the welfare saying as they allowed me the eighteen dollars a month so I would take care of my children and since my sons got married and I chose to work instead of staying at home with them, they must discontinue it. Sometimes I worked thirteen hours a day and always ten, then, I'd get off at two, walk home, do what work and cooking I could, back to work at 4 or 4:30 and till cleaned up supper things at restaurant. I'd get to bed at about twelve after doing my home work.
I got my Social Security at sixty-two and kept on working until 1965. I had a gall-bladder attack and operation and I am no longer a useful member of anything. Although I try very hard, I do not move very fast or think very fast, hear very good or see good. I am tolerated, but don't command or get much respect anymore, although I think the same and am (basically) the same person I have always been
and have the same (feelings) of love as always.
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