Agnes Nona Agnew (Faris)

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January 5, 1972

Mrs. Agnes F. Agnew, 88, of Ogden died at 3:25 p.m. Tuesday in the Americana Nursing Center, Champaign.

Services will be at 2 p.m. Friday in the Ogden United Methodist Church with the Rev. Carl Hass officiating. Burial will be in Mt. Olive Cemetery at Mayview.

Mrs. Agnew was the widow of Dr. T. Lee Agnew, who practiced medicine at Ogden from 1916 until he died in 1948.

Born June 16, 1883, at Anna, she was a daughter of the Rev. William W. and Isabell Thomson Faris. She was married to Dr. Agnew in 1913 at Makanda.

Mrs. Agnew leaves sons, Theodore Lee Jr. of Stillwater, Okla., Allen F. of Pullman, Wash., Donald B. of Springfield, Va., and John P. of Wellesley, Mass.; daughters, Mrs. Harriet A. Moir of Sudbury, Mass., and Mrs. Marion A. Wagner of Ogden; 24 grandchildren; two great-grandchildren and a sister, Miss Sarah Faris of Duarte, Calif.

She was a member of the Ogden United Methodist Church.

The following story was written by Agnes Faris Agnew. I (Ginny) typed this copy. If you notice any errors, I will be happy to fix them.

AGNES FARIS AGNEW – Her Book

My mother was born in Linlithgow, Scotland, in 1841, and came with her family to the United States when she was seven years old. They settled in Chicago, and it was there that she, Isabella Hardie Thomson, was married in 1866, to William Wallace Faris, a native of Ohio, the son of a Presbyterian minister, who was completing his studies for the ministry at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.

I was the ninth of their twelve children, and was born in Anna, Illinois, in 1883, my father being the pastor of the local Presbyterian church at the time. My earliest recollection is the death of a baby brother named Myron, when I was three years old. He lived only ten days. Another infant, William, died years before I was born. He had a congenital heart condition and lived three days. The ten of us who grew up together were Wallace, John, Marion, Lella, Paul Margaret, Sarah, Agnes, Faith, and Philip. They all lived beyond the allotted “three score years and ten” with the exception of Wallace, who died while a missionary in China, at the age of forty, and Phil, whose death occurred when he was forty-six.

In 1891 we moved from Illinois to California, as my father had accepted the pastorate of a Presbyterian church in San Francisco. He also edited a weekly magazine, the Occident. The trip from Anna to San Francisco lasted four days, and the family of lively children practically took possession of the (train) car. It was a “Tourist Car”, arranged so families could prepare their own cold lunches and serve the food on folding tables. A stove at the rear of the car provided a place for making coffee and tea. We had an enormous supply of provisions with us. Well do I remember dozens of loaves of bread that were piled in a great wooden box, to be sliced as needed. There was no wax paper in those days, so the bread became harder with each passing day. That we might have sufficient starch, our provisions included a thirty-pound box of “soda” crackers, and a similar box filled with graham crackers. There were cans of salmon and sardines, of tomatoes and corn. There were apples and dried prunes and – a rare treat – a box of California oranges. Sometimes we could buy milk from farmers who met the train. We shared our food with others in the car, and had some left at journey’s end.

On arriving in Oakland we were met by my father who had gone in advance to San Francisco in order to find a place where we could live. The church did not provide a manse, and a house large enough for a family of twelve was hard to find, especially at a price a poor minister could afford. While we were on the ferry crossing the bay Papa told us that he had the loan of a six-room flat for a few days. A business acquaintance had offered the use of their furnished apartment during his family’s absence of ten days from the city. I’ve often wondered what the wife told her husband when she learned of his generosity.

Leaving the ferry boat, we swarmed into a cable car and were carried away toward our new but temporary home. It was our first street car ride, and we younger children shrieked with glee as the cable car coasted down one incline after another. The older brothers and sisters were ashamed of our country behavior, but other passengers were highly amused.

Being country bred, we were acquainted only with the little house-in-the-garden type of toilet. The bathroom in the apartment fascinated us. I did not at once master the technique of pulling the attached chain and I wondered which of my older sisters would have the task of emptying the stool every day. The basement playroom held a tricycle of the old fashioned type, and some roller skates. These were toys such as we had never before seen. We made good use of them.

Within a week we moved from there to another flat where we were badly cramped for space. Then Papa discovered a large place out near the sand dunes on Filbert Street. He was able to rent this place at a price he could afford to pay, because it had been without a tenant for many months. This house had enormous rooms, and a servant’s wing which alone would have housed us comfortably. Each room had its fireplace, this being the sole means of heating the house. When the basement was explored, a ladder leading downward into a sort of pit was discovered, and we children descended it excitedly, seeking hidden treasure. Nothing much was found except a few moldy bottles. We were told that this had been the wine cellar of a wealthy man who had made his fortune when gold was discovered in California. Another ladder was found, extending yet deeper into the earth. Only brother Paul had the courage to venture down the ladder into the blackness of this second pit. The story he invented about dead men’s bones he saw down there served effectively to keep; us away from the two sub-cellars.

The spacious grounds had at one time been beautifully landscaped, and evidence of that care still remained. There were long trellises of roses, lemon verbena and heliotrope. Fuchsias and call lilies grew riotously, and rare trees were to be seen. Among these were loquat and kumquat trees that had been imported from China. Years before, the house had its own water system, the water being pumped by a large windmill in a corner of the garden. Although no longer needed for water, the windmill was still standing and afforded no little excitement one night during our residence there.

We had retired at the usual time and were soundly sleeping when a sudden brilliant light accompanied by a deep, roaring noise, wakened us. Although the light disappeared almost instantly we were thoroughly aroused, and stood about discussing the phenomenon. Marion showed us a small hole that had just appeared in the glass of one of her bedroom windows. On the opposite side of the room was found a large, rusty bolt with attached nut that showed evidence it had been thrown with great force through the glass. Within an hour we were visited by several news reporters who wanted information about the meteorite that had flashed across the heavens, a fragment of it striking the old windmill.

When daylight came the number of interested visitors had increased to a small crowd of news reporters, photographers, and scientists, some of whom climbed to the top of the lofty windmill to examine the spot where the bolt had been sheared off cleanly and projected through the window more than two hundred feet away. Nor were they satisfied until, on digging into the ground, they unearthed the peculiar piece of fused rock of metal that had come from some far place. The excitement of these men was something to remember.

There were four of us who went together to the Horace Mann grade school every day. Margaret was twelve, Sarah ten, I was eight and Faith nearly seven years old. The little brother, Philip, was only three, so he was at home all day with Mama. They must have been lonely in that great house with its wide grounds. Papa was downtown all day at his editorial work, or in his church study, and sister Lella was employed in his office as a proofreader. She was older than Paul, who was fourteen and a cadet at Mount Tamalpias Military Academy across the bay. Marion was nearing eighteen, and she and Wallace were attending Stanford University at Palo Alto, while John was across the continent at Princeton University.

We had lessons on Sunday as well as during the week, as our good Presbyterian parents assigned each of us a portion of the Westminster Catechism, or verses from some of the Psalms to be memorized. This study was carried on during the afternoon. In the morning the entire group at home attended Sunday School and church services. When we had learned our afternoon lessons there was always a treat of candy, this being our one piece of candy for the week. After supper we went again to church for the evening meeting.

Christmas holidays were a gay and happy time for us. A group of friends from Stanford came home with Wallace and Marion and helped with the fun. Herbert Hoover, who later became President of the United States, was a member of Wallace’s class, but he was not among the visitors. How Mama managed to feed so many of us three meals a day, a large undertaking, did not concern me at the time, but I have wondered about it many times since.

She bought fruit and vegetables each morning from Chinamen who came to the door carrying huge baskets of produce suspended from a pole that was balanced across the man’s shoulders. Part of the time she baked the bread for her family, but sometimes she bought at the bakery day-old bread, that was sold for half price. She had a way with chicken and dumplings that provided a large tureenful for dinner and some left for another meal; delicious, too. Often there would be roast turkey for Sunday dinner, followed by economical codfish or kidney stew during the week to balance the budget. Sheep must have been plentiful in California in those days, for we often had mutton. We were taught to eat what was set before us and make no disparaging remarks about the food. If we didn’t like it, we could learn to like it, and we stayed in our places until our plates were empty.

Mama had the family washing and ironing done at a Chinese laundry for about a year. It looked beautifully clean, and was painstakingly ironed, and everyone was happy until one luckless day when she had to visit the shop to inquire about a missing napkin. There she saw the men sprinkling clean clothes at a long table, getting them ready for ironing. From a large bowl each man would fill his mouth with water which he then sprayed in a fine stream over the clothes which he deftly folded and placed in a basket to ripen for later ironing. Mama returned home disgusted. “To think I have been wiping my lips with a napkin that a Chinaman has spit on!” she exclaimed, telling of her experience. She set about looking for another laundry. There were only Chinese laundries to be found, and in all of them the same sprinkling practice was used. Thereafter our laundry was brought home rough dry, and Mama dampened and ironed it, with the help of her girls.

In 1893 Papa was invited to preach during his summer vacation for a church in Pittsburgh, with a view to remaining as pastor if it was mutually agreeable. The family went with him as far as Illinois and spent six weeks visiting with relatives in Chicago and Anna. That was the year of the World’s Columbian Exposition which was held in Chicago, and thus it was that we were permitted to view some of the wonders of that great Fair. Papa liked the Pittsburgh church and they liked him, so he remained as their pastor, and sent for the family to join him there.

Marion was married in this church two years later to an Illinois sweetheart, and went to Makanda and later to Anna to make her home. This was the first break in the family. The next one came when Wallace, who had graduated from McCormick Seminary and was ordained a minister of the Presbyterian church, left with his bride Ellen for Shantung Province in China where they served as missionaries for a number of years, until his death. John, whose college and seminary training were received at Princeton, was married a year later to our second cousin, and they moved to Mt. Carmel, Illinois, where he held his first pastorate.

By the fall of 1897, the family was further reduced in size. Paul and Margaret were students at Park College, Missouri. Sarah was living with Marion in Illinois. Papa, suffering with lumbago, was advised by his doctor to move to Florida. He had sampled the climate there for two months the previous winter, and found it helpful. Now he was going there to remain permanently.

There was a new little town far down the east coast of Florida, and it was in this city of Miami that Papa spent the remaining years of his life. From a handful of members was organized the First Presbyterian Church there. The first sanctuary was a rough, barnlike room with floor and roof of wood, and walls of canvas. There was an old-fashioned cottage organ, and for pews there were straight uncomfortable benches. Mama played the organ and organized a choir and a Ladies’ Aid Society. Before long there was a growing membership, and they began to discuss plans for building a more suitable house of worship.

Miami was then a town of twelve hundred year-round residents. Mr. Henry M. Flagler had recently completed building his chain of East Coast hotels with the erection of the immense Royal Palm at Miami. He was a Presbyterian, and was interested in our struggling congregation. He and my father became warm friends. One day he brought plans from a famous New York architect for a beautiful church and manse that he wanted to build and present to our congregation. In 1900 the new church was dedicated.

We were already living in the new manse located beside the church in Royal Palm Park, facing Biscayne Bay. Papa was a powerful and persuasive speaker, and a devout minister. His love for, and sympathetic understanding of all people and their problems and sorrows endeared him to all who knew him. He loved People. He spent most of a day once going to see a poor family living on one of the keys. The father was ill and he had sent his son to Miami to find a “preacher” who would go to see him. A fisherman at the dock told Joe to go to Dr. Faris at the big white church over yonder – pointing a finger – and Joe came.

A few minutes later Papa turned from the interview with Joe to explain to Mama. “My dear,” as he always addressed her, “I must go with Joe in his sailboat to see his father. I may not be home for several hours.” When he returned at dusk he told us about the visit, the evident poverty of the home, the father’s wish to have a minister talk with him and say a prayer for him, the hospitality of the wife who set a chair for him at her table and offered him food – the best she had. There he had taken his first taste of conch, eaten raw, just as it came from its lovely pink shell.

A week later he was again on Biscayne Bay, this time with a dipsomaniac who was running away from his supply of alcohol and asked Papa to share his sailboat for an entire day while he fought his thirst. This was the first of several such days the two men spent together the wealthy middle-aged financier from a northern city, and the minister who talked with him, hour after hour, on many topics: history, literature, music, politics and whatever else they chose to discuss. Each day that Mr. Marshall resisted his thirst was a triumph. But Papa never heard from him after he returned to his home in the north.

Papa was the pastor of this church for many years until he was made pastor emeritus upon resigning from his work because of his advanced age. He saw the membership increase to an impressive number under his leadership.

I lived in the manse for three years. Mama had been something of an invalid for a long time, and when I was fifteen I became actual housekeeper, under her direction. By then I had completed the courses offered in the Miami school, and was studying at home with Papa such subjects as Latin, Greek and English composition. Phil and Faith were in grade school. The older sister, Lella, was married.

The Miami year was divided into two distinct parts: THE SEASON, when tourists from the north overflowed the city, and summer, when once more Miami became a sleepy little town. Every year there were built more and more imposing hotels to accommodate winter visitors. Boarding houses became as thick as bees in a clover field, and most of the local families rented at least one room to winter visitors. Because of the manse’s location in the garden spot of the city, and its appearance of roomy comfort, we had many requests for rooms. These requests were denied until the day when our three old ladies implored us to rent rooms to them. One of them was recovering from an attack of bronchial pneumonia, and her doctor had recommended Southern Florida as the best place for her to recuperate. With a sister and a cousin she was staying at the large and imposing Royal Palm Hotel close by. The formal atmosphere of the hotel, the necessity to dress each night for dinner, and the constant parade of visitors there did not appeal to them.

At first my mother told them no. They did not want to accept that as her final word. While they lingered I caught Mama’s eye, and nodded my head emphatically. “Please let them come!” I was trying to tell her. She turned and asked, “Child, do you think you could do it?” I had no doubts whatever, and told her we could manage. Arrangements were quickly made, and they returned to the hotel for lunch and to pick up their luggage. Certain changes must be made before their arrival. I emptied my closet and bureau drawers and moved my things to Faith’s room. Phil’s personal belongings were taken from his room and a cot was set up for him in Mama’s large bedroom. These two rooms were all that we could spare, but the paying guests had agreed to the arrangement. Fortunately we had an ample supply of sheets and towels. Their rooms were freshly cleaned when the ladies, escorted by a porter with the luggage, came to our door.

We had supposed they would go out for meals. They had no such desire. They won the discussion on the subject. We lengthened the diningroom table and when supper was announced there were places laid for three extra people. It couldn’t have been an elaborate meal. Certainly it was not the food or the service they had been accustomed to, but they professed to love everything, from Papa’s grace before meals to the last bite of dessert.

The convalescent was coughing so much at bedtime that I fixed her a homemade remedy of lemon juice, beaten egg white and honey, to be used as needed through the night. Not a cure, it served to relieve temporarily the irritation and let her rest. Each night, for as long as they were with us, I placed a fresh glassful of this soothing mixture on her bedside table.

Papa gave me a vacation from my lessons while they stayed, as I was very busy. There were no grocery deliveries in Miami, and I bicycled daily to the stores a half-dozen blocks away to buy food. Faith helped with dishwashing, but school work kept her busy much of the day. One morning when I went to their rooms to dust the floors, the mop and dust cloth were taken from my hands. “Let me do this. You are always so busy,” said Mrs. Vezey, the cousin. After than she did the daily cleaning of their apartment, which helped greatly. The old ladies read much of the time, or did crochet work, in their rooms or on the wide, shaded verandah. Occasionally they had a carriage ordered and were driven along Biscayne Bay on the boulevard, or over the narrow road through the tropical forest to Coconut Grove, a village a few miles south of Miami.

They had been with us three weeks when Mrs. Alden’s letter came. She was a friend of Mama’s whom we had not seen for years. The letter said that, with her son and daughter, she was in St. Augustine, and they would like to visit us for a week or two. Mama was distressed. She wished to see her friend again, but how could we open our house to three additional people unless the three old ladies were sent away? Faith suggested a solution, and eventually it was accepted. Her room could be given to Mrs. Alden and Mary, and Faith and I would sleep on a pallet in Papa’s study downstairs. This left the twenty-year-old Alden son, and for him we could rent a room from a friend a block away. The two remaining leaves could be added to the dining table, to seat eleven comfortably.

Mrs. Alden, Mary and Everett came a few days later. We bought more sheets and towels, and arranged to send the washing to Colored Town twice a week instead of once. Otherwise there was little difference. Papa continued to conduct family prayers before breakfast each morning, with the Aldens as well as the old ladies listening in. Mama helped plan the meals, but the actual work was mine. I had never baked a pie, and did not attempt one now. Instead we gave them homemade cookies and doughnuts, puddings, hot biscuits and Scotch scones that Mama had taught me to make.

The old ladies’ month with us came to an end, but they wanted to stay another week. “It’s so restful here,” they described it. Mama consented, and they remained in the manse. The day of departure came, and they paid their bill for five weeks’ board and lodging, and gave Faith and me a generous tip. The pneumonia lady made a request. Could we all gather in the livingroom before the carriage came to take them to their train, and have a special family prayers service for them? Papa was happy to grant their request. I could only remind myself that five weeks earlier I had worried about their reaction to prayers and grace, lest they be amused or bored. They had words of gratitude for each of us as goodbyes were said.

The Aldens stayed two or three days longer. It had been a busy five weeks, but enjoyable. The presence of the paying guests had assured better meals for the Aldens than the family food budget could have provided, and I had learned a lot about planning and preparing meals. Best of all, we had enjoyed our guests. If I had hoped to save part of the boarders’ money to buy some new chairs for the livingroom, it was a vain hope; but no one minded that.

When I was seventeen Marion asked me to go to Illinois and live with them and attend Union Academy there. Her husband, Charles, was a salesman for lumber firms, and his territory was so widely spread that he was away from home except for weekends. Their two children were small and she was expecting another. Sarah had been with her for three years, and would be going away to college in September. In May of 1901 I arrived in Anna, and in August Carl Wiley was born.

Union Academy was founded by my father the year I was born. Public schools in rural areas did not then offer the educational advantages that many parents wanted for their children, and private academies had sprung up like mushrooms in many parts of the county. Because I did not have the required mathematics courses for third year work, I entered the sophomore class, but in languages and especially in English I was ahead. For this reason I was older than the others in my class, but I took extra work to compensate, and when I was graduated in the spring of 1904, I had completed four years of English, four of Latin, three of Greek, three of French, besides four years of mathematics and the required history and science courses. It was a good foundation for high school teaching later if I had gone to college. I didn’t go, as there wasn’t money to spare for it. So I stayed with Marion, helped with the children and the work, taught a class of girls in Sunday School, went with her and the family to Makanda occasionally to visit Charley’s aged mother, and to Miami one winter for a long stay at the manse.

The mother of a small girl in the neighborhood of the Wiley home wanted a kindergarten started and persuaded me to undertake it. Marion let me use her dining room for this purpose, and the children came for two hours each afternoon. There were ten children enrolled including Faris and Isabel Wiley. My training for the work was sketchy, as Greek and Latin didn’t seem to help very much, but the children learned in spite of their teacher, and on entering public school later they did surprisingly well. My little school continued for two years. My next project was a private pupil, an unfortunate retarded child, who was then eight years old. He was not able to talk but would listen to the stories and songs I brought him. After a month of earnest effort I gave up the work with Victor and told his parents he needed a wiser teacher than I. Perhaps he had cerebral palsy. Certainly there was something definitely wrong with the boy. A year later Victor died of pneumonia.

It was while I was working with this little boy that I heard first about the government schools for Indian children and sent for a bulletin describing the work. From it I learned that there were day schools and boarding schools, on reservations or far removed from them, where Indian children between the ages of 6 and 21 were being educated by the government. Teachers were needed. In order to qualify they must pass a Civil Service Examination.

I reviewed the required subjects, presented myself at Cairo, Illinois, on the appointed day in October, and for two days wrote the exam which covered ten subjects. Then I went home and waited. Two months later the letter came offering me the position as teacher of grades one, two, three and four in the boarding school at Bismarck, North Dakota. January first saw me on the train, bound for Bismarck ……. In North Dakota where winter comes early and stays late……(from here, the manuscript is edited and shortened by the compiler)……. It was not until Spring arrived - and Spring comes very late in North Dakota – that I slept without tying myself in a knot beneath the weight of many blankets, in a vain attempt to get warm…… Several tribes of Indians were represented at our school, among them the Sioux and Gros Ventres. ….From 9 o’clock until 3:30 each weekday I was busy trying to teach beginners to read and write words they couldn’t yet pronounce, then keep them busy during the second grade lesson, and finally hear the recitation of third and fourth grade children, maintaining discipline meanwhile.

….Life at Bismarck was rather monotonous. Spring came very late, and the breaking of the ice-bound river did not occur until very late that year; but when it came the explosive sound of the cracking ice and the sight of those huge, grinding cakes fighting their way down the muddy stream was never to be forgotten.

…..Summer passed, and I was ready to move to another school. Requests for transfer between schools were sometimes granted, and I wanted to go to a milder climate. I asked to be sent to Chemawa, one of the largest and most outstanding schools of the Indian Service. In about a month the official transfer arrived, and I bought my railroad ticket to Portland, Oregon. From there it was a half hour’s ride on the interurban to Chemawa ……. The pupils came from various northwestern reservations and from Alaska. Here I taught third grade, with sixty boys and girls in two divisions. They were average to bright students, and I enjoyed my work there…….

The summer of 1910 I went to Oakland, California, and spent my vacation with a cousin, Birdie Rhodes and her husband and three small boys. Four years had passed since the great earthquake and fire visited San Francisco, but much evidence of the widespread destruction remained. We tried in vain to find the old Filbert Street mansion the Faris family had lived in when I was a little girl, but other houses had taken its place. I was glad to see the cable cars and the Seal Rocks, which were just as I remembered them.

Trouble came to Chemawa during the next year. There were differences of opinion between the administrative officials of the school….there was such a feeling of tension I wanted to get away. For this reason I applied for a transfer to the Santa Fe school, after living at Chemawa for two years. The transfer was granted.

The fall of 1911 found me a mile and a half from Santa Fe…The pupils at this school were of the Papago, Navajo and Pueblo Indian tribes, with a few Zunis, and Mescalero Apaches….I had been at the Santa Fe school more than a year when, at breakfast one day, the school nurse, sitting next to me in the employees’ dining room, said she was expecting a visiting doctor at the hospital soon to inspect the patients, especially those with trachoma. Trachoma is a serious and contagious eye infection, and was quite prevalent among the Pueblo Indians. If neglected it causes blindness. Several of the teachers and other employees had contracted the disease from the children, and, together with the pupils, were receiving daily treatments fro the school physician and nurse. Approximately thirty percent of the girls and boys at the Santa Fe school had trachoma. It was to see these patients, and observe the method of treatment that Dr. Agnew, of Tucumcari, New Mexico, formerly of Makanda and Anna, Illinois, came to Santa Fe.

Dr. Agnew had been located in Anna when I lived with my sister there, and was their family doctor. He had a comparatively good practice there, but Anna had several other doctors, and competition existed. This led to dissatisfaction on his part, and when he was offered the position of assistant to the superintendent of a tuberculosis sanitarium in southern New Mexico, he decided to close out his office in Anna and accept the offer on a temporary basis. The salary was adequate, and he thought the work would be a challenge. He might even decide to remain permanently.

……Doctor M. went away for a month’s vacation and Dr. Agnew was left in charge. He made some changes, and when Dr. M. returned, friction developed between them and eventually this led to a break between the two doctors, and Dr. Agnew left ….. After leaving Santa Fe, he filed an application with the Indian Bureau in Washington for a position either as a physician or superintendent of an Indian school …. But there were no vacancies at that time.

…..He was still undecided about his future plans when he asked me to marry him, and we became engaged.

It was in September that Lee returned to Santa Fe. This time he had a room in a hotel there, and would drive to the school to see me after my work was done each day. When I wrote my parents about our wedding plans, they sent their blessing. They had known and admired Lee for years. We wanted to have a simple marriage service in the Presbyterian Manse in Santa Fe. The pastor was the Reverend B. Z. McCullough, a former classmate of my brother Paul at McCormick Seminary. But the Snyders had other plans, and wished it done their way, and we were persuaded to let them arrange everything. All the employees on the campus were present for the ceremony, and outside the building were massed the hundreds of students, waiting to see us leave after the supper. The school band played to speed us on our way as we drove to Santa Fe to get our train to St. Louis.

…..Lee decided to go to Jacksonville, Florida, to look over the territory that had been offered him in the southeast, representing a reputable publisher of medical books that were being sold to doctors.

Perhaps it was not a good area for this work, or maybe his heart was not in it, for, after a month in Jacksonville, first at a hotel, then in a boardinghouse to save money, Lee decided he was through there. What to do next he could not immediately decide. Then in a medical journal he saw an advertisement of a small-town practice in Illinois that was for sale, and agreed to go there and investigate the offer. Thus we returned to Illinois.

On visiting the little town, he learned that another doctor had taken the practice. We were staying for a few days in the small town of Hettick when Lee heard about another village in the next county where a doctor was needed, their physician having moved to a larger town. Leaving me at Hettick, he went by train and by hired horse and buggy to see the village. Everyone he met there greeted him cordially, with, “We sure need a doctor here, and hope you stay.” The next day he rejoined me, and together we went to Glasgow.