Emily Amanda Turner

Emily Amanda Willis Turner

Emily Willis

            Emily Amanda, the oldest child of these parents shared the burdens of the home and family as oldest daughters did in those days.  They came west to Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota searching for a home.  Emily and her husband Isaac Turner exhibited the same venturesome spirit when during the first years of their marriage they went west to Nebraska to make a home near Red Cloud on the Republican River.  Their daughter Martha (Mat) has written stories of their experiences during the four years they lived there.  Of course there were Indians, prairie fires, poverty, the buffaloes, rattlesnakes, blizzards, there 200 miles from a railroad.  These things made them independent, resourceful and very appreciative of the blessing that did comet o them.  So many changes have come to the life of the American people that it is difficult for us to imagine what it was like to travel by ox-team, to ford rivers when the water was high, wash clothes in the river, Commenting on this era Mat Says:

           “But despite our hardships and poverty here is where we spent our happiest days.  The grass grew abundant for cows.  The sun shone.  Flowers bloomed, wild roses in profusion, the yucca like white sentinels o’er the plains, the dainty little sensitive rose, which closed its leaves at the slightest touch, and the prairie flowers too numerous to mention – several kinds of cacti.  Our food was wholesome, nutritious, such delicious corn!  Corn ground in a water mill as will only make delicious corn meal.  And that delicious butter Mother made!  Delicious and cherries and delicious wild plums as only those know who have eaten them.  We never now have a piece of corn bread fit for a dog to eat!

           “We were free as the air of the mountains and monarch of all we surveyed.  No one snooped around telling us how much wheat or corn to grow, nor how big a melon patch.  The buffalo drifted farther west but we had a few pigs.  Thank God we had no allotments.  Turn backward Oh Time in your flight, take me back just for tonight.  Mother, we’ll have the corn bread on the step by the door.  Pass that roll of yellow butter again, as the lark sings sweetly his evening song.  Put us to bed, Mother, put us to bed!  We’ll never again eat bread and butter at the door.  Mother has gone from her cares to rest.  Father has also gone.  One dear brother, the one that fell in the river, has answered the roll call, an old man.”

           Their stay in Nebraska came to an end at the time of the grasshopper plague.  They thought at first to go back to Minnesota just for the winter but they never went back to Nebraska to live.  During the 12 or 13 years they lived in Minnesota the family increased to eight children,  the youngest were daughters, the other six sons.  In May, 1885 they set out for Missouri where they lived at Southwest City for a number of years.  In a letter to her grandmother which has been preserved, Mat tells of the birth and death of an infant son, Roy Berdett, the ninth and last child of this branch of the family.  She tells, too of working the winter months in Joplin, Mo., of her brothers and Fred Willis working away from home.  Their next home was in the state of Idaho.  Emily’s children and grandchildren established homes on farms and in towns there, with the exception of Herbert who lives near Bemidji, Minnesota.

           Myrtle Wilson Nybro has this to say of Emily:

           Emily Willis Turner, (Aunt Emily), as I knew her and lived in her home for eight months in 1913 and ’14, was a quiet unassuming, gentlewoman.  She has a way of putting people at ease in her home, and making them welcome and comfortable.  She was a good conversationalist.  She read her newspaper, a Farmer’s Weekly, from Spokane, but she liked to have me read to her and Uncle Ike as we sat around the fire in the winter evenings.

           Her chief interest and her love was centered in the welfare of her children and their families.  She often visited in their homes and she radiated harmony and good feeling always.  She practiced tolerance and understanding.  I never heard her say an unkind thing of anyone.  She was interested in the well being of her neighbors although she was not able to call on them.

           Aunt Emily loved the farm animals and often made pets of them.  There was an ever growing family of cats around the out buildings.  They were the mousers but they were given plenty of fresh mild and table scraps.  One day a hunting hound, thin and exhausted, was found on the back porch.  Aunt Emily thought he was lost and she carefully fed him until his strength returned.         

           She loved to attend church when there were services in the neighborhood.  She was a deeply religious woman.  The following verse of a hymn seems to be a fitting tribute to her.

           O Gentle Presence, peace and joy and power,

                       O Love Divine that knows each waiting hour,

           O thou who guards the nestlings faltering flight,

                       Keep Thou thy child on upward wing tonight.

Additional information about this story

Description This excerpt from "History and Geneology of Hannah Allen and Abraham Willis" by Fanny Ellen Wright.

Date Early 1950s

Location

Attached to

Myrtle Grace Wilson (1890 - 1975)

Emily Amanda Willis (1849 - 1929)

Martha Ellen (Mat) Turner (1866 - 1948)

Isaac Turner (1839 - 1917)