ONE OF MINE
If you have been fortunate to have been around older generations of your family, you have undoubtedly heard family legends. I was blessed a few years ago with a book containing a lot of our family history. Since I started this blog mainly to tell the younger generations about the family I have decided to add some of these stories as well.
My family came to this country in the 1600s; we have traced our family line to those who fought for independence and helped settle the country. After the war with England ended a group of them traveled across the country by wagon train to find a place to settle. They picked what is now Ray Country, Missouri. At one point our family-owned over half the county. Just mention the name O’Dell and we are most likely related. We have a record of the patent that Edwin O’Dell and his wife Nee Clevenger took out on the property. Edwin raised tobacco and mules to pay for his piece of heaven as he called it. The first cabin was built around 1827.
This original cabin is preserved in the clubhouse of the Excelsior Springs golf club. Many family members lived in the cabin over the years before it was sold to the Golf Club. My story is about one of them. She was known as Aunt Ruth O’Dell. She was born in the cabin; one of 10 children, in the year 1831.
In 1848 at the age of 17, she married a distaint cousin. Wm. O’Dell and began married life in a cabin a mile away. They lived there for 5 years before moving to their homestead on Shackelford creek. She lived at the homestead for 68 years. She was quoted as saying their home was an old-fashioned house in a pleasant valley, a dwelling where the angle of death never entered in all the years she lived there.
The couple had 8 children, 2 died in the little cabin but the rest lived to adulthood. Her husband; answering the call of the Union Army, died of measles in Memphis, TN, where he was stationed during the civil. Ruth was 31 years old when word came that William had died. She arranged for his body to be brought home to be buried. Ruth remained a widow for the rest of her days.
She had joined the New Garden Primitive Baptist Church with her husband in November of 1854. Her conceptions of Christianity were deep and she endeavored to live up to them with all the firmness of a pioneer’s faith. Not only did she labor to raise her own 6 children; she could not abide any child being sent to an orphan’s home. She took them into her home cared for and raised them as her own. It is not known how many children she took care of over the years, only that she raised them to be Christians and good citizens.
She never had much money but she always found time to take care of sick neighbors as well as children in need. She totaly depended on the addage that God would provide.
Aunt Ruth as she was commonly called, survived many trying times during and after the Civil War and for many years made a living working in what was called the sugar camp weaving cloth, cording and weaving often until midnight, then laying down on the bare floor to sleep. She made all the family’s clothes from raw materials that nature provided. Wheat bread was a dainty, only to be had on Sunday, and had to be baked in a skillet or Dutch oven before the fireplace.
Her efforts to raise her children right were blessed, all of them becoming good, well-respected citizens, one the wife of a preacher, one a deacon, and three were church clerks. Her legacy is still remembered today. A copy of her obituary was found and contains this excerpt.
This good woman has lived so faithfully, has done so much for others, and was so well known that her memory will live on in the hearts of her family and this community for generations to come. She fell asleep trusting in the same Savior who came to her in her girlhood days and who walked with her in all the trials of a long life. She lies next to the love of her life in the New Garden Cemetery.
Our ancestors lived to a different standard than a lot of people these days. They had a never quit attitude and faithfulness to family and their God. They met life head-on and forged the way for who we are today. I thank God for my pioneer ancestors; and for their foresight to record many of their exploits for posterity. This country was built on a love of God, freedom, and family. I for one will continue to tell their stories as long as I am able.
If you have stories of your pioneer ancestors, I would love to hear them.
God Bless America
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