Yolo County CA Archives History - Books .....Chapter XIII. 1904
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Peggy Perazzo pbperazzo@comcast.net February 13, 2006, 5:05 pm

Book Title: Recollections Of A Busy Life

Off for Houghton Lake.

Just before going we were invited to Mr. Parkhurst’s to tea, and of course we 
accepted the invitation. Returned home about 8 p.m., and what does all this 
mean? Our house alive from top to bottom with men, women and children; and it 
was truly a great surprise. A good many said, “We shall miss you and your 
family greatly in the church and Sabbath school.” I have been some years before 
presented with a ten-dollar bible from the Sabbath school. This evening they 
presented me with Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. Truly, the work in the 
Sabbath school has been a grand success, of which any man might well be proud. 
The school has more than doubled in numbers and also in interest. The school 
has never been as large since I left it. But Decatur has been my financial 
ruin. I came to Decatur a conqueror in all the business affairs of life that I 
have had to meet. I go out defeated at as many points and to a great degree 
disheartened and discouraged.

But off for Houghton Lake is now the order, and at the depot we wave a good-bye 
to Decatur people and away we go. Mr. Edee, wife and daughter are with us. At 
Farwell two span of horses take us and goods for two-days’ sleigh ride to 
Houghton Lake, J. W. Young and man going with the teams.

On the way we looked back as did the Israelites on their bondage, and having 
passed the Red Sea they sang their song of deliverance; and we were all happy 
in body and mind, for we had just been having a grand revival, and to us winter 
was as pleasant as May.

Arriving at Houghton Lake, we drove up in front of decidedly the largest log 
house I ever saw. It was truly a hotel, and the first inhabitants to greet us 
was a string of eight cats sunning themselves on a rail. Our coming was not 
very welcome, for there were others that wanted the same chance.

Next day at night Mr. Hall came (the owner) and contracts were signed, and we 
were in for work and lots of it. But the sound of the churchgoing bell this 
lake and its shores never hears, nor sighed at the sound of a knell, nor smiled 
when the Sabbath appeared.

But the first Sunday we started a Sunday school and the next a mid-week prayer 
meeting, and then we found there were lamps that had been hidden under a 
bushel, because of the over-powering presence of great sinners. Everyone 
treated us civilly and with respect, but when in their own company it was 
swearing, smoking, chewing, drinking. The beautiful lake was just in front of 
the farm, only the road between; and such great, nice fish I never saw before 
or since. And the venison, too, reminded me of earliest Hartford days. The farm 
was a two hundred acre sea of stumps. The barn was low but warm. But the 
housekeeping. An inventory is made of the barrels of flour, pork, crackers, 
etc., sugar by the barrel. When these are gone I drive to Roscommon, twenty-
five miles and get a load of groceries and grain for horses. When the autumn is 
past I settle and pay in hay what is not paid in boarding men. Myrtie taught 
this district school when fourteen years of age. Thousands of stumps were 
pulled and burned. Bought mowing machine and horse rake.

Mr. Hall’s horses ran at large ever summer, and it was provoking to find that 
horses had broken over the fence and were in the growing crops. One day Will 
and Mr. Edee were driving horses out of the growing oats when all at once one 
horse had a broken leg. Maybe he broke his leg by running, who knows? Edee was 
lucky at fishing or after a deer, and a good worker, but the natives did like 
to worry him in every way possible.

Ran two logging jobs two winters and made some money at it. Mr. Hall came and 
settled with me the first year, and kept promising to settle after that, but 
never came. Will went to Ann Arbor to school. The last year here Harry taught 
school. But most of the time the boys are at home and the girls are getting 
larger and life at Houghton Lake begins to have serious objections.

The men who come and go are having their influence - tempting in every way 
possible to get the boys to take a drink - just a little, just a taste; offers 
of cigars to smoke. Swearing was common talk. Viola was, at the end of four 
years, breaking down under the nervous strain, and I began to lay plans to get 
away and save the children and wife. I could meet all these ills without harm, 
but the rest could not.

I went to Cadillac and bought a small house and lot, and Viola and the girls 
and Harry were moved to Cadillac and the children entered the school. Will and 
self stayed longer at the farm to sell and finish up. I should have stated that 
I had been unable to see Mr. Hall and could get no settlement, and there was a 
thousand dollars my due. Then I learned that Mr. Hall had swindled a Mr. 
Thompson of Chicago out of fifty thousand dollars on a sale of pine lands, and 
Hall had made an assignment of all he had to the Hall Lumber Company, and I 
could get nothing. So good-bye to the most we had earned at the Houghton Lake 
farm. One day a telegram came from Cadillac saying diphtheria, signed Viola.

That forty-five mile ride seemed a long one to Will and I. I thought it was 
Lena that was sick, for she was not as rugged as was Iva, and we were in 
suspense till I drove up near the house and Viola came to the door, saying “Iva 
is better.”

Well, that was a joyful relief, for it might have been death instead of life. 
An allopathic doctor had said he could not save her, and Viola called a 
homoeopath, and in a few hours she was improving.

Settled up all business at Houghton Lake and joined family at Cadillac. Raised 
the little house, filled the lot, built an upright in front, painted, set shade 
trees, kept a good garden. Traded for forty acres one mile out from town and 
fooled away lots of time on that. Found that I could not live at that poor 
dying rate, and went to Chicago to see what I could find. Found D. S. Baldwin 
living at Ridgeland, a western suburb of Chicago, and carpenter work was in 
good demand, and I bought a hammer, square, saw, chisels and a set of bits and 
then said, “I am a carpenter.” Found work and did my best to earn my wages, and 
didn’t get discharged very often. 

And yet I knew what a pleasant feeling comes over a man to be told, “I guess we 
haven’t work for you any further.” But I was soon at it again for another man. 
sent for my family and we were soon living at Oak Park, in a house on South 
Kenilworth avenue, where we lived three years, and the children in school with 
good surroundings, and every Sabbath good church privileges. I soon bought a 
cow and later had four cows. Lived one year on South Grove. Had good wages and 
plenty of work, especially, to do a full day’s work and milk and care for four 
or five cows and sell the milk to my neighbors.

Sold the property in Cadillac to Mr. Edee. Bought two lots at an auction sale 
of lots on Wenonah avenue, south of Madison street.

Rent was very high because of the Chicago Exposition, and we determined to get 
under a roof of our own. You recollect that I said I was a carpenter. So, of 
course, I could build my own house. The first of May came and the house we 
occupied was wanted that day. Our goods were stored in the basement for a few 
days. That night came the heaviest fall of rain we ever had since I came to Oak 
Park. That basement was filled with water. Most of our best things were 
spoiled. I had but part of the house up and half roofed, but the goods had to 
be taken out of that basement or all would spoil. The prairie was so soft that 
the team could not get to our half-house, so were unloaded nearly a block away 
(no paved streets at that time). But the sidewalks were all built in this new 
subdivision, so we wheeled and carried goods on the cement pavement and piled 
them in part of the to-be-house. We all said - and still say - that we never 
enjoyed life better than when building up this, our new home, in this very 
primitive way.

Willie Lincoln found employment with the C. & N. W. R. R. Co., then later 
received his diploma from the Medical College in Chicago as M.D. Harry worked 
for Mr. Weed in the grocery when not in school. Then for a Mr. Clark in the 
laundry business. Then in school at Evanston College. Then began soliciting for 
a printing firm in Chicago. But he can tell his own story.

I worked at carpenter work for about five years, when I increased the number of 
cows and bought milk, and that took all my time.

One day I received a telegram that Brother Freman was very sick. Crossed the 
lake to Benton Harbor; then Lewis went with me to Hartford. Freman was 
conscious most of the time and was glad to see us, but said he could not stay 
here long. He mind was with his boyhood days, and he would talk and sing songs 
of the long ago. We returned home, but ten days later a telegram told of his 
departure.

Then Lewis and I attended the funeral and Freman was laid to rest in a new 
cemetery on the hill south of Hartford. Two years before this I received a 
letter telling of the death of Fernando in California. Then one year later came 
a letter telling of the death of Lyman.

Westley was at this time sick at D.S.B.’s in Oak Park and doctoring in Chicago. 
He improved some and Westley and wife returned to Iowa City, but soon began to 
fail rapidly, and D. S. went and helped to bring him again to his house on a 
cot, and here he kept failing till life went out, and that was the fourth 
brother that had gone to the spirit world in the past three years, leaving 
Lewis and I of the seven brothers.

Brother Westley was laid to rest on the bank of the Desplaines River in the 
Forest Home Cemetery.

In the spring of 1901 I found that some of the nails in the roof near the 
chimney were rusting off and shingles getting loose, so I went on to the roof 
with shingle, hammer and nails to repair around the chimney. Just before 
finishing there came a quick spring shower, and soon the roof was thoroughly 
wet. I finished the repairs and stepped on the short ladder that I had placed 
the foot of in the gutter. The ladder slipped off the wet roof, taking both 
feet from under me, and threw me back on the ladder, and then shot off that 
roof in an instant, and I stopped only when I arrived at the earth again. The 
concussion was sufficient to spurt blood from mouth and nose, and ankles, hips 
and shoulders all had a great strain, and a continued lameness in both hips is 
the only reason I offer for having time to write this, my thoughts of my busy 
life.

Review.

I have written but a small part of what I have experienced in my journey of 
life. And now, as I look back, I cannot say that it is a misspent life or a 
failure, for much has been accomplished and much good done, and I can truly say 
the world is the better for my having lived in it. One writer has said that he 
is a philanthropist who causes two spears of grass to grow where but one grew 
before.

Many acres have been cleared, many miles of road built, many acres of grain 
gone to help feed the world. Many houses and barns built by the labor of my 
hands. A family of children have been reared that are now hewing their own way 
in life.

But the mistakes of my life have been many. The failures, to judge right, have 
been more. And were I to again start in life without these years of experience 
to guide me, I should be again making mistakes. As I now see it, it was a 
mistake when father and my older brothers, in moving from Ohio, did not stop 
near Kalamazoo, buying a part prairie and part timber, and hitch on the plow 
and at the start have a cleared farm of rich soil, instead of plunging into the 
great unbroken forest of Hartford, where it took half a lifetime to get a start.

Those great walnut, whitewood and ash trees may have looked grand and 
beautiful, but they were of no value at that time. One walnut measured nine 
feet in diameter at the stump. There are walnut rails on that old farm to-day, 
split out of walnut logs that in later years were worth ninety dollars per 
thousand feet. The stumps from those trees were in after years blown out of the 
ground with dynamite and brought more money than was paid for the tree. 
Beautiful carved wood gun stocks, etc., were made of those stump roots.

One mistake was when I sold the old farm where I had lived twenty-four years, 
and the time came to move out, and I came to the clock and opened the door, and 
stopped the pendulum - it seemed like an electric shock, and it came to me as 
an omen of ill. Years later, when it seemed that fates were against me, I 
wished that I had allowed the clock to keep on ticking and I had kept it 
company. Had we remained there we could easily have added the Carey farm, 
making 230 acres. The War of the Rebellion came on at that time, and for 
several years prices for all farm produce were very high, and just at that time 
we were in Decatur buying our living at those high prices. At this time, when I 
realized my financial loss, was when I prayed most earnestly that God would yet 
enable me to give to my children a good education, and to be self-supporting, 
which prayer has been granted, and for which I praise His all glorious name to-
day.


Additional Comments:
"Recollections of A Busy Life," By Eli Fayette Ruggles, H. L. Ruggles & 
Co., Publishers, (published circa 1904)
Transcribed by Peggy Barriskill Perazzo, January 2006

Transcription submitted to California Archives by Kellie Crnkovich with 
approval from Peggy Perazzo on 12/27/2005

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/yolo/history/1904/recollec/chapterx127gms.txt

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