Deborah Nevius Smith. -------------------------------------------------------------------- File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by MMeier1432 USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 100th birthday, telling of her early days in Raritan, Henderson Co., Illinois - I am Deborah Smith. I was born to Peter Brokaw Nevius and Maggie Kline Tharp Nevius, on December 10, 1888. I have just celebrated my 100th birthday. They named me Deborah Wagner Nevius, for my Grandmother Tharp. Her maiden name was Wagner. I was their second child, the first one being a boy named for his two grandfathers - Alvin John Nevius, - for Alvin Tharp and John Simonson Nevius. I was born on the Nevius farm near Raritan, Illinois, in the house where my father was born. My father and mother lived with his parents - John Simonson Nevius and Maria Ann Brokaw - at first. They moved to the small town, Raritan, where they lived until I was five years old. My father farmed is father's farm. They had moved to Kansas to a farm bought by my mother's father after Grandfather Nevius died and my Grandmother couldn't manage the home farm. Then we moved to Monmouth, Ill. and my father had a grocery store. I started to school in Monmouth, in the first grade. I loved school. My teacher was Nellie Shields and she played the organ and encouraged me to sing. They gave contattas and programs and I always had a singing part. We were allowed to go at will to a hall where was kept a small container of clay. There was a pottery in that town and they made all kinds of vessels and let the school have clay for the first grade children to enjoy. We could go to it at will. Years later, in 1923, my husband, Ben Smith, and I went back. We hunted up this teacher but she hardly remembered me, only that I was never still. I loved everything and everybody. I had two girl friends, Jennie Bereth and Maude Bridenthorol, and life was good. My Mother was so easy on us all. My second grade teacher was Miss Musgrove and my third grade teacher was Miss Peel. I think I enjoyed the 3rd and 4th grades very much because I can't even remember my teachers or rooms from then on until we moved to Oklahoma and I was in the seventh grade. I had a library card and helped with my younger brother and sisters while I read. I remember rocking the cradle with my foot. The next child younger to me was a boy, born in 1893, named Russell Graham Nevius. (probably after the minister who married my parents), Then another boy was bornin 1895. He was sick all his life with brain faver and he was retarded. His hair was almost white when he was eight years old. He was a sweet, loveable little boy who depended on me, mostly, after my sister, Ruth Esther, was born in 1900, and Mamma had her hands full. My dad sold the store when his creditors didn't pay him and he couldn't refuse to sell on credit. He rented a railroad car and we moved everything, including a piano and pump organ to Oklahoma. I had a cousin who lived in Hennessey, and we stopped there until Dad finally landed in Geary, Oklahoma, where he put in a butcher shop. That was summer, 1901. While in Hennessey, I heard the startling news that President McKinley had been shot. I ran home with the news. I had been going to Sunday School with my Aunt Ren, Mamma's sister (Lurenda Tharp), and had lived where the people were very strict. This was terrible. I was so shocked to hear they even played baseball on Sunday. I was sure they would never get to Heaven!!! My father's folks belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, and never did anything on Sunday. No cooking, no big dinners. They didn't even build a fire. Mama's folks were not that waybut were religious. In fact, the first church in Raritan, was founded in my Grandfather Nevius' house. Ben and I visited that Church in 1923. My Dad asked me to sit in a certain pew and look for marks on the back of the seat just in front for scuff-marks, from his copper-toed boots. He was rebellious and finally refused to go to church. He was strict with all of us children while our Mother was gentle and seldom scolded. I was a tom-boy, imitating my brother. He had a bicycle and I stole it whenever he left it - until he chained it to a tree. They never did get me one. After I was grown, I had one but never did enjoy it much. I was a busybody and may have annoyed our neigbors. We lived in Geary, two years. My folds kept wanting a farm, so Dad bought out a relincement on 160 acres in Custer Co., Oklahoma, and we moved to the SE quarter of Section 18, where we lived about 20 years. Alvin went back to Geary, to graduate and I was out of school for 3 years. I went one day to visit the country school where Russell and Ruth went. The teacher was an 8th grader - and I knew more than she did. We lived a happy, healthy life. Oklahoma was such a change from Illinois - no more cold, snowy winters. Just sunshine and good food. Mama raised a garden and we had beef, pork, and lamb. Our neighbors were good farm folks with no education. They married early and asked nothing more. Alvin kept on coming home to tell us what he had learned. He got a job in Elk City, Oklahoma, keeping books. He kept saying I ought to go on to school, but how? We lived 20 miles from Elk City, where there was a high school. That was a day's journey in the wagon. Then came a break. About one and a half miles away was a Federal Indian School, clled Red Moon. My Dad got some work there teaching the Indian boys how to farm.. Mama and Dad became friends of Mr. and Mrs. Blish, who were from the north (Michigan), and they were college graduates. Mr. Blish was the superintendant of schools in Elk City. Mrs. Blish asked me to come look after the children while she got ready to go back to Michigan. Then she asked me to come live at the school. I did and wanted more than ever to go to school. They had worked through college in a college called Olivet and asked why I didn't do that. They offered to find a place in Elk City for me to work for board and room. I stayed with G. E. Martin one year and Geo. F. Sisson the next, getting two years of High School. Then I taught a year, for $40.00 a month, and went to school in the summer. I saved my money and went one year. While I was in high school working for my board, I studied more and liked to work less, so I rented a room and loved it. The folks brought me things to eat from the farm and I discovered dried apricots. They brought bread, butter, meat and vegetables to me and for the first time I relied on myself. Went to church and Sunday School, and Mrs. Sisson was unhappy to have to get breakfast herself and clean. She soon hired a girl to come, so i was free a day, and did well in school. I didn't know I could. I began to plan how I could begin to teach. The Blishes kept telling me I could, but I took typhoid malaria and had to drop out the second sophomore semester. After I recovered in the summer, the Indian school lost their teacher and Mr. Blish hired me on as a substitute. I worked at the school as matron that summer. With Frieda Schultz, the cook, we made shades for all 20 of the windows of the girls dormitory. That summer, I filled the Matron's place, helped in the kitchen, helped in the office, and made myself useful. Mr. Blish kept me on the payroll every day. I loved having my own room and a detail of girls to help me clean it. I never wanted to leave. I ate in the mess hall with all the other employees. The Blishes kept me supplied with books and I learned how the world lived. I remember I traded a pair of hi-topped suede shoes to an Indian girl for her shawl. It was spring and she didn't need it, but wanted the shoes. I learned to love the girls who were my age - 16. Long after, when I'd see one of them somewhere they would throw their arms around me and say, "Now, Debbie." We'd both cry. My two best friends were Margaret Horse Roads and Vinnie White Eagle. Her father was chief of the Cheyennes at their encampment. It was hard for the Indian parents. The government would go out into the camp and bring in the six-year-olds to this boarding school, despite their parents' pleas. They put them into clothes they hated, kept them from folkd they loved, and let them go back to their teepee for a few hours on Saturday. The little boys cried for a week. We gave them English names and wouldn't let them talk in their own language. I didn't realize how cruel it was. As a teacher, they forbade me to speak Indian words. In desperation, I learned one word: "humpstoast" which means "sit down". In the late summer, my dad believed the Civil Service would send a replacement permanent teacher and I would be out of a job and too late for high school. So he talked to a friend who was on a school board and they hired me to teach the Evergreen School at Sketchley, to begin in October and last seven months at $40.00, per month. I took the County exam and got my certificate. I had about 21 students in all grades. I boarded 1 1/4 miles from school and walked to school every day. I didn't like a single day. I was worried I couldn't handle the 8th grade arithmetic, so I worked every problem the night before and made it ok. Mable Gregg boarded at the same place and taught another school adjoining my district The people had only two rooms but hung sheets on a wire to divide the main room for us. Until the weather got too cold, I rode a horse from home every day. I remember I was 21 that year. I saved my money and went to summer school in Weatherford. The classes were huge. The boys had to sit in the window sills. I got locked out several times for being late. I learned later that Ben Smith and his brother, Clarence, attended some of these same classes. I didn't know Ben that summer. I wanted even more to get a teaching certificate that I wouldn't have to renew with a county examination. The next fall, I applied to teach at Yankee Front for seven months. Before it got cold, I drove a one-horse buggy from home to my school, about five miles away. My sister, Ruth, went with me to school about two months. Then I boarded with a family named Nowlins. They had two girls in school. I don't remember what I paid for room and board. I had corn and peach preserves for lunch, but a good supper, which they kept warm for me. The little girl had a kitten, which she put in a doll buggy, and hung it on the wall. She called it Potter Man. I liked it, but decided to work for one grade of young children. I went to school that summer and to Weatherford in the fall of 1911. I met Earl Beutler and we got married in December 1911. We and our good friends, Ross and Gladys Dooley, had apartments in the home of Kate Bollenbaugh, and life was happy. We all moved to Oklahoma City, where the men worked on a newspaper, and Gladys and I enrolled in Okla. City High School. We were the first married students they had. My dad gave us $150.00 credit at a store, and we bought furnishings for an apartment: a bed, mattress, table, cabinet, dishes, 2 chairs, and a gas heating stove. Mamma gave us bedding and pillows and linens. The paper folded and we moved back to Weatherford. That summer we applied at Moorewood, and the Dooleys went to eastern Okla. to teach. Earl died that summer, of typhoid. In October, I started to teach the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades at Moorewoor, and drove from home with my suster, Ruth, who was about ten. The 4th, 5th, and 6th grades were taught by a man named Ben Smith. He had taught there the year before for half a year and was hired again after Earl's death. It was a new building and I was nearing my goal of one grade - liked the 3rd the best. Ruth put the horse in the stable and hitched him up when school was out. One day she mentioned that Mr. Smith always helped her hitch up and I couldn't believe her. I never saw him after school. He coached basketball - and always had a winning team. His father had died in the summer, and his mother and sister came to live with him at Moorewood. When it got too cold to drive, Ruth and I rented a two-room house next door to Ben's mother. They had an organ and it got to be customary that we young people met and sang and danced. I played the organ. There were six of us: his sister, Olivia, Wylie Harris, Eula williams who lived with the Smiths, and a neighbor named John, whom Eula married years later, and Ben, and me. He was so thoughtful of his mother and Olivia, that I commenced to notice him. He had a fine athletic figure, tall, was a good coach, and did little things for me. I liked his mother and sister. She used to cook greens and bring a dish over for lunch. My mother and father invited them down to our farm for their 33rd anniversary on December 12, for pigeon pie. Ben and I were really good friends by then and I could see my folks were taken with him. The year before, there had been some gossip about the lady teacher and man teacher, and Ben didn't want that, so we ignored each other during the day, but saw each other every evening - until school was out. I went to Weatherford, to school and on week ends, went to Foss to see Ben. We decided to get married. We were married June 23, 1914. His brother, Ross, and wife Tedie had a wedding supper and I was so surprised. I didn't know that was the custom. They worked all day on it while we went to Cordell to be married. Clarence, Ben's brother, and his wife, Virda, went with us. We were married at the parsonage of the Baptist preacher. I wore a lovely pleated pale green chiffon dress that I bought for a recital at Weatherford. We stayed with Mother Smith until July, then moved to Moorewood to teach. We lived in the same house Mother Smith and Olivia and Ben had lived in the year before. Barbara Payne and Floyd Gale lived in Moorewood. I imagine Floyd told Ben about the new school in Moorewood. Floyd worked in the bank. Ben and Floyd went to high school in Foss, and played basketball. This is as faras Mother got with her story - just the beginning, really. Ben Smith died in 1940, after moving to Portales, New Mexico. Deborah finished her degree at Weatherford, in the summers and taught in Portales, until 1958. She was elected to the Eastern N.M. NEA Hall of Fame, in 1956, and was considered an excellent teacher. Deborah died in Albuquerque, NM, March 6, 1993, age 104. She was living with her daughter, Maydelle, at the time. There will never another like her - - -