Caldwell County MO Archives History .....JACKSON FAMILY IN RAY COUNTY IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 3, 2008, 6:40 pm

        THE JACKSON FAMILY IN RAY COUNTY IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES
	Narrator:  Mrs. Malvina Leabo, 71, of Hamilton, Missouri

	Civil War Troubles          Country Churches

     Mrs. Leabo is one of sixteen children born to Jacob Jackson and Martha 
Ford, being born at Knoxville Ray County Missouri 1863 on a farm one mile from 
town.  Jacob Jackson and wife made the trip to Knoxville from Nashville, 
Tennessee in a big wagon, in the middle fifties, to make a better living.  
They rented awhile as they looked around for a bargain in land.  Then War came 
Jacob enlisted in the Southern Army and left Mrs. Jackson with the oldest boy 
six years old to care for the corn.  She plowed and taught the six year old 
boy to run the plow too.  It was all they could do.  The child would cry as he 
looked at his bad furrow.  While living near Knoxville, they had a neighbor 
John Forson who used oxen to pull wood to town.
     In the early seventies her father bought one hundred eighty acres of land 
in Ray County near Taitsville very near the south line of Caldwell County.  
Here her old neighbors were:  John File, Norton Switzer (kin to the Hamilton 
Switzers) Cleveland Kelsey (Uncle of her husband Sam Leabo).  Dr. Gant of 
Knoxville was their Doctor and after his death Dr. Wilkerson.  Mrs. Leabo's 
parents and brother lie in the Pleasant Hill Cemetery, connected with a 
Methodist church (formerly) on the Ray County side.  The Baptists in the 
seventies had a church nearby at Cottage Grove and near it is the Cottage 
Grove Cemetery, both in Caldwell County.
     Every church in that community used immersion for baptism those days and 
Mrs. Leabo (then Miss Jackson) was immersed in Greenwood Creek, commonly used 
as a baptizing hole.  It was near Greenwood School.  In the seventies country 
churches had no organs unless some member would loan their organ into a wagon 
and haul it to the church.  They ordinarily had six months tax school and 
three months extra for those who were able to pay the subscription.  There was 
too much work at home for any girl to go to school long those days.  
     The feminine labor of the farm in Ray County of the sixties and seventies 
was told by Mrs. Leabo.  Mrs. Jackson raised enough cotton to stuff comforts 
for the big family.  The children gathered cotton in the bolls (hulls) and 
picked out the seed.  The Mother flattened it out in pads about elbow length 
to use in quilts and comforts.
     Then there was the wool work.  On the first day of May sheep were shorn.  
The family picked out the burrs.  The wool was carded on carding machines into 
rolls one yard long and spun into yarn and wound on broaches.  Each girl (they 
had three of working age) would spin enough for three yards of cloth every 
day.  That was the old rule for their labor to supply the constant family 
use.  Then they reeled it off in hanks of yarn.  Then it was woven into cloth 
on the family loom.  They made blankets, wool cloth an linsey cloth for the 
small children.
     They knit wool socks and stockings and mittens for every one in the 
family.  They colored the hose with diamond dyes making a dull red.  They 
often sold knit stockings and mittens for cash or traded them for "boughten" 
things.
     Living at Taitsville their trading place was Hamilton.  Often Mrs. 
Jackson would get up before sun up to get a good start for Hamilton and not 
get back till nine o'clock in the evening after all the chores were done.  
They might use the spring wagon or a lumber wagon if many were to go, using 
chairs or boards for extra seats.  They took along dinner for man and beast.
     They always went to Fourth of July Celebrations.  You could not keep her 
father at home on that day.  It might be at Black Oak, Polo, Richmond or 
Hamilton.  They got mail about once a week usually arranging to visit their 
Post Office (Taitsville) when their weekly paper, Richmond Conservator was out.
     At the age of twenty Mrs. Leabo became the wife of Samuel Leabo whose 
father was Isaac Leabo of Ray County and Tennessee.  At the time of her 
 
marriage to Samuel Leabo, he could span her waist - a highly desirable waist 
line for a young lady of that day.                     
     Interviewed  July 1934.


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