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Letter: 23
Our Parents By Irma Howard Stolt
LEON DEWITT HOWARD
was born November 6,1870, the son of James Durkee Howard and Phoebe Ferris Howard, in Henry County, near
Atchison, Illinois. He came to Dakota Territory with his
father in 1883 in an emigrant railroad car with the farm
animals when he was 13. He, his father, his mother, his
sisters, Minnie Maud, Bertha May, Lulu Grace and his brother,
James Augustus, homesteaded in Summit Township, Sully County
where life was not easy.
For years they had to haul water, as they could not find water
from a well. Grandpa Howard's diaries always noted how many
loads of water Leon hauled each day. Leon was tall and strong
for his age and his father's health had suffered from his
Civil War years, so much of the hard, heavy work fell on Leon.
Later, Leon filed his own homestead. Leon sowed grain by
carrying the seed sack and broadcasting the seed by hand when
he was just a boy. In the winter, he started the day by
shaking the snow off his bedding in his attic room.
According to his friends and contemporaries, Leon was a
mathematical and mechanical genius. His college educated sons
could never stump him with their college math although he had
little formal education of his own. He was mainly
self-educated and had an abiding interest in science and the
Universe. Some of my fondest recollections of Papa are of
his demonstrations, using oranges, to explain the solar system
to us and his infinite patience in letting each kid have a
good look at the moon through his telescope. Also, hearing him
say "HARK" when he wanted to share something he was reading
with us.
At some considerable sacrifice, he subscribed to the
Scientific American magazine when in his teens and
continued this subscription for at least fifty years. It must
have pleased him when his U. S. patented invention was written
up in one of these Scientific Americans.
When just a little boy he worked long and hard on a perpetual
motion machine, an endeavor made even more difficult because
he was not allowed to use his father's tools. He remembered
trying to explain how he drilled a hole without admitting he
had used the forbidden brace and bit. At fourteen he invented
a knitting machine which his mother used for years. He shucked
corn for a neighbor for one dollar a day (his father got half)
and saved enough to go to the World's Fair in Chicago in order
to see the Scientific marvels of the age.
One day in 1900 when he was pitching hay off a hay wagon, a
little person came walking toward him. Papa said the sun was
behind her and her hair, a goldish red, shone like a halo and
he lost his heart to her, Zelia Spencer, the new little
"schoolmarm”. When he was courting her, he rode twenty miles
on his bicycle to Fairbank to see her but he said the really
great "sparking" was taking her out in the buggy and letting
the horse find its way home.
Leon and Zelia Evans Spencer were married June 19, 1901, and
they settled in Blunt where he set up his blacksmith shop and
later went into the hardware and farm implement business with
his brother, Gus, in their Howard Brothers Hardware.
Leon and Zelia lived all their married lives in Blunt with
Leon literally raising the roof of their one-story home, to
add a second story with four bedrooms to accommodate their
growing family.
Leon was president of the school board and fire chief for at
least twenty-five years. He was Marshall and a man to whom
people gravitated when they needed help.
He was a superb raconteur. His repair shop was a gathering
place for his yarn spinning and great good humor. He had his
home jokes and language and he had his shop jokes and
shop vernacular and never the twain did meet. Harlow's wife,
Bea, used to toss pebbles at the shop window to announce her
imminent arrival so they could drop the shop vernacular. I
never heard him use profane language at home.
It is hard to describe Leon without waxing poetic. If I had to
choose one word, it would be unselfish. Both he and Zelia were
totally unselfish and honest and caring people. They lived for
their family and cared for their fellow man and their country.
One time I went to the shop to take Papa some lemonade. He was
in the process of taking a tramp to the restaurant where he
told them to give the man a good meal at his expense. When I
went home, mama was feeding another "tramp" in the kitchen.
Leon had the patience of Job. I never saw him lose his temper
- can you imagine that - a man with eight children. When he
said "Hark" we listened. He did show quiet desperation when
trying to get Aunt Fern to the train on time and once coming
home from Fairbank, he did spank us. After glorious encounters
with the river, the Grandparents, watermelons, rattlesnakes et
al, we were heading home in the seve-passenger Studebaker. I
used to sit on one of the little jump.seats. Mama said we were
making enough noise to wake the dead. Papa asked us to "Hark"
in vain and when one of us leaned out and tried to pick a
passing sunflower, he came to a halt beside a roadside
woodpile. With great deliberation he selected a paddle,
testing its tensile strength and resiliency by whacking it
loudly against his leg, while we subsided into stunned
awestruck silence. He marched us out of the car and gave each
one a swat and that is the only "licking" I ever got
from Papa. Gene, being the baby, didn't even get that!
During his final sick years, many people came to see him and
to tell him they never would have made it through the bad
years without his help.
Leon worked so hard he had little time for hobbies, but his
yard was like a park and he loved trees. He planted trees for
each child and flooded everything from his own irrigating well
and old fire hoses. His strawberry patch was incredible. I
picked 300 quarts one spring when he was ill.
And then he loved working with wood which he garnered from
many sources. Using only hand tools for many years, he made
tables, desks, childrens' furniture . . . but most of all he
made rocking chairs of every size even a double one for
"spooning”! He made a little rocking chair for me from a limb
of "my" apple tree he had planted for me. His sense of humor
came through even in wood working. A table he made for me has
a cherry top from an old Blunt saloon and the legs are from a
church organ. Another has a lovely top from the saloon and a
wrought-iron base made of a steering column from a car and the
iron bands from a barrel curved and welded in a lovely design.
And Leon was a reader. He loved to read aloud to us when there
was something he thought we should hear. Was there ever,
anything so lovely as listening to him read "Billy Goat Gruff"
while cuddled in his arms?
His family grew to eight children:
Leona, born April 2,1902
Loya Elaine, born February 14,1904
James William, born June 7,1905
Leon DeWitt, born February 15, 1908
Harlow Spencer, born October 28,1909
Helen Enid, born February 5,1913
Irma Fern, born April 3, 1915
Arnold Eugene, born July 30, 1917
For you who never knew him, he was a lean, handsome, six-foot
moustached man, so strong he could lift his anvil by the nose
cone with one hand. He was a soft touch for children. One time
he gathered up about 29 of the town children and took them to
the circus. As they trailed in under the big top, a clown
said, "My God man, are they all yours?"Papa said, "Every one”,
and in some ways they were. One of the last things he said to
me was to give "Old Timer" a silver dollar. "Old Timer" was
his five-year-old grandson, Robbie. Later, Robbie wrote in a
Most Unforgettable Person theme that he remembered his
grandfather not so much as a tall handsome man with a
luxurious mustache, but as someone who never condescended
one who treated him, a five-year-old, as an equal. It
was a special gift.
Leon died on September 25, 1950, in the home that he had
expanded for his growing family. At his death, Zelia wanted
these words spoken of him: "A man skillful in his work shall
stand before kings”.
ZELIA EVANS SPENCER was born in Adams County near Payson,
Illinois, on April 19, 1882 at the home of her grandparents,
Samuel Moses and Jane Elliot Spencer. Her parents were William
Henry Spencer and Jane Evans Spencer, both mostly of British
descent. A Spencer ancestor, Thomas Spencer, came to American
in 1632 and the Evans ancestor in 1811.
Zelia, as a baby in arms, was brought to Rockport in Hanson
County, near Mitchell, Dakota Territory, on July 13, 1882. The
family lived there for two years and then moved to Potter
County from whence they moved to Fairbank Township on the
Missouri River in Sully County, where the family settled in
Fairbank House, a twelve-bedroom hotel, general store, and
post office. The store drew a large Indian trade from whom
Zelia learned the Sioux language. She remembered an Indian
"scare" in 1890 at which time she was taken to Gettysburg for
safety. She had one brother, Roy, and one sister, Mary Dean
Fern Spencer.
As a young girl, enduring the hardships and hazards of South
Dakota's intemperate climate, Zelia herded sheep. She was an
excellent horsewoman but the outdoor life was hard on her fair
skin. When she had daughters of her own, she always tried in
vain to protect them from the sun having suffered from it so
much herself.
She learned to read when she was four years old, a visiting
cousin having sensed her eagerness to learn. The family was
highly literate and had books and periodicals but she was such
a voracious reader, she read Dickens A Child's History of
England seven times when just a child. She attended
country school in Potter County and finished "common" school
under a tutor, Leon French. She took the teachers exam when
she was seventeen and earned her certificate. She taught the
Marston School for three months, which was the school term,
after which she attended Redfield College and Academy. Then
she taught Harris school one year.
And met Leon.
On June 19, 1901, she married Leon DeWitt Howard and they
settled in Blunt, South Dakota, where Leon had a blacksmith
shop. Eight children were born to this union: Leona, Loya
Elaine, James William, Leon DeWitt, Harlow Spencer, Helen
Enid, Irma Fern and Arnold Eugene. They were all born at home
with the exception of Gene who was born in the Pierre St.
Mary's Hospital.
In all the work of raising such a large family cooking,
canning, clothing, cleaning, Zelia said she was never
discontented if she could find some time to read. Usually that
time was late in bed when her house was in order and her
family was finally asleep. She loved the English language and
her vocabulary was something to be reckoned with. Instead of
taking a bath - we 'performed our ablutions' and one time when
she said we "tracked the floor with impunity,"Papa looked
around and remarked that he didn't see any. He loved to tease
her!
In the hard years when she took in "roomers" mostly
teachers to help with college educations, Papa joked
that he didn't dare leave home as she might rent his side of
the bed. Well, one time he had to go to Watertown and was
going to stay over night but his plans changed and he came
back home. So, he playfully knocked at the door and when Mama
came to the door, he asked if she had a room for rent. Without
batting an eye, she told him her husband was gone and she
would rent his half of the bed.
In her voracious reading, Zelia's mind soaked up knowledge of
every kind. Her memory was phenomenal. One time when she was
in her eighties, an old friend Nellie Clark came to see her.
Zelia, in the course of their reminiscences asked Nellie if
she could remember the hard time she had learning the poem
about Noah and Mount Ararat. Nellie couldn't remember, but
Zelia proceeded to recite the poem learned more than sixty
years before. When I took her to her first art gallery in San
Francisco, she stepped into a room and said, "these are
Flemish paintings" and they were. If you took her on a
trip and saw a sign about Jim Bridger or some such person, she
could tell you about him. Her interests were manifold.
Zelia was a pillar of the community. She was a charter member
of the Federated Study Club, was active in her Ladies Aid, the
Legion Auxiliary, the Good Neighbor Club and her bridge club.
Although very frugal and conservative by nature, she was a
holy terror to play bridge with, bidding recklessly, taking
chances and usually making the bid.
Her home became a central meeting place for social and
community occasions, there to enjoy her warm hospitality. In
order that the school kids could have banquets, she put all
the leaves in her table, rounded up her forty chairs and
served banquets for the junior-Seniors - the basketball teams
- so many things to give the kids a chance to dress up and
enjoy a lovely dinner with her best silver and china. She
baked so many pies that put side by side they might
circumnavigate the globe. That may be a slight exaggeration
but when she was baking for her family she always made extra
pies to be taken to old widowers, bachelors or someone "less
fortunate than we were”. Dwight Eisenhower said he was poor as
a kid but didn't know it. Things like mama's pies and her many
generosities made us feel the same way. When in her eighties
she still had as many as five different Christmas parties in
her home.
At one time, in an epidemic of smallpox, the house became an
infirmary for fourteen children. She was a good practical
nurse and she treated them all as her own. She also nursed her
mother when she was ill, brought home dour little Aunt Bert
for the winters, persuaded Grandpa Spencer to leave his
beloved Fairbank and spend winters in Blunt with her, and she
nursed her husband through the long painful years of his
illness, enabling him to die in his own bed in his own home.
Would you believe and please do believe b I never heard
my Mother say an unkind word about anyone. She never
complained. She was a good neighbor and a good patriotic
citizen. I remember her weeping during the Vietnam War when
she was listening to the song about Green Berets. Her
ancestors fought in the American Revolution and Civil War, but
she decided not to join the DAR when they refused to allow
Marion Anderson to sing in Carnegie Hall.
She died on the 29th of February 1972, at the age of 89. The
minister at her funeral said, "Zelia Howard was a saint”.
Mighty close, a dear warm earthly saint! She was a good wife,
a good mother, a good neighbor, a good citizen and a good
homemaker, gracious and kind and totally unselfish.
Her first great-granddaughter, Margot, called her "Great
Mother" and that is what she was.
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