In July of 1999, I received some interesting information from my Aunt Evelyn Mehl, who lives in Tucson, Arizona. Many years ago, there was a 50th wedding anniversary celebration held in Waterloo, Iowa for Sam and Sadie Fike. Aunt Evelyn didn't know the exact date of this celebration but thought it was sometime between 1925 and 1930.
Carrie Bronson (tenth child of Joseph Tobias Jr. and Mary Ann) gave a short talk at that celebration and told of her family's move from Pennsylvania to Waterloo, Iowa. The following was taken from that documentation:
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I don't know if my memory is any better than Brother Fike's or not, at any rate I have jotted down a few things. I have been asked to give a talk this afternoon and have chosen as my subject - The Glessners. The family consisted of eight boys and three girls. We were born in a log house in Stonycreek Township, Somerset County, Pa. In the fall of 1894, Father and Mother decided to come to Waterloo, upon the insistence of Uncle Sam and Aunt Sadie. Rich and John had come West two years before. About the middle of February 1895, Father took the boys to Somerset and bought them each a new suit of clothes in which to make the western journey. Obe distinctly remembers that, although a boy of fourteen years, his suit cost the magnificent sum of two dollars. And February 18, Father, five of the boys and two girls left Somerset, leaving Mother, Russell (who was ill of scarlet fever) and Nanny, at Grandpa Kimmel's, where they remained until Russell recovered, then they too came to Waterloo.
Father and the children arrived in Waterloo Saturday, March the second, 1895 at 11:00 A.M. over the Burlington R.R. We were met by Rich, John, Eph Lichty, and Uncle Sam in two lumber wagons. The hungry bunch was taken to Uncle Sam's where dinner was waiting. We certainly did justice to that meal, as all we had to eat since leaving home was what Mother had packed in our lunch basket, with the exception of some bananas - the first ones we had ever eaten, which Father had permitted the boys to buy in Chicago where we had to wait eleven hours. The next thing that confronted Father was finding places for his boys. But Uncle Sam had already taken care of that. On Monday morning they took them to their various places: Rich went to Joe Lichty, John to Eph. Lichty, Ed to John Harbaugh, Obe to Uncle Sam and Greel to Lewis Miller. A short time afterwards Greel was taken into the home of Sam and Ella Harbaugh where he stayed until he was twenty-one years old. Billy was too young to work out so he stayed with Father at Uncle Sam's until Mother and the other children came. Then we started housekeeping in the old house that stood on what is now the A.B. Zuck farm. When Uncle Sam hired the boys out he had first to write to Pennsylvania to find out about their ages. The wages paid was one dollar per month for every year they were old - or the boy who was sixteen received $16 a month. The girls and Billy attended school at No. 6, or the Creamery School, while Mother and Father worked out by the day for the first year, then bought the old farm on Blue House Road. We are certainly grateful that the Lord has given us health and strength to help to celebrate something that is a rarely heard of as a fiftieth wedding anniversary, and we hope that Uncle Sam and Aunt Sadie will have many more, because we surely need their kind words, they so willingly tender at all times, in sickness or health. Their lives have been a torch to many of us. They have brightened the dark corners and have received much pleasure in living, just as you and I may if we will, as the poet so nicely has expressed:
"If you put a little loving into all the work you do; |
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