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Archiver > BRETHREN > 2001-04 > 0988575745


From: "richard l. rininger" <>
Subject: Re: [BRE] migration
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 14:22:25 -0600
References: <3e.aef483b.281dcb32@aol.com>


Jan:

You are describing my grandfather Chester Petry and his older brother (my great
uncle) Stephen Petry and Chester's father-in-law Adam Jones (my great
grandfather) to a 'T'. None of them made much of a success out of their
wanderings, I might add.

Rick Rininger

wrote:

> My great-grandfather, too, was always looking for greener pastures. His
> memoirs talk about moving about from farm to farm back in Stephenson County,
> IL. Then, he and his young wife moved to Iowa because his father-in-law was
> moving there to open new churches (yes, Brethren churches). But after a
> year they moved back to Illinois, then moved to Barton County, KS. Then
> they moved to McPherson because of the new Brethren academy there, because
> their children were of an age to need more schooling. Great-Granddaddy's
> notes talk about wheeling and dealing in land on a regular basis. After his
> first wife's death, he continued moving around--to Carrington, ND, to
> California, to Oklahoma, to Indiana, and then Idaho.
>
> Apparently improving farmland was one way a hard-working fellow could make
> money without much hard currency. He started out with cheap land that
> hadn't been farmed, cleared the land, made it productive, built his own house
> and outbuildings, and when things were looking good, he would sell out,
> invest that money in more cheap land and repeat the process. I don't know
> what his wife thought about the process, there didn't seem to be any
> sentimental feelings about the land. After all, his parents had moved all
> the way from Wurttemburg to a whole new continent. Maybe he and folks like
> him did feel like the sky was the limit when it came to opportunities over
> here. Anyway, Brethren who had moved sent letters back to friends in their
> old congregation or wrote letters to the local newspapers extolling the
> virtues of their new location, and more Brethren followed them out. I'm not
> sure when the railroads got into the act of promoting this greener pastures
> stuff, but they seemed to hire folks (including some Brethren) to promote
> moving west...
>
> Of course, there were hazards. One of his stories has to do with holding a
> big sale when they were getting ready to move on, and some concern because
> they now had a fair amount of cash money at the end of the day. It was too
> late to go into town to the bank, and there were some shift-eyed folks
> hanging around, so their neighbors who understood the problem simply stayed
> with them all night and accompanied them to town to the bank.
>
> I don't know of any occasions when the family moved anywhere where they
> didn't already have friends, and almost always church friends.
>
> Happy hunting.
>
> Jan T
>
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