(After posting this on Facebook recently, I decided to put it here, too. Thinking I should share her memoirs with those who are interested, so look for more to come.)
Iris blooming in our courtyard is from bulbs brought home from Missouri — from the farmhouse yard of Terry’s grandmother, Cora Pearl McCauley Palmer! Her story so interesting — orphaned at age 4, sent to the Palmer household at age 11 to help Mrs. Palmer (7 of 9 sons at home) with meals, house chores. First morning there, she had to make the breakfast of bacon, biscuits and coffee. She and Charles Palmer married when she was 13, and he was 20. Their first baby was born two years later–in August; Cora was 16 in November. Her journals with her story would make a good book!
Meet Cora Pearl McCauley Palmer
— 11/26/1883 – 8/7/1973
Terry took me to meet her in 1964 in Columbia, MO. I am thankful to be the “custodian” of her journals and many family records that she kept — many dates she could recite to me from memory (births and deaths of family members). I believe it was at this time I became very interested in genealogy — a beautiful lady!
Cora wrote her Memoirs in 1961 — as requested by her oldest son, Charles William Palmer. “Wrote” — not typed, not printed — in cursive in a spiral notebook. After it was filled, another was started. She had kept daily journals for years, which I find interesting, too — more about the daily activities on the farm, weather, and important dates to remember.
Enjoy this one —
(in 1897, Cora is 13 and living with William and Mary Palmer) . . . “one afternoon he (their son, Charley) came through the kitchen where I was and, without saying a word, just pitched a little folded piece of paper at me. It landed on the back of the stove. ‘Course I grabbed it real quick and dropped it down the front of my dress ’til I could get away to my room to see what it was. There was no one in the kitchen at this time, and I am sure he knew the coast was clear, or he would not have taken a chance. That was January 1897. So we kept up our ‘clandestine’ affair for about three months. We never said a word to anyone about it, just went on as usual whenever he came over. But one day, your grandmother was looking in my trunk for something and picked up a cap which I had hidden my little ‘billet-douxs’ in, and they tumbled out, of course. We just kept it a secret because we were young, I guess, for they had no objections to me. By that time, I had promised to marry your father-to-be, in the fall. So they just accepted it all right. Of course, your grandmother thought I was too young to marry, and by all the standards, I guess I was. But I have never regretted one single day.”
Charley, Cora, and their first child, Lela (taken in the fall 1899–Cora was 16 on November 26, 1899).
