(Recap of Cora’s Memoirs — Charlie and Cora were married on September 1 near Columbia, Missouri. she was 13; he was 20. They had been given some furniture, livestock, cooking “vessels,” from her father and his parents. The farm where they would live was rented, and it was next to other Palmer’s farms. There were nine Palmer brothers — Robert was the second oldest, Charlie was third.)

Cora’s Memoirs (written to her son, Charles, in 1961) continue . . .

September 3, 1897
“It was a two-room box house with an extra room upstairs. We all went to work and soon had everything all put in shape–stove up to cook on, etc. But we had to have a ‘straw tick’ to put our feather bed on. So–as your grandmother had given me a ‘tick’ along with some sheets, pillow cases, and a bedspread–they took it over to Robert’s place as he had thrashed wheat and had a stack of straw. They filled the ‘tick’ with nice class straw and that was our bed with the feather bed.

“We had bought a few groceries, so we had our first meal together: biscuits made with water, as we had no milk, fried bacon, and potatoes which an old man gave us who lived near and came over to welcome us. His name was Dr. Robert McNutt, who later became our good friend. He was a native of England, and he was quite a character but a good old man, well educated and fine mannered.

“I was alone quite a lot that fall as your father had his corn on the farm he owned up by Oakland. I have forgotten to say where this farm we moved to was located. It was two and a half miles northeast of Gillaspy school house, seven miles northeast of Columbia, known then as the McNutt farm. He owned about 300 acres there. Robert had bought 160 acres from him, and a year later, Edney and your dad traded their 80 acres near Oakland Church for 120 acres of the farm we had rented. We had 45 acres, Edney the rest of it. We lived that winter in the little box house, which was rather cold. The big room was 18 feet square, and we just had a box wood-burning stove to heat it with.”