| Notes |
Biographical note for:
My great grandmother, by Molly Flannagan
Family History Project, 1-24-1989
Waneta Wentworth was born January 9, 1892. Her family lived on a farm in Hastings, Minnesota. Both of her parents were born in Minnesota. Her father's father was from England. Both her grandfather and her father's brother had to fight in the Civil War. When they left, her father, who was then 14 years old, was in charge of the family. Neta had 8 sisters and 2 brothers and was second to the youngest, Vera, who was 5 years younger than she.
When Neta was 5 or 6 years old they moved to Spooner, Wisconsin. They were poor and when it snowed, flakes came through the ceiling of the house. They kept the milk cold in the basement where the rainwater collected and from it got typhoid fever in the spring. She, her brother Charlie and their father had typhoid and were nursed by her mother who had to take a job as a railroad cook. Her brother John left to work at mills and logging camps in Minnesota, and Charlie left (as soon as he was well) home and went to Canada. From Canada he went to Oregon to work as a contractor and wasn't seen again for 20 years or more. As soon as her father was well, he packed his things and went west. The trees she planted with him at Spooner are about 90 years old now. Her mother couldn't pay for the farm and it was lost. The railroad threatened to take her mother's job if she didn't take a job as a different lunchroom in Iowa, so she packed up Vera, the youngest, and left.
From here on Neta's story is more unclear. First she was "parked out" to one of her older sisters to work, clean and babysit, for her keep. She was no older than 7. When that sister died of tuberculosis, she was sent to another sister who lived on a farm near St. Paul. She tells of living with/working for many other families.
She only had the opportunity to finish the 8th grade; she needed money to live on. She met her future husband when she was 18 years old. She met Billy, her husband at a roller rink. On dates he took her to picture shows. She got married after a few months.
Neta was the 6th in her family to get TB, and all of those before her died. She attributes her success to her own common sense, bed rest and self discipline.
On politics: Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt were her favorite presidents. She gives them credit for the National park system, getting jobs and having "far vision". Neta favors capital punishment: "The amount of men that are out raping and murdering these women should be strung right up by their neck the minute they lay a hand on them." So much for due process. She lays the blame on "that dope business" and "sex maniacs", and thinks the money spent on prisons should be spent on education and welfare.
The best inventions in her life time were all the labor saving appliances (like the automatic washer) because "work is easier now."
Disclaimer: It was hard to filter details out of my great grandmother's history, becasue she has bad hearing and a selective memory. I deleted much of her bitterness and the things that I knew were untrue and was left with a scrappy summary of a long and interesting life.
o---------------------------------------------------------o
Biographical note for:
My grandmother-in-law by Ann Crewson Flannagan 1-16-97
I first met Tom's grandmother when she was 75 years old at his farm house in Mankato in 1966. She was saving the day over there, cooking and cleaning and giving counsel to the boys. She talked alot about her back pain and her difficult life. At the same time, she was ordering up truck loads of manure from the neighbors to get a decent garden going.
We were married in 1968 and lived in Austin, Minnesota where Gram and George would frequently show up on a Saturday morning, often when we were all still in bed. She would have a big roast under her arm and was ready to work in the garden. In spite of having a lot of back pain, she would work for hours at a time, digging and even swinging the grub hoe.
She loved the boys and would do anything for them. She would alternate between what seemed like possessive love and hate for Tom. She seemed jealous of me and my place in the family and at the same time was my advocate and confidant. She seemed depressed both times when we told her we were going to have a baby. In fact, she stayed away from us during my pregnancies and during those times was not communicating. As soon as the babies were born, she was fine and very doting, in fact, possessive again.
Gram shared many very sad stories about her past, about her helplessness as a little child when her father would come home drunk and abuse her mother and her brothers. They worked so hard to raise rutabagas and berries and pigs and there were many times when he would take the produce or pig to town to sell and instead of coming back with the supplies that they needed, would come home in the back of the horse drawn wagon, drunk and broke. Some school years she had only 2 dresses to alternate between for the whole year. She said that she made her mind up when she was little that she would not bring children into this world that she could not feed and clothe. At times she said that her last year in school was 4th grade (rather than 8th) because she was working for her keep.
Neta would talk about her frustration and hardship when she was pregnant and gave birth to Bernice. She had no information at the time; years later she learned and understood what had happened. She had her baby at home, with the help of a neighbor. After that, the bleeding didn't stop so she had a hysterectomy. She said that Bernice was a sweet child, but when she hit teenage, she wanted to run wild and was impossible. When she married and had Tom she still wanted to run around, so Gram made up her mind to keep Tom for her own. She got Billy to back her up and verbally disowned her daughter and threatened to take her to court to prove she was an unfit mother if she even came to visit. Gram said she came back several times, but each time she turned her out. When she got the letter about Bernice dying of cancer she seemed sad and said she wished they had been able to get along.
Gram had an interesting and sometimes destructive communication style. She would talk at people instead of with them: reminiscing, bragging about her life accomplishments, defending her actions and criticizing others, most often family members closest to her. She was particularly lethal towards other women. She had a way of talking out a scenerio in such detail that I would find myself agreeing with her. I was agreeing with her understanding of the situation rather than the content itself, but that positive reinforcement seemed to give her fuel to dig deeper. It was interesting listening to her, but I would often feel bad in retrospect. Trying to talk WITH her and present a different perspective was to no avail, and became less so as she aged and lost her hearing. She would talk with anyone who would listen, telling her stories with an added negative twist, which at times was far from factual.
Gram was good at everything. She would make donuts, pies, biscuits, frostings, puddings and bread from scratch that we've never been able to duplicate. She'd always say, you just need to know the ingredients and then if it doesn't taste right, fix it. She could get anything to grow. Her house plants were luxurious and her roof garden was amazing, with flower boxes full of roses, babies breath, petunias and pansies. People driving by on the street below would come up to get a closer look. She lived above a funeral home and would take us down there to get things and there would be bodies in open caskets. She didn't bat an eye.
Oh, how she could sew. Her mother earned money doing dressmaking and would have Neta help her baste and do the trim including button holes. She prided herself on mending with the thread that matched the material so well that you couldn't see the patch. She made many outfits for the girls with matching panties and bonnets, a little fake fur coat. For the boys she made wool shirts and fixed all their worn jeans. She made all of her own clothes and was still sewing her own and mending for others at the St. Paul Nursing Home when she was in her 90s. She loved the fabric store even when she was 103 years old and would still buy a yard of this and that, planning blouses and skirts. After she died by default I inherited her Featherweight Singer sewing machine and a wealth of material, lace, thread and other sewing supplies.
Gram loved old dishes, had an amazing collection and never lost her interest in china patterns and colored glass. She said it started when she was little and bought her mother a little strawberry pitcher. Then some of the only things that survived from their family were the dishes, such as the story about the very large stoneware platter that she remembered from home and found one day in an antique shop in Hastings. When she and Billy were young and poor, they rented a place where there was a dump and dug up several precious pieces. Then after Billy died she supported herself by cooking for wealthy people in their homes. Sometimes she was paid with dishes or glassware and other times she simply "cathauled" things, figuring she deserved to have the things. We treasure many of her things today including the strawberry pitcher and the Audubon plates that we reserve for special occasions.
In 1945 to 49 or 50 she was went to Philadelphia while working for Harold Stassen and his family. He was nominated as a presidential candidate. Gram fit right in with her classy suits and huge feather hats.
Neta lived in Philadelphia, PA, Florida and Oregon for temporary periods of time, always returning to Minnesota, most likely to be nearer to Tom.
After 12 years in the St. Paul Church Home, Gram moved to the Aftenro Home in Duluth to be closer to us. During those 8 months she visited often and spent many weekends home with us. She would let me help her with her hair and baths. Finally she had lost her need to compete. Even her back pain seemed to be mellowed. A bowel obstruction crept up on her. She only suffered a few days before she died at St. Mary's Hospital on July 8th. The night she died, fireworks were exploding in Duluth. They had been delayed due to rain on the 4th. In retrospect, they seemed a fitting tribute to Gram. She donated her body to the U of M so arrangements were made with Bell Brothers funeral home to transfer her body to Minneapolis. We called our children home for a weekend of remembrance to a great lady that none of us will ever forget.
o---------------------------------------------------------o
A letter from Tom to his Grandma Nan 1-8-91
Dear Gram,
Our best wishes to you, and for you, on your 100th birthday. You have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're a survivor in a pretty tough world.
I'm sure your best recollections center around the time spent living by Onamia. Mine too. Since we were both younger then it follows that those times would be looked back on as the best of times.
I know that I certainly have not forgotten:
Swimming in Mille Lacs Lake
Peach and Barney
Art and Jenny Blythe
the raspberry patch
chickens, turkeys,geese, swans, ducks etc
The Anderson kids
Deer hunting with Billy, fishing walleyes
bullheads at the Onamia (Rum River) dam
woods picnics (sugar cookies, doughnuts)
ponds, hunting garter snakes
selling worms and frogs
Movies at the Onamia theater
Hahn's little lake. Patrin's pasture
Mushroom picking and canning
All the canning: venison, vegetables, fruits, pickles
My basketball net on the garage
My Montgomery Wards "Champion" bicycle
Ice skating
trapping weasels and skinning them
Ping pong table in the basement
carrying, splitting wood
Bringing the two BIG northerns home
drowning rats in the barn
The cyclone while sleeping in the new shed
Aunt Vera visiting - and Mattsons, McAlpines, Bert/Bea Miller etc.
Running over the bridge between the ponds
Hauling sap and cooking maple syrup
Helen the cow
the unfortunate castration of the pig
Homemade ham on Easter
The plum tree and the Wealthy apples
Selling sign space in the spring for Billy's Directory of Resorts
Sam Vivant's (actually Bill Vivant's) deer decoy in our corn field
The snake eating the baby rabbit
Elmer Gave enlarging the basement and eating peas with his knife at dinner
Pearl and Denzel Thayer
The jewelry shop and collecting millet?
Barney getting into a fight with Flannagan's big Irish setter, Denny
Hauling a steam engine up a hill by Casson's cabin
Catching frogs along the lakeshore by flashlite
the 1941 grey and black Buick
Hauling slab wood and the snakes that sunbathed on the wood pile
Ice cold water from the pump
firecrackers on the 4th of July
The bus to school. Driver:Manifred Hyam
the church at Cove Bay
Raymond Dean for dinner
sauerkraut and apple pies
Delphiniums, peonies, Iris,Poppies, Tiger lilies
Trilliums, lilacs, buttercups, jack in the pulpits
The front (guest) bedroom with all the windows
Jack Armstrong (All American Boy) on the radio
cutting corn for canning. Boiling the jars
Homemade bread. angel food cakes
Reading with "The Cavalier" watching over me
The BIG zap of lightning that jarred us
The cement pan boat in the pond
Hunting Anderson's cat and the trophy tail
Tents under the basswood tree
Plinking with Billy's 22 rifle
2 cokes - 2Baby Ruths from Harrington's on a hot day
Geese migrating in October. roof top high
Chicken noodle soup when down sick
Tonsils out - fat doctor forget his name
Cove school and the cut over my eye
Shirley Jucke (teacher) for dinner - beat her at ping pong on the basement table
Monopoly with Chuck Anderson on a long winter day
the grey Ford sedan. Couldn't drive over 40 mph
The handmade garden tiller, power lawn mower and sawmill
Cedar boats hand made
Your unwilling trip to Spirit Island during a big storm
The green box with change for treats
Bear grease for boots and the Rug
Making sumac spigots for tapping
Your feather hats and lunches at the Nanking
...and if I sat here a little while longer I could remember countless other things as I know you can. Thank you for the 1/2 dozen years by Mille Lacs and the many good memories were a decent foundation from which to go on through life.
I imagine the boys will be by today. Enclosed some birthday fun.
Love, Tom, Ann, Molly, Sue
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1892 - 1995 (103 years)
