Halfway Brook

Chester, Ida, and Clara lived on the 183-acre family farm that Chester inherited.

Chester had attended Delaware Literary Institute, of Franklin, New York and obtained a first-grade certificate. For twelve years Chester taught school in the winter, and worked on the farm in the summer.

We learned from Chester’s letters to Emma Austin that he taught one summer in Deposit. Lumberland seems to be the first school where Chester taught.

Chester kept a diary* in which he wrote about his and his family’s daily activities, the phone line going in, working on the highway, the Walton Fair, local fires, paying $5 for his hired hand’s teeth, selling his farm products in town, and paying $7.50 for a course in arithmetic. Also mentioned in the diary were people in Brooklyn, New York that he corresponded with.—Chester’s 1902 handwritten diary.

We also learned from Chester’s letters that he loved to fish and farm. Along with his horses and cattle, Chester raised vegetables and made “fine dairy butter and maple sugar.”

“Mr. Beers is a man of integrity and strong convictions, and is held in high consideration in the neighborhood where he has spent his life. He is a man of large physique and fine presence, being six feet four and one-half inches tall, and weighing two hundred and forty pounds…”—1895 Biography of Leading Citizens in Delaware County, NY.

Chester Beers** passed away on December 21, 1902, Walton, NY, several days after illness, one day before his sixtieth birthday.

* A year ago I found Chester’s 1902 Diary offered for sale. The dairy info referenced people Chester corresponded with in Brooklyn, New York, who I imagine were Emma Austin, Emma’s family, and others Chester had mentioned in his letters. Continue reading →

Edith Emogene Austin (1851–1879
On the morning of November 13, 1879 Edith Emogene (Emma) Austin, 28, daughter of Henry and Mary Ann Austin, died from tuberculosis, at the home of her brothers in Solomon, Kansas.

Emma had been in poor health for more than a year. The last few months of her life she “suffered very much and was confined to her bed.” Emma was “greatly esteemed by all who knew her” and “left a large circle of mourning friends.” Rev. Mr. Pierson conducted the funeral service at the Presbyterian Church. Emma Austin was buried in a plot that Ell Austin had bought in Prairie Mound Cemetery.

2012 Visit to Prairie Mound Cemetery
In March 2012, on the way home from Iowa, Gary and I arrived before dark at the Prairie Mound Cemetery, near the delightful, small town of Solomon. It was about 41 degrees and windy, rather cold for a wimpy Arizonan so I bundled up. Emma (Edith Emogene) Austin was buried in a plot, near the Parmenters, that was owned by her brother Ell (James Eldred Austin), but there was no stone. About 20 years earlier there was a stone with the name Austin and another stone thought to be Emma’s, but the wind seems to have pelted away the name.

The Last Poem Emma Wrote: “I Am Tired”
Shall I fold my hands and rest from earth?
I am tired of the journey’s length,
I have wandered far, I am sick and faint,
I have prayed so long for strength. Continue reading →

Emma, sick with TB, was planning to go to Kansas where her brothers were working as ranchers. She planned to stay in Solomon, Kansas, at the home of her brother Lon, who was fixing up a place for her to live.

Solomon was ten miles west of Abilene.

Walton, New York, December 8, 1878
Friend Emogene,
Yours of a few days since was rec’d and read with pleasure and now as I have a few leisure moments I’ll try and tell you how pleasant it is here.

The ground is just covered in snow—the sun shines bright and the air is warm and I am enjoying myself exceedingly well as the day is quite a contrast compared with the dark and cloudy weather that we have experienced for the three weeks just past.

I have been teaching for the past three weeks. I have a small school but a pleasant one and some bright little fellows to learn to shoot who someday will make splendid bowman and will make their mark in the world.

I am glad that you had such a good time when home last summer. I would liked to have been there, but concluded that I could not.

How is Lon getting along now?

I get from my brother in Iowa a paper or letter which are types of hard times there—corn 10 cents per bu.; we could hardly husk it for 10 cents her bu. Continue reading →

It was hoped the drier weather would help her get over TB. Their Austin brothers Ell and Lon were already in Kansas.

Walton, December 8, 1878 to Miss Ida A. Austin, 103 Christopher St., NY
Dear Ida,
I have long since (if memory serves me right) been your debtor. Now I shall try and pay the debt.

Last Summer I disappointed you by not visiting you at Halfway Brook and now should I disappoint you again by visiting you unexpectedly would it not be the same or equal to two negatives in the same sentence which make it affirmative?

I am teaching now. But next season think I shall commence tilling the soil and may find it convenient as well as necessary to visit N. York and then shall make it a point to call upon you.

Emogene [Emma] talks about your going West but it seems more like a vision than a reality.

There is room enough in the West but I don’t think you have much idea of leaving N. York.

Write soon and often. Give me all the news.
Yours affectionately, Chester Beers Continue reading →

I don’t know whether I can come to Sullivan or not if I do I can not come until the last week in Aug. and shall be obliged to make a short stay.

I hope to come but business before pleasure so do not be to certain of seeing me in haste.

Remembrance to all. Write often. Yours Truly, Chester Beers

Walton, September 29, 1878
Friend Emma,
Again I take my pen in hand and express myself with the same broken phrases and irregular script which has characterized my letters for the last ten years that being about my first experience in letter writing and you without doubt have had your share of these unreadable papers, but with your permission I’ll add one more hoping to hear from you quite soon.

So thinking that the above may answer as an introductory I shall try and apologize to Ida via you for not making her that promised visit then close.

Of course I had reasons for not coming and hope she will accept them which were—poverty, business and the fear of Maria* which grew more terrible as the time for coming grew near. Continue reading →