Mary Sabin Powell's Story ... continued

page 2

Another childhood recollection was of a day when Father and Mother were gone from home. The girl who was hired to tend us locked me in the laundry room or shed at the back of the house. Her tone, as well as her words, "the bad man will get you," frightened me terribly. I cried myself to sleep. As soon as Father came home, he found me and carried me gently to bed.
" Never leave the children with that girl again. She'll scare them to death," said he to Mother.

We had a pretty neighbor lady in this place. She was plump and fair, with bright eyes and rosy cheeks. I played with her little daughter. The aged grandfather used to share our amusements from his high-backed wicker chair. One day Father came and found us all three asleep in that position. For many moments he stood and gazed upon us. To him it was a most beautiful picture.

Father was an expert mason by trade. He took large building contracts. His brother, David, in New York, often wrote urging Father to join him in America. But mother would not leave her aged father alone in Wales. Neither did my father wish to forsake him in his declining years.

After grandfather died, my parents prepared to immigrate to America and join Uncle David. Just then Father met with an accident. He fell off a house. This laid him up for some time and used up all the money.

One day an old man of our parish came to mother and said, "Eliza my girl, I want to talk to you. I own a large home and two farms, but I am very lonely. I want you and John to come and live in my house until my daughter Jennie returns."
Mother said that she would refer the proposition to Father. The old gentleman replied, "Eliza, if you are bent on doing it, John will do it. You are careful, thrifty, tidy. All you need to do is to cook my meals and wash me a shirt. Come and live in my house and save money."
The old gentleman was not a relative at all, but he seemed to Mother like an uncle. Father made up his mind to accept the offer. We went and remained almost two years. In this place my sister Margaret was born.

Our next move was to Blen Avon [sic] where Father had taken a large contract for building flumes at the Iron Works. Our moving was very interesting to me. A drive of twenty mules came to our door. Father and Jones and another man strapped the furniture onto the mules. They drove the mules over the mountain. The family rode in the wagon.
Smokestacks, chimneys, and rows and rows of houses greeted our eyes as we rode over the hill into Blen Avon [sic]. At night the Iron Works gleamed through the darkness. To me the blast furnaces resembles enormous giants. There were two rows of houses, nine houses in each row. I distinctly recollect that one row was new houses and the other was old ones. We moved into a new house, the second one in the row. Here my little sister Lizzie was born.

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