As our family went through my mother’s personal effects, we discovered these essays, handwritten in a spiral notebook. Immediately, we knew we had found a very special look into the early life of someone we loved and admired. We’re sharing them here in the hope that others may enjoy them as well.

Georgie’s Intro – November 23, 1986

These essays are being written because I have often thought how nice it would be if, say, my great-grandmother had written about what life was like when she was growing up. It would have been so interesting to know how people’s daily life and experiences fitted in with the history that was being made at that time.

At Home on the Bruegenhempke Place

When I think of it, it is always summer.  I used to get up in the morning, go out to look at the flowers and garden.  If a new flower had opened I would go in to tell my mother and be disappointed if she had already seen it. 

Image is of a man, woman and two girls standing near the porch of a house, The image was taken around 1924.
WJ, Elizabeth, Louise and Georgina Link on the Bruegenhempke Place

There was a sweet summer apple tree in the east garden, a June berry bush and a cherry tree on the north edge.  There were cedar trees in the front yard and hollyhocks along the east side of the house.  There was a big poplar tree southwest of the house.  One night we had a big storm and lightning struck the tree.  We had one end of a wire clothes line fastened to the tree and our dog Wrangles was on a light chain fastened to that.  The lightning killed the dog and fused the links of the chain together. 

The well was northwest of the house, the barn west of that.  There was row of soft maples north of the house.  We collected maple sap sometimes and cooked it down for syrup.  Out in the pasture there was an old wrecked grain separator.  We used to play store in it.  There was a creek further out.  We used to follow the sheep trail and play in the creek.  After a rain it was deeper. 

Further out there was what had once been an orchard many years before.  There were a lot of English people before the Germans started settling in the 1850’s.  We used to go out in the pasture to get a Christmas tree.

Maps of the area

This map of Lee County comes from the Standard Atlas of Lee County, Iowa, published in 1916 by Geo. A. Ogle & Co., Publishers & Engravers, of Chicago, Illinois. The atlas included a business directory as well as the plat maps shown below, corresponding to the highlighted section of this map.
1 – the Bruegenhempke place, where Georgina lived as a young girl; 2 – the Middendorf place, where Grandpa Gerhard Wellman lived; 3 – Isadore Link’s farm
1 – W.J. & Elizabeth Link’s home in West Point.
2 – Kempker’s Store, now part of the Catholic High School, where William J. Link was born.
3 – Great-uncle Louis Link’s gas station.
4 – Great-uncle Eustace (Stace) Link’s Store (later Link’s Funeral Home, now Schmitz-Lynk Funeral
Home).

Walt’s Comments

We have a post about making maple syrup here. And, there’s another post about the Bruegenhemke place here.

Names

We chose to leave names and locations spelled as Georgina did in her notes. We are aware that there are variations for some of these names.

Digging Deeper

All map images are from the 1916 Standard Atlas of Lee County, Iowa. A good friend in Fort Madison let us make copies. I have written more about mapping in this post.

The University of Iowa has a large collection of maps and atlases that can be found here.