A Child of the Sea; and Life Among the MormonsWilliams, Elizabeth Whitney
History
A Child of the Sea; and Life Among the Mormons
Williams, Elizabeth Whitney
Beaver Island (Mich.); Latter Day Saints -- Michigan; Strang, James Jesse, 1813-1856
Life was busy; our summer people were with us. Elizabeth Crane had left
us never to return. Mr. Angel and she were married at Mackinac Island.
When the boat came back her sister Jennie, a beautiful girl of nineteen,
came to remain until fall, when she, too, married Mr. James Corlette of
the Headlands. Mr. Crane, with others, left the island early in
September, as the Mormons had taken every boat along the shore below
Cable's dock, with the nets from the lake and fish from their fish
houses. They left the island, never coming back again, just a few
months before we, too, were obliged to leave or become Mormons.
MENOMINEE INDIAN FAMILY.
Sometime in June there came a canoe of Indians to our shore. They made
their camp near us. Mother went to see them. When she came home she told
us they were Menominee Indians come to fish for a time. They had been
over to Cross Village visiting some friends. Their home was in Green Bay
county. There were two small children, the Indian and his wife. The
Indian woman was a pretty woman with jet black hair cut straight across
the forehead, this being the fashion with Menominee squaws. Their wigwam
was always nice and clean. She was a nice sewer, piecing pretty bed
quilts, which always looked clean. Often when mother got in a hurry with
her work she hired the Indian woman to scrub and wash, and other times
to do some sewing. She was always smiling, showing her pretty white
teeth.
One morning when I awoke I found father and Mr. Dora, a neighbor, had
gone to Mackinac Island. They were gone about three days. When they came
home father had clothing for mother which Mr. Cable did not keep in his
store. Among the rest was a great quantity of bright colored glass beads
and many yards of colored ribbon, which she put away in her trunk,
saying to me, "Do not speak about what I have put away." Mother and the
Indian woman were often together speaking softly, so I never knew what
they said. Mother seemed anxious, and the Indian woman also seemed
quiet and thoughtful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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