Mrs. Cowan came to Traverse in 1856 when it was almost nothing. At her home in Baltimore she had always had an afternoon at home, so decided to continue them here. She set aside Thursday and asked everyone in town, no matter what their situation in life, to come. My maiden name was Jane Donnelly and she asked me to come and "Help pass things"--"assist"--as you call it now. She had tea and biscuits. Flour and tea were both scarce so she warned me not to give anyone more than one biscuit or one cup of tea. This we rigidly adhered to. She had the only piano in our part of the country and we all took great pride in it. I could sing and play a little in the bosom of my family, but was most easily embarrassed. Judge Flandrau was our great man. He dropped in, bringing his tatting shuttle, and sat and made tatting as well as any woman. Mrs. Cowan explained that he had learned this on purpose to rest his mind and keep it off from weighty matters. Mrs. Cowan insisted that I should sing and play while he was there. I resisted as long as I could, then was led still protesting to the piano where I let out a little thin piping, all the while covered with confusion. When I arose we both looked expectantly toward the Judge, but he never raised his eyes--just kept right on tatting. Finally Mrs. Cowan asked, "Don't you like music, Judge?" He looked up with a far-away look in his eyes and said, "Yes, martial music in the field." Then we knew he had never heard a thing, for, as Mrs. Cowan explained to me as we were making a fresh pot of tea, "He is the kindest man in the world. If he had noticed you were singing he would have said something nice." Shortly after this we took a claim out at Middle Lake and moved out there to live. The first time I came into town was on a load of wild hay drawn by my father's oxen. The man I later married saw me, a girl of sixteen, sitting there and said he fell in love with me then. A few days later he drove past our farm and saw me out in the corn field trying to scare away the blackbirds. I was beating on a pan and whooping and hollering. That finished him for he said he could see I had all the requisites for a good wife, "Industry and noise." During the outbreak of 1862, after my husband went to the war, we were repeatedly warned to leave our home and flee to safety. This we were loath to do as it would jeopardize our crops and livestock. We often saw the Indian scouts on a hill overlooking the place and sometimes heard shots. One day I was with my children at a neighbor's when a new alarm was given by a courier. Without waiting for us to get any clothes or tell my parents, the farmer hitched up and we fled to Fort Snelling. It was two months before I ever saw my home or parents.