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Family Stories
A potpourri of stories about various family members or events, written by others and edited by me.
Goodbye to ‘across-the-tracks’
[This is an item that my grandfather Jesse Hibbard wrote (and typed) in March 1916 (age 22). My (Al) role was to first transcribe it, next to add corrections or clarifications [within brackets], and then to add links to people connected to me (that gives more information), links to give more information about places, and for those mentioned but not connected, I sometimes added links to FamilySearch.org.]
[This is a 2-part story in his journal about how he met his future wife. This is part 2. These two parts are incorporated together in How My Paternal Grandparents Met that I wrote and includes a few other details and photos.]
Images (skip to transcription)
pages 1 and 2
pages 3 and 4
page 5
Transcription
It was her last night in the Twin Cities. In the morning she would leave for the north to stay at Leech Lake with some friends. I had called her up in the afternoon to say goodbye. Her sister was going to give a party for her that evening, so she would have no time for me, at least, so I understood. However, as was characteristic of her, she called up the Dairy Barn later in the afternoon and asked me to come down to supper.
I surely made record time milking my eleven cows that night. Got a shower bath, changed clothes, delivered my milk bottles , and was at the house at 6:35. Edna was out watering flowers when I came. We sat on the porch till supper in the swing. After supper (I didn’t get strawberry shortcake often those days) we sat in the swing again and talked. She had a letter she had received from her cousin who was a Frosh at some college in Cal. A little girl came over to see her, then a little later the young girl who helped look after Mabel’s children (Mabel Jurgins [Jurgens perhaps] was the lady with whom she was going north) came over with the two little girls, Aurilla, 6, and Lorraine, 3. The two little girls immediately came into the swing with us. A couple of other women arrived for the 500 party [card game]. About 8:30 we started up the street. Edna and the two kids were going to walk home a part of the way with me. The two children were very pretty – dark blue eyes and brown hair with perfectly formed features. “I wish I had two like them” she said, voicing the eternal maternal instinct.
As we crossed the bridge we got a good view of the sunset. Real beautiful that evening. We didn’t say much to each other as we walked up. Each of us held a hand of the younger child. She had the older one on her right. About a block beyond the bridge where Raymond Ave. curves a little to the left again Edna stopped. “I think we had better go back now,” she said. “I’ll write soon”.
“Of course I’ll be waiting to hear from you,” I returned.
“Will you? I didn’t know,” she answered with a laugh that had no mirth.
“So there’s nothing to say but Goodbye.” My mind wouldn’t work. Nothing clever or appropriate would come! Thus we stood for a moment or so. A [sic, an] auto with a man and woman in it came by and stopped with a blow out a couple of rods from us. I remember that the grass was high along the walk there.
So, as I hesitated, she crossed the street with the two children, the older one waving to me with its free right hand. I waved back and we all said goodbye and the girl, holding the two children by the hand started southward. I stood for a second or so looking after them, went a little distance and looked back again. Thus she passed out of my sight in the deepening twilight of that beautiful June 26th evening. I can see her yet with her dark brown hair and white clinging dress with small red flowers in it, walking toward the southward holding by the hand the two little girls in white on either side. And even the memory brings back the same old lump in my throat that was there that evening.
Published 2021-02-13. Revised 2025-07-05.
If you find any error(s) in the text, please let me know. Thanks. Contact me with errors or comments using hibbardac@gmail. [Back to the top] [About the editor, Al]
The Girl from “Across the Tracks”listing of family stories by Jesse Hibbard Wildlife in this Area 1871 to the Present