CHAPTER 3
THE HISTORY OF MY GRANDMOTHER
CAROLINE PEARL LOCKWOOD
as told by Belva Lockwood
In 1789 two Lockwood brothers came to America with their families, after their parents had died, leaving a sister in England. The sister’s name was Elizabeth Lockwood. She was not married at the time. The names of the two married brothers are not known. There was no need to sell the parent’s estate and divide the property, because there was a very strict limit as to how much money or valuables anyone could take out of England to the United States at that time. It was just after the Revolutionary War and the British didn’t think too much of the people in the United States. Elizabeth was to remain on the property in England.
John C. Lockwood, the son of one of the brothers, wrote a hand written book about the family. The book was to be handed down from oldest son to oldest son. Alfred Lockwood was one of those sons but he had an older brother named Edward who got the book. Ed had two sons. Neither of Ed’s sons left any children. Ed did have three daughters. We know that one of the daughters had a daughter that lived in Creston, Iowa at the time. What became of the book no one seems to know. But, Myrtle Belva Lockwood Kennedy, a daughter of Charles Elmer Lockwood, (who was a brother to Carrie) and a son of Alfred Lockwood read the book in 1908. I will now quote from a letter written to a Mela, (no last name mentioned) in June 23, 1976 by Myrtle Belva to be read at Lockwood reunion. She continues:
There is no mention in the book of where the Lockwoods lived in England, as far back as she can remember, nor why they came to Dover, Delaware. The book said, that after the two families arrived in Delaware, one of the brothers decided to take his family west.
Of course, to go west or anywhere else you had to have some means of going. There weren’t railroads in those days. They didn’t have airplanes. He had to obtain teams and wagons and bundle up all of his family, big and small, to leave for the west.
Sometime later, the other brother’s family received word that they had made it to a large body of water and had to go south to get around it. This body of water was called Lake Michigan. There was a small settlement there, which later became Chicago.
The word was that they had made it about 150 miles to the west of the lake and were planning on staying the winter there. They said, they wanted to go about 300 to 400 miles father west and that’s what they did. That put them in the present twin cities of Minnesota.
The other Lockwood brother remained in Dover, Delaware. He himself never left there, but his children did, they went up and down the east coast. They didn’t start coming west for some time. A great many of them went down into Virginia.
One son several years later did go west to St. Louis to become a fur trader. He became very rich. The Indians, from which he bought most of the furs, didn’t want money for the furs, they wanted beads or anything bright, be it painted wood or glass. A hand full of beads was their demand for a good mink pelt. He brought a load of beads with him. He later talked his brother John C. Lockwood into moving west too.
It’s John C. Lockwood that is the person of interest to us. It turns out he was quite a guy himself.
John C. Lockwood was the father of Alfred Lockwood who was born in Dover, Delaware in 1841. He was the father of Caroline Pearl Lockwood my father’s mother. Here’s the linage as was written in the letter from Myrtle Belva Lockwood Kennedy;
Lockwood Brothers from England no names given
I
One brother’s son was-
John C. Lockwood
His second son was-
Alfred Lockwood, who married Mary Brown
They had the following children
I
Ella Jane, who married Frank Phillips- no children, but raised Caroline (Carrie, my grandmother)
Charles Elmer, married Abigail St. Louis Derbyshire. They had the following children- Myrtle Belva, Joseph Alfred, Lloyd Lincoln, and a baby girl who died at birth.
(Abigail was married twice first to an Alfred Derbyshire who was killed by a kick from a horse. She later married Charles Lockwood).
Bert Oliver, married twice, first to Myrtle Parmele, annulled by her father. He later married Maud they had one son named, Berthel.
Maggie Emily, married James Garner, two children, Ruth and Roy.
Alfred John Dodge, married Harriett Lawrence they had seven children- Milford, Constance, Alfred, Thorval, Dorothy, Theodore. Raymond. (between Alfred and Thorval).
Frank Warren, married Olive Sutherland. They had sixteen children- Luella, George, Lawrence, Clyde, Melva, Leo, Verda, Eilene, Frank, Floyd, Ruth, Marvin, Donald, Audrey, Arthadean, and Richard.
Caroline Pearl, married Clarence Parmele. They had six children, a son Francis, a son Cecil, (who died at age seven), Triplets (all died one week after birth), had another son named Orville (my father). Then her husband Clarence died of burst appendix. Married Raymond Ring had three sons- Raymond, Roy, and Robert. Her husband Ray Ring was killed in the woods as part of “Ring Brothers logging Co.”
More about John C. Lockwood. He became a member of the Iowa territorial legislature and also the first state legislature. (1844 to 1846) Iowa became a state in February of 1846,
John had two sons and two daughters who didn’t move west with them. The two sons Edward and Alfred and one daughter Sarah Emily came west, and last child Elizabeth was born when they lived in Odessa, Iowa. There is no town by that name today.
Two of the children who didn’t move west with him, were already married. The other two were about to be married. He knew that some of them were in the southern army during the Civil War. He and Alfred were in the Union Army, but they never met any of his other children or relatives in the southern army during all their squabbles down there.
During the war, there was a recruiting station in Missouri where Independence is now, and that’s where John C. Lockwood was located for a time. He was the Corporal in charge of the Commissary Dept. He had Alfred as his orderly to help him.
It was there that Alfred met a girl by the name of Mary Vesta Brown and married her in early 1864. Her folks lived at nearby Greensboro, Missouri.
Alfred and his dad joined the fighting and when they came back, after the war was over a year later, they found Alfred was the father of a baby girl. The baby was born in January of 1865. The girl was my great aunt Ellie, who raised my grandmother Carrie Pearl Lockwood/Parmele/Ring.
Alfred took his family, his wife and little girl, back to Odessa. His father John C. headed there too. Alfred and Mary and family lived in Odessa, on a small farm, just a short way from Odessa. Charlie was born there on June 9, 1867, six years later, Bert was born, and two years later, Maggie May was born.
But Alfred was not satisfied. He wanted to go to Nebraska. He’d heard that anyone who had served in the army could get a whole lot of land by just living on it and improving it and he wanted to go. Mary didn’t want to go at all. They had their place all paid for and it was near a school for the children. She knew there would not be one way out there. They hadn’t gotten much of an education yet.
But, nothing doing, they were going to Nebraska come what may. So in the fall of 1877 off they went. They had a covered wagon, loaded with all their possessions. They were driving a very fine, high-spirited, team of mares, and tied to the back was another horse they called the “bell mare”. She had a bell tied around her neck, and following her, just running lose, were some ten to twelve young mules. They were trained to stay with in hearing of that bell, and they did. When they would go through a little town or close to a field where the mules might get into trouble, Charles and Ella would get out of the wagon and walk behind the mules and sort of herd them along. At night they just stopped where night over took them and made camp until morning.
Their next stop of any length was near Creston where Alfred’s brother Edward lived. They stayed there four or five months. Edward and Mollie, his wife, hardly knew them, as they had never been close enough to have seen each other. They all became great friends. Edward and Mollie tried their best to talk Alfred into staying there. They even went so far as to look up land for them that could be purchased very reasonably, but Alfred had his head set on Nebraska and government land.
When spring came, they packed up and hit the road again. This time, after several days travel, they stopped at Council Bluffs, Iowa. There they also had relatives, the Dodges. Mrs. Dodge was a cousin of Alfred’s. She was John C. Lockwood’s brother’s daughter, I believe. Mr. Dodge was a banker and real estate broker. He was in a position to know where good land could be bought. They too, tried to get the westbound family to locate near them, but they still kept on. Within a week, they were on their way west again. It was getting spring and Alfred wanted to get located soon.
They crossed the river and headed west, following the Platte River to Columbus. There was a railroad, the Union Pacific, which ran through there, not very regularly, but it did get there sometimes. To the south, it was quite settled, but that wasn’t what Alfred wanted anyway. He made inquiries at the Federal Land Office in Columbus and found his best chances lay on father northwest, perhaps out of the Columbus region; but there was another Land Office in O’Neil.
Since he was getting close to his objective and didn’t want to drag the whole entourage all the way, he took the cover from the wagon and staked it to the ground along side the Beaver River, where it flows into the Platte, near Columbus. He unloaded the furniture and other things they had in the wagon, placing them in the camp house made from the covered wagon top, and he was ready to go. He took Mary and the baby and the four-year-old Bert with him, but left Ella and Charles and the two-year-old May there to watch things, care for the mules, and wait their return. He gave Charles 50 cents, just in case they needed it.
It was over two weeks before Alfred was able to return. In the mean time, Charles had made a fishing pole from a willow stick, tied on a piece of string and bent a pin into a hook. He caught fish from the creek, taking what they didn’t eat into town and selling them, using the money to buy other things to eat. They got along all right too, he would always say, when telling about it years later, and they never got afraid neither! It rained a few times, but they managed fine.
In the mean time, Alfred and Mary went on northwest, following the Beaver Creek about sixty miles. There they found what later would become their home. He had to go back to O’Neil and file on the land. He left his wife and the two children with a family named Martin, who lived about three miles from where the land they filed on was located. They were the last settlers in the valley for several miles around. They were so glad to see someone else moving in, they were glad to have them stay.
Albert returned to Columbus to get the rest of the family and their belongings. When they returned they again made camp, this time on their own preemption, where they not only took off the wagon cover but the wagon box and staked out the bell mare, rather than tie her to the wagon box. The mules ranged in all directions, with plenty of grass to eat and the creek was yards away.
Alfred took the running frame of the wagon and he and Charlie left for Columbus to get a load of lumber to build a cabin to spend the first winter in. Driving a team, that far, took several days. Mary and her daughter Ella, now 13, and the little ones stayed alone on the prairie. The nearest neighbors were three miles away, with no means of communication. Wild buffaloes and also wild Indians had been seen not long before, but no one seemed to think it was dangerous for women to stay alone with four children. If the Indians did come, what would a man have done anyway?
They got the lumber and headed home a lot slower than going there empty. The night before they reached the camp Alfred decided to travel all night if possible. They crossed the creek and headed up the valley on the side of the camp, but they got lost and had to stop for the night. Tying the horses up they crawled under the wagon and went to sleep. Early the next morning they awoke to the horses neighing and making all sorts of racket, trying to pull loose. Their first thought, of course, was Indians. They jumped up, now fully awake, but saw no Indians or anything else. Then they heard a bell ringing. It was the old bell mare. At the top of the hill, they saw their camp, and they had been on the wrong side. The camp was merely a mile away, but the bell mare had heard the other horses and had broken loose and ran to them. They tied her to the wagon and headed home.
At camp Mary didn’t know what to do, when the bell mare had taken off so had the mules. She didn’t know what to do. Then she saw her men coming.
It took several trips to Columbus to get enough lumber for the cabin and a barn. The family carried water from the spring until they could dig a well. They proved up in the fall of 1879 with a new house built, trees growing, fenced and crops planted.
A new baby was expected in September of 1879 making 5 children in all just as they were moving into the new house. They had traded a few of the mules for several milk cows, so there were quite a few chores to do morning and night.
Winter came early, in the first part of October, just after the family was settled. So the new barn didn’t get built from the lumber that was in the cabin and old barn. So of course, Alfred and Charles had to walk the ¾ of a mile back and forth through the snow twice daily to care for the stock and milk the cows. Sometimes it was snowing so hard they would have to spend the night in the barn. But spring came and they got the new building built at the new site. And a new well dug.
The new baby was called Alfred John Dodge Lockwood, Fred became his nickname. Three years later another boy came in October of 1882, his name was Frank Warren, nickname Frankie.
In January of 1885, five days after her daddy Alfred Lockwood died at age 44, Caroline Pearl was born. She was born prematurely, and almost died. She was so small they made a bed for her in a bread pan and put her on the opened oven door to keep her warm. It was a very hard winter and her mother Mary Lockwood died a year later, still in her mid 40’s.
This left all eight children orphans. Ella had married Frank Phillips already and came and got Carrie to raise as her own child. She never had any children of her own. Alfred’s cousin, Mrs. Susan Dodge came from Mount Pleasant, Iowa and stayed a short while, then took little Frankie home to live with her. That left Charles who was almost 19, Bert who was 12, May who was 10; Emily was 8 and Fred who was 6.
Their Grand father became their guardian. Charles, under his grandfather’s guardian-ship, bought out the rights of the other children, making his fathers land his. Keeping the four children there, Charles raised them. Charles married Abigal St. Louis Derbyshire in January 8, 1890. Charles had four children, the youngest died at birth. Charles kept buying land around the ranch until when he sold it in 1909 it consisted of 5400 acres.
Carrie’s home life was good. Her sister Ella had married a Seventh Day Adventist and lived in Kansas City. Carrie was raised as a Adventist too. She became best friends of Myrtle Parmele an Adventist neighbor who had four brothers her age. She was very sad to see them move to Oregon. Bert and Ella had gone to Oregon to visit the Parmele’s in about 1890 and came back with wonderful stories of the Oregon Coast. Bert Liked Myrtle Parmele. It wasn’t long until Carrie was off to live with the Parmele’s in 1902. It wasn’t long until Bert followed. He worked for a time in the Parmele’s sawmill.
(back row). Bert Lockwood married Myrtle Parmele
(front row) Clarence Parmele married Carrie Lockwood in June 4, 1905.
After Myrtle’s father, George Parmele, found out about Myrtles marriage, he had a fit. No non-Adventist was going to marry his daughter. Bert, in all honesty, couldn’t become an Adventist just to marry her. Myrtle never married again. Bert Married Maud.