Bonnie Darr FIELDS

  General Notes:

Photo: Having fun when this now-vintage photo was taken are (top) Bessie Bricker Fields (later King), 1882-1952, and (bottom), Bessie's twin sister, Bonnie Darr Fields, 1882-1967. With them are Bertha Allen and Ellen Pearson. The original photo, taken at Dawson (photographer), Colfax, Iowa, was a gift to DeeAnna in 1965 from Bonnie Darr Fields.

Photo fom DeeAnna Allum Granston



1882 BIRTH of Bonnie Darr Fields

1885 CENSUS, Iowa State Census, Jasper County, Washington Township, Colfax (no specific date) ("Bonnie Field," age 2, is with her parents)

1886 DEATH of mother, S. Emma L. (Meacham) Fields

1893 MARRIAGE of father Alexander to stepmother Margaret

1895 CENSUS, Iowa, Jasper County, Washington Township, Colfax (no specific date) ("Bonnie D. Fields," age 11, born in Iowa County, Iowa)

1900 CENSUS, Iowa, Polk County, Beaver Township, Mitchellville (June 5) ("Bonnie D.," age 17, "At School," is with her father Alex and stepmother Margaret)

1902 DEATH (approximate) of grandfather, Lewis Fields

1904 DEATH of father, Alexander Teagarden Fields

1905 CENSUS, Iowa State Census, Polk County, Beaver Township, Mitchellville (no specific date) ("Bonnie D. Fields") (names only are in the 1905 Iowa State Census)

1910 CENSUS, Iowa, Scott County, Davenport (April 15) (Bonnie "Field," age 27, "Officer - Teacher" at the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home)

1920 CENSUS. Where?

1926 DEATH of stepmother, Margaret (Eckles) (Leighner) Fields

1930 CENSUS. Where?

1967 DEATH, Bonnie Darr Fields at 84 years 0 months 25 days


Bonnie was named for Dr. Darr of Ladora, Iowa County, Iowa

Bonnie did not marry



SIGNATURE: From correspondence

DESCRIPTION: By her own description, Bonnie was 5 ft. 2 in. tall with auburn hair and grey eyes.

OCCUPATION: Teacher; nurse during World War I (taught in schools in Anaheim, California for 26 years)

CHURCH AFFILIATION: Methodist

LOCATIONS: Colfax, Jasper County, Iowa; Chicago, Cook County, Illinois; Comet, Jefferson County, Montana; Salida, Lake County, Colorado; Atlantic, Cass County, Iowa; Davenport, Scott County, Iowa; Silvis, Rock Island County, Illinois; Helper, Carbon County, Utah; Price, Carbon County, Utah; Ogden, Weber County, Utah; Laramie, Albany County, Wyoming; Nuilly, France (during World War I); Morgan, Morgan County, Utah; Chicago, Cook County, Illinois; Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah; Anaheim, Orange County, California; Long Beach, Los Angeles County, California (at death)

BURIAL: Colfax Cemetery, Colfax, Jasper County, Iowa, Oak Hill Section, Plot 144 (Bonnie was cremated, 'ashes buried on Fields plot)



BOOK: GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF DESCENDANTS OF ABRAHAM TEAGARDEN, From Arrival in America, Including European Background, by Helen Elizabeth Vogt, published 1967, page 341, regarding Bonnie Darr Fields:

"Graduated from the Gertrude House Kindergarten Training School, Chicago. Taught in Iowa; lived with the Susan Glaspell family in Davenport near the Orphan's Home where she taught. Moved on to Utah and finally to Southern California where she taught for 27 years, still teaching part-time in 1955. During WW I took Nurses Training in a Colorado Hospital and served overseas with the American Red Cross. Similar in build and coloring to Nellie; lived by herself in Anaheim in 1958, drove her car everywhere, hated to cook and having inherited her grandfather's sense of humor, generally had a fine time out of life."



FROM NEWSPAPER, an original article from an unidentified January 11 newspaper, gift to DeeAnna in 1965 from Bonnie Darr Fields (1882-1967):

AN APPLE FOR TEACHER STARTS UNHAPPY CHAIN OF EVENTS FOR WOMAN

One pupil brought "an apple for the teacher" and ended up being indirectly responsible for the teacher receiving a ticket.

Miss Bonnie D. Fields, a member of the Anaheim Elementary School District for 26 years and now a substitute teacher for the district, received a bright, shiny red apple from one of her pupils.

She decided to wait until after school to eat the apple. While driving home, she consumed the apple, clear down to the core.

Without a thought, out the window went the apple core onto Lincoln Ave.

A policeman happened to see the apple core come sailing out the window of Miss Fields' car.

So now, Miss Fields has to appear on the charge of throwing trash on a city street. The officer gave her a ticket under Anaheim City ordinance section 700.5 which deals with throwing trash on the city streets.

But Miss Fields didn't bear a grudge, she even complimented the officer on doing his duty.



FROM NEWSPAPER, an original article, gift to DeeAnna in 1965 from Bonnie Darr Fields (1882-1967) with Bonnie's handwritten note, "This was taken from a letter Huber wrote to me. He was our first nephew and was a major in World War II, passed away on his birthday, February 19, 1960"

ANAHEIM BULLETIN, Anaheim, California, Monday, December 22, 1958:


ANAHEIM WOMAN BROUGHT CHRISTMAS CHEER TO SOLDIERS IN WORLD WAR I

In the winter of 1932,a man from New York wrote a letter to one of Anaheim's citizens. A lot of letters were written in 1932, but this one recalled something that took place in the winter of 1918 just after the first World War.

Christmas! The word doesn't have much meaning when you're away from home. Especially when you've been away in a foreign country in and around combat zones. It takes on a different connotation when there are no family or relatives to get together on the one day of the year when the feeling of giving should prevail.

One such person found himself in those circumstances on December 25, 1918 in France. And in a letter written years later, he tells his aunt just what her presence meant to not only him but to many other non-coms in an Army mess hall in a foreign land.

Bonnie Fields, who now lives at 9894 S. Los Angeles St., was the ray of light in the eyes of 70 soldiers that day in 1918, of which the writer speaks.


BARREN ROOM

"Fourteen years ago this Christmas, once a barren room in a converted French barracks just outside of Toul, France, 70 O. D. clad yanks grouped at a U-shaped table made of planks on rough horses--the food? Not so fancy, but plenty of it--70 home-loving Americans, three thousand miles from home. Into this poignant setting walks a red-headed, freckled faced, honest-to-God American girl, full of life, fun, affection and fellowship.

She gets her slum and beans and seats herself at the head of the table.

What happened?

The entire occasion is impregnated with a new atmosphere. The barren walls no longer seem bare, the crude talk no longer matters. Even the slum and beans lose their former unsavory associations. The dim light seems to become bright and cheery and the rough jokes take on a more refined air; the smiles and grins provoked by passing wisecracks seem to affect even the hard boiled mess sergeant and a forgotten warmth that comes from thoughts of home and loved ones shines from every eye.

It was Christmas! Christmas! An almost forgotten word in a world war-torn and in the clutch of "greed," the seat of all wars.

Brought back to reality for 70 home-loving men by a woman's presence! Ah, Bonnie Fields, you don't know how much good you did for those fellows, but I do, now that I can understand and I'm telling you that I'll not forget Christmas 1918 in a hurry."

In these simple words a veteran of WW I tells how he and his 69 other mess mates had Christmas brought to them in a way they never expected. Just by seeing someone from home changed completely the 'just another day' outlook for service personnel far from home.



VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPHS, gifts to DeeAnna in 1965 from Bonnie Darr Fields (1882-1967):

See photo described in the Alexander Teagarden Fields section

Also:

Group photo, Bessie Bricker Fields (King) and Bonnie Darr Fields with two friends (photo taken at Davison, Colfax, Iowa) (measures 5 1/4" X 7 1/2")

Bonnie Darr Fields and Bessie Bricker (Fields) King

Plus:Gravestone of Bonnie Darr Fields at Colfax City Cemetery, Colfax, Jasper County, Iowa, inscribed as follows:

BONNIE D. FIELDS
DEC. 20, 1882
JAN. 14, 1967



OTHER:

Original funeral card for Bonnie Darr Fields, as follows:

In Loving Memory
BONNIE DARR FIELDS
Funeral Services
Hilgenfeld Mortuary Chapel
Wednesday, January 18, 1967 at 2:00 P.M.
Officiating
Rev. Thomas Roy Pendell
First Methodist Church
Musical Selections
Rock Of Ages
Mr. Dale O'Neal, Soloist
Mrs. Shirley Eberhard, Organist
Cremation
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ENVELOPE with Bonnie's handwriting, as follows: "Dee, Keep this for me. This was borrowed from Huber on the battlefield December 8, 1918." Inside is a man's handkerchief with the embroidered initial "H." (Huber was Huber Field Robinson, Bonnie's nephew, son of Bonnie's elder sister Grace Fields Robinson). Also inside is a silk American flag that measures approximately 11" X 8" and Bonnie's notation on the outside of the envelope, "'Carried this flag all the time I was in service. (signed) Bonnie"
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


RECOLLECTIONS OF BONNIE DARR FIELDS, 1882-1967

(Handwritten to, and transcribed by, DeeAnna in 1965)

I was first known in the State of Iowa where my father was a merchant. I was not alone as I had a twin sister who was with me constantly, and what she couldn't think of, I could. We looked very much alike, so much so that the nurse bathed the same baby twice--it must have been my sister because she was a shade lighter than I and had a beautiful complexion that I envied. Our voices were just alike, and our father was always unable to tell which of us answered him. I remember being severely punished because of this on one occasion, and the more I cried the harder Bess clapped her hands and said, "I'm just glad he thought you was me."
One time an old friend took us to the city and told us to wait at the store door until he returned. We waited a long time for him, and finally Bess said, "I'm going to take a walk. You wait for him."
I waited and waited for Bess to come back, then I took a walk and browsed around the veil counter. As I held up a veil over my freckled face a clerk stepped up and said in a nice, quiet voice, "Do you want another veil like the one you got?"
"Yes," I said, "I'll take another one."
(Our father wanted us to dress alike until it took a full bolt of goods to cover us. We finally persuaded our eldest sister, whom we called "Gracie Mama" and who took the place of our dear Mother who passed away when we were young, to let us dress differently. We were allowed to choose our own clothes, and Bessie knew how to choose pretty ones.)
Our friend finally returned and found us waiting for him at the store door wearing our veils. He said in a rather harsh voice, "Which is Bon? I can't see the freckles with those blame veils on. Did your father tell you to wear such flimsy masks over your pretty little faces?"
Our friend was Ham Robinson who was the editor of the village paper and had a column in it called "The Cold Facts" taken from the name of the town, Colfax. That night Bess and I couldn't get to sleep, not from exhaustion or excitement, but from wondering if "Uncle Ham" would tell about our veils in "The Cold Facts."
Freckles are not only a blemish on the skin but a mark of distinction and difference, and it was by this mark right on the end of my nose that people were able to tell me from my dear twin. How well I remember when we would meet an old friend who would tilt my head back and say, "Which one are you? Let me see the freckle."
Our schooldays at Colfax were happy ones until the day a boy called me a name. I picked up a rock, covered it with snow and threw it at him and broke off his front tooth. He went into the school room acting like a wild Indian doing a fire dance, then ran to the principal and said, "The one with the freckle knocked out my tooth!"
My father was always a member of the school board, and the principal, Mr. D. M. Kelley, said, "I should whip you, but I'm a good friend of your father's, so I'm going to keep you in and you are to learn a poem."
The poem was called "The Builders." While I was in school battling with "The Builders," my darling sister, who was lonely for me and who knew that the principal was a good member of the Catholic Church, took a bright red crayon and wrote all around the Catholic Church, "God Bless the Catholics. God Bless the Catholics."
I could not sew as well as Bessie could, but I could throw a ball as well as any boy, and my aim was always accurate. Our sister, who was teaching school in the country, persuaded our father one day to let us visit her school and stay all night on a farm. When we arrived at the farm Bessie was taken into the house to meet the Lowery sisters. I lingered outside to watch Mr. Lowery milk a cow. He said, "Bon, your sister Nell said you are a good shot. Let's see you hit that big rooster over there." He stopped milking to see if I could hit the rooster. I picked up a rusty bolt from a wagon wheel and, with a good firm twist of my arm, I gave a swing and down fell the rooster deader than a doornail. Poor Mr. Lowery stood up and said, "I swan, he was the prize cock of the farm. I planned to take him to the county fair, but now he goes in the pot." That night we had delicious stew.
Nellie was very quiet at the dinner table that evening. Bess began to tell about John David losing his tooth when Mr. Lowery gave me such a cross look that Bess quickly changed the subject.
Mrs. Lowery let Bess and me sleep upstairs in a featherbed with our sister Nell. After our prayers had been said when I asked God to forgive me for hitting the old rooster and when the oil lamp had been turned out, I said, "The rooster was good. We might have had dried beef and gravy."
"The next time just Bessie will come," Nellie said.
Bessie clapped her hands, as she always did, and said, "I'm glad Bonnie can't come!"
Our sister Nellie was a brave little school teacher. She went to the schoolhouse early in the morning to build a fire in an old pot-belly stove and to carry drinking water from a well into the school room. Tramps usually slept in the schoolhouse during the night and burned all the wood; this worried our father, but it was not long until Nellie taught at a school in town.
Bess and I had never been allowed to travel alone until we were about seven years old when our father let us go to Ladora, Iowa, where he once lived, to visit Dr. Darr and Dr. Bricker. Our sweet Aunt Kate said that she spent two weeks getting us ready for the train trip--new dresses, leghorn hats, aprons and shoes. We had little red purses, and Papa gave us seventy-five cents to spend as we wished. At first it was quite a problem to see which of us would sit by the window. Papa said, "When you get to Newton, Iowa, let Bess sit by the window," but Bess was so busy counting her money all the way that I sat by the window many miles beyond Newton.
When we arrived at Dr. Darr's house, which was in the country, we went to the orchard, chose an apple tree, dug a hole near it and buried our money in a tin can. On this adventure neither Bess nor I considered telling others about it.
We grew very homesick. In one room the Darrs had a bed and dresser such as those in our sister Hattie's room at home, so Mrs. Darr let Bess and me have that room. How we did cry for our sisters and Aunt Kate! We were taken to call on many old friends of our parents' whom we did not know but who thought we were sweet little girls. Some thought we resembled our mother and some, our father. I remember Dr. Darr saying, "This is Bonnie with the freckle, and she tells Bessie what to do."
I swear it was Bess who buried the money. At the end of three days we wanted our sisters and our money, but the apple trees were all alike, and we were unable to find the three where we'd buried our coins. Dr. Bricker gave us some more money for our little red purses, put us on the train, and we went home.
I remember when Grace bought a little china doll for Bessie and a marble with a little white lamb on it for me. I loved to play marbles, and all of the boys wanted to be my partner. I usually chose Hub Mulock because he had the prettiest marbles that came from Calumet, Michigan, where he went during the summertime. Clarence Young's uncle bought him a box of Connellias, and I won all of them from him. Papa said I could not keep them; he said I could not play for keeps. But I kept them and hid all of them in an old buggy that Papa used only on rainy days.
When Willie Gibson passed away with typhoid fever, I took all of the marbles that had belonged to him and my marble with the little white lamb on it and went to his house. The Gibsons lived up on the hill in the old French home. In the front room was the white casket where Willie was resting so peacefully. I stood beside the little casket looking at the cold hands that would never again play marbles with me when Mrs. Gibson came into the room with a sweet smile on her face, as only a Christian would have, and said, "Bonnie, I have given him back to God." I handed her the little sack that Bess had made containing Willie's marbles and told her that I wanted Willie to have them back and that I wanted her to have my marble with the little white lamb on it. Mrs. Gibson put Willie's marbles in the casket but told me to keep the marble Grace had given me.
I put my marble in the old buggy again where I still kept the others I had won. The next day it rained. When Papa got the old buggy out to go away my marbles rolled back and forth, and I went screaming to him, "My marbles, my marbles, my little white lamb! Please, Papa, please, let me get my little white lamb!" The Skunk River might be sacred as a swimming hole to James Norman Hall and Huber Field Robinson, but it contains my most cherished childhood possessions--Papa dumped every marble I owned into it.
We lived at Colfax until Bess and I were twelve years old. From Colfax we moved to Mitchellville, just six miles away, where our father had a store. We were then old enough to work in the store. Father had an enormous butter and egg business, and on Saturdays Bess and I washed all of the jars and crocks. Papa sold butter and eggs to four state institutions; farmer from that part of the country brought their produce to our store. When we finished washing the jars and crocks to be returned to the farmers, Bess and I would gather nuts.
Bess was no good at throwing--and we were not allowed to climb trees--so it was up to me to throw the sticks to knock down the nuts. At black-walnut time our hands looked like little colored hands, so Gracie Mama got us some mitts to wear to cover the stains. We wore our mitts when we went to Des Moines to see Uncle Will and Aunt Mary Hazzard. Uncle Will was very religious. Every morning after breakfast we had to kneel in the front room while Uncle Will prayed. He would pray so long that Aunt Mary would say, "Come on Bess and Bon, we will do the dishes. Poor Uncle Will will pray, and we will have all of the dishes done."
Uncle Will took Bess and me to the tent where the Salvation Army met, and when we were ready to leave we discovered that one of us had lost one of our mittens. We told Uncle Will, and he stood up right after the benediction and said just as loudly as he could, "One of my nephews lost her half hand."
Bess and I yelled, "Uncle Will, we are little girls and have both our hands!" We found the mitt on the floor.
When we returned to Mitchellville we were promoted from washing butter crocks to selling things in the store. Bess got a job in the drug store next to our store, and Dr. Hume paid her $4.00 per week; I was paid the same amount.
Bessie took her pay all out in perfume. I bought a rake and hose for our yard, along with a hammer and saw so that I could shingle our old Chick Sales reading room that had leaked since we moved there. Papa bought shingles for the roof but was unable to get a man to put them on; one day I decided I was "man enough" to do it. I worked all day long thinking how proud Papa would be to come home and see what I'd done with my own hammer and saw. I placed the ladder against the house so all Papa had to do was stand on it to inspect my work. He was not well and was so feeble that it was with a great deal of effort he climbed to the top of the ladder. I was so proud I said, "Now, Papa, isn't it good?"
All Papa said when he looked down at me was, "You dern Boobie, every one of them is upside down. Who told you to do this?"
We lived in a big house and had a big yard, so Papa said Bess and I could have our own garden if we would take care of it; we could plant anything we wanted in it. We planted everything there was to plant. When Papa said we could invite one of our teachers to dinner we invited our botany teacher, a professor of botany from the State of Indiana. That evening all the vegetables on the table were from our garden, and Professor Bradley requested us to ask for everything by botanical names. Papa was proud of Bess and me when we said the right names.
We began to think of the serious side of life when we became sixteen years old. We took that step in the M. E. Church at Mitchellville, Iowa, and found God. Oh, what a glorious day it was! We went to the revival meeting after school and went to the altar with our Sunday school class. Lydia Bechtold and Thankful Walters put their arms around us--Mrs. Bechtold held Bessie, and Mrs. Walters held me. It seemed as though we were in the arms of angels. That night when we were in bed Bess said, "I feel as though our precious mother is with us, and we will never go wrong." What a foundation with which to face the world, and what a memory to cling to!
Three years later Papa joined Mama, but we were not left all alone. Gracie Mama was once more head of the household. By that time our first nephew had been born--Huber Field Robinson, son of Grace and Fred. Huber made us forget our sorrow and reigned with joy from the time he awoke in the morning until he went to sleep at night.
Two years slipped by. Hattie was a missionary in South America, and Nellie, once a teacher in a small country school, was teaching in a college town, Grinnell, Iowa. For the first time in our lives Bessie and I separated when she went to Oswego, New York, to study primary teaching and I went to Chicago to study kindergarten teaching. Aided and encouraged by Bessie, I stayed there two years and received my diploma.
While going to school in Chicago I taught at a mission Sunday school on Wabash Avenue. The children were so poor that they came to Sunday school with their clothes pinned with nails. The only way I could get them to stay in their seats was to remove what little money I had from my purse, then let them take turns holding the empty purse.
Chicago is a big city, but one day Miss Kellogg, the deaconess in charge of the mission, introduced me to Bishop Berry, and he said, "You're from Iowa! Do you know Harriett Fields who is in South America now?"
"Yes," I said, "She is my sister." Bishop Berry told me what wonderful work Hattie was doing for the Lord. It is what our mother wanted Hattie to do.
The first school at which I taught was in Montana, a state school for feeble minded and deaf children. I did not stay there long--the matron's niece came for the position. Through the kindness of the Masonic and Eastern Star Lodge, I had a private kindergarten in the basement of the Masonic temple. I taught eight or ten children and was paid by the children's parents at the rate of $2.00 per week for each child. It was there that I helped to organize the Eastern Star, but I did not hold an office; my membership was in Mitchellville, Iowa. I taught kindergarten there until the summer months arrived when the children left for vacation.
The county superintendent placed me in a position at Comit, Montana, where there was snow the year 'round and only nine pupils in the school. I received the big sum of $25.00 per month. The only person with whom I was able to get room and board was with Mrs. Dailey, who was an Eastern Star member and a cousin of Madam Noridca. I helped Mrs. Dailey by serving food, and I paid her $10.00 for my board. Mrs. Dailey was very kind to me. I was homesick almost every night. Mrs. Dailey would put a hot brick in my bed and rub my head that ached terribly at times. My room was so cold that a bottle of ink froze; one night chickens froze in the trees in which they were roosting. Coyotes barked all night long.
The schoolhouse was just across the street from the rooming house. It was a one-room school and had a pot-belly stove propped up on three brickbats. There were three windows on each side of the building. Coal was not available, and I had to saw wood in the morning before the children came to school. I was strong as a horse then and didn't mind it. The children were so interested in their school work, poor little dears, that they sat with their feet wrapped in gunny sacks when I failed to saw enough wood. Miners sawed wood for me later on. Comit was a mining camp, and the only way the miners knew it was Sunday was when I dressed up as if I were going to church. How well I remember how the men cleared the roads to the boarding house with the big snow plows.
One day when I was all dressed up, Mrs. Daily said, "Sunshine (that was her pet name for me), why don't you have a Sunday school? The children would love it."
I asked the one and only member of the school board if I might use the schoolhouse on Sundays for a Sunday school. He said that I could not. His reason was that one family of four children who attended my school were of the Catholic faith, and their parents would not approve.
That night I asked God to direct me, for I wanted to have a Sunday school and to be to the children what Lydia Bechtold and Thankful Walters had been to me--a guiding light. I wrote to the Sunday school superintendent at Butte, Montana, for journals and Sunday school papers such as those we had at Colfax. Aunt Rae Mulock sent me a corset box of cards that she had kept, ones that Hub had saved when he went to Sunday school.
God provides a way for everything good. The only hall in the camp was above the saloon. One night I asked Mitchell Rose, whose uncle was bartender at the saloon, to call his uncle out so that I could talk with him (the snow was terrible, but there was a path to the saloon). When Mitchell's uncle came to the door he was wearing a long, white apron that nearly touched the ground. He greeted us with a friendly smile, and Mitchell spoke up and said, "We want to come to the hall on Sunday and learn about God."
Mitchell's uncle replied, "School teacher, it will not hurt any of the kids. I cannot heat the hall, but you may use it."
When I repeated this to Mrs. Dailey she said, "Sunshine, you tell the miners that you need help for the Sunday school."
The following Sunday morning Mrs. Dailey told the miners that I was going to need help to heat the hall. I told them I was going to pass a small, blue pitcher and that I would use the money gathered in that manner to buy wood to heat the hall. The pitcher was passed every Sunday morning, and each week it had more money in it than it had the previous Sunday.
Again I wrote to the Sunday school superintendent at Butte asking for hymn books; he sent six. What fun we had singing! The children could not read a word, but they threw their heads back and sang as though Heaven had broken loose. The bunkhouse was across the street, and when we sang the miners sat outside the bunkhouse to listen to us. Their generous offerings in the blue pitcher must have been our reward for singing.
One of the miners in the camp was a Mason, and he had the only sleigh in the camp. He and I went 20 miles to Basin, Montana, together to attend Eastern Star meetings. A coyote came straight for the sleigh one night as we were going to Basin, and the miner quickly shot him with the gun he always carried.
The school at which I taught was closed when the district ran out of money. In mid-July I said good-bye to Mrs. Dailey, my school children and the miners. With the snow deep, the Good Miner drove me to a train at Butte, and I went to Salida, Colorado, to visit Floss and Porter Broughton.
My twin Bessie was a graduate nurse. I wanted to be able to do what she could do, so I entered training at the Red Cross Hospital at Salida. Dr. Chochems was the head surgeon there, and he was known as "The Mayo of the West." I was put in charge of the children, for I was able to entertain them with stories that would help them forget their pain. I taught the children prayers, too. Mary Suttle was an Austrian patient with one lung, and I taught her to say "God bless Dr. Chochems and make Mary Suttle and Miss Fields be good girls. Amen."
One night Dr. Chochems overheard Mary as she was saying her prayer, and he came into the room, put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Miss Fields, those are the sweetest words ever uttered in this hospital. I like it." He was so profane, and he had to have a drink before performing an operation, but he was oh-so-gentle and sympathetic with elderly people and small children.
I had a twelve-year-old patient who had pneumonia; her father and brother had passed away with diphtheria. She was in poor condition when she arrived at the hospital. At noon when the girl's mother said she was going to leave for a few minutes for lunch I said to her, "Jesus is calling this little girl."
"Oh! Do you know how to pray?" she asked as she put her arms around me. "I don't know how to pray."
"You find Jesus, and this will be easier for you," I told her.
About six weeks after the little girl's death the head nurse and I were in a park near the hospital when I saw the girl's mother. "Let's get out of here," I said. "It will bring it all back to her."
Just then she saw us and ran over to where we were. She whispered in my ear, "I've found Jesus. They are all happy."
I felt I'd saved a soul if I'd never done anything else in that hospital.
At the end of two and one-half years I left Salida, Colorado, and went to Atlantic, Iowa to be with my sister Grace and her husband Fred. I practiced private nursing that summer. Nurses were not plentiful, and I was busy all of the time. One of my cases was a paralytic man whose doctor gave me such strange orders to carry out. When the man was near death his wife called Dr. Schultz to be there when he passed on. That night Dr. Schultz asked me to fill a hypo "to hurry it on," as he put it. I had taken the Florence Nightingale pledge to make a life free from pain, but never to take a life. The doctor gave the hypo; I left the room. Just before the doctor had arrived the paralytic's son entered his father's room carrying a paper which he wanted me to assist the old man to sign. I declined. I later found out that Dr. Schultz was insane, and the son wanted the farm.
That fall I went to Davenport, Iowa where I taught kindergarten at the Iowa Soldiers Orphans Home. There were over 900 children at the Home, and I had 48 in kindergarten with a twelve-year-old girl to assist me.
The Home was across the street from a cemetery where I took a walk every day. One day I saw a tombstone with the Teagarden name on it. Teagarden was my father's middle name and my paternal grandmother's maiden name. I learned that people of the Seaman surname living in Davenport were Teagarden descendants. I called them, and they proved to be my father's cousins. Bruce Seaman was the very image of Papa. He was a successful farmer. When Bessie came to Davenport to visit me she and I were taken to the Seamans' farm. Bess told everyone that I'd killed a farmer's prize rooster once, but no one asked me to show my skill, so I didn't.
I had been at the Home for three years when a distant relative of Mama's who lived in Silvis, Illinois, and who was on the school board asked me to teach first grade there. I left Davenport to teach in Silvis. One morning some of my first-grade children were cutting paper dolls from fashion magazines while I was helping others in the class with reading. An elderly gentleman entered the room and, thinking him to be the grandfather of one of the children in my class, I paid little attention to him at that time. When I had an opportunity, I shook hands with him, and he said to me, "Miss Fields, I'm the county superintendent. Do you know the definition of habit? What these children do here they are going to do in second grade. I do not want to see any more paper on the floor."
I bought a china doll that the children named "Happy" and added his name to the list of children's names in the attendance-record book. One of the mothers made a nightshirt for Happy. Each child had an opportunity to take Happy home for a night, and he had perfect attendance; each morning I called his name with those of the children. One of the children in my class was a German boy named William who was always late for school. When it was William's turn to take Happy home with him, the children told him, "Don't let Happy get a black mark in the big book."
The next morning William was late for school, as usual, but when he came into the room he was holding Happy in one hand and Happy's nightshirt in his other hand. He puffed, "I just jumped me up and jumped me down as fast as I could jump to school."
One of the smart ones called out, "I can beat you jumping!"
One night when I was in my room trying to learn to type, one of my friends, her son and her son's pet cat and dog came into my room to save their electricity. They stayed until 9 o'clock. I was so made by the time they left that I sat right down at the typewriter to apply for a position elsewhere. From seven places to which I sent letters I received five replies, and the position that offered the most financial reward was at Helper, Utah; I accepted it.
I wish I were able to describe the beauty of the small village of Helper. Its scenic beauty was an inspiration in spite of nine saloons located there.
Because it was difficult to find living quarters, a girlfriend and I roomed at a Greek hotel. We were ashamed to live there, so we didn't sign the register every day. One day I said to my roommate, "Let's see who our neighbors are." We checked the register, and on every page someone had written "TEACHERS" in letters larger than any others!
One day as my fellow teacher and I were walking to school she was pushed into a saloon. We decided we would find a decent place to live or leave Helper. We saw a five-room cottage at the foot of the Wasach Mountains that had belonged to a banker who had embezzled $50,000 and had been imprisoned. It was a sad-looking place with dried food still on the stove, silver gone, and no bedding. There was an empty baby bed in one of the rooms, and empty money bags were tied to the bedsprings. We were given permission to rent the house for $35.00 per month for five months, but we stayed for about a year.
When school closed in June I sold subscriptions for THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, and LADIES HOME MAGAZINE. I earned enough money to pay my expenses to Atlantic, Iowa, with some money left over.
During the next few years I taught again in Helper, then at Price, Utah, during the school years; in the summertime I nursed in Ogden, Utah. At one time I worked in Laramie, Wyoming, where my job was to record numbers on all of the freight cars that went through Laramie for a certain railroad.
I passed the Cathedral Home Orphanage every day on my way home from work in Laramie. One day an elderly woman was sitting on the porch surrounded by small children, and I asked, "Are they all yours or is it a picnic?"
"It's no picnic," she said. "This is the Cathedral Home. Come and sit down and rest."
I told her I'd taught at an orphans' home in Davenport, Iowa. This was during the war, and the woman wanted to go to the east where her two sons were in the service. She introduced me to members of the board and, shortly afterward, I quit my job recording freight car numbers to teach at the orphanage. I was there for three months, and it was no picnic--the children had scarlet fever, measles and whooping cough. We were quarantined for a long time, but when a circus came to town and someone gave us tickets to it, I called members of the board to ask permission to take the children and was told to take every one of them--twenty-six in all. I tied knots in a long rope and told each child to hold onto a knot; we got along fine.
One of the children at the orphanage was a small girl named Olga who called me "Shields." She had a blood disorder which resulted in her leaving the orphanage to go to a doctor at Wheatland, Wyoming for tests. When it was time for her to leave, I fitted her with the best clothes I could locate in the supply room and gave her a small mounted bear that the Elk's Lodge had given us, and put her on a train to go to her new home. As I left the train, she called, "Shields, Shields, dey whip me!" I heard her voice for weeks afterward, but I knew she was going to a beautiful home. Twelve years later when I was in Pasadena, California demonstrating "White King" soap in a grocery store, I met a tourist from Wheatland and asked her if she knew the doctor and his family. She said she'd been at their home just a couple weeks earlier and mentioned that they just worshipped their daughter who was quite a musician. When she asked me if I knew that their daughter was adopted, I told her about the Cathedral Home.
The orphanage was supported mainly by donations. I read in a newspaper one day that a woman had given her pet dog a birthday party consisting of a 7-course dinner and that a guest at the party had given the dog a gold collar. I wrote to the woman and told her about our orphanage saying that the children needed shoes, etc. and asked if she were interested in visiting the Home some day. She replied that the article in the newspaper was "newspaper talk" and that someone did bring a twenty-five-cent collar for her dog but that it was really her birthday that was being celebrated. However, she did send a twenty-five dollar check which I recorded as "Dog Money."
When Mrs. Wilson returned from visiting her sons in the east, I left the orphanage and worked as a nurse for a Dr. Lane. I cared for 9 fraternity boys who had light cases of smallpox; I learned to play bridge with them.
Later I enlisted with the Mountain Division at Denver, Colorado. My nephew, Huber Field Robinson, was already overseas. I was sent to New York for supplies and inoculations. Dr. Lane sent a letter with me saying that I'd cared for patients with smallpox, but the scar on my arm was not deep enough nor his letter strong enough to prevent me from being vaccinated again. (I'd also had variloid when I lived at Mitchellville, Iowa and had variloid scars on my back to prove it.)
I did not really realize the seriousness of the war until I was told to go alone in a closed taxi to a pier, not to talk war and to cover my baggage. When I told my sisters this, Grace said, "You go to that phone and tell them I raised you and I am going with you. Hattie said for you to tell them that she educated you, and she is going, too."
When WE arrived at the pier I left Grace and Hattie outside the gate while I got my instructions. They promised they wouldn't cry, but when I went back to where I'd left them, there they were crying as hard as they could. At this time my twin sister Bessie was in Ft. Riley, Kansas.
We were on the ship 21 days during which time many died of flu and were buried at sea. Caskets were draped wit the American flag, and only the ripple of the water could be seen as casket after casket went down...
I was stationed eleven miles out of Paris at Neuilly and worked in a hospital equipped by Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt; we administered to and evacuated 35,000 boys. I worked in the "jaw ward" where we fed them through their noses; such brave boys they were. We were on the top floor of the hospital where there was the least chance of infection, but some got erysipelas and had full use of their feet and hands. Even so, when the armistice was signed, they put on their bath robes and heavy shoes and danced in celebration. One fellow danced with Mrs. Vanderbilt and said to her, "When I get back to God's country I want your name and number."
"Yes, indeed," she said, "I am Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt."
"That's right, Chicken," he said, "When you fly, fly high."
When one boy I cared for was called to a dressing room, he left his muffler (stole) with me. Because I was almost always cold I put it around my shoulders; it had every color of the rainbow in it. Just then the call came to be at attention when the major passed through. There I stood with that thing draped around my shoulders, and when the major passed me, he said, "Too many colors in the army."
Grace wrote me to locate Huber no matter what the cost. On my days off I checked the casualty lists while praying that Huber's name would not be on one of them. Then one day I received a letter from Huber telling me of his location--he was at A. P. O. 784, twenty miles away. He sent me 9 kisses at the end of his letter. I had a hip infection at that time and was not working, so I attempted to get papers which would allow me to go into the war zone, but because of my condition I was refused. I took what papers had and went to the post office in Paris where a private offered to help me to my destination. We boarded a train and went to the front lines.
While walking down a road the following morning nearing my destination, an army officer approached me and asked how I'd gotten there--he said I was the first woman who had been in that area for three months. He also said that the area was covered with barbed-wire entanglements and that it had taken our boys three hours to cross it.
I was thought to be a spy. While being questioned by officers, I unconsciously ungloved my hand revealing my Eastern Star ring. An officer saw the ring and then offered to help me find Huber. We met a soldier, and the officer asked him if he knew Huber. "Yes," the boy said, "he's in that old shed working on a motorcycle." Huber appeared when we called his name, and I'll tell you that no person on earth could have been happier than I was at that moment holding my nephew Huber in my arms.
Huber drove a motorcycle for two, and the next day we went searching for souvenirs. We net an officer who said he would take us down into a German dugout where we could get good souvenirs. There I was beneath the ground with 17-year-old Huber and four strange men. I thought to myself, "What a chance I am taking," and I called to Huber to stay near me when one of the fellows with us flashed a light in my face. He said, "Don't you know me?" I hesitated, and he said, "By George, Bess does have a twin!" He was a boyfriend of Bessie's from Omaha, Nebraska.
I spent Christmas with Huber. We pushed the tables together to form the letter "H" and made wreaths for the tables from evergreen branches. Nellie had given me some Santa Claus Christmas seals, and I used them to make place cards. More women should have been overseas during the war--the men craved the sympathy of American women. When Huber escorted me into the mess hall those boys sang "Beautiful Katie."
I was given a wound stripe when I returned to Paris, for I was still unable to work, and several other nurses and I went sightseeing by bus in Paris. We visited a boys' school where one small boy said he liked the American soldier because he washed every one of his teeth; another liked him because he could throw a baseball.
Two weeks after the armistice had been signed I returned to New York on the "Leviathan." I will never forget the Statue of Liberty in the New York Harbor and what a good feeling it was to be home again. George and Hattie and their three children met me, and I stayed with them for a while after returning to the United States.
I went to Morgan, Utah, where Maude and Ruth Burke were teaching high school when they asked me to do public health work there. Because I was not a Mormon I had difficulty finding a place to live. I finally got room and board in the only hotel in town when I agreed to clean all of the rooms, iron all towels and pillowcases on Saturdays, and pay $15.00 per month to "Grandma Stewart."
When the flu bug came, Grandma said I could not stay at the hotel if I went into homes where people had flu, so I organized nursing groups and distributed pamphlets instructing people how to reduce fever, give saline flushings, take temperatures, etc.--a general course in home nursing. The doctors in the county were not on good terms--both of them had flu at the same time, and it was difficult to follow their orders. Jim Anderson, who had a pea and sauerkraut cannery, read one of my pamphlets and liked it and offered to furnish all necessary material, as well as to print them. What a help that was! (The Andersons had no children, and every Christmas they went to Marshall Field's in Chicago to buy toys for children in the county. One Christmas evening they found a basket containing a baby boy on their front porch. How happy they were! Three years to the very day and very hour another basket was left at their house containing a baby girl.)
One day I was asked by a doctor to take a case at Porterville, twelve miles from Morgan. He said it was her fifth child and I would not have any trouble. I drove the old school car (it was in Morgan that I learned to drive an automobile, and everyone in the county had a chance to crank that old Lizzie) toward Porterville; snow had melted making the roads almost impassable. A man with a cart and horse approached me and said, "You can't go any further. I'll take you." I threw my nurse's kit on the floor of the car, climbed in and fell asleep leaning on the man's shoulder. We struck a rock in the road that awakened me.
"How was everything when you left?" I asked.
"Oh, just fine," he said, "I've got her tied down to the barn floor."
"On the barn floor! I thought I was supposed to be the stork for Doctor Pugmire!"
"No," he said, "I couldn't get Doc, so I thought you could do the work. A very valuable mare cut her leg."
"Well," I said, "this is out of my line, but we are so near that I will do what I can."
She was tied down to the barn floor alright with lighted lanterns around her--a beautiful animal. I cleaned the wound, put a binder on it and let the mare stand on her feet. The veterinarian had a horse with one eye that the kids called "One Eye," so I told the fellow, "Tell One Eye I did the best I could."
That summer I returned to Chicago to do social service work with Dr. Graham Taylor who was head of the Chicago Commons and on the editorial staff of SURVEY MAGAZINE. I was in charge of the playground, and a Miss Ethel Williams of Missouri was my assistant. The playground was not large enough to accommodate all of the children at one time, so it was necessary for them to come according to age; two hours were allowed for each group.
There was just one tree in the entire neighborhood. The children would stand outside to wait for a leaf to fall. A small church in Winnetka, Illinois sent a tub of flowers twice a month. The children would form a ring around the tub, and each of them were given three or four flowers. How they cherished them! I can still see those dirty hands holding onto those flowers. One day as I was walking down a street carrying a few flowers a man came up to me and said, "Oh, my God, Lady, are they real? My wife has been in bed for fourteen years. May I have just one for her?" I told him I'd promised them to another person but that I'd see to it that his wife had a few flowers yet that night, and I did--that woman had been in bed for fourteen years with cold abscesses all over her body.
In those days people got beer in buckets; the days were so hot that we were allowed to rope off a city street to have games at night under large arc lights. I will never forget the old tenement houses where grandmother sat to watch the children play. Each nationality seemed to live in its own section, and each group would do its native dance. Dr. Taylor said it was their theater.
One day one of our children came to the playground and said that there were twenty white crepes on the doors on Ruby Street, and, sure enough, there were. We went into several of the houses. Babies had died from nursing the same wet nurse and eating decayed bananas.
It was so hot in Chicago; I went to Salt Lake City, Utah, where I did private nursing. An insane patient nearly choked me to death, and while I was still wearing the dressing on my neck, I saw a woman demonstrating "White King" soap. When I inquired about obtaining a similar job, she sent me to see one of the bosses, a Mr. Clark. When Mr. Clark asked me if I thought I could sell powdered soap for washing clothes, I told him I could sell anything from horse collars to pianos. He hired me. When Bess came to visit me, Mr. Clark hired her, too, and we did house-to-house work, giving five-minute talks and leaving samples of soap. I worked one side of a street, and Bess, the other. Poor Bess was afraid of dogs, and every time one barked, I had to cross the street to "save" her. When Bess and I had a booth at a county fair, we dressed alike, and she stood at one end of the booth, I, at the other. Silly people going by would look at me and say, "How did you get over here so quickly?"
Our exhibit and demonstration were so successful that Mr. Clark raised our salaries, but not enough to keep Bess from getting married. Oh, how I missed her!
I worked for five years for "White King" in Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. When I went to California to visit George and Hattie, I attended an Iowa picnic where I met Anzie Schaffer who aroused my interest in teaching school again. I attended U.C.L.A. in order to qualify to teach in California. I taught first grade in Anaheim, California.
When we were having a number lesson in one of my classes and each of the children had play money with which to buy balloons, I said to them, "You may buy a balloon with 1 dime or 2 nickles or 10 pennies, or 1 nickel and 5 pennies."
Each child was expected to provide the right amount of money with which to "buy" a balloon when his turn came. When Ronnie Chancey came to choose a balloon, he took a red one and returned to his seat without "paying" for it. "But, Ronnie," I said, "where is your money?"
"Well," he said, "put it on the book like Mother does."
My last year of teaching was sad for me. On the first day of that school year, a P. T. A. member came into my room with a bouquet of flowers for me which she placed on my desk. "I understand that you have been here for thirty years," she said.
"This will be my last year," I told her. "The board has given me this year to prepare my final papers."
"You know," she said, "teachers are only public servants."
At home that night I wondered if I had been a credit to the teaching profession, if I had done all in my power to help my pupils on their way to be good citizens. Then I recalled a beautiful open-air graduation ceremony where out of 200 pupils being graduated, 20 were on the honor list, and 4 of those 20 had been in one of my classes.
I taught my children Gypsy Smith's theme song--"Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, all his wonderful power..."--which we sang every morning. At the close of school, I told the children that if they sang that song every day they would be successful. Years later, I met a six-footer in a post office, and he said to me, "I taught that prayer to my children, and we sing it every morning." He is a successful architect. One of my pupils is a speech specialist, two are nurses, one a cartoonist in New York, one a minister, and one a history teacher.
I have tried to be a good citizen, but as a warning to all teachers, eat your apples at school and keep the city streets clean!

Bonnie married.