This packing business is going slowly as theres a memory in every box! Marveling anew at my copy of the story of my great-great-great grandmothers murder -- one of only a half-dozen or so over the course of three centuries in tiny Isle La Motte, Vermont -- as handwritten by her daughter Albina. Barbara Pike, a 47-year-old mother of 13, stayed up late one Saturday evening in March 1845 to tend to some mending and await her husband Ezras return from jury duty. She had asked the young maid, Pruda, to fetch some garments when an itinerant peddler who was staying at the house leapt from the shadows, grabbed the girl and cut her on the arm with his knife. When Pruda screamed, Barbara went after the man with a shovel, but he stabbed her seven times before she somehow managed to wrestle him to the floor and get hold of the knife. Her boys awoke and subdued the man; he would spend the rest of his life in an insane asylum. The strong and sensible Barbara lived for two months, long enough to assure her children everything would be all right and kiss them good-bye, before succumbing to her wounds. (She was no stranger to such tragedy and seemed to take it in stride: Her own father, Caleb Hill, had been murdered by British soldiers who overtook him at his pub in 1814.) Ezra, a state representative and magistrate, continued to leave his traumatized family alone while he was off on government work, and heres the part of the story I cant get out of my head this weekend, perhaps because I can hardly imagine my own kids in this situation. In Albinas own words: Well, father married again in six months, a widdow lady and was all glad, for we wer all so frightened when night came, and it was dark. If father was gone of an evening, we never would go to bed, but all got in the windows and keep watch till he came. No matter what time it was he found his sentinels all wide awake and at their windows. You must believe we wer glad to have someone with us, and she was a good motherly woman and done the best she could. She had two girls of her own, so you see that made six girls of us. Had we all been unruly it would have been hard for her, but we wer brought up to mind when spoken to. So she had no whipping or much scolding to do. So that was the reason we liked our Stepmother, I suppose. One gets the feeling she was no replacement for the quite remarkable Barbara, however ...
Posted on: Sun, 18 May 2014 14:28:52 +0000
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