We had the old Horse Thief Association and Dad and all the farmers around banded together to apprehend thieves who stole horses, chickens, etc. One time several folks were missing chickens and a plan was put in force to catch the culprit. They came up with a fellow by the name of Heath who was a staunch member of the church. That turned out to be an embarrassing situation. His wife and daughter lived at New Bethel and may still be there - friends of Uncle Harry's family.

Mother died in November 1912 and in April 1914 Dad had news for us one morning. He and Nora Eaton were being married and he wanted to know what we thought about it. We didn't think much!!! We cried and said we could never think of anyone taking over our Mother's place and learned later how wrong we were for Dad and Nora lived together for 39 years and he was much happier than he would have been making his home with the children. That worked both was, him and us. He had lived with our mother twenty two years. When Nora came home with him after a short trip we girls decided we should have a wedding cake for them. Edith baked a white cake, iced it in pink icing and it was so perfect we all decided it should be eaten immediately instead of growing stale overnight. The next day Edith repeated the baking and how we wished we had saved the first one as both the cake and frosting were anything but perfect. Both cakes were white with a pink middle layer and pink frosting. That was a good start for a new step mother.

          end of part fourteen

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