Notes:
Data source is David Michael Mumaugh, d.mumaugh@comcast.net
1900: Census, Kokomo, Center twp, Howard Co.,, Indiana
O ?? Mumaugh, head, Mar 1876, 24, m: 10/12, b: IL/IL/IL, machinest
Maud Mumaugh, wife, Aug 1873, 26, m: 10/12, 0 children, b: IN/OH/IN
1910: Census: Swink, Otero, Colorado
Orla Mumaugh, head, 34, m: 2 yrs, b: IL/IL/IN, machinest sugar factory
Hazel Mumaugh, wife, 24, m: 2 yrs, 0 children, b:CO/NY/WI
1920: Sheridan Ward 4, Sheridan, Wyoming,
Orval V Murnaugh 43, b: IL/IL/IL, master machinest sugar factory
Hazle Murnaugh 33, b: CO/NY/WI
Lenard Murnaugh 3 5/12 , b: WY
Jeanette Murnaugh 4/12 , b: WY
1930: Census, Precinct 22, Otero, Colorado
Orla Mumaugh, head, 54, 1st m: @ age 32, b: IL/IL/IL, machinest sugar factory
Hazel Mumaugh, wife, 44, 1st m: @ age 22, b: CO/NY/WI
Leonard Mumaugh, son, 13, b: WY
Jean Mumaugh, dau, 10, b: WY
Virginia Mumaugh, dau, 7, b: CO
David Mumaugh, son, 4 1/12, b: CO
1940: La Fayette, Otero, Colorado
Arlo V Mumaugh, head, 64, b: IL, machinest sugar mill
Hazel Mumaugh, wife, 53. b: CO,
Leonard Mumaugh, son, 23, b: WY
Jean Mumaugh, dau, 20, b: WY
Virginia Mumaugh, dau, 17, b: CO
David H Mumaugh, son, 14, b: CO
Memoir of Orla Vernon Mumaugh (1876-1960)
Written at age 78 ...about 1954
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It was such a long time ago in Sheldon, Iriquois Co., IL:, March 21, 1876 that I first came to life. Then later, I don't know exactly at what age, but I was in a high-chair and placed up close to the cook stove presumably to keep warm, while my Father and Mother went out to milk a cow. I must of been something of a cantankerous chap, anyway I got the high-chair upset and I landed on the stove. It was only that my father was very angry at my extreme loud crying which brought him in to pick me up with a hole burned in my stomach, besides burns on my knees and hands. I still have the scar on my stomach, but this, of course, is before my earliest recollection.
My earliest recollections are when my folks moved to a little town called Bunker Hill, Indiana. Before this, as I was told, Pa made me a little sled out of some shingles, and somehow I got the top off with the nails up and I fell down on the nails. The place became infected, and the doctor had to lance it, but he cut cross-ways and clipped the leaders in two fingers which I still have no use of.
I started school in Bunker Hill when I was six years old. I was riding the rapids down the stream of life, and there has been no events worth mentioning. I have often come to a landing place which could of been worth while but always I was set adrift. The going was rough, the current was strong, and I did lots of unreasonable things, many times evil elements took advantage. This, to me, is regrettable, however there was always the Spirit of God somehow, somewhere, that I seemed to be with. Otherwise I never could of finished the journey of riding the rapids down the stream of life.
There was a funny thing happened, I guess about the first day of school. The teacher, a young lady, and I think very timid, had about a dozen of the class up on the rostrum, and all at once I had to pee. I couldn't hold it. All I could do was to dance. The teacher grabbed a nice long beech gad which was placed handy, and when she was through, I was too.
I don't remember when we left Bunker Hill, but I do remember that the house burned down while we lived there. My brother and I had gone to the woods and carried home lots of hickory bark. Mother got up next morning and filled the old box stove plumb full, and burned the house down. I am the oldest of ten children, but at that time there was only about three or four of us.
The next thing that I remember about is living on the old Uncle Johny Duckwall place. There was about 600 acres with a grist mill and a saw mill, and Pa was running the saw mill. This was about three miles south and a little west of Bunker, Hill, Indiana, and there was Peru about seven miles further south. Perue was a town of about 7 or 8 thousand, and Bunker Hill was somewhat smaller. At first we lived on the south side of Pipe Creek which flowed west. In a short while this place was sold to an old German couple by the name of Miller. so we moved over on the north side of the creek into an old log house.
I was about seven or eight years old, and my fondest recollections are of this place. We lived just across the road from the creek, and there was a swinging foot bridge right across from the house. What fun it was to bounce that bridge, when we didn't get caught doing it.
About a mile from this place, and on the south side of the creek, we went to school; a little red brick school house. There was a little old town, and this school was--1 guess about a mile west of the little town. The town was named Leonda, so it was the Leonda School House.
There was lots of timber on the place, in fact all of that part of the country was covered with timber. The farmers were all busy cutting timber into logs and hauling them to the saw mill to be cut into building material for houses and barns. This kept the saw mill operating about 8 or 9 months out of the year. This, of course, was in the winter. The saw mill was rigged with water power from the creek. A dam had been built in the creek, and a race from the dam to the mill which was, as I remember, about three hundred yards. This race served three purposes. As the log yard was between the wagon road and the race, the logs were hauled to the log yard, rolled into the race, and floated down to the mill. A track was built down into the water, and the race was deep enough at this point for a car to be let down from the mill. Then with the use of pike poles the logs were floated over the car and pulled up into the mill with a bull wheel. My brother, Orlando, eighteen months younger than me, and I, fell heir to this job of getting the logs up into the mill. We didn't get paid anything but it was fun, and it kept us out of mischief--some of the time. One day Lando saw a snake out in the water which was about ten feet deep at this point. He took a swipe at it with the pike pole, which was about all he could handle anyhow, and knocked himself off into the water. We were both accustomed to the water and pretty good swimmers so nothing terrible happened. Before I forget, the third purpose for the race was that it was directed under the mill and into a flume where a water wheel was constructed which ran the mill.
I have trouble remembering things in order, but I do recall one time at school. There was a ball game going on and I wanted to be catcher. But there was a girl named Anna Garber who also wanted to be catcher. We got into a fight. Now there was a gal who could sure take care of herself. The teacher stopped the fight, which I lost, and she also stopped the game. Those were the days. We had fun playing draw base, anti-anti over, run sheep run, hide and seek, and I suppose many other games. There was never a dull moment. We, Lando and me, was dead ringers for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He was a little younger than me but he growed faster and caught up.
One time Mother had some extra goods so she made a coat. But there was only enough goods for one coat. We were both the same size so she didn't know which one of us to give it to. She brought it out to where we were playing and told us we should run a race, the winner to get the coat. Lando had out-grew me, but he was not as fast on foot as me. He could see that he was losing the race so he grabbed me by the shirt and just about tore it off. So I got the coat, and Mother made me a .new shirt as well.
In my family there is: Orla, Orlando, May, Charley, Ellen, Ida Bell, Lucy, Baby (who died as an infant), Harry, and Ira. Ellen died at about age six, and Harry died at about age twenty five. My mother's maiden name was Spaulding. Her parent's died when she and one brother were very small, so she was raised by grandparents by the name of Hickman, who were German.
We had lots of territory to roam in and we made use of it; in and out of the woods, up and down the creek, we were as wild as deer. Oh! While we still lived in Bunker Hill, Mother sent me to a neighbor for something, and on my way out some 4 dogs took out after me. I was scared and started to run but I tripped and fell. The dogs chewed on my legs but a man came and got the dogs off. Some old lady brought salve and bandages, but what I remember most is not the dog bites, but the attention which was more than worth the dog bites.
After going to the Leonda school for about three of four years we moved to Kokomo, Indiana, a town of about 10 or 12 thousand at the time. It nearly broke our hearts to leave the place we loved so much, and the people that we liked and respected. We was wild and used to life in the country, but we had moved to another saw mill where Pa didn't work steady. I was about ten or eleven then, and we didn't do so good, but we stayed together .
Then Pa found a job in a heading factory in Greentown, Indiana. They made slack barrel heading for such as cracker barrels. The town was some 15 or 18 miles west of Kokomo, but we soon moved to another saw mill on the Templeton place. This was similar to the Duckwall place. It had a big grain elevator, lots of territory around it, but no grist mill. There was a saw mill with equipment for making sorghum molasses, and it was there that I learned how to boil sorghum. In this part of the country it was quite the thing for the farmers to raise a patch of sorghum cane and have a few jars of molasses for winter pancakes. I didn't like the stuff.
Templeton built a new house on a place with about ten acres of timber. We cleared off the timber, but it was there that I made up my mind that I could go it alone. I had gone to school a little here and there, and every little bit helps, but it didn't reach out very far. Never the less, I took off. I was about 15 or 16 at the time.
I went to Kokomo. It was canning season, so I went to work at the canning factory. I was staying at a boarding house, and it was there that I met another fellow, and we decided to go to Frankfort, Indiana which was about 25 miles east of Kokomo. I worked on farms, in a livery stable for a couple years during which my folks had moved back to Kokomo. Pa had managed to get hold of a portable saw mill, and they talked me into helping out. So here I was, nearly 18 years old, back in Kokomo working with Pa to clear off a 40 acre plot of timber he had contracted.
It was on February 7, 1895 that I signed up to serve a four year apprenticeship at the Bennet Saw and Machine Works. I was there nearly five years when I decided I should work somewhere else for a while. The list of the places I worked seems endless. There was the Wooley Foundry and Machine Shop in Anderson, Indiana, back to Kokomo and the Apperson Automobile Factory and the Kokomo Fence machine shop, the Walton & Mackey nail machine shop where we built nail making machines, the Kokomo Novelty Works where we made nails. Then I went to the Crystal City, Missouri machine shop of a plate glass factory, on to St. Louis and the Saint Louis Steam Engine Co., back to Indianapolis, Indiana and the Atlas Engine Works, and finally the Big Four Locomotive Shop. This was what I had been looking for so I stayed there for a little over three years.
But itchy feet were a problem. After working for the Hetter Machine and Tool Co. for a short time I made up my mind to go to the West Coast. I landed in Pueblo, Colorado. This was the place where the boss wanted to start me on a smaller salary. I struck a bargain with him by telling him I would work one week for nothing. Then at the end of that week if he thought I was worth it he would pay me at my rate. Otherwise he owed me nothing. I hadn't given up on going to the West Coast, but I went to work for the Denver and Rio Grand R.R. in their round house repairing steam locomotives.
However; I met a girl. She was 22 years old then and I was 32, but she was to become my wife. This put the quietus to my trip west. About that time the Denver and Rio Grand R.R. went on strike. We postponed the wedding and I went back to Indianapolis for a while. I could have found steady work there, but I went back to Pueblo where I tried running an auto repair shop. I lost my shirt, but I married Hazel May Olin on June 8, 1908.
I got a chance to get a job in Swink, Colorado at the Holly Sugar Company. I did very well there and was made the Asst. Master Mechanic. Then in 1915 the Holly Sugar Co. moved their factory in Holly, Colo. to Sheridan, Wyoming, and I went with the move as Master Mechanic. It was in Sheridan, and eight years after our marriage that our first son, Leonard Eugene, was born. Three years later our first daughter, Jeanette Hazel was born. We had been in Sheridan about five years, but it is cold in Wyoming, and we were not happy there anyway. We went back to Swink.
However, the Holly Co. was putting in a new factory at Delta, Wyoming and they offered me the job of Master Mechanic there. We liked it in Delta, but then they offered me the same job back in Swink, but with more money. We took it, but it was a bad move. The company was undergoing a change of officials, there was all kinds of discord, no security for anyone. In about 1924, shortly after our second daughter , Virginia Ellen, was born, I was let go.
I made up my mind to try making a living some other way. I bought some cows, some chickens, some pigs, but that didn't seem to be working either. I got a job at the American Crystal Sugar Co. in Rocky Ford with the idea in mind to work both the job and the dairy. We worked all-right, both of us. Then Dave Olin was born. Two years later the barn burned down along with fifteen tons of hay, our car, and old Maud, our horse who had to be put out of her misery. Shovels, forks, tools and other items too numerous to mention were ruined.
I was fifty two years old then. We sold out and moved to Rocky Ford. We lived on the Melinsky place for a couple years, then bought the old Gracy place for $2,250. This was closer to town, had five acres of land, but was still on the Patterson Valley Road. It was a wild looking place with big, ugly cottonwoods along the road, a little old red brick house which was really not safe to live in, and a single water faucet outside the house on the end of a galvanized steel pipe sticking up out of the dirt.
We began cleaning the place up; cutting down trees, plowing the ground, and making adobes. Some of the adobes were used to build a chicken house on the other side of the property.
I don't have anything to write about these days so I live in the past. I am descended from a backwoods, primitive set without background or training. I just drifted. The only advantage I had was a Christian influence from my mother. I was bold, courageous, ambitious, and wanted to be a leader; but without background, education. ..My ambition was to be extremely proficient. No one ever told me it was better to have a good personality. I am not crying about it, I played my cards the way they were dealt. It is easy to look back on life and see where it could of been different, I tried to be a gentleman but even that was a struggle. I might ask, where is the fairness of a man who has had all the advantages of life given to him but will turn with scorn and criticism on someone who struggles to live by a good standard? It seems to lead one to think that advantage and education instills conceit rather than understanding. I write this only as an argument, and there is no argument; I have played the fool. I learned to be a machinist, and I was good at it. Life has been awful rough, but always there has been the courage to carryon."