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01-17-2004 E-mail from cousin Reka Clowers:
Regarding family stories, I don't really know many. I do recall a few
stories that Great Grandpa Berry Baker told me about his youth.

One was about a time when his family was relocating.

Grandpa Baker said he couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 and they were
traveling by wagon train. He said he had made friends with a couple of boys
about his same age they were suppose to gather fire wood as the train rolled
during the day. They would gather what they could find and each would throw
it into a designated section on his family's wagon. Depending on the
terrain, they might have to go a little ways out from the wagons and then
run to catch up. One day the boys got to playing and not paying attention
and all of a sudden there was this Indian on horseback in front of them.
Grandpa said the Indian spoke English as well as anyone and he asked the
boys weren't they a little farther away from the wagons than they were
supposed to be. Grandpa said the three of them looked around and couldn't
see anything of the train, not even a little dark spec. The youngest boy
started to cry and all three of them thought they were going to be scalped.
Grandpa said "this big Indian" slid off his horse and squatted down so that
he was eye level with the little boy who was crying and reassured him that
everything was going to be ok and that he knew where the wagon train was and
he would take all of them back. He then put all three boys on the back of
his horse and walked beside them as he lead the horse to the wagon train.

By the time they got back, it was near dusk and too dangerous for them to go
search for firewood. Since the boys had been playing, there was no firewood
to cook with that night so their families had to eat jerky and drink water
for supper. The Indian ate a good hot stew with the wagon master, and left
in the morning when the train left out at sunrise following breakfast. The
boys and their families also got jerky and water for breakfast and lunch
because there were no leftovers from the previous night's supper or that
morning's breakfast.

Supper usually consisted of hot coffee, a good hot stew made either with
some jerky, a rabbit, squirrel or some other small animal or beans (for an
extra special treat a few small chunks of salt pork might be in the beans),
adding some greens and roots picked by the females they walked and tasty hot
cornbread. For breakfast, they usually had hot coffee, lard fried
flapjacks, maybe some molasses, and maybe some fried salt pork or if they
had some left over cornbread from supper the kids had that mixed with hot
water and a little molasses--a sort of hot cereal dish. Or on a real special
occasion, the kids might have some freshly made cornmeal mush with a little
molasses for breakfast. Lunch usually consisted of cold flapjacks leftover
from that mornings' breakfast with either jerky or cold beans, providing the
beans had been meatless the night before, and water to drink.

Grandpa said he and his two friends never again lost sight of the wagons or
played instead of gathering firewood for a number of reasons. Among the
reasons were; one, for a growing, active little boy jerky and water is not
enough, especially when that little boy could smell the food cooking at the
other wagons. Another reason was, the boys had let their families down -
everybody in the family went hungry because they had neglected their chore.
But primarily, meeting up with that Indian had scared the daylights out of
them.

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