The Weaning Pen

Photo by Gary Austin

Chapter 1

Grampa George Washington Wilson married, had seven children and was widowed.  A few years later, Grampa Wilson married again and had seven more children.  Grampa Wilson worked hard, spent his money frugally and attained many many acres of land in southern Union County. 

As each of his children grew to maturity and married, they were put up in this little house for the first year or so.  It was just down the road a piece and I imagine it gave the daughters and or the parents some comfort to know that family was close.

The place came to be called The Weaning Pen. 

After that first year or so when Grampa Wilson found the right piece of ground, the married couple would move on to the wedding present, an 80-acre farm somewhere in southern Iowa. 

Chapter 2

Thirteen children were deeded farms after their marriage.  Some stayed on the original farm, some sold them and bought better or bigger or closer to somewhere.  One daughter married a vagabond husband, one with wanderlust and after the first farm was bought and sold for them, Grampa Wilson bought daughter Mattie and her husband Robert Austin a town house.

The house in Arispe was small, just 4 rooms with a little yard and a couple of sheds or outbuildings. And I'm pretty sure it had an outhouse out back!  The house was deeded or set up so that Mattie and Rob couldn't sell the house until all their children reached their majority.  It was tied up so Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Austin had a house to come home to.

Rob and Mattie would strike out for Pine Island, MN to homestead.  They'd live there awhile, have another child,  burn out or get sick and head back home to Arispe and the little house.  Or they would move up to Fort Dodge to barber, starve out and come home.  Lived at Winterset.  Lived on Grampa Wilson's farm one summer.  Lived at Brainerd, Mn.  but would end up back home in Arispe. 

The Arispe house might have been rented out.  There might be tenants living in it.  It didn' matter, if Rob and Mattie and seven children showed up at the door some dark, rainy night needing their house back, they moved right in with the tenants and co-habitated until the renters founds another place. 

I sure can't imagine doing that but that's the way they did in those days, my Dad told me.  Now I wish I had a picture of the Arispe house to stick in here.  Well, sometime soon, I'll get one and tuck it up in here for future reference.

PS:  not long after Jerry, the youngest son and child reach 18 or 21 (I forget which!), Gramma and Grampa sold the house . . .