I was married but lived at home a great deal as mother needed me. In 1889 my husband rented a farm in our neighborhood and we were working hard when my husband Salma, was taken suddenly sick of appendicitis and died in one week. He was not operated on as the disease was new then and operations for it were unknown. Then I took my daughter Dessie and went back to my father’s house.
In 1892 I married Alonzo C. Graves and went to his home on the Otselic River a mile below Upper Lisle taking Dessie with me. In 1893 Nellie A. was born, and in 1895 Edward Robert was born. In 1896 both the babies were taken deathly sick of “cholera infantum” and Edward R. died. In 1897 Dessie had measles that were followed by diphtheria and died. She is buried in Lisle cemetery beside her father. In 1901 my husband Alonzo C. died of cancer. Then I took Nellie and went back to my father’s house again. What a refuge it was. In 1903 I was married to Lyman West of Binghamton (West Lawn Farm) and went there to live. Nellie went there to school. In two years we were induced to rent the large dairy farm of Mrs. Dye at Sanitaria Springs, 12 miles away. Here we lived 4 years working hard. Then the owner died, and the farm was sold. Then a large farm was offered to us near Whiney Point, so we went there in 1909. The owner of this farm died and the farm was for sale. We bought it and here we are, but we are both done working – now just “waiting”. But we enjoy talking over the work we have done, dairying, making butter, market, gardening, general farming, taking summer boarders, also entertaining a great deal of company.
by Emma Arnold Graves, as told to her daughter Nellie Graves Dewsnap
who hand wrote it in 1933 and passed down to her granddaughter Suzi Dewsnap
Keeper of the Family 