Life Sketch

This scribe first saw the light of day on the Wopsipinicon River, in Linn County, near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, May 27, 1863. He was the youngest son of Joseph S. and Ann McCormick. There were nine children in the family - five girls and four boys - all of whom except the writer, have crossed the Silent River.

My parents came to Iowa from Allegheny, Pennsylvania in 1845. Railroads were practically unknown at that time, so they came by boat down the Ohio to the Mississippi River, thence up that stream to Clinton, Iowa. They first settled at De Witt, Iowa, and my father, being a printer by trade, worked some with his brother in Chicago, on some of the early dailies of that city. Later, he became the editor of the De Witt Observer, which is still published in that little city. He was later engaged in mercantile lines, and finally purchased a farm on the “Wopsy” River, where he died in 1864.

Following the death of my father, of whom this writer, who was only a little more than one year old, has no recollection, my mother, with nine children, none of whom were equipped to operate the farm, shortly afterward rented the farm and moved to Benton County, near Norway, Iowa, where a number of relatives already resided. It was here that the writer has some slight recollection, in a way, of some of the things that were taking place around him.

There was the struggle of maintaining a large family, so, as seemed to be a custom of those pioneer days, our older two boys, Charles and Dewit Clinton, were “bound out” to farmers of the vicinity. This “binding” process was to continue from one to five years. At the end of the contract period they were supposed to get a certain sum of money and a new pair of boots, etc. The older brother became tired of his condition, broke his contract and went out on his “own”. The younger brother served out his five-year contract - and at the end received a coarse pair of heavy boots (which he was unable to wear without badly blistering his feet), but his cash remuneration for five years of tough farm work was mostly “balanced” by his board and keep. He received barely enough change to keep him until he could find other employment, and nothing to assist in helping the mother and younger members of the family.

My mother, leaving some of the older children in charge, did considerable outside nursing to add to the family larder. Three of the girls finally succeeded in getting sufficient schooling in the then scarce grade schools, worked their way through the “Academy” (small colleges), and then found employment in the small grade schools and small colleges.

My mother finally sold her farm in Linn County and purchased a quarter section of unimproved land in Hamilton County. It was in a sparsely settled country, about 18 miles north of (Boonsboro) Boone. It was here that she contracted an unfortunate second marriage, which was terminated by divorce in little more than a year. The principal difficulty was that both husband and wife brought children by prior marriage into the household - generally an impossible combination.