15th – Took our loads over to Chilli. The ground froze last night a little & this morning it holds the loads up – although I have got a load that my team cant hardly wiggle on the level because it’s so rough. We had about 2 cords and a half on the 2 wagons. We started about 7:30 & got unloaded about 12:30. Got home about 1:30. In the evening Geo. & I went down to Jim Williams to skin 2 cows that got in the ice & drownd a few days ago. Jim had skinned them already. 2 of our horses (mule & colt) broke through the ice & drowned. Neices & nephews are: Cecil James De Lapp, born Jan.16, 1901; Hazel Fae De Lapp born Nov 2, 1898; Maude Elizabeth Mansfield, Born Jan.10,1900; George Randle Smith, born Jan.26,1890;
The following is words to a song called my “Old Missouri Home”.
Good-bye my old Missouri home.
Good-bye I say to thee
I leave thy haunts today to roam the broad, yet fair prairie.
Yet again I’ll come to thee, I’ll come to you someday.
For the dear old home I’ll long to see & I hope you wont decay.
Oh, I hope you wont decay. While I am so far away.
For I hope again to return someday & live again with thee.
In this dear place I learned to talk, at this dear place I’ll die.
For the one that Is most dear to me is living very nigh.
There are a number of James Williams in the area in the 1900 federal census, so it is hard to sort out which one Jesse mentions. Jesse frequently mentions horses and mules by name, so it would be interesting to know if the mule and colt were mentioned in an earlier entry.
It is mid-February and Jesse is late to mention the birth of Cecil James to Rosa and George DeLapp a few weeks ago. That might explain why George built a new house and he and Rose moved out of the Bench Farm. If they were already sharing a room with their infant baby Hazel, maybe they didn’t care much for the idea of sharing their room with two babies! They needed more room for their growing family.
Based on Jesse’s diary entries, he never confides or deliberates or opines to us. He only reports factual events of the day in past tense and does not report upcoming events, at least not in these early entries. The above song is the first hint of his upcoming bachelor hobo trip with his brother John. He doesn’t tell us that he is planning this trip, where and why he wants to go, and how John ended up going too (or maybe John is the one who wanted to go, and little brother Jesse is just tagging along).
As for the song lyrics, if anyone knows this song and the tune, please send us an email to help us identify it. An internet search of each line yields nothing.
