Letter from Fanny Boulden Peterson to Ted Swoffer dtd 15 Dec 1988

Dear Dick [sic] & Norma,
Your letter has been on my desk since July because I wanted to share what I know of Grandpa Alfred
Swoffer. If I had time to play Mama's tape it might help but-----
His father was a green-grocer (the building still exists) in Dover. It was he who wrote the diary of his W.G. visit. Evidently Dover Castle was garrisoned. The boys had to deliver groceries to the castle and they teased the boys. It was not a favorite chore.
Gpa was apprenticed to a leather worker which, I believe, was a 7 year period.
I do not know how he and Walter financed their American endeavor, but they arrived in America in 1871. The date is easy to remember because they were ferried around Chicago because it was burning. Things must have been bleak for these urban young men to venture into an undeveloped rural area, and possible Indian danger. Our hats off to them - They designed our destiny. Brave! They had to be brave!
They went by train to New Ulm which was the end of the railroad. They bought oxen and went about 20 miles - they ended up 12 or 15 miles from Walnut, and proved up on claims. I have a note that says they bought out Fitch.
They had a sod shanty with a hole in the hillside for a bedroom. When they were in New Ulm they saw two Indian bodies hanging. It was near the time of the last uprising, and the disaster served the whites properly for their abuses. (If you want my good paper back on this I'll send it - the massacre)
Mama remembered keeping long fingernails for protection; but the abused Indians were "done for".
Alfred & Walter went to Brainerd to work on the railway (in winter I believe).
Alfred married a widow, Wealtha Maria Knight. She had married a cousin I think, and had an 11 yr old son, Albert Knight. She had some property. I know this because Gpa Alf gave Mama & Dad help in buying a quarter of land from Maria's inheritance. By the way, he was not one to spoil his heirs _ I don't remember that he helped through their hard times.
Gpa Alf and "Ri" were married by her father who was a Justice of the Peace (August Knight) in the country.
Mama said snow was 4 feet deep the winter she was born in a sod shanty in 1881 (if I'm right).
Mama grieved for little George who died the same year as her Mother. She was five.
At the funeral, a stallion stirred up the horses and Gpa's buggy tipped Mama out in the snow. She said she was cold, and he said "You're not hurt - you think more about being cold than of your poor Mother." So Mama was off to an English upbringing.
They all went to live with Uncle Walter and Aunt Kate.
They operated a creamery & made butter etc. They had a store, elevator, and machine business. When they split up, Mama said, Gpa took the elevator and land and Walter the store.
Grandpa married "Gusty" Knight [sic] and Mama adored her. Unhappily she died in child birth when Buck was born (I think). So back they all went to Uncle Walter's and Aunt Kate's, a saintly woman! She also fed the creamery workers I believe. Mama was happy there.
But when she was 13 Alf married Lucy Biers, an old maid dressmaker whose sister Mrs Chas Biers lived in the country and brought her to town to marry, so we think.
Old letters from Alf to Lucy when she visited in Ill. show that he loved her. (We kids had wondered about that)
She was hard on Mama & Gpa was severe in backing her up. He used to order Mama to bed & beat the stairs with a horsewhip behind her - she was grownup when she realized it never touched her. So she was carefully & severely raised after that, and denied a highschool education in Tracy after one year. But Mama remembers G'pa used to cover her with his buffalo skin coat on cold nights (light shown thru ceiling cracks in one house).
They came to visit us at least one time that I remember.
Aletha says he never smiled at her but he took me for a ride in our single buggy and lectured me about being good to Mama, and helping her.
So he did care for Mama even tho we didn't see it. I didn't feel close to him, but Aletha dislikes him.
One time Mama & a friend did the unthinkable - put on men's pants and rode their bikes to the Elevator where the men whistled. Gpa said if ever again - the horse-whip. (However, Mama had the first bicycle in her circle)
Mama's greatest disappointment was Gpa's third marriage the year he had promised to take her "home" and he took Lucy B. instead.Fanny Boulden PetersonDec 16, 1988
(continued)

My Mother was Fanny (or maybe Frances on records?) Olivia Swoffer Boulden 1881 - March 1974

P.S. Page 6
Grandpa was evidently generous with relatives. E----[?] (Fred's dau whom he brought with him) had a debilitating condition of some kind & Gpa paid for her care in an institution finally.
And once he made a trip to Canada to get a young relative out of jail.
By the way, Fred left his wife and some children in England - and relatives there scorn him. He also brought "Tracy Alf" I believe. He married a Walnut Grove woman & they were highly respected!
I hope that the side lights are what you wanted.
Gpa's buffalo coat is in the W.G. museum - hung way back and not properly labeled. He was evidently a small man.
This information on tapes Mama made for me. Otherwise maybe no-one recorded these thoughts.
F.B.P.
P.S. I found the English people loved Lucy B!