My First Sewing Machine

Everyday Mom would fill a quart jar with fresh milk and put it in an old rusty baby stroller and John and I would push it over to the Coffers. Sue would invite us inside their cabin to rest a while and always had something interesting for us to see. Mr. Coffer used to spend his evenings whittling tiny toys for us from various things. He made the cutest tiny baskets from peach stones, tiny little yokes for John's toy cows and many other things. Some days we would watch as they set their printing press for another page of the book "Horse Hair in my Soup" they were printing that chronicled their journey across America.

After we had rested a bit we would start back home, during the spring and summer we would gather flowers along the road to present to Mom once we got home, she always loved the wild roses saying that they make the entire house smell sweet and fresh, there were larkspurs and bluebonnets, and if nothing else there was always the option of a dandelion bouquet.

One day when we got there, Sue showed me a treadle sewing machine they had found somewhere and asked me if I would like to have it for my own. She wrote a note to Mom about it, handed it to me, and we headed for home. There was no dawdling along the way this time as we ran until we were out of breath and then walked the rest of the way.

When we arrived home Mom read the note and told me that John and Sue wanted to give me the sewing machine as a thank-you for supplying them with milk everyday. And once Daddy has time we can go pick it up.

I could hardly wait until Daddy came home to tell him the news. He listened as I excitedly told him all about it and sensing my eagerness offered to hitch Jim to the spring wagon and go fetch it right away.

The following days were spent learning how to sew. Mom let me go through her fabric scraps and cut pieces to make nine patches. Once I had made enough nine patches she sewed them all together for a quilt top for me. Which is now being used on Sailor's bed.


I still use the sewing machine too. What started out as the most exciting thing ever for a little six year old girl, is still my first choice to use whenever I want to sew anything. I suppose it always will.

School Books and Shop Lofts

One late summer day John and Sue Coffer stopped in for a short visit. Amid the course of conversation they were having over chocolate milk and cookies they mentioned the fact that one of their acquaintances was a teacher at a school that was getting rid of a lot of their older books that were no longer being used, and wondered if we'd be interested in them or at least storing them in the loft of our shop until they found someone who might be interested in them.

Daddy and Mom agreed and several days later several vehicles came loaded with books and other school supplies. They carried everything up to the loft and then stayed for a few hours yet to visit and enjoy fresh peaches and cream.

After they left we all went up into the loft and started digging through all the boxes. I had never seen so many books in my life and was thrilled with everything, there were boxes with paints, pastels, construction paper, microscopes, and any other school supply you could dream of.

We took some of the things into the house and Mom got us started on some art projects. It was so exciting thinking of all the things we could do with everything we had.

A few days later John, David, and I were playing in the sandbox when we decided to go up in the loft and look at more of the books and things that were waiting on us. We were soon settled contentedly amid the piles of boxes, looking at the pictures in the reading books, David soon got bored and started playing with the door knob. John and I didn't pay him any mind, the books and microscopes were much more interesting.

After a while we noticed several wasps flying around and I told John to go get a fly swatter, he ran to the door but couldn't open it. I went to help him but couldn't turn the knob either. We tried to unlock it without success. The loft suddenly didn't look inviting as we started calling for Mom. She didn't answer and we started crying, the wasps kept buzzing around, the sun started going down, we were getting to be very warm, and our voices almost hoarse from crying by the time Mom heard us. She came with a key and released us from our prison.

We were so happy to get back into fresh air again..

We still enjoyed the days when Mom would say, lets go to the loft children. We would select some things to take into the house. We enjoyed the introduction of using a microscope and marvelled at the way our hair looks and exclaimed over what was revealed when you looked at a drop of water. But we were never tempted to go to the loft without Mom.

John Coffer

One afternoon in early fall John and I were playing in the sandbox when the phone rang. Mom came hurrying outside to the the "phone shanty" to answer it. It was Grandpa Mast, they had just witnessed a strange sight. A small covered wagon drawn with oxen, an old fashioned "different" buggy hitched to a big slow horse, a cow and two people that looked as if they had stepped right out of the pages of a "Little House on the Prairie" book had just passed their farm along 14 A and turned up Crawford Road and if we watch we should be able to see them soon.

We all sat on the swing under our cedar trees and looked down the road to where Crawford Rd crossed our road. It wasn't long before a team of oxen appeared with a tall man and his wife and a black dog walking beside them. We could hardly believe our eyes. A covered wagon with a yellow chicken perched on the back, a cow and a horse and buggy that looked different from any buggy we had ever seen. Walking slowly along the road.

They soon disappeared out of sight and we went back to the house, wondering who they were and where they were going.

That evening when Daddy came home we told him all about it. Daddy said he saw smoke that appears as if someone would have a campfire and that they're probably camping along the road. So right after supper he asked Mom to wrap up some fresh homemade bread and we would all walk over to meet them.

They were camped in a field beside the road cooking supper in a cast iron pot they had dangling above the fire. When they saw us coming they came to welcome us and introduced themselves as John and Sue Coffer. They had spent years travelling across America in this fashion and finally decided to settle down somewhere and had just purchased a piece of land that had a lot of timber and also a few meadows but no buildings or a well. They were hoping to build a cabin and dig a well yet before winter.

Daddy offered to help but Mr. Coffer turned it down wanting to to it all by themselves with a crosscut saw and an axe.

It wasn't long before the sound of an axe filled the days and their little cabin progressed nicely. After they had moved in the next thing to do was get a well dug. Mr. Coffer did accept help for this as someone needed to be on the ground to pull up full buckets of dirt and then let the empty bucket back down to be filled up again. It took quite a long time but once he struck water it was worth it!

John was intrigued with the whole pioneer thing and Mr. Coffer on one of their many visits to our house whittled a tiny yoke for him to play with his toy cows.

The Amish settlement in Dundee eventually failed, but Mr. Coffer still lives there, still living the pioneer lifestyle, and does tin type photography for an income.

 John and one of his oxen.

The cabin John and Sue built. John still lives in it.

John on his front porch.