Early Days in Lyman #53

EARLY DAYS IN THE TOWN OF LYMAN
by Bela Foster

Continuing . . .
A. J. Bradbury, a native of Massachusetts, came with his parents to Peoria County, Ill., when he was a small boy. In 1872, he married Miss Christina Watson. To their union were born three children, two sons, Robert E. and James F. and one daughter, Ida, the wife of Dan Cowden of Nebraska. In 1892, A. J. Bradbury and sons, Robert E. and James F. moved to Ford County, where they purchased a farm of 390 acres in the Pan Handle near Piper City. A. J. Bradbury retired to Piper City, where he spent his remaining years.
Robert E. Bradbury, their oldest child was born in Livingston county in 1875. He was reared on the farm and learned early in life the duties of a farmer. He attended the district school and like most boys in those early days, had to relinquish the summer school and pursuing his school studies in winter only. He realized how much easier it was to start in school in the winter if he would keep his mind active during the summer months. Perhaps one spring day his father had told him to polish a plow that has been neglected and become corroded so that much polishing was needed before the surface was even. Anyway, he succeeded in getting many things not taught in the country shcool, that were permissable for any boy to persue and thus educate himself in many channels.
He remined in his father's household until he was twenty-three years of age, when he rented a portion of his father's farm and became master of ceremonies on that location.
In 1902, he came to the Town of Lyman and located on section 3, on what was known as the Crigler farm. This was part of the A. M. Haling farm purchase in 1866.
I could see right away that he was a young man with much energy. Soon after he came he wanted a new house. I noticed he intended to build it upon the rock, though he used a little sand and that is not all, right in the middle of the sand pile was a bumblebeee's nest. I was tending the masons. (L. E. Bressie and Frank Brown). I was plenty warm with my work but when those bees came at me I was almost boiling. Edward Stueri, R. E. Bradbury's hired man, put a jug of water before the bees and after a shot or two with their hypodermic needles, they all went in bathing.
In 1905, Robert E. Bradbury and Miss Amy Mosher were united in the bonds of matrimony. I had known her father and mother and their fathers and mothers and have known her in and out of school. She was and is and I dare say will always be a wife, a daughter, a mother, a sister, a friend that will grace the home in which she lived.
I remember in 1872, her uncle, John McDonald and his mother came to our place and John took me to the grove to get hazelnuts. It was so kind of him to do it. Mrs. McDonald helped mother while I was gone. I remember too, he put up some boards before the bedroom window to keep the afternoon sun from the room in which father lay sick, which allowed the circulation of the air also. He was so kind. He was always saying or doing something that cheered my heart. Not because it was me. It was his nature to be doing deeds of kindness.
 
--Roberts Herald. 8 April 1936. Bela Foster.