Columbus Franklin Eads 1908-1992
Columbus Franklin Eads was my Paternal Grandfather, he was born 15 February, 1908 in Silva, Wayne, Missouri. Columbus was the son of William Franklin "Frank" Eads Jr and Dorthula Dalue "Minna" Smith. Columbus was the fourth child, third son born to Frank and Minna Smith Eads, he joined three older siblings; Mollie Camalene, Charles Franklin, and Buck Dock Eads, Columbus also later would have two more siblings to join the family, a brother James Arnold Eads and a sister Ruth Eads.
The Early Years
Columbus grew up in Silva, Wayne County, Missouri. According to an online source published by The State Historical Society of Missouri, entitled Wayne County Place Names-1928-1943 Silva was "a post office and rural village in the north-central part of St. Francois Township. The name is also written Silvia or Sylvia. The first settlement here was made by F.M. Ward, who operated a sawmill for a few years. When a post office was established in 1909, Alpha Ward, first postmistress submitted a list of names to the postal authorities. They chose Silvia, the name of a friend of Miss Ward. The shortened form Silva corresponds to local pronunciation of the name." © Robert L. Ramsay (1880-1953)
In 1914, when Columbus was just six years old, his father William passed away. The death of his father left his Mother alone to raise all six children by herself, her youngest, daughter Ruth was just a year old when her father died. Cousin Mary Linda Miller, a Granddaughter of Columbus Sister Mollie Camalene Eads, stated in her book Heading West & Moving On, that Great Grandmother Dorthula, who she lovingly referred to as Granny Eads , worked as a Washerwoman out of her home. At the time of her husbands death, Dorthula had six children to care for, all under the age of fifteen.
In the Twenties
In the years following the death of her husband, many changes would occur for Dorthula and her children. Imagine being left alone to raise six children all by yourself, women without any skills done what they knew to do to get by. For grandmother Dorthula that skill was doing laundry in her home for profit. Unfortunately doing laundry back then was an arduous process, often taking a day or two at a time. Imagine doing just enough laundry for your own family and how time consuming that would have been, then try and imagine doing that same thing for days at a time just to be able to feed and clothe your family and you might just get a picture of what Dorthula went through. It's not like doing laundry today, just gathering clothes and tossing them in the washer with some detergent and going off and doing your own thing while the washer does its jobs. Laundry in the twenties was a very different, very tedious and tiring process. As a young mother I can only imagine having to do that with little children under foot. Women would often get up before the crack of dawn to begin the days work, which involved cutting wood in order to have enough on hand to be able to boil water to get the clothes clean. The women used Lye Soap which is very caustic, can you imagine those poor tired hands just from the use of the soap alone, aside from the endless scrubbing on the washboards just to get the laundry clean? The women usually had a big pot which they boiled their water and soap in, over an open fire, then they used a big stick to agitate or stir the clothes, then they would take them out of the washpost with the big stick and put them over into the rinse tubs to be rinsed, which often required more than one tub of rinse water. After the rinsing was complete then came the wringing out by hand or through the use of an old wringer washer if they were lucky enough to have one. The clothes were then hung on either a clothesline or a fence. Once the clothes dried, which was often the next day if the sun was not shining or the weather was cool. Then came time to Iron. We are not talking about an electric iron here, they used old cast iron, irons that you sat on the top of the stove to get hot. Ironing was back breaking work. I can imagine as a young mother Dorthula would need to have taken breaks in between to feed the children, change a diaper or just rest for a bit. We look back at those times and think, such back breaking work for such little pay, but it was a way of life, it was all they knew and so they did it.
Change is a coming...
During the year 1920, Grandmother Dorthula was listed on the census record living in Saint Francois Township in Wayne County, Missouri. Only three of Dorthulas children remained in the home; Grandpa Columbus, his brother Arnold and his sister Ruth remained at home. On 9 August, 1916 Aunt Mollie had married and was living with her husband Pearl Marion Tipton in Greenville, Wayne, County, Missouri. Uncle Buck was out of the home as well although I have yet to locate him on the 1920 Census and Uncle Charles Frank Eads had left Wayne County Missouri and moved west into Granite City, Illinois, the rest of the family would soon follow him. It was there they fought their way through the throes of the Great Depression, one of the most memorable events in American History...