His descendants migrated to North Carolina and it was there that Col. John Pyle, a medical doctor, became a member of the Regulators organized to combat the lawlessness of that time and place and he also remained true to the Crown in the Revolutionary War. Dr. Pyle did not consider himself a Tory but a Loyalist who was trying to preserve law and order against those whom he thought were trying to destroy it.

Commissioned a Colonel in the British Army, he was authorized to raise arms and grant commissions. On the night of February 21, 1781 he and his command of 265 cavalrymen engaged in a battle with the superior forces of Lt. Col. Henry “Lighthorse” Lee at the Battle of Haw River. He was ambushed and about 90 of his men killed. He lost an eye and several fingers from his left hand. He was abandoned for dead but revived and crawled to a small lake where he concealed himself in the water with nothing but his nose protruding until the following night when he made his way home.

He and his son, Captain John Pyle, finally surrendered in September, 1781 and were later restored to respectability following the end of the War. The descendants of Col. Pyle migrated to Kentucky, then to Illinois and finally to Missouri.

John Nicholas Pyle was born November 18, 1853, the eldest child of the nine born to Alfred Monroe Pyle and Minerva Wilson Pyle. He was born in Missouri and spent much of his life near Jerico Springs. He died in Anaconda, Montana on December 18, 1938.

Rural Life in Missouri

John Nicholas and Mary Catherine raised their large family on a twenty acre farm that, quite possibly, was a wedding gift from John’s father, a prosperous stock rancher who lived not far from them. It is possible, too, that the livestock and some of the furnishings were also a wedding gift from the groom’s father.

Flossie’s recollection of the clapboard house was that it was very small consisting of a parlor, a dining room that also served as a bedroom for her parents, a kitchen, two small bedrooms and a lean-to that was also used as sleeping quarters.

There was no electricity. Kerosene lamps were used and she could recall how when she was old enough she had to help keep them filled, the chimneys cleaned and the wicks trimmed—chores which she detested!

There was no running water, not even a well until many years had gone by and enough money was in hand to have one dug which brought water to a pump at the back door—much better than carrying it from the branch which was on their property but about a block from the house. Sanitary facilities were an outhouse.

The wood burning range was not only cooking equipment but supplied warmth and heated the water in the stove-side reservoir which had to be kept filled. The fuel wood was cut from the farm woodlot.

Not many trips were made to the grocery, meat market or drug store. Everything was provided for a home with very, very few exceptions.

According to Flossie’s account the farm had an orchard with peach and apple trees and large patches of boysenberries, gooseberries, June berries and strawberries. The latter—“oh, huge ones, big, beautiful strawberries” were picked and sold for twenty cents a gallon.

“We peddled them in Jerico Springs from house to house. From the money we got Mother would take and buy yard goods up at Cedarville. Gee, we were tickled when we would get new dresses and new stockings,” Flossie recalled. A trip to Jerico Springs necessitated the use of a horse and buggy or wagon. Cedarville was smaller and about a fourth of a mile’s distance just across the county line.

Nothing was ever wasted. All the food produced was eaten, sold or preserved for the winter. Apples and peaches, as well as sweet corn, was cut up and spread on sheets to dry atop the chicken house and then stored. Many fruits and vegetables were canned; pickles, kraut, jams and jellies were made.

Flossie could recall the large copper-bottomed, rectangular vat that was placed over an outside fire and filled with cored apples to make apple butter. This was a long, painstaking process which necessitated keeping the low burning fire fueled and stirring, stirring, stirring the sticky mass with a long wooden paddle until it reached the desired consistency. The fruits of all the summer’s labor were carefully stored in a root cellar located not far from the kitchen door. Included in it was a crock of waterglass for egg preservation against the time when the hens would not be laying so prolifically.

Chickens were kept for eating as well as egg laying—chicken every Sunday and often with dumplings, which were John’s favorite. Eggs were carried in a basket to the stores in Cedarville where they were bartered for the groceries that could not be produced on the farm.

Pigs were raised for butchering in the fall which was done by the family and the ham and bacon cured for their meat supply. A cow was kept to provide milk and cream which was then churned into butter in the family kitchen. This was another chore that Flossie disliked and admitted that one time she deliberately tipped over the churn thinking that her Mother would consider her too irresponsible to make butter and she wouldn’t be asked again. It didn’t work!

Mary Catherine baked all the family bread, made delicious biscuits and “Molly Pyle’s” pies and cakes were always the hit of family picnics. The preacher who came infrequently to their little church always looked for an invitation to eat at the Pyle table. Preparation for Sunday dinner was all done on Saturday so when them came home after worship everything would be ready.

John Nicholas would take several sacks of their corn to the mill at Stockton and get it ground for corn meal mush and corn bread.

Moving away from the table we now examine the furnishings of the humble little home. Flossie said that there was not much furniture. She believed that the benches in the kitchen were probably constructed by her Mother. When asked about her father’s abilities for fixing things, she chuckled and said, “Mother fixed it!! I never saw that man use a hammer or saw. No sir, “Marm” did it. She built the chicken coops, the nesting boxes—all that stuff. He didn’t do it.” Mary Catherine’s father had been a cabinet maker and it was a good thing that she followed his example in order to keep her home operative.

The bedsteads were iron and on them were placed the homemade feather mattresses—pride of that era and locale—a prized dowry for any bride. Flossie was given one when she married. The Pyles kept domestic geese that roamed about the place and were untamed. In the late spring they were caught and their small feathers and down plucked for mattresses and pillows.

Flossie explained, “I’ll never forget plucking the geese. I turned that big goose upside down, held his legs and his wings with my left hand and plucked the feathers off his breast with my right. While I was lucking he would often pinch me on the tender inside of my thigh with his sharp beak. I hated that like poison but we all had to help.”

During the summer the big birds would grow back their plumage. The family also kept peacocks and hens and Flossie could recall their strange calling just before a storm and she loved to watch the strutting males.

Mary Catherine provided sheets for her family by buying unbleached muslin and sewing a seam up the center. For warmth the family members nestled under the heavy homemade quilts which utilized every scrap of available material large enough to make a patch. In her later years Mary Catherine became a real quilt artist—designing them herself and then executing the patching or appliqué and doing the dainty quilting stitches.

Throughout the year all the wood ashes were carefully saved by being turned into a ten foot high hopper in the yard. As the moisture dripped through this apparatus, homemade lye was caught and saved for soap making. The cracklin’s (residue from butchering and lard making—the family Crisco) which had been saved were rendered again and that waste fat was combined in the proper proportions with the lye and cooked again over an outside fire and made into the year’s supply of soap. It was poured into flat wooden boxes and allowed to harden slightly before being cut into bars. Flossie said she believed that this soap was all they had for bathing as well as washing and cleaning.

Rags that were not suitable for quilt making were kept and cut into strips for carpets. It was one of the chores of Flossie and her sisters to cut and sew these lengths into a continuous strip for the loom. She often told about this saying, “I can remember so well, Inez and I, sittin’ there by the stove and any time we’d come to a little short rags we’d roll ‘em up and stick ‘em in the stove when Mother wasn’t lookin’! We didn’t like to sew those little pieces together.”

Their mother would weave the strips on her three foot wide loom and then sew these widths and length together to make room-size floor coverings.

Flossie described the fall housecleaning, saying, “That was interesting! And work! Every fall we would take the carpets up. These homemade carpets were tacked down. We took the old straw out from under them—which was pretty beaten up—swept it all out. And we went out to the straw stack—the threshers had been there—and brought in new straw in a mattress ticking—to put under the carpet all over the house. We hung the carpet on the clothes line and beat it (some Hoover!)—gave it a good beating and then put it back down and it was about six inches high. Oh, it was fun to walk on and it was warm. We got down on our knees—we didn’t have a carpet stretcher—and pushed along with our knees and pulled (at this point she got down on the floor to demonstrate, hilarious!) and somebody would hold it and tack it. Usually Mother. Dad never had anything to do with it. Heavens, no!”

How was clothing provided for this large family? The men’s suits and overalls were bought ready made. They were carefully conserved, mended, handed down and seldom replaced. The children went barefooted as much of the year as possible. Worn shoes were mended. The sale of eggs and other farm produce supplied the cash to buy the calico—probably 10 cents a yard—for dressmaking. Flossie said about it, “The most beautiful calico you ever saw. I wish we could have some of it today.”

“Did Mollie Pyle rush out to buy a McCalls pattern?”

“Absolutely not,” replied Mother. “She made her won patterns. She measured the person she was going to sew for—how broad they were across the shoulders. Then she took a pencil and a pair of scissors and cut out a pattern from brown wrapping paper or whatever she had. That pattern was adjusted and re-used. She designed the garment as to style from this basic pattern. She was quite an artist.”

Flossie didn’t remember much about the trimmings except to say that her Mother, who designed and made her beautiful white high school graduation dress, also crocheted the wide lace that trimmed the petticoat.

Old photographs show that all the garments worn for those sittings were beautifully designed and elegantly trimmed. Their Mother also knit the warm winter mittens and stockings for the Pyle children.

Mother was asked, “How were you doctored when you got sick? Goose grease and turpentine?”

“That’s right—it was for a chest cold and it never failed. Just rub it in good.”

“What about poultices?”

“Cooked the onions and they smelled so good I’d rather eat ‘em than put ‘em on my chest!” (These were encased in a piece of cloth and administered to the chest hot.)

“Cough syrup?”

“I think they made their own out of the hot, hot red peppers that they grew. They grew everything. We never went to a drug store and paid $15 for medicine like I did last week—they wouldn’t have paid that in a year for nine kids.”

Mary Catherine probably learned these home remedies from her mother or her mother-in-law—remedies that had been handed down for generations.

Flossie had no recollection of her father ever hunting or fishing. He had a limited education so did not read more than a newspaper. His work was from sun to sun and in the evenings an early bedtime was the rule.

Flossie said, “I remember lots of things about my dear Daddy. When he was 50 years old he quit smoking—he had smoked a pipe. He grew his own tobacco and cured it—I can remember seeing it hanging there to dry. He decided to quit. He slept for a week to get that nicotine out of his system. We’d been going to church but Dad didn’t go, as I recall, but he got converted by the preacher. That’s how he decided to quit smoking. He quit cussin’ too!”

“Often we’d walk to that little Cedarville church. I remember that Dad taught the Sunday School Class for bys and he loved it and Mother led the singing. She had a beautiful voice. On Sunday afternoons when watermelons were in season—he grew great big watermelons, half an acre patch of them—he’d have his Sunday School Class to our house for a big watermelon feed. He’d bring ‘e in the day before and put ‘em in the cellar to get cold.”

“There was the boy that had brought me home the night before. We had sat out in the buggy a smoochin’. Of course Dad had come to the door to holler ‘bedtime’. I laugh over that every time I think of it. And there was Clovis Higgins at the watermelon feed the next day!”

“There were about 15 or 20 in his class. It would be interesting to know how much influence Dad had on those boys. He liked them and they seemed to like him. He was jolly and happy.”

Flossie recalled that when she was older and on the days that they took the buggy to church, her Dad always had the rig ready about 30 minutes early. While he waited for “Marm” he would stand there and holler, “Come on out, Marm. Come on out, let’s go. Gettin’ late. Ya got enough powder on your face—enough flour on your face!”

“It never made one bit of difference to Mother. She just stayed there and got it all on,” emphasized Flossie. Mary Catherine always prided herself on her appearance and regardless of the hard and trying life that she led, held fast to this need to be properly prepared for her weekly trip to church.”

Was it all hard work with only the Sunday respite to brighten the week? Flossie tells of some of the diversions they enjoyed.

John Pyle was very, very much against dancing. He considered it to be sinful. To emphasize this Flossie told of an event that took place later in Montana, saying, “Inez and I went to a dance at a celebration down in the valley and we got out there and danced. And Maude (their oldest sister) suspected this—she was just as bitter about it as Dad and she brought Mother and Dad down there. Dad came right out on the floor and took us off. I was never so humiliated in my life. I didn’t speak to my Mother for a week. I was a grown woman—a school teacher in my early twenties at the time.”

“Card playing?”

“Oh, no, absolutely not. My Mother came to visit me after I married your Dad and she saw decks of cards and she liked to died—she felt so bad. She loved frank, though—she was very fond of him.”

“In Missouri then, if you couldn’t dance and card playing wasn’t approved, what did you do for fun?”

“Listen; let me tell you what we did when my brothers were home. We didn’t dance but we had play parties.”

“Play parties?”

“You know what they did they moved the kitchen table back and they danced but they didn’t call it dancing! They had someone playing the fiddle—right there in my own home and my Father and Mother enjoyed every minute of it. We danced until midnight and then Mother had something for us to eat. My Dad and Mother just loved play parties.”

“And then there was July 9 Day to celebrate the founding of Jerico Springs—a mineral springs. We always went to that and took a big picnic lunch. We’d have fried chicken and other good things and we’d put it all out on a big picnic table.”

“That was a bid day and Dad would give Inez and me a dime at a time to ride on the merry-go-round and oh, how we loved that. They pretty nearly had to tie us to get us off to go home and do the evening chores. There were all kinds of contests with prizes—like a Fourth of July celebration.”

The Missouri Christmas celebration was a community affair held at the church. That was where the Christmas tree was located. Flossie described Christmas Eve, saying, “We took our own family gifts there—dolls and other gifts that Mother had prepared and brought in a big basket to put on that tree. Of course Inez and I were in the program—all dressed up—and it (the program) didn’t do us one bit of good! Our eyes were on that tree wondering which doll was to be ours. After the program the gifts were handed out. That was our Christmas. We didn’t have Christmas at home—we didn’t have a tree. Everything was shared right there. We did put up our stockings and Christmas morning found an orange, some nuts and hard candy in them. We had a goose or a turkey. Mother never forgot the holidays.

“Easter was when we got our new hats. I love hats! I was always glad that my dear sister, Inez, turned out to be a milliner. She made some beautiful ones.”

Flossie was only five years old when her paternal grandfather, Alfred Monroe Pyle, died in 1900 but she had some memories of the event. The body was prepared for burial right at the large ranch home where he had spent most of his life and the funeral was held there—probably the following day. All the relatives came from miles around and Flossie could remember being reprimanded, along with some of her small cousins, for sliding down the great banister when decorum was the order of the day!!

“My Dad was the oldest of the nine (all boys except one) and it was decided that he and his family would ride in the surrey to the cemetery. All the rest of them, the sisters-in-law, were so mad because they were hoity toity. They had money and good clothes and all of that and we were poor but we got to ride in the surrey.”

After Alfred Monroe Pyle’s death his widow, Minerva Wilson Pyle, remained on the stock ranch and ran it well. Flossie could recall having to go there sometimes and spend the night as the old lady became more fearful of being alone. She was a typical Ozark woman who wore a big apron in the pocket of which was her corncob pipe which she lit and smoked as she sat and rocked by the fire. She would awaken at 4:00 in the morning.

“She would wake us and get us up and we would be so sleepy—have a big roaring fire in the biggest fireplace I ever saw and she would sit there and smoke her pipe and we kids would doze and she would talk to us. That was Granny Pyle.”

“When the boys courted you what in the world did you do? You couldn’t go to dances; you couldn’t play cards and weren’t supposed to smootch!”

“We sat in the parlor and held hands.”

“You just sat there and ogled each other?” She chuckled.

“If it rained the roof leaked. I was so afraid it would rain when he was there visiting me! We would have to get the kettles out and put them under the leaks. Dad never got up there and fixed them. On Sundays Clovis Higgins brought me home from church in the buggy.”

“It was pretty tame?”

“You bet it was pretty tame! Dad and Mother didn’t want to let us out of their sights.”

High School Graduation

Because of the sporadic nature of Flossie’s early schooling she was almost seventeen when she finished elementary school. After much planning her parents decided to send her to Greenfield High School, Greenfield, Missouri—about 20 miles distant. None of her siblings had had this opportunity.

It was decided that her older sister, Etta, would accompany her and fine employment as a dry goods store clerk to help support them. They rented one room where they cooked, ate, slept and Flossie studied. Much of their food was brought or sent to them from home.

Sadly, Etta became ill with a ruptured appendix during their second year, 1913, and died. Their sister, Inez, who worked for a milliner in Greenfield, then shared the room with Flossie until she graduated in 1916.

It was a source of great pride for Flossie that she graduated as Salutatorian of her class with an average grade of 96. She was edged out of first place by a studious young man that she detested.

Graduation from high school in 1916 was truly a mark of distinction. Invitations to this formal event were engraved and all of the graduates were carefully groomed and formally attired for the occasion.

In her last years Flossie said about her graduation, “I still have my report cards and a picture of me wearing the beautiful white dress that Mother made and my white, high-button shoes. Inez made my white picture hat and my sweetheart, Harvey, sent me a dozen long-stemmed American Beauty roses to carry.”

Her diploma, bound in clack suede leather with gold embossed letters, including her name, and lined with gold satin, was printed on parchment and was a cherished possession all of her life.

It was accompanied by a Teacher’s Certificate accrediting her to teach in the public elementary schools of Missouri and a fine letter of recommendation from the superintendent of schools.

Flossie’s Siblings and Family Migrations

Flossie was the youngest of nine children. They were:  Claude Albert (1875-1962), Maude Mae (1878-1964), Harry Edward (1880-1970), Bessie Gertrude (1882-1954), Charles Ellsworth (1886-1944), Willis Edgar (1888-1974), Etta Blanche (1890-1913), Clara Inez (1893-1957) and Flossie Jewel (1895-1981). With the exception of Clara Inez they were all born in Missouri.

There was a strong familial tie—one that meant that separation by miles was an untenable situation and Mary Catherine and John worked hard to keep their family together even long after they were grown. Because of this strong feeling of family, the following migrations took place. Some are authenticated as to dates. Others are surmises.

The area in Southwestern Missouri where the family was reared is not far from Joplin, a mining and smelting center. Therefore, I believe, that the family had knowledge of and an appreciation for this occupation. Life on the small acreage was difficult and as the young sons and daughters reached maturity they sought other means of livelihood.

Possibly stories of the mines and reduction plants then springing into full bloom in Montana filtered back to them and Claude left for the silver and copper mining country near Butte and Anaconda. This was about 1891 when he was only 16 years of age. They story is told that he left a sweetheart in Missouri who married during his absence and his broken heart kept him single all the days of his life. A whole chapter could be written about Uncle Claude who was a favorite of the older Vincent children.

About 1892 John and Mary Catherine gathered their six children from the eldest Maude, age 14, to Etta, age 2, and made the trek to Montana to be near their son Claude. They settled on a little farm near Racetrack in the Deer Lodge Valley where Mary’s brother, John Wilson Hamner, may have been living at that time. It was there that their daughter, Clara Inez, was born in June, 1893.

For reasons unknown, they then left Claude in Montana and returned to Missouri to the little farm near Cedarville and it was there that Flossie Jewel was born on October 4, 1895.

Maude married Russell Ball in 1896 and, in 1904, they answered the urge to move to Montana to find employment. They took their 5 year old daughter, Reba, and Maude’s 18 year old brother, Charles (Charley).

As best as can be reconstructed, some time about 1908 or 1910, Etta traveled to Montana. Since it is unlikely that her parents would let her make the trip unaccompanied it is surmised that it was at this time that Willis and his wife, Gertrude, also made the migration. Etta lived with Maude and Russell Ball and worked in a dry goods store in Anaconda as a clerk. She returned to Missouri about 1912 and died in 1913.

Willis suffered a serious head and eye injury while at work. Gertrude hated the west. They returned to Missouri about 1918.

In 1916, upon Flossie’s graduation from high school, the family—then John, Mary Catherine, Inez and Flossie—migrated to Montana leaving behind Harry and his wife, Bessie, and Bessie (Pyle) and her husband, Ira Dill. This latter couple migrated to Montana in 1919.

Left behind in Missouri were the Pyle sons, Harry and Willis, and their families. They never came west. Son Charles (Charley) and his wife, Alice, of Anaconda, moved to Washington State about 1920 and in the mid-1920’s daughter Inez, who had married Raymond Taylor, moved to California. Still, Mary Catherine and John were near their bachelor son, Claude, and three of their grown children and their families:  Maude and Bessie, in Anaconda, and Flossie, in the Bitterroot Valley.

In Flossie’s autobiography she described the leave taking, saying, “My parents decided to sell the little, old farm and move to Anaconda. So, farewell to friends and sweetheart. We had a yard sale and sold all of our furniture and belongings.

“Going to Montana on the train, powered by coal, lots of black smoke blew into the coach. We had a big basket of food for the trip, including fried chicken; also tin cups tied on to the basket. At Kansas City the string broke and the cups went flying down the steps with Daddy right after them. He had such a keen sense of humor and really laughed while my very dignified Mother was ashamed of it all. It wasn’t funny to her.”

The property went to Uncle Lonnie, John’s brother Leonidas, who owned and operated the old Albert Monroe Pyle stock ranch not far from the little John Pyle farm. Cattle were run on the twenty acres and the buildings were allowed to fall into ruin.