IT FLEW THROUGH THE AIR SINGING
		& Other
	Stories From The Childhood of
	Gertrude Carpenter Patchin Huff
(known affectionately to her grandchildren as "Gee-Gee")

	My Grandma!  Her name was Annie.  That is what she called herself, but it 
really was more than that.  Her daddy, since this was his first-born, and since he was 
very religious, wanted a boy and was going to name him Moses.  He compromised 
and called her Mosierann.  Mosierann Livernois (pronounced Livarnway).  That 
always intrigued me and I thought it was much prettier than just “Annie.”  She was 
the oldest of ten and he christened each one by taking the baby out into the fields, 
shooting his gun into the air three times, and saying "I christen thee".  They lived in 
the wilds of Minnesota in the 1850's.
	Now she was left a widow and mother of nine and lived on a homestead in 
the U.P. of Michigan.  I stayed with her off and on, and was never happier.  It was 
just a little clearing in the woods with a one room log house, but it was so exciting.  It 
was real adventure hunting turkey nests in the woods, going miles with my Uncle - 6 
months younger - to hunt the cows, sometimes after dark which was real scary.  
There was the time we went blueberry picking in Old Keith's Swamp and got lost.  
The only dry hump to eat our lunch on was an ant hill but "they are God's creatures 
and won't hurt you" said grandma as she flicked them off her sandwich.  At last my 
Uncle came shooting a gun to show us the way out, and he warned us never to go in 
there again!
	My aunt and I heard a ghost in the house one time.  There was a real loud 
pounding on the cellar door, even though no other person was there.  My aunt had 
heard it before and was afraid to stay there alone.  We got real brave, joined our 
hands and jumped on the door and sang.  Then the noise was repeated out in the
barn!  When we told Grandma about it later, she said we should never be afraid, just 
say "In the name of the Holy Ghost 'Who art thou?'" and they will answer.  I 
thought it was scary enough just to hear the noise.  Another time we tried to get a 
cow bell that was stuck between two logs.  We tried and tried, but it wouldn’t budge.  
Later, when we were playing outside, it flew through the air singing.  It went right 
over our heads.  We never did find it.  There was a man called Mr. Hicks who lived 
there before we did, and he had disappeared mysteriously.  My older uncle would tell 
us "Old Hicks will get you!" if you don't do this or that, and that was scary too.

	Jack showed me how the fairies braided the horses manes during the night, 
and how the hairs from their tails would turn to snakes in a pan of water under the 
back stoop - otherwise there was peace and quiet.  My Grandma radi-                   
ated it.  She opened a big family Bible every morning and read to us.                      
It was in a sacred place in a corner with a picture of Christ above it.                     
And in the evening I would read Moody's sermons aloud to all                              
of us.  I was only ten and it seemed wonderful.  Then my                                 
older uncle would ask me to read about Jesse James, who                                   
was a hero to him.  My uncle had had his hand blown off                                  
with a giant firecracker one Fourth of July and never went back to school, but he was 
full of the wisdom of the woods.
	Then there was the time my aunt and I were taking some flour and other 
supplies out to Jack and Sam, to a swamp where they were cutting marsh grass.  We 
had to go through a clearing and a wild looking girl chased us with a scythe to cut our 
legs off - did we run!  After we got there Sam made us some “water whelps” - 
pancakes made with flour and water - and we were so hungry they were good.  We 
had fallen in the water and we put our shoes and stockings on their tent to dry.  The 
tent was just a blanket stretched on poles.  Well, the cooking blaze caught it afire and 
everything burned up, so they had to go home too.

	Then I remember when we used to walk out to grandma's on Sunday.  
Six miles it was on a winding woods road - deer and partridge to be seen - and one 
day we were chased to the barn by wolves.  My how we ran!  Our throats were so 
dry that we scooped up muddy water from the ruts as we ran.
	Grandma would tell us of her forebears - one who escaped from a French 
Man o'War in the Florida swamps.  His name was Joe Livernois.  He had been 
“pressed” - taken by force - onto the ship from his home in France.  He hid in a 
hollow log with his nose just above water, until he heard them shoot off the guns 
signalling the men to give up the hunt.  He was taken in and nursed back to health by 
settlers, married their girl and later migrated to Minnesota.  There he made friends 
with the Indians, but one day they got mad cause he wouldn't buy more meat.  One 
Indian took Joe down to his canoe by the river, and showed him moose meat.  When 
Joe refused to buy any, the Indian came at him with a knife saying "Now me moose 
you!".  Joe killed him instantly by bringing his huge fists down on either side of the 
Indian's head.  Then he put the Indian in his canoe and sent it down the river.  He 
ran back to the cabin, gathered his wife and children, and escaped into the woods.  
They stayed there all night, and watched fearfully while a band of Indians burned 
down their cabin.
	When grandma was first married the Indians used to stop and ask for food, 
as they lived on the edge of a little town.  So they would give them a meal - but one 
day four Indians came and afterward went to sleep by the fire.  My grandfather was 
afraid to have them stay all night so he got his baby who had chicken pox, held him 
out, woke up one Indian and said "Smallpox!  Smallpox!".  Well they were scared of 
smallpox so the one woke up the others, they took their blankets and camped out in 
the swamps that night and never bothered him again.
	I never knew my grandpa - Dancing Billy Bennett they called him when he 
traveled with shows.  One of the shows was Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show.  He 
had medals for tap dancing.  He taught his children to sing in a quartet with just a 
penny whistle.  He could whip up a horse, kick off his shoes, and run and jump on 
the horse’s back and ride standing up.  He was strong too - he once won a big hog in 
a bet by carrying it home on his back over a distance of miles in the middle of a 
raging blizzard.  He threw it on the table and said "There!  You're mine, me son."  
He would take my mother out behind the barn and teach her skirt dances - grandma 
didn't believe in dancing.  This was because when grandma was a girl she got among a 
lot of snakes while picking berries and she prayed "Lord, if you get me from these 
snakes I'll serve you all my life!" and she did just that.  Even preached in churches.  
She wouldn't even wear a belt with a jet buckle for fear God would think her vain, 
and was shocked to see women wearing blouses with arms bare to the elbow.
	When I was a little girl my family moved a lot so I attended a number of 
schools - first in Ashland, Wisconsin.  My fondest memories are of when I was 
chosen, in the 3rd grade, to stand on a big platform with a big spray of roses in my 
arms and recite a poem on Decoration day.  "We deck your graves with flowers 
today - Oh Comrades brave and true" it began, and remembering that I was picked 
because I would speak loud and plain.  My mother was so proud and made me a new 
dress for the occasion - French dresses they called the style - long waisted and lots of 
embroidery with pink ribbons laced through in places.  The other thing we looked 
forward to was the fire horses.  They were near the school and what a thrill it was 
when those huge horses ran out of the fire house, pulling the wagons and hose.  They 
were just practicing, but they did it every day.
	When we moved to Sidnaw, Michigan, my brother Oliver and I were 
terribly homesick for Ashland.  We even scraped off the clay from our sled runners 
and kept it.  But we again lived way out and soon got interested in picking blueberries 
and raspberries and fishing for perch in the little lakes.  We moved to Kenton and 
again lived way out - two miles we had to walk to school.  It was rather fun though, 
as we saw deer and baby porcupines.  We used to run fast past the graveyard.  Then 
dad got sick and the people in town raffled off our old Jersey cow so we could move 
to Victoria in the copper country, where they wanted someone to run the big 
boarding house.  My sister and I had to get up at 5 AM and put up twenty lunch 
pails, then wait on table - we had sixty boarders.  I was always late to school but had 
fun too - sledding and skiing in the winter - there were nothing but hills there.  It was 
here that me and my brother got up at 4 AM to fish in Beaver Creek to get sandwich 
filling to go to the school picnic, but no luck so we didn't go .
	We had to go by stage coach from Rockland to Victoria till we got a horse 
of our own.  Then we moved back to Sidnaw on the farm and I stayed with my uncle 
Fred in town to go to school.  Used to get up early to prime the pump with hot 
water and then pump tubs of water for their cows, let them out of the barn to drink 
then tie them in again.  Wasn't there long before my folks moved again to Red Ridge 
- a stamp mill town on Lake Superior - there to run another boarding house.  While 
there we were hemmed in by a huge forest fire - we each had things to carry in a 
pillow case, and were ready to be taken by boat to Houghton when the wind changed 
and we were saved.  We had four teachers boarding with us and one of them fainted 
and there sure was excitement that day.  Then I went to another school, high school, 
in Painsdale - had to go on the Copper Range R.R. so ended there.
	I lived home on the farm while dad went out West to get a job.  In the 
early Spring I put a revolver in my pocket and went out on the plains to pick arbutus.  
I would put them in florists boxes and take them to town with old Cap (an Indian 
pony we had) and send them to a commission house in Chicago.  They wanted more, 
said they sold them by the flower.  Then in the summer we boxed the best 
blueberries - it was my job to ship them and it was no little job to handle that horse.  
He had been a race horse and knew all the mean tricks.  Left him at a livery stable 
one night.  The owner said he'd have him hitched up in the morning.  Morning came 
and the owner came over and said I'd have to hitch him up - the horse wouldn't let 
the man near him, would kick and bite and crowd him against the wall.  But soon as 
that horse heard me he quieted down, and I got him harnessed with the livery man 
saying "well I'll be d____.”
	One time when we lived in Kenton - I was ten years old then - we got a 
message that my aunt was real sick.  She lived out on the homestead and the only 
way there was ten miles out to my grandma's then three miles through the woods and 
across the river.  It was in March when there was four feet of softening snow on the 
ground.  I went with my mother and got out to grandma's on a tote road and then 
we had to cut through the woods on a snowshoe trail.  Everything went well till we 
crossed the Ontonogan River and it suddenly got dark in the thick woods.  I went 
ahead to test the path and whenever I got off on a rabbit trail my poor mother would 
sink up to her hips in the snow.  I thought we'd never get there, but took heart when 
we saw a lamp shining in the little log house.  We stayed there a week nursing my 
aunt till she was strong enough to take care of her four little kiddies.
	My brother and I had to take care of our ice cream parlor - my mother had 
four freezers and made the most delicious ice creams.  We sold it five cents a dish 
and people were always buying some for us, till we really got sick of ice cream.  She 
made round sandwich rolls and sold ham sandwiches too.  We liked it there because 
we had electric lights instead of lamps.  The lumber company had put a dynamo on 
the river by the sawmill, so the whole little town had electric lights.  They hung from 
the ceiling and never gave as much good light as our big oil lamps though.
	Fourth of July was a great day in our lives then.  Everyone gathered at one 
of the towns along the D.S.S.& A. railroad.  We all got summer clothes then and we 
got ten cents to get a bunch of small firecrackers.  There were firecrackers going off 
all day.  I remember a big black dog catching one in his mouth and so many people 
getting hurt with the big cannon crackers.  About that time my uncle Sam had his 
hand blown off with what he thought was a dud.  He was only twelve years old and 
they found him praying by his bed.  They finally got a doctor and he had to cut off 
his hand - gave him chloroform.
	When we lived in Sidnaw after coming from Ashland we lived in the 
outskirts and everyone picked blueberries to can.  One day my mother and I walked 
out in the pine plains and picked berries all day.  We had three sap buckets full and 
hid them under some bushes in the shade.  We put sticks leading from the road to 
them, so dad and my brother who had a team and wagon could pick them up and 
bring them home.  Well, they followed the sticks but they found only empty pails - a 
bear had come along and eaten them all!  Then one day my brother and I were berry 
picking and heard awful swearing from afar and ran for home.  Seems an old hermit 
who lived nearby thought we were in his special patch and he did it to scare us away.
	One day we went with my Uncle Reub to look at his bear trap in a deep 
ravine.  He had a horse and gig.  He had a bear in a trap but then another bear took 
after us.  We just had time to hang onto the back of the gig, since my uncle was so 
scared that he forgot all about my brother and me!  This same uncle took us on a 
three day berry-picking while he cut hay.  We slept in an old barn on the hay and he 
got us up at sunrise and made us wash our faces in the dew and at night taught us to 
play seven-up by the light of a lantern and then rebuked us for not getting more than 
two bushels of berries!  He made his living trapping foxes and beavers and otters and 
selling a saddle of venison now and then.  We never knew what beef was like, as my 
uncles kept us supplied with venison and rabbits.  We even ate bear meat and beaver.  
We used to set rabbit snares on the way to school in the winter.  I never liked them 
much cause they tasted of hemlock or such - guess that's what they lived on.
	First place I remember where I lived was in Kenton, where my mother 
was pastry cook at the Kenton House, where the lumber mill workers boarded.  The 
men had to pass eight saloons on their way back from work.  There was a big plank 
sidewalk there and once in a while my brother and I would sit on the outer edge and 
the men passing by would put nickels in our hands.  Once, one of them took my 
brother into the one clothing store and bought him a suit.  I was five and he was six.  
One Easter I had an egg to fill for Sunday school - I forgot about it till time to go, so 
my mother let me go in the men's room where they sat around on Sundays and we 
were never allowed to go in there.  I let the men see the egg and in no time it was 
filled with money.  The first time I ever saw Santa Claus was in the church.  They had 
a ceremony of crowning him but the little girl who was supposed to do it got scared 
and cried so I was asked to do it.  I remember how awesome it was to climb on his 
lap and put the crown on his head...He was a very real magic person.  I can't 
remember getting presents - maybe an orange and apple and candy - but got many 
special eats.  I started to school there too.  School was in an old vacant store.  Kids of 
all ages shared the same room.  The first day of school, a big cow was standing by the 
walk.  She had such big eyes and was chewing her cud, but she had big sharp horns.  
Well, I ran back home.  Momma made me go back and said "If you don't look at the 
cow she won't look at you."  Nearly everyone owned cows and they just roamed the 
streets, but I was never afraid of them after that.
	A lonely lady used to invite us to dinner once in a while and they wanted to 
adopt us but mother wouldn't part with us.  I remember one time we stood on the 
back runners of a cutter for a little ride - the man didn't see us and he whipped up 
the horses till they were going so fast we were afraid to jump off.  My brother 
jumped first and said "Jump! Gertie, Jump!" and when I finally picked myself up I 
was all scratched up on the icy road and we were way out in the country.  There was 
one company store and mother sent me for a bar of Ivory soap - the lady told ma I 
said "I want a bar of Idy soap, Idy do."  My brother would buy candy and hide it, 
then put his hands on my shoulders and march till we found it.  He said the fairies left 
it there and I really believed it.
	Then we suddenly got a stepfather and went to Ashland, Wisconsin.  First 
we lived in town next to a butcher shop and a saloon.  We used to go to the side 
door and get a dinner pail of beer for pa's dinner, for a nickel.  Then we moved out 
of town and got a cow and a pig of our very own.  We would always save some of 
our tea or coffee to give to the pig.  We had chickens too - cochin chinas - one big 
rooster and a mean one.  Pa got smallpox there and then I got it and while we were 
quarantined for two months we ate all the chickens - no welfare in those days.  Finally 
it was the old rooster's turn and my mother brought me a wing and I thought it 
squeaked and I hid my head under the covers and wouldn't eat it.  I could just 
picture that old mean rooster.  Then our house was fumigated, a half at a time.  I 
don't know what it was, but it killed our bird and plants and stung our eyes.  Then I 
got scarlet fever and when we finally were able to get out, pa took us for a long ride 
with a rented team and cutter - it was wonderful to be free again.  My sister came to 
live with us, she had been with my grandma and seemed like a stranger - she was 
older and sort of took charge.  We had a long way to walk to school and sometimes 
stole a ride on the steps of the street car.  Most exciting was when the fire horses 
came charging out, as the firehouse was by the school.  Great big chestnut grays - 
four of them with shiny trimmings on their harnesses and representing strength and 
protection.
	  Dad was a carriage rider in one of eight sawmills along the Bay.  We took 
a hot pasty to him for his lunch one day and he gave us a thrilling ride on the 
carriage.  It went slow when sawing through the log but going back we nearly fell 
over.  I remember going fishing on the docks and was scared by all the whistles on the 
boats and mills and bells ringing all over - found out it was celebrating the end of the 
Spanish war.
	The mill men went on strike - no help anywhere.  I remember my grandma 
sent us maple syrup so we had something to put on our bread.  Thanksgiving Day, we 
were asked to a turkey dinner given by the Salvation Army and I'll always have love 
in my heart for them.  Then one day our dog bit a girl on the leg as she was taking 
my skipping rope and we had to shoot him - such sadness.  They believed then if the 
dog was killed you wouldn't get rabies.
	I remember my grandmother curing a ringworm on my face with 
gunpowder and vinegar and she always heated a piece of salt pork in vinegar to 
snuggle around our necks for sore throat, with a clean woolen sock over to keep it 
warm.  But in the morning, when you turned your head such a squeachy noise would 
come from the cold pork you could hardly wait to take it off.
	Their well wasn't good so we had to get barrels full of creek water with the 
horse and stone boat.  We used to lay down and sip a drink from any stream.  We 
were warned not to drink from the bucket they kept on the bridge for horses, as we 
might get the glanders.
	My first remembrance of the lumberjacks was when we were befriended 
by them.  It was when I was nine years of age.  Me and my uncle John age eight and 
a half were stranded at Camp 8 - Diamond Match Lumber Co.  Jack, who lived with 
us so he could go to school, would hitch up his big greyhound and go home - ten 
miles through the woods on icy logging roads through huge pine forests.  I went with 
him once and when we heard a load of logs coming - I say "heard" because the driver 
yodeled all the time on account of the curves in the road - we had to grab the dog 
and run up the bank so as not to get hit with the slewing sleighs.  Well one time we 
let the dog loose, for fear the sled would run into him and hurt him, as it was a steep 
hill down to the Diamond Match camps.  He went to chase deer, and we couldn’t get 
him back.  We were stranded there!  The men took us into the cook shanty and fed 
us and filled our pockets with doughnuts and cookies.  Finally at dark the dog, old 
Mat, returned and they started us on our way to my grandma's.  We had come eight 
miles and had three more to go through the deep woods on a tote road.  The tote 
road was one where they brought in provisions.  A tote road was not plowed, just 
tracks on each side where the horses walk.  The only place to walk was where the 
teams had made a path, so we had to hang onto the dog's harness, as we couldn't 
even see the road. A big owl hooted and scared us and we ran like the dickens.  
When we finally reached Grandma’s cabin, Grandma scolded us - she said we might 
have been caught in a storm and frozen to death.
	We lived over a saloon in Kenton where the lumberjacks gathered at the 
Spring breakup.  Some would ride the logs down the river and they vied with each 
other to be the first to reach town, where they usually spent all winter's earnings.  I 
was just a child and never did one of them say a word that was bad.  When a 
medicine show came to town they gave tickets on bottles of the stuff to vote for their 
favorite.  The lumberjacks all up and bought tickets for my mother.  She worked as a 
pastry cook in the Kenton House.  Well, the prize was a set of silver.  So they 
prevailed on her to come to the last show and of course she won and they jumped up 
waving their hats in the air and said "Here's to Janie Carpenter, the God Damn best 
little lady in the town."  That was before she married my stepdad.  At that time 
everybody was excited about the Klondike and she nearly went.  Some nice childless 
couple in town wanted to adopt my brother and me but mom couldn't part with us.  
It was quite a joke when a minister came to Ontonogan to save the river hogs.  They 
were sure rough characters but not really bad.
	Odd people boarded with us at different times.  One was an English 
wrestler who kept his muscles limber with juice from angleworms.  He put them in a 
jar on the back of the wood range and they would sort of melt into an oil which he 
rubbed on.  Then there was a Swede who walked out in the snow every night, 
barefoot, so he'd toughen them and never have frozen feet. We had one boarder 
from Maine, who because he had a pair of forceps said he could pull my mother's 
aching tooth.  And so he did.  No dentists for miles - we had to go to the nearest 
little town by stage coach till we bought a horse.  There was one who wouldn’t stop 
eating.  He ate everything in sight till we had to get rid of him.
	In Victoria our place caught fire from a lamp on the range and 
pandemonium broke loose.  The forty boarders were throwing their trunks out, and I 
grabbed all our coats and threw them out in the snow.  It was below zero.  The 
principal of the school was thoughtful enough to take out all of our plants - which 
froze of course.  A friend took the half-baked bread out of the oven to his home to 
finish baking.  They rang a bell to call all the men from the copper mine - they 
formed a line from the pump and passed pails of water and finally got the fire out, 
but the place was insulated with sawdust and it kept flaring up all night.  The next day 
a salesman who used to come once in a while to sell jewelry was all excited about his 
winter coat, and when he found I had saved it he gave me a pretty gold locket.  The 
ceiling was partly burned away and one night we were sitting around listening to my 
mother read "Pecks Bad Boy".  Even the teachers came to hear ma read.  My uncle 
Jim was sitting on the floor and we saw him grab his pant leg - a mouse had fallen 
down and ran up his leg - more fun.
	Once we organized a snowshoe tramp way out toward the Porcupine 
Mountains, and the principal of the school went ahead.  It was a nice moonlit night 
and we were all singing.  Suddenly we heard first one wolf call, then another.  We 
hightailed it back!  My mother had fried cakes and hot coffee waiting.  Well, we 
discovered later that some of the boarders had gone ahead and planned to scare us 
with the wolf calls and it sure did.  Sort of dampened our enthusiasm for snowshoe 
tramps though.
	Old Andrew who lived with the folks - Dad came upon him one day, fishing 
in a tiny stream that came from the spring and asked him what he was doing.  "Yust 
fishing" he said.  Well he was under the influence of too much drink, so dad offered 
him a home if he would quit drinking.  He came and made himself a home in the old 
chicken house and was a great help.  Though old, he could do hard work.  One time 
when I was living home, when Pat was in Europe in World War I, I went down in the 
woods to live in an old shack and he brought down screens so the mosquitoes 
wouldn't bite "Yonny".  Then one day in midwinter, while setting traps, the ax 
slipped and he cut his throat.  He had to come home on snow shoes, while nearly 
bleeding to death.  Well I fixed up his neck the best I could - I could see his jugular 
vein beating, and he took off on skis to Kenton - eight miles - and sat in the depot till 
the 2 AM train as a doctor would be on it.  The doctor said my bandages had saved 
his life.  He lived for years with the folks - nobody knew how old he was.  Ma gave a 
dance party at the house and he complained to her that nobody asked me to dance!  
He told us a lot about how they lived in Norway - five meals a day because they 
worked from dawn to dusk.  He finally got stomach trouble and had to go to the 
County hospital and we missed him terribly, as he always kept the wood box filled for 
ma - "Yanie" he called here.  He was true to his word and never drank again.  Loved 
to play cribbage with us and one time when the game was close, on the cut he said 
"Don't be a yack" and it was and we lost.