Lois Jasper Lloyd--#4 Ancestor-#52week Challenge

Lois Jasper Lloyd-The person I would like to meet.

Thinking about the person I would like to meet has been easy, but difficult.  Which one do I write about as there are several I would love to have sitting around my table for visit.   How do I choose just one???

The woman whose life has intrigued me the most is Lois H. Jasper Lloyd, my great great-grandmother. I would first thank her for saving the family history memorabilia that has been passed through generations in the Lloyd family.  And then the interview or questions would begin!

Lois was born in Lexington, Kentucky on 10 December 1841.  One of the first questions I would ask her is what is your middle name?  What does the “H” stand for?  Family information has it as Hammond or Heath.  I suspect Hammond is her real middle name, but I have not yet found documentation to support that suspicion.  If it is Hammond, where did that name come from?  Is it a family name, farm name or locality name?  Heath is her mother’s maiden name so chances are good that is her middle name.   Please tell me Lois.

Lois moved to Missouri when she was a baby. Her family lived near St. Joseph, Missouri and her father died on 9 August 1845. I would hope Lois could tell me how & where he died, where he is buried and any Jasper family stories she could remember.  I do know that administrator for his will was appointed 24 October 1845 in Andrew County, Missouri.

In 1854, Lois went west on an Oregon Wagon train.  Lois was 13 years old.  Her older brother, who had gone to Oregon in 1851, came back and took his widowed mother, her old maid sister and 5 siblings west.  I would like to ask her about the trip, did she walk most of the way?  What did they cook?  Did they run out of provisions?  Was anyone sick?  Did the Indians attack?  Is your sister Gilla’s report of the Indians correct?  How did you carry water?  And what were your thoughts as you trudged across the prairies with the Rocky Mountains in the horizon?

Lois’s mother settled in Benton County, Oregon.  Her mother, Mary, ran a boarding house.  In Lois’s memoirs, she recalls the hard days of soap making and horrible washing arrangements.

When Lois was 16 years old, she married Albert Gallatin Lloyd on 20 May 1858.  Since Albert had fought in the Indian Wars, he remembered the beautiful countryside and potential for farming near Walla Walla, Washington.  Lois and Albert had a son, John Calvin, born 25 May 1859 in Oregon, but then they headed north.  Lois moved to a cabin near Waitsburg, Washington with a 2-month-old baby.  reaching their new home in July.  She brought along garden seeds but it was too late to dig a garden plot, so she planted her seeds in the dirt from gopher holes, saving seeds for next year’s crop.    I would love hear the story of the trip from Oregon to Washington, which they traveled by horse, buggy and boat.  

Lois was the mother of 11 children, with twins dying shortly after birth. 

While Albert filed for a homestead in 1859, Lois was busy with her garden selling produce to the miners and packers traveling through, darning socks for miners who stayed the night, and molding candles for the flour mill and increasing the funds in her sugar bowl.  Lois saved her money and bought 120 acres in 1865.  She even sold one of her young mares to buy another 40 acres in 1866. And by 1866 she had 4 children.  

Another story is that she raised sheep, making the candles from the tallow, making flour bags sewn by hand.  She even washed clothes for some men to get money to pay for her homestead.

Lois and Albert celebrated their 50^thwedding anniversary in 1908.  Albert died in 1915, but Lois continued to live alone. She made quilts (but never signed them). I would like for her to show me the quilts that she made!  Yes, our family has several quilts that have been handed down through generations.

Lois died in 1930. She had summed up her life:

“My life has been like the Old Oaken Bucket.  I hung on a long time before the iron bound bucket arose from the well.”

Now who wouldn’t want to sit and visit with Lois?