From Prairie to Palestine: The Eva Marshall Totah Story

By Lyla Ann May

This three-part work presents a comprehensive look at a unique woman whose life spanned almost the full 20th Century. Educated well beyond her peers in the 1920s, never satisfied with less than the high standards her upbringing had trained her to value and expect, Eva Marshall Totah struck out across the world to pursue her calling. She sought to pass on her prairie-bred character to those around her, to create beauty and to uplift her surrounding environment.

Readers interested in the history of the American Midwest and the history of American Quakers will be drawn to her story, which begins with her birth in the claim shanty of her parents homestead in the new State of South Dakota.

Genealogy buffs will enjoy the well-documented family genealogical histories of Evas eight great grandparents. Students of the history of the modern Middle East will be fascinated by her first-person accounts of life in Palestine during the waning years of the British Mandate, before the creation of Israel.

Part I The Autobiography of Eva Marshall Totah

From the South Dakota prairie, a young Quaker woman was recruited in 1927 to teach for a year in the Holy Land. Well-prepared by her college and graduate studies, as well as two years as a Bible teacher in a Chicago after-school religious education program, she ventures overseas. Not realizing there were Arabs in Palestine, Eva Rae Marshall was expecting to teach Jewish children at the Friends Girls School in Ramallah. Discovering the varied religious landscape in Jerusalems environs was only one of many surprises in store for her!

In Evas autobiography, she recounts her childhood in Wessington Springs, South Dakota and the choices she made that took her across the world at a time when most women did not even finish high school. Always supported and guided by her loving parents, Eva describes how she found her lifes purpose at the Quaker school in Palestine among the varied and colorful religious groups that called the country their home, and recounts her travels throughout the surrounding Levantine region during the British Mandate period.

Eva found love and purpose in Palestine, eventually marrying a Palestinian Quaker, Dr. Khalil Totah. She spent 17 years in Palestine before she and Dr. Totah moved their family to America, sailing on a Liberty Ship through the mine-strewn Mediterranean waters during World War II. After several years on the East Coast, Eva lived the rest of her years in California.


Part II Evas Letters Home from Palestine (1927 - 1944)

The second section contains Evas letters to her family in South Dakota from Palestine. The letters are the only ones known to remain from a correspondence that was carried on weekly for 17 years. They span from her arrival in 1927 to the familys departure from Palestine in 1944, and include remarkable observations of the colorful life of the Middle East of that period.

Part III Genealogy of Eva Marshall Totah
The third portion of the book contains well researched genealogy and family history narratives of eight of Evas ancestral families: Jesse Marshall, Mary Pickering, William Owen Lancaster, Olive Ruddick, Phillip Strahl, Rhoda Ann French, Arthur Ginn and Mary Eliza Barton. Since Eva was of almost completely Quaker stock, the research benefits from the volume of rich sources of information available on members of the Society of Friends. Eva Rae Marshall was also a direct descendant of Mayflower pilgrim Stephen Hopkins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469197913

Lyla Ann May

Lyla Ann May was born and raised in California. After earning Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, she entered a career in the financial services industry. She lives in Southern California with her husband and is the mother of three children. In her spare time, she is a passionate amateur genealogist and occasional free-lance writer.

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Lyla Ann May.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2012906679

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4691-9790-6

             Softcover      978-1-4691-9789-0

             Ebook           978-1-4691-9791-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

89451

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART ONE

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF EVA RAE MARSHALL TOTAH

CHAPTER I: Childhood

Solitary Labor

Stories of My Mother

Stories of My Father

At The Age of Three

How Mother Dealt With My Running Away

A Visit to my Mother’s Parents

The Cover-Up

When I Got My First Pair of Skates

CHAPTER II: School Years

Speaking of School Years

Coming Into My Own

Harmony Meeting

Where Thunder Is Made

Interludes in the Sand Hills

The Creature Carnival34

My Unlikely First Love Interest

CHAPTER III: Out Into The World

College Days

Haverford

Miss Blood’s School

The Summer of 1920

The Conference

A Memorable Meeting

Travels with Frank47

My First Position

CHAPTER IV: Prairie Girl in Palestine

Travel to the Holy Land

A Visit in a Home and a Monastery

Ermina

Carrying On

Easter in the Holy Land

Discovering My Purpose

CHAPTER V: Marriage and Family

Marriage on the Mount

Spring at the School

Becoming a Mother

New Year’s Eve Surprise

Joy Came In The Spring

CHAPTER VI: Under the British Mandate—The Pre WWII Years

The Unanswered Question

The Bitter and the Sweet

Family Life in Ramallah

Train Trip to the Biyara

Holy Fire

CHAPTER VII: Return to America

Taking Leave

The Children Disperse

Those Dear Hearts and Friendly Faces

AFTERWORD

EVA BIOGRAPHICAL TIMELINE

PART TWO

EVA’S LETTERS HOME FROM PALESTINE

Letters from Palestine—1927 through May, 1940

PART THREE

FAMILY HISTORY NARRATIVES OF THE

ANCESTORS OFEVA MARSHALL TOTAH

Preface to Part Three

History of the Marshall Family

Jacob Marshall, Sr.

Jacob Marshall, Jr.

John Marshall

Jesse Marshall

William Marshall

Osbun Jesse Marshall

History of the Strahl Family

Caspar Strahl

Phillip Strahl, Sr.

Phillip Strahl, Jr.

Abraham Franklin Strahl

Rhoda Ann Strahl

History of the Lancaster Family

Robert Lancaster

Samuel Lancaster

William Lancaster

Aaron Lancaster

William O. Lancaster

Caroline Lancaster

History of the Pickering Family

John Pickering

Jonathan Pickering

Samuel Pickering

Samuel Pickering, Jr.

Benjamin Pickering

Ellis Pickering

Mary Pickering

History of the Ruddick Family272

Robert Ruddick

William Ruddick, Sr.

William Ruddick, Jr.

Solomon Ruddick

William Ruddock

Olive Ruddick

History of the Ginn Family

James Ginn

Arthur Ginn

Sarah Samantha Ginn

History of the French Family

Otho French

Israel French

Otho French II

Rhoda Ann French

History of the Barton Family

John Barton

Mary Eliza Barton

Eva Rae Marshall Four Generation Chart

Jesse Marshall Five Generation Chart

Mary Pickering Five Generation Chart

William Owen Lancaster Five Generation Chart

Olive Ruddick Five Generation Chart

Phillip Strahl Five Generation Chart

Rhoda Ann French Five Generation Chart

Arthur Ginn Two Generation Chart

Mary Eliza Barton Two Generation Chart

Endnotes

Image408.JPG

Eva Rae Marshall in Ramallah dress, Palestine, 1927

Dedication

To my children, who are my joy.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Rhoda Ann Strahl, 1910

Eva J. Strahl Quimby

Rhoda Ann Strahl and OJ Marshall, 1884

Osbun Jesse Marshall, 1904

Marshall homestead claim, Harmony Township

Main Street, Wessington Springs, South Dakota, 1902

The house that OJ built in Wessington Springs, S.D

Rosa Belle Marshall, college graduation

Eva with doll Maybelle, 1902

Abraham Franklin Strahl and Sarah Samantha Ginn

Eva with her Grandmother Strahl, Wessington Springs, circa 1905

Eva with class, Wessington Springs Seminary, Wessington Springs, S.D. 1911

Harmony Meetinghouse, 2009

Eva and Rhoda with Mrs. Van - Boulder, Colorado, 1915

Sand Hills vista

William Marshall’s homestead - Arthur, Nebraska. Circa 1911

Calvin Marshall, uncle of OJ Marshall, age 95, 1927

Eva, Oskaloosa, Iowa, 1914

Eva, Oskaloosa, Iowa, 1918

Franklin Osbun Marshall, Wessington Springs, S.D. 1907

Friends Girls School, Ramallah, 1909

Eva in Bedouin costume, Ramallah, Palestine, 1927

Khalil Totah

Friends Boys School, Ramallah, circa 1914

Nabil Totah with Grandmother Azizah Mughannam Totah, circa 1933

Eva with children, Ramallah, circa 1936

Eva & Khalil in living room of Grant Hall, Friends Boys School, Ramallah

Totah family passport photo, 1944

Nabil Totah about age 7 with Sibyl & Joy

Sibyl Ann Totah with Joy and dog Funnyface, Ramallah

Joy Totah, age 5, Ramallah, 1940

Khalil Totah, circa 1950

Eva with daughter, Joy, Berkeley, CA, late 1980’s

Mary Pickering Marshall, Union, Iowa, early 1900’s

William Marshall, 1913 in Knoxville, Tennessee

William O. Lancaster, Marshalltown, Iowa

Caroline Lancaster Marshall

William Ruddick

Sarah Ginn Strahl & daughters,Wessington Springs, SD 1909

PREFACE

My Grandma Eva was not a famous person. She didn’t make big speeches or invent the light bulb. However, she referred to herself as a pioneer and she truly was. She was an exceptional woman of her time. Raised by Quaker pioneer parents on the American western prairie in the new State of South Dakota, she was of the last generation of Quakers to use the Biblical forms of address thee and thou with her father. As a Quaker girl, accustomed to the Friends’ tradition of gender equality, she graduated from college during World War I and obtained a Master’s Degree at a time when few women went to college at all. Eva was a suffragette, active in the women’s’ suffrage club in her college and voted in the first election open to women. She participated in peace work following WWI, and traveled with her brother to the 1920 postwar World Peace Conference of All Friends in London. She then traveled in Europe and visited WWI battlefields and refugee centers as well as cathedrals. In yet another example of how she exemplified the times, Eva studied Dramatic Expression a lá Isadora Duncan during the 1920’s as modern dance was born. Then this prairie Quaker girl travelled across the world to teach school in Palestine during the British Mandate period. She lived and worked there from 1927 to 1944.

I often reflect that, when my Grandmother Eva was born, even radio didn’t exist. And how unusual for an American girl of those times to brave the disappointment and veiled racism of her own mother to marry a dark-skinned Arab in another country! In the Quaker way, she did so only after sustained discussion through which she obtained her parents’ blessing.

Eva witnessed the heartbreaking disruptions in the ancient country when Zionist gangs terrorized the Palestinian countryside, the Palestinians were in revolt against British policies, and the creation of the state of Israel rolled inexorably forward. The fields behind the Friends’ Boys’ School, once described by Eva as being filled with flowers, are now streets watered by bloodshed and tears. She witnessed the close of the British Mandate era, saw the wonders of Egypt and Greater Syria before they were transformed by postwar population explosions. She crossed the mine-strewn waters of the Atlantic during World War II on an American Liberty Ship accompanied by a military convoy of World War II warships. Eva was also involved in the historic creation of the United Nations.

During her lifetime, my Grandmother Eva witnessed the technological revolution of the 20th century: the advent of radio, automobiles, television, airplanes and computers. She lived through huge social changes and spent the last decades of her life in the expanding, crowded cities of Southern and then Northern California, far from the wide open prairie where she was born. She was always active in the issues of her day.

I have rarely encountered anyone with my Grandma’s quiet and dignified manner. She did her best to keep on living the life God gave her, although towards the end of her life she expressed feeling out of place in the world. Her Quaker upbringing led her to seek unity in social situations—a tradition that seems missing these days.

She was a seeker through it all. The last twenty years of her life were filled with explorations of spiritual experience that took her into the New Age. In the 1970’s, she explored the spiritual dimensions of color and meditation, read the Aquarian Gospels and books about the gnostic Essenes and discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. She was in the forefront of spiritual revolutions that continue to reverberate in the vibrant climate of fermentation within American spiritual and religious culture.

Eva began to write this autobiography in those turbulent 1970’s, completing it in the spring of 1977 at the age of 82. She seemed to be preparing for her death, trying to tidy up the business of her life and sum up its meaning. Grandma asked for my help in editing and typing it, which I did for her that summer at the age of 17. I sent it off to her in late September. In payment, she gave me her old Chevy II, a blue sedan in perfect condition. I’m sorry to say that a few months later, I had an accident in that Chevy and it was totaled. Thanks to God, I was okay but for an injured knee that still bothers me a bit after all these years.

The autobiographical project, too, was then junked. Grandma, in her gentle way, had expressed her wish that the autobiography be published. Unfortunately, in an act that I really regret, I told her that I didn’t see a market for her autobiography. In my youthful arrogance I told her that it had only sentimental value and would interest no one except us family members. After all, she wasn’t famous, she hadn’t invented anything! But she realized, as I did not at the time, that she had lived through a time of incredible changes in the world, had witnessed and participated in important world events. But lacking her family’s support of the project, the handwritten original manuscript and its typed counterpart were tucked away in my mother’s file cabinet.

Eva died in 1991. As I got older, I would occasionally think about her manuscript. In 2006, I asked my mother if she still had it. She did. I re-typed and edited it, adding endnotes for historical, genealogical and explanatory context as well as moving sections for chronological flow. I have left her voice as it was, as much as possible, including many of her spellings.

Secondly, the surviving letters home that she wrote from Palestine are included. Her mother kept her letters, some of which were submitted for publication in the hometown Wessington Springs newspaper. She kept these letters, which provide an interesting historical record and counterpoint to her autobiography. Especially interesting are her initial impressions of Palestine, the record of her travels in the region during her first two years there, her impassioned defense of her choice of Khalil Totah as a husband in the face of her mother’s discomfort, and her recounting of conditions in the country as tensions escalated during the World War II years leading up to the creation of the state of Israel.

In transcribing her letters, I have left most of her spellings (and misspellings) in place, except where it seemed to be due to typographical error or would create too much confusion for contemporary readers.

Finally, a series of family history narratives and genealogical charts conclude this work. This section is the result of research I conducted from 2005 to 2011. Each history represents one of the ancestral lines of Eva’s eight great-grandparents: Jesse Marshall, Mary Pickering, William Owen Lancaster, Olive Ruddick, Phillip Strahl, Rhoda Ann French, Arthur Ginn, and Mary Eliza Barton. The narratives are based upon historical and documentary sources, including U.S. and sometimes State census information; birth, marriage and death records kept by various Friends Meetings; a family tree compiled in 1961 by Eva’s brother, Franklin O. Marshall; death certificates obtained by me from various County Recorders; county histories, family histories by other genealogists and family historians, various other books and other publicly available information. Ancestry.com provided access to a substantial volume of original sources.

The family photographs reproduced here were given to me by my grandmother when I was twelve. At the time, she went through each one and told me who it was. I recorded notes of her commentary on each photo, including who it was and when or where taken. Remarkably, those notes remained with the box of photographs and later aided me in identifying and cataloging each one.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My heartfelt thanks go to my mother, Joy Totah Hilden, who provided an inspirational model of dedication to the pursuit of knowledge and preservation of family and cultural history, and to sharing these with others. The perseverance and patience she demonstrated while maintaining her characteristic cheerful demeanor, tending to all the necessary tasks and details required to publish her book, encouraged me to follow suit with this book. Mom provided the impetus for our family history trip to the Midwest as well as the airline tickets. She also provided feedback, corrections, and editorial comments.

Robert E. Hilden provided guidance on formatting and presentation. Theresa May Naumann shared the beautiful photographs of Eva with her doll, Maybelle. Yasmine El-Safy assisted with proofreading and feedback.

Eva’s nephew, Bernard Marshall, provided copies of the Lancaster reunion documents and other family information. Lee Butterfield of Wessington Springs, whose family and the Marshalls shared close ties, and his wife Alta entertained us and gave us a full tour of Harmony Township and the Old Marshall Farm (now owned by the Butterfields). They showed us the old Harmony Meetinghouse and the original Marshall claim shanty—our very own little house on the prairie. Arlene Frandsen, who now owns the house that O.J. Marshall built in Wessington Springs, generously allowed us into her home to see where Eva grew up. The volunteers at the Wessington Springs Historical Society brought us news clippings, showed us old maps of the original Marshall land holdings and provided information on historic Jerauld County.

Ginger Fouse at the Grant County Museum in Hyannis, Nebraska gave us a warm welcome and shared with us many documents and artifacts from the early history of the region, including the History of Grant County that she had written. Ginger also tipped us off to look for the book, Arthur County’s 75 Years of History when we got to Arthur, Nebraska. I am grateful to Hyannis resident Judy Schroder for her generous loan of her book Grant County Neighbors and Friends. Becky Swanson at the Arthur County, Nebraska Courthouse helped us locate land documents for Eva’s father O.J. Marshall and grandfather William Marshall and showed us the old original two-room courthouse building. She allowed us to copy several photographs of William and O.J. Marshall found there that shed light on their years spent in the Sand Hills.

For the Marshall family line, Bill McNeese provided a wealth of information. Thanks to William J. Barton for copies of documents on the Barton and Ginn lines. The Maryland Historical Society for copying the Otho French Family Geneology (sic) and sending it to me. Richard Beckenbaugh was very helpful in providing information on the Strahl family line. Huge thanks to the Lewis M. Ruddick and the Ruddick family for their exhaustive work on the Ruddick line.

I would like to acknowledge Emily Croom for teaching the online genealogy class (Unpuzzling Your Past) that got me started on my family history journey. An email list of students from that class sprung up, and its members have consistently provided support and ideas. Thanks to all of my Unpuzzling list-mates.

Finally, I wish to thank the many helpful and generous people in the genealogy community that unselfishly gave of their time and effort in tracking down clues. So many people gave kindly of their time and shared information. I thank them all and apologize to those I missed mentioning by name.

INTRODUCTION

When I was a rebellious youngster in the loud, arrogant 60’s and 70’s, I considered my Grandma Totah overly quiet and quaint. In my insolence, I looked down on her as old-fashioned. Graciousness, good manners, discretion and modesty were not considered to be virtues in the social world I inhabited. Now past fifty, my life much changed by faith, marriage and children, I have come to treasure the values that she embodied with such delicate sensibility. I look over the few things handed down from Eva and her forebears: Haviland china, beautiful handmade lace doilies, a hand painted oval china broach, Damascene silver filigree bracelet and earrings. They are treasures of another age, now long gone.

Eva was a dignified, refined lady who loved music, poetry, art and all beautiful things. She was gentle and modest in her bearing, speech and way of living, never complaining about things she didn’t have. In fact, I don’t remember my Grandma ever complaining about anything, although once or twice she wondered aloud what God’s purpose could be for allowing her to live so long after her contemporaries were gone.

A Palestinian relative once told me how much the Ramallah people always loved Eva, because she truly loved them. She didn’t just drift away from them after her husband Khalil died—she stayed active in the Palestinian cause, she visited people, remembered them. They saw and felt that love in her and they loved her for that—for not forgetting them, for cherishing them.

As a child, I lacked the understanding to be able to appreciate all the changes my Grandma lived through. With a child’s lack of awareness of how she happened to be in Whittier, California, I used to love her house there. I loved the rose garden. It seemed huge to me, but looking back, it was just a couple of rows of roses along the side of a rather small house. In the hot Southern California summers when my mother, sister and I came to visit, the heat would hover over the garden and the buzzing of the bees was the only sound in the silent afternoons as the fragrant scent rose on heat waves and our little family of women napped in the dark bedrooms. In the summer, even the streets outside were wonderful, because the heat would soften the black tar in between the cracks in the asphalt so that we could squish it with our toes, and we would run and play under the sprinkler to escape the heat.

I loved the fern-damp patio, where we had lunches of fruit salad, sandwiches and cottage cheese in the cool shade. Now as an adult, I know the patio was just a green-tinted fiberglass roof over half of a small backyard, but in my youth, those maidenhair ferns, angel-wing begonias, and the springy, fantastic baby’s tears underfoot amongst the flagstones were pure fairy magic. But the fig tree in the sun-hot corner of the yard was dangerous, harboring huge yellow and black garden spiders and bees amongst the ripe purple figs. The front yard with its huge olive tree was a shady place of imagination and dreams, with dark camellia bushes all along the front walls. One summer in our teens, my sister Theresa and I put on Grandma’s old 1920’s and 30’s dresses and took pictures of ourselves in them, striking dramatic poses under that olive tree.

The living room was an adventure. Grandma’s beautiful things from the Middle East adorned the room: brass coffee pots which she always kept polished, Turkish ceramic plates decorated the shelves, the intricately carved three-paneled mousharabiyah (carved wooden panels) with the little window that Theresa and I loved to play behind, the walls of bookshelves that carried poetry, history, and stories of Lincoln and Lassie, the piano looming over the large, rectangular stuffed Middle Eastern carpet-pillows. I loved sitting underneath while listening to Grandma or my sister play the piano. My favorite pieces were Grandma’s Brahms concerto and Theresa’s Chopin’s Mazurka 17. When I hear them, it takes me back to the scratch of the wool Ottoman cushions and the smell of the mahogany wood in the dark corner under the piano.

I loved her dining room, with its solid dark furniture. I loved the little sunroom, where she had her typewriter and filing cabinets, and where I used to spend hours working on my stamp collection. She gave me my first stamp album and used to help me in my efforts. I even loved the bathroom, which was always clean and smelled of violets and Dove soap. I loved the musty, old-fashioned bedrooms with their old flowery wallpaper. Grandma’s house was a place of connectedness to our family’s history, of security and safety, of freedom to pursue goals. I never met Khalil, who died before I was born, but I was always aware of his presence which I felt everywhere in the house. Strangely to me, my mother pointed out that he had never lived in that house—Grandma bought it a few years after he had passed away. But to me, the house perfectly blended her Midwestern sensibilities with pieces of Palestine everywhere remembered.

A few years ago searching the internet, I came across an audiotaped interview of my Grandma Eva by a Cal State Long Beach college student on the topic of her youthful involvement in the suffragette movement. Suddenly, after all those years, I heard my Grandma’s voice, delicate and gentle, with an accent that as a child I had not realized was Midwestern. It was wonderful to hear her voice, and it made me suddenly miss her very much.

I say a prayer for my gentle Grandmother, whose instinct for preservation of family history and love of her heritage allows us now to share in knowledge of these roots and connections. This book is yours and is for you, Grandma. You are much missed and, God willing, will be well remembered.

Lyla Ann May

Summer, 2011

PART ONE

The Autobiography of

Eva Rae Marshall Totah

CHAPTER I

Childhood

Solitary Labor

Rhoda Strahl Marshall did not have a choice but to bring forth her own last child herself. Her husband, O.J. Marshall, was away from home on a business trip and there was no one to send for help. She was alone in the house with her two children; her daughter, Rosa, 10 and a three and a half year old son, Franklin Osbun. They were too small to help her, and as it was the middle of the night they were fast asleep in their beds upstairs.

It was 1895. Wessington Springs was a very small town. There was no doctor, so Rhoda made a fire in the cook stove and put on several receptacles of water. She made up her own bed fresh and clean, went into the living room, and walked the floor as the labor pains came more and more often. Then she got a little foot stool and sat down and worked her way through labor to victory.

Image417.JPG

Rhoda Strahl Marshall, 1910.

After I was born, Rhoda took some scissors that she had sterilized by boiling and cut the umbilical cord that bound us, setting me free into the cold world. She got a clean white sheet and wrapped me in it and took me to the kitchen where she prepared a bath for me in the dishpan. She gave me a good strong cleaning for she wanted me to be a sweet-smelling baby girl.

When Mother had bathed me, she called Rosa and Franklin and showed them their new sister. She told them that here was a child they could call their sister because she had come from God to take the place of the beautiful little brother that had been taken from them by scarlet fever some months before.¹ Then Rhoda began to get breakfast because she was hungry, having done a great deal of hard work in her own right during the night.

Image425.JPG

Eva J. Strahl Quimby, Eva’s namesake.

I was named after Mother’s next-younger sister². Later, when my father came home and saw what a pretty little girl his wife herself had brought him, he wanted me to be named after his own next-younger sister, Martha Rachel³. But he said that Rachel was too long for a middle name, so he let it be Rae: Eva Rae. And so it was that I became Eva Rae Marshall.

And that is the story of how I was born and how my mother brought me to stay with my family in place of the brother they had loved and lost. And they accepted me and loved me. And I never knew that they didn’t at first love me just for myself but for our brother’s loss, because soon they were loving me for myself alone.

Stories of My Mother

My mother was born on October 14, 1864 in Dallas County, Iowa to Sarah Ginn and Abraham Franklin (also called Franklin or A.F.) Strahl.⁴ Franklin and Sarah produced eleven children⁵, three of whom died in infancy or early childhood. Rhoda Ann was the third daughter. With eight young people growing up on the farm, my mother’s childhood life was strict and vigorous. Yet she grew up with a love of music that she brought to her homestead home after she married. My mother was proud of her name. It had come down through her German father’s family and she loved it very much.⁶

Her grandfather Philip von Strahl, along with Grandmother Rhoda and the children, migrated to the United States after the Napoleonic Wars.⁷ Philip was a pacifist and wanted no military induction into the German Army for himself or for his sons.

Rhoda Ann Strahl Marshall was a woman of the highest integrity. The power of that integrity has influenced me throughout my life, as seen in this story of how I was cured, once and for all, of taking what did not belong to me.

When I was a little girl, I took money out of mother’s sugar bowl to buy a birthday present for her. I wanted to buy her a beautiful present, but I had no money. I saw what seemed to me to be a very beautiful statue in the notion store. It cost a dollar, which was a lot of money in those days, but I felt that nothing was too much for my mother. The only money I knew about was the money that mother kept in the sugar bowl to meet the small family incidentals. I felt sure my mother would love the statue as well as I did and that she would excuse my taking the money to pay for it. But mother did not feel this way. So she made me do the hardest thing I ever had to do in all my life. I had to return to the store the thing I had bought with the money that was not my own I had to tell the store owner that I had bought the present with money that was not my own. He took back the statue and returned the dollar to me and then I had to go home and put the money back in the sugar bowl in the presence of my mother. It was the most painful punishment I ever suffered, and I think it was even more painful for my mother. But it was mother’s way of keeping the slate clean. I never was tempted to take what did not belong to me again.

Mother did not advocate corporal punishment; her method was usually reason and moral suasion. But one time I did a very sneaky and naughty thing. My sister and her current boyfriend were sitting in the porch swing and I wanted to see how they behaved. (Children these days learn behavior by watching TV). I sneaked up behind the swing, hiding in the bushes. Someone found me there and reported me to mother. It was a natural curiosity but a violation of another’s privacy. Perhaps because I was hiding, mother was moved to break off a switch, and she switched me. Since then I have always had due respect for another person’s right to privacy.

When it came to truth, Mother was the Rock of Gibraltar. I was never sent to answer the door to say that mother was lying down with a headache, or that she wasn’t at home if it wasn’t true. Of course, mother did not always want to drop what she was doing to answer the door, but whatever we said at the door had to be the truth.

Telling the truth once saved me from punishment. It was a case of being courteous or telling the truth. My sister was ten years older than I was and she was friends with a girl who had been to Boston and who put on airs. Mother felt that her influence on my sister Rosa was not good. She asked Rosa not to bring her home and said she did not like to have Rosa running around with her. I didn’t like her, either. She never noticed me, and I thought she was insincere. Once they came in while I was playing on the floor. I looked around for protection, because I felt the world might cave in on me for saying what I was about to say, and then I called from the safety of under the sewing machine, Mother told you, Rosa, not to run around with her and not to bring her home anymore.

It was like a thunderbolt coming from the floor. Rosa was furious, the girl was incensed, and I thought I would be severely punished. But Mother said, I did say that and I cannot punish a child for repeating what she heard her mother say. So I didn’t get punished that time. But I did learn that there were other things besides truth that I should cultivate; things like kindness, courtesy, goodwill and love. Love should guide the truth. Truth should not supplant love; there is need for both love and truth.

Image432.JPG

Rhoda Ann Strahl and OJ Marshall wedding photo. Des Moines, Iowa 1884.

My mother was the very finest woman who ever lived, as I remember hearing my father so often say. He called her my brown-eyed beauty, the finest woman in the world, the most handsome woman in town and the best cook in the county. He never lost an opportunity to sing her praises. I knew they were well deserved. Strong as O.J. was, Rhoda was even stronger in the home. When they went out in public, she was quiet and let her husband do the talking. But in the home, in her quiet way, she worked and accomplished wonders. She was an ideal woman: an excellent cook, a beautiful seamstress, an immaculate housekeeper, skillful in the fine arts and able to fill her place wherever it might be.

This beautiful and accomplished young woman was courted and won by a young teacher, Osbun Jesse Marshall, my father.

Stories of My Father

Image440.JPG

Osbun Jesse Marshall, 1904.

Father was known as O.J. because in his youth, there had been much confusion about his first name. People had called him Orsbun, Osburn, Ossie and many other variations. He decided to suit himself and simplify it to O.J Marshall.

O.J. Marshall’s home had been in Prairie Home, Iowa where his father, William Marshall⁸ had filed on land from the government and had built a church in the community only to leave it and move on to establish another church elsewhere. William Marshall built a total of seven churches and moved on each time to help bring the Christian Church into the frontier neighborhoods. Dear gentle Grandmother,⁹ with the older boys and helpful girls, built and made comfortable homes only to have to abandon them when they had a fine circle of friends and were ready to enjoy a more abundant measure of culture. But when a church could stand on its own feet, Grandfather was ready to move on. That was the kind of man he was.

O.J. was the oldest son in the family and he had to be responsible for building the house when his father William moved to a new homesite. So he bore the brunt of his father’s preaching and teaching.

William Marshall had visions of faraway places that needed the gospel message. Grandfather William once dreamed of a beautiful place where a particular large blue flower—which he had never seen—grew in profusion. In the dream, he was told to go to that place and preach the gospel. He then went to the public library for help in finding out where they grew. He found that the flowers did exist, and they grew in Guatemala, Central America. He got two friends—also Friends in the Spirit—to accompany him, and together they sailed to Guatemala City.¹⁰ So O.J., as the oldest in the large family, had to stop college to care for the family, so that Grandfather could make this divinely inspired voyage.

This and many other visits Grandfather made under divine guidance. During these times, O.J. had to act as father to the family and provide for its livelihood. Thus, while his college education was curtailed when he was only a sophomore, he learned how to run a family, a farm, and to adjust to unusual situations. He was also already accomplished enough to teach school, and was always in demand as a teacher.

My father and mother were pioneers. When he married Rhoda Ann,¹¹ my father O.J. took up a government homestead and tree claim near Harmony, South Dakota.¹²

Image449.JPG

Marshall homestead claim, Harmony Township, 2010.

It was when South Dakota was still a Territory.¹³ O.J. had a lot to do as an advocate for statehood and in the organization of the new state and county (Jerauld County). He knew the land far and near and so was elected the first county Treasurer-Auditor. When he was given a county office of the growing countryside, he moved with his family to the county seat in Wessington Springs.¹⁴

Image456.JPG

Main Street, Wessington Springs, South Dakota, about 1902.

Rhoda and O.J. were the parents of four children. Rosa was born while father was away teaching school.¹⁵ The next child was a son, Alburtis David. The second son was Franklin Osbun.¹⁶ Although Father never used the name Osbun, but used his initials instead, he gave the name to his second son as a filler, he said, joking. I was not born until Father was elected Auditor of the newly organized County, after the family pulled up stakes on the claim where Father had handled a teaching job and they moved to Wessington Springs.

Father then built the family house in Wessington Springs, South Dakota in 1902. It was a two story wooden house in Victorian style, with a bit of ornamentation around the eves to make it prettier, a front porch that curved around the two sides that fronted the house and a little upstairs balcony that looked over the town.¹⁷

Image464.JPG

The house that O.J. built in Wessington Springs, S.D.

My father was a man who knew no social barriers. He deeply believed that every man was equal in the sight of God. It wasn’t the clothes he wore or the family he was born into, it was what he was underneath it all that counted. It was what he stood for and how completely he came through in life with what he professed that really mattered. It was whether he lived up to his convictions or not.

I remember coming back from school one day in my first year of high school and telling him what happened in assembly that morning. The school had voted on some measure and I had been the only one who had voted against it. My father was jubilant. He said that he had never been so proud of me, because I had not looked around to see how my best friends had voted, but in my own mind, I decided what I thought was right and without hesitation I had voted for it. I was willing to stand alone. From that day on, my father stood behind me. He never questioned what I wanted to do. It was enough that I had thought it through and had come to a decision.

He started me on a checking account in the bank when I was eleven. I had to decide what I needed for the month and write out my askings and how much they would cost. Then Father would give me the money to deposit to my account. At the end of the month, he would go over what I had spent the money on and check it against my askings. I had to account for everything by my check stubs. Until I finished college and went out on my own my father received my monthly askings and statements. He never questioned what I asked for. The exercise of looking ahead, figuring my expenses, and balancing was a great training for the responsibilities of life.

My father taught me an important lesson in following through. After college and graduate school, I undertook a two-year drama course at Miss Blood’s Columbia College of Expression. I felt that I wanted to learn to express what was inside myself. As usual, Father stood behind me. If I felt the need of this, then it was what I should do. But the work was not all roses. My voice placement was wrong, my pronunciation was bad, and my enunciation was slovenly. I was torn to pieces before the class, which was composed mostly of high school graduates, while I had a college degree and an M.A. Meanwhile, a friend of mine was interested in a new movement of religious education called Released Time Religious Education¹⁸ and courses at Northwestern University in Chicago to prepare for teaching. I thought that this new thing was something I would like very much to do, rather than continue my drama courses. I went over to Evanston, enrolled in classes and came back and wrote home about what I had done. By return mail came a letter from Father. It said, Plow straight, plow deep, and plow to the end. I unpacked my trunk and continued my dramatic courses, confining my Religious Education to Saturday classes. The follow-through lesson was there, and I graduated from the dramatic college.

My father was a far-seeing man and he carried through what he undertook. Later, in the days of the Depression when the financial crash came, he had stock in three banks which folded. He was the only stockholder who paid out fully to the depositors, and I was not surprised. The President of the bank left town, some stockholders declared bankruptcy, but my father shouldered his responsibility. Though it left him strapped, he paid up every cent. That was my father.

At The Age of Three

When I was about three years old, my sister had a beau whom I did not like. He never recognized me, and I felt cut out of my sister’s life when he was around her. It was not my habit to talk about these things, and so I did something else. I went up to my room and went into my clothes closet and shut the door. I took my sister’s dress, which was hanging there (because there was more room in my closet than in her own) and I cut a piece of the material out and put it on the table in my room. I wanted a place in my heart for my sister and she didn’t have a place for me when Pete was around.

Image472.JPG

Rosa Belle Marshall, college graduation.

Mother found me there and I was crying, because I had cut the piece from my sister’s dress and I could not put it back again. Mother heard my story and she understood why I had cut the piece out of the dress my sister wore when she was with her beau. She told Rosa that if she could not get Pete to recognize that I existed, she would have to ask her to stop bringing him home. Pete didn’t like that and they had a falling out. He started going out with another, very beautiful, woman who was older than my sister. Before long, they were married, and I never knew of the sorrow I had brought to my sister. But my mother was glad, because she said that she did not think that a young man who did not love children should think about getting married into a family where children would feel left out when he was around.

This showed me how aware of spiritual values my mother was and it made me appreciate how much she had done for me so many times in making me feel loved and wanted. So instead of making the cut dress the problem, my mother looked for the cause that made me do it, and she found that there was good reason for my action. Always my mother looked for the cause in everything I did that seemed wrong. Mother had faith in my innate goodness, and felt that if I did something that seemed wrong, there must be a good reason behind it.

In this case, I had a fear that if my sister went with Pete, I would lose her, because Pete wanted her alone, without me. And she was my sister and I loved her more than he did. Mother knew that this was true and she thought that I knew better than Rosa what kind of person he was. She was never sorry that Rosa broke up with Pete. She felt that there would be a much finer man than Pete to come into her life. Mother really felt that I had done Rosa a service and although at first Rosa did not appreciate it, she later came to feel the same way, so I still had my sister and my fears were allayed.

How Mother Dealt With My Running Away

Once when I was about four years old, my mother left the house with a friend of the family one afternoon while I was out playing. Since I was not there when she left, I did not know she wasn’t home when I came in from my play with a neighbor boy from across the street. His name was Stanley Smith. He had wanted to run away with me, and I had said, No, I will not leave my brother and sister and father and mother to go anyplace else. But when I came home to find that everybody was gone, I went back to my playmate and said to him, Alright, I am alone now. Everybody has gone away from the house, and I will go with you if you want me to.

I went with him to see the festival that was going on in the park right beside our house. But I did not enjoy it because I kept thinking about my family. So when we got back from the park, I went home. Mother was there and she asked me where I had been. I told her where I had gone and how I had come to go there with Stanley Smith. She said that I was a good girl to tell all about it and she was glad that nothing had happened, because she trusted me and she would never forgive herself if I had really left while she had been away from home.

So we were both happy for awhile until another time when I had been playing with Stanley and I went home to find mother gone. I went back to Stanley and told him that there was nobody at home. So he said, Let us go to the tournament. It was tennis, I think. So we went and stayed a long time. This time when I got home, my mother was very upset by my continued absence. She told me that if I loved her, I must not cause her so much anxiety by staying away so long without permission.

But one day when I came home from school, she was again not there. I became frantic, because Mother did not usually leave me alone and I didn’t know what to do. I went again to Stanley and he said, Let’s run away from home to somewhere else. That frightened me and I said, Where could we go? Stanley said, We could go downtown and look around. So we went to the notions store and looked around. It was a beautiful place. We looked at everything. Before we had finished, I happened to think of Mother’s words about causing her anxiety and I said to Stanley, Let’s go back. My mother will be worrying about me. So we went home.

I told my mother where I had been, and that when I remembered that she would be anxious about me, I had come right home. She forgave me and asked me never to go anyplace where she would worry about me. I promised that I would never cause her anxiety if she would forgive me this time and the next time and the next time. She replied that she was not likely to do that, because after the first time, it was not proper to keep forgiving the same thing over and over.

By that time, I could see the impropriety of my request, so I said to her that if I had known ahead of time that I was to cause her anxiety, I should never think of doing it again. She said, ‘You are a good little girl, Eva, and I will trust you as much as I can not to do anything that would cause me anxiety." So we were both happy. I soon learned that if I could keep my mother from being anxious about me, I was all right with the world. And that is my story about a little girl who learned about what causes us to be anxious about those we love.

Image479.JPG

Eva with doll Maybelle, 1902.

A Visit to my Mother’s Parents

Image489.JPG

Abraham Franklin Strahl and Sarah Samantha Ginn.

White City, Kansas

When I was a little girl, my mother took me with her on a visit to her parents in White City, Kansas. That meant that I came to know my grandparents on both sides of the family, a good thing.

I will never forget my grandfather and grandmother Strahl.¹⁹ Grandfather Strahl was a paralytic and used a cane. He was not very well and I had to be quiet, not to disturb him. I was sorry about that, and I tried to be quiet. But Grandfather would never believe that I was quiet because the other children made so much noise. So when he died, I felt very sorry.

When Grandfather Strahl died, Grandmother Strahl came to visit with us for awhile. She found out how quiet I was, and she wanted me to come and live with her. But my mother would not let me go. And I always felt so sorry for her because I could not go to live with her. After she died, I wrote a letter to her and told her how sorry I had been that I couldn’t have gone to help her be less lonely. I was surprised that just writing that letter seemed to make a difference in me. I knew that Grandmother knew I was sorry for her living alone.

Image496.JPG

Eva with her Grandmother Strahl, Wessington Springs, circa 1905.

Now it may seem strange after all these years, and yet this is a fact and it made quite an impression on my young mind. It this could so impress a little girl, how much more it might impress an older one. So I intend to see to it that my grandchildren are thought of by their grandmother.

The Cover-Up

When I was a little girl, I did something that angered my sister and worried my mother. No one else knew about it.

I was not a big child; rather, I was skinny and long-legged. I like to run and play and I was fleet of foot. The whole family used to request me not to run so fast, because my heartbeat hurt their ear drums, and they feared my heartbeat would hurt my ear-drums. This, however, was not a fact, because my heart has always been good.²⁰

When I grew older, they insisted that I calm down and not run so fast or so far. But when I was in Minneapolis, I won a prize in a foot race at a birthday party for my friend, Alma Sidnam. It was a beautiful party on Lake Como and the race took place under Minnehaha Falls. That was the loveliest party I had ever attended and my prize was a beautiful folding fan which I kept for years. (I think I finally gave it to one of my granddaughters.).

I conceived the idea of fooling my family and telling them that I found the fan on the bottom of the boat and I couldn’t find its owner. But Mother knew that was not true. She told Rosa to stop teasing me about running so fast, because it was causing me to try to cover up on account of it. Finally, I told my father and brother the truth about the fan. Then I didn’t hear any more about how fast and far I could run.

When I Got My First Pair of Skates

Mother wanted me to learn to skate, because I could not do everything the other children did. She thought that if I could skate, it might help to compensate for the gymnastics that I could not do.

One day, she took me over to the neighborhood store and bought me a pair of skates. They were fabulous to me. I tried them on many times, until the clerk grew weary of it and so did Mother. Finally, we bought them, and I was ready to go skating.

When the time came, my brother Frank took me to the pond and put on my skates and led me by the arm away from my seat out onto the ice. He showed me how to take a stroke one after the other and I tried to do it. But my ankles turned on me and I went down time after time. I began to get discouraged. I didn’t want to go skating any more.

Frank said, "How come she got these skates if she doesn’t want