Thursday, July 08, 2010

Dorothy Belle Wills Barnett

Grandma Barnett’s Story

For Grandma Barnett’s 90th birthday which would have been in 1993, one of her granddaughters wrote down her story in her words and then typed it up. I don’t know which granddaughter it was as she had a lot of them but I certainly appreciate that she had the forethought to do it and send copies to my parents.


Dorothy Belle Wills Barnett was my grandma, my dad's mother.
Theses are her words.

I was born at the “Mill” as my older sister and brothers used to tell me. I was born to James W. Wills and Emma Luella Hughes Wills on December 7, 1903. I can’t remember much about the mill but they told me it had a big mill pond where everyone went swimming. My brother, Carl, was little and my Dad would take him on his back to swim with him. My brothers, Jim and George, could swim alone. The mill pond was to furnish power to grind the grain. There were 3 things that came from the will; wheat flour, shorts and brand. (maybe bran) The brand (bran) was to feed to the milk cows, shorts made real good pancakes and flour made bread. He also ground corn for cornbread, oats for oatmeal and possible other grains. They said papa sold (or disposed) of the mill and ran a hotel in Litchfield, Nebraska.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Well hello! My name is Lauren Chapman, I am grandma Barnett's oldest great great grandchild. My grandmother, Judy and I have been tracing our family ancestry and I stumbled upon your blog!

Sage said...

Lauren, how nice to hear from you. I know Grandma had lots of great grandchildren as well as some great great grandchildren. But don't know any of them. You can contact me on facebook under my name Barbara Borror or at buddysbest3@yahoo.com I have lost contact with all of this side of my family. Would sure like to hear from you.