When Joe was five years old his mother died. After a time his father married a widow with children. This woman had no use for poor little Joe who was the youngest. She made it so unpleasant for him that he couldn’t stay at home. He was passed around among the relatives until he was ten. Then, his father found a place for him with a blind man. This man sold "McCornin(?)" products in the country and Joe drove the team for him, led him into the houses, dished his meals, cut up meat and did all the many things required of him. For this, he received his board and a very little money. He never told me how much, but this kept him out of school most of the time.

Finally, when he was eleven years old one of his step-brothers, a boy in his teens, came to work for us on the farm. One day he said "would you be interested in having my little step-brother come and help with the chores for his board?" We had no boys of our own so we said we would gladly have him come.

Poor little fellow! He was thin, tired, & dirty, and had only a few clothes, a pair of old, old overalls, a shirt besides the one he had on and a couple of pairs of sox and a handkerchief or two.

He was such a good little boy and so willing to help in every way he could. The wood-box was never empty. He fed the chickens, put hay in the mangers for the many horses we had, for we lived on a large farm, and did many other little things.

When he had been there a short time, word came that his father was very sick, and for him to come.

We cleaned him up as good as we could. Gave him some money and loaned him a pony to ride to town about 15 miles away.

When he returned about a week later, he climbed wearily down from his horse and I asked about his father. He cried and said, "Daddy died."

Then I said, "Don’t cry, Joe, we will take you for our boy if you will let us." He said, "I will be glad to stay for I have no other home."

When harvest was over we gave him money to get new clothes. My husband took him to town but my uncle wanted to help buy the clothes. So, now he was presentable and we sent him to school with our girls. He took good care of them, and a brother would not have been half as good and courteous as he.

We moved from one county to another in Oregon. We sent him to school and to High School where he was a favourite with teachers and schoolmates.

He grew up straight & tall and quite a handsome fellow. He worked on the farm in the summer. Then we sent him to college. How he did enjoy it there!

But world war was going on and he was subject to the draft. I had hoped they wouldn’t take him for his eyes were poor and he had to wear thick glasses.

He said he would wait until he was drafted so he could have something to which to come back.

In March, the notice came for him to Report. He came home, passed the test and was gone before we hardly knew it. Oh, what a sad and lonely time he had. He was one of the famous 91st Division.

Just the day before the Armistice was signed, a shell burst beside him and he was killed. He only lived a few minutes and didn’t care to talk.

It does seem that he had to give so much and had so little in life. But Thank God he was a Christian and will surely have a rich reward in Heaven.

* * * * * * *
The above was written by my great-grandmother, Daisy Loretta (Bryson) Scott, about the boy my Grandmother always referred to as her "adopted brother," although no legal adoption ever took place.

Picture undated; Martha died in 1915 at age 92

Martha Jay Waggoner
b. 8 January 1823 Rutherford County, North Carolina
m. 28 June 1839 Shelby County, Illinois
to Andrew Scott
d. 28 March 1915 Long Beach, California

Martha was the daugher of Amos Waggoner and Narcissa W. Jay. She moved with much of the rest of the Waggoner family--including her grandparents, Isaac Waggoner and Emsey Holyfield and numerous aunts & uncles--from North Carolina to Illinois in 1827/28. This Waggoner family were some of the earliest settlers in Shelby County, and in Moultrie County as well, which was separated from Shelby and Macon Counties in 1843.

Martha was married to Andrew Scott in 1839, and they had 9 children. Andrew died in Sullivan County, Missouri in 1857, when their youngest child was just over a year old; their eldest a young man of 16. Martha and the children moved back to Moultrie County for a time (her mother was still living; her father had died in 1854). Eventually almost all of the family made their way west; most of them went to California, including Martha herself. Some (including William Henry Harrison Scott, my great-great-grandfather) ended up in Oregon. One child, Louis Kossuth Scott, stayed in Moultrie County, where he was a Deputy County Clerk for 16 years, and then County Clerk.

In spite of this history of public service--another son was County Treasurer for a time before removing to California--there does seem to be something a little odd about this family. Nine children were born and survived to adulthood--fairly remarkable for the time. But of the nine, only four of them ever married; and of those four, three of them married members of the Gerking family! And two of them married the same Gerking--though at different times, of course. Margaret Jane Scott married James Gerking in Missouri in 1862. She unfortunately died a few years later in Oregon, after giving birth to twin girls. In 1884, Margaret's sister Susan Isabel Scott married the same James Gerking. And the Scott girls' brother, William Henry Harrison Scott, married the sister of James Gerking, Mary Margaret Gerking.

In the book "The Waggoner Family" it says of Martha: "She was one of the North Carolina emigrants and became the best historian of the early Waggoners. She was but 5 years of age when they made the long journey over the rivers and mountains from North Carolina to Illinois in 1828, yet she has given more incidents of the trip and the first years in Illinois, than any other of the family."

People interested in the History of Shelby and Moultrie Counties should check out this link:

http://www.edenmartin.com/

Here is some information from Willard's death
certificate, as passed on to me by cousin Penny Cole. (Penny is the granddaughter of Frank Jacob Britain's brother, Lawson.)
White male, widower (widower of Katherine Britain),
date of birth Aug 4, 1850, birthplace Glenwood, Iowa.
Occupation - Farmer (Retired). Father: William
Britain, place of birth England. Mother: Mary Baines,
place of birth England. Date of death: June 16, 1920
in Salt Creek, Reno County, Kansas. Buried in Alden,
Rice County, Kansas. "Cause of Death" is listed as
Heart Failure and contributory factors is Asthma. John
Britain is the one who filled out the information.

*************
Notes: John Britain was one of Willard's sons. A few things in this contradict information that I have. The first is the marital status as "widower." We have pictures in the family album of Ida Kinney, who is described as "stepmother" (of Frank and his brothers). She could have pre-decesased Willard (I have no idea when or where she was born or died) but if she did, he should properly be described as the widower of Ida Britain. I suspect, however, that he is described this way because it was one of his sons giving the information, and the sons really hated their stepmother. (I'm given to understand they weren't necessarily all that fond of the old man, either!) Likely John just didn't want to think about Ida, let alone mention her, whether living or dead.

I should also mention that Katherine was apparently Willard's second wife. Mills County, Iowa information records a marriage for "W. P. Briton" to an Alice R. Campbell in 1877. The Mormon familysearch site further records a child of this marriage, Mary. I have found no trace of either Alice or Mary through on-line resources; my assumption is that they both died sometime before Willard moved on to Nebraska. I am also uncertain of the date of that migration; a closer examination of Census records in the appropriate locales will shed light on that subject, as well as possibly on the subject of what became of the first wife and child.

There is also a discrepancy of birth dates. The information given above says 1850. His tombstone says 1856. Extrapolating from the 1860 Census, which gave his age as 2, would give a birth year of 1858 or 1857.

I think the 1850 date is way too early--there is also another child on that 1860 Census that was 10 years, and so would likely have been born in 1850 (or 1849). A definite date may be impossible to pin down.

There is a discrepancy with the death dates, also. The information above says 1920; the tombstone says 1921. In this case I am inclined to believe the death certificate information; it was presumably filled out at the time of his death and being "close" to the event should be most accurate. It would, however, be interesting to know when and by whom the stone was placed.

More information about Willard Benjamin Britain and his family can be found at:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~iamills/

There is a search engine for the site; remember to try all possible variant spellings on "Britain:" Brittain, Britton, Briton, etc. This information concerns a time when the spellings of names were not at all standardized.