It must have been during the summer of either 1875 or 76 that I began reading medicine with Dr. O. B. Dodd of Waucoma, and the same spring I made a trip to Columbus City in southeastern Iowa to visit sister Maggie & her husband Thomas G. Allen who was then living on a farm in that section.

Several weeks were spent there very pleasantly.

Maggie had gone to Penn about the year 1871, or '72 and was married to Mr. Allen at Meadville Penn. Oct. 27, 1872.

After working out and reading medicine in the summer of 1877, I started in August of that year in company with a friend, Jno. T. Ronayne, for Stewartsville, DeKalb Co. Missouri, for the purpose of teaching school in that locality. On our way down we stopped over Saturday & Sunday at Mr. Allen's & visited there until the next Monday. We arrived in Stewartville Tuesday and that afternoon walked out to Chas. Hobb's place.

Mr. Hobbs was a great uncle of mine, having married a sister of grandmother McFarland.

Aunts Nina & Maggie had gone to Mo. that summer or the one previous to teach school & were then staying with Mr. Hobb's family. We received a warm welcome upon our arrival and were given to understand that we must stay there while in that locality. The family was a very pleasant one & our stay with them was pleasant.

During those bright autumn days we had many a fine ride on horseback, that being the usual mode of traveling.

We also did some work in the line of hay making, corn cutting etc. Maggie and Nina secured schools & I also secured a fall term in a district about one mile south of Stewartsville. John failed to get a school. My venture as a teacher in Mo was a success so far as doing good work was concerned but the punishing of a boy, who was the son of regular southern fire eater, led to a very serious misunderstanding after a few weeks & I gave up the school.

The boarding place was a nice pleasant one. John staid with me & recited in geometry after 4 P.M. Those were agreeable evenings spent to-gether but during school hours I was often lonesome.

After giving up this school we went back to Hobbs for a time.

I soon secured another school some seven miles from uncle Hobbs's. Some 65 scholars were enrolled & the branches ranged from the first reader to higher algebra & higher arithmetic.

Jan'y 2, 1876 "Was very pleasant. Was at A.A. Boylan's nearly all day. Cale and I went to meeting in the afternoon. Applegate staid all night with me at Smith's. Had a pleasant time."

I boarded with Mr. Means family & on Friday evenings rode over to Hobbs'. The time spent in this school seemed very long & I was fearfully lonesome & homesick.

I resigned before the term closed & returned to Iowa in Jan'y or Feb'y.

Christmas of this year was spent in Leavenworth Kansas with C.A. Babcock, afterwards my brother-in-law, who was then teaching near Lawrence Kansas.

That was the winter following the capture of Chief Joseph's band of Nez Perce Indians & they were guarded near Ft Leavenworth. Charlie & I visited their camp containing 418 Indians & had quite a time looking them over. They were far from prepossessing in appearance.

We enjoyed a long talk with Chas Danvers, the Indian scout, after returning to our hotel, & learned many things regarding the far west & Indian life from him. We both enjoyed the visit hugely & were loth to part as we were the best of friends & enjoyed each others society greatly. Those were bright days. Cares were few & it was so easy for a young healthy fellow to make a living.

They soon ended as all things do. A visit to the city of St. Joseph gave me a very favorable impression of that place.

Cousin Gertie Dunn died of diphtheria Jany 14, 1878 shortly before I reached Iowa, and dear old grandfather died on the 19, of Feb, 1878 soon after my return to Iowa.

That summer I read medicine in the office of Dr. G.D. Darnall of West Union Ia, & boarded with uncle Robert McFarland who was then serving his second term as County Recorder of Fayette Co. Iowa, having been elected to that office from Waucoma about the year 1874.

Dr. Darnall was a graduate of the Ohio Medical College of Cincinnati & was an able physician having a lucrative practice. The time spent in his office passed very pleasantly. William Dwyer was a fellow student of mine in Dr. Darnell's office & a young man whom I esteemed highly. We fully expected to take a course of lectures that fall, but I was unable to collect money coming to me a& was too sensitive to borrow funds when I could not give security without asking someone to sign notes with me, & so, did not attend.

This was one of the greatest mistakes & disappointments of my life. I ought to have made an effort to borrow money for my first course of lectures & should by all means have persevered in my profession.

Had I only pursued the path marked out by myself & gone on in my chosen profession how different my life might have been!

It seems plain enough now that this failure to persevere in the medical profession was a very great mistake & one I have always regretted.

"Jany 3, 1876 - Rather cold but pleasant. Taught school. Leslie went back to town in the forenoon. I went down town in the evening. Cale went to the dance. I did not go. Leslie and I staid all night at Fosters."

I worked that summer in the harvest field for uncle John McFarland & took the Waucoma school that winter boarding with Wm. Scoville in the old Union House. The school was large & well advanced especially in mathematics, which embraced advanced work in algebra & higher arithmetic. The work was hard & I was very successful. The salary was I think $50.00 per month.

The following summer I had charge of the same school and on the 11 day of October was married to Miss Bertha Babcock at her home in Waucoma Ia, Rev. Walter A. Drury performing the marriage ceremony.

Bertha & I had been going together nearly two years prior to our marriage.

Nearly sixteen years have passed since we were married & she have proved to be a noble, unselfish woman and a true and loving wife and mother. Possessed of an unusually amiable disposition, patient as few people are, she has cheered me when I grew despondent, ever looking upon the bright side of life and displaying a lovely character.

I have often been impatient, sometimes cross, and too often disposed to find fault when things did not go to suit me, but Bertha has been wonderfully kind, patient and tender in all the relations of wife and mother.

It affords me pleasure to testify to her merit and to say that she has shown herself an exemplary woman during all these years.

It has pained me many & many times to think I could not make her life as pleasant as it should have been; to think that she has often worked too hard and borne too many burdens, but she has not complained.

She has gone on from year to year bearing her trials uncomplainingly and doing kind acts everywhere and towards everyone with whom she came in contact.

"Jany 4, 1876. Was rather warm again. Thawed some in the afternoon. Went down and staid all night with the boys. Was the last night of their stay. Had a very good visit with them."

That winter I taught the Waucoma school & we kept house in Nina McFarland's building, a two story frame building on Main Street having two rooms below & two up stairs. We lived very comfortably & happily here.

The next spring being asked to apply for the Lawler school in Chickasaw Co. Iowa, I did so & secured it at a salary of, I think it was $60.00 per month. We moved there about April 1st & occupied the John McHugh house on the hill east of the school building, a two story frame with five rooms and a butry.

The school was large & quite well advanced but the discipline had been so lax that it had the reputation of being a hard school to govern. The work here was quite pleasant & I was retained the following year at a salary of $75.00 per month.

That summer my half-sister May V. McFarland was taken sick and died June 24, 1880. May was a sweet-tempered girl who had many friends, & her death was a severe blow to us all.

On the 2nd of September our first baby, Ethel, was born.

That fall aunt Irene McFarland, uncle Rob's wife, came from Graham Co. Kansas where she had gone the preceding fall (of 1879) and made quite a long visit, remaining at our place some time. Rob had gone to Kansas, I think in the spring of 1879, and uncle John's had removed to Kansas in the fall of 1878.

Having taught in Lawler that year, I was again employed in the summer of 1881 for another year at the same salary.

During the vacation of 1881, I made my first visit to Chicago, in company with a friend S.A. Potter, grain buyer of Lawler.

Ethel was a healthy babe. At 6 months of age she weighed 24 pounds. My friends among the young men, John & Rod Ronayne, Chas. Webster & others made a great deal of her & she had many friends in Lawler. She began to talk when 14 or 15 months old and could sing almost as soon as she could talk. Her first song as I recollect it was "Good By, My Lover, Good By." She used to afford much amusement for grand-father Seeber, a good friend of ours in Lawler, & when asked how old she was would say, "September old." Francis Clarken, who kept the book store, Henry Bechtel & Mr. & Mrs. Bechtel were also good friends of Ethel. Those were happy days and we had many warm friends in Lawler.

Mr. Potter was a man of ability who had read much upon many subjects & I counted him as a true & valued friend.

Our Chicago trip was a rare treat to me. Mr. Potter was well acquainted with localities in the city and was thus enabled to show me many places of interest.

We visited the Chicago Tribune office, Lincoln Park, Bosseth Museum, J.V. Farwell's wholesale store, the stock yards, the water works, and many other interesting places.

It was while in an auction room that we first heard of the assassination of Pres. James A. Garfield by Chas. J. Guiteaur on the 2nd of July 1881. Leaving the auction room proceeding hurriedly to the Chicago Tribune office we there saw the bulletins confirming the report of this awful tragedy.

It was a surprise & a shock to the Nation. All day long & all night long crowds thronged the streets in front of the bulletin boards waiting anxiously for news as to the condition of the President.

How long and patiently he suffered before the end came has been beautifully told by his Sec'y of State James G. Blaine, who delivered the memorial address in the hall of the House of Representatives the following winter. I have this address in my library & deem it a classic. For weeks a great Nation watched & prayed by the bedside of their President; but the wound was fatal & death came at last to relieve the brave & patient sufferer. I had been somewhat disappointed when Garfield received the nomination in 1880 as I hoped to see Blaine or Grant the nominee of the republican party; but I came to regard Pres. Garfield as a great man & sincerely mourned his untimely death.

On our way home we stopped in Milwaukee & spent nearly two days there. It was a remarkably pretty city, clean & well built - a city of beautiful homes, of push, solidity & enterprise.

The Lawler school board again employed me to teach their school for the ensuing year.

The school was large and the interest continued good. My entire attention was devoted to the work. Quite a number of tuition scholars came in from outlying districts to attend school.

During the years spent in Lawler Bertha & myself read a number of Dickens' works, such as Tales of Two Cities, Martin Chuzzelwit, Nickolas Nickleby, Old Curiosity Shop and several others. We also read Hugo's Les Miserables; some of Mrs. Holmes' works also some of the English poets, such as Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, portions of Cowper, Sheakspeare, Milton, Dryden & Pope. Those were rather pleasant & happy years. We were not saving much money and we both worked quite hard; but we had plenty to live on and were not worried over money-making schemes.

It is doubtful if either of us realized, in those days, the necessity of strict economy & the laying away of something for "a rainy day." We were not particularly extravagant, yet we might have saved more than we did.

Hired girls, the paying of rent and several other items, added considerably to expenses.

Our neighbors were kind & the people of Lawler were friendly & loyal.

In the fall of 1881, friends of mine in Nashua & New Hampton circulated a petition asking me to run as an independent candidate for County Superintendent. I finally consented to do so; but made no effort to win, and the result was that my competition, Prof. J.A. Lapham was elected. Mr. Lapham was an exemplary man and made a capable and conscientious officer, working earnestly & successfully to upbuild the schools and interest patrons in school work.

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	Bethany McFarland's Family Journals