Faith Steed Howarth

[about Dad's mother]

He [Dad] was independent, he didn't want me to fuss over him or anything like that. But, he and his mother [Jessie Speirs Howarth] just didn't get along too well. She was wonderful with us. She loved us and loved coming up there. She would tend you kids anytime that we wanted tier to. When I came home one time, she had broken one of the -- do you remember in the window I put a little bar of glass across and something on those two little windows by fireplace. She'd broken that. She felt so bad. She was just a very sweet woman. She said to me, “You just live in a different world.” She couldn't figure why. See, she didn't know why. It was the peace and the spirit that was there that she felt and it made her feel good. She liked to come and stay. She liked us to come down there, even if she needed to have a. mattress turned over. [laughs] I had to turn all her mattresses. She just was so very close to us and happy with us.

His mother [Jessie Speirs Howarth] was up with me and a salesman come by who was selling nice little machines [sewing machines]. Now my mother [Anie Amelia Robinson Steed] was a wonderful seamstress. She made all our clothes. She was just great and I had learned a little from her. I wanted a machine and so did Grandma Howarth [Jessie Speirs Howarth]. So, we bought one -- each.

Well, when her husband found out about it, he was very put out. He made her take it back because we had to pay for it in payments, you see. Alvin looked at me and he never said a word and I never said a word, but I was determined to keep the machine. My word, I had it all paid for and everything. He soon learned that he could trust me that I wouldn't buy things that I couldn't take care of. He'd give me the money because I was a lot better with it than he was. I never had money trouble with my husband after that. If I found that we needed it, we needed it. Lots of things that I didn't even think of, he got.

Poor Mrs. Howarth [Jessie Speirs Howarth], you see, she couldn't even have that darn machine. That's the way men were in her day - A lot of them. She hadn't asked him

Harvey {Harvey Howarth, brother of George Alvin Howarth] and his wife were a little jealous. But, at the very end, she {Jessie Speirs Howarth] was taken up there and they did have that part which I was glad that's where she died. I really would have rather not been there. But, she was a very sweet, good woman. All of their people that I met, I liked.