The Poetry of Elsie Strawn Armstrong
"SKETCHES OF MY LIFE"
1789-1871

Transcribed and Donated by Leslie Howard Strawn

Leslie Strawn writes: "You may find this poetry by early settler Elsie Strawn Armstrong, sister to Col. John Strawn interesting. I would like to know if any Armstrongs are still in the area, that might have the omitted poetry.   I, Leslie Howard Strawn, am Elsie Strawn Armstrong’s 1st Cousin, five generations removed. I came into the possession of the following work in the year 2000 as a result of the following e-mail:

Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2000 7:23 PM

Subject: Elsie Strawn Armstrong

Hello,

I have in possession a notebook, which contains a collection of poetry and life experiences written by Elsie Strawn Armstrong. You may already have a copy of it. I thought you might be interested having it.

It is a most interesting collection put together by Marshall N. Armstrong, Ottawa, Illinois, March 5th, 1903. This one was prepared for John H Armstrong.  Please let me know if you are interested in it.  I am not a relative. My husband salvaged it from the trash at a flea market in our area. It is in very good condition. I really hate for anyone’s family history and writings to be destroyed.

Sincerely,

Name and address followed.

Of course, I emailed a “Yes, I would like it’, back to the sender and it was sent to me US mail.  I have found on the Internet, some words of her sons and nephews regarding the early settlement of Illinois. Following Elsie’s work, I will include those with this document."

Leslie Howard Strawn, November 2006.

Note: If anyone has any knowledge to the existance of the omitted poems, please email me.

The Poetry of Elsie Strawn Armstrong
SKETCHES OF MY LIFE

My grandmother, ELSIE STRAWN ARMSTRONG, was born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, November 24, 1789, and died May 31, 1871. She was married to Joseph Armstrong, May 19, 1808; to them was born nine boys. The first twenty-one years of her life was spent with her parents where she was born. At the age of twenty-one she removed with her husband and first-born to Licking County, Ohio, where she and her husband reared a large family and endured the privations incident to a pioneer life in the wilderness, until April 15, 1831, when she set out for Illinois with her children, horses, cattle, household effects and chattel property, and in due time arrived at her brother, John Strawn’s house at Lacon, Illinois, and a few months later settled in Deer Park, Southwest of Ottawa. Here she labored until she saw her sons all married and settled in their own homes, when she removed to Ottawa where she remained a few years looking after tenant houses until 1861, when she removed to the home of her son George W. Armstrong in Brookfield, and there remained until 1867 after which she removed to her new home at Morris, Illinois, and there she died having passed through a long and eventful life.

She was never idle and when she was blind, so that she could not see to read or write she was ever busy sewing or knitting.

She composed the following collection of poems from time to time during this busy life and many of them in her old age, while she lived at my father’s home. I remember when my grandmother’s bell rang, some of us grandchildren would be requested to attend her at once, and perhaps thread forty or fifty needles and place them in a pin cushion ready for her use, and meantime she would sew and make poetry. And I remember with what delight she would turn a couplet or stanza and when done to her satisfactions, she would repeat it a few times to fix it in her memory, and once fixed, she never forgot it, and even to the last, if she were given the first line or subject, she could repeat the poem from beginning to end.

This copy of her poems was typewritten by my faithful and painstaking stenographer, Miss Mary L. Beckel, in her spare moments saved from writing of briefs, arguments and pleadings in law and equity, the writing of letters and other duties incident to the duties of a stenographer in a law office.

And this volume is respectfully presented to my beloved cousin, John H. Armstrong.

--Marshal N. Armstrong

Ottawa, Illinois, March 5, 1903

INDEX  
(To the First Lines of the Poems Contained in this Volume)

• An Apology, a Kind of Prologue 1
• Early Life in Sommerset County, Pennsylvania
  • Chapter I : When young I did commence upon the stage 1-4
  • Chapter II: Then the next we had to do was to weave the linen 5-7
• The Move and  Life in Licking County, Ohio
  • Chapter III: When I was at a wedding 8-10
  • Chapter IV: When I came to Ohio 11-13
  • Chapter V:  When we came upon the land 14
  • Chapter VI:  When we went to Ohio 18
  • Chapter VII:  Between my bed and fire 22
  • Chapter VIII:  I want you to remember 28  (This tells of how the British paid the Indians to massacre the Ohio settlers)
  • Chapter IX:  And when they cleared six acres 29
  • Chapter X:  And when I left my farm 34
  • Chapter XI:  And here I should say something 38
• The Move and Life in LaSalle County, Illinois
  • Chapter XII:  And so we left Ohio 42
  • I heard of a good claim 51
  • The Black Hawk War
    • Twenty-nine years ago 56  
    • Before it was a month 67
    • My third son had enlisted 73
  • And when the war was over 77
  • We had more than three hundred chickens 79
  • Brother Jacob came from Morgan 86  (Lines Written on a tour I took with my two brothers up the Illinois River in the spring of 1831.)
  • Over thirty years ago 93  (Stories of animals are entertaining;  I thought I would tell my little friends about the animals and game that were here over thirty years ago.)
  • My little friends if you will hark 97 (The story of the abduction of the Hall girls)
  • My brother Jacob charged me 100   Lines written on the circumstance of my children going to Chicago for salt in the year of thirty-one,
    in most bitter cold weather. (A "must read " poem )
    Such trouble for our seed corn 107
• My eyes are so sore that it 110  On being invited to take a ride out to visit one of my sons who had been making some improvements about his house and premises since I had been there; and brick falling into my chimney and that son cleaning it all out, give rise to the following lines.
• Of late I thought I had a fear 113 (A SELECTION OF NIGHT THOUGHTS)
• I was born in Pennsylvania 114
• Well, I was just a thinking 117
• Most earnestly I covet 145   Lines written for the inspection of my oldest son. After expecting him daily for some time to take me home with him, I broke out in the following strain. (Poem about her oldest son as a baby and child)
• I am close approaching seventy 151  In 1850, when the hoops began to age fairly, three or four young ladies asked me to tell them some rhyme about the hoops. I told them it was nothing to me, let those wear hoops who chose; but they kept quizzing me about the hoops until finally I told them as follows:
• Did you ever see a lady 153  They said that would do pretty well for the hoops; now give the bustle a touch. One who had requested it came to call on me in company with her beau. So I directed my discourse to him and said thus:
• I fondly cherished social joys 155  The following is a recital on the subject of being robbed five times. Lately my pocket book was carried off and brought back and thrown in the yard. My property has been stolen from time to time since I have been afflicted with sore eyes. August 22, 1860.
• Twenty-fourth day of December 161
• And another family has come in 162
• Protect them, Heaven! 163  When this long predicted, awful war commenced, I felt very bad. I still hoped it would not be in my day, and sitting here alone, hearing the music and knowing my grandsons and nephews and perhaps some of my sons, too, were going, thoughts like the following occupied my mind.
• This morning, e’er yet 165  Seventy-one, and of course in my dotage!  Some thoughts on my seventy-second birthday.
• In the fall of fourteen 167  In lonesome blindness, thinking of my past life, I thought I would write something about a trip I took to Pennsylvania in the year of 1814.
• In height she was five feet 170  A description of my mother:
• My father, always well 171  Description of my father:
• My uncle Letts was telling me 173  (Poem about Elsie's father's physical strength)
• I am in my seventy-fourth 175
• Angry words are sometimes spoken 176
• Nearly thirty years ago 177  July, 1863. When I was going to Jacksonville with my brother Jacob Strawn and three young ladies, we spent a day in Springfield. Jacob engaged an omnibus to take us through the city. We went first to the Matteson house and there I met special old acquaintances that I have known since their childhood. Mr. Eaton Goodell of Springfield, and Mrs. May Spicer of Chicago. The ladies, after looking through the house and grounds, went on with brother, but I stayed and had a pleasant visit with my friends and Mrs. Goodell and her grandmother. Mrs. Spicer wished me to get up some rhyme on my visit there, especially for Mr. Goodell, so I made an attempt.
• (Although I don't agree with the views of Elsie Strawn Armstrong about slavery and Abraham Lincoln, I feel her poems should be included about the subject - Nancy Piper, LaSalle County Host)
  • One of those fanatics 180
  • Last summer I made a visit 191
  • Remember, Mr. Lincoln 195  In company with my abolition friends that asked me if I didn’t like Mr. Lincoln. I said “No, I never liked his character.”
• My sister’s Sunday clothes 200  Lines written at the request of my brother Jacob, who was about five years old when the little incident took place in the family that he remembered so well that he wished me to put it in rhyme.
• Brother Jacob came to Ottawa 203  A trip to visit brother Jacob’s family. (At the Matteson house with Eaton Goodell and family.)
• Far away in the wild wood sequestered and alone 204  On hearing of the death of my dear son Jeremiah, who died in California and was buried on the side of a mountain, I thought of the following:
• An interesting nephew says, “Make some rhyme for me” 204
• I was thinking today myself I’d report 205  Written for Elsie Armstrong---composed by herself at the age of seventy-eight for the amusement of her nephew Arsene Pishrow, September 25, 1867. --Josephine Copp

Poems Omitted  or Missing From the Book

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