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Lovell, Elzira Maria Cochran; Hand 1883

PIONEERS OF THE MIDDLE WEST

In the years that the covered wagon rolled toward the setting sun, my great grandparents of New Jersey and
Ohio felt the urge to go west along with many others. At the time of my grandmother’s birth-July 2, 1849, her
father, Jacob Benjamin Cochran with his five brothers and a herd of sheep, packed up their meager belongings
and left for the ‘land of gold’. It took them six months to reach California, and they stayed several years, hoping
they would become wealthy. Upon their return to Ohio, however, their pitiful little socksful of gold dust fascinated
only the little daughter, Elzira Maria, who loved to hear the stories of the far West and its mining.

Right after the Civil War the Cochrans, with their six girls, came to Scott County, Iowa. They made the trip with
two covered wagons drawn by horses; one driven by the hired man, Bill Baine, and the other by the father
carrying household goods and the wife and six little girls respectively. The youngsters had a good time on the
journey, riding on the horses’ backs when they grew tired of the stiff wagon. Baine helped with the camping and
cooking along the way, although most of the food had been prepared before hand and stored in the food chest
for this long trek. They went by way of Ft. Wayne, Indiana, ferrying all the rivers and crossing the Mississippi at
Rock Island and Davenport. At last, they found themselves on the farm land they wish to settle not far from a little
town called, Dixon, Iowa.

Two years after coming to Scott County, Iowa, my grandmother, Elzira Maria Cochran, met my grandfather,
Nelson Grace Lovell, at a corn husking dance at the end of a fall day in 1865. Nels Lovell was a native of Scott
County, having been born there on September 20, 1843. He had been to the Civil War-in fact, he rode off to
Davenport, Iowa, to enlist when only 17 years old (fibbing about his age) and joined the Second Iowa Cavalry,
Company C, in August of 1861. He was shot 4 times, was in 50 small battles, and the cannon ball that killed
Captain Egbert’s horse struck Nels in the neck, deafening him for the remainder of his life. He came home to
Dixon, after proudly fighting for General Grant’s Army and the North, in October, 1865.

There was a neighbor boy, Ben Trucks, who liked Elzira very much. He kept telling her: "Don’t go with Lovell.
He’s not your man!" But in two years’ time, Elzira and Nelson had fallen love and were married on October 20,
1867 in Scott County, Iowa. Nels bought 60 acres of land one mile from Dixon for $2.50 per acre. Their farm
became profitable and they raised corn, potatoes, wheat and other small grain, and had some stock as well.
Although the older folks felt homesick occasionally for Ohio, the young people were happy in the ‘far west’, and
spent pleasant Saturday evenings at the "Singing School". The singing master was often a teacher in the city
schools, and organized community singing of old songs and hymns at the corn husking bees, barn raisings, and
on other occasions. Most every Sunday found them at the little town church as well. The spinning wheel was
kept busy, as they made their own yarn from the flax, knit their own stockings and mittens and gloves; made
their own candles with a six clustered mold brought west from Ohio; made their own soap as well.

One daughter, Emma, was born in Scott County. But after 1-1/2 years time, they moved on to Iowa County (as
did Jacob Cochran, Elzira’s father) and bought land near Lytle City, a place later moved and re-named, Parnell.
Nels and Elzira lived here some 15 years, and had six other children, George, Edward, Mary, Ione, Margaret
(my mother), and William, with the aid of midwives. Elzira’s mother continued to make soap and candles, but
lamps made their appearance about this time, and the Nels Lovells began burning kerosene-filled lamps to the
delight of the young children.

It was in 1883 that Nels Lovell decided to ‘go west’ again. He went out to homestead in Hand County, Logan
Township, 13 miles south of Miller, South Dakota. After three months’ time, he sent for his family. His wife,
Elzira and the seven children, came out by train. Nels had built them a house, superintending the construction of
it himself. He saw the shack houses covered with tar paper in Miller, and decided to build his own home with
shingles, and cover the tar paper, so as to give it a better appearance. His house had four rooms, and was a
one-story building. It must have been well build, for it stands today.

It was beautiful country in the Dakotas. High, virgin grasses waved in the wind. There was a lovely lake nearby
the Lovell homestead, with millions of ducks, geese and prairie chickens-all wild, of course. Farmers had to
work for it, but there were good crops, vegetables, hogs, cattle, chickens, turkeys, and even the largest of
families ate well.

Life on the Dakota homestead was always lively and eventful. The children played their ‘realistic’ games, and
nature ran a close second with her own dramas: For instance, one of the boys was playing in the attic with my
mother, Margaret. He put a rope around her neck to hang her ‘like Jeff Davis’ was hanged by Jesse James’
Gang, and was about to haul the little girl by the neck off the stool, when their Mother came home and walked in
with a scream, and saved Margaret. Again, they were playing in the attic. This time, Bill and Margaret found two
loaded Colt revolvers in a trunk, pointed them at each other and were just about to fire away, when once more
Mother stopped the ‘play.’ Margaret and her Mother were burning thistles in the yard one day-it was a dry
spring, and the weeds burned fiercely. Margaret’s new muslin dress caught fire, and it was a quick thinking
Mother who again saved her little daughter from severe burns. Of course, she was not supposed to be out near
a bonfire in a new dress! The children liked to play being threshers, too, on Nels’ threshing machine. (He often
went around the country threshing for other farmers.) One day, Ione, the fifth child of the Lovells, caught her toe in
the machine, screamed, and Emma, the oldest of the family, had presence of mind to stop the machine, but
poor Ione’s toe was broken-for life.

The prairie fire of 1887 was a great disaster to many farmers in the mid-west. The Lovell parents were in the
town of Miller with the wagon and best team of horses, the children were playing in the wheat bin (a place they
were not supposed to be!), when one of the boys saw the smoke rolling over the hill toward their farm. The boys
rushed to harness another team, plowed furiously all around the house to make a firebreak. Neighbors came to
help fight the fire with wet blankets, sacks, mops and just anything they could find. Bill and Margaret, the two
youngest, rushed in the house, crammed papers and pathetic valuables into a trunk and carried it many rods up
on a hill, set it down in the middle of a plowed field. The next day, it took the wagon to bring it back. Everything
burned -barns, fields of grain, the high grasses-everything, except the house.

It was July 3rd, 1893, and the girls with their mother, were preparing baskets of pies, cakes, salads and all
kinds of picnic foods for a 4th of July celebration the next day in Maloney’s Gulch. The great cyclone of 1893’
had no respect for patriotic occasions, and it came upon the Lovell farmhouse very suddenly. Father rushed all
of them into the cyclone cave, while he watched from the door. The storm took the roof off the house, upset the
windmill, and twisted wagons and small sheds into bits; then a heavy rain fell, and drenched the roofless house
and its contents. There was no 4th of July celebration, and it took many days to dry out and clear away the
debris left by the heavy wind storm. Buildings were blown away all around the country. One house was picked
up, carried 40 feet, turned completely around, yet no damage done to the building itself! And the little pond near
the house was completely drained of its water-the cyclone funnel carrying the water across the land, literally
so! Naturally these instances related above are not the only ones experienced by the Lovell family, but they are
quite typical of what could happen often to pioneers on the plains.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Nels and Elzira moved off the homestead to a house on the edge of Miller,
South Dakota. here, Nels had a barn with a few horses-his great love-and he lived to be 72 years of age.
Elzira stayed on until she was unable to care for herself, and until her death in 1938 (being only two days from
her 90th year) spent time with her three married daughters in towns in South Dakota.

My grandparents were true pioneers. Untroubled by doubt, they pressed forward to help in the occupation of the
West-that once unoccupied region beyond Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota-the Great Plains sweeping from
the Dakotas to the Rockies and beyond had been conquered with the opening of 1900; the condition of
American agriculture as improved and American industry began growing ever larger. And my parents, Mr. and
Mrs. H.P. Hemmingson, 47 years residents of Highmore, South Dakota, along with my grandparents, had a big
part in the taming and settling of the great Middle West of our United States.

Mrs. H.J. (Nadine Hemmingson) Thornton

417 Ferson Avenue, Iowa City, Iowa

April, 1956