The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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THEY STOLE QUILTS, COUNTERPANES, THREAD, BACON AND LARD
By S. C. Turnbo
William Wiley Osborn and Miss Elizabeth Matilda Parker daughter of Garrison Parker, were married in 1854 and lived on Jimmie’s Creek in Marion County, Ark. Their home was 3 miles above the mouth where Jonsie Osborn settled years previous to this marriage. Mrs. Butler, one of their daughters who is now the wife of B. F. (Ben) Butler and who was born on Jimmie’s Creek in 1855, tells of some of the hardships they encountered on Jimmie’s Creek in war times. "My father was off in the federal army" said she. "He belonged to Capt. Shults company and served part of the time at Rolla, Mo. There were my mother and three of us children when the war broke out. Myself and sister Isabel and my brother Jonsie who was a small child. One night when my mother and we children were at home alone two robbers came to our house on horseback and after dismounting at the yard gate they come into the house and ordered us all out of doors and my mother being slow about getting out they drove her out by using harsh words and threats to kill her and the two men proceeded to help themselves to what they could find in the house that they thought would be useful to them. My mother had a great deal of cotton thread that she had spun on the spinning wheel that she was saving to make cloth out of on the handloom. The thieves had two big sacks with them and they crammed one of these sacks as full of thread as it would hold then they appropriated two heavy quilts and two counterpanes and while one of the men stood guard over their ill gotten booty, the other man went into the smoke house and took down all the bacon we had and cut it into chunks and put it into the other sack and filled one our fat gourds with all the lard we had and carried the thread, bacon, quilts, counterpanes and lard off with them leaving us to face starvation. These were some of the sore trials we were forced to endure during those unhappy days," said Mrs. Butler.
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