Sauk Centre, Minn. - Feb. 12, 1941

This life sketch is to my children and grandchildren. I hope this sketch will be handed down for a good many generations to come.

My grandparents immigrated to America the last part of 1700 AD from England, Germany and Switzerland.

My Great Grandfather Eli Pendroy was born December 1776 and died March 12, 1865 at the age of 88 years and 3 months. His wife Mary A. Lop was born in 1775 and died February 8, 1841. (Author Note: One  typewritten source I have of 2, (This one, which you are reading online now),  instead of Mary A. Lop it says Mary A. Fox. I do not know what significance there is to this, and have included it in the written record on the chance that it may be correct, as opposed to LOP which is believed, by this author to be her last name. The name "Lop" for Mary is not known as an absolute certainty, and no official document or written record in my possession uses the name Lop.- August 7, 1999)

Their son Jacob Pendroy, that being my Grandfather was born August 17, 1795 in North Carolina, and died October 12, 1870. His wife Margaret Boots was born in Harding County West Virginia on Nov. 1, 1793 and died March 3, 1874. They were religious people and belonged to the M.E. (Methodist) Church as far back as I know.

My father Jacob A. Pendroy, was born April 2, 1832, died September 6, 1901. My mother was born February 12, 1829. She was born six miles from Philadelphia,  my father in Ohio.  My mother's name was Margaret Brown and they are both buried at  Velva, North Dakota.

I, James Martin Pendroy, the writer of this sketch was born the 27th of October, 1862, and at this time I am a few months past my 78th birthday. (Note: He lived to be 86.) I was the 5th child born to father and mother in a family of seven children.

Julia Pendroy born 10-18-1854

Olive J. Pendroy born 03-18-1857

Elizabeth  (Lizzie) Pendroy born Dec. 7, 1858

Barbara E. Pendroy born 10-09-1860

James M. Pendroy born 10-17-1862 (Note: The author of this sketch)

Margaret B. Pendroy born 09-22-1865

Charles W. Pendroy born 10-05-1874

My Grandfather and Grandmother Pendroy and three sisters are buried at Monroe, Iowa. Myself and all of my sisters and brothers were born at Otley, Iowa, Marion County. My Grand Parents migrated south from Virginia,  from Virginia the first of 1800 A.D.  to South Carolina then to Ohio, where my father was born, then to Indiana, then in1849 they moved to Otley, Iowa, then in 1883, to North Dakota, where I lived for 37 years and all my children were born.  We lived at Menlo Iowa three years before moving to North Dakota.

The first  part of 1882, I got   acquainted with Susana Messinger at a party of young folks, and we fell in love at first sight I guess, and we married January 31, 1883. The next May 12, we all started for North Dakota, then a territory about 700 miles by wagon road.

Susie, as she was always called, was the second child of the family of 14 children. She was born in Henry County Indiana on Oct. 13, 1862 and my birthday is the 27th of the same month.

Well,  we didn't have much money to start up a home. Susie said a good many times she had me and I had her. Well, I thought that was a lot. I was big and stout and was willing to take the responsibility of making a living with her help and that was more than half. We never starved as long as she lived.

Well after 58 years, I will do my best to describe those 58 years for you children and grandchildren. I am getting right close to 80 years old this time. My grandparents  and my father had always been farmers but the panic in 1875 in 1880 found them pretty well down and out. Had to let our home go in Otley, Iowa. Had about $2,000 in personal property left when we moved to Menlo, Iowa in the spring of 1880.

Well the spring of 1883 found all the family getting ready to move to the great state of North Dakota. Family was my father and mother, brother Charlie, sister Maggie, sister Ollie and her husband Marseles Walker and Stella Pace - 8 years old, Matt Pace's daughter, and Frank Marlenee, who afterwards married sister Maggie.

Father gave me a nice riding pony the year before. I traded that pony for nine calves. Susie's father gave her a yearling calf, so with that and two dollars we started to buck the world, so to speak. We got ready to go. We had two covered wagons, a covered surrey wagon, 12 horses and three riding horses. Frank Marlenee had one riding pony.

Frank's brother was driving some cattle through with my father and some other men. So we had about 125 Hereford head in drive that we started with. Father took the pure bred bulls the first in North Dakota at that time.

At this time I am the only one living that I know of   that started on that trip.

Well that was a long hard trip. Father and mother were old for such a trip. (They were 51 and 54 years old.)

Fifteen miles a day was all we could drive and give the cattle time to eat. We had a small stove we baked bread on three times a day. Susie made the biscuits. They were sure good too. We had a flour chest in the back of one wagon and she always got back in there to make the bread.

One time when she was making bread a big Indian came up right close to her and looked in the wagon, and scared her quite bad, but the Indian didn't mean any harm. That was not very far from the capital of South Dakota.

Susie drove a team of spotted horses the whole 700 miles. We slept in the wagon she drove. The rest of the folks slept in a big tent.

The next place of interest was Bismarck. Only 125 miles more to go. Arrived on Mouse river the third day of August, after 77 days travel. Everyone glad they had gotten to their destination.

Uncle Jim Pendroy had went on ahead on the train early in the spring and filled out a claim, and we went right there and went to building where Father and Mother lived until they passed away. It was late in the fall before we had hay made and houses to go into.

Susie and I  slept in the covered wagon just six months before we had a house to go into. No floor and a dirt roof. At that time we were 125 miles to the nearest towns, Bismarck south, Devils Lake east. It was two years before the railroad came to Towner, North Dakota.

March 1, 1941 - The war looks bad. A big fight over the Land Lease Bill in Congress.

It was the middle of November before we got moved into one room and Father and Mother into the other. After 58 years the same 2 rooms are still used for a house.

Well, we were all that winter building sheds and barns for our cattle and horses. Cattle stood the winter fine out in the thick timber. We threw the hay off in a big ring and the timber was all the shelter they had. Smaller calves had an open shed. Well, by this time, Susie and I were expecting a baby to come to our house, and on the 27th of February, 1884, Lizzie was born. We were all happy after that. She was named after my sister Lizzie who passed away when she was 21 years old, September, 1879 and is buried at Monroe, state of Iowa, where my two sisters and Grandfather and Grandmother Pendroy are also buried. I have lived 800 miles away most all of my life but I always went to see their graves as often as I could and I have been there a good many times in that time.

We were sure proud of our baby. I had one uncle and one cousin that   moved to North Dakota, Uncle Jim Pendroy and Marion Pace. Uncle Jim had four boys, Johnny, Levi, Jim and Perry. That was all the neighbors we had close that first winter. The Marlenee's lived 15 miles up Mouse River where Velva is now. In the spring, I took a claim out two miles and put up a log cabin and claimed 160 acres by staking it off.

That was before the government had surveyed the land in McHenry County. We lived there, Susie and baby, a summer. In the fall of 1884, we moved down on the river where we lived for a good many years.

My father bought a man out that had staked that claim out before the survey for fifty dollars. Then I bought the claim and lot, and house of my Fathers, and filed on it as a pre-emption, and after six months paid the government $1.25 an acre.

At that time anyone could take a pre-emption and a Tree Claim and   a Homestead and live on it five years and to prove up the tree claim, you had to plant out 10 acres of trees to get a deed from the government. That is what I did with the first claim I staked out on the prairie. There were three dry years and the government let me prove up that without planting many trees. That was 160 acres.

Then I took the homestead partly on the river valley and the high land and proved up on that in five years. I got a cousin to file on 160 acres that joined my homestead and tree claim. That made 480 and 160 one mile away, where we made our home for 34 years where the other five children were born.

I gave Sally Berry $500 to take that claim and prove up on it for me. Before she got it proved up, she died and the heirs proved up on it and let me have it by paying $150 more for it. Tom Berry, Lyde Masteller and Mary Stickels, cousins,   were the heirs.

Well, I'm a little ahead of my story as I will go back a few years when Lizzie was a baby.

We didn't have very much money but we were getting a home started. My father and I worked together for a good many years - not a partnership but worked together in haying. Hay and cattle were the main resources for making money.

Well, it wasn't all work and no play. There were one or two that could play the violin and we would all get together for a good old-fashioned square dance. Susie and I sure enjoyed that for a good many years.

Then the later part of 1885, we were expecting a baby. At that time it was still 125 miles to a doctor, so we all thought it best for her to go back home for awhile. Gertrude was born back at Menlo, Iowa the 5th of October, 1885

When Gertrude was a month-old, Susie started home. We, my father and brother Charlie, met her at Devils Lake, 125 miles from home. We took covered wagons and brought supplies home for the winter. The night she got to Devils Lake, it come several inches of snow. 125 miles from home with two babies was a terrible responsibility but we got home all right.

Now after 56 years as I am writing this sketch, it doesn't seem possible that we went through with what we all did. We were all sure glad when we got home and we were all thankful to Kind Providence for guiding as home safe. At that time houses were fifty miles apart. I don't believe my children or grand children can get the real meaning of the early times, but we get along and were happy for a good many years.

I remember I bought a bottle of Brandy for Susie and the baby. At that we just had a log house 16' by 18'. That winter  I got out logs for another room and we got along fine for a long time. By that time we're getting quite a bunch of cattle. My father mostly. My father had most all the equipment.

I hauled all of the hay for the big cattle at my home. Father and brother Charles fed the young calves at their home, one mile away. The cattle we fed were out in the timber. They got water out of the Mouse River. The Mouse River Valley  was a fine valley for hay. I had 80 acres of fine hay land on my home placed father had 200 acres on his own land and there was a school section that joined us both. Father rented that for five years giving $125 for five years, and that was 125 acres of good hay land. By this time were feeding quite a lot of hay.

Everything went along about the same old way for a good many years. Beatrice, Cora and Charlie were born. There hadn't been any death in the family for 20 years then the 1^st of April 1899, my mother passed away and was buried at Velva, North Dakota. Then Sept. 6, 1901, my father passed away and was buried beside my mother in the family lot.

My father was, we thought, pretty well to do. He had 960 acres of land and 225 head of Hereford cattle, the best  bunch of cattle in North Dakota at that time. When everything was divided up, I got 75 head of cattle and 4 horses. Brother Charlie got my father's home place on Mouse River, 400 acres of land but not much personal property.

Well everything went along fine - we were all happy for four years. Then our sorrows began to come. In Sept. 1905, my daughter Lizzy passed away and left two small children, one a baby a few days old. Lizzy was  buried in the family lot, close to my father and mother. Mama and I took care of the baby Francis Meigher for three years. At that time, Junerva was two years old, the baby, and was the baby for most 40 years.

It seemed like one sorrow come on, one after another. Sunday January 25, 1907, Susie my dear wife passed away and left five children, Gertrude, Beatrice, Cora, Charlie and Juverna. Mama died with measles and pneumonia. Charlie was 12 years old Juverna was four years old. That was sure a great sorrow for all of us.

As I have thought a good many times, we were getting financially ready to enjoy life. Eight years before I had built a very good house and I have been glad a good many times that I did and we were happy for 24 years. We all missed Mama so much. That year Beatrice taught school close to home and Cora went to Normal at Valley City, North Dakota. We all got along good for two years. Then Gertrude and Beatrice and Cora began to think about homes of their own and that was all right.

-end-

A special thanks to the Duncan family in Oregon - Mary E. (Berry) Stickels's great great grand daughter  for this information. Mary E. Berry was a daughter of William and Rachel (Pendroy) Berry. Rachel Pendroy was a daughter of Jacob and Margaret (Boots) Pendroy.