Helen Clarissa Finch (Millard's grandmother and wife of William Lewis Tanner)

I am going to leave most of Helen’s story to a biography written by her daughter Ruth.  I have let it how I received it with no editing.  I love reading about her red hair and the little childhood stories. I was given this story by Diana Thompson. 

Helen Clarissa Finch

The Pioneer Baby

My mother came to Minnesota in the Spring of 1850, eight years before Minnesota became a state. She was born on the 29th of October, 1849, in a little village in the Catskill Mountains, called Poest-en-kill, now incorporated in the town of Sands Lake, New York. Her parents, William Charles Finch and Angeline Kelsey, his wife, decided to follow his Uncle John North to St. Anthony Falls. This land and “take up land” on the prairie west of St. Anthony Falls. This land was part of the original Fort Snelling reserve and was offered for pre-emption to settlers.

Uncle John North was a lawyer and was settled in a frame house in the village of St. Anthony on the east side of the river. Aunt Ann, his wife, had the first piano in St. Anthony, and gave music lessons. It was to his home that the Finches (with my mother) came at the end of their long journey. 

They left their two oldest children in Poest-en-kill, with their grandparents, Cyreus Finch and Minerva North, his wife. They came on the next year and brought the two little girls, Emily and Frances, with them. And they built a small frame house nearby. This house is still standing not far from the original site.

Of the journey with the six months old baby Helen, my mother, I know very little, except hearing my mother say, “they came by boat as far as Albany, by train to Syracuse, and the rest of the way by stage coach.” Or, as my grandfather put it, “the rest of the way by easy stages,” to which Grandmother always added, “None of the stages were easy.”

One can well imagine they were not, not with a six months old baby in ones arms all the way. I can picture them in my mind’s eye. I have pictures of Grandpa and Grandma Finch. Both were large stocky people. He had fair skin, wide-open blue eyes, and a prematurely bald head. And he always carried a red bandana handkerchief to wipe his head, and a blue one for his nose. She was large, too. Ample seems to be the word for Angeline, deep of bosom, expansive of heart, and laughs and ready friendliness. Her hair, my mother used to tell us was black as a raven’s wing, parted in the middle, combed neatly back with short round curls all around.

The hardship of the journey would be difficult for people of today to imagine. And no doubt the beauty of the untamed landscape would be hard to imagine. The Mohawk Valley opening before them, the views of the Great Lakes, the small villages and hamlets, which perhaps gave the far-sighted traveler a premonition of the great cities they were destined to become. Hope must have beat high in their hearts for the new home they would build in this virgin country, and longing for little Emily and Frances they had left behind must have dimmed the eyes, looking so hopefully ahead. And baby Helen, my mother, big blue eyes, pink and white skin and curly red hair, filling their arms and mind making the journey harder and at the same time easier for the pioneers. [The baby with red hair and blue eyes was my Grandmother Tanner who died when I was 6 years old, living on King Street in Monrovia, CA with my mother Helen Barnard.—this note was added by Doris Barnard West Dec 1998]

Arriving at St. Anthony, they were welcomed by Uncle John North and Aunt Anne. Grandma remained there with baby Helen while Grandpa built his house on the land he had taken up in Richfield. Not a log house, for St. Anthony boasted a saw mill. The house was a two-story frame, with an upstairs and a cellar, built on one of the low rolling hills of the prairie dotted with small native oaks. They lived here for many years, and raised a family of seven children. All I know of their childhood my mother told me when I begged for stories about when she was a little girl. I can’t give them sequences—they are only bright bits like a patchwork quilt.

One of Mother’s early recollections was of being attacked by an angry rooster that flew at and clawed her—perhaps on account of her bright red hair—or perhaps because they were visiting at a home where there were no children and he had never seen a child. 

My grandmother used to tell her that when she was very tiny she used to stretch out her arms to the prairie chickens and beg – “come prairie chickens, come play wis me.” As older children they used to be delighted if a dish were broken because they could have the broken bits for doll china. My grandmother used to make corn husk dolls for them. My mother used to fold up an old shawl as though it were wrapped around a baby, and put a safety pin in to hold the “head” in place, and would tell me her mother used to make her a “baby” that way.

My grandmother must have been a wonderful person, and a neighbor to be loved and admired and looked to in time of trouble. She it was who served as doctor and nurse to many, and many a pioneer baby was assisted into the world by her. When the McCabes came from “Back East” to take up their land nearby, they arrived in a covered wagon, the wagon box full of children, all sick with the measles—and Grandma rose to the occasion—opened her home and heart, took in all the McCabes, measles and all, gave the measles to all her own children and her husband as well and housed and cared for them all until their house was ready—and very soon after assisted at the birth of the newest McCabe, Nora, whom I remember as a tiny white haired old lady who never failed to mention this episode whenever she saw any of us.

My grandfather was ambidextrous and was one of those rare people who could sow grain “broadcasting with both hands” thereby doing a better job in half the time it took ordinary mortals. He was much in demand by neighboring farmers, and they did all sorts of things for him to repay him for sowing their grain.

My mother was his special favorite. The two older girls were needed in the house to help Grandmother—and since no boy arrived till the fifth child, Grandpa needed a helper with him. So my mother spent many hours out of doors with him. He was an extremely well-read man and something of a philosopher, too, and no doubt was a great influence in Mother’s life. Though they were poor and endured many hardships, there were always papers, Harpers Weekly magazines and books to be had.

One story Mother used to tell that gave me the “creeps” was about the time when she found a poor little chicken that had been abandoned by its mother. It was a cold raw windy day, so Mother took pity on the poor little thing, wrapped it up in an old shawl and got it in the oven. After the fire had gone out awhile the oven was still warm. She went out to play, forgetting all about it—you have probably guessed what happened. Grandma built up the fire and when Helen remembered the chicken, she found him cooked in the shawl in the oven. Mother hated to think about it—even after she was an old lady.

The sixth child to arrive was a boy. Charlie was the first boy, the fifth child. Charlie was Cornelia’s special charge, “Nealy” was next younger than my mother. But the new boy, Myron, was my mother’s special charge. He was big and fat and slow, so my mother used to carry him on her right hip (she was left-handed). This left her left hand free. All her life her dresses had to be made a wee bit larger on her right hip—and I often heard her explain to her dressmaker why that hip was larger. In my childish imagination, I used to visualize a miniature “Uncle Myron” bald head and curling red moustache riding gaily on my mother’s hip. He must have been a darling though, for my mother never sounded as though taking care of him had been a hardship at all. She loved to tell cute things he said and did. Once he was sitting in the doorway between the kitchen and the weed shed and he said “Mama I see sompin” and she said, “What do you see?” and he said, “I don’t know but I think it’s a little cowie”—she concluded he must have glimpsed a mouse. Another time they were walking down the road after a rain and the sky was reflected in the roadside puddles, and Myron stopped and looked in a puddle seeing the sky and said “Ooh it’s deep as the sea.” No one knows where he, a prairie child go the idea.

Mother and her sisters and brothers had to go barefoot as early in the spring and as late in the fall as possible to “save shoe leather.” She used to tell us how they used to kick or push the cows that they found lying on the ground, and make them get up and then warm their bare feet on the warm place the cows left. Of course being a city child myself I was impressed with the fact that they weren’t afraid to go near a cow. Mother never wanted us to go barefooted. It was a special privilege reserved for hot days that were too hot to play outdoors—queer how in just one generation necessity and luxury changed places.

During the Civil War my grandfather tried to enlist but was always rejected because he had asthma. So he did “teaming” for Fort Snelling—hauling in supplies in his wagon. On one of these occasions he took the older children along for the ride. My mother remembered it distinctly. It was the first time she ever saw the American flag. Times were very hard during the war, and food at best was plain and with very little variation. Mother remembered once when her “pa” was off “teaming” it was cold and the wind was in the wrong direction and the stove wouldn’t “draw” very well. My grandmother made a large pan of white sauce and sat close to the stove with the pan in her lap and all the little folks stood round her and “dunked” their bread in the white sauce and that was “dinner”.

Once Aunt Nealey was invited to have supper with the McCabes and they had sauerkraut, and my Aunt told them “sauerkraut is good when there ain’t no other kind of dessert!”

The best food my mother ever ate was wild strawberry shortcake. Grandma would send all the children out after wild strawberries—and she would make biscuit dough and cook it in the skillet on top of the stove with plenty of butter in which to brown it. She served it hot with crushed berries and plenty of cream.

They gathered hazelnuts for winter treats. My grandfather was very fond of them and usually had some in his pockets for “hand outs” to the children.

Grandmother was a “crack shot” with a rifle and could bring down a squirrel—she often shot just for a pastime. Mother never mentioned using them for food. 

There were Indians in the territory and there were “uprisings” against the whites from time to time. During one Indian uprising an Indian and his squaw came and looked in the schoolhouse window and then came and pounded on the door. The children and no doubt the teacher were frightened—but all they wanted was to bring in the papoose and get warm.

One Christmas, times were even harder than usual, and there were no Christmas presents. Mother never spoke as though they were greatly disappointed. She always had a way of saying “Blessed are those who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed.” They just made the best of it. But the day did not go “unreknowned” [can’t read the word] for before night they received a most appropriate gift—a baby sister—and on Christmas Day!

I’ve said before that my mother was a great favorite of her father’s—and my father used to like to tell me that when he asked Grandpa Finch for her hand in marriage, Grandpa said, “Wouldn’t one of the older girls do? You want the very best one!”

[Note by Doris Barnard West: Ruth was the youngest of Grandmother Tanner’s children. Mother was next to the last.]

Helen Clarissa (Finch) Tanner

Helen was married to William Lewis Tanner at age 19.  Her marriage record and children's information is in my William Lewis Tanner post about his life after the war.  Her sister Frances lived with them for a time also. 

Helen Clarissa (Finch) Tanner

 Up until 1920 she was living in Minneapolis and here I want to note, because I have seen information different ways that she died on April 17, 1924, in Monrovia, California.  Both her daughter's story and the California death index support this information, along with the probate records of her will.  According to findagrave.com she was then brought back to Minneapolis and buried next to her husband in Oak Hill Cemetery in Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota.