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| Louisa Caroline Douaberry Hoyle |
She had quite a life, born in Ashland, Cass County, Illinois on January 25, 1878 to Anderson Hoyle and Hannah Jane Combs, he from Illinois and she from Springfield Missouri. She was the fifth of seven; four older brothers and sisters (Catharine, Sam, Rachel, and Ettie) and two following (Thomas and Hattie).
When she was just two she moved with her parents and siblings to Ness County, Kansas where they resided apparently until her marriage at the young age of 14 to John Icke,a 26 year old man,on June 14, 1892 in Bedford Iowa. He too was born and raised in Ashland, Illinois so maybe they had known each other for some time (Note: His mom was Mary Jane Coombs, her mom Hannah Jane Combs. Both born in southwestern Missouri and Combs and Coombs could be a misspelling. It's POSSIBLE they were sisters so John and Eliza would be cousins. I have a record of Hannah Jane's parents but not Mary Ann's. Hester's Bible also indicates Mary Jane and Hannah Jane were "indian"). They moved to Nodaway County, Missouri where her first children, Albert Elmer, Stella Mae, Mary Jane Hester, and Beatrice Hyacinthia, were born, the last two always known as Hester and Aunt Cinthy to all of us.
In 1900 they packed up and headed to the new territory of Oklahoma arriving in O'Bryan township around Woodward and soon to be a pioneer of Woods County in 1901.
She and John lived in a sod house at Fair Valley with the four kids they brought with them and some more added there-John Estle, Viola Belle, and James Lionel. It appears that her parents came west as well but I'm not sure when. But that they arrived is proven by their death places-Woods County-he in 1907 and she in 1929. Two more children were added-my own grandmother Rachel in 1909 and Uncle Joe in 1913. Sadly shortly after that, in 1914, John passed and Grandma was left with seven kids ranging from one to twenty-one.
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| Sod House. John, Louisa, and 5 kids. Tradition says Rachel and Joe are in the cans on the window ledge |
She spent five years raising the kids on her own but surely with the help of the older ones until she married Elijah (Lije) R Snider, a man 19 years her senior, on June 25, 1919. He was a one legged man shown by his photos and attestation of my uncles who said he was and they thought kind of a mean man. He was born in Indiana and came to Oklahoma in 1900 as well with a wife and seven kids. I'm not sure how it happened but he lost his leg, his eldest son in 1901 and his wife in 1917 and those things do something to a guy so may explain why he was grumpy. But evidently Grandma was okay with him although they had no kids of their own so we'll leave it at that.
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| Grandma, Lije & grandkids |
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| Grandma and grandkids |
Grandma came to faith in Christ as a Baptist apparently around 1916. Her faith is evident in many of her writings as she blesses her children, asks for prayer for herself and others, and wishes "grandpa would trust God for relief" (makes me wonder how much Lije joined in her faith). At her funeral the pastor's prayer noted her belief and her eternal hope. The pastor's sermon on Revelation 14.13 (Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord) noted that she praised God in her last hours and was peaceful. She heard the bugle call, her labor ended, and her spirit is at rest in paradise. A woman of great faith who exemplified her trust in all of life as we shall see next.
Apparently she felt sick and began treatments which made her sick according to a letter to Rachel in February 1936. One wonders if it was radiation or chemotherapy.*
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| Muscatine, Iowa |
By May she had to go to Baker Hospital in Muscatine, Iowa for further treatment (Evidently run by Norman G Baker who followed a similar track of the famous "Goat Gland Doctor-John Brinkley of Kansas. Both ran "border blaster" radio stations promoting their so-called medical cures for which they were sued many times. Baker claimed to cure cancer using expensive injections of "a mix of common substances including corn silk, watermelon seeds, clover, water and carbolic acid"**). The train trip took 15 hours from western Oklahoma to Muscatine, a town (at that time of 17,000) on a bend in the Mississippi west of the Quad Cities. She arrived at 3am after a long trip and a 4 hour layover in Kansas City where she would have visited bother Sam if she had know where he lived. She noted the trip was pretty with rolling grasslands, gardens and cattle. At Muscatine she said the Mississippi ran right by the front door and was the sight of boats going up and down the river, some hauling gravel and on one day a steam powered pleasure boat with lights and lots of people. She took the time there in stride, taking advantage of trips to town and walks but preferring to stay on dry ground. In most letters she said she felt better and for them "not to worry" but tell the boys not to tear the house down. Her side hurt at times and once she had ulcers in her nose treated by medicine on cotton which she did describe as "nasty". She thought the original problem was appendicitis but said it ended up not that but "colitis of the colon" and that didn't "amount to much". Later she said the colitis cleared up but in June she would have to stay another week due to infection in the large intestine and would not make it home for the Fourth of July. One can only guess what kind of cancer she had but I suspect colon or ovarian and probably was not getting proper treatment from Dr. Baker as indicated by his history.
But she appeared to get along well at the hospital (actually the Baker Institute) where she has her Bible and a "colored kid" keeps the papers for her; where she was able on Sundays to go to Sunday School, worship in the basement, and preaching at 7 at night-"more church than at home!". She describes the place as a family environment with lots of good Christians there and they take their meals in the basement cafeteria although there is no white bread or sugar, nor red meat. Brown bread, brown sugar, chicken and fish. And only barley coffee-not the real stuff.
A couple things of note that appear during her stay-a deepening of faith and the plight of others as well as an apparent description of the inability of the "doctor" to cure anyone. She asks repeatedly for prayer for herself and her needs as well as others around her. She asks for prayers for "suffering humanity" as she realized when she got there that she had "no idea there was so much". Some of the stories she tells are of two women who went home one day, one to Texas and the other to Nebraska because the doctors can't help and of a 16 year old girl who lost her left breast. The people she experienced drove her to greater prayer on their behalf and the request that others pray for them and her as well. She says in her May 13 letter that she "feels the presence of the Lord" and asking more each day for His guidance.
So Grandma went home sometime in July 1936 but evidently she was like the Texas and Nebraska women for whom the doctors could do nothing. She and Lije moved sometime in late November to Capron, Oklahoma (6.5 miles NE of Alva) where she passed on December 14, shortly before her 59th birthday. Her funeral was held at the Stiles-Howerton Funeral Home in Alva on Wednesday December 16, a "beautiful winter day". There were greater than 135 guests and the flower list of mums, carnations, orchids, calandulas, and marigolds goes on for four pages so the service must have been filled with fragrance. The organist played In Monastery Garden, Bells of St Mary, Largo, and Abide With Me while a quartet sang Eastern Gate, Sheltered in the Arms of Jesus, When the Roll is Called up Yonder, and Rock of Ages. The pastor, Reverend Fortenberry of Waynoka spoke aptly on "I Am the Resurrection and the Life.
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| Nov 15, 1936. Last photo |
Little Woman; Big Name; Bigger Faith.
*Cancer treatment as we understand it was unknown until the DNA discovery by Watson and Crick in 1953.
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