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Note: kids, Mom and Pop, and my maternal grandmother. We all lived, crowded but happy. Mom and Pop must have had cast iron nerves. My younger sister, four or five brothers and I would chase around and around that long dining room table whoop and hollering playing a game we called Bear Round the Table. Mom never got over Junes death. I don't believe Pop ever did either. I guess even after 12 kids, the baby of any family has a special place in peoples hearts. And June was special."
Grandchildren remember the love and special feeling Ida had for them. All agree with cousin Margail: "Grandma Ida greeted me with hugs and kisses as if I was the only grandchild she had. She had a way of making each child feel like he or she was "the special one." Sharon: "Grandma had a way with children that was very rare. When Danny was an infant, he was very sickly and cried steady. One night after he had been crying for over an hour, I had been walkng the floor with him, but there was no comforting him. Grandma came out in her wheel chair, pushed by her nurse. She said, "give me that baby." I handed Danny to her, and I will never forget what happened. He was only a couple months old, but he looked up at her, smiled, buried his face in her arms and went to sleep. It was absolutely unbelievable; the love between Grandma and all of the children."
Ida lived with her daughter Charlotte in Savanna, IL until her death at he age of 93. She never lacked for company, with some of her family always visiting. Being a religious lady, she wouldn't touch a drop of alcohol, not even when the doctor prescribed a sip of wine daily for blood circulation at the last.
On Ida's 90th birthday, she was interviewed for a feature story in the Savanna, IL newspaper. "Ida recalls the year over 80 years ago, when as a little girl she drank cistern water rather than go to the well. She suffered typhoid fever as a result, and this caused her to lose her heavy head of long black straight hair, of which she was very proud. It grew back, but his time it was curly. Ida played the piano as a young woman and grew to love good music. She especially remembers a popular song of the day, "Ida", which her future husband, George Helle sang to her quite often during their courtship. Ida's best friend was Bertha Helle (George's sister). Both had many male admirers and eventually they became known as "The Buckeye Beauties," the name Buckeye coming from the community in which they were reared."
Ethel: "Mom never lost interest in any of us, nor any of us in her, right up to the last. Mom told of small pox breaking out in Smithfield were they were living before I was born. Knowing my father's brother, Fred had an empty house in the country; she contacted him. He sent wagons, after her, the children and the furniture. Dad came home that night to find a note on the door telling him where they all were. Mom managed to miss the small pox epidemic that had left many dead in Smithfiled. This one story describes Mom. She never hesitated to act when any occasion came up that concerned any of us. Mom was always there."
SOURCE: Kaler Ancestry statistics came from family memories and "Jesse Braman and Nancy Ward" histories.
Note: Charlotte wrote: "I remember my childhood on the farm. Thirteen of us
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