![\"Homer](\"http:\/\/genealogygals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Homer-and-Utica-Ohio.jpg\" "\\"Homer")
<\/a>Here there was no depot, only a platform; the rain was still coming down.\u00a0 There was no one to meet her since the train was so far behind time.\u00a0 \u201cI laid my case before the conductor who went out on the platform and brot in a man whom he told to show me to a hotel.\u201d\u00a0 Laura followed the man, who had her handbox, through dark streets to a house where there was some sort of gathering and the man asked another man there to show her to a hotel.\u00a0 This man took her satchel and walked her through further dark alleys and streets to the main street of the town and finally to a building said to be a hotel.\u00a0 Laura ended up in a large dormitory sort of room with a number of beds, and \u201claid down to await the coming of dawn which could not be far distant by this time.\u00a0 And so, after shedding a few tears in\u00a0 pity for myself in this sad plight, I quietly gave myself up to the embrace of Morpheus\u201d<\/p>\nHer luck changed in the morning as she looked out on the street and recognized the store of the father of two college friends.\u00a0 She went into the store, met the brother of her friends, and was speedily taken in by the family.\u00a0 There she learned that the people who had been looking for her on the train had waited until midnight and then given up on the train arriving.\u00a0 \u201cIn those days there was no telegraphic communication to tell when trains were due.\u201d<\/p>\n
All\u2019s well that ends well, and Laura settled in to a school with about 40 pupils of all grades.\u00a0 She noted that the people there in central Ohio were very different from those of New England descent who she was used to in northern Ohio.\u00a0 Many were from Pennsylvania (as my mother also noted in Canton where she was raised).\u00a0 Laura reported that they were mostly Presbyterians and that they observed the Sabbath from sundown Saturday night to sundown Sunday night.\u00a0 This meant putting down all the usual work and going to church.\u00a0 \u201cThen at the close of the Sabbath service and the sun went down the knitting was resumed and other labors take up the same as any week day.\u201d\u00a0 During her time in Homer she was able to attend the State Teacher\u2019s Association at Columbus which occurred around the holidays when the school was on vacation.\u00a0 This refreshed and renewed her interest in her profession and she finished out this term with a last day of school demonstration for all the parents.<\/p>\n
The next job to come her way was at a new college in Iberia Ohio, which she said was in the southeastern part of the state but was actually in central Ohio in Morrow county.\u00a0 Iberia College had only been in existence one year; a young minister named Bigham was in charge along with a young woman teacher, Miss Butler.\u00a0 At the end of that first year the school needed a new instructor since apparently Miss Butler had in mind a different type of school than the founders.\u00a0 Laura didn\u2019t write much about her teaching experiences here, but reported about the president pro tem, and the churches in the town.\u00a0 She also told a story about a young lady who suffered the unexpected loss of her fiance to another woman.\u00a0 Her disappointment and grief were so severe that they \u201cbrought her to an early grave\u201d.<\/p>\n
As a Denman cousin noted to me in an email, Laura didn\u2019t include much detail in her memoir about her family of origin, usually only mentioning siblings as brother or sister but not by name.\u00a0 This lack of detail extended to her meeting Joseph W. Booth and their courtship. At the end of her memoir about her childhood days, Laura wrote two short paragraphs about the end of her teaching days and their marriage.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIn the fall of 1854, I took my leave of Iberia College and returned to my northern home, there to prepare for my marriage to Joseph W. Booth of Columbus, which was to take place in the early days of November.\u00a0 Busy, happy days were these, tho tinged with sorrow at thot of leaving the happy home nest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Family lore tells us that J.W. fell in love with Laura through the letters she wrote for her sister to her sister\u2019s husband, Dr. Parker.\u00a0 J.W. and his brother Henry had both gone West in about 1850-51 with Dr. Parker and others from Ohio.\u00a0 J.W. and Dr. Parker worked the placer mines for several years and it was probably during this time that J.W. would have had the opportunity to hear Laura\u2019s letters to her brother-in-law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 7th of November, 1854, soon rolled round and we were united in marriage by Prof. Munrow of Oberlin College in the presence of about forty relatives and friends.\u00a0 Our honey-moon was enjoyed in fitting up our cozy little home in Columbus, where we spent one year of happiness before entering upon our pioneer life\u2014the following chapters of which will give the reader some idea of the trials and hardships we encountered as we made our way toward the setting sun.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The first teaching job Laura was offered was in Homer, Licking county, Ohio.\u00a0 The typed transcript I have of Laura\u2019s memoir says it was Horner, but that was undoubtedly a misreading of her handwriting.\u00a0 The very small community (an unincorporated …<\/p>\n