Peter Isaac Edson ^11,15

  General Notes:

From: Writings of Dorcas Dorothy EdsonDavis
"My father's childhood was, I have determined, quite different than that of my mother. Grandfather Edson's name was Henry Wells. Father's mother's name was Frances Deliah Gundy.
Henry Wells Edson had a former marriage. His first wife, Mehetable Orcutt, died. There were several children by that marriage who were quite grown up when he married Francis Deliah. Henry Wells' second family, apparently, had no relationship whatsoever with the first family. Francis Deliah had four children, Viola Ninette, Adam Lemuel, Peter Isaac (my father), and Eli Varnum. Considering the boys' names,one might suppose the girl to be called Sarah, or Abigail or something biblical. Instead we have romantic "Viola". This says something, I believe, about Francis Deliah. I have an old, faded photograph of the four children. The photograph indicates their ages when it was taken tobe somewhere between 14 or so and 7 or 8. Viola died at the age of 15 from diphtheria. That disease was a terrible scourge in those days.
Henry Wells, the father, died at the age of 72. My father was six years old at the time. The family lived in a very rural district nearRichland Center, Wisconsin. I do not know whether the Edsons owned a farm or not. At any rate, after the father died, Frances Deliah and herlittle family were in very hard straits.
Wisconsin in the winter time is, I am told, miserably cold - a we tpenetrating cold- much different than the cold experienced in the Rockies. My father spoke often of this bitter weather.
When he was a very little boy, he and his brothers would go into the woods where woodsmen were cutting trees, and they would gather chips and bits of discarded wood, thus implementing the meager supply at home. He also spoke of having been hungry. Needless to say, he didn't speak of these things very often. The stories he told me when I was a little girl were about creeks, lakes, and what fun he had goin' fishin'
As was my mother's custom, he told me about the birds, little animals and trees. Of course we were living in Phoenix at that time - the second decade of this century. Cool springs, babbling brooks, green woodsy places sounded wonderful to me.

Rosebeth and Peter Edson As I have said, my mother was older than my father. When she was a younger woman she had experienced a very unhappy love affair. Once, when I was a child, I ran across an old photograph of a very dashing young gentleman with an astounding moustache. My mother took the photograph away from me and I never saw it again. I do not remember whether it was she or my sister who told me this was the man she had been engaged to and that he had jilted her. She never, so my sister said, got over this unhappy experience.
My mother was greatly influenced by the feminist movement of the nineteenth century. She was forever getting excited over some cause or some abused wife. I vaguely remember some incidents. Her poor health prevented her from carrying out her desires. I am sure that any woman with the determination, intelligence and energy such as my mother had, would feel a great sense of frustration because the weakness of body, denied her a more active and purposeful life. It would only be natural if such a woman visited some of the results of this frustration on her family. Such was the case with my mother. She and my sister, Hope, never did get along very well and my poor father from time to time would shrug his shoulder and gesture with his hand in a helpless sort of way. Nevertheless, neither I nor my sister ever heard him give my mother a truly cross word, and during her many bad spells with her heart, he tenderly cared for her. This is another story. I am getting ahead of myself. The close of the 19^th Century found my immediate family in fairly good condition. The Towar-Edson setup was well thought of and prosperous. Grandfather and Grandmother had taken the young Peter Edson under his wing, so to speak, in order to care for their frail daughter. They liked Peter, too, for his own sake. He was a lovable man. He in turn always spoke so very kindly of his mother and father-in-law. In 1905 my mother contracted tuberculosis. In those days there was no treatment except rest and, preferably a warm dry climate in which to live. The farm was sold. Old ties were severed. The family moved to Arizona. My sister, Hope, was five years old. I was born in 1911, and everything was different. One interesting and helpful occurrence did happen. I seems, my father had a distant cousin, a certain George Edson who was a genealogist. George Edson looked up the Edson family tree and sent a copy of this family record to all the living Edsons. I was 10 years old at the time. I think my nephew, Frank Martini, may have this little booklet unless it has, over the years, disintegrated. ^8,11

Peter married Rose Elizabeth "Rosebeth" Towar, daughter of Francis Reuben Towar and Mary Lucina Bacon, on 30 Nov 1899 in Iowa Falls, Hardin County, IA. (Rose Elizabeth "Rosebeth" Towar was born on 29 Sep 1870 in Lena, Stephenson County, Illinois and died on 3 May 1928 in Phoenix, Maricopa, Arizona.)