The Chariton Leader, Chariton, Iowa Thursday, April 19, 1906 MRS. W.J. RUSSELL residing near Oakley, was a Leader caller, Tuesday, for the purpose of renewing her allegiance to Lucas County's great weekly. MRS. RUSSELL became reminiscent thru some remark and talked interestingly of the olden times. She is a native of England, coming to this country in 1849 with her parents. She said a frame house to her was formerly as great a wonder as the sod house is to the Iowa people now-a-days and was ten years of age before she beheld one. The buildings of England are of brick and stone and even in her girlhood some of them were of great age. Their ocean voyage from Liverpool to Philadelphia consisted of 28 days, thence across country their route lay until they reached the Ohio River. The balance of the trip was made by steamboat down the Ohio to Cairo and up the Mississippi. The Asiatic plague was raging at the time and on board their boat were fourteen cases of cholera. It seemed an unpropitious introduction to a strange country. In t! hose days ocean voyages had to be made in the old fashioned sailing vessels and modern equipped railroad trains were yet only things in the minds of the dreamers. What interesting stories these older people can relate. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert October 9, 2004 [email protected]