Person:Richard Lynam (2)

  The Bath County Kentucky census of 1860 shows Richard Lee Lynam living with his parents.

Richard Lynam, 70 years, farmer Sarah Lynam, 66 Richard Lynam 23 years Mary Lynam 25 years (his wife) Sarah Lynam, 5 William Lynam 6/12 years

  His family appeared in the 1870 Bath County, KY census.

1870, Bath Co., KY Census R. H. Lynam, 36 farmer Mary J. Lynam, 37 Sarah J. Lynam, 15 William A. Lynam, 10 John F. Lynam, 8 David Lynam, 6

  1880, Elk County, Greenfield Twp. (Grenola) census

Richard Lynam Mary J. Lynam Sarah John F. Lynam Sarah John F. Lynam

  In 1882, Richard Lynam moved to Mercer County, Missouri.
  In 1898, Richard and Mary Lynam, Sarah Lynam Collins and her daughters, Sue Mattie, Edith Hester and Leona Dale, David and Sidie Lynam and their daughters, Grace and Blanche moved from Mercer Co., MO to a farm eight miles north of Howard, know as the Mills Place.
  After Mary's death, Richard Lee Lyman made his home with his son John Foster Lynam of Moline and his daughter, Sarah Lynam Collins Gault of Howard.  He died at the home of his daughter.

Recollections of Lynam Grandparents by Emaline (Andrews) Leonard

  To me they were as unlike as two people could be yet they got along well together which is to be expected of people who have lived together for over fifty years.  I don't know how long they were married before Grandma died but you have the vital statistics and can figure it out.  (61 years)  Grandma died when she was eighty and I was thirteen.
  I think if someone would have said to them, I want to write something about your life, Grandmother would probably have said, "You are wasting your time.  No one would be interested in reading about an old woman who has spent her life just doing ordinary things that every farmer's wife does."  She would probably thought you were a little queer to be thinking about doing such a thing.
  I think Grandpa would have been flattered and thought you were a pretty smart fellow to see that he was a man worthy of such an honor.  He probably would have said, "Well now, I haven't been too successful as far as acquiring this worlds goods is concerned, but I've been a good husband and father and haven't had to depend on anyone for anything since I was a child."  Then he would have talked for days telling you of times when he was just about to get ahead a little but there would be some kind of bad luck or some crook would cheat him out of something, etc.  For instance, he always held it against a banker if he borrowed money and gave a cow as collateral and he couldn't pay the banker money and the banker came for the cow.  He always acted as though the banker had lots of money and shouldn't insist on payment.
  Grandpa was in his seventies when I first remembered him and of course wasn't able to do much work and didn't.  He would have a cow which Grandma milked most of the time.  She would strain the milk through a piece of cheese cloth and then carry it a distance of about a block, in the summer time and hang it in a spring to keep it sweet to make gravy with, and so the cream would have time to raise before it cooked in the heat.  She would skim the cream and hang it in the spring to keep cool.  Before each meal a trip had to be made to the spring to get milk, better and cream and drinking water for the meal.  Grandma and Grandpa always drank tea and they usually made it from water from the rain barrel and also used for cooking and laundry except in times of low rainfall or when mosquito eggs hatched into wiggle tails.  She tried to keep the barrel covered with cloth to keep out mosquitos and dirt.  When water wasn't available from the rain barrel, it had to be carried from the spring.
  She always did the laundry outside except in extremely cold weather.  She had a large iron kettle in which to heat water.  She washed all the clothes by scrubbing them on a washboard with lye soap and then she filled up the iron kettle and boiled all the white clothes in it, but not all at once.  First tablecloths, napkins and tea towels or anything used with food, then shirts, blouses and sheets and pillow cases, then towels and underwear.  As she didn't have many of each, they could have all gone in together except that would not have been clean.  She was very clean about everything.
  When water was scarce the iron kettle was carried near the spring and the washing done there, but it really didn't make much difference about the amount of water that was carried as she always used the wash water to scrub the house and the toilet and any left over was used on plants in the yard or garden.  Clothes were usually laid on the grass or hung on bushes to dry.  Laying towels and tea towels on the grass was supposed to whiten them.
  Grandma had two other big 50 gallon barrels besides the rain barrel.  One sat on a wooden rack high enough for a ten gallon stone jar to set under a faucet near the bottom of the barrel.  She saved all her wood ashes in this and then ran rain water through them to leach out the lye for making lye soap.  She cooked the cracklings (which is what was left when she rendered the fat from the hogs they butchered for meat, to make lard), in the lye water and made the soap which was used for laundry cleaning, bathing, dish washing and all other jobs.  She cooked the soap in the big iron kettle used to heat the water for the laundry, then she poured it into low, tight wooden boxes to cool and dry, but slightly.  When it could be cut into squares, it was laid on boards to dry, usually high in an out building or attic where mice and rats could not get to it as they would eat it.  Air had to circulate around it to dry it and keep it from molding.  After it was dry it could be packed in wooden boxes and stored in a dry place.
  The other barrel was used to making vinegar.  She saved all the apple rinds in the barrel in which she had put some rain water.  It lay on its side in a wooden rack and had an opening with a cover in the side to put the apple rinds in and a faucet in one end to drain the vinegar out into stone or glass jugs or jars after it fermented.  She used this vinegar in making cucumber, pear, apple, peach and watermelon rind pickles and they were delicious.
  Grandpa raised the corn and potatoes and Grandma raised the rest of the garden.  Most of the garden was used fresh except the potatoes, turnips and cabbage which was stored for winter in pits in the ground.  Grandma had a few cans and she canned a few tomatoes, peaches and apples but most of what she preserved was by drying.
  In the summer she dried corn, apples, peaches and pears on trays made of wooden frames with cheese cloth stretched across the bottom.  She spread the food on the trays to dry in the sun and put cheese cloth cover over the top to keep off flies and dirt.  They had to bring it in each evening and carry it out each morning to keep them out of the dew and then too it might rain in the night.  If a rain came in the daytime there was a big scramble to get the drying food to shelter.  When it was dried it was put into flour sacks and hung from the rafters where the air could circulate around it.  When it was to be used, it had to be soaked in water for awhile, Grandma usually soaked it overnight.
  You might think it didn't taste good but it did, especially the dried apple pie.  The dried apples you buy do not taste the same now.  I have thought several times I would dry enough apples to make a pie or two but I never have.
  She did not know how to can green beans but she raised beans to shell and used dry in the winter.
  Grandma cured the hogs they killed in the winter and smoked the hams and bacon to use later.   She always had a flock of chickens and some of them had names and she would talk to them like they were children.  They never had beef to eat, probably there was no way of preserving it, though I know some people did dry it but I never thought it tasted very good.  Most probably they needed to sell the calf or two they might raise, to buy the flour, corn meal, sugar and tea they bought.  They bought a little clothing and very little else.
  Grandpa went about once a week to visit and sell the eggs and butter which they didn't use themselves.
  Grandma did not have a sewing machine so she made everything by hand, including all the underwear, night clothes, Grandpas shirts and all except his trousers and coats.  I think she did make those in her younger days.  She made underwear, aprons, sheets, pillowcases and tablecloths from flour sacks.  Flour sacks in those days came with labels printed or painted on them and sometimes it was quite a job to get the printing bleached out.  Sometimes she wasn't successful so she used these to put her dried fruit in or to make quilt lining.  Of course she had to piece the sheets and tablecloths.  She made flat felled seams by hand.  On the tablecloth seams she would feather stitch with what was called turkey red thread which was the only red thread she could get at the time that was fast color.  It was about the size of thirty crochet cotton but was a softer twist.  She used this thread a lot for decoration.  She decorated nearly everything she made.  She used no patterns for the decorations.  She used mostly outline or running stitches.  She made some quite pretty work by drawing threads and making fancy hemstitching drawnwork on pillowcases, aprons and what she called "tidies" which were square doilies and small table covers.
  Most of her small tables were made from wooden boxes in the rough state so they needed covers.
  She had a way of attaching a ruffle to petticoats or pillowcases that I never saw anyone else do.  It may have been original with her so I will describe it.  My curved line isn't very even but if you turn down the edge of a piece of material and make running stitches in a curvy line and gather it up you will have shirred scalloped edge.  She fastened it to the pillow case as she went along.  I fastened the flounce on my graduation slip this way but I couldn't fasten it on as I made it.  She did some cross stitch work on checked gingham.
  grandma made Grandpas everyday shirts from blue chambray and his Sunday shirt from white percale.  For everyday she wore calico mother hubbards in gray or brown.  A mother hubbard was about two widths of material gathered to a round or square yoke and it hung loose to the ankles.  It buttoned down the front to below the waistline and always had a high neck usually with a small collar and long sleeves which were gathered in a band at the wrist.  When she was washing or scrubbing she would turn the sleeves up to her elbow but put them down again when she was done.  She wore an apron over her dress all the time.  she sometimes bought ginghams for these as it wore better than calico but these were to wear mostly when she had company or when she went visiting, until they got old.  For everyday she wore aprons made from the skirts of her calico dresses.  She had a pretty white lawn apron trimmed with lace which she wore to church, when she didn't wear a flour sack apron with drawn work.
  She had a black law dressed trimmed in lace and a slat bonnet to match which she wore to church in warm weather.  In winter she wore a black mohair skirt which was rather wiry in texture and a black blouse which may be been made of flannel.  On her head in winter she wore a hood crocheted of black yarn or a lined heavy satin hood which was also black.  She wore her clothes until they wore out as she wasn't going to change her style anyway.
   She never threw anything away.  She made quilts, comforts and rugs from scraps of cloth.  The worn parts of garments were crocheted or braided into rungs.  You can see she kept busy and when anyone would say she shouldn't work so hard she would always say, "Hard work never killed anyone but some people nearly worked themselves to death trying to keep from working."
  One thing Grandma didn't do was feed the hogs.  I think Grandpa liked to watch them eat.  I can see him standing with one foot up on the fence which was usually made of boards or stone, watching the hogs and spitting tobacco, he always stayed until the hogs were through eating.
   To occupy his time Grandpa would whittle and chew tobacco.  He never whittled anything he just whittled.  Sometimes if he was whittling in the house he would whittle up part of a box for kindling to start the wood fire.
  He also chewed tobacco in the house and spit in a spittoon which Grandma cleaned everyday and sometimes oftener.  She waited on him a lot and I heard her say one time that he didn't think anything about people waiting on him as he grew up with servants to wait on him.  So I was not surprised when you said you thought the Lynam side of the family had more money than the Anderson side.  I've also heard Grandma make remarks that made me think Grandpas folks thought he had married beneath himself.  It didn't bother Grandma any as she measured people by what they were and not by what they had and she took the attitude that most other people felt the same way.
  Grandma had a little white rat terrier dog which she called Fannie.  She was quite intelligent and well trained and she had the run of the house.  Grandma talked to her like a child and the dog seemed to understand.  Grandma gave Richard (Andrews) one of Fannie's pups when we came back from Oklahoma to live and we kept him until we moved to town and then we gave it to Bob Stephens.  Richard was a favorite of both Grandma and Grandpa, probably because his name was Richard.  I remember Grandma holding Richard when he was a baby and saying "Poor little boy, you don't have a chance with four older sisters."  Your guess is good as mine about what she meant.
  Grandpa was usually complaining about some ache or pain and when you asked him how he felt he would tell you in detail.  Grandma didn't have time to feel bad.   She would sometimes have what they called "fainting spells" and would fall down in the yard or wherever she was.  Of course everyone and especially Grandpa would become quite alarmed.  She would always say, "I don't know what the fuss is about.  I feel better now than I did before I fainted."  So she wasn't always feeling well, even though she kept going.  Of course there was danger that she might fall into the fire or the spring so her children worried a lot.  They finally talked her into what was called "breaking up housekeeping" which meant you went to live with your children, only taking of your possessions those things that would fit into your children's homes.
  She worried Grandma Gault (daughter Sarah) when she came to live with her as she always was cutting quilt blocks or carpet rags and got lint and raveling on the floor as well as having boxes setting around with her work in them.  (Grandma Gault was always neat and clean.  I don't think she could have lived with me.)  Grandma Lynam died while she was living with her son and she was buried in the Moline Cemetery. (Kansas)
  Grandpa nearly died when Grandma did and was in bed for a long time with people waiting on him.  Whether he was really ill or lonely I do not know.  He spent most of the rest of his life living with Grandma Gault.  They were very much alike and got along very well together.  About the only thing he did that worried her was when he took his horse and buggy and traveled around over the country peddling things like pencils, needles and thread, etc.  He would be gone for a week or more at a time.  Few people had telephones at that time so she never know where he was.  I don't suppose he made much and Grandma called it begging as he depended on the kindness of the public for his meals and a place to sleep.  I expect some people thought his children were cruel to send him out peddling in his eighties.  I don't now how they could have prevented it.  They tried to talk him out of it.
  Not long after Grandma Lynam died Grandpa had a sick spell and could not chew tobacco and he never started again.  Everyone thought it would have been wonderful if it had happened before Grandma died as she was so against his chewing and would have been happy when he quit.
  Grandpa and Grandma Lynam had nine children but only four lived to grow up.  Aunt Sudie spent a lot of her life with them.  Why, I do not know.  In those days parents sometimes let their children live wit someone else if they could provide better for them and I expect they could use her help.  Of course after Grandma's husband died she took her family to live with them and she did housework for other people to make a living for them.
  Grandma and Grandpa were different in looks as they were in other ways.  Grandpa was blond with blue eyes and features very much like Grandma Gault's.  He was about 6 feet tall and was very straight and slender for an old man.  When I first knew him his hair was long and white and he had a long white beard, very "Santa Claus" looking at his head.  Grandma looked very much like Aunt Sudie.  I don't think she was quite as tall and she was not nearly as heavy.  She was very tiny and frail looking.  She had very dark hair and bright dark eyes.  She wore her hair combed straight back with a bun on the back of her head.  She never wore any makeup or jewelry which was not uncommon at that time.  When I knew her she seldom went anyplace except to church unless someone in the neighborhood was sick, then she would go to help take care of the.
  There were a few cars around in her time but she wouldn't ride in one and thought anyone was crazy who did.  Grandpa rode in cars after her death.
  This is a rather disconnected group of memories as has tun on long enough.  You will probably tire of reading them especially as there as so many mistakes.  You make the corrections.  I did well to write it and if I had thought of construction, I would not have written it.

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   Obituary - HOWARD COURANT CITIZEN - Thursday, Jan. 17, 1929
   Richard Lee, son of Richard and Sally Lynam was born in Bath County, KY, Aug 26, 1836 and departed this life, January 14th 1929 at the home of his daughter, Mrs. J. W. Gault in Howard, Kansas.
   He grew to manhood in Kentucky, and on July 17, 1854 was united in marriage with Mary Jane Anderson. To this union were born nine children six of whom with his wife preceded him to the better world.
   Those left to mourn his departure are Mrs. J. W. Gault of Howard, William A. of Columbus, Ohio and John of Moline, Kansas, besides his grand children and great grandchildren and a host of relative and friends.
   In 1878 he came with his family to Kansas, locating near Valley Center where he resided for four years. In 1882 he removed his family to Mercer County, Missouri, residing there a few years, returning to Kansas about 30 years ago, since which time he has resided in Elk County. Since his wife's death 13 years ago he has made his home with his son at Moline and his daughter at Howard. At the age of 20 years he was converted and joined the Methodist church of which he was a faithful member. In his younger days he had an active part in all church work, acting as class leader and superintendent of Sunday School. In his last years he has suffered much but bore his affliction with patience until Jesus called him home. He was a loving husband and father, an honest friend and loved by all who knew him.
   Burial services were held at the M.E. Church in Howard and interment in Moline cemetery. The pall bearers were his grandson and great grandsons.
   
   Card of Thanks. We wish to thank our friends for all their kindness during the illness and death of our father. Also for the beautiful floral offerings. Mrs. J. W. Gault, John. F. Lynam, Wm. A. Lynam.