Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler by Pardee Butler
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actually lived, and if it were necessary that I should be chastened to
bear with patience all its disabilities, then, I suppose, this discipline I actually got might be considered good and useful. If I have been able to bear provocation with patience, and to labor cheerfully without wages, and at every personal sacrifice, this lesson was learned when I saw all my hope dashed in pieces." In the spring of 1850 father sold his property and decided to go to Iowa. Shortly before the time of starting, my little sister and baby brother took the scarlet fever and, ere long, they were both laid in the old graveyard. Heart-broken as my parents were, they did not give up the long, lonely journey. Father bought a farm in Iowa, and built a log house on it, intending to become a farmer. He and mother united with the nearest church, at Long Grove, sixteen miles distant. Father did not tell them at first that he had been a preacher, but they questioned him and learned the facts. As his health improved he occasionally preached for them. Eld. N. A. McConnell gives the following account of his preaching in Iowa: "I first met him at his temporary home in Posten's Grove, in the fall of 1850. During that winter he taught a school in Dewitt, Clinton Co., and preached occasionally at Long Grove. The next spring he attended a co-operation meeting at Walnut Grove, Jones Co., at which he was employed to labor with me in what was called District No. 2. His district included the counties of Scott, Clinton, Jackson, Jones, Cedar, Johnson, a part of Muscatine, Linn and Benton, and west to the Missouri river. He preached at LeClaire, Long Grove, Allen's Grove, Simpson's, Big Rock, Green's School-house, Walnut Grove, Marion, Dry Creek, |
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