The Wrong End of a Pitchfork

Drusilla Casson McKellip, my maternal great grandmother, is, without doubt, one of the more colorful characters in my ancestry. I don’t recall when I met her (I was a baby), but if I had possessed greater awareness at the time, I would have given her a high-five. More on that aspect later. 

 

Before researching this article, I did not know her first name. I had only heard Della. But my research answered another question: where in the world my grandmother came up with my aunt’s odd name—Lodema Drusilla? For years, I thought it was borrowed from one of the ugly step sisters in Cinderella. Actually, the ugly stepsister was “Drizella.” As to “Lodema,” that was my other maternal great grandmother’s middle name. While on the subject of research and given names, I learned that my Great-aunt Fern was actually named Edith. I never heard that either.

 

Although the information is somewhat sketchy, Great-grandmother Drusilla (hereafter, Della), somewhat notoriously for her time, had three different husbands. The first marriage was prior to 1895 and of unknown duration to a man with the surname Martin. 

 

Since Mr. Martin is only a footnote note to my genealogy, I didn’t spend much time investigating him, but I’m pretty sure he’s the husband who once came home intoxicated and passed out in the bed. While he was unconscious, Grandma Della sewed him up in the sheets and beat the tar out of him with a bed slat. Whether this caused the end of the marriage is unknown, but in my opinion, it would have provided lawful grounds. Regardless, he was undoubtedly bruised, sore, and not happy about the battery.

 

On October 13, 1895, Della married Civil War veteran David Alexander McKellip when she was 29-years-old. David, who always went by Alex, was 62 with three grown children from two prior marriages and a Civil War pension. He joined the Union forces in 1861 and served in the Ohio 13th Infantry until his honorable discharge at the end of the war. Notwithstanding his age, Great-grandpa Alex’s virility had not lapsed, since my Great-aunt Fern and my grandmother were born in 1896 and 1899, respectively. A third child of the marriage, Alexander, died shortly after birth.

 

My grandmother told me her father had an even disposition and was neat in appearance, paying particular attention to his full, red beard, and that he was partial to having pie for breakfast. On the other hand, she had no such praise for her mother. In fact, when I asked her about Della, Grandma said, “She was an old rip.” 

 

The stories my grandmother told me about Della painted a picture of a stern woman. When Grandma and Aunt Fern were younger, Della would take them to the Mercer County Fair (Illinois), and buy them buggy whips. At the fair the girls got to play with the whips, but as soon as they got home, Della took the whips away and placed them over doorways in the house so they were readily available to whip the girls. According to Grandma, this happened frequently. 

 

I’m glad I have a fancy vegetable peeler, because every time I peel potatoes, I think of Della. If Grandma or Fern left too much potato on the peel, she made them peel all the peels. Now, that I think about it, on the farm Grandma used a wooden-handled potato peeler. Hmmm? 

 

One evening, some boys “tick-tacked” the McKellip’s house. Tick-tacking was a prank, often pulled on Halloween, that typically used a gadget made with a thread spool, a nail, and string to make a mysterious, tapping sound against a window. When the someone came to the door, the pranksters would make scary sounds to frighten the resident before running off. It was an old-fashioned version of ringing a doorbell and skedaddling when someone came to the door.

 

That evening, the pranksters hid under the front porch, waiting to scare whoever came to the door. Della didn’t disappoint. She opened the door, but carried a double-barreled shotgun. The boys could see her through the spaces in the floorboards. She knew they were below, and said, “You can come out, now, boys.” She let them go, I was told, after some stern words. 

 

Perhaps, her most notorious event happened in their barn when Alex and another man, whose name has been lost to history, got in a dispute. The man shoved Alex to the ground and started beating him with his fists. Della yelled at him to stop, but when he continued, Della grabbed a pitchfork and stabbed him. He yelled in pain, and Della reportedly said, “I told you to stop.” Her action ended the fight. My brother confirmed that the ruffian recovered from his wounds. 

 

With his health declining, in 1910 Alex entered the Illinois Soldiers’ and Sailors' Home in Quincy, Illinois, at age 77. On November 23, 1910, Della placed her daughters in the Soldiers and Sailors Orphans Home located in Normal, Illinois. Apparently, as harsh as it seems, it was not an unusual occurrence for a widow or wife, who felt unable to provide for her children, to place them in an orphanage. 

 

Nevertheless, the circumstance strikes me as sad, and I can only imagine the sense of abandonment the girls, 11- and 14-years-old, felt. Occasionally, when Grandma mentioned her time there, she often said, “I could tell when one of the orphans died, because they always played ‘Taps’ that evening.” 

 

On June 1, 1912, Della removed Fern from the orphanage, but Beulah remained there until April 20, 1913. After Alex died in July 1915, Della married a man named Reynolds, and they and Beulah moved to Shannon County in the Missouri Ozarks. I know little about the third husband, other than Grandma referred to him as “Daddy Reynolds.” 

 

It was in the Ozarks that Beulah McKellip met my future grandfather Riley Casey, and Della met her match. In 1915, when Beulah was 15 or 16, Riley began courting her. On one occasion, he had made arrangements to take her to a pie supper and arrived at her house driving a horse and buggy. Beulah hurried to meet him as he arrived and got onto the buggy.

 

Della rushed from the house, grabbed the horse’s bridle, and said, “Riley Casey, you’ll not take my daughter anywhere!” Grandpa rolled up his shirt sleeves and said, “You put yourself in the place of a man. You’ll take what a man takes.” As he got out of the buggy, Della hightailed it back to the house. Grandma and Grandpa were married on November 30, 1916. She had just turned 17 on November 16. Interestingly, she still needed her mother’s consent.

 

Sometime later, Della returned to Illinois, and during World War II, my grandparents also moved to northern Illinois where my mother worked in a defense plant. When I was about six-months old, my mother hired a photographer to come to our house to photograph my brother and me. The whole family was there that day, including Great-grandma Della.

 

After several attempts at positioning me, the photographer said, “That baby is not photogenic.” His comment apparently did not sit well with Della. She sneaked into the kitchen, grabbed a butcher knife, and was making a beeline toward the photographer, before my mother disarmed and restrained her. She was 82, with failing eyesight, but an undaunted spirit. 

 

Now, you know the reason I would have given her a high-five. For Mr. Photographer’s sake, it is a good thing a pitchfork wasn’t handy. 

 

My thanks to the Illinois State Archives staff and my older, smarter brother for their research assistance.