July 9, 1931

Mrs. Oscar Fred is ill at the hospital. I was Dist. Guardian neighbor at Choteau 23-24 of June.[1. Mary was a member of the Neighbors of Woodcraft.] Received congratulations for my good work. The drills and kitchen band and other entertainments were fine. Then I visited all the relations on Mr. Geo. Schenk‘s side at Gt. Falls and Neihart coming home July -6, 1931. A fierce rain storm which was on while I was at Jack Tripp’s forming a lake which Anna Tripp[1. Mary’s first husband George and Anna Tripp’s mother Katherine were half-cousins.] and I now boated on. My first boat ride was 40 yrs. ago. I was on a pleasure boat from Cincinnati, Ohio to Cooney [sic]  Island down the Missouri River[3.In 1891, Mary made a trip back east with her family. It was on that trip that she received her First Holy Communion in her mother’s home town of North Vernon, Indiana. Apparently the family also traveled to Cincinnati where they most likely visited with relatives from her father’s side of the family, the Rumpings. I believe Mary meant to write that she was on a pleasure boat – probably the steamer known as the Guiding Star – from Cincinnati to Coney Island on the Ohio River, rather than the Missouri River. Coney Island, located about 10 miles east of downtown Cincinnati, was originally known as “Ohio Grove, The Coney Island of the West”, and opened in June of 1886. By the time Mary visited there in 1891, it was simply known as “Coney Island”. The Guiding Star made four runs a day, at 9 am, 1 pm, 4 pm and 7 pm. The cost was fifty cents round trip – 60 minutes one way – and also included park admission.], & then I was on the Missouri when 1 1/2 yrs. old coming from St. Louis to Fort Benton in 1879.

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