This, my total recollection of the family history, is prompted by a senseless argument at Beef Eaters 12/20/87.

My Great Grandfather Morgan Burdick came to Pennsylvania in the late 1700 and in 1838 moved to Tippecanoe, Town of Lake, later absorbed by Milwaukee. The farm house burned down but his brothers place (uncle Orc Burdick) is as far as I know still standing on Whitnall Ave. His son, my grandfather Geo Bradford Burdick married Jemima Risden (Risden) and begat 9 children of which my mother Sarah Frances and Ellen (Nellie) were the youngest. They had 2 sisters alive and Florence the oldest. 5 brothers Sam (you met) Geo (you met) Fred Frank and Charles. You met Aunt Flo at the Lake.

My father and his brother Fred came to America out of poverty in Ireland and wound up in a Lumber camp in Minnesota. My grandfather Thomas remained in Ireland [in 2018, we know this grandfather was named "Andrew"]. I never learned about him as he died before I was born 9/12/06. He [Thomas Alexander McFarland] was a post master in Hibbing, Minn when he married my mother. I never learned how they met. She disliked Hibbing and persuaded my father to move to Milwaukee, where I 9/12/06 Eugene 12/19/08 and Eileen 3/18/11 were born. My father had a difficult time and could find only work as a horse drawn street car driver and later as a motorman, a hard life as they then had to be outside in all kinds of weather: no inside cabs then. We lived in a flat at 7th & Michigan, in the 3000 block on Frederick Av, and the last on E. North Av, next door to what later became Frenchies. The only recollection I have outside of coasting on the street, and falling on my face with four ice cream cones, was my grandfather Burdick bringing peanut brittle which I enjoyed. Enter Aunt Nellie, who had a good job with the Pacific Surety Co. She persuaded our family to move 1911 San Francisco, where the weather would be more clement. Again trouble, Dad ran into the native son problem as only people born in California were favored. He wound up as a motorman on a street car. We lived in the little flat I showed you at the head of Fillmore Street. They had a hard time paying the 15.^oo monthly rent.

My uncle Fred had a $40,000 bumper crop in 1916 and he offerred Dad a partnership as he was a bachelor and they would work two farms (one he bought for the purpose and mother could take care of the household. We arrived in March 1917 unprepared for cold weather and had to suffer a 10 mile ride on an open hay wagon before we reached uncle Freds one room cabin. We were all thirsty and gulped water with a ladle in a bucket. It was well water as I now tell you, so alkali we all gasped at the after taste.

As soon as possible, the men moved a cabin from the farm uncle Fred bought and joined them together with a storage room between. Heated by a pot belly in one room and a kitchen range in the other, we survived by scavenging driftwood from the river bed (we could not afford coal). If we didn't wake up several times a night to replenish the fire, the water on the far side of the room would freeze. No electricity, phone. We hauled spring water from 3 miles away for drinking during two crop failures. We had a total cash income of $175 ^oo in 1919 and 1920. We lived by trading butter and eggs for groceries (mostly flour for bread and beans) and by a garden we kept alive by hauling water from the spring.

After the crops were in, Dad would work for the company (Flowerie Sheep and Horse Co) milking the cows before he went to work if we were at school and we helped him when we could. In the summer I worked for a neighbor Billie Sharp who taught me how to run and repair the tractor and also how to run a threshing machine. When he was away I ran the whole outfit.

The farmers (our neighbors could not aford to hire anyone, so at threshing time, they would all trade work, so for 3 days held Dad had to give 3 days work. As it took 8-10 men to run the threshing machine, they all owed each other almost a months time. It was a rugged cashless life, as if you had a small crop, you didn't have much left after you paid last years grainery bill, bought seed for the next years crop, and paid off some of the mortgage.

We all slept in one room and during this time Alberta was inadvertently conceived. I should remember that my mother hated it and went back to Milw for a visit, contracted pneumonia and was within an inch of death. Later she came to love Montana. They lost the farm, and with the meager proceeds of an auction sale, they retired to Great Falls where they acquired the little house and lived on their garden and on what mother could make by canvassing selling such things as shampoo, sanitary belts, etc like a private Avon lady. She had regular customers and they managed to live comfortably by close management quite different from the farm where mother spent mamy a sleepless night worrying how they were going to manage. Dad worked his tail off. Neither complained. At Xmas time we were overjoyed to get a package from Milwaukee, usually some used clothing, a half dozen oranges, a pound of nuts, some canned goods and dried fruit.

Gene and I were so proud of a couple of jackets from St Johns Military school and a couple of Fedora hats from uncle Sam which we converted to cowboy hats while I was working for my board in Chateau (no money. I got some money from carrying out basement ashes around the neighborhood). At Chateau I came home for the holidays. I found my mother at the RR station proud as punch of a one horse buggy she bought for $5. Before that we had to ride in a wagon.

Things were always tight and Eugene took off for Milwaukee, stayed with Aunt Nell for a while and wound up as an operator for ADT (Burglar alarm systems) and an apartment at State and Milwaukee St where he was when I went to Milwaukee on a vacation in 1927 (Xmas day) fully intending to return to farm work. I too lived with Aunt Nellie on a cot in an attic room. Eileen, Grandma Burdick (Aunt Jemima) and Nellie lived downstairs.

Nellie persuaded the Journal (Mr Robinson) and on 3/5/28 I tool a job as telephone collector. I made out well worked hard and when a job higher up opened up I bounced in asked for it. I didn't get it but they never forgot I was out there. When they wanted part time help on a bookkeepping machine, I got it. Later I got a job as a cost accountant I didn't like, so they moved me back to credit as asst to Walter Smith. Did very well but Robinson thought I violated a confidence and in 1933 I was transferred to the Sales Dept. I think he thought I would fail and get fired. I was very successful sold more advertising contracts than any before or since, got married in 1936, and when Smith and Robinson had a fight, I got his job as credit mgr. I got no indoctrination and had to learn it by experience. Again I was lucky. The credit men at Chicago (Hugarten and Lightbody) of the Tribune and Podesack of the Daily News coached me, warned me about bad risks (called Abert and persuaded him to let me attend the credit mens convention in Toronto which you attended with me. I brought back some good ideas and this was the start of attendance at many conventions.

Now to back track: Aunt Nellie got into financial trouble took off in 1935 with Eileen and a Chrysler Imperial she couldn't afford. I never got her address; perhaps she was afraid if I got it, Abert and others would learn it. I was asked about it several times and I could honestly say I didn't know. I learned through Alberta she (Eileen) had married and had two girls. For the reasons I have described to you, she (Eileen) seemed to have disowned her mother. Whether this was due to Aunt Nell's influence I don't know, but I don't think so, for as an unmarried woman she (Nellie) seemed always trying to be helpful to the McFarland family. This seems to be reinforced by a falling out between Eileen, who now calls herself Sharon Parker, and Aunt Nell (a supposition) as Aunt Nell moved to San Diego and I never heard from her until she wrote and asked me to loan her money. This was at the time Brian was stricken with encephalitis. I declined and never heard from her again. Alberta told me she had passed away.

Mother and Dad write me quite often. Her last letter was in the desk with others along with some from Dad, all of which you have seen. I found $700 ^oo in the unclaimed money at the 1st Wis which uncle Lee deposited in 1910 and forgot about. I sent it to mother and she sent me back 100 ^oo which certainly helped me out when I had to borrow 5 ^oo from Roy Simpson or from Mike to last until pay day. You will recall that I was accused of being stingy, an epithet I never deserved.

I went to Milwaukee with $3000 ^oo (I worked the grain separator for Billy Sharp for 105 days at 25 ^oo a day and board) and when I retired I ?? M & I Bank $110,000 ^oo, which included the 35,000 ^oo down on the house at 87 W. State and the ?? Los Feliz house. Contrary to your opinion, the Journal stock never cost me a penny out of my salary, but in fact, after I borrowed 5000 ^oo from your father and paid him with a loan I was able to get from the State Bank of Milwaukee, I had some stock free of pledge which paid all our income taxes (which I would have had to pay out of salary) the interest on the loans and gave me some spending money.

In the meantime I was paying the bank 3% and I was earning 10% after interest and taxes. To get any money from the stock other than the generous dark end, I would have to pay the bank off, pay a horrendous tax bill, and wind up a small handful of stock and meager dividends. So the stock paid for itself and the 375 ^oo I paid down grew to 11950 shares of stock worth 35-40 ^oo. So I had 250 ^oo left after I pay the bank off.

Mother and Dad lived a quiet life, neither smoked or drank and had oodles of friends. At Dads funeral there were over 200 old people who thought the world of him. He was a quiet man who minded his own business. Mother was the manager, she did a good job. I don't know how she did it. They were on their own. It broke my heart I couldn't help them but you know what our circumstances were.

I forgot to say that great grandma Risden came from Essex England, and except that she lived until 98 with all her teeth I don't recollect more.

George Bradford Burdick is buried in the Army cemetery in Wood, Wis; Jemima is buried in Arlington cemetery in Milw -; Mother and Dad as you know are in Great Falls, a place they learned to love.

If there are any secrets I don't know any. We are just a quiet family who because of circumstances had to find our living far from home. Still we kept in touch even though we never had much in common. It comes to mind at this point we never got mad at each other and we did write. I don't recall that you did much writing except a guy called Mike in Mexico City. You have given me a hard time I don't deserve and I have given you a pretty good life. You don't seem to have appreciated. I think for a farm boy with a high school education, I did a pretty good job. It's too bad I never felt free to bring my friends to my home. But it's true of all married men, their friends are their wives friends and their own drop to the status of acquaintences -

Transcription of handwritten account by Thomas Fredrick McFarland, transcribed by Tom L. McFarland, 15 June 2001