Mary Folger

  General Notes:

MARY FOLGER; whose ancestry is traced to the Mayflower, was born Dec. 26, 1832. And was married to Henry Mills Nov. 10, 1852. To them were born eight children, one of whom, John Burney, died at the age of three months.
Their first fifty years of married life were spent in the neighborhood of Georgetown, Illinois. Some years after marriage Mary was injured. She was riding in a buggy when the horse became frightened and ran away. She was thrown from the buggy and hurt her back so that she was bedfast for five years. Nevertheless she directed the housework from her bed with a hired girl and the older children to provide the activity.
The family was thrifty and the commodious brick house was a model in those days, yet they knew nothing of twentieth century conveniences. The house was heated by three fireplaces and a coal heater. There was no running water in the house, but good water was plentiful from the pump in the "well house", an addition built on to the brick house for the pump, washing machine, honey extractor, etc. There was also the "milk trough", where crocks of milk were kept cool with water from the pump.
The family welfare was almost independent of the town stores. They raised their meats, grew fruits and vegetables, and corn and wheat for meal and flour. And if sugar was scarce in war time, their bees provided honey, and from their maple grove they had maple syrup and sugar.
Saturday was bake day for Mary, when enough pies were baked to last several days. And her older grandchildren still remember her corn-pone bread, baked in a big iron kettle that was swung into the kitchen fireplace.
By the early 1900's their children and families had moved to Oregon, with the exception of their youngest, Allen, was a Chicago lawyer for his entire life. So Mary and Henry followed the western migration and in their later years lived in a comfortable home in Newberg, Oregon, across the street from the Friends Church. Here they lived a leisurely, contented life, with several of their children and grandchildren near.
Always they were faithful church-goers, and many attenders of the Newberg Friends Church remember the sight of Mary and Henry coming to First Day Meeting, he leading her by the hand across the street, up the church walk, up the center aisle to the very front pew--truly symbolic of their faithful companionship.
Her husband died in 1919, and soon her memory began to fail. She lived for five years with her daughter, Marietta; and later with her son, Seth, passing away Feb. 17, 1925 at the age of 93.

Mary married Henry Mills, son of Seth Mills and Rebecca Canaday. (Henry Mills was born in 1830 in Georgetown, Vermilion County, Illinois and died on Feb 11, 1919 in Newberg, Oregon.)