Windom High School - Eagle Yearbook (Windom, MN)

Page 10 text:

WILLIAM PRENTISS 6

Page 9 text:

f55ooh Tirst Elm School Tlfiskory Yvoarb Eeacbets TAlumni I V

Page 11 text:

Tlfistory LAVV OFFICES OF WILLIAM PRENTISS 1513 ASHLAND BLOCK CHICAGO. - ILLINOIS C111c.xGo, ILL., March 13,1915 MR. G. Coxnixn XY1z1s131a, Iiditor-in-Chief, IQI5 Annual, XVIIICIOIII, Minnesota. . IJ1c.x1a S111 :!ln compliance with your request, I write. Threatened serious pulmonary anfection compelled me to quit college about the middle of my course, and on the advice of physicians, l went to Minnesota in the spring of 1869, hoping that its bracing air might save my life. An entire stranger in the state, by accident, almost, I landed in lllue liarth County, where I spent most of that summer, canvassing for books. and as I grew stronger, worked on a farm near Garden City. A Teachers' Institute for that County was held there in the early fall of '69 County Superintendent Goff urged me to attend this and to take a school in that County that winter. This l did, teaching a four months' term in a log school house in the woods, some tive miles southeast of Mankato. ln March, 1870, I took a claim a little west of Three Lakes, and built myself a little shanty there, hauling the lumber all the way from lilue Earth County. That fall I returned to my old home in Illinois. two hundred miles southwest of Chicago, having been absent about eighteen months. much improved in health, but not cured. The spring of 1871 I returned to Cottonwood County, driving overland in a covered wagon, diag- onally from my old home in Illinois, across Iowa, being entirely alone. There was no railroad in Cottonwood County. nor was there any XYindom until late that summer or fall. I continued to keep l3achelor's Hall on my claim, breaking prairie and working all summer, going back to Blue Earth County for the winter. I had in- tended to teach school, but the early and severe winter prevented the completion of the new school house. and so there was no school in the district where I had expected to teach. I tutored the children in the home of a farmer, who boarded me all winter and kept my horses for my services. I put in the greater part of my time reading and in study that winter, and in the spring of 1872, returned to Cottonwood County. Late that fall I again returned to Illinois, to marry the girl I left he- hind me, and the following spring brought her back with me. VVe began keep- ing house in a dwelling eight by fourteen feet in size. I had been appointed county superintendent of schools of Cottonwood Coun- ty While in Illinois the previous winter. being notified of such appointment by County Auditor Sam. M. lispey. Wlhen I returned witl1 my wife that spring, I 7