From the unpublished memoirs of Esther Ambrosine Atkinson-Babb, granddauater of Johb Atkinson written in the 1970’s.
“What I Know About the Atkinson’s
I have no record of the family before 1870. They were a typical low-cast English family. Lived in a villiage connected with Castle Greystoke in northern England.
My grandfather, John Atkinson, worked in the stables and my grandmother, Margaret, helped in the kitchen. Son, John, also worked in the stables. When he came to America, he came in charge of a load of horses being imported. I don;t know how he happened to come to Dixon, but there were many English people around Amboy, fresh fom the sod. Especially Leake’s, known by their trades: Miller Leake, Butcher Leake, Preacher Leake, all had families on the Chicago Road. In fact, from Temperance Hill, west for two miles all the land on both sides of the road belonged to Leake’s.
My father worked in a store in New Castle, England. After John got settled he rented a farm north of Dxon and had his father and his family to come from England. I never thought to ask whether my father came with the family or preceded them. That was in 1870. He and his sister, Sarah, lived on a farm north of Amboy.
The family arrived in Dixon in the winter of 1870. Snow a foot deep and still snowing. They only had twenty-five cents. They stayed in the railroad depot that night. In the morning, Grandfather and one of the boys set out on foot to try to find the place. They met a man, with a team and sleigh, taking his children to school. This man took them to the farm, where John lived and got a team to take the family to their new home.
Robert was just a little fellow at the time, seven years old. He fell down the hatchway and injured his hip, so he was always lame.
William and Sarah lived on a farm in the Temperance Hill area. I don’t know if they rented or were hired, but after my father and mother were married, they rented the farm for the next four years.
Evidently, their father was not happy in this new land, for he took his life in 1872. James took charge and kept the family together until his death in 1880. By that time, Sarah had married George Richardson and gone to live at Abilene, Kansas. Margaret had marriled John Morrow and Joseph had married Sadie McKeown.
The Morow’s moved to Kingsley, Iowa, and Gradmother, George, and Robert went with them. The boys met and married girls in the community. George and Josie, German. Robert and Riki, Norwgian.
Grandmother made her home with Aunt Maggie and Uncle John Morrow, but visted around with the others in Kansas and Illinois.
George had cattle to ship every year to Chicago and could get a pass for himself and a helper, so he would bring his mothe on the pass. She would stay with us until she was ready to go home. Then, one of the boys would go with her to see that she got safely back to Iowa.