Correspondence from Ethel Hortense Abbott: James was a circuit rider and Presbyterian preacher for 50 years in Missouri and Arkansas.  He would be gone from home for several weeks at a time, leaving the fram work to his wife and children.  Mary Ann was a short heavy set woman with red hair adn a temper to match.  On one of his missionary trips, James acquired and brought home some cloth for a suit that one of his friends had given him.  Mary Ann took the cloth and threw it in the fireplace and said, "You tell Mrs. Haggis that I do my own weaving."

 Mary Ann delivered babies for mothers all over that part of the county.  They had a big stump for hier to climb upon so that she could get on a horse when she was called to help.  It was said that Mary Ann smoked a pipe and when someone came to see her she would put the pipe into her apron pocket.

 All the cooking was done over a fireplace.  When Hortense visited there in 1961, she saw traces of the foundation of their home and a pile of rocks where the chimney had been.  The well had been boarded over.  Some old fashioned flowers were growing close to where the house had stood. 

 No doubt the children got little schooling during the winter months as they had to go 9 miles on horseback to school.  The Forest Service now owns the land where their farm was and have plantedit in trees.  It would be hard to locate where the house had been.  We know so little about the hardships, joys and sorrows of our pioneer ancestors, but they have paved the way for us to enjoy the many blessings we now have.