BAKER*HOCH FAMILY HISTORY

David Baker was born in the month of June, 1818 in Maine. He married Rebecca Abel who was born in Canada. They had eight children -- Adnarm, Martha, Ella, Abelina, Arthur, Olive, Alwilda, and Alena born in 1862. David Baker at age 44 and his son, age 24, served in the Civil War for the Union side. David was in the Infantry and Adnarm in the Cavalry. At this time the family lived in Iowa.
They moved by covered wagon to Kansas in the 1870's and took up a claim near Howard. Alena went to school at Mound Branch. She had to wade across a creek on her way to school and she would take off her shoes, wade across, put them back on and continue on to the school or home each day. After Alena grew up, she worked as a maid in the John Hugg home for $1.50 per week wages. She was a cook at the Place Hotel in Moline, Kansas, at the time of her marriage to Clinton Hoch.

Isaac Hoch was born in Pennsylvania of Penn-Dutch ancestry. Mary Bowman was born in Maryland of Scotch-Irish ancestry. They were married in 1852 and had eight children -- Emma in 1853, Wellington or Bill on Dec. 25, 1854, Clinton on June 19, 1856, also Anna, Guyelma, Marion, Manford, and Coradell or Dolly. There parents separated when their children were still small. Isaac was a good cabinet maker but a poor businessman. The mother was very impressionable and
believed in spiritualism, mediums, and such. When she learned that she could not care for all the children, she bound out the older ones to other families until they were 21 -- at which time they were to receive a horse, bridle, and saddle. At this time they were living in the state of Indiana.

Clinton Hoch was about eight and Bill was about nine and a half when they were bound out to a family with four large boys, a retarded girl, and some smaller children. They worked for only room and board and wore the family's hand-me-down clothes. The little boys had to wear grown men's overalls with just the legs cut off.

Clinton was made to stomp clothes in wash water to which lye soap had been added and the strong soap sometimes made bad sores on his legs. One day they heard that their older sister, who worked as a maid in a Hotel, was very ill.  The woman told them that they could go to see her if they would pick a bucket of berries first and take them to the store and sell them. Bill threw his bucket away, ran off to see his sister and never came back. But Clinton picked his berries, walked four miles to town and sold them at the store. Then he went to the hotel where they told him that his sister Emma had just died. She was 16 years old.

Clinton finally ran away too as the family was so mean to him. The nearly grown boys would throw him in the river and tell him to sink or swim. Sometimes they would tie his pants leg shut, fill his pants with sand so he couldn't stand up, then kick him around. Sometimes they made him sleep with the retarded girl which terrified the little boy. After he ran away from the first home, he stayed at a couple of other places temporarily.

One day, young Clinton was walking down a road and was so discouraged that when he came to a creek, he considered jumping in. A man on horseback rode up and asked him where he was going, and Clinton said he had no place to go. The man, Elijag [sic] Shriver, said that he had four girls but no boys and he needed a boy so he took Clinton home with him. They were good to him and he stayed there
eight years. Elijah died and his wife remarried, so Clinton got in touch with his father and they came to Kansas in 1876 or 1877 and took up a claim near Cambridge in Cowley County. His father died several years later and was buried in the Cambridge cemetery. Clinton's mother, who had remarried, came to Kansas when she was old and sick and is burried [sic] at Cambridge also.

Clinton married Alena Baker, aged 24, when he was 30. They were married Feb. 28. 1886 by Reverend Goodwin in Moline, Kansas. Their four children were born at the Cambridge farm -- Clinton Lee born Jan. 11, 1887 and died Nov. 22, 1960 -- Ernest Ray and Erma May born June 21, 1889 -- and Nellie Florence born July 24, 1891.

Shortly after Nellie was born, a run-away horse tipped over the buggy and Alena's hip was broken. It was many hours before they could get her to a doctor. The hip was not set correctly and from that time on, she was badly crippled. The family moved to Moline, Kansas and lived there two years and then moved to the farm south of Moline in 1893 [possibly this should be 1895]. Alena died there in 1901 at the age of 39. Clinton died in May, 1934.