[NFB_of_Georgia] Fwd: When You Raise Them Right

[Dorothy Griffin]

This is a very good story.  Enjoy!

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: The Blind History Lady <theblindhistorylady at gmail.com>
> Subject: When You Raise Them Right
> Date: May 3, 2021 at 8:03:14 AM EDT
> To: dgriffin at nfbga.org
> Reply-To: theblindhistorylady at gmail.com
> 
> 
> 
> Hello to all my blind history fans. I have a story a bit different from others I hope you enjoy..
> 
> Often blind adults are convinced by sighted family and friends not to have children for many reasons. If their eye condition is not hereditary, then excuses such as you’ll not be able to raise them safely, know what they are doing; be a burden to them, forcing them to grow up too fast and take care of you when they are still children.
> 
> All of that is bunk, I can say from personal experience and the experiences of many, many blind friends and acquaintances I know who decided or were surprised to learn they were going to be a parent. Just like sighted people, we had our successes and failures. I am convinced that raising good, successful children requires a lot of skill, love and luck.
> 
> As the Blind History Lady, I have taken little time to learn what the children of some of the blind ancestors I have researched did after leaving home. Today, I want to tell you a bit about a blind man, how he lived and what became of his children. They caught my attention in a historical blurb about Aaron in a county historical website.  He is a great example that a blind person can be a great parent and good role model for his children. 
> 
> Aaron Boyer was born February 17, 1833 in York Pennsylvania, the son of Daniel and Rosina Boyer. He was the seventh of fifteen children. At age twelve, he had an accident that caused him to lose most of his sight and drop out of the Indiana public school near his home. He worked in his dad’s distillery until he was fifteen when his father sent him away to work for another distiller to bring needed income into the family.  
> 
> Aaron began to show signs of Rheumatism. Liquor and not liking to work in the immoral alcohol business he returned to the family farm but did not stay long. Again, he was sent out to earn his keep. He took jobs as a plasterer and then worked for the Miami Canal Packet Company, driving a team on a canal packet. In the Fall of 1849, he was so badly crippled with rheumatism that he had to seek other employment. 
> 
> In early 1850, he worked with a surveying party on the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad. But the inclement weather inflamed his rheumatism and his eyes, that he was forced to stop working and return to his father’s house, now in Germantown Indiana. At seventeen, he became totally blind. 
> 
> Aaron began making brooms at home, selling them through his own sales or that of merchants in the area. He entered the school for the blind in Indianapolis in the fall of 1856 as a student, but quickly became the broom shop instructor. After a year, he felt he could do better on his own than stay, teaching at the school and for a short time, left for Ohio to start a broom factory. 
> 
> From 1855 to 1864 he primarily manufactured brooms by himself in Wayne county, Indiana.  His first purchase of broom corn was for $5 and $2 was on credit. Moving to Crawford county, Illinois, he carried on the same business until 1866. Aaron next moved to Elmwood and two years later he moved to Galesburg and began his own business in a factory fifteen by twenty feet. He hired sighted men and later women to work for him.
> 
> His buildings burned and were re-built, each bigger and more modern than before. Aaron hired as many as 25 men to work for him. Although not documented, most likely his sons worked in their father’s broom shop for a time.  
> 
> Aaron retired at the age of 64. His factory was turning out 15,000 to 18,000 brooms each year. Five years later, he sold the broom factory to some of his former employees. 
> 
> Aaron married three times. In 1853 he married Elizabeth Buck and they had a child who died in infancy. Soon Elizabeth passed away. On October 3, 1858, he married Sarah Harper.  She died in 1875, leaving three sons and one, daughter.  One son was sixteen, another fifteen, the youngest son was seven and his daughter was only four years old.  After raising his children on his own for two years he married Julia Mitchell. They had four children, the first two dying in infancy. Abel and Orris, much younger than their siblings were almost a separate family. 
> 
> Aaron died on Christmas Eve of 1903. His two youngest boys were still in their teens. Their mother died just one year later. 
> 
> For many families, so many losses and half-siblings spaced so far apart could lead to even more heart ache. But Aaron instilled deep love for everyone and a responsibility not just to family, but the broader community. 
> 
> His sons.
> 
> Charles Boyer married and had two daughters. Minnie was a corn sorter for a broom factory in Paris, Illinois when the girls were young. Charles worked in a broom factory until his death in 1933.
> 
> Andrew Jackson Boyer, born 1860 died 1913 in Cook Co, Illinois. He moved to Chicago and became a broom maker in a large Chicago factory. 
> 
> William R Boyer, born 1867, became a member and soon, a leader in the International Broom and Whisk Makers Union. He rose to the rank of Secretary/Treasurer. 
> 
> In 1914, he led a strike of the girls and young women of the U. S. Broom and Brush factory in Chicago. The union focused its attention on this factory out of the other 26 listed broom and brush factories in the area because of their pattern of exploitation. 
> 
> Several newspapers, in particular, the Chicago Day Book, followed Will and the efforts to unionize the shop for more than two years. The U. S. Broom and Brush company according to the papers and Will, recruited, recently immigrated young girls to work in their factory at long hours and with wages only a third of what was paid to other broom and brush makers doing the same work. 
> 
> The first attempt at unionizing in 1914 was met with hostility. Will and others called the meeting and told the girls they would not be fired if they came to the meeting at the Schoenhofen Hall. There were officials that could speak to some of the girls in their own language. But two of the foreman were standing in the doorway across the street and took down names. The next day, the leaders of the girls were fired. 
> 
> The fired girls that could speak English went back to Will who ensured the union hired them a lawyer. The girls told how one of the foremen yelled and abused them. Warrants were sworn out by the union for the arrest of the foreman.   Thanks to William, many of the girls found work in other broom factories before the union was voted in by the current employees. 
> 
> William also spoke out and worked to bring legislation to identify convict-made brooms that were sold at a lesser cost than those made by paid-broom makers forcing lower wages in the private broom factories.. 
> 
> William married and had at least one child. He died in 1937. 
> 
> Abel, born 1886 and was the only child to attend College, stayed close to home choosing Knox College in Galesburg. He worked at many labor-intensive occupations. He painted houses, raised chickens, worked as a gardener before becoming a refrigeration engineer.   He worked as a switchman for one of the railroads in town. He married and had at least four children. By the 1940’s, he held a position with the Highway Commission in Illinois helping to frame the new U. S. highway systems reaching across the country through Illinois. Abel died in Galesburg in 1973. 
> 
> The last son born to Aaron, almost thirty years after his oldest living child was Orrin,
> born in 1888. Orrin married and had at least four children. After working for the railroad and suffering an injury that left him permanently scarred, he purchased a farm in Cascade County, Montana and tried farming for a few years. He served four years serving in the National Guard in the 1910’s.  He returned to Galesburg in 1919. Orin began working as a police officer for Galesburg that year. He retired as Chief of police in 1945. Orrin died in Galesburg in 1960.
> 
> Each lived lives their father could take pride in.  
> 
> 
>  If you would like to schedule a presentation contact me at theblindhistorylady at gmail.com <mailto:theblindhistorylady at gmail.com>
> 
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