Eda Lisbonbee - Remembrance - The Five Dollar Gold Piece

Joan Sowards, a descendant of Fred's daughter Eda, collected some audio clips of stories of her father on his mission in Germany and Switzerland, and the family's efforts to support him while he was overseas. I have made the effort to transcribe and annotate the transcriptions (see comments in brackets).

Well when I was oh, about 12 years old [1905], my father went on a mission over to Germany. We didn't have very much money and mother had a little store, and she'd tried to sell things [my prior entries note Ella's second hand store] to get enough money to send to my father. Because over there, he's way, way from home and had to have money to buy food. And so, we children -- My brother, he was a little older than me -- he was about 12 -13 years old [Frederick William Kohlhepp; he would have been about 14, even 15 at the time] -- And my sister. I had a sister too, three years younger than me [Sara Ella Kohlhepp]. Made her about, she was about 7 - 8 years old. And we used to go out, and take the wool that was along the fence and off of the barbed wire. And you know they'd been shearing the sheep in town. We lived in a town there. And we, My brother came in, and said, "All through shearing sheep," he told his sister and I. He said, "If we go there right now," he said, "there's boys, boys that go over there and they're picking it up all off the ground." And so we went over there and we got quite a bit. And then those boys they're with the sack, A lot just hanging down. Well we didn't hardly feel like taking it. But it would have just fell off when they went to load it in. So we picked it off the ground and off the sack, and we mixed a clean nice wool with other wool. And we got home with half a gun sack full or more. The three of us. And then we, after we'd all been gathered up around, we went home.

And my brother he, he took that sack of wool, and he sold it. And you can't guess how much he got for it. But you know he got a 5 dollar gold piece. They didn't have bills in those days. It was gold about the size of a quarter. A 5 dollar gold piece. And so there we had it. And my mother she'd worried, she was sick in bed, and she laid in bed all day, and she was just praying and crying that she could get money to send our poor father on that mission. And we came in, my brother  said, "Shut your eyes and hold out your hands, and I'll give you something to make you bright." So she shut her eyes, and she put out  her hand, and he put that 5 dollar gold piece right in the middle of her hand. And she looked at it and she looked at it. Oh, if you could have seen the look that came to that dear soul. Oh, it just brightened up her eyes and she just looked so happy. And she went like this, and she'd been praying all day, we knew she had been a-praying all day long. Then she sighed and said, "Thank thee dear Lord, for this money." And the next morning we sent it to Germany. And father then he had money to buy him food.

Her brother's five dollar gold piece would have likely looked this coronet head gold piece, which was minted from 1866 to 1908.