Ira Boyd is making testimony in October of 1918 in the pension application of Emmar Osenbaugh. He has been asked how he came to know Osenbaugh and her husband, John. He states, in part:
"I came to Iowa about 50 year ago and soon after I came here I became acquainted with John Osenbaugh. The way I got acquainted with him was in the spring of 1869 when we were moving a partition fence for a man named Nathan Dix. Dix made a "bee" to move the fence and Osenbaugh was in the bee."
Any ideas on what a "bee" is to move the fence?
5 comments:
According to my Websters Dictionary a bee is a social gathering to assist, or a meeting of people to work together like a sewing bee
According to my Websters Dictionary a bee is a social gathering to assist, or a meeting of people to work together like a sewing bee
Perhaps a "fence bee" is similar to a "quilting bee": historically, a gathering of friends and neighbors to produce a quilt quicker than if just one person worked on it.
My guess would be that a "bee" is a group of volunteers coming together to do a job. A job like moving a fence would need to be done in one day but would be too much work for one person, so get a group of people together to do it. Volunteers would be repaid in kind when they had a major job to do - like raising a barn.
This is so obvious now that I read the responses. Thanks for the comments.
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