Tobe

Compiled from "The Early Days" by Nora Montgomery. Presented on March 21, 2015 at the Lemon Cove Women's Club Annual Open House, and enacted by students from Sequoia Union School, Lemon Cove, California.

About 1860, not long after Mr. and Mrs. Pogue were married and living in Little Lakes (now Willets) some Indians came by with a number of young children captured from another tribe. I was a little boy about 2 years old and so appealed to the Pogues that they gave an old horse in exchange for me. They named me Tobe. I made my home with them, moving to Tulare County in 1862, when they first settled near Venice Hill. Mr. Pogue did farming and teaming, saving enough money to buy 240 acres near Bravo Lake, along the Kaweah River, called Stringtown. A big flood washed us out in 1868, so we moved to Dry Creek across the river from what is now Lemon Cove. By this time there were already three Pogue children who made up “my family”. While living at Dry Creek ranch three more children were born. And another little girl also came to live with us. Her name is Mary Frances Crowley – but she is whole other story.