Julie
A Tribute to the “Pioneer Woman”
For some, work is merely an obligation, but for my great-great-grandmother, Mrs. Julie Elizabeth (Corle) Knisely, it was a lifelong labor of love, and it showed. She was raised on her parents’ farm, which is located directly behind my current home-place. As the oldest of ten children born to Joseph “Joe Billy” and Alice (Colvin**) Corle, she grew up on Stiffler Hill (also known as Rooster Hill), where her family farmed for many years.
Her siblings were Artie (n.m.), Charles Elias (m. Pearl Benton), Pearl Mary (m. Calvin Flaugh), Ruth Amanda (m. Edward Musselman), Hattie Irene (n.m.), Bertha Idella (m. Clifford Clouse), Lawrence Henry (m. Phyllis Heidorn), Verna Florence (m. Crawford Baker) and Harry (n.m.). Tragically, Artie passed away from tuberculosis when she was 14 years old, and Harry died at the age of five months from bronchitis.
To make a living, the family farmed and drove cattle and other livestock on foot all the way to Portage and the Altoona area. The railroad was very important for travel, which is why they took livestock to those points for sale. I believe this is how she met my great-great-grandfather as well; they met in 1916, were together by the following year, and were married in 1920.
She lived on a 52-acre farm just two miles from Queen, near Claysburg, Pennsylvania. They purchased it in 1936 off of a local midwife by the name of Mrs. Sarah Jane (Helsel) Burket. I now live on a 23-acre portion of that same farm. She worked this land for over 38 years. 22 of them entirely on her own following the death of her husband, my great-great-grandfather Steward Alton Knisely. Julie was a produce huckster for nearly 50 years. Her son, Kenneth Wilbur Knisely, was also a huckster. Kenneth was killed in an automobile accident in 1956 at the age of 34 while driving his produce truck through Claysburg.
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Just a little information on Steward. His family were Methodist. They lived on a 372 acre farm near the upper end of Scrubgrass going towards Pavia. He and his brothers ran a lime kiln, huckstered, and raised each other after their father's death in 1912. They regularly drove cattle, sheep, and turkeys 50 to 60 miles on foot from areas near New Baltimore to markets in Altoona and shipping points in Portage via the Pennsylvania Railroad.
She was a woman of fierce independence and untamed grit. My grandfather Larry purchased the farm from Julie in 1971 and wanted to plow the land with a tractor, but Julie insisted on plowing the fields with a single horse and a wooden plow. In the late 1960s and 1970s, finding a harness became nearly impossible in a world that had moved past horse-drawn farming. Hers often frayed, but she repaired the harness herself and always got the job done. She is mostly remembered for how her corn crop was always a sight to see; in good years, the towering stalks reached far above Julie’s head.
I can remember this as a gift that she passed on to my great-great-aunt Lillian. For several summers, I helped my great-great-aunt in her huge garden and learned a lot about farming. It is because of those skills that I got involved in my high school’s Eco Action Club. We ran a garden in our high school and sourced the vegetables for the cafeteria.
Her farm was a masterclass in self-reliance and constant stewardship. Alongside her fields, she tended patches of beans, peas, onions, squash, carrots, beets, potatoes, lettuce, cabbage, and tomatoes. She knew that land doesn’t care for itself; it required steady hands, constant weeding, and meticulous succession planting so fresh food was always ready for harvest. Every Saturday, though she never drove, one of her grandsons (or in-laws) would drive her into Altoona so she could sell her fresh harvest to regular customers. My grandmother Judy and great-great-granduncle Lloyd did it quite often, and my grandmother could remember driving her in many times. Julie would always have her stop at Al’s Tavern in Altoona for a beer and a burger on the way home. One one of those trips my grandmother's car was struck by another driver. Julie being the stubborn woman she was, refused treatment for her injuries.
She worked side by side with her grandchildren, which mirrored her own childhood when she helped her father. My cousin Linda (Lillian’s daughter) can remember helping her milk cows and running the milk through a separator in the basement of the farmhouse. Linda’s sister, Shirley, mentioned that for years after getting off work, she would go up and husk corn for hours with her grandmother. She also recalled the many nights that she and my Pap stayed at the farmhouse to help Julie. My Pap actually cut Shirley’s toes with a push mower when they were younger. Julie’s horse was named Mabel, and after talking with my great-grandaunt Joyce and Shirley, they remembered riding Mabel bareback to the watering hole for water. Julie’s dedication to the farm ran so deep that as a young girl, she had stepped away from school to work the land; back then, education was not mandated, but viewed as a privilege. Nearly 10 years ago now, I went down to the butchering building and cleaned up tons of glass bottles that would have been used to sanitize tools and castrate pigs. We used the different glasses for centerpieces for our prom and flower vases for the farm show. Wood from the building was made into a sign for the Eco Action Club.
Julie’s strength was legendary. The farm was home to cattle, hogs, and chickens, and for decades, she handled all the heavy butchering mostly by herself or with the help of my great-great-granduncle Lloyd Heldibridle to sell to others, later continuing the tradition just to keep her family fed. She harvested fruit from steep ladders and wasn’t afraid to climb to the very top branches to gather every last piece. Even basic conveniences were set aside by choice; she steadfastly refused indoor running water, preferring to carry heavy buckets from the outdoor pump near the front porch for all her household chores and crops. She used a dry sink in her living room and the outhouse until the very day she died.
Yet, alongside this hard-scrabble toughness was a woman of vibrant color and sharp skill. This is another trait that she passed on to several of my relatives. The farmhouse which still sits about 30 feet from the road, once was framed by a vast array of row after row of bright flowers. One thing I remember being told is how she would plant marigolds to prevent deer from eating her other flowers and crops, a practice I followed every year with her daughter Lillian. But she could easily go from tending blossoms to handling a shotgun. Julie was quick to protect her homestead from pests; she once hit a squirrel with a single shot directly from her front porch, and famously took down a ring-necked pheasant behind the chicken coop.
She enjoyed the quiet hours alone on the farm and was never lonely or bored. She simply had too much plowing, planting, and living to do. Working keeps you alive. Julie passed away from a heart attack the morning of September 2, 1974. She was 76.
** Julie’s mother Alice was the daughter of a very prominent man named John Colvin. He wouldn’t acknowledge her as his own because her mother was a servant in his home. Gardner was her mothers married name.
