A Resourceful Wife & Mother

Orphan Magdelene Quick (1803-1875) married about 1822 in central New York state to another orphan, Nye Severns (1802-1877). They had two children--Julia Ann and James Quick Severns--in their log cabin near the village of Ovid in Seneca County, NY. In April 1826 they moved to Chagrin in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where more children arrived: John, Harriet, Columbus Delano, and Erwin.

Over half a century later, eldest son James would recall: "In July of 1835 we again pitched our tent and took up the line of march for the state of Illinois. The outfit then consisted of father, mother, and six children and a neighbor boy by the name of Prentis, one span of horses, one yoke of oxen, one wagon, two cows and a dog. Owing to sickness and some other delays we did not reach Chicago, Illinois until about 10 o'clock on the morning of the 1st day of October. We reached our objective point about eight miles west of the then small village of Juliette (so named in memory of Juliette Hall who was taken prisoner by the Indians at the outbreak of the Black Hawk war). Now the city of Joliet, where we remained about two weeks trying to find a roof to shelter us for the winter, the whole family being sick with fever and ague,* except our mother and brother two years younger than myself."

Nye finally found an empty log cabin on the bank of the Dupage River, about 4 miles south of what is the present site of the village of Plainfield. This village was located in Cook County then but today is in Will County, Illinois. The Nye Severns family spent the winter of 1835 in this log cabin. Mother Magdelene made willow baskets which were traded for corn and potatoes to keep the family from starving, "during that first winter in the prairie state." It was a hard winter for the family. James was 10 and shook from the ague all winter. On the days that James did not shake, he would go with his younger brother "to cut the willow out of which the baskets were made and exchanged for the wherewithall to keep the wolf from the door."

Father Nye was suffering with ague during that winter much as James. When Nye was not shaking, "he had about all he could do to prepare fuel to keep the shanty tenantable. But finally that winter had an end as all dark days must."

Spring came and there was warmth. Better health came and Nye rented a farm of sixty acres. This land did not have stumps and the family went to work "to provide the means by which we could weather the storms of the second winter more pleasantly than we had the first, and thanks to our energy and the productiveness of the soil we succeeded."

More babies arrived: Elbert and Blair. In December 1839, the family headed west again. Nye's plans were to go to Van Buren County, Iowa, but the ice on the Mississippi River kept them from going any further. A rented house in the village of Illinois City, Rock Island County, Illinois, became their home. It was here that mother Magdelene "was taken sick with a fever that fixed the terminus of our journey westward as a family." Three more children would arrive: Bruce, Louisa Jane, and George Warren Severns in 1848.

Five of the boys served in the Civil War; only four returned home. Elbert died in a military hospital in LaGrange, Tennessee, of smallpox at age 25.

After the first daughter, Julia Ann Severns Shutes died in childbirth in 1856 in Wisconsin, Nye and Magdelene raised Julia's two youngest daughters, Emma and Eliza Jane "Jennie."

Magdelene may have been a daughter or granddaughter of Joachim "Hoka" Quick. The Quicks/Euicks immigrated to New Jersey colony from Holland in the 1700s.

*Medical Definition of ague. 1: a fever (such as malaria) marked by paroxysms of chills, fever, and sweating that recur at regular intervals.