Charlotte PIKE BRALEY

Source: Letters of Charlotte Pike Braley, 1983-1985.

Charlotte Irene Pike Braley was born in Fillmore County on Oct. 22, 1895. She was the youngest daughter of Willis Roswell Pike (b. 1861) of Bloomfield Township and Margaret Ann Darkt; she was a grand-niece of Susan Pike Rathbu(r)n and granddaughter of Roswell Pike (born in NY, died 1861, buried in Spring Valley cemetery) and Lucy Ann Lane(Corwin?) Pike Triggs (born in Maine, 1834 or 35.) Mr. and Mrs. Pike met at the Triggs farm in Bloomfield Township when young Margaret Darkt was staying with her aunt Mag Clouse, nearby. Mrs. Loomis of Bloomfield Township was the midwife who delivered Charlotte Pike; the Loomis family was a near neighbor of the Pike family. Charlotte's older sisters were Sarah Elizabeth Pike Beach (July 29, 1891 - 1979, buried in Oskaloosa, Iowa); Lucy Ann Pike (April 13, 1891 - 1951, buried in Spring Valley Cemetery); and (Celia) Alice Pike Lein (??) (Sept. 26, 1893 - about 1984.)

Charlotte and her sisters grew up on the family farm in Bloomfield Township, near by her father's mother, Lucy Triggs, and his half-brother, John Triggs. She had many cousins in the Triggs family. About 1905 Charlotte attended Raabe School southeast of Spring Valley; at that time ten out of the 24 students were either Triggs or Pike cousins. The Pike children kept their horses in the Triggs barn "at the foot of schoolhouse hill" during school days at the Raabe School. Charlotte wrote to a distant cousin in 1983, "I didn't go to school but a few days. Mother taught me to read and spell at home and Sarah [her sister] tried to teach me arithmetic...Then in the fall of 1907 they sent me to Spring Valley school and they put me in the 5th grade." Charlotte did not attend school at a younger age because of teasing due to a difference in her speech.

 Charlotte's sister Alice taught at the Le Fevre School about 1924; Alice boarded with Jim and Mary Richards at that time. After 1924, the school consolidated with Spring Valley. In 1925, just 4 months before the death of Willis Pike, the family took in a boy, Arnold Reed, to raise. The Pike family attended the Methodist Church in Charlotte's childhood.

 After Mr. Pike's death, Charlotte took on a great deal of day to day responsibility on the farm. She and her family finished a 3-room addition to their home that was being put on at the time of her father's death. In 1930, the Pike barn burned down and Charlotte drew the blue print for a new barn and assisted with its construction. In 1984, she wrote, "[Now] nothing left but the barn and I worked so hard after Father died..."

In 1946, Charlotte Pike married Delvin Braley, who died in 1955. From 1946 until 1963, Charlotte lived near the Le Fevre school. In 1963, she moved into a trailer on the land of Frank Smith, NE of Spring Valley, where she lived until 1973, when she moved to Dodge Center.

Charlotte was a deeply religious woman with strong church connections. She died on March 11, 1986, at the Dodge County Nursing Home. She was buried near her parents and other family members in Spring Valley Cemetery, Fillmore County, Minnesota.