"Early Days on Cedar Creek" by May Clayton Stover
EARLY DAYS ON THE CEDAR CREEK
- by Mary May Clayton Stover
(footnotes with many links by Rod Stover on a separate page to reduce clutter...
corrections, expansions denoted by [.... - RRS])
EARLY DAYS
ON
THE CEDAR CREEK
The following history, humor and happenings
were written in March of 1965 by my Mother, May Clayton Stover at the request of one of her grand-daughters, Nancy Rodehorst Wick, who wanted to know something of the history of her side of the
family, and of early days in the Majors -- Rose Hill area.
This was written in no particular order,
but more or less as the incidents came to "Mom's" mind.
The enclosed pictures were taken of Grandma Higgin's homestead in the
summer of 1967. The house is located five miles
south and one mile west of Poole, Nebraska. At this time the house
is just under one hundred years old.
Allen Stover (footnote #1)
Poole, Nebraska
March 1965
Dear Nancy,
You said you would like to trace the Ewer ancestors. I have
written some of the things I know about my Grandmother. I’ve always wanted to go to Wisconsin where my Mother
was born. I wish you could go through the house where she lived. It is nothing short of queer, I haven't
been there for fifty years or so. There is a pantry off the kitchen which Grandma Ewer called the "butry."
In England the place we call a pantry was the butler's quarters, therefore, the "butry." The kitchen
is in a bank with the kitchen windows on the South, upstairs on the top of the bank. You can go in the kitchen
door, climb the stairs and go out the front door into the front yard. The great advantage was warmth.
Grandma Ewer had the windows in the kitchen filled with plants. The floor boards were about a foot wide.
I asked the bachelor who lives there if there were any of the apple
trees which Grandma had planted still alive. He said there was one. The next time he came in he brought
six, hard as a rock, green apples-- nice big ones, but you couldn't cook them done.
Ellen Ewer
Ellen Wamsley Ewer was born in 1828 or 1829 in England. Her
parents lived about twenty miles from Manchester. She remembered the crowning of Queen Victoria. She
came to America with her parents when she was twelve years old. They settled in Wisconsin; she married Reuel
Ewer. They lived in Cassville, Wisconsin. He was killed in the Civil War shortly after enlisting.
They had five children, three girls-- Rosalie (May Stover's Mother), Clara (Hartford), Angelina (Williams),
and two boys-- Abraham Lincoln (Cyril and Elizabeth's father), and Nicholas. Nicholas was killed in a mine
in Nevada.
[Also see...
My grandmother was a dressmaker in Cassville, Wisconsin. She and her family
moved to Boonboro, and later to Buffalo County, Nebraska. Under the War Widow Homestead Act she took 160
acres in Cedar Township where Jake Jochem now lives. She was also able to take 40 acres for each of her children.
However the Government required that so many trees be set out, so Grandmother Ewer and her children set out the
cottonwood trees. [This was the Higgins' Timber Culture
Homestead - RRS] They are still growing on the northwest quarter--
92 or 93 years later. They carried water from the creek to keep them growing. Grandmother Ewer married
Sam Higgins. (Photos
of Ellen and Sam, Map of Cedar Township) They built the house partly in the bank which I told you about. It is still being
lived in today in 1965. (1998 photos)
(footnote
#3)
Higgins was such a disagreeable man that they separated and he went
to Kearney to live with a daughter by a former marriage. I can remember when I was just a little girl, Grandmother's
barn burned. I was so frightened, as it burned at night, no reason for it, and everyone thought that Higgins
came out from Kearney and set the fire. (The Higgins' feud)
Grandmother Higgins died at 68 years of age of a stroke. She
is buried at Majors
(Cedar Creek). She and Higgins had one son, Sam. Her children went to school in a sod school house
a little ways South of Majors Cemetery on the East side of the road. (footnote #4)
Grandmother was doctor, nurse, etc. at many births in the community.
There was only one house between Cedar Creek settlement and Kearney and the only means of transportation was a
team and wagon. Later they had spring wagons which was a lighter made vehicle. One party making the
trip to Kearney often got groceries for all the community. There were no canned vegetables or fruit, dried
fruit instead, flour, sugar, wild game, rabbits, deer, antelope and prairie chickens for meat. They even
made the shot gun shells. They bought powder and shot and felt wadding to keep the shot in the shell casings.
Women made men's shirts and overalls, baked all the bread, washed
on a wash board, and made their soap. (The good old days?) When anyone butchered a pig all the neighbors
got a piece of fresh meat. Indians often passed through, begging for food or corn for their ponies-- stealing
it if they were not watched.
Everyone burned cowchips and there had been a lot of buffalo through
here so they gathered buffalo chips for fuel. (I think the pioneers where just as happy as we are in the
push button age.) I forgot to mention the women dried sweet corn, covered it with a thin material called
"mosquito bar" to keep the flies off. Those who could afford it covered the bottom half of their
windows with it so the windows could be opened in Summer.
The flies were so bad that when women had a threshing crew or corn
shellers someone stood by the table with a small branch or twigs and shooed the flies away from the table while
the men ate. I can remember that very well, it was always my job.
The only Doctor around was Dr. Neely, who lived south of Haven's
Chapel. People had to go and get him which took hours when someone was sick. That was in Grandmother
Ewer's day. Since it was so far to the Doctors, the people had home remedies for colds, etc.
Grandmother had horehound growing in her garden. It was a bushy plant 1 1/2 or 2 feet tall, leaves were gray.
She boiled the leaves and stems to be used for a cough. It tasted like horehound candy, so it wasn't bad
to take. The home remedy for sore throat and croup was skunk oil. They fried the fat from a skunk and
used it to rub on the throat and chest. It had an odor, but not real "skunky." Onions fried
in this fat and put on the chest and covered with a flannel rag was a "sure fire" remedy.
Women in my grandmother's day dried apples. Peel and slice
apples real thin and with needle and thread string them and hang them up to dry. Grandfather used to sing
a song, but all of it that I can remember is "Tramp on my corns and tell me lies, but don't feed me dried
apple pies." We also had dried peaches and apricots, both much better than dried apples and the dried
corn is delicious.
Photos courtesy of Kim Stover, David Ludwig
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The men had a gun club. They met in early Fall and chose up sides.
Each side had a captain who kept track of the game killed on their hunts. (they divided the game each hunt.)
In late Winter they met and the losing side had to give the winners an oyster supper. I can't remember any
of those suppers, but have heard my father tell it many times.
We had no silverware when I was a child. Knives and 3-tine
forks were made of some kind of metal that tarnished badly. They had wooden handles (I have one yet of your
great-great-grandmother’s). To polish them, we used brick dust. We would take a brick and scrape the
edge and a fine dust would scrape off-- dampen a piece of cloth and dip in the dust and polish. We kept a
piece of brick and an old broken edged saucer to scrape the brick with. That was my job and one time I got
the idea of using mother's nutmeg grater-- she did not approve-- Women bought whole nutmeg (a small nut something
like an acorn). We had to rub them together or use a nutmeg grater to get the spice fine enough to use.
Another old time idea was preparing the wash water. Mother
would send one of us to Grandmother Higgins for a bucket of wood ashes. She put the ashes in a flour sack,
then put that sack in another flour sack, tied it tight and put it in the boiler. When the water got hot
a dirty scum raised on top, you skimmed that off and the water was ready. You had to use wood ashes which
were supposed to contain some chemical which would "break" the water. They had lye which was supposed
to soften the water.
We bought coffee in heavy paper bags, one pound each. It was
the whole coffee bean and had to be ground. Every family had a coffee mill, a wooden box with burrs, a small
drawer to catch the coffee as you turned a small handle on top. It was the signal to get up in the morning
when you heard the coffee grinder. My mother bought McLaughlins or Arbuckle brand coffee. There was
also Lion Bros. brand. The first two named had a heavy cardboard paper doll in each package. I used
to trade dolls with the other girls if we had two alike.
A visitor we had when I was small was the "pack peddlers,"
so called because they carried their goods in a pack on their back. They sold pins, needles, thread, shoe
buttons too, lace and a few pieces of calico. They walked around the country tho sometimes drove and old
horse hitched to a rickety old cart. Many times women locked the door and hid until they would go on.
Most of them were Syrians. In warm weather they slept in straw or hay stacks and would give 6 spools of thread
for some bread and coffee. One time one of them asked for breakfast and my mother said she could fry him
two eggs and he said "fry them in butter, I don't care for lard." Mother was very disgusted.
We often saw prairie schooners drive by, usually going West.
One family started for Colorado with a sick man. He had what was called "consumption" at that time.
It was a lung disease. Colorado was supposed to be much better for helping the disease, but her man died
on the way, so she turned around and brought him home for burial. There were no undertakers in those days
and caskets were made at home. Babies and children's caskets were lined with white muslin. When anyone
died in the community the neighbors offered to sit up with the body. They wrung cloths out of alum water
or salt water and spread over the face to keep it from discoloring. They had to change the cloth real often
clear up to the time of the funeral. Some farmers were fortunate enough to own a spring wagon, a much easier
vehicle to ride in and they would offer the use of it for the funeral. A few years later there was a horse
drawn hearse in Ravenna. Black horses were used. Then laws were passed that bodies must be embalmed
as stories were told of people being buried alive when they were in a "trance," as they called it then,
probably what is called a coma now.
Very few women had sewing machines. The women bought calico (only 27 inches
wide and not as good as the print today). It took 10 yards for a dress as they always had a high neck, long
sleeves and came to the floor. The calico cost 7 or 8 cents a yard. To be real stylish, they had 2
or 3 ruffles around the bottom all hemmed and gathered by hand. The skirts were full or some were made with
gores. There were no ready made dresses. If someone wanted a Sunday dress, they usually made a black
silk, or for winter, cepica [sp?] (wool) or cashmere, and made the dress. The women also wore long white
aprons to church. (Sunday school and Church was held at the school house in summer-- too cold in Winter.)
The aprons were decorated with tucks and had made lace across the bottom. Everyone wore high button shoes,
and whoever used the button hook better hang it on the nail, or else! Little girls wore sack aprons as they
were called, covered their dress, had long sleeves and had several buttons down the back. That was their
school clothes. Gingham was used especially to make aprons and often adorned with cross-stitch pattern.
When calico was used a wide hem was put in so the dress could be lengthened after washing as they often shrunk
and no respectable woman would be seen in a skirt at or a little above her shoe tops. (high button shoes
of course, no such thing as low shoes. A button hook was usually "thrown in" when a pair of shoes
was purchased) Calico faded badly though blue seemed to hold its color best so lots of blue was worn.
After a dress faded badly it could be dyed brown by boiling black walnut skins and soaking the dress in that water.
Red onion skins boiled in water would dye a faint pink.
Women did not wear colors, black for good dress, navy blue or gray
for everyday, some with a small white stripe. All wore black stockings. If there was a grandma in the
family she knit wool stockings for winter wear. The feet in the cotton stockings would wear out first and
we could buy a pair of feet to sew on at the ankle. The seam did not show, covered up by the high shoes.
Babies wore white only and a sweater or sacque as they were called was knit or crocheted.
Women bought shirting and made boys and men's shirts and some
of the pants. Boys wore dresses till they were four or five years old. Men's white shirts were not
open in front but a short opening and a button in back so they were pulled on over the head. They had wide
cuffs on sleeves. They were starched stiffly as was the front. It was quite a job to "do up"
a shirt perfectly. Dress shirts which were white only (no colored ones) had a band around the neck, a small
button hole in center of back and a collar button put through so a collar could be attached.
Later on a celluloid collar was invented (?) with button holes back
and front and saved starching and ironing as they could be wiped off with a damp cloth although a lot of men refused
to wear them. The cuffs had a button hole in each end or near center and cuff links were used. Ladies
blouses were also made that way and fancy cuff links used to keep ends closed.
There wasn't much entertainment-- a picnic in summer on the 4th
of July, and oyster supper in winter at the school house, but they did hitch up a team and drive to the neighbors
and spend the day. The men playing horseshoe or checkers, and the women crocheting lace or cutting and sewing
carpet rags.
We went to town on Saturday but did not stay long as we drove a
team 12 miles to town. In winter we had heated bricks or a soap-stone heated to keep our feet warm.
We ate lunch in town-- excellent buns, minced ham, coffee and a piece of pie for fifteen cents. The buns
were piled on a plate, so was the minced ham (some called it mule meat) and there was also catsup and mustard.
The pie wasn't good, but the buns were delicious. You could eat all you wanted.
We didn't have many books. Some paper back novels (not for
kids). We usually got a storybook for Christmas. The school books were dull, no pictures-- what pictures
there were very poor. They couldn't draw a pig to look like a pig-- horses and chickens were no better.
Schools were not graded, you were in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th reader. No age limit and young men came to
school about 3 months in the winter after the corn was picked. They wore felt boots and would put their feet
up on the shoulders of whoever sat in front of them. The lunch buckets sat in the hall and they would be
frozen by noon. Most all walked to school, even tho some walked two and a half miles. No one rode a
horse when I went to school. We walked about a half mile. Parents usually brought the children if it
was bitter cold or a hard north wind. My brother went early and built the fire and was paid a dollar a month.
(a nickel for each fire)
I think the winters were longer as we had three day blizzards every
winter. A Mrs. Davis lost her life in a snow storm in 1873. The lived about 2 1/2 miles north of Majors.
Her husband had gone for supplies and she got frightened and left the dugout where they lived and started for Carpenter's
about a mile away. They found her body in a snow bank. There was so much snow that the roof had caved
in on the dugout.
No one had much livestock-- 2 or 3 cows, 2 or 3 hogs for butchering,
a few chickens-- everyone raised their own baby chicks. Everyone made their own butter, strained the milk
in big stone crocks, let it set till cream raised, then skimmed it off and churned it. There was a skimmer--
heavy tin about the size of a saucer, it had a flat handle and a lot of holes in the saucer part to let the
milk drain out. When the barrel churn came out it was quite an improvement over the old dasher kind.
My mother made butter to sell. I wish I had her old butter mold. It held a pound and you packed the
butter in real solid. It was made of heavy smooth wood. You pushed on the plunger also made of wood,
it pushed the pound of butter out. On the end of the plunger was a fancy design. On my mother's it
was a sheaf of wheat, and that left a pretty design on the top of the butter. Mother and a neighbor lady
sold butter in Kearney. I think they got 20 or 25 cents a pound for it. They started for town at daylight
in warm weather so the butter wouldn't get too soft. They wrapped it in wet cloths after taking it out of
the cave. When they had lots of butter she packed it in stone jars and I think put a thick layer of salt
on it to keep for use when the cows were dry. Alfalfa was not known then so they fed prairie hay and corn
and in winter the butter was almost white so they put in a few drops of coloring in the cream. The coloring
came in a small bottle. It was made from carrots. One day my father came home and said he heard of
a new hay. They said you could cut it three times a year, stack it and feed it all winter and you didn't
have to color your butter. He "didn't believe a word of it." There was a field planted just
north of Major's church by a John Huston and all the men in the community had eyes on the patch of ground. That
was the first alfalfa in the neighborhood. That was about 68 years ago but I remember it well.
Very few girls went to high school. One could teach at 17
years of age if you could pass the county exams. Most of the girls when they got "too big to go to school"
worked out. Did housework for $1.50 a week or sometimes only $1.00. Some learned dressmaking
and that was a real profession for a woman.
We did not have a washing machine till I was ten years old. Just a wash board.
Once mother was not feeling well so my father asked a German woman if she would do some washing. They had
just moved in across the road and she couldn't speak English but her husband could speak a little. She came
over and was rubbing clothes between her hands so mother put the wash board in the tub. The woman took it
out and then it dawned on mother that she didn't know what it was for, so mother showed her how to use it.
She was so happy she jumped up and down. She sent her man over that evening to find out how much one cost,
which was 15 cents.
One day at school a man drove by that none of us knew and this little German
girl said "Oh: dot's Uncle Mike, I can see it on the dog."
[Huh? I don't get it, clue me in. The dog recognized
Uncle Mike? - RRS]
We had no mail order catalogs in those days.
We got mail Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays by going 2 1/2 miles to the post office. Majors post office was
on the back of the Cedar Creek about half a mile east of the Majors cemetery.
No mention of Majors or Cedar Creek would be quite complete without the mention
of the Carpenters, who boasted the first frame house, and the first cook stove. The first Sunday School was
organized and Mrs. Carpenter also taught the first school in the upstairs room of her home. In 1879 a post
office desk was installed in the Carpenter home, named Majors, in honor of Tom Majors who was a Nebraska congressman.
The income from that office was nine dollars in the first year and was never more than thirty dollars in any one
year. Mrs. Carpenter bore the burden of the office but “Grand-sir” enjoyed the many it brought in for her
to feed and he to visit with.
The Majors office was closed in 1901. No rural route was ever
out of Majors. The mail was carried out from Kearney three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday by
a man who drove a horse or mule hitched to a two wheeled cart or a small four wheeled open buggy. His first
stop was at Prairie Center located about half a mile east of St. Mary’s Catholic church on the south-west corner
of the section. The Postmaster was a Mr. Webster. A Mr. Newberry was also postmaster at Prairie Center
for several years. The carrier drove on from Majors to Loup City in one day then back to Kearney the next.
An old item in my scrap book reads thus: “Clare Vaughters, our new mail carrier does not let the grass grow
under his feet.” Other items as follows: “The post office at Pool’s Siding was burglarized one day
last week. Only stamps were found but they laid in plenty to last for ordinary letter writing for some time
as fifteen dollars worth were taken.” (no date on this item.) “The mail did not come the 25th as was due
and many were disappointed, there was a reason and it calls for sympathy” (dated June 1900) “the non-arrival of
the mail from Kearney the 30th was a disappointment” (dated July 1900) “We, of Majors post office have been shut
off or cut from the rest of the world for a week. No mail having come to this part of Uncle Sam’s domain,
For the past two weeks mail has come semi-occasionally. April 1st the mail came no more until the 8th.
The week before we missed one mail. The folks at Majors are impatient and said they would change their address.”
Henry DeGroat carried mail from Poole in 1908. Photo in the
hands of Mrs. Allen (Marge) Stover.
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“The two Postoffices on 57216 (must have been the route number) will
soon be discontinued. Then free delivery will be in order. The Post office at Majors is discontinued.
Mr. Carpenter who has been postmaster over 22 years, ever since the office has been in existence, has resigned
and no one willing to take the place so the Department discontinued the office. Those who have not changed
their address will find their mail at Prairie Center. The Postmaster at that place has also resigned but
has not received his discharge and that office will be discontinued unless some one is found to be the next Postmaster.”
“The Post office known as Majors has been discontinued over two months, yet papers, a bushel or more come as far
as Prairie Center every week.” “The mail failed again to come the 1st, to the detriment and worriment of
the Postmaster. The patrons of the office were disappointed and put to trouble. Some were expecting
important mail, others looking for mail from sick friends. The government pays to have the mail carried promptly
and in order. The uncertain and haphazard ways has long been persisted in and will cause the throwing up
of the office.” (no date) “Mrs. Ora McConnell, Department Postmaster gives satisfaction being general and
accommodating. She is located at Pool’s Siding.” (no date) “The mail from Kearney just rolls here.
If it didn’t have to go around Robin Hoods barn to get here we would get it before it was stale.” “The Rail
Road Co. put in a siding so W. W. Pool could ship cattle from his ranch so the place was named Pool’s Siding.”
(the name changed to Poole in 1906.) (those items are copied exactly as they are in the old scrap book.)
[ See Poole in the past, or Pool's Siding]
Your Grandfather’s family (A.J. Stover) lived half a mile south of
us. [A.J.
Stover biography]
We were not very neighborly as your great grandfather Stover was a staunch Republican and my father just as radical
an Independent and political feeling ran high. Elections were held every year and they would just get on
speaking terms and it was election time again and who ever side lost was mad at the other. The wives were
good friends and paid no attention to elections as women didn’t vote then.
We spent our evenings playing exciting games of dominoes, tiddley
winks, Old Maid, Lotto, (that was almost like Bingo). The boys whittled out tops and chains of wood.
We always gathered wild fruit - plums, grapes and choke cherries.
Some one told mother you could keep plums in the cave by putting them in a stone jar, put a weight on, such as
a brick or large stone and keep them under water. She used a heavy iron wheel and when she went to get the
plums to cook, they were all black as lumps of coal. The acid in the plums didn’t agree with the iron, it
should have been brick or stone.
When I was a child there was a man who lived south and east who
came to the river and Cedar Creek and cut willow stems and wove clothes baskets. I had one for years that
he wove for mother. I suppose it cost 50 cents. I don’t know what time of year or if he cured them
some way or not but they were more durable than our plastic ones today.
There were a few mason glass jars for canning tomatoes, cherries
or apples. Women used tin cans. They held a quart, had a lid that fit in a grove in the can and they
poured melted sealing wax on top of the can to seal it. You bought the sealing wax in a cake like our paraffin
of today. It was hard as a rock on the cans and you had to use a hammer to break it when you wanted to open
a can. I used it 55 years ago as I couldn’t get any glass jars.
I almost forgot one source of entertainment. In summer a man
would come to a school house in the evening with a phonograph and some records. They charged children 5 cents,
I don’t remember if they charged adults the same or not. He would play his records and play any a second
time if anyone requested it. I remember being at Cedar Creek school house and he had a record of a mob burning
a negro at the stake and the man said the children had better go outside the room as it wasn’t good for them to
hear. The man would stay in the neighborhood that night, get supper and breakfast, feed for his horse, and
a place to sleep for 50 cents.
Another game we played was mumbly-peg. All you needed was
a jack knife and a piece of soft pine board. My brother and I used the cave door till Dad discovered what
was hacking up the door. We opened the big and little blades of the knife, stuck the big blade in the wood
and give it a flip, if it landed and stuck on the point it counted 10, if the big blade stuck in the wood it counted
5. It was a real skillful game. When you missed it was the other players turn.
There were no windmills. All water was drawn up the old “oaken
bucket” method. All open wells and neighbors helped each other clean out the wells as weeds, leaves, and
corn stalks would blow in. Tho there were boards built up 3 feet or more around the well, once in a while
a rabbit would jump in.
They dug the wells by hand and very carefully as after they got
down 20 feet or more there wasn’t air enough for a man to survive and they lowered a lantern in the hole.
If it went out, it wasn’t safe to go in for a while. A young man collapsed in a well a mile or so south of
where the old Star school was. His father went down to help him and they both died in the well. Their
name was Dudley. The girls, Hettie and Rena were good friends of my mother. The people all thought
there were poisonous gasses in the will and they called the condition the “damps.”
Putting up ice was a winter job for the men. Many families
had an ice house dug in the ground or bank, a roof that didn’t leak. When the ice was 15 inches thick, sometimes
as thick as 24 inches, it was ice cutting time. They had an ice saw run by hand of course, ice tongs, and
ropes for equipment. Ice was cut off in large cakes 2 feet square. The pond or river was carefully
marked off so the ice cakes would fit closely to help prevent melting. The cakes were loaded on wagons and
hauled to the ice house where they were slid down an ice chute into the ice house and packed in straw. Once
when they were ready to go to the river, I said “be careful, don’t anyone fall in.” The neighbor said “Oh
you are just like Clara, that’s what she said.” When the men came in to dinner I said “Where is Charley?”
Someone said “He went home to change clothes-- he fell in.” The ice boxes we had were kind of a nuisance.
There was a pipe in the bottom to carry off the water as the ice melted and a dish pan was kept under the box to
catch the water. The pan was often forgotten and it ran over.
People usually butchered 2 or 3 pigs in the spring for summer meat.
The meat was put in a strong salt brine for a certain number of days, then hams and shoulders taken out and smoked.
Nearly every family had a smoke house, if not they took their meat to the neighbors to be smoked. There was
a certain amount of skill in doing it properly. The side meat was left in the brine and got so salty it had
to be sliced and brought to a boil, that water poured off, and then fried. No, it wasn’t very tasty, but
it was food. Coarse salt was used, no such thing as table salt. Salt was bought in barrels. The
men made salt boxes usually fastened to the bottom of a post so some unruly cow couldn’t spill it and waste
it as there was no block salt. It wasn’t until I was grown up that women learned to can meat. At first
women were sure it wouldn’t keep, but it did and the home canned beef and pork was delicious Mother used
to grind meat for sausage, make it in balls, as they called them, fry it done or put it in the oven to cook.
When done she put it in a stone jar and poured hot lard over it and put it in the cave. She would dig our
2 or 3 balls, break it up in the skillet, add flour and milk to make gravy. That and potatoes made a meal.
They used lots of corn meal, which was cheaper than flour and made corn bread and much. How I hated that
mush. They ate it with milk, tho my mother let me put on a little butter and a little bit of sugar.
When our children were small, my husband said, “Now there’s one thing our kids don’t have to eat if they don’t
want to, and that’s mush.” Farmers raised enough wheat to have it ground or milled to have flour for a year.
Some men used to walk to Gibbon, the nearest town, one day down and back the next and carry a sack of flour.
It was 20 miles for some. There used to be a flour mill about a mile east of Wood River bridge on highway
10. This was the Bearess Mill. Another at Gibbon made Sunbeam flour. You got so many sacks of
flour, so much graham flour and so much bran depending on how much wheat to took to the mill to trade. The
bran was fed to the milk cows. Mother sometimes cooked wheat for 2 or more hours and we ate it in place of
oatmeal. However oatmeal was the only breakfast food except that despised mush.
Many farmers raised a patch of cane to take to a syrup mill in the
neighborhood in Cedar township. The mill was about three-fourths of a mile west of the corner north of Majors
cemetery. The stalks of cane are juicy and were cut at a certain stage and hauled to the mill. A grinder
run by hitching a horse to it. The horse walked round and round and the cane juice poured out in a large
tank or pan. It must have been heavy tin or copper as there was no galvanized articles then. After
the juice had been squeezed out a fire was kept burning under the pan and someone had to stand and stir the syrup
with a long wooden paddle so it would not burn. When it had boiled down to the required thickness it was
put in jugs. It was a bit stronger than today’s mollasses and I wonder how it was kept free of dust, flies,
ants and etc. The green cane juice was good tasting but it would make you very sick if you chewed much of
it. I know from experience.
My father made hominy in the winter time. He preferred white
corn as he thought the hulls came off easier. Most corn was the yellow type. He shelled it, discarding
bad kernels and cooked it in a large kettle, or a large pail as it swells. Most recipes removed hulls by
using lye in the water it was cooked in but he used baking soda. It was boiled for hours and when hulls began
to loosen he took out a quart or two, put it in clean cold water and rubbed the kernels together in his hands till
the hulls were all off, then put it on the stove and cook it some more. It was very good and the water it
was soaked in would jell. Butter was put in a skillet and the hominy was fried or heated. I believe
it had more flavor than the hominy we buy today.
Most housewives made laundry soap from the cracklings after lard
was rendered as nearly everyone butchered a fat hog. Lye was used to make soap and it was hard on your hands
and hard on colored clothes as the colors were not very permanent anyway. However home made soap did get the clothes
clean.
Most families raised a patch of sweet corn and dried corn was very
good. Dried beef was also made at home by putting a piece of beef in strong brine for a certain length of
time and then hang it in the smoke house. Corned beef was also made, but I do not remember just how it was
prepared except that it was put in a brine also. All kinds of wild fruit was used for jelly and wild plums
were cooked for sauce. Another food we often had was salt cod fish. We could buy it in a piece, a pound
or more, and it was very salty. A slice or chunk was broken off and put to soak in a large kettle of water
to remove the salt. It was then mashed up and a milk gravy made. The cod fish was sometimes put in
mashed potatoes which were then made into patties and fried and that with home made bread and butter was a meal.
I did not like cod fish and still shudder at the name. My father often bought a small wooden pail of herring
fish packed in salt brine so they too had to be soaked out before they could be cooked. The insides had been
removed and the heads were off but they had to have the scales scraped off and were very bony. The meat was
always looked over very carefully before given to small children. The fish were rolled in flour before frying.
(my father preferred corn meal). When the pail was empty it was used as a “foot-tub,” but must be kept full
of water or it would dry out and fall to pieces. Wash tubs were also wooden and had to have water in to prevent
drying out. Iron bands top, bottom and center held them together. Everyone had rhubarb which was supposed
to keep if packed in cold water-- the acid supposed to preserve it. Gooseberries were also supposed to keep
this way, but they turned hard as rocks and were impossible to cook them until they were soft. Gardens were
a problem as there was no way to water them and we had hot winds that wilted all vegetation. Potatoes were
usually planted in a “draw” (low spot) and sometimes a heavy rain would drown them out or bury them deep in the
mud.
When a person became real sick someone went for the Doctor who lived
south of Haven’s Chapel a mile or more. As there were no telephones someone went on horse back or drove a
team to bring the Doctor. Two or three older women in the neighborhood served as “mid wives” and you went
after whoever lived closest to you. My grandmother Higgins served in many such cases. I can remember
a neighbor’s little boys coming to school with the news of a baby brother at their house. The first question
of course was “where’d you get him?” “Oh Grandma Higgins brought him.” “Where did she get him?”
“Under the bridge.” I was about 6 years old and I wanted a sister so very much so every time I went to Grandmas,
I looked under the bridge, but no sign of a baby. I didn’t think it was fair of her not to bring one to us.
The husband of a family living about 10 or 12 miles came for grandma
one night. She stayed an hour or more after the baby came and then the man hitched up the team and brought
her home. As soon as he reached home a neighbor who was staying with the wife rushed out and told him the
baby was bleeding at the navel. He turned around and rushed back to get Grandma Higgins. When she got
there she made a “dough ball” of flour and water and bound it tightly on the baby’s stomach. It stopped bleeding
but the dough was left on until it dried and cracked off a little at a time and could be soaked off with wet cloths.
They did not put tiny babies in a pan of water for several weeks. Neighbors came in and sat up all night
with a sick person. My brother had typhoid fever and Cyril Carpenter came and stayed every other night for
three weeks.
When spring came and it was warm enough so a fire was not necessary
my father would start a Sunday School at the school house. There was a Presbyterian church in the neighborhood
but not all attended those services. There was no money to buy coal to have Sunday school in winter.
The meetings were well attended and all enjoyed the fellowship and singing hymns together. I can remember
meetings at Rose Hill, Cedar Creek and Star school houses. One of the men served as superintendent for the
summer.
My father would come in after morning chores were done and say “let’s
go up to Bob’s or down to George’s.” Mother would say “I’m baking bread but I’ll take it along.” You
knew the neighbor would have the kitchen stove fired up as that was the only method of heat. When they came
home in the afternoon you left a loaf of fresh bread for the neighbor. The men played checkers all day or
if it was a nice warm winter day they pitched horse shoes.
The Centennial Flag
In 1876 the women on Cedar Creek made a flag to be displayed at
the 4th of July picnic which was held in a nice grove of trees on Cedar Creek about three fourths of a mile east
of Majors cemetery near the Carpenters. Grandmother Higgins helped make the flag which is faded now but is
kept in a show case at Fort Kearney. The pattern for the flag was drawn by J. E. Miller who was one of the
Cedar Creek pioneers. There was no such thing as a flag pole at the picnic grounds so the flag was hung on
a wild plum bush.
The Sand Hill Hunting Trip
Every fall in early November several men including my father loaded
three or four wagons with food, bedding, a tent, straw, and grain for teams and started for the big hunt.
The often went as far west as Dunning, Nebr., where there were plenty of deer, antelope, parry chickens and grouse.
They dressed the game and if it was not cold enough to freeze it was salted generously and put in brine when they
got home. After it had been [in] the brine the required length of time it was taken out and smoked.
My father had a smoke house and let the neighbors use it. We hear of hickory smoked meat but my father used
apple or cherry branches. If a branch died or broke off in a wind storm it was saved for the smoke house.
Fresh meat was fried well done, put in a stone jar and melted lard poured over it. Not the best meat in the
world but it was food and a way of keeping it. Hunters shot lots of rabbits and prairie chickens and sold
them to hotels and restaurants would buy them. Grandfather Stover shipped quail and prairie chickens to Omaha.
Rabbits were dressed and hung on the clothes line to freeze (out of the reach of dogs and cats) then put in kegs
or wooden boxes and buried deep in a straw stack. They would stay frozen a long time.
The Pool Ranch
Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Pool came to Nebraska from Pennsylvania in 1876
and settled on what is still know as the Pool Ranch and were acquainted with some of the difficulties of pioneer
life and their life story is part of our countries history. Mr. Pool committed suicide in the cemetery at
Ravenna in 1898. His wife died two weeks later in childbirth. She was not expected to live through
the birth, the reason for his taking his own life, so rumor said.
[ See Poole
in the past]
The Automobile
I think it was 1902 or 1903 that the first automobile was seen on
our country roads. A Doctor in Kearney used to drive out to his farm a mile south of Poole. No one
wanted to be on the road as horses were terrified and there was many a run-away. Men usually got out and
stood by the horses heads to try to quiet them. If possible they would drive in some ones yard or even out
in a field to avoid meeting a car. The man driving the car would usually stop but my father shouted “Get
that confounded infernal machine out of here.” A number of farmers vowed they would never set foot in one
of those machines. Cattle in pasture would panic and run as fast and as far as they could. Not all
roads were passable for a car. There were deep ruts from wagon wheels and a high ridge in the center that
the autos couldn’t clear. Many an early car got hung up on “high center.” Not all autos had lights
so there was no night driving. Then carbide lights were put on cars. The first car I rode in had no
top, and no doors. Later they were equipped with side curtains. Cars had tops then and the curtains
had squares of ising glass for light, but the curtains did not keep out much cold and couldn’t be snapped tight
enough to keep out the wind.
Livery Stables
Another thing that would be a novelty for the young people in 1965
would be the hitching racks or hitching posts that lined both sides of the street in all the towns. If you
were only staying in town a short time you tied your team on the street, but if staying all day you went to a livery
stable and a man unhitched the team, watered them and put them in the barn or stable as it was called and fed them
hay and grain. The cost-- 15 cents. Anyone who let a team or horse stand on the street all day without
feed or water was not thought much of, especially if it was in winter. The man who run the livery barn had
teams or single horse and buggy for rent if you wished to drive somewhere.
The Poor House
In those early days there was the county “poor house” or “poor farm”
where people were sent when they could no longer work and had no money. The poor house was 12 miles south
and a mile west of Poole. The old men helped raise hogs and cattle and farmed the land. It was a large
farm. There are several graves in a group of trees on this road north of the Wood River.
The lot is fenced and men who died at the poor farm are buried
there. It is covered with cotton wood trees now. It was considered a disgrace to have to go to the
“poor house,” even songs were written about it. “Over the Hill to the Poor House.” The farm was partly
self supporting. It was county property and there was no charge to anyone who went there except you were
required to help all you were able.
Threshing Time
We kids always enjoyed the excitement of threshing time. Several
teams of horses or mules were hitched to the power machine and they walked round and round in a circle which made
a wonderful race track after the threshing crew moved on. We had strict orders to stay away from the horses
and not to go near the tumbling rod, a long length of iron which was turning very fast and made the thresher or
sheller run. The grain was cut by binder and the bundles tied with twine. The bundles were
pitched on the “table” of the threshing machine by a man on each side of the table. A boy stood on each side
of the man feeding the machine. The boys cut the twine on the bundles with jack knives. They had to
work fast. Later the horses were replaced by a steam engine. That meant that another man to drive the
water wagon to haul water for the “steamer.” My brother and I always wished our Dad would get a threshing
outfit with a steamer to do our grain but he didn’t for a long time. “New fangled machinery” didn’t appeal
to him. It took quite a crew of men as there would be four men with hayracks hauling bundles in from the
field where they had been shocked. Three men on the strawstack and two hauling grain from the machine to
the granary. A “water monkey” to haul water or to ride the horsepower to keep the teams going evenly.
The man who owned the outfit just walked around and supervised. There was usually some grain spilled and
shelled out where the machine sat. It was carefully gathered up for chicken or hog feed. Farmers had
straw sheds for their cattle. They set poles in the ground and put poles across the top for a roof and had
the man set the threshing machine so straw would cover the shed. It made a nice warm shelter in winter.
The south end usually left open, or part of it at least.
Community plowing, photo courtesy Kim Stover
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Most women had a rag carpet in one room at least. It was usually
taken up in summer and when fall come and after threshing was done a thick layer of straw was spread on the floor
and the carpet laid on that and stretched tight and tacked down around the edge with carpet tacks. Anyone
who could afford a “store bought” carpet was well-to-do. The straw, or some used prairie hay, would soon
pack down and it made the floor warmer as fuel was sometimes scarce.
A man who lived in Kearney would bring a sack of coal out to his
mother who lived near to us. The little boys in her house liked to burn coal and would go out doors just
to smell the smoke as “it smelled just like town.” Another daily chore was cleaning lamp chimneys and keeping
the lamps filled with kerosene. A woman’s housekeeping was sort of judged by whether her lamp chimneys were
clean or not.
There were a lot of sod houses lived in when I was a child but I
cannot remember ever seeing a sod house being built. They were cool in summer and warm in winter.
One April Fool’s day my brother filled a coffee sack with dirt and
tied it with a string and laid it out in the road near our house. The first man who came along stopped his
team, got out of his wagon, and brought the package to the house thinking my folks had lost it. Mother told
him it was and April fool’s joke of my brother’s. He laughed and said he would put it back. The next
man to drive along was not as honest. He jumped out of the wagon, grabbed the package and whipped up his
team and drove on fast as he could. We always wondered what he said when he opened up his sack of “coffee.”
Years before ice was used, milk, butter and cream was put in containers
set in a bucket and a rope tied to the bail of the bucket and it was lowered into the well hole to keep it fresh.
Later years most people had a deep cave and could then keep potatoes from freezing. They also hung cabbage
heads up side down and they kept a long time. We could buy maple syrup (if we could afford it). It
came in a large cake like our baking chocolate of today. It was maple sugar and we broke it up, poured hot
water on it and brought it to a boil. It was very good but mostly we had sorghum on our corn bread and pancakes.
I can’t remember just when corn syrup came on the market, but I do remember how very good I thought it was.
Uncle Charlie, before 1900, photo courtesy Kim Stover
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In 1909 I had a lot of tomatoes to can and there were not any glass jars, as the store had sold
out. My mother said I could use tin cans and if I opened and emptied them at once, carefully washed and dried
so no rust formed they could be used a second time. Mother’s Uncle from Wisconsin was visiting and I had
tomatoes for dinner. He said “Did you can those?” and I told him that I had. He said “Allright,
I’ll eat them, but I don’t eat nuthin’ out of a tin can.” They didn’t kill him-- he lived years after that.
[Mother's Uncle Charlie Wamsley... Ellen's brother.
By-gone school Days
When I ask my grandchildren what they had for lunch at school today,
this was the menu: Hot dogs, mashed potatoes, buttered corn fruit, cookie and milk.
I think back to our school lunches in the 1890’s. We all carried
a tin syrup pail or possibly a “store bought” pail. There was no waxed paper or paper napkins to wrap sandwiches
in and people were very cautious about putting food next to tin for fear of tin poisoning so a piece of clean white
cloth was placed in the bottom of our pail. Our sandwiches were two large slices of home made bread, one
slice spread with home made butter and the other with sorghum.
There were 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th readers. Our 5th readers
had no pictures in and very dry reading. The lower grade books were the same. We used Harper’s Readers,
Barne’s History, an easy edition for younger and more advanced type for older pupils. One geography was the
Colton. We had two spelling books “big” and “little.” I do not remember the name of the grammar books
of language as the one for the younger pupils was called. We had penmanship once a week. Each one had
a copy book, it had a sample of writing in and we were to copy it as nearly as possible on the vacant lines below
the copy. We did not use tablets much (couldn’t afford them). Everyone had a slate, some had a double
slate, two slates laced together. They were highly prized as we could work the next days arithmetic lesson,
fold the slate over the lesson and it could not be erased. Then along comes a triple slate-- really something!
We had to use slate pencils which broke easily if they were dropped. They were noisy things, squeaked when
using them and the teacher would shout “Don’t hold your slate pencil so straight.” We all took a piece of
cloth from home for a “slate rag” to dampen and clean our slate. Some of the boys would spit on their slate
and wipe it off with their shirt sleeve.
Our desks were double, two pupils occupied each one, you could choose
your seat mate but you better be quiet or the teacher would change your position. Our desks sloped and there
was a groove along the top of each side to keep pencils from rolling off. In the center between the grooves
was an ink-well-- a hole containing a small glass jar that held probably a tablespoon of ink. It had a sliding
metal lid flush with the top of the desk. Before we had penmanship the teacher had one of the older boys
check the ink-wells and fill them from a large bottle of ink kept in her desk.
If both slices had sorghum on it would soak into the bread and be
a soggy mess. I cannot remember having meat sandwiches. We had jelly made from wild plums, grapes or
choke cherries. Peanuts were cheap so now and then we had a few peanuts in our pail. We sometimes had
a hard boiled egg with salt for it wrapped in a little paper. The eggs were boiled and cooled, not shelled
as a boiled egg can sure smell up a pail with a lid on. No food was wrapped in a newspaper as the ink in
the paper might be poison.
My brother and I were a little more fortunate than some as my father
had set out an orchard so we could have an apple but I doubt if today’s boys and girls would eat them as they were
not Jonathon, Winesaps or Delicious but Ben Davis, a cooking apple. In the fall we had a handful of wild
plumbs in our lunch pail, an orange at Christmas time only. In the winter it was so cold the lunches would
freeze if left in the hall, so we were allowed to bring our pails in and set them under or around the stove.
Rose Hill School, about 1906, photo courtesy V. Todd
Stover
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The last year I was in school Dist. 64 Buffalo County there
were 33 pupils, all sizes and ages. We opened the day by the teacher reading from the bible. Then we
sang. One teacher had us repeat the Lord’s Prayer in unison. I have a McGuffeys 3rd reader of my mother’s
and I suppose the Supreme Court of today would toss it out of the schools as it refers to God in a number of places.
It also has this short version of the Lord’s Prayer:
Our Father in Heaven
We hallow thy name,
May thy kingdom holy
On earth be the same,
O give to us daily
Our portion of bread,
It is from thy bounty
That all must be fed.
Forgive our transgressions
And teach us to know,
That humble compassion
That pardons each foe.
Keep us from temptation
From weakness and sin,
And thine be the Glory
Forever, Amen.
I had two braids of long blond hair and often had the ends of the
braids colored (much to my mother’s disgust) by being stuck in the ink well by the mischievous boy who sat right
behind me. The desks were fastened to the floor which made it difficult to sweep under them. We usually
had three, three month terms, sometimes a different teacher every three months. When the winter term began
on December first the big boys in the district came to school. They were really grown men 19 and 20 years
old. When the teacher asked what books they wanted one usually spoke for a group of five or six. “We
want a readin’ book, rithmetic book a gogify (geography) and a spellin’ book and we don’t want no grammar book
cause it don’t make sense to make a lot of lines and put words on ‘em, learnin’ which is nouns and verbs don’t
matter to us. We want a ‘rithmetic book cause a feller ort to know how to figger.” (this particular
young man learned how to “figger” as when he died he was quite well-to-do.)
One of the favorite pastimes of the older boys in some communities
was to see if they could “run the teacher out.” They were big and rowdy, wouldn’t pay any attention to the
teacher and otherwise cause so much disturbance that she couldn’t teach and she would finally quit. One district
hired a small middle aged lady to teach. She probably wouldn’t weigh over ninety pounds and the big boys
decided they would run her out the first week of school. On the first day of school one of the big boys promptly
put his feet on the desk in front of him and the teacher told him to put his feet down and set up. He said
he was comfortable that way and had no intention of putting his feet down. She didn’t say anything but went
back to the stove and picked up the stove poker and started to stir up the fire. When the poker was red hot
she turned around and told him to get his feet down and set up or she would run that poker clear through him.
He put his feet on the floor and then she asked if anyone else felt like putting their feet on the desk-- of course
no one else did. She taught the rest of the school year and didn’t have any more trouble.
I remember we younger ones were fascinated by a set of blocks which
could be folded as the sections were fastened together with leather straps and riveted and could form a triangle
a rectangle a trapezoid and a globe to teach the way of finding the area different shaped bodies. (the school districts
usually didn’t buy anything that expensive.)
At recess we played Blackman, New Orleans and Ante-over. The
boys played ball as soon as spring came, girls couldn’t play ball-- didn’t know enough-- according to the boys.
There was no playground equipment, not even a tree so a swing could be put up. When the boys played ball
the girls jumped rope, two girls turning the rope. We would “go in the back door,” which meant jumping in
the wrong side, which was much harder. We all walked to school unless it was raining or snowing or a thunder
storm coming up. The teacher had orders not to send anyone home in a storm so if it began snowing the older
boys were sent out to bring in extra coal in case we had to stay until someone came. No one had better clothes
than others, no keeping up with the Jones’s-- there were no Jones’s.
The teacher received twenty five dollars a month, never over thirty
and she usually boarded in the district for two dollars a week.
School programs were held in the afternoon as there was the problem
of lighting though a Christmas tree was lighted with candles, men standing near the tree with pails of water in
case the tree started to burn. Men brought lanterns to light the room. The teacher gave each pupil
a stick of candy and a pretty card. The candy was a striped peppermint stick, a licorice stick, horehound
or cinnamon and were we happy with one stick of candy.
We carried drinking water from a farm nearby. The pail of
water sat on a bench, a long handled dipper in it, all drank from it. I don’t know where the germs were in
those days. One day two of the big boys brought a pail of water but set it down outdoors instead of bringing
it in, one went to see what some other boys were doing. Grandpa Stover’s old bird dog named Skip came up
and took a drink out of the pail. The teacher just happened to see him so she rushed out and emptied the
rest out and called the boys to get another pail of water. They refused-- they wasn’t carrying water for
her to pour out. She told them the dog drank out of it and one said “you could have poured a little off the
top-- he didn’t drink out of the bottom.”We had to stack our books carefully or they would fall out with an awful
clatter the way our pencil boxes did.
There was a man in the District who had nothing better to do but watch
to see what time the teacher called school or dismissed. He lived a half mile from the school house but as
the school house was on a hill he could see. Then he would report to my father who was on the school board
“She let school out 5 minutes early” or “She didn’t call school till 10 minutes after nine. Father paid no
attention to the reports.
We had no curtains or shades at the tall windows, only shutters.
Some were slatted like venetian blinds while others were wood covered and the teacher must close all shutters every
night as a hail storm might come and break a glass.
One of the songs we sang almost every day was “School Days”
School Days, school days
Dear old golden rule days
Readin’ and writin’ and ‘rithmetic
Taught to the tune of a hickory stick
You were my queen in calico
I was your bashful barefoot beau
When I wrote on your slate
I love you, Kate
When we were a couple of kids.
The school was named Rose Hill Dist. 64. It was on my mother’s
land and some say it was named after my mother as her name was Rose.
[Also see...
I do not remember ever taking school work home. In September
if the weather was warm, the flies, wasps and box elder bugs were very annoying and there was no such thing as
spray to fight them with.
The school house was about one fourth mile from a small creek and in the spring
the wild plum bushes were white with bloom. The teacher had a rule that no one could go off the school ground
but she used to let a group of girls go down and pick a huge bunch of plum blossoms as they smelled so sweet.
She would ring the bell when it was time for us to start back.
If we happened to have a heavy rain during the night in the spring
the ground would be alive with little toads. We kids were sure it had rained toads. The boys would
amuse themselves by chasing the girls and threaten to put toads in our apron pockets and we ran screaming for the
teacher.
Poems in our school books
This morning as I gazed about,
I put my vest on wrong side out.
I could not change it back all day,
For that would drive my luck away.
At school the boys did laugh and shout
To see my vest on wrong side out.
I worked, and did my lessons well,
My numbers and my words to spell
An older boy with angry frown
Had missed his word-- I spelled him down.
While coming home, I looked around
And soon a four leaf clover found.
I wished, and put it in my shoe
And don’t you think my wish came true.
It was that I might overtake
The team and ride with Uncle Jake
And so you see that all that day,
I had good luck in every way.
And grandma said Without a doubt
T’was cause my vest Was wrong side out.
Bringing Home the Cows-- by Kate Putman Osgood
Out of the clover and blue-eyed grass
He turned them into the river land,
One after another he let them pass
Then fastened the meadow bars again.
Under the willows and over the hill
He patiently followed their sober pace
The merry whistle for once was still
And something shadowed the sunny face.
Only a boy, his father had said
He never could let his youngest go,
Two already were lying dead
Under the feet of the trampling foe.
But after the evening work was done
And the frogs were loud in the meadow swamp,
Over his shoulder he slung his gun
And stealthily followed the foot path damp.
Across the clover and through the wheat
With resolute heart and purpose grim
Though cold was the dew on his hurrying feet,
and the blind bats’ flitting startled him.
Thrice since then Have the lanes been white
And the orchard sweet with apple bloom
And now when the cows come back at night
The feeble father drives them home.
For news had come to the lonely farm
That three were lying where two had lain
And the old mans’ tremulous palsied arm
would never rest on a sons’ again.
The summer day grew cool and late
He went for the cows when the work was done
But down the lane as he opened the gate
He saw them coming, one by one.
Brindle, Ebony, Speckle, and Bess
Shaking their horns in the evening wind
Cropping the buttercups out of the grass
But who was that following close behind?
Loosely swung in the idle air
The empty sleeve of army blue
And worn and pale neath the crisping hair
Looked out a face that the father knew.
For Southern prisons will sometimes yawn
And yield their dead into life again
And the day that comes with a cloudy dawn
In golden glow at last may wane.
The great tears sprang to their meeting eyes
For the heart must speak when the lips are dumb
And under the silent evening stars
Together they followed the cattle home.
The moon
Oh! Mother how pretty the moon looks to-night
She was never so cunning before
Her two little horns are so sharp and so bright
I hope they don’t grow any more.
If I were up there with you and my friends
We’d rock in it nicely you’d see
We’d set in the middle and hold by both ends
Oh what a bright cradle ‘twould be.
We’d call to the stars to keep out of our way
Lest we should rock over their toes
And there we would stay till the dawn of the day
And see where the pretty moon goes.
There we would rock in the beautiful skies
and thru the bright clouds we would roam
We’d see the sun set and see the sun rise
And on the next rainbow come home.
Rosalie Ewer Clayton
My mother, Rosalie Ewer, was born March 9, 1859 to Ruel
and Ellen Ewer at Cassville, Wisconsin on the Mississippi River. She had two older sisters, Angeline and
Clara, and two brothers, Abraham Lincoln and Nicolas. Her father enlisted in the Union Army in the Civil
War and was killed early in the war. The family moved to Boonesboro or Boone, Iowa, and later to Majors,
or Cedar Creek, in Nebraska. Her brother Nicholas went west to make his fortune and was supposedly killed
in a silver mine in Nevada. He wrote his mother that he was getting double wages as he was working in a dangerous
place. She never heard from him again.
While Mother was still at home the grasshoppers came. Grandma
said to grab the bedding and cover the garden-- not the onions as the grasshoppers wouldn’t eat them. After
the hoppers moved on all that was left of the onions were the holes in the ground where they had been.
Mother and her step sisters went to school in a sod school house
a mile and half north of where they lived. Mother had three step sisters as Grandma Ewer had married Samuel
Higgins who had three girls by a previous marriage. Two of the girls went to school. One day a heavy
rain put a foot or two of water over the road and Uncle Abe, Mother’s brother, carried Mother safely across and
went back for his step sister Nancy. When he got in the middle of the stream he dropped her. He claimed
it was an accident but Mother always doubted it as the two didn’t get along.
Their Step-father was angry when they came home from school and
announced the earth was round. He said the earth did not turn over every twenty four hours. He set
a pail of water out to prove his point. If the water was spilled he would believe that the earth was round
and rotated. I told my Mother I would have sneaked out and tipped the pail over. Mother said, “Oh,
no you wouldn’t or you would have gotten a good beating.”
Mother married Joe Clayton May 8, 1879. They lived on the
40 acres that Grandma Higgins had taken in her child’s name. Raymond Earl was born July 9, 1882. I,
Mary May was born May 5, 1887. Earnest Lewis was born March 4, 1890, and Bruce was born June 12, in either
1894 or 1896. [ 1894 - RRS]
We went to school at Rose Hill. Earl went out west to work
in the wheat fields in Washington. When harvest was over he went to work in a copper mine in Butte, Montana--
The Anaconda. He went into the mine too soon after an explosion and was overcome by gas. He was 26
years old. He was buried in Majors cemetery in 1906. Ernest married Ruth McConnel and lived on the
home place for a number of years. Baby Bruce lived only ten days. He is at Majors cemetery. [Bert
Stover was on that same trip with Earl. - RRS]
Years after my Mother was gone my Aunt Liz Ewer told me that my
Mother had twin girls. I know she lost babies as she once remarked to me she wished there had been a cemetery
at the time so “Our babies could have been buried there instead of out in the trees.” I suppose they were
born prematurely, but people did not discuss such matters as freely then as they do now.. I wish since two
pair of girls have come into the family that I had known more about it. My Mother died in February of 1913
of gall trouble. Now days an operation would have saved her.
Mother’s brother, Abraham (Uncle Abe) lived with my folks for several
years. Indians often came by and stopped to beg. One day when some Indians stopped, Uncle Abe went
in the house and got Earl, who was a sweet fat baby several months old, and took him out to show him to the Indians
as they had a papoose with them. Mother was so frightened as she knew they would come back and steal him.
The Indians made a great fuss over the white baby, put his little hands against their faces and mother gave him
a good scrubbing when she got him back in the house.
Joseph Clayton
My Father, Joseph
Clayton was born in Ohio, High Hill Township, Muskingum County.
His mother died when he was small (6 years old) and the father gave the children away-- two boys and two girls.
He had no idea where his sisters were. He found his brother Henry’s family years later. My Father went
to live with a family by the name of Elliott. Mr. Elliott was a hard master, so Joseph ran away at 15 years
and joined the Union Army. He served in the Cavalry for two years (First Ohio Cavalry), was shot in the lung.
After he was out of the hospital he enlisted in the Marines on the Mississippi River. As the bullet was still
in his lung he couldn’t ride a horse or take any jolting. He was given a discharge from the Army so he could
enlist in the Marines. He farmed later, but then a man walked behind a plow or harrow-- no riding machinery
in those days.
Through a Veteran’s paper, the National Tribune, he located his
father. He had also been in the Army both in the Civil War and the Mexican War. He had lost a leg in
the Mexican war. While comparing experiences, they found that they had both served in the same regiment and
had fought in some of the same battles, neither realizing the other was there. Joseph went back to Indiana to see his father who had
married again and had a second family. He met his half sister, and did not like her, but his father told
him where his other sisters were and he went to see them in later years, but as he was only 6 years old when he
last saw them, they were as strangers and not “family.” (footnote #7)
My father had not been allowed to go to school and could not read
or write when he went into the army. He had his tent mate write to the Elliott girls, as they had been good
to him. One night his tent mate said “I’m going to teach you to read and write,” and he did. He learned
to write very well and read the newspapers from front to back. He was also very good in the every day math
of that day. He kept in touch with his sisters as he called them until his death in 1924.
After the war my Father came to Nebraska after spending some time
in Iowa. I believe it was in 1871 or 1872.
When the X-ray machines first came out the Doctor in Ravenna wanted
to X-ray Father’s chest to see if he could locate the bullet from the civil war days but Father wouldn’t
let him. He said “that bullet isn’t bothering me and I’m not going to bother it.” He told me the Doctor
would want to dig it out and he didn’t want that, so he carried the bullet to his grave.
Two of Father’s favorite stories about the early pioneer days were
the “Soup Stone” and the story of the man crossing the Nebraska prairie with the team of oxen. He told of
this man who was heading west across Nebraska with a team of oxen. It got so hot one afternoon that one of
the oxen died from the heat. As you couldn’t let anything go to waste the man proceeded to skin the dead
ox. While he was skinning it, a blizzard came up out of the north and the other oxen froze to death. ---
The “Soup Stone” was just what the name implies. As food
was scarce, you went to the river and found a nice round stone about as big as your hand. Took it home and
washed it clean. Then you would put it in a kettle of water on the stove and bring it to a boil-- you were
to add potatoes, carrots, turnips, or any other vegetables that were available. He said if you had a little
piece of meat or a bone to put in the kettle it made it better-- it made the best soup-- and the best part of it
was you could take the “soup stone” out of the kettle, dry it off, and use it again.
Mother’s step sisters were Tilly, Luncinda, and Nancy [Higgins].
Tilly had a baby before marriage. The baby died and is buried under a pine tree on Grandma Higgins place.
Lucinda lived near Kearney. We visited back and forth when I was a child. I still write to one of her
sons, a Frank Israel who lives in North Platte.
Uncle Abe
served as the community barber, and one time he was cutting Clarence McConnell’s hair. Clarence was ten or
twelve years old at the time. He run into a gob of something in his hair, so he asked Clarence what it was
in his hair. Clarence said “Oh, Bertie (his brother about two years older), the darn fool, hit me over the
head with the ‘lasses spoon.” Bertie and Clarence remained bachelors and farmed together for years.
They were still squabbling sixty years later.
I don’t know too much about the Stover side of the family, but I
do have the following information: Daniel Stover, your great, great grandfather was born at Oneida New York.
His wife’s name was Hanna and they had two boys, Albert and a younger brother Clark. Albert would be your
great Grandfather. This information came from the records at Pleasant Prairie, Wisc. where they evidently
moved to from New York. (footnote #8)
The records at Paris New York show John Lucas, 54 (He would have
been born in about 1775), his wife Elizabeth and their children John, Thomas, James, and Elizabeth Ann were all
born in Wales. Elizabeth Ann (grandmother Stover) married Albert Stover at Paris, New York. [Paris, Wisconsin - RRS] (footnote #9)
Poole, Nebraska at one time boasted of implement dealer Tom McConnell, two cream stations, Frank Tisdale’s harness
shop, your Grandfathers blacksmith shop, two elevators, three grocery stores, a drug store, a butcher shop.
In the old Schneider building at the end of the street the Enevoldsen girls ran a restaurant and had sleeping rooms.
There were dances held upstairs in a hall and church suppers were also held there. The Union Pacific rail
road came through town. Joe Mahoney was the depot agent.
Some of the records of the village board meetings are quite amusing
today. Your Grandfather [Clayton] and Joe Mahoney were on the village board and they passed an ordinance
forbidding such dances as the “Bunny Hug,” “Turkey Trot,” etc., as indecent and immoral.
I am wearing your great Grandmother’s wedding ring-- the date written
inside is Sept 7, 1862. Todd Stover is to have it when I am gone.
Some of these things may sound pretty fantastic to you but they
are all true.
- Love to all, Gram
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