https://kccarchives.cvlcollections.org/files/original/17/491/Families-L.pdf 109740d5deb8a224545b821dea71a0df PDF Text Text cement house and barn. The family in a few years needed more room so a basement house was built, all the neighbors helping. They worked long hard hours struggling to provide for their family, farming with horses, fighting the grasshoppers and the blowing dirt, picking up cow chips to burn in the stove, washing clothes on a washboard, but as time went on progress was made and a tractor and machinery purchased, a new house was built and rural electricity available. Loyal had worked in the 1930's during the real depression years for W.P.A. which was a govern- ment progrnm that built bridges, da-s, buildings, etc. He was in a cave-in on one of the dems; he did survive from a broken back; he lay many months in a full body cast. These were probably the most difficult years for the family, the dirt blowing so bad that Emma would hang wet sheets over the windows to try and prevent dust in the room for those that were ill with pneumonia. Millie and I did finish, I graduated in 1926, and she in 1929. Millie is retired from the telephone service having 55 years of service. She is a golfer and enjoys living in Escondido, Calif. I worked for the telephone 18 years and finally retired to get married. Art and I were married on April 5,L942,so we will be having our 45th wedding anniversary this year. We both belong to the Trinity Lutheran Church on Seventh Street and try to be as active as we can. by Mrs. Arthur J. Lange LANGENDOERFER, ERNEST F398 There were eight children in the family, Mamie, Mildred,Evelyn, Lois, Robert, Thomas, Kathryne, and Imogene. All the children attended school thru the eighth grade at Liberty which was a half mile north of the farm. It was at the school where "Lit€raries" were held, people in the community putting on plays, singing,jigging, rattling bones, playing musical instruments, giving readings or sharing some talent they had. Other social things in the community were box and pie suppers, ball gamsg and going to someone's house for Sunday dinner. The teacher of the school usually stayed at the Kyle home since she could walk to school and get the fire started each morning. Loyal and Emma retired from the farm in 1955 and moved to a home in Flagler. Loyal became ill in 1960 and was in ill health until 1967 when he died. Emma was confined to a wheelchair the last few years of her life with arthritis and she died in 1977. Their son Thomas (Tom) and wife Delores now live on the farm. by Kathryne Daniel LANGE FAMILY Ernie was born on his family's homestead 5 miles west of Idalia in 1917. His descendants were from Weingarten, Germany, and settled in Missouri in the early 1800's. His grandparents homesteaded south of Idalia in 1887. His parents, William and Mnmie (Helling) Langendoerfer had three sons: Harold, Ernie, and Alvin; one daughter, Florence, and raised an "adopted" cousin, Stan Voss, orphaned by the flu epidemic of 1918. The fanily raised wheat'and hauled it to Burlington to sell. It took one day to prepare the wagon for the trip, one day to go and one day to come home. The wagon hauled 55 bushels ofwheat. In 1925, the Langendoer- fers bought a Ford Model-T Truck, which also canied only 55 bushels of wheat, but at a speed of 25 MPH on the level and 5 MPH on the hills, they could make three trips to Burlington in one day, quite an advantage over the tenm and wagon. Ernie married Hazel Homm in 1941 and together they ran a general store in ldalia before moving to the Bar-T ranch in 1943. His father had purchased 2080 acres from Bertha M. Bently, a wealthy Nebraska investor, for $4.00 an acre in 1939. The Republican River bottom land had been heavily damaged in the 1935 flood, which contributed to its depres- F397 Bart and Emily Rice Hoschouer cnme from Friend, Nebr. to Colorado in 1900. They homesteaded southeast of Holyoke, Colo. in Phillips County. They built a two room sod house and other buildings. Dad farmed corn, and wheat. There was a lot of free prairie in those days and we always had cattle. We had many prairie fires, sand storms, rattlesnakes (lots of them), and a tornado once in a while, to say nothing of the blizzards. It was rough going as my mother and dad worked hard. We would pick up the most anowheads and there was a large bucket we'd throw them in. When we sold the farm, we left the anow heads. I have regretted that many times. My dad always said he wanted to have a good education for his family, so we cnme to Burlington. We lived in the house where the late Mable Parkes lived. We later bought a home in east Burlington. My oldest sister, Sylvia eloped with her boy friend and lived in Nebr. Albert quit school and found a job on a farm. Clifford, Clarence, and Glen did get to junior class, then quit and found jobs. sed value. Dad and Mother began by repairing and rebuilding the ranch. The one-room bunk house served as their first home until they built a ranch house the following year. They rebuilt a cattle shed that had burned down, moved in a large barn, built corrals and fences to accommodate the 100 head of cattle they acquired to start their business. They began farming 25 acres of dryland feed, hayed the salvagable meadows for winter feed, and cleaned flood-stricken land oftrash to regen- erate growth. They bred with registered Hereford bulls and saved the quality replace- ment heifers to build their cattle herd. In 1952 they drilled one of Kit Carson County's first irrigation wells and went from farming 30 acres of poor dryJand corn to 300 acres of top producing irrigated corn. Dad told folks he raised "corn, cattle, and kids" on his ranch. The three daughters, Sharon, Beverly, and Sandra were born between 1944 and 1948. Having no sons in the family, we all were enlisted to help with the work, but Mother worked side by side with him. Dad kept a hired family all the time and had neighbors help at roundup and haying time, the big events of the year. We bought and built a sheep herd in the 50's, but bobcats became a vicious predator, killing a large number of the herd. Friends and neighbors hunted and killed the wild animals over a few years time, but not before we were forced to sell the surviving part of the herd. By early 1960's we had &illed three irrigation wells, and broke out 200 acres of pasture land, infested with soap weed, to plant irrigated grass. It was an innovative idea that later became popular for heavy cattle grazing. We also began to cross-breed our Herefords to Shorthorn and Angus bulls. We saw positive results in the feedlot performarce of those cattle. Soil conservation was important to Dad. He put in dnms and terraces and worked at the projects faithfully. He and I would ride the ranch to check cattle and the dams. He was faithful and meticulous about greasing windmills, filling backscratchers, and providing salt for the cattle. In 1971 Dad and Mother moved to a new home they built just outside of Burlington, and Dad became active in feedlot and salebarn management. They sold the ranch to my husband and me, and Dad bought and sold cattle. He always laughing called himself a "bullshipper". He was a devoted Christian who took time to live and grow in his faith. He taught us to trust God's timing for our lives. He died of a heart attack in 1986, and we know it was in God's perfect timing. by Sandee Strobel, daughter LAVINGTON, WILLIAM IT. F399 During the latter part of the nineteenth century stories of gainful opportunities and adventure began to reach the eastern part of the United States. Those stories appealed strongly to ambitious, restless young men. One of these young men was my father, William Henry Lavington. He was born March 5, 1859, near Liverpool, New York, the son of Charles C. Lavington and Elizabeth Price Lavington. He was educated in the Syracuse, New York, area and atten{ed Fulton Academy. About 1881, at the age of 22, my father decided to move west and seek his fortune. He arrived in Fremont, Nebraska, where he farmed for 2 years. Following this he settled near Kearney, Nebraska, and spent three more years farming and teaching school. by then he had accumulated enough money to form a grading contracting business which he operated in Nebraska for two years. He had acquired equipment, horses and worlrmen ready for any grading needed. In 1888 he returned to Syracuse, New York, where he was married on March 14, 1888, in North Syracuse, to Louella Isabel Van Heusen. She was born August 30, 1864, at Pitchers Hill, Salina, New York, the daughter of Captain Stephen Van Heusen and Rachel Delong Van Heusen. After their marriage they returned to Nebraska where they soon learned that the Rock Island Railroad was planning to extend their line west across Colorado. It was af that time that my father moved his entire opera- �tion to Colorado. My parents were emong the first inhabitants of what is now Flagler, Colorado. Soon my father sold his contracting business and opened the first general store in Flagler in a tent. Later the store business was moved into a new frane building. My mother assumed part time management of the store thus giving my father time for other activities. During 1889 to 1894 my father served as Kit Carson County Commissioner and he was Postmaster of Flagler from officers training school at Camp McArthur in Waco, Texas, until the end of the war in 1918. In 1921 I graduated from the University of Colorado in geology, a profession I followed until I retired in 1962. I was married to Marguerite Deidesheimer in Denver on December 28, 192t. We became the parents of two sons. Marguerite died in 1945. by Charles S. Lavington 1889 to 1894. By now the Homestead Act had been extcnded and many homesteaders from farther east were moving into the area and much building was being done. The need of LAYMON FAMILY F400 The dateline was from Springfield, Colorado, and the pictures were of Springfield and Holly, Colorado and Elkhart, Kansas. It was written by the person who wrote the movie "Grapes of Wrath." I really remember that Sunday April 14, 1935, real well. I had been in Kansas shearing sheep and was on my way home to Stratton. I had to stay all day at Beloit, Kansas and didn't get to Stratton until Tuesday. I got as far as Stockton and my cousins whom I stopped to see were scooping dirt out of their house with a scoop shovel at midnight. Monday is my birthday and I will be 84. Stratton sure changed a lot since I went there 50 years ago. I was there almost 20 years. I building material was the main reason for my father to open a lumber yard. He was also involved in building a brick veneer hotel as My dad and I moved to the Stratton area the first part of January, 1935. We lived in the basement part of the house west of town land men and homesteaders needed to place to live while they could provide homes for which is now the Grasser place. Nels Moody by Clarence Laymon February 14, Valentine's Day. He went into the beer parlor Shorty Bush and Joe Riley were operating. I did other things and then LENGEL, ELIZABETH GUTTING themselves. Up to this time cattle grazing was the principle industry for most of the land was virgin soil. Gradually small tracts of ground were plowed and cultivated to produce food for the people and animals, thus eliminating the need for provisions to be brought in from the east. During the years my father had acquired a herd of cattle which he gtazed on a large ranch north ofVona. He later bought a ranch south of Flagler where he raised sheep. Earlier a bank had been established in Flagler but in 1910 it suffered difficulties. It was saved by the intervention of my father and other stockmen. With the assistance of money from Denver and the reorganization of the business, the bank survived and it is a strong thriving business to this day. My father was elected president and he remained in that office until his death. About 1930 my father sold the store and lumber yard but he continued to oversee his cattle and sheep business. Both ofmy parents were active in community affairs. My mother served on the school board several years. She died in Flagler, July 25, 1936. My father died in Glendale, California, March 12, 1940. My brother, Leon E. Lavington, the eldest child in the family, wae born in Flagler in 1889. He was the first child born in the town and later became the first mayor when the town was incorporated. He graduated from the University of Colorado in 1915. After graduation he returned to Flagler and established a Ford Agency which he operated until about 1942. After retiring from private business he served as state purchasing agent, later state auditor and state treasurer. He was a candidate for governor in 1946. He was married to Marjorie Dixon of Denver and they becnme the parents of three children. Leon died in Denver in 1961. My sister Anna N. Lavington, was born in Flagler on June 20, L892. She maried Clyde Seal of Flagler, and they became the parents of three daughters. They later moved to California where Mr. Seal died. Anna remained in California and in 1943 she married Arthur Lockwood, a former Flagler business man. She died in California in 1982 at the age of ninety. I was born in Flagler April 5, 1898, and qthe only living member of the W.H. Lav- ington farnily. I attended grade school in Flagler and graduated from high school in Colorado Springs. I enlisted in the armed services in the last year of WWI and attended was still living there and Nels was an alcoholic. I and him went to Stratton on saw a dirt storm coming and drove my car up by the beer joint. Nels was very intoxicated but Shorty and Joe got him in my car and I got him home before the dirt storm struck. When Moody came up through the basement door he hollered, "God, Clarence, come here. Did you ever seen anything like this?" You couldn't see the windmill and it wasn't more than 60 feet to it from the house. have been on the Western Slope of Colorado for thirty years in July, 1985. F401 I, Elizabeth Gutting, was born in Patterson, New Jersey on Jan. 31, 1866, and went to Omaha with my parents when 5 years old. In the spring of 1880, father, Chris Gutting, came to Colorado and built a little frame house and dug a well. I went to Haigler, Nebr., from Omaha bytrain, then traveled by wagon When I moved there the first part of to Kingston (near Armel) and then hired a January the water tank never froze and it was nice weather until February 14. From then on it blowed nearly every day until Decoration Day. Then came a big rain and washed out the railroad bridges at Bethune, Vona and Seibert. There was no trains for a week or so, but Stratton got no rain that time. As long as Moody was there I had plenty of company . . . Fred Wagoner, Joe Adkins, Fred Hyman, and all of the drunks. Finally Nels moved to Edgewater, Colorado, on the team and wagon to bring me across with a few supplies. The country seemed so strange to me, so outskirts of Denver. There were several rabbit drives when they killed rabbits by the thousands. May Tatcher moved in during March, 1936. My father was a veterinary and when the sale bam got started he was appointed the veterinarian to inspect the livestock that was sold through the sales at Stratton, Burlington, Flagler and Limon. All hogs that was not to be slaughtered had to be vaccinated for hog cholera and I did not care for the job of holding the pigs while he vaccinated them, but I did it. As far as I know he was the only licensed veterinary in Kit Carson County at that time. I, Frank Seelhof and his brother, Walter, and Ray Bey went coyote hunting one Sunday. The coyote was going northwest. There was a small patch of green thistles and the coyote went to run across it. He jumped about 4 feet high and went northeast. Our dogs all came back, so we went up to see why they quit. Walter Seelhof saw a big rattlesnake and shot it with a 22 rifle and snakes came from ever5mhere. All four of us killed 185 rattlesnakes that day. The Stratton paper had it right; if I remember they said 185; Burlington's paper said 135. But I think 185 was right. It has been 45 years ago this October since that happened (written May 15, 1985). There is a piece in the Kansas City Times about the Dust Bowl day of April 13, 1935. very few settlers and homes to be seen; although the rolling hills and the closeness to the river made this part of the country much more attractive than the high plains south of the river. I took a pre-emption and a timber claim in what was then Arapahoe county. My father and I planted together. That clump of trees you can see yonder is my father's claim, which I still own. There were plenty of antelope and gray wolves in the vicinity, and the coyotes would howl so mournfully, that it made me feel lonely, but I kept busy and forgot to be lonely. I kept house eight years for my father. We used homemade bedsteads, table, and cup- board, but bought our stove, and chairs in Flagler and brought them overland. I had no clothes line and I would hang the clothes on a J rcca plant - soap weed, which grows so plentiful in the sand. Mail was brought from Jauqua, Kans., and from Cheyenne Wells, Colo. to the Landsman post office, where we got our mail. I was well acquainted with the man, Munsinger, a homesteader in the middle of the Bar T cattle range, who had so much friction with most everyone around him, homesteaders as well as cattlemen. He kept the community fearful of just what he would do next. I knew Mr. Allen, the Bar T foreman, whom Munsinger shot; I spoke to Mr. Allen that morning when he was passing on his way to fix fence and he was carrying no visible firearms then, but at the trial that followed the murder, it was claimed a gun was found by his side, thus helping to establish the pleas of self-defense on the grounds of which Munsinger was freed. My father and I were questioned about the visit with Mr. Allen as to whether or not he �had carried a gun. Our replies being in favor of Mr. Allen, aroused the ire and enmity of Munsinger and he had our little home burned to the ground in revenge. We lost everything, including the keepsakes of my deceased mother. Then father and I built a sod house, and startcd all over again. It may sound heartless, but the community wae relieved to hear of Munsinger's death. He and Mace Old Bill - kept the community in fear as to where they were, what they were doing and who would be the next victim of their revenge. After living with my father for 8 years, I married J.L. Lengel, and he filed homestead papers on the land on which we are now living. We raised a family of seven children and gave them a good education. I boarded the men that built the Emerson ditch; a project headed by a company in and managed by a man in Kansas. The plan was to use this ditch for irrigation purposes, taking water from the Republican River and using it on the farms of eastern Colorado and Kansas. But the project did not extend beyond the Colorado-Kansas boundary line. This ditch is just a short distance north of our home. It took two days to make the trip to the nearest railroad, to market our wheat and hogs; we had nothing to travel in except our wagon, to go to Burlington for supplies, which is 22 miles from here. some home made furniture and dishes. At that time a branch line of the Union Pacific from Kit Carson to La Junta was later discarded. The ties from this old road bed were used by the settlers for posts, corrals, and shacks. I engaged in the cattle business homestead. Our sod has been displaced by a cement block horse, and other buildings have been displaced by ones of frnme and stone. with mybrother-in-law, Herman Homm, and was out on the prairie much more than I was in my shack. Many nights I have camped on the lone prairie while watching the herd and have had to endure all kinds of storms. There were numberless herds of antelope on the plains when I came here, a few buffalo, plenty of coyotes, and a few gray wolves. In variety of fruits. But the terrible hailstorms we have had the last few years have broken the summer of 1889, we had 11 head of calves killed one night by the wolves, and in the summer of 1894, one of my horses was bitten by a gray wolf. The bite of a wolf was considered as dangerous as the bite of a rattlesnake so the animal was always under treatment until it got over the effects of the bite. In 1888, while riding with the 111 ranch outfit with head quarters near Wray, the foreman and I rode into the hills north of the Arickaree river, and there we saw five buffalo. This was about the last bunch seen in this country. We did not molest them, but learned later that there had been six in the bunch, but one had been killed, by a man living west of their trail, earlier in the day. I think that the severe winters of the early years helped to exterminate the antelope and We have endured the hardships subsequent to pioneering, having endured the severe storms in summer; the blizzards of winter; the losses of livestock and other disappointments in the years past, but we buffalo in this country more than anything else. Even after we came, we had such terrible blizzards and such cold winters when the ground would be covered with snow from November to early spring. There was nothing fared as well as most pioneers and are glad to have been, to some degree instrumental in the development and economic life in this for the wild animals or stock to live on, people did not learn until experience taught them, that one had to prepare food and shelter for the livestock in order to keep the herd safe. So when there was no food. water and shelter for the wild animals, they just starved or froze to death. When riding one day I noticed an area. We are now alone in the large frame home, in which we reared our family but we are blessed with happiness and appreciation of pioneer days. by Janice Salmans LENGEL, JONATHAN L. F402 I was born in Pennsylvania in 1861 and came to Kansas in 1879, then came over into Colorado in 1881. I did not stay long, but returned to Kansas and stayed there a while. In the fall of 1887, I returned to Colorado, at a place known as Big Springs, about eleven miles north of town. Kit Carson was a prairie town on the U.P. Railroad and consisted of a store, a saloon, a livery barn, and a few shacks. I worked for the "77" outftt for some time, and worked for different small cattle owners. This was quite a cattle country in the early days and many a bunch of cattle have I trailed across the country to winter headquarters in Kansas cornfields. We would drive the herds from Big Springs to Hoyt, which is north of Seibert, and we would water and rest. We would then drive down the Republican River into Kansas and to our destination. In 1888, I took a homestead near Rush antelope standing up against a bluff, I wondered why it did not run, but kept riding toward it. When I got to it I found that the poor thing had been frozen and was still standing in an upright position, although dead. I saw thousands ofbuffalo bones on the prairie where the buffaloes had either died or We planted an orchard down by the Emerson ditch and at one time had one of the finest orchards in this country. We had a the trees and destroyed our orchard so much that we get little benefit from it. We have worked hard to build our home, and to educate our children. We have endured the hardships that went with pioneering, and had experiences that were lessons for the future, broadening and mellowing our lives. But in all my experiences I do not remember anything so tragic and far reaching as the past few years have been for everyone. It has been hard on the young folks just starting out. I have always loved the outdoors, the great plains, and the great herds of cattle roaming the prairies. My faithful cow pony and I have enjoyed many a communion with nature. There was some fascination in the care-free, romantic life of a cowboy. I like to be alone to think of the beauties of nature and to ride wherever I wanted to go. One time while riding across country I stopped at a ranch home and asked for water for myself and pony. I was told that the well was too deep to haul water by man-power. There was a yoke of oxen near but I had never handled oxen so I would not try them now and my pony was unfit for such work. I decided to travel on and take my chance at the next place. I came to a dugout a few miles farther on and stopped to ask for a drink. What was my surprise to see W.M. Hollowell, later a surveyor of our county come out to greet me. I knew him in Indiana and did not know that he was in Colorado. Needless to say, I enjoyed a visit as well as a drink of water for myself and pony. The west did not seem so far away after all. by Jayne Hubbell LENNEMAN FAMILY F403 killed by hunters. Buffalo bones are very heavy and when we gathered them, we had to sell them for $4.00 per ton, later, we got as high as $14.00 per ton for them. Of course, that was when they got scarce on the plains. I never saw any Indians in Colorado, but saw them in Kansas, and during the time of the Indian scare at Fort Wallace, the town of Grinnel was used as a fort, and the people from the country came there for safety. The town was surrounded byguards and lookouts, and I was one of the guards who kept watch. We had no trouble, with the exception of the fight with the soldiers, there were no other fight that I heard of. The Indians had a bad name and the people were easily frightened. In 1893 my brother-in-law and I dissolved partnership. I sold my relinquishment and moved north of the Republican river. Here, I bought a relinquishment, built a sod house, plastered it with native lime and put in a floor, dug a well fourteen feet deep to good clear water and again started in as a cattleman and as a farmer. I married Miss Elizabeth creek, south of Kit Carson, and built a shack Gutting and she filed papers on my relin- out of old railroad ties and furnished with quishment and we are living on this original Homestead Days My father, Frank Antone Lennemann, age 29, died June 9, 1910 in Orleans, Nebraska, of an appendectomy. My mother, Lena (nee Mary Magdalena Willy) age 22 was left a widow with two small children, my sister Regina (2 years) and myself Leona (6 months). My father and mother were renters on a farm north ofOrleans. The corn crop was maturing abundantly. Mother, with help, assumed the responsibility to see the crop harvested and the correct rental of returns properly paid. Then faced with the reality that the future held no hope for her to continue living on the farm without a husband to manage farm responsibilities ehe moved into town to do domestic work and readjust her life. She had manied at age 19. My father (7 years her senior) had fallen in love with Mother when she was only 15 years old and he had waited for her parents to give their consent to her marriage when she becaure 19 years old. Her one hope had been to be a good wife, a good mother, and a �Willy, a bachelor, who had gone to Stratton, Colorado, to homestead land under the Government's Homest€ad Act of 1909, wrotc to mother informing her that the adjoining west acreage, to his own assigned land, was being returned to the Government for reassignment. He asked mother if she wished to sign up for this acreage. Mother at age 23 took the challenge. The Homestead Act required the applicant to actually live on the land only a part of each year. Mother took us children by train to Stratton where Uncle George met us and took us in his buggy to the homestead 12 miles north of Stratton. Mother's acreage was divided from Uncle George's by a narow prairie-grass-road. His homestead cabin housed his living necessities. His barn sheltered his cattle, horses and his farming equipment. His windmill watered his garden and sustained his cattle. We lived in a similar one-room cabin-shelter with rag rugs covering the grass floor. Our table, Picture of my mother Mrs. Lena Lennemann taken about 1906. Regina and Leona Lennemann. Taken in the Rectory of St. Charles Catholic Church 1914 when Mother was housekeeper for the priest during months when she did not have to be on the homestead. helpmate to her husband. This hope was now suddenly altered by my father's sudden death. Mother, as a child, had attended school only partway through the fifth grade when she stopped going to school in order to remain at home to help her own mother raise a family of eight children on a rented farm. In those days there was no law requiring parents to send children to school. Therefore, mother had never signed a check and she knew little about business transactions. She now assumed her duty of supporting us two children. She learned to handle business as a dedicated responsibility. In 1912, mother'g oldest brother, George chairs, stove, bed and dresser were all under this one-roof -shelter. Our water supply was from Uncle George's windmill. Periodically Regina and I barefooted pulled a large milkcan in our wagon over the grass pathway to the windmill. One day we encountered a rattle snake in the pathway. We abandoned the wagon and ran screaming back to the cabin and mother. Uncle George's barn provided "keep" for mother's horse and buggy and we shared in planting a garden. Sometimes at night the howl of the coyotees awakened us. Mother then took from a redvelvet-lined leather case a pearl handled revolver which she told us our father had purchased before his death when he took his cattle to sell in Kansas City, Missouri. Mother pointed the gun to the sky and we heard the shot. The coyotees were quieted and we slept. On each Saturday Mother's horse and buggy took ug the twelve miles over the prairie road (now Highway 57) to Stratton. Regina and I wore our gunbonnets until we were a half mile from Stratton. Mother then took from under the buggyseat a hatbox. We traded our bonnets for lovely white straw hats with blue and pink velvet ribbons with forget-me-not trimmings. We then road into town and stayed overnight with the O'Neil family in order to attend Sunday Mass at St. Charles Catholic Church. I loved Granny O'Neil. Once as I sat on her lap I asked her "Where did all your wrinkles come from?" She hugged me and replied that each wrinkle was a part of her love. After Mass and dinner we returned home. One Sunday as we were driving home a black and churning storm cloud frightened mother. With a vocal prayer she directed the horse toward the Anthofer's home and paddled the horse with the reins. The horse dashed forward, stumbled on the turf, the buggy jerked and I, sitting in the middle of the seat, bounced forward over the buggy dashboad. I fell directly between the horse's back feet and the buggy wheels. The Anthofers recognizing us and seeing the accident ran with children our own ages. Mother explained the sadness of death when the young Collins boy (son of the Collins Hotel Manager) fell from a tree and died. Mother wept as we stood with mourners and she explained that he would never return to play again. I was learning the realities of life. One summer the homest€aders organized a picnic celebration. Children partook in the program. I was only four-and-half years old. I stood on a rag rug (center ofthe crowd) and quoted: "Twinkle, Twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are, up above the world so high, like a dinmond in the sky." Muchto my mother'g delight I remembered all the words. When mother took us back to Orleans, Nebraska. to visit our relatives we traveled part way on a cattle and freight train and we sat in the caboose. I can still remember the sound of the whistle at crossings. The engine smoke and dirt blew in our faces and our clothing from the open window in the summer. Mother insisted we be clean-faced and tidy when we stepped from the train. Her handkerchief served as our washcloth. Uncle George had been a bachelor. One day he returned from a trip and introduced to us his new bride, a former school teacher, as Aunt Agnes. Soon Regina and I watched men digging the earth for they were building a new house near Uncle George's windmill. We soon walked over wooden floors and through rooms which would now be home to Uncle George and Aunt Agnes. In 1915 mother had lived the required time on the land. The land was now hers. She could return to Nebraska. She said "goodbye" to wonderful friends - Alice Connor, the O'Neils, the Colgans, the Anthofers, the Knockels, the Pughs, the Garners, and many others who had befriended her. She loved them with a grateful heart for these homesteaders had helped her complete a challenge. They had been her friends and now she was leaving, but she would never forget them. Mother had gone to school only partway through the fifth grade. Her determination had been her education. The memory of my father's love had sustained her. Her faith had been her constant companion. Mother passed away March 23,L971. Today the homestead, with Mr. and Mrs. Larry Brachtenbach as tennants, provides two-year scholarships to help teenager attend Notre Deme and Carmelite Catholic high schools in California where Mother passed away. This is possible because of "THE HOMESTEAD DAYS." Poem which I wrote about my mother - My Mother - Magdalena There was never a happier bride than she . . . A girl of nineteen - sweet as could be/ out and picked me up. I was crying but As the sun shone in Nebraska's April sky . . . Surely no sadness ahead could lie/ A happy year passed without a regret. . . And a blue-eyed child with ringlets was sent/ To enrich their happiness and bless their love . . . Surely this child had been sent from above/ So proud of this first-born baby was unharmed. Mother tightened the reins of the horse to stop the buggy.We all reached the house as the storm broke. During winter months mother kept house for the Catholic priest, Father Alphonse Keifer, in the St. Charles Church Rectory. Regina Louise/ . . . Sometime later to little Regina God gave . . . A plump blue-eyed sister: Leona Marie/ These two babies were Mother taught us to be helpful in household duties. We also learned to play and associate she . . As she watched it with young motherly glee/ And to honor the heavenly Model of Queens . . This baby was baptized the pride and delight . . . Of this happy couple whose future looked bright/ Six �months sped by and then came a cross .. . As she wept at the deathbed and faced the loss/ Of her beloved husband as she heard him say . . "Take good care of the girls." as he passed away.l Then followed a period of heartache and sorrow. . For in sadness of death there is no tomorrow/Lingering memories of one who has been taken away . . . Will cling forever with the one who must stay/ Prayer and faith brought Magdalena healing grace. . When at age twenty-three with the future to facel She journeyed to Colorado to live on homestead land . . . Her brother, George, was there and he lent a hand/ In helping her establish a nearby prairie home . . . Where all nature nestled under heaven's dome./ New friends were sincere, helpful and kind . . . Thus the prairie life she did not mind./ When under a trillion stars, the umbrella of night . . . Prairie coyotees howls caused moments of fright/ Or when lightning and thunder crashed a stormy sky . . . Magdalena taught her daughters on prayer to rely/ After three years of homesteading the land was her own . . . So she and the girls returned to Nebraska to make a home./ The girls she enrolled in a parochial school . . . To educate them in the Christian rule./ But one o-bition burned in her mother-heart . She must never fail, she muet fulfill her part/ To rear the girls in the very best way. . . And hold true to the promise she made that sad and on at intervals when they needed an English teacher and none happened to be available from 1947 until 1964. I always enjoyed it . . . particularly the fact that I learned to know so many of the young people who have grown up to be worthwhile citizens now. After Kenneth's death, I stayed on in Stratton and married Jim Clark. Jim had just returned from his tour of duty with the Navy and purchased the Stratton school buses. He At the close of World War II, Kenneth Lepper and I moved to Stratton to go into farming. He had the opportunity of going back to his job in Texas, which was a stationary engineer for the Natural Gas Company, or to break all ties and come to Stratton and start farming, which was what he always wanted to do. Of the land that my father had purchased, we choose and bought the one from him which was known as the Al Simon place. It is 2 miles north and 1 east of Stratton. Al Simon had moved off of it and Dad purchased it; then we bought it from my father in 1946. From that time on we lived there for 16 years until Kenneth passed away in 1961. Chris and Yvonne Schwieger and girls moved down from Arriba at that time and started farming out of here as their headquarters, having remained on there ever since. Yvonne is now operating the place since Chris's passing away. We as farmers here learned to love the country and really appreciate Eastern Colorado. And we liked it better than Western Kansas. and we were never alone because so many people from Western Kansas had moved out here and bought land and etarted farming in this part of the country. So far as we are concerned, it has always remained home to us. I taught school in the Stratton schools off scrubbed on a washboard. Washing machines by Lucile Clark sold, helped to buy groceries. Leshes left Kit Carson County, in 1936, and moved to California. Later, in 1943, they moved of to Oregon. Harve, Paul, and Loren, along with their families, still live in Oregon. Hazel and her husband live in California, Ralph and his wife live in Boulder, Co., Dale and his wife in Florida, and Frank and his wife in Arizona. Irwin and Dutch both passed away in 1972. LESIIER, W. F. F406 to Denver. That cream check, along with eggs by Isaphene Leshers LEWIS FAMILY by Miss Leona M. Lennemann F404 to have one, or into wash tubs with laundry were 'hand powered'. Also, the wringer had to be turned by hand. After the washing was hung out on clothes lines to dry, ironing was done with'flatirons', which were heated on the cookstove. Not a pleasantjob during the summertime. Everyone helped in milking the cows. Milk was seperated by'hand powered' seperator. Cresm, in five and ten gallon crerm cans, was taken to town where it was sold, and shipped - FAMILY There were lots of Mouths to feed and it was a big job with no modern conveniences. Wash day was another big job for a family of that size. Water had to be carried in from the water barrel at the windmill. and heated in a wash boiler on the range (cook stove). After the water was hot, it was poured into the washing machine, for those fortunate enough operated the school buses until 1972 when he sold out and the school bought them to put them in with their system. After that we have been spending our winters in Arizona and coming back here for summers and traveling in between. Traveling being our hobby, we do a great deal of it. But when it is all said and done the Stratton area is our home and we still always think of it as such and we will never change that address. day./ For through the years that were passing too fast . . . She must faithfully continue to accomplish the task/ Which was bestowed with love on her alone to do . . . A mother's task veiled by a father's blessing too. LEPPER AND CLARK young roosters were used for fryers to eat. W. F. and Susie Lesher's 50th Wedding Anniversa- ry in 1955. On March 30, 1905 Willaim Frank Lesher and Susan Harriet Manges were married in Agra, Kansas. Frank heard about homestead land in Colorado. In the spring of 1907 he went to Colorado and filed on a quarter section, Section 26 - Township 11- Range 46. In the fall of 1907 they chartered an immigrant car on the railroad and moved their belongings, including livestock, machinery and household, to Stratton, Colorado. They hauled their belongings 16 miles south and 3 miles east of Stratton by team and wagon, and there they set up a tent to start life in their new home. They had their baby, Hazel, who was about a year old with them. By Thanksgiving they had a sod house built, later a sod barn, a cave dug and had a well drilled. They made several moves back to Kansas and then back to the Homestead. They finally came to stay in Colorado in 1916, until they moved to California in 1936. The Lesher family consisted of 8 boys, 'each of whom had a sister'. Hazel, the eldest, was born 1906; Ralph in 1908; Irwin (Skin) in 1910; Harve in 1912; Allen (Dutch) in 1914; Dale in 1918; Frank in 1921; Paul in 1924; and Loren in 1929. They all attended school at First Central, Dist. #29. They also went to Evangelical Church, held in the school house. Susie always raised a large garden and did a lot of canning, pickling and made her own sauerkraut. In the spring she set the incubator and raised young chickens for food, as well as young pullets for next years eggs. The F406 My parents, John H. Lewis and Evelyn Burton Lewis; my brother, Russell E. Lewis; my grandparents, Ernest and Alla Wright Lewis; and my aunt, Helen Lewis csme to Burlington in 1934 from Nebraska, originally from Bedford. Iowa. The house at 350 12th St. in Burlington was purchased in 1935 and remains in the family to this day. This house was built about 1906 and homes in that era were without insula- tion plus the upper story had no heat. It was "hot water bottles" and "heated bricks" in the winter time. We spent many months remodeling this house in the 1950's and since. An interesting point is Ernest and Alla Lewis celebrated their 50th wedding anniversar5r plus John and Evelyn Lewis celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary while living in this house, plus my Aunt Helen married Laurence Pugh in this snme house. An attraction ofthe Burlington area during those times were the advertisings from the land agents to "buy your land in Kit Carson County, put in a crop of wheat, and the first crop will return enough to pay the land off'. The recommended farming mode was to pulverize the soil, no clods, which would result in better crops. What it did was help produce the dust bowl, watching the earth go by at 40 miles per hour on its way to Texas and on out to sea. After planting many acres in wheat and corn throughout the 1930's, without harvest success, Ernest and John decided to stop the no-win farming program, no government subsidies in thoge days, and starbed the "Lewis Dairy". Everyone helped with the daily operation of the dairy (no days offl which included feeding and milking the cows, �bottling the milk in glass milk bottles, storing the finished product overnight at the icehouse and delivering the milk the next morning before school . . . 40 hour work weeks are a piece of cake compared to that work. Milk was 100 a quart, delivered, and this was an improvement over farming. Soon after the dairy was started the rains LEWIS, DWIGHT AND ESTHER F408 came, the drought lessened, farming practices improved, resulting in good crops. There were a number of bumper crops during the 1940's which turned some farmere into country gentlemen. Hail storms took the place of dust - as the current problem - and could blast the field on one side ofa road and leave the other side untouched. This had a sobering effect on your financial status, resulting in liquidation for one family and a good living for the other. Ernest and Alla Lewis had 8 grandsons and no granddaughters; talk about discrimination. John and Evelyn had 3 sons, Russell, Homesite of Dwight and Esther Lewis Dean and Duane. Helen and Laurence Pugh had 5 sons, Allan, Owen, Evan, Steve and Bryan.Russell was lost in a truck accident on June 8, 1949 when we were following the wheat harvest in Oklahoma. Steve Pugh was lost in another accident in Oklahoma on December 2. L978. We miss them. John finished his working career as a tinsmith, learning this new trade at age 55; he quit working at age 70. Evelyn taught 22 years in the Burlington School System. Helen and her family moved to Hanison, Arkansas in the early 1950's. Duane is a basketball coach at Alameda High in Lakewood. Dean has been a special agent for Northwestern Mutual Life for 24 years in Grand Junction, Colorado. Life Goes On! by C. Dean Lewis LEWIS, ALYCE MARGARET DISCHNER r.407 Alyce Lewis was born in Lindsay, Nebraska, grew up and graduated from the Stratton High School in the dust bowl days of Eastern Colorado in 1937. She was a telephone operator and supervisor in Manitou and Colorado Springs, Colorado during the war year8. She was united in mariage to Marshall Maurice Lewis of Nacogdoches, Texas in 1945 in Colorado Springs, Colo. They lived in Nacogdoches, Brownwood, and Dalhart and Meridian, Texas for nine years. In 1953 they moved to Stratton, Colorado and bought the Gamble Store which they operated for eleven years. It was during this time that she attended the University of Northern Colo- rado and received her BA degree. She taught school in Stratton from 1961 to 1964. She also worked with kindergarten youngsters during this time. They sold the bueiness to a cousin, Eugene Jostes, and moved to the lovely North Platte Valley of Nebraska and made their home in Bayard, Nebr. She taught school in Bayard and in rural schools in Nebraska for nineteen years. She was president of the Morrill Country Teachers Association and of the Bayard Teachers Assn. She taught music and was church organist for 24 years. We moved to Stratton in September of 1960. We came from Sharon Springs, Kansas. Linda, Jim and Bob are the children. We lost Bob to cancer in 1976. Alyce Dischner Lewis During these years she had the good Linda is married to Harold Miller from Flagler and has two children, Bill and Cindy. They live in Hudson, Colorado. fortune to travel in 1969 and 1975 to Europe with the Foreign Study League. Each trip lasted six weeks and she studied the Humanities. She has been to the Costa Del Sol in Spain, to Hawaii twice, Africa twice and on a Carribean Cruise. In 1984 over the Christmas holidays she toured the Holy Land in Israel and Egypt. In 1985 she went on an inspirational tour of Fatima, Portugal, Lourdes, France, Spain, England and the shrine at Knock. Ireland. While teaching she becnme interested in art and began study with various teachers. She hoped this would come in handy when she was ready to retire from teaching. Mike died May 20, 1983 and with two large store buildings empty in 1986, she started the Art and Craft Mart as her new career. She displayed, handled and sold crafts and arts for the area craftspeople and artists. This venture evolved into the present Lewis Gallery in 1987 when she sold the buildings at 424 Main Street in Bayard. Hobbies are reading, crafts, music and photography. She was Does Musician for the Scottsbluff Drove #21 for nine years. She now teaches music and tole painting. She attended the Halsey Autumn Workshop at Halsey, Nebraska the past five years and has studied under such artists as Gwen Middleswart of Bridgeport, Ne., Amy Sadle of Columbus, Ne., Pat Hall and Nancy Jim is married to Kathy Lempp from Stratton and they have three children, Kris, Brian and Kim. We were one of the first to put down irrigation. I believe it was in 1963. We bought our place from Al and Mary Wy. September of that year received his honorable discharge in Texas. They made their home in Texas for nine years. One Thanksgiving in 1952 Mike was fascinated with the pheasant hunting in the area and always marveled at the wide open spaces of the plains. We moved to Colorado and purchased the Gamble Store from Grace Hyde in 1953. They operated the business until they sold it to Eugene Jostes in 1963 and they moved to Bayard, Nebraska and purchased another Neibauer of Scottsbluff, Rose Edin of Staples, Mn., Charles Rogers of Lakewood, Co., and Barbara Schaffner of Torrington, At present she has a one woman art show at the Country Club in Scottsbluff, Ne. Although she has sold some of her work, she has never received any awards probably because she hasn't entered any competitions. by Alyce Dischner Lewis Kitten. We planted a windbreak of trees to the north. Dwight and I planted it. Then every Saturday it was the boy's job to water the trees. Then came the weeds and all of that hoeing. We very seldom grounded the chilit was "go hoe the trees." dren - by Esther Lewis LEWIS, MARSIIALL MAURICE F409 Marshall Maurice Lewis was born in Denton, Texas January 2, 1913 to Catherine Martine and Charles Wllliam Lewis. His family lived in East Texas around Cleveland, Texas until the family moved to Nacogdoches when the children were old enough to attend Stephen F. Austin College. "Mike" had two years of college and taught school for a short time. In 1941 he entered the service and spent four years in the Canibean. His rank was that of Staff Sargeant. He married Alyce Dischner Lewis in Colorado Springs in 1945 and in �hood including going to town with Dad, sneaking outside while Mom was napping, playing the piano, playing on the playground and in the treehouse, herding sheep, learning how to ride a bike (thanks to Jan and Shan!), riding horses and Frisky, our dog. When we were little we visited our relatives and grandparents in Oklahoma every summer and Christmas. We always went swimming at Crrmberland Cove on Lake Texoma. Both grandparents, Jim and Nina Poole and JC and Berniece Long, had fishing ponds in their backyards. What fun was spent fishing. I still remember the first fish I caught! My Grandpas are gone now but I thorough- ly enjoy my Grandmas who traveled to Colorado together for a visit the summer of '87. They're special ladies! My first and dearest teacher was Mrs. Esther Daum. She was like a gecond Grandma to me. I mowed her lawn when I was older and enjoyed spending time with her. I'll always treasure her. I nm a member of the United Methodist Marshall "Mike" Lewis Gamble Franchise. He sold the business to retire in 1977. He died May 20, 1983. by Alyce M. Lewis LIMING, ROBIN AND KRISTY F4lO Church in Burlington. I was in MYF and always enjoyed the trips we took. We went se-ping in the mountains, traveled to Texas, and went snow skiing a couple of times. I made a lot of friends. I went to school at Bethune. Dad is superintendent there. I was involved in volleyball, basketball, track, FBLA, FHA, drnma and speech. In 1981 I earned a second place medal in my poetry division at the State Speech Festival in Fort Lupton. That was quite a moment. I still enjoy volleyball and participate by officiating at local schools. I graduated from high school in 1983 receiving the honor of being nemed valedictorian. I also received the President's Scholar- ship at UNC. I've always loved horses and have been involved in the 4-H horse program. In 1981 I was Kit Carson County Fair and Rodeo Queen. And what's better was that my best friend Penny (Ziegler) Aeschliman was the lst Attendant. We always rode together, so why not go to rodeos and parades together! It wae a time I won't forget. For my junior and senior prom my escort was Robin Liming. He's still my escort and very best friend today. We were married October 1, 1983. We have such fun together! We live southeast of Kirk, Colorado. We water ski, golf and enjoy hunting. We farm and own land in Kit Carson County. We have hogs and share horses. I'm thankful for this ru $o' $ ,-,e' life! ri{ by Kristy Poole Liming 1 : S i1*r $ Kristy and Robin Liming, September of 1987. My life began March 25, 1965 at Ardmore, Oklahoma. Although my parents, Ja-es and Nora Poole lived in Bethune, Colorado, Mom attended her Granny's funeral in Oklahoma. The timing was such that I'm an "Oakie." My name is Helen Kristy (Poole) Liming. My brother is David Poole. My sisters are Janet Cure and Sharon Green. All are maried and each have two kids. I have many fond memories of my child- LIMING, WILLIAM MELVIN AND IJAZEL MYRTLE HAGAN F4l1 Willi"m, or Bill as he was known, was born in Lawrence, Kansas, on March 30, 1891, and was of English and Irish descent. His mother was Elma Smart. His father, William Bainbridge Liming, was the son of George Washington Liming and Hanna Malvina Murphy, both of Ohio, near Cincinnati. Their children The Bill Liming family, (back row) Bill and Hazel with children (left to right) Melba, Alma, Marvin, Robert and our dog, old Queen our belovedAirdale. Our neighbors, Bill and Susie Thompson's car, taken in 1928. were Mary Jane (Mollie) Hitchcock, William Bainbridge, Matilda Olive (Tint) Harman, Elizabeth Street and George T. Liming. May (Liming) Wixon researched George Wash- ington Liming's ancestry and traced it to John Liming I who cnme to America from Yorkshire, England, in 1665 on the "Nevis Merchant" ship from Dover, England, and was married in 1680. The older Limings were farmers in Ohio. George Washington Liming and his familymigratedto Lawrence, Kansas, and in 1907 cqme to Colorado and homesteaded 1 mile south and 3 miles west of Kirk. He and his family made adobe bricks and built their house a home that knew many - with all of our families. happy get-togethers Grandmother would spend hours playing games and running with the grandchildren, and Grandfather had a long white beard, sparkling eyes, and was always very kind to all he knew. Dad had two brothers, George Jemes (Dock) and Bert. Bert died in infancy. Dad and Dock were raised by their grandparents, George and Hannah Liming. Dock married Bessie Taylor and they had seven children Melvin, Hazel, Clarence, Frances, Gladys, Juanita and James. They lived near Kirk until the late 30's, when they moved to Dearing, Kansas. Dad had four half sisters - Emma (Herrin) White and Ruth (Herrin) Braizer (his mother's daughters from her marriage to Mr. Herrin), and Melvina (Liming) Wise and Nellie Bain Payne (his father's daughters from his marriage to Nell Dod- dridge Liming). Dad also had two step brothers - Milton and William Doddridge, and one step sister - Visa (Doddridge) Heberlein. Previous to 1907, several of the men folk came to Colorado an homesteaded (or applied for a homestead) and built dugouts on their respective lands. Then in 1907, they formed a caravan of covered wagons to move their animals and belongings to Colorado. After traveling from Lawrence to Topeka, Kansas, in near impassable trails due to heavy rains and mud, and seeing their animals losing weight that would be vital for them to keep in order to face a winter on the plains of Colorado, they decided to put the animals on the train. They told about slipping the "boys" Liming, - Bill andOraDock Milton and Bill Doddridge, Street, and possibly others on the train with the animals. There -was a wagon box turned upside down that the boys hid under so the brakeman wouldn't see them when he made his rounds. I guess the food didn't keep too good and the boys developed dianhea, which �created quite a problem as you can imagine. Visa Heberlein tells me that she, her mother, and sister Melvina came by train at a later date. Her memory of seeing her first sunset on the plains is still very vivid, in contrast to coming from an area dense with trees. When Dad was 18, his father got typhoid fever while working in the sugar beets in Brush, Colorado, and died. At the time of his death, the family was living in a dugout. His stepmother, Nell, remained on the homest€ad and with courage and a lot ofhard work, Nell and the boys built a sod house, and then the house east of Kirk where Melvina Wise now resides. Dad was in World War I and served in Company C-110 Infantry as a Private. In July of 1918, he wae wounded and gased in the Aragon Forest in the Battle of Aragon. He was discharged October 5, 1918. In 1919, after getting his Patent Deed, he built a dugout on his land and helped his grandfather farm. Hazel Hagan was born to Robert McDonald Hagan (Mack) andElizabeth (Edwards) Hagan on June 10, 1902, in Waverly, Kansas. She was one of 11 children - Pearl Smith, Cecil, Johnny, Hazel Liming, Ralph, Lela, Lester, Ray, Delilah, Merle and Betty Avers. Her father's descendants have been traced to John Graves (1703-1804) on his mother's side, and to his father, Elijah Hagan, from Guilford, Missouri, on his father's side. Mom moved to Colorado in 1907 in a covered wagon and buggy with her parents. Their first stop in the Kirk area was at Rufus and Ellen Graveg' home. Then the families went together to Ike and Emeline (Robert McDonald Hagan's mother) Gleaves for supper. Mack moved his family into a dugout that another family had left, and then homesteaded there. He worked as a sod cutter and layer and also did carpentry work. Later they moved to Kirk where he had a butcher shop and sold sandwiches. In 1929' they moved to Missouri and remained there until his death on Feb. 13, 1946. Elizabeth then stayed with family until she moved into Heinrich's Nursing Home in Burlington until her death in 1965. Mom went to Boone School, working during the summers ag domestic help. She maried Dad in 1920, and devoted her life to her husband and children. On April 6, 1920, Dad married the girl that he had picked out to be his wife when she was Hazel Hagan. To still playing with doUs - born this union 4 children were - Alma Van De Weghe, Robert, Melba Rehor, and Marvin. Their lives were filled with happiness, LINDLEY, WENDELL CLARK r.4t2 Wendell Clark Lindley was born April 23, 1910 to Luke and Pearl Lindley who lived with their two small daughters on the homestead northwest of Stratton' Wendell lived all his life in the Stratton area except for the first three years of his life when his family was in Arizona and Calhan, CO. He greatly appreciated his neighbors and friends, and enjoyed talking with them. He wanted to be helpful when he could. Wendell is to be remembered by all who knew him by his long beard and it was said that he never cut his hair. He always wore a hat. Young and old alike knew him as "whigkers". He walked very where and always relied on a friend to come along and pick him up and take him to where he wanted to go. In January 1979 he suffered a stroke and severe exposure in cold weather. After leaving the hospital he made his home at Grace Manor Care Center. He regained most of his speech and was able to get around in a wheelchair. During the last 10 months of his life his health declined and another stroke csme in February. He died June 22, 1982. He was 72 years old. His mother died in 1948 and his father in 1965. His brother Kenneth still survives and lives in New York. \^c, ri He was laid to rest 6y his parents and sisterg in the Claremont Cemetery, Stratton, fields on "snipe hunts"), the first hot lunch progrem overseen by mothers and featuring those ever-present peanut butter cookies, 4H box socials, Saturday night on Main Street in Burlington, and the 4-H square dancers who went to Fort Collins. The Lindseys fought the dirt for awhile through the 1950s, but when Joe becnme ill with cancer, his health finally forced a move to Amarillo, Tex., in 1955. He died February of 1957 and Muriel, Joy and Hap moved back to Burlington, Lucky had attended Parks Business College in Denver and married. Muriel sold the home place to Ed Rainbolt in the late 1960s. (Ed, too, was also a Protection childhood friend of Joe's.) She moved to Burlington, later to San Jose, Calif., where she still resides. Lucky Jeanette Gipe and her husband, Karl, live in Burlington where he is a mechanic at John Deere. Their daughter, Debbie, lived in Burlington; son Ken, Beaver, Okla.; and Lee, Washington state. Muriel Joy Hudler, too, resides in Burlington with her husband, Rol, publisher of The Burlington Record. Their oldest son John (and wife Chris) is in business with them and their youngest, Ad, works for a large city newspaper in Fort Myers, Fla. Janeen Louise (Hap) Schrader and her husband Dave are the parents ofsix children: Eric, Endie, Derek, Emily, Cord and Ward. The family lives in Eagle, Idaho, where Dave is an insurance broker. The Lindsey girls'lives are still entertwined with the Smoky Hill residents and their happy memories of the community. by Bernice Eberhart Colorado. by Florence McConnell LIPFORD, CARL W. F4t4 LINDSAY, JOE AND MURIEL F413 Stationed at Camp Carson, Colorado Springs, during World War II, Joe Lindsey was farming before he got out of the service, being a partner of Howard Mountain, who had been a childhood friend in their hometown of Protection, Kans. In Colorado Springs, Joe met Muriel Ward Burghard and her three daughters, Lucky, Carl William Lipford was born to Lena and John William (Jack) Lipford on March 1, 1910. at their homestead in the Shiloh neighborhood twenty miles northeast of Flagler. He grew up on the homestead with two older sisters, Hetty and Blanche, until the family moved into Flagler a few years later. A brother, John Thomas, born in 1912, lived only a few months. He attended the Flagler School, as well as one year at Shiloh, and graduated with the class of 1928. He attended Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Then he transferred to what is now Colorado State University at Ft. mixed in with trials and hard work known to that era. Shortly after their maniage, they purchased a one- room school house and moved it to their land, partitioned it and made it their home. As time went by, Dad turned the farming over to the boys and he and Mom bought a restaurant in Joes in 1948. They kept the restaurant until 1957 when they sold it to Rex Shafer. They then moved to West Plains, Missouri, but their ties were in Colorado, so they come back to the farm. Daddy passed away on April 29, 1973' and Mom stayed on in her home until ehe had a stroke in May, 1982. She has reeided at the Grace Manor Nursing Home in Burlington since then. Joy and Happy, and began his arduous campaign to make them his own family. After his discharge, he lived in Wichita, Kans., for awhile before he and Muriel were manied but by Alma Van De Weghe purchased and a new way of life had begun. InL942, Carl joined the Air Force where he served until 1945, and was stationed in Texas, would have to include the pinochle parties at the schoolhouse (while the kids roo-ed the much of the time. he continued farming operations with Moun- tain, buying the farm on the Correction Line from him in 1948 and moving his'girls'out to batch in a machine quonset/shed the summer of $59 while they built their home. The adjustment wasn't an easy one for the displaced city gals, who discovered soon after classes start€d at Smoky Hill that their pretty especially when dregees just would not do - the boys and you played tag football with crawled under the merry-go-round to tell jokes. So, off came the skirts and hems were put in the "new" blouses, new jeans were Special memories of life at Smoky Hill Collins which he attended for two years. There he was a member of the Advanced R.O.T.C. which was a cavalry unit at that time. After he returned to Flagler he was employed at the Flagler Equity. On Decembet 29, L937, he was united in marriage to Margie Jane Ellis, daughter of Herbert L. Ellis and Anna M. Ellis of Flagler in a home wedding atthe home of the groom's parents with members of both families present. The couple made their home in Flagler. Jane first worked in the telephone office and then began working for the First National Bank. After returning from service, he was em- �ployed at the Lavington Motor Company as a mechanic. In 1947, he received an appoint- ment as mail carrier and continued with that until he was stricken with a heart attack on Oct. 11, 1960 while preparing the mail for delivery. Burial was in the Flagler Cemetery. Survivors included his widow, Jane; his father, Jack Lipford; his sister, Blanche Carper; and a niece, Jacqueline Spiars. Preceding him in death were an infant brother, his mother, Lena, and his sister, Hetty McCormick. He was a member of the Congregational Church and active in Lions Club. He was also a member of the Volunteer Fire Department and the American Legion, serving as presi- dent the year that the Legion building was planned. by Blanche Lipford Carper LIPFORD, JACK AND LENA F4l6 Bethel community, farming. Lena, born Jan. 3, 1878, wae the daughter of Sylvanus and Mary E. (Moore) Bragg. Her father was in the drugstore business as well as farming and cattle raising. Lena and her brother, Tom, were born to this union. After her mother,s death, her father remarried after several years, with seven children being born in that family. After completing public school, she attended an academy at Columbia, Missouri, for a year. When she was 16, she inherited some money from her mother's estate and bought an organ. The organ came west with the Lipfords and is now owned by Gus and Vella Vassios of Flagler. The Lipfords and their two daughters possibly made the move to Colorado for Mrs. Lipford's health. A son, Carl W. was born in 1910 and in 1912, a second son, John Thomas, was born on June 8, but lived onlv until October. A Dr. Wheeler, who had moved to Colorado for his health had homesteaded south of Cope, delivered both Lipford sons. The Lipfords lived like the other homesteaders, with a lot of hard work for all members of the family. Hetty was her father's helper while Blanche helped with the household chores although both did the farm chores typical of the era. After moving to the homestead, they found they were closer to Flagler, so came to Flagler for their trading like others heading across the prairie in the -straightest line possible. When telephones cnme to the area, it was transmitted bv the fence wires but was an improvement oir not having a phone. When the family acquired a surrey with "a fringe on the top", it made the trips across the prairie more comfortable. In the fall of 1915, when Hetty was ready for high school, the Lipfords rented a house, between 5th and 6th on Navajo (now remodeled and moved to Main Street). They moved J.W. Lipford god house in Shiloh community and Lena Lipford and children near house. Harveste in back row, neighbor children in front. John William (Jack) Lipford and his wife, Lena, with their two daughters, Hetty and Blanche, were among the group who came from Shelby County, Missouri, and home- steaded in Sucker's Flat in 1908. Jack had come with friends in the fall of 190? to file on the homesteads and returned the spring of 1908. The men csme first to begin the sod homes with the women and children follow- ing a few weeks later. Like others they chartered an immigrant car, along with Walter Currys, and brought their household furnishings. In the Lipford's case, they brought only chickens and purchased their livestock after they reached here. Jack had been born on Dec. 8, 1878 in Boardley, Kentucky, to John William Lipford and Mary Henrietta (Hewitt) Lipford. Hig father died when he was only 6 months old and he and hig mother then made their home with his mother's sister and husband, Jacob and Missouri (Hewitt) Curry and their son, Walter. Upon Jack's mother's death when he was 21/z,he was raiged by the Currys, who moved to Shelby County, Missouri, to avoid any claims other relatives might have on him. It was some years before he knew he had been orphaned and when he was 18, he began using the Lipford ne-e. On Dec. 29, 1897, he and Lena (Moore) Bragg were married at the home of her uncle, John Moore, and made their home in the LITTLE, ROBERT Last Sunday, at noon, word was received that Robert Little, the nineteen year old son of Mr. and Mrs. F.P. Little of this city, had met death by accidental drowning in the Corliss lake north of town. th9_ unfortunate young man in company with Willie Trude and Hescoe Murphy left a day or two prior to the accident for a few days outing at the lake. It seems that it was the intention of the party to run a seine across the lake and the boy decided to test his ability as a swimner before doing so. On his way to the opposite side he was seized with cremps and sank before the eyes of his companions. Burt Corliss, who was with the boys, swnm to the young man and reached him just as he was going down the third time and succeeded in towing him quite a distance nearer to the shore, but in the struggle Mr. Corliss became too exhausted and in order to save his own life was compelled to release his hold on the drowning man. A boat was procured and the body recovered lying on a bed of moss which in summer rises within a few feet of the surface. An automobile party left as soon as the sad news was received and returned with the body which was taken to the undertaker. The funeral services were conducted bv Rev. C.A. Yersin, pastor of the Christian Church, at 10 o'clock Wednesday morning; Pearl Shannon, Hescoe Murphy, Ben Buchele, John Gates, Wm. Wilcox, Vernon Coak- ley, six of the unfortunate young man's friends, acting as pall bearers. by Myra L. Davis to town on Oct. 15, 1915, the day the cornerstone of the new brick school building was laid in Flagler. After living in town during the school year for two terms, the Lipfords returned to the homestead and Blanche sta*ed high school in the new Shiloh Center scbool where thev offered the first year of high school. After a few weeks, the family sent her back to Shelbyville, Mo., where she stayed with relatives and completed her freshman year. In 1918, the Lipfords moved back to Flagler from the homestead, soon buying the house on Srd and Ouray, which remained their home for the rest of their lives. After they moved to town, Mr. Lipford worked for W.H. Lavington in his store and also owned a clothing store for awhile in what is now the Pool Hall on Main Avenue. In 1923, he became manager of the Flagler Equity Co-operative Assn., which he managed until his retirement in 1952. Among the activities of that business was a flour mill. operated by Joe Eckert, which ran for many years. Coal was also sold. Jack helped organize the Fire Department in 1920 and was a member until 1946. He also was a member of the Masons, IOOF Lodge, Modern Woodmen of America and the Eastern Star. Lena Lipford passed away suddenly on June 1, L944, of a heart attack. Jack continued to make his home in Flagler after his retirement. He passed away on July 26, 1963, at the age of 84 years. by Blanche Lipford Carper F4l6 LIVINGSTON - SHORT FAMILY E4t7 In February 1920, Earl and Verna (Short) Livingston moved from a farm near Alexandria, Nebraska to a farm southwest of Seibert in Kit Carson County, with their two small daughters, Vera and Viva. They stayed with Verna's parents, Mr. and Mrs. T.J. Short. while -waiting for the Conley family to get moved out of the place where they were to live-. Everybody was having the flu so moving took longer. They farmed, milked cows, raised hogs and chickens. The cream and egg money lielped eke out a living in the dust bowl days of the 1930's. - Two more daughters and a son joined the family; Eloise, Rose and Bill. The children all attended school at Rock Cliff and then Seibert High School where all were graduated. The family was active in the Rock Cliff Sunday School as long as they had services there. During the 30's when money was scarce, Earl put a hitch on the front ofthe car q"9 t!" 9ld $ay lsam pulled us to Sunday School, the gas was saved for the long trip to Seibert for groceries. Later, when Rolf efff no longer had Sunday School they attended at Second Central. Earl was Sunday School superintendent at Rock Cliff for many years. �Verna was active in the Rock Cliff Helpers Ladies Aid and served as President and Secretary. In L922 Rock Cliff school district pur- chased three school busses. At that time there were almost 60 pupils, with 14 beginners that year. Earl was one of the drivers for the new busses; much of his school route was a trail across the prairie. He drove the bus for several years and when he was busy in the field Verna would drive the bus. Later Earl served on the School Board for many years. Earl worked on Farm Progromg for many years. He measured acreages all over Kit Carson County, and also traveled the county as Assessor. calf, and one car left friends and relatives, to embark on an exciting new adventure. They drove into a blinding, choking duststorm. It took another trip to bring the horse, other cars and another truck load of belongings. Claude and Genevieve had an eighteen month old daughter, Claudia Ann. Then in 1951 two babies joined the family. Jeanetter Jeanne born to Claude and Genevieve, and Gary Joe born to Joe and Pauline Long. A few years later, Pnmela Sue was born to Joe and Pauline. The families were made to feel welcome in the community. There was soon participation in the Friendship Circle Extension Club, and the non-denominational Sunday School. In 1958, Earl and Verna moved into Seibert and Bill and Rogene took over the farm. Verna passed away in December 1965. In February of 1970 Earl sold out and moved to California. In March of 1970 he and There were community dinners held in the school lunchroom. Most entertainment all Viola Goff were manied. He remained in California until her death in December 1979. Now at the age of 95, Earl is back at the farm with Bill and Rogene. next time they reversed the food brought. The children played their running games and had a lot of fun. Warm, close friendships were formed. by Vera Gottshall After Claudia and Jeanette started to school, Genevieve took her turn as the lunchroom helper. All mothers took turns helping the cook with the hot lunches. When the sod was broken up many arrowheads became visible, and looking for arrowheads became a fascinating activity, in the LONG - BELL FAMILIES winter was the Saturday night pinochle parties. Half of the families brought sandwiches, the other half brought cakes. The F418 The Longs and Bells Enter Smoky Hill Community The westward expansion continued in 1950. The Long family pushed west, since farm land for erpansion in northwestern Oklahoma was impossible to find. The pre- vious generation had moved from Pennsylva- nia and Kentucky, through Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas into Oklahoma. Addison Joseph Long and his eon-in-law, Claude Martin Bell drove through western Kansas and eastern Colorado looking for a tract of land to lease. A man driving a tractor in a field suggested that they could contact A.G. Kirschmer in Burlington, Colorado. Nine miles southeast of Burlington, Addison and Claude leased twenty-eight quarters of land, 4480 acres, from Mr. Kirschmer. It consist€d of 2320 acres of summer fallow, 1840 acres of wheat and 320 acres of pasture land. Along with the lease, a purchase was made of tools, equipment, and machinery. The exciting acquisition was a D-7 Caterpil- lar and the machinery it pulled. It tilled a seventy foot swath. Addison gold his farmland at Fairview and Longdale, Oklahoma to finance his son Joe Arthur Long and his soninJaw Claude Bell in this farming venture. Claude sold his automobile and tractor repair garage, and Joe graduated from Oklahoma State University, then moved to Colorado to form this three-fanily partnership. In March of 1950 the three men began their farming operation known as the LBL Ranch. The LBL was also their cattle brand. The women, Addigon's wife Dollie May Long, Claude's wife, Genevieve May Long Bell and Joe's wife, Pauline Edwards Long, began to pack and sort and prepare for a farm and home sale. On March 1, the caravan, a truck with home furnishings, a pick-up with a cow and fields and along the Smoky riverbed. The partnership lasted for six years, until the leased land was sold, and each family LONG, WILLIAM MELVIN F4r9 I was born in Harrison county, Mo., December 10, 1864 and spent my youth near Blue Ridge, Mo. In 1887, another party and myself came by covered wagon and settled in the northwest corner of Kansas, in Sherman County. In 1889, I moved into Colorado and took a homestead. I lived in my covered wagon until a sod house was built, and the lumber for the roofing and frame were hauled from Haigler, Nebr., along with other supplies needed. Water was hauled from Sand Creek several miles away and often we had to get water from holes which held water. I plastered my house with native lime, sometimes these soddies were plastered with clay, most of them had dirt floors, very few of them having wooden floors. I never saw any buffalo, but the day I went to Jacqua for supplies, the last buffalo seen in Kit Carson County was chased across my yard and killed a little further north, and I enjoyed a steak from this one. T.G. Price, a pioneer judge of this county, had one of the heads of the last two buffalos killed here. We saw plenty of antelope and some wild horses. I remember we drove to Denver in July, 1888, following the trail west from the divide between Haigler and Burlington and through the Hash Knife, which was north of Limon killed in a car accident at the age of L7. and east of Deertrail. 1rys samped the evening before on the Arickaree river, and planned to go to Lusto Springs the next evening, for we wanted to be near water. So we drove to a point below the low-lying hills, and got ready to camp. We began to pitch our tent and then we noticed someone riding toward us and waving. We had not seen another rider all Addison remarried Inez Richardson and they moved into Burlington. In 1960 the Bells moved to town, and in the man came up to us and we were told a continued to farm independently in the area. Irrigation farming was introduced to the community, and Joe and Claude went into irrigation. Addison stayed with the dry land wheat farming. Genevieve taught in the Smoky Hill School for two years, 1958-60. Dollie Long died in 1965, and Pamela Sue was 1970 they were divorced. He continued to farm until his death in 1983. Genevieve taught in the RE6J district for 18 years and retired in May 1986. Claudia entered Oklahoma State University for three semesters, then entered Good Samaritan Hospital School of Nursing in Phoenix, Arizona. She graduated from there as a registered nurse, moved to Salmon, Idaho where she worked in Steele Memorial Hospital for eight years. She has lived in Colorado Springs since and works as a critical care nurse in the Intensive Care Unit of Penrose Hospital. Jeanette married Clord D. Meyer of Bethune, and attended Arizona State University for one year. She and Clord graduated from the University of Southern Colorado in Pueblo. They divorced after 15 years of marriage. Jeanette has worked since 19?2 as Communications Coordinator in the Marke- ting Department of the St. Mary-Corwin Hospital in Pueblo. Joe and Pauline moved to Stroud, Oklahoma in 1981. Pauline worked in TG&Y store until it closed. Joe drives a refrigerated reefer truck in a seven state area. Their son Gary Joe and his wife Corrine, operate a carpet cleaning business in Prague, Oklahoma. They have three daughters, Jessica. Cn-ela and Chelsea. by Bernice Eberhart day, so we wondered who the rider was approaching us in this manner. As we waited, herd of five thousand Texas longhorn steers were being driven to Montana for grass and were watering at Lusto Springs, and our camp was right in their path. We quickly moved and gave the herd plenty of room. I shall not soon forget the sight of the vast herd passing us, and how grateful we were to be warned in time to move out of the way of the dangerous path of such a herd. It took us four or five days to drive to Denver to file on homesteads. Folks drive it now in that many or less hours. Mr. Long was a pioneer teacher in this county and the third county judge of Kit Carson County. He moved to Stratton in 1917 and operated a hardware store there until his death. His wife, Jennie was also a pioneer teacher and preceded him in death. (Your scribe liked to visit with Judge Long as we were both from Harrison County, Mo. and knew many of the ssme people near Blue Ridge.) by Della Hendricks �LOUTZENHISER - WILDMAN FAMILY I.420 The day of the sale a terrible wind hit about LOVTZENIIISER, DONALD mid morning. People that weren't already there had trouble traveling, as it was like a snow blizzard except it was dust in the air. The sale warl well attended though. Prices F42l were extremely high as the inflation of World War I wag still in effect. A week or so after the sale a big snow blizzard. hit and everything cnme to a halt. By the time the roads were again passable, a depression had set in and the bottom fell out ofthe financial world. Everything snm6 t 'mHing down. E.T. and Edith decided not to make the move to Colorado at this time. The farm was restocked and farming was as usual for a few years. In L924F,.T. started to farm in Kansas and Colorado both, as the older boys were able to handle most of the farming in Kansas. [n December of 1928 the family moved to Colorado, all except one son Donald, who came later. By this time the family had grown to nine children: Lester, Donald, Clair, Everett, Irene, Vera, Rex, Millard and Lila. E.T. rentcd a farm near by with improvements on it and moved the family into the rented house until one could be built on their section. A bad depression start€d in 1929 or there about, and last€d all through the 30's, along with one of the worst droughts that start€d in 1934 and last€d until 1939. Late in 1935, Edith had become partially paralized, and the doctors in Denver, ColoErnest Talmage Loutzenhiser and Edith Glynn Wildman. They were married November 25, 1908 and moved to the Shiloh community north of Flagler in December of 1928. rado, discovered it was caused by a tumor on the brain. In an attempt to remove it by surgery, she didn't recover. On January 11, 1936, she went to be with her Lord and Savior, of whom she was a faitMul follower all her life. She was buried in the Flagler cemetery. Ernest Talmage Loutzenhiser, better known as 8.T., was born July 28, 1885, at Bridgeport, South Dakota. When he was two weeks of age, his parents, John and Mary (Nichols) Loutzenhiser, and two older sons, Ramie and Orie, traveled by covered wagon to Jewell County, Kansas. There he attended school and grew to manhood. November 25, 1908, he married Edith Glynn Wildman (born May 4, 1886). They set up house keeping on one of his father's falms. After ten yearg or so of farming, four sons and two daughters, they decieded a vacation was needed. So, somewhere along the line after World War I and the Armestice was signed on November 11, 1918, they bought their first new car, a Model T Ford. E.T.'s brother, Ranie, and his family had moved to Yuma County, Colorado a few years earlier, so the family decided to go to Colorado to visit them. While they were in Colorado, it only seemed natural to think of a new territory to move to. While they were looking around, they purchased a section of land eighteen miles north-east of Flagler, Colorado, in Kit Carson County. This section of land was decided on because it was level, the Shiloh School was on it, which taught the first eleven grades, and the Shiloh Baptist Church was acrogs the road on one corner. Sometime later, March 31, 1920, E.T. and Edith billed a farm sale so they could move to Colorado. The neighbots cAme in and had a farewell oyster supper for them. During the course of the evening, the remark was made by someone, "Why should you risk taking them kids to East€rn Colorado! If a winter blizzatd didn't get them, a rattle snake would". Times were rough during the 30's. By the late 30's improvements were built on the section. By this time the oldest sons were married and on farms of their own. Along with the help of his sons and daughters at home, E.T. got into the purebred Duroc Jersey Hog raising business. This turned out to be a real success and the family took great interest in this adventure. He won his share of the grand chnmpion ribbons at the Colorado State Fair and also at Lincoln, Nebraska State Fair one year. E.T. held a pure bred gilt and boar sale every spring during these trying years, which turned out to be a great thing for many farmers in Eastern Colorado to get started raising a better class of hogs. On May LL, t947, E.T. married Ruby Leona Gearing. By then all of the children were married or out on their own. E.T. and Ruby continued living on the farm. In the early 1950's R.E.A. built power lines to the farm area, which made them more modern. In the fall of 1956, E.T. entered the Flagler Hospital for exploratory surgery. It was found he had a large gallstone that was causing a bile blockage. He was later moved to a hospital in Denver, Colorado, where he passed away on December 2, 1956. E.T. was buried beside his first wife Edith in the Flagler Cemetery. by Donald Loutzenhiser Donald Loutzenhiger. fall of 1954. Donald Loutzenhiser and Laveta Thelma Gattshall were married February 23, 1933, at St. Francis, Kansas. Donald was twenty-two and Laveta twenty-one. Everybody that ever got married had to set a wedding date. We discovered my birthday was February 22 and Laveta's was February 24, so we settled for February 23. A bad depression had set in a few years earlier, but that didn't drmpen our spirit. We set up house keeping on a rented 160 acre farm just across the road in Washington County, about 21 miles north-east of Flagler, Colorado. We had an unusually wet spring and corn planting time was a little late. When thatjob was out ofthe way, I plowed ten acres witha team of mules and awalking plow. This was planted to millet on the fourth day of July. After the millet seeding was done, we went to Seibert, Colorado, to celebrate the 4th. Seibert has always been famous to remember certain days. We didn't receive much rain that summer, especially in the early fall. The millet crop was great, the corn was fair, but the prices had fallen to nlmsst, nothing. I think around twenty-five cents a bushel, but others remembered it being lower than that. The next spring, 1934, we moved three and one-half miles east of Flagler on a farm owned by Alfred Hartzler, he being Laveta's grandfather. There were two living quarters there and grandfather wasn't getting any younger, so we were able to see that he had transportation to town and elsewhere. By then a long nation-wide drought had set in and along with the depression, people didn't have much income. Our first child, Duane, was born May 30, 1934. In those days doctors made house calls and cnme out to the farm. The drought lasted into the late 30's. With the help of the good �Lord and the government programs, people seemed to survive. There were days when the air was filled with duet so thick it was so dark the chickens went to roost about 12 o'clock noon. The spring of 1935, there wasn't much wind blowing. One day the sky began to turn red about midday and a good manY PeoPle thought the end of time had arrived. The red dust from down Oklahoma way was passing through. It was so bad with dust in the air, it was terrible to see where to turn corners you were familiar with. On May 30, 1935' a terrible flood hit Kit Carson and Washington Counties, maybe others too. The storm hit northern Kit Carson County and Southern Washington County during the daylight hours, later after dark, it hit the town of Flagler. Several people lost their lives in the flood swollen streams. People didn't realize just how bad a storm had struck, being no weather reports like we have now. Our oldest daughter, Darlene, was born July 21, 1935, while we were living out east of Flagler. The jack rabbits and grasshoppers seem to thrive in dry weather. The rabbits were more like flocks of sheep, so rabbit drives were organized. People didn't have a lot to do in the way of farming, so everybody came out to help herd the rabbits toward a holding pen in the center of the area being covered. Lots ofrabbits were destroyed. Lots ofpeople were using rabbit for food also. In the spring of 1936 we moved to a rented farm twenty-two miles northeast of Flagler in the Shiloh Country. The Shiloh Baptist Church was close by as well as the Shiloh School. It was close to church services and school for the children. Our third child' Josephine, was born November 15, 1937. In the late 30's the drought began to taper off, and things began to look up. Price-wise, things were still low. When World War II was declared on December 7, L94L, prices began tn rise and inflation set in. All wars seem to do this. In 1942 we bought the present farm we still own, twelve miles north and three east of tractor less. as I had rented the farm to the oldest son Duane. by Donald Loutzenhiser F422 Arthur Lowe personifies the pioneer spirit that promoted the gowth of this County. Arthur's roots in Kit Carson County were established long ago. He and his twin brother, Archie Merril, were born January 18, 1897 near Augusta, Wisconsin to Edward Augustus and Harriett Elizabeth (Cooper) Lowe. There were four older children in the family; Beatrice (Lowe) Braddy, Kenneth, and twins Vern and Vernice (Lowe) Thomas. In 190? the family immigrated to Kit Carson County where you could acquire a tract of land from the government under the Homestead Act of 1812. Arthur's sisters were teaching schools near Augusta, Wisconsin at the time, so they stayed in Wisconsin to finish their school term. Vern stayed behind to ride the Jersey Milk train with the family belongings. Arthur, Archie, Kenneth and their parents rode the train to Stratton, Colorado, where they rented rooms to stay in temporarily until Vern arrived. They bought some lumber which they loaded on their wagon, along with their belongings, hitched their team ofhorses to the wagon and headed twelve miles south and four miles west of Stratton. There they pitched a tent and staked out a quarter section of land to start their homesteading. The Homestead Act of 1812 provided that anyone who was either the head of the family, twenty-one years of age' or a veteran of fourteen days active duty in the military service, and was a citizen of the United not to States, could acquire a tract ofland by settling on- it for a exceed 160 acree - Edward Lowe and his sons built a cook shack near the tent with the lumber they had purchased. They began to plow the land and put in crops. They also cut sod blocks from the surrounding prairie with which to build a house for the family. Within a month, the walls of the sod house were ready for a roof. LOWE, ARTHUR MYRON period of five years. They carefully tore down the cook shack and used the lumber for building the roof. Arthur's sisters, Beatrice and Vernice, came to Colorado as soon as their school terms were completed. It was nearly a year before a well was drilled for water. In the meantime, their water had to be hauled by a team of horses, pulling a wagon loaded with four water barrels, from a farm located two miles southeast of their homestead. Arthur and Archie attended the Nutbrook School which was three miles east and one mile north of their home. They also attended the Jones School located three miles north of the homestead. Some of their teachers were Annie Matson, Bessie Lightfoot, Hope Root, and Beatrice Lowe. Arthur and Archie worked for a neighbor herding sheep. One winter an unexpected blizzardswept the area and sheep piled up in the gulleys and ravines trying to find sheltpr. When the storm subsided, the boys helped dig the sheep out of the snow banks. Many were dead, however, the boys earned one dollar for every live sheep they dug out' In some places they found twelve to fifteen sheep piled on each other, all smothered to death in the deep snow. In early 1918 Vern, now married, left to work in the Portland Gold Mines at Victor and Cripple Creek, Colorado. Arthur soon decided he would like to try his luck in the gold mines and went to Cripple Creek where he worked in the mine and lived with Vern and his wife. In August of 1918, Kenneth was called to the service and Arthur came home to enlist in the Navy. He did not weigh enough so had to wait for the draft, which placed him in the Army. He was sent to Carnp Fort Lewis, Flagler. Crops were real good through the fortiee and early fifties. The fall of 1946 we purchased a home in Flagler so the children could attend school, there being no schools north of the old Flagler school district open that fall. We found out the Eummer of 1951 Laveta had cancer. It was too lat€ for a hysterectomy surgery to eave her life, and we lost her on May 28, 1954. She was buried in the Flagler cemetery. January 9, 1955, I married Irene Nola Host€tler. She had lost her husband, Charles, from a heart attack in 1953. We were blessed with a son, Gregg Kent, on September 27, 1955. We were saddened again in June of 1957 when we learned Irene had breaet cancer and surgery didn't save her. We lost her February 16, 1958, and she was buried in the Flagler cemetery by her first husband, Charles. Gregg was three years old then. October 16, 1958, I married Nyla M. Asher. I don't know how time got away so fast' it didn't seem long before he was out of school and on his own. Nyla and I moved to Burlington, Colorado, the spring of 1980 so I could be close to a golf course. The idea being to play more golf and run the farm Art and Thelma Lowe and fanily. L to R. Elva, Alvin, Art, Paul, Thelma, Judy, Velva, Ladeen and Velma. �Washington to train for the infantry. He expected to be sent to France. However, the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1919, so he never left the United States. His discharge was delayed for three months when he got the mumps. Arthur was now past twenty-one and he and some other young men decided to look for land near Trinidad, Colorado. He bought a section of relinquished Homeetead land for $1000.00 near Model, Colorado. He cut sod blocks and built a house ten feet by fourteen feet. He also dug a cistern and worked for neighboring farmers cutting and stacking hay. On June 29, t920, Arthur went back to Stratton and manied Agnes Marie Radspinner, daughter of Arthur and Lucy Radspinner. They were married in Burlington, Colorado by Judge Boger and witnesses were Audrey M. Glaze and Frank Whitmore. Arthur took his new bride to the soddie house near Model where they lived for a time. They moved to Swink, Colorado, where Arthur worked with the sugar beets until the season's crop was processed. Their first child, Cecil Alvin, was born January L9, L922, in Swink. Arthur moved his family to Colorado Springs while Alvin was quite small. Here he operated a street maintainer and on May 16, 1923, Vehna Lorene was born. In August of that same year, the family moved back to Swink and in September they went back to the homestead at Model, where they lived until they returned to Kit Carson County in 1926. For about a year they lived with and helped Arthur's parents, who by now had built a lovely wood frame home. The old soddie house was now a barn. (This farm is now owned and operated by Arthur's daughter Ladeen and her husband Charles MiUs.) By the spring of 1927 Arthur had located a farm to rent. This farm was twelve miles south and four miles east of Stratton, Colorado, near the First Central School. It was about one mile from Agnes's parents farm. Arthur worked this farm and again he cut sod from the surrounding prairie with which to place around the outside of the farmhouse to keep it warm in the winter. He took a team of horges and wagon, and with his family, went out on the prairie to gather cow chips for winter fuel. Arthur took his wife and children to the First Central School house every Sunday morning to attend church cnme to live with the family and help make a home for the seven of them. During that year of 1931, the children had chicken pox, measles, mumps and whooping cough. Vernice also got the mumps and was very ill. On May 22, 1932, Arthur was greatly blessed when Thelma Arnetta (Nielson) Armstrong became his wife and the mother of his four children. She was no stranger to the family as she had taught at First Central for four years. Among her teaching duties was music teacher for all the grades. Thelma's first husband had died in a tragic drowning accident in 1928, just three months after their mariage. grand children and great grand children gathered in Burlington to celebrate with Arthur and Thebna on their 50th wedding anniversary. raised hogs there until 188?, when the hogs all got cholera and died. Things got bad for Grandpa and he was about to give up. The Government had land for homesteading in Colorado, so my Dad and his older brother (Oscar) got on their bicycles and followed the Republican River and cow trails till they got a couple miles south of Hale, Colo. At that time there was no Hale or any towns close. When the boys left my Grandpa had told them "Now boys, I've lived in the swsmps and by ponds with mosquitoes all mylife, and I wish you would find a place higher up." Well they did a real good job of that, when they went south of Hale and got in those hills and that old yeller dirt. There they staked out by Velva Lowe Pickard LUNDVALL STAFFORD FAMILY F423 My Dad (Emil Lundvall) was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 18?2, and came to this country in 1875 with his parents (The Nels Peterson family) 5 brothers, 1 sister, and an uncle. They settled in Holdridge, Nebr. There were so many people in Nebraska with the nn-e of Peterson, that Grandpa had trouble getting his mail, so he changed his name to Nels Peter Lundvall and his brother took the neme of Carlson. They farmed and Alvin and Velma start€d school at First Central while living on this farm. Then Arthur moved his family to a farm one mile east ofFirst Central School on the Correction Line. This was a much larger farm with a nice house, big barn and chicken house on it. Arthur was able to get cattle, hogs, chickens and turkeys to raise. The A/L became his registered brand and the farm becnme known ag the AIL Ranch. Twin daughters, Elva May and Velva Fay, were born on this farm on October 6, 1930. When they were seven months old tragedy struck the family. Their mother Agnes became ill and died in Denver General Hospital May 4, 1931. Arthur was left a widower at the age of thirty-three, and with four small children. Arthur's sister Vernice and her son Donald Wooley by their Dad'e 1916 Ford truck. Photo was taken at the old homestead. Arthur and Thelma, together with their family, withstood the drought and depression years, the dirt storms, blizzards, bad times and good times. On July 22, L933, Arthur and Thelma had their first child, Margaret Ladeen. Their first son Paul Arthur was born August 1?, 1936, and daughter Judith Elizabeth was born on September 10, 1943. In 1948 they moved to their home in Burlington, Colorado, and Arthur retired from farming a few years later. The A/T, Ranch is now owned by son Paul. In 1982, all seven children, along with services. Arthur's neighbors were very kind. Mrs. Lloyd Megal, who lived a quarter mile east, came to help the family every day. Soon Virgil and Archie Lundvall and friend Donnv Rudolf, Axel, Emil and Oscar, The Lundvall Brothers. some quarters for the family, and rode on to Lamar, Colo. to file on them. My Dad was only 15 and too young to own his, but Oscar filed on his and they got applications for Grandpa and the other boys. Dad and Oscar had no money and ran across a man in Lnm61 that had 20 acres of onions that needed to be weeded and taken care of, and he offered them a percentage if they and 2 Japanese families would take care of them. They got credit at the general store for food and clothing, and lived in a tent that summer until the onions were harvested. They made enough money that summer to pay the grocer and have a few dollars in their pocket. Before leaving they made a verbal agreement to work for this man the next summer in Greeley, Colo. They then rode their bicycles to the quarters they had staked out, and on to Holdridge, aniving there about Christmas. �The next spring my Dad and Oscar went to Greeley to work. My Grandpa and two of the other boys hitched up the oxen and loaded the wagon with supplies and groceries, which was mainly beans, cornmeal, scorched corn and coffee. They used the scorched corn with the coffee to make the coffee go further. I'm not sure what kind of house they built but I think it was sod. The next year (1889) my homestead in 1928, but he was a gardener and we moved a lot of places where new ground had been plowedup. All of us kids would work in the garden, and sometimes go with him to peddle garden truck. He was known for his watermelon days when he would give free melons to all the people that ceme. The drought came and then the gras- Grandma came out. She had raised some broom corn and had about 30 turkeys, so they built a crate on the wagon to put the turkeys shoppers, and just about everyone left the homesteads. By 1934 most of the Lundvall's were gone. One person now owns what 12 people owned back in the homestead days. in. Once again they started to the homestead, but along the way they hit a rut and the crate by Virgil Lundvall broke and turkeys got out. They couldn't catch them so started on without them. Soon they noticed the turkeys were following behind the wagon. They were catching grasshoppers and taking care of themselves. The oxen were so slow the turkeys had no trouble keeping up with them. railroad wan coming up the Republican River and some post offices were built. Some of these were the Jaqua, Hale, Bonnie, Hermus and the Tuttle. These were built about 8 to 10 miles apart, and all were the same with a 9 ft. rock wall then about 4 ft. of board and the sloped roof, which made them about 15 feet high. I don't know if the government or the postmasters built them. The railroad never cAme thru, but little towns were springing up and more settlers were coming. Kanorado was one of the fastest growing little towns, but if you needed supplies you either had to go back to Holdridge or to Lemar. On one trip to Lnmar, one of Dad's oxen got sick and died. He bought an old black horse for $8.00 and put it with the oxen, but that didn't work. The horse would take 2 steps and have to wait on the oxen to catch up. They stopped at some willows and got some branches and made some shafts so they could drive each the horse and the oxen a half a day. Later on my Dad bought another horse from Bill Cody. I asked Dad why he ever fooled with the oxen and he said, "Because the oxen were easy to keep. They never strayed far and ifthere was a storm they would come home. You had to have a fence for horses or they would stray or some one would take them and you'd never eee them again." In 1905, my Grandpa Stafford and his brother Rube came to homestead. While they were improving and starting to dig the basements, a fella by the name of Bud Hill came by and asked if they had filed on the land. Rube said, "No, but we are going to Wray and file in the morning." The next day when they went to file they found out that Bud Hill had filed on uncle Rube's earlier that day and beat him out. Rube told Grandpa Stafford, "Well, if they are going to be that crooked and mean out here I'm just going back home." Rube caught the train that afternoon and went back to Decatur, Illinois. Grandpa Stafford had a family of 6 children and went back to the homegtead to build. He dug a hole in the bank, the north, east and south walls were dirt. On the west, he nailed boards and tar paper, leaving a door and 2 emall windows. He had two 10 ft. x 10 ft. rooms, but it was very dark and not much air could get in or circulate. Dad married my Mother, Flora Mae Stafford, in 1911. They had six children. Ethel, Thelna, Violet, Virgil (myself), Archie, and Lillian. Dad mortgaged and lost the organized the first M.E. Church in Burlington. Our supplies were either freighted in from Haigler, Nebr. or gotten at the small store at Lo-born, Kans. (now called Kanarado). We could not always get what we wanted, so just had to be content with what we could get. My husband worked in Denver for a while, then went east to work for the Foster Lumber Company and while he was away I stayed on the homestead with the children. His wages were the means of getting what supplies we needed, so we did not suffer the hardships of a great many other pioneers who could not get LUNDY, MARTHA GILMORE F424 In 1899, my Dad cnrne back and improved on his homestead. There was a rumor that the teachers in this county. Rev. Frank Thomas I was born in Putman County, Ind., in July 1856, and spent my girlhood and young womanhood in that state; then after my marriage to Charles L. Lundy, we came west with our two small children to visit my mother and sister, who were then living in Beaver City, Nebr. That was on May 20, 1888 when we arrived in Beaver City. My husband had been ordered west for his health and he came on out to Colorado, and liking the looks of the country, he drove to Denver and filed papers on his homestead. He then returned to Beaver City in March 1889. We came out and settled on our homestead. We built a sod house and otu goods were shipped to Denver work and had not the money to get the needed supplies for themselves and their children. We would have such terrible storms during the winter and it was always a worry when our husbands or children were out on the prairies for fear of a storm coming up suddenly and causing them to lose their way home. It was so easy to get lost for there were no fences to follow, no trails, no landmarks of any kind. It has always been a wonder to me that more people were not frozen to death on the prairies. I remember Rev. Thomas telling of his first meeting in the new town of Burlington, being in or very near a saloon building, and when some of the converts becgme happy over their religion and some of those in the saloon becnme loud from too much tippling, there was quite a loud babel of voices. But it was not long until the little frame building was put up and the first M.E. Church held and on down to Burlington. Water wag hauled from Carlisle, the place now known as Peconic Siding. The railroad dug a well there, and the people of the surrounding country would go there for the water. It was six miles from where we lived, and we hauled water with a team and wagon and barrels. Later we had a well dug and had water hauled up by a windlass. A short time after we were settled, a sod school house was built and our children were sent to school. At first school was held just three monthe in the year, as we were always afraid of our children getting lost in the storms that would come up suddenly. In the early fall and spring we would have terrible dust storms and in winter it would be the blizzards. My children had to go so far that I was glad they concluded to have school in good weather only. picked up a hunter's knife and steel on the prairie and we always thought that some hunter had been skinning a buffalo and happened to leave the knife laying beside the carcass, as there was quite a pile of bones at the place where the knife was found. And it was no unusual thing to pick up Indian arrow heads on the prairie. My husband returned to Colorado and helped to transcribe the county records aft€r the county was organized. He worked in the office of county clerk for many years. He served one term as county clerk and recorder. When we first came to Colorado there was no cemetery anywhere near us, and the dead were laid to rest in a corner of the homesteads. Finally someone donated an acre of ground and a neighbor lady and myself went There was no church or Sunday school; this round the community and into Burlington was a missionar5r field of the Methodist Church, so my brother-in-law, Rev. Frank Thomas, was sent here as the first minister. He preached in school houses and little churches all over this county, and helped to organize many a Sunday school in the little communities scattered over these broad prairies. When the visiting preachers would come to the community, I was the one who always entertained them, and kept them overnight and we would enjoy their visit, for we got glimpses of the old home and news of the outside world so far removed. Although I was a Presb5rterian, I acted as Sunday school superintendent of the M.B. Sunday School for some years; our preacher was Methodist, and one of the teachers was of the Christian faith. We used to have some good natured arguments, but we all did what we could for the furtherance of this new field. My brother, Jarree T. Gilmore, was one of the pioneer meetings there. I did not see any buffalo, but my boys and solicited funds enough to put up a woven wire fence around the plot so our dead would not be molested by coyotes or badgers that always dug holes in the soft earth that was on the graves. by Martha Lundy MAGEE, C. L. AND VERA F426 Clarence Lauck Magee was born Sept. 19, 1889 at Cleveland, Tenn. His family moved to Ida Co., Iowa in 1899 and it was there that he grew up and attended school. He went to his brother "Zan" who lived in Washington and intended to finish high school there but � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Families of Kit Carson County Description An account of the resource Brief biographies of the founding families of Kit Carson County Colorado. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Book Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Families- L Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 1988 Description An account of the resource Brief histories of the founding families of Kit Carson County whose names begin with the letter "L." As found in the book, History of Kit Carson County. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Salmons, Janice Hasart, Marlyn Smith, Dorothy Language A language of the resource English Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. History of Kit Carson County Volume 1 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text/pdf Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Curtis Media Subject The topic of the resource History Kit Carson County Biography Genealogy Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a>