Vol. 11-1
Spring 2002
The Holdrege Area
Genealogy Club
Meetings
held at the
on the first Monday of the month at
The
public is welcome!
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PRESIDENT’S
MESSAGE
We are looking forward to the
"Making History Workshop" being held at the
Elizabeth Schlatz
is chairman for our upcoming Everton Workshop to be held at the museum on
We are always open to suggestions
for making things better for our members. We appreciate all of you who support
our club. Remember that you are always welcome to put queries in our
newsletter.
Your President, Sandra Slater
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QUERIES
1. Would like to hear from anyone interested in
the Einsel family history. E. D. Einsel,
born
2.
Would like to correspond with any one researching my great-grandfather, John Sjorgren Born
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NEW BOOKS ON THE SHELF
Donated
by Warner Carlson - Holdrege High School Year books: 1928; 1930; 1947; 1949;
1853; 1956; 1958
Donated
by Mary Kay Nelson - 1951
MEMORIAL
GIFTS GIVEN IN THE NAME OF WALDO ROST AND MILROY BENTON -- 1870 Nebraska Census
Index book
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SODDY HOMEMAKER
HOW DID A WOMAN MAKE
A DIRT HOUSE A HOME?
By Ellen Austin
From
the mid -1850s through the beginning of the 20th century, from
It
was the homesteader's wife, however, who was challenged to make the dirt house
a home even though she may have wept bitter tears at thought of the
lace-curtained frame house she had left in the East.
Many
wives must have reacted like Mrs. George Shafer when she first saw her
husband's offering of a
The
sod houses were forever dirty with their earthen walls crudely shaved to
semi-smoothness. The bare, dirt floor
defied sweeping. Even the ceiling
dripped dirt from stringy roots that dangled from sod squares spread over
wooden-pole rafters. A heavy downpour
brought fresh trials for a housewife as the room became saturated and rivulets
ran down the roots, dripping on bedding, clothing, and family. How did a woman cope with keeping a soddy clean? One pioneer woman
discovered that problems sometimes have a way of revealing solutions for their
problems. As she swept rainwater from
her floor she noticed that the earth underfoot had become as hard as
cement. She learned that if she
sprinkled the floor with water then swept it, the earth remained smooth, hard
and nearly dust free.
Eliminating
the dirt which dripped from the ceiling and making the roof watertight were
matters not easily solved. There was no
cash to purchase boards to nail over the pole rafters. Finishing lumber had to be brought in by
rail; that made it expensive. But by
using the pennies and nickels she had saved for a dress, her husband bought
tarpaper. He rebuilt the soddy's roof so that the paper lay
between pole rafters and the sod squares that served as shingles. Inside she stretched muslin across the
rafters for a cloud like ceiling.
A
prairie wife learned to appreciate the protection of her soddy provided.
On the open plains the wind seemed to swish and moan all the way from
Dakota to
But
what the house provided in protection from the elements it lacked in
charm. Because it's walls were so thick
the sun's rays shown but little past the windowsill and the rooms seemed dark
and cave-like. Some women plastered the walls with a mixture of clay and ashes,
then white-washed them for an illusion of light. A red geranium added a splash of color to the
soddy when the plant burst
into boom on a south windowsill.
The
wide sills provided another decorating feature to the soddy. Plank
laid on the sills became window seats. The children sat there to watch the undulating
sea of grasses or to trace the early morning artistry of Jack Frost on the
windowpanes.
Food
preparation also taxed a soddy
homemaker's imagination. Because her house was so different from the one in
which she had learned homemaking tasks from her mother, a soddy wife devised her own way of
doing things.
She found that the same planked sills that served as window seats for
the children could hold her rising bread dough.
There on a south sill the
The
pioneer wife learned the cooking skills peculiar to soddy living. While her bread baked in the oven, a
pot of beans simmered on the back of her cook stove and, on Mondays, a boiler
of wash water was heated for scrub-boarding the laundry. Gertrude learned to perfection jut how much
straw, cow chips, or corn cobs to stoke into the four-hole, cast-iron stove to
handle a particular job.
Feather-like
cakes of pumpkin pies demanded a steady medium heat. As for lemon pies, just spit on your finger
and when the stove's scission' hot, it's time to pop in the pie. Summer canning, however, required three hours
of even heat to hot water pack garden stuff.
Milk
and butter were kept cool without the benefit of refrigeration. The dairy
products were lowered in a wooden box, into the cool recesses of a well. The children knew it was their job to fetch
the cooler box and to return it.
Eventually,
the soddies disappeared completely. Most of them crumbled and were plowed back
into the earth. The soddy homesteaders passed their sections and
quarter-sections on to their children who were eager to forget the house of
dirt.
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SOD HOUSES IN
Several
years ago Roy Bate listed the sod houses and schoolhouses in the northern part
of
1. Abraham Peterson
2. William J. Batie -
1885, home of Roy Batie for 15 years
3.
4. Ed English
5. Dan Boyer
6. E. A. Patrick
7. Will Brenstrom
(Jonas)
8. A. B. Crandall
9. Charlie Renstrom
10.___________
Denny
11.
Grant Luke
12.
Widow Carlson
13.
House of hired man
14.
Will Holen
?
15.
Oscar Matson
16.
Oscar Nordenstam
17.
18.
19.
Charlie Carlson
20.
21.
Harvey Wells
22.
Andrew Lindberg
23.
24.
Eric Larson
25.________
Bendict
26.
Axel Johnson
27.
________
28.
________ Mooney (Andrew Schelhase)
29.___________
(Charley Nelson)
30.
___________ (Oscar Peterson)
31
John Grenemeyer
32.
Abley Monnington
33.
John Fagerstone
32.
August
35.
O. B. Balyeat
36.
Jaspar Richardson
37.
_________ (
38.
Blacksmith Peterson
39.
Father of Johnnie Holmes
40.
District 5 Schoolhouse
41
Matias Matson
42.
Andrew Johnson
43.
_________ Nelson
44.
__________ (George Thornburg)
45.
__________ Street (Albert Hanson)
46.
Hog Peterson
47.
Pete Eliason
48.
Gustav Johnson (father of Emil J. Johnson, 1878)
49.
Charley Johnson
50.
P. J. Almquist (
51.
___________ Vandell (
52.
August Mattson (
53.
Pete Mattson (
54.
________ Edlund (
55.
Hazel Steet (home place,
56.
L. J. Johnson (
57.
58.
C. J. Anderson (
59.
Robert Lindstrom (August Windstorm,
60.
Charlie Arson (
61.
Nels Larson (
62.
A. Anderson (
OTHER SOD HOUSES LISTED
IN THE 1903 PHELPS COUNTY,
John
Sand - SW 30 -7-19 Westmark Township
L.
J. Johnson N 1/2
G.
A.
Anderson NW 1/4
P.
J. Almquist NE 1/4 18--19 Laird Township
Charles
Johnson SE 1.4
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MRS. LIZZIE MOFFIT HAS
RESIDED IN BERTRAND AREA SINCE 1877;
FIRST HOME WAS A DUGOUT
(From
Bertrand Herald Diamond Jubilee Edition, 1960)
The
Frazell family resided in
Mrs.
Lizzie Moffit, born Julia Elizabeth Frazell, has been a resident of the State of
Prior
to their arrival on turkey Creek, the Leonard Frazell
family had been residents of Harvard in
At
the time of the Frazells arrival, there were two
families on Turkey Creek. The name of
one of them was Pence. But Mrs. Moffit does not recall the name of the other. The only place between Turkey Creek and Plum
Creek (
The
arrival of the Frazells was occasioned by a cousin's
coming to Turkey Creek and taking up a claim.
He later decided that he didn't want it, and Mr. Frazell
took it off his hands. The trip from
Their
first home was a dugout and log cabin combined.
The back room was a dugout, and the front room was made of logs. The mother did all her cooking in a stone fireplace
built in one end of the cabin. She kept
sheets on the ceiling over the beds so that bugs, snakes and dirt would not get
on the beds.
This
was primitive country when the Frazells arrived
here. There was an Indian camp a mile
south of them. They were not unfriendly
to the newcomers, although they did make pests of themselves by their constant
begging and stealing. After the family
had been here a year, a tribe of unfriendly Indians passed through the area. The mother's uncle, whose last name was Speck
had come out here and built a large dugout. His family, the Frazells
and another family holed up in the dugout waiting for the Indians to pass. The men crawled out at night and tended their
livestock and got fresh water for the group.
They remained in the dugout for three days. This tribe never molested the hidden
settlers, but they did kill a man near Arapahoe and tattooed his daughter all
over her body. Mrs. Moffit
recalls seeing and talking to her a number of years later
The
area abounded in wild game, antelope, buffalo, squirrels, and porcupines. The family was afraid of the needle sharp
quills of the porcupines. When they
were shot by the men, one of the girls pulled out the quills and kept them as
sort of hobby. She had a sewing machine
drawer full of quills at one time. Because of the abundance of game. The family always had
plenty of game to eat.
Living
was cheap, as meat was to be had for the taking. The family owned their own cows so they
always had butter and cream. The only things
that were necessary for them to buy were flour, salt, sugar, and coffee. They gathered the wild fruits, which grew on
the creek banks and dried and preserved them.
"We
grew up on cornbread and sorghum and loved it." Reminisces
Mrs. Moffit.
The father built his own grinder and sorghum mill with which he pressed
the juice from the cane and made their own sorghum. He had a huge pan and a burner under it, and
in this he boiled down the cane juice.
He made the children little wooden paddles with which they scraped the
molasses pans and ate the leavings. He put the finished product in a barrels
and what the family did not eat, he sold to the settlers in the area.
It
was a hard life to which settlers came.
The snakes were everywhere, and the large prairie rattlers were
something to be afraid of. They were
especially terrifying to a small girl who herded cattle all day long. Mrs. Moffit had
company on her cattle herding ventures, however as the neighbor girl, Bess
Lewis and she owned a pony in common, and they rode double, herding the cattle
of both families.
Every
one had to work. All drinking water was
carried from the creek as was all water used on the place. It was no small task to tote buckets of water
up the bank for use in washing and cooking. This was excellent water as the creek was fed
by springs. However, no one
complained. They all liked the new
independent life to which they had come to.
The
first school was held in the homes. The
first one which Mrs. Moffit attended had three
scholars. The teacher was a young woman
named Miss Filkins.
She went from one home to another.
Mrs. Force later taught in a sod house a week at a time. The first school was in session only three months
of the year. As the
busy homesteaders could spare their children only that long.
The
first frame school in the area was built where the
After
living in the community for quite a while the families organized a church. Religion was the natural heritage of the Frazells as the grandfathers on both sides of the family
were ministers. The mother's father was
a Baptist minister and the father's father was a Methodist minister. Church was
held in the schoolhouse. The minister
was the Reverend Gillett of
The Frizell children
became used to the absence of their mother because she was a midwife and her
services were in great demand when the babies of the area were born. Their family was on the whole very
healthy. It was a good thing, as doctors
were very hard to find because of the great distances. Diphtheria was the disease that was dreaded
and epidemics of this frequently wiped out the children of families. The Frazells have
three children buried in the Detenbeck cemetery and
three in the White cemetery further to the south of Turkey Creek.
Leonard
Frazell provided for his family upon their first
coming to the area by cutting trees, splitting them into firewood and hauling
loads of it to
As
she recalls life in the sod house, Mrs. Moffit says
they were plagued by almost every kind of pest: rats, mice, fleas, hegbugs, snakes, and centipedes whose bodies were as big as
your finger. "Ground puppies" or lizards were frequent visitors on
the dirt floors.
The
children had no pets so when their father brought them a puppy from
By
1880
The
parents arrived home expecting to find both children dead from the fire. The father had lain down in a patch of
breaking and held on to his horse and thus saved his own life. When she was complimented on her courage,
Mrs. Moffit replied "Courage? We just did what
we had to do."
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Max
Biscoff, proprietor of the Orleans Meat Market, was
united in marriage to Miss Anna Mentzmeir, the
wedding occurring last Saturday evening at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles
Miller of this city, Rev. Benj. S. Haywood officiating. The happy couple have been the recipients of congratulations from many
friends during the week.
Miss
Edna Claypool, who reached the age of nine yesterday, entertained a company of
her young friends at her beautiful home in the city, from 5 to 8 last evening. Refreshments consisting of ice cream, cake
and candy were served during the evening.
Miss Edna proved herself a charming little hostess and caused the evening
to pass in one continual round of pleasure for her visiting companions. She was the recipient of many dainty little
presents from the hands of her admiring friends.
The
installation of the newly elected officers of Melrose Lodge No. 60, elected
officers of Melrose Lodge No. 60, A. F & A. M., occurred at the Masonic
Hall last Monday night June 24, John A. Randall acting as installing
officer. The following gentleman were inducted into the office: Dr. W. H. Banwell, W. M.; B. R. Claypool, Sr. W.; H. R. Easterbrook,
Jr. W.; Jno. A. Randall, Sec.; H. T. Ferguson,
Treas.; W. Josselyn, Sr,
D.; J. D. Martin, Jr., D.
RESOLUTION
The
following resolution was unanimously adopted at the regular meeting of
Whitehead Post No. 114, G.A.R., held
Resolved that we the members of the post render
our sincere thanks to Rev. E. S. Haywood for his valuable and patriotic address
on Memorial Sunday. Also we are grateful
to all who took place in the ceremonies of Memorial Day, so dear to us all and
also to the officials of the
DIRECTORY OF CHURCHES
F.
M. SUNDAY SCHOOL - Sunday School in Lutheran church
every Sunday morning at
CATHOLIC
SUNDAY SCHOOL - Sunday School every Sunday at
SOCIETIES
Y.P.S.C.E.
- The Endeavor Society meets at the Presbyterian Church each Sabbath afternoon
at
J.
C. E. - The Junior Endeavor meets at the Presbyterian Church every Sabbath
afternoon at
EPWORTH
LEAGUE - Devotional meeting every Sunday evening at
A.
F. & A. M. - Melrose Lodge No. 60 meets every Saturday evening on or before
full moon at Masonic Hall. Visiting
brethren are cordially invited. - W. H. Banwell, W.
M. - John A. Randall, Sec.
K.
O. T. M. - Orleans Tent No. 48 meets the first and third Friday evening of each
month at Lorimer's Hall. Visiting Knights cordially welcomed.
N.
E. Conelin, R. K. - J. Ellis, Com.
M.
W. A. - Orleans Camp No. 755 meets every first and third Thursday evening of
each month at Lorimer's Hall.
A.
Wickmen, V. C. - J. M. Coulter, Clerk
G.
A. R. - Whitehead Post No. 114, department of
G.
W. Cook, Ajt. - Stephen A. Morgan P.C.
SONS
OF VETERANS - McBrein Camp No. 54 meets the first and
third Monday evening of each month at Lorimer's hall.
August
Sasse, Jr. C.C. - Arthur Main, lst.
Serg.
W.
R. C. - Whitehead Relief Corps No. 4, of Orleans, Nebraska meets the first
Saturday of each month at 2 p.m.- Mrs. Lucinda Banwell,
President - Mrs. Julia F. Main, Sec.
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C. J. LUNDQUIST
(Part 2 of a 2 Part
Story)
Lundquist
worked a certain number of days each summer at the manor for the use of the
croft upon which he lived. During the winter he was obliged to work in the
forests belonging to the estate. He found this not much to his liking
especially as there was always the mirage in his mind of the
Two
of his children died, the famine year 1868 came and Lundquist's decision was
made. He said farewell to his wife and secured passage for
But
Lundquist's troubles did not cease when he came to
While
this was a hard blow he did not give up. He homesteaded the NE 1/4 Section 10,
T. 5, R. 17 in
Lundquist
built substantial buildings for his children on the first three farms. After he
and his wife had moved into Funk, where he had built an attractive home, he
divided his land among his eight children, giving each, 80 acres with the
stipulation that he was to receive $125 cash per year from each 80 acres, as
long as he lived.
While
Mr..Lundquist still lived on
the old homestead a fire destroyed his barn and several other outbuildings. A
large quantity each of oats and corn, as well as a number of tools and several
sets of harness were burned in this fire. The fire originated in a straw stack,
which had been set afire for the purpose of clearing the spot on which it
stood. The stack lay there, as a small black pile of soot and ashes, supposedly
having been consumed for a long tome. One day a strong wind sprang up,
scattered the ashes and fanned to life a flame that spread to the stubble and
grass there about and which on reaching the farm buildings, destroyed them.
This fire had smoldered in the straw stack from sometime in February to April
of that year. The buildings, however, were replaced and farming operations were
resumed.
On
Sundays the family rode to church in a lumber wagon, Mr. and Mrs. Lundquist
sitting on a board laid across the top of a box, with
the children sitting in the bottom on some hay. The children enjoyed these
rides immensely, but it is not believed that the parents did, as we find that
Mr. Lundquist soon hired a carpenter to make him a spring seat for his wagon.
Soon, however, a spring wagon was bought and in this the family made longer
trips, notable, to attend "Julotta,"
(Christmas Matin) at the Bethany church in Kearney
County. Next a single buggy with crooked wheels was secured. Seeing this
vehicle in motion was almost like viewing a performance in a circus, one hardly
knew where it would go on those wobbly wheels.
The
first wheat raised by Mr. Lundquist was cut with a reaper and bound by hand on
the ground. This was afterward shocked and stacked and after it had "gone
through the sweat" it was threshed with a horse-power threshing machine.
Some of this wheat was hauled to
Mr.
Lundquist went to
On
On
January 21, a little more than a year after this celebration Mrs. Lundquist
died and was buried in the
In
Until
his retirement, fourteen years before his death, Mr. Lundquist was an active
man. Active in church work and active in secular work as well. He held
positions of trust in both. He had been moderator in the school district and
trustee in the church. For a long term of years he had been deacon and at his
death he was honorary deacon of the
The
Fridhem congregation appreciated the services of Mr.
and Mrs. Lundquist, in the church, and on several occasions surprised them with
gifts. One time they presented them with a silver service and on another
occasion Mr. Lundquist was given a writing desk.
The
Lundquist family, as far as can be ascertained, may be registered as follows:
Carl Johan Lundquist and his wife Christina
Maria.
Their children are: Charles Herman,
The
children of Nancy Selma Amanda married to Frank Herman Bergstrom are: Selma
Martha, Amos Herbert Samuel,
The
children of Carl Herman and his wife, Minnie Luella Bergstrom are Miriam Ellen
Sylvia, Carl Kermit, Robert Immanuel.
The
children of Anna married to Adolf Akerson
are Bert and Bertha (twins), Carl, Naomi Davida,
Elmer and Esther.
The
children of
The
children of Arthur David and his wife Sadie Maria Elizabeth Erickson are
Clifford Marvel Emmanuel, Everett Wallace Alexis, Evar
David, Miranda Lavada and Davida
Maria.
The
children of Frans Robert Samuel and his wife Alvida Gabrellia Wallin are: Aurora Rosalia, Inez
Eugenia, Milford Robert, Ida Laurine, Lenore DeLoris.
The
children of
The
children of Edith Christina and her husband, Axel Julius Anderson, are Martin,
Mildred, Lillian and Milton.
Great
Grandchildren of C. J. Lundquist:
Hubert, Paul, Muriel and Earl Akerson; Blanche and Roland Anderson; Marion, DeLoris and Caroline Akerson;
Marjorie and Doris Nadine Erickson; Lee and Wayne Anderson; Darrell and Wayne
Talbert.
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