The following is the writing of Calista Prichard, a cousin to Sam Coons.  Like Calista, Sam also traveled from Jasper County, Indiana to western Kansas.  Calista’s story is from the perspective of a schoolteacher and gives insight into the early lives of Joseph Coons’ children.  Quite a few of the Coons children were teachers at one time.  The Coons name is mentioned a number of times.  

            I have tried to keep everything as it appears on the typed photocopy that was given to me by Evalena Erzinger.  Unfortunately, mistakes were originally corrected by typing over the error, requiring some interpretation when transcribing, while others were obvious typos and were corrected.  I also made minor changes to some punctuation for easier reading.  Any comments that are mine have been italicized.

             

 

Calista B. Prichard

 

            I was born near Rensselaer, Jasper County, Ind., April 6, 1871.  On Sept. 1881 we moved to College Springs, Iowa.  I finished school in Feb.1885.  In March 1885 we started west with two covered wagons and one old plug horse called Sea Foam tied behind one wagon.  My father was David L. Prichard.  I had one sister, Blanche, age eight years.

            Col. Erickson, a barber, whose health was poor, drove one team.  We had lived in the southwest part of Iowa, so crossed the Missouri river at Brownsville, Neb., on a ferry.  There was lots of floating ice.  We traveled west almost to Beatrice, Neb., then turned south, passed through Marysville, Kansas, Blue Rapids, Clay Center, Abilene and crossed the Arkansas river near Mt. Hope, north and west of Wichita, then west to Kingman.  It seems that most of Jasper County, Ind. moved to western Kansas for a time at least during the 80’s.  From Mt. Hope on west there were friends or relatives all the way.  My mother, sister and myself stayed at my father’ sister’s in Kingman County, while he went on farther to see where he wanted to locate.  When he came back he sold one team, wagon and harness at Kingman City; and traded the extra horse for three cows.

            We stored a part of our things at my aunt’s.  My father cousin, Thompson Prichard, had ¼ interest in the townsite of Greensburg.  An old Indiana neighbor boy, John (Jack) Groom, was in Greensburg when we got there.  His claim was in Kiowa County near the Ford County line.  We went out to his place and next morning across the country into ford County.

            There was quite a settlement southwest of Corbett from Jasper County, Indiana.  John Lewis, James Campbell, W. M. Smith, Wm. Haley, Warren Sage and Myrtell Price all had claims in less then 2 miles of ours.  We decided to take the Northeast quarter of Section 21, so they unloaded the wagon and went to Corbett (6 miles) for lumber.  All the men turned out to do what they could to help build a house.  At least they called it a house.  One very large room at first, afterwards divided and made two rooms of it.  The boards were wide and put on straight up and down with two inch strips over the cracks.  That fall we and all our neighbors sodded our houses up on the outside before cold weather.  The next spring we built a sod kitchen plastered with gypsum.  At first all the housed were sod or frame sodded on the outside.  The evening of May 14, 1885 was cloudy and threatened rain so we moved into the house.  (My mother, sister and I stayed at Campbell’s and Lewis’s while the building was being done).

            Later we shipped the organ and a few things from Iowa and bought some chairs etc., at Greensburg, but the evening of May 14th we had a cook stove, dishes, bedding, canned fruit and my mother’s rocking chair she had brought through in the wagon.  We had walls, roof, floor, but no doors or windows in the place.  My father and Col. Erickson put up the stove and then made a table of lumber and two temporary beds.  My mother baked biscuits, fried ham, made gravy and opened a can of fruit.  Supper was ready but nothing to sit on.  Mother got her rocker, Blanche pulled up the 20 gallon lard can and put a cushion on it, my father went out and got a left over bale of shingles, son not to be left standing, Col. Knocked the feed trough off the wagon and we had a seat.  Next day they made tow benches and the men of the neighborhood helped Col. Erickson to locate a claim about two miles northeast of us.  There was a large dog town (down) on his land.

            My father was anxious to plant a crop.  We had 30 acres of good corn and 4 acres of millet that year.  I planted the melons and they failed to tell me how many and I planted all the seed I had.  We had melons for the whole neighborhood.  We laid out a nice yard an a place for an orchard, put down a well and the new survey left us in the middle of the 160.  Later we had a nice orchard planted and 70 acres fenced for pasture.  So many wanted plowing done to prove up on that my father was always busy.  The other men would do for us all they could and pay cash for the difference.

            Sister Ethel was one of the first babies born in the township, born May 22, 1885.  Dr. Richardson attending.  Imogene was born on November 1887.  Only two families, Culver’s and Frazier’s, the blacksmith, had wintered in the township the winter of 1884 and 1885.

            There were lots of coyotes to serenade, a few antelopes, jack rabbits, prairie chickens and grouse but the coyotes got most of the young.  The section north of us (16) was the school section.  In hot weather there was a mirage almost every sunny day.  It looked like a lake, one day some antelopes crossed the section and when they walked it looked like the water was transparent so we could see their legs move through it.

            There were the most beautiful wild flowers.  Every ledge was covered with lupins.  Every buffalo wallow was ring with calliopes.  Snow on the mountains, sensitive plants, a wild geranium, a few blue daisies.  Every water hole in the draw had water flowers.  The cactus were beautiful, pin cushions with their rose and yellow bloom, a prickly pear, yellow bloom but no one adored the finger cactus hidden in the buffalo grass.  Especially when our shoes had a thin soles on them.  Rosin, soap weed, and tumble weed. A tumble weed on fire would blow for hundreds of feet across fire guards.  They had one tough root deep in the ground and rotted off in the winter.  Some of them were as large around as a wash tub.  I suppose I did what many other girls did to pass the time away, I wandered over the buffalo grass hunting for anything different that I could find in the line of flowers.  Waded the water holes for the water flowers in my dad’s rubber boots.  A good botany would have been a life saver.

            Books and papers were scarce and passed around the neighborhood.  We received the framers’ review, Rural New Yorker, Ladies’ Home Journal and a little dinky county paper from Indiana.  When anyone went to Greensburg, my cousin’s wife would send out the back numbers of a Kansas City Daily.  No mater how old, I always read them.

            We killed several rattle snakes and four large ones (6 ft. 6 in. long) that we cold not identify, also one with a horn tail, shaped like a darning needle.

            Living expenses were low, Coal was the worst, $6.00 per ton for Canyon City coal, but we used it only for cold weather.  My father used to haul goods for the stores at Corbett from Dodge and he bought most of our groceries at the same time.  In the winter he would take our eggs and butter and sell them at Dodge.  I know my mother used to say that meat, lard and flour were cheaper in 1885 than they had been in Iowa.  Arbuckle’s Coffee is all I can remember the price of, 5 packages for $1.00.             

            When Eva Coons and I were at Dodge in 1888 we paid Mrs. Straughn $6.50 for our room and heat to cook for four weeks.  We kept account of all we bought and we were out $2.45 per week for both of us.  That included everything we ate, even candy, fruit and watermelon, also room rent included.

            Beef was very low and 17 large loaves of bread for $1.00 by buying $1.00 worth of tickets at a time.  Cows, hogs and chickens were scarce the first year.  We had a few chickens and raised about 50 the first year.  Sold one cow to a man north of Corbett.  He had small children and no place to get milk.  We still had two cows.  When my father went back to Kingman County for the rest of our things he brought back some hogs for himself.  Later he brought out more and sold them.

            The weather in 1885 was ideal.  January 1, 1886 we ate dinner with the door open and father plowed until 4 p. m. when it began to mist.  We had a light snow the 2nd, 3rd of January, but the 5th and 6th were fair with snow still on the ground.  Father went to Corbett for the mail and groceries the 6th.  We had the queerest looking sunset that evening and about midnight we heard the wind and knew snow was sifting on the house.  That was the terrible blizzard of January 7, 1886.  We had a cave about 6 feet from the house and the coal pile lay at the end of it, but we could not see it when daylight came.  The snow was all over the house.  My father built up the fire, swept out snow and partly opened a north door.  He finally got it shut and climbed out the west window.  By following the wire clothes line and a plowed strip where the snow had blown off he got to the barn.  The two cows and calves had been left out by the side of the barn and hayricks also sheltered by the draw.  The cows went in the barn but the calves bolted and got away.  They were tied together on a picket rope.  He found them in a snow drift in a draw about 11/4 mile away, next day.  Both lost one hoof in the freeze.  We were lucky, we had plenty of coal and provisions.  So many new to the country were fooled by the warm autumn and were burning corn stalks or sunflowers and those not even where they could get them.  Two girls and a man froze to death, a hired man who worked near Ford City was the only one we heard of who saw the blizzard start.  He had been to Dodge for coal, driving an ox team.  It struck all at once.  He tried to get the team loose.  Got it loose from the wagon but they wouldn’t let him unyoke them.  The oxen were found dead after the storm but they couldn’t locate the driver.  Everyone turned out for three days, they tried snow drifts and all likely places.  Then the word came that he was south nearly to Indian Territory.  He had wrapped a blanket around himself after the oxen bolted and walked with the storm.  Next day about 4 p. m he run on to a stable and got into the manger.  The owner found him and took him to the house.  Both feet were badly frozen but finally were saved.  It was so hard to get news and so round about way that it took three days for the news to reach ford City.

            When we first located we hauled water from Corbett.  Next there was a well three miles east at the Kiowa County line.  Then Mr. Finney, who had a store on the southwest quarter of Section 22, put down a well.  Ours was next.  Will Hazlett put down that summer, a well.  Also Tom Everett on the northeast quarter of Section 22.  Hazlett’s were down 160 feet and had only struck a seepage about 100 feet down. The digger came out Saturday evening and Monday they found the water had broken through and there was 60 feet of water in the well.

            There was but little social life in the summer of 85 or the winter of 85 and 86.  Nearly all the single men proved up and left.  Some married local bachelor girls.  Mr. Calderwood and Mary Hamilton, Jack Henderson and Viola Strickland.  Warren Cage went to Indiana and married Minnie farmer.  Will Hazlett married Clara --- and Thomas Lane married Lyzre Trenary in 1886 and bought the Finney place.  John Sparks married Ida --- in 1886.

            There were several children but in walking distance of Corbett in 1885.  Very few girls, Ella Culver, Susie and Belle Gosslee, Mollie Bradshaw, Sallie Eubank and another girl named Sallie whose last name I forget.  I saw but little of them.  I was younger and but little chance to go.  We were six miles from Corbett.  Dora Smith lived with Grandma Hazlett and her Uncle Will until 1887.  She went to her father in Indiana.  Ida Work, about my age lived three miles and a half west of us.  My grandmother came out in July 1885.  She proved up on the land afterwards belonging to Joseph and Nancy Coons.

            The roads were not laid off by section line and crossed the draws where it was easiest.  So except a few of the ones nears us I can only tell distances and directions from our place.  My Uncle John Nowels located on an 80 acres just east of Bucklin in 1886.  It must have been Section 3.  The Rattlesnake creek ran through the place.  In 1885 Section 22 was occupied by:

            N. E. ¼            Thomas Eveeett, wife and two children

            S. E.  ¼            Mr. Lloyd (lawyer) bachelor. (I think)

            S. W. ¼           Mr. Finney, wife and two children. (Sold to Tom Lane)

            N. W. ¼          James Campbell and wife.

Section 27:

            N. E. ¼            B. F. Taylor, wife and child. (Photographer).

            N. W. ¼          Mont Taylor and wife.

Section 15:

            N. E. ¼            Chas. Shipley or Wm. Ward.

            S. E. ¼             Emmarine Meade Prichard (Samuel’s grandmother)   

            S. W. ¼           John Lewis, wife and child.

            N. W. ¼          W. M. Smith.

Section 10:

            N. E. ¼            Myrtell Price. (I think)

            S. E. ¼             Chas. Shipley or Wm. Ward

            S. W. ¼           Wm. Haley

            N. W. ¼          Warren Sage.

Section 14:

            S. W. ¼           Thomas Hunter, wife and three children

            N. W. ¼          John Hunter.

Section 26:

            Wm. Hazlett and T. P. Satterwhite.

            Lee and Emanuel Satterwhite and three Mason Boys were all in that part of the

            township.

 

            John Nowels and Olearys family about 1 mile east of Bucklin.

Section 21:

            N. E. ¼            David L. Prichard, wife and three children.

            S. E. ¼             Thomas Kelly                          

            S. W. ¼           Mr. Reade

            N. W. ¼          Mr. Reck

Section 28:

            N. E. ¼            Thomas Lane

            North or northeast was Col. Erickson.

            Chas. RanK and Mr. Calderwood were northwest about 2 miles.

Section 16 was school land.

            West near School 32 were Hamiltion’s, Work’s, Blizzard, Diddell, Swearingin,

            Same Brownfield, Walkins, Longceor, Alvin Hisey (bachelor).

 

            Bradshaws joined Bucklin townsite on the west and a man named Patterson (with a

            hook on his arm) just south of Bradshaws.  Patterson had a wife and two children.

                                   

            Susie Gossler died suddenly in 1886.  Dellinger’s (two families) lived east of Corbit.

 

            Two Hawkins boys and three sisters had land southwest of School 32.

 

            Everyone was anxious for school and began to organize early in 1886.  We were in the Northeast corner of Section 32, two and one half miles from where the school house was located.  Any district with less than 15 pupils attending the first term must maintain three months school by a licensed teacher before they could vote bonds to build a school house or get state money for school expenses.  There were four families on the west side of District 35 and several more in the Northeast corner near the Kiowa County line where School 45 now is located.  But the more they talked school the farther apart they were in location one.  At last the one on the west side decided to put up a sod house on the Southeast corner of the Northeast ¼ of Section 22 and have a three months school, then they could go ahead and vote bonds to build a house, also draw state funs and locate it where they wanted it.  It was well built for a soddy; good size, no floor, two window, one in the north and one in south, door in the east.  No blackboard, no desks, crude benches with backs, home made chair and table, stove and that was all.

            Tom Everett was Treasurer and Will Hazlett and Tom Hunter were the other officers but I don’t remember who was what any more.  They got every thing except a teacher.  After several trips to Dodge to talk to Prof. Groendyke they finally came to see they were out of luck. Teachers were few and far between.  Mr. Everett put the question to me in June, 1886 as to why I couldn’t get a license and help them out.  It looked to me at the time and still does as if it was asking quite a lot of a 15 year old girl to save the day for them.  There was certainly no assurance that I could get a license. I had been out of school since Fe., 1885 and never attended a school in Kansas.  Teachers Normal came and went and still they had no prospects of a teacher.  About the first of September Mr. Everett came over again and did all but cry.  “Would I please try?”  They needed school so bad.  There was no one so far advance that I could not teach them.  If I failed to get a license I got my salary just the same and if I got the license I should teach the next term at better wages and so on and so on.

            I pointed out the weak spots on my side of it.  Age, not training, no desire to try teaching, months out of school etc., but finally I gave in and agreed to try my best.  We began September 13, 1886 and there was no examination until October 30.  We used what school books the children had.  Some were from Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Kansas.  The children were a fine bunch and considering what we had to do with we didn’t do such a bad job  (if I do say it).  The pupils were: Dora Smith, Curtis Siglar, Blance Prichard, Olney Nowels, Lula Everett, Florence Everett, Johny Hunter, Katie Hunter.  Poor little Katie was not quite five and she would get so tired some times she would cry.  So I laid her on a bench and covered her up and let her have a nap. (Note: afterwards I was criticized for that but I still wonder what else I could have done.)

            October 30, 1886 I took the teachers examinations at Dodge.

            It was election year and they were trying to elect some one to clean up Dodge. An attempt to kill Prof. Groendyke had been made a few days before.  They forgot to give out the blanks for us to fill out, stating age, experience etc.  I didn’t know until the following August that I was under age.  I told Prof. Groendyke about it.  He said they forgot to have the slips filled out but he was glad they forgot for the school was legal and they were all set, age or no age.

            There is a record of the school some place of course but I don’t suppose it matters.  It certainly made them safe and that was more than they deserved as it turned out later.  School close Dec.4, 1886.  All the district turned out with baskets and we had a fine dinner and a pleasant day all around.  Agreed to organize a literary society to meet once a week.  District 35 built a new frame school house in the spring of 1887, one half mile south of the sod school house, about where it is located now.  But I don’t remember who was their teacher.  Sister Blanche and I attended 32 in the spring of 1887.  Anna Bradshaw was teacher.  I recited what I could with regular classes and wrote out the other lessons and the teacher graded them after school.  Miss Bradshaw said afterward she always was careful to see if she was right before she marked the papers (The blind led the blind).  One day two of the directors came in at noon to visit school.  She explained that any higher lessons were all written so she could grade them after school hours.  So it was all right just so she wasn’t neglecting any one for some.  (Miss Bradshaw, her sister, Mollie, Eva coons and myself all went to the teacher’s Normal at dodge that year (roomed at Col. Straughns).

            The winter of 1886 and 1887 we had meetings at school 35, also 32 one night each week.  People came from miles around.  We recited, read, debated or sang.  Anything to have a get together meeting.  Several had good educations, many clever, many otherwise.  It was a mild pleasant winter.  Robert (Bob) Housel taught 32 that year.  School 32 was one mile east of the present site.

            The Rock Island R. R. was surveyed early in 1887.  Wm. Honkle, Bob Means, Tom Prichard and one other man had done well with the town site of Greensburg.  So Wm. Honkle, Ed. Coen and others tried to guess where there would be a station on the R. R.  They bought the west ½ of Section 15, Sodville Twp., and started Coldcord.  Sodville school house was on the S. W. corner of the S. W. ¼ section 15 (Colcord site).  The R. R. missed Colcord but told the promoters that there would be a station on the first high spot west of where the R. R. crossed the Rattlesnake Creek.  So Bucklin was laid out and was also the starting point for the branch road to Dodge City.  The Colcord buildings were moved to Bucklin or Kingsdown, which started about the same time as Bucklin.  John Henkle of Indiana, a brother of the Wm. Henkle, bought the Colcord townsite also a few acres just north, part of the S. W. ¼ of Section 10.  The farm buildings were on Section 10.

            The summer of 1887 was very dry and many people grew discouraged and move away.  Trains were run over the R. R. as far as Bucklin.  Early that year a school house was built.  Wm Henkle moved his dry goods store that spring from Greensburg to Bucklin.  His son, Bruce, was manager.  Dan Fisher bought the store later that year.  James E. Fishback was postmaster.  John Sparks and J. E. Fishback had groceries.  Howell and Trager, dry goods and hardware.  Mr. Brown started the Bucklin Banner with Ulla Day in the office as as assistant.  Dr. Fredindall located in Bucklin.  Dr. Reynolds was there the winter of 1887 and 1888.  Mr. Scoffern was R. R. Agent, lived at the station.  Clark and son, Earl, livery barn.  A son-in-law of Clark’s, named Miller, was a barber.  Br. Auls was banker.  Mont Tayler and W. M. Smith had a livery barn in 1887 and 1888.  The upper floor of the Trager building was used as a town hall.  Mr. Jones, brother-in-law of Mont Tayler, had a drug store in 1888.  There was a painter named Cunningham and a carpenter name Dempsey.  Twin brothers, both with families, Anson and Grey Noret.  Mr. Child’s (civil engineer) married Ollie Noret.  Glen Bucklin Sparks, son of John and Ida Sparks, was the first baby born in Bucklin.  They deeded him a town lot for the name.  Several families only stayed a short time.  I fail to remember their names.  There were several G. A. R. members near Bucklin and they gave entertainments charging small admission to get funds for a G. A. R. ball.

            A Sunday School was organized in 1885 and held at Mr. Finney’s residence, but none in that district after 1885.  District 32 had a Sunday School in 1886.  Sodville held their’s at a residence at first, later at the school house.  Bucklin organized one as soon as the town was started.

            Several built new frame houses of two or three rooms after proving up on their land.  Tom Everett built two large rooms in the fall of 1886.  The new rooms were in front of the sod house and made them a very comfortable home.  T. P. Satterwhite, a carpenter, living one half mile south of Haslett’s built the house.  He also built several school houses in the southeast part of Kiowa County;.  He made his headquarters at Mullinville after proving up.  October 3, 1887, I started the term of school at Sodville.  The school house stood at the S. W. corner of the S. W. ¼ of Section 15 (Colcord site).  It was dug in a little and faced the west, was of sod, good floor and I think plaster with gypsum. (Note: May or Connie Blinn probably would know).  We had a black board on the west wall.  Windows in north and south of room.  The desks were stationary, fastened at each side of room, under the window.  Seats were made to seat four pupils and had backs to them.  Stove in center of room with seat there.  Teacher’s desk and chair, also recitation seat.  All the furniture was home made but some one had made it neat and comfortable.

            So many had left the country and the removal of Colcord left the school house one mile from and occupied house.  Some thief stole all our coal except some fine stuff, that winter even took the hod and shovel.  There was an old wooden water bucket there from the year before, but no pump in the Colcord well, so each pupil and the teacher carried a bottle of water.  We had the modern, sanitary idea, but maybe you think I didn’t get kidded about having each pupil carry a bottle.  We used the wooden bucket to hold the coal, but it was some job to get it in the stove.  So Lee Deal, being a handy lad, whittled each recess and noon on a piece of board to shape it something like a shovel. (We couldn’t send to town any old day for a new one, but got by any old way until more coal had to be hauled).  When Lee got it to suit him he cut on the back of it, “Pat’d by Lee Deal, January, 1888.

            Teachers in those days wore white aprons over wool dresses.  One day the bucket fell apart.  One of the boys and I were trying to put it together again when Prof. Grondyke came to visit school.  That afternoon the Prof. Picked up the shovel to examined it, turned it over and saw the letters.  I nodded toward Lee.  Lee was a nephew of Mrs. James Emmons.  I boarded a part of the term at Frank Roleys and the last part at John Henkles.

            That was a cold winter following a hot summer and not much going on in a social way.  Some kind of a fever made the rounds in 1887 and 1888.  They called it Mt. Fever, I never heard of that kind before or since but my sister and I both had it in the fall of ’88 and we were sick for several weeks.

            So many had moved away I only had 14 pupils that winter but all attended regular except when sick.  Pupils: Dexter Roley, Cora Roley, Della Roley, Walter Roley, Chas. West, Wilbur Leach, Wm. Neal, Alonzo Blinn, Ed. Rodenbaugh, Fred Rodenbaugh, Korah Henkle and Lee Deal.

 

Section 15:

            N. E. ¼            Neals

            W. ½               Colcord site

            S. E. ¼             Frank Roley

           

John Henkle lived on S. W. ¼ of Section 10.

George Emmons on S. E. ¼ of Section 9.

C. E. Vallandigham 1 mile east of Kingsdown.

Leachs, S. E. ¼ of  Section 10.

Wests,  S. W. ¼ of Section 11.

Rodenbaugh,  S. E. ¼ of Section 11.

James Emmons, N. E. ¼ of Section 14.

 

            Mrs. Roley told me they had trouble locating a school house.  The district was five miles square and the bachelor boys insisted it must be in the center.  In our neighborhood all the single ones helped any way they could but let the men with families locate the school house.  The summer of ’88 one mile was added to the west and the district made into two districts, each three miles by five miles.  A new frame building was erected on the N. W. corner of the N. W. ¼ of Section 14 which made it handy for families in that vicinity.  Rose Coons taught the winter of ’88 and’89.  Eva Coons taught 32 that year and I at 43 at Kingsdown. 

            They rented a building at Kingsdown.  It had two rooms, a real estate office had been there.  It was about a block or more north of the depot.  They removed the partition so the chimney was in the center of the room.  We had new school furniture of the style used in those days.  Seats lowered and raised.  We also had the old No. (43) and the old register, and I believe the old stove (I am not sure of the meaning of this sentence).  A corner was partitioned off for coal.

            Most of the Sodville pupils had lived in the N. E. part of the District and went to the new school house.  I had a few but not many of the old ones.  Nearly all were near Kingsdown in’88 an ’89.

            That September I had fever and started the school late again, Oct. 1, 1888.  There were always people moving that year.  New ones in and old ones leaving.  I am sure that 22 were registered during the year but I can’t seem to remember just who they were and I never was a familiar with the section numbers as I was at Sodville. 

Pupils:

1.                  Cora Hoard

2.                  Reuben Hoard

3.                  Ray Hoard

4.                  Luella Hoard

5.                  Oliver Dorsett

6.                  Fred Dorsett

7.                  Fred Roberts

8.                  Alonzo Blinn

9.                  Rowena Vallandighan

10.              Bertha Kelley

11.              _____ Kelley

12.              Myrlie Sobleman

13.              _______Sobleman

14.              Lyzre Stofer

15.              Stella Stofer

16.              Nelliw Stofer

17.              Fred Bridgewater

I boarded part of the time at Stofers but their place was in Clark County and they moved back on it before school closed.  So I boarded the last of the term at Maze Hoard’s about three fourths of a mile N. W. of Kingsdown.  Peter Hoards place joined Maze Hoard on the north.  Clark Shelton and Dorseetts lived north about a mile. (Dorset’s had lost their little girl by a rattlesnake bite before I taught there).  Chas. Vallendigham lived one mile east of town.  Riley Kinslow one mile S. E. and Kelley’s one mile south.

            Mr. Kelley owned the livery barn at Kinsdown but moved away because his wife was sick.  A family named Winans moved in the house (Kelleys).  Soblemans’s brought their children to school each day as they were 2 ½ miles S. W. of town.  Mr. Sobleman was a Russian.  He must have been 6 ft. 6 in. and big all over.  He came to school one day.  He sat and looked on a while, seemed very pleased.  Then I made out that he had not known there was to be a school at Kingsdown that year, and as he wanted his little girls to go to school he had taken his wife and children to Dodge to stay so they could be in school.  It seemed they were not learning as he thought they should and he had learned there was a school at home, so he would go to dodge and get them and start them In our school.  He patted Luella Hoard on the head and said, “Nice girl, nice girl.”  Ray was a nice boy.  It was a  nice school and nice teachers.  Of course it was amusing but when the little girls came to school the next morning they were son clean and neat that they were a pleasure, but they didn’t know a bit of English and I none of theirs.  They wrote beautifully but I couldn’t read it.  I got them started by signs and they were very intelligent.  I could soon understand their English.  They played and talked with the other little girls and I suspect learned more than they did of me.  When Prof. Groendyke make his call he said it seemed to him they were doing fine and he knew of no other way start them out.  Starting was all they needed.  One was 11, the other 9 years old.

(Page 9)

            We had very little to work with in those days.  Places In History where there were no maps (in the books), we used the blackboard to illustrate.  We got all the information we could and supplementary things for the lessons from outside books and magazines.  Everyone stressed arithmetic and woe to the teacher who was weak in that subject.  At Sodville I taught higher arithmetic but had no pupils in it at Kingsdown (Cora Hoard married Lafe smith, if you ever see her ask her if she remembers Mr. Sobleman’s call at school).

            Mr. Mrs. Knight lived at the depot.  Stoffers lived in what had been built for a hotel.  Mr. Stofer would put up people for the night.  He used Kelly’s barn.  Bridgewater’s moved to Colorado that fall.  Riely Kinslow and Joel Ellis had a general store and Mr.Kinslow was a postmaster.  That was election year so I took my sewing and passed the day and night with Mrs. Kinslow.  They used the school house for the election.  Mr. Kinslow was on the election board an J. W. was busy at the store during the day and evening.  Those days they all crowded into the room and the directors had fixed boxes of ashes for the tobacco uses, but they said the room was a total wreck.  Next morning Mr. Kinslow told me that after the others were all gone he, Clark Shelton and Chas. Vallandegham scrubbed every thing and even blacked the stove.  It seems Mr. Shelton said otherwise the”School Ma’am will lay us all out”.

            We had a debating society at Kinsdown that winter.  I have written all this giving actual experiences of my family, friends or myself.  I think it is typical of all who lived there at the time.  The young, and married folks for that matter, often gathered on a nice evenings at just anybody’s house, played the organ, sang, popped corn or roasted peanuts, laughed, talked, anything to be sociable.

            The year of 1885 when so many young men were there on their claims they would cook, eat and sleep, several at one shanty for a few days and then go to another.  It was too lonesome for each one to stay alone all the time.  If there was anything going on at Greensburg or Mullinville, half a dozen would start out and walk there the day before, spend a day and then come back.  Nearly all the livery barns would let them sleep in the hay and most of them had friends in every town.  Half a dozen would come walking in on a nice evening, sit on the grass and talk.  If there was an organ and anyone who could even make a pretence of music, some of the bunch would lead up to it and suggest that the organ be played.  They were mostly of good families, well bred, young men anxious to get a start in the world and most of them paid their land off and kept it.  Several married local girls and some went east and returned with girls they were engaged to there.  Several just got by financially, and the other had enough that they didn’t need to worry.

            By the last of 1886 and early 1887 the young folks were there to stay (or supposed to be).  When there was a party the boys would hitch a team to the wagon and start out and gather up a crowd.  There were about three or four young men to every girl and for the most part the boys who had a girl at the party would let the others share in the games.  Sometimes at handkerchiefs tied on an arm settled the partner problem so more could share the fun (Those were the Horse and Wagon days).

            By 1888 the young folks were mostly steady company and “Horses and Buggies” were the rule.  We certainly had good times (I often wonder if their amusement now is as satisfying as ours was).  Every few days (Bucklin news) or weeks some kind of sociable was given for the G. A. R. or for the church.  Ice cream festival, box lunch suppers, bean suppers or just plain common suppers for which a charge of 25 cents per plate was made.  I remember one bean super at which over 100 were present.  All but two were very sick following it.  It was strongly suspected that the G. A. R. member, whose wife cooked the beans, had doctored them inn some way.  He was on the warpath that day and acted ugly in every way.  At any rate several nearly died, young doctors as well as the rest of us.

            I don’t think Jim Fishback proved up Kingsdown.  Rose should know.  I think he would have taken his store there instead of Bucklin, unless he had traded or sold which is hardly likely for the R.R. was being surveyed in the fall of’86.  I am sure I have been past his place to see his wheat and it was south and a little west of Kingsdown.

            Will Smith, Eva Coons, Jim and myself were over in there several times and I know of at least twice he was at his farm when I taught Kingsdown, for I rode home with him, each time It was Friday evening. He and J. W. and Riley Kinslow all bached together before your Aunt Alice come to Kansas, so the places were apt to be near together.  You surely heard of Pap, Mam and Sissy, their nicknames for each other when I suspect the days were long and they were lonesome as could be.  Jim took your two aunts, Fanny Bacon and Janie Ellis to see his land when they were there in the fall of 1888.

            J. E. Fishback and Rose Coons were married in 1889, March I believe.  They were married at home but had a reception for those not invited to the wedding at Boedecker’s that evening.

            Thomas Lane and wife lost their baby girl in 1888.  Took the body to Illinois to bury.  James Campbell traded his place for land near Greensburg in 1886 but he died that same fall.  Mr. Campbell returned to Indiana to her family.  John Lewis moved to Dodge in the fall of ’86.  Mrs. Lewis had been overheated several years before and it had left her mind not good at times.  She had a very bad spell at Dodge and Mr. Lewis and Warren Sage took her to her father’s in Jasper County, Indiana.  Mrs. Lewis was a niece of Mrs. Campbell.  Mrs. Lewis’ mother was in Kansas in the fall of ’85.

            Jim Campbell had an ox team but no wagon.  He had a sled that he hauled water and fodder on, so they put seats on the sled and went to Corbett.  By driving on the buffalo grass the sled ran pretty good.  Mrs. Nichols got quite a thrill out of it.

            Will Smith was a nephew of John Lewis.  He always boarded with them but when Mr. Lewis took his family to Indiana Will came and boarded with us.  He made his home there for a long time.  He was 13 years older than I was and it took us a long time to get used toeach other.  But when we did he always seemed like a brother (which I didn’t have any).  He told me so much afterward about how lonesome the other boys were.  I think in a way I notice it but as I say I thought at first I was stuck for life and they could leave when they proved up.

            Smith and Taylor dissolved partnership late in 1888 and Will took his horses and belongings as far as Iowa, sold them, there and went to Jasper County, Indiana.  Died of typhoid in 1893.

 

 

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