| Dundy County Nebraska Genealogy Trails |
|
Jesse D. Wood Family Strangers In A Strange Land, They Spent Their First Night In Benkelman On the Floor of a Stranger's Kitchen.  There were nine members of the family circle when they arrived
in Benkelman in 1886 but only six are shown in the picture, death having entered
in to claim the lives of the mother and a small son at the time the picture was
taken. Printed in the Benkelman, NE Post, May 1951 “Down Thru The Years”
The editor, Mr. Ketler, has asked me to write something about the experiences of our family in the pioneer days for his very interesting series of narratives in "Down n Thru the Years." The Jesse D. Wood family arrived in Benkelman in early March, 1886, when the grand rush of “homesteaders" that year was at high tide. Four men from our home town in Illinois had arrived in Benkelman several weeks before and were providing a place for us to live, and were to meet us at the train, but owing to some confusion in arrangements, they were not there or in town. So, we had no prospect of a place to sleep or shelter for the night. I have a vivid recollection of that first night in Benkelman. The one hotel, the rooming houses, private homes, tents, box cars, hay stacks—anything that could furnish shelter, was filled up with the overflow sleeping on the ground. Father, for many years a semi-invalid, had been stricken with a bronchial attack shortly before leaving Illinois and had risen from his sick bed to make the trip; grandmother, in her seventies, was practically helpless, so mother had to face the situation. She made arrangements with a clerk in Frank Pay's general merchandise store, named Richards, to sleep in his home on his kitchen floor. We had bedding with our baggage, so father, mother, grandmother and six children ranging in age from one to sixteen, made our beds that night on the floor of Mr. and Mrs. Richards' large and immaculate kitchen. This unusual kindness of the Richards to perfect strangers assumed special significance to us when several months later Mr. Richards shot and killed a man on the Benkelman streets. My memory of the event is that Mr. Richards had formerly been a cowpuncher in Texas, during the earlier and rougher frontier days, when gun-fighting was the frequent or even usual way of settling quarrels. The victim of the shooting had come from Texas looking for Richards' to revenge some unsettled feud, but Richards beat him "on the draw." I do know that my then thirteen-year old conception of men who shot to kill was that they would be the “yaller-spittin” desperado type, but Mr. Richards was a mild-spoken, kindly sort of a person—far from my idea of a killer. I recall that he received a short sentence. At that time people from the east were not accustomed to seeing men wearing six-shooters, cartridge belts, shaps, high heels and spurs. I had my first contact with men wearing such equipment the day we arrived, which fact, coupled with the strange surroundings and the unusual "set-up" made me a homesick boy, while my sisters were even more distressed and frightened than I. So naturally my first night in Benkelman is impressed on my memory. The situation had improved the next day when some of the men met and took us to an old sod house on the Bird cattle ranch, which they had prepared to serve as our temporary home until the completion of a house they were building on the homestead claim. The four men from our former home town, Clayton, Illinois, were Seibert Connor, a carpenter with a contract to build our house; Sam Wallace, who had been in charge of our emigrant cars, livestock, etc.; Grant Moffett and Will Kuntz. There had been another member of the party from Clayton, "Negro Gabe." Gabe had accompanied the cars and helped care for the livestock while enroute. Gabe stayed in Benkelman one day, then he bought himself a railroad ticket and "beat it" back home. Some rowdy cowboys objected to negroes and shot bullets in the ground around Gabe's feet to punctuate their objections. Discounting youthful glamorous overtones and possible distortion of memory from the lapse of years, there existed an atmosphere of exhilaration, adventure and thrill which infested everyone in that seething swirl of frontier life when the settlers were moving in. The crowds of people milling around town—the stores, shops, lumber yards full of customers— teams continually pulling away with loads of household effects, farm implements, lumber, feed and food—out of town in all directions. Undaunted by any obstacle, they were determined to establish their new homes. Cattle men and cow punchers were much in evidence, generally drinking at the saloons and sometimes spurred to demonstrations of their resentment at being crowded from the ranges by the "tenderfeet." Usually there were punchers racing their ponies thru the streets, sometimes swinging their lariats and throwing them at persons on the sidewalks or shooting into the air and at times into store windows. Preparing for and caring for the horses, cows, pigs and chickens required considerable attention from the men, and starting from "scratch," these and other activities were difficult in the extreme. They were a splendid bunch of fellows and the Wood family would hardly have been able to carry on without them. An example of the difficulties encountered with the livestock was when for want of other shelter, the pigs and poultry were put in the newly dug cellar over which the house was being built. The pigs upset a stack of boxes including a trunk which broke open and the contents scattered. Family photographs, bric-a-brac, ornamental objects— the value of which was more sentimental than material, were destroyed and mutilated. But among these effects was the family Bible. Like other family Bibles in those days, this one contained the family record of births, deaths, names and dates. With shocking disregard for its sacred nature or documentary value, the pigs dissected and desecrated the Holy Scriptures and mutilated the family records. At that time there was no birth registration in Illinois, and in the absence of birth certificates, this record was or is the only written evidence that we had been born. Father’s health improved rapidly and, though never robust, he was able to accomplish much work. The move from Illinois had been made largely because of his health, seeking a more healthful climate and an out-door occupation. He had been postmaster in Clayton for many years, retiring only in January preceding the move in March. I was being initiated in farm work and within a year was handling the most of the work with the horses. My sisters, Hettie, Claire, Stelle and Ruth learned to ride and with the cow ponies herded the cows. We mingled much with our neighbors and especially with the Ketler family, of which the editor of this paper was one of the younger members. My sister Hettie was bitten by a rattlesnake near the Ketler home when with Claire and Stelle was on her way to visit Mazie Ketler, sister of the editor, now Mrs. J. A. McDonald, and residing in Benkelman. Mrs. Ketler administered first aid and bringing Hettie home continued on to town, accompanied by mother and father. Hettie finally lost her thumb before the wound healed. Charley Cummings, uncle of the editor, lived on a claim adjoining the Wood timber claim, and he was associated with us in many activities. One experience is especially impressed on my memory--fighting a prairie fire with a sod plow. I was driving while he held the plow, throwing the sod on and smothering the flames. This method was effectual while the fire was in the buffalo grass with the flames three or four inches high, and we were battling desperately to prevent the fire from reaching nearby sand grass and sagebrush. By stopping the fire from passing thru a half-mile gap between two fields, we kept it from pasture land beyond, but both the horses and Uncle Charley and I were badly exhausted. Our normally happy home life was marred seriously the first winter by the death from pneumonia of Logan, the youngest of us children. Logan was two and a half years. An incident of interest in that turbulent period on the Kansas claims was when mother and I were caught out in the famous blizzard of '88. We were in the farm wagon returning home from an errand to one of our claims, three miles from home, when the snow and wind hit us. The powdered snow was so thick we couldn't see the road or where we were going. I released the horses' check reins so they could get their heads to the ground, and wrapped the driving reins to the dashboard standard. The horses took us home safely while mother and myself were wrapped snugly in blankets and hay in the wagon box. A condition which caused our parents much concern was that their growing children were not in school. Hettie for a time attended an advanced school or college in Bartley, Nebraska, but no school was available for the younger members of the family. Father and mother joined with the neighbors in a movement to organize a school district. Teachers were scarce or nonexistent. Father and mother had both been teachers in Illinois when they were married, so mother took the required examination for a teacher’s certificate in the dug-out home of Charley Cummings. The Ketler children, including the editor and sister Mazie, were among her pupils. The four years we lived on the claims were crowded with pleasure and pain, bountiful crops and crop failures, beautiful weather and terrific storms. Every experience seemed to be in a superlative degree. In the fall of 1889 we moved into Benkelman to attend school. We still had livestock on the place to care for and we drove back and forth from town. It was when on one of these errands in May of 1890, that our mother was killed, or rather injured so that she died within a few days. It was Mrs. Ketler again who found mother unconscious, where she had been thrown from the spring wagon by a runaway team, and brought her home. This stunning blow was not only an unspeakable bereavement but a terrible disaster to the Wood family. We disposed of our livestock and abandoned the claim. Land had become worthless because of crop failures and there was a general exodus of discouraged settlers. However, we continued to live in Benkelman until 1893. My sisters and I attended the Benkelman school those three years and became associated with the young people in school and church activities. Benkelman was fortunate in having a group of wholesome and talented young people and that period of our lives left vivid memories of youthful pleasures and dear friends. It was during that period that I started in the printing trade, working for Frank Hawks, who was editing and printing the Dundy County Pioneer. Printing and the newspaper business became my life occupation. Hettie and Frank Leslie were married before we left Benkelman. The Leslies were a prominent and highly respected Benkelman family and Frank one of the finest. In 1893 we went to Grand Junction, Colorado. As I look back over the seven years we were in Benkelman and vicinity, it seems almost impossible that so many soul-stirring and soul-searing events could ever be crowded into so brief a period. For many years I planned to some day go back to Benkelman to visit the graves of my dear ones and look up old friends. About 1905 I passed through on a fast train at night. The train did not stop and the glimpse I had of the town at about two a. m, was dark and gloomy. I lost touch with Benkelman in every way. In more recent years when that section of the country was mentioned as the "dust bowl," I had a mental picture of the whole section having become sand hills and gullies and neglected to inform myself as to the facts. In September 1949, I made that long planned visit and was thoroughly astonished when I drove into a small modern city with handsome buildings and paved streets. The surrounding country, instead of being a series of sand hills, was one giant wheat field. Concerning the destinies of the Wood family: Father and Grandmother are buried in Grand Junction. Grandmother died in 1895. Father lived until 1905. Frank Leslie buried my sister Hettie in Coquille, Oregon, in 1942, where they had resided for many years. They raised three sons. Earl, the oldest, is living in Coquille; Keith is at Eugene, Ore., Julian, the youngest, died when a young man and is buried at Coquille. Claire, Stelle and Ruth are all living. Ruth is in Long Branch, California; Stelle in Glendale, California, while Ruth is at Buena Vista, Colorado. All three were happily married. Claire and Stelle have both buried their husbands. I am just a retired printer and with my wife am enjoying country life here in New York state. Of my four children, Esther, living in St. Louis, and Lenore in Los Angeles, are married. Ralph is in New York City in charge of a fleet of refrigerator trucks. Sandra is a court transcriber in the Supreme Court in Brooklyn.— Charles E. Wood. |
|
| All
materials contained on these pages are furnished for the free use of
those engaged in researching their family origins. Any commercial use,
without the consent of the host/author of these pages is prohibited.
All images used on these pages were obtained from sources permitting
free distribution, and are subject to the same
restrictions/permissions. All persons contributing material for posting
on these pages does so in recognition of their free, non-commercial
distribution, and further, is responsible to ensure that no copyright
is violated by their submission.
Submitters retain all Copyrights. All data on this website is © Copyright 2009 by Genealogy Trails with full rights reserved for original submitters. |