Clark County KS Archives History - Books .....Family Histories Of The Minneola [Kansas] Diamond Anniversary 1961
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Carol Eddleman http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00034.html#0008492 December 8, 2025, 4:45 pm

Book Title: Pioneers Of The Prairies: Minneola Diamond Anniversary Historical Book, Minneola, Kansas, 1961

Boucher Family by Dorothy Boucher Marshall [excerpt)

... The J. S. Bouchers and their four children, Lillie, Everett, Walden and 
Wallace came to Kansas from Livingston County, Missouri in the late summer of 
1885.  The Ed Shumate family from the same county in Missouri also came to 
Kansas that year.

Grandfather Boucher had traveled to Kansas by wagon the year before, to file a 
claim and then he returned to Missouri to get his family.  On his way back to 
Missouri one of the horses got sick and died.  It was necessary for him to sell 
the other horse and the wagon and make the remainder of the trip by train.

The Bouchers also made their return trip to Kansas by train.  They arrived at 
Dodge City in August of 1885.  They had shipped their horses and furniture in 
one car and their shorthorn cattle in another car. (I can remember my 
grandmother telling about the first [thing?] they saw at Dodge was a fight on 
Front Street.) It took the family four days to drive the cattle to the new 
homestead.

Their first home was, of course a sod house which was located on the northeast 
corner of the section where Herman Boucher now lives.  Being new at the art of 
building a sod house, they first dug down about a foot to the ground then began 
to build the house from there.  After living in the house only a short timethey 
discovered that the fleas also liked the "below level floor."  My grandmother 
used to put a white sheet on the floor and wait for the fleas to get on it and 
then whe would put it in boiling water to get rid of them.

After living in the house a short time the family decided to build another sod 
house but with one on the ground level and this seemed to eliminate the fleas, 
but [end p. 71]

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