Pennington County Biographies, Part VI

	These biographies are from "Eastern Pennington County Memories", 
	published by The American Legion Auxilliary, Carrol McDonald Unit, 
	Wall, South Dakota and is uploaded with their kind permission. 
	Pages 158-179

	Scan, OCR and editing by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net, 1999. 

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	Ninety-one Years in South Dakota

by Louis J. Jensen

	Although I do not remember all the things that have happened to me in the 
91 years I have lived in South Dakota, and none of the things that happened to 
me in Denmark, (the one and a half years I lived there), I can remember a lot of 
things - mostly good things.

	I was born on November 13, 1872, in the little village of Mugdal five 
miles inland from the Northern shores of Denmark that lies along the Skagerak. 
My parents owned and operated the "Skeen Flour Mill". It was a small mill driven 
by a water wheel.

	My father, Christen Jensen, was born near Mugdal on May 6, 1842, and my 
Mother, Maren Jensen, on February 14, 1847. They were married in 1870. They came 
to America by steamship from Copenhagen to New York when I was a year-and-a-half 
old. We travelled by train from New York to Yankton, S.D. via, Chicago and Sioux 
City in the spring of 1874. The last part of the trip was very slow because the 
railroad company had met a deadline in completing the line for passenger travel 
and they had not bothered to prepare a roadbed. The rails had been laid in many 
places on prairie sod. This hurry-up was necessary in order to take advantage of 
the land grants offered by the Government as an inducement to build railroads. 
Although I do not remember it, I remember well the stories my folks told of the 
passengers getting off and walking alongside the train as It moved West, often 
picking flowers as they walked.

	My folks homesteaded in Turney County, Dakota Territory, in 1874, on the 
east side of Turkey Ridge Creek about four miles northeast of what is now the 
town of Viborg. Their first home was a dugout In the side of a hill a hundred 
feet from the Creek. This dugout was covered with poles and hay. We lived in 
this cave home until a more suitable frame structure was built. This building 
(enlarged and modernized) is still standing and used as a home.

	My first clear remembrance of homestead life was of my father walking to 
Yankton and bringing home a fifty-pound sack of flour and other groceries on his 
back; of my father and other neighbors driving with ox: teams to the Jim River 
for firewood. I can remember twisting long tough slough grass for hours at a 
time, into tight heavy bunches that would serve as fuel for the kitchen stove. I 
can remember many meals when the only food we had was a large bowl of clabbered 
milk with a little brown sugar sprinkled on top. This bowl would sit in the 
center of the table and we would all gather around it eating from our side. I 
can remember the great satisfaction it was when I could undermine the surface 
and a large piece of the top with its brown sugar topping would fall my way. I 
can remember the intense cold when there would be frost on our bed covers, but 
most of all I remember the wonderful spring and early summer days when I would 
be herding cattle on the prairies where the lush green grass would be higher 
than my knees and sometimes in a low spot would be over my head.

	Each family in those days needed to be self-sufficient and I can remember 
my Mother first shearing the sheep, then washing and carding the wool, and later 
spinning it into yarn and then knitting our underclothing and socks. Gardens 
furnished the vegetables and prairie chickens, ducks and fish helped make up the 
family meals. When we started raising wheat we took it to the mill and waited 
for it to be ground into flour.

	One of the things I remember best is the blizzard of 1888. We were in 
school a mile from home when it struck. It had been a warm day with water 
standing everywhere and the snow was almost gone. We had been playing outside 
the school at noon without coats on, and when we went back to class there was no 
thought of a storm. When it struck, it shook the little school building and 
within minutes, there was a swirling blizzard outside. Our school was lucky 
because we had some grown men attending class who had recently come from Denmark 
and were learning to speak English. These men led the way, following fence lines 
and land marks to the neighbors and practically dragging or carrying the small 
children. Without their help the school teacher would never have made it as she 
was exhausted. We kept together holding hands and never letting go. Other 
communities and schools were not so lucky and many people lost their lives.

	On April 27, 1897, I was married to Mary Margaret Jensen, whose parents 
came from Denmark to Albert Lee, Minnesota, in February 1869. Mary's mother Anna 
Sophie Bertine Larsen, was born in Saba Parish, Sjalland, Denmark, on May 12, 
1840. Her father, Neils Christian Jensen, was born near there about the same 
time. They were married in 1865 and came to America and homesteaded near Albert 
Lee where Mary was born on February 26, 1869, just after they arrived.

	Mary's father did carpenter work as well as farm work and overworked 
himself to a point where he contracted pneumonia and died in 1872. Mary's 
mother's brother, Hans Peter Larsen, who had just come over from Denmark assumed 
this responsibility of providing for the family. In May of 1879, the family 
moved by covered wagon from Albert Lee, Minnesota, to Turner County, South 
Dakota, and homesteaded on the west side of Turkey Ridge Creek just a mile from 
the place my folks homesteaded. We were neighbors as children, although we did 
not attend the same school, and when we were married in 1897, we moved to a 
place on the east edge of the town of Viborg.

	In the winters of 1905 and 1906, rumors of homesteading possibilities in 
western South Dakota were filtering back to the eastern part of the state which 
excited many of the younger people Into a desire to homestead. Mary and I talked 
it over and we decided that we should go west and let our family grow up with 
the country.

	On April 18, 1906, I left Viborg, riding a bicycle and traveling graded 
roads to start with, then riding on trails until I got to Chamberlain where my 
bicycle broke down. Then I started walking, following the general direction of 
the Milwaukee Railroad that went at the time as far west as Vivian. After that I 
cut across country and finally arrived in eastern Pennington County. I would 
usually stop overnight with some homesteader and I seldom missed a meal. I was 
looking for a full section where my brother Otto, my sister Minnie, and an old 
friend Maren Jensen, could homestead adjoining claims with me. I crossed and 
criss-crossed western Haakon County and Eastern Pennington County, getting as 
far west as Cuney and Quinn Tables, and walked one day directly across the 
Badlands - coming out at the Pinnacles. I finally found what I thought was the 
right place just south of where Quinn now stands, and with the help of a 
homesteader nearby, I located the corners of a section. I started for Rapid City 
to file my claim. As I was walking south of where Wall now stands, about where 
Frank Bruce homesteaded, I met two men in a hay-rack loaded with lumber and 
going east. As I visited with the, I found that they had just filed and were 
returning to build a claim shack. On checking legal descriptions, I learned that 
they had filed on the place I had picked, so I turned north to look again.

	The next afternoon I was walking northwest of where Wall now stands just 
east of the Cheyenne River brakes, and I came upon a man breaking sod. I 
followed the plow for a distance noting the rich black soil it was turning up 
and was satisfied that here would be a good place to locate. When we got to the 
end of the furrow, and I had about scared the man out of a year's growth (he did 
not know there was anyone within miles of him), we introduced ourselves and a 
lifelong acquaintance and friendship began with Billy Kalkbrenner. 

	Billy had homesteaded a few years before and was making some extra money 
by locating homesteaders. He said that most of the land on Lake Flat had been 
claimed within the last month or so, but that he knew of a Flat that had not 
been homesteaded and he would take me to it. The next day he gave me a saddle 
horse and we rode across Bull Creek to a Flat that lay southeast of the Cheyenne 
River between Bull Creek and Crooked Creek. We found four adjoining quarters of 
good flat land, so the next day I walked to Rapid City where I met Otto, Minnie 
and Maren, and on May 109 1906, we all filed claims. We left that night to go 
back to Viborg.

	We all came back in the fall of 1906 to build our claim shanties. The 
railroad, by that time, had been laid as far as Wasta, although passenger trains 
came only as far as Owanku, so we were able to get some lumber there to build 
our shacks. The shacks were ten by twelve feet and five feet high in front, 
sloping to the back to three feet. They were set over a four foot excavation in 
the ground and had dirt floors. Otto and Minnie and I had the corners of our 
claims adjoining so we built our shacks close to one another but Maren was a 
half mile west.

	We worked all fall putting up the shacks and were done by December 1st. On 
December 3rd it started to snow about noon and by noon on December 4th there was 
sixteen inches of wet heavy snow all over the prairie. I went to Wasta where I 
caught the work train to Owanka and there took the passenger train for home. 
Otto and Minnie stayed on their claims until spring. In the spring of 1907 I 
loaded -an emigrant car in Viborg with. a team of horses (Fatty and Maas) three 
milk cows, two cats, some farm machinery, a well rig, some household goods, a 
30-30 long-barrelled rifle, and came to Wasta, via Sioux Falls, Norfolk, 
Chadron, Buffalo Gap, and Rapid City. At Wasta we unloaded and hauled it all to 
the homestead. The emigrant car cost me $40.00.

	On May 19th Mary and the three children (Bertha, Veona and Leonel) came 
over the same route I had come to Wasta but by then the Cheyenne was so high no 
one could cross. The railroad bridge had been completed so I left the wagon on 
the east side of the bridge and walked into Wasta to meet them. We hired a rig 
to take us back to the bridge, then carried everything across the bridge, loaded 
it in the wagon and started for home. There had been a lot of rain so the trip 
out of the Cheyenne River brakes was a hard one. Gumbo rolled up on the wagon 
wheels until the horses could hardly move. Gumbo built up on everyone's shoes 
until we could hardly lift our feet. The family walked most of the way, getting 
their first impression of the west and of wet gumbo.

	Our home that summer was the shack over the hole in the ground and a 10 x 
12 foot tent, but by November we had a one and a half story house with six rooms 
and a housewarming party. In the spring of 1906 there had been no buildings on 
the Flat between Bull and Crooked Creeks but by the fall of 1907 there were 21 
homesteaders, each with a place to live and so the housewarming party we had was 
attended by about forty people.

	The first summer we were busy breaking a little sod for crops, building 
fences and digging wells. My well rig could dig a 2411 hole and I could go a 
little over one hundred feet deep. I charged $1. 00 a foot if I hit water, and 
50~ a foot if it was a dry hole., The water we got was brackish and we could not 
use it for the house. We hauled water in fifty-gallon wooden barrels on a 
stoneboat for a distance of about two miles. A barrel of water would last a 
week, although it got a little stale in that length of time.

	The first spring was unusually wet and the mosquitos were present by the 
millions. A common comment concerning them was that a lot of them weighed a 
pound and that they would sit on the trees and bark. The horses especially 
suffered from them but even with the convenience of mosquito netting to put over 
our faces and over the beds we suffered too.

	By the spring of 1908 we were pretty well established. Homer was born in 
April. Mary and the older children had adjusted to the west and although work 
was from sunup until late into the night, Mary managed to provide the home with 
all the necessities of life as well as being a special friend and helper for all 
her neighbors. Whenever she heard of a sick neighbor she would hitch up the 
ponies to the stoneboat and take them a fresh loaf of bread or a kettle of soup 
and would visit them, leaving them a little more encouraged than when she came. 
Strangers as well as neighbors were always welcome in our home and if anyone was 
there at mealtime they never went away hungry.

	Range cattle were a worry to the homesteaders with their small patches of 
wheat or corn, but collectively they were able to pretty well protect 
themselves. On one occasion when a herd of several hundred cattle was 
deliberately left on the flat one evening by a group of cowboys, a quick 
gathering of the homesteaders with horses, dogs and guns, kept the herd moving 
right across the flat and the next morning the herd was scattered up Bull Creek 
all the way to Wall, There was no planned trouble after that.

	School was opened in the upstairs of our house in the fall of 1908 but the 
next year a school had been built and had an attendance of about 28 pupils.

	1911 was a very dry year. Potatoes planted in the spring did not have 
enough moisture to sprout until September when it began to rain. There was no 
feed for the cattle except thistles that had been mowed green and put up for 
hay. Of the 21 homesteaders that were on the flat in 1907 only eleven families 
were left and most of these were having a hard time making a living.

	In 1912 Wasta Township began doing some roadwork and I was hired as 
foreman. My wages were 30c an hour. The highway bridge over the Cheyenne had 
been completed that year and a road from either side had to be built. It was 
that year that the Black Hills and Yellowstone Park trail had been designated 
and it was to go over the Cheyenne Bridge. Each township was responsible for 
building the road within their township, so the Wasta Township Board had to lay 
out the road. On October 8, 1912, the Township Board, consisting of Charley 
Hunt, chairman; W. C. Condon; Eddie Bratt, clerk; and myself, drove a team and 
buggy from Wasta to the Brakes east of the bridge to survey a road. We walked 
the ridges and finally decided where it should go. I wanted to have It come down 
the old Surveyors Hill where there was already a trail, but they insisted that a 
road should go as near a sectionline as possible so that is where it went. 
Charley Hunt was Cashier of the Wasta Bank, known as the Live Bank on the 
Cheyenne. W. C. Condon owned the Butcher Shop, and Eddie Bratt clerked in the 
Rochdale Store.

	The contrast between road building now and then is worth mentioning. The 
Township Board said where the road should go, the foreman laid it out. There was 
no surveying instruments used - it was just a matter of going where the going 
was easiest.

	On October 9, 1912, I started the road from Lake Flatt down the hill 
toward the Cheyenne River. I started it with a spade, spading out a trail along 
the side of the hill where I finally made it safe for one horse pulling a left-
hand plow could walk. The trail followed a hog-back or ridge all the way down to 
the foot of the hills. Our road equipment consisted of walking plows pulled by 
two horses, fresnos pulled by four horses and one road grader pulled by four 
horses. Later that fall we had a trail that could be used by tourists and this 
was the first tourist route through this area. Designated the "Black and Yellow 
Trail" its only markers were black and yellow rings painted on fence posts and 
telephone poles, and sometimes on a board tacked to a fence. A few cars drove 
over the trail the first fall but the road was not finished until August of 
1913.

	My records show that the following people worked on the road at some time 
during 1912-13: Louis J. Jensen, Foreman; Charley Eslick, Time-keeper; Joe D. 
Bruce, Clarence E. Dowling, C. J. Genaggle, August W. Heitman, John Haiden, L. 
B. Lorensen, Art McGehan, Ice French, Albert Ramsal, Peter Iversen, Robert 
Bruce, Joe Collier, W. F. Morris, Harry Rhodes, R. B. Keller, Frank J. Burdett, 
Frank (Dick) Hopkins, L. B. Sorensen, Elmer Carstensen, Roy Morris.

	The wages paid were different then than now. The foreman got 30c an hour, 
a man with one team got 40c an hour, with two teams 60c an hour, a single man 
got 20c an hour. But then fence posts were selling for 15c each and a good meal 
cost only 25c.

	During the years 1912-1913 we built the Dakota City Road south of Wasta, 
the Condon Hill road west of Wasta, the road up the hill north of Wasta leading 
toward Elm Springs, and the road from Wasta east up the hill joining with Lake 
Flatt Township.

	Developing a homestead into a home and a living was hard work and often 
discouraging, but there were many compensations, To see an undeveloped community 
grow into organized democracy with townships, school districts and community 
projects, and to be apart of it was a privilege that our generation was the last 
to enjoy. For many years there was no thought of wealth or luxury among the 
pioneers and there was an equality among all the families that was wholesome and 
good. Each individual's reverses were the sorrow of the entire community and 
everyone was ready to lend a helping hand to a neighbor.

	For many years it did not take much money to get along, but we did not get 
much for what we sold. When things began to pick up during World War I and I got 
$215. 00 a head for some four-year-old steers I thought our troubles were over, 
but when in 1932 wheat went down to 17c a bushel, we could not sell our corn or 
hogs, and the government bought our cattle for about $20. 00 a head, things 
looked worse than they did in 1906. By 1937, however, things began to improve 
and with tractors being used instead of horses, and with summer fallowing 
improving our wheat crops, we finally began to make some money. In 1940 I paid 
off the last mortgage and after 34 years of working and planning we finally 
owned our homestead.

	In 1946 I retired. My family was grown and on their own. Bertha had 
retired from a career as a registered Nurse; Veona was married and living in the 
eastern part of the State; Homer and Leonel were both married and just home from 
World War II. I sold the ranch to the boys. Mary passed away in November of that 
year. I have been living in Wall with Bertha since that time, but I needed 
something to do, so I bought the John S. Johnson place 14 miles west of Wall and 
have been farming that ever since. I have a little homestead shack out there 
that I live in during the summer and fall. It has a small wood stove, kerosene 
lamps, and no indoor plumbing. I think maybe I like it better out there than I 
like it in town, If I could hear the coyotes howl at night I would like it even 
better.

[Photo - Louis J. Jensen family - 1908. L. to r.: Mrs. Jensen, Veona, Leonel, 
Mr. Jensen, holding Homer and Bertha.]

[Photo - School Picnic in Spring of 1908 on the Jensen ranch near Wasta. Left to 
right, beginning with the back row: Floyd Hansen, Emmett DeHarty, Nick White, 
Louis J. Jensen, Mrs. DeHarty's father, Lawrence Hansen. Second row: Elsie 
Sorensen, Gladys Duncan, Edna DeHarty, Eunice, Anita, and Gladys Hansen, Bertha 
and Veona Jensen, Verna DeHarty, Ernie Hansen, Marie DeHarty. Third row: Mrs. 
Louis J. Jensen and Homer, Ruby Hansen, Mrs. Gillman, Goldhammer girl, Mrs. 
Goldhammer and son, Mrs. Raleigh DeHarty, Mrs. Nick White, Miss Allison 
(teacher), Minnie Jensen, Lillian Hansen, Mrs. Ward, Mrs. Oscar DeHarty, Mrs. 
Martin Hansen, Mrs. Lawrence Hansen and Lorrin. Fourth row: Leonel Jensen, Platt 
DeHarty, Goodwin Hansen, Goldhammer boy, Clifford Sorensen, Gladwin and Maxwell 
Hansen.]

[Photo - First School on the Jensen Flass; held in the upstairs of the Jensen 
home in the spring of 1908. Left to right: Miss Allison, school teacher. 
Maxwell, Ernie, Eunice and Gladys Hansen, Bertha, Veona and Leonel Jensen. Mrs. 
Louis J. Jensen standing in the kitchen door.]

[Photo - Louis J. Jensen Homestead taken 1916. Left to right: Bertha Jensen, 
Leonel Jensen, Louis J. Jensen, Mrs. Louis J. Jensen, Archie Ebsen, Veona 
Jensen. In front Homer E. Jensen.]

[Photo - Bertha Jensen's homestead shanty on her homestead in 1919. L. to r.: 
Homer, Bertha, Louis, Mrs. Louis Jensen, Mrs. L. H. Hansen, Ruby and Floyd 
Hansen, John S. Johnson, Lorrin Hansen, Leonel on horse holding Evelyn Hansen.]


Louis J. Jensen Family

	Bertha Mae Jensen, the oldest daughter attended High School in Wall, took 
a business course at the Rapid City School of Business and then went into nurses 
training, graduating from the Chamberlain Sanitarium and Hospital. She worked in 
a number of Hospitals over a period of years including the Glendale Sanitarium 
and Hospital in Glendale, California, Mason Memorial Hospital in Murray, 
Kentucky and Community Hospital on Island of Moloki in Hawaii, also supervised 
at the Methodist Hospital in Rapid City when it was located on 8th street. She 
attended the International Nurses Congress in Stockholm, Sweden in 1948. She is 
now living in Wall, So. Dak.

	Veona Lavanda Jensen went to High School in Wasta, and Hurley; attended 
Dakota Wesleyan University at Mitchell and taught school for one year at Hurley. 
She married Linden Flyger of Parker in 1920 and has lived on a farm south of 
Parker since that time. The Flygers have four children, Arlene of Long Beach, 
California, Janice at Grand Rapids, Michigan, Leland at Arlington, Texas and 
Mary Linda a student at Andrews University in Michigan. She also has five 
grandchildren, four girls and a boy. Veona has been busy in church and school 
affairs all through the years.

	Leonel M. Jensen attended high school at Wall, Fort Pierre and Lead and 
attended the University of South Dakota for two years. He was cashier of the 
Farmers State Bank in Wall for twelve years and joined the armed forces in 1942. 
Honorably discharged as a corporal, he then joined the American Red Cross as a 
Field Director for the duration of World War II. In 1946 he and his brother 
bought the home ranch from their father where he has lived since that time. Was 
married in 1946 to Murman Sandage of Petersburg, Ind., they have three children, 
Paul Leonel, Mary Margaret, and Sara Murman. Leonel has been active instate and 
local affairs. Served four years on the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks 
Commission, two years on the South Dakota Industrial Development and Expansion 
Agency and was recently elected to the Board of Governors of the American Red 
Cross. Was Grand Master of Masons of S. Dak. in 1957. His wife Murman has been 
active in state politics serving two terms as Democratic National Committee 
women from So. Dak. She served two terms on the Pennington County Health Board.

	Homer E. Jensen graduated from Wall High School and from the University of 
South Dakota. He took pilot training at Randolph Field, Texas. He accepted duty 
with the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933 and served for several years as 
Camp Commander. He set up three camps and moved two from one location to 
another. He was called to active duty at the start of World War II and crossed 
the English Channel on D day as the commander of an infantry battalion. He was 
married to Marjorie Meikel of Bedford, Iowa in May 1941. After the war he and 
his brother Leonel bought the home place and they farmed and ranched together 
for ten years when he sold out to Leonel. He then moved to Yankton. He was 
appointed Adjutant General for the State of South Dakota in 1958 and they moved 
to Rapid City where he served for five years. He retired from that position as a 
Major General in 1963 and they moved back to Yankton. Marjorie and Homer have 
two daughters, Mary Jo and Janell and two grandchildren, Kenneth and Catheryn 
Weir. Homer is now Civilian Advisor to the Secretary of the United States Army.



The Runaway Team

by Bertha Jensen

	One lovely summer evening in 1916 Floyd Hansen, his sister Anita and I 
came down off the home flat, crossed the river, no bridge, and on into Wasta to 
attend a party. Floyd was driving a spirited team and our buggy was a rather 
fancy one seater. All went well going into Wasta, had a nice time at the party 
and good food. Left for home about eleven, rather a dark night, some clouds and 
no moon, but we had a lantern on the dash-board and we needed it to follow this 
trail.

	Along the river bottom between Wasta and the Cheyenne River a number of 
trees had been cut down leaving rather high stumps, these stumps made a good 
reason for carrying a lantern. About half way to the river one of the ponies 
shied, frightened his teammate and away they went, all might have been well if 
they had not gone one to one side and the other to other side of one of these 
dreaded stumps. It caught the double-tree and the buggy stopped right now, 
double tree broke and horses were free, Floyd hung on to reins for a bit but had 
to let go when he hit the ground out beyond the tongue of the buggy. Anita went 
down between front wheels taking the dash-board and lantern with her, I went 
down to end of tongue and really got a swollen nose and two black eyes. Anita's 
party dress was torn but no fire from lantern. We were all rather a mess but 
very thankful we had no broken bones.

	We heard the horses cross the river, then Floyd hurried us girls back to 
Wasta to stay with friends and he followed the horses for when they, reached 
home his folks would really be worried. He came upon the team about half way up 
the hill one on one side of the fence and one on the other side. How they got 
into that position with no more cuts than they had we will never of course know, 
but they had calmed down. We girls got home the next day. This same team did not 
get away from Floyd on another occasion but created quite a laughable situation. 
It could have been a tragic one however. He was hauling bundles from field to 
machine at our home. At threshing time the neighbors came to help, women and 
children came also. This afternoon there were quite a number of us in the yard. 
Floyd and his brother Goodwin were heading for field in empty rack when the team 
decided to run away if possible. Goodwin was frightened; he went to back end of 
rack and as he said later, "I thought if I climbed down and began running before 
I let go of the last board I would keep right on running and not fall when I hit 
the ground." Now all of this took only a few seconds, the road was inches deep 
with fine dust from so many bundle wagons having traveled it, and we did not see 
Goodwin for a bit. When he got himself upright he was coughing, spitting and 
brushing himself off feeling a bit sheepish, but only his pride was hurt.

	I never was really hurt but once in all the horseback riding I did and 
tumbles I took. I was on our favorite saddle pony when he fell with me. I had 
gone to pump water for the cattle two miles from home and we were just a few 
feet from the well when he fell catching my foot between him and the wooden 
stirup. I fainted, when I woke up our fine pony was patiently standing near me. 
I found I had a badly swollen foot and ankle but managed to get the tank filled 
with water. Then the pony stood very still and let me scramble onto his back 
from the wrong side and he took me home fast as he could lope. I just knew that 
he knew I had been hurt. It was many weeks before I could again walk on that 
foot. But I lost no school days as my sister would ride the horse pulling our 
small express wagon and I was in the wagon. We had a mile to go to attend school 
across the prairie.

	Snakes were a worry when we were youngsters. Of course they still are but 
I believe there were many more on the prairies then. When Homer was a baby 
Mother had put him out near the front door on a blanket.

	In one of her checks of him she noticed a mother cat acting excited, she 
hurried out and not far from the baby was a rattlesnake being held in a coil by 
the cat watching him. This same cat had been found by Mother doing this same 
thing when her kittens were near. Mother got the two large rattlers and that cat 
was a special pet from then on.

	We were not to kill bull snakes for they took mice and gophers, also baby 
rabbits which we did not like. But when Mother found one in her chicken house in 
a nest, and another way up at the pigeon houses taking the eggs and babies she 
said, "That's it, they shall now die as the rattlesnakes do when we find them." 
A little neighbor girl was bitten by a rattler. She lived, but was really sick.



Homestead Memories

by Leonel M. Jensen

	I was three years old in 1907 when the folks moved onto the Homestead on 
what later became known as the Jensen Flat southeast of Wasta. I remember 
walking across the railroad bridge over the Cheyenne River because the river was 
too high to cross. I remember this because the two men were carrying the big 
trunk which contained my little broken-legged iron horse and a couple of other 
toys, and I was worried because I thought they might drop it off the bridge. I 
did not worry about all the family clothes that were in it. I remember walking 
part way up the hills with gumbo sticking to my feet so heavy I finally could 
not lift them and I can remember how sorry I was for the team that had to pull 
the wagon.

	I can only remember a few things that first summer, and after that the 
memories are not dated - they were just a part of pioneer life. The first summer 
I remember living in the tent and the dug-out shack, and the deathly fear I had 
of rattlesnakes. I can still see the big fellow coiled and ready to strike that 
was laying under a board my sister Bertha picked up.

	Another thing I remember is playing around the new house that was being 
built and the big party we had after it was completed. With no trees on the 
prairie to obscure our vision, I can remember what excitement there was whenever 
a cowboy rode past the place or stopped for a short time to visit. Bill Reed who 
had the Reed ranch where Wasta now stands often rode past. Bill Is cattle had 
been accustomed to grazing on the flat and he was known to have made the remark, 
"Those, homestead shacks will make good cattle sheds when these foolish people 
find out they cannot make a living here and have to move out."  We could always 
recognize Bill, as he never rode fast but always at a dog trot. He was getting 
old and he rode stooped - sort of slumped in the saddle. We watched for the 
Indians, too. They crossed the flat in wagons, taking their families from one 
Reservation to the other, and would camp on the prairie. They used to stop over 
a day or two to dig Indian turnips and would peel the roots and leave the hulls 
in huge piles on the ground.

	I can remember visiting at the Frank Morris place when I was thrilled to 
see his forty-five six-shooter in a leather holster with the belt full of 
cartridges hanging from one of the headposts on his four-poster bed. To me he 
was the real honest-to-goodness cowpuncher. I have always thought that Frank 
rode a horse better than anyone I ever saw, straight up in the saddle, and he 
looked as if he were part of the horse,. they moved together so easily.

	I remember picking up bones from the prairie and piling them in a double-
box lumber wagon. They sold for $2.00 a ton delivered in Wasta, and the money we 
children got from them belonged to us. It was our only spending money. Some of 
the bones we found were bleached buffalo bones, but mostly they were cattle 
bones.

	Although there were doctors in both Wall and Wasta, things had to be 
serious before they were called, so home-remedies were a standby. I remember 
onion syrup boiled with sugar and made so thick it would hardly pour from a 
pitcher which was the standard remedy for a cough. The first teaspoonful or two 
tasted like candy but by the time it had cured a cough it was hard to take. A 
sore throat called for a cold wet cloth wrapped around the neck with a woolen 
cloth covering that. Kerosene for a cut - Sloans liniment for a bruise or 
sprained ankle - a flax poultice for infection - boiled wild-tea leaves for a 
stomach ache -all these were common home remedies then.

	We used to keep the milk from souring by having a six-compartment tank 
where the water pumped from the well by the windmill would flow past the milk 
cans before going into the cattle tank. The milk cans were rotated from day to 
day which kept the milk fresh for about two days. Two days, that is, unless 
there was a thunder storm! Few people believe that thunder would sour milk, but 
after a thunder storm it was usually sour.

	Our big treat was on Tuesdays and Thursdays when Mother would bake bread. 
Bread hot out of the oven, with butter and sugar on it, had no equal. One Danish 
dish Mother used to prepare was "sweet soup" made from prunes, raisins, lemon 
rind, and tapioca. Danish chicken soup with carrots, parsnips, potatoes, 
dumplings and parsley, was always a treat, too.

	Special days were when Dad would go after the mail in Wasta. There was 
never much mail, but there was usually a letter from either Mother's or Dad's 
folks in Viborg. When the river was too high to cross with either a team or a 
saddle horse, Dad would use a little tin boat he made to put his clothes in, and 
then swim the river pulling the boat after him. Then he would dress, walk into 
Wasta, get the mail and some groceries, and come back the same way he went over.

	The dances at the neighbors (and neighbors were anyone within fifteen 
miles) were always fun. Unless it was a moonlight night, the dances usually 
lasted all night, and after breakfast the next morning we would come home. The 
times we used to visit the Frank Lees .was the most fun. Lees put up ice from 
the Cheyenne River and when we went there, we could always depend on homemade 
ice cream. We usually went seining while we were there too, and often came home 
with some tenpound catfish. When Lees came to our house, they would bring some 
ice along and we would have ice-cream. It was no small chore bringing a cake of 
ice twelve miles on a hot summer day in a buggy.

	I can remember how the coyotes used to come right up to the barnyard and 
take the chickens in broad daylight. How Mother used to run out, waving her 
apron to scare them off. Mother never shot a gun, and until Bertha got big 
enough to use the 30-30, the coyotes seemed to know when Dad was not home. After 
that, they were not quite sure who was home and stayed a little farther away. 
One day when Dad was home, two grey wolves crossed the prairie about a quarter 
of a mile from the buildings. I can remember how they trotted along, with us 
watching them until they were about as close as Dad thought they would get when 
he shot at them. It was too far away to hit them but they really lit out. 

	Mother used to work in the hay field and one day she was raking hay with a 
one-horse rake when one of Bill Reed's stallions came around. He seemed to want 
to pick on the gelding Mother was using and would charge up, wheel, and kick. I 
guess it was a frightening time for Mother until she could get back to the 
buildings and the hired man drove the stallion away. Another time, a range bull 
came up to the place and chased the hired man up on top of the chicken house. 
The bull kept him there all afternoon, while Mother watched from the house 
window. Later Dad got home and helped drive him off. Mother often told of the 
time when her friend came from Viborg for a visit. Mother came into the bedroom 
just before her friend was going to bed and found her running her hand through 
the corn-shuck mattress just to be sure there was no rattlesnake in there. 
Another time when a cousin was visiting, they put the cousin's baby on some 
chairs alongside the bed for the night. During the night the baby rolled off the 
chair under the bed and when Mother's cousin discovered he was not on the 
chairs, she became hysterical, screaming that the Indians had stolen her baby.

	A high-light for several summers was our Fourth-of-July picnic. To take 
the place of a grove, Dad built a framework of posts - then would go to the 
brakes and bring home green-leafed branches to cover it, and that would serve as 
shade for the picnic. There would be as many as a hundred people at these 
picnics, and after dinner the men would play baseball or pitch horseshoes.

	One incident I remember was when Mrs. Frank Wilkins, who lived three miles 
west of us, brought her little girl who had been bitten by a rattlesnake to our 
place. She was driving a team of horses hitched to a lumber wagon with several 
children sitting on the floor of the wagon. Mrs. Wilkins was standing up in the 
front of the wagon, driving the horses at a full run and swinging a whip. This 
was about 1924 and Homer took the little girl in the Model-T Ford to Wasta to 
Dr. Heinneman who treated her and saved her life.

	The trips to the Badlands each fall when the neighbors got together and 
drove over in lumber wagons, camping out a couple of days and then driving home 
were always high-lights and were always something to look forward to.

	These are some of the things I remember .......... the rest would fill a 
book.



Adolph and Emile (Hagga) Kalkbrenner

As told to Bob Marsden

	Adolph Kalkbrenner was born in Germany in 1863 and moved with his parents 
as a boy to Indiana and then moved to the Black Hills at about age 21 in 1884. 
He freighted during this time from Nebraska to the Black Hills with teams and 
wagons.

	Adolph filed on some land between New Underwood and Owanka where he took 
his bride. Emile Hagga was born in Alsace-Lorraine in 1876 and moved to Rapid 
City when she was 16. She and Adolph were married in 1895. To this couple the 
following children were born: Bertha, Albert, Emma, Louis, Lawrence, Margaret 
and Jim.

	Adolph and Emile moved from their original home because of the poor water 
to a site on Little Bull Creek north of where Wall is now located.

	Kalkbrenner's well was across a small creek from their house and Adolph 
built a bridge across the creek, then put a gate on the bridge to keep the 
children from crossing and falling into the well. (Especially Lawrence).

	Smithville was his Postoffice run by Frank Cottle. Frank also ran a store 
and Adolph used to buy his groceries there.

	Indians used Little Bull Creek as a trail from one reservation to the 
other and hunted along the way. If hunting wasn't so good, they would stop in 
for a grub stake. One day an Indian came and Mrs. Kalkbrenner was baking bread. 
He wanted a loaf of the bread, and Mrs. K. tried to show him in sign language 
that it wouldn't be done until the sun went down, He returned at sundown and she 
gave him the loaf - a short time later another came for a loaf and this kept 
happening until her entire batch of bread was gone.

	Another time an Indian came and said his squaw had had a papoose the night 
before, but they had no clothing for it. Mrs. Kalkbrenner gave him some baby 
clothes and he left. Later she decided to go see the new papoose, but the 
Indians had already broken camp and were gone.

	Kalkbrenner ran sheep on his ranch, and would take his wool by wagons to 
Pierre where it was sold. He also would drive his lambs to Pierre for sale - a 
trek of well over 100 miles, He weathered the 1905 May blizzard in good shape, 
but the trees around the corral which really protected them were so weighted 
down with snow that they finally broke, killing a few of the sheep. His first 
thought was that he had a heavy loss until he found out about the terrific 
losses of his neighbors, and then he felt that he was mighty lucky.

	In 1906 Adolph had to sell his sheep because homesteaders were putting up 
little black shacks so fast there was no range left on which to run his band. He 
then bought a bunch of cattle and ran them until 1911 when it got so dry he had 
to sell them. In 1914 he returned to sheep and ran them until 1924 when he 
traded them for cattle. He turned these over to the boys and went to work for 
some of the larger sheep outfits in Wyoming and Montana. His deal with the boys 
was that he owed so much on them that if they could make them pay out, they 
could have them. During the 1930's the boys sold to the government and started 
over.

	Albert and Lawrence Kalkbrenner moved to Sage Creek and then to the 
Belknap Homestead, better known as the Morris place. Their parents spent their 
declining years with them - Adolph passing away in 1941 and his wife in 1956. 
Albert, Lawrence and Jim are the only members of the family still in South 
Dakota and are all occupied in ranching.

[Photo - Kalkbrenner Homestead, l. to r.: Bertha, Emma, Fred Lacey, Mrs. 
Kalkbrenner with Louis and Lawrence, Lizzy Clarey and Albert.]



The Marsden Families

by Bob Marsden

	Charles and Emma Marsden moved from Edgerton, Wisconsin to Mitchell, S. 
Dak. in 1906 with Drexel and Beattie (Tom), two of their five children, and then 
to Wall in the fall of 1909 where they had purchased a relinquishment 7 miles 
west and one mile south of Wall, where a shack had already been built. A short 
time later they returned to Mitchell and loaded an emigrant car with their goods 
and shipped them to Wall.

	When they got back to the homestead, their shack had blown down. Their 
neighbors, the Andrew Lindberghs invited them to move in with them until another 
shack could be moved onto the original site. Before his return to Mitchell, 
Charles had purchased another quarter of land known as the "Lamb" quarter, and 
it was from here that they acquired their new house. 

	Charles then purchased a relinquishment from Mr. Lindbergh for his 
daughter Mildred who joined them about Thanksgiving time in 1909. She was 
married in 1912 to Joseph Bruce. The Lindbergh land is where the present homes 
of Gordon and Robert Marsden stand.

	Charles Marsden started the first Sunday School in the area in the old 
Lincoln School building. He proved up on his land in 1911 and returned to 
Mitchell with sons Drexel and Tom. So many people left the area during the 
drouth of 1911 that the Sunday School dissolved, but it was later revived by 
Vesta Gunn and Edith Marsden.

	Gordon Marsden joined his father and family direct from Wisconsin in 1910. 
He had come to South Dakota in 1907 as far as Ree Heights, but a blizzard struck 
and he gave up the idea of settling in such country. When he reached Wall on his 
second trip it was March and Bull Creek was running out of its banks. He hired a 
livery rig in Wall, and there being no bridges those days, it was necessary for 
them to go many miles south to find a crossing of the creek.

	Gordon lived with his sister Mildred and his two brothers on the Lindbergh 
homestead, and their parents lived a mile south on their original homestead. 
Another daughter of Charles stayed in Wisconsin and was raised by her 
grandparents.

	Gordon took over the farming for his father. In 1910 his share of the crop 
came to $70.00. In 1911 there was no crop, and 1912 he farmed only for cattle 
feed. In 1915 his oats made 75 bu. per acre and he had some corn.

	Edith Starks was born in Monticello, Iowa in 1884 and came to Tyndall, S. 
Dak. in 1901. She taught school near Tyndall where most of the children spoke 
only Bohemian, and she neither spoke nor understood the language. She proved up 
on a homestead near Kadoka, moved to Mitchell, and in 1911 applied for a 
position in the Wasta School, only to find that her school, though in the Wasta, 
or Lebanon District as it was then called, was several miles south. She first 
boarded with Mildred Marsden, and then with the John Slaters, who lived just 
south of the school she taught (across the road from the present Roy Shull 
buildings). This school building had been moved one mile east from its original 
site in the northwest corner of the Hefner farm in 1909.

	Gordon Marsden and Edith Starks were married on June 1, 1912. To this 
union three children were born: Ruth (Mrs. Earl Hanifin), Robert and Eunice. 
Eunice was killed in a buggy accident in 1926. All three children were born in 
the house presently occupied by the Robert Marsdens.

	The Rapid Valley Telephone Co. extended their lines east of the Cheyenne 
River when Frank Morris moved to the present Kalkbrenner Bros. Ranch. At that 
time $18.00 per year provided service to Wasta, Creston, Farmingdale, Rapid City 
and on into the Hills. In August of 1923, a severe tornado struck the Marsden 
place destroying all the outbuildings, the lean-to kitchen, and removing a good 
share of the roof of the main two story house. This is the house around which 
Robert built his home, and is the original Lindbergh Homestead house.

	Roy Morris, who lived where Kalkbrenner Bros. now live, was haying just 
east of Marsdens, and his family, including his mother, was visiting with the 
Marsdens that day. When the storm approached, Roy came to the house and everyone 
was kept busy stuffing windows and placing pans to catch or keep out the water. 
Gordon was upstairs closing windows and stuffing rags in them, and when he 
attempted to open the stair door to come down, it would't budge. At this time 
the outbuildings began hitting the house, and as the lean-to kitchen went to 
pieces - just as Roy's mother, holding his daughter - stepped from that room, 
Roy decided it was time to go for the storm cellar only a few feet away, but the 
outside door wouldn't open. He kicked a panel out of the door, which released 
the pressure on the stair door and let Gordon free, and at the same time the 
roof disappeared. Dan Morris and Robert Marsden (about 7 and 8 years old), who 
had been standing near the outside door, either crawled through the opening in 
the door or were sucked through, and lay in the yard amongst the falling chimney 
bricks and other debris. Roy came out, grasped the dangling telephone line and 
was able to carry both boys to safety in the storm cellar. The others followed 
by various means. The only transportation left was a running gear of Roy's hay 
wagon and one of his teams which took the families to the Morris home.

	Gordon and Edith are still active in the Township, Gordon as Supervisor, 
and Edith as Clerk. Gordon was on the Lebanon (Wasta) School Board when it 
dissolved and the Districts of Wasta and Lincoln were formed in September, 1920. 
Edith was Clerk of Lincoln District for many years and named the District when 
it was formed.

	Now retired, Gordon and Edith live in the home they built in 1948 and are 
both in excellent health, and Gordon takes up much of the extra work on the farm 
when necessary. They celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary with an open 
house on June 3, 1962. Before homesteading days this area was in the Indian 
Reservation. The north fork of Crooked Creek which runs through the northern 
part of the Marsden holdings was an early day burial ground for the Indians. The 
bodies of the dead were placed on platforms on poles until the flesh was gone, 
and then the bones were buried. One of the old Indian trails crossed the "Lamb" 
quarter, and although this has been lost because of the plow, signs of it are 
still clearly visible on the land east of it owned by Glen Lakner. This was a 
trail leading from the reservation to Dakota City on the Cheyenne River. Their 
purpose of traveling this way was reportedly to buy whiskey which they could not 
get at home, to get needed supplies and to take their children to Rapid City to 
school.

	Ruth and Robert Marsden were educated in the Lincoln School and attended 
Rapid City High School. They each attended one year at Spearfish Normal before 
teaching - Ruth at Lincoln and Lake Hill schools, and then to Farmingdale where 
she met and married Earl Hanifin. They moved to Rapid City, and during the 
blizzard of 1949 on to Oregon with their daughter, Carol.

	Bob taught in the Lake Flatt District at Cedar Canyon and Pennington 
Square before returning to Spearfish for summer school and continued until he 
received a B.S. degree in 1940. Degree work had been discontinued at Spearfish 
in the early thirties, but during the term 1938-39 there were rumors that it 
might be returned. Bob and one of his roommates, Lloyd Eaton (U. of Wyo. 
Football Coach), conceived the idea of having student participation by writing 
letters to former students who might be able to graduate in approximately one 
year, and by sending a student delegation to Pierre to meet with the 
Legislature. When the Administration learned of the letters, Lloyd and Bob were 
summoned and informed that if they wished to remain in school they would 
immediately cease their activities and leave everything to the Administration 
and the Board of Regents. This solved one problem - there was no money for the 
trip to Pierre, nor any seeming way to get it. The letters did have their effect 
and a small class received degrees from B.H.T.C. in 1940.

	Bob taught in Wasta and Nisland before going to the Service in August, 
1942. Among those in the group were J. H. Bielmaier, Phil LeCocq, Bill Naescher, 
Alvin Moler, and Bob McDonald. Bob was discharged Feb. 11, 1946 after serving in 
the AF as a radio operator and in Administration. He served for over 20 months 
in Goose Bay, Labrador. He taught in Wasta again that fall before moving to the 
present ranch. Bob was married to Herma (Durst) Pittman, a Custer teacher and 
former Spearfish classmate, in 1948. Herma had been widowed by WW II, and after 
their marriage, Bob adopted her son Kenneth. They lived on the Van Vleck place 
for a few months before moving to their present home. To this union was born, 
Lloyd, Roy, Janet, Tom and Edward. Edward died suddenly after six days.

[Photo - Charles Marsden and sister Margaret]

[Photo - A giant with a fly on its back. Ruth and Bob Marsden]

[Photo - Building purchased by Fred VanVlack and is now on the old VanVlack 
place. L. to r.: Conrad and Margaret Johnson, Harold Slater, Tom and Drex 
Marsden, Mark Foss, Jack Slater. Not pictured, Edith Starks, teacher.]

[Photo - After the cyclone]

[Photo - Homer Jensen, Bob and Ruth Marsden]

[Photo - Gordon Marsden on the farm.]

[Photo - Gordon Marsden on his first oil-pull tractor. This tractor burned 
kerosene and water for fuel.]

[Photo - Among those pictured are Robert, Ruth and Eunice Marsden, Esther Gunn, 
Mrs. L. Jensen, Mrs. Chas. Wyant, Mrs. G. Gunn and Mrs. Jacoby.]

[Photo - Helen Pyle, Wilma Bruce, Marjorie Miles, Bob Marsden, Helen Strom, 
Beulah Bruce and Ruth Marsden.]

[Photo - Mr. And Mrs. Gordon Marsden on their Golden Wedding Anniversary.]

[Photo Ruth Hanifin, Mr. And Mrs. Gordon Marsden and Bob Marsden.]



George Gunn Family

by Laura Jean Welsh

	George Gunn was born in Scotland, South Dakota, June 13, 1880. In 1890 
George and his family moved to western South Dakota and settled on the Cheyenne 
River south of what is now Wasta, South Dakota.

	In 1900 and 1901 George worked for the 6L ranch owned by Corbin Morse. In 
1902 he worked for the Diamond B owned by the Breem Brothers and the DO owned by 
the Reed Brothers.

	In 1903 he again started to work for the 6L outfit and in 1905 became 
foreman and wagon boss and ran it until the outfit cleaned up.

	George was married in 1909 to Vesta Cora Curtiss of New Underwood, South 
Dakota. To this union four children were born, Esther, Lester, Idella and 
George, Jr.

	George homesteaded in the Badlands south of Wall and later bought a ranch 
on Crooked Creek. They lived on this ranch until 1945, when they moved to Rapid 
City, South Dakota.

	George joined the forces of the South Dakota Stock Growers Association to 
work as brand inspector until his death in November, 1950. He was a topnotch cow 
puncher, one of the best riders and ropers in the northwest. He was a first rate 
brand inspector and was respected by all those who knew him.

	Vesta Gunn continued to live in Rapid after George's death. She was active 
in many clubs. A member of the Presbyterian Church and also a choir member. She 
lived in an apartment on St. Joe St. until her death in January, 1954.

	We know if George Gunn were alive today he could write a book about the 
many, both humorous and sad, events in his life. We always enjoyed listening to 
him tell his stories. We called them stories, but we're sure they were all true.

	Our one regret is that Grandma and Grandpa Gunn didn't live long enough 
for our children to get to know, love, and enjoy them.

	His parents located up the Cheyenne a mile from Wasta but hardly had time 
to get squared away and settle down when the Indians went on the rampage so they 
returned to Scotland for a few years before again returning to their ranch. Here 
they cast their lot among the old time ranches.

[Photo - Vesta, George and Junior Gunn]

[Photo - George, Vesta, Lester, Esther and Idella Gunn, Barney and Iky.]

[Photo - George and Vesta Gunn and a grandchild.]



Frank Stucker Family

by E. E. Stucker

	My parents were Mr. and Mrs. Frank Stucker. I was born in Rapid City on 
March 29, 1887.

	I have two brothers and two sisters. Joe lives in Rapid City, S.D.; Walter 
in Long Beach, California; Mrs. D. E. Alder, Laguna Beach, California; and Mrs. 
G. B. Aldrich, Missoula, Montana.

	In the summer of 1904 we moved onto the George Swinehart ranch located on 
Bull Creek about 5 miles southwest of Wall and about two miles from the 
Badlands. About one mile north was our closest neighbor, Mr. and Mrs. Charles 
Wyant and two sons, Lawrence and Clive. One mile north of Wyants was a bachelor, 
Jim Moran. Five miles west of us was a sheep ranch by three Lawrence brothers. 
About five miles east of us was the John Hart cattle ranch operated by Jim Wesco 
and Tom Nolan.

	In 1905 the homesteaders began to come in and file on the land. Among the 
first to come were the Mackrill brothers, Will and Gene. The town of Wall is 
located on part of their homestead.

	May 5, 1905 was the start of the May blizzard. A freezing rain started 
about 5 P.M. By evening it was snowing, and snowed all day the 6th and quit 
sometime in the night. By nine o'clock the 7th the sun came out. There were snow 
drifts eight to nine feet deep. All the old timers will remember that storm. The 
loss in livestock was terrible, especially among the sheep men. The lambing 
season had just started and they hauled wagon loads of dead lambs out of the 
pens.

	By 1907 most of the land around Wall had been homesteaded.

	The way I remember Wall best was Ollie Marshall's livery barn, Babcock's 
hotel, Pratts barber shop, Fallons drug store, Ed Mintener's saloon, Beckers 
grocery, the bank, and a lumber yard.



Our Days in South Dakota

by Harold Slater

	Now at the age of 65 years I think back on my childhood days in South 
Dakota and it brings to mind many fond memories. My folks grew up in the eastern 
part of the state near the little towns of Groton and Andover. Dad's folks spent 
a great deal of their life in and around Aberdeen.

	After Dad and Mother were married they moved around from one state to 
another, as Dad was a plumber and steam fitter by trade. I was born in Clinton, 
Iowa, on the banks of the Mississippi River in the year of 1900. In 1904 my 
folks, then living in Aberdeen, South Dakota where Dad had a plumbing shop, 
decided to move to Rapid City. He worked there as a plumber and steamfitter for 
Duhamel and Ackerman Plumbing Company. Later in the year my father got the urge 
to go homesteading and he and his brother, (my Uncle Charlie Slater) accompanied 
a group on a location trip East of Rapid City, some 60 miles. Both he and my 
Uncle located and filed on 160 acres of land each in an area known as West 
Crooked Creek Flats.

	This was the start of a new life for Mother, my brother Jack and me. My 
Dad and Uncle had the lumber for our 2 shacks, (121 X 141) each freighted out 
from Rapid, City by team and wagon. I can remember living in a tent set up on a 
wooden platform. Mother and my Aunt Addie, cooking over a small sheet iron camp 
stove. Our light was a coal oil lantern hanging from the ceiling of the tent. 
When it rained the water ran around our tent in rivers and we were cautioned not 
to touch the roof of our tent as this would start the tent leaking. Jack and I 
would lay in our bunks on the floor at night and listen to the Coyotes howl in 
the distance. Jack, who was two years younger than I would cuddle down close to 
me and talk about the Coyotes and how they made those awful mournful sounds. I 
remember Jack's theory of how they did it. He said: "Harold, Do you know how the 
Coyotes make that noise?" I said, "No Jack, do you?" He said, "Yes, I think they 
go Kie Yie, and then they whirl right around and stick their tails in their 
mouths and go Yee Yee." There were many such experiences throughout our 
childhood as my brother and I enjoyed a very close relationship with one another 
as we did not have neighbors nearby and we had to create our own little world of 
pleasure and yes, problems too.

	Some of our early life in Pennington County is rather hazy to me and it is 
difficult for me to put the happenings together as to time and place but for the 
next several years we lived in and out of Rapid City. Mother, Jack and I lived 
on the claim to prove up on it, and Dad worked at his trade in Rapid City to 
keep us supplied with the necessities of life. So we spent part of our time in 
Rapid City and part on the Claim out on West Crooked Creek Flats. I can remember 
living at the Patton House when we first came to Rapid City and later in the 
Reeder Block which was an apartment house and after that in a house up part way 
on the side of a mountain known as Hangmens' Hill.

	You can imagine what we experienced when out on the Claim just we 3, 
Mother, Jack and myself. Our nearest store was a little rural store and Post 
Office down on the Cheyenne River Flats, known as Dakota City. All supplies had 
to be freighted in from Rapid City. When the river was low we would ford the 
river over to get our mail and supplies, but when it was high we would have to 
go over by boat, and there were two ranchers who had boats near the river on our 
side. DeLos Sisson, was our nearest one and he would row us across most of the 
time, but when the river was real high, another rancher by the name of Frank 
Lee, had a cable across the river to which he would attach his boat and he would 
put us across. From his place we would have to climb several steep cliffs 
getting around to where the store was located. I can remember several 
experiences when the river was too high to cross for weeks and we had to live on 
pretty slim rations. One time we lived for 3 weeks on just crackers, beans and 
rabbit. Mother had a little single shot 22 rifle and she would hunt for our 
meat. One day we would have bean soup and fried rabbit- the next day fried beans 
and roasted rabbit- the next rabbit and dumplings and just plain beans. My 
brother and I got to the place where we couldn't look at a rabbit.

	You perhaps wonder how we all slept in a one room shack only 12' X '4'.. 
Dad ceiled the joist overhead with boards, cutting a cubby hole in one end and 
building a ladder up the wall between two studding. Then they purchased a box 
spring and made a straw tick for our bed, placing the box spring on the floor of 
the attic. Jack and I climbed this ladder to our domain above each night for 5 
years. We had a big white cat that shared our bed, on the cold winter nights he 
would climb the ladder with us and crawl into the foot of our bed and we would 
use him for a foot warmer. When we would crowd him too much, he would bite our 
toes.

	I don't remember exactly what time it was Dad came home and decided to 
start farming, but he finally decided to try and build it into a farm. Mother's 
father shipped us 4 horses, a cow and machinery with which to do the work. The 
machinery was old and Dad had to keep repairing it, but he made it work. By this 
time the Northwestern Railroad had put a railroad through from Pierre, South 
Dakota to Rapid City and little towns began springing up along the way at 
different locations. The towns we patronized were Wall, population 300 which was 
located 12 miles east of us and Wasta, population 150 which was to the north of 
us on the opposite side of the Cheyenne River, which we had to ford to get 
there. Wasta was only about 6 miles from us, so when the river was low we traded 
there most of the time.

	About this time a neighbor sold Dad his 2 room shack and moved away, so 
Dad moved this over and joined it onto our shack, making us a 3 room house. This 
was a real thrill for my brother and me. Our opportunity for schooling was 
limited and I didn't start to school until I was 8 years old. However, my Mother 
had been a teacher before she and Dad were married and we had our regular school 
time at home. She taught Jack and me our multiplication tables and our letters 
also taught us to read. When we started to school I was placed in the third 
grade and Jack was then 6 years old and started in the first grade. We had to 
walk a mile across the prairie to school and in the wintertime wade snow drifts 
above our knees. I graduated from the 8th grade at the age of 13 years, having 
gone to school five terms, excepting each spring Dad would keep me out to help 
with the farm work. I followed a walking plow at the age of 9 years. After 
graduating from the 8th grade the folks sent me to my grandparents in Andover, 
South Dakota to attend High School as there were no High schools closer than 
Rapid City. However, I only went one term as Dad became ill and I had to 
takeover the farm work at home. This ended my schooling until later years when I 
extended with correspondence courses, Steam Engineering, Salesman, etc.

	The years passed by and in the year of 1913 the stork visited our home, 
bringing us a little sister. Mother named her Vesta Mae, after two of her 
dearest friends. Two years later the old bird called at our house again, 
bringing us a baby brother, Charles Donald. By this time Jack and I were (as we 
thought) becoming "grown up" and I was soon to spend part of my time working 
away from home, so I did not see much of my young sister and brother and my 
memories of their childhood is quite limited.

	In 1918 Dad bought a half interest in a large ranch known as the "Gandy 
Ranch" which was located north of the little town of Wasta and moved over there 
where he spent several years. About this time I met a young lady by the name of 
Marie Hicks, and though I was not quite 19 years old, after a short courtship we 
were married and moved over on the old homestead. Mrs. Slater came from a large 
family of 13 children and was an excellent cook. I can remember the first time 
she made baking powder bisquits- I thought they were my mothers! They were so 
good. Marie's home was about 40 miles north of where we lived in a district 
called Dalzell. Her folks place was located on the river flats of the Cheyenne 
River. In those days cars were a luxury and most every one did their traveling 
by horse and buggy or horseback. I shall never forget the visits to my wife's 
folks, what wonderful times we had with Marie's brothers and sisters. We had 
song fests around the old organ, attended local dances with them, played cards 
and all kinds of games at home- they were indeed a happy family.

	We spent 8 happy years on the old homestead, in that time we were blessed 
with four lovely children, two girls and two boys. Laura our first, born June 
17th, 1920. Two years later, 1922, James Richard was born and 13 months later 
another little girl, Irene May arrived, December 1923. Then our last little boy 
John Harold came on Feb. 28th, 1925. However, we only had him for a period of 
four years as he passed away at the age of four years with Diphtheria.

	My folks had sold out in the meantime and moved to the state of 
Washington, locating in Tacoma. They would write us such glowing accounts of no 
snow in the wintertime and roses blooming until Christmas - they had all kinds 
of fruit and what a beautiful place it was, so we decided to join them. We sold 
our stock and machinery, except 5 horses and a wagon. We then built our overjet 
on the wagon- putting a pair of springs across the back of the wagon for Marie 
and I to sleep and bunked the four children on the floor of the wagon. We built 
us a cooler on the side of the wagon for foodstuff and had a 3 burner kerosene 
oil stove to cook on. There were two other neighbor families who accompanied us 
most of the way out. I guess we were quite a sight starting across the prairie 
with 3 covered wagons trailing one another. It took us 3 months to make the trip 
as we stopped several times along the way to replenish our finances, working in 
the harvest fields, etc.

	I won't go into a graphic account of our trip, as it is mostly about "good 
old Pennington County" that I wish to write. One point I have not mentioned was 
our social life in South Dakota, they were happy times indeed. We had dances in 
neighbors homes, barn dances -neighborhood baseball games out on the prairie in 
which the whole family would participate, men, women and children. Our Sunday 
School picnics were another time of great enjoyment. Then we had our 4th of July 
celebrations at Wasta with all the excitement of bucking horses, horse races, 
foot races, ball games, etc. Then the 10th and 11th of July at Wall or a special 
celebration in one of the other surrounding towns. These were great days for my 
brother Jack and me and later for my wife and our children. Now looking back on 
our good times, our pleasures and of course our hard times as well, I view them 
with a feeling of mixed emotion- realizing everything works out in God's plan. 
We were blessed in various and numerous ways. And now that we are coming into 
our sunset years I am indeed thankful for our many experiences. God has been 
generous with us materially inasmuch as we have a comfortable home and enough of 
this world's goods to maintain ourselves in our retiring years. We still like to 
remember our childhood days and the many pleasant memories of them in Pennington 
County, South Dakota where friends are real and true blue "always".

[Photo - Jack and Harold with our first pony.]

[Photo - The Slaters on their trip to the West Coast]

[Photo - Mother and Dad Slater - 1940]

[Photo - Marie and Harold Slater]



Mr. and Mrs. John S. Johnson

by Myrtle Johnson Clark

	My parents Mr. and Mrs. John S. Johnson homesteaded on a claim five miles 
southwest of Wasta, above the Cheyenne breaks in September, 1908.

	They were originally natives of Norway, both coming to America, my father 
in the late eighties, from Trondheim, near the Swedish border, and Mother from 
Hardangar, a small fishing village at the mouth of Hardangar fjord in 1890.

	My father, who was a carpenter, first came to Sioux City. He later married 
there and had one son, Emild. His wife died a few years later and he took his 
son to Norway where his grandparents raised him.

	He later moved to Chicago, where he married my Mother, Matilda 
Christianson in 1903. He made a good living at his trade there, but when land 
was opened to homesteaders in 1907, he wanted to try the life of a homesteader 
or honyocker as they were called in those days. He also said that when a person 
became older, it was hard to find work as those hiring did not care to hire 
anyone who was starting to get gray or wore glasses; besides he wanted to be 
independent; for he was young then, and always had plenty of work.

	There were four of we children who came with our parents by emigrant car 
to the homestead, Margaret, four years old, Conrad, three, Theodore, two, and 
myself, Myrtle, four months.

	My uncle, Eric Johnson, with his wife and five children, came from Sioux 
City the year before, and settled on a claim two miles south of our place.

	He was also a carpenter, and helped my father build a barn on our place in 
January 1908. Lumber was hauled from Wasta, five miles away, they crossed the 
Cheyenne river in the winter on the ice and forded it in the summers, when it 
was not too high.

	The following record written by my father in those early years, includes 
this account:

	Filed August 8, 1907- built a barn on same Jan. 1908; (the reason not 
being there before was a broken limb and a compound fracture of the back.) 
Established residence in September 1908. Broke 14 acres, crop was 15 bushel of 
sod corn, had four cattle, two horses, two pigs and fifteen chickens.

	In 1909, thirty-five acres were broken, the crop was thirty bushel of corn 
and two hundred bushel of oats and speltz, had eight cattle, three horses, three 
pigs and forty hens.

	In 1910, he wrote he had forty acres in crop and had a total failure, only 
ten bushel of poor corn. The cattle had increased to twelve, three horses, three 
pigs and fifty hens. (50)

	In 1911, he also had forty acres planted but had a total failure again.

	In 1912, he had written that he had planted forty acres but the crop was 
not much.

	By this time all the homesteaders who had small claim shacks on nearly 
every 160 acres, had moved away, as they found it impossible to make a living 
from 160 acres when no crop could be raised because of drought. But going back 
to the time we came, my father and uncle, both being carpenters built our house 
while we lived in the barn till it was done. Since my father planned to work in 
Chicago a few years, to get the homestead on a paying basis, he built a larger 
house, a (story and a half) frame building which was much different than the 
small economically built homestead "shacks" as they were called, on our 
neighbors claims. He also built several other buildings and had them all 
painted, including the small "house" in back. My older brother came from Norway 
to help Mother on the farm, while my father was in Chicago.

	In between jobs father would come home and help with building fences and 
in getting wells dug. We finally had one which gave an abundant supply of good 
soft water, in addition we had two wells, which were alkaline. Father built a 
large capacity cistern close by the house so we were well supplied with water 
for those days.

	My two sisters were born during those early years and Mother was attended 
by a neighbor, Mrs. Bergeson, a midwife, who lived about ten miles east of us, 
on Bull Creek. Esther was born in 1911 and Christina in 1913.

	A new homestead act passed allowing everyone to file on an additional 
homestead, so our original farm was 320 acres.

	Most all the homesteaders moved away during the dry years, especially 
1911, the ultimate year of the drought. They wanted to sell their "claims" so 
father bought them; eventually our farm increased to 1280 acres.

	My mother and brother often talked of the terrible blizzard in early March 
in 1913, it lasted several days, my youngest sister, Christine was only a month 
old. The snow sifted in the barn thru every minute crack till the cattle were 
almost crowded out. Luckily they had a hay loft above, so they were fed from 
there.

	My father came home to spend his full time farming and ranching, and my 
brother went to school in Davenport, Iowa, where he became a Chiropractor. He 
had a thriving practice in Beresford, South Dakota; which he gave up to enter 
service in World War "1". After the war he moved to South Carolina and married 
there, he had no children. He was very active in American Legion activities, 
holding many important offices. He also was active in the Masonic Lodge, in 
1964, receiving the highest honor that a Mason may obtain, a citation from 
Scotland.

	Those years on the farm were getting better and I remember one year how 
hard my parents worked to stack eight stacks of wheat bundles, but we had to 
wait our turn to get it threshed. One morning we found they were burning, and 
every stack was consumed by the fire. We never knew how it could have happened. 
Wheat was high then, about $3.00 a bushel so it was a terrific loss. This was 
about the time of the First World War.

	My father thought that the men ought to buy a threshing "rig" so the men 
of the community bought a "rig" together, and hired someone to run it for them. 
Louis Jensen ran it for them for quite a few years, later Father bought the 
others out, and we did not have to wait our turn at the threshing. Before the 
men had their own "rig" as it was called, we often had to wait till nearly 
Christmas to get our grain threshed. I can remember waking up in the frosty cold 
fall mornings and see a horse on a rope attached to the tractor to start it. It 
seems to me that the owner of this "rig" was August Cramer. Threshing was quite 
an event, we would get to hear the latest news and gossip, and each housewife 
would try to outdo her neighbors in the "feeds" they put out.

	They had a terrible "flu" epidemic in 1917 or 1918. It was called, 
"Spanish Influenza." We had no school for a month, during that time; but 
fortunately for us none of us had it. So many who contracted it died, so it was 
especially dreaded. Father was the only one who left the place, only to get 
groceries and needed supplies.

	Our home was the last place on the flat before going down the breaks to 
Wasta, and folks from Quinn Table, as well as all of Crooked Creek flat, went to 
Wasta, they always got the mail for us and often did some other errand. In 
return they often ate with us, and if night overtook them, stayed all night. We 
always enjoyed these visits as we did not have close neighbors after the early 
homesteaders left. Wasta was a real thriving community, with the bank being one 
of the foremost business establishments; its apt description; "The Live Bank on 
the Cheyenne" known to everyone. Charley Hunt was the banker, and booster for 
the town. The town also had a drug store, two grocery stores, a hotel with cafe, 
also another cafe, a paper, "The Wasta Gazette", Cream stations, and of course 
the pool hall and saloons common to all the early day communities. They also had 
a doctor, Dr. A. A. Heinemann, and a large trade territory so it was a busy 
place.

	The winters seemed to be very severe, and after the terribly long hard one 
in 1919, 1920,the Cheyenne flooded its banks, and many on the river bottom lost 
their cattle, and had their homes ruined by the flood waters; luckily no one 
lost their lives. Several families came and stayed with us, as one thing we 
never had to worry about was floods!

	My oldest brother died the next winter and it seemed winters were very 
bleak after that.

	We all worked hard and crops seemed to flourish, and the herd of cattle 
grew. We milked a large herd of cows, so the folks always had a cream check, 
which usually took care of our living expenses.

	We herded the cattle during the time our crops were growing, so we 
children were kept busy. Horseback riding was a favorite pastime so we combined 
our work with pleasure.

	My father was never frightened by anything; or so it seemed to me. One 
time in 1923 we had a real bad storm, with large hail, frightening thunder and 
lightning, also a violent wind which was cyclonic in its fury. It blew the roof 
off a neighbor's farmhouse and also their kitchen. We were in the hayfield, but 
we all rushed home, except Father who wanted to finish raking. When the storm 
struck we were scared as it felt as though the house was going to blow away, and 
we were so worried about Father. However he took refuge back of one of the 
stacks and sort of burrowed his head in it. He had a tight rein on his team but 
admitted he could barely hold them when they were struck by the huge hail 
stones. 

	My older sister, who taught school for two terms, married and later moved 
to Canada. Wages were $90.00 a month for a second grade teacher, and $110.00 for 
a first grade one. She got her first grade certificate too late to sign for the 
term. That year she had about twenty-five pupils, which was quite a few for a 
country school. This was in 1924-25. She is now Mrs. Sam Sheren and has four 
daughters and one son, all but one daughter of Texas, live in Canada. She also 
has eighteen grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

	The next year, my sister Esther died of pneumonia. She had infantile 
paralysis, or polio as it is now called, when she was a small child which left 
her back weakened, she never complained, but was able to do many things except 
run or lift things. She loved to ride horseback and was always cheerful and 
happy, and was greatly missed.

	The two things we were always warned about were poison ivy and the prairie 
rattlesnakes, luckily we were poisoned by neither.

	We never had many trips to town, so they always stand out as red letter 
days in my memory. We were closer to Wasta, but if the river was high, we could 
not ford it, so we would have to go fifteen miles to cross the bridge, or the 
fourteen miles to Wall.

	We only could go in the summer, so we usually went to Wall, and the folks 
tried to take us to the annual "tenth of July" celebration, commemorating Wall's 
birthday. They always had an interesting program, including chariot races, also 
had "Chautauquas" which were plays that were acted out, and were always shown in 
a tent as they carried their own theater with them. The merry-go-round was such 
a wonder to us, and the catchy tunes they played completely captivated us.

	The folks were always busy in town, we had no mail route until in 1925, so 
we had to pick up our mail, take the cream to the cream station, the horses were 
taken to the livery stable, where they were fed and watered, and taken in the 
barn until we were ready to go home, when the attendant hitched them up for us, 
and we went to pick up our cream cans, egg cases, groceries and any other 
supplies, in addition to our mail which often included parcels from Montgomery 
Ward, Sears Roebuck and M. W. Savage.

	We had a variety of vehicles, including a top buggy, a surrey with the 
fringe on top, a spring wagon, and small buggies we children used in driving to 
and from school. However cars were becoming the new mode of travel, and Father 
bought a new "Model T" touring car. It seemed that even I could run that and fix 
it with wire, tape or things like that, instead of always having costly repair 
bills. I can well remember the days before the car became commonplace, and the 
trips to town in the summer, we always had flynets on the horses, as they didn't 
have sprays and fly repellents then. The flies and mosquitoes were frightful and 
even the gnats would bother the horses. Another thing was the nosebags which 
were used to feed the horses their oats, when they were traveling away from 
home, and were not taken to the livery barn.

	At this time we had quite a few acres under cultivation, and a new "Case" 
tractor replaced the old "Titan".

	My younger brother (he was older than I) became ill and eventually had to 
spend his remaining years in the hospital where he died in 1962, on July fourth. 
We always had to have hired men after that. It seemed that we had started to not 
only have drought, but also were in the midst of a depression, no feed was 
raised and where crops were planted we only raised "Russian thistles", these 
were cut while green and salted to make some roughage, for "cake" was bought to 
supplement feed for the cattle.

	I then married Bill Clark and moved to Peno Basin where we farmed and 
pastured sheep for a neighbor. My youngest sister then married Glen Hocking and 
lived at home for a year before going to Iowa to live.

	We moved back out to my parent's farm and helped them till our oldest 
girl, Peggy, started to school; when we moved to Wall.

	My parents continued to live on the farm, as they had hired help, till 
about 1942, when they rented the farm and moved to town. 

	My father bought some property in Wall and kept busy doing carpenter and 
repair work. He also bought and remodeled a building.

	He died in 1947 at the age of eighty. He was stern with we children, but 
taught us to be honest and not afraid to work for what we wanted. He had been 
active in church affairs, also sang in the choir so he taught us the Lutheran 
catechism as he knew we had no opportunity to go to Sunday School or Church, on 
the homestead.

	Mother kept the farm for several years after his death, the last years 
they raised excellent crops and the prices were high, as part of it was during 
World War Two but she sold the place eventually as she felt it required more 
supervising than she felt she could cope with.

	Those days on the homestead never will be forgotten, the early years when 
the coyotes howled close by and the later years when we were growing up, herding 
the fat cattle, and rejoicing in the waving fields of grain, and riding the 
racing saddle ponies with the fresh clean wind in our faces; and our parents 
always there, looking after us the best they could.

	Mother took care of the place in town, renting her cottages to tourists, 
and kept busy everyday, she enjoyed working in the yard outdoors, and also liked 
to be independent.

	Mother died on February 22, 1964 at the age of ninety years and eleven 
months and eleven days.

	Mother was a pioneer in the true sense of the word, leaving a comfortable 
way of life, to settle on the bleak prairie, and make a home for us. She 
advised, admonished, loved, and sometimes punished us in trying to mold us into 
the kind of citizens she felt we should be. She was always proud and happy in 
our achievements, but even in her elder years, wanted to live by herself, for 
she treasured her independence, which she felt she so rightly earned.

	Our heritage that our pioneer parents left us, and the examples of their 
lives is one of the best things that can be left to their children, and mine has 
always been a great source of pride to me.

	Mother left sixty-one descendents, including two great great 
grandchildren. There are three of we girls and my brother living, Emild, 
Margaret, and Christina Hocking and myself, Myrtle Clark; Christina lives in the 
country south of Wall she has four children, two daughters and two sons, and 
eight grandchildren. I live in Wall; Bill and I have six children and fifteen 
grandchildren, which includes twelve grandsons.

[Photo - John S. Johnson family 1908  Mr. & Mrs. Johnson, Theodire, Conrad and 
Margaret]

[Photo - Taken 1915  John S. Johnson and family]

[Photo - John S. Johnson threshing 1919]

[Photo - John and Tillie Johnson on the farm 1938]

[Photo - John S. Johnson and team 1924]

[Photo - Mrs. Matilda Johnson with cattle 1925]

[Photo - Taken in 1948  Mrs. John S. Johnson and 15 of the grandchildren]

[Photo - Grandchildren of Mrs. John S. Johnson and daughter Margaret Sheren]

[Photo - Mrs. John S. Johnson on her 89th birthday, March 12, 1962.]

[Photo - A group from southwest of Wall 1962. Sy Allburn now deceased, Gordon 
Marsden, Mrs. Frank Bruce, Mrs. Galbraith, Mrs. G. Marsden, Mrs. Matilda 
Johnson, deceased, Mr. Art Galbraith]


Homestead Memories

by Margaret Johnson Sheren

	I am writing a few of the experiences I had as a youngster and a girl 
growing up in the early days from the fall of 1908 until the early 19201s. These 
events happened on our homestead near Wasta, five miles south and east upon the 
flat above the Cheyenne River breaks. My parents, Mr. and Mrs. John S. Johnson, 
filed on the homestead there in 1907 and came to live there in the fall of 1908. 
Besides my parents there were four children; myself-- Margaret (Margaretha in 
Norwegian), Conrad, my oldest brother, Theodore and my sister, Myrtle, who was 
the baby at the time.

	My Dad had built a barn on the place before we moved, so we lived in one 
part of it until the house was built. The stock was in the other part of the 
barn with just a wall between us. It was in the fall, so Dad any my uncle, Eric 
Johnson, hurried to build the house. It was never actually finished, we lived 
only in the downstairs, Meanwhile, we had a time in the barn! Having been used 
to the city of Chicago, this was quite a different way of life, even though I 
was only four years old at the time, I remembered the city's parks, flowers and 
tall buildings, the tar on the streets, etc.

	I had a kitten who I thought would be cold, so I put him in the oven. 
Mother lit a fire and he got his little paws blistered. I felt so bad about it, 
and bandaged his paws. I think he survived after all.

	Dad built a small chicken house and we had a few chickens. It was my job 
to shut the door each night. Some nights the coyotes would be in packs about 
that time. They would follow a leader on the side of the hill and run in a 
circle. Usually there would be about 15 or 20 of them and they seemed so big and 
wild. We were afraid of them as was our dog. He was a big spotted bird dog, but 
so afraid he Id hide under the bed and stay there. Mother locked all the doors 
and windows, as she had been in the city for a long time. So when the coyotes 
started to howl we were all inside and locked up safely.

	My father felt he should go back to his job as carpenter in Chicago, so we 
were left alone for the winter. We burned coal and some cedar wood, and lived in 
one room as it was so cold. It seemed we never saw any daylight out of the 
windows as they were always covered with thick white frost. However we stayed 
well, and spring finally came. It was then that we saw the litters of little 
yellow coyote puppies all over the hill in the back of the house. There were so 
many and we children loved to watch them.

	There were so many big cactus plants, beds of them, on that hill. We had 
to be careful whenever we went barefoot to not get "stickers" as we called them, 
in our feet! My father came home in the spring. He plowed and planted some grain 
and a garden, but it was so dry that little of it grew. We had three horses-
Dick, Fannie and Sam. Fannie always ran away every chance she had, but she was a 
beautiful slick sorrel.

	There were so many little incidents but some stand out in my memory more 
than others. For instance the time Conrad and I thought we had found a bear in 
the breaks behind the house. It was a nice spring day, so we went exploring in 
those "breaks" as they were called. We had our collie dog with us. We were going 
down these hogbacks looking for fossils and digging when the dog started to tear 
around and bark in a small draw. We couldn't see what he was barking at because 
of the cedar trees, brush, etc., so we decided it was a bear. I told Conrad to 
run home and tell Mother, so he ran as fast as he could to tell her! I stayed 
down in the breaks and mother was sure the bear had either hurt me or eaten me! 
I'll never forget this, however I was not afraid. This happened shortly before 
my sister, Esther, was born and so it was hard for mother to run like that! 
Well, we finally found out what caused such a commotion--a porcupine, and the 
poor dog was full of quills and a sorry sight for a long time. We all went home 
much wiser and we weren't such good explorers for a while!

	The years went on and in 1911 there was no rain. The seeds and grass 
didn't grow and it was so desolate. In late August a rain came and the only 
green things I remember best were the Russian thistles or those big tumbleweeds, 
that rolled everywhere when they dried up in the fall. That fall nearly everyone 
on the homesteads left, some by foot, or whatever way they could. Some had cows 
and calves to sell and begged Mother to buy them. She had saved a few dollars so 
bought them. A cow was only worth a few dollars and calves very little. She had 
to buy baled hay for them but they survived and she had built a nice herd from 
these cattle by the time Dad came home to stay and spend his full time on the 
farm. This was about the year 1914.

	The homesteaders had left their shacks and anything else they could not 
take with them. It was lonesome then and we were alone a lot. My half brother, 
Emild, had been there to help while Dad was working in the city. When we were 
old enough to go to school, he drove us and went to school with us. He had been 
in Norway, so he had to learn English. Our first teacher was Miss Edith Stark, 
now Mrs. Gordon Marsden of Wall (they are living on the same farm today). I had 
to learn to speak English too, as we spoke Norwegian at home. We missed several 
days because of blizzards, cold and snow, but somehow got through the winter and 
when spring came we walked on the nice days. It was three and a half miles to 
school so we really got cold on the bad days.

	Christina, the baby of the family, was born on February 5, 1913. That 
winter we had a terrible blizzard in March. It was a beautiful spring-like day, 
then it became colder and the wind blew; then the awful snowstorm came. Emild 
was sick and Mother had the chores to do. She could hardly see but we put a lamp 
in the window to guide her and she fed the cattle somehow. We had a big fire in 
the stove and the next day was still a blizzard and the big drifts almost 
covered the barn door, but our stock was safe.

	We had no school for a month. The drifts were so solid and so high, you 
could drive a horse over them. Many cattle died in that blizzard and a family 
who were moving froze to death on the road near Owanka or somewhere in that 
territory. We had other storms, but this stands out in my mind as the worst one.

	Another incident that I remember vividly--Conrad and I were going to bring 
lunch to Emild who was plowing with the three horses. He went to water them at 
the well, which was in a lane someway from the house. We had a nice shiny new 
syrup pail full of lunch. Emild had taken the bridle off Fannie so she could 
drink in the trough and as we came near, the sun shone on the pail and she saw 
the reflection of it. She lit out like a streak of lightning, going over me with 
the plow and pulling along the other two horses. I remember her running over me, 
Emild hurt his knee and Conrad was cut by barbwire. She continued to run until 
she came to the end of our place, where one of the early homesteaders, Hughie 
McClemets, caught her and brought her back. We were a sorry and surprised 
looking lot, as it happened so fast. We were lucky as we could have been hurt 
very badly.

	Fannie also ran away with Father in town. He had taken in a big case of 
eggs in a one horse top buggy. At noon he went to give Fannie a nose bag of oats 
and took off her bridle. As soon as she had no blinders she saw the street signs 
moving in the wind and away she went I There were broken eggs all over Wall at 
that time, but eventually she was caught. Dad drove home minus the egg check, 
but luckily the buggy wasn't damaged much. Fannie was always running away, and 
it was a wonder she didn't kill some of us. She did wreck some of the wagons and 
buggies in her escapades.

	One young colt we had somehow fell into a box canyon and was lost for 
several days. We could not seem to find him and thought he must have drowned. 
One day Conrad, who had been hunting for him day and night, found him almost 
dead of starvation. He had jumped up to get the bits of grass overhanging the 
steep wall of the draw. There was a little alkaline water in the draw. Mother 
helped to cut steps so that we could lead him out. We took him home and fed him 
carefully, and he became a favorite pet of ours. One day we couldn't find 
Christina, and after along search for her, we found her seated on this colt. She 
was only three or four years old. We had drop doors on the mangers and she had 
crawled in there and got on his neck. She was very pleased with herself. After 
that when she was missing, we would find her on his back. She became a good 
rider of horses later in life, so guess she got her start there.

	We had so many rattlesnakes where we lived. They seemed to have dens close 
in the south banks of the breaks and we lived just above those breaks of the 
Cheyenne River. I remember killing as many as eight rattlesnakes in one day when 
I was older. We would kill them with anything at hand--rocks or even the reins 
of our saddle ponies. Mother used to skin them and tan them with alum. She sold 
them for belts and hat bands; some she would line inside with velvet and get 
imitation eyes. She also tanned bullsnakes but they were not poisonous and had 
no rattles. Our collie got bitten by a rattlesnake, but survived. I don't know 
how the folks doctored him, but those days they had to depend on themselves and 
it sometimes spelled the difference between life and death.

	Once Myrtle ate a sort of round green kind of berries which were poisonous 
and very nearly died. Mother often said she did not know how she saved her. I 
don It know what it was called, but we never seemed to see many of that kind of 
low growing plant much later on, but we were warned never to eat anything 
without Mother's sanction after that. Poison ivy was always shunned and we never 
had any trouble with it, for we had a lesson on what poison could do.

	There were so many birds--the meadowlark and mourning dove were my 
favorites. We had to watch out for chicken hawks, for they would get our young 
chicks if they could. We planted cottonwood trees, some of which I believe are 
still living. During the years Father planted several groves of trees, but our 
dry upland farm did not favor the growth of trees and sooner or later most all 
of them died.

	Another time when Myrtle was small, she had a toy flat iron on a little 
stand, so she decided to build a fire under it. She got a chip fire started but 
put it on a wooden shelf in a cupboard back of the stove, back of a curtain. We 
smelled smoke but could not see where it was coming from. We thought the chimney 
was on fire as. the shelves were close to the chimney. Luckily we had plastered 
walls and discovered it in time. It did not have enough air and was put out 
before it had a chance to burn the house down.

	After Father had come home, Emild wanted to start out on his own. He went 
to a school for chiropractors in Davenport, Iowa, and later went in the army in 
World War I.

	These years it seemed we got rain in abundance and the drops flourished. 
It was wonderful to see and have. One year we had seven or eight stacks of 
wheat. Mother and Dad had worked together so hard to get them all stacked. We 
had to wait for the threshers to come, and then one night we woke up to see all 
of them in flames. It was quite a loss as grain was real high in price at that 
time--I sort of remember it was about three dollars a bushel. Luckily they were 
stacked on a little hill south of the buildings, some distance away, or all our 
buildings would have been destroyed.

	The last year of the war, we stayed home all fall, as school had been 
dismissed because of the "Spanish Influenza" as it was called. This was a 
terrible form of flu and so many who contracted it died, but we did not get it. 
We never saw anyone or went anywhere that fall. Our mail piled up to a big 
sackfull when Dad would go alone to town and just get the most important things 
done--getting groceries and needed supplies. Conrad, Theodore and myself were 
picking corn, day after day. There was so much smoke caused by a big fire in 
Minnesota at the time, but we kept at it day after day and finally got it all 
picked, even through all the cockleburrs, which were so prevalent in that 
particular field. Father hated cockleburrs and when he cultivated the corn, he 
always had some of us children follow and pull out the burrs that the cultivator 
missed. We soon found out they were a weed to kill while young before the burrs 
had a chance to develop. Meanwhile we had such an eerie lost feeling, not 
knowing or hearing from anyone. And then there was the smoke--we didn't know 
where it was coming from at the time.

	At last one late fall day, our closest neighbor, Bill Hefner, came over 
horseback to tell us that the war was over! We were so glad of that and the fact 
we were spared from the flu, which was a miracle in itself.

	All of the family worked hard doing what we could and had to do. I left to 
go to high school in Rapid City where I graduated. I then taught elementary 
school for two years before I married and moved to Canada. We moved there in 
1926 and continued to "pioneer" there. I only knew what happened in the later 
years at my old home in South Dakota through letters from the folks and my 
sisters there. We have five children --four daughters and one son. All are 
married and living in different parts of western Canada, except one daughter who 
lives in Texas. Among our twenty grandchildren, are a pair of twins and two 
great grandchildren.



Bill Hefner

A Neighbor of Homestead Days

by Myrtle Johnson Clark

	Bill Hefner was an early day settler in the country southwest of Wall, 
just south of Lincoln school on Crooked Creek. It is now part of the Roy Shull 
ranch. In giving this account of his history, I wish to say it was the 
impression that I had of him as a child.

	The early group of homesteaders (one on almost every quarter) left by 
1911. Only the hardy souls remained; some perhaps stayed because they lacked the 
money necessary to leave, and others remained who decided it couldn't get worse, 
so necessarily it must get better. So, Bill Hefner, by process of elimination, 
thus became one of our closest neighbors. He lived in a central location, on the 
main road, and a stone's throw from the school in that community. This was about 
four miles from our place.

	His home was a sort of neighborhood gathering place, and news in the 
community usually became known there first. It also seemed the welcome mat was 
always out there. No doubt the many meals folks had there, was another reason 
his place was a mecca for all the menfolk of the community. (I secretly thought 
that the reason he could not make a go of the homestead venture was because he 
had such an enormous amount of groceries to buy-perhaps my childish idea was 
more correct than I knew.

	However to go on to what I knew of him; he was a bachelor; and one reason 
that he was so popular with we children, was that he always hired housekeepers! 
These ladies often widows, with a child of school age, brightened our school-
days, for ofttimes, our family had the only children attending school, until we 
were joined by Hefner's housekeeper's children.

	To begin with Hefner's Father, who was wealthy (at least according to 
homesteader's standards) helped his sons, both Bill and John, in their homestead 
ventures. John and his wife Molly, homesteaded on a place just west of Bill and 
built a three room house and a barn. They left however, before I was old enough 
to remember them. Mr. Hefner, (we children never called a grownup by his first 
name, and it doesn't seem natural to call him anything but "Mr. Hefner"), built 
a really imposing home, according to early day standards, when every quarter had 
a hastily put together shack, built just so it was a rude shelter from the 
elements. His home would be in high style today, as it was a split level home.

	The ground floor, (and I mean ground) was a large room, about three-
fourths of it was dug out of the bank, and a room was dug off from it on the 
south, which was used as a combination pantry, root cellar, and as a cooling 
room, for that was as close as most anyone came to refrigeration. A few people 
had ice boxes, but they were almost a luxury those days. In the main room, at 
the ground level on the north, was a small window, and a large one at the south, 
where the building protruded from the bank, were the main sources of light. A 
wood floor was laid in it, and this room served as a warm room in winter and was 
cool in the summer, There was no connection except by an outside stairway to the 
three rooms above. This stairway included a veranda or a porch on the south and 
east, with a protective board railing. This was supported. by pillars on the 
east, where they were built up from ground level. The porch afforded a wonderful 
view of the surrounding country, and we all thought it was a marvelous 
structure.

	Hefner was a very pleasant neighbor, and he often came to visit. We 
enjoyed so much when he would stay and partake of the good meals Mother would 
prepare. He liked to visit and tell stories that we all delighted in, and he 
liked to share his pleasures with us.

	These experiences are ones remembered of him when we were young. One time 
I remember was when he invited all of our family over to have a meal cooked by a 
fireless cooker. This marvel, as I recall, consisted of several deep well 
containers, and each contained a heated rock. Food was then put in pans above 
these and cooked. (They must have had a hot fire in the old range to heat the 
rocks first). At least this invention evidently did not prove successful, as I 
knew of no one else ever using one!

	We also had our first automobile ride in a car Mr. Hefner bought. It was 
called by the name of "Rabbit" or something like that, and had a figure of a 
rabbit on the trim in front. It had a top that was down (like the convertibles 
nowadays). Hefner brought it to our place, (about four miles from his), under 
its own power, but we scarce had gone half a mile in it, when it quit! Dad had 
to get a team and pull it home for him! But we did get a ride, and I still 
remember those deep button-tufted leather seats. We thought it was wonderful to 
go without horses, but they had to be used to move it anyhow I Two young men, 
who had been to a mechanic school, worked for Hefner at this time. I remember 
they took the car apart to "fix it" and they never could get it together again. 
I believe to this day parts of that old "Rabbit" car may be found on that place.

	Another thing I remember was that we children earned our first money at a 
job provided by Mr. Hefner. One day after school, (it was in session later than 
usual that year, as we had to make up so much), Hefner offered all of us 
children a job picking potato bugs. This job was one all homestead kids will 
recall, as we all had to undergo this labor in our parent's potato patches! Our 
pay was to be a dime for the one getting the most bugs and a nickel for the 
other. We got a tin can with a jagged lid attached, and began our labors. When I 
think of picking those bugs, (the striped hard shelled big ones, and the 
squirmy, soft, young red ones, it gives me the creeps even now)! We also had to 
look underside of the plant and tear off the leaf where their orange eggs were 
laid; I can't even bear to think we had to take them out and count them yet; but 
I never will forget that nickel. It seemed like riches to me! The bugs were then 
covered with kerosene to hasten their demise! Those were the "days!"

	Hefner later acquired a homestead shack, better than the usual careless 
build, and he really labored to make it into a nice snug place. He then attached 
it to the west part of his split level home. We children were allowed to examine 
its building and thought it was a marvelous project. I don't know why it seemed 
to be such a wonderful job of building, but it must have had something 
different, no doubt it was "compo board"; a sort of heavy cardboard- like 
material that came in sheets! It was used to finish the walls instead of 
plaster, or the familiar blue building paper.

	I expect the thing that we younger ones, (at that time,) remember Mr. 
Hefner most for was the endless string of housekeepers, and also the men workers 
he had during the years. One group of men were digging a well, on land once 
owned by "Gumbo Lil" (Nellie Godfrey, a red haired woman, who was always trying 
to ensnare any member of the male sex to help improve her property, to fix 
house, well or fences.) At this time, while the men were digging, part of the 
well caved in, and one man suffocated. This seemed so tragic to us, as I 
remembered but one other person in that country who died, Mr. Stoe, (pronounced 
Stow/ ie), of Sage Creek, and he died of natural causes.

	A humorous episode involved another of Hefner's hired men. He was known 
only to us as "Andy", and he kept a bullsnake in the north window for a time 
between the glass and the screen. I remember that they put some mice in this 
improvised "cage" and they were always running around trying to avoid being 
devoured by the "snake" I There was a register, (ventilator for heat) in the 
floor of the upper room of the house. The men got one of their fellows, (the 
windiest one) to sit just below this register, and when he was telling one of 
his "yarns", they took out the register and got the harmless bullsnake, and made 
it into a coil, and dropped it around his neck! They never tired of telling his 
reaction to that, and of course I suppose they hoped it would "cure" him of 
telling "tall tales"! 

	The different housekeepers were remembered for various things, and as I 
hasten to remind anyone, these were things remembered from our own childhood. 
One little boy, Leo Styer was the only child besides Johnson children going to 
school at that time. Later the Peter Wasner Family came to work for Hefner. They 
had three girls going to school, Marie, (my age) and Nanda and Johanna, the ages 
of my two younger sisters. We loved to go there and play hide and seek, they 
allowed us to use that inside cellar for a hiding place. Mrs. Wasner always made 
some especially good butterscotch candy, and always kept a container of it on 
hand; we kids enjoyed that too, of course. Wasner's later moved to the John 
Hefner place and later moved north of Wall.

	Daniel Plummer was another student, whose Mother was a housekeeper at 
Hefner Is. He had been reared in the city, and tried to lord it over we "country 
kids". We thought he was a snob, and somehow we all thoroughly disliked him.

	Then the Paul Frahn family came to work for Hefner. They had two children, 
Lila and Carl. Lila was my age and it was fun having a girl in my class. Carl 
started school before I was through grade school. Mr. and Mrs. Frahn were 
wonderful neighbors and friends. Later they moved down on the Cheyenne River on 
the old "Sisson" place. Often Mrs. and the children would walk up the "breaks" 
to our place. They liked the breaks and they liked to pick the wild berries 
found there, sand cherries, currants, and buffalo berries as well as 
chokecherries. When the family would drive the team up to visit, we always sent 
home watermelons as Dad raised so many and such big ones. If it was mealtime or 
not Mother would always fix a meal when we had company, and all of we children 
enjoyed company so much. Frahn's later moved north of Wall and then back to 
Minneapolis. They have both passed on, but Lila and Carl and their families live 
there now.

	To go back to the Hefner place, another pupil who came to our school from 
there was Hurley Brennan. He was about the same age as we older Johnson 
children, and he helped make school a livelier place. When he grew up he married 
Agnes Mousseau from north of Wall, they moved to Montana, and later moved to 
Zell, South Dakota, where they still reside.

	I can't recall too many other incidents that happened out at the Hefner 
place, except he had an Arabian stallion, a real nice looking horse, white with 
black spots. Hefner would ride him all over the countryside. One housekeeper, 
Mrs. Fraser, also was quite a horsewoman, she would drive the team, go to town, 
do errands, besides cooking and keeping house. She was not afraid to ride that 
stallion, and often rode him to our place to visit. (I was always afraid of him)

	Hefner tried raising Aberdeen Angus cattle, but somehow he did not make 
out with this venture and he left the ranch and went back to Sioux City. I know 
he died later but did not know of his life after he left the farm.

	The "Hefner Place", was known for its hospitality, and Hefner always was a 
good neighbor, and also he enjoyed visits and good jokes and fun. He always 
seemed to us to be the very nicest of neighbors, not only for himself, but for 
bringing us into contact with so many others of interesting - and varied 
backgrounds.