Eastern Pennington County Memories  -- Wasta

	This information is 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 236-258

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

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Wasta

Beginning of the Town

by Jack Trople

	The town of Wasta started east of the railroad tracks and then began to 
grow to the north of the tracks. It stands on the hay meadow of William H. Reed, 
one of the finest hay meadows in the county at that time.

	The first grocery store was operated by Edward Morris about 1906.

	After the town was laid out north of the tracks, Frank Cottle of 
Smithville started a mercantile business in a very large building which he 
stocked with all the supplies needed by people in those days. Ray Traver later 
managed this business. It was called the Wasta Mercantile Store.

	The first eating place was in a tar paper shack on the east edge of town, 
owned and operated by W. C. Condon. Then he built a hotel and restaurant across 
from the Wasta Mercantile Store. It was considered a large hotel at that time 
and accommodated the travelers as they came to Wasta to take up homesteads north 
of town. It was called the Calumet Hotel.

	Eventually the town grew and another hotel was built by a Mr. Van Cleve. 
It was known as the Fairview Hotel.

	C. M. Eslick built the first livery barn and had a good business 
transporting settlers.

	A section of the Mercantile Store was partitioned off to make room for the 
first bank, called the Bank of Wasta. It was a branch of the Pennington County 
Bank of Rapid City. Orton Reed was the first cashier.

	A year later the new bank, a well-constructed brick building, was built 
just across the street from the Mercantile Store. The cashier was Charles B. 
"Cy" Hunt. Besides the bank, this new building had two other departments -- a 
drugstore operated by Barney Barnes and a post office. Two nieces of William H. 
Reed, Mary and Jenny, were the postmistresses for many years.

	Chuck Hall had the first butcher shop which was just east of the Calumet 
Hotel. A Mr. Keller operated the barber shop.

	Mrs. Manuel was the head of the Cliff House, which was a rooming house.

	On the corner was the saloon with Tom Brooks as saloon keeper. North of it 
was another saloon run by B. F. Lypsus.

	The next building down the street housed the jewelry store, owned by 
Thomas Friet, and also an ice cream parlor.

	Across the street from there to the east was the Peter Mintner Lumber 
Company. North of it was the Greenwood Lumber Company operated by Clarence 
Dowling.

	Ernest Wilbur conducted a business which was a necessity in those days-- a 
blacksmith shop.

	William Kalkbrenner was one of the early operators of the Red Barn, a 
livery stable. When it was operated later by my brother, Stanes, I worked for 
him and we were kept busy hauling homesteaders to Red Owl, White Owl and all of 
the north country. We also had to make many drives with the doctor through all 
kinds of weather.

	One of the first doctors was Dr. McKeckney. Dr. Reedy came later. But the 
best known was Dr. A. A. Heinemann who came to Wasta in 1912 and practiced until 
his death in 1962. He was a member of the school board for twenty-two years.

	School was held in the Catholic and Methodist Churches as there was no 
school building.

	The town grew and at one time was larger than the town of Wall. Its slogan 
"The Live Town on the Cheyenne" was known for miles around.

	Many baseball games were played between Wall and Wasta and usually ended 
in a fight because Wasta had the better team.

	A disastrous fire August 9, 1914 wiped out many buildings in the business 
section. Jewelry moved out of Friets Jewelry Store was stolen from the show 
cases while the fire was being brought under control.

	Some old ranchers in the vicinity were: Dan Shyne, two miles north of 
Wasta; John Z. Reed, two miles east; Charles Bruce, three miles south; Frank 
Lee, five miles south and the Underwood Ranch, four miles south of town.

	As for myself, I landed in Wasta in 1902. I was employed by William H. 
Reed. Another man working for him at that time was Robert Bruce. We used to mow 
and stack hay where the town of Wasta is situated today. I spent part of my life 
in the employment of James Cox with the Spanish Five outfit fifteen miles north 
of Wasta. I was with the Spanish Five during the last round-up east of Sturgis 
working a bucksaw wagon. The foreman was Otto Cooper.

	In 1912, I joined the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company and turned 
my ranch holdings over to my brother Albert. After spending forty-four years in 
continuous service with the railroad, I retired October 7, 1955.

	One of my early memories is of freighting oats and baled hay with my 
brother Stanes from Rapid City to the W. J. Rusk outfit building the railroad 
grade in 1904. Two hundred mules provided the power necessary for this grading.

	I have spent all of my life in Pennington County, mostly at Wasta.

Signed

[Signature - Jack Trople Wasta S. D.]

[Photo - Town of Wasta in the early days]

[Photo - Section Crew from Wasta]

[Photo - Wasta - 1929]

[Photo - Roundup Crew]

[Photo - Engineer's camp on Bull Creek]

[Photo - Joe Bruce, J. W. Marity, Clint McDonald, Fergie the cook at the 
Roundup.]

[Photo - Another big roundup.]

[Photo - Roundup wagons and saddle horses crossing the Cheyenne River.]



Mr. and Mrs. Jack Trople

by Sylvia Reul

	When Karina Siem was a young girl in Indre Arne, Norway, she had two 
ambitions. One was to learn to sew and the other was to get to America. She 
realized both.

	Indre Arna was a small community that looked out over the Atlantic ocean. 
Karina attended the first eight grades of school there and later went to nearby 
Bergen, Norway to take a two-year course in sewing. She worked in a shirt 
factory in the winter and spent the summers at home with her parents, two 
brothers and a sister.

	As children they climbed the large trees along the coast and watched the 
ships pass by. If anyone picked on Karina they were just liable to get banged on 
the head with a wooden shoe. She could take her shoe off, hit them with it, put 
it on and run away before they realized what was happening.

	On April 1, 1910, Karina sailed for America. It was spring in Norway--
apple and cherry blossoms were visible everywhere. She was 19. The clothes she 
took with her were of her own making.

	Twenty-one days later she arrived at Wasta and got her first view of 
gumbo. There was snow and mud--mud and more mud. Her home had been spacious, but 
here in the rapidly growing West, many people lived in shacks.

	She made her home with an uncle John Asheim and his family at Elm Springs.

	Altho she couldn't speak English when she first arrived in America, it 
didn't take long for her to pick it up. Since it was easier to understand than 
to be understood, she spent much time listening to conversations on the party 
line telephone. She carried a little book with her at all times and wrote down 
new words that gave her trouble.

	The only time she remembers her aunt being impatient with her for not 
understanding was one day when they were papering. Her aunt was on the ladder 
holding the paper which had developed a wrinkle. She wanted to cut it and asked 
Karina to hand her the scissors. The word just didn't register. She was sent 
outside to find her uncle. Scissors was one word she never forgot.

	Something she truly missed in South Dakota was water.

	"About all I saw was in a barrel. One day they said we were going fishing 
and I thought now I am going to see some water. We went to a water hole and they 
seined out some fish. It wasn't like I had expected it to be."

	"In Bergen, Norway, there were fish markets right on the edge of the water 
and you could get any kind of fish you wanted. They would catch and kill them 
for you right there."

	Mail from Norway has always been a special treat. Karina used to walk 
nearly three miles across the meadows to get the mail and her uncle asked her 
what she would do if she saw a rattlesnake or a skunk.

	"What would I do? I guess I would just run in the opposite direction," she 
replied. In the old days in Norway, she would probably have taken after a snake 
with her wooden shoe.

	Mail from Oslo now reaches her one day sooner then letters mailed from San 
Diego.

	Karina has always made most of her own clothes.

	That first year in America she bought only one new dress for the 4th of 
July celebration, otherwise she wore just the things from Norway and felt well 
dressed as anyone.

	Besides being a good seamstress, she could cook and made good use of that 
talent at the Calumet Hotel in Wasta. Claim seekers came daily by train and left 
on the stage to seek out new land. There was always a crowd to feed and Wasta 
was a good sized town.

	As you might suspect, a pretty girl who could cook and sew, was soon 
making her wedding dress.

	Jack Trople was born just west of Rapid City in 1888. His father was 
employed in Charlie Marshalls brick yard.

	He grew up on a ranch 25 miles east of Rapid City and later came to his 
present location to work for various cow outfits. Some of these were the Spanish 
5, Bill Reed and Jim Cox. The valley where Wasta lies was covered with tall 
grass and Jack remembers making hay over the area.

	About 1911, he and his brother went into the livery business and Jack did 
a substantial amount of driving to take new settlers to their homesteads. It was 
on one of these trips that he met Karina.

	Her Norwegian speech didn't keep her from catching a beau, she had her eye 
on Jack from the start. One of their first dates was at a barn dance at the Arlo 
Angel's. Several couples went over to the house for breakfast after the dance. 
Jack's team was a foxy one, and they thought it best to wait until daylight to 
start home.

	In 1911, Karina Siem married Jack Trople at the Patton Hotel in Rapid 
City. They have made their home in Wasta since that time and have lived in Wasta 
longer than any other resident. They are the parents of one daughter, Mrs. C. M. 
Schwartz, Rapid City.

	Jack started work as foreman on the North Western Railroad in 1912 and 
continued on the job until he retired in 1955. When he started there were no 
motor cars on the railroad so he made one. It was a great improvement over the 
old hand-driven ones.

	Trople was extra gang foreman for the Chicago, North Western from 1916 
through 1949. During those years he was boss of as many as 150 men at a time. He 
worked from Belle Fourche to Arlington.

	Crews working for Trople built the spur into the sugar factory at Belle 
Fourche and the spur from Box Elder into Ellsworth Air Force Base. He was loaned 
by the railroad to England and Trautman Construction Co. to supervise the spur 
installation at the Sioux Fall Air Base.

	Trople remembers the flood of 1920 when the entire east Approach of the 
Cheyenne River bridge east of Wasta was washed out making considerable work for 
the crews.

	Although Trople was a section foreman for 44 years, he is not exactly what 
you would call a welltraveled man. In his lifetime he has been west only to 
Beulah, Wyo., north to Red Owl, south to Omaha and east to Rochester, Minn.

	Even though he has a railroad pass in his pocket Mrs. Trople complains "I 
can't get him to go anywhere."

	Now at 70, Jack is learning to farm and enjoy it. He is working part time 
at the Leonel Jensen ranch, southeast of Wasta. He is on the job day after day 
riding tractor or helping in other capacities while Karina stays home and sews.

[Photo - Jack Trople]

[Photo The Jack Troples - 1925]

[Photo - Mr. and Mrs. Jack Trople - 1929]

[Photo Karina Trople]



Mr. and Mrs. Joe Bruce

	Joe Bruce, a Veteran cowpuncher, was born June 21, 1876 in Ontario, Canada 
and came to Scotland, S. Dak. at the age of two. When he was thirteen he came 
with his parents, by covered wagon on the Deadwood Trail, to what is now the 
town of Wasta. He always said, "I walked into this country but I will never walk 
out."

	Their house which was located three miles south of Wasta, below the mouth 
of the Box Elder, was of green logs, with a pole and dirt roof. Portholes were 
put in strategic places to guard against possible attacks by the Indians, but 
they were really quite friendly to the newcomers.

	The postoffice at that time was at Dakota City and was moved to Wasta in 
1907.

	During the years when he was a young man, he worked for the railroad which 
was completed in 1907. He also worked for horse and cow outfits, one of which 
was Corb Morse outfit, the 6L. Later he worked for Frank Cottle, who ran the 
settler's store and post office in Smithville, northwest of Wall.

	A few of the old cowboys he worked with were Pete Lemley, Ed Swinehart, Ed 
and Elmer Humphrey, George Gunn and Tom Welsh. They all took part in the Last 
Roundup in 1908, between the White and Cheyenne Rivers.

	Joe was married to the former Mildred Marsden in November of 1912.

	Mildred Marsden Bruce was born in Albion Prairie, Wisc. on July 19, 1887, 
and came to South Dakota with her father, to homestead on land, in 1909. Her 
homestead was part of the ranch now owned by her brother Gordon Marsden 
southwest of Wall.

	Mr. and Mrs. Bruce lived on the ranch south of Wasta which was the 
original homesite of his parents. Their neighbor and good friend, who owned the 
ranch adjoining them, was Joe Meiners. The two ranchers worked together with 
their threshing machine, icingrig and haying equipment. Joe was often heard to 
say he couldn't have asked for a better neighbor than Joe Meiners.


	Social life among the many good friends and neighbors on both sides of the 
river were family get-togethers at dances in the George Gunn home with George 
and Frank Lee playing their fiddles. Also picnics at the Frank Lee and Louis 
Jensen picnic groves. These were always a welcome get-together of the Louis 
Jensens, Gordon Marsdens, Frank Lees, George Gunns, Joe Meiners, Bob and Joe 
Bruces as well as scores of other friends.

	The Bruces moved to Wasta in the fall of 1925 and lived there until Mr. 
Bruce passed away in June of 1956 and Mrs. Bruce in September of 1964. Both were 
active in the school, church and town activities, serving on the Boards of all 
three groups through the years. Joe was a charter member of the Wasta I.O.O.F. 
and both were charter members of the Wasta Rebekah Lodge. Joe was also a forty-
year member of the Rapid City Masonic Lodge and an Honorary member of the 
Crescent Lodge of Wall.

	The Bruces had four children, Beulah, a teacher in Cheyenne, Wyo., Wilma 
(Mrs. Norbert Mutchler) Rapid City, Cathern, (Mrs. Ralston Bailey) Boise, Idaho 
and Charles, who is the Standard Oil Bulk dealer in Wasta. They had two 
granddaughters and four grandsons.

[Photo - Joe Bruce, barbering]

[Photo - Claim shack of Joe Bruce]

[Photo - Mildred Marsden Bruce, Gordon and Margaret Marsden.]

[Photo - Charles, Catherine, Mr. and Mrs. Bruce, Beulah and Wilma.]



Stories by Joe Bruce as told to Leonel Jensen:

As Told To Leonel Jensen

	Joe Bruce of Wasta used to ride with me when I was visiting Masonic Lodges 
during my term as Grand Master of Masons of S.D. and he used to tell me stories 
of his pioneer days. Some of these I remember.

	Joe grew up on the Cheyenne River south of Wasta and was a young man 
during the Indian scare of 1890. At that time the Government issued a single 
shot rifle and 100 rounds of ammunition to all men in the territory who were 
fourteen years old or older. Joe and another boy got one and one day as they 
were on the banks of the Cheyenne they saw an Indian with three horses coming 
through the timber. The boys hid in a willow patch and as the Indian came nearer 
they could hear the bells that were around the horses necks. Obviously the 
Indian was not trying to move quietly. Joe's companion leveled his rifle with 
the intention of shooting but Joe talked him out of it. Joe told me that on a 
number of occasions since that incident he has awakened at night feeling 
grateful that he was not a part of the killing of an innocent Indian.

	On one occasion there was a dance at Dakota City and during the night a 
cowboy went out to the corrals where he found an Indian in the act of stealing a 
pony. The cowboy shot him and when the crowd from the dance rushed out to see 
what the shooting was about the cowboy scalped the Indian and handed the scalp 
to one of the dance hall girls who had come down from Rapid City to attend this 
dance. She hung the scalp on her belt and danced the rest of the night with it 
hanging there. Altho some of the people at the dance laughed about it Joe said 
most everyone was very disgusted with the whole affair.

	Joe also told of another incident during the Indian scare which concerned 
some other people. A number of miles further down the Cheyenne a group of 
cowboys had come together in a log cabin for protection. They had made a fort 
out of the cabin and had port holes from which to shoot. One night they heard 
someone outside who was calling to them. They could tell it was an Indian but 
were afraid of an attack so they talked it over and aiming at the sound of the 
strangers voice they all fired. When daylight came they found they had killed an 
Indian policeman, they learned later that he had been sent to tell the settlers 
that the danger was over. Not wanting to incriminate themselves they cut a hole 
in the ice in the river and shoved the body under the ice. The Indian's horses 
they shot in a ravine and caved a shale bank over them.

	Joe was a part of the last roundup on Lake Flat in 1902. He said it was 
one of the best summers he ever had. There was the usual grub wagon that carried 
the cowboys bed rolls, the extra saddle horses and everything that made up a 
western roundup. He told of a number of pranks that the cowboys would pull on 
one another but he said they were not always friendly. He said one of the best 
ways of settling an argument was for two cowboys to take their lariat ropes to 
form a small loop as if they were going to rope a calf then use the ropes to 
whip each other with. When I remarked that that could not hurt as bad as a fist 
fight he just said "try it some time." Since then I have and it could be quite a 
fight.

	Joe worked for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad when they were 
building the railroad grade between Wasta and Wall, through Bull Creek. He said 
they camped out there and that there were hundreds of mules and horses used in 
the construction work. It was quite a sight and there was usually some 
excitement when the horses and mules were rounded up in the mornings and 
harnessed for work.

	During the 1950's Will Robinson, State Historian for South Dakota visited 
with Joe and had him locate a number of historical points along the Cheyenne 
River.

	Joe also told me that in Crooked Creek there were large Cottonwood trees. 
The burial ground for the Indians was in the tops of these trees on scaffolding. 
When riding thru here Joe would find human bones that had fallen out of trees.

[Photo - Bob Bruce and his dray team in early days in Wasta. Bob was later the 
Standard Oil Bulk Dealer from about 1922  to 1952, when he retired and the 
family moved to Greeley, Colorado.]



Homestead Memories

by Mrs. Byron Jones

	My father, Elias J. Aaron, took a claim north of Wasta, I think about 1909 
or 1910. My oldest sister was with father to keep the "home" together and I 
suppose I was with them for company, I being about six years old.

	I remember a rattlesnake bit one of the horses and she died the following 
winter. Also we had a bachelor neighbor, Carl Hacket, who lived close to US.

	I suppose they figured the prairie was a little too wild as they put me on 
the train, in care of the conductor and sent me back to Lake Preston, South 
Dakota. Some of the passengers tried to comfort me but I was in no mood for 
their friendship.

	My husband's people, Mr. and Mrs. Sam Jones and family, homesteaded around 
Wall.

	Sam Jones drove the stage from Wall to Pedro from 1910 to 1914. He hauled 
passengers, cans of cream, and anything that needed to be taken from place to 
place.

	His homestead was nine miles north of Wall (1906). This he sold to Alonzo 
Mills in 1910 and moved about one mile north of Wall where they resided until 
the fall of 1914, at which time their home burned. They moved then about a mile 
east of Wall to the Rosenbrook homestead.

	Alonzo Mills was the father of Dr. George W. Mills now of Wall.

	In March 1915 they left for Foley, Minnesota, where two of the boys still 
reside.

	Mrs. Sam Jones and daughter, Inez, taught the Kitterman, Allburn, and 
Pleasant View schools, at various times.



Ben Williamson Story

by Sylvia Reul

	In 1910 when the Ben Williamson family moved from Calhoon County, Iowa, to 
a farm about four miles northeast of Owanka, they were accompanied by two other 
families, the Ben Greenwalt's and the Sam Willianson's. Some of the men who had 
come ahead met the train at Owanka and drove the group home in a wagon. The trip 
was quite an introduction to the state of South Dakota, for "The first thing we 
knew we were up to the hubs in gumbo. When we reached the house, Aunt Kate (Mrs. 
Sam Williamson) hurried upstairs in her good black dress and came immediately in 
an old gray cotton one, which she deemed more suitable for this gumbo country, 
Mrs. Williamson recalls.

	Though he had bought the place they were living on, Ben decided to 
homestead some land and the family moved a year later near near Lantry north and 
east of Faith on both the Standing Rock and Cheyenne Reservations. The move was 
made by covered wagon and took nearly two weeks to complete. They pitched tent 
at night and everyone helped with the necessary work involved.

	It was late spring when they arrived at the homestead house, which had 
been built the year before and was ready for occupancy. The most urgent thing of 
course, was to get the land. broken up in time to plant the later crops of corn 
and watermelons. Many of the neighbors were Indians, but very friendly and 
helpful. The year was extremely dry and fuel for the following winter consisted 
mainly of cowchips.

	Of the four years they lived on the homestead, two of them were spent by 
Ben and the older boys working in harvest fields in North Dakota, since their 
own crops were inadequate.

	They never lacked for something to do. The mother in the nearby Speaker 
family died of typhoid fever, and Mrs. Williamson helped care for those 
youngsters along with her own eight children. The Speakers were good friends and 
neighbors and some of the children still live around Lantry.

	Any entertainment those days was in the home. Sometimes they square danced 
to an old phonograph, with an accompanying violin. Sunday always meant a 
houseful of company, which Mrs. Williamson especially enjoyed. "I always wanted 
a crowd around," she said. "Sunday School was held in the various homes also, 
and we never spent the day alone. I didn't mind the extra cooking."

	After four years, the homestead was sold for $25.00 an acre and the family 
again prepared to move to the homeplace near Owanka. This was accomplished  
by covered hayrack and wagons. Mrs. Williamson recalls that the stove was in the 
center of the wagon and she sat nearby to cook meals. When they came to a hill 
she would remove the pans of food from the stove to the floor of the wagon, get 
out and walk down the hills. This she insisted upon.

	At the farm northeast of Owanka, another son was born, making a total of 
six boys and three girls. The youngsters were expected to help with the work and 
they did. Wayne was the only one who did not care to adopt South Dakota as his 
home and went back to Iowa.

	"I was always so glad I didn't have to raise my family in town," she 
stated. "I think it's just as easy to raise a large family because they learn to 
help one another. I never did much worrying--it wouldn't have helped me and it 
wouldn't help the family. Our children were healthy and strong, that was a lot 
to be thankful for."

	Ben had a threshing rig and harvested grain around Owanka for many years. 
Threshing, though it involved a lot of hard work in the sun, was also 
accompanied by all sorts of pranks. When the men came in to wash for dinner out 
by the pump stand, someone was sure to fire a pail of water on some unsuspecting 
soul who may have complained of the heat.

	Inside would be a table so heavily laden with food that the jokes were put 
aside while heaping bowls of mashed potatoes, huge platters of crisp fired 
chicken, sliced tomatoes, homemade cottage cheese, vegetables, salads, pickles 
and jelly were passes. The food was grown on the place and prepared for the 
table. All baked goods came from an oven in a wood and coal range. Regardless of 
the soaring temperatures, the stove was hot enough to turn the faces of the 
cooks about it, a bright red.

	Long were the hours spent by the ladies preparing such a feast. Enough 
bread must be baked to feed perhaps twenty hungry men. Large pans of apples were 
pared to fill a dozen crusts. An adequate amount of butter was churned, 
vegetables gathered and chickens dressed. When the men had satisfied their 
appetites and gone out to work, plates were cleared so the women and children 
could eat. Then followed hours of washing dishes and preparing for the next 
meal. Many of the neighborhood women congregated at each home to help with 
additional work and to visit. In ways it was an exciting time and looked forward 
to by people such as the Williamsons, who enjoyed having a crowd around.

	Picnics held at their place sometimes brought 65 adults and children to 
join in the fun. All kinds of races, including three-legged race, egg race, 
horse race and foot races, were run and prizes given to the winners. There were 
various other games to satisfy each age group, and a sumptuous feast, complete 
with cake and ice cream, again in the afternoon.

	After the family moved to the town of Owanka, they saw no idle days, for 
all were active in community life. Mrs. Williamson did her share of work in the 
Rebekah Lodge and the Ladies Aid and the Owanka church. She could always be 
depended upon in time of sickness or other misfortune. Ben belonged to the Odd 
Fellows Lodge. Although the family moved to several different locations in or 
near Owanka, they were always near enough to take part in the community affairs.

	Through the years they have no doubt had more large gatherings than any 
other group within many miles.

	Probably the most elaborate affair and the one requiring the most 
preparation was on February 5, 1946, when Ben and Della celebrated their golden 
wedding anniversary. Gold engraved invitations, 175 of them, were sent to 
friends and relatives. Original plans had been to hold open house at the family 
home in the afternoon and evening, but South Dakota weather is very 
unpredictable, and that day turned out to be cold and blizzardy. Although many 
people were kept away, a sizable crowd of about 60 gathered at the IOOF Hall in 
Owanka for dinner. No bridal reception could have been lovelier, with a 
decorated three-tiered wedding cake, a yellow jonquil by each gold-trimmed 
plate, and the hall decorated with crepe paper and beautiful bouquets of 
flowers.

	Between courses of the dinner, a clever skit written by Lottie German 
reviewing the couple's life, was read by Ferne Greenwalt, with appropriate music 
by Bonnie Winchell.

	J. L. Robbins of Rapid City was the only guest present who had attended 
the Williamsons wedding. They were married at the home of his parents in Sac 
City, Iowa, and Joe played their wedding march.

	In 1955, their 59th wedding anniversary was celebrated in Owanka with open 
house and all the family present. Rapid City, New 'Underwood, Viewfield, 
Wicksville, Wasta, Wall, the Base Line community and Owanka were all represented 
at this gathering.

	February 5, 1956, however, found Mrs. Williamson a patient in the New 
Underwood Hospital, but the 60th anniversary was  observed in much the same way 
as usual, with all of the family present except one, a big cake and all sorts of 
festivities.

Later in the same year Mr. Williamson also was hospitalized for several months, 
after which a home was purchased in New Underwood and was cared for by Mrs. 
Winchell for a year or two after which they were placed in the Marie Shelton 
Rest Home in Rapid City where they spent their remaining years. Mr. Williamson 
passed away in the fall of 1959 and Mrs. Williamson in January of 1964.

[Photo - The Williamson Family - 1927  Back row: Dora, Wayne, Fred, Bennie, Roy, 
Frank.  Front row: Mr. and Mrs. Williamson, Arlo, Marie and Vada.]

[Photo - Ben and Dell Williamson on their 59th Wedding Anniversary]



Dr. A. A. Heinemann

	Dr. A. A. Heinemann was Wasta's pioneer doctor and played an important 
part in many lives in this area. Much of the information received on the life of 
this doctor has been taken from a newspaper article published about him in 1956 
and written by Sylvia Reul. Dr. Heinemann passed away in 1962.

	Albert Heinemann was the son of Rev. and Mrs. A. Heinemann and was born on 
August 8, 1877 in Defiance, Ohio. After he graduated from grammar school he 
attended Wisconsin College for three years and graduated from Rush Medical 
College, Chicago, Illinois, in 1901. On December 31 of that same year he married 
Clara Millar of Winnepeg, Canada.

	Growing a beard almost cost Dr. Heinemann his bride-to-be. Years ago, 
while away at North Chicago Clinic taking a six-month post-graduate course in 
obstetrics, he decided his youthful appearance might not win the confidence of 
women patients. They no doubt would prefer an older man who looked the part of a 
full-fledged doctor. Thus the beard, which he kept a secret until his return.

	The change from a neat little mustache to a full Van Dyke was too much for 
the girl he had come home to marry. Finally some of the older women convinced 
her the beard was typical of professional men. It gained respect and prestige 
and she would soon get used to the idea. This explanation seemed logical and so 
they were married.

	In 1902 they moved to Parkston and from there to Menno. In 1907 they 
homesteaded near Philip and later moved into town where he started his own 
hospital.

	Roads in the west were merely wagon trails at that time. The horse and 
buggy doctor was a true friend to all his patients and was often called upon to 
cure more than physical ills. He was someone people felt they could confide in 
and the confidence would be a private matter. Living near the doctor who brought 
them into the world and perhaps sat with dying relatives made him seem a part of 
every family.

	The physician moved to Wasta Dec. 7, 1912, in a high-wheeled auto over 
roads that were still mostly wagon trails. His car was one of the first west of 
the Cheyenne River. He drove cars since 1909 and could boast of never having an 
accident.

	During the flu epidemic of 1918-19, he traveled hundreds of miles between 
isolated places. On one trip he had to use five relays to reach his destination. 
There were often whole families sick and he would finally snatch a few hours 
rest on the floor with his overcoat as a pillow. It was said that many of the 
Cheyenne Indians were patients and unable to pay in cash so the doctor had a 
large collection of beads and other Indian handiwork. But it was not only 
Indians who were unable to pay their medical bills. Cream, meat, beans, and many 
other things were taken in place of money from a good share of his patients.

	His practice sometimes took him as far as Red Owl, Pedro, White Owl and 
Enning, besides the vast area around Wall and Quinn. He remembered abandoning 
his car on more than one occasion to go on foot to some isolated ranch home. 
Risks were also great when he was flown to scattered areas of the West River 
country, because some of the trips were made in such haste. Mrs. Heinemann made 
him promise to quit flying after two of his pilots were killed while they were 
flying alone.

	Many of the people in the Creighton area were of German-Russian parentage, 
and having the doctor speak to them in their native tongue was an added 
consolation. He also spoke some French, as Mrs. Heinemann came to Yankton from 
France with her parents when she was five years old.

	Mr. Heinemann once said this: "Shortly after I came to Wasta, a farmer's 
team of horses were killed by lightning. Some of the fellows passed the hat and 
were able to collect $300 so the man could drive a new team back to his home. 
The western spirit has always made this part of the country seem different from 
anywhere else, and I wouldn't care to live anywhere but here."

	Dr. Heinemann served as surgeon for the Chicago Northwestern Railway since 
1907. He had been a member of the Masonic Order since 1905 and was a member of 
the Masonic Lodge No. 25 of Rapid City and a member of the Knight Templers and 
Mystic Shrine of Deadwood. While in Wasta he held many local public offices 
including school board member, treasurer of the Wasta Fire Department, member of 
the Wasta Town Board and was justice of the peace for over twenty years. He was 
the oldest member of the Methodist Church of Wasta at the time of his death and 
he helped to pioneer many organizations in Wasta.

	The Heinemanns had four daughters born to them. One daughter, Mrs. Loretta 
Groth died several years ago and the other three daughters, Mrs. Vera White, 
Mrs. B. Griffith and Mrs. Howard Bandy are all living in California. In 
December, 1961, Mr. and Mrs. Heinemann celebrated their 60th wedding 
anniversary. Mrs. Heinemann is living in the home of a daughter in California.

	Mrs. Reul in her newspaper article about the Heinemanns, ends her story in 
a fitting paragraph and we quote: "Smooth-shaven now, the doctor still has a 
youthful appearance. When talking to them it isn't necessary to ask if Mrs. 
Heinemann thinks it was worth having him grow a beard before starting his 
profession. Pride in her husband shines through whenever they start discussing 
early experiences, and you know that she has never regretted marrying a 'horse 
and buggy doctor."'

[Photo - Dr. A. A. Heinemann, driving from Philip to Wasta. His car was one of 
the first west of the Cheyenne.]

[Photo - Dr. Heinemann at age 27]

[Photo - Dr. and Mrs. A. A. Heinemann]



The Frank Lee Family

by William Lee& Inez Lee Paulsen

	We came to South Dakota in the spring of 1898 with our parents Frank and 
Dora Lee. We came from Brighton, Colorado in a covered wagon. We were two or 
three weeks on the road as it rained part of the time making the roads muddy and 
some of the streams too high to cross and we would have to waft until the water 
went down. One of our horses died from a rattle snake bite and Papa had to find 
another horse to buy.

	We lived in the valley east of Rapid City about five years and then moved 
to a ranch on the Cheyenne River about three miles south of Dakota City, which 
at that time was a country store and Post Office run by a man by the name of 
Charles Belknap. A man on horse back carried the mail, from Rapid City, a 
distance of fifty miles and Mr. Belknap hauled the supplies for his store from 
Rapid City with teams and wagons.

	It was in 1903 that we moved here. Papa hauled the lumber from Rapid City 
with four horses to build a new house. Our house was warm and well built and 
there were lots of trees near by to cut for wood. Ranch houses were from five to 
fifteen miles apart with no roads, only trails - few fences and no telephones. 
Later the Rapid Valley Telephone Co. built through Rapid Valley, Farmingdale, 
Creston and to Dakota City and the ranches along the Cheyenne River.

	No one ever locked their doors even if they were gone for several days. If 
one of the neighbors came by it was customary for them to go in and help 
themselves to anything that they could find to eat and they usually left a note. 
Many Indians came by in the fall taking their children to Rapid City to go to 
school. They would stop and talk to us and ask if we had something to trade, but 
never came into our house.

	According to the custom at that time our folks turned about 300 head of 
cattle out on the open range the first day of May in 1905. It started to rain on 
the second of May, turned to sleet on the third, then to a howling blizzard on 
the fourth and fifth. Cattle from north and west of our place drifted by our 
house by the hundreds and fell over a twenty foot bank into the icy waters of 
the Cheyenne River and drowned. This happened many other places along the river 
and when the storm was over and the water receded the sand bars were literally 
covered with dead cattle.

	There was a triangular wedge of ice frozen on every tree trunk and on the 
north and west sides of our house this slab of ice was about four inches thick.

	Most of the cattle that our folks turned out drifted with the storm and 
fell over the Pinnacles of the BadLands south of Wall. Less then fifty of the 
three hundred were found alive. The men skinned as many of the dead cattle as 
they could and hauled the hides to Rapid City and sold them.

	The Northwestern Railway started to survey the road from Pierre to Rapid 
City in 1905. Our dad and uncle, Frank Morris furnished beef to the surveying 
camps. Then came the grading crews. They used two beeves a day while they were 
building from the Bull Creek Hill through what is now Wasta to Owanka.

	The building of the railroad opened up a new country for homesteading and 
brought in many people and closed up most of the free range. Most of the 
homesteaders just built little 12 by 14 or 16 foot shacks with a door and one 
window. They would have a wood stove and built in bunk bed. Many of them only 
stayed long enough to prove up on their land, which at that time took 14 months. 
The ones who stayed bought up some of these little houses and moved them 
together to make a larger house.

	The year of 1906 was wet and the Cheyenne River was too high to ford most 
of the time. Our folks kept two boats, one anchored on each side of the river to 
ferry the incoming homesteaders across. As we had land on both sides of the 
river the men often crossed in the morning to put up hay and by evening the 
river would be so high they would have to leave their horses and cross in the 
boat.

	In 1911 it was so dry that there was no summer pasture and no hay to cut 
for winter so most of the ranchers had to sell their cattle to keep them from 
starving. We always had beef to eat through the fall and winter and in the 
summer we caught cat fish out of the river. There were rabbits to hunt and Mama 
always raised a few chickens.

	We walked three miles to school along the river breaks and in the winter 
our lunch would be frozen when we got to school and sometimes hardly thawed out 
by noon. In the mid-winter it would be getting dark when we got home from school 
and sometimes coyotes would follow along the trail behind us. They probably 
wouldn't have bothered us, but it did make us hurry along. There were still a 
few gray wolves and they would kill cattle, but didn't come near our house.

	Several times during the winter the neighbors would get together and dance 
in one of the larger houses. As the roads weren't fit to travel in the dark, we 
would go in the late afternoon and stay until daylight. Each lady took either 
sandwiches or cake for lunch and anyone who could play a violin, guitar, 
mandolin or even a mouth harp was called on to play for the dancing. One time 
there was a dance at our Uncle Frank Morris's house. It started raining and the 
river got so high that the whole crowd had to stay for three days.

	We were fifty miles from the nearest Doctor, but Mama kept castor oils, 
onion syrup and camphor, and that seemed to cure everything. When we went away 
from home where we might catch some contagious disease she tied a little bag of 
asafetida around our necks to keep the germs away. Maybe it did or maybe it just 
kept the other children away. Anyway we were real well most of the time and grew 
up without anything very bad happening to us.

[Photo - Frank and Dora Lee and children, William and Inez - 1910]

[Photo - The Frank Lee Ranch in 1915.]

[Photo - Frank Lee standing near ice gorge on Cheyenne River.]



The Batterman Story

by Frieda B. Tupper.

	My father, Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Batterman was born in Nammen, 
Germany on December 10, 19 76. He attended the Military Academy in Mittag and 
studied forestry. After graduation he worked in this profession until 1911. In 
1904 he married Minna Henritta Johanna Siegmeyer who was born on September 29, 
1884 in Lippe Detmold, Germany. They lived in a typical house-barn combination 
dwelling in the village of Barkhausen. It was here that Anna was born on 
September 19, 1905, and Margarethei on July 17, 1907, and Friedrich III on 
February 2, 1909.

	A fire completely destroyed the home in Barkhausen, and after Father had 
completed his military obligation, which lasted 20 years, he immigrated to the 
United States. He sailed on October 9, 1911, and arrived in Crofton, Nebraska 
where he had distant relatives living. He was met at the train by the Kramer 
family, and according to cousin Frieda Kramer, "he stepped off the platform with 
a flourish, probably the most dressed up man I'd ever seen." He was wearing his 
tuxedo wedding clothes and tall, silk, stove-pipe hat, which was subsequently 
worn in many class plays in Wall and Wasta and is one of the family's heirlooms 
to this day.

	Father's intention was to farm in the Nebraska locale, but his cousin 
August Kramer, who had homesteaded in Western South Dakota, talked him into 
filing a claim also. The two ferried across the Missouri river at Yankton, S. 
Dakota, and took an immigrant train car to Rapid City and then to Wall, S. 
Dakota.

	A provision in the Homestead Act of 1862 stated that any alien desiring to 
file a claim for a homestead, must first declare his intention to become a 
United States citizen. While in Rapid City, Father did both, but it must be 
clearly stated that the "spirit" of America was his first love, and that the 
"land" was second. "Free land" did not interest him very much, for he was a 
stouthearted, independent man, willing to work for the right to stay in this 
country of opportunity, where he could enjoy freedom above all. He permitted his 
cousin and the "land-locator" to persuade him regarding the few claims that were 
left. Understandably, by 1911 most of the best land was taken. When he was given 
a choice of claims on the "flat" of endless prairie where no trees were growing 
and no water flowed, against a claim near a creek where trees of all kinds grew 
in abundance, his forester-heart quite naturally chose the latter. Neither the 
cousin or the locator dispelled his dream by telling him the truth of the semi-
arid, snake-infested land, and the treacherous Bullcreek that was winding its 
way like a great reptile in the Cheyenne river bottom.

	Having made his choice, however, good or bad, he determined to make the 
best of it, and set out at once to make a home for his wife and three children. 
They came on October 16, 1912 arriving on the ship Wilhelm derr Grosse (William 
the Great). If America seemed vast and terrifying to Mamma as she crossed the 
great mid-west with her three little ones, it was mild to the fear and 
loneliness that engulfed her when she traveled the great Plain States, and South 
Dakota, with its sprinkling of tar-papered shacks and drought-stricken sod, 
seemed like the end of the world to her. She was used to a large house, a 
beautiful garden with a profusion of flowers, fruit trees and shrubs, but her 
first home in America was one of those one-room, tar-papered shacks which stood 
on the farm that Father had rented while he was "proving up" on his claim. It 
was so tiny that the children had to sleep in a portion of the old barn that was 
partitioned off as a granary, but they slept warm under featherbeds brought from 
Germany.

	The summer of 1913 was very dry, the little shack was boiling hot, and all 
the arduous spring work and hopes of a garden disappeared with the burning winds 
that swept the prairie. The food was very scarce all this time, and about all 
the family had to eat were a few bushels of small potatoes, and some shriveled 
roasting ears. When they finally got a milk cow, she was a most wonderful 
blessing.

	It was in this lonely, desert shack that I was born on September 16, 1913. 
The Batterman family moved from the shack the next spring, 1914, and lived for 
about a year in the Hurley store building which was located just East and South 
of the Section House in the Bullcreek basin. Anna once said of this building, 
"the inside of the store had a great, potbellied stove that stood in one corner. 
One side of the wall was lined with shelves, and it had a beautiful floor of 
white maple. I especially remember the floor as I helped scrub the huge thing. 
Once, after one of those scrubbings there was a country dance. All the neighbors 
came together, even a buggyload from Wasta. Someone had a fiddle, another an 
accordian, and the ladies brought cake. Mother cooked coffee, and everybody had 
a wonderful time." This store building was about one mile from Father's claim, 
where he was building a frame, tarpapered house. He built only in the evening as 
he was also working on the Section for Jack Trople, under Section boss John 
Disney and later under Ab Beeson. The house he was building was a three-room, 
well constructed house, which still stands in Bullcreek, although it was 
enlarged once in 1923 and then modernized after the homestead was sold in 1947. 
In this house, before the floors were completed and when the walls were only two 
by four's, rafters and tar-paper siding, Otto was born on November 15,1915. 
Walter was born in this same house on December 31, 1925, and he completed the 
family unit.

	From 1915 to 1947, we Battermans were honyockers living on our homestead. 
We endured great hardships, braved the elements and worked from before dawn to 
long after dark every day. But the hardships were mostly physical and these were 
usually resolved by a good night's sleep. We had very little mental anguish, no 
tense nerves to frustrate the spirit. Our lives were tranquil and uncomplicated, 
and were not plagued by the hardships brought by the rush-rush, pell-mell of the 
age of space ships and intercontinental missiles. Our choices were limited, so 
that we never were tempted beyond endurance as are the young people today. We 
didn't want much because we didn't see much to want. Our toys and games were 
mostly homemade, and we played with a great deal of imagination. As the machine 
age progressed, and different makes of cars and tractors became known, we would 
pretend to be these things. In the car game, I claimed to be the Hudson- Super- 
Six, Otto was the Chrysler, and Fred was the powerful Hupmobile. We would race, 
apply our brakes, toot our horns, and travel the nation over, all within the 
boundaries of the homestead. When we played the tractor game, Otto was the John 
Deere tractor, Fred the Fordson, and I pretended to be the McCormick-Deering. We 
would farm, taking in everything from plowing and seeding to reaping and 
storing, all in the span of an afternoon. When we played the train games, our 
very favorite, I was the Chicago-Northwestern, Otto was the Milwaukee Road and 
Fred was the Great Northern. We would switch cars, back up, take on water, pour 
on the coal, and have a wonderful time for hours. We never tired of watching the 
great freight trains go by, and learning new names of the many types of cars, 
and we could spell "Pennsylvania" before we could spell "cat".

	We had horses to ride and spent hours on them, both for work and for play. 
Another favorite passtime was opening rocks for the fossils that were inside. 
These were found both in the creek and in the surrounding hills. The entire 
bullcreek area was a veritable gold-mine of adventure, danger, beauty, peril and 
struggle. We lost many fine animals in the sticky, adhesive "gumbo" of 
bullcreek, but it gave in return our pet catfish and wonderful swimmin' holes. 
And then we had our wonderful trees, full of birds, especially the beloved 
"magpies" some of which we tamed and taught to talk. We had swings in the trees, 
and hiding places when we wanted to be alone.

	There were many wild things in Bullcreek. Some were harmless, but many 
were dangerous. There were coyotes, wolves and bobcats. Anna once encountered a 
wolf, when she was only 10 years old, on foot and alone except for a dog that 
was more frightened than she was. The wolf crept up on her, and she would turn 
the dog on it. The wolf would back up, baring its teeth, then rush the dog. The 
dog would then turn tail and run to Anna. This went on for hours, but she 
finally got away. A few days later, the wolf was shot by Otto Alfs and Anna 
recognized it when Otto brought it by to show. It was almost the last of the 
species in that area.

	There were skunks aplenty, invading our chicken house at night, and 
porcupines, foxes and of course, hundreds of prairie dogs. We enjoyed these 
highly sociable, little rodents a great deal, and would watch their antics for 
hours. There were snakes of all kinds in Bullcreek, and the bullsnake was 
considered a friend to the pioneer, the same as to the farmer today. No doubt we 
would have had benefits from the bullsnakes too, but for two reasons. One was 
that Mamma was so deathly afraid of snakes, all snakes, good or bad, that she 
killed everyone that came on the place. Many fine bullsnakes lost their lives 
under Mamma's ruthless tyranny. The other reason was that the bullsnakes around 
our place were great to loaf on the job, and would not catch mice, rodents, and 
insects like they, were supposed to. They would eat eggs. Not only would they 
eat the eggs in those nests that were hidden in the bushes by our hens, turkeys 
and geese, but they got so bold that they would crawl into the henhouse, curl 
around the eggs in the nest and feast until the eggs were gone. To get away from 
this menace, Father built a row of nests high on the wall with a ladder-like 
approach for the hens to climb upon. It worked very well, and the hens seemed to 
know at once what was expected of them. But one day, Mamma hummed her way to the 
chicken house to gather the eggs, confident that no snakes would dare crawl up 
the ladder to the nests, when all of a sudden we heard a scream and Mamma came 
running out, her face ashen, her hands waving like aspens in the breeze, and 
yelling, "A snake, a snake! Kill it somebody. . . kill it!"

	Well, Otto and I were close by and we ran to help Mamma. Otto had his 
sling-shot in his pocket (another of our homemade toys) and in typical showman 
style, he looked the situation over, took careful aim at the nest, and when the 
snake reared its head and flicked out its forked tongue, Otto shot the snake in 
its eye with a pebble.

	The hardships involving our education were uncountable and indescribable. 
The winters were very severe, and the children always had a long ways to go. At 
first we walked and later on we rode horseback. We had to go over unbelievably 
rough terrain, including a hill almost a mile long, and some of it literally 
straight up. We almost always slid off the horse's back going to school, and 
then slid down the horses I neck coming home from school. This hill was called 
Surveyor's Hill, and that was because every year for at least ten years, the 
State sent engineers to survey the hill, and they always set up stakes to build 
a road, but every year it was abandoned as an impossible feat. Years later, with 
modern road equipment, a road was finally built that even a car could travel, 
but two signs, one on top of the hill and one on the bottom, says "travel at 
your own risk." As a point of history, it was on top of Surveyors Hill that the 
last great Round-up of 19 05 was staged and more than 50,000 head of cattle were 
rounded up on the flats and brought to this point for the descent into the 
valley. They forded the Cheyenne river and were driven on the Rapid City to the 
Stock yards there. Mr. Mack Trask was then a teen-ager of 13 years who was a 
water boy or cook's helper in the mess chuck wagon.

	In spite of the tremendous odds, my parents managed to accomplish 
everything necessary for the well-being of their family, on time and in the 
proper sequence, regardless of hardships involved. The six children were all 
educated with at least high school diplomas, all were baptized and all were 
confirmed. As we children learned, so did our parents, and they were able to 
read and write the English language as well as speak it. Father especially loved 
the sound of the American words and adopted many of them to fit some of his 
special needs. For instance, one of our cows was named "Crocodile" because the 
word had colorful sounds for him. One day, Father came into the house after the 
'morning's chores were completed and found Mamma sewing. He asked her what she 
was making, and Anna said, "Mamma is making me a petticoat." Father went back 
outside muttering the new word under his breath. He went into the barn to see 
how our mare Fanny and the new colt were getting along, and as he lovingly 
stroked the little colt, he said to it, "Klina (little) Petticoat." And from 
that day the colt's name was Petticoat, and later, as a big, strong work horse, 
she was called "Petti" for short.

	It was our custom in the spring and summer to gather wild flowers for 
Mamma, and no gift that we ever gave her later when we had jobs and earned 
money, pleased her as much as did these beautiful wild flowers. Our house, poor 
though it was, never lacked for cut flowers for the homemade tables all the 
years we lived in Bullcreek. Every Sunday afternoon we gathered a bouquet of 
wild flowers, and the prairie gave generously of its beauty. There were the 
lovely, west-river violets (spiderwort), gumbo lilies, bluebells, daisies, 
johnnyjump-ups, marguerites, canterbury bells, wild flax, sweet peas, and the 
beautiful soap flower from the Yucca plant, which the cows loved, but which made 
the milk taste like soap. The Bullcreek area was beautiful in spring and summer 
when we had plenty of rainfall. In fact the flora of that region is almost 
unique as the wild flowers are not as profuse in any other region in South 
Dakota.

	The Federal highway that went past our place changed names and appearance 
many, many times. It was known as Custer Battlefield Highway, The Black and 
Yellow Trail, The Black Hills Road; U. S. No. 14, U. S. No. 16, and now it is 
Interstate 90. Each time it was surveyed, it took another big slice out of our 
homestead, and we were literally penned in on three sides by three hungry 
giants, the creek, the railroad and the highway. The highway brought us many 
interesting visitors. Among them were Indians, Gypsies, tramps and traders. The 
Indians would beg and scare us half to death, the Gypsies would steal all they 
could, the tramps would chop wood for a hot meal, and the traders would make 
deals of all sorts. While these interruptions were sometimes annoying, they were 
so interesting and colorful that it was like taking in a show and we all 
secretly enjoyed the visits.

	Eventually, as crops and livestock increased, we added to our holdings, 
and finally we bought a Model-T Ford. It had no top and was pretty beat up, but 
we thought it a most wonderful treasure. The very first night we had it, we all 
sat around the homemade table with the gas-lamp hanging from the ceiling hook, 
and were looking at the wish-book for car supplies. If all went well we figured 
we could have it sanded, painted, a new top and side curtains (with genuine 
isinglass) put on, and have it ready for the up-coming three-day celebration in 
Wall for the 10th, 11th and 12th of July. This was the commemoration festival of 
the founding of the town of Wall, and we never missed this celebration even when 
we drove horse and buggy. With a new car, it would be quite an event. The black 
paint was a beautiful shiny finish, and the red spokes turned out simply 
gorgeous. Nobody in Bullcreek had anything like it. Time was at a premium, 
because our mail-order was late and it rained the day we wanted to paint the 
car, but finally everything was ready. The car, with the paint barely dry, 
loaded to capacity with all of us. plus a wonderful picnic, looked like a 
millionaire's vehicle. Off we went to the celebration and a wonderful time. We 
children each had a dime to spend, literally a fortune, and we celebrated all 
three days, coming home only to do chores, sleep and replenish the picnic 
basket. Yes, we were rich, and happy, and healthy living in Bullcreek.

	Anna and Margarethe graduated from the Rapid City high school, after which 
Anna taught school in Creighton until her marriage to The Rev. A. C. J. Oesch in 
1928. She has eleven children, all brilliant and talented, and she now lives the 
busy life of a minister's wife in Okarche, Oklahoma.

	Margarethe became a secretary and worked in the Wasta Bank until her 
marriage to Roy W. White in 1930. They have four children, including a set of 
twins, and they live in Pierre, South Dakota where they own a Coast to Coast 
Store.

	Fred, Jr. worked as a mechanic in Coleman's garage in Wasta and then as a 
miner in Leadville, Colo. Later he lived in Denver, Colo. where he owned a gas 
station and garage. He died of a heart attack on .April 2, 1957, is survived by 
his widow and one son.

	Frieda worked for several years as a stenographer-typist with the Federal 
government in the Resettlement Administration and Farm Security Programs. After 
her marriage to Dale E. Tupper, she helped her husband raise seed potatoes on a 
commercial scale, and in general diversified farming. They raised three children 
who are now all married. They live on their farm near Garden City, and for the 
past several years, Frieda has worked as a part-time clerk with the Selective 
Service System, and in her spare time she does free-lance writing.

	Otto also labored in the mines in Leadville, Colo. for a short time, and 
then he went to California where he learned welding. He became a top welder for 
the Shell Oil Company. He passed away at the young age of 38 on December 15, 
1953, and left his widow and two young sons.

	Walter is living in Denver. He is married, has one daughter and one son, 
and six adopted step-children. He is an accountant with the Associated Grocers 
of Colorado.

	Minna H. J. Batterman, courageous, pioneer wife and mother, passed away in 
Denver, Colo. where she had been living with Walter. She was buried, on June 4, 
1965, beside her husband in the Wall Cemetery. Her children laid her tenderly to 
rest, and then, as a final tribute of love, placed on her grave bouquets of the 
beautiful wild flowers that bloomed so profusely on the prairie and hills of the 
Bullcreek homestead.

	Friedrich Wilhelm Henrich, proud, naturalized American, and staunch, 
immigrant pioneer of Bullcreek, became a honyocker,. and died a honyocker. A 
heart seizure came upon him suddenly one evening as he sat at his homemade table 
in his homemade house, reading his paper. The date was December 12, 1945, and 
his death marked the passing of an era in the Bullcreek basin. When the place 
was sold it was no longer a homestead, and the next owner was not a "honyocker."

	So life goes on, and the past fades into history.

[Photo - Friedrich Batterman at age 28]

[Photo - Minnie Batterman at age 20]

[Photo - The Batterman Family: Mr. Batterman, Mrs. Batterman, Frieda, Fred, Anna 
and Margarethe.]

[Photo - Friedrich Batterman]

[Photo - Fred and Frieda Batterman]

[Photo - Anna and Margarethe Batterman]



Mary Ella Moore

by Grace Torrence

	Mary Ella Crawford was born in Marietta, Ohio March 28, 1880, and came to 
South Dakota when she was sixteen years old.

	She married John Z. Reed, January 11th, 1899, at Bad River Precinct. They 
moved to a farm nine miles east of Rapid City, in Rapid Valley, in 1900. She 
lived there for many years, later moving to Wasta and homesteading east of 
there.

	She married George W. Moore, Oct, 1st, 1918, in Deadwood, S. D. and lived 
in or near Wasta.

	She has lived the past five years or so with her daughters, Mrs. E. E. 
Clark, of Hill City and Grace Torrence, Rapid City.

	At present she is living at the Strathaven Manor Home in Rapid City, S. D.

	The years have taken their toll, her eyesight is failing and she is unable 
to walk, but she still enjoys chatting.

[Photo - Mary Moore - 1920]

[Photo - Mary E. Moore - 1962]



Joe Lytle Family History

Written by Onalee Lytle Hoffman

	Leonard Weigand, born 1776 and Margarete Weigand, born 1786 were married 
in Hammbaum, Germany. Six children were born to this union, one being George 
Leonard, who is the grandfather of my father, Joseph Lytle Senior. George 
Leonard Weigand, born 1824, married Louise Theresa Meyer, born 1829 in Berlin on 
Christmas day 1851. George Leonard was a cabinet maker and kept on with that 
trade after coming to America in 18 54. They had one son when they arrived in 
America. They settled first in Cleveland, Ohio where they had their next three 
children. In the spring of 1860 George Leonard moved westward with his family 
and settled in a dug out in Knox County, Nebraska. This homestead soon became 
the noted Weigand Stop and later became the Weigand postoffice, The next year 
they built their house which was a great improvement over the dug out. 

	In 1863 my grandmother, Mary Emila was born. She was the first white child 
born in Knox County, Nebraska. Five more children were born to this union making 
the number ten. They gave them all long names as great grandmother said that was 
about all they had to give them in those days. They were hard working people and 
eventually became the proud owners of a large ranch, 200 head of black angus 
cattle and a large band of horses. Conditions had somewhat improved from the 
days he landed on Ellis Island with exactly 43 cents in his pocket.

	Little is known of the Lytle history except that they came from Scotland 
to America in the middle 1800 Is. The parents of my grandfather settled in 
Pennsylvania at that early date. Later they became part owners of what now is 
the Standard Oil Company. John M. Lytle, my grandfather came west as a young man 
and spent some time in and around Omaha, Nebraska. In the early 1880 Is Grandad 
met Grandma, Mary Emila and married her. Their family cemetery still stands near 
George Leonard Weigand's old place near Crofton, Nebraska, and several 
generations lie at peace there today.

	My grandfather, John M. Lytle, born in 1862 at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 
married grandmother, born at Weigand, Nebraska in 1863, at Yankton, S. Dak. They 
lived near Crofton except for a brief few years when they battled adverse 
conditions in Kansas. They spent a lifetime of colorful and stirring days when 
pioneers were gifted with unbound courage, endurance and patience to raise large 
families, enabling them to baffle the foes of nature and hostile Indians. To 
this union were born nine children of whom Bill Lytle was the first born in 
1885. Bill lived in and around Crofton until the urge to go west brought him to 
Murdo, S. Dak. in 1905 to file on a claim. He never proved up on this claim. He 
filed on land near Viewfield, S. Dak. when his brother Joe did in 1906, He left 
in 1911 when the severe drouth swept western S. Dak.

	He spent the better part of his life after the 1930's in the Wall 
vicinity. He never married. He made his home with Joe and family until in the 
1940 Is when he moved to Interior, S. Dak. to live with a younger brother, Don 
and family. He now resides on Don's ranch southeast of Interior. He will be 80 
in October of this year.

	He helped remove the train from the Bull-Creek bridge when it broke 
through in 1906.  Bill stands on one of the piling in the picture. Below is Jim 
Renner, Sam Hinman and Amos Witham.

	The youngest child of the John M. family being Don Lytle, born in 1906 has 
resided around Long Valley and Interior, S. Dak. all his adult years. He married 
Joe Ameot and to this union were born six girls. He has engaged in ranching all 
his life and at present owns a large ranch at Interior, S. Dak.

	The second oldest of this family was my father, Joseph McVay Lytle, born 
August 16, 1887 at the Lytle ranch near Weigand, Nebraska. He spent his young 
life at and around home. He was quite a hand with a horse and a good marksman 
with his gun. As a young man, the wild urge to go west found Joe Lytle on his 
new homestead near Viewfield, S. Dak. in the spring of 1907. There he struggled 
like other homesteaders until 1911 when the terrible drouth of the western 
plains was the deciding factor in his uprooting and going back to Crofton, 
Nebraska. For most homesteaders the wheat didn't even sprout that year. The 
chickens scratched it from the ground. 

	Many of the old timers who were ball players in those days knew Joe and 
Bill as players on the New Underwood team. They played Wall when they had the 
chance to get together. Both Bill and Joe attended the first celebration in Wall 
and well remember the balloon ascension that took place on that historic 
afternoon.

	In 1921 Joe married Vera Amelia Gee, born 1900. They were married at 
Yankton, S. Dak. They lived in and around Martin, S. Dak. during the early years 
of their marriage, spending most of their years there on Pass Creek near Long 
Valley. In March 193 6 they moved near Wasta, S. Dak. with their family, who now 
numbered six. There they resided for twelve years.

	Mary Ann, born in 1925, the oldest daughter married Gerald Wilson in 1943 
and now resides at Lakewood, California. They have three daughters: Laree, Suzan 
and Jana. Lucile born in 1926 married Monty Woolly in 1950 and also has three 
daughters; Jeana, Tara and Kim. They reside at Tigard, Oregon. The remainder of 
the family are homebodies and live near Wasta. Lyla married Milton Trask in 1949 
and lives on a ranch near Wasta. They had four boys and one girl; Casey, Tracy, 
Todd, Tyler and Anita. The youngest boy Tyler lost his life in a car mishap in 
January 1965. Onalee, married to Walter G. Hoffman in 1949, lives on the old Ben 
Hoffman place north of Wall. They have two boys and three girls; Rodney, 
Christi, J. Ben, Dawn, and Kathryn. Joseph and Larry, both practicing dentistry 
in Rapid City, S. Dak. married sisters. Joe married Winona Bassford in 1961 and 
have one boy, Rusty and one girl, Jody. Larry married Norma Bassford in 1955 and 
have one boy and two girls; Kip, Kimberly and Kelly.

	On the ranch on the Cheyenne many pleasant memories came about, even 
though life in the 30's and early 40's was a hard struggle. The first summer 
there meant doing without ice so Mother churned the butter in the cave. She also 
did some of the cooking in the cave. She made the pie crusts in the cool of the 
cave and the light of the kerosene lamp and we children ran to the house and 
popped them into the old wood stove oven.

	Each year seemed a struggle with drouth and hoppers plaguing our courage. 
At evening tide we all went out with old shirts and towels and spread out across 
the garden and sweet corn and shooed the hoppers out into the weeds for evening 
feeding. Dad always said they did their eating at night, but one summer his old 
adage didn't stand true. A boy by the name of Jimmy Brooks was helping us shock 
grain. He left his straw hat hang on the fork handle while eating dinner, only 
to comeback to find the hoppers enjoyably finishing the crown of his hat.

	The early June rains some years brought the river out of its banks. We 
children were always fascinated by the high water and appalled by the things 
that floated down. One spring a big bull floated to his destination on some far 
off bank. One year in the late 40's the river ran through the correll and Dad 
stood an all night vigil so as to take us to safety to the high grade land if 
necessary. In 19 22 the John Hayes family lived there and lost several hundred 
head of hogs as the high water engulfed the whole valley. His family spent the 
night on top of the house.

	Dad did most of his farming and haying with teams. An old Twin City 
tractor sat in the field broke down more often than not. It seemed to be an 
unreliable beast of bygone days. So Dad didn't bother with it when he had 
several good teams and able-bodied boys and girls to drive them. He did manage 
to keep it running enough to irrigate our garden from the river. We all loved 
the field and hay work and often quarrelled who would drive the teams. As the 
older girls grew away from the work outside we younger ones took our turns.

	Mary Ann always drove a team on the headers along side Mother and Dad when 
the Government men came each summer during good years and stripped the wheat 
grass seed. Lucile never was much for riding or driving the horses. She was 
strictly Mother's gardener. I can see her yet in her shorts and old beat up 
straw hat hoeing. In her early teens she loved to sell the garden produce. She 
would load the old Buick full and go to Wall and always she came home with her 
produce all sold. Onetime Lyla and I went along to help, coming home the old car 
had a run away going down the Wall hill as it didn't have brakes. Lucy forgot to 
shift down and had to go around another car only to come near hitting an 
oncoming car. We were really three scared girls.

	Times were hard and money was scarce. Mother and the older girls worked at 
the Commercial gardens for extra money as we always had to find a way to get a 
few new clothes for school in the fall. When I was older I always helped John 
Hayes Garden. One year he and I set out 25,000 tomato plants.

	Joe was a good teamster and one summer when he was thirteen, he drove a 
team and slip in a Government sand pit near our place, One summer Dad was sick 
and we kids managed to get the hay up with Dad's supervision. Joe stacked the 
hay, I swept it in and Larry, a little guy of ten drove the stacker team.

	Dad, with his crew of helpers managed to irrigate a commercial garden for 
a few years and put up lots of hay when it was available. We look back at his 
amazing courage as he bucked storms to get we children the five miles into Wasta 
with team and wagon to school. The winter of 1944, when we had three foot of 
snow on the level, was a challenge to such courageous men as Dad. It wasn't 
unusual to dig the wagon out several times while going the one mile to the main 
road, as the snow was belly deep on the team.

	We, as children never thought times were so bad. We always had each other. 
We were taught to share our lives as well as the material things. It is a strong 
tradition in our family today. At Christmas time we never really minded not 
having all the things we dreamed of.

	We had the cedar tree, the old candles and the spirit just seemed to be 
there. It was always such a wonderful feeling when we came home from the 
Christmas program with our sacks of treats and set around the old crackling wood 
fire and eat peanuts and sucked hard candy until our mouths were sore.

	We kids always had great sport running the wild horses in off the river 
when Dad was gone. We never dared when he was there. One time we nearly choked 
one to death before we got the rope off his neck. We were always breaking horses 
and thought we were real hands when we got to drive a bronc on the mower or hay 
rack. We had a few bad runaways over the years. One time one mare rubbed her 
bridle off and ran away with the wagon and Dad in it. When he finally jumped out 
he broke two of his ribs.

	After the hard times of the thirties were by gone days life wasn't so 
hard. Mother was a great cook and people loved to come to eat her fried chicken, 
apple pie and home made ice cream. When there was an air force base at Pierre, 
S. Dak. some of the soldiers came to hunt rocks. They never missed a Sunday 
dinner one whole summer.

	Mother always canned a lot of food. Many years she had a 1000 quarts of 
food in the cellar for winter and in the spring she fried down the pork and put 
it in big crock jars for summer use. We children often got scolded for not 
covering the meat good with the lard when sent to get out enough for dinner. 
Many of you today must well remember packing the eggs down in salt for use when 
the hens didn't lay, and putting the butter in crocks and covering with salt 
when the old bossies were dry. I well remember these two traits.

	Lyla was the ardent reader of the family and how often Mother scolded when 
she sat on the old warming oven with head buried in her book when her jobs were 
unfinished. I used to marvel at the short time it took her to read a book. She 
told me one time she had read every book in Mr. Visses' library at the old 
corner drug store. I didn't doubt her word.

	Another duty of by gone days that may well interest modern day people was 
the dreaded winter job of putting up the ice for summer use. Dad always chose 
Christmas vacation so we children were there to help. He did a good job and it 
had to be chinked just right. We pulled it up a ramp with tongs and a cable with 
one horse. We never dared waste the ice water in summer that dripped into the 
pan beneath the icebox, as that water was luxurious soft for hair washing and 
such.

	Mother became active in community affairs as the children one by one filed 
off to school. As Wasta will well remember, she was the stand-by for serving 
dance suppers for a number of years. She was also remembered for her 
thoughtfulness to old folks in the community. This is one of her cherished 
traits yet today.

	As years have passed life has become easier for Dad and Mother. They 
reside at Wasta on a quiet little corner of town. They own a small white house 
on a corner. They enjoy their big beautiful yard and flowers. Dad is always 
proud of his strawberry beds. He keeps us all in strawberries each summer. 
Mother especially enjoys her roses. Dad will be 78 this summer on our Dawn's 
birthday and Mother was just 65 in May. Both are still in comparative good 
health.

	Life has been quite rewarding to each and everyone in this large family. 
We each have average youngsters, bouncing with vigor and good health. Each of we 
children have enjoyed considerable good health. Joe had a bout with fate when he 
was stuck down with meningitis and some aftermaths of staph infections in the 
winter of 1963, but his faith and courage has placed him back in the normal roll 
of life. Also fate dealt his hand when he so tragically took our beloved little 
Tyler Trask in January 1965. But for so large a family we have been quite 
fortunate. I think our lives have been happy ones and our regrets have been few. 
May we leave you here in this book of memories on this fourteenth day of June, 
1965.

[Photo - Vera Lytle and her first born in 1924.]

[Photo - Joe Lytle and baby - 1924]

[Photo - Donna Vanderlinden, Onalee Lytle Hoffman, Mary Ann Lytle Wilson, Lyla 
Lytle Trask, Lucille Lytle Woolly.]

[Photo - Pictured are Mrs. Matheis, Mrs. Burdett, Mrs. Clarence Dowling, Mrs. 
Darwin, Mrs. Eunice Honald, Mrs. Armstead, Mrs. Shyne, Mrs. Heinemann, Mary 
Reed, Mrs. Louis Jensen and Jennie Reed.]

[Photo - The Joe Lytle family at the old ranch on the Cheyenne River - 1940. 
Pictured with them is an uncle.]


A. J. Beeson

by A. J. Beeson

	I was born in Johnson Co., Iowa, July 25, 1877. My parents lived there 
until I was six years old. My sisters and I and other kindred had a lot of fun 
gathering May apples, a little yellow fruit which grew in the woods. There were 
also wild cherries, hickory nuts, walnuts, hazel nuts, blackberries and other 
fruit.

	Mother was a dressmaker. Father worked as a carpenter and sometimes on 
farms.

	In 1884 we moved to S. Dak. Father filed on some land in south eastern 
Douglas Co. We had two horses but one got killed coming from Iowa. There was no 
railroad closer than Mitchell. Only a few settlers had horses. Most of them 
drove ox teams and it would take a week to make a trip to town and back.

	At that time eastern Charles Mix Co. was Indian reservation. My father's 
place was just across the reservation line, our house was only about fifty feet 
from the line. Indians came to our house nearly every day. One time the Indians 
had a war dance about one half mile from our house. We stayed out in the hay 
field at night so the Indians wouldn't know where we were.

	A young man named Albert Banesh crossed the reservation on horse back to 
Fort Randal to get the soldiers to come out. When the Indians heard that the 
soldiers were coming they scattered.

	Our house was built of sod with a board and tar paper roof. The door had 
no hinges and the windows had no glass. The gophers dug holes in the walls. A 
rattlesnake got into the house one night and was in bed with my sister and me. I 
called mother and told her there was a snake in our bed but she thought I was 
dreaming and told me to go to sleep. The next morning she found the snake under 
my pillow and father killed it.

	The next year my dad rented a farm about six miles west of what is now the 
town of Delmont. The farmer left all of his stock and farm machinery, moving 
only his household furniture. Father got half of the young stock and the grain 
that was raised on the place that year. We had a good crop and the next year we 
moved to a farm four miles west of Delmont. Father bought a team of horses and a 
corn cultivator and we were on our way. The landlord here furnished nothing but 
the land and was to receive one third of the crop. Father farmed this place five 
years. The crops were hailed out twice and dried out once. The, county furnished 
seed wheat one of the years that we got a crop and when the wheat was thrashed 
the county took all the wheat to pay for the seed. Father had a good crop of 
corn that year but there was only about thirty acres.

	Then we moved about from place to place until Eastern Charles Mix County 
was opened for settlement. My father filed on a homestead in Charles Mix County; 
Father and Mother and my brother Joe moved on it as soon as they could.

	My father had rented another farm and my sister Anna and I stayed on it 
that winter. We attended school near there. I worked the farm land the next 
summer, planting eighty acres of corn with two horses and a walking corn planter 
called a lister.

	This machine, if it could be called that was something like a walking 
stubble plow; but it turned the dirt out both ways and planted the corn in the 
furrow.

	During this time Dad had dug a cave and bought a small two room house and 
had it moved on the new farm.

	The next year it was up to me to get about eighty acres of the new prairie 
sod broken up so it could be farmed. I broke about forty acres in time for corn 
planting which yielded about thirty bushels to the acre. This was a good place 
for farming, and we soon had a good start. We were doing well there and got a 
good crop nearly every year.

	I worked with Father as he was not able to get around very well.

	We had accumulated enough farm machinery and horses to farm three hundred 
acres and was out of debt. My brother Joe was growing up to a young man.

	My parents thought by selling there and buying west of the river they 
could get more land. They knew nothing of this western country. They decided I 
should stay on the farm there and look after it while they came west to find a 
new location. They came to Wall and bought what was supposed to be a farm one 
mile south of Wall.

	When I came west, I knew it was no farming country and wanted them to go 
into ranching.

	They wanted to farm, and my brother was with them. So together we had 
equipment to farm three hundred acres and $10,000 in cash.

	We went into farming on a large scale and soon was like others north of 
Wall who said about people coming here to farm, "They come in white shirts and 
stiff collars and in a short time went away barefoot". We were not that lucky, 
as we did not get away.

	In the meantime I had married and had a family of a good wife and two boys 
and two girls. I could not stay on the farm as I had to have money. I never got 
anything out of all we had to start with except the team.

	I got a job as a section hand on the railroad at fifteen cents an hour. In 
six months I was promoted to track foreman. My wife had passed away after we 
moved west and I was left with four motherless children, Charles, Anna, Mae and 
Lawrence. Charles is now in Montana, Anna in California, Mae in Hot Springs, S. 
Dak. and Lawrence in Montana.

	As track foreman I was getting $60 a month and a fairly good house rent 
free.

	After I went to work on the railroad I received nothing from the farm and 
every thing went I know not where or how. My parents bought a little old house 
in Wall. My mother came to me and said she was afraid if she passed away some 
one would get the house away from Dad. She did not say how. I gave her $400 for 
the house and they were to live in it rent free as long as they lived or wanted 
to stay there. After sometime they moved to the Old Soldiers Home at Hot 
Springs.

	In the meantime I met a nice girl and married her. I think God sent her to 
me, she is everything to me and has been through all these years.

	We were married in 1916. I look back on that day as the luckiest day in my 
life.


[Photo - Mary Beeson, feeding her chickens 1918. Note barn in background.]

[Photo - Back row: Left to right, Mae & Anna Beeson, Wilma Miller, Elizabeth 
Lurz (hidden), Clara Lurz, held by Marguerite Thoma, Father Connolly & friend. 
Front row: Anna Lurz and Gertrude Millugie. Taken on the farm in 1917.]

[Photo - Joe Beeson, at the wheel of his first car. Sitting beside him is Mrs. 
Ansel McDonald. In the rear, Lilly Myers and her sister, Mrs. Richard Bobier.]

[Photo - Gathered to march to auditorium. In back ground Isaac Beeson & Daddy 
Green. Left to right, back row: Fred & Russel Lecocq, Maryanne Overholt, 
Margaret Schone, (partly showing) Marie Routin, Unidentified girl, and Floyd 
Tefft. In front, Margaret Dixon, Gladys Harnden, Laura Lecocq, Lila Dixon, and 
Frank Harnden. May 30, 1925.]

[Photo - Daddy Green & Isaac Beeson  Last appearance together for Memorial Day 
Ceremonies, May 30, 1925]

[Photo 1925  Dorothy and Absalom Beeson.]

[Photo - Left to right, Isaac Beeson, Mary Beeson, Mae Beeson, Absalom Beeson, 
Anna Beeson, and (Lila) Dorothy Beeson, her baptismal name. Summer of 1925.]



Early Day Memories

by Anna Miller

	Recollections of my childhood reach back to sometime before we moved to 
Wall, in the year of 1909. We moved from a farm located between Wagner and 
Delmont.

	The family consisted of my grandparents, Isaac, and Mary Beeson; my 
parents, Absalom and Ethel Beeson; my uncle, Joe Beeson and two cousins plus us 
four children.

	Grandfather was born in Iowa around the year of 1844 of Scotch-Irish 
descent. He had suffered a hip injury when run over by a cannon while serving in 
the Civil War. He walked with a slight drag in one leg as a result.

	Grandmother was born in County Cork, Ireland, and always boasted, "Deed, 
the best blood of Ireland flows in me veins." She was brought to America as an 
infant with her parents, but always spoke with an Irish dialect. She was one 
year younger than Grandfather, spry as a cricket, but was, quite deaf.

	My grandparents bought 160 acres of prairie land, one mile south of Wall 
from Mr. Maddon. They brought with them eight carloads of stock, machinery and 
furniture. The property had on it a tarpapered shack and several small sheds.

	My father, Uncle Joe and my cousins all filed on land north of Wall, near 
Creighton. They proved up on them, and all except my father made their homes 
there after proving up.

	The first barn was almost completed when it was destroyed by a cyclone. My 
Uncle Joe was on the roof when my grandmother noticed the storm approaching. She 
called him down just in time to save his life. The rain that came with the storm 
put water in the dams and started the crops. For that they were grateful.

	The first year, or until the new house was ready, my grandparents, parents 
and we children all slept on the floor in the shack. We would roll up the 
mattresses and fold the bedding over them during the days to make room for 
cooking and eating.

	While the folks worked--we played. We had been warned, but not informed, 
about snakes. One day my big brother, Charley, age 5, left the dinner table 
while the family were having dinner. He came in crying that he had been snake-
bit. My father looked at the finger he displayed. It was bleeding and it 
appeared that there were small punctures. My father picked up along stick, took 
Charley by the hand and went out. We followed but were advised to stay back. 
After prodding around in the grass near a bunch of cactus my father gave the 
stick to Charley and said, "You put the stick on the snake that bit you." 
Charley pushed the stick against a cactus and cried out, "That's him, that's the 
one that bit me."

	My father grinned and then he explained how a snake looked, then rattled 
something to give us an idea how they sounded. It was not long before we knew. 
They were numerous. My grandfather was bitten by a young rattler while setting 
posts. He cut his finger open and let it bleed, and then opened a cactus and 
wrapped it around it and returned to work. He used to jump on the snakes and 
hold them down and then grind the head into the ground with the heel of his 
heavy boots. Grandmother carried a fork and pinned them down with it and then 
chopped the head off with a garden hoe. My father usually shot them with a 
revolver.

	I remember my mother faintly. I was only 6 years old when she died. She 
used to take us girls along when she went to the Badlands to carry water from 
the spring, We carried half-gallon. syrup pails. We used to stop about halfway 
up the steep path and rest. She would gather rubies that were covered with a 
white shell, and would sit and pick this off. We also found petrified fish and 
teeth from prehistoric animals. Once we found a whole turtle. We used it for 
years as a doorstop.

	Father proved up on his claim and then sold it. He had been a school 
teacher, an auctioneer, a land agent, and was studying law when mother died. He 
decided he wanted to do hard work among men to get over his grief. The railroad 
was the answer. He worked under Joe Herink at Wall for awhile and came home 
nights. While working one day he somehow got his glove caught in the belt on the 
motor car. There was a settlement with the railroad for the loss of his finger 
and he was promoted to foreman. He was stationed at Quinn first, and later at 
Wasta. Later on he was foreman at Bull Creek Siding 7, replacing John Disney.

	Before mother's death he and Joe used to play the organ and the violins 
for dances in the neighborhood, and sometimes at our home. After the loss of his 
finger and mother's death my father never played again. The older boys were 
gone, our father lost interest in the place and then it was up to the old folks 
and us children.

	We learned to follow the walking plough and drop the seed potatoes in the 
furrow. If we got behind, he would stop and help in order to cover them the next 
time around. Grandfather always was careful not to destroy a bird's nest. He 
would plough around it or take it up and then replace it. We were allowed to 
help plant the gardens also. We planted the melons, beets, onion sets and all 
large seeds. Grandmother planted the fine seeds. We used to do some weeding. The 
garden was planted so it could be cultivated.

	My father was very creative. He made brooders, egg testers, incubators, 
and later at Bullcreek he built a threshing machine to thrash the dry beans. He 
ran it with a belt attached to the motor car. He loved all growing things. He 
tried to have an orchard at Wall as we had east of the river at Wagner, but they 
did not do well without the water. He had away with grafting different varieties 
of bushes and trees to produce better fruit. He did have some luck on Bullcreek.

	Grandmother made things for us out of "odds and ends", as she called them. 
One Christmas she made a doll-buggy for me from a small wooden box. She cut the 
front down low. From wire covered with cloth, she fashioned a top that folded. 
The handle to push with was made from a stiff bail taken from a pail, the wheels 
came from tin covers of half-gallon syrup pails. I played with it for years. Our 
dolls were made of flour sacks, bleached, with faces drawn in with crayons. We 
each had one "boughten" doll. They were small, had glass heads and arms, black 
hair and features painted or glazed. The boys used to make tops from spools 
whittled and painted and carved wooden guns. We had blocks from the sawed lumber 
and corn cobs for logs to build log cabins. Clothes pins decorated with corn 
husks and feathers were the Indians. The horses were made from gumbo mud, baked 
in the sun. When we were soldiers ourselves, we wore whiskers made from corn 
silks. One of our chores was picking potato bugs. We used a can with a small 
amount of kerosene in the bottom to kill the bugs.

	We had no trees on the place, so we had to haul wood for fuel, as well as 
hauling water. We burned coal when we could buy it, but grandfather received 
only a small pension from the government ($72 every 3 months). When our fuel as 
well as money was exhausted there was only one alternative, the job of picking 
cowchips. They kept us warm but burned out quickly, producing lots of ashes. We 
often hauled them by the wagon-load. Once we ran out in the middle of -a severe 
snow-storm. Grandfather took the team and wagon and was out gathering chips. 
Mrs. Miller who owned the local store happened to be on her way back to town, 
from visiting at the Frank Miller home south of us. It wasn't long before a man 
came with a load of coal, with orders to go out, and get that "poor old man" 
back in the house. We always felt grateful to her for that kind deed.

	After we had gotten big enough to help with the out-door work, grandmother 
had more time to sew. She was given a lot of clothing to make over for us. For 
our under garments, she used flour sacks. Salt sacks were used for hankies. She 
soaked them in cold water to loosen the prints, then rubbed them on the board 
and boiled them. Pillow cases and dishtowels were made from flour sacks also. 
The scraps from the heavy materials were made into quilt covers. Grandmother 
never wasted a thing.

	When I was eleven and Charley was twelve we began to bear the load. 
Charley went to work for Karl Lurz. He worked in the hardware store after school 
and then ate with the family. After supper he did the milking and cleaned the 
barn for him. I began to bake the bread and learned to use the sewing machine. 
Mae was given the chore of making the biscuits. Charley contributed to the 
grocery funds. He bought a sow the first year and began raising pigs. He took 
care of the pigs before he went to school and after he came home at night. Every 
Saturday was scrub day. Grandmother would supervise and never allowed much soap 
on the floors. She claimed it turned the boards yellow.

	Grandmother made all of her soap of fat from the pigs and tallow from 
beef. When we were short of fats, old Daddy Green used to give us some. Daddy 
Green was an old veteran and a very good friend of ours. He lived on a farm in 
the flats below us in the Badlands. He always seemed to have everything do well 
on his place. He taught my grandparents how to make sauerkraut from turnips, 
that was equal to any made from cabbage.

	There were many methods of using items on the farm. The common horse 
collar, fastened and covered with a blanket, served as a baby sitter. The baby 
was placed in the bottom or the heavy end, and was given a 'sugar teat', made 
from flour and sugar, tied in a bit of cheesecloth or muslin, and dipped in 
milk. The infant would be quiet and happy while mother worked outside or in. Our 
shoes were shined with stove soot. The stove lid was turned over, tea and sugar 
added to make a paste. After it dried, the shoes were brushed and shined with a 
rag. It gave a lasting and brilliant shine. We scoured the kettles by taking 
them to the ash-pile, with a wet cloth and "elbow-greese" as Grandmother called 
it. Our ink came from the blueing bottle and paste was made from flour and 
water. Cold winter nights we warmed our beds with flat-irons heated on the wood 
stove. We wrapped them in newspapers and then pulled an old sock over them to 
hold the papers in place. Our bath was taken in the wash tub. In the winter it 
was in front of the cookstove or beside the heater. All used the same water. 
(Water was very scarce.) Kerosene was another product that was used for many 
things. When Charley had the croup, grandmother would put a few drops of 
kerosene on a spoonful of sugar and have him take it. Then the goose-grease and 
kerosene (that was always kept on hand) would be rubbed over his neck and chest 
and covered with a piece of old flannel (also ready at all times). For bad chest 
colds; onions, fried real soft, put into salt sacks, and applied hot as 
possible, then covered over with flannel, was the one sure cure. All of these 
old methods would probably be scorned by the modern homemaker, but they saved 
many lives in the days when there were no doctors near by.

	We girls also learned to follow the binder and shock wheat or corn. We 
stacked hay and learned there was a trick to that. We snapped corn with our 
grandfather. He had the old team well trained to go and stop on command. Later 
we husked the corn in the granary. The cobs were saved to burn and for lighting 
the fires, by soaking a few in kerosene over night.

	During the years my father remained home after working on the railroad, 
our groceries, such as rice, coffee, tea, lard, and dried foods, fruit, 
macaroni, plus our shoes and long underwear, were all ordered from Sears 
Roebuck. There was always excitement when the orders came. We worked like ants 
carrying the packages from the wagon, 

	Father always gave us money, but we never did have enough. Most of it was 
saved to pay taxes or pay off a loan. However, on the 10th of July when Wall had 
it's celebration, we always were dressed nice and had a nickel or a dime to 
spend as we pleased. I well remember the barrels of lemonade that stood on the 
streets, with a dipper to serve-yourself. (We often helped to squeeze the 
lemons). There were horse races, bucking contests, sack races, and horseshoe 
games. Grandfather enjoyed the horseshoe games.

	In the meantime Father Connolly came to Wall. He immediately made 
arrangements for a church and combed the country for youngsters to enroll in a 
first Communion class. At first he lived in some rooms beside the telephone 
office, which was operated by Mrs. Joe Herink. He obtained the old schoolhouse 
and started his parish. We were advanced in our catechism, due to the struggles 
of our grandmother.

	It was while we were at Bullcreek, we became acquainted with the 
Battermanns. Mr. Battermann worked on the section for my father. They were good 
friends and neighbors. He sometimes hauled water from our cistern. It was filled 
from tanks, resembling oil tanks, and furnished by the railroad company for the 
railroad workers. My father used to use Battermann's horses to plough the spaces 
in the right-ofway, where he planted potatoes, sweet corn and garden. The horses 
were used to being spoken to in German, which created some disturbance. In 
return for the use of the horses, my father gave them the hay to have for 
cutting. Anna, Marguerite, and Freddie, were the older children and near our 
ages. They used to herd cattle on the prairie in the valley, and often would 
stop for a drink and a short visit.

	In 1922 the Cheyenne River flooded. One day father noticed the railroad 
bridge was going out. The rails were loose at the west end and it was going to 
take a lot of track. He sawed the rails and let it go. There were houses, sheds, 
animals of all kinds, and fence posts with wire attached, gathering trees, wood 
that had been cut for firewood, all mixed in the wire. We saw a horse as he 
rolled end over end. A wheelbarrow was going downstream with the wheel running, 
upright. The mail had to be taken across with boats as there was no other way.

	That year my grandparents left the farm and moved into town at Wall.

	In 1926, my grandparents decided they wanted to move to the old soldier's 
home. Daddy Green had been there for several years and grandfather was lonely 
for the old soldiers. He used to talk about President Lincoln, He had known him 
and couldn't forget him.

	After they were gone I went to Bull Creek again. In the spring of 1927 I 
married Frank Thoma. He passed away leaving me with a baby boy.

	Leslie Miller was working for my father at Bull Creek then. Leslie became 
deeply attached to my little boy. He was quite handsome and had very charming 
ways. We were married May 6, 1930, by Father O'Rourke. By then my sister, Mae 
had married, Charley was married, and Lawrence was with the cavalry at Fort 
Meade.

	Leslie and I went through the depression and all sorts of hardships. We 
raised all of our children, Vincent made five, two adults, and now have ten 
grandchildren. Leslie became very ill when Don, our baby was small, so I was 
forced to work with the WPA. In 1946 we moved to Custer, where we both took 
jobs, Leslie having recovered. He worked in the felspar mine and I worked 
cutting mica at the Mica Plant. By now we had only Robert and Don with us. 
Vincent was in the Navy and stationed in California. In 1948 we came to El 
Monte, California. Grandmother passed away in 1929 and grandfather passed away 
late in 1932.

[Photo - Absalom & Isaac Beeson son and father, 1929]

[Photo - Lawrence Beeson at Fort Meade, Sturgis, S. D. 1931]

[Photo - May 6, 1930. Left to right: Hazel and Henry Henricksen, Margaret 
Miller, Father Joseph O'rourke, Luella Miller, Mae (Beeson) Muhm, Absalom 
Beeson, Anna & Leslie Miller. Child Vincent in Leslie's arms and Wayne Muhm. 
Taken at Bullcreek after marriage ceremonies.]

[Photo Four generations 1929  Left to right: Agsalom Beeson, Anna & Vincent 
Thoma, Isaac Beeson]

[Photo - Dorothy Beeson]

[Photo - Absalom Beeson]