I don't know who the first owner was. The first one I knew of was a Zuege with daughters named Nita and Bertha.
When I was in 5th grade (1923-24), Charlie Armstrong bought it and moved there during the school year. Probably March 1, this was "Moving Day" back then.
They moved from the Boyd/Barber place in Prairie Rose School district #34 in about 1923 or 1924. Della Sims was the teacher. Mildred and Marjorie Armstrong were older than me, but we played together and stayed overnight with each other. I missed them when they moved to the Prairie Bell district. Lloyd Armstrong was younger, about the age of my little brother Lloyd. I don't remember when Fern was born.
That year, Mrs. Gertrude Boyd married Mose Barber and they moved onto her farm. She had a son, Don Boyd, who was in the 7th grade. The teacher was Emma Freehling and by then, my brother, Lloyd was in school, so with us, (Alice, Ethel and Lloyd), Don and the 4 oldest Ritchey kids, there were 8 at Prairie Rose School.
Back to the story about the Armstrong place.(The Fred & Erma Zuege Place) The Charlie and Mae Armstrong family moved to that farm in the spring of 1924. The next fall, their big house burned down so the neighbors took up a collection to help them build a new house. They lived on that place until the fall of 1935 when they moved to St. Francis to run a cafe. One day Charlie stopped us along the road and asked my folks if they would rent it from them. We rented their place and the Kaforke quarter that adjoined it on the north.
My folks took me to find my boarding place near the school I was teaching, on Sunday, and left me there. They moved from Cherry Creek during the first week of school and were all settled at the “Armstrong Place”, as we called it, when I came home on Friday. Floy was in the 5th grade that year. She had gone to Cherry Creek School with the same teacher, Leone Scoby Felzein, for grades 1-4. Then the next 4 grades 5-8 she went to Prairie Bell with Mabel Merklin as teacher. Sometime during those 4 years, Fred and Erma Zuege bought the Armstrong place where my folks were living.
George and Pauline Wall moved onto the place where Fred and Erma Zuege had been living. We moved up the hill to the Ritchey place. Then Marvin Mills and Chris Ferguson bought the Ritchey place the year Floy was in the 8th grade.
In 1939 my parents moved a little while before school was out to a place just east of Haigler. Rich and I were married in April 1939 and settled on the Richey place so Floy stayed with us to finish the school year and take exams to graduate from the 8th grade. Ethel came to take Floy to St Francis early in the afternoon for graduation. Our Mamma was at our place and we planned to go to graduation in the evening but one of those "Memorial Day" flood rains came up. Those rains were also known as "8th Grade Graduation" floods. They seemed to hit every year. So we missed Floy's 8th grade graduation.
Fred and Erma Zuege had Roy, Dale, Doris, and Helen. The Prairie Bell School was closed by then, so they got a house in Haigler but still kept the farm going. The day Fred died in the St. Francis hospital, Roy was snowed in on the farm alone and the rest of the family were stuck in Haigler. A blizzard closed all roads in the whole county. The county finally got a maintainer and with the help of the Douthits and some others, they got the Parks Road cleared from St. Francis to Hiway 34 so they could get Fred to Haigler where the funeral was to be held. Somehow, Roy got to the funeral and back to take care of the cattle. Rich walked around or through drifts to Biers and went to the funeral with them. It was awhile before roads were opened up as far as our place.
Erma Zuege and her family still kept the farm and after she was killed in a car wreck the boys still farmed the place. I don't have the dates that Dale & Idell and Roy & Naomi farmed it. The last I knew, Roy was still taking care of it.
That is the history of that farm as well as I can remember. Through several generations at that!!
-- Submitted by Alice (Crabtree) Gregory
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Wednesday, September 13, 2006
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I was reading through mother's diary and the time Fred passed away was the evening of Nov.16,1948. The 17th seemed to be a beautiful day except for the bad news about Fred. However, the 18th was a different story, it turned cold, snow was blowing and creating very high drifts and no schools, roads all closed. Roy walked over to our place on the 19th, dad and the boys tried to get him to town without any luck. The drifts were to high so they came back to our place and Roy went back home. The 20th was the same result. Fred's funeral was on the 21st, but seems like our road between Gregory' was still beyond travel so the folks were unable to attend, and still no mention how Roy got to town. According to mom's writings, schools did not resume until Nov 24th but some how the Parks road was opened to some degree of travel. I found these writings of mom's quit interesting and hope the dates are accurate.
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