Darin Freehling, making the winning loop in the October 2006 USTRC Finals in Oklahoma City.
I feel that Mary Stute's painting is of the Sackett House and not the Palmer House. Check it out, I could be mistaken, I was once in 1963! HA!I think the Palmer House has one chimney and the Sackett House (Butterfield House) has two.Try to stay warm today.Cal Freehling
Today is my birthday, I am 64 but look 41. HA! I couldn't have asked for a better present than the good results from the echogram.Cheers and stay warm today.--Cal Freehling
The Wagner Homestead is on the north side of the road east of the Merle Mills house, which is south and east of Haigler in Kansas on the Hackberry creek.There are a few stories that I have heard in the past, that I am going to have her write down for me.
I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
--Jody Crouse
This is a picture of Mary Mullally Palmer and Archibald Grant Palmer. It was taken around the year 1958. Mary and Archibald were married
They had 8 children:
Some tidbits from Pat DeWester, granddaughter of Mary and Archibald Palmer...
Pa ordered the Sears/Roebuck house before Lorretta was born in 1923. It came by rail. Pa bought a lot in town south of school for the house. In the meantime, they lived in an old house on the farm. When the Palmer house moved to the farm, Pa sold the lot to the school for $100. It was the lot on the NE corner with the trees, along cemetary road.
Pa gave Pat O'Brien $100 for a lot on the highway and gave it to the church for the Catholic church, which Ma was set on having. (Another story.)
Now to the school teacher. Her name was Millie Fuller and she went with Archie. She was his only girl friend. They were going to marry but Ma insisted they live with them. Archie and Millie did not agree. Millie finally went back east. A love story with no end. They always kept in touch by phone or letter. When Arch died (1980), her picture was in his billfold.
--Jody Crouse and Pat DeWester
Previous posts, by Al Zuege and subsequent responses to his original reference to Dick and Molly Green, prompted me to investigate this location while visiting Haigler last month.
Their son, Floyd, went to school in District 69 north of the river. "Rumor says that Floyd had a white father who paid Dick twenty-five dollars to marry Molly."
Alice Gregory remembers that Molly worked for a family in a town somewhere east and when she got married to Dick Green, her boss got them the cream station. Thier son, Floyd didn't look very black, but she said the kids in town teased him alot.
Delford Trembly wrote saying that he lived at that corner, also.
Only a few miles down Highway 34 to the east of Haigler, is a little town named Parks. This little community is rich with history. I'm sure many "Haiglerites" have stories intertwined with people who lived there.
I remember going to Parks when my mamma's Uncle Lute and Aunt Georgie (Bartlett) Stafford had a grocery and cream station there just north of the grain elevators. All that remains on that lot are some pieces of foundation and a hand pump. The location is across the street south of the little postoffice that is still active.
Across the street east of the store was a little filling station which is still standing, vacant and lonely. Just east of that is a
n unoccupied house that is reminiscent of the families that grew up in it.
The day I was there, the grain elevator dryers were going full blast creating the only sound in this quiet little village. It was during corn harvest, so I'm sure the bins had been filled to capacity.
My mamma's cousins, Margaret, Esther, Larry and Keith Stafford, went to school in Parks at the two story brick building that now stands as only a shell. The schoolyard is overgrown with weeds and most of the windows are broken out, but there are still alot of memories exuding from this quiet spot in town.
My grandmother taught sunday school in the Parks Methodist church where my grandparents, Frank Crabtree and Mae (Bartlett) Crabtree got to know each other during the years before driving to Benkelman in a horse drawn wagon to get married on September 13, 1916.
Driving east along the river road toward Benkelman, there is a building that I don't remember knowing about. I wonder if anyone can enlighten me on the history or function of the long brick building just south of the railroad tracks between Parks and Doane.
I remember this big old house and Don, Mary, Mel and Patty Smith!!! Also Pat and Catherine Smith.
Whatever your political leaning, the assassination of anyone is tragic. The course of our country was changed 43 years ago when our president was shot while riding in an open car through Dallas, Texas. Encased in mystery and conspiracy theories, this event remains one that every American is fascinated with. Across political lines, this president was respected and loved.
The caption on the picture says "Haigler Stock & Fair 1923"
--Cal FreehlingMissed John's birthday by two weeks. Need to rekindle the birthday candles. Does John Phifer want to do this all over again?
Anyways, a belated two week error on my part.
Happy Birthday, John.
-- Dallas Adams
Are you a Haigler person? Or a Benkelman or Wray or a St. Francis person? I wonder if growing up equidistant from all these other towns makes people wonder "who" they are or have multiple personalities.
I call myself a Haigler person, but we did all our “legal” business in St. Francis because our farm was located across the state line in
So there must be DEGREES of Haiglerite-ism. Some people lived “around” Haigler and went to high school there, but then married someone from somewhere else and raised their families somewhere else. These Haiglerites would be a degree MORE Haiglerite than someone like me who lived “around” Haigler and went to high school somewhere else….. etc. etc.
The Pate House: I remember when it was built. Mr. Brown (I don't remember his first name) built it. He had a form and made his own cement bricks, built it and then stuccoed it. It was always very cold. It might have been Leonard and Maxon Brown's dad that built it but I am not sure.
The motel was built by Voland Schmutte
The earliest person who lived in the house
The house on Green Road
Wally McKay's body shop where 
Marie Pauline Sass.
John Kamla house later the Potthoff, 
Tucker House,
Caroline Stute House,
The Emmons Adams house was new when mom and dad moved in. I have been told that Lester was a baby. It was a six room house. The two porches were closed in later. The laundry room was in the back porch and the front porch was where dad liked to lounge.
The old hiway 34 used to run down along the railroad tracks before the new Hiway was built through town.
Floy:Look at the floor plan of the Montgomery Ward house called the
Yes it surely looks like it. The front porch is different but that has been added of course. I remember the porch went along the entire width of the house. Remember the milk strainer? A cloth that Gramma washed and hung out on the line on that porch every morning to sun every day?
Floy:
Yes, the front porch did go all the way across the front of the house. I remember the space under it that I liked to play in. I think the dining area was in a corner of the living room instead of it being a separate room with an archway in between. Am I right?
Yes, that house in the picture could possibly be Gramma and Grampa's "new" house--with new siding. It was shingled on the outside as I remember. I am looking for that picture of grandkids to see if it shows the siding. Their new house was a copy of Aunt Lizzie's house in Goodland but with smaller dimensions.
There was a cupboard and cabinet facing each other, one of them on the south wall, the other on the north. On top of the cupboard were the catalogs. Sears and Montgomery Ward. Then on the north wall was the drop-leaf table with chairs. No linoleum - bare wood floors with a shiny finish. Gramma scrubbed it on hands and knees. Betty "helped" scrub floors. Gramma told her that if you get the corners clean the middle would take care of itself, and she wondered how that could be!!! But by the time you got all the corners done there just wasn't any middle left. You could hardly use a mop with a handle. Besides, the way Gramma scrubbed, the handle would have poked through all the windows and cupboard doors!!
I remember, in the "room" were some chairs and rocking chairs, a magazine rack with Cappers' Weekly and some western romance magazines. One time 
Ethel and I spent a week there every summer. We dried dishes and thought we were really helping Gramma with the work. She was quiet--not talking--as she washed dishes and we thought that she was "mad". Well! Can you imagine her being quiet???
Last summer, Leah, Dwight and I walked in to the place where the Bartlett farmstead was located. All that is left is the foundation/basement filled with tree wood and three wells or cisterns.
Click on the above picture to see an enlarged version.
The house in this picture is the "old" house. The road running along the east side of the canyon was a main road and a mail route. It went all the way to Hiway 34 and into Parks.
I was born and raised around Haigler. Lived 4 miles east from Haigler. I walked to Haigler to high school and graduated in 1946. Does anyone remember that class? There were just 8 of us that graduated then.Floy (Crabtree) Ruggles writes:I remember Helen Pennell as a friend of my sister Floy. Yes, my dad was Frank Crabtree. And Lloyd was my brother. They moved to that place in the spring of 1939. and lived there until the place was sold to Ash Roundtree. Floy was finishing 8th grade in Kansas that spring and stayed with us until the graduation in St. Francis. Only a few weeks. Later Lloyd went into the army service and was a part of the "Invasion of North Africa". And then in Italy. After the army time he worked for our cousin Ben Wiley. Then after Ben's death he started his own shop.
I have been wondering what ever happened to my friend Helen Pennell. We both started to Haigler Highschool the same year as freshman and rode with Tom and Viola Pierson (or Pearson) as they commuted morning and afternoon between Parks and Haigler - as I remember. On many summer afternoons we would walk to the river to cool off and play in the water. The river had a wide sandy bottom then and the stream was much stronger than now. Also it was clear and clean. We moved to Parks six weeks before school was out and I can't remember ever seeing her again. Wasn't there an older brother, Herb, too? Or was that the dad? Seems like the dad was Ernest or something like that. This blog has been so exciting. So many people that have moved away long ago are showing up there - from everywhere.
