An Ode to the North Divide

Kansas Korner
By Marilyn Holzwarth

The Cheyenne County Historical Society continues “An Ode to the North Divide” by lagoo. If you know the identity of the writer, please let us know.

There is Timothy Galvin still at large
There is Frank O’Leary tall and fair
There is George Boyd and Wilson George
And William Burns with curly hair
Daniel Collins is still in the ranks,
Mr. Harley was lately enrolled
Among ‘North Divide’ bachelors,
He is fearless and bold.

There are so many lonely ones,
I cannot name them all;
There is Edward McKinney who they say
Never has had a proposal at all;
There is D. W. Crabtree, rich as a Jew
But keeping back makes solemn and prim;
Oh, will not some kind maiden
Take up her cross and show mercy to him.

There is W. P. Lambert, of woeful state
All day long he roams the plain
Like a lost troubled spirit,
Who searches, and searches in vain,
He sighs and groans and cries aloud,
He bitterly weeps and beats the air,
He stops not for fence nor canon,
Madly he rides and tears his hair.

-- a Clipping found among Alice Gregory’s papers, probably clipped from the St. Francis Herald, date unknown

Comments by Alice (Crabtree) Gregory

Frank O’Leary (wasn't tall at all) married Mary Tongish and had children; Lewis, Lloyd, Helen, Frances… After Frank died, Mary married Jim Lang

George Boyd never married, in the 1930s he moved to Ainsworth, Nebraska and sold his place to Herman White.

George Wilson never married – he was seeing Serepta Crabtree at one time and she never married either.

Ed McKinney married LaVerne (Hoover) Gibberson, mother of Ellen (Gibberson) Drummond

Dave Crabtree never married (He was my Uncle Dave)