Memories of Margaret (Stafford) Hightower

Letter to cousin Floy from Margaret (Stafford) Hightower, daughter of Lewis (Lute) and Georgia (Bartlett) Stafford. (*italics supplied)

I have been really enjoying the Benkelman Post every week and especially your column and yes I remember my school days in the little country school - one teacher, forty five kids and 9 grades. And we had every subject every day. The last three years there, I helped the teacher with the first 3 grades, as one little girl was afraid of the man teacher. So along with my studies, I taught those grades with their reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic.

Then they voted that school out and the schoolhouse was sold to the Hurley Crabtree family. Harvey and Marie (*moved it to) the Crabtree farm and built onto it and made their home there.

I remember the programs we had there and even the Box suppers. The girls took a nice box supper and the men and boys bought them, then ate with the buyer. And I remember one time we went to your (*probably Prairie Rose) school or something, I don't remember if it was a program - the children put on as if it was a church gathering.

I also remember about a school house our Grandfather Bartlett bought and moved to their farm, years before I can remember, and they said 18 (*people) lived in it one winter while they built a sod house right next to it. I was told he paid $35 for that school house. Then after they built the big house they moved the school house north about a quarter of a mile where our Uncle Harry and his wife lived.

The first time it was moved must have been about 1910 or 1911. As it was about the time the Bartletts moved from Eastern Kansas.

Mamma told me that she and Grandpa Bartlett came west in a covered wagon and took out the homestead land there, then went back and your mother (*Mae (Bartlett) Crabtree) Uncle Art (*Bartlett) ,and My mother (*Georgia (Bartlett) Stafford) stayed back in Jewell County, Kansas, to harvest the crops and the rest of the family moved out to Cheyenne County. Uncle Harry was born in 1911 (In Cheyenne County). Then the three older ones came west and evidently some of the Hughes boys (their uncles) came about the same time because that winter they all lived in the schoolhouse.

When Grandpa and my mom came they had no place to stay, so my grandparents (the *Job Staffords) asked them to stay with them until they could get a place built. Well, sort of an underground place to live. It was over the hill, east of where they finally built the house where they were to live.

And, Oh, the wonderful garden Grandpa and Grandma raised there in that little valley. They had Cherry and Pear trees and the pears were Bartlett pears. I thought it was because of their name was why they were called Bartlett pears. The rhubarb plants grew so big Grandpa would give each of us 4 girls a stem with a big leaf for an umbrella when it was real hot in the summers.

I was in Goodland one time and Jack & Jerry Bartlett wanted me to go with them and we drove over to Grandpa's farm and of course the house had been moved away and the barn was about to fall down. But those pear trees were still producing. But deer had gotten as high as they could reach and had picked them. There were deer everywhere - all over those hills, something we never saw back in the days of old.

We have to lock everything up now days and we should have back then, too, as one year my mother had just put 200 laying hens in the laying houses and a neighbor came one night when we were away and took every one of them. We found out who it was because he had sold them in Benkelman. My dad happened to be in Benkelman one day and the man that had bought those hens told my dad that he was so proud of xxx as he had bought so many nice chickens from him a day or so before. But xxx never had a place to raise that many chickens. Other neighbors had lost chickens, too. Everyone called the couple Galloping xxx and Trotting xxx, as they walked into places at any time and from different directions. Yes, they had a car but they never drove in to places unless they knew the owners were gone.

Another time Mamma raised some turkeys and they didn't get very big when that couple took all but the little ones. Oh, if they walked in, people would take them in out of the hot sun and let them have water or eat a meal.

People were friendly with them but knew they were looking things over to see what they could take and sell. Oh, they farmed. But their crops hardly ever done much, as he really didn't take care of the crops too well and they only had a few acres, if I know or remember rightly.

--Margaret Hightower grew up around and in Parks, Nebraska. She is 91 years old and the cousin of Floy Ruggles and Alice Gregory.

My Sister's Husband's Daughter's Grandmother's Daughter

Anyone interested to know how many of the Haigler families are connected either by marriage or birth?

I became interested in genealogy several years ago after my mother spent many hours constructing a TREE with branches and leaves showing 15 generations of Crabtree ancestors that she had connected by obtaining family information from others and searching of her own.

The internet has made it alot easier to find these connections. It used to take a visit in person to a genealogy library such as the one in Salt Lake City, Utah where there were miles of microfiche records of the U.S. Census and many other documents listing family connections.

One of the things I noticed when looking at the tree mamma had created was that there were a lot of people from the Haigler area shown there.

We spent many hours getting all of her information entered into a computer program, first using PAF a DOS based program produced by the LDS people in Utah. We have migrated to Family Tree Maker that allows us to click on someone's name and search through records on the internet and find census records, newspaper references, historical documents and many other sources of information.

Running into road blocks is quite common and it is sometimes by chance that you find a connection. It might be in a forum where someone wrote about the very person you are looking for or it may come with a new document being posted somewhere on the internet. It is a challenging hunt that can keep a person occupied for hours at a time.

One of my roadblocks is the family of George Bartlett. We have found his father and siblings, but cannot seem to get farther back than that. Seems that Jacob Harvey Bartlett (George's father) was born in New York, migrated to Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and possibly Nebraska, but he died when George was 8 years old and the connection with the family who stayed back in New York has somehow stayed concealed. We will continue looking.

George Bartlett homesteaded land south of Parks in what is now known as and marked on the maps as Bartlett Canyon.

One of his daughers, Bessie Mae Bartlett married Frank Crabtree and was my grandmother.

George Bartlett, Rich Gregory,
Frank Crabtree and
Leah (Gregory) Brewer.

Another of his daughters, Ruth (Bartlett) Wiley, married Frank Wiley. Their children were Ben Wiley, Frances Irene (Wiley) Rose, Dorothy (Wiley) DiGregorio, Doris (Wiley) Schorzman and William Royce Wiley.

Another was my aunt Georgia (Bartlett) Stafford, who was married to Lute Stafford and owned and operated a general store in Parks, Nebraska.

More Genealogy later: Most people can only take this subject a little bite at a time!

Esther (Hughs) Bartlett,

Alice (Crabtree) Gregory
Bessie Mae (Bartlett) Crabtree
Baby is Leah (Gregory) Brewer

I believe these pictures were taken at the Bartlett homestead south of Parks, Nebraska in the spring of 1940.

Memories - Alice Gregory

I will make a sort of outline of those early years of my life.

1. The homestead where Ethel and I were born. Those baby pictures of me were at that place. I remember very little there. I got in trouble--seemed serious--because I messed up my curls crawling through the curtain that was hung up as a room partition. I also remember running down the Long, long row of giant onions.
   
   
2. The Fancher Place. Also known as the Jake Keller place. (They bought it from us)
   
   My first memory was riding around the bend east of the house. The road curved around the hill and stayed next to the hill. There was a bank on the right side of the road. As the road went along to the north it was between the bank and a pond then turned west. It was low ground for maybe an 8th of a mile or less. The road joined a road that came down a hill from the north where the two draws met. The house was on a hill between the two draws. Auntie Fancher was packing glasses into a box. She smiled at us. We thought that she was the nicest lady there was. I guess that we moved in as they moved out. I don't remember any of the moving work. I am assuming we had moved or were just moving in that day. That was about 1919. Lloyd was born that October.
   
   I started school at Prairie Rose School. District #34. Teacher --Vada Sapp. Ethel started the next year. Some teachers were Nettie Gillispie, Della Sims, Irma Combs, Ethel Smith, Mabel Merklin, Emma Freehling.
   
   Lloyd started school in 1925 and Floy was born in St. Francis that September. Mabel Merklin was the teacher.
   
   There were literary programs, box suppers once a year for excitement. Summer times we hardly went anyplace. Only to Parks with the eggs and butter. Ethel and I stopped off at Aunt Georgia's to play with the cousins. Fun times.
   
   Sundays--family dinners at Bartlett grandparents. Sometimes at our house. Sunday School in the school house. Sometimes when our daddy was busy in the field, Ethel and I would walk.
   
   We got Measles during the last part of February my 8th grade year. We couldn't move to our new home on the regular “moving day” which was March 1. The Jake Kellers couldn't move to our place until we got out of it. (They had brought the measles to us--exposed us--so they weren't faulting us very loud). The Joe Osters were waiting to move into the place where Kellers were moving from. I was the first to get the measles and felt great so our mamma let me go to school. Teacher Emma said it was OK. But one kid made a remark about it. That made me mad!!! I just went home that night and never went back. We were getting ready to move anyhow. Well we got moved.
   
   Things that I could tell about!
   
   
   --the big Rumly tractor
   --Shelling corn
   --Corn shucking
   --the haymow
   --Butte's barn and pen
   --the supply tank
   --the gas lights and iron and stove
   --Hired men in summers and corn shuckers in winter.
   --Butchering.
   --Horse with snake bite.
   --Neighbors: Sheeders, Armstrongs, Ritcheys, Freemyers, MacDonalds,
   
   East school--Prairie View. Where our cousins went to school. Harveys, Crabtrees, Staffords, Roundtrees, Burrs, Haineses, Hollimons.
   
   West School--Prairie Bell. Boyds, Walls, Zuege's, Woodwards.
   
   
3. Powell Place. Moved there in March. New school. New teacher, Mildred Boatsman. I didn't go take the county exams for 8th grade. Repeated the next year--taacher--Helen Smith Owens and Melvin Bannister. Went to DJA--Stayed with Aunt Sarepta at Marshall Aunt and Uncle. Rode bus. Second semester stayed at Shakespeare's --helped her for board and room and walked to school. 10-grade school. Mr Leinbaum was teacher for 9th and 10th grades. The 7th and 8th grade teacher taught English. Stayed home the next school year. Neighbors: Richers, Wilkenings, Owens, Forsythes, Shellers, Kelners.
   
   
4. Merritt place I drove team and wagon with one load of household things. Must have been about 12 or 15 miles. Scary--especially going down a big hill. We had 4 rooms and shanty on back. 2 rooms down and two up. Ethel and Lloyd were in school. Floy started later. Neighbors--Meineckes, Jake Zweygardts, Hurlocks, Arrants, Burnhams, Larsons.
   
5. High School in St. Francis --started riding with The Arrants family, Grace, Troy, and ???. Later rode with Hurlocks for a couple months. Then I moved into basement of Gramma Bartlett’s house. Uncle Jim and Aunt Ruth lived upstairs in 2 rooms. That was my sophomore year.
   
   The next year--junior year, Loell Jones stayed with me and Mary Ross moved in later that year.
   
   Senior year we moved into an apartment above the Quigley restaurant. Then I went to Denver with Aunt Sarepta and Uncle Dave and took some household jobs. I worked for Ellisons to take my friend Martha Meinecke’s place during her vacation; Spensers for 3 weeks while the regular maid had measles. Then to help and companion for Mrs DeRose until August when my parents wrote or called Aunt Sarepta saying that they were a teacher short and that I should come home. So I did, and taught the Klinzmann school for 2 years. Then taught the Mills school one year and the Sam Rath school one year.
   
   I got married that spring and we moved onto the Ritchey place up northeast of Fred Zuege’s. Rich worked for Marvin Mills and Chris Ferguson. I taught that year at the Klinzmann school again. Leah was born on Feb.29. That spring, we moved to the Rose place to rent for one year. Then we moved to Bertha Zuege’s place and rented from her. We bought it later. The other four children were born while we lived there. We lived on that place for 40 years.
   
   Once the kids got a little older, I went to McCook summer school and taught Haigler 1,2 grades first semester and then Kindergarten, second semester. Then summer schools and one full year until I graduated with a BA from Greeley. And 2 more summers for Masters in Libray Media. Some of this took place after move to Lamar and Granada.
   
   I need to take a little more to list the main things that took place along that time. and get the dates right. This is so haphazard.

-- Submitted by Alice (Crabtree) Gregory