Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

The issue continues with Katherine (Dickerson) Bixby's story of her early life on a farm close to North Bend, NE, and the subsequent move to Meadow Grove and Sybrant, NE.

"Cattlemen used to drive lots of big herds of cattle by our home—mostly red cattle. Once they asked if they could eave a red heifer with us that had the blind staggers. It just wanted to go around in circles. It never did amount to anything. They had bluestem grass in Kansas and claimed it was good feed.

"There used to be lots of prairie chickens and quail in those days. Large flocks of geese would circle around and land over in Krause's pasture to eat bluestem. My cousin Cliff Dickerson used to take his shotgun and go over there and hide behind haystacks and shoot himself a goose. He used to go over to the Platte River and dig down in the sand and lay and watch for ducks and geese.

"Between our place and North Bend, when we went the south way to town, was a ranch. The name of it was the Bay State. Uncle Wallace had hay ground southwest to there, too. When the Platte River overflowed, fish came down through the grassland and would get in the ditch on each side of the road and we could take a pail and dip in there and threw them out on the grass and get them to eat. There were lots of water snakes along there, too. One day, when I was herding the cows, I didn't have a stick along, and I saw a big snake, the largest I ever saw of that kind. I picked up a clod and threw it. I tried to hit it in the head, but hit it in the back, and made it mad and it started chasing me. I sure ran down the road till I out ran it. They aren't poison, but I didn't want it to bite me. Rattlesnakes didn't chase me. They coiled up and stuck out their head and rattled and dare you to come on.

"My father died when I was 12 years old. They had sold the place at North Bend and went by Meadow Grove, NE. Bought 160 acres up there. I always thought that was a mistake and still do. My mother intended to buy a farm next to her brother, David, but someone came in and bought it before they got there. My father died while on the trip up there at Uncle Dave's house. His body was brought back on the train. He is buried in the Purple Cane Cemetery northwest of the old home place at North Bend, NE.

"The place at Meadow Grove didn't have any pasture, so I had to heard cows up and down the roads. My mother used to say, " Kate, seems to like you can do a better job than anyone else." The people weren't very happy because the cows were eating along their places. My mother sowed some timothy and grasses for the pasture but she usually had more cows than the pasture carried. My sister, Maggie and I helped with the farming and we did the chores; milking and feeding the cattle. Brother, Ray farmed too, and fed the horses. My brother John was the youngest. That place had lots of sunflowers. I never did like that place. The house was cold and the barn was run down. There was a small creek south of the house and the stinging nettles grew higher than my head. The cows could run through them and I had to go after them. The nettles stung awful. Maggie and I done most of all kinds of work: plowed, harrowed, disked, cultivated corn, made fence and even wanted to break a young horse to drive, so we hitcher her up with her mother and drove her up across the farm. She tried to run, but we managed to hold her. We hauled manure hauled straw, took care of hogs, put in fences, husked two big loads of corn a day and scooped it in the crib, chopped the weeds that was in the corn field. Maggie got married when she was 18 to Sandy Watt.

"When we lived at North Bend, we had just a mile to go to school—one mile east. After we moved, it was three miles to school, so I didn't go too much after that. By the time the cows were milked and fed and turned out, and chores done, it made it hard to get so far on time. My mother hired Alva Bixby to help with the farming. On November 9, 1905, he and I were married and we lived there and helped with the work. Then my mother's brother-in-law, Walter Brown, Uncle David Stubbert, my brother Ray, Alva and I went to the Sand hills in Rock County, NE and filed on a homestead. My mother bought out a man's land so we got good land. There were no trees or anything on that land (homestead), we had to haul lumber and everything from Bassett, 35 to 40 miles through sand. We built a house 16-ft.by16-ft., and had to live in it for five years. We built a barn, set post, put a well down, washed a pipe down with water. They have lots of soft water up there. We moved there in March 1907. I rode up in the buggy tied behind the wagon.

Robert David was born April 23, 1907. We had no doctors, just my mother and me. He was a big baby, weighed 12 pounds.

"We had to pump water for the cattle and horses, we finally bought a windmill and tank. Alva worked for the neighbor, Freeman Park.

"We sold cream at Sybrant, it was just a store or post office. We got groceries there. We had no wood to burn; gathered cow chips, covered them with hay to dry. They won't burn if they are wet. Then we finally had a hay burner put on the front of the range. A blacksmith made them, and then you had to get three or four long hay burners with handles on each side and fill them with hay, Tromp it in with your feet, dig a hole and set it in so it won't tip over, then keep them on hand. When one is burned up, take it off and put another one on the base of the stove. You turned it upside down so the head is next to the base and light it and it burns for quite a while. There's a draft hole in the front of the base. You have to have a poker. We used wagon rods bent on the end for a hook and reached up through the draft hold and pulled down the hay so it will burn, once in a while. There it caught on fire quick and blew fire out at you and hay ashes.

"Pearl Katherine was born on March 10, 1909, at my mother's house north of where we lived a ways. It was a cold blustery day, a blizzard; not much snow, but the wind blew. Had no doctor, my mother was with me, and she was a more normal-sized baby. When she was nine-days-old my mother went to be with my sister, Maggie, as she was expected a baby. It was a boy, and she named him Allie.

"We fenced a place closer to the house for a garden, not far from the stock tank, so as to bucket the water to the garden to keep the sand wet so it didn't blow so bad. I raised a good garden, Alva plowed a patch north of the house and planted watermelons, and they grew good in the sand just to keep the tumbleweeds out. Coyotes like watermelons too, and know when they are ripe. They eat the red part and leave the rind. They used to come down in the early morn and catch our chickens.

"The hills out there have better grass on them now since they keep the fires out, and it's pastured more than when it was first homesteaded. It's good cattle country.

"They only had three months of school at that time out there; and it's far to go. Most everyone had a section of land. When we went to Sybrant, we had to open and shut gates, follow the trail to the store. It was the same way wherever you went. There used to be what they called 'lakes'. One place they called a long slough, and it had fish in it. When the water got low they took a hay rake with some hay in it and drive through and rake out the fish; and small bones. The cattle would stand and chew on old bones when they found them. They found out they needed minerals because the prairie grass didn't seem to supply any.

" Mary Ellen was born March 9, 1911, at my mother's house. She was a normal-sized baby. My mother named her as soon as she was born. Picked her up and said, 'this is Mary Ellen!' I didn't say anything. It was all right with me. She's named for Aunt Mary and my mother's name was Ellen. She got the whooping cough when she was a month old. I didn't sleep much afraid Mary would get a coughing spell and choke to death. She would get choked and get stiff and blue from it. Pearl and Robert got it, but not as bad. My mother got sick and died in March 1913. Then we stayed there to look after the stock until they had a sale and sold things. Uncle Jim Stubbert came and was there while she was sick and helped about business matters. What my mother left us was divided up as she and Uncle Jim had it made out to be. Brother John got her land, but he was too young to know what to do, so some rancher got it.

" We moved to Bloomington in 1914."

Today some of us can't imagine having such a hard life as these people did. Time has made living so much easier for us. These pioneers took on life as so matter of fact not knowing it any other way. Working so hard. What if we had to do it their way? Do you think the future generations will think we did the hard way?

Next week I will cover what went on in that house across the creek from us. What if they knew that on February 5, 1999, it would only have three rotten boards left? Would they have worked so hard?

The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap;
The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep;
The beggar who wandered in search of his bread;
Have faded away like the grass we tread. William Knox

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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