Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

This week's article is a continuation of last week's story about Samuel Gillard.

His faded white two-story house still stands on the homestead ½ mile northwest of Naponee. It has been added onto its original framework. Samuel's son, Charles and his wife, Lucy, probably did the work. The legal description is 4-1-16, north 80 acres of SW ¼.

I heard rumors about two months ago that the inside of the Gillard house was a sod house. I was so excited to think I would be able to see the walls of a sod house. After checking around, I found the Lewis Driewer's of Republican City are the owners of this farm.

I met them at the home of Samuel Gillard on March 5, 1999. I entered at the front door of the house with my hammer in hand. We found the first story part of this house to be the original house. It was in bad condition, with plaster falling off the walls. It was easy to see the inside of the walls. Well, put a pin in my balloon! We saw no sod walls. But…we did see an unusual form of insulation. It looked like the Gillards built a 2" x 4" studded frame house and sheeted it. They then pored the walls full of shale rock and a form of mortar. I have never seen this sort of walls before. It any of you know what this is called, I would like to know.

We took the hammer and knocked off more of the plaster to see if any of the other walls could be sod. Then we went outside to the south side and broke off the siding and looked some more. No luck, there. It was definitely shale rock filler. Most old houses I look at are built with just studs, lath and plaster, with no protection from the winter winds. Did Samuel know something the other pioneers didn't know, or was this his own invention. Or was this common, and I'm just not familiar with it?

We went down into the basement under the first story part of the house. He sure built this part of the house to last. Downstairs, we found walls of green rock and huge timbers as strong and straight as the day it was built. We found a large nice room with light coming from a south window to direct our way to the west. There was a storage room for coal or wood for the fire. We didn't stay very long, for the old basement cellar was a home to another source of an inhabitant that didn't smell too good.

This old part of Samuel's home was about the size that was required to show proof of homestead agreement, 16 feet by 24 feet. So I wonder if he ever had a dug out or sod house. Living just up the road was his stepson, Robert Dow, said he built a frame house right away by hauling the lumber from Lowell, Nebraska. Maybe Samuel did the same. I guess this question will never be answered, unless some of you know it.

Attached to the west portion of the original house is the kitchen with wainscoting up to the chair rail height. Beyond the kitchen is the screened in back porch. Surely, they sat out there on hot summer evenings. From that porch, they could see Samuel's mill over the hill west and the booming town of Naponee. They could see also the people going hither and dither, each doing their own thing. The family would have built the two-story addition to the north sometime before 1900. We know that, because it had been constructed with square nails, and people began to use round nails after 1895. Maybe they turned the original house into a dining room at that time, and built on what looks like to be a living room downstairs to the north and a bedroom and closet to the west of the living room.

When we went upstairs, we found what could have been one big bedroom or two small bedrooms. Each of the two bedrooms had a doorway entrance, but after going inside either doorway a person could see a big full bedroom covering from north to south. Lewis thought they used a curtain to make two bedrooms if needed, or it could have been one big room. It was quite a different set up than what I have ever seen. There was another bedroom to the west, making a total of three bedrooms upstairs.

Sources say there was a large barn west of the present cattle shed and that it was also a unique unit, containing a watering system from a nearby spring. It seems Samuel had a special knowledge of mills, springs and water.

At midnight, just as the new year was coming in on January 1, 1899, a century ago, Charles Gillard, Samuel's son, married Lucy Ann Fox at Bloomington. Her father was a carpenter and built many homes and churches around Naponee. Her mother died when she was nine years old. Charles and Lucy spent their married life on the Gillard homestead, where he farmed. They had five daughters: Thelma, Gwen, Retta, Julia and Bonnie. All were born there at the farm. Charlie died October 21, 1951 and Lucy passed away March 23, 1946. The farm was sold to Guy Rust in 1947, when Charles moved to Hastings.

Old timers said Samuel Gillard came here in 1871. From then until 1911, it doesn't seem like a long time unless you lived it. We don't know how much of the house he built, but it's almost certain he lived in the old original room. I never entered an old house but what I think, "please talk to me. Give me a sign of your past, for you now have no future except to house the wild animals and rodents. Your work is done. You don't need to protect or warm anyone. There is no more glory for you, except to show me your interior so I can write of you." So perhaps, someone will drive by soon and say,"I know that old house. It was Samuel Gillards and he contributed to the growth of Naponee."

And don't be surprised if you "see" a glimmer of light from within its walls and a stronger glow of white from its frame.

Credit for this column's writings goes to Lewis Driewers.

"The day dies slowly in the western sky;
Take comfort; evening bringeth all things home." Anonymous

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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