Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

This week’s column is a continuation of the Judge Albert Byrum story. Last week I told you about him and the big two-story house he occupied in Bloomington.

His house was moved into the country approximately a half-mile east of Bloomington on the north side of the road in 1924. The following story is of the new family owning Judge Byrum’s home.

Goedeken fire

As I sat at Ethel (Eggersgluss) Goedeken’s kitchen table the morning of July 12, 2002 she told me about the fateful day in September 1934 when their first home on the farm one-half mile east of Bloomington burned to the ground.

Ethel’s parents, Henry and Emma Eggergluss had gone to Franklin’s bank to borrow money to send their son, Harvey to the Kearney college. As they approached the driveway on their return trip home the yard was full of cars. Coming closer they could see why. Their neighbor’s were fighting the fire that destroyed their home. They knew what started it and probably relived that morning over and over.

The grate on the old wood stove that allowed ventilation for the fire to burn had been left open and the hot coals were brimmed to the top of the ash dump and some spilled over and rolled out into the cob basket. They think the fire must have been started even before they left for Franklin.

Needless to say with such disruption in the Eggergluss family, Harvey didn’t get to attend Kearney’s college. Funds were needed to refurnish the house, and of course all their clothes were burned and nothing was saved.

In Ethel’s picture album I saw a picture of a little girl holding a doll. She told me it was her and without thinking and with my foot in my mouth I inquired if she still had the doll. She told me no, and that she thought it burned in the fire.

Ethel described the house that burned saying it was a small two-story house with a small kitchen not big enough to eat in, so they ate in the dining room front room combination. There was one bedroom off the living room that was entered in through big French doors.

Upstairs there were two bedrooms. The stairway to the second floor was in the kitchen and went up into one of the bedrooms.

She told me that a family named Gables lived in that small white house when they bought it. The Gables family moved from there to Bloomington, west of where Lonnie Bienhoff lives, in a small white house that is still standing, owned by Dean Dunn.

Insurance through a loan from the Federal Land Bank covered the house fire with stipulations. The Eggersgluss family had to replace the burned house on the farm with another home or the Federal Land Bank received the insurance money.

After the fire the destitute family stayed a few days with the Tom Lanes family, who were their neighbors to the south across the road. Then they moved to north Bloomington and quickly acquired the Judge Byrum home yet that fall of 1934 and moved it to the site of the burned home.

Ethel remembered walking home from Bloomington School that day after school and finding her home and all that her family owned burned to blacken ashes. Ethel was in the tenth grade at the time of the fire.

When I got to Ethel’s home this morning she already had a page of written memories laying on the table for me.

Ethel wrote, “ the first few nights after the fire we stayed at the neighbors, Tom and Maggie Lane’s home. Then we moved into north Bloomington for a month or so, I think it was called the Sharp house. I kind of think Dad could have bought that house to move to the farm but decided on the Byrum house. Upland movers moved the house. I know Art Muckel built the railing on the south porch. Stolting bought the farm around 1940-1941. They lived there for quite some time, later they tore down the house. The folks, moved to John Dallmann farm near Macon (where Donna Rae Greening later lived). On November 30, 1942 they had a farm sale and moved to Oregon.”

Ethel didn’t know the first name of the Stolting that bought her dad’s farm, but she remembered that he was married to a Fratzke woman from the Republican City area and that the Fratzke’s attended the country church north of Republican City.

What thoughts did this family without a home think lying in the beds of their neighbors that night in the fall of 1834 while their house smoldered just across the road? Who slept in the bed that is just a melted frame in the picture” Wouldn’t it have been sad to awaken the next morning and walk to the house ruins? But on went time into the future and maybe a better future as they soon had a much better and bigger home.

Ethel (Eggergluss) Goedeken lived on this farm east of Bloomington, from 1929-1934 in the old house and from 1934-1938 in the new house. That year she married Walter Goedeken and moved to Republican City. Walter and Ethel had three children.

Ethel moved to Franklin in 1996. She and her friend, Hilda Mucklow will play cards today, she tells me. These two friends also walk at the old gym in Franklin, beside me in the cold winter time and I very much enjoy their company; two friends who have lived a long rewarding life. I watch them walk and talk together as they plan their day. I think how splendid the Lord’s gift of friendship is.

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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