LIFE IN A NEBRASKA SODDY

CHARLES H. SMITH

EXPERIENCES IN A NEBRASKA SODDY

by Charles H. Smith (July 19, 1860 - February 21, 1949)
R#1, Missoula, Montana,
a new-comer to Nebraska in 1868.

When my father left Omaha in April of '68 trying to learn to drive a newly acquired yoke of oxen for which he had paid one hundred and fifty dollars, his family trudged along behind in the wake of a procession headed by my Uncle Jacob Smith who previously had been to Nebraska and had taken land south and east of where Richland now stands.

A team of horses, harness and wagon purchased by Uncle Jake in Omaha as he came thru from Pennsylvania carried the trunks, boxes, household effects and smallest children of the combined Smith families. Father had four children at the time and Uncle Jake had nine, the youngest of which was Charlie who grew to manhood, and lived and died in Colfax County. The four in our family were: Lena, Lizzie, Joe and myself. Joe was the baby. He rode along on my mother's hip as she trudged behind the wagon which was too heavily loaded with necessary equipment to carry all members of the party.

Since the Smith brothers planned on living on adjoining land, it was thought that one wagon would do for both places.

I was eight years old at the time; well do I remember the soreness of my feet at the end of the first day on the road. As night fell, we reached the Captain Keeler ranch where we had planned to spend the first night. Captain Keeler had become a man of notoriety; for he kept his ranch in order to profit from the settlers going to new lands along the railroad which had not then been finished far to the west past Schuyler.

Sitting by the warmth of Captain Keeler's fire, I fell asleep at once. My tired legs were full of aches and pains from the day's walking over an April road which at best was nothing more than a trail. Aroused when supper was ready, I ate heartily. I then tumbled into the airy bed which, in order to save expense and keep us off the wet April ground, Mother had devised from our own bedding spread out on the chopped sticks of the Keeler wood pile. I cannot remember that the bed was too comfortable; nor that the springs were equal to some I've slept on since; but the April cold made us all huddle together; and somehow the night went by, morning finally arriving along with Keeler's cheery call to a breakfast for which my father paid a bill of ten dollars. Uncle Jake's family had slept indoors and consequently the bill was higher. Two meals and lodging had cost him seventeen dollars.

I recall that father kept the loaded rifle by his side all thru the night in order to be able, if circumstances required, to deal effectively with bad Indians or molesting white men who made it a practice to prey upon money carrying settlers who were not prepared to forestall the nocturnal visits of these high handed marauders.

Upon reaching Fremont the next day, our weary and blistered feet were compelling arguments in favor of buying a second hand wagon in which we could ride to our new destination and home. Although the wagon cost father a hundred dollars and did much to deplete the diminishing store of savings which father had brought from Pennsylvania, we children and our mother were glad to have the conveyance, happy that we might thereafter ride.

The oxen were making slow time; for father knew little about the driving of them. He was worried by the oxen, and they were in turn worried by his inexperience. He had not bought the pull chain with which oxen were accustomed to draw a load. Boy and Berry both rolled wild bovine eyes as they settled down to start the wagon attached directly to their yoke at the tip of the tongue. Uncle Jake's team got impatient at the snail's pace with which the procession had moved and had gone on ahead, the children of the other family waving us frantic and demonstrative goodbyes as far as we could keep track of them in the distance.

As we were leaving Fremont, father had asked mother to drive the oxen while he returned to the store to make a belated purchase. Saying that he would catch up with us later, he advised mother to make as much distance as she could before he returned. Driving oxen was not one of mother's specialties, but by patient persistence she succeeded in keeping the sluggish animals moving along the trail. After three hours she became alarmed and worried over father's continued absence, so she stopped the oxen and waited. Before long, in the horizon, we saw father coming towards us with his familiar long strides, carrying a queer looking object over his head. Coming into closer range the queer looking object turned out to be a common wooden washing tub with which he expected to water the oxen. Overjoyed at his return to us, we again started to drive on. The rest had refreshed the oxen; so before evening we lumbered in to the Dodge ranch five miles east of North Bend. Mr. Dodge greeted us warmly. Father asked if we could remain over night there. We children felt that Mr. Dodge was a fine man; for he agreed to furnish our supper, breakfast, and keep us over night for two dollars and a half. This included hay for the oxen.

Before father agreed to the unyoking of Boy and Berry, he had secured Mr. Dodge's promise to help with the yoking in the morning. Father had admitted that he was a green horn in getting the ponderous yolk [sic] on the animals. Mr. Dodge laughed heartily as he told him not to worry over a small detail like that. When after we awakened from a fine night's rest, Mr. Dodge appeared in the barnyard, he lifted the heavy yoke shoulder high, called to the oxen to come, and waited patiently as both Boy and Berry arose from the ground. They stretched their aching muscles and then slowly took their places under the yoke. Father was surprised into a laugh at the ease with which the yoking was accomplished. In such a way, we all learned the beginnings of the bull-whacking business.

The April sun shone brightly during the forenoon's drive into North Bend, revealing the beauty of the Platte Valley in which we were to make our home. On the sandy meadows the natural hay stood waist-high; rabbits scampered in all directions. The call of the quail echoed from every hollow, while prairie chickens cackled everywhere in wild confusion. Overhead, wedge after wedge of wild geese went honking their noisy ways to the northern ranges which were to be their summer homes.

After the next night spent at the home of Isaac Albertson six miles east of Schuyler, we children were all agog with excitement as the family started early for our new home which, we were told, would be reached by nightfall. Even the oxen seemed to catch the sprit of the new adventure; for Boy frisked about a little as he was being yoked, while Berry lolled his tongue in good natured manner as the fastenings were being made. The sun had not yet climbed to maximum height when the ambling ox-team brought us into the outskirts of Shell Creek, the tiny town which eventually was to be renamed Schuyler.

Shell Creek consisted only of a small frame depot built of hewed cottonwood logs and painted barn-red, located where the Union Pacific depot now stands, a sod section house squatting near where the present street crosses west of the depot, and a small frame building used as a post office near where the Schuyler State bank building now stands. The name of the agent was Sinclair; Jim Reilly was the section boss, Mrs. Reilly kept a small stock of grocery staples at the sectionhouse and served meals also. Although there were some sod houses here and there, the only frame house I can recall was that of Daniel Hashberger on what was later called the Folda ranch.

Father stopped the oxen at the depot and went inside to get a cook stove which he had sent by freight from Omaha. Mother helped father and two men from the depot to load it into the wagon, the lift from the ground requiring all the strength of the combined four. Quite proudly I rode on top of the stove as we traveled toward the A. J. Skinner ranch where we would stay while father and Uncle Jake looked about for land for our homestead. Our reunion with Uncle Jake's family was a joyous occasion. Many stories were told of happenings on the trip. While our mothers visited, we children ran and played in the freshness of new surroundings and new experiences. Quite soon, father signed for a homestead two miles west of Richland which at that time was nothing but a side track and section house. We planned on living at Uncle Jake's until a house was built on our land. There were reasons for me to be on the road between the two places often. In going from one to the other I had to use the railroad for a path part of the way. My bare feet were sensitive to the cinders; and I was often scared silly by the scampering horde of snakes which my approach sent scattering in all directions. Sunning themselves on the right-of-way in the heated area of the comparatively grassless grade!

Meanwhile, father and Uncle Jake had been hewing logs on the island and cutting sod on the homestead. The house was taking shape. Soon the logs were placed in position to form four corner posts and a roof for a one room soddy with a half window at one end. The gables were boarded up with cottonwood lumber, the strips running up and down.

We moved into this house on the ninth of May, 1868, although it was little more than a shell when we went there to live. A sleet drizzle on the tenth of May compelled us to keep near the walls in order to remain dry. Later a shingled roof was added which made us more comfortable during the wet spells of summer and the intense cold of winter.

During the house building, it was necessary that someone go occasionally to Columbus for supplies. This errand usually fell to me. Trudging six miles there and back on foot was no easy task for so young a boy; for my imagination pictured the strange country still full of wild animals and savage Indians. Occasionally night fell before I arrived home with the supplies. At such times my hair stood on end at the yip of each coyote or at the ambushed appearance of a shadowed bush near my pathway. Sometimes I had to carry the plow-share to the blacksmith to get it sharpened. Often, other customers were ahead of me and I would be compelled to await my turn. Invariably the dark would settle before I could get started on foot for home. Each unusual noise or motion along my frightened course would start the goose pimples all over me.

With the temporary completion of the house, father used the oxen to break some sod. Then mother and I took an axe and planted corn by cutting a hold in the sod, dropping in two or three kernels of corn, then covering them with a shovel. Since our very lives depended upon the successful maturing of the corn, each seed was covered with a seriousness amounting to a ceremony.

Very well, indeed, that we had planted corn! For very soon, forty war-painted Indians rode to the door, demanded food, and stole what was not given to them. The family was left without provisions. Our few remaining chickens were stolen by foxes which were plentiful around the place, and hard times were becoming evident. Father's money was gone. Supplies and groceries in Columbus were very costly. A file cost two and a half dollars, flour up to seven dollars and fifty cents a sack, while seed corn sold for two dollars and a half per bushel. We couldn't run across the street and borrow from the neighbors, for father's house was the first and only one north of the railroad between Columbus and Schuyler.

We were tided across this period of privation by S. J. Rickly of Columbus, keeper of a general store, and by the Haney Brothers, ranchers south of us on the old military road. My mother and father and all of the children have always felt very indebted to these kind people who put themselves to much trouble and inconvenience on our account.

Our well was only a hole in the ground out of which water was dipped with a pole and bucket. A wrecked Indian wigwam furnished the pole for the bucket which was pushed down into the water to fill, and then brought to the surface. Occasionally, something other than water came to the surface in the bucket, as when a freshly washed toad rode floating on the water, blinking in the brightness of the spring sunshine. One summer the well got full of wigglers and had to be pumped dry before it could be cleaned.

While the frontier life of the early settler brought out the latent qualities in a man's make-up, little chance was given to the children of the frontier to acquire much in the way of formal education. In our community, school was held for two or three months in the winter, provided some settler had a room he would rent as a school house. One winter after father had built on a lean-to, he rented it to the school for three months at ten dollars a month. Thirty dollars loomed big in those days! Five to seven pupils attended that term. No such school furniture as now, either! My desk was a sixteen inch plank with four legs much like an old fashioned milk stool. On this I sat to study my lessons. Our blackboard consisted of the top of a black trunk owned by our teacher, Tom Singer. This was nailed to the wall, and served as a medium on which to write our lessons, figure our examples in arithmetic, and draw pictures of each other during recess periods. I went to school three winters before I enjoyed the luxury of a slate. I was indeed a proud lad to won one costing thirty cents. On this I wrote my lessons. When the slate was full, I moistened it with spit, wiped it off with the sleeve of my coat, and was ready for another lesson. After many successive fillings of the slate and subsequent wiping of corrected lessons, the slate acquired an odor which would have staggered a healthy man nowadays. But that was before the days of sanitary experts; and a slate without an odor was as uncommon as a rose without a smell.

I cannot recall that much attention was paid to dressing children on the early frontier. Something to hide one's nakedness and keep him warm in winter was all that was required. I know that I was twenty before I owned an overshoe or a pair of underwear. Many times, my clothing was gathered up along with the railroad right-of-way. Some of it was evidently cast-off garments; but I suspect that in many instances the garments had blown out of trains as they went past. Old timers will recall that the wind rushing thru between coaches made dangerous the passing back and forth between two cars. Hats were the most common item of clothing to blow out of the trains. I recall that my father paid twenty five cents to the section boss for a city fireman's cap which had been picked up along the railroad following the visit of some Fire Department delegates to a nearby convention. This cap with all its fussy braid was supposed to be my "Sunday" cap; but I hated to wear it, and finally hid it so I would not have to put it on.

About this time my grandfather arrived from Pennsylvania for a visit bringing along a black felt hat which looked to be a foot high. Grandfather gave the hat to me; but father decided to shorten it a little. With his razor-edged knife he cut the top down a few inches, lopped the crown across, sowed it together and handed it to me for a school hat. I wore it proudly, thinking that I had something which all the scholars envied.

One winter when I was thirteen I needed a warm cap. I was told by my father to skin a badger which had been killed by the train a day before. While I did not like the idea of wearing a dried badger hide for a cap, I set about skinning the animal. Imagine my relief and pleasure when father cut the crown too small and ruined that portion of the hide intended for the upper section! Foxes, gray and brown, overran the place; so a fox hide was substituted.

Young folks of today are very apt to think that they are undergoing privations too difficult to endure. They are apt to forget that we of the pioneer generation often felt the same way. But we of the older generation now know that the hardships of yesterday have developed the stamina responsible for today's successes. The world is moving forward, as evidenced by the progress of the Platte Valley in the last seventy years. From the SLOW STRIDE of the oxen to the SPEED GEAR of the automobile! From the HORSE and BUGGY drag to the STREAMLINED droning of the cabin-plane! From the cumbersome KERNEL DROPPING method of the pioneer to the SCIENTIFIC MACHINE planting of the modern era!

YES, WE HAVE PROGRESSED!

Kenny Smith © 1999, 2000