Germany--
1) Benedict Kepler (c. 1660-1735) m. Barbara Catherine in Germany. “Benedict Kepler was born 8, December 1660 in Klingenberg, Baden-Wurttembert, Germany. He was a butcher and a judge in Klingenberg. He died after 1735 in New Hanover Twp., Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.”(55)
2) Andreas Kepler Sr. (c. 1700-1766). “Andreas Kepler Sr. was born 30, September 1700 in Klingenberg, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. He was a butcher and an Inn0keeper in Germany. He died in Limerick Township, Montgomery County in 1766. His first wife Margaret Yoerger died and he married Catherine Hottenstien.” (55)
3) Andreas Kepler Jr. (c. 1746-1790) m. Margaretha Braun in 1763. (New Hanover Church Cemetery has tombstone of Andreas Jr.)
4) John Kepler (c. 10/9/1775-1833) m. Magdelena Kraemer in 1798 in Montgomery Co., PA. He was the second generation of his family to live in America. After marriage he moved to Lancaster County. They were the first of the family to settle in Ohio building their log cabin about 1811. John was elected Constable at the first election in Green Twp. Although mostly a farmer, he did some blacksmith work. 22 years later he and his horse were instantly killed when a heavy cider press became detached and struck them. (40).
5) George Kepler (c. 1810-1844) died of typhoid. He m. 9/8/1831Catherine Marsh (c. 1815-1844). George was born shortly after the move. Catherine died of typhoid at 28 yrs. Her parents, Adam III and Susana (Beers) Marsh had moved from Pennsylvania in 1819 settling near the Keplers. Her grandfathers, Adam Marsh Jr. and Capt. Enoch Beers, and great grandfather Adam Marsh Sr., all fought in the Revolutionary War.
6) Alfred Kepler (c. 1838-1902) m . 3/13/1864 Eliza Ann Dirrim (c. 12/28/1840-3/31/1927).
Pennsylvania—
The Kepler brothers had married twin daughters of Daniel Kramer, Sr. of Miles Township (later Haines Township), Centre County, Pa. John Kepler married Magdalena, and Andrew married Maria. The Kramers were formerly from Berks County, Pa., where they were prominent in local affairs. Johann Daniel Friedrich Kramer, physician and surgeon, immigrated with his family from Rommelshausen, Wurttemberg, to Pennsylvania aboard the “Richard and Mary” on 26th Sept. 1752. Settling in Berks County, eldest son Philip Kramer served as a Lieutenant of Berks County Militia and Sheriff . (47) The Kepler wives are named in the last will and testament of Daniel Kramer, Sr. of Centre County dated 20th March 1813. (48) The Kepler brothers were soon followed into Summit County, Ohio, area by their sister, Susanna and her husband, Nicholas Sichley. (44-1) Elizabeth Kramer, another daughter of the preceding Daniel Kramer, Sr., married Jacob Kepler, a third brother and a farmer residing near Pine Grove Mills, Pennsylvania. (49)
“…John Kepler was born October 9, 1775, in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, he was the second generation of his family to be born in America. His grandparents Benedict and Barbara Catharina Kepler, emigrated from Germany about 1720… One of the sons that made the voyage was Andreas, who was John’s grandfather. They arrived in New York—by 1734 were settled in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania…This is where John’s father, Andreas Kepler II was born in 1746, and where in 1763 he married Margaretha Braun, whose parents had settled near the Kepler family..(44) When the Revolutionary War broke out , John Kepler was only six months old …his maternal grandfather Nicholas Braun..uncles and cousins were soldiers (47)—Scott Eike.
Ohio--The Kepler families would move to Green Township, Ohio, along with the Butchel and Kraemer families. Ohio became a state in 1803 and the government offered cheap land for settling. The Ohio & Erie Canal was built between 1825-1832. It provided a successful transportation route from Cleveland, on Lake Erie, to Portsmouth, on the Ohio River. The Canal opened up the rest of the settled eastern United States. Before the canal was built, Ohio was a sparsely settled wilderness where travel was difficult and getting crops to market was nearly impossible.
In 1835, George and
Catherine left Green Township and moved to Coventry Township, Stark County, with their already growing family of three children. Fifteen years later, in 1844 they both would die of typhoid leaving their six children, ages 2-12, as orphans to be raised by different relatives.
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The Ancestry of the Ohio Kepplers/Kepners” by Christopher Kepler & Walter Lee Shepare,Jr., C.G.: This article discusses the ancestry of John and Andrew Kepler, who are among the first pioneers to purchase government land and establish permanent settlement in what is now Green Township, Summit County, Ohio. (40) The Kepler brothers received one half section as tenants in common grant of President Madison on August 20th, 1810, which…cites their former residence as Centre County, Pennsylvania. (45) “John Kepler, blacksmith” came to Ohio with his family in the fall of 1809.(40) The same John Kepler is listed as a blacksmith in the Miles Township, Centre County, Pa., Assessment Book for 1803, (46) and appears in 1800 federal census for the same township. John Kepler was appointed the first constable for the area (then part of Stark County) and his brother Andrew was first justice of the peace. (40) The Kepler brothers were soon followed into Summit County, Ohio, area by their sister, Susanna and her husband, Nicholas Sichley. (44-1) Elizabeth Kramer, another daughter of the preceding Daniel Kramer, Sr., married Jacob Kepler, a third brother and a farmer residing near Pine Grove Mills, Pennsylvania. (49) The abstract records of the Lutheran and Reformed congregations of Bush Valley, Centre Co., Pa., dating back to July 9, 1792, lit the following husbands and wives among the parishioners with the first year that they appear on church records (50)
Due to language barriers, illegible hand writing, and the low literacy rate in this historical period, many surnames appear in a variety of spellings. Present-day spellings of both English and German surnames were not standardized until late in the 19th Century. This same German family appears not only as Kepler, but as Capler, Kepner, Keppler, and probably four or five other spellings.
Indiana--One of the orphans, Alfred Kepler, who was six when his parents passed away, was raised with his brother, Solomon, by their uncle, Jacob Kepler. Jacob was a brother of the deceased father and his wife was sister of the deceased wife, too. At age 21, Alfred married Susan Millinger and they moved to Steuben County, Indiana and lived there for four years. Shortly after being drafted into the war a member of the One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Ohio Infantry, his wife became ill. He returned home and then moved to DeKalb County, Indiana where she died. Alfred married Eliza Dirrim on March 13, 1864, in Indiana.
Iowa--Adam and Solomon had taken their families to Hamilton County, Iowa and Alfred and Eliza joined them in 1867. Stanhope, Hamilton County, Iowa, slowly developed. Most of the original town is actually the original Kepler farm. "Alfred Street" and "Kepler Street" are reminders of the family today and the library sits where the Kepler barn once stood. If you walk through Stanhope City Park you will find one hundred year old trees that were planted by Alfred and Eliza.
Standing:
Isaac, Jay, Alta Mae, William; Sitting: Alfred, Eliza, & Lizzie.
South Dakota-- When a fire destroyed much of Stanhope, in 1905, Henry and Alta Mae chose to move along with Alta Mae's sister and family to Bancroft, Kingsbury County, South Dakota. Henry William Stemple and his wife, Alta Mae, were running livery barn in Iowa when her sister and husband, the Olaf Andersons, found a farm for the Stemples to rent. So they and their four children, Harold, Ruth, Lauren, and Merna came to South Dakota on a train in 1908, bringing a carload of big work horses with them. They moved to Reynold Nordlunds farm west of Spirit Lake. They went to church at the Basart School where the Rev. J.E. Booth was the minister and later they went to the Bancroft Presbyterian Church.
INDIAN TRAILS
Many years previous to the settlements in Ohio by the whites, Green Township was a favorite resort of the Indians. When the Kepler family first located in the township the Indians occupied several camps. At one was a chief called “Beaver Hat.” He was a bitter enemy of the whites, and when drunk, he would take out a string with thirteen white men’s tongues on it, dried, and exhibit and shake them with much pride. Understandably, this was the most upsetting to the whites. One day after doing this, John Kepler’s brother-in-law, George Harter took his rifle and started after him, saying he was going hunting. He didn’t bring back any game, nor was Beaver Hat ever heard from again. (44; 1) Scott Eike
Few residents are aware of an often overlooked monument that stands at the south edge of the downtown, on a grassy triangle near the railroad trestle where Madison Avenue and South Beaver Street converge. The stone stands near the point where the three Indian trails that crossed Ohio converged… While the exact spot may be somewhere between the lower gate of the Wooster Cemetery, there is little doubt Wooster sits at the crossroads of an ancient culture… The largest tribe in the Wooster area was the Delaware, also known as the Lenni Lenape. The Delaware had been pushed westward across the Allegheny Mountains in 1768, making their principal settlements in Ohio, and stood with the British during the American Revolution….Although the government took possession of their lands on the Muskingum River in 1795 and removed them to Wabash Country in Indiana, some individual groups remained behind. One such tribe was still living in Beaver Hat Town in the area that is now Wooster Cemetery when the first settlers began arriving. (51)
The Indians in their expeditions against the early settlers travelled a regular system of trails or paths as familiar to them as our highways and railroads are to us. In fact, many of our railroads follow the line of the same trails. Earlier emigrants west of the Mississippi never hesitated to follow an Indian or buffalo path, certain it would lead by the most direct accessible route to its destination. In later years they served as highways to the pioneers seeking future homes.(52)
Survival by Englishmen, Frenchmen, Indians, and colonists on the Cuyahoga frontier had not been a matter of nationality. It depended rather on hunting, trapping, growing corn, and procuring ammunition. But when the rider arrived from Washington to announce the Republic had declared war on the King of England, the scattered handfuls of settlers along the Cuyahoga River stared at each other and helped each other decide what they were - British or American.
American Indians of the Cuyahoga Valley were influenced by the Hopewell Culture, which created large mound complexes in central Ohio from 100 B.C.—A.D. 500? The earliest evidence for the Hopewell culture is in Illinois, but the most spectacular earthworks are in southern Ohio and Indiana north of the Ohio River, especially in the valleys of the Great and Little Miami, Scioto, and Muskingum rivers. The Newark Earthworks, Ohio's official prehistoric monument, is the largest set of geometric earthworks built by the Hopewell culture. The Fort Ancient Earthworks, in Warren County, is the largest example of a hilltop enclosure. The largest set of Hopewell burial mounds is at the Mound City Group in Chillicothe. These large earthwork sites were not cities, they were places of ceremony, including rituals related to the burial of the honored dead. Many people from different villages worked together to build these large mounds and enclosures. The Hopewell was a brief existence—it was all over by AD 400. The shift during the succeeding Late Woodland period to larger villages surrounded by walls or ditches hints that increasing conflict may have been one factor in the abandonment of the earthworks and the far-reaching networks of exchange.
In the Cuyahoga Valley American Indians built small mounds rather than large ceremonial centers. After the annihilation of the Cat Nation of Eries by the Five Nations, the conquerors occupied the Cuyahoga country under no pronounced geographic pattern. Small groups of the conquering tribes settled haggle-straggle up and down the valley. Small bands from other tribes westerning through found this river good and stopped to camp, then stayed. After the Eries’ last stand, the Indians of the Cuyahoga were migratory. One week you’d find certain clans up at the mouth, another week, down at the head of the Tuscarawas.
Whoever owned the Cuyahoga valley controlled the Portage Path, the driest and most direct path south to the head of the Tuscarawas on which men could float to the Ohio, thence to the Mississippi and the Gulf. Just south of the Portage, moreover, lay 64 small lakes for bass, pickerel, fowl, elk, and bison. When a few Jesuits came through their country, the Eries refused their Christian religion, but learned some of their language. The English were fearful and when the Eries held so aloof, preserving a strong nationalism. The British therefore distributed guns to their own allies, natural enemies of the Eries - the formidable Five Nations, the upper New York State Indians: Mohawks, Oneidas, Onandagas, Cayugas, and Senecas.
While it is true that some of the first white men to reach the Cuyahoga were peaceful missionaries and commercial fur traders, some whites going as far west as the Cuyahoga were Indian hunters and scouts of changing allegiance. There was a type of frontiersman who served importantly in the development of the nation almost by accident. They served as scouts, runners, informers, and military officers, but their official status was generally vague. Some, like Revolutionary War Capt. Samuel Brady, could well have been motivated by personal or family injury from Indians; men who had suffered much from the Indians in a thin wave of prefrontier exploration. Useful to the Republic, such men reported to Philadelphia . They reported the aggressions and alliances of the English, French, Spanish, and other flags, but especially the Indians. (53)
Within the big U of the Cuyahoga, three great Indian trails crossed. One was the Central Trail (these were white men’s names) from Old Portage to Fort McIntosh by the way of Big Falls to Fish Creek, where the trail divided and went up the Cuyahoga to the source and down it to the mouth. Second was the Fort McIntosh, Muskingum, and Sandusky War Trail. The third was the northern trail along the lake shore from Buffalo to Detroit (U.S. 20).Despite the proximity of villages, the Indians got along quite peacefully. One reason was the stature and wisdom of the Ottawa and Seneca chiefs. Mingoes and Delawares also built very close. These scattered villages would often be as small as three to six huts. Others would be 50 or 100. Every sizable tributary had a village at the confluences. And they were peaceful, despite constant Indian nervousness about the white settlers from Connecticut.
“The settlers did not hate the Indians so much as they hated the wolves. It was recalled that the wolves howled around the house all night till it felt like the clap-boards on the roof were shaking. The settlers would plow all day with a horse and guard the animal all night to protect it from the wolves. Finally, the state offered a bounty for each wolf scalp, and the howling tribe of the forests commenced to decrease in numbers.”(44;2) “During the War of 1812, every able-bodied man was expected to turn out to protect the settlement from the Indians. John Kepler secured a man to go in his place, which was a common practice in those days. All that was necessary was to provide him with the necessary equipment, consisting of a gun, knapsack and blanket.” (44; 3) “Before the war, Indians were plentiful in the township, but as they sided with the British they were compelled by the white settlers to leave.”(44;4)—Scott Eike
Thirteen years after the War of 1812, in 1825 the Erie Canal opened. The Canal spurred the first great westward movement of American settlers. The Northwest Territories that would later become Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio were rich in timber, minerals, and fertile land for farming.
I haven’t mentioned much of Willard and Darrow, but they were the little ones. Willard loved to hunt arrowheads and Indian hammers. He really had a nice collection. He looked for them all over. We had Indian mounds at Spirit Lake, South Dakota. The story was many Indians were buried there.—Mildred Fransen
In 1838 the Nicollet-Fremont party skirted the NE corner. In 1857 Inkepaduta's renegade Indians passed through with two white women captives, victims of the Spirit Lake massacre in Iowa. In a skirmish several of the renegades were killed by Agency Indians near Lake Thompson. In 1857 Nobles Trail was built west passing south of this lake. The Yankton Sioux ceded the region to the government in 1859. It was part of huge Buffalo County, 1864 and of larger Hanson County in 1870. On Jan. 8, 1873 it became Kingsbury County named for George W. Kingsbury of Yankton, a legislator, editor and historian. Settlement began in 1878. The railroad came in 1879-80. The county was organized by Feb. 1880.
On March 8, 1857, a small band of Wahpekute Dakota warriors led by Inkpaduta (Scarlet Point) began attacking white settlements on the Okoboji lakes in northwestern Iowa. The winter of 1856–1857 was unusually severe and both white settlers and Dakota people alike suffered from hunger. While this might have contributed to increased tensions between the two groups, Inkpaduta's attacks were motivated by a desire for
retaliation for the previous crimes of murder and rape perpetrated by whites against his own family members in addition to a desire to resist the invasion of his homeland by white foreigners. In all, thirty-two men, women, and children were killed and four women were taken captive. Two of the captives were killed and the other two were eventually released weeks later through mediation and ransoming. Though only one death occurred at Spirit Lake, this event became known as the Spirit Lake Massacre.
The early settlers of Estherville were keenly aware of the resentment of the Indians. They had arrived in a region only recently clouded by the Spirit Lake massacre, with only the small stockade on the Des Moines river, manned by soldiers from Fort Dodge, to remind the Indians that their possession of the region was challenged. In late August, 1862, (five years after the Spirit Lake massacre) no occurrence in the village could have been less anticipated than the appearance of a fifteen year old boy who strode into Estherville with devastating news. The Santee Sioux had taken the warpath and were killing white settlers throughout southwest Minnesota. The boy's entire family had been killed, and he himself was suffering from a severe gunshot wound in his left shoulder. The boy had lived in Belmond, Minnesota, a small settlement about ten miles up the Des Moines River from present day Jackson. The boy had walked about thirty miles down the Des Moines River before reaching safety.
Meanwhile, several of the surviving families at Belmond had barricaded themselves in a single cabin. For two days a constant fusillade of gunfire took place between these settlers and the Indians. Finally the Indians drew off to assist in Little Crow's attack on Fort Ripley and New Ulm. Shortly after, scouts from Spirit Lake and Estherville rescued these families and escorted them to safety in Iowa. Luckily, none of them were killed or seriously injured. After hearing the news of the uprising, messengers were sent to all the inhabitants in and around Estherville. For mutual protection, most families then moved into the schoolhouse on the public square in Estherville. Despite a severe shortage of guns, powder, percussion caps, and the like, the settlers prepared for the worst. The next day a company of volunteers was organized under the command of Ruel Fisher. This company set off to Minnesota to lend assistance. They were horrified at the scenes they encountered. After burying some fifteen people, they returned to Estherville and made further preparations for its defense. A messenger was sent to Des Moines with an appeal for help.
Work did not officially begin on Fort Defiance in Estherville until November, 1862. By spring the following year, a stockade 126 feet square had been completed. The fort included a block house, captain's quarters and residence, commissary, guard house, a well and a large barn. The fort was occupied by company A until April of 1864. About the only excitement of note during that period was a near mutiny over the poor food. In April, 1864, the fort was transferred to I Troop, U.S. Cavalry. Soon after, this unit was sent west to fight Indians, and the fort became a stopping point for settlers on their way west. Eventually area settlers stripped the fort of its lumber and today many of the homes and barns in Emmet County contain materials from the fort. Fort Defiance was one of the last forts on the frontier incorporating a passive defense.
Edward Sheriff Curtis was born near Whitewater, Wisconsin in 1868. He became interested in photography as a young child and even built his own camera. He later owned a successful photography studio in Seattle, Washington. Curtis is best-known for his photographs of Native Americans. He created a series of books called the North American Indian that included his photographs as well as information about the various tribes. For thirty years, he visited more then eighty tribes all over the nation to record their customs and traditions by taking over 40,000 photographs and 10,000 recordings of Native American music and language. He believed that Native American culture should be kept safe and wanted to document it before the traditions disappeared. An Oasis in the Badlands, South Dakota depicts Red Hawk (Cheta'-luta), a sub-chief of the Ogalala Sioux, who was born in 1854.
Between 70 and 150 medicine wheels have been identified in South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Medicine Wheels are Native American sacred circular hoops which were used for religious rituals. This is a form of divination. Medicine wheels are usually numbered stones kept in the form of a circle. They are used in Native American spiritual healing rituals. Each stone has its own significance and is thought to help in solving your problems. The Bighorn wheel was constructed by Plains Indians between 300-800 years ago, and has been used and maintained by various groups since then. The central cairn is the oldest part, with excavations showing it extends below the wheel and has been buried by wind-blown dust. It may have supported a central pole. The star alignments are most accurate for around 1200 AD, since slight changes in the Earth's orbit have caused perturbations since. The solstice alignments remain accurate today. The Bighorn wheel is part of a much larger complex of interrelated archeological sites that represent 7000 years of Native American adaptation to and use of the alpine landscape that surrounds Medicine Mountain in Wyoming. Numerous contemporary American Indian traditional use ceremonial staging areas, medicinal and ceremonial plant gathering areas, sweat lodge sites, altars offering locales and fasting (vision quest) enclosures, can be found nearby. Ethno historic, ethnographic and archeological evidence demonstrates that the Medicine Wheel and the surrounding landscape constitute one of the most important and well preserved ancient Native American sacred site complexes in North America.
Wherever we travel in America we can find the visible reminders of the people who were here before Columbus. An elder once said that the teaching on the medicine wheel will always exceed the sands on the beach; it is endless because our lives are endless. Our lives are a circle. The circle is about continuity; about connectedness. Everyone is equal on the circle. It is a level playing ground. When people meet and sit in the circle we are equal. There are four stages of life: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and wiseperson status. There are also four realms of human existence: East=mental, South=spiritual, West=emotional, and the North=physical. The medicine wheel is the “blueprint” to First Nations’ teachings. The old way is done by rocks. The medicine wheel is built out in nature. The ritual involves placing the stones in a very specific way. The four biggest stones represent the directions. You start with the South, you go to the West, then you go to the North, and you close the door of the medicine wheel in the East. After that there are tentacles that come out and it almost looks like the sun. In the East you would start by laying a big stone and that would be for loyalty, then you’d lay one for truthfulness, and then one for trustworthiness and that tentacle would go all out. The center ties all of the teaching together. When the visitors came to North America hundreds of years ago they found 20-25,000 stone medicine wheels all over the place. One of the great teachings said that the other three races [we only come in four colors], will come and each direction on the medicine wheel—the yellow from the east, black from the south, red in the west, and white people in the north and we are born of one mother so we are related so it was inevitable that the other three races would come here. What is coming out of the ashes of how they have all come here is a rebirth and a regeneration of First Generations culture. …we have not been assimilated, or obliterated, or erased. We are here and we are going to go for another 100 years if I have anything to say about it. (61) Shannon Thunderbird
More recently, syncretic, hybridized uses of medicine wheels, magic circles, and mandala sacred technology are employed in New Age, Wiccan, Pagan and other spiritual discourse throughout the World. The rite of the sacred hoop and medicine wheel differed and differs amongst indigenous traditions, as it now does between non-indigenous peoples, and between traditional and modernist variations. Wherever people are engaged in ritual practice, mandala art form evolves. Geometric art has been used throughout the ages for meditation. Authors of “Gaia Star Mandalas,” Bell & Todd had always been inspired by sacred art, especially from the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. They share that their art emerged from a trancelike state of perceptional openness. They believe that they had contact at a core level with our planet and they found the mandalas as a way to “notate,” in a visual way, the vibrational essences they drew from their contact. The mandala is a classic form of this comtemplative art, which originated in India. Mandalas have a long tradition in diverse cultures like the Buddhist, Hindu, and Native American. The intricate patterns draw the viewer to the center of the image and spin them out of the vortex, thereby centering the soul and expanding your cerebral boundaries. These art forms are created to invite all people to connect with this visual message about the union of spirit and matter. Gaia is an ancient name for earth as goddess…an emerging being is emerging global being is forming in our midst. This Gaian entity contains countless diverse species and life-forms. Just as differentiated cells organize to form a complex body, myriad individual aspects of Gaia are coalescing into a new kind of planetary unity. This is happening electronically through the worldwide computer web, but it is also happening at profound levels of biological and spiritual identity. The global being is taking shape where grand laws of self-organization intersect with a planetwide intention to make a quantum leap. From this fertile conjunction, a familiar yet uplifted Earth emerges: luminous, self-aware, awake as many-in-one. This is a turned-on world—the Gaiastar. (25)
“...things in nature work together harmoniously for the health, diversity, manifestation, and fulfillment of the contiguous whole. We are relatives, organs, and extensions of the vital whole we’re calling Gaia.... There are at least two indications of a wholly involved and dynamic community. First, when some insure there’s an investment to purchase and re-sacrament land for ritual and healing. And second, when there is a succession and overlap oflike-hearted, like directed-generations teaching the children the ways of the earth and spirit.” (72)
In his transcendentalist book “Sacred Places of North America,” Brad Olsen sought out experts on the subject of sacred sites; Native Americans and anyone who had an “intuitive sense” into the power of place. Amongst sharing his karma statement, a travel mantra, and quoting the Dali Lama, he writes that people venture to sacred sites, consciously or unconsciously, to satisfy the human spirits desire for communion with themselves, our collective humanity and the cosmos above. He believes that sacred places must be fully explained and integrated and as others share in his mission it will provide for the betterment of all. The book is dedicated to the Canadian First Native People, the Native Americans, and the indigenous Hawaiians. Olsen’s hope is that we will learn to live in harmony and respect with all living creatures and ourselves again as we learn from these first people and their wisdom and traditions as well as our relationship with the planet and who we are collectively as a people. He says we must reinvent ourselves as a unified human race. Along with evolution, he promotes a new dating system ousting the BC (Before Christ) and AD (anno Domini) to enable universal understanding. (26)
The Indian protests that began in the 1960s had to do with the conflict over remaining natural resources of the continent, the best of which were in Indian hands. In the 1970s a full national Indian movement was in swing. Beneath all of their protests was the issue of returning to the ceremonial use of the lands and raising the question of people and their right to a homeland. In 1971 anthropologists and archaeologists were confronted with “disturbing the dead” whenever they came across something of the Indians in their field work. By 1990 the Chicago Field Museum played a major role in bringing the museum community to see the Indian point of view. It participated in Indian/museum dialog that led to national legislation repatriating human skeletal remains to the tribes. (19)
Native American scholar and author Vine Deloria, Jr., in his book “God Is Red: A Native View of Religion,” reasons, “I can think of no good reason why the peoples from the Near East, ‘the peoples from the Hebrew, Islamic, and Christian religious traditions,’ first adopted the trappings of civilization and then forced a peculiar view of the natural world on succeeding generations. The planet, in their view, is not our natural home, and is ours for total exploitation. The world is not to be seen as a global village so much as a series of non-homogeneous pockets of identity that must eventually come into conflict because they represent different historical arrangements of emotional energy.” He went on to claim, “We must be prepared to confront religion and religious activities in new and novel ways.” (19, p.65) “The government and the Christian churches have no understandings of the nature of creation. At the bottom of everything is a religious view of the world that seeks to locate our species within the fabric of life that constitutes the natural world, the land and all its various forms of life. As long as Indians exist there will be conflict between the tribes and any group that carelessly despoils the land and the life it supports.” (19: Introduction)
After the Flood, God caused the people of the world to speak many different languages and scattered them from the tower of Babel “upon the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:9). The first people to come to America were probably hunters following the trail of animals that had begun to multiply and spread out. The early Indians had forsaken the things that their ancestors knew about God. They passed down inaccurate stories about the Creation and the Flood and they worshiped the things that they could not explain, like thunder, wind, fire, and the sun. Although the Indians are viewed in awe by many because of their appreciation for nature, they have not always lived in peaceful way or ways that were good for the environment. They did not always behave in ways that were best for the family life either. Their religious leaders were called medicine men. Not only were wars between the tribes common as many tribes shifted to new areas and pushed existing tribes off the land, but an account of some of their ceremonies could outdo any of the current attacks on Spain’s conquistadors or the Puritans and their beliefs.
In the 1700s Rousseau’s ideas were promoted. He said that man himself is the only god and the most primitive man, the one who is the closest to nature, is the purest. When Columbus first met the Arawak Indians they warned him about the fierce Indian tribe of cannibals called the Caribs. The Caribbean Sea is named after them. Both the Arawaks and the Caribs practiced a pagan, pantheistic religion that involved many immoral practices. In Cowboy Wash in southwest Colorado archaeologists have unearthed three collapsed pit dwellings that had been abandoned in the 1100s. The bones of seven people were found in the cooking pots with clear evidence that they had been eaten. According to Scientist Richard Marlar at the University of Colorado, “They had a human meat meal.” For at least 600 years the Anasazi Indians spread through what is now Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. But by the year 1300 they mysteriously vanished. (30) The Maya also practiced pagan religion with human sacrifice and between 1519-1521 Cortez conquered the Aztec Indians with the help of neighboring tribes who had been victims of human sacrifice for the Aztecs worship of the gods of nature. Although they had an advanced civilization, they worshipped hundreds of gods. They centered their worship on “the sun god.” They believed that they were “chosen” people of the sun god and that they needed to supply him with human sacrifices. They judged their righteousness solely on the submission to the gods. (30).
New Agers claim the early Indians were champions of harmony and wisdom, but they were not. Native tribes in the Americas offered hundreds of thousands of human sacrifices to their false gods. Facts about pagan cultures are being hidden and history is being rewritten as the American culture has largely turned its back on God. Christianity is mocked and even censored in the public schools as the “Gaia Hypothesis” is now being taught. Initially articulated in 1969 by chemist James Lovelock, Lovelock concentrated on the nature of the earth’s atmosphere and argued that “the entire range of living matter on earth, from whales to viruses, from oaks to algae, could be regarded as constituting a single living entity, capable of manipulating the earth’s atmosphere to suit its overall needs and endowed with faculties and powers far beyond those of its constituent parts.” (58).
“Rolling Thunder,” the Shoshone Indian medicine man has said, “Scientists will eventually discover what pagans have always known.” That’s exactly what is happening with the invasion of Eastern’s mysticism into the West. Hinduism is taught at all schools across the United States k-university. Hindu occultism is being openly taught in spite of the otherwise enforced separation of church and state. Spirituality is “in” and it has nothing to do with Christianity. (24)
It was the dramatical and emotional influence of a Native American woman who had a profound impact on the life of intuitive and New Age author Caroline Myss. This “brief encounter” changed her life forever. It happened one day after three nights of sleepless and extensive travel. Myss claims that this woman’s serenity and matter-of-fact attitude drew her into the Native American spirituality and made her question the little knowledge of God she possessed herself. Native American spirituality teaches that we weave the spirit into everything we do and everyone we meet. Woven in by the spirit, Myss looked forward to this new subjective spirituality and hoped this new god would be “more responsive to her.” Myss states in her book, “Anatomy of the Spirit,” that as we shift our attention away from the external world and into the internal one, we will learn symbolic sight. We are “all the same” and the more that we seek what is the same in all of us, the more our symbolic sight gains authority to direct us. She says that we need to infuse our daily lives with a heightened consciousness of the sacred. The merging spiritual traditions of the Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and Jewish into one system with “common sacred truths” constitutes a powerful system of guidance that can enhance our minds and bodies and show us how to manage our spirits within the world. Because our biological design is also a spiritual design, the language of energy and spirit used together crosses a variety of belief systems. It opens avenues of communications between faiths, and even allows people to return to religious cultures they formerly rejected, unburdened by religious dogma. Myss was part of the 2000 State of the World Forum with Mikhail Gorbachev. The intent of the State of the World Forum was to create a “global town meeting” in which acknowledged world leaders in business, finance, labor, science and technology, the environment, human rights, religion, and civil society would join a substantive “dialogue” with selected Heads of State on the great issues confronting all of us as we enter the era of globalization. (18)
Practicing witch Patricia Telesco and American Indian Don Two Eagles Waterhawk write of uniting all of humankind into a greater community in which we are all a part of: the earth and her people. In their book “Sacred Beat,” they believe that as we all come together we grow and transform the coming together of the “All” in community will round out the whole. The “All” is the totality of our diversity and harmony of will and thought that creates the “potential” to raise the direct power for the good of the “All.” To the Indian tribal religions, the unity of life is manifested in the existence of the tribal community, for it is only in the tribal community that any Indian religions have relevance. (56)
In James Jeans book “Physics and Philosophy” he suggests that a profound view of nature lies in the concept of community: “Space and time are inhabited by distinct individuals, but when we pass beyond space and time, from the world of phenomena towards reality, individuality is replaced by community. When we pass beyond space and time, they (separate individuals) may perhaps form ingredients of a single continuous stream of life.” With the nature of the world as a “single continuous stream of life,” the Native American reasons that one can learn to hear trees talk and that it would be strange if they did not communicate. (p. 93). When the Anishinabe go hunting, hunting is regarded as an act of communication between human and animal persons: animals who have their own language, need to be persuaded to give up their bodies by the assurance that humans will make restoration so that the spirit of the dead animal will be reborn: through rituals the hunter and the hunted are connected to each other. ( p.36).
In March 1991, a six-day meditation retreat specifically for environmentalists gathered in Malibu, California which included members of Greenpeace, Earth First, Earth Island Institute, Rainforest Action Network, Natural Resources Defense Council, and other environmental organizations. The retreat stressed ‘deep, inner peace’ for environmental activists, many of whom were Buddhists. On ‘Earth Day’ 1990 the San Francisco Zen Center celebrated including a dedication to animals and plants that had died in the garden: “Plants and animals in the garden, we welcome you , we ask your forgiveness and your understanding.” The ritual, supposedly, directly addressed unseen beings or spirits, and invites them into a sacred space, expresses sentiments from grief to awe.
New Age "Crosscurrents": The Greening of Buddhist Practice
The Sun Priest community of the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico is reawakening thanks to the help of anthropologist Jonathan Reyman. Fascinated by the Pueblo ceremonial life, Reyman has been responsible for a feather distribution project which is in its 21st year and has been able to attain 6.5 million feathers from across the country free of charge. Currently the project is maintaining aviaries on the reservations to help the Indians become self-sufficient, stop the smuggling of birds and the painful plucking of macaws and parrots. Reyman prides in the trust he has established in his project and he vows not to He vows not to disclose any sacred knowledge of the ceremonies because his project depends on this for its success.
MARY JEANETTE ANDERSON
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Dear Relatives,
Sometime ago, our cousin Geraldine (Sprang) wrote to ask me some genealogy questions. I decided to go to my copy of “The Typhoid Tragedy” written by Jack Meredith, so that I would be accurate and to give some family backgrounds. Since my grandmother, Lizzie
Anderson, was the youngest of the Kepler children, I included her remembrance as well as my mother, Beryl Anderson…. However, some were actually my experiences as I visited the various relatives. My thought was to share this… Enjoy!! Your cousin,
Mary Jeanette Anderson 
(Lizzie Kepler’s granddaughter)
(
Lizzie and Alta Mae Kepler)
Dear Geraldine, 10/30/2007; Family History-- Alfred Kepler (Alta & Lizzie’s father), his brothers and sisters, Susannah-12, Adam-10, Solomon-9, Mary-7, Alfred-4, William-2, were orphaned. Their father, George, died April 29, 1844 and mother, Catherine (Marsh) died July 27, 1844 of typhoid fever. Catherine had made arrangements with her parents and sisters to take care of the children. …sister took Mary, Alfred and William; Jacob Kepler took Adam and Solomon and Adam Marsh took Suzanne. The George Kepler family lived in Summit County Ohio.
Solomon and Adam came to Iowa in the mid-spring of 1855. They purchased land in Clear Lake Township, Hamilton County, Iowa close to
where the town of Stanhope now stands. They then returned to Ohio. Alfred and brother William served in the Civil War as privates. William
was wounded on July 3, 1862. Mom said that Alfred received word that his first wife was ill and he returned to their home. Alfred hired a man
to replace him in the war, which was legal at that time. Several weeks after his return, she died.
It is believed that Eliza was married to a man by the name of Boar and possibly had a child. Nothing more is known. Alfred and Eliza were
married on March 13, 1864. They lived near Hamilton, Indiana for four years. He went by “Alf” and Eliza by “Libbie.”
They had eight children:
1) Cyrus, 1865 (died as an infant), Hamilton County, IN.
2) Isaac, 1866, Hamilton County, IN.
3) Ida, 1868, Stanhope, IA.
4) Edward, 1871, Stanhope, IA.
5) William, 1873, Stanhope, IA.
6) Jay, 1875, Stanhope, IA.
7) Alta Mae, 1878, Stanhope, IA.
8) Lizzie, 1883, Stanhope, IA.
Alfred, Eliza (pregnant with Ida) and Isaac arrived by oxen drawn covered wagon from Indiana in October and Ida was born a month later, around Stanhope, IA. Their (Alfred) family was located directly north of Stanhope and was 160 acres. In the middle of the town is a park which Alfred and Adam gave to the town. However, I don’t know what year it was. I do know that the park is fully utilized. Also, in Stanhope, there are two streets: Alfred Kepler Street and Adam Kepler Street.
Isaac lost his left eye to scarlet fever. He always faced in pictures so that the left side of his face was not visible. Mom told me that Isaac and Edward both had T.B. They went to Texas together for their health. However, it was too humid, so they returned to Stanhope. The very next day, after they arrived in Stanhope, Isaac left ,by train, for Colorado. He settled in Delta, Colorado on the northeast corner of town. He owned a big two-story house on the edge of town. I do not know when he bought it. Several weeks after Edward arrived in Stanhope he passed away. He was 22. This was in 1893. Grandma Lizzie told mom that she remembered when her sister Ida died of T.B. The Methodist Church’s bell tolled as she died. She was 23; this was in 1892. Shortly before Ida died, she gave Grandma Lizzie a ring which she wore until the shank wore thin. Grandma would have been 9 years old. At the age of 10, Grandpa Alfred and Grandma Eliza and Grandma Lizzie moved to Delta, Colorado. They were fearful then because Lizzie was so tiny in stature that she might be the next to contract T.B. I don’t know how long they lived there or if any other of Lizzie’s siblings accompanied the three to Colorado. However, Mom told me that Grandma said as they approached Stanhope from Colorado, they stuck their heads out of the train window. They were so homesick for Stanhope.
I will list the siblings and their spouses…
I. Isaac (Ike)Kepler & Frances (Jones) m. 3/12/1890, They had 6 children:
1) Ernst m. Anna Roberts 3/8/1914
2) Ethel m. Henry Hutchinson 4/16/1911
3) Elmer m. Vera Boom 8/5/1929
4) Elsie m. Hayward Mums 9/12/1920
5) Glen m. Erma Larson 11/14/1923
6) Myrtle m. J.L. Lewis 2/10/1920
Ernst and Elmer ran a garage in Delta, Colorado. In 1949, we went to visit the cousin. We had car trouble… got to Delta over the new Million Dollar Highway; called that because they used silver tailings to build the road. It took two days to get there…Ernst and Elmer fixed our car at their Buick Garage…. Mom always kept in touch with Elsie and I in turn kept in touch with her daughter, Francis Mae (named after her grandmother). I went to visit Francis when I lived in Durango. Before her retirement she worked as the Comptroller for the Montrose School District… Francis had rheumatoid arthritis for years. She died August of 2005. She lived wit her daughter in Fruita, Colorado… Glen worked for Los Alamos Laboratories.
After Ike’s first wife, Francis, died, he married another lady. They bought a house in Delta. Ike and his first wife are buried on the west side of
the cemetery in Delta. His second wife is buried on the east side. She felt bad that she could not be buried by Ike. The cemetery is located on a
hill.
II. William Kepler (c. 1/20/1872-1935) & 1.Ella (McFarland; c. 1875-1907), 2. Mattie (Johnson; c. 1877-1920). Children:
1) Vernon m. Mabel Dicks 1/15/1920
2) Edgar m. Mabel Johnson 6/27/1917
3) Erma m. Lewis Johnson 12/25/1919
4) Lloyd m. Ida Hegg
Vernon and Mable lived in Iowa Falls. Vernon ran a grocery store in Iowa Falls. They had a son, Enos. Vernon was a successful man and his son was not. Mom and Dad always did family visits in Iowa Falls. Dad’s Aunt Vinnie (his mother’s sister) and her two children lived there. Edgar and Mabel and Erma and Lou lived out in Hollywoood. They lived on a dead end street kitty-corner from each other. In February of 1947 we went to visit. Erma had just been diagnosed with leukemia… as we walked down the street someone tried to cut Mom and Erma’s shoulder strap purses. They cut them, but didn’t get the purse. Since I had long hair, Erma heated an old fashioned curling iron and curled my hair. We also visited Edgar and Mable going there for supper. At 5 ½, I could hardly wait to meet their daughter, Virginia.. she was a movie star, she did bit parts, but I thought she was beautiful… Erma died in the summer of 1949. Her funeral was in Stanhope. Mom and Grandma Lizzie went. They stayed with Aunt Mattie. Edgar died in 1953 of a gunshot. Supposedly he had been cleaning his gun and it went off. He is buried in Forest Lawn, I think. Lloyd and Ida lived in St. Paul. He was a navy man and I don’t remember his occupation. In 1994, I took Mom to see Lloyd and Ida…. It wasn’t too long afterwards Ida passed away and Lloyd died in the late 1990s…
Aunt Mattie was a wonderful little old lady and I loved her. When Paul was in college, Mom, Paul and I went up to Stanhope. We had gone to visit Paul at Ames. If we got close to Stanhope, Mom always wanted to go visit. This particular time we visited Aunt Mattie, Dehlia (1st cousin of Mom)…Aunt Mattie died in the summer of 1957. Mom took Grandma Lizzie to her funeral, as Mattie would have been the last in-law. She is buried in Stanhope.
III. Jay and Zelma (McFarland) m. 2/19/1902. I do not know if Ella, William’s first wife, and Zelma were sisters, but both were McFarlands. They had 7 children:
1) Leo m . Francis
2) Keith m. Dolly Carter
3) Farry m. Arnold Zienke
4) Leila m. A. Zienke
5) Carrel Jay m. Dolly Carter
6) Kenneth--Carrel and Dolly had four children before Carrel died. Kenneth married Dolly and they had five children.
7) Vella and Ashton Carlson—I believe these are brothers, but don’t know if they are twins.
When Aunt Zelma died in 1915, she had 41 grandchildren and 67 great-grandchildren. She was 86. Mom told the story that when Grandma Lizzie would go to see her brother and Zelma, Mom went along. She would sit on the open stairwell with their children sitting around at her feet. As she would tell the story, it was so interesting that they would lean forward with mouth wide open and eyes big as silver dollars. I only remember going there twice. Once in the summer of 1959 ( I had graduate h.s.). Aunt Zelma, a little woman with her gray hair at the nape of her neck. One summer, on our way to South Dakota, Mom, Maurice and I stopped to see one of her cousins in Slayton, MN.
IV. Alta Mae and Henry Stemple m. 2/10/1897. They had 9 children:
1) Harold m. Lily Harms 11/2/1910.
2) Ruth m. Elzo Sprang 11/3/1920. Ruth died at the age of 103 on 6/10/2004. She died on Old Settler’s Day in De Smet.
3) Laruen m. Edna Brockoft 4/28/1931 2. Beverly .
4) Merna m. Emmet Hardy 10/14/1921 2. Walter Sprang 6/3/1959. Walt and Elzo where brothers. Merna and Walt had dated before they married their first spouses.
5) Mildred m. Herb Fransen 2/14/1930,
6) Lucille m. Harvey Marx 11/19/1932
7) Leona m. Otto Blote 11/18/1933.
8) Willard
9) Darrow m. Betty Moore 6/30/1942.
Ruth, Lauren, and maybe baby Merna with the buck-loose... “Bumpty, bump” across the prairie they went … 5 ½ miles. When they got there Ruth jumped down and ran around the corner of the house. Mom would say later, very disgusted, she didn’t know why those two women didn’t have the good sense to ask to go to the bathroom before they set out across the prairie…
The sisters, Alta Mae and Lizzie and families always had Sunday dinner together. They took turns at being hostess… My grandfather, Ollie Anderson, had told Beryl the he remembered seeing Ruth when she was about 16, shoveling/unloading wheat at harvest time. He said she could unload/shovel wheat better than any man because she was so strong.
After the Andersons moved to Lisbon, Iowa in 1914, Grandma Lizzie would send several bushels of apples each fall to the Stemples because fruit was not plentiful in South Dakota. Even after the move back to Iowa, Ruth and Beryl remained close exchanging letters as well as phone calls in later years. Their communication always just as if they had recently seen each other. Beryl went to South Dakota every chance she’d get, Ruth and Elzo came to Lisbon to see Lizzie and Ollie and all of the cousins in the early 50s.
My mother and father went to South Dakota to visit Ruth, Elzo and Geraldine the fall Ruth was pregnant. Ruth liked my father, Marvin, very much. She thought Beryl’s husband was very nice and good looking. She honored my father by naming her son Marvin. Mom, when talking about that visit, would say, “I just wanted that baby to be born so bad while we were there, but he wouldn’t be born.”
When we would visit in later years Lucille and Mom would somehow get around to discussing Grandma Eliza Kepler’s disposition. Lucille would say she was mean and grumpy; Mom would say she was gentle and kind. Mom theorized that when Grandma Kepler lived with Lizzie and Ollie every summer it was quiet (relatively) at the Anderson’s. While when she visited the Stemple’s there was always a lot of noise because there were so many children close to each other in age. Of course, Lucille and Leona always loved a good time and if one got their hair fixed better than the other one the twin without the nice hair-do got taken down and her hair messed up. Mom contended that Grandma Kepler liked her “peace and quiet.”
Lucille and Leona always liked to walk side by side. Beryl might start walking between Lucille and Leona, but gradually she would find herself walking on the outside. There is a picture of Grandma Kepler with a small pine tree that she gave to Alta Mae and Henry. The tree is no taller than two feet. This was taken some time before 1927, as that is the year Grandma Kepler passed away. The Stemples had just built a new house. The tree was still there in the summer of 1998—the house was not. The house had been moved. It seemed to me that the people of South Dakota moved houses like Iowa people moved furniture.
V. Lizzie m. Olaf Anderson 2/11/1903. They had three children:
1) Beryl Madge m. Marvin L. Anderson 9/10/1924. 2. Maurice B. Moffit 2/6/1962-4/28/98.
2) Erma Irene m. Henry Griton 2/15/1934.
3) Wayne Cecil m. Betty Lou Herbert 8/14/1944.
Lizzie Kepler and Olaf Anderson were married February 11, 1903. They were married at the Methodist Church in Stanhope with the reception directly across the street to the south. Mom always said the write-up said the “Belle of Stanhope was married.” However, when I found the write-up it didn’t exactly say that, but it was “flowery.” Also, along with this was a list of gifts given. Some gifts were a silver dollar. Grandma Eliza Kepler gave the couple a large square table which occupied them on their various moves throughout their married life. It now resides in the home of my great niece Melanie and her husband, Craig Sparby. Grandma Lizzie made for her wedding reception 21 cakes. Now, whether they were white or angle food cakes, I don’t know. One of those questions I forgot to ask my mother. Ollie was eight years older than his bride Lizzie.
When I was going through Mom’s things getting ready for the sale, I found a Daily Calendar Diary, 1934, book. As I looked through it, I found several pages written in both Olaf and Lizzie Anderson’s hand. It was dated April 2, 1937. At that time Olaf was 62 years of age and Lizzie was 54 years. I personally thought it interesting on their approach to what should be included in their brief autobiographies:
“C.O. Anderson born in Greenville, IL 1875 moved to Iowa 5 mi east of Stratford on a farm my father bot paying $500 for 40 acres in 1882 lived there 1st April 1894 moving to Mt. Vernon, Iowa where my father built a house, went to school in Mt. Vernon 1 year ad returned to Stanhope where I worked by the month on farms. In 1903 was married to Miss Lizzie Kepler—daughter of Alfred and Eliza Ann. I worked on county road 1st. year and then rented 80 acres south of Stanhope next year Beryl was born..moved back to town and farmed Adam Kepler’s 2 years living with Lizzie’s mother had a sale last of Feb and moved to De Smet So. Dakota in the spring of 1907 bought 160 acres that fall 35 an acre took pssess—in March 1908 had 3 good crops dried out abou ½ crop in 1910. Erma was born July 1st –1910. 1911 was a total failure had 1 wagon of barley off 200 acres. Bot 80 acres adjoining in 1909 traded for 120 acres where we still reside in Lisbon, Iowa. [traded March 1st 1912] Then moved on Nordland farm in De Smet S.D. had 2 good crops there then had $2730 sale and moved March 1st, 1914 to Lisbon, Iowa—took 12 years to pay for this farm so it was 1926 when we got it paid for lots of saving and we were happy when it was paid for. Bot Dugan farm I fall of 1935 took possession March 1936 that is Erma did We pay 5 per cent on Dugan farm and 6 per cent on our farm south of Lisbon.” Written by Olaf Anderson “from S. Dakota, De Smet came to Iowa 1914 paid $6000 dollars debt on farm, got it paid for 1926. Bot Dugan farm 1936 paid for it by 1942 $6,300 for it.”
April 2—1937
Lizzie Anderson was born
Lizzie Kepler in 1883 in Stanhope, Iowa, Hamilton Co. lived in Stanhope till the Spring of 1907. Was married to Olaf Anderson in February 11—1903 In 1907 moved to De Smet South Dakota lived their seven years on farms, then moved to Lisbon in 1914 on own farm of 120 acres 3 children were born to Lizzie and Olaf.
Beryl Madge August 22—1904
Erma Irene July 1st 1910
Wayne Cecil Feb 15 1922
Grandchildren
Paul Dean September 5, 1928
Joan Beryl January 16, 1935
Mary Jeanette March 24, 1941
There is one thing I would like above everything else for my children, all ways be kind to one another, do unto others so you wish to be done by and try to live as Jesus would have us live. Mother” --written by Lizzie Adel (Kepler) Anderson
Grandma Lizzie’s father died when she was 19. She and her siblings inherited 2/3s of the estate because there was not a will. She was an estate businesswoman. She had a checking account long before it was “fashionable” for women to do so. She also had hens and always sold the extra eggs. Even in her late 70s, she still had some hens for her daily usage. If she loaned money, she expected it to be paid back, even if Grandpa Ollie borrowed it.
Grandpa Ollie was an industrious man going to work when he was 11, but waiting to marry at the age of 28. The day he married, he had $5 in his pocket, which doesn’t sound like much now days, but in 1903 prices it was probably a good sum. He had given Lizzie a beautiful ring. It has 3 oval, fire pals that are approximately the same size. Sitting on either side of the middle opal is two small diamonds.
I do not know how Grandpa Ollie found the first farm 5 ½ miles north and west of De Smet S.D. I would assume through a land speculation. He shipped his livestock and farming equipment via the railroad which had a depot in De Smet. The depot currently has been turned into a wonderful mission. The next morning, Ollie went out to the Ban farm which he had rented. However, much to his surprise, the lady of the house had just delivered a baby the night before—therefore putting on hold their move to Montana. Grandpa then rented the farm directly to the west of the Ban farm.
When the Andersons moved to Ban farm, the house had two large rooms, one upstairs with a stairwell to it and a large room downstairs with front porch attached. At one point a kind neighbor had ½ a load of coal which was delivered and put on the front porch. Grandma was disgusted! Little did she realize that a ground blizzard could come up in an instant and people could get lost going from home to out buildings.
Eventually Grandpa had the house built onto, roughly when Mom was 4 ½. One day Mom was outside carefully walking on the 2x4s the carpenters had laid…. One of the carpenters got tired of the “chatter” and said “Children should be seen and not heard!” Mom left, highly “insulted.” In 1994, Lucille and Howey took Mom and myself on a drive we stopped at the Ban farm currently owned by Les Ban and his wife. Lucille explained who we were and could we come in. As we sat there having coffee and cookies in the big kitchen, Mom vividly recounted exactly where Grandma had everything placed. As we toured the house, Mom “vividly” recalled the night her sister Erma was born in the downstairs bedroom. She often said Grandpa couldn’t wait to show her new baby sister. He woke Mom up to show her the baby. Mom’s reply at six was, “is it a doll?” That was July 1, 1910. As we went upstairs, I couldn’t help but notice how the steps were worn. We stood in the small east room where Mom had once slept and looked out the window at the South Dakota landscape. Grandpa later built a hip-roof barn northeast of the house. One summer evening when he was laying the flooring in the haymow, Grandma Lizzie went out to visit with him. She left Mom with Grandma Kepler who was visiting them. Eventually, Mom wanted to go out and see her “papa,” so Grandma Kepler took her. However, not before she had her cap on. Grandma Kepler couldn’t find Mom’s regular cap, so she put on her “nightcap.” When Mom poked her head up through the hay chute, how Grandma and Grandpa laughed at that little “pointed” head coming through the opening. In the late 1980s, a tornado blew the barn down.
My Grandfather always signed his name C.O. Anderson. You see, in South Dakota there were a lot of Olaf Andersons. He liked the name Chauncey so in order not to get his mail mixed up with other Andersons he went by C.O. ever after. Grandpa and Grandma shopped at Lofter’s Store (of Little House on the Prairie fame), as did everyone else. One day when Grandpa went to town for supplies around Christmas time, he was told to get Mom a coat, which he did. Much to Grandma’s disgust he purchased a red and black plaid mackinaw.
“4th July in the morning! 4th July in the morning!” was the cry heard across the South Dakota prairie. It was Ollie Anderson’s favorite holiday and he could be heard yelling that the evening before. “The 10th of June” when the Andersons lived in South Dakota was a big deal in De Smet with activities, a carnival and good food with lots of visiting with their neighbors; now its called “Old Settler’s Day.” On one of those days, Mom came up to Grandpa Ollie (her father) and said “Papa can I have another nickel to ride the carousel?” He just reached in his pocket for the nickel, as he threw his head back and laughed. This gesture he was famous for.
One day on the Ban place, Grandpa loose-tied his horses (team) with its wagon bed of hogs to the porch post. Inside the house, Grandma told Beryl to go outside and shake the husks out of a sack. So, she did—scarring the horses as they ran away with Grandpa in pursuit. The wagon ran over his foot breaking his toe, but he did stop the horses.Grandpa told Beryl one day to go out to the pasture and get the cows. So she did, however, out in that prairie pasture were some beautiful wildflowers. Of course Mom had to pick them. Never mind that there were storm clouds “brewing.” Pretty soon there came her father with his rain slicker on. He got to his daughter just in time, turning his back to the storm. He wrapped Beryl in his slicker and they stood there with the rain coming down, but she was sheltered by her father and his slicker. After the storm subsided, father, daughter and cows walked back to the barn.
When they lived in the Nordland farm—it sat high upon the hill. Spirit Lake was to the south and was on the edge of the farm. The Andersons would go fishing on this lake. Mom just loved going out to see the lake, as it brought back so many fond memories. I was lucky to be able to go and see this lovely house when I was 18 and Geraldine and Les Hubbena (Ruth Stemple & Sprang’s daughter) lived there.
After the Andersons moved to the Nordland farm in March of 1912 it was time to enroll Beryl in her new school. The one room school sits on the east edge of the Nordland farm. It is now used as a townhall. Grandpa saddled up the horse and put Beryl behind him and went to school. Mom said as Papa rode the horse by the west side of the building, she looked down through the windows and saw the students there. Across the road from the schoolhouse to the east was a farmstead with a grove of trees. Mr. and Mrs. Nutt lived there. They raised coonhounds. One day when Mom walked to get the mail, the young coonhounds were looses and they came chasing across the road to meet her. They really scared her, so she climbed on top of the mailbox and sat there. Pretty soon a man in a wagon came driving along and just looked at her sitting there. Mom always wondered, “wouldn’t you think he would have stopped to see why I was sitting on top of the mailbox?” Of course pups being pups they had already left—leaving Mom still perched there and scared.
STEMPLE FAMILY DESCENDANTS
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Maria Frings married 
Gerhart Stemple in 1861. They lived in Erkelenz, Germany for three years, and then came to America in 1864. They came to New York, then Ohio, and later Chicago. In 1876 they came to Iowa and located on a farm south and east of Stanhope. In 1890, they moved to Stanhope. Gerhardt was a coppersmith and he also owned a hardware store in Stanhope.
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Alta Mae Kepler was born in 1878. .jpg)
She married Henry Stemple in 1897. Henry's parents, Gerhart and Maria(Frings) Stemple came to America in 1864 from Erkelenz, Germany. Henry and Alta Mae had 8 children:
1) Harold Glen b. 8/13/1898, Bancroft, SD; m. Lily Harms 11/2/1910.
2) Ruth Gwendolyn b. 1/16/1901, Bancroft, SD; m. Elzo Sprang; she d. 6/10/2004, De Smet.
3) Lauren Gerald b. 6/9/1904, Bancroft, SD; m. Edna Brockoft 4/28/1931, 2) Beverly.
4) Merna Gladys b. 7/23/1906, Bancroft, SD; m. Emmet Hrdy 10/14/1921, 2) Walter Sprang.
5) Mildred Gertrude b. 4/1/1911, Bancroft, SD; m. Herbert M. Fransen(1905-1975) 2/14/1930.
6) Leona Fay and Lucille Fern b. 5/24/1914; Lucille m. Harvey Marx 11/19/1932 and Leona m. Otto Blote 11/18/1933.
7) Willard Attie b. 7/12/1919, Bancroft, SD.
8) Darrow Wesley b. 6/4/1922, Bancroft, SD; m. Betty Moore 6/30/1942.
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When a fire destroyed much of Stanhope, in 1905, Henry and Alta Mae, along with Alta Mae's sister and family to Bancroft, Kingsbury County, South Dakota. Henry William Stemple and his wife, Alta Mae, were running a livery barn in Iowa when her sister and husband, the Olaf Andersons, found a farm for the Stemples to rent. So they and their four children, Harold, Ruth, Lauren, and Merna came to South Dakota on a train in 1908, bringing a carload of big work horses with them. They moved to Reynold Nordlunds farm west of Spirit Lake. They went to church at the Basart School where the Rev. J.E. Booth was the minister and later they went to the Bancroft Presbyterian Church.
GERTRUDE PATTERSON
Gertrude Patterson was a first cousin to Herbert Fransen and at one time was his teacher. She did much research over the years including hiring genealogists in Holland to help her.
They crossed the border first because they wanted to get away from the Catholic Prince of Germany. They preferred the Dutch Calvert Republic. The Church was and still is a part of the government. Another reason why they crossed over into the Netherlands was to escape poverty at home and earn a decent wage in wealthy Holland. The German people were poor compared to the Dutch at that time. In those days the German people did not call themselves the “master race.” Those that crossed over were grateful for a modest wage and were easily absorbed by the Dutch people who gave them employment. They spoke Low German similar to Low Dutch and adjusted easily. In this way ,our family became Hollanders.
Right here you will note that by the records we have that they both were born in Germany. Note, too, that they did not have surnames. Their fathers first name with an “s” added became their last names. Also note that after 1801 surmanes appeared. Napolean conquered the country I 1795and lost it in 1813. He had conquered Russia as well and started to march to the Kremlin with a million men. The Russians cunningly retreated and when the army got to the Kremlin, not a bit of food or shelter was left. The Russians had destroyed it all. Napoleon’s army started back in the Russian long winter with neither food, clothing or provisions. On the long frozen trek, only a few hundred men survived. He took 15000 of Holland’s fine young men and only 300 returned.
This gave the Dutch people a hatred for war and the immigration to America inviting as there was no compulsory military draft in America for quite a number of years. In my fathers time (Klaas Smid), it was done by conscription. It was done by lottery. Uncle Henry drew a blank. My father was born with an eye that was deficient. The rest of the uncles were eager to escape to America—Economic reasons was the principal reason. Too many workers for too few jobs, causing too low wages. I asked my uncle Herman one time who my Dad (Klaas), came to America with. He said he came with a pal Ben Elsing, who he thought still lived in Comfrey, Minn. I went to see Mr. Elsing and he was delighted to see me. I asked to tell the whole story.
“A bunch of us young people were spending on the Hoorn. Then Klaas called him aside and said, “I have a good notion to go to America.” To this Mr. Elsing replied, “if you go I’ll go with you but I hate to tell my folks.” Both boys had girl friends and were eager to marry but wages wouldn’t warrant starting a family. It was arranged to see his family the next afternoon. When Klaas came thru the gate Bens mother said, “Here comes Klaas, I wonder what he wants.” Then Ben told them what they were there for. She started to cry. All afternoon they talked pro and con. Shall we go or shall we stay. Finally Ben’s father spoke up and said, “You boys go. There is 25 for every job here. If you don’t like it, we’ll do our best to bring you back.” They went to my Mother’s brother (Gertrude’s) Peter in America.”
He had gone several years before. When asked if he got work he said he got work right away. He said they came and got us the next day. He said they got BIG wages and laughed. When I asked him how much he answered $17.00 a month. He thought that was good because they had board, rom and wshing and it would be more than $170.00 today. No gas to buy. All they needed was tobacco money. My Dad got a job with a big cattle feeder. His place had a second house, so he sent for my Mother. Mother came in June and it only cost $40.00 to come. Mother’s father and mother had died and mother inherited a little money. She had enough to bring my Dad’s father, mother and the rest over the next spring. Ben Elsing worked three years and then went over and brought his girlfriend and his family over. They settled in Freeport, Illinois. That’s where I was born. I have a picture of the house.
…My father and Ben came to America on the ship “Westerland” ? The sailed March 21, 1889 and arrived in Freeport, Illinois on April 7th, 1889. Gertrude’s mother’s brothers Peter and Will had come a few years before. They stayed at Peter’s the first night of their arrival. The Dutch people who emigrated wanted t get away from no jobs and a poor economy and conscription into the military which was required. Families saved and brought the rest of their families to America, which is still being done today.
Gerhardt Stemple was born November 11, 1836 in Riesch (Race), Bermany. He died in Stanhope, Iowa, July 5, 1913 at the age of 77 years. He had a brother and a sister that we know of. His parents were said to be Reischtag which means parliament or something to do with the government or something of that nature. They died and Gerhardt was raised by the uncle. He ended up in Erklentz, Germany working in a factory owned by Peter Heinrich Frings. He ended up marrying the boss’es daughter, Maria, in 1861. They lived in Erklentz for three years and he worked as a coppersmith. They must have had some means because of their backgrounds. Maria’s family was quite musical and played numerous instruments and were involved with various bands. We know that Maria had a brother, Franz and that their father married for a second time and that he had other children We don’t know why Gerhardt and Maria came to America, but he came first in 1866 and then went back for Maria and their two children Johanna and John Gerhardt, in 1867. They first arrived in New York where Gerhardt was employed as a coppersmith and brass worker. After several years they moved to Stryker, Ohio where Henry, Mary and Willie were born. Willie died in infancy in Ohio. After Stryker, they moved to Chicago and in 1876 located on a farm southwest of Stanhope, Iowa. They later moved to town.
Once established in their new home they didn’t care to go back to the old world. They came with their Dutch Bible and Dutch language and soon after changed to English. English was the predominant language and the only one taught in the American schools. Even names took an English aspect. My father’s surname was Smid after Napoleon conquered the Low Countries and ordered surnames for everyone. In the records that are recorded in the townhall in Beerta it was often spelled Smit or Smid, but on my father’s citizenship papers it is spelled Smith.
Excerpt from Phientje Van der Wunirt DeFriesluter, Gertrude’s pen friend in Amsterdam:
“You asked me when people got their surnames and this is quite a whole story. In 1795 came an end to the Republic of the Untied Netherlands. The chief of the Managing Committee was William V. He was Prince of Orange and an ancestor of Queen Julianna. The Republic of France had declared war on all the princes and monarchs of Europe, including out Stadtholder William V. The French Army had conquered the Republic of the United Netherlands. Prince William V escaped with his family to England. A new republic was built. The Bataafoche Republic. The emperor Napoleon had the power in France and in 1806 made his brother King of Holland.
In 1801 there was the beginning a new constitution and the Registrars office, by order of the end of the power of Napoleon, the Registrars office continued to exist. This is a brief survey of the coming into existence of our surnames.
FRANSEN FAMILY DESCENDANTS
In 1890, Theus Arends Fransen and Truda (Smid) Fransen emigrated from the Netherlands. Ten years later Theus’ parents, Arend and Geeske came to the United States from Beerta, Groningen, Netherlands. According to Darrell Fransen’s genealogy (42), economic realities were not the only reasons for the influx of the Dutch people to America. Because the church form of government in the Netherlands was corrupt in the first half of the century, Christians were dissatisfied with unbiblical practices that had crept into the church doctrine and worship. Emigration reached its peak in the later half of the century as Dutch agricultural communities settled in Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and later into Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan.
Arend Fransen (11/18/1838-2/20/1904) b. in Nieuw Beerta, Groningen, Netherlands and d. in Ackley, IA m. Geeske Thijes Ruiter (9/23/1832-10/29/1916) b. in Bunde, Germany and d. in Grant Twp., IA.
1) Jan (John) Arends (1863-1966).
2) Geesjien (Grace) Arends(1866- ) m. Snatter.
3) Theus Arends (1868-1941). m. Truda Smid (1870-1938) 12/30/1896.
4) Reinder (Reinner or Ray; 1871-1934) m. Kate Ebbenga (___-1932) 8/19/1905.
5) Hiltke (Helen;1877-).
Harbert Jans Smid (4/30/1840-2/1922) b. in Nieuw Beerta, Groningen, Netherlands) m.
Geessien Jans Jansen (8/19/1843-1909 b. in Nieuwerschans) 8/15/1889. Geessein Jans Jansen and Harbert Jans Smid had 10 children.
1. Jan (John)Harbers(10/19/1864-3/19/1871) b. in Nieuw Beerta, Groningen, Netherlands; d. abt 6yrs. in Holland.
2. Klaas Harbers (Claus)b. 4/30/1866 in Nieuw Beerta, Groningen, Netherlands; m. Theresa Siebrands.
3. Hendrik Harbers (Henry)b. 2/12/1868 in Nieuw Beerta, Groningen, Netherlands; m. Grace Bogue.
4. Truda (5/12/1870-9/16/1938) b. in Nieuw Beerta, Groningen, Netherlands; d. in Lake Preston, S.D; m. Theus Fransen .
5. Antje b. 7/14/1872 in Nieuw Beerta, Groningen, Netherlands; m. William Janssen.
6. Jan b. 4/7/1874 in Nieuw Beerta, Groningen, Netherlands; m. Catherine Johns.
7. Geesien (Sena)b. 3/17/1879 in Nieuw Beerta, Groningen, Netherlands; m. George Aven.
8. Harmen b. 3/17/1879 in Nieuw Beerta, Groningen, Netherlands; d. 1955 in Lake Preston, S.D; m. Kate Johnson.
9. Aaltje (Annie)b. 1/21/1886; m. Simon Bogue.
10. Harmke (Minnie)b. 8/4/1888; m. Kate Johnson.
Theus Arends and Truda (Smid) Fransen had 7 children:
1) Grace (12/29/1897-1981) m. Fred Ritterbusch (10/15/1887-1980). They had 3 children: LaVina, Amy, and Glen Fred.
2) Sena (6/23/1899-1995) m. Otto H. Poppen (1922- )6/23/1920.
3) Arend (2/8/1901-3/23/1964) m. Minnie Irene Gear 3/26/1924
4) Minnie (2/12/1902-5/26/1986) m. George Sprang 3/26/1924. They had 3 children: Wendell, Carol, and Marilyn.
5) Anna (8/6/1903-1998) m. Leslie Lyle (1901-1978) 1/30/192. They had 2 sons: James and Don.
6) Herbert (3/9/1905-1975) m. Mildred Stemple 2/14/1930. They had 2 daughters: Audrey and Shirley.
7) Theodore (12/19/1911-3/12/1912) died at the age of 3 months.
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Minnie Irene Gear married Arend Fransen on March 26, 1924. Arend, born February 8, 1901 at Sibley, Iowa, came to Potter County with his parents Theus and Gertrude Fransen from De Smet in March 1919, with his two sisters, Minnie and Anna, and brother Herbert. Sisters Grace and sena remained in De Smet. The Fransens settled on a farm a mile east north of Gettysburg (north of highway 212 across from drive-in theater). Five years later the family all returned to De Smet except Arend who, recently married, stayed on his father’s place to continue farming. Arend’s sister, Minnie Fransen and George Sprang of De Smet were married in a double wedding with Arend Fransen and Minnie Gear at the Methodist parsonage at 209 W. Garfield in Gettysburg. Minnie Fransen Sprang had taught at North Cunningham School the previous two years. Some of her pupils as near as she can recall were Elsie Larson, LeNora, Erna, Ewald and Elvera Breitkreutz, Lyle Thompson and a younger brother, Tillie and John Gross, Marie, Arthur and Eva Hagen, Raymond and Darrell Schekel, and Ervin Killian. Arend and Minnie Fransen had five children: Darrel, Dorothy, Frank, Raymond, and Harlan. They farmed east of Gettysburg at five different farms including the Fransen place, Bartles, Lee, Simon and Medbery places until Arend died May 23, 1964—Frank Fransen
CARYL LYNN POPPEN
Dear Shirley[Fransen], 10/23/07
We received your letter yesterday and Cal answered it thus—
Grandpa [Theus Fransen] had the reputation of being somewhat of a “character.” He had to do all his farm work with horses and they were sort of a rat tag bunch. One day when he was in the fields one horse was lagging, not pulling its load. Grandpa threw a rock at the lazy horse and hit a good horse. He said, “Excuse me Frank, I meant to hit the lazy one.”
Grandpa came from Holland with his folks. His father got so lonesome for the old country he became dispirited and committed suicide. I don’t remember Grandpa being difficult; he just did things in a strange way. When he wanted to see his mother he told his family he was leaving and didn’t say when he’d be home. He’d walk to De Smet, take the train to his mother’s in Iowa, and sometime later he just showed up in the morning having walked all night. On one of these walks he found a cap on the road so he picked it up and wore it. He later had lice in his beautiful curly hair. He was rather athletic and quite agile. I remember him wearing overalls, etc., and never remember seeing him dressed up.
Grandpa first proposed at Spirit Lake even though it was a hilly, stony farm and he had trouble keeping water on his farm—had trouble finding a good well. He borrowed money on his farm at Spirit Lake and bought a farm at Gettysburg. He rented it out to a farmer who, my dad said, stole so much that it wasn’t profitable and the hard times set in of the 30s had just set in. Then, the drought and the dust storms hit. By this time he was too old to start farming again as he had lost two farms. He was somewhat bitter at Herbert Hoover.
I can remember the folks going over to visit and Grandma had a little hammer and a little saw she let me play with. One time when we were there Grandma choked on a piece of meat. Your dad and my dad beat her on the back and took her outside on the cold porch so she could get some air. I was so scared she would die. Somehow they got her breathing again. After that they moved to a little house in De Smet. (I think her brother Herman helped them buy it.) It was on Highway 14.
Grandpa had to have a prostate operation. My dad and uncle, Fred Ritterbusch, took him to Sioux City. He was all alone and had none of his family to support him. I felt bad about that. After Grandma died, Grandpa would stay with the Ritterbusches, the Lyles, at our place, etc. He pronounced my name “Culvin” instead of “Calvin.” He always smoked a pipe.
Grandpa had a brother, Reinder, who lived in Bryant, South Dakota, married Kate Ebbengo who died early. They had a son, Frank, who became a vagabond. Sometimes he’d be gone for a long time. Delbert and Charles were other sons and they had daughters: Clara, Vera, and Florence. Charles and his wife live in Hessington Springs, South Dakota. He was a jeweler.
Grandpa had a sister who married Henry Schnoder. They visited a few times. He was a little man. Always happy! He’d come about harvest time after his wife died. He helped mom as much as he could. He was drafted when he was young and also served a rich boy’s draft.
I remember your dad and was rather awed by his strength and confidence. When he brought your mother—I think to live with his folks—I thought your mother was pretty. I liked it when she paid attention to me!
My mother and Aunt Minnie both got teacher’s certificates from General Beadle College in Madison and taught county school before they married. Mom taught at one close to home so she stayed there and made a little money teaching and bought a piano. During that time their home caught fire. They went in the house and the piano was right inside the door so it was one of the few things they got out. I don’t remember mom ever playing it, but she still had it when she moved to town. The house Grandpa built was eventually moved to De Smet and is still occupied. So, you can see Grandpa had some hard knocks.
One time Grandpa took my mom to the school where she was teaching and the horses ran and tipped the buggy over and she was under the buggy. I wish I’d known Grandma better. She died on a hot summer day. There was a bad car accident right outside their driveway. She was too heavy and excited by the accident that she had a heart attack and died that day. She was only 62! Caryl Lynn and I saw where she was baptized when we were in Holland 6 years ago at Nieuw Beerta near Groningen, Netherlands.
I’m going to copy what Cal said and send one to each family so it will be a day or two before I send it to you. Do you have Richard Fransens’s book, “The Fransen Family?” If not, I think Richard (Darrell’s son) would send you one. His address is : Richard Fransen, 9789 Parker Lake Circle, Nadarre, FL, 32566. Thank you so much for your request. I only knew about half of what Cal had to say! Your Cousin-in-law! Caryl Lynn (Calvin Poppen, 42943 Ash St., De Smet, SD, 57231)
Harold and Ruth attended Prairie Hill School the first year and after that all went to Shady Lawn School. They lived on the farm seven years, acquiring a quarter of land on which they erected buildings and dug a well. They enjoyed this new home. (De Smet Centennial, “Yesterday & Today” by Caryl Lynn Meyer Poppen.)
Mrs. Otto (Sena Fransen) Poppen writes about the family, “My mother, Gertrude Smith (Smid), and her sister, Annie, worked as hired girls. Annie worked for the Pommers, great-grandparents to Kevin Pommer and Mrs. Wendel Schubloom, both of De Smet. Gertrude was a pastry cook at a Sibley, Iowa Hotel. She married Theus Fransen in 1896. My father’s brother, Reiner Fransen, moved to Bryant and his children include: Clara Vaughan, Mildred Hall, Charles (married Arlene Rexted) and Delbert (married Helen Garrey). My father, Theus Fransen, bought a farm northwest of De Smet where Kenneth Pirlet now lives, and Grace and Sena started school at the Bowes School with Francis Paterson as the teacher. They later traded the farm for one in Spirit Lake Township, where we children attended the Prairie Hill School. Minnie and I graduated from Madison State Normal school. My parents are buried in the Lake Preston Cemetery. (De Smet Centennial, “Yesterday & Today” by Caryl Lynn Meyer Poppen; p. 164)
The Kelley School was built in the 1800s and was considered the center of entertainment. Children would come and play games there and even Christmas potluck dinners. When the Kelley School was too old and too small it was replaced by the new Prairie Hill School in 1920. After Prairie Hill eventually closed Sherman Williams bought it and it is still on his farm. (De Smet Centennial, “Yesterday & Today” by Caryl Lynn Meyer Poppen.)
Grace Fransen standing [white lace collar], Anna Fransen 4th from left front row, Minnie Fransen kneeling white dress, Sena Fransen right of Minnie, Herbert Fransen second from right front row.
When Minnie Fransen (Mrs. George Sprang) started to school she had to sit on a recitation bench, her legs tiring quickly because her feet didn’t touch the floor. She was the youngest of 42 pupils, and there just weren’t enough desks to go around! Slates and slate pencils were used in school work. The slate pencils were about seven inches long and broke easily. The pupils cleaned their slates with a damp cloth. Some of the teachers at the Prairie Hill School were Della Whiting, Ida Anderson, May Greenman, Anna Kelly, Olivia Knudson, Gertrude Smith, Nellie Squires, Edna (De Smet Centennial, “Yesterday & Today” by Caryl Lynn Meyer Poppen; p. 292-293.)
THE STORY OF MY LIFE by Mildred Fransen
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I was born’d on a farm in So Dakota near Spirit Lake. The house I was born’d in was a small house. There was a kitchen quite large, a living room and a bedroom downstairs. Upstairs, there was two bedrooms. I really can’t remember too much about this home. My folks built a pretty new home with all new buildings, barn, corn crib and a machine shed combination. Then, there was a chicken house and a shed combined which we used as a playhouse. There was many memories there as coming from a large family there was always someone to play with. The twins, Leona and Lucille, and I (Mildred) spent much time playing house. Our other two sisters, Ruth and Merna had to do more of the work..jpg)
My childhood was a happy one. We had wonderful parents—their interest was their family. There was no favorites with my parents. They always showed their love and appreciation. We never had too much in material things, but I wouldn’t trade all the wealth in the world for that kind of a relationship. Back to our home—I will never forget how beautiful that it looked to me. A large house—all new and shiny. I can’t recall how old I was when we moved over there. But I would think about 6 years because the twins were 2 1/2-3 years old. When we got in the house I remember I went from one room to another and the twins kept running upstairs. We had a large parlor, and a large bedroom, and a large dining area. A large kitchen and a pantry and a washroom with 3 porches downstairs. Four large bedrooms and a large hallway upstairs. I can remember those pretty rugs we had in our bedroom downstairs and in the parlor with the French doors. Mom kept the parlor closed off only when company came. She and Dad always had a big interest in our home. It was really quite nice for having a large family.
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Our folks worked very hard, but they wasn’t temperamental. My mother raised chickens and turkeys and always had a large garden. She canned so much our basement in the fall looked like a grocery store. Everything had to be canned because we didn’t have refrigeration or ice boxes. To keep our butter cool (we churned our own butter) we hung the butter down in a cistern which was underneath the pantry floor to keep it cool. My mother had a large strawberry patch. I can still remember the shortcake she made. It was made out of a sweet cream biscuit dough recipe. She would make tow 9x12 pans, put one layer on the bottom, strawberries in between and also on the top layer was strawberries. Then, we topped it off with good old country sweet cream.
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My dad cured his own beef and pork along with help. My mother would can the beef and pork, fry down some pork and put in big crock containers and pour over lard. She also canned chicken that was put in our basement. We would dry beef which was delicious. I have on my fingers today for proof. I was cutting some and the knife slipped. I cut my finger and fainted and fell off the back porch. I guess I wasn’t supposed to be doing that. So that was why I was on the back porch. But I’ll never forget the days when we had to can the meat and fry down the lard. We, or should I say my mother, raised enough chickens so she would have eggs to take to town to buy groceries which was usually a 100 lb. sack sugar, the largest sack of flour, coffee and tea. We also used our cream money for groceries.
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My mother baked loaves of bread every other day, then she baked white sugar cookies and buns. Sometime, when the bread came out of the oven, the twins and I would snitch a loaf that was still hot, along with butter, a jar of home made strawberry sauce and go to the pasture and eat it. It was so good I can still taste it. I guess we were little devils. My job at home was to gather eggs and milk cows—usually the twins and I had that job. I started milking when I was 6 years old and milked cows until I got married. So, you see, I’m an old milk hand. We raised all our own potatoes which we always had to pick up and put in the large lumber wagon. We’d have several wagon loads. We never bought potatoes. We raised our own navy beans. Our mother sewed all our clothes. We usually had one good dress that we wore to church and Sunday school. We wore one dress to school a week, but we always changed clothes when we got home.
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We lived 3 miles from our country school. I drove a horse on a buggy—her name was Molly. She was a white horse. I’ll never forget the day she died. I sat with her out in the barn—it was like losing one of the family. Then, we had and old white team of horses which I drove on a sled. One day it was 3 below zero when I drove to school. It felt like my eyes had froze. I had a runaway once with them but it wasn’t that day. I also rode old Tom to school without a saddle—I can still feel the scars from that. Well, after Molly died, my dad decided I would drive another old horse. She was like a mule and she would chase you when you tried to catch her. I was sick about the whole ordeal that I was supposed to drive her on a buggy. Because I had driven her before and if she decided she didn’t want to go forward she’d back up all the time and cramp the wheels. My dad got the buggy all lined up and I was going to drive her—no way out. I said, “Dad, would you please just try her out first?” So he hitched her up. In his mind he thought I was crazy. He drove her to the mailbox—she ran away with him. He got out and she got him up against a fence. He got away and she smashed the new buggy and that horse ran away and we never seen her again. And that’s the best ending of the story that I can think of.
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Back to my older sisters and brothers—Harold got married quite young so he wasn’t home so long. He married our neighbor’s daughter, Lily Harms. They had one little girl named La Vonn Grace. She died of pneumonia at age three months. Ruth was an angel at home. She had to miss quite a lot of school to help with the home work. Ruth was almost like a mother to me. I was three years old when the twins were born’d. People just didn’t pay any attention to me after they came. I didn’t feel like I was loved anymore. One day I walked up to Ruth and I was crying. I said to her, “Ruth, don’t you like me anymore?” She picked me up and kissed me and hugged me tight. She said she sure did love me, but I will never forget that day. She is truly a loving sister.
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Harold was a great brother, also. Every winter we would be sick and quarantined with some disease. We had small pox, whooping cough, red measles and scarlet fever. Harold would come upstairs with oranges for the sick. We were feverish and we didn’t get that many oranges either.
Merna is a great sister, too. She and I were close as there’s only 5 years difference in our age. She, being the older of us two, we wasn’t suppose to race our horses, but like kids when we get out of sight we really raced them. We had a buckskin horse, real pidgeon-toed—Merna was on that horse and I on Lauren’s pony. We got behind the hill and we really let loose. Merna’s horse fell and I can still see her rolling. I thought she was dead, but she came out of it. I don’t think our folks ever found out about it, but we didn’t race again.
After Ruth got married, she married Elzo Sprang, we used to stay with them a lot. The twins and I, I’ll never forget the delicious lemon pie she baked.
Lauren was a good-hearted brother. He always like to sleep in the mornings. My mother said to get some water and get him up. So, I take a cup of water and poured some on his face. He came alive fast—he jumped out of bed and ran downstairs and around the house. He caught me and kicked me so hard—not even by a horse. Anyway, I didn’t try that again. But, you know, he bought all my wedding clothes and he cared for his sisters a lot—so much, when he took me along to a dance he made me dance with him and also eat lunch with him. But as you grow older you can understand his ways—it was a way of protection. It wasn’t because he enjoyed dancing with me or eating with me. He left home and started with a garage as a mechanic. Later, he started working with Northwestern Public Service Co. Later, having a office of his own and a secretary, he married Edna Bronchaff and they had a boy Gerald who drown’d at age 9 in Scatland, South Dakota. They divorced later.
We had a good time as we were growing up. We used to have dances at “Big Barns” with orchestra like “Lawrence Welk,” “Tiny Little and His Toe Teasers,” and all those good bands. And, oh, how I loved to dance. And, if you’ll pardon me for bragging a little, I was one of the best and I never sat one out. We did the “Black Bottom,” “Flea Hop,” “Charelston” and the bit. I still love to dance—music turns me on. How about that for a 63-year-old gal?
We had basket socials in our schools. They used to have rabbit hunts and sell the rabbits. Money would go to buy oysters and we’d all get together in the neighborhood for that. We had ball games at home. We had a team at home with all of us…. And we’d play hide and go seek. On Saturday night we’d get out the old wash tub, heat water and have our shampoos and baths. On Sunday we would go to Sunday school and church. We had a Model T Ford and a big load of kids. Sometimes we’d have family picnics, but most times it was a day of rest for my folks because they wouldn’t work on Sunday.
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On Christmas we had a big Christmas tree and the candles were little wax ones which were quite dangerous and were never kept lit for very long. We would just have one little gift. Mine was a glass doll—and a very small one. We would make clothes for it and were very happy to get it. Our mother would have such a nice Christmas dinner. Dad would kill the turkey and mom would dress it. Everything was done the hard way according to our everyday standards. Willard and Darrow, being the youngest, really enjoyed Christmas. After Harold and Lauren left home, Dad didn’t have anyone to help him in the field. Our mother would say, “I feel so sorry for dad, why don’t you girls help him?” We would go out in the field and shock grain, plant corn, use the weeder in the corn, pick corn, and help haul hay. We did everything with horses. Dad would never let us use the field mower and things that was dangerous. He was a great man to work with. He’d never ask us to help him, but he was glad when we offered to do it. He was good natured—we loved to work with him. He would tell us stories of his younger days and was kind and thoughtful—that the day was easy. He always had a twinkle in his eye and a big smile, but we really respected him.
Our mother was always nice to work with. She was a very patient mother. She was a beautiful seamstress. She had a shop of her own before she was married. She would get us to cut out a dress and everything had to be basted. Out of us 5 girls you’d never believe it, but in my sister’s eyes gained the most from it—oh, I cans sew it up if there’s no problems. I remember once Ruth was going to make a pair of purple pants—they were the “in thing.” Purple, red, blue, she sewed them up backwards. I’ll never forget the laugh we all got from that. Ruth, being our eldest sister, didn’t appreciate those kind of laughs. One time, I remember she had a date the night before—the next day she was tired. Us lazy twins and myself stood outside the kitchen window teasing her. All of a sudden the mop hit the floor, she came running after us. Boy, did we run. The twins got away and I would have but I stepped in a hole and fell. I hurt my foot a plenty, but my bottom hurt worse. I looked up from my hole in the ground for the twins—there they are up on the hill at our closest neighbor’s Harm Harms and they were laughing so hard they were doubled up.
When Harold got married to Lily Harms, our closest neighbor, we were all sick with small pox. My mother, dad, and most of us kids. I remember looking out the window and seeing all of those cars over there. As Harold was getting married in Harm’s home he was coming down with small pox. He had to sit down when he was being married and he crawled in bed with his blue serge suit on. I don’t know how we all survived. Elzo looked after us and brought our groceries and done chores. He was a good man. There was a fellow who felt sorry for us and he said he would bring food from the wedding. I don’t know what for because no one could eat, but he just brought it –stuck his head in the door and he got it and almost died from it.
Almost everyone drove a horse and buggy for sometime, then, came the Model T Ford. We had one at home and we really thought we had something great. But at night when we got ready to go someplace, the light would burn out. They were the magnetic lights. Then we’d have to stay home. Usually, if we went someplace, it was to Bancroft. It was 5 miles away.
I also remember one time when we were going to a celebration that was a big deal for us, all the little towns had them, but this was “Old Settler Day” at De Smet. We got ready to go and Merna pushes me off the porch and I got a real bad nose bleed. They couldn’t hardly get it stopped. Anyway, it ended up we all stayed home. Always at these celebrations they had foot races. I could run like a deer. I was tall and skinny. You wouldn’t believe it by looking at me now. But I would enter the races and usually always come out first, once in awhile, second. The twins were on the sidelines cheering for me because I usually divided up the $2.50 with them and it was our money for the celebration.
We were close, but we had our battles, too. We’d fix each other’s hair and we all had long hair and if all three didn’t turn out good, we’d mess each other’s up dragging one another around the room. At each time the wave look was in we had neighbors, the Ed Ritterbuchs, a brother of Fred who lives quite close we used to go visit them—they had a family of all boys. Their mother was a cripple and their father had to do all the house work and care for her. She was a cross old lady. Those kids didn’t get to be in the house. When they came in it was to the basement or to bed. We felt so sorry for them and mother always made us just sit when we went there. We girls thought how fortunate we were that we were blessed with our folks.
We used to have a nice pond in our hog lot and we spent a lot of time there in the winter time. We didn’t have skates, but skated with our boots. Then we had sleds and the Dakota winters were quite severe. We had big snow banks as high as our barn which we would slide off of.
I remember my mother losing some of her turkeys. She said to me, “If you find them I will give you some money.” I followed tracks which I thought were turkey tracks for miles and they ended up to be pheasant tracks. They were never found. I suppose some animal got them. We used to have coyotes on the west quarter. When we would go to bed at night they would howl. Then the dog would cry in its way. We felt so secure in our upstairs bedroom. “The cry of the dog” we had always heard is a death in the family which worried us. Sometime at night the dog would bark and carry on. There were chicken thieves around and also other animals. Our dad would get up and walk out there with his gun. We were all worried because we thought something would happen to dad.
Unless you lived on a farm in the horse and buggy stage you can’t appreciate it as a child. Our mother had a hand pull washing machine until later when we got one that’d run with an engine. Dad would have to be around when the wash day started. We heated our water in a copper boiler. We’d use lye to break the water. We’d let it come to the top and skim the lye off. It was an all-day’s job, but we washed once a week and we had lines of clothes. People love them copper boilers, but I don’t care about those memories.
Also, the wooden barrel churn. It’s quite an attraction for the younger generation, but for me all I’d want it for is to sell it and make money. I used to sit down in our basement and churn for hours before we got butter. The “threshing rig” is an attraction for me because my dad had one. He threshed for other people, also. When I think of threshing time, and all those men to feed, I just can’t think how our mother managed it. But she was an excellent manager. We had to have lunch in the morning, dinner, lunch in the afternoon and they were big eaters.
There was hobos roaming around at that time. Dad would hire some for awhile, but our orders were to stay away from them. They slept in the barn. I remember one time we had which was a snake charmer. He stuck a small snake in his pocket and it got lose in our house and nobody slept on the floor till it was found. Dad asked him to not bring anymore in the house. We also had gypsies roaming around. You had to watch them if they came on your place they would steal everything they could haul. They came by horse and buggy.
Hay time was a fun time. I’d go with my dad and help him haul in hay. It was put in the hay mow by some contraption with the horses. We used to have a lot of pretty horses. My dad had a livery barn in Stanhope, Iowa and his horses was his pride and joy. They were decorated with pretty colored rings on the harness and other decorations.
My dad was not a drinking man, but when an old friend from Iowa later moved to South Dakota would come over along with his wife, he would usually have a bottle. I remember they’d go to the barn. But my mother would to often a little while, but my dad had a little jealous streak—he never cared for men to talk very long with my mother. How silly it all seemed but I carry a steak of that with me also. But I guess you have to have the bad as well as the good. If we were all good, we’d be some kind of a God, which I’m sure no human is. But, in my mind, if I were to characterize my mother, she would be the closest to an angel, then I can think of. I she had faults, as far as I can remember, it was because she didn’t make the twins and I do more work. Ruth and Merna, I think, did their share--Ruth, probably more than her share. I guess that’s the penalty for being the oldest girl.
One thing always stayed with me—mom was making me a new dress. I kept after her to make it shorter. Finally, instead of hitting me over the head, with tears in her eyes she made it that short. In fact, I felt a little conspicuous, but I wore it that way—it was nothing like the length of today’s dresses.
My mother made her own soap. I can still see her out there in the backyard doing it. She had a large black cast iron kettle. It had to watched and stirred. When she baked bread we always had to go out and pick firewood and cobs. We girls would go out in the hog yard where dad fed the pigs, and pick up wagon loads, but we buried coal in our cook stove also. We used all pieces of wood and cobs when we had them. We had a kerosene stove which we used part time, but not too often.
Our kitchen had a long square table in it and when eleven people were at it, it was filled-up. Our mother never asked us when we wanted to eat—she always had a nice plain meal for us. Our only worry was is there going to be enough—and there always was, but not much left over for scraps for the dog. Dish time was the twins and my job. One time I went into the barn and sat in the manger with the cats, but it didn’t work—dishes were waiting for me. … I also went to the outside biffy—Lauren came by and locked the door and I spent the afternoon there, but I can tell you there’s better places to spend an afternoon.
Our milk cows were very gentle except if Lauren would milk. If they’d swat flies and hit him, he would beat them. We could milk them anywhere. We always had to get them from the pasture. We had snake mounds out there and there was some wicked looking snakes laying on the mounds. We always wondered what kind they were. One time I saw one that had red horns.
My mother used to hatch her own chickens. We used to have several large incubators. It’s a great joy for a kid to handle a little yellow chicken. And her turkeys were usually hatched out under a hen. The first ones are so exciting to see. When we milked our cows there was always the separating of the milk. We kept our cream separator in our wash room. People love those old separators—but I remember all the times I had to wash it and that was an every day job.
We had a piano. Harold had a violin, Lauren a mandolin—we would all join in singing. Ruth and Merna played the piano. The twins and I also could play the piano. I haven’t mentioned much of Willard and Darrow, but they were the little ones. Willard loved to hunt arrowheads and Indian hammers. He really had a nice collection. He looked for them all over. We had Indian mounds at Spirit Lake, South Dakota. The story was many Indians many Indians were buried there. When Willard was a baby, my folks took a trip in the Model T Ford to Slayton, Minnesota to visit my mother’s brother and family, Uncle Jay and Aunt Zelma. We all stayed home. Ruth took care of Willard and when they got home, Willard didn’t even care for them. I have a card written to me from my mother while there. It was written in 1924. Not many of our relatives came to see us because they lived in Iowa and you just didn’t travel in those days.
Uncle Will and Aunt Mattie and the family came the most and Grandma Kepler came occasionally, but Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Alf used to come from Iowa. In fact, Willard was named by Uncle Will and Aunt Mattie. My folks thought they had their family after Willard came, but when my mother was in her forties Darrow came along. My dad, I think, wasn’t too happy about this and I remember he didn’t hardly look at him when he was born’d. But it wasn’t long he was the whole pride and joy of the family. We all baby’d him.
I didn’t mention that Aunt Mattie and Uncle Will came from Iowa they always brought a carload of Iowa apples which made lots of canning, apple butter, and jelly. We’d pick chokecherries at Spirit Lake and use the juice of them with apple juice—made delicious jelly.
Willard and Darrow both graduated from Bancroft High School. I remember one time my dad took Darrow to Bancroft along with my brother-in-law Emmett Harty. Well, town kids thought country kids were hay seeds—these boys started picking on Darrow. He must have been around 8 years old. Well, you didn’t shove Darrow around… he got into a big fight cleaned the boy’s clock and the boy’s father was so mad that my brother-in-law and the kid’s dad almost had a fight. If it wouldn’t been for my dad they would have. One thing in our family, if there was outside trouble, you’d have to fight us all. Because we were all for one and one for all. That was our motto.
I forgot to mention that all 9 of us were born’d at our home. In those days didn’t go to the hospital. My folks lived in Stanhope, Iowa where Harold, Ruth, Lauren, and Merna were born’d. My dad ran a livery stable there. Then they moved to Boone, Iowa where dad worked on the railroad. My mother wanted to get a job out of the city. She didn’t want to raise her family in town. My mother’s sister and brother-in-law were already living in South Dakota. This was Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Alf, so, my folks moved to South Dakota. Then, later Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Alf moved back to Iowa. There was all dirt roads at that time. No gravel so when it rained we’d plan on getting stuck. If it rained any length of time, in those days, we always went barefooted. In the fall when we started back to school, it was quite an ordeal to put them shoes on and keep them on.
I remember when I had my 9th birthday party. It was the only birthday party I ever had. It was a surprise. It was over to my sister’s house staying for awhile and I was to come home—when I got home my school friends were there to surprise me. It was a great day, but when lunchtime came around I had a mouth full of canker sores and I couldn’t eat lunch. But I enjoyed my school friends.
When we’d go out to recess at school the boys had dead mice and would stick them down our neck. So my girlfriend and I spent lots of our recesses in the biffy. One time we spent there, the bell rang everybody went in the school house. My friend left the biffy but I hung back—sure enough they were still there and caught her and put mice down her back. One time when I went out to hitch our horse up to go home, two of those boys lassoed me and tied me to the telephone pole. They started up at the shoulders and all the way down. I stayed that way for awhile and then they let me loose. I’m telling you when I got home my mother got on the telephone to those boy’s parents and that didn’t happen again. Those country schools could be rough.
Our teacher was just as tough. I couldn’t get my arithmetic and I was standing at the blackboard—finally she came up there and slapped me on one side of the cheek and then the other. Arithmetic was hard for me. To this day it takes plenty of time to figure it out if at all. But spelling was easy. Usually didn’t even have to take the test. You wouldn’t believe it by reading this. Then, one teacher tied my friend to her seat because she left her seat without asking. I whispered and had scotch tape put on my mouth. She went outside during the dinner hour and just left us sit—we were so angry we could spit fire if I could have got it beyond the tape. My sister, Leona, got hit over the head with the school bell. Lauren wouldn’t go to school. He’d go and then he’d stay home. Finally he got to the age he didn’t need to. I think he quit in the 7th grade.
We used to play basketball at school. Oh, how I liked to play that game. When I graduated from 8th grade I started high school in Bancroft, South Dakota. I had to work for my board and this lady wouldn’t let me play basketball because I was supposed to come home and work. I was so heartbroken over that. My girlfriends played. I finally lost interest in school. I went the first half of the year and quit. My folks brought me home. They said if I quit I was through.
After a week at home I was ready to go back, but I didn’t like to say so. Many times I wished I hadn’t quit. Twins went to high school but they didn’t work for their board. Probably, my folks didn’t think that was a good idea since I quit. But they graduated from Bancroft High School. In those days they hated work worse than I did, they probably would’ve gotten fired. They’d come home weekends—they’d go to bed and sleep discouraged because ma and I didn’t have all the work done. I should have mentioned this back further, but when we were going to country school and I would get Molly all hitched up for school and I would sit outside waiting for the twins—one day I was quite unhappy about it all. I came in and Lucille didn’t even have her coat on. I gave her a shove and she fell over Willard’s baby bed and cut her chin. It bled a lot and she still carries the scar. But Leona and I went to school and I felt just terrible I think it really hurt me more than it hurt her. But I never tried that again even if I felt like it. I always had to do the driving—they’d sit back all covered up in the buggy. Then, when we got to the school they’d run into the schoolhouse while I unhitched the horse. Oh, I guess that’s the penalty of being 3 years older.
Lucille had another ordeal when my dad had the hay mow filled to the roof. She slid down and fell to the manger. She was in bad shape for awhile but snapped out of it. I guess we must have been tough to have survived all our ordeals. In the spring it was fun. We’d go out to gather wildflowers. The crocus was South Dakota’s wild flower but we picked many kinds. There was many violets. We’d bring a bouquet to our mother. We gathered most of these from our pasture—the pasture where our cattle was.We had a mean bull one time he chased dad—he just made it to the fence. Dad had a black hat on that he hit him with in the eyes that stopped him long enough so dad got over the fence.
We used to have many storms in the summertime in South Dakota. Lightening would strike barns and other buildings. My dad got caught in one on the neighbor’s grade. We saw him on the grade, then we couldn’t see anything. He crawled on his hands and knees to the neighbor’s garage. We sure all worried about him.
I can remember Ruth before she got married. She had a date to go to a basket social. She asked dad if she could take a horse to go to Bancroft to get food for her basket. Dad wouldn’t let her and she got mad and she walked 5 miles to Bancroft. I don’t know why he wouldn’t let her take a horse, but I think the folks were more strict with the older ones. Anyway, she got sick and didn’t even go to the social. But that has always stayed with her.
We just farmed a quarter at home, but when you do it with horses its not a fast job. But dad rented other land. Then Harold, Ruth, Lauren, and Merna were all married so dad had only the twins and I to help him because Willard and Darrow were too young. I remember dad and I picking corn on the west quarter, it was several miles away and snow on the ground. We did it all by hand. It was so cold. I was 17 years old. We walked by the wagon home. Dad put his sheepskin around me and I cried from the cold walking home.
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Herb—I knew him as a child. His sisters and my sisters were friends. They lived 3 miles from our farm. He would come with them and stand in the corner and smile at me—at that time I just hated him because I was bashful. We all went to church together—his sisters and mine.
Herb and I used to go to dances about 3 times a week. Most of them were farm dances. But they were nice big barns. We would also go to dances at the Spirit Lake Town Hall and also Bancroft Hall. We would go to shows in the theater. They were silent movies and they would have someone play the piano. The words were on the screen. We’d take rides on Sunday in his old Model T with a cloth top. One time the top was ripped as I was driving through Willow Lakes and Herb stuck his head through the hole. We’d drive to a lot of little towns in the area—Melham, Willow Lake, and De Smet. The first time I went to the fair in Huron was with Herb. My folks used to go occasionally. We’d take the twins along quite often to dances.
Herb and I got married in 1930 just after the depression began in South Dakota in 1929. That was a bad break for the folks like everybody else. My mother inherited some money from her folks… they bought a new car and put the rest in their land or farm. Then came the big depression. You would put crops in and the would come up and look good and no rain. So we’d dry out. The grasshoppers would come in swarms it would be almost dark when they passed the sun. They would land in the field and eat it all up in no time. They would also strip our gardens. And we had real bad dust storms. My folks like other farmers in South Dakota got seed and feed loans. They did this year in and year out. This happened at least for seven years. My folks didn’t have the place all paid for. They were like most South Dakota people. My mother said, “They’ll never take our place while I’m alive.” Dad would sit at night rubbing his head trying to figure a way out. But he wasn’t cranky or took his spite out on us. They finally got a government program started it was called WPA. Everybody that could worked on it. It was planting trees, making dams and what had to be done. Even our minister worked on it with my dad. We had enough to eat but that was about all.
My folks had us all for Christmas dinner when Herb and I was living in Huron. Mom wrote us a letter and wanted us to come but she said there would be no gifts from them. She just didn’t have the money. I still have that letter. We all got together for Christmas. After Christmas she had a heart attack and died at age 54. It was such a shock to us all. She was only sick about a week. It was such a heart break because we all loved our mother so much. After my mother passed away, Leona, Willard and Darrow were still home. Leona was with our mother when she had her heart attack.
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My dad was just lost after mom’s death. Leona got married and he was left with Willard and Darrow. Darrow was 10 years old and Willard a few years older. He tried to be a father and mother to Willard and Darrow but lived only a few years after our mother’s death. Not knowing he had lost the farm, he died at age 63. Darrow went to live with Harvey and Lucy for awhile then with Lauren in Wyoming. Willard stayed with Ruth and Elzo and us in Estherville. There was a farm sale which didn’t bring much because people didn’t have any money.
When Willard lived with us he spent time in the CC Camp in Bancroft, Iowa. He always had a fear it seems of war. He was twenty-one and the WWII broke out. He had to go to war. He trained in different states—California and Washington and seemed to be okay. Then, he was sent to Fort Lewis, Washington and got hurt in his training real bad. He was hurt on the head and was hospitalized. After recovering he came home on a furlough. We could see a change in him and he was real nervous. He should never have been sent across but they sent him. In Africa he was what they called “shell shock” he was sent back to Springfield, Missouri to a veteran’s hospital. Then, late to a veteran’s hospital in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Then, we got him transferred to Fort Meade, South Dakota in the Black Hills area. He spent many years in these kind of hospitals. He later had some kind of brain operation to relieve pressure. He is now on a ranch in Deadwood area doing quite well considering the circumstances. But I hope there’s a better life for him in the here after then he’s had in this life. Darrow fought under General Patton’s—a tough army. He came back okay—very nervous. But he had a wife and little girl to come home to and things have turned out quite well for him and Betty in Rawlins, Wyoming.
Going back to grandparents, I never knew my Grandpa or Grandma Stemple and never saw them. They never came to visit in those days from Iowa to South Dakota was considered a very long distance. My Grandpa and Grandma Stemple talked only German. My Grandpa Kepler—I had never seen him, but after his death, Grandma Kepler came from Iowa to visit us. As a child she seemed like a mean lady—she was strict with us and made us go to bed early. But, as I grow older, it must have been hard on her to stay at our place with all the kids. I guess that’s the generation gap.
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Herb and I got married when the depression was on. We lived with Herb’s folks and Herb did the farming. Audrey was born’d in their home. In that time no one went to the hospital for baby cases. I remember Herb chopping wood for winter supply to keep us all warm. He had big wood piles. We had a lady who worked with Dr. Jameson and Mrs. Flint came when she was born’d. Then, after she was born’d my mother came and helped also. And with the help of Herb’s mother we got by okay. In them days you had to spend 10 days in bed after having a child and you were to lay still. Audrey had a hard time getting here and was finally taken with instruments. Her head was cut upon to the top of her eye. She was as dark as a Negro. But her head healed real fast and her pink color came back fast. She grew and was a healthy baby. We all spoiled her.
We left Herb’s folks and moved in with my folks. Dad seemed pretty happy to have someone to help him and Herb being a good worker was always right out there working. I was older and appreciated my folks by then so I tried to do all I could. But there was friction between the twins and myself. You just couldn’t buy a job—nobody had money it seemed. But Herb being a good worker and doing everything he could to find a job—I had lots of faith in him. Finally he found a job with a fellow who was financially bad off also. Herb would work in the field with horses so thin and hungry they would fall down in the field. You’d go out to the hog houses and the pigs would practically eat you because of hunger. And his chickens were hungry and they wasn’t the only ones. I was nursing Audrey and all we had to eat was cold cereal, bread, sauce packets and water. We didn’t have potatoes or meat all summer. That was when I got down to 114 lbs.
I remember Herb, Audrey and I went to town [De Smet, SD]—I was so hungry he went to the bakery and got a little chocolate cake and we ate it before we got out of the car.In harvesting time Herb, Otto Blote and Bill Anderson went to Aberdeen, South Dakota to harvest crops. Bill Anderson’s wife, Evelyn, was a close friend of mine. We went to visit the men, Leona, and Evelyn and Audrey and I. Leona and Evelyn had to find a sleeping place, but they had a place for Herb, Audrey and I. Everybody babied Audrey and carried her around and loved her so much. One day she started to cry and we didn’t know what was wrong with her but we went to the café and all she wanted was mashed potatoes and vegetables. She really went for them and then she was okay. Those men thought she was great and wanted to carry her all the time, but her dad got first choice. And I at 114 lbs. wasn’t able to carry her long.
Finally, when harvest was over—I guess I should mention this, Herb wanted me to buy a pair of new shoes. He gave me money, but I wouldn’t spend it on shoes. I guess that’s why shoes are my hobby today. I wonder if I will have to go without them. After the harvest the men came back. The bachelor who we worked for was getting in worse shape. Finally he just pulled out never paying us a cent. The chickens, he said we could have. They were starving. Before I go on any further I should mention when the bachelor was gone Herb and I went to town and bought some steak and ate it all ourself. We hauled the chickens over to my folks. Then we came back to live with my folks again.
Finally, Herb decided to try the packing plant in Huron. He suggested the coal mines—I said absolutely no we’ll starve first. I wouldn’t let him go into the mines so he hopped a freight train and got into Huron. He slept at a police station. He gave me what little money he had if we needed something for Audrey. He had very little money along with him. He had a sister and brother-in-law in Huron, Minnie Sprang. He went to their place next morning and cleaned up and then went to the plant to see if he could get work. He finally got a job and that was a happy time for me. I thought we could move to Huron. He worked on the sheep kill, which wasn’t much. He would come home to see us. Poor Audrey would cry and cry when he would leave. He’d finally sneak away. She’d go from one room to another, then she’d put her head up against the door and cry her eyes out for her daddy. Then he quit in Huron and farmed Elzo Sprang’s quarter. The drought and grasshoppers cleaned it up, but he was called back to the plant.
Finally, after he got some money saved, he moved us to Huron. He found a house in the north part of Huron. A bachelor lived in it alone and he would rent it to us and keep one bedroom as he worked and didn’t get home until night. He was a great fellow with a big heart. There was a small kitchen, living room, and dining room area combined and a bedroom. Okay, how was we to furnish it—mom says we could have the bed that was broke. We took it and wired it up. I had springs but no mattress. I don’t know why we didn’t have a straw mattress because that was what we had at home. She made me three quilts which we used for a mattress. Geraldine had a commode which Ruth let us use for Audrey’s cloths. Ruth also went down her basement brought up canned goods, vegetables, fruit, and I’m sure they were canned meat.
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Ruth and Elzo where also there when in need. They had a two-wheeled trailer. They said we could use it. We had an old Model A car so we took their commode, fruit and vegetables and trailer. Then we loaded up the bed, springs, and whatever the folks gave us. Off to Huron we go happy as a lark and our little girl enjoyed it all. But every few miles we had to stop at a farm place and get water for the radiator. Good thing there was lots of farm places.
We finally arrived at our home—the first living by ourselves. Well, we didn’t have a cook stove kerosene so we went to a second hand store and rented one. Every time you’d light it it would go up in sut. Finally, we bought a gas stove on time payments. The bachelor left a kitchen table we used. We managed somehow and was real happy. But the first night we spent at that place we had a bad storm. I guess I got ahead of myself—I forgot to mention when we got to Huron we had two flat tires on the trailer and two on the car and with the big storm we went to the basement. We sat there close together with Audrey on our lap covered with a blanket. It was so bad we were wondering if we’d survive. A window was out in the basement. Some big piece of tin or plank was coming through it. Those South Dakota storms were so severe those days but we did and was happy in our home without curtains. We didn’t have curtains for quite awhile because we couldn’t afford them but the first ones I got I paid 39 cents a pair. We didn’t have any rugs or linoleums either. We couldn’t afford electric lights so we used a kerosene lamp.
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Then, in 1936, Shirley was born’d. It was a very happy time. Audrey just loved her and we did too. Not all kids have a special order, but she did. Herb said after Audrey was born’d “Never again—Never again”. It took 5 ½ years to change his mind and he had a worse 9 months than I did. He built a beautiful bird house in that time. I wonder what happened to it. Some kids are jealous of their baby sister or brother, but Shirley was Audrey’s pride and joy. One time a friend came over with her little boy. It was warm so we had Shirley laying on the daybed in the living room. Gladys Churchill and I were looking at her and Winston walks up and slaps her face while she was sleeping. She woke up screaming. I could have spanked that kid till he would scream.
Herb just informed me that when they worked on the sheep kill they had to work as fast as they could and didn’t even have time to go to the biffy. Herb said the men had it in for the boss so bad it wasn’t safe for him to go up town on a Saturday night. I also forgot to mention in the little house in the north part of Huron, Harvey and Lucy spent their honey moon with us. My mother sent food along or we couldn’t have fed them. Then, the landlord offered his bed. He’d stay with friends. I put all clean bedding on the bed but there was bed bugs in his room and in his bed and they scratched all night, but we didn’t have any in our part of the house. Well, we moved away from that house to a cute little brown house in the south part of Huron on Symms Street. We still owed rent when we left the north home. By that time we had fairly good furniture, a mattress on our bed. We’re still using the bedroom set which we paid $25 in our last bedroom. It was an old set then. We had a day bed for a davenport, we lived 2 ½ years at each house and had electric lights, curtains and it looked quite nice to our standards.
Herb informed me in 1934 the Huron plant was closed so he worked in Austin, Minnesota and also in Sioux City. The plant was closed because they ran out of water. Herb, George Sprang, Sid Schaub and Glen Moore. In 1937 Herb got laid off and he and Frank Stienberg went to Saint Paul and worked a couple of months. They got laid off for three days they came. They were to be called back, there was a mix up and the telegram came a day late. Herb ran to the Toby brothers—they had been down to Estherville as a new plant had been built and they wanted experienced men. Herb decided to go along with the Tobys to Estherville along with Frank Steinberg and Roy Farrel. They were all hired. They were in Estherville three days before the plant opened. Herb sent a telegram home. He had got a job. We had relatives at our house that attended the state fair. They had supper with us. I was so happy I got supper on in no time. I thought that Herb was getting in on the beginning of the plant, he’d have a permanent job and we could have a permanent home. He worked here 3 or 4 weeks before we came. He rented an upstairs apartment at Cecil Erickson’s. Gladys Farrel was here and we came second then the Toby’s ladies and Nina Steinberg and family came last.
There is something I left out which is a little behind my story, but when Herb was in St. Paul he wrote us every day. I can remember just one day he didn’t write and it spoiled the day. It was so good to have Audrey and Shirley. Without them I wouldn’t have been able to take it. But we all slept together and on Wednesday night I would push the baby buggy with Shirley in it and Audrey walking alongside. We’d sit in the park and listen to the band play and we were quite always from uptown Huron. But I never forgot what a wonderful feeling I had and comfort from those girls. We would walk up town quite often. By this time we didn’t have a car. Herb had to borrow money on it and we couldn’t pay back. So, rather than lose it we paid the mortgage off.
Finally, as Herb worked making 25 cents an hour, he was so tired when he got home at night he would fall asleep before I could get supper on the table. He would walk to the plant three miles the first year in Huron. Then, always he’d have to walk when it was cold because the old car wouldn’t start. I remember telling Herb I sure wished we could have electric lights and a pretty table lamp. But it was a year before we had them turned on and it was probably six months or a year before we got curtains. We got by on $5 a week for groceries. I forgot to mention Herb, at this time, got on the beef kill working 10-11 hours a day. Herb worked quite steady until 1936 there was so much snow and they were only working 12 hours a week.
God ordained marriage as a way to populate the earth: “Be fruitful, and multiply” (Gen. 1:28). He instituted marriage for companionship: “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him” (Gen. 2:18). God intended marriage to be a life long relationship which would be broken only by death. Cleaving indicates whole-hearted commitment, never giving up, staying together until parted by death.
When we left Huron we stored our furniture at Leona’s on a farm and had it moved to Estherville when we could afford it. I’ll never forget the day we moved our furniture to Leona’s. Herb was in Estherville and I had all the work and business to take care of. We didn’t have a car so I hurried up town carrying Shirley. I tripped on the way home on a wire and knocked her out. I ran to a neighbor’s house and she called the doctor. He said keep her awake for half an hour then let her sleep. This I did and we had to ride in a truck to Leona’s staying there and at Ruth and Elzo’s before we moved down here. The girls and I rode to Estherville with Allen Toby. The first night I didn’t hardly sleep all night as we stayed with Brown’s and I was afraid Shirley would have an accident in bed.
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We moved to our furnished apartment. Audrey was unhappy there. She cried, Shirley cried, and I was so lonesome I sat down and cried, too. If someone would have come by and offered us a ride back to Huron I think we would have gone. We didn’t like an upstairs apartment and didn’t live there very long. Us and the Steinbergs rented a house together—each having an apartment. We wasn’t there very long and we moved to a house that had been papered and cleaned but there was bed bugs. We didn’t stay there till the month’s rent was due. We heard about this cement house on S. 10th for rent. I pushed Shirley in the buggy and with Audrey walking we walked from the half mile hill to S. 10th Street and rented that house. It was a nice house. We had lots of lilac bushes and an apple orchard. I can’t remember how long we lived there. Then we rented a house on Third Ave. South until we bought the one where we are still living.
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As for Harvey Dunn’s home, Herb just refreshed my memory, I can remember when we spent two nights at Geo and Minnie’s. Herb helping dig a well on the Harvey Dunn’s place. The guy who dug the well was trying to make me feel how little in his standards that I had. His wife had a vacuum cleaner which we didn’t have. Do you suppose that’s why I have three now? All in all I summed up my life as a pretty good life. Sure bad times and good times. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
SHIRLEY HOLMSTRUM
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I had always felt that I was born in the best of times. Audrey and I remark often to this day, how lucky we were. We always had what we needed and given lovingly by our wonderful parents. They were simpler times. Saturday night downtown in Estherville was a big event. The important thing was to get a good parking spot. Dad would often take the car to town in the afternoon to secure a favorite spot. One that we’d be able to see people coming and going both ways. He would walk home. Then the whole family would walk to town secure in the fact that we probably had the best people watching place on Main Street. We girls would have so much money to spend. Probably a quarter. The best popcorn ever was first five cents and later ten cents. The folks would do the shopping and then stop and visit at the other cars parked downtown. Then we’d sit in our car and others would come and stand by the window and visit with the folks. There were three “Dimestores” in town and each had a bulk candy counter full of good candy. Plus almost anything else you might need.
The kids would walk the streets, back and forth. Girls would follow boys. Boys would follow girls. I, being so much younger, would follow my sister and her friends around. Don’t think she appreciated me hanging about. It was a simple but wonderful way to spend Saturday night. If I could bring that back, I would. People just don’t know what they’re missing.
As a family I think we went to the movies every Friday night. We girls also managed to go any other time we could. We saw a lot of movies. I think I’ve seen all the old re-run movies on television when they first came out. When I started going, it only cost 10 cents; same with music. Mother loved music and dancing and must have played music on the radio all the time. I still remember words to songs that were sung before I started school.
We first lived in an upstairs apartment when we finally got together as a family. Then we moved to a house on the half mile hill going into Esterville. As soon as the folks settled in –Trouble. Bedbugs where in the house and on the kids. Mother put Shirley in the buggy and Audrey alongside and headed out to find another place to live. She found a place about as far as the other side of town as you could go, pushing a buggy with two kids. The place we left was torn down years ago and made a road leading to a new addition. Mom always referred to it as “Bedbug Hill.”
My first memory of living anywhere was this house waaaaay at the end of South 10th Street; great old house. Not the best location, but it was perfect for us. The local stockyards were our close next door neighbor; also long gone many years. We lived there the years before I started school. Dad lied about my age and started me in school at the age of four/almost five. He said I was ready, but that’s another story. I have many good memories of a very young age.
Saturday morning’s Dad would take me first to the stockyards to visit with whoever he was in charge. We always had to see what little animals were to be auctioned off. This was a huge old wooden building and it was very busy in its day. I think it burned to the ground years later. Behind our house was an apple orchard and behind that there were railroad tracks. We used to walk the tracks. He would put pennies on the track and next time pick them up after the train had flattened them. We’d pick up big cinders from the trains and take them home and put iodine, mercurochrome, salt and anything else you fancy over them. Then we’d watch the beautiful salt sculptures develop. I tried to copy that years later for my kids and never could.
This was a time when there were a lot of hobos; men riding the rails and traveling the country and looking for work. There were “bum camps” along the tracks—one not too far from our house. They would go to the houses by the track, knock on the door and ask if there was anything they could do for a meal. We had a lot of them knocking and mother would always feed them. It was said that if the hobos found a place that would give them a meal, they would make a mark somewhere for the next guy. I’m sure there was a mark somewhere by our mother’s door. She never forgot what it was to be hungry and she never turned anyone away.
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There was another packing plant alongside Tobins that was just as big and just as busy; Hills Packing Plant. They made dog food. Horses that had outlived their usefulness were sold to Hills. Also, wild horses were rounded up right off the open range and shipped to Hills. The kept them in big pens; lots and lots of horses. Dad and I would walk through those pens of wild-eyed horses cautiously when I got a little older. Mom wasn’t happy about that. On one of these trips he saw a horse he fancied and bought it. She was a beautiful race horse and we named her “Beauty.” She was also wild and temperamental so we didn’t have her long. Then, he found another. Dad was a good judge of horse flesh and this one had been a pick-up pony in a rodeo for years—destined for the dog food factory and pop saved her. I lived in town and had a horse! How lucky can you get! Dad found a farmer who would keep her and he picked cockleburs for her board. Mother grew up on a horse and liked to ride as well. Audrey wasn’t interested. I named her “Smokey” after a movie I had just seen. We could put five neighborhood kids on her at once and she would put up with us. But she could also run like the wind. She seemed to know who was on her and what was required. She was quite the lady. Even after we quit riding her we made sure she died of old age and never went to Hills.
We also did a lot of fishing. Mostly bullheads were in the several lakes around Estherville. I write of early recollections and wonder, “Where was Audrey?” Well, that’s where the six years difference in age comes in. She was off doing things with her friends. Stockyards, tracks and horses were not to her liking at that time of her growing up years. I do know that when I got a little older she got “stuck” with me a lot and I think I was difficult at times. I cramped her style often when she would have to take me along somewhere. I remember, at times, walking a half a block behind her and her friends. But she put up with me and was always kind. She’s still the kindest person I know. She got a job at the bakery early on in high school and later taught school. She liked clothes and bought a lot of them; much better dressed than I. I would sneak into her room and take her clothes to wear to school. She demanded that I stop doing that for years and I kept doing it for years. Dad thought she was too spendy on buying clothes. Mom said to let her do it because the day will come when she won’t be able to. So she did and she was one classy-looking teacher-lady!
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I did some babysitting growing up; a short stint in the detasseling field when I was just barely old enough to do it. They told me after two days I was too little to reach the corn and come back next year; so much for my first “real job.” I might add that I did go back year after year and continued even after my boys were little as the “staw boss.” I worked at “Woolworths 5 and Dime” store in high school. I also worked at the local hangout for kids of all ages. I think mother figured that I may as well get paid while I am there. It was right beside the schools and a perfect place for kids. The people that owned it made lots of money off pinball machines, juke box and Cokes; best hamburger and fries I’ve ever tasted. The front step of that building was solid concrete and it sunk in the middle from so many feet wearing it down—really amazing! I would love to own that step today. The place was called “Mokes” and it was packed most of the time. I even got engage in the back room, but that was when I went to junior college.
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I loved high school and the friends I made. We never had competitive sports for girls I those days—just boys. The most fun I had was in plays and I got hooked in junior high when I was in “Tom Sawyer.” I had the lead in the junior class play, “Strictly Formal,” and was in several other contest plays. I’m kinda proud that I went to State competition for One Act Plays. I received an “Outstanding Performance” award which, at that time, was pretty special. Not sure, but I think it still is. I have to mention it cause it may well be my only crowning achievement!
After graduating form high school I wasn’t ready to start junior college. Audrey finished junior college and continued her studies in summer school in Colorado while teaching school in Terril. Some of my friends where heading to the big city and I didn’t want to be left behind; mother said that was a mistake. That if I didn’t go now I never would. In the end she must have grown tired of the argument and I won. I always joked that she had my bags packed and sitting by the front door six weeks before I graduated! I never said that I was smart! I planned to work a year and then go back to junior college. I was like most kids that are anxious to go off on their own.
Mom and Dad took me and my best friend, Lois Weber, and headed for the big city of Des Moines. We checked into the Elliot Hotel and set about finding us both jobs and a place to live; they stayed till we did. I found a job at Merdith Publishing Company in the advertising department. I worked on Successful Farming and Better Homes and Gardens Magazines. Lois found a job at Capitol City Bank. The folks found us a nice little upstairs one-room everything-apartment with an old lady that reminded me of one of her sisters. That made her feel better, though we had doubts. Money was put in the bank for “in case,” and they left.
It was a fun year in Des Moines. Of course we moved right away to a bigger place and added two roommates. Always broke and borrowing from each other till payday—spending all my money on clothes. This was also in the day when you rode a bus to work; nobody had a car of their own. One of our roommates and I talked about joining the Waves. We talked and we talked and then one day she came home and she did it! Whew! I worked my way up from the clerk to being in charge of the advertising plates for the magazine each month plus proof reading the ads. Only mention that because I can’t believe it myself. Meredith Publishing is a BIG place with many employees. I liked my job, but I did want to go to college. It was a good experience for me. I was more mature and got good grades when I did go back to school. Mother and I where both right—I did go back, but I only did one year and got married, never to return. It had been two years for a teacher’s certificate and then they changed it to four years. I might add that we went to Des Moines I 1953 and Lois ended up retiring from her job at Capitol City Bank a zillion years later; figured she would have been running the place after all those years. Shirley Holmstrum—Feb. 2008
HIS STORY
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.” John 1:1-3
The Trinity, the Triune God already existed and is eternal. Prior to the creation of the universe, the Word of God existed. There are indications in the Scriptures from the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11, and the way they are written, that there is evidence to believe that the creation event took place some 4, 000 years before Christ. The agent of this event, in verse 1, “In the beginning ‘God’ created the heavens and earth.” The only true God; the only self-existent divine Being consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—Omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. He has always existed and was created by no one. This is who created the universe.
“Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Psalm 90:2
“By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”
Hebrews 11:3
Only Creation explains the difference between man and animals, it is an unbridgeable chasm. God created man altogether greater than any higher animal because we are created in His image. Only Creation explains moral nature. Every single tribe of people throughout history has had a moral value system; a distinction between right and wrong. This comes from the conscience that was planted in man’s heart. The consciousness of his moral nature is the basis of all law and sanity and of all purpose and meaning in life. This is not from a physiological transformation of any cell because we are now talking about the area of the soul.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, in Our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Genesis 1:26
This is the separation between man and everything else. The Trinity is also being taught to us in this verse, too: “Let ‘Us’ make man in Our own image.” Within the moral universe in which we live, the existence of the concept of good and evil and sin and death is only explained by the Genesis Creation account.
“For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:16, 17
The whole universe did not exist prior to Genesis 1:1. Evolution believes that matter and the universe are eternal; the eternality of matter. That viewpoint is really a pagan viewpoint. The universe was created out of divine fiat; by the spoken word of God. God spoke and it came into existence. His eight commands explain everything in the universe. In speaking the universe into being, God was willing that it should appear and become, and it did. His thought was shaping it exactly from the least cell in Adam to the furthest star and galaxy at the same moment. For in Him all things were created and in Him all things hold together. He spoke a word and things came into existence. This power is resident in the Word that we have written in the Bible as well. Hebrews 4:12 says that the Word is alive and active and powerful.
The word for days in Genesis is “yom.” The normal meaning of “yom” is a 24 hour day and whenever “yom” occurs with a number like “the forth yom” it is always a 24 hour day. When it announces “there was a morning and an evening” we can’t mistake the fact that it is a 24 hour day. The next question is “Why six days”? The answer is in
Exodus 20:9-11 in the giving of the Ten Commandments,
“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” God gave mankind a pattern, an example. He applied it to Israel in the strictest way of the Sabbath Day being observed, but it is nevertheless a pattern for mankind to set aside a seventh day for worship and rest in their schedule. The world was created “ex nihilo,” out of nothing, by divine fiat, by the spoken word of God, and in order by days.
“Because that which may be known of God is manifested in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind...” Romans 1: 19-28
In all creation, it is evident that His fingerprints are there. That man can look at what has been made, and with the reason that God has given, man can come the conclusion properly that God created this. Because man denies that is evidence of the sinfulness of man and the fallen depraved minds that we have today. Only Creation explains the intricate order of the universe. You cannot explain the degree and the depth of order in our solar system and our planetary system and in life by random chance. The geometry of nature, the construction of cells and the growth, the efficiency of nature....when you pick an orange off a tree, that’s packaged fruit. The Bible declares that man began at the top and because of sin fell to the bottom. This contradicts evolutionary social philosophers that teach that all of mankind’s social ills are a product of either hereditary or environmental problems. They are simply denying man’s depravity, man’s original sin. Legislators will not be able to create the perfect environment, and men will never obtain ultimate ideals. Genetics will not be able to reprogram and improve man to rid him of all of the evil and pain in this world. Man has already been tested under the most favorable conditions and he failed. Man’s problem today is not external, it is internal. (3)
WHAT WILL HEAVEN BE LIKE ?
HEAVEN:
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” John 14:1-3
One of the great joys of heaven will be the reunion with loved ones we have known on this earth. Although death on earth brings sorrow, Paul reminds us that for the Christian we need not sorrow “as others which have no hope” (
1 Thes. 4:13). Although we sorrow for the Christian who has died, our future hope is in our heavenly reunion with him some day in the future. We will also meet many in heaven we never knew in this life. We will meet many of those we read about in God’s Word as well as all Christians of history. We will also associate eternally with the angels who have faithfully served the Lord since their creation. Ever since Jesus Christ left this earth, He has been preparing our heavenly mansions for us (
John 14:1-3). In Revelation God records some of the qualities and ingredients of Heaven which will make it so special.
“Her [Heaven’s] light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.” Rev. 21:11
“And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia: Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God.” Rev. 19:1
“And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts [living creatures] and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.” Rev. 5:11
“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding our out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner fruits, and yielded her fruit every month. Rev. 22:1-2
THE BOOK OF LIFE: The Book of Life contains the names of all who have accepted Jesus Christ as personal Saviour. It is God’s record book of the redeemed.
“And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” Rev. 2015
“And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him [the Antichrist], whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb.” Rev. 13:8
GOD’S PRESENCE: The greatest joy of Heaven is not in its beauty, its wealth, its angels, its river of life, its tree of life, its Book of Life, or even its reunion with family and friends. What will make Heaven truly glorious will be the presence of God Himself. For the first time we will see Jesus Christ, Who is the fullness of the Godhead (the Trinity) in bodily form. What a privilege it will be to come face to face with the One Who died for all mankind on Calvary!
The believer will work in Heaven, but it will be enjoyable work. The curse will be gone, and labor will be a pleasure. Perhaps each will be able to do things he never had the chance to do in this life. It will be work without pain or sorrow. The One whom the Christian serves will make all the difference. What a privilege it will be to serve the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
1.
NO MORE DEATH, SORROW, OR PAIN: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” (Rev. 21:4)
2.
NO BOREDOM: “And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.” (Rev. 21:5)
3.
NO THIRST: “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” (Rev. 21:6)
4.
NO LIMITS: (Rev. 21:10-21)
5.
NO TEMPLE: “And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.” (Rev. 21:22).
6.
NO SUN OR MOON: “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.” (Rev. 21:23-24)
7.
NO FEAR: “And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by the day.” (Rev. 21:25)
8.
NO NIGHT: “And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.” (Rev. 21:25) In Hell it will be eternal night (Jude 6; Rev. 14:11); in Heaven it will be eternal day (Rev. 21:23-25).
9.
NO SIN: “And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie.” (Rev. 21:8, 27) Heaven will be glorious because no sin will be found there.
10.
NO IMPURITY: “And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” (Rev. 21:1)
11.
NO SCARCITY: “In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month.” (Rev. 22:2) The tree will supply enough fruit for all of Heaven. The believer will not lack anything in Heaven.
12.
NO ILL HEALTH: “In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree where for the healing [health] of the nations.” (Rev. 22:2)
13.
NO CURSE: “And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be it; and his servants shall serve him.” (Rev. 22:3)
WORKS CITED
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2. Sarfti, Jonathon, “The Nazis Planned to Exterminate Christianity,” “The Holocaust and Evolution,” Creation Magazine #24, 2002.
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4. Shirer, William, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”
5. “The Rise of the Fourth Reich: Funding the Hitler Project.”
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7. Sutton, Anthony C.,“How the Order Creates War and Revolution,” Ch. 1.
8. Psychosocial Manipulation of Human Populations.
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16. World Book Encyclopedia Y, 1969, “Yugoslavia.”
17. A Beka Book, “Biology: God’s Living Creation,” 1997.
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19. Deloria, Vine. “God Is Red: A Native View of Religion.” Fulcrum Publishing, 1992.
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22. Schlect, Christopher, “Critique of Modern Youth Ministry,” Canon Press, 1995.
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28. “Revelation, Church History, and Things to Come,” Pensacola Christian College, 1993.
29. Marshall Foster & Ron Ball, “Christian Home Learning Guides,” Zane Publishing, 1997.
30. Thompson, George. “World History and Cultures.” Pensacola Christian College, 1997.31. Bomer, Norm. “Ancient Enemies.” Gods World News, 10/13/03.32. “God’s of the New Age.” Jeremiah Films, 1988. www.jerimiahfilms.com
33. Bailey, Foster, “Things to Come (London: Lucis Press, 1974).
34. Carr, Joseph J., “The Twisted Cross (LaFayette, La.: Huntington House, 1985).
35. Peccei, Aurelio, “One Hundred Pages For the Future” (New American Library, NY: 1981).
36. Knapp, Lewis G., “In Pursuit of Paradise” (Phoenix Publishing, published for The Stratford Historical Society, 1989).
37. Commemorative Biographical Record, Stratford and Bridgeport Library reference.
38. Orcutt, “The History of Stratford and Bridgeport 1639-1886 pt. 1 & 2.
39. Stratford’s Celebration Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of Stratford (Bridgeport Library reference).
40. Perrin, William. "The History of Summit County With an Outline Sketch of Ohio;" p. 598. Chicago: Baskin & Batteym, Historical Publishers, 1881. 41. Dunn, Harvey. “Harvest States Journal”; March 1984; p. 20.
42. The Fransen Family, 1998, Darrell Richard Fransen
43. “The Story of My Life,” Mildred [Stemple] Fransen
44. “Climbing My Family Tree,” Scott Eike; 1975; 1) William Perrin, “History of Summit County With an Outline Sketch of Ohio.” Baskin & Batteym, Historical Publishers, 1881; pp. 594-603. 2) Samuel Lane, “Fifty Years & Over of Akron & Summit County; Interstate Publishing Co., 1892; p. 801.
45. Meredith, Jack R.; “The Typhoid Tragedy”, Cincinnati 1981; p. 8-12.
46. John Blair Linn, ed., “History of Centre County, Pennsylvania” (1883) p. 365; Spangler Notebook #105 (Miles twp.); #88 (Potter Twp).
47. “Pennsylvania German Folklore Society,” Vo. X (1945) pp. 101, 102, 152, 197, 352; Pennsylvania Archives: 3rd Series, Vol. 6, pp. 293-294; Henry M.M. Richards, “The Pennsylvania German In The Revolutionary War 1775-1783, (Lancaster, Pa.; 1908) pp. 190-207.
48. Book A, p. 88, Will Bok, Centre County, Pa., recorded 4/28/1813.
49. Thomas L. Montgomery, ed. “Encyclopedia of Pennsylvania Biography, (New York: 1927) Vol. XVI, p. 45.
50. Linn, ed., “History of Centre County, Pennsylvania,” op.cit., ppl 360-361. In Egles’ Notes and Querries 1898 p. 23 we find some records of Emanuel’s Church, also called “Early’s Church” with the following baptismal entries: … Jacob, s/o John & Magdalena Kebler b 26 Oct 1804 pb 7 Jly 1805, sponsors: Andrew Kebler and Mary; Andrew s/o John & Magdalena Kebler b 14 Jan bp. 10 May 1807; Daniel s/o John & Magdalena Kebler b 4 Sep 1808, bp 29 Jan 1809, sponsors: John Haerter & Elizabeth.
51. The Daily Record, 1/2/2008, Vol. 108 NO 204; “Wooster at Crossroads of Ancient Culture.”
52. Henry Howe, “Historical Collections of Ohio.” P. 528.
53. William Donohue Ellis, “The Cuyahoga,” 1998; Cleveland State University Library.
54. Pa. Archives. Series 6, Vol. 1,pp. 770-771. “Andrew Kepler, Eighth Class Militia under capt. John Missimer’s Co., 4th Bat’n., 2nd Co.”
55. The Pennsylvanian-German Society. “Pennsylvania: Their German Influence.” Lancaster, PA: Published by the Society, 1908; pp. 92-94, 108-9.
56. Telesco, Patricia, Waterhawk, Don Two Eagles, “Sacred Beat,” Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC, 2003.57. Dr. John Morris, “Evolution and the Image of God,” Acts and Facts, Vol. 28, No. 4, 4/99.
58. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, Lovelock, New York, Oxford University Press, 1979.
59. Cross Currents Online Magazine. http://www.crosscurrents.org/Gaia.htm 65. Danbom, David. 2006. “Born in the Country.” The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore; pgs. 91, 131,133, 135-37.
67. “Pacific Railroad Bill.” 1860. Chicago Press and Tribune. ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune, page 3.
68. “Timber in the West.” 1866. Prairie Farmer. APS Online, Pg. 405.
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