homestead

There were a lot of people that homesteaded, they just walked off and left their furniture in the houses. There was no water on their homesteads to farm the land.

Frank and I were going to file on a homestead; we planned on moving to the homestead in the fall to start filing up on it. That is when Frank got in trouble. He said that if I wanted the homestead, that I would have to live on it by myself. The homestead was way out in the middle of the sticks. We never did file on it.

papa hurt
Milton and Doris lived in town, but Milton was herding sheep. Don and Maggie I think was living in town, Don was also herding sheep. Papa, mama, Robert, Gene, Iowa and Ione, Me, Toots and Johnny, also Charlie were living on the ranch.

Papa, Mama, Ione and Iowa went into Cowley on election day to vote, this was in Nov., on their way home the horses get scared and took off running. Papa tried to stop them, but the horses broke lose from the buggy and pulled papa with them. Papa was hurt very bad. He was laid up the biggest part of the winter. Charlie had to stay right with papa. Papa would not let anybody else touch him or take care of him.

Robert and I took on the duty of taking care of the ranch. We would put the hay on the hayrack and take the hay to the cattle. We would chop holes in the ice for the cattle could get water. I also was helping mama with the housework.

a show
One night Bob wanted to go to a show, (The show was The Great American, the actor was Brian Donlevy). We had no way of getting there, so Bob hitched a horse up to an old sled that had no tongue on it. Every time we went down a hill the sled would run into the horse, so Bob get a stick and every time that we went down a hill, Bob used the stick as a broke, he would put it into the snow. He did this for about three miles.