My Great Grandmother and Grandmother |
On that first Fourth of July, the cowboys of the area really
put on a big celebration in the new little town that was just started for a new
county seat. Rather County had
been formed by the state when the land was opened for homesteaders. By the Fourth of July there had been
two buildings put up. One was a big
hall in which they could dance and Clyde and a young fellow who played
guitar. It was a hot day and
someone had put up a big tent for people to eat in. The smaller building was to be a store and they had a few
supplies hauled in. After dinner, everyone
went out to watch the games the cowboys were putting on: horse races and potato
races on horseback. They put a big
tub of potatoes at one end of the course and with long sharpened poles they
tried to carry the most potatoes to another tub about a block across the
street. There was a wild time with
the horse tearing back and forth and little boys trying to get out of their
way.
I rode home with Bob and his wife, who had come over from
their home to spend the Fourth.
The children were tired and so was I. Clyde didn’t get home until nearly daylight. If it was not moonlight the ranchers
usually danced till it was light enough to see the trails. This was the beginning of many long
trips for Clyde to play for dances all over the area. He often went on horseback, or sometimes was picked up by a
crowd that got together to go a long way.
I tried going with them once or twice, but it was too hard on the
children and me, too. There was no
such thing as a baby sitter in those days. Clyde got a good trio together, a drummer, a good piano
player and Clyde with his precious violin. We practically lived on the money he earned that way.
We also had a Sunday school organized that summer. A young missionary for the east came to
the little tar-paper school house that had been built for the ranchers
children, got a group together and organized a Sunday school that was as
popular as the dances. He held the
first meeting in a bi tent, a picnic dinner affair. There were seven different denominations represented. Among the group was an elderly woman
who was so right for the superintendent.
She was the mother of a young fellow that I had met when staying at the
hotel in Keystone, and they turned out to be our adjoining neighbors on the
west. She and her husband made a
radical change in their lives. Mr.
Wilson had been an officer at the big fort in Omaha. Their young son who had come late in their lives wanted to
be a cowboy, so they had bought a relinquishment, had a nice little four room
house built on it and moved from their comfortable home in the city to this raw
new country just to please their big red-headed son who knew nothing about
cattle ranching and cows that he hadn’t learned at picture shows in Omaha. He had a good little riding horse and a
couple of wolfhounds to chase coyotes with. But he did have beautiful manners. His big hat always came off when he came in the house or met
a lady and he automatically stood up when a lady was standing. Gene Wilson was the object of many
jokes, be he gradually learned the hard way. And his mother was as good as a minister in our Sunday
school meetings, which we kept going to as long as we were out there. Later we had a larger schoolhouse, an
organ, good songbooks and good membership. It was the first Sunday school that some of the children had
ever had the opportunity to attend.