My postings on the
Kinkaiders of Nebraska came about because my great great aunt Lois gave my father the memoirs of my great great uncle's family named Tilley as they homesteaded in Nebraska. Each week when I compose a post, I inevitably go to a web site to research the area, the history and the farming & ranching. So far I have not found them in the history of the area, but I'm still in process. I did find, on a photo site, a photograph of a sod house in 1915, the period that my ancestor's
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| 1915, Sand hills Nebraska |
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journal comes from. I've written the owner of the photo to see if I can get any information about my family there. His photo shows a very stalwart family standing in front front of their sod house, looking worn and a bit dirty. Laundry was a hard chore in those days, and sparkling clean clothes did not exist in most cases. Laundry was hung out to dry in all weather, fair and foul. Can you imagine wash-boarding clothes in water you had to carry from the well and heat in a large boiling pot on the stove? Then hang them out in the dead of winter?
Or, to roll a house across the undulating prairie to move it to your homestead? That's what great great uncle Clyde had to do when homesteaders who left gave their wood frame house to his family. Each reading of Lois' diary brings more questions and curiosity. I'm having a wild good time looking in to it.
These folks had grit and determination. I hope you're enjoying the series as much as I am.
