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120 years

Hey Tap,
Good to see you back on the board. Things kind of got slow for a while. I sure do enjoy hearing those stories of Great Grampa and his Dad. I was sure sorry to hear about our neighbor. I spent a lot of time with him and his grand kids. I heard that you and your family made a pretty big change recently. I hope all goes well with your endeavor. I hope calving goes well for you too. My father in law bought 90 head of bred heifers last fall. As of today they have had 8 calves and pulled four. Not a good start, huh.
 
Readin this thread got my genealogy itch goin again, I drag all that stuff out about once ever six months, and today found 2 more generations back on Mr Lilly's family. Now back to 1710 woo hoo......
 
When they traced our family back, they could only get to where G Grampa enlisted in the Civil War. Dad said that they shouldn't go back any farther anyways as they'd probably only find horse theives! :shock: :lol:
 
My Grandfather came to Sask. in the early 1900's to work construction on the medical building at the University of Sask in Saskatoon. He brought his new wife with him from Ontario. He was called home to southern Ontario to run the farm as his father took sick. He always had a love for the west.
He was a real old time enterpenur(sp) buying a failing business and hiring the right person to run it then selling it to that person. Everything from a livery barn to seed cleaning plant hardware store car and machine dealerships. During all this he had farms and had cattle shipped in from the west and out on farms for feeding. Most everything was kept track of in his head and his pocket was his bank. He came back out west looking for a ranch in 1937 when everybody was vacating the country it seemed.He looked in Alberta, Manitoba and Sask. He settled on the Big Muddy area and bought the Wright place. It had been owned by a man from Illinois that had a farm at Rouleau aka Dog Riverfor the Corner Gas fans. My folks were married in 1947 and were going to run a saw mill in the Ottawa Valley in Ontario but as usual Grandpa had a good man there so they decided to stay and work on the ranch. That was 59 years ago. My folks still live next door and I can always get sound cattle advice from Dad and a cup of coffee from Mom.
 
I only wanna go back to "Where they came from when they came to America" most of the lines I've gotten that far. But still a few blanks here and there. Filled that one today. It's really interesting when you can find a will or a story to go with the names. They came from Germany.
 
I sincerely hope all of you are writing down these stories, or better yet recording these stories in the voices of the tellers. Because once they are gone, the stories pass into the 'legend' phase, and the truthfulness of them are hard to assess. This is a hard lesson I learned.

Back in the '60s my Dad bought a couple of adjoining places six miles from us. When I got my license, it was my responsibility to check the cows and water twice a day. On the place was an old adobe shack with an old man living there and it became my responsibility and eventually my pleasure to talk to Old Man Waltz every day. He told me about leaving home at 11 because of an alcoholic father, and signing on with the Colonel to drive a herd of cows north. He talked of rattlesnakes the size of his thigh, commancheros, Indian attacks, hanging cattle thieves, shootings and ambushes, stampedes and losing friends in them, the dust and boredom of the drive and the excitement of coming to the end of the trail. For a long time, I thought he was just pulling the leg of a kid, then he dropped his pants, pointed to a spot just above his knee and said "the arrow went in there and the stone arrowhead is still there. You can feel it if you want." It was really there.

When I came back from my first year of college at NMSU, my first visit was to him. We talked throughout that summer, then one day when I arrived the smell of rot was strong. I got him to the hospital where he eventually died of gangrene caused by that indian arrowhead put into his leg many years before. He was 106 years old, born when there were two presidents in this country, made at least three trips up the Goodnight-Loving trail, really lived the life that Gray, L'Amour, and McMurtry wrote about or dreamed about. Only when he was gone, did I realize the history that I let slip away.

Don't make my mistake. Get it down in writing or on tape. PLEASE!!
 
I've written down word for word more of the stories than I've recorded. Many of them from my grandparents before we had a tape recorder. I do have a few recordings tho. I've asked cousins to write down their memories of things grandma and grandad told them with no success. The first grandkid was born in 1937 and the last grandkid was born in 1977, (38 grandkids total) that's 50 years spanned, with just my first cousins bein born. We all spent alotta time with our grandparents, but it was different periods and places of their lives. I think it would be really neat if I could get them to write it all down. They all like readin my stories I've put in my Family History book. Now to get them motivated......hmmmmm maybe a questionaire mailed out to them to return to me??? Might be a start.
 
One of my grandfather's brother's wives decided to put together a family book. She made a deal with every member of the family. If they would write a story to go in her book, they got a free copy of the finished book. If they didn't write a story, they didn't get a book, period. There were only as many books published as there were stories to go into the book. She financed the entire production and was true to her word. I treasure my copy.
 
Years ago I made the mistake of making copies for everyone and givin them out at our family reunion.......But I will say now there's has like one chapter and mine is huge, I didn't stop researching when i gave then copies of the book. They got the very basics, now mine has land deeds, marriage license's, wills, and a whole bunch more generations back along with alot of photos and copies of portraits that were done in the 1800's that other researchers I've ran across have been willin to share with me.
 
In the late 1800's or early 1900's (you Canucks could probably say for sure), my grampa's uncle disappeared from the Rapid City area. The family knows for sure that he was headed north, but exactly where is unsure. A short while later the "Mad Trapper", Albert Johnson appeared in Canada and quickly made enemies. He was eventually killed by the Canadian Mounties, only after taking several people with him. There are other theories as to who this man was, but the evidence is pretty strong that this was the same Johnson that came from my family. DNA test anyone? :wink:
 
I don't know how many times I have been going to take a tape recorder and get an old person's life story, then not getting around to it and them dying, taking some interesting stories with them.
 
Hi koj. I didn't know if you were still around here either. Nice to hear from you. So you have good stories on both sides of the family huh? :lol:

We did a little land swapping as koj hinted to in his earlier post. Our neighbor, who owns the land that we are going to purchase is quite the local history buff also. He wouldn't try and tell a story wrong on a bet. He tells it like it was, or will say that he is not sure, if he isn't. Another neighbor and I have told him we are going to give him a payment on the book he should write, but so far hasn't taken us up on it. He really is a fountain of knowledge of the area. And a great neighbor to boot.
 
S CO rancher said:
Don't make my mistake. Get it down in writing or on tape. PLEASE!!
Click to expand...

I had the good fortune to take an old man back to his home country near Carrizozo NM in 1976. He told stories for 2 days. He was a neat, old man and I did finally wise up and write down the stories that he told, or at least the ones I could remember. He talked of cowboys having cattle tied down on the flat and shooting "near" you to warn you away. He too showed me a scar on his arm where he was shot once. And the scars on his wrists from knife fights. He was missing one eye from an explosion while drilling holes on a roadway, they were constructing. Very interesting.

The sad part of it is, we are all living history, but few believe it or will tape themselves or write anything down.

I and a neighbor got several of the old timers together last summer and got them to talking and got it down on tape. I haven't writtin' it down yet, but someday I or someone else will.

We do have tape in the state archives of our branding about 10 or 15 years ago. So someday my great grand kids can see how us "old timers" did it! :wink:
 
koj said:
In the late 1800's or early 1900's (you Canucks could probably say for sure), my grampa's uncle disappeared from the Rapid City area. The family knows for sure that he was headed north, but exactly where is unsure. A short while later the "Mad Trapper", Albert Johnson appeared in Canada and quickly made enemies. He was eventually killed by the Canadian Mounties, only after taking several people with him. There are other theories as to who this man was, but the evidence is pretty strong that this was the same Johnson that came from my family. DNA test anyone? :wink:
Click to expand...
Interesting reading on Mad trapper when I goggled it..Albert Johnson mad trapper,try it! What I really found neat was one of Gregs cousins "Robert Kroetch" wrote a poem on The Mad Trapper!
 
Mrs.Greg said:
koj said:
In the late 1800's or early 1900's (you Canucks could probably say for sure), my grampa's uncle disappeared from the Rapid City area. The family knows for sure that he was headed north, but exactly where is unsure. A short while later the "Mad Trapper", Albert Johnson appeared in Canada and quickly made enemies. He was eventually killed by the Canadian Mounties, only after taking several people with him. There are other theories as to who this man was, but the evidence is pretty strong that this was the same Johnson that came from my family. DNA test anyone? :wink:
Click to expand...
Interesting reading on Mad trapper when I goggled it..Albert Johnson mad trapper,try it! What I really found neat was one of Gregs cousins "Robert Kroetch" wrote a poem on The Mad Trapper!
Click to expand...

There is a good old movie about the mad trapper- Charles Bronson played Albert Johnson and Lee Marvin was the Mountie chasing him.....Beautiful scenery.....
 
6MonikaandEustachKaiser.jpg

This is from a locket my mother's grandfather, Joseph, brought from Germany. Eustach Kaiser and his wife, Monica. Eusatach was born Jan 20, 1781 and died Sept. 18, 1849. He was Joseph's great uncle, and was a forester at the Castle Reisenberg in Bavaria. Monica and Eustach had 2 children, a boy and a girl born 1814 & 1815, both dying as children. The Castle owner was Baron Karl Friedrich Von Eyb. Eustach's sister's son, Gottlieb, my great, great grandfather, also worked as a forester.
Great grandfather, Joseph attended a seminary for a time and then went in to the construction business, and after a financial loss came to America in about 1882, his family following later. They settled near Wood Lake, NE in 1884 where they cut hay and baled it for a living. The hay was bought by a merchant named Michael Jordan, and shipped by rail east. Jordan had a store at Arabia, about 11 miles NW of Wood Lake. 11 miles was the distance that a steam engine could go at that time before getting more water.
Joseph's brother Karl came to America a few years later and also settled near Wood Lake. Karl's son moved to Wall, SD and raised a large family there.
 
Those are really neat Martin. They must be tiny to have fit in a locket, how'd ya git em so clear and blown up for posting on here? Pictures, no matter what kinda of ancestors are one of the neatest parts about researching.
My grandmother was born in 1904, I have, startin with her and grandad's weddin picture 6 generations goin back father to son in pictures. The last couple are copies of portraits that were done, because it was before camera's. And oh man are them some serious lookin folks. No smiling.
Some say it was because the exposure was so long when the picture was taken they didnt want them to smile or move. I was just thinkin, anyone else know of a different reason people didnt smile in pictures a long time ago?
 
I've also heard because they had bad teeth, but I think what you heard was right. Try to hold a smile for a minute and not move your lips. They even had stands that you put your head in so you would stay in one position.
And then too, I think pictures were thot' of as being dignified.
 

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