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A Saturday afternoon's work

Martin Jr.

Well-known member
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Went out a week before and mowed, found this tree had blown down. Came back yesterday and cut it up.
From the rings it must have been planted in late 1920's, probably by great uncle Louis. Some of his children and his wife were there then.

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My grandparents and great grandparents graves..
 

Martin Jr.

Well-known member
I don't have a way to burn wood, but need to bring it back and maybe someone can use it. The smaller branches I may leave for a while and let the deer chew on it. The deer chew the paint off of the redwood crosses.
I don't know if I can get it cleaned up by Memorial Day, some second cousins always come out and put flowers on their mother's grave. At least I got the tree off of her grave.

I actually cut up two spruce trees, the one that blew down was 16" in diameter and about 40 ft tall, and the other just to the north of it was about 10 inches in diameter and didn't have many live branches on it, so I cut it down too.
 

mrj

Well-known member
It is sad to see the old cemeteries fade away. I'm really appreciative of and thankful for those who do take care of them. We have quite a few in this part of SD. For years, a couple of guys spent quite a bit of time locating the abondoned ones and marking and even fencing them. Clarence 'Smoky' Petoske died this past winter and he did most of the work. Hope it carries on. There are a couple of history groups here, the Pioneer Club of Midland and the Old Stanley County Historical Society. All or parts of Haakon, Jackson, Jones, Lyman (not so sure of this one) and the current smaller Stanley County were in Old Stanley County. It was a lively area, with Ft. Pierre (county seat for old and current Stanley counties) probably the oldest town. Midland and Draper are next, I believe, officially started in 1890, just after SD became a state in 1889. It was a big part of the 1902 Roundup ending the Open Range days after they started fencing the reservations in the area between the Missouri River and the Black Hills. The Bad River which runs approximately from Wall, SD to Ft.Pierre was a natural headquarters area from groups of cowboys and their wagon bosses, with their territories running south and east to the Rosebud Res. and north to the Cheyenne River, at least, and maybe west to about Wall or Wasta. Didn't take time to look it up, but there is a great book with many first person stories by the guys who actually did that. It is called "Round Up Years--Old Muddy to the Black Hills". The original printing is a treasure, and it was reprinted a few years ago by the Buckaroos organization, is is again available. Our Calhoon and Jones grandfathers were participants as cowboys and wagonbosses in the roundup and many others were family friends, continuing into the fifth generation of our family.

Sorry I got a bit off thread, but history is very interesting and all of SD and NE are full of it, if we can still find the stories.


mrj
 

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