As far as I know, we don't have any relatives around Enning, SD, and I've never had the opportunity to meet those folks. My granddad was born in 1895, and grew up on his parents' ranch in southwestern Nebraska, near Imperial. He came up to Merriman to teach school in the late 'teens, and met my grandmother-to-be. After they got married, they ranched at Imperial for a year or so. Then they bought a small farm east of Martin, SD. When they moved back to this country, he and a hired hand drove six horses pulling a hayrack loaded with all of their worldly possessions. This was a trip of over 200 miles and took about ten days. My grandmother made the trip by automobile.
When they farmed east of Martin, my granddad was also the county superintendent of the Bennett County schools. He was instrumental in starting the Bennett County High School, located in Martin, and patterned it after a similar situation in southern Nebraska, where his sister was county superintendent of schools. While living on the farm, their house burned down one bitter cold day when the fire in the stove was roaring rampantly. This probably contributed to Granddad later leasing a ranch further south in the South Dakota sandhills. Later they had opportunity to buy a small ranch further south in the Nebraska Sandhills. Our families have been in this area ever since.
On my grandmother's side of the pedigee, her dad and three of his brothers came to Valentine in 1885, when that was the end of the railroad. The four brothers walked out into this area and established homesteads. They didn't keep the original homesteads for too many years, but traded for other nearby ranches. Descendants of just the one brother still live in this area.
).