This is the beginning of the stories I put together of the stories Dad wrote. I'm sure he wrote some more after I'd put the books together for the family. I'll get them scanned and posted at a later date.

3-3-97
Dad (or Grandpa) has been writing these stories off and on for several years. Some of them may seem repetitious since they deal with the same subject. Some are ones he wrote to me when 1 lived in Great Bend (1 always suspected that since 1 was single and lived the farthest from home he thought 1 needed "grounded"). Later he wrote some stories to send to Lynn. Some of the stories might be about the same subject as he wrote to me but they each have some different details. After reading all the stories, 1 thought we might all like a copy for ourselves. So 1 learned to use the computer to do just that Any mistakes you can blame on Dad or 1 (or the computer). 1 was only going to make copies for we six children until Justin pointed out to me that he would also like a copy. 1 decided he was right, the grandchildren could also benefit from these stories. Maybe we should all take a lesson from Dad and add our own stories for our kids to enjoy. As Dad writes more stories, I'm assuming he will, I'll try to get copies for all of us. Everyone take care of these as they should be handed down to the next generations. Judy

Oct. 30,1984

He sat his horse and surveyed the scene before him. The distance seemed endless but after all, he was accustomed to that. He, who was born near the sea, and as a boy had often sat on the rolling green hills and watched the ever rolling breakers come in and spend themselves on the beach below. Sometimes he would just sit there, not knowing that in the distant future he would cross that great expanse of water and after a time of searching he would again in some distant place, look down from a gentle rise, and there spread out before him, he would rest his eyes on another sea. But that sea would be far from the crashing waves and the tides that spent themselves on the shores near his boyhood home. Yes, he had wandered far. The days and nights of loneliness were behind him. Somehow, he knew that the days of wandering were over. He had rode the ships on the great sea and thus fulfilled a boyhood dream. But there was a driving force within. It would not be still and even as he sat on the deck in those brief moments of rest he knew that he must press on to that distant place. Even as he mingled with the crew he knew that he would leave this life of a sailor. The days passed into weeks and the weeks lengthened into years. The longing within him would not be still and one day as they were riding at anchor in the harbor of an Atlantic seaport, he left the ship. Never again would he see the ocean with all its awesome power and beauty but he knew that someday his search would end. Deep within he knew that the sea would always be a part of him. How many seaports, how many cities had he seen? New York City, Boston, Norforlk, the list could go on and on but even the thought of them held no appeal. Then there was that twin ribbon of steel that reached forever westward. Or so it seemed. How many rivers did it cross? How many deserts did it cross? And the mountains. He remembered them with a feeling of awe. How they broke the hearts and the backs of the men who pushed those rails from the east and the west, until they met at that place which is now Ogden, Utah. There, they drove the golden spike and he was there. As he watched there was a feeling of pride within; but he remembered the men who lay in unmarked graves along that road which they had built and there was a sadness within him. It had been said in the work camps along the way that the life of a Chinese worker was of little value. How many of them - some needlessly- had died? He did not know and only wanted to put the thought of it behind him. It seemed only natural that a man who had come to love these high plains would spend some time as an Army scout. After all, he was at home in the saddle and the top of the next hill always beckoned. So as he sat and watched the scene below him it was what he had done many times before. But this was different. Perhaps something within was telling him that it was time to settle down. After all, he was no longer young. True, he was only in his early thirties, but when you start making your own way before you reach your teens you can do a lot of living long before middle age. Those endless days in the saddle and the nights in a bedroll beside a campfire had begun to show. Many a man who rode those endless plains was old long before his time. This he knew and perhaps it was at least part of the reason that he lingered here and watched the scene stretched out before him. What a scene it was. The prairie seemed to go on until it met the sky. The short grass was abundant. Below him was a ribbon of water that seemed to rise from the ground not far from where he sat. It led off to the north for a few miles and in the distance he could see a broad valley that seemed to run from west to east. That valley he thought would probably contain a flowing stream. He made a mental note to ride over there sometime soon and have a look, but right now he felt a peace in a way that he had never felt before. He was content. Somehow he knew he was home.
There, along that stream the tall grass waved in the wind. Grass, tall beautiful grass, it touched his stirrups as he started to ride through it. As he watched it wave in the wind, he could shut his eyes and once again in the far off islands, The Isle of Man, he could see those gentle ground swells roll in, one upon the other and spend themselves on the beach. Here, along this stream, he would build his last campfire. Here he would live out his days in the 'sea of grass.' And so it came to pass, Judy. He settled there and lived for a time. It was his home. He married and my father was born there. That valley to the north ran through the center of what later became known as Valley Township. Through that valley flowed the south fork of the Solomon River. Yes, it was a flowing stream. My father spent his life along that stream. I to, have spent most of mine along it. But, time will not stand still and conditions change. Grandfather saw the farmer begin to turn his beloved grass beneath the plow. My father once told me that as the grass began to disappear, something died within him. His beautiful, endless, sea of grass was no more. And such is life, what we know and cherish passes away and if we are old we do not want to change; so we die. He lived to see the prairie turn into fields of wheat and in 1916 he too passed from the scene. I did not know him. He died before my time, but as I look back I have long felt a close kinship with him. Our lives have been parallel in many ways. You see I too have seen the 'sea of grass.' As boy I herded cattle on it for days on end. I too have seen the Solomon when it was a flowing stream. Many is the time when the windmill refused to supply enough water for the stock, it was my job to saddle a horse and drive the cattle and horses to water at the Solomon River. I was born on Sand Creek which flowed into the Solomon about a half mile from where it flowed. It did not flow through our place. And of course you know that I have lived now for more than thirty years on the banks of that watercourse. You of course spent your childhood there. Just as Grandfather sailed the sea, so have I. I was an engineer. That meant that I worked below deck. Many a night I would go topside when the moon was full. When the sea was calm - if you could ever call it calm -1 never tired of watching the groundswells. They always reminded me of home and the tall grass and the wheat fields waving in the wind. Now the water is gone from the river. Sometimes when I look at the dry riverbed I feel like I have lost an old friend. Maybe I too am getting old. This is fictional of course but historically it is true. It came down from Dad.

Nov. 7,1984
In the last letter I told you how it all started in Sheridan County. Samuel Alexander Morgan did settle on what is now called Museum Creek, so named because of the many Indian artifacts that have been found there. He merely settled. He did not homestead. Apparently he lived there for several years. The date of his arrival is often placed at 1868. At any rate he established a working ranch there. He held cattle (that was die way it was expressed) for a man from somewhere in eastern Kansas. In some of Dad's papers the man's name is give. Apparently he lived there for almost fourteen years. Dad was born there. Grandad married a young lady who had recently come from Clinton, Ontario with her parents and family. Her maiden name was Eliza Holmes. Shortly after Dad was born, they sold out to George Pratt, Fred Pratt; die one who runs the sale barn is his son. I understand they went to Texas to look at some cheap land that they were told could be had there. They did not stay. In fact about a year later he took a homestead on die Solomon River about six miles west of where he first settled. He seems to have continued to run cattle in the new location. Dad used to say that he and his brothers didn't do any work that couldn't be done on a saddle horse. Dad was considered to be an excellent bronc rider. I never saw him ride. He quit before I was born. He was, however, always interested in rodeos. The ones I saw in die early days were a lot different than what you see now. There were wide open spaces where the arena is now. If the pickup men had good fast horses well and good, it might sometimes turn into a horse race if the bucking horse decided to run and the rider didn't leave him before he started running. A rider was supposed to take care of himself. Dad used a technique called hobbling die stirrups. That is, they tied them together under die horse's belly. One could hook his boots in the stirrups and it helped him to stay in die saddle. This was a risky procedure because sometimes they wouldn't come free if die rider was thrown. In that case he was dragged. I don't need to tell you what could happen then. Many a rider met his death this way. There was very little farming done at dial time in this country. They did cut a little wild hay. There was no railroad when Grandad first ran cattle. I really don't know where they drove them to market. You must realize that there were not fences then and no fields except for a small plot that some homesteader had plowed. Riders stayed with the cattle. That is the reason for the expression 'holding cattle. There were trail herds coming through the country. If a rider was not tending to business it was possible for the trail herd to pick up a few strays. Dad was born in 1881. The big spreads were going strong then. By the time he was old enough to help, dial era was passing away because the homesteaders were dividing up the country. The law of die open range was still observed but the country was filling up fast. Simply stated, the law of the open range was that if you had some land that you didn't want someone's cattle to graze on you had to fence them out or have one of the family watch and drive off any strays. That is another story in itself. Grandmother saw Grandad for the first time in just such an incident. She always said that he deliberately tried to drive die herd through a patch of feed that her folks were guarding. This might give you some idea about die era in which Dad grew up. What did they do with the cattle at night? Well they bedded them. Unless something unusual happens you can bed a range cow at dark and she will not move until it is light. If you are just holding cattle in the same area they will get up at first light and graze, so you need to be fairly close to the herd for most of the daylight but the work is not demanding. The hours in the saddle in such a situation are long, very long. Dad was a product of this era. He was a stockman first, last and always; but looking back on what I can remember and
piece together; I suspect that he really never did adapt to the conditions that prevailed after he grew up. The 'sea of grass1 turned into a sea of wheat but it didn't happen overnight. Wheat was introduced into the U.S.of A. in the late eighteen hundreds. In the early nineteen hundreds a field of wheat was quite a common sight. By the time I was born there was field after field of it. He farmed some but Dad was never really a farmer. Looking back, I suspect that he never wanted to be one. He was caught up in a situation where it was hard for him to adapt. He worked away from the farm a great deal, usually on some sort of construction project - moving dirt for a road or something like that. He took his outfit to Damar (a little town near Plainville) one time when I was quite small. As I remember it Mom and the kids looked after the farm. He also built the dam for the Houseworth Lake. It is located about a half mile north of where Jim and Reba White now live. My brother Robert planted the trees that line the road leading to the lake. Irene, your aunt, was the camp cook for the crew on that project. I, being about five years old (?) was her assistant, or so I thought. Dad had what they called a cookshack. It was probably about the size of our living room. Here meals were prepared and the crew was fed. Remember travel was slow, so most of the crew slept and ate near the job site. Maybe as Mom would say Sam came by his wanderlust honestly. Perhaps it is the blood that flows within him; four generations of it. I too have seen the world but that is another story. If money is the goal of life, then Dad never made it. He died a pauper. There was not enough money left from the sale of his property after his death to pay the bills. He was however a respected man in the community. I was too young to know him well. It is hard for me to look back on the last years of his life without a rather mixed up feeling. What a load he must have borne. Money was scarce, almost nonexistent, debts were piling up. There was little hope for the future. To top it all off, crops failed. The dust storms came. That too is another story. Finally he came home sick on a Monday evening. He went to bed. Incidentally the bed was in the same room where we ate and slept. I would come in from doing the chores. You understand that it was winter and I was the oldest boy at home. Vera was teaching school and she boarded away from home. As I would come in the door his cot was to my right with the foot of it right at the door. He would stir a bit and our eyes would meet. I realize now that he probably did not even know me. The look in his eyes is something that I can never really forget. Finally a neighbor, Ralph Getz, Robert Getz's uncle, took him to the Norton hospital on Wednesday evening and he died very early Thursday morning. Mother was told very soon after he died and she woke me up and told me but I guess that I was so exhausted that it didn't really hit home until breakfast time. Then I remembered my mother breaking down the night before as we were doing chores. She put her face to the cellar wall as I turned the milk separator. She said "He is going to die."

Nov. 9, 1984
There are so many things I want to tell you that I will probably ramble around quite a bit. It has become important to me that I try to help you understand this heritage of yours. I believe that one is the product of their early environment as well as a continuation of the blood that flowed from the parents to the children. How do you separate the two? I guess that in modern times they do get separated in the early breakup of a family. Perish the thought; it is not good. Dad was honest to a fault, as the saying goes. But he made one grave mistake and it haunted him all his life. He sold some cattle and was bringing the money back from Kansas City. He loved to play cards, poker included. He was lured into a game and lost the money. I understand that big Tom Pratt was also in the game. It finally ended up that the man who owned the cattle obtained a judgment against him. He was never able to pay it off but any time he accumulated anything the court would take it and apply it on the judgment. There was a time when I tried my hand at cards but I was never too good. The last time I ever played was in the navy. I had been losing and finally I drew four tens which is a very good hand and no one stayed so the pot was a very small one. I never played again. Dad spent a lot of time herding cattle. That was the term that somewhere was changed from holding cattle. That was a rather endless job but not a very hard one. It was a good place to do a lot of reading and training a dog or horse. Dad read and studied. I was told that he studied Latin. He only had an eighth grade education plus normal school, which was a short course for would be teachers. He did have some knowledge of the classical literature. I too spent considerable time herding cattle. I can remember when there was a considerable amount of unfenced grass in this country. Electric fence was unheard of and permanent fences were to costly to build. So a lot of livestock grazed under the watchful eye of a herder and his dog. Dad and Bob and Vera Woods spent a lot of their early days herding in the same area. They became very good lifelong friends. Vera was Fred Conard's mother. There were lots of antelope and wild horses in the country then. Antelope were very curious creatures. One pastime, when antelope were near, was to lie down in the tall grass or a depression and wave a stick with a bright colored rag tied to the top of it. If one lay very still and the wind was right to blow the scent away, they would come very close. There were a lot of buzzards around. They fed on dead animals. They might soar for what seemed like hours, riding the updrafts on a summer day. One could lie on the back and watch them or the white clouds that floated overhead. It was a time to dream and I am sure that all of us did. My one great desire was to see South America. The pictures in our geography books always fascinated me. You see most of my life, except for Naval service has been spent working alone. I have always preferred it that way. Oh yes, we almost always carried a lunch and of course the horse could eat grass and you shared a bit of lunch with the dog. Life was good. We had no money but our wants were few. If we saw a toy that we liked we would try to make one like it. Maybe it didn't work like the 'boughten one, but who cared.

Nov. 11,1984
                                                        RECOLLECTIONS
It was the Fourth of July in the 1930's. The sun had been up only a few hours but already the heat waves were moving across the horizon in a seemingly endless procession. It would be another hot day. The boy left the house and headed for the barn. He whistled and called the dog. That was really an unnecessary ritual because Buck was already going along beside him. He put his wet nose into the boys palm and received a gentle squeeze in return. They spent a lot of time together, that boy and dog. He wasn't much to look at and no one knew for sure who his daddy was but the boy really didn't care. They understood each other and many times the boy didn't even have to tell the dog what to do. Why, only this morning when they took the cows up south, when he opened the gates to let the cows across the road into the south pasture, one old cow took off down the road. Buck took off after her and brought her back. Of course he expected some praise for what he had done and the boy did not disappoint him. Maybe that was the reason they worked so well. They were not dog and master. They were a team. They were partners. Sometimes the boy wished that Buck could talk. But then again maybe it was better that he couldn't. That dog knew a lot of secrets. The things they had done together. And the dreams - the boy wondered if dogs dream, well, just in case they couldn't he shared all of his with Buck. He would tell him about all the country they were going to see. All the places they would go and as he talked, the dog would look into his eyes, and he was sure that every word was understood. There was no time to dream this morning. Of course it was a holiday and some of the neighbors would be going over to the Houseworth Lake or some other place and once in a great while they went; but not today or tonight either. There wasn't any money and Papa was working on the road and he was the man about the place. There was work to be done and he went about like a young farmer who knew what he was doing. Well after all he was a young farmer. True, he was not yet in his teens but he had been doing a man's work for a long time and he knew what must be done and how to do it. At the barn he caught, Sailor and bridled him. Then he went to the little building they called the shop and took down the wire stretchers, picked up a hammer and some steeples, and mounting the horse they started for the pasture. The day before some of the stock had broken into a field and he was on his way to repair the fence. When they arrived at the place where the fence was down he dropped the reins and allowed the horse to graze. How many times had he been told not to let the horse graze when the reins were dropped? Well, Papa or the older boys would raise cane if they knew he did this because everyone knew that when you ground hitched a saddle horse, it was supposed to stand there until someone picked up the reins and led it away. He took up the tools and started mending fence. Nearby was a small prairie dog town. It seemed like prairie dogs, monkey faced owls and rattlesnakes lived together. Those owls, what odd birds they were. They would stand at the entrance of a dog hole and watch a person's every move. They could turn the head so they were looking behind them and never move anything but the head. The dogs were much more wary. They would come up and peek over the mouth of the hole but if there was any sudden movement they were gone. The rattlesnakes were to be feared. The boy knew that it was dangerous to walk in the tall grass near a dog town. One couldn't be too careful. It was said that during the dog days of summer the snakes would strike without warning. Maybe that was so, the boy didn't know; but he was always watching and listening for snakes. That is just a part of the way it was out here on these prairies. Animals seemed to recognize a rattle from instinct and a person only had to hear that rattle once. After that they would never forget. Just to think of that sound sent chills up and down the boy's back.
They finished fixing the fence. The dog was nosing in some dead weeds in the fence row. He pulled back from the weeds and there hanging from his lip was a tiny rattler about six inches long. The boy killed the snake, mounted the horse and headed for home. When he arrived home and told his mother what had happened she assured him that it would not kill the dog; but they made him a bed in the cellar where it was cool and gave him milk to drink. By nightfall his jaw was so big that they feared that he wouldn't be able to swallow. The long night followed and by morning all the dog wanted to do was just lie there. On the second morning there was a little less swelling and the dog seemed a little better. A few days later he seemed to be as good as ever. Once more they were ready to roam the prairies again. That was a close call. After that they had a healthy respect for rattlesnakes.

Dec. 9, 1984

I have just finished reading the first account of General duster's campaign in the Little Big Horn country of Montana Territory. It is in the December issue of the American History Illustrated. The second account will appear in the next issue. It was written by an army officer who took part in that campaign. This officer lived until 1932 and retired as a Brigadier General. Somehow this account touched me in a very special way. It almost seemed that I was there. I couldn't help but think of some of the things that Dad told us concerning the early days. I guess the thing that really hit me is that I was only one generation removed from that time. Whether the Indian was wronged by the white man or not is a sort of academic question. He was, to be sure, a very worthy and able opponent. One gets the idea from the account that Custer had a premonition that he would die on that battlefield (and of course he did). In many instances the white man showed no mercy and the Indian retaliated in like manner. Dad told us that it was not uncommon for a band of Indians to attack a wagon and if they overpowered the whites they might set fire to the wagon and use the wagon kingpin as a red hot instrument of torture. Then too, the troop might wipe out an Indian village and kill all, women and children included. Man's inhumanity is as old as the race of man himself. If one carries this sort of self examination or meditation far enough it will take a great deal of religious faith to keep one from wondering just how important is one's own life. Of course I must hasten to add that we do not have the right to determine when it will end; but why, oh why, can't man live and let live. I wish that I had been able to know my father better. He was certainly a deep thinker. He was probably more inclined to be 'one of the boys' than I am. On those rare occasions when he did open up he gave me much that I am grateful for. God willing, I trust that I can do the same. Just his memory and perhaps something that he said has sustained me on many occasions. There was another side. He demanded and received unconditional obedience on occasion. Let me tell you about our home. The only one I ever knew until your mother and I were married. I don't remember the soddie where I was born. I do recollect seeing it later. Probably my earliest recollection is an incident that took place very close to that soddie. In those days there was an abundance of water in Sand Creek and the Solomon. There were ponds along the stream bed. Some were quite deep. On one occasion I sat on the bank and Dad stripped down and went swimming. I could not have been much past two because we left there in 1922. The next event was riding with Julius in a hayrack loaded with household goods and arriving at the place that was to be home until Dad died. Now to describe that house. Today it would probably be considered a shack unfit for a dwelling. Never the less, all of us children lived there at one time or another. It was dug into a bank. Three sides were in the bank and the east side was a cement wall. The three other sides were cement too but they were not exposed. The windows were in the east and the door was too. It had a wood floor but some of the wood had knotholes and the knots had dropped out. So sometimes, if some little thing was dropped and went through the hole, it was lost. It had two rooms. It was about fourteen feet by thirty. The roof sloped only one way and between the ceiling and the roof we had what was referred to as the loft. It was reached by a ladder. A cubbyhole with a lid provided the only entrance for many years. This loft was my bedroom for as long as I can remember. In winter, it was not unusual to awaken in the morning and find snow on the bed.
About one third of the main part was partitioned off for a bedroom. All the girls slept there. Five of them at one time. Dad and Mom had a bed in the main room, which also served as kitchen, dining room, living room and utility room. In addition this room contained a wood burning cook stove, (it had a habit of smoking so bad that it would be necessary to open the door), a heating stove, that also burned wood and cow chips and a sink that was used for just about everything you can think of. At one time it had a drain that was always plugging so in later years we used a bucket to catch the used water. It wasn't so good when the bucket ran over. We did have a supply tank and water was piped into the house, but the tank leaked so bad that it was finally abandoned and from that time on water was brought into the house with a bucket. This included the water on washdays. That was always on Monday. Guess who carried a lot of water but seldom without a heated discussion about whose turn it was. Mom got old in a hurry. I wonder why? We really didn't know that we were poor. You see, no one ever told us. Sister Rosa raised at least part of her family in about the same conditions. Dad
In the years before she died, Vera worked as a maid in several homes owned by people who had more money than they needed. She explained; It gave her a chance to handle "nice" things. Apparently she missed never having those things that are associated with the more "gracious" lifestyle.

Mar. 2, 1985
Dear Judy, I have neglected you for quite a while. This has been a very busy time for me. I have a hunch that maybe I am getting slower and have a little less energy. It has sure been a time of looking after the stock and eating and the rest of the time sleeping. I am looking forward to warm and even hot weather. Sleeping is a chore unless I get up and rest the shoulders about every two to three hours. Just a trip to the bathroom and stoking the stove does the thing that needs to be done. It is no use lying there waiting for the ache to go away. It won't until one gets on the feet for a minute or two. It really isn't all that hard to live with but I sure am looking forward to warm weather. I think it will ease up in the summer. The next day after Christmas I woke up with a sort of empty feeling (depression is really too strong a word). Just a normal low after the holiday high. I just wanted to share the feeling with you because I think you probably go through those cycles too. I always felt the most let down after I had visited J.F.'s dad. That was probably because I felt very close to him. Well anyway that post holiday blues feeling didn't have long to last. When I started to feed I found a heifer with calving problems. So much for depression; there was no time for it. You get the idea? Busy people don't have time for it. It reminds me of the time years ago when my sister Rosa was to "work out" for the first time. When I was a kid that expression simply meant that one would work away from home. Uncle date Quackenbush (a brother of mother's) was going to pick her up in the afternoon and she would help his wife during harvest. We played all day as if there would be no tomorrow. We did not talk about what was really on our minds, we just wanted to capture the present and keep it forever. Why? I think it was because we both sensed that a period in our lives was over. She would not be home much after that. It worked out that way because it was not long after that, when she went to Colorado and kept house for Wallace while she went to high school at the Squirrel Creek School about 20 miles east of Fountain, Colo. On May 7, 8 and 9, 1985 there will be a reunion of all who served aboard the U.S.S. Trenton CLII. I served from May 1941 until July 1944. It will be at a place called Pigeon Creek, Tenn. That is in the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains about 50 miles S.E. of Knoxville. Mary said that you were thinking of going back that way on vacation. If you are interested, we would be happy for you to go at the same time.
as ever, Dad

10-4-1985
I recall an incident concerning Rosa. Looking back it seems somewhat amusing but it probably was not amusing then. You will need some background to fully understand this. In those days the seventh and eighth graders were required to take and pass a county examination before they were promoted to the next grade or in the case of an eighth grader, this examination must be passed before receiving a diploma. These were no nonsense exams and they took a good part of the day. A country kid often took along a lunch. Mom always baked bread and when she did she often took a portion of the dough and filled a pan similar to a cake pan with rolls. I believe the proper name for them then was Parker House rolls so named because a certain hotel and restaurant named Parker House was supposed to have been the first to bake them. Around our house they were called light biscuits. This may have been a rather common name. I really don't know. The Hoxie Bakery advertised in the Hoxie Sentinel that they were selling rolls for ten or fifteen cents a package, I don't recall the exact amount. You kids certainly didn't have much spending money when you were growing up. I think we had even less. It was decided that Rosa would be given enough money to buy a package of these rolls. We all believed that she would be getting cinnamon rolls. At our house, cinnamon rolls were simply rolls. You can imagine her predicament when she ordered and received the rolls. She didn't have the courage to let them know that she thought she was going to get cinnamon rolls.  I suspect she ate some of them because that was all she had. I wouldn't have either (let them know). We country kids didn't understand city ways but we were proud and stubborn.

10-4-1985
It was a quiet, somber group that gathered to see them off. Little was said. There was no carefree banter. Neither was there much visible display of emotion. Mom alone let the tears flow. What were her thoughts? Who can know. She was losing a daughter to the world. Were they tears of joy or sorrow or something in between? The two younger brothers kept their thoughts to themselves and the little sister showed no emotion. Dad probably said it best when he said that this was the best way to meet the future. He, with only a grade school education plus Normal School, was a believer in higher education. So what was decided really solved two problems. It was August 1934. Wallace had spent the past year at the Turkey Track Ranch in eastern Colorado. He was alone and needed a housekeeper. Rosa needed a high school education. So the answer was very simple and it worked out very well. She would go back to Colorado with him and keep house and would attend high school there for the next three years. I feel sure that she and Wallace enjoyed those three brief years. Of course, time waits for no one and all things must pass on. Wallace left the ranch in '38 and Rosa went to live her own life, and that life I suspect was not an easy one. She soon married James A. Gibbs. To be perfectly honest, he liked the bottle too well for his own good. He worked at various construction sites and finally ended up in the hills of Tennessee near Manchester. This, I believe was near the place where he was born and raised. I never met him until after the war. I was on leave and came through Tennessee. I believe they had three children then. Betty, the eldest, was not yet in school. The shack they lived in was similar to what the boys have described as some of the housing conditions of the poor people in the deep south. Jim finally must have straightened out. They moved to Rochester, Michigan where he worked into the landscaping business. He drove trucks on construction sites before that. He apparently became quite successful but she did not live to share in that affluence. The words of the poet seem quite appropriate at this point.
Of all the sad words of tongue and pen the saddest are these, it might have been.
I have many pleasant memories of the times we played together when we were children. May she rest in peace.

Dec. 1985

I would like to tell you about my early years and beliefs and even doubts as the case might be. I don' think that Mom and Dad were church people when I was born. The church at Tasco was built in 1922. I think that it was a few years later when the folks joined the church. It did make a difference around our house. Dad read from the Bible after supper while we were still seated at the table. From that time on we were church goers. I must admit that I was not very interested. They used to hold revivals quite often. We went. I think that it was during one of these that I made my decision but did not join until later. The Holy Rollers also held meetings at various places. I think that they held a few meetings at the old Houseworth dance hall just a short distance from where Jim and Reba White live. This was an open air structure. Its sides were solid up to about four feet and above that it was open except for a covering of some sort of screen or chicken wire. As you can see, anyone standing outside had an excellent view and of course, could not be seen from the inside at night. Some of the boys would watch the show and they thought it was hilarious. I don't know what the church people thought. Believe me, when I tell you that I never watched. I am not sure why because I was surely capable of such a prank. Some locals used to sell home brew on the side at the dances held there. We boys often looked for the place where they hid their supply, but I can't remember of ever finding any. I really didn't care for the stuff anyway. But enough of that. I remember one time I went to Sunday School and instead of putting the pennies in the collection plate, I went down to the store that was always open on Sundays and bought candy. Never did that but once. Mrs. Lacey was my teacher. I learned a lot from her. I did join that church and attended there for a few years. Of course Dad died in '37 and we moved away. This evening I was thinking back a few years. It was thirty eight years ago tonight when I attended the last service that I remember at the Tasco church. It was a Christmas program. Dad had died the previous winter. We sold out the following spring and I had been on my own since that summer. My memory is a bit hazy, but I think that Wallace, Rosa and I were back here for Christmas, and we all went to church on Christmas Eve. It would be almost twenty years before I ever became involved in church again. At that time Mom, Lucille and Arthur were living in Studley. I believe that they were living with Vera. She was teaching school at Studley. To be real honest, my feelings as I sat through that program are hard to describe. Perhaps it was cynicism. It certainly was not unbelief. Perhaps I needed to get things sorted out. A lot of things had changed in my life in such a short time. It certainly took a long time for me to realize that I could no longer ignore God. Such is life. I have lived most of mine. I trust that you have most of yours left. Live it to the fullest.
Dad One thing I have learned. Be sure you leave a past that is such that you will have no misgivings if you chance to retrace your steps.

Feb. 23,1986

Dear Judy, This isn't premeditated but I am here all alone and I felt the urge to write you a short note. I represented the Gideons in a church service in Oakley today and for some reasons or reason things seemed to go well. I really felt good about it after it was over and several commented favorably after the service. This doesn't often happen and I suppose you might say that right now I am on that mountain top that Christians talk about. I am thankful that my Creator has led me into this ministry. I really believe that I have been called into it. To tell you the truth, for every service like this morning I can recall many that I very strongly felt that I was a failure. For every mountain top there is also a valley and you can rest assured that I have had my share of both. Judy, God bless you, it has been a secret desire of mine that a child of mine would go into some kind of church work as a professional career. The truth is I haven't given up yet and it is also a very strong conviction that I should not try to talk anyone into something of this nature. I have the feeling that you are in the valley right now. I do not know what to tell you except that I was a few days under thirty years of age when I was married and until about eight months before it happened I had no real desire to be anything but single. It has certainly not been a bed of roses and during the early years I would have probably walked out but all of my early training just simply would not allow me to do that. I can say with a deep conviction that I am glad that we stayed together. I am glad that we are taking that computer course. Before long I hope to be able to write to you on a work processor. I am really looking forward to using one of them both for business and private reasons. Obviously it will be easy to correct mistakes and you won't even be able to find them like you can now. Even that dictionary program will be kind of nice. If I don't know how to spell a word I can just try to and then ask the proper program to show me my mistakes. I think that next year I will take some courses in literature and writing. One needs something to keep them thinking young. How would you like to go to the Black Hills for the next family reunion at Thanksgiving time? Beverly said that she would like to host it. Do you know that Robert went to the Hills in '27 and Julius a short time later. I am a bit vague on dates but I believe that it was the following summer that Mom took Lucille and Arthur and spent the summer with the boys in the Hills. As long as Dad and Mom lived they were always the boys. Then in '29,1 believe (my timetable might be one year to early) Vera and Winnie spent a summer up there. Art might remember. I doubt if he really remembers being there.
Dad.

Aug. 3,1986
Dear Judy,
This has been an interesting day. Norman Larsen represented the Gideons in church today. I gave a testimony. Perhaps you know this, but if you don't, this is for the record. I joined the church at Tasco in December of 1934. Dad died in February of 1937. As you can see these events were only a little over two years apart. We were destitute. Mom, Lucille, Arthur and I left that farm with some meager household goods and a 1929 Model A Ford. We moved into a small place in Studley with your Aunt Vera. She was teaching school there. I may have spent a few nights there but never really lived there. As the expression was then I "knocked around." That simply meant that I was what you might call an itinerate farm worker. I worked, received a little money and moved on. Mom moved to Hoxie sometime before school opened in the fall of 1938. I came home that fall and for the next two years that was my home too while I finished school. During that time and the years in the Navy I was kept on the church rolls and transferred to Hoxie when the Tasco church disbanded in the fifties. When your mother and I were married, it was a simple ceremony with Albert Smith, a Baptist preacher, performing the ceremony at your Aunt Irene's house in Hoxie. To be exact it took place in the yard I think. We did not attend church. I think your mother attended the Methodist church some but was not a member. Along about 1957, Elsie said to me "Daddy, when are we going to go to church?" I wonder if she remembers! She asked me several times and one time I told her that she and I would go the next Sunday. That was the beginning. It wasn't long before the whole family was going, but at first it was just the two of us - then Myrna - then the whole family. There you have it. I think of the passage in Isaiah "a little child shall lead them."
Dad

Oct. 12, 1986
Dear Judy, The name Turkey Track Ranch probably doesn't mean anything to you. I had the urge today to tell you about it. I do not know if it exists any more but in the nineteen thirties it was a working ranch complete with cowboys, cake wagon and horses. I do not know the acreage but at one time it was stocked with 900 mother cows. The location was twenty miles due east of Fountain, Colorado or thirty five miles south east of Colo. Springs. On a clear day - and I don't recall one that wasn't - it seemed as if one could reach out and touch the foothills of the Rockie Mountains just west of Fountain. A little to the right, toward the Springs (Colo. Springs) were the peaks and one was or should I say is Pikes Peak. Again I must say that it seemed like one had only to reach out and touch it. The view was beautiful beyond description. I wonder and even yearn a bit at times to look again and see if it would touch me like it did fifty years ago. The air was so clear that a road intersection which was a mile from the house appeared much closer. A dry creek ran through the place. It was named Squirrel Creek. It looked more like a broad gully with a sand bottom. In this country we would have called it a sand draw. Knowing that at one time this dry watercourse known as the South Solomon, was once a flowing stream; I have no trouble believing that at some time in the past it could have been a creek. Your Uncle Wallace spent several years on that ranch and so did Rosa. I was there some at different times. The land was full of sand, sagebrush and rattlesnakes. I never tired of riding that ranch. A good horse, a blue sky and the wind in the face, what more could a young man want. It was a place where the antelope still played; and a generation before me the buffalo roamed that vast land. I don't know why but it was a part of what the Indians called the Staked Plains. We can never go back and perhaps it is best. There are times when we wish that time would stand still, but it is not to be. Maybe as we grow old the past beckons to us and we long for, we know not what. Perhaps the poet said it best when he wrote these lines; Within her heart was a vague unrest and a nameless longing filled her breast.
Dad

If you had known him, you probably would remember him as being rather short of stature. He grew up in this country when we were making the transition from a grass and cattle country to one where dirt farming would be the main business. Being a cowboy was his life. I doubt if he really ever wanted to be anything else. Let's go back a few years. The time is 1934. The land is in the grip of a devastating drought. The grassland and the plowed fields often looked much alike to the casual observer. Many said the grass was dead but the old timers knew better. The rains will come, they believed. The serious business of that time was to hang on until they did. A rather loose partnership known as Minium and Setchell, leased the grassland which joined us on the north. They moved in a cowherd. A young man by the mane of Ben Adfield came with the herd to hold them. The term hold was a carry over from the old days when there were no fences. Cowboys did stay with the herds, and hold them, they did. They watched them by day and when night came they bedded them. If there was no moon the cattle would stay at the bedding ground until first light, unless of course they became aroused by something unusual. If that happened the cowboy could spend the next day gathering strays. Bud soon replaced Ben as the caretaker for those cattle. When the cattle were moved he went with them. Minium and Setchell leased a spread known as the Turkey Track Ranch. It was located about twenty miles due east of Fountain, Colorado. It was a land of sagebrush, rattlesnakes, sand and adobe flats. Bud went to Colorado with the cattle. From that time on Colorado was his home. This ranch had a beautiful view. On a summer morning one could look to the west and the foothills of the Rockie Mountains (about twenty miles away) seemed close enough to touch. The air was clear. It was so clear that the road a mile away seemed much closer. Pikes Peak lay a little further to the north and west, just above Colorado Springs. At that time Colorado Springs was a beautiful country town. Bud spent several years on that ranch. He bached there for a while but he needed a housekeeper. Kansas was still in the grip of the drought and a severe depression. Rosa went to high school at Hoxie one year. She also moved to Colorado, never to return to Kansas for many years. She kept house and finished high school at the Squirrel Creek School, so named because a dry creek known as Squirrel Creek ran through the area. She kept house for Bud until he left the Turkey Track in the spring of 1938. She went to Denver and remained there with sister Winnie for a short time. She then went to Kremmling, Colorado where a large dam was being built. There she married James A. Gibbs. Wallace, (he answered to Bud here in Kansas and many here still call him that but he left the nickname in Kansas), went to Alma, Colo, and tried to get on at the gold mines but never did. A neighbor from Squirrel Creek did get on and worked in the mines for several years. I was up there also but I came back to Kansas and worked in the wheat harvest and returned to high school in the fall. Wallace returned to the Squirrel Creek community and worked on another ranch. It was during this time that he became acquainted with Mary Akers. I believe they married in '39. They moved to Fairplay, Colo. This is not far from Alma. A group of doctors from Colo. Springs owned a piece of property, complete with cabin, suitable for weekend residence. The hunting and fishing was good. Wallace and Mary moved there shortly after their marriage. This is the place near Fairplay which was mentioned. He kept his horses and a few cattle here. He packed for the forest service. J.F. was born there. I was there on one occasion just prior to my enlistment in the Navy. It was a beautiful place but the winters were harsh. The family next moved to Meeker, Colo. I do not know the dates because I was half the world away and a war was going on. Arthur spent some time over there.
My first leave was in 1944 and I came through Denver. He was living in Aurora, Colo. then. I was never very clear on what he was doing then, but I rode with him one day up in the mountains above Denver. We were checking cattle owned by Setchell. The same man he had worked for at the Turkey Track. When the war and my enlistment was over he was living in north Denver. He had been working for Colo. Natural Gas and Fuel Co. We spent the winter of '46 and '47 near Frazer, Colo, logging for a sawmill. He went back to work for the gas co. and moved to Craig, Colo. It was here that he died, the victim of a farm accident. He was drawn into a hay baler and died alone one night. They found him a few hours after the accident. I was probably closer to him than anyone else up to that time. I have often wondered if that is why I feel such a close kinship to J.F., his firstborn son. Some say that the good old days were not so good. I cannot in all honesty take sides in the disagreement. Sometimes I would dearly like to go back to the old ways. I know that the old life as a cowboy was a satisfying one. No it wasn't like the movies. Neither was it glamorous. It was work and long hours. But there were slack periods too. I have known the feeling, to have a good horse under my saddle, the wind and the sun in my face and God's creation before me as far as the eye could see. No people to contend with, just the cattle and the elements with which to match wits and strength. I loved it when the wind was blowing strong. It was a challenge. I cannot tell you how it was. Only those who lived it can really understand and among them, were some who did not like it. And do not think that it was all good. After riding in the dead of winter the feet would get so cold that one had to warm them before the boots would come off. Do you know what chill blaines are? I can tell you. It was a carefree life but I believe that it built strong people. It is my heritage and yours. Be proud of it. It will give you the character that you need so you will always be able to look your fellow man in the eye and say to them "I did the best that I could do, no one can do more." Dad

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time herding cattle. It was a custom in those days. Most of the grass was fenced but some was not. My companions were a saddle horse and dog. It was a carefree time. A time to read and think. A time to tune with the things 'round about. Night herding was a thing of the past when I arrived on the scene. Dad grew up doing it. On those rare times when he talked of the old days, I listened with rapt attention. A cowboys life I understood. You must understand that the cattle were raised in a situation where they fended for themselves. They were alert and ever aware of danger. Most cattle would run rather than do battle. Thus any strange noise or odd looking thing could be the making of trouble. Riders - that is what they were called - held the herds on this vast and empty land. It was a sea of grass. I doubt if they thought of themselves as cowboys. Rather they were riders, loyal to the brand that paid their wages. They rode for the brand. Cattle were bedded for the night and would usually stay at the bedground as long as it was dark. During moonlight they would move. Storms were a problem for the night herder. When one struck the herd was on its feet and the night herders with no cattle savvy might lose them. Dad talked of seeing the lightening play on the cattle's horns at night. The night herder would sing. This was more than just something to pass away the time. The cattle knew the sound of a singing rider and it seemed to soothe the restless ones. It also warned the cattle of an approaching rider. You tried, never, never to surprise them, especially at night. If they ever started to run the thing to do was ride with the leaders, crowding them to one side. If this was successful, with a large herd you would finally end up with the cattle following each other and running in a circle. You might lose a few pounds of beef but when they finally quieted, they had really not moved very far from the bedground. They were milling in a circle. This is what the following ballad is all about. Oh yes is this ever happened the riders always hoped that there was unbroken prairie all around. Cliffs and holes spelled disaster.
Little Joe the wrangler, he'll never wrangle more His days with the remuda, they are o'er Twas a year ago last April, when he rode into our camp Just a little Texas stray and all alone Twas long late in the evening when he rode up to the herd On a little Texas pony he called Pal With his brogan shoes and overalls, a tougher looking kid You never on the range before had saw His saddle was a Texas Kak made many years ago And a canteen from his saddle horn was slung His bedroll in a cotton sack so loosely behind And an OK spur on one foot lightly swung He said he had to leave his home, His pa had married twice And his new ma whipped him every day or two So he saddled up old Pal one night, and hit a shuck this way And now he is trying to paddle his own canoe He said if we could give him work, he'd do the best he could Although he said he did not know straight up about a cow So the Boss he cut him out a mount, and kindly put him on For he sort of liked that little kid somehow.
Taught him how to wrangle horses and do the best he could To help the cook with chuck and rustle wood To follow the remuda and always hitch the team And get them in at daylight if he could Twas long late in the summer, we had worked into the breaks We had camped at a river in a bend When a norther started blowing, and we doubled up our guard We called out all the hands to hold them in Little Joe the wrangler was called out with the rest And the extra guard had scarcely reached the herd When the cattle all stampeded off into the night
memory fails me here
We were all a ridin' for the lead He was ridin' old blue Rocket, with a slicker o'er his head A tryin' to check them cattle in their speed. We finally got them milling, and sort of quieted down And the extra guard back to the camp did go. but one of them was missing and we saw it with a glance. Twas our little Texas stray, poor wrangler Joe. Next morning just at daybreak we saw where Rocket fell. In a little washout twenty feet below Crushed to pulp, his spurs had rung his Knell Twas our little Texas stray, poor wrangler Joe.
Dear kids:
Don't let the legends die And don't ever be afraid to dream.
I love you, Dad

1988
To "Kimmy" my grandchild
I want you to have this saddle. It may be a little hard for you to understand what I am writing but; someday when you are older I want you to read this for yourself. I can't really give this saddle to you because it is not mine to give. It belonged to your maternal great-grandfather. It is probably about as old as I am. If it belongs to anyone, it would be your Grandma Morgan and she approves giving it to you. I never owned a saddle until a few years ago when I bought my brother Wallace's saddle from his heirs. Now don't misunderstand. I grew up on a horse. I can't remember when I learned to ride. We rode bareback like the Indians. Sometimes we didn't even use a bridle but would put a loop of rope around the jaw of the horse, grab a hunk of mane and swing on and away we went. Now people want to cut all the mane off. When Grandad quit riding I started using this saddle. I liked it. It rode like I wanted a saddle to feel like. It needs a lot of oil and strings and lots of love and care. If you work on it and use it right it could still be around when you are old. If I could design a coat of arms for our family I think that I would use this saddle. You see saddles have always been important and your daddy still uses one. My grandfather came to this country in 1868. He came on a saddle horse. You see he was born (according to family tradition) at sea near the Isle of Man. We are of Welsh descent. His mother didn't want him to be a Seaman. He came to America and made his way to the west. He worked for a freighting outfit in Nebraska about the time of the Civil War. He was born in 1844. My brother, Julius, says he worked with the construction crews when they built the Union Pacific Railroad that could carry goods and passengers from the east clear to the Pacific Ocean. You can see why that railroad was called the Union Pacific. He also served as an army civilian scout. I think that is how he came to Kansas. He took a claim on the south fork of the Solomon River. Actually the place was called Museum Creek but it emptied into the Solomon a little way from his place. He sold that claim and went to Texas just after my father was born. He did not stay in Texas but returned to Kansas. He ran cattle until a short time before he died.
May you keep the faith,
Grandpa

                                                      ENTERTAINMENT
Entertainment is a fact of life. Regardless of conditions people have need of it. Before the days of radio and television people adapted to the times. Reading was a favorite pastime. Books were often scarce in remote areas but people borrowed and loaned. In fact this practice was used even for farming tools. Some or all of the family often went to a neighbor's home for an evening of cards. Rare indeed was the household that didn't have a deck of cards. Sunday gatherings at various spots were common. The Baptists were often opposed to this sort of thing but they merely stayed away. Sunday afternoon impromptu rodeos were not unusual. Modern fans would hardly recognize them. Riding a green or outlaw horse was not for the faint hearted. No chutes were available except at places where regular rodeos were held. A common practice was to snub the horse to a good, big saddle horse and the bronc was then saddled using the gender horse for a shield. Sometimes if it were necessary they might ear him down. Horse's ears are sensitive and a good hold on an ear will do wonders. After all is made ready the rider got on as best he could and if it was just a case of seeing if he could be rode, he was turned lose. What followed was not always predictable. If this was the first time the horse was rode it might buck real hard or it might pitch a bit and start off running. In any event a few mounted men were usually close by to help the rider. Sometimes a bridle was used and sometimes a halter or hackamore. When using a bridle and bit it was necessary for the rider to be careful because too tight a rein might cause the horse to rear and come over backwards. Training horses is becoming a science but in those days it was more of a contest of wills. Don't misunderstand, there were some well trained horses back then. A great deal depended on the man who rode the horse. Some had the gift and others just broke them. Rodeos always occurred on Sundays and of course in the day time. Every town or community had a baseball team. This was serious business. Many of them had uniforms and were quite good. Age was no barrier but most players were probably under thirty five. A few teams that I can think of were Tasco, Quinter, Lucerne, Studley and usually St. Peter and Morland had teams. It was not unusual for heated argument to occur and sometimes fist fights broke out. If it was a fair fight the contestants were simply allowed to fight it out. It seems that these sports passed from the local scene by the mid thirties. Times were hard and money scarce and most of the young men left to find work elsewhere. We younger boys might gather for an afternoon of baseball but it was not organized competition. I remember of going to the Chicago School over in the N.E. part of the county one time. The Bee Hive School over on the red line was another place where we gathered. Sometimes the men would gather at Getz's store in Tasco. The boxing gloves were put on and matches were fought. Dad was considered a fair boxer in his day. Clarence Jones, a life long resident of Sheridan Co. recently told me that he remembered one time when Dad gave Vance Cass a good lickin'. Vance was much younger and a sort of a blowhard. Carnivals made regular stops in the communities. They often were accompanied by a fighter who would challenge all comers. I have been told that Dad often took part in the contests. He tried to teach me a few times but I was not really interested. I think that I was probably a disappointment to him in many ways. When radio came along, and there were very few around when I was very young, Getz's store was a gathering place to listen to such events as the World Series.
No sketch of Tasco would be complete without mentioning Houseworth Lake. It was a man made lake completed in 1924. Dad was the contractor. I remember some incidents that happened when it was built. Horses and horse drawn equipment moved the dirt. In its heyday it had a dance hall situated in a grove of cottonwood trees, a flowing stream where people could get a drink, a ball park and rodeo grounds, complete with stock pens, chute and bleachers. The busiest place here on Sundays was a concession stand where swimming tickets were sold and boats (row boats) could be rented. There was also a motor powered boat that gave rides around the lake. It was a very busy place. I can remember that it was often very crowded. For a few years dances were held there on a regular basis. Directly west of the lake on flat, higher ground, a barnstorming pilot would land his aircraft and offer rides for a fee. I never went aloft. Money was scarce in our family. My favorite Sunday pastime was riding the country side on a saddle horse. Sometimes I rode with brother Wallace or a neighbor boy but often alone. Things were different then but not dull. There was another place in the northwest part of the county or maybe in Thomas or Decatur. It was on the Prairie Dog. It was known as Brookwood Park. I was never there.

                      LIFE IN THE RURAL COMMUNITIES IN THE 20'S & 30'S

Tasco was a community trading center. It had grain elevators where crops were sold. Stockyards for cattle that were being shipped to market. Also the farmers could sell the cream and eggs they produced. It is safe to say that every farm family milked cows and kept chickens. This was usually the children's responsibility. Many people who grew up on a farm or lived in a small town will remember milking cows and feeding hogs and chickens before going to school. It was not really a burden. It was simply a way of life. These same chores were repeated after school in the evening. School started at nine o'clock in the morning and ended at four in the afternoon. The noon hour and two fifteen minute recesses were lunch time and play time. This adds up to five and one half hours of instruction per day. I choose to believe that the pupil went through the eighth grade seven times before actually getting there. It was all conducted in one room. Every one listened to the recitation of the class in session. To be in the first class recitation required some preparation. Woe to the unprepared, because all the pupils soon became aware of it. The routine was quite formal. A typical day would begin promptly at nine o'clock when the teacher would step on to the porch and ring a small hand held bell. Immediately the pupils would hurry inside and seat themselves at their desks. The teacher might have a short time of current events. During this time the pupils might share some news items, both local and national. Routines varied with the moods and abilities of the teacher, however the teacher was under the supervision of the school and county superintendent. A school board could and sometimes did fire a teacher for just cause. There was no review board and nonsense. The matter was done and the decision stood. After the brief opening, if it might be called that, the day of instruction began. We were not allowed to forget the reason that we were in school. There was no mention of preparing us for social adjustment; but of course this was certainly a rather unconcious part of our education. We were there to learn the three R's. The teacher's desk stood at the front of the room, usually on a slightly raised platform. The blackboards covered the wall behind the desk and the teacher sat facing the students. The desk top was supplied with a copy of the text books used by the pupils. Two long recitation benches were arranged in front of the teacher and the class in session sat on that bench facing the front. All the pupils sat in desks arranged in rows from front to back with aisles between the rows of desks. Usually the first graders sat at the front of the room and the second, third and fourth sat behind them in that order with the eighth grade sitting in the back of the room. This arrangement served a useful purpose. School was a family and community affair. The older pupils often responded to the needs of the younger. Of course there was horseplay and even down right meanness on occasion but the experienced teacher could usually handle it. Then too, there were few things that could be kept secret and the certainty of swift and direct action by parents and community was very real. The pupils were aware of this and it certainly was a factor in support of discipline. And now, the day of formal instruction begins. The teacher might say, "first grade arithmetic." All first graders would get the necessary books and papers from their desks. Next the teacher would say "turn." The pupils would turn in their seats and place both feet in the aisle. "Arise", all would arise as one. "Pass", all would pass single file to the rcitation bench. Then the order to be seated was given and the session began. All other pupils then kept one ear tuned to the proceedings in the front of the room and prepared their own lessons.
When the sessin ended the teacher might say "return to your seats", but no one moved until the command "arise." Then after all were on their feet, the order to "pass" and "be seated." All was conducted with almost militray precision. All was not work and lessons in the little school. Sometime during the day the teacher might read to us. I recall only the title of a few of these. "Smokey", a horse story, by Will James was one. "The Jumping Off Place" was another. It portrayed the life of a family that homesteaded on the prairie. The county superintendent made regular visits. This was a time when we were expected to be at our best. Two of these officials that I recall were Mrs. Waite and Vesta Miles, she later married a Mr. Steele who farmed near Allison. On Friday, after the last recess we might have a spelling contest or some math solving problems. These were games in which we used our knowledge of spelling and arithmetic. These games usually started with the teacher choosing two leaders. They in turn would choose pupils to their side. Each chose one in turn until all pupils were lined up along the side walls, each team facing the other. The leader of the team that started the game would spell a word. The leader of the opposing team would then spell a word using the last letter of the word spelled by the opposing team, as the first letter of the word which he or she would spell. Then the next in line on the opposing team would do the same. This would go on until someone was unable to spell a word that would fit the need. When this happened that person would be retired from the game and the next in line on the opposing side must spell a word which was acceptable. The teacher was of course the referee and the game was ended when only one pupil remained standing. Naturally the children in the lower grades went down first and the quick witted, good spellers stayed the longest. Of course the little ones looked forward to the day when they might win. You may talk about motivation!! The math games were a bit different. Sometimes the students were matached by grades and ability. The teacher would ask the contestants, (the number was only limited by available blackboard space) to go to the board. A problem, perhaps simple multiplication or addition, would be given. The first to arrive at the correct answer was declared the winner. This was certainly one of the many ways that the three R's were taught and learning could be fun. No one with any pride liked to be last. The annual school program was a big event. It was similar to our church school program. No pupil escaped this event. Each had a part either in a short play or an individual recitation. Some of these were quite good. One of the older pupils might recite the premble to the constitution or something like it. Of course the beaming parents looked on when all went well or they suffered with the child when a mistake was made. The annual school program was serious business. Oh yes, the raised platform at the front of the room was the stage and a curtain could be drawn across the front of it. All the refinements of the theatre were there. All schools day was usually held in the spring at a centrally located school. The event was similar to modern track meets. Sometimes during the winter a box supper or pie social might be held at the school. They usually served a twofold purppose. They provided a social event and the proceeds of the auction went to finance a special project. The women, down to even some of the smaller girls, would prepare a light lunch for two people. This lunch (a shoe box worked well) was placed in a box and the box was decorated to suit the taste of its owner. These boxes were all displayed at the front of the room. An effort was made to conceal the ownership of the boxes. At the appointed
time, one man acting as auctioneer sold each box in turn to the highest bidder. The bidding seemed to depend on the mood of the crowd and all men and boys were allowed to bid if they could pay for the box. If it should happen that a certain pair were courting or some particular lady was quite attractive the bidding might become very brisk. By some unwritten code these boxes usually were identified, perhaps the lady's young brother or sister was the informant. In any event it was the custom that the suitor was forced to pay a premium for the right to share the lunch with the lady of his choice. The climax of the event was when the buyer and the seller of each box sat together and shared its contents. The children who were too young to take part were also fed. Pie socials were conducted in much the same manner. Perhaps the fitting climax to the school term was the last day of school picnic. If someone had a nice grove of trees, this would be a favored spot for the event. The school children's families brought food for a noon meal and the afternoon was spent playing games and just visiting. Another school year had come to a close. This event usually occured in April because we finished the term in eight months.

                                        TASCO -Where I was born and raised
 This is not really a narrative. Let's call it an assortment of memories. It may be somewhat disjointed and an accomplished writer would not be pleased with it. But we are unique. I detest the modern trend to put every one in a special class and fit each person to a mold which some other mortal being has designed. Tasco the old timers will remember when it was called Guy. It was a post office for many years. J.F. Morgan, my father, mentioned the town called Guy in an article published in the Hoxie Sentinel about 1921. He also states that two young women carried mail by saddle horse and Guy was one of their stops. It is situated near a curve in the south fork of the Solomon River. The settlement was far enough from the river that it surely relied on wells for water. Yes, the Solomon was a flowing stream at that time. When we walked to school at Tasco we would often pause to drink from it. We would just lay face down on the sand, put our face in the water and drink like any animal. It was clear and if it was not wholesome then we would probably not have survived. About a half mile upstream from where we crossed was a fork. This is where Sand Creek emptied into it. I was born in a sod house on Sand Creek about one half mile from this fork. At about the age of three I moved, with my parents and siblings to a farm about a half mile south of the Solomon. My old home was visible from the new one. On days when the wind did not pump enough water, I had the job of driving the livestock to water at the creek. Tasco supplied a need in its day. This was especially true after the Union Pacific branch line from Salina came through in the 1890's. Travel was by team or horseback so towns sprang up all over the settled areas. I am sure the settlers were glad that they no longer needed to make the long trip to Lenora or some other supply point on the railroad to the south. There was talk of building a water powered mill on the creek. This would have provided the people with a place to have their grain made into flour. It did not happen. They continued to go to Lenora for this service. You may wonder why they didn't just buy the flour. It really is quite simple when you understand the conditions. The people who first settled here in the very late seventies and later were self sufficient. Today they would probably be called subsistence farmers. It was necessary to grow their own food. If they failed to do so there was a very real threat of little to eat and even starvation during the winter. Picture if you can a winter storm. It is cold. The wind is blowing and it is snowing. The closest place to get food is more than a days ride away. You have no money to buy food even after you get there. There in that little cabin or dugout is a wife and children to feed and there is very little food. An extreme case? Perhaps, but it happened. I believe that this happened many times, even in this area. Even the most careful plans sometimes went wrong. Drouth, hail, insects and the depredations of wild animals took their toll. If the winter food supply was cut short by any reason the settler must find a way to lay in a supply of food for the winter. If they had no money or something to trade the future was grim indeed. You probably have already guessed. Many a homesteader did not survive. They simply left the claim and went back east. I can remember my parents who knew of land that was homesteaded or some one had received a patent on it and simply abandoned it. This land was used for years by someone nearby and no one was very sure who actually owned it. Such were the conditions of the early sixties and even into the seventies on these plains.
Guy or Tasco was never incorporated so it is hard to say when the settlement was started. When I went to grade school in the thirties and twenties its population was around 50 people. It was a divided town. The upper end contained five houses (I think). On one side of the road, shaded by large cottonwood trees, stood a house occupied by Mr. Erve Getz. He ran a general store in the lower end of town. He was either a widower or divorcee. I was never sure. His son Robert lived with him and later managed the store until it was closed in the late forties and he opened one in Hoxie. The Hoxie store is still in business but it is a lot different that the general store in Tasco. As I remember the store in Tasco, it was housed in a two story building perhaps thirty by sixty feet in dimension with a very high ceiling and a huge room upstairs where various items such as hides tanned into leather were stored. If some one needed a piece of leather the clerk merely cut a piece from the hide and sold it. You didn't pick up the item you wanted in those days. The clerk got it and placed it on the counter and wrote it down on your bill. You stayed on one side of the counter and he on the other. You could buy just about anything the family might need from an array of goods that might include a set of harness as well as rivets with which to repair it. Shelves filled with canned food lined the walls. Racks of overalls and bolts of cotton material for making clothes. Men's clothes were usually bought ready made but most women's and children's apparel was made from yard goods bought at the general store. Flour and feed sacks were also made into clothing. When the clothes wore out they were often cut into strips and braided into a long strand. This strand was sewn together, beginning in a very small circle and the sewing was continued and progressed in a circular fashion until the rug was the desired size; perhaps three feet in diameter; perhaps it became an oval shape. It all depended on the ability or desire of the maker. Knitted rugs were also made of this same material. They were a welcome piece of equipment on the old wood floors. I have taken a nap on one many times. When they became dirty they could be washed and hung in the sun to dry. The old store was a gathering place for the men and boys of the community. Women came to buy groceries or do the trading as it was called. I'll get into that later. It was never a place where women went to pass the time. There in the center of the store was a big coal burning (wood or cow chips in the early days) stove with maybe a chair or two, but mostly various boxes, either full or empty, were used as seats. Here the fate of the community and its people was discussed and sometimes influenced. The upstairs part of the building served as a meeting hall and a voting place for Valley Township. Just inside the front door to the right as you entered was a sort of glass front wall. Behind it were cubby holes perhaps four inches square and a foot long with numbers for each one. Here the postmaster placed the mail. You could glance at the box and see if mail was there but you had to ask for it and it was handed to you by the postmaster. Later our farm was served by a rural mail carrier. A description of the store would be incomplete without mentioning the creamery and egg buying station. It was housed in a lean to joining the north side of the building. Here is where that term "trading" takes on a meaning. I can still remember that phrase in common use at the turn of the century and later. It was said that the So and So family did their trading at Tasco, Studley, Quinter or wherever. This was literally true. We milked cows and kept chickens. The milk was ran through a separator and the cream was stored in a can in the coolest place that could be found. About once a week, perhaps oftener in hot weather, the cream and spare eggs went to town and the grocer totaled the bill and the amount of credit the produce supplied. It was indeed fortunate when the produce bought the groceries. In later years cream and egg buying stations became a separate business. Now they also have faded from the local scene.
Close by to the north of the store was a lumber yard run by C.D. Cram. Here you could buy lumber, fence posts, barbed wire, nails and other building material. Mr. Crum also ran a grain elevator which stood a bit to the east by the railroad. There was another grain elevator down the track to the northeast of Mr. Cram's. If my life depended on it I could not tell you who owned or operated it. Be it sufficient to say that I believe it was owned by an out of town company. The Union Pacific Depot stood along the tracks between the two elevators. In its heyday the Jitney, a diesel powered, two car, passenger and parcel post carrier made regular daily runs between Salina and Oakley. Westbound it arrived in Tasco at about ten in the morning and once again it stopped at about five o'clock in the evening on the return trip to Salina. It also carried railway express packages. This was really a fast way to transport items too large for parcel post and too small to be handled by heavy freight. The freight trains provided a valuable service. They moved the grain to market and also brought in supplies that were consumed in the community. The last of the big trail herds came through a few miles west of Tasco on the old Ogalallah Trail but when the branch line went through they were only a memory. The market for cattle destined for slaughter was Kansas City. It is interesting to note that the "terminal" market in the early days was always on a water way. K.C., Omaha and Chicago to name a few. Here the packing plants sprang up close to the stock pens. I have shipped cattle into Kansas City just before its swift decline into oblivion. In its heyday, fifteen thousand cattle might be in the yards on any given market day. Tasco also had its stockyards. They stood to the northeast of the depot and grain elevators. I cannot recall ever helping drive cattle to these yards but cattle were often driven by our farm. Their destination was the stock yards and after a train ride the market in Kansas City. I have shipped cattle from the stockyards at Seguin and also Grinnell but the trucks gradually took over and later the stock yards along the railroad were torn down. I have not seen a stock car on the railroad for many years. Not far from the depot was a U.P. Company bungalow where the agent lived. These buildings must have been made from the same blueprint and all railroad buildings were painted yellow. The only agent I remember was a Mr. Blackburn. He kept a few milk goats and always wore a dark uniform coat and trousers with a black visored cap on his head. Farther north east along the edge of town the yellow shacks and tool sheds of the railroad maintenance crew stood. They were commonly referred to as section hands. To my shame, I must admit that they were often considered second class citizens. They seemed to live somewhat apart from the community and they were usually negroes. The reader may abhor the use of that word but that is the way it was. The derogatory term "nigger" was sometimes used but our parents would have none of that. I could never use the word. It just wouldn't come out. Their children attended the Tasco School and I believe that we children accepted them as equals. The first I remember was the Moore family. There were two girls, Ella and Freida and I believe two boys but their names do not come to me. They moved on. Later came the Starr family. I believe they were of American Indian descent. One Starr child is all I remember. His name was Imann. Later a man by the name of J.D. Garner became section foreman. He was a white man and cut a rather dashing figure with his Model A Ford roadster. It was decked out with the latest ornaments that young men used in those days. He later married a girl from a respected family in Hoxie. Her maiden name escapes me. Perhaps the section hand had finally gained a bit of social status. To the south and west of Getz's General Store was a residence occupied by Harmon Getz, his wife, Hazel (she served as midwife and signed an affidavit when I
needed to get a birth certificate before I enlisted in the Navy in 1940) together with their children Fletta, Elton, Harold and Vida Jean. They were all school mates of mine. Harmon operated a garage and repair shop in a building just west and south of his house. He was a brother to Ervin Getz who operated the store. Beginning in the late twenties or perhaps early thirties Harmon Getz became a John Deere dealer. He apparently sometimes took wheat in payment for machinery. I remember a big pile of wheat just across the road from his place. Just south and west of Harmon's garage was a space where some people practiced golf. As I remember, it was quite small. I suspect that some of the balls must have gone out in the grass and fields beyond. Mr. C.D. Crum's residence was joined to this golf course on the south and west. I believe they may have played tennis on that same plot of ground where golf was practiced. To my humble mind the Crum residence was a cut above the average house. They had a piano and the eldest daughter, Margariutte later became an instructor in music. They had two sons Clifford and Fred. Both were school mates of mine. Clifford became a school teacher and I believe that Fred became a dentist (maybe a jeweler) and practiced in Atwood. On to the south and west of the Crum house was another house. Who built it I don't know. I think that from the time I can remember Mr. Crum owned it and rented it to various people. A Potter family lived there for a while. They had some sons but the only one I can call to mind is Clark. I am sure there were others. How the Potter family made a living I do not know. I think he might have been a day laborer. This term merely means that he worked at various odd jobs and never worked at one place very long at a time. The school grounds lay to the south west farther up the slope. The school house was the highest point, so from the school house porch we could look down on the lower and upper part of the town. It was a wood frame building painted white. The back of the building was almost level with the ground but due to the slope, the front of the building opened onto a porch that was high enough so we could stand under its floor. It was a good place to hide when playing hide and seek. I spent eight terms in that little school under the sharp eyes of three different teachers. They were Alice Robinson who grew up on a farm east of Hoxie. One time on a spring school outing we had a picnic at her parents' farm on Sand Creek. Next came Elta Davis. She too was a farm girl who grew up north east of Hoxie. It seems that she and Ross Menneffe were indiscreet and she did not quite finish her term. She and Ross married and later resided in Oakley. I have seen and visited her in later years and I hold her in high regard. A Mrs. Bulah Cressler finished the term. She too was a local resident. I did not care for her. She radiated discipline. Next came a Mrs. Brooks. Her husband was the Hoxie High School principal for a few years. They came here from Nebraska. I liked her. She broadened my horizons. Years passed and with it change. The little one room school had served us well. At one time it was filled with possibly twenty pupils. But the great depression of the thirties and the advanced methods of doing things took their toll. The number of farmsteads declined. People moved away and the number of pupils declined. Ironically this was the time when a new native stone building replaced the little frame structure nestled into the hillside. Oh yes, it was a rather elaborate structure in which to house a country school, but I doubt if it ever housed as many pupils at one time as did the old structure. For some strange reason I am glad that this new building served no part in my grade school years. Perhaps the only reason it was ever built was because times were hard and many families were hard pressed to have enough to eat and keep warm in the winter.
I graduated from that school in nineteen hundred thirty three. In that same year a national program called W.P.A. (works progress administration) came into being. Its purpose was to create jobs for the poor. Local projects were encouraged and the school was built. The federal government paid for the labor. It may even have paid for part of the material. I do not know. That school building is now a private home. "The grass withers and flower fades"; but life goes on. This completes the word picture of the "lower" part of town; but that is not all; now we shall explore the upper part. There was a road along the railroad tracks which connected the two. While almost all of the lower part lay to the north and west of the tracks, the upper part lay on the opposite side. Perhaps I shall draw a map for you. The road leading from Getz's store went east to the elevator operated by Mr. Cram then followed the railroad and made a left turn across the tracks directly south east of the school. This road, after crossing the railroad went in a south easterly direction through the upper part of town. The first building to the east was the Presbyterian Church. It was built in nineteen twenty one. It had a basement for Sunday School classes and the sanctuary up above. Our family attended this church. I think that it was closed and the building sold in the late forties. The school operated a few years longer and it too was closed. There was a dwelling just south of the church. I cannot remember who lived there. Next to it was a small house where a Mrs. Ewers and Miriam (Mamie) Conard lived. My sister Rosa liked to stop and visit Mamie. I believe there was one more small house that was occupied at one time by a Mr. Joe McLain. How he made his living or if he was ever married, I do not know. His hands built some beautiful checkerboard from different colored cedar wood. He also trapped gophers. They brought five cents bounty each at the courthouse. I once took fifty two gopher scalps to Hoxie on a saddle horse. On second thought they must have been worth ten cents because I well remember that I was a rich boy. I came home with five dollars and twenty cents. This was the climax of many hours spent trapping and a round trip saddle horse ride of something like sixteen miles. One more building stood on the corner of the road at the end of the street. It was a big warehouse where Ralph Getz, a brother of Erve and Harmon, stored feed that was for sale. Ralph also ran the cream and egg buying station at the Getz store. In one corner of this building a place was partitioned off into a combination living area and workroom. Here Mr. John Roswell (or maybe Roswall) lived and worked. He was a watch repairman. I can still see him as he would take a small black cylinder about three fourths inch in diameter and an inch or so long, place it to his eye and hold it in place by contracting his eyebrow. This was his magnifying glass and by holding it in this manner he had both hands free to work on a watch. After the road made a bend around the warehouse, just a short distance east was a little shack. This was the home of John "Sweed." His real name was Birdshaw or something real close to that. He wore a snow white full beard, as I remember him. In his working days he was a stonemason and there are probably some old houses or ruins where his hand-shaped stones can still be found. I know of one such stone house that stood neglected on a site a mile of two southeast of town. He was found dead one day and a funeral service was conducted in the church. The preacher talked about the passage of scripture which says that God will come like "a thief in the night." I know, because our teacher dismissed school and we children attended the service. If memory is correct we children and the men who buried him were the only ones present.
I suppose he is buried somewhere in the community. The road that wound through town continued past that little shack and ended in a farm yard close to the creek. At one time this was the headquarters of the Charley Currier ranch. I vaguely remember him and my Uncle Charley Morgan was his foreman at one time. This was the home of the Ed Jones family at one time. Two of their children, Bessie and Vernon went to school when I did. One older son, Clarence, still resides in Hoxie. He is a retired farmer who spent his entire life in the area. He married a woman, Muriel Karnes and they farmed north of Studley until he retire a few years ago. Another brother, George grew to manhood on that farm. There was also another brother, Harris who moved to Colorado when he was a young man. The Jones family moved away. I believe the Bank Savings Life Insurance Co. became owners of the land; possibly by foreclosure on a loan. A man by the name of Meisinger came out to manage the farm and an elaborate house was built near the creek where the manager lived. He hired a negro by the name of Dotson who did a lot of the farm work. Meisinger brought in a beautiful matched set of sorrel mules. They were the envy of many a horseflesh lover. They did the farm work with a tractor. It was the first Twin City tractor I ever saw. The Dotson family lived in the community for several years. Their only child, Richard went to school when I did. He graduated from the high school in Hoxie. As I remember it Mrs. Dotson drowned in the old swimming hole just east of the big house on the creek on the old Currier place. Going back to the upper part of town, John Conard's blacksmith shop was on the west side of the street across from the feed warehouse. That shop was a busy place in those days. Plow lays (shares) and lister lays were sharpened there. He also shrunk wagon tires. Now, you may ask what is a wagon tire and why shrink it? Wooden wheeled wagons were still in use. When the wood dried out the tire became loose and would come off the wheel. Shrinking the tire was not difficult. The tire was heated which caused it to expand. One particular spot was heated to a cherry red and a tool was fastened in two places which straddled this. By pulling a lever the two jaws on the tool would come together and force the red hot tire to become slightly smaller in circumference. When the tire cooled on the wheel it would be tight once more. How the tires on the wagons crossing the plains were kept tight is a mystery to me. Some wheels had the tires riveted to the wooden fillows. All buggy wheels that I ever saw were secured in this way. On heavy freight wagons even if the tire was secured by rivets the rim would become loose on the wooden wheel and if allowed to go long enough it weakened the wheel. The only good solution was to shrink the tire. I can recall making temporary repairs; simply hammering the tire back in place and wrapping the tire and fillow with wire. This held the tire in place until the wire that touched the ground wore out. I carried many a plow or lister lay to the blacksmith in a gunny sack tied behind the saddle. It was a fascinating place. Sometimes Mr. Conard would let me crank the blower that supplied air to the forge. There was a line shaft with many pulleys on it that ran along the ceiling of the shop. This shaft was powered by a small gasoline engine. When the shaft was turning, various machines could be operated merely by shifting a belt. With a powered trip hammer he could shape hot iron. A round stone for dressing iron was also there. Various other machines were also powered. He could also weld two pieces of iron together although this process was limited to situations where the two pieces could be heated to the proper temperature and lapped together over the anvil then literally fused together by striking with a hammer. The practiced eye could always see a blacksmith weld. A good one was very satisfactory.
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Mr. and Mrs. Conard lived in a house north of the shop. They had two sons, Ralph and Myron. They were nicknamed High and Bill. They were big men but they showed no interest in the shop. The present highway 24 runs east and west a short distance north of Tasco. A short time before I finished grade school a building, which still stands was erected on the north side of the road. Bill and High operated a small store and filling station in that building. They only operated a few years and then moved away. One last house needs to be mentioned. It was the residence of Mr. Erve Getz and it stood just north of the Conard house on the west side of the street. Mr. Getz, to my way of thinking, was Tasco's leading citizen. His manner was so gruff that many of us kids held him in awe; but I know that he had a heart of gold. Many a family had food on the table and even clothes to wear during those depression years only because he extended them credit. If you expressed it in the venecular of that day, he sold groceries to them "on time." This was Tasco. Dad died in February nineteen thirty seven and we moved away. I must add one more dwelling to the list of homes on the road south of the church. This was home for Ralph and Irma Getz. Its exact location escapes my memory.
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                                                            NAVY

Perhaps I should write an account of my Navy years just for the record. I can claim no glory or award of any kind. Perhaps it was just a case of fate being very kind to me. Joining the Navy and seeing the world was a boyhood dream. If there was any real thought of service I was not conscious of it. I do (and did) love my country but I just wanted to be one of those men who sailed the seas and went ashore in distant ports. You see, I joined the peacetime Navy in 40. Boot training was at Great Lakes Naval Training Station, Wakegan, 111.; on the shores of Lake Michigan. When I first saw those breakers come rolling in from as far at sea as I could see; I was filled with a feeling of both awe and dread. What is it like out there, far from land? Had I made a mistake? On Sept. 30,1940 I took an oath that I would serve my country on land or sea under the colors of the U.S.A. and I would do so for six long years. No, it was not a mistake. I loved the sea when I came to know it. There was never a sense of fear. I became one of those men who were confident they could meet any situation head-on and come through it. Three long months at Great Lakes. The military drill and parade were something I liked to do. The Navy lore, I absorbed and looked for more. I often visited the Clear family at Lisle, 111. She, Dorothy was Lloyd Morgan's sister. Then came six months at Machinist's school at Ford's River Rouge plant at Dearborn, near Detroit. The school was set up just prior to WWII. I think the services were preparing for war, but remember this was a year before we entered it. I was one of the first draft of students to enter the Ford trade school. Henry Ford was strict. No smoking was allowed anywhere around the plant. Navy men could smoke in the barracks only. Ford was non union, I think. A strike, the first ever, occurred soon after we arrived. It was a messy business. I never went through the picket lines but a lot of the boys did. We were not bothered. When I hear a train whistle, especially at night, it still gives me a feeling that I cannot express. It seems like I took a lot of train rides. We would have several cars to ourselves and of course a man in charge of the draft. In the military the senior man was in charge. So the highest rated petty officer was always in charge. I do not recall ever being with a draft of men where a commissioned officer was in charge. Commissioned officers were on their own when they were to move from one place of duty to another. An enlisted man was always subject to regimentation and discipline except when on leave or liberty and even on liberty we were under the watchful eye of the 'Shore Patrol.' These served the same purpose as the Military Police in the Army. The big difference was that MP's were a regular Army unit and that is all they did. SP's were men who served aboard the ships and stations. This was not a permanent assignment. Any petty officer, if he were on the watch with the duty could be called upon to do Shore Patrol duty. Their main purpose was to keep the men on liberty out of trouble. Any time a ship came into port and granted liberty to part of the crew, they also sent some men ashore on Shore Patrol. All ships and stations divided the 'Ship's Company1 into port and starboard watches. Both watches, never, never left the ship at the same time. Some of the dates are a bit vague. I left the Ford trade school along in the spring of 1941, bound for San Pedro, California. We waited there for a while. I went on liberty a few times to Long Beach and Los Angeles (LA) in Navy jargon. Here I am a bit hazy but I know that I was at the Naval Base at San Diego also. I can remember seeing the Marines do bayonet practice both at Great Lakes and 'Dago as it was called. I did not care for that even though they used dummies. I believe it was early May 1941 when I went aboard the U.S.S. Kaskaskai, an oil tanker bound for Hawaii Territory. I was part of a draft of men bound for the fleet.
No service man is idle during working hours unless the ship is under way and he is off watch. We were put to work chipping paint. It takes no skill or concentration. My detail worked up in the fo' castle. It is probably the roughest riding part of the ship. The compartment was hot, no air movement and I was mildly seasick - the only time. Seasickness is not easy to describe. Food does not smell or taste good and it is not likely to stay down if eaten. My destination was the U.S.S. (United States Ship) Trenton. U.S.S. always meant that she is a man-of-war. She was my home for the next three plus years. She was a 4 stack cruiser the CLII which meant that she was a light cruiser. A cruiser was either light or heavy depending on whether she carried 6 inch or 8 inch guns. I went aboard the USS Trenton in May 1941 at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. She had a regular Navy crew and had only recently completed a round the world cruise. I was also regular Navy and she was a home in peacetime. Due to a paper Snafu I was assigned to the deck force. So much for machinists school training, it was invaluable in getting the hang of using a deck swab and chipping paint. It took a couple of months to convince the powers that be that I should be assigned to the black gang, a label applied to the men who manned the engineering spaces. I was assigned to B division and # 3 fireroom. The fireroom gang operated and maintained the boilers that made the steam to power the ship. We operated out of Pearl Harbor until October. We may have been into San Diego during that time. I seem to recall being the engineer on a whaleboat in San Diego harbor. We were in a floating dry dock in Pearl Harbor, for what reason I am not sure. They were always adding special equipment to the ship. We left Pearl Harbor in October 1941. We were assigned to the South East Pacific force operating out of Balboa, Canal Zone. We patrolled south to Cape Horn and sometimes through the Magellan Straights. That is extremely rough water. Ninety foot waves were common. One could stand topside and look up to see the crest of the big ones. If you have stood, perhaps across the street from a five to ten story building and looked up to the roof you have some idea of how it looked. It was no place for the faint of heart. Sometimes we would go to the society islands far to the west. Crossing the equator was routine. The Gallapagos islands were often seen. Guigkel, Ecuador - Calloa (Port of Lima), Peru and Santiago, Chile in addition to Panama City were the main points of liberty. The engineering spaces were very hot. There was no air conditioning in those days. Some time after coming to the South East Pacific I was transferred to M division and assigned to the Forward engine room. The Trenton was a four stack cruiser. So called because she had four firerooms and a stack for each one. She also had two engine rooms with two main engines in each. It was quite a bit of machinery when it was all operating. That only happened when we made a full power run for a few hours. When that happened we were busy. In normal operation one or two firerooms and perhaps one engine room were in operation. All other sources of power were in a standby condition. They could be brought on line rather quickly. Normally a fireroom or engine room required a three to four hour warm up before they supplied power. She was a sleek lined ship built for higher cruising speeds. Over three hundred feet from bow to stern with a forty foot beam. I suppose she was capable of 35 knots or a little more. That was impressive when she was launched in 1921. I still think of her as home but after forty years she is only a memory.
I became a Machinists Mate 1/C aboard her. In August 1944 I left her in San Francisco Bay. She was bound for the Aluetion Islands where I believe she saw some minor action. I was bound for Newport, R.I. under delayed orders. I was to report for duty after 30 days. In other words I had 30 days leave. This was getting along to four years since I had been away from duty. Sometimes we would get a weekend liberty but 48 hours was the longest I recall. Payday came every two weeks. We could draw any amount up to the amount we had coming. We were paid in greenbacks. Ah, it was simple in those days. No social security no workman's comp. There was one fringe. That was a government paid life ins. policy. I dropped mine when I was paid of. The pay was good. A bunk and chow and $21 a month for an Apprentice Seaman. After four months and automatic advance to Seaman 2/C at $36 or fireman 3/C at the same pay. Then Seaman 1/C or fireman 2/C at $54. Then to petty officer 3/C or fireman 1/C with a raise in pay. I become hazy at this point and the pay was raised a few times during the war. I was paid of as a CMM acting appointment. I think that my pay was about $ 199 per month and after one made chief there was a charge for food because we had our own mess and it was a bit better than the crew's mess. There were at that time 7 enlisted rates. They went like this: A.S.-Seaman 2/C and Fireman 3/C -Sl/C and F 1/C. Petty officer 3/C and F 1/C - P.O. 2/C - P.O/ 1/C - Chief Petty Office acting appointment (it was permanent after 1 year of service). The day I was separated I was eligible for Chief Machinist Mate P.A. but of course I didn't take it. Many officers came up through the ranks during the war. I knew several who became lieutenant which would be the third rung on the officer ladder. They were called mustangs. The service was and I believe still is very class conscience. I think that it needs to be to maintain discipline which is the very core of a military unit. The three non-rated grades and the first, second and third class petty officers all bunked and shared the same mess facilities together. Chiefs had their own quarters and mess. No one entered the chiefs quarters unauthorized. There were two grades of Warrant officers. They were the next in the chain of command. Warrant rank was usually as high as an enlisted man ever went. They too had their own quarters and mess. They were commissioned officers but not academy graduates. Usually they were men with many years of service and were usually in charge of divisions where a great deal of technical knowledge was necessary. In any rate, where a petty officer's rate ended with mate there would be a warrant rank. I once considered trying for Machinist (warrant rank) but did not. The commissioned officers were usually academy graduates. There were a few mustangs around. These were men who came up through the ranks. The Marines had a lot of them. The Marines operated an officer's candidate school. I never heard of one in the Navy. Officer grades went as follows: 1 gold bar ensign A 1" gold band on coat cuff Isilver bar Lieutenant/Jr. grade 1" & 1/2" band on coat cuff 2 silver bars Lieutenant 2-1" gold bands on coat cuff gold oak leaf Lieutenant Commander l"-l/2"-l" bands on coat cuff silver oak leaf Commander 3" bands on coat cuff silver eagle Captain 4" band on coat cuff 1 star Commodore A 2" band on coat cuff 2 stars Rear Admiral 2-2" bands on coat cuff 3 stars Vice Admiral 3-2" bands on coat cuff 4 stars Admiral 4-2" bands on coat cuff 5 stars Fleet Admiral 5-2" bands on coat cuff
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I believe that all the services had the same ranks and rate scales. They just used different terms. For instance. ARMY Private P.F.C. Corporal Sergeant First Sergeant Top Sergeant Master Sergeant Warrant Officer Chief Warrant 2nd Lieutenant 1st Lieutenant Captain Major Lt. Colonel Colonel Brigadier Gen Major Gen. Lt. Gen. Gen. General of the Army NAVY A.S. S2/C Sl/C P.O. 3/C P.O. 2/C P.O. 1/C Chief P.O. Warrant Chief Warrant Ensign Lt.J. G. Lt. Lt. Commander Commander Captain Commodore Rear Adm. Vice Adm. Admiral Fleet Admiral MARINES Private P.F.C. Corporal Sergeant First sergeant Top Sergeant Master Sergeant Warrant Chief Warrant 2nd Lieutenant IstLt. Captain Major Lt. Colonel Colonel Brig Gen Major Gen. Lt. Gen. Gen. The rank designation (insignia) that were worn by officers was the same throughout the service; gold bars - silver bars - leaf clusters - eagles. It is worthy of note that silver outranked gold thus a silver bar outranked a gold. Silver oak leaf outranked
A senior colonel in the Army was sometimes called a bird colonel (slang).
Winter of '44 at Quanset Point, Newport, R. I.:
I joined the crew of the U.S.S. Dutchess APA98 in September. We were being assembled and given training at the Newport, R.I. (N.T.S.) Naval Training Station. The ship was being built at Baltimore. A skeleton crew was aboard as she was being built. I was not one of them. After her shakedown in the spring the rest of us came aboard. I was placed in charge of the evaporators. They make the fresh water for the ship. We had an old mustang Lieutenant for an engineering officer. He was a pure headache. We spent some time in the Atlantic. Went to sea in a hurry to ride out a hurricane and soon headed for the canal. Our job was to ferry troops. The APA was short for Amphibious Personnel Attack. We took men into Okinawa when the battle was on. I saw my first kamikaze planes there. We were a low priority target. I spent about a year aboard her. We anchored in Pearl Harbor at least once and dropped anchor once in Nagoya, Japan. Also picked up some troops in the Philippines and brought them back to the States. She was never a home like the Trenton. I made chief aboard her. Victory in Japan - VJ Day was celebrated in San Francisco, I think. It was a wild celebration. It ended those years of wondering where the fleet was, and yes, we even asked ourselves how we were going to lick those Japs. There were some mighty dark days following Dec. 7, 1941.
We cruised the South Pacific except for brief times in port. Pacific meant peaceful. I know what it means. As a rule the sea was rather calm as the sea can be. Cape Horn and the Magellan Straits were never calm. I wonder if they ever were. Cruising the South Pacific is a haunting memory. I loved it and I hated it. Loved the peaceful nights topside for a brief time after watch. When the moon shone on the ocean swells, I could see a sea of tall grass back home. It was a welcome break and I wanted to see it alone. It was, and still is something I cannot and do not want to share. Some might brush it aside and say it was merely the homesick longing of a boy recently removed from the farm and the shelter of a home. I do not think so. Somehow it was much deeper and above all I was content. It was, I believe a time of communion, a special time and I look back with a strange sense of loss. A longing to go back and relive those quiet, peaceful, intermittent hours when the night, the sea and the boyhood days could blend into perfect harmony and I was alone in that special place. The words of the poet "of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, it might have been." No, the past has been lived and we journey on. To where? I only know that for a few short years the sea was my home and I loved it, yet the time was and the memory is, bittersweet. I have a strong desire to visit Bora Bora once more but I know that it is a mistake. There is a gentle slope in the road that passes the place where I grew to manhood. I thought it was a hill. I was uprooted from there and went away and later when I returned it was a shock to discover that hill was just a gentle slope from the creek a half mile below to the crest of the hill where I lived. And so it is. The eyes of the beholder change. What was, can never again be the same. The seasons come and they go but we must go forward and we cannot go back. Nor do I really want to. The joy of anticipation is often greater than the realization. Going backward a bit, I left the Trenton on the west coast bound for Newport, R.I. and a new ship. I had thirty days time off. Enroute I stopped in Denver and spent a few days with my brother, Wallace. We rode the mountains looking for cattle. What a welcome change of pace it was. I spent a while at home with my mother and the folks that lived here. It seems strange, but I was ready to go back to sea. Why, I do not know. Remember it was 1944 and the war was far from over. Why would you want to go back into, you know not where. Why are the fortunes of war so fickle. I had no idea where I might go or what lay ahead. I never once thought that I would not come back. That was a wild time when the U.S.A. celebrated victory. The theme of the song "When the Lights Come on Again All Over the World" finally became a reality. We no longer darkened ship and ran without lights. The troops were coming home. We ferried some back but I am hazy on the details. I do remember taking aboard a draft of troops who had served in the Philippines. They were a sorry looking lot, recently from the jungles where any kind of personal hygiene was hard to come by. It was then I realized that the Navy had one advantage. We were at home wherever we were. Our bunks and food and water were always with us. With the troops in the field this was not always so. Truly the Navy was a home. I suspect that boredom was a bigger problem than military action. Of course I was lucky. My ship was never attacked. Victory over Japan or VJ Day as it was called was in August 1945,1 think. Germany had surrendered not very long before that. It was in June 1944 when the Allies crossed the English Channel and went ashore at Omaha Beach in France. I had no part in that but I know it was a bloody affair. They slowly fought their way into Germany and were joined by other allied troops who landed on the shores of the Mediterranean in Italy. They had been in the African campaign.
They spent a bloody summer and bitter winter in Europe and finally pushed the Germans back into Germany and in June 1945 it was over in Europe. Meanwhile we were slowly pushing the Japs into a corner but it looked like we would have a bloody time of it. Then we dropped the bombs that changed modern warfare. Two raids were enough. Hiroshima and Nagisaki were in shambles. You can debate the morality of the bomb, but I for one was glad that it was finally over. We took a good many civilian lives but many a soldier and sailor came back because they were spared the job of mopping up the islands and pushing the Japs back an island at a time. I will leave the morality of the issue to those who can idly speculate about what should have been. One thing I do know. We have fought only no-win wars since. No man or nation has released that awful power again. It is my hope that they never will. I might suggest that a person is just as dead when felled by a bullet as the A bomb. So let it be. Spring 1946 arrived. We brought the U.S.S. Dutchess APA 98, back around to the east coast. My memory grows dim but I think the port was Norfolk, Va. She had been in commission about 18 months. There she was decommissioned and I suspect cut up for scrap. I have no clear feelings concerning her. She just occupied about 18 months of my life. To the true sailor, ships are a living thing. Sort of like a home, they become a part of you. You probably either love them or hate them. I just don't ever think about the Dutchess. The Trenton was a home. I left her with, once again 30 days delayed orders. I was to report back to the Naval Air Station, Olathe, Kansas. I rode a bus across the mountains and stopped to see sister Rosa and family at Manchester, Tennessee and then home again. This was my second leave in five years. I went up to the Black Hills and I think Mother was along. I do remember arriving at brother Robert's house. It was May 1 and the opening day of the trout season. He said if I wanted to see him that day I must go fishing because that was where he was going. I did not go fishing. Off to Kansas City, then reporting in to Olathe; I found my billet and spent a terrible night. Next morning I went to sick call and they put me in isolation with the mumps. I was a short timer with four months to go. They really didn't know what to do with us. I was regular Navy and they were obligated to keep me until my enlistment was up. At that point I was sure that I was a career man. I could ship over, get my permanent appointment as Chief Mach. Mate and keep my nose clean for the next fourteen years and have it made. We marked time at Olathe. Let me tell you what that means. On the parade ground in some situations a group of men might be marching along and the order would be given to "mark time." Immediately the company would stop forward motion but would continue to move the feet up and down in cadence to the music. When you "marked time" you marched but did not go anywhere. It was a phrase that described keeping busy and doing nothing. Try it sometime. You will not like it very much. Actually I "marked time" until my enlistment was up on Sept.30,1946. While at Olathe the railroads were struck by the "Operating Engineers." There was scuttle butt that we engineers would be put to service running the trains. And why not, we were familiar with steam and diesel engines. I have no doubt we would have done the job if called upon but it did not happen. I don't remember the details but about the first of June I was in Norfolk for further s-^ transfer. A draft, of which I was a member, went to Key West, Florida. There I boarded a destroyer escort. It was the J.W. Wilkie. She was diesel electric powered, and she had
more Machinist's Mates than she needed. In fact it soon became clear to me that we were sort of hidden away until our enlistments were up. So much for active duty. We were spare gear. I have no strong feelings when I remember Key West and the D.E. It was an empty time for me. I wanted to go back to the fleet; back to sea. Somehow I wish that I could have done so, but one had little choice about where one might serve. The days went by and I was transferred to Jacksonville and the Naval Air Station. There I would receive my discharge and 60 days terminal leave. I spent a few days at the N.A.S. While we were there a team of fliers put on an air show. They were good. They were flying F6F Black Widows. If they were all married then there was another widow that afternoon. He went into a power dive and never pulled out. So much for the fortunes of war. Sept. 30,1946 finally came and I was given an honorable discharge and 60 days leave with pay. I had served exactly six years in the regular Navy. In retrospect I know why I left the Navy. Those last months were pure boredom of the highest order. How did we handle it? With alcohol. Now they have drugs and what else, I don't know. We tried to drown our frustration in drink. When I left the base I bought a fifth of whiskey and I never drank it. The words of a poet are forever with me. They somehow express a deep hunger that I often feel "Of all sad words for tongue and pen The saddest are these It might have been" What is life and what is its purpose? Only in these later years have I been able to struggle with that burden. If it is just an aimless journey, or perhaps just years of wandering from nowhere to nowhere then I have done well. That could accurately describe the passing years. I cannot accept that. Neither can I understand what life is truly all about. We beget children and try to make their road a little less rocky and we try to steer them around the pit falls. Yet finally we come to understand that each must make the trip alone, alone. Oh yes, there are fellow travelers and sometimes the way is crowded but we must find our own way and no one can do it for us. But the unanswered question is why do we have to make the trip. You see, the choice was not ours to make. We found ourselves on the road and there is a choice. We can choose to end the journey or continue, but where to? I have heard people say that when the end comes it is over and finished. I cannot accept that. A dear friend has died. Soon they will lay him in the grave. I regret that I did not help him find the way, because you see I have come to believe that there is a destination that is worth striving for. I did pray that he might find it but there is a deep regret that I did not do more. There is another poet who seems like a kindred soul. These are his words: Life is real, life is earnest And the grave is not the goal Dust thou art, to dust returneth Was not spoken of the soul. Yes, I believe that life does indeed have a purpose; but why, oh why, did I live almost a lifetime before I discovered that. Please dear reader, do not make the same mistake.
To my children, Willard F. Morgan