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."