CEDAR COUNTY, NEBRASKA - March of Progress viewed by Pioneer ==================================================================== NEGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. This file was contributed for use in the NEGenWeb Archives by Carol Tramp Permission Granted by Rod Dump, Editor, Cedar County News ====================================================================== CEDAR COUNTY NEWS, 12/15/1927 March of Progress viewed by Pioneer Anton Kollars has seen Immense Changes in Christmas shopping Anton Kollars of Menominee will celebrate his 57th birthday the 22 day of this month, ten miles from the old Kollars homestead on which he was born and lived for 46 years. The homestead, 2¼ miles from the Menominee Church, is now farmed by the third generation of Kollars, Anton’s son Henry. Mr. Kollars recalls Christmas seasons in Cedar county when Santa’s supplies had to be obtained from Sioux City, the nearest trading post, and the trip had to be made with oxen. Later, Yankton was the mecca for Chistimas shopping, and Cedar county settlers made regular winter trips across the ice to bring home ginghams and mittens for Christmas presents. Christmas parties were family affairs back in the ‘70’s, according to Mr. Kollars, for neighbors were too few and far away to assemble for an evening. Anton Haberman was Mr. Kollars’ nearest neighbor and he lived the farthest west of the St. Helena settlement. But the biggest thing that happened to the Kollars family and the event beside which Christmas presents paled, when he purchased a team of horses from Louis Kohl. Such a transaction was a great affair in those days, for horses were as rare then as oxen are now. It’s a far cry from driving the oxen across the prairie as a boy to the big Studebaker which he now drives everywhere over roads not dreamed of in boyhood days, and at a speed that then would have brot only fear. As a boy, Mr. Kollars enjoyed watching the steamboat coming up the river. Very often 30 or 40 or them would be tied up at Yankton at a time, and then traffic needed a police cop, says Mr. Kollars. “Going to school was a different story in those days," Mr. Kollars admits and laughs as he thinks of the pranks gone by. “Punishment consisted of being made to kneel in a corner and hold up your arms, but it wasn’t so bad. The first school I attended was a frame building a mile west of the old homestead, and Roger O’Gara, father of P.F. O’Gara and later our first county superintendent was my first teacher. John J. Goebel was also one of my teachers. Mr. Kollar’s father was born in Bohemia and married there. His parents came to America in 1866 and in 1868 they came to Cedar Co. His mother who died in 1893, and his father who died in 1904, are both buried at Menominee. Mr. Kollars who married a girl from the old country at Tabor, SD., has seven children, Frank of Yankton, Anton in Wyoming, George at Crofton, Ed in Fordyce, Henry and Paul on the old homestead and Miss Christine in Omaha. Mrs. Kollars passed away several years ago. The progress of the county has been well traced by the variety of Christmas presents displayed during the successive seasons according to Mr. Kollars, who has had first hand knowledge for many years, and who thinks the rich harvest of this year and its accompanying holiday season surpasses all records.