The Night Disaster Struck the Farm
Marion Elwood Munsil

THE YEAR DISASTER STRUCK THE FARM Marion E Munsil

      Farming did not pay there in eastern Nebraska in the year 1898. Trouble began in the spring which was cold and wet. Crops could not be planted as early as they should be. Corn which usually would be six inches high by June First was barely out of the ground on that date. Then early in June came heavy rains. One day after it had rained all day we could not milk our cows in the evening. We milked in the pasture across the river from the house. We got over and put the cows in the corral about seven o'clock but the rain was so hard that we could not stay to milk. We left the cows in the corral thinking we might be able to go back later but it rained all night.

      We ordinarily crossed the river in a small boat pulling it across by a cable. The cable was strung across the river from tree to tree. He who was to pull the boat across stood up in the front end of the boat and held on to the cable. With his feet he held the boat partly crosswise of the current. He pulled hand over hand on the cable and the current helped to push the boat across.

      This morning though, the river was so high that the cable was under water. Father could not swim; therefore he did not want to try to paddle the boat across. He drove four miles to town and got my uncle who could swim. All this time the cows were standing belly deep in water there in the corral. By going up river half a mile Father and Uncle Casper managed to paddle the boat across and land a mile down from where they started. They drove the cows to higher ground in the middle of the pasture and milked them by noon.

      That afternoon Father had another problem. The high water had covered nearly all of the hog yard. An old rooster had chosen to roost on the hog yard fence down on the lower side. Father drove the team and wagon down there to chase him to the house. I never knew that chickens could swim but that old rooster could and left Father with the wagon and team stuck in the sand across water that was too deep and swift to be waded. Father got out on the wagon tongue and unhitched the horses. They at once left for the shore. Father had to cross the shallow water below the hog pen and cross a neighbor's barbed wire fence to get across the swift water to the house.

      During June I had plenty of work replanting corn with a hoe where it had washed out. We used a flint corn to replant for it would ripen early. That was a beautiful field of corn when it tasseled out in August. The tops were all even across the field although the high black ground was at least two feet higher than the sandy ground that had been covered by the high water. The high water had done some good.

      Frost came early that year and the corn was frosted before it ripened. In the summer we had bad luck with our hogs. Cholera took all but one of them in August. There was nothing to feed the soft corn to.

      Father worked hard all fall and into January husking his corn. It was a cold job, too, for morning frosts and occasional snow made it wet work. The corn was too wet to shell so he sold it to the storekeeper in the ear. Being heavy with the moisture it took over 80 pounds to make a bushel. The storekeeper was taking a chance on its moulding therefore he would only pay eight cents a bushel for it. The whole 3000 bushels would barely bring enough to buy groceries for Father, Mother and five hungry children through the winter.

      At 53, Father was not so able to work hard. He decided to try something easier. He sold the farm to a neighbor but after paying the mortgage and other expenses there was not much left. At that time there were still homesteads to be had in the sand hills of Holt County. Father found 160 acres only a mile south of Ewing Nebraska which could be filed on. It would graze a few cattle and with what carpenter work he could get would make a living easier than farming.

      A firm in Omaha offered to sell cattle to anyone who could make a small down payment if he had feed. Father had enough prairie hay to winter 70 head. He went to Omaha and brought out 70 head of old cows. He planned to winter them on the hay and then ship them to the home- stead to fatten up on the summer grass. He thought that the fattened cows would pay the balance on themselves in the fall and leave him whatever calves they had. He had not allowed for an extra cold winter and that is just what that winter was.

      In February, Father drove to Ewing to build a house on the home- stead. He could get it built then take the family up and later ship the cattle. But again he had not thought of such a cold winter. Because of the cold it took him most of February and March to get the house up. It was such a low flat house that the neighbors thought it was to be a sheep shed. Part of it did not even have a floor when he came back for the family in the last days of March.

      While he was gone, we had been having our troubles on the farm. The cattle had been set back by dehorning which we had to do soon after we got them. Without grain, the hay was not enough while the rye straw which I had to haul for them was not much better than nothing. Another bad condition was that I could not pump enough water by hand for 70 head but had to water them at the river. The ice froze 18 inches thick on that river! I had to work two hours a day to chop enough holes in it for them all to drink. Then when I drove the cows down to the river, the wind and the water were so cold that they would not drink. As a result of all this, the cows began to die in March.

      Feeling that I must save what I could, I put what spare time I had skinning the carcasses (the salted hides were worth a dollar each.) There was not much spare time after hauling a load of hay a day and chopping wood for two stoves. All in all, we lost 30 cows. Besides all this, I had the grippe! I remember chopping wood one night by lantern light when I was so sick I could hardly stand.

      One day, Uncle Casper drove out from town to the 80 acres where I was loading hay. I had a little fire going to warm my hands by now and it was 30 below Zero that morning! While he was there, our dog Flora chased a coyote out of a nearby swamp and the two of them had quite a game. Flora would chase the coyote away from us but at about 200 yards the coyote would turn on her and chase her back to us. They did this five or six times until the coyote finally decided to leave. The funny part was that the one who was ahead could always outrun the other.

      Early in April, Father came back after the family. John Sillman, a neighbor, had also sold his farm and was to have a sale April 10th. Among other things, he had a saddle he would sell at that sale. I wanted that saddle. Father gave me 10 dollars and said that if I could get it for that, I might buy it. Before the sale, Father left with the family and the household goods. Of course, I did not get the saddle. It sold for 15 dollars. The weather was better now but I had had such hard work all winter that I was tired; so when two neighbor boys offered to haul in a stack of hay Father had brought, I gave them the 10 dollars.

      Through April, I stayed with a German family who had rented the house we sold. I had extra good eats that month! The German had butchered a hog and since he was an experienced sausage maker, we had several kinds of very good sausage.

      May 10th, Father came back by train after the cattle and me. We loaded the 40 remaining head on a freight car and left for Ewing. Flora made some fun for us on this trip too. She was riding in the caboose with us. Every time the train would start up, she would slide to the back of the caboose. When it stopped, She would slide to the front again. We got to Ewing at dusk and had to drive the cattle the mile to the homestead. Because the river at which we could water the cattle was at the other end of the homestead, we had to drive them that other mile after dark. I think that that was the longest mile I ever walked!

      During May, I herded the cows on the homestead and other adjoining sand hills. At first, there was very little grass. The cattle found that the seed pods on the "soap root" plants were good and they would run all over the hills for them.

      Things went well enough during the summer. Father had enough carpenter work to make expenses. But when fall came, he did not have anything left to pay for the cattle we lost, so the Omaha firm sent a man out to get the cows and the calves both. I was to help them take them to the railroad. The man, on horseback, drove the cattle on the run and I had all I could do to keep up with them on foot. That ended our cattle raising! I had finished the eighth grade at the country school in the spring of 1898, so in the fall of 1899 - before I was 16 - I went back to school to get a high school education.

      [Note: later he became a high school teacher and principal before he moved to Arizona in 1926. When he came down Yarnell Hill in the middle of the winter and found out that there was a place where there was NO SNOW (!) he never returned to Nebraska. This story was retyped by his grandson, William W Munsil, Yarnell AZ.]

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