Colorado Rockies that she and her siblings had been able to establish in honor of the dream of her parents - of having a special training and conference center for Friends.
     AraBelle died in 1995.

Clarence and Margaret (White) Perisho. Clarence taught one year at Friendsville Academy, and Margaret taught there two years. Clarence came to Nebraska College in 1940 and stayed to teach four years. He and Margaret were married June 12, 1941. They lived in an apartment in Hord Hall. Some of the time he ran the furnace and looked after buildings and grounds. They joined the Central City Meeting in 1942.
     The summer of 1944 they, with their one-year old son, Robert, lived with Henry and Evelynn Schutz and Clarence worked on the farm. They returned the next summer with Ethel added to their family. Clarence continued to teach until the spring of 1982. Clarence attended William Penn College, Haverford College and New York University. Margaret graduated from Earlham College and got a Masters Degree from Mankato State, now officially Minnesota State University, Mankato.
     Clarence is the son of Floyd and Ethel Perisho. They were married in the Central City Friends Meeting in 1913 and moved to Oregon in 1915.

Information from Clarence Perisho

Don and Barbara (Crowe) Reeves family. Don and Barbara have been active in Central City Friends Meeting since 1958. Their children were part of the Meeting and Sunday School during growing-up years, from 1958 or their later birth or adoption: Randolph Kirk (1956/59); Nancy Lynn (1956); Richard Bruce (1958/1962); Scott Alan (1959); and Evelyn Beth (1960/1962).
     Don and Barbara are convinced Friends, based primarily on shared experiences and searching during college years at the University of Nebraska. Don grew up in the Chapman Baptist Church. His mother, Portia Marsh Reeves, and her siblings all attended Nebraska Central College and Academy. Don occasionally visited the Friends Meeting with his cousins in the Raymond and Erma (Marsh) Mesner family, and was softly "courted" by his aunt, Elizabeth Marsh Jensen.
     Barbara grew up in Warren Methodist Church in Lincoln, where Don attended during college, and where they met as fellow choir members. They were active together in the Interdenominational Youth Fellowship and a YMCA/YWCA chapter connected with the school of Agriculture and Home Economics. Among other shared experiences were

International Affairs Institutes sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee. Barbara joined an AFSC Institutional Service Unit at Chicago mental hospital in 1953. Don was an accepted supply pastor for the Methodist Church at Emerald, Nebraska during his senior year in college.
     Don taught at a secondary school in the rural Philippines, sponsored by the Methodist Church, from 1952-55. Barbara worked there for the Methodist Women's Division in 1954-55.
     To meet Don's alternative service requirements as a conscientious objector, Don and Barbara were appointed by the AFSC to work camps in Mexico in 1956, Don filled out his AFSC assignment as a counselor to conscientious objectors in Philadelphia from 1956-58. During this period, they attended Swarthmore and Providence Friends Meetings.
     Don, Barbara, and Nancy farmed with T. C. and Portia Reeves from 1958-61. They set up their own farm in 1962, and were joined by Neil and Kay Mesner in what became Fairhope farm, from 1964 until 1997. Delano and Ardis Cunningham were part of the farming operation from 1977 through 1980. Part of the rationale for creating a two-family farm was to permit active participation in off-farm activities, many associated with various Friends agencies; both volunteer and full-time.
     In Central City Friends Meeting, Don taught the high school Sunday School class through the 1960s. Barbara taught pre-schoolers in Vacation Bible School for several years.
     Don served as Presiding Clerk of Nebraska Yearly Meeting from 1969 through 1977. Other volunteer Friends appointments include: FCNL General Committee most years since his first attendance in 1956 (clerk, 1990-96); AFSC Board from 1982-88 and since 1997, AFSC North Central Regional Executive Committee from 1969-75; Friends United Meeting Peace and Social Concerns Commission, Friends National Coordinating Committee on Peace, and William Penn House National Advisory Committee.
     Don joined the staff of the Friends Committee on National Legislation as a legislative secretary from 1977 through 1980, to pursue his life-long interest in world hunger and peace issues. In a second "sabbatical" from the farm, he served as an advocate and educator with Bread for the World from 1987- 1998.
     In Nebraska and in suburban Washington, D.C., Barbara's principal vocation has been her family; children and grandchildren. She earned her degree as a registered nurse in 1977, and nursed in the Washington, D.C. area and in Nebraska from 1977 through 1987.

Lois Schank. Lois Schank was accepted as a member of Central City Friends Meeting in 1973 during the ministry of James and Elizabeth Newby.
     A former editor of the Central City newspaper, turned nurse, her main interests in the meeting are ways in which the meeting can be helpful to people in the community, country and around the world. She has served on the Peace and Social Concerns Committee for many years.
     Lois is the present Recording Clerk of the Meeting and acted as custodian for many years with low pay as a donation.
     Lois Schank lives on a farm near Central City, and is the mother of three daughters and a son, and has one granddaughter.

Henry and Evelynn (Mott) Schutz, Bill and Betty (Schutz) Swanson. Henry D. Schutz and J. Evelynn Mott were married after the manner of Friends in the Meetinghouse of the Central City Monthly Meeting of Friends in the evening of September 3, 1942. This union came after a period of developing respect and friendship beginning in the early 1920's while attending Nebraska Central College and Academy. Evelynn graduated from N.C.C. in the spring of 1925 and Henry from N.C.A. at the same time.
     Henry stayed on the farm working with his parents, and Evelynn went on to graduate school at Haverford in Pennsylvania. Upon receiving her master's degree in 1927 she resumed work in the teaching field which she had started as a grade school teacher in Kansas. She was on the faculty of Nebraska Central College in the 1920's.
     In 1945, an infant son and daughter came into their home: William Henry and Elizabeth Ann. Henry and Evelynn were both active in church and civic affairs. Henry was helpful through the years with hammer and saw. He did most of the work making a kitchenette upstairs from a former classroom. Many who were teenagers in the '40s will remember Evelynn teaching a class in that same room. He did many other projects as well as serving in other ways in the Meeting. He was treasurer of Nebraska Yearly Meeting for several years.
     Evelynn had a number of responsibilities in the local Friends Meeting as well as statewide and national Friends groups. Evelynn was presented with the "Valiant Woman Award" at the annual meeting of Nebraska Church Women United. She had been active in the Merrick County Church Women United organization since the 1950s.
     In 1975, Evelynn received the Merrick County Mother-of-the-Year award.

(Information found in the Merrick County History and newspaper clippings)

James and Orissa Stephen. James Stephen was born in Scotland in 1845. He married Orissa Kingsbury, who was born in 1854 in Minnesota. While teaching in Clinton, Iowa, she met James Stephen and they were married at her parents' home in Minnesota. They came to Central City in 1880, where Mr. Stephen owned a lumberyard. They were loyal supporters of Nebraska Central College from the time of its founding by the Methodists. In 1895, the Methodists closed the school. James Stephen sold his business and personal property in Central City and took possession of the college property. They and their children moved to the College Section and for a time made their home in the college building. At the organization of the Friends Meeting in 1899, James and Orissa became members of it. The Stephens were part of the group to get the College and Meeting organized.

     In 1912 they built the house across the street west from the Meetinghouse. At one time the Sunday School classes were so big that some of the children went to the Stephen house for Sunday School. Stephens gave a Bequest Deed to the Nebraska Yearly Meeting of Friends, which at that time consisted of meetings from Nebraska, Colorado and South Dakota. It was for all of block seven (7), and the north four hundred and twenty-six and one half feet (426 1/2 ft) of block numbered twelve (12), containing twenty-three and one half (23 1/2) acres more or less and situated on Stephen's subdivision of section five (5), township thirteen (13), north of range six (6) west of the 6th P.M. In trust, the use and income from said land to be applied exclusively to the work of the Home Missions department of Nebraska Yearly Meeting.
     The home close to the college contained 14 rooms and was divided into a dormitory for the school. There were two stairways, one for girls, and one for boys. It had seven chimneys to take care of the heating stoves and kitchen, however the students were fed at the school.

Gleaned from stories in the Merrick County History.

William Ellis and Nellie Agnes (Cudney) Solt Family. The Solts were married in 1884 at Aurora, Nebraska. They moved to Merrick County in 1896. William was caretaker of the Central City Cemetery for thirty-two years. They were Charter members of the Friends Meeting in Central City. Their children were William Walter, Lula Mable, Addie Lucetta, Guy Wilbur, Leslie Waine, Lillian Agenes, Gladys Naomi, Stella Ruth who died at ten months, Donald George and Inez Louise.

Guy W. Solt. Guy Solt, as part of the William Ellis and Nellie (Cudney) Solt family was one of the charter members of the Central City Friends Meeting. He said he was a poor student, so he was able to talk his parents into letting him start an apprenticeship in Hoagland's harness shop. He had finished the seventh grade. The year was 1910.
     He completed his apprenticeship of four years and worked four more years earning a salary of $20.00 a month. A good salary at that time. In June, 1918, he was drafted into the Army. When he reached the army camp at Leavonworth, Kansas, he took the position of a conscientious objector to war and was, at the end of the day, taken to the barracks where about 100 other C. O. s were kept. At that time there was no law

specifying any special disposition for COs and we were waiting for the President and that War Department to make a decision on the matter for the Army was hard pressed to know what to do with them.
     On July 4, 1918, all of the COs in the Midwest were transferred to Camp Dodge, Iowa to be questioned by a Commission of three appointed by the Secretary of War. He recalled that two of the men were Major Stoddard and Judge Barness of Chicago. The Quaker boys saw these two men in a group. It was a very easy time as Judge Barness, being a Jew, knew Friends well and practically told them what to say to be given our choice of doing farm work in the U.S. or going to France with the American Friends Service Committee to help the French Civilians who had been driven out of the north part of France by the German Army. All but one chose AFSC.
     When he arrived in Oman, France, he worked with the AFSC making portable houses for the French refugees. Guy's job was pushing heavy, green wet timbers through a ripsaw. Being tall and strong he was able to do the job. When that was finished, he remained with two other men to take out the woodworking machines and replacing them with machines for making auto bodies as it had been before.
     Then they were sent up to the Verdon area to help, returning to the U.S. in mid-August, 1919. In September, Guy entered the Academy at Nebraska Central College. Even though he hadn't finished the eighth grade, he was permitted to omit it and enter the ninth grade. He seemed to have changed from a poor student to a good one because he finished high school in three years with good grades.
     Guy graduated from college four years later ranking third in his class and earning an A.B. Degree. He had a scholarship to attend Haverford College. That summer he married Ella, a girl he had known for several years, as she worked in the telephone office above the harness shop. They were able to get a house of their own rather than live in a dormitory, and their home became a place for students to gather.
     When college closed, they came home to Central City and Guy the Finance and student man at college. In 1935, Guy and Ella, with their son, Elton, moved to Grinnell, Iowa and began work for the AFSC.
     When they moved to Philadelphia, William "Elton" says his dad spent most of his career raising money for AFSC and he retired as Financial Secretary of AFSC. In his retirement he helped organize and build retirement homes. The first one built was the Friends retirement facility in Richmond, Indian. He obtained the investors and arranged for the bank loans.
     Throughout his career he was constantly asked by college presidents to help them raise money. For a number of years he was on the Haverford College Board of Trustees.
     While they lived in Grinnell, Iowa Guy bought a farm in 1936, which was the very bottom of farm prices. He was the first farm owner to buy hybrid seed corn in the Grinnell area. He bought it from the Pioneer Seed Corn Company, which was founded by Henry Wallace.
     The family moved away from Central City for economic and work reasons and never returned. In their thoughts and in their hearts, Elton said his parents never left Central City.
     Ella died in 1955, and sometime later Guy met Genevieve and they were married.