MY LIFE HISTORY Daniel Brown I have been thinking for some timex I would write my life history for my children's use. My father, Henry Bartholomew Brown, was born at Maple Grove, Quebec, Canada; X February 8, 1856. He died at Bridgeport, Nebraska on August 15, 1929. He was a graduate of an English Academy in Canada. He was a well read man, always kept a dictionary at hand. As I understand, he came to Vermont and later to Iowa, where he met Mother, Lettisha Yaunt. They were married June 2, 1879. My Mother, was born at Brown Point, Indiana, and as a small child came to Iowa with her folks in a covered wagon. Horse thieves tried to steal their team, a pair of cream colored buckskins. I slightly remember the team. Her folks were of Pennsylvania-Dutch stock to this union. In her family there were seven girls and one boy. As far as I know of my people, there were seven of us-- two girls and five boys. May, Frank, Daniel, Blanche, Willard, glann, and Lewis, in the order. May married John Omara about 1906. Frank married lottie in California. I was married to Emma Anders in Lexington, Nebraska May XX 28,1902. Blanche Berniece married John Rasxxsen. Willard married Minnie Young. Glenn married Alta Dyson. Lewis married Meredith Livingston. I was born in Mason City, Iowa, September 5, 1883. We came to Nebraska in 1887 in an imigrant railroad car. We unloaded near Lexington on Old Plum Creek, as it was first known. the name changed about this time. I was just a little kid, but I remember a few things. We boys had a little wooden wheeled play wagon. Dad gave it to a man named Hugh Fisher. When we left Iowax, we used to say bad things about Mr. Fisher for having our wagon. We had a dog and he would take the tongue of the wagon in his teeth and give us a ride. We went from Lexington to Prextion, close to Buzzard's Roost, about six miles east of where the town of Lomax is now located. We were not there very long. Dad sold the place. We went to a fars right on the bank of Wood River. We lived in a two-story log house which was owned by a Mr. O'Brien. I think we were on it when that blizzard of 1888 hit. I went to my first day of school from that place. I remember I was carrying my dinner pail and dumped it on the ground. We had the Horsins girls with us and Laura, a rather big girl, picked it up and saved the day. We did not stay more than one year on this farm. Dad traded corn xfx for some cattle. He got 10 cents a bushel for corn in trade. I don't know what he paid for the heifers, but they were as wild as any cattle could be. We moved about three or four miles north on a ranch that belonged to Simon Young. He ran a little store and post office-- I believe that they called it Clax. He was quite a merchant-- I got to know hime quite well later on. I remember the folks got some sugar from him, only iit was brown sugar. I don't think we had white sugar yet. Young had a new well and curbed the bottom with pine boards. He used this water in the sugar to maake it weigh more. Talk about a rotten taste in coffee or anything warm! I don't know what was done with the sugar, but things were popping when we first tasted it. The first fight I ever had was with one of his boys, named Elmer. On our road home from school, there were several of the Young kids, but we had some kids named Strong. They were good friends, they seen fair xxx play/ I think I got the best of Elmer, but his folks came up to our place about it. I don't think the folks did anything to me about it. I met Elmer when I was in the store at oconto years later. I thought of the fight we had as xx kids. I did not think any better of him at that late date. We were both short stubs, xxxk built alike. My first teacher was a Miss Lizzie Edmenston. It was a very large sod school house, In xxx school I sat with a boy name Orlo Watts. One day, the teacher passed our desks and women in those days wore bustles. As she passed Orlo he layed a book on her bustle and it rode there for a while but finally it fell off. I got punished for laughing, or maybe she thought I had done it. The bustles maade quite a xxx nice shelf over the hips and I guess the bigger they were the better for style. We left this farm for a homestead. Dad traded some horses for the relinquishment. We moved in the spring of 1890. The home stead had a sod house with two rooms, dirt floors, brush and sod roof, and gobs of bed bugs. Those kind of roofs leaked for a day after the rain quit. There were no other buildings on it. There was a dug well, but not much good. We had to haul water about three miles. Dad had a well drilled that summer, put up a mill and tower and x dug a large eistern, 8 feet deep by 12 feet wide. Wells were fairly deep, 225 feet to 350 feet. Lots of people hauled water at that time. I don't think anyone was ever turned away but about four or five barrels were all they could get into the wagon box. We never had much trouble about water. We had three neighbors that hauled from our place. Some of the people had eisterns. They would have little ditches and fill them with rain or snow water, then they would haul for house use only. We farmed some,lots of free range-- there were very few fences. We kids harded the cattle-- we xxxxxxxxx went out real early in the morning and back at night. We milked 12-14 cows during the summer and just 2 or 3 in the winter. We put them in the barn and grained them. in 1894, there was no grass at all. Our corn got up about three feet high and hot winds burned it off. One day some neighbors went up in Cherry County and put up hay. We put all the cattle and horses together and drove them up there for the winter. It was about 100 miles. We lost horses and cows as they were not climated and got bogged down in the swamps. We were not used to the bugs and the swamps, and wexx were always pulling something out all the time. Along about Cristmas, Dad heard that people were tearing down xxxx shacks to get the wood to burn. So Dad fixed the wagon and Mother and us kids went home to hold x down the fort. That made it hard for us, for there was xxx no milk or beef, which we had up there. That is the only year that we went hungry at times. They shipped in aid all over that country. The 1930 years here were a picnic to them then. We had no irrigation at that time, which helped here in the 1930's. But we pulled through somehow. Dad came down along in the spring to see how things looked. We boys would take the team and wagon in the hills where the grass had grown years before. We would pull the old dead stuff, haul it home, and put it in a little barn, about 16 feet sqaure, for feed. Every nice day that was our job. The blue joint grass in spots would grow from five to six feet tall. Lots of vacant land with no cattle on it sometimes for years. Dad took Will and went up and brought what stock was xx left back. When the grass was started and the stock had done well, about June, the bank sent a drunken son up to take the cattle on a mortgage that Dad had signed a note for. I want to mention here that when the bank came and took our cattle, we had one cow and six calves left. The man that took them, sold them at Cozad and got drunk and then lost it all at cards that night. Uncle Lawrence, Dad's brother, and Bill McCarter went to buy wheat seed the year before, 1894. As I remember, we had fair crops in 1895 and lots of big strawstacks all over the land. Dad and Othis bought a thresher, horse power outfit. It was an Auttman-Taylor. Machines were all made of wood at that time. Hand fed straw ran up a flat deck with belts on both sides and cross bars to carry the straw. We kids quite often had to stack the straw and cut bands on the bundles. We got a xxxxxx chance to eat lots of dirt. it was a big job to set the power and stake it down. The machine men would not change it unless we got a bad tail wind after they and the machine all set up to start. They would put in one or two extra tumble rods, that way when the straw stalks got too big, they would take out a rod and pull the separator up, connect it, and thrash more. I have known them to run two or three days on one horse power set. We farmed preet heavy, all walking tools. We boys could do most anything. Dad never let us run the xxxxxx binder. They were pretty touchy but we did the shicking of all the grain.