My father, Ira Armstrong Stoner, was born Feb. 14, 1865 in Huntington County, Indiana.   He died Oct. 10, 1924--age 59.   My mother, Elizabeth Jane Sickafoose was born March 16, 1866, in Whitley County, Indiana.   She died Sept. 23, 1945.

My father had two sisters and one brother:   Lula, Olive, and Charles.  They were of English and Dutch descent, originally from Poughkeepsie, New York, and later moved to Indiana.

I believe my mother's people were Scotch-Irish. She had three sisters:  Emma, Laura, and Maude Sickafoose and one brother, Charles.   Two sisters died quite young after marriage of T. B.   Her father was quite a prosperous farmer in Whitley County, Indiana.   I remember the farm home quite well.  We left there when I was nine years old.

My father and mother were married May 15, 1890.   They lived on rented farms until 1900.   I remember the sale quite well.   I never shall forget the empty house we left, that had been our home since I could remember and the parting with the horses and cows that I loved.

The dream of my father's life was a home of his own, so he answered the call of the West.   In the early spring of 1900, he came to Hugoton, Kansas, where he had been, before his marriage, and proved up a claim.  This was west of Hugoton, must have been eight or ten miles.

When he arrived In 1901, I think he sold this claim to John Gregory (it joined his ranch).   He found a tree claim just a mile and a half north from the town of Hugoton.   Terms of this deal were to plant so many trees and live on this 160 acres for a term of five years.   He built a dugout on it, I would say 12 x 25 feet with three windows, a door, and wide boards for a floor, which I scrubbed many a time.   He made a table, book case, and other pieces of needed furniture as well as a stable for two horses and a corral.   The hole where the dug-out was is under the office and hall where Frank lives now.  We lived in the dug-out for fourteen years.

Mother's parents passed away, and she received some inheritance.   Her dream was a two-story house like the houses she had lived in back In Indiana.  I think this was built about 1914.   Father was broken in health as well as mother, but she still had her energies and determination to yet win in the fight for existence.   Father was ready to give up.

The next year in October I was married.   In June of 1916 Mary was married, so there was never much joy or happiness in the new house.

In March of 1901 (we had lived with mother's people that winter), Mother, Mary and I arrived by train.   Father met us in Liberal in a wagon. &nbs; I remember we bought a good (now, old-fashioned) rocking chair, chairs and two beds.  I think the feather beds and bedding had been shipped.

Father had made friends with the Newt. Smiths.   We stayed there a few days until we got our home in living condition.   Mary and I started to school with Russell. 0, we were so shy and so backward.   I was nine, she was seven years old.   The school house stood where the south end of the park is now in Hugoton.   Just across from the little white church stands now where we went to church for so many years.   I began teaching a Sunday School class there when I was thirteen years old.   That is where I went to the altar and accepted Christ as my Savior.   Rev. Robert Carlisle was our pastor.   I taught a Sunday School class from the time I was thirteen until I began to have my family.   For ten years I did not have a regular class but went regularly.

Every time when there was a new baby, Rollo took the older one, and I took the baby.   He went to the men's class; I went to the ladies' class.  There was a class for each one of the older ones.   When Lola was old enough so Rollo could take care of her, I started teaching again.   People asked me--how do you do It?   I told them I worked all week toward going the next Sunday.   Toward the last of the week, see that the change of clothes was clean.   Polish shoes after they were in bed Saturday night.   Everything ready to get into Sunday morning.   We did very little going (with buggy and team for many years), only on Sunday.   I pledged twenty-flve cents a week for a time for my giving.

Going back--I taught my first term of school, beginning In the fall of 1910.   I taught the Voorhees school.   I had six pupils.   I don't remember how many grades I had, but had one boy in 8 or 9th grade taller than I.  I was nineteen.   He probably was about that age too.   I boarded with a family named Harvey.

The next fall, I taught the Lafayette school.   Teachers were plentiful in those days.   When I went to apply for the school, they told me they had several big boys that ran out all the teachers.   I could have the school if I could find a boarding place and thought I could manage the school.  They would pay me $42.50 per month.   I found a boarding place and had no trouble with the boys.   This was a larger school, and I enjoyed it very much.

They asked me to go back another year, but I had a chance to teach the first and second grades in town for another year.   I road home every weekend, twenty miles, horseback, then back on Sunday p.m.   Correction here--I went to high school in the year 1912, taught in 1913 and 1914, then married October 10, 1915.

When I finished grade school, there was no high school in the county.  So I went to Normal, got a second and third grade certificate and taught.  Mary started with the first class.   She was one of the three first high school graduates in the school.   Zana Madden and Gertle Helfrich were the others.   Clarence Thompson taught Mary and I in grade school, then in high school.   He then taught Frank and Florence in their high school year’s.

Zana Madden Prine also was their teacher In high school.

Here I would like to go back and try to relate as well as I can remember some of our experiences on the tree claim, now the home of Frank and Catherine Ellsaesser.

My father and mother had very little money to start building a home.  Being a child, I am sure I did not realize how little.   I remember the first team Father bought, one a Beautiful black mare we called "Bird"; for lack of money, the other was a little bay bronco, unbroken.   0h! the grief of keeping her in harness.   But Bird was steady and well broken, which helped to keep things together.   Father started breaking sod with a walking plow and two horses.

I cannot relate the next few years in the farming department.   No doubt there were years when crops burned up from hot wind and lack of rain.   One year we did not have corn to feed the team.   Had to buy corn.   Turned out it was wormy.   One night after work, Bird began staggering all the time.   Became worse as dark came on.   She became blind.   She did that all night.   Toward morning, she fell and never got up again.

This is another thing I will never forget.   Mary and I cried as if she was a member of the family.   I am sure Father and Mother had deeper feelings.  We had to have another horse.   No money.   He borrowed money--maybe from his sister in Indiana.   That was a blight upon any one's name, to borrow money.  He got a beautiful big and steady bay mare from a Mr. Mann east of Hugoton for $125.   We called her Bird.   We had her for years.   Drove her single in the buggy.   Rode her for the cows.   You ask Russell Smith about Bird.   He knows her.   We drove her to school.   I have taken many a pound of butter and crate of eggs to town in the buggy with her.   But we still had one good horse and a bronc to farm with.

As the years went on, only a few things stood out.   I think this must have been our first cow.   She was a Holstein.   There were no fences, we turned her out of a morning.   Watched her through the day.   Sometimes she would get out of sight.   At this time I remember Father got a job helping to build a house for the old folks Mason on the Cimarron river.   He would come home weekends.   One night there was a storm coming up.   Got dark early.   Mother, Mary and I hitched up Bird to the buggy.   Started in the direction we thought Old Spot would be.   After what seemed like a long time, we found her.   Tied her to the back of the buggy and started home.   Was lightning and looked like the storm was near.  Spot didn't lead very well, so I was the one to get out with a stick to try to encourage her.   The lightning helped to see our way.   Another longer way back home.   After an endless time we arrived, tied Spot to the windmill tower, got Bird out of the shafts and in the stable.   Got in the house and the storm broke.   (I have always thought God was watching over us.)   A terrific wind with the downpour.   We kept looking out to see how Spot was faring when the lightning came.   We heard a terrible crash.

The next lightning struck we saw the windmill blew over. North away from the house and the cow.   All was well, only it was a long time before I got all the cactus stickers and sandburs out of my feet and legs.

After a term of years, we got a small herd of cattle.   Don't ask me how I remember.

Father liked the red cattle.   He had a chance to get a couple heifers.  Mother thought he paid too much for them.   0h, he was so proud of them.   We finally got a herd of ten or twelve.   Six or eight of the red ones.   I never will forget how straight their backs were and so well built.   Still no fences.  Turned them out In the morning.   Watch the direction they went. North and west, where Henry Schmidt's place and west.   By then we had a riding horse.  Mary did the riding.   She liked it better than work at home.

One night a storm and rain came up early.   Mary started early but had to come home without the cows.   In those days people were coming in to take up claims.   Everyone planted (black top) cane.   It could take dry weather and made good feed.   If cattle ate it when wet, it would bloat them.   The next morning, Mary went to hunt the cows.   She found them.   Six of Father's nice red cows were bloated to the limit, dead.   She drove the living ones home, a very tearful and sad girl.   I don't suppose that scene of those dead cattle ever left her.

The subject of "fuel" was an important one in those days.   (Cowchips), that was something my mother could never cope with.   Washed her hands every time she fed them to the stove if she didn't put on mittens.   You will find some place the poem my father wrote, "Chipping on the Plains."   I remember so well the beautiful mornings.   Father would hitch the team to the wagon with high side boards.   He had fixed a big Long box with tin fastened to the bottom so it would slip easily over the grass.   Mary and I with a big bucket or sack.   When filled with chips we would return to the wagon, Father emptied into the wagon.   Back and forth until the wagon was filled.   Mother fixed us a picnic dinner.   We tried to kid ourselves--it was a picnic.   0h! how I hated it.   But I believe my father really enjoyed the day.   In the fall we made many of these trips to fill the chip house he had made close to the kitchen door.

As the years passed, Father joined the men with teams and wagons that traveled to Liberal for supplies.   "Freighters."   Took them two days to make the trip.   Traveled across country.   By then land was being fenced and many, many gates had to be opened and closed.   By this time we had some coal to burn with the chips.   You have no idea how that helped for heating.   Less carry in and carrying out ashes.   We finally got a good cook stove with a reservoir in back filled with hot water, if you kept it filled.   0h what a luxury to fill the wash tub in front of the oven for a bath.

Mother made our soap from rinds and waste fat from our own butchering.  Cured hams and shoulders. Fried the sausage and poured over it the lard we had rendered.   Had to eat our liver, heart, and bony pieces in a hurry before they spoiled.   No refrigeration, only the milk trough where the well pumped in on its way out to the horse trough where

the stock drank.   Mother kept the skimmed cream cool to churn then kept the milk and butter cool.   She got our groceries by selling butter and eggs.

By now, the passing years had brought some improvements.   Some of the years brought good crops.   Broom corn, cut by hand, finally baled.   Hauled thirty miles to market.   Corn and feed for the enlarging slowly, herd of cattle.   We would have a steer or two to sell every now and then.   My father still had dreams.   He thought some day Huguenot would be another New York.  I never go back there and see what the gas wells have done for the country, that I don't think of him and his unlimited faith in the country.   What it has done for his family and later generation that came after him.

I do not know what year he bought the quarter south of the homestead.  As I remember it--I may be mistaken, for thirty-five dollars.   A little later the quarter north of it for less I am sure.

One item of earlier years I failed to mention.   For a number of years we hauled water on a cart and horses from town.   The well was in the center of town.   People came from all directions much farther than we did for their water supply.   What an event in our lives, that was when we had a well of our own.   It seems to me it was Kitty Bell that dug it.   That was Cliff Bell's brother.   Cliff was our teacher as long as I went to school.   He graded my examination papers that gave me my two third, and one second grade certificates so I could teach school.

I now I would like to tell you something of my marriage.   It must have been in the year of 1912.   Rollo came from his home in Missouri to Hugoton.  He with his cousin George Ellsaesser traveled all over the country selling trees.   That may have been where my father got the trees he planted in the grove north of the house.   In that year Rollo filed on a claim north some place in the hills.   He didn't keep it long.   Was too sandy to farm as I remember.   He taught the White school north of us that winter.   It was located east of the highway and where Ed Farmer's place used to be.   That was the year I went to high school.   In that year at the close of school, we had a high school picnic at the river.   They hired Rollo and his team and wagon to take us to the last day of school picnic.   The school was quite small as it had just been in existence a couple of years.   That was the first time Rollo and I had ever met.   We sat together during the picnic dinner on the bank of the Cimmeron.&bnsp;  For some reason he was very attentive to me all day.   That's when it all started.   That fall I started teaching in town, he was my County Superintendent of Schools.   We courted for two years in a buggy with two work horses.   His term of office ran out and he wanted to farm.   We were married October 10, 1915 at the home.   Our pastor, Delmer Tingle (later Mary's husband) married us at five o'clock on Sunday P.M.

We immediately moved to a two roomed house about two miles straight north from my home.   It was called the Eiseminger place.   A family from the east had taken the claim.   Couldn't make a living so went back east and left it.   We lived there that winter till late spring.   Rollo bought the 160 acres west of town three or four miles.   No house on it so we moved on the place on the highway west of our farm a half mile till we got a house.   Frank was born there August 20, 1916.   We lived there and Rollo farmed our quarter.   Florence was born there October 20, 1917.   Rollo finally found a two room house some place near the Campaign school house.   It was dirty beyond description and infested with bed bugs, which I fought till we left there in 1936.

We moved on our own place when Florence was a few months old.   We were fortunate we had a well --- quite close to the house.   No running water--no bathroom.   No electricity.   I had a hand washer and wringer.   In a year or two we decided to sell the little home in town I had bought while I was teaching.   We put the money into the kitchen we built on south of the house.  We felt we were living in luxury.

At that time Papa ran a pipe from an elevated tank by the well.   I had a sink and water in the house.   Mr. and Mrs. Guy Hill lived east of town.  He was a carpenter by trade.   He helped Rollo with the building and water system and kitchen.   We had fair crops some years and added to the herd of cattle and horses to carry on the farming.

.August 25, 1919, I had an operation at Liberal.   Had my right ovary and appendix removed.   Don't ask me how we paid for that.   That next January of 1920 we all had the flu.   I had it all winter and summer.   Coughed all the time.   Had no help with Frank four years old, Florence three.   Harley was born that year, August 2, 1920.   A little five pound boy we could find nothing he could eat.   Nothing agreed with him.   After months, we found oatmeal gruel seemed to satisfy him.   He began to grow some.

However, I was happy.   This was just the family I always wanted.   Two boys and two girls.   This was it.   At this point I got ahead of myself.   Grace was born May 19, 1923.   She-was the fourth one I was so happy about.   She was the best baby I had so far.   Florence was such a little mother at six years old.   She was such a help to me.   I was all prepared to start caring for my little family.   I thought I was the luckiest wife and mother in the world.   I went no place but to town once in awhile and church on Sunday.

My health was fair and we were doing fairly well with crops, had plenty to eat such as it was.   About this time Rollo's mother was quite sick in California.   His folks wanted us to visit them for several years.   We just couldn't see that we could.   We had a good crop in the year 1924.   We made plans to go in November.   Then we found that Dortha was to be born.

In February, 1925 Rollo said--Oh, we would be back before that, we just as well go.   I didn't tell Mother about this so she wouldn't worry.   Before we got off, my father passed away.   We left I believe in latter part of November in the Model T Ford.   Rollo fixed the front seats some way to lay back so it made a bed In the car.   Must have had a tent.   The girls and I slept each night in the car.   Rollo and boys slept outside.   No difficulties too serious I guess.   Don't remember how many days it took us.   We were a very tired happy bunch when we arrived.

Rollo's folks had a very nice home.   Had built a large room back of the house some years before.   So we had this room where we all slept.   It opened up on the back porch.   His mother was in bed most of the time.   I did the cooking and took care of the house.   We were having a wonderful time.   When all took the flu but me.   We almost lost Frank.   His went into pneumonia.  Rollo's sister nurse, Edith, came home, another nurse with her.   They were with him day and night.   He was so sick for so long we couldn't think of starting home.

February 9, 1925 Dortha was born in a sort of private place called the "Stork’s Nest."   I got home from the hospital Frank still was not doing well.   I gave blood for his blood transfusion.   He started improving.   Then we had to wait for the baby to get old enough to travel.   The first part of April we planned to start home.   Rollo, Frank, Florence and Harley in the car.   Grace, almost two years old, Dortha about six weeks, on the train.  I didn't nurse her.   Had to warm her formula on an alcohol lamp.   I really don't know how I managed about diapers--I assure you I had no Pampers.

We had to change cars at Dodge City.   Got a hotel room for the night.  The next afternoon we got to Hugoton.   Mother met us with horse and buggy.  I think Rollo had some various experience on their trip.   I won't go into that.   I am sure Frank and Florence can relate those.

That summer we had no rain.   I remember quite well in August we had a little rain.   Rollo planted cane for hay.   That was all the rain we had that year.   But the cane made good.   The next few years were hard because of drought, hail or what have you.   But that trip was a high point In my life.   We spent our entire crop money of the year 1924.   I felt so good while there and came home with renewed energy.   In 1926 we had a good wheat crop.   Best we ever had before or since.   Sold it for twenty-five cents per bushel.

Here I was knocked for a loop again--Lola was to be born October 21, 1926.   That summer, Charlie and Louise came from Missouri.   Charlie helped us in harvest.   He and Rollo built on the two bedrooms on the north side of the house.   Built on the front porch and the bathroom.   We felt we were very prosperous.

In August of 1931 during wheat harvest, Rollo became quite sick.   Finally got him to the hospital in Liberal.   He lay for weeks with so much poison in his system they couldn't operate.   They couldn't get his system cleared up, so they operated any how.   They found his appendix had burst some time before--a tough sack had surrounded it.   They were afraid to try to remove it.   Sowed him up and put tubes In his side to drain out the pus.   If he lived, planned to operate again and remove all that poison.   He never went back.   Charley was with him.   I didn't know his condition till years later in 1961 when I visited Charley and Louise in California.   The doctor told him he was not to work hard for a year.   He came home after seven weeks in the hospital.   The boys and I, with John Lynch, finished the harvest.  Frank was sixteen Harley was eleven years old.   Frank worked with Mr. Lynch.  Harley hauled the grain to market in a rattle trap truck.   Lola was around five.   Florence took care of the children for me.   I tried to drive to Liberal every weekend to see Rollo with a rattle trap Ford.   At the end of seven weeks, I was so down in my back I could hardly straighten up.

I remember after Rollo got home it was the problem of paying the hospital bill.   It was finally agreed the hospital would take beef for their pay.  I have no Idea how large the bill was.   But we butchered our young cattle that winter till the bill was paid.

The next spring Rollo rented more land and borrowed money from the government to put in more crop.   The next year was dry.   Didn't raise enough to pay off the government loan.   They kept track of us when we left and went to Canon City.   We couldn't pay It then.   He finally paid it off after we came to Ordway.   Took it out of his old age pension check for months.   I am sure he always did the very best he could.   Things just seemed to work out backwards for him.   His health was against him for years.   I am sure I didn't have as much sympathy for him as I should.

Another trying time In our lives was when the children all but Frank had scarlet fever.   I can't give the date--Florence and Frank were in high school.   Florence came home with a rash.   She soon got over it.   The rest of the family came down with same thing only more severe.   A bad sore throat.  We finally got a doctor.   He pronounced it scarlet fever and quarantined us.   We were in quarantine for eleven weeks.   In those days doctors were scarce.   In all of those weeks we couldn't get a doctor.   I just took care of them.   Used home remedies.   It was in early spring.   Lola was quite small, one and a half or two years old.   I remember her throat was so sore.   We had just butchered a hog.   I put fresh fat meat tied around her throat.  That seemed to take care of her.

I am sure you children can remember about Harley.   He was feeling quite good.   Got on his bicycle and rode a half mile or more.   Took a back set and was sicker than before.   And then after the worst was over, the skin peeled off in ribbons.   Had to wait till that was all over before the quarantine could be lifted.   We took Frank to Grandma’s.   The reason he didn't take it

I will just touch on the following years.   You children have these years more accurate in your mind than I have.   In 1934 and 1935 we were beginning to think of higher education for Frank and Florence.   Something Rollo and I never had.   We always planned to send Frank to Manhattan.   But because of the lack of money, he started to Goodwell.   That was a long struggle for us all.   We all helped each other.   It was only by determination, work, and prayers it was accomplished.

Florence and the Wells girl planned to go to Wichita, was it?  To take nurses training in the fall of 1936.   There was no crop that summer.   We decided to move to Canon City.   We moved in August of 1936.   Florence helped me clean the house to make it livable.   She and Rollo went to Colorado Springs to see about to get her training in the Epworth Hospital there.  That is a story in itself.

We were in Canon till March of 1942 when we moved to Ordway.   This five and a half years in Canon would fill a book if put on paper.   We bought the house north of Canon for $500.   Sold it for $1500.   Bought the little place on Cottonwood Road in Ordway.   What little we got out of the Kansas farm bought the place where Rollo farmed.   But raised little on it.   Rollo wasn't able to farm, so moved to town in 1948.   Traded the home place for the home on Idaho Street.   We lived there till Rollo's death July 27, 1957.

I moved into my little house, lived there until August 28, 1961 when I bought this home in January, 1962 for $2500 from Raymond Forcher after Fred's death.   I have now lived here for twelve years in August.

My life has been completely filled with joy and happiness.   I sometimes feel I have more happiness than any one human could expect or deserve.  God has been so good to me in spite of my mistakes and faults he continues to bless me.   You children and your families are such a joy to me and I feel He has blessed you in your Christian homes and families too.

I so firmly believe this promise--"All things work together for good to those who love God."   I hope and pray that the lives I have touched, as well as my loved ones may have been benefited for good by my life.

March 28, 1973