Bejot Pioneer Letter
A first-person account of homesteading in Nebraska, as written by Mary Emma Sinele Bejot. Special thanks to Rita Kunz Turner for passing on this 1929 account by her aunt. Rita herself had received this account from Arnold Bejot, her second cousin once removed, the great-grandson of Joseph Cincinnatus.
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Joseph Cincinnatus Bejot & Mary Emma Sinele
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February 13, 1884, we started, my husband and I, from Elvaston, Ill. to
Nebraska. [When] we crossed the Mississippi at Keokuk, [it] was 16 below
zero. We had two babies, age 15 months (Gene) and 6 weeks (Amile).
We had our household good and three horses. We traveled on the train.
The coaches then had stoves to warm them.
We arrived in
Ainsworth, Nebraska the fifteenth of February. It was very cold. We
lived in a dug-out 'till we moved on the homestead [on] the last day of March
1884. We used water from the creek nearly four months 'till my husband
could dig a well. It was boarded up to keep it from caving in.
My husband
broke 60 acres of prairie that summer and planted 20 acres of sod corn with the
spade, one hill at a time. [We] also planted potatoes the same way.
There were melons and cucumbers planted. The crops growed [sic]
nicely for a time, but July 12 we had a bad hail storm. There was nothing
left of the corn but the stub at the bottom of the hill. The melons and
cucumbers [had] just the roots left, but they growed [sic]. We had
lots of melons to eat and I put up 15 gallons of pickles. The weather was
fine 'till the twelfth of December. We had 60 days of the coldest I ever
saw. Our nearest neighbour, a bachelor, was found frozen to death.
He had walked to Ainsworth.
My husband
hauled wood from Fairfield, 23 miles northwest of Ainsworth. Part of the
time he tried to get wood closer to home. Our shack was 12 x 14 feet.
It was boarded up and down with sod around it. After all this cold weather
was the nicest climate anyone could wish. The cold was from 18 to 35 below
zero and we heard it [was] 44 below on the old railroad bridge. I
always dread every winter since that time.
This summer
my husband planted 60 acres of corn [that] was as nice corn as I ever saw 'till
the dry weather and hot winds came. We had no rain from the twelfth of
June 'till the fourth of August. This summer the corn dried up. I
never saw such hot winds and warm weather as it was in 1885. The next year
the corn was planted. We had more rain. We had lots of wind; it
blowed [sic] out most of the corn [and] also blowed great holes in the
land. We called them "blow outs." [There] was some corn this year.
We had a few acres of potatoes. The bugs eat [sic] them all.
After this year my husband farmed away from home.
About this
time [we] sold cotton wood cuttings. With this money we bought two cows.
I was sure glad to have them. We had no pasture so had to stake them out.
The crops were poor. One year we had 100 bushels of corn to tell; [they]
was worth 17 cents a bushel. The first chickens I bought I give $1 for
four and two died. I raised 26 from the two that were left. By this
time we had four little boys.
In 1888 was
the time of the big
blizzard.1
It was as nice as a May morning, 30 above zero by 9 o'clock.
The blizzard came like a big wall of snow. [It] was the the worst storm I
ever saw. [It] was 30 below zero next morning... Did not seem to be much
snow on the ground.
The crops
were poor and the homestead nothing much but blowsand. We had quite a lot
of sand cherries to eat. They grow on a small bush. The whiter the
sand, the better the cherries were. In 1889, the stork visited at our
house [for Leon's birth]. It was in June. I was alone with my four
little boys, the oldest six years and eight months. My husband was away
working. [I] must say we got along as well as could be expected.
I wanted to
move so that I could get close to school. We [im]proved up on our
homestead and we moved near school. My oldest son was nice years old when
he first went to school. We live near the car track. We had lots
better crops here on this place. The man that lived here had eleven nice
yearling heifers. He offered them to my husband for $75 but we could not
buy them as we had no money. Fat cattle were worth 1
½ cents per pound at that time. We lived on
this place thirty years. There was hardly one day passed that I did not
feed one or two tramps and sometimes a half dozen a day.
We prospered
by we all worked awful hard. We had more rain. We raised quite a
little corn. Then we had the hot winds again. We had 60 acres of
corn. All we got was twelve bushels. By that time we had forty head
of cattle. It was so dry, we had very little hay. My husband herded
them most of the time that winter on the prairie. The next year was
better. We had more rain by that time. People could not pasture
their corn stocks as it killed the cattle.
In 1915 we
had lots of snow. It blocked the railroad. We could look for the big
snow plough. At this time it was Saturday night. We were eight in
[the] family then. So that day I cooked and baked all day so I wouldn't
have so much to do on Sunday. Those men who were clearing the railroad
came for supper. I do not know how many there were. Must have been
25 or more. Their clothes were all wet. They had nothing to eat
since morning. They said the hot coffee I gave them was the best things
they had had for a long time. I was glad I could do a little for them.
The snow was
so deep, my husband went to Long Pine the February 3rd, but did not go with a
team until the tenth of April. [It] was all the horses could do to get
through the road. The snow covered the fence [with] just the post sticking
through once in a while. By this time my children all had homes of their
own.
We stayed on
the ranch ten years after they left, then we sold out. We had a sale and
everything brought a good price. We then went to live near my son.
We lived there five years. I must say I was never so happy as I was then.
My little grandchildren [Bernice and Jerome Jr.] came to see me every day.
The baby [Lois] came too when she got that she could walk. We then moved
to town.
It is a very
lonesome place. If anyone thinks it is fun to come out West and take a
homestead, they're sadly mistaken. We are old people now. My husband
is 70 years old and I am one year younger.
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1 Read description of the Blizzard of 1888 in this excerpt from The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin.
