 C. T. GREWELL AND FAMILY. |
tions are with the Masonic order, standing high in its councils as he has taken the Thirty-second degree, he is also a Shriner and a member of the Modern Woodmen. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church and Mr. Buckner was a delegate to the general conference in New York. In 1905, Mr. Buckner married Miss Lola M. Danforth, a native of Jefferson county, Nebraska, the daughter of George Danforth, who was one of the gallant soldiers of the Civil War. He was a well educated man of high culture and attainments. Soon after the close of the war he laid aside the sword for the pursuits of peace, and while he did not take up the plowshare did his part even more worthily as he was a member of the surveying party which laid out the route of an early railroad across the state of Nebraska. Later, when the pioneer construction of the road was completed he became one of the first merchants of Alexandria, where he was engaged in business for many years. He lived until 1917. Mrs. Buckner was educated in the excellent schools of her native town and since her school days were over has ever continued to broaden and cultivate her mind by wide and judicious reading; she is a gracious and charm-woman (sic) who has a host of friends and is the able and capable chatelain (sic) of the beautiful Buckner home, which is one of the most hospitable houses in the Panhandle. There are three children in the family: Frances A., twelve years of age in school; Wilbur G. and Harold B. CHARLES T. GREWELL. -- Included among the substantial pioneer farmers and stock-raisers of Scottsbluff county, Charles Grewell is also known as a progressive, useful, and energetic citizen whose public spirited services have contributed in no small way to the advancement and development of his community's interests. For thirty-six years he has been a resident of the Morrill valley, and there has identified himself with many of the movements that have served to aid in progress both agricultural and along civic lines; for he has seen pass before his eyes the panorama of change that first showed the rolling prairies covered with the curly buffalo grass and wild flowers, then it was covered with the vast herds of cattle during the heigh-day of the cattle business, following that came the few farms far apart and scattered, then closer settlement, and finally to crown all, irrigation was introduced so that the wilderness countryside now blossoms like the rose; and today he sees the Panhandle the garden spot of our great state, and in all and to all this marvelous progress he has liberally contributed. Charles F. Grewell was born in Illinois, February 18, 1863, the son of Christopher and Mary J. (Hewett) Grewell, to whom were born ten children but only two of them came west, Charles and his sister, Mary, who married Henry Rose, and now lives in Wyoming. The father was a farmer and stock-raiser in Illinois, who came to Nebraska in 1892, one of the pioneer settlers of this section, 1896, as he located on section 34, Sheep Creek township, the place which Charles today owns. The home place consisted of a quarter section on which Christopher Grewell carried on farming occupation until his death in 1907, Charles grew up on his father's farm in Illinois, attended the district schools near his home where he laid the foundation for an excellent practical education. As soon as his age and strength permitted he began to assume many tasks that are ever to be found in the country and while still young had a good practical knowledge of farm business. When the family came west he accompanied them, assisted in the establishment of a home in the new country, broke the prairie sod and assisted his father in every way to make the good and permanent improvements on the farm. He was far-sighted, shrewd in his business dealings, and was one of the first men to realize that the day of the open range on the prairies was doomed and that the future of the cattle businss (sic) was to be in the hands of the farmer who would raise fewer but high grade animals for the market. With this end in view he early induced his father to add stock-raising to his general farming so that with the gradual withdrawal of the range cattle they began to deal more and more in farm bred animals, and thus were some of the first men of the valley to begin shipping to eastern markets. Upon his father's death, Mr. Grewell took the old home place. He had already become a large landholder on his own account and today is the proprietor of an extensive landed estate of six thousand, four hundred and forty acres. Today Mr. Grewell is not only one of the richest farmers of the Platte valley, but he is also one of the largest stock-raisers of a district known for its wealthy, prosperous cattle men. He is modern in his ideas of farm management and has inaugurated the theories and practices of the best farm experts of the state and nation and finds that they pay. From the first he has held that high bred stock brought in the greatest returns and has specialized in White Faced cattle on his ranch, shipping carload lots out of the valley each year. In Feb- |
ruary, 1913, Mr. Grewell married Mrs. Mertle Fuller, and to them one child has been born, Wesley C. Mrs. Newell had two children by her former marriage, Von and Mona. Mr. and Mrs. Grewell are highly respected in the Morrill community, active and gracious in social circles, and it is not surprising that they have a host of friends. Mr. Grewell is a Democrat in politics, while his fraternal affiliations are with the Modern Woodmen and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. WILLIAM P. MILES, prominent pioneer, leading member of the bar of the state of Nebraska and well known real estate man of Sidney has seen nearly of half century pass since he came to a veritable wilderness, where habitations were few and where civilization was still in its primitive form. Mr. Miles is one of the worthy and sturdy pioneers who came to Nebraska just a decade after the territory was admitted to statehood, the first period of his residence within the borders of this commonwealth having been passed in Lincoln county. He has contributed to the civic and industrial development and progress of every community where he has resided, representing the best in communal life and spirit and has borne with fortitude and unwavering faith and confidence the hardships and trials of frontier life. Mr. Miles is one of the far-sighted men, filled with energy, who had the vision to make the most of the opportunities offered in connection with the development and growth of a new country and has achieved success through his professional and business interests. Of Irish descent he was born strong of decision, judgment and with pronounced self-independence. During all of his life he has had a dislike for the affected or pretentious, and despised hypocracy (sic), deceit and dishonesty. Within a period of some thirty years of his professional activity in this state, Mr. Miles has won, and still maintains, for himself a reputation of being one of the strongest and most resourceful lawyers in western Nebraska. No member of the Cheyenne county bar has participated in more contested cases and with such great success. His whole aim in the work has been not so much for the material gain as to obtain justice for his clients. His judgment of men is recognized by all, and this attribute alone has never failed him in selecting a jury, and in questioning the witnesses. His mental make is about as follows: he is honest, he is keen, with a bright mind stored with legal lore; gentle in spirit and retiring, he yet stands as one of the central figures; he has a liberal education of his own winning, and is an able advocate. Mr. Miles is a native of the Bay state, born in Middlesex county, Massachusetts, May 23, 1856, the son of Thomas and Johanna (Tooney) Miles, the former a native of County Limmerick and the mother of County Cork, Ireland. They were reared and given such education as could be afforded them in their native land and there married. Both were young, ambitious and had heard from many of their returned countrymen of how they had been able to get ahead in America, so they too decided to hazard fortune in the New World. Thomas Miles and his wife landed in the United States in 1846, and were soon located in Massachusetts where he worked in one of the many shoe factories of that state, but he was not to live to enjoy long the country of his adoption as he died June 11th, of that year. This left the mother and oldest children to shoulder the burdens of the family of nine, as there were eight children, but where there is a will there is a way and all grew up to become fine citizens of our great country and well-to-do men and women. William P. received an excellent practical education in the fine public schools of Massachusetts, where his boyhood was spent. He realized the necessity of helping himself and worked at any honest employment when his years permitted and after leaving school started out independently in life. He was nineteen years of age and at the zenith of his physical and mental powers when he came to Nebraska in 1877, to accept a government position as teamster on one of the government routes to the west. For a time he remained in Lincoln county, then came to Sidney, where he worked while reading law. Mr. Miles had opportunity to look the country over and he at this early date had a vision of what the Panhandle was to become. This was in 1888, when central and western Nebraska was very different in appearance from today; then the rolling prairies stretched on and on unbroken for miles by habitation or fence. Soon after settling in Sidney Mr. Miles entered the law office of Norvall and McIntosh, where he diligently applied himself to study, soon mastering enough of the intricacies of the law to go up for his bar examination which he passed with brilliancy in 1888, a record that is not often attained today. Within a short time after being admitted to practice he was elected county attorney of Cheyenne county, capably serving in this office four years. He rapidly achieved success as a lawyer and became affili- |
ated with the rising Republican party, and to this day has remained a loyal member of that great national organization, honoring it and frequently being honored by it, being eminent and influential in its councils for many years. Soon after locating in the Panhandle Mr. Miles became interested in business life, being one of the prime spirits in the organization of the Home Land Company of Sidney. The business grew with gratifying rapidity and soon assumed large proportions under the able guidance of Mr. Miles, who eventually bought the controlling interest in the concern and in 1917 reorganized it under the name of the William P. Miles Land Company. From time to time as the capital permitted Mr. Miles invested in land in Cheyenne county and later in the Panhandle until today these holdings are extensive and very valuable. For over thirty years Mr. Milles has been attorney for the Union Pacific Railroad and has been a potent factor in its affairs in this locality during the quarter of a century which has marked the great development of this section of the state. For many years from his coming to Sidney Mr. Miles took an active part in politics of western Nebraska; he was a Taft man but after that campaign ceased to take an active part in political affairs. He was Republican delegate to the National Convention in 1904, was a member of the committee on rules. Fraternally he is associated with the Knights of Columbus, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and with his family is a devout member of the Roman Catholic church, a faith in which he was reared. The Miles home is not only one of the finest in Sidney but of the state and there the many friends of the family enjoy the generous hospitality dispensed by both Mr. Miles and his charming wife. From year to year Mr. Miles has been accumulating a fine library, as he is an omnivorous reader on a wide range of subjects and as a result of this wide range of literature which he has pursued he is today one of the highly educated and cultured men of the legal profession. His library is one of the largest and most select collections in Nebraska. In 1901, Mr. Miles married Miss Eva Whitman, who was born in Galesburg, Illinois, but reared in Iowa and Dodge county, Nebraska. She was attending school when Mr. Miles met and married her. They have two daughters: Eva, who is the wife of M. J. Flintzer, a prominent business man of Sidney; and Mildred, who is the wife of R. W. Bauer, of the Sun Drug Company, of Lincoln, Nebraska. Time may bring additional honors to Mr. Miles; it may enlarge his field of activities and. usefulness, it may broaden his acquaintance; but it cannot augment the esteem, confidence and affection with which he is regarded by those who really know him. ESTHER M. JOHNSON. -- Few states in the Union have manifested in connection with their education systems as full and merited appreciation of women in scholastic executive office as has Nebraska, and numerous counties in the state have gained unequivocally through selection of women for such responsible and exacting academic and executive positions as that of county superintendent of schools. Thus Garden county has. had much to gain and nothing to lose in the able administration which Miss Esther M. Johnson is giving in the office of county superintendent of school. She is possessed of high intellectual attainments, a definite prerequisite for the incumbency that is now hers, and is showing also a really remarkable constructive and administrative powers in the systematizing and advancing of the important work in her jurisdiction. Miss Johnson was born in Red Willow county, Nebraska, and is a daughter of Alfred and Hannah (Pierson) Johnson, who were born in Sweden and who were young folk when they came to the United States. After coming to Nebraska Mr. and Mrs. Johnson became pioneer settlers in Red Willow county, where he filed entry on a homestead and where she took up a pre-emption claim. With undaunted courage and faith they essayed the task of reclaiming their land and developing a productive farm, a work in which they succeeded admirably. They continued to reside on their land, which they had equipped with good improvements, until the death of Mr. Johnson, on June 24, 1904, and within a short time thereafter Mrs. Johnson rented the farm and removed with her children to Lebanon, that county. There she remained until 1918, when she removed to Garden county, and has since made her home with her daughter Esther M., whose name initiates this review. Miss Johnson passed the period of her childhood and early youth on the old home farm, and in the meanwhile she fully availed herself of the advantages of the public schools of her native county, including the high school at Lebanon. In futherance of her higher academic education she entered the Nebraska State Normal School at Kearney, from which institution she was graduated as a member of the class of 1914. She passed the following year |
with her widowed mother, and thereafter was for three years a successful and popular teacher in the public schools at Lewellen, Garden county, where she was a teacher in the high school at the time when she was appointed county superintendent of schools, to fill an unexpired term. This appointment was made on March 1, 1918, and in November of the same year she was elected, on a non-partisan ticket, to fill this office for a term of four years, her election having shown that in the intervening months her administration had met with unqualified popular approval. Under election Miss Johnson initiated her administration in January, 1919, and the results of her work since that time have fully demonstrated the wisdom of the popular vote which placed her in office. She has the earnest co-operation of the teachers of the county, as well as of the people who support the excellent schools, and she is zealous and indefatigable in her work. Miss Johnson was reared in the faith of the Methodist church, of which she is a communicant. NICHOLAS E. ZEHR, the owner-manager of a popular barber shop of Chappell, was born in Livingston county, Illinois, March 30, 1871, the son of Christian and Catharine (Roth) Zehr, the former a native of Alsace-Lorraine, (France) while the mother was born in Ohio. The father was a farmer who came to the United States in 1856, locating first in Illinois but in 1880, he came to Nebraska, settled in Seward county where he lived until his death in 1907. Mrs. Zehr returned to Illinois after the death of her husband, where she resided until she died in 1910. Mr. Zehr was a Democrat and both he and his wife were members of the Mennonite church. There were thirteen children in the family but Nicholas is the only one in this locality, a brother joseph (sic), lives in Arthur county. Mr. Zehr was educated in the public schools of Seward county and recalls the great blizzard of 1888, when he and the teacher helped many of the pupils to get home and even then some were forced to stay in the school house all night. In 1893, he came to Deuel county, beginning to work on a farm in March, remained engaged in that work several years and then accepted a position with Wertz Brothers on the ranch. Five years later Mr. Zehr came to Chappell to work for them in a hardware store and was associated with this business until the Wertz Brothers sold out in 1908. Soon after this he bought a barber shop where he has been engaged in business to the present time. Mr. Zehr has made may friends in Chappell due to his courtesy and kindness, has built up a good business and today is regarded as one of the reliable and substantial men of the town. November 9, 1893, Mr. Zehr married Miss Nancy Roth, at Chappell, the daughter of Jacob and Lydia (Stutzman) Roth, pioneer settlers of Deuel county. Mr. Roth now lives at Nampa, Idaho, his wife having died in 1908. Three children have been born to this union: William, Edna and Nicholas, all at home. Mrs. Zehr and the children are members of the Methodist church while Mr. Zehr belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America. He is a Democrat, was assessor of Deuel county two years and served as precinct assessor several years. He is progressive in his ideas and one of the substantial men of Deuel county and the Panhandle. SARAH ROSELLA STALNAKER, widow of the late Charles Stalnaker, came to Nebraska in the early days and suffered all the hardships and privations incident to life on the frontier and her reminiscences of that period are interesting. She was born in Jasper county, Iowa, August 16, 1866, the daughter of James R. and Rachael (Cline) Thomas, both natives of Illinois, who had a family of ten children: Warren A., of Washington; Sarah of this review; Anna, deceased; James A., lives in Canada; Ira E., of Oregon; Alice, of Seattle, Washington; William Charles, deceased; Nora, the wife of George Givens, of Shaw, Oregon, and two deceased. Mr. Thomas was a farmer who owned and operated a threshing outfit for many years, in Hamilton county, Nebraska. He served as a private in Company D, One Hundred and fifteenth Illinois Infantry during the Civil War and was very ill; after his discharge from the army in 1865, he moved to Iowa and in 1869, to Hamilton county where the family lived sixteen years. Later Mr. Thomas moved to Dundy county, Nebraska, to the state of Oregon and Ellensburg, Washington, where he and his wife died. Mr. Thomas was a Republican, a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Woodmen, while he and his wife were members of the Christian church. Sarah Thomas Stalnaker was educated in the public schools of Hamilton county, where she came with her parents when four years of age. Her father took up a homestead near Marquette and there she experienced many frontier adventures. She well remembers the trip overland from Iowa, as they drove through with a span of mules, eight cows and |
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