John and Mary Jane (Kendall) Clark: Elderly Settlers of Gage County, Nebraska

Note to my children: John and Mary Jane were the great-grandparents of my dearly loved, paternal grandmother Nora (Clark) Hill.

In about 1855, Gage County was created from Otoe land. By treaty, the Otoes in the vicinity agreed to move to the Otoe (Big Blue) Reservation. Their reserved land measured 25 miles in length east to west and 10 miles north to south, about 160,000 acres. It stretched all the way across southern Gage County, Nebraska, and it extended west into Jefferson County, Nebraska, and south across the state line into Washington and Marshall counties in Kansas.

Map from Wikipedia showing
location of Gage County

Algernon Paddock, a Nebraska senator, then persuaded the U.S. Congress to allow the sale of some of the Otoe lands in 1876. (Read more in the History of Gage County, Nebraska.) By 1883, all of the  reservation was open for settlement, and the Otoes who had lived there had moved (or had been removed) to Oklahoma.

Odell, Nebraska, as shown on the1897
 Galbraith's Mail Service Map of Nebraska

In about 1881, my great-great-great grandparents John Clark and Mary Jane (Kendall) Clark bought 160 acres of land in Paddock Precinct in Gage County, Nebraska, south of Wymore.  Paddock Precinct was made up entirely of former Otoe land. The little village of Odell is listed as John Clark's mailing address in an 1886 Gage County directory. A history of Odell, published in a League of Nebraska Municipalities newsletter, says it was surveyed and laid out in September, 1880, on the former Otoe reservation by Anselmo B. Smith of the Lincoln Land Company.

The Clarks were among hundreds of families who moved into the area after the Otoes were removed. Many of John and Mary Jane's neighbors in southern Gage County were immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Czechoslovakia, and other countries. I don't know if they ever thought about the people who had previously owned the land or wondered how they were doing in Oklahoma. Perhaps they only thought of their hope that Gage County would be a good home for them, a better place than where they came from.

John and Mary Jane were senior citizens when they came to Gage County (69 and 65 years old.) I am surprised that they wanted to tackle the hard work of starting over again, after more than 20 years in Cass County, Iowa. In the absence of family letters or other records, one can only imagine their thoughts. They left children in Cass County and came to Gage County with Thomas Jefferson Clark, their youngest son. Maybe Tom had wanderlust. John and Mary Jane had lost six (or perhaps seven) children by 1881. Maybe they couldn't bear the thought of their youngest son going off alone.

On 20 Nov 1881, soon after the Clarks arrived in Paddock Precinct, Thomas married Mary Elizabeth Mayhew, an English girl who had lived on Otoe Reservation lands for several years with her widowed mother and her brothers. The young couple spent several years in Paddock Precinct, Gage County, probably on the farm with John and Mary. Then, in 1889 when the “Unassigned Lands” in Oklahoma were opened to settlement, Tom was a participant in the Land Run. He obtained property west of Orlando, Oklahoma, and built a log cabin there (information from Ron Porter, a Clark cousin.)

After it was surveyed in 1880, Odell quickly became a thriving prairie village. The Sanborne Fire Insurance map of 1885 shows a variety of buildings along several streets. Here's a list from the map of what John and Mary would have seen when they hitched their horses to the wagon and drove to Odell for supplies. Nearly all of the buildings in Odell at that time were frame structures.

The United Methodist Church built in 1885,
 Odell, Nebraska. Public Domain photo from
Wikimedia Commons by Ammodramus

Bank built in 1885 with native stone,
Odell, Nebraska. Public Domain photo from
Wikimedia Commons by Ammodramus

Lumber yard
Cribs near the railroad tracks (for grain?)
Black Smith and Wagon Shop
Feed Mill
Saw Mill (so it appears) with Circular Saw, 25 HP Engine, Force Pump and a Well in the Engine Room
Livery Stable and Feed Store with Crib in back
A large Ware House
Meat Market
Grocery Store
Bank
Hotel
Post office
Offices (maybe lawyers, doctors, or dentists?)
Millinery Shop
Hardware Store
Drug Store
General Store
Another Hotel with a Well in front of it
Barber Shop
Furniture Store
Cobbler
Sewing Machine Store
2 more grocery stores
Paints and Oil Store
Drug Store
General Store with Watches and Jewelry
Harness Shop
Another Meat Market
Livery, Feed & Sales Barn with a large Corral in back
Ice House
Smoke House
School
Photographer
Another Grocery Store
Another large lumber yard
Another Black Smith and Wagon Shop
Well in front of the Black Smith and Wagon Shop
More Cribs
Coal, Lime, and more Coal storage
Saloon with a Hall on the second floor
Several dozen Dwellings and Stables

John and Mary Jane's second youngest son, John Henry Clay Clark, committed suicide in Cass County, Iowa, in 1882, and their daughter, Ruth, died in Cass County in early November of 1890. These losses were surely hard for parents who had already lost so many children!

Mary Jane died on 23 Dec 1890, probably in her Gage County home, just a month and a half after Ruth's death. Some have suggested that she died in the Thomas Jefferson Clark home in Marshall County, Kansas, but Tom and his family were surely still living in Oklahoma in late 1890.

Samuel Harrison Clark, another of the Clark sons (and my great-great grandfather,) then moved his family to Gage County from Sherman County, Nebraska, where they had been living. He helped John sell the Gage County farm in 1891. After the sale was accomplished, Samuel moved to Oklahoma and spent a short time there before moving to Weld County, Colorado. (Information from cousin Melvin Clark.) Samuel had consumption (TB,) and he and his family were seeking a dryer climate that might help him. He died in Colorado in 1895. John Clark then had only three children still living – his oldest daughter Nancy and his oldest son, Joshua who were both in Cass County, Iowa, and his youngest son, Thomas Jefferson Clark.

I don't know where John moved after he sold the farm.  Maybe he built a little house in one of the little prairie towns (I am only guessing.) By 1895, Thomas Jefferson Clark and his family came back from Oklahoma and began farming in northern Marshall County Kansas, near Oketo, just a few miles southeast of Odell. It is likely that John moved to Marshall County around that time and spent his last years with (or near) Tom and his family.

John Clark died on 1 Feb 1899 in Marshall County. Both John and Mary Jane are buried in Deer Creek cemetery, about 7 miles southwest of Oketo in northern Marshall County, Kansas.
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This blog post about the final years of John Clark and Mary Jane (Kendall) Clark was written by Genevieve L. Netz. Copyright © 2019. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use this document for family tree enrichment only. It may be attached to online Clark family trees. This note about your permission to use this document must remain attached. Any other re-publishing requires written permission. I am always grateful for additions, corrections, and new information. Please contact me at gnetz51@gmail.com

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Hot Summer Days

When our children were growing up, we didn't have air conditioning, so they spent a lot of long, hot summer days amusing themselves in shady spots outside. I lived under the trees a lot during hot summer days when I was a child, too.

During those summers, I started participating in the "Day in the Life of Christian County" photo contest that the Kentucky New Era was running. I packed the kids, water jugs, snacks, and my camera stuff into the pickup truck and we drove the backroads of Christian County to take pictures. It was a good way to pass a long, hot day, and it created some interesting childhood memories for Keely and Isaac that they still enjoy talking about. They especially remember the hot day when the little truck's temperature gauge was well into the red for some reason, and I turned on the heater to expel some of the excess heat of the engine. Whew!

This was a photo that I tried staging for the "people" category of the photo contest one year. I wasn't happy with the color in it, so I didn't submit it. This was during my last few years of film photography, before I got my first little digital camera. I had a lot of trouble with the color in my pictures during that time. I don't know if it was the film, the processing, the printing, the camera, or the photographer. To me, the green in this photo looks weird, even after "photoshopping."

Just some random thoughts about this picture.

Vaguely related:
"Lazy, Hazy Crazy Days of Summer" by Nat King Cole

Tropical Storm Barry in Missouri, 2019

When I made my yearly visit to Kansas in July, 2019, Hurricane Barry was all the talk in the news. (Along with the usual politics, of course.) I was planning to travel through Southern Missouri on the same day that the remnants of Barry blew through, so I followed the reports with interest. I wondered if I would spend the day driving through strong winds, torrential rains, or even severe thunderstorms or tornadoes.

Tropical Storm Barry sky-scape in southwest Missouri

Happily, Barry did not impede my trip at all. I drove in fine mist for several hours in south central Missouri before noon. I paused several times during the day to photograph the dramatic clouds. Those short stops were my only travel slow-downs caused by the weather. In eastern Missouri, I was surprised at the strength of the wind and the high humidity when I stopped to fill up with gas. And that was Barry.

Skies of Tropical Storm Barry in southeast Missouri

Barry's winds in Sikeston, Missouri

Whistle Stop in Hopkinsville

If I had arrived at this intersection a moment earlier, I might have caught the locomotive as it went by the Whistle Stop -- but I missed it. That didn't stop me from trying to get a picture, though. I like the reflections on the wet pavement. And I remember how the train cars were rumbling by when I took the picture, even though it's hard to see them. 

The Whistle Stop has fabulous donuts and rolls. I only allow myself to stop there once in a very great while, but today, I got one of their cinnamon rolls. It was wonderful!

Our Lady of Lourdes

Our Lady of Lourdes stands at the door of the chapel at Mercy Health, a hospital in Paducah, Kentucky. Day and night, season after season, she invites passersby to pause for prayer and meditation. No doubt, she has seen great depths of human desperation, despair and pain, but she continues to offer mercy, healing, and hope.

I once read that the Sioux Indians believed whatever had happened once in a place continued to happen. If there was a terrible, bloody battle in a particular valley, that battle continued for infinity in that place. Perhaps it could be seen only by a few, but it could be felt by anyone who paid attention. I believe there is truth in that.

I think this relates to hospitals and other places where human pain and misery is concentrated. I visit there when I must, and I do experience the suffering, but to this point in my life, I've always been able to leave and go home. The suffering doesn't end when I leave the building, though. Life and death battles continue day and night and, very possibly, throughout eternity in that spot.