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Wilson

Veterinary Medicine on the Farm

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Nebraska Farm Life WWI to WWII is a book written by Richard C. McCall based on a true story of a family growing up on a Nebraska farm. In Chapter 10 “Veterinary Medicine on the Farm” there are several mentions of Con Wilson related to his veterinary work.

“This chapter concerns some of the veterinary problems that we experienced on our farm. We administered most of the veterinary care to our animals ourselves. There was a veterinary in Red Cloud named Doc Hurst, but for some reason or other we never used his services. There was a Dr. Moranville in Guide Rock, who was said to be pretty good, but most of our work was done by a self-taught man named Con Wilson.”

“Cholera was an ever-present problem with hogs…Most of the time, Con Wilson came and administered the vaccine but later during World War II when labor was scarce, we were able to get the vaccine and do it ourselves.”

“There were several instances of cases of lumpy jaw in cattle…A veterinarian would arrive, probably Con Wilson, and treat them with an intravenous injection of calcium into a neck vein.”

“Con Wilson had been called once to clean a cow that had failed to deliver the calf bed. By the time he arrived, this was a very foul smelling, messy job. Dick and Dad were observing and providing some help. Neither of them had the strongest of stomachs and both were wishing they were somewhere else. In the middle of the job, Con withdrew the arm he had had inside the cow, reached into his shirt pocket with that hand, and pulled out a plug of chewing tobacco that he offered to Dad. Dad turned slightly green and left the barn. Dick was amused enough at Dad’s discomfort that he managed to stay to the end.”

Source:
Nebraska Farm Life WWI to WWII
Published 2002
Chapter 10
Pages 79-84 

50 Years Ago – The Virginians

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By. Dr. W.A. Thomas

The Wilsons

There is one fact about John Wilson that we must not forget. Before he left Virginia he had married a Miss Wisecarver. To this circumstance, in some measure, the county is indebted for the presence of Johnson B. Wisecarver, usually called “Jack” Wisecarver, and his brother, Wade Hampton, more generally known as “Hamp” Wisecarver. We do not know that Jack was named for the president, Andy Johnson, but Hamp was undoubtedly named after the famous confederate general and senator of South Carolina. The elder of the two brothers, Johnson, came to this county in the fall of 1878. Perhaps the most notable fact in his career in this county was his victimization by the Nebraska Farm Loan & Trust company, whereby he found himself compelled to pay a mortgage on his farm twice. It is bad enough to pay a mortgage debt once in hard times. When it comes to paying twice with accumulated interest of ten years and costs, it becomes a pretty sore burden. Fortunately Mr. Wisecarver held his farm with a close grip until he was able to sell it two years ago for some eight or nine thousand dollars. Even then he sold it too cheap, as events demonstrated. But he was sagacious enough to invest a good part of the money received in other lands, so that he has been benefited by the general increase in the values of farm property. Mr. Wisecarver married Miss Olive Bean, daughter of the Rev. John Bean, who was so highly esteemed during his residence in the northwest portion of the county. There are two children from this marriage, Bertha, who is now Mrs. Bruce Payne, and the bright Rittlo Ethel, whom we permit almost anybody to endeavor to trip in spelling hard words. Since the sale of the farm Mr. Wisecarver has made his home in this city.

“Hamp” Wisecarver came to the county some years later. He married a Miss Holmes, a niece of Mrs. Arthur Wilson. (article missing) During the tabernacle meetings, it is related that one of the evangelists, seeing the abruption with which “Hamp” listened to the exercises, approached him and asked him if he did not think it was time for him to “give his heart to the Lord.” Without any intention of being offensive, “Hamp” replied, after considerable effort and delay, that he needed it for his own use at present. “Hamp” is now running a lunch counter in the city.

Another Wilson that we should have mentioned in connection with her brothers is Elizabeth, who became the wife of John Marker while in Virginia. The Markers followed the Wilsons to this county, where they lived in unassuming, industrious quietude until the election five years ago, when Miss Lizzie surprised a great many of the people by securing an election to the office of county superintendent, and demonstrated that the Virginia settlers possessed a culture that fitted them for any position. John Marker died three or four years ago, his widow and nine children surviving him. Lizzie is well known to our readers by reason of her four years occupancy of our highest educational position; Annie, nicknamed “Tishie,” is an accomplished stenographer in Minneapolis; John, the oldest boy, is managing the homestead; Dora and Carrie are each married and live just out of the county on the Blue; Albert is in California, and Ford and Lena are on the farm with their mother and John.

No account of the Virginians would be complete which omitted mention of the Paynes. The first to come was F.E., or “Ed” Payne. He arrived in 1877. His father, “Uncle Dick” Payne, came the next year, with his young son, Bruce, and his two daughters. “Uncle Dick” passed away many years ago. “Ed” has been something of a political storm center in Catherton township since his arrival. Before coming of G.P. Cather in 1873, the Norwegians, under the lead of one German, O. Lee, made a settlement on Thompson creek in Franklin county. They were located on lands by an old gentleman named Budlong. By him their corners were pointed out. As their Norwegian friends spread out to the east, they eventually met the Virginians spreading from the north and east. By this time the few (article missing) government corners that had been in the township, if any, had been obliterated, and a dispute arose concerning the lines which divided the people of the township, culminating in a new survey under the direction of a town meeting. There being no authority for such a survey, lawsuits arose which kept the two elements of the township, the Virginians and the Norwegians, in disquietude for some years. It fell to Mr. Payne’s lot to be the center of this controversy, his land being near the center of the township. Mr. Payne has also, from the organization of the populist party, been a warm and leading adherent to that party. He is consequently better known to the people of the county than most of the Virginians. While a strenuous fighter, he has never been accused of anything worse than obstinacy by his opponents, which is not the worst fault that could be laid to a man. Mr. Payne has one daughter, Miss Willella. Bruce Payne is a comparatively young man. He is a graduate of the Red Cloud public schools, and was a soldier in the Philippine war. He married Miss Bertha Wisecarver, and is at present in Herman, Nebraska.

The two daughters who came with “Uncle Dick” are now Mrs. Noah Harvey and Mrs. Finley Hale. Another daughter, Mary, is Mrs. Cooper. We have not the pleasure of an acquaintance with the Coopers and cannot relate any particulars concerning them in this issue.

One more Virginian deserves mention who is no longer a resident of the county, Mr. Will Matheney. Mr. Matheney married a Miss Andrews, a niece of Charles Cather. He sold his farm in this county a few months ago for over $9,000, and he is trying to live a life of comparative ease on his farm near Campbell.

We believe that we have enumerated all the Virginians who have ever settled in the neighborhood of Catherton. It must be admitted that there is a goodly number of them. It is not at all surprising that they thought themselves of consequence to build a church and christen it the New Virginia church.

There is one lot of Virginians which ought, perhaps, to be mentioned. The Rinkers also came from the Shenandoah valley, and were neighbors of the Cather and Lockharts. But they settled on Walnut creek. There were two brothers, Josiah and Galloway. Of Josiah, the elder, there were two sons, Clinton and Avilon. Clinton married the daughter of R.B. Fulton. She died within a few years after the marriage. Avilon is back on his father’s farm in Virginia. Galloway Rinker, who remained in this county longer than his brother or nephews, is now in Franklin, but Charles Rinker, his son, is still a resident of Walnut creek.

We have almost forgotten another Virginian who is one of the best known to the people of this city, especially the ladies. The present Mrs. Jones, formerly Mrs. G.W. Francis, came to this county an unmarried girl, and showed that she was capable of making her own way in the world by her work in the harvest field, where she did the work of a man prior to her first marriage. Mrs. Jones is at present in Colorado. Mrs. Bortfeldt is an adopted daughter, whom she reared to womanhood with a mother’s affection and care.

A.N. Wilson drowns while swimming in a flooded draw

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One of the most tragic accidents that has occurred in this county for many years took place in Catherton precinct, 16 miles northwest of Red Cloud Sunday afternoon, shortly after four o’clock. Albert N. Wilson and a young man by the name of Ole Iverson went bathing in a pond that had been constructed by the damming of a draw. The water was 15 feet deep and about 40 across. They had not been in the water long before Mr. Wilson was heard to give a cry for help and at the same time was seen to throw his arms widely into the air and then sink from view. Young Iverson, at once surmising that the swimmer had been stricken with cramps, immediately went to the rescue, but the struggling man proved too heavy for the younger one and he was forced to abandon him, after he himself was nearly drowned in his efforts to lend assistance. Other help was then secured, and a rope was tied around young Iverson and he made for the place where the body had disappeared. He made a heroic effort to dive and reach the man whose life was, or had already  passed away, but without avail. When he came to the surface blood was running from his nostrils and but for the rope about him he would have never reached the shore. Work was then begun to break the dam and drain the pond, but this consumed time and it was an hour before a sufficient amount of water had escaped to permit of recovering the body. Of course life was then entirely extinct but doctors had been summoned both from Bladen and Red Cloud and they worked with the man in a vain attempt to start a spark of respiration. It was a sad ending of a prosperous life. The funeral was held from the home Monday afternoon, conducted by Rev. Priestly of Bladen. It was the largest funeral ever witnessed in the history of Webster County, the first of the procession reaching the cemetery one mile distant before the last had left the residence.

Albert N. Wilson was born in Frederick county, Virginia November 9, 1856. In 1877 he came to Webster county and settled in the southern part of Catherton precinct but a few years later purchased a farm 6 1/2 miles from Bladen. On October 29, 1855, he was married to Mary Robinson, who now survived him, and with three children, Vera, Maud and Kenneth, mourns the untimely departure of a true husband and kind father. He also leaves an aged father, two sister and three brothers.

Source:
The Webster County Argus
1902 

Clarence H. Wilson Obituary

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Clarence Wilson aged about 75 years dropped dead suddenly in the Inavale Pool Hall last evening, death attributed to a heart attack.

Clarence H. Wilson was born in Frederick County, Virginia, February 14, 1855, and died at Inavale, July 15, 1930 age 75 years.

He came to Nebraska as a young man in September, 1877, and purchased the farm six miles north Inavale where he spent the remainder of his life, living continuously on this place for more than half a century. When he came here, there was no railway town nearer than Hastings, and the country was yet undeveloped.

Mr. Wilson was eminently fitted by temperament and physical hardihood for pioneer life, and it was men like him who made the wilderness into a garden. In the hardships and privations incident to the life of a pioneer he developed a keen sympathy of mutual understanding of his neighbors and friends.

He was united in marriage to Amanda E. Brooks, February 6, 1887, and three children came to bless their home, Raymond, Gladys and Chester.

He took his bride to the home he had prepared and for more than thirty years they shared the joys and sorrows of pioneer life and rearing their children. Mrs. Wilson’s death on May 2, 1917 was the first shadow that fell on their happy home and was a blow from which he never recovered.

Mr. Wilson was not only a pioneer in this community but was in many respects the founder of this neighborhood. It was largely through his efforts and those of his good wife that the New Virginia Church was organized and later the building erected.

His passing marks the end of the original settlers in the New Virginia neighborhood, he being the last of that group who came from Virginia in the seventies.

Funeral services were held in the home and at the New Virginia Church.

Death of R.T. Payne

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The many friends of Uncle Dick Payne were surprised to learn of his death during Sunday night. The previous day he had visied his son and though he seemed in usual health, complained of not feeling very well. This was the last seen of him alive. During Monday his son called at the house and found him lying dead in his bed. The open Bible and his spectacles were upon the table as he had left them upon retiring for the night, when he laid down to his last long sleep. Death had come without warning during his slumber, and he passed away gently and peacefully.

Richard Thornton Payne was born in Loudoun County, Va., March 28, 1828, was married Dec. 10, 1849 to Sarah A. Scrivner who preceded him to the heavenly land in 1891, and with whom he had lived for forty years. Mr. Payne was a great reader of the old family Bible and a member of the church since 1855. He leaves six children, one daughter who lives in Virginia, Mrs. Finley Hale, in Missouri; one son, Bruce, is a soldier in the Philippine Islands serving in the First Nebraska, and one son, F.E.

Payne, and two daughters, Mrs. A.A. Cooper and Mrs. Noah Harvey, at his late Nebraska home, and a host of friends to mourn his demise.

The funeral service was conducted by Rev. A.G. Blackwell at the New Virginia school house and the remains were followed to the cemetery by a large concourse of relatives and friends.