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For the grandchildren's heritage books -- starting on my hubby's side of the family now ..journaling:
These are Grandpa’s great-grandparents, so your great-great-great grandparents.
Mark’s family came “out west” when he was four years old, homesteading in
Butler County, Nebraska. There were few trees here in those days, and most early
settlers lived in sod houses, with a lot of “visitors” -- gophers, moles and other
things. One night in 1872, Mark had been tucked into bed but kept telling his
mother there was something in his bed. His mother, thinking it was an excuse to
get back up, told him to quiet down and go to sleep. Eventually he did. The next morning,
after Mark had breakfast and hurried out to play, Grandma Armagost turned back the covers, to
make the bed, and lying there was a three foot ratllesnake, with 13 rattles. It was a story
Grandpa Mark would fascinate his children and grandchildren with. He said that he could feel the snake
pressing against his side. He would inch over but the snake would follow. Probably the warmth of
his body and the weight of the blankets saved him from a snake bite.
Grandma Armagost was Dora Heckman. She was born in 1871 in Illinois and came to Nebraska with
her parents and 10 brothers and sisters. Mark and Dora were married in 1888, He worked for the
railroad until his death in 1933. They moved to Beaver Crossing in 1909 and there they raised
a family of six children. He was outgoing and gregarious, one of those people who could strike up
a conversation with a total stranger, and become their friend within 10 minutes. He was a
section foreman for the for the railroad and knew people from throughout the territory. There aren’t
many stories about Grandma Dora. She no doubt did what all wives of that time did --- kept house,
carried water to wash clothes, raised a huge garden, cooked meals, and preserved food for the winters.
She had to have been a very strong woman, learning to live with or fight the conditions of the
new land they had come to, to make their home. After they moved into town, she was active
in the church. She was probably thrilled to have other adult women with whom to visit after
years on the prairie. What lives the lived! The arrived here during a time of buffalo stampedes, Indian
visits, prairie fires, horrendous prairie winters, and when they died, lived in town, in a house with
electricity and running water. They had six children, one of whom was your great-great Grandpa, Walter,
Grandma Bunny’s father.


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