25 September 1910 Tilden Township, Osborne County, Kansas

As I worked through the early morning, I was humming a little ditty. An overwhelming feeling of contentment had taken over. It was finally all completed…the construction of our farmhouse and the three barns. It had taken 12 years to get to this point. Alleluia, our home is now our home.

When we first married less than 20 years ago, we had drifted from Kansas to Louisiana. My husband Wash worked on the docks of the Mississippi River. Imagine a farm boy taking a job like that with a wife and baby to support! I prayed that God would show him the way back home. We returned to Kansas and bought a little farm. My heart rested at peace.

Wash had a cousin who bought and sold farms. This cousin convinced him that he had a more suitable farm to sell him than the one Wash currently owned…more acreage, better land, closer to family. Just like that, Wash made the deal and sold off our farm. The new farm had a rickety, old house on it. What in the world had he been thinking? We now had 4 children…and just how did he think we could live in that house? So we prayed and waited for our dreams to be fulfilled.

Finally twelve years later, we have a home. Lumber had to be hauled to our property. Carpenters and neighbors had to be asked to help with the house raising and barn raisings. I hand sewed curtains and quilts. I scrubbed and cleaned. I created a chicken yard complete with a coop. We were now raising seven children, ranging in ages from 2-19. A home…so sweet the sound and thought of it.

To celebrate our new homestead, we are hosting a barn dance on Friday night…complete with three musicians. Now won’t that be something! I am making a list of things my girls and I can do to get ready. For now, I will stop daydreaming, count my blessings, and start my day.

~Mina Storer

Note: Sarah Almina “Mina” Nickel Storer is my great grandmother. She and Wash were married for 55 years. Another child graced their family for a total of eight children. She was the consummate farm wife who spent much of her life on that homestead.

May 25, 1875 Bloomington, Osborne County, Kansas

As I lay down on my personal patch of the prairie, I smoothed out my skirts so I could stargaze. Always I enjoy this time of day to come out here and think. The skies are just brilliant as they fill themselves with diamond stars…a symbol of a blessing that is found in the Old Testament.

At 42 years of age, I feel as if I have lived by roaming this land…not settling in one place…obedient and loyal to a husband who has wanderlust. Finally, we are making our home here, and we plan to settle at last under this panorama of stars.

Oh, these stars and the night light! They seem to reach out and beg me to proclaim their brilliance and wonder. During this quiet alone time, I can use them to number my list of the people, places, and things I love most. Yes, they are a symbol of that blessing given long ago to Father Abraham. Now that blessing has been passed to me.

As I start to leave this sacred space and my meditation time, I think about putting my children to bed. I think about my husband Andrew telling me about his day. I think about that blessing given long ago: “I will number your descendants as the stars in the sky.” Now in this moment, God is using the stars as symbols of blessings coming to me and my children. Amen.

~Mary Etta Soule Storer

Note: Mary Etta is my second great grandmother. To me, she is a symbol of great strength, courage, and resilience. Amen.

Searching the Wyoming night skies for answers, she looked for solutions and resolutions to her life’s questions. For too long now, she had ridden hard on this trail ride termed her life. She had been abandoned, left homeless and penniless with no direction on her life’s compass. How did this happen to her? When would this rough ride be over?

Life began in 1925 when she lived with her parents near the oil fields in Casper, Wyoming. Her first years were filled all the wonderments of childhood. Her father taught her to love the outdoors. To her delight, he kept baby foxes for pets. He gave her the gift of loving horses and riding. He taught his little daughter to hunt and fish. He showed her about guns and shooting. Suddenly, her life changed and became upended eight years later with her parents’ bitter divorce. With the separation, she seemed to have been abandoned by her father. She rarely saw him. For the rest of her life, she would search for someone she loved as much as her father.

During her senior year in high school, she became infatuated with a good looking, fast talking, smooth operator named Kem. He had graduated the year before. Swept off her feet, she dropped out to school to marry him. At that point, her life took a drastic downward spiral.

From 1942 to 1972, she would marry eight times. Two she would marry twice. Each marriage would last an average of 18 months. Most of the divorces were the husband filing against her for indignities. She was the mother of one son, whom she gave to her remarried mother. The boy was adopted and had a name change. It was like sand sifting through her fingers with no real home or love to claim as only hers.

When she passed away in 1989, only two marriages were listed in her obituary. She left no money for her burial expenses. Would she be laid to rest in an unmarked grave?

A visit to the Willow Grove Cemetery, Buffalo, Wyoming, tells her final story. The tombstone inscription bears an obvious mystery. Could a genealogy detective solve it?

Note: For many years, I did not know the identity of Jack Coffee. Today as I searched Ancestry, I noted several new records for Betty Lou. Two of the records revealed that she had married John/Jack Coffee in 1959 and in 1964. He had stepped forward to place a tombstone in her final resting spot. Peace be with you, Betty Lou.

An elderly gentleman from our community had a genealogical request for me: would I do a newspaper search for him. His grandfather was a Civil War veteran, and he wondered if there was a mention of him receiving a pension. Did a short newspaper article contain that information? Well, indeed, it did…along with some other interesting reports.

The elderly gentleman, who had requested the information, was well known in our town since he had been a Justice of the Peace for almost 40 years. He had stories galore to tell about cases and criminals. Little did he know…or I…that I would uncover a criminal case about people in his family.

Among the research finds for his family, there appeared “National Inquirer” type reports of two brothers who were counterfeiters. They counterfeited nickels in 1894. They were caught. They were jailed…they escaped…they were caught…they were remorseful.

When I presented the elderly gentleman with the research articles, I said, “I included research about the counterfeiters.” He was stunned…what…who in his family were counterfeiters? When he saw the names, he related that the men in the article were his grandfather, father, and uncle. He was never told his father was a counterfeiter. He was never told his father had been in jail. He did remember that a playmate had teased him about his “Daddy being a jailbird.” At the time, he thought the playmate was picking on him. He never questioned it with his mother. The secret was not divulged.

An elderly gentleman came and asked me to do research…it was 2016…more than a 100 years since his dad broke the law. His family had never talked about it.

Note: I also did research for a lady who had questions about her grandparents. Two of her grandfathers had been murdered by their brothers. She knew nothing about it…her family never talked about it.