Heritage Trail: Cramers in Chester and Hardy, Nebraska; Mendells in Superior, Nebraska

The 1862 Homestead Act brought settlers west to Nebraska, and our ancestors were part of that migration from Pennsylvania. Civil War vet George Henry Mendell and his family came in 1883, and Hiram Cramer and his family (including widowed German mother-in-law Catherine Hilliger Kreger) came in 1890. The towns they lived in are just above the Kansas border, hours from anywhere else, but worth the pilgrimage to envision the past.

Nebraska driving route from Lincoln to Chester, Hardy, and Superior

A recent memoir about Nebraska, Ladette Randolph's Leaving the Pink House (2014) explains a little of the land and its history: "The land in Nebraska may be as some describe it--flat, boring, austere--but it was not the land that interested me so much as the dramatic and dynamic presence of the sky. The sky was much more vast than the land, the astonishing and mutable clouds like continents or ships drifting above us. We were erased in that great expanse, and beneath it we knew our place. We were all but annihilated under the burden of the sky. Nothing broke the view. Nothing stopped the sky from horizon to horizon. No direction was distinct from another. We were always aware of our place there, our minuscule lives. We didn't talk about ideas. The grand questions of life seemed trivial and absurd beneath that endless obliterating sky. Who would have listened if we'd spoken? Our voices didn't return to us but went on and on. And the wind, the basso ostinato of our lives, the ever-present wind. As the seasons cycled in thematic sequence, it was always agains the background of the wind, the variations of their themes marked by the wind's constant pulse. In summer the curtains in our house billowed and flew, the screens were plucked and released, the edges of the doors whistled. In winter, the wind stalked about the house knocking against the wooden frame like a giant hitting it with his shoulder. The dust was everywhere. We all but disappeared" (26).

"Those who stayed [past a drought in 1874] experienced the economic boom of the 1880s, a decade when the towns in Nebraska flourished and hopes for the future of the state soared. However, those flush days came to an end during a long period of devastating drought from 1893-1896, after which the state experienced a second mass exodus. By the time drought again struck the state in the mid-1930s, exacerbating the economic devastation caused by the nationwide depression, optimistic state promotion had come to an end, and towns in rural Nebraska never fully recovered "(71-72). 

That was evident to me on this pilgrimage, and sad to see the death of Chester and Hardy, such familiar place names to me. If you want to see a lively version of the past, driving from Lincoln stop at Wessels living history farm in York. 

CHESTER 

Carrie Cramer in Chester

Cramer house fire photos

The Joseph and Carrie Cramer family lived here from 1903-August 1925; their eight youngest children were born here. 

Glenn Laymon recalled: “I spent many summers in Chester, staying either with Uncle Don and Aunt Mildred or Uncle Max and Aunt Bernell helping them at the grain elevator and lumberyard-also feeding pigs and sheep. Grandfather Joseph Cramer was a storekeeper and a penmanship teacher. My mother told me about the Cramer house that caught fire from lightning. She said a bolt of lightning came down through the chimney/fireplace and shot out a fireball bouncing about the room setting it on fire.”

Wally said that their house was in Nebraska and the barn was in Kansas, so the property was on the state line and must have been off Meridian Rd, Thayer Ave, or Church St. Once I arrived, it was clear that it was located at 209 Thayer Avenue, down the street from where Joseph Cramer owned a general merchandise store with his brother Charles, on Thayer Ave, selling out in 1910.  From that time until the time of his death he worked for the Brown Lumber Company. 

Cramer home at 209 Thayer Ave, Chester

farm land behind the home

The family attended the Chester United Methodist Church at 801 Thayer St, where as a youth Wally operated the pipe organ bellows.

Chester main street, Joseph's store second from left

The house, store, and church are all still standing, although perhaps not for much longer. The town seemed dead; once touted as a "village of quilts" and "small town with a big heart," there was no sign of life in businesses or homes.

same view today, facing south

Joseph in front of his store

Chester town Thayer Avenue

The cemetery is easiest to access leaving Chester and heading north on 81. The Cramer graves are in the middle segment of three: Joseph and Carrie, Block 12, Lot 17, graves 1 & 2; Kenneth grave 3, Gladys grave 4

Kenneth's grave

Carrie's grave

Joseph's grave

Gladys' grave

large Cramer stones with our smaller headstones in front

HARDY

Joe and Janet's trip there fall 2017: https://janetandjoe.blogspot.com/2017/11/chester-nebraska-lwm-cramer-born-here.html

Hardy, seventeen miles west of Chester and to the left off the highway, is about the same size with its few cross streets, and also seemed on the verge of extinction. Hiram and Mary Cramer (Joseph’s parents) lived here from 1890-1920. George and Margaret Mendell (Carrie’s parents) lived here in the 1890s. The Mendells moved from their farm east of Tecumseh, Nebraska to their farm two miles west of Hardy on the "Valley Road" in May 1883. They sold this farm in about 1890 or 1891 and moved to Hardy where George clerked in a store (possibly Hiram’s?). They were members of the Lutheran church in Hardy. This church where Joseph and Caroline were married is still standing.

Hardy main street

since Hiram's obituary says that he died after hanging out laundry,
this photo there seemed appropriate

St Paul's Lutheran Church, 404 Main Street, where the Cramers were married

Hardy cemetery (Highway 8 East of town, before you get to town but not the St Paul Lutheran cemetery at Byron) Hiram & Mary Cramer Block 2 Lot 48, Catherine Kreger just beyond that: our people are in the far back right, the northwest corner

SUPERIOR

Eight miles further west brings you to a town which is doing a little better than the previous two: Superior has a library, salon, and even a Subway. George and Margaret Mendell (Carrie’s parents) lived here from the 1890s-1906. Margaret transferred her church membership from Lutheran to the First Methodist Church 448 N Kansas Street (which makes sense since that church is just behind the home). They lived on the corner of 5th and Dakota Streets, and the house is still standing. Margaret continued to live at this location with her youngest son Lew Wallace, and later her son Bert C. with whom she lived after Lew Wallace's marriage, and built a new house at that location.

Mendell home

Mendell home from across the street

Margaret's Methodist Church

Evergreen Cemetery (NE 14): George Henry & Margaret Mendell, Section 4 Lot 32
This is on the road heading north out of town, and the cemetery is split on both sides of the highway. Our people are on the section to the right (east), and the Mendell headstone is easy to see right as you pull in.

George Henry Mendell's grave

Margaret Miller Mendell's grave

And why search for these houses, these places long since loved and forgotten? Perhaps, as Randolph says, "Like many adults, I've returned to those [houses]--both in memory and in person--seeking from this exercise I'm not sure what: some part of myself, some time in the past I want to better understand. Houses are often the archives for my deepest, most resonant memories, the places where I've curated my life stories" (2). And where our ancestors curated theirs.