1836-1907
A "NEWBRASKEY" HOMESTEADER
Cedar Creek - Good times, the good life...
by May Clayton Stover
This period of A.J.'s life in Nebraska is well preserved in the memories of several people whose stories have been passed along and collected. These were apparently good times... although stories of the tough times were perhaps less likely to be passed along. Some of following stories give some insight into the times and into the character of Grand-dad Albert.
Bess Wagner was born in Cedar Township in 1891 and knew her Grand-dad in her early childhood.
Our Honorable ancestor A.J. Stover was not born to be a farmer... he didn't give a darn if the corn field was full of sunflowers, he went gaily on his way hunting, fishing, and enjoying his life as he saw fit. He was a total loss to our orderly energetic father (Jake Wagner, who married Dora Stover), who had to buy his land, and boy!, he made it give all that was in it - and never, oh never, a sunflower!
Dorothy Stover Rodehorst relates what she heard about Cedar social life:
He played the violin and the guitar and the rest of the family played various instruments. The Stover girls were very pretty and they were quite sociable with parties and dances at their home. They had dances in their barn. Whole families came - put kids to bed on the house floor and some poor woman stayed in to watch them.
Bess Wagner recalls Grand-dad Albert's musical abilities and his sense of humor:
He was a fiddler and a good one. I think of him now whenever an old-timer plays "Devil's Dream." ... He had the ability to fiddle and call a square dance at the same time, something that very few fiddlers an do His favorite was, "Down the center as before, Down the center and cast off four." Instead of saying "as before," for our benefit, he sang "Ass before!"
He was a witty, wise old rascal. Mrs. Zimpher, the German friend of his, struggling with her children, said "Babies are lots of troubles, but dey must be." Ancestor says, "You're right, they all must pee."Dorothy Stover Rodehorst relates, "Grand-dad Stover had a sorghum mill. He milled molasses for the whole community. He raised some and custom worked for others." Evidently, Bert had his fill of homestead molasses for, as Dorothy tells it, "We never had molasses at home. Dad said... 'gingerbread wasn't fit to eat.' "
Hunting and fishing were favorite past-times of Grand-dad Albert. May Stover said that he shipped prairie chickens and quail to Omaha. Billy Frederick, son of Edith Stover and Adrian Frederick, remarked "When he went out with that old gun and prairie chicken got up, he got him, too!"Dorothy Stover Rodehorst remembered Elizabeth Stover Sitz telling that A.J. would drive his team in circles around the church on Sunday mornings so that everyone could see that he was going fishing.
From Bess Wagner:
Grandfather was very proud of the two oldest boys. (Albert John and Adrian Wagner, brothers of Bess) As soon as they were old enough he saw that they had guns and how to handle them. He took them hunting and fishing... our father was too busy chopping sunflowers, I presume, to take them.
From Billy Frederick:
I seen him come home more'n once. Oh, he'd hitch up a team and go up on the Loup and fish and hunt. Come home and drive down to the corral gate and skin the harness off and drop it... and go up to the house and clean his guns. That's the kind of feller he was.
A.J. had a hunting dog. May Stover said, “The dog was ‘Skip,’ a hunting dog, white with a little black on him, known in the neighborhood as ‘Stover’s bird-dog.’ One of my scrapbooks has an item... ‘A.J. Stover paid $25 for a full-blooded fox hound,’... maybe that was Old Skip.”
When I asked Billy Frederick about Stover's bird-dog, he responded, "Old Skip was his name, wasn't it? And 'Frank' was kind of a second dog."
photo in scrap book annotated with "Old Skip, bringing home the bacon."
Local news items from either the Kearney Hub or Star were kept in a scrapbook by Elizabeth Stover Sitz. The style of reporting local news in those days becomes a real pleasure for a reader a century later. The following items are from the period 1897-1900.A picnic on the Loup to hunt coons was one of the events that cannot be passed over in silence. The picnic was all that could be expected while the coon part was satisfactory to the coons. Ask A.J. Stover for photos of the camp and the hunters and picnickers.
There are a great many 'coons....along the Loup River and several old fashioned coon hunts were enjoyed by residents of Cedar and Loup Townships. A.J. Stover and others wound up the winter with an all-night chase recently and succeeded in bagging several good specimens of the genus ursidae, followed by a dinner at which the principle dish was typical southern 'coon roast.
Assumed to be on the South Loup. Note the stove and skillet. The game on the log are turkeys. The dogs just have to be "Skip" and "Frank,"
Photo courtesy Kim Stover.
In about 1900 it was reported, "A. J. Stover and others went to the Platte to look for stray geese. They say they found part of them."
Bess Wagner reminisced, "He used to tease us kids, told us he was part Indian - Ha, to cover up for all this hunting and fishing. He would put up a tent at the Loup, I suppose, and stay for days."
Another hunting story comes from Billy Frederick:
Uncle Tom (Hutchinson) and Grand-dad, they was goin' huntin' somewhere, and they was both horseback, ...some way or another, Grand-dad's rifle went off and shot Uncle Tom in the heel. He said it's a good thing he was not a tall man or it would have shot him in the heart and killed him.
Allen Stover offered the tallest tale of all relating to the hunting feats of Grand-dad Albert:
There were two things that Grand-dad A.J. wanted in life. One was to have a pot-belly, and the other was to kill an Indian. He had his chance at the Indian, but goofed it. Back in the '80's someone told him there were a bunch of Indians camped up on the Loup. And so the story goes, Grand-dad shoved his rifle into the saddle and headed for the Loup. When he got up there he crawled up one of the bluffs that looked over. There was an Indian, all right, - there were about 600 Sioux camped up there East of Pleasanton on the Loup. Well, they said Grand-dad didn't think the odds were in his favor so he crawled on his horse and came back home. He didn't want to kill an Indian as bad as he thought he did!
Allen Stover also has a story about A.J.'s attempts to learn to ride Bert's bicycle. It seems that no matter how hard he tried to control the bike, he could never avoid crashing into a sunken well-hole in the yard...even when he mounted up on the opposite side of the house!
Grand-dad Albert was featured in the local news on several occasions. In 1897 it was reported that, "The present owner of the Higgins property has made several improvements which add to the appearance of the place. Mr. Clayton's new house and Mr. S. G. Higgin's are near, so that part of Cedar is booming. A. J. Stover set the fashion last year. We hope that others will be able to make needed repairs."
In an item from Nov., 1898, "The little daughter of Ralph Davis is flourishing... A. J. Stover has lost his prestige as a guesser."
And in 1899, "Mr. Clayton has the prize out-door cellar, Mr. Stover the door-yard."
Bert Stover, Wm. Pedrit, Philo Tillson, A.J. Stover, Dora Stover ?? (but it looks like May Clayton), and Lizzie Stover (married Sitz)
[ I doubt that the community acknowledgement of a prize door-yard was due to the efforts of A.J., but rather to Elizabeth Ann - RRS]
Bess Wagner recalls the political climate of the 1890's period as follows:He was a staunch Republican and got into hot arguments with his associates. Adrian Frederick (who married Edith Stover) was a Democrat and things were pretty cold around election time. They couldn't get our father, J.J., in any political arguments. He went and voted a straight Republican ticket and then let the chips fall. He was too busy making a living and let politics take care of itself.
A.J. was evidently involved in world affairs. Fortunately, at least two of his learned comments were published. Reported in the local news, date unknown, was the following:
A.J. Stover, of Majors, is an expansionist of the most radical type and submits a plan to quickly civilize the people of the islands of the sea now in your Uncle Samuel's possession. He contends that congress should compel every old bachelor in the country to go to the Philippines and woo and wed the dusky belles of the Orient, and raise gold bugs and expansionists. 'Twould make a nice lay-out for Davenport!
Allen Stover offered the following, which appeared in the Ravenna News "notes from Yesteryear."
A.J. Stover is much perplexed at the results of the South African War. He asks how many Boers would have to be killed before it would affect the hog market and how long can the cattle stand the slaughter of Johnny Bulls.
In 1898, A.J. was required to complete a questionnaire from the Bureau of Pensions. Detailed information about his marriage and his children was required. All the information he gave was accurate, with one exception: He referred to his son as "Albert J. Stover, Jr."
I think we can safely assume that A.J.'s wife, Elizabeth, was a very patient woman. Bess Wagner had the following impression of Elizabeth Ann Lucas Stover:
She was a fine industrious woman, a loving wife, devoted mother, darling grandmother. She managed to get a fence around her big front yard and garden. There, irrigated by a well higher in the yard, she raised strawberries and all kinds of vegetables and flowers. She had always boarded the school teacher - Rose Hill was close by - milked the cows, sold butter and eggs. Her rag rugs covered all the floors, her home was always orderly, peaceful, and quiet, quite a change from the uproar we were growing up in, with a new baby every two years. Again, grandmother lent a hand and usually stayed for at least ten days. We were glad when the time was up - she must have made us toe the mark!
What would motivate a man to have a photo taken of himself alone with his carriage? Maybe he encountered a traveling photographer.
Next, the final years, Oregon, letters... Back to the A.J. Stover biography index... Back - to the Cedar Community index...
