From the Ravenna News, 13 January, 1955
Headline: Backward Glance at Once- Thriving "Majors" Community CenterBy Mrs. N. D. Ickes, Page, Nebr.
It was with a deep sense of personal loss that I heard of the sale of the United Presbyterian Church at old Majors, on Cedar Creek. The price was negligible and I am glad its lumber can be used for a dwelling house.
In its prime, the church was the social center of the neighborhood and drew some attendance from surrounding communities. Even to those who were not regular attendants, the church had dignity and to all and sundry, it gave a sense of direction. To many, it was a point from which miles were figured to desired destinations, to others (to more than you might think) the church gave that inner direction that guided our feet in narrower paths than they might have trod, without its influence.
"Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy", might well have been a slogan of the church and the community which it served. Even now, these many years away, there are many things I feel a strange reluctance, for the times, against doing on the Lord's Day, that have now become the common practice. Some of the finest people I have ever known, I knew in that community that was my childhood home.
To those of us who went away, the church and the people have stayed the same as when we left and it is inconceivable that time has taken them from our midst or rendered them unfit for service.
Even before the church went, the four corners of the education world, where we and our parents received all or a part of our knowledge of the Three R's, became part and parcel of the smaller towns that soon gave way to county seat attractions, and Cedar Creek, Rose Hill, Star and Sunflower country schools have been absorbed through consolidation.
Country schools, with their thirty and forty pupils and all of the grades, minus adequate books and supplies, must have presented quite a problem to the teacher, who, more than likely was only as long ago as last year, a pupil in the same school that this year, hair done up and skirts let down, she serves in the capacity of teacher.
Funny little things come to my mind - of a Cedar Creek teacher, young and inexperienced, who, when a father arrived to take a "Mama's little dumplin'" home before the lesson she was detained after school had been recited to the teacher's satisfaction, refused to let her go. Knowing well he hardly dared to appear at home without her, he spat tobacco juice and sputtered, greatly deploring the fate that made the teacher "the opposite sex" and therefore could not be challenged to a fist fight to settle the question.
She replied that he need not let a little thing like that stop him and invited him to get down off his horse, while she rolled her sleeves in preparation to call his bluff.
Later that evening, Cyril Carpenter reported that he had been an eye witness to Abe Lincoln's re-assassination, when Mama hurled unjust recriminations at Papa's unsuspecting head, along with a cup of boiling hot tea. The tea missed the target and hit the Presdident's portrait, on the wall behind, full force.
Remember, too, the crick-dweller, impressed with an over-exaggerated sense of his own importance, stepped up to the pulpit and took over the evening services? It took me many years to form an estimate of the emotional state of that service. For the duration of the service he had the floor and the congregation stayed "put." Later in the week he tendered a check in payment for a purchase which he signed "Jesus Christ" and the check was returned marked "No Funds."
Evening services were restricted, for us, to moonlight nights, and sensible people didn't go much at night. Papa was a trusting soul and carried his buggy whip and duster robe into the church vestibule [lines missing; sorry...] (of the early years) time.
From candle light to kerosence lamps, both hanging and table our present day [??]From the wool, spun into yarn and woven into garments, hand sewn, the cut-a-way coat, stiff bosom shirts, the inevitable vest with the impressive watch chain, the many and stiffly starched petticoats, sad-ironed dresses, tucked and heavy with lace and embroidery, replaced now with no-wrinkle, no-iron, tailor mades.
Little boys with long curls, short pants, long black stockings, tucked and frilled blouses and button shoes. Girls with eye-stretching, tightly braided hair, loosened for program admiration in all its braid-waved glory and tied with ribbons, crisp and gay. Men with mustache or long beard, trimmed and groomed carefully to conform to the current style.
Memories of straw and feather ticks, bed slats, bed bugs and flat irons wrapped in many layers of paper and underwear to hold the heat and warm the feet in sad contrast to thermostat controlled heat of today that replaced the pot-bellied stove, the base burner and the cow chip and twisted hay the pioneer kept from freezing to death with.
Even Prairie Dog town is non-existant, today, and few have seen or know anything concerning them. They too, were a passing [lines missing, sorry...]
Accompanying photos:
"Majors School." (1900?? Help!)
From left: 1, Charlie Frimple; 2, Clark Robinson; 3, Frank Young; 4, Ollie Fimple; 5, Esther Carpenter; 6, Frances Robinson Whitney; 7, Nellie Duncan Miner; 8, Lillie Houston Robinson; 9 Liela Bourne Kline; 10, Dell Whittaker; 11, Edna Barker; 12, Nellie Young; 13, Earl Bourne; 14, Alice Robinson; 15, Jay Robinson; 16, Ella Fimple; 17, Ilma Carpenter; 18, Martha McCoy; 19, Ella Watt; 20, Mable Talbot; 21, Mattie Houston; 22, Link Carpenter; 23, Ira Bourne; 24, Edward Talbot; 25, Sidney Carpenter; 26, Walter Mohring; 27, Mac Whittaker; 28, Willard Carpenter; 29 Nigel Whittaker; 30, Floyd Mohring; 31, Miranda W.; 32, Gertrude Carpenter; 33, Kilroy Bourne; 34, Lorenda Whittaker. Teacher Minnie Cook.
From Doug Reckard, a Young descendant: Frank Young was born in 1887, Nellie Young born in 1889. Based on that information, I would guess that the photo was from about 1900. May Clayton was also born in 1887; where is she? In a different school district, like Rose Hill, only a few miles away?
This was "Majors" Post Office
From left: Cyril Carpenter, his wife, Phillipine, Mrs. Carpenter (Emily M.) and Eleazer Willard Carpenter. In front: Esther, Ilma and Lincoln, the Carpenter's three elder children. The postoffice desk was to the left of the window.
...end of "Ravenna News" article
"Henry DeGroat carried mail from Poole in 1908"
annotated by May Clayton Stover, and from her collection courtesy of Marge (Mrs. Allen J.) Stover
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