Stover PipeLine #9,
June, 1977
 

Dear Clayton relatives,

   Enclosed is a second 'installment' of the Joseph Clayton biography, gleaned mostly from old correspondence from Gram May Stover.  Many thanks for the contributions from many of you and for the answers to several questions posed in SP#8.  Also enclosed is a map of the NE corner of Cedar Township, which includes the Cedar and Majors communities.
   'Majors' was the name of the Post Office located in the Carpenter home in section 14.  Glenn Stover said that mail came out from Kearney about twice a week and Dorothy Rodehorst thinks that mail came out on a passenger coach which went on to Loup City.  According to Allen Stover, the Post Office was named after one of the first Senators or Representatives from the State of Nebraska.

   Dorothy provided quite a bit of additional information about 'Link' Ewer.  "...when he was young he was very, very handsome and had a fine buggy for courting.  He had an excellent and penetrating voice and sang all the way home (the songs of the day) at night.  He had several violins he had hand-carved.  He was always on the look-out for suitable wood so he could make a violin... Everyone though him lazy but he had a heart condition and when he worked, he got sick..."

   Bette Ewer Hinz writes every now and then, and I sure to enjoy hearing from her.  In her last letter, she elaborated on Ernest Clayton's story about Ellen Higgins' tobacco usage - "My brother Herbie told me that Grandma Higgins chewed tobacco and after chewing it would lay it on the stove to dry out so she could smoke it!"  Bette also says that her "memory has always been a better forgettery."  - Which reminds me of Gram Stover's claim that her "think-tank had a hole in it."  I certainly appreciate all the recollections that have been 'leaked.'
   Bette recalls giving May a "little old fashioned picture album Papa had, in it were pictures of his sisters and him when they were young."  Bette says it was a real treasure, and wonders where it is.  If any of you have it and could spare it, I wonder if you might consider sending it along to Bette; I'm sure she'd appreciate it.  And, while typing, I recalled an old tin-type of Abe Ewer, which, by golly, I found, and will send it along.
   Also, if any of you have any pictures of Wilma Stover Bohn and her family, I'm sure that Adolf would appreciate them, as he lost all his personal possessions in a fire a couple of weeks ago.

   Allen Stover mentioned a dugout in the Creek bank across the road north from the Clayton farm.  He thought perhaps someone lived there before the Higgins' house was built.  Do you suppose Higgins and family weathered the first winter in Nebraska in that dugout?  Does anyone have any more information about this? [I had originally corrected Allen's directional information to point north and west to the Higgins' section, but now (in 1999) I'm convinced that the dugout was indeed north of the Clayton farm in section #23, not section #22. The creek terrain is quite rugged in the SW corner of section #23. Also see Bette Ewer's comments in PipeLine #10]

   A final Joseph Clayton installment is on the way; then I'd like to move on to the Bert Stover family in Poole, as many of you have shared all sorts of impressions from that period of time... thanks!
 

   Sincerely,
 

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