FAMILY STORIES & GENEALOGY

On the evening of Monday, September 4, 1933, a strange car came into Meade and got stuck on the dirt road just east of the Meade City Park. There were several picnickers nearby from Fowler and the park was full of people picnicking and playing crochet. I will let the following newspaper accounts describe what happened...

August 2003 my husband Roy, and I took a long-dreamed trip back to my home state of Kansas. I'm Darlene Bohling Harding, daughter of Albert and Freda Bohling. I was born in my paternal grandparents home August 23, 1936. John and Lula Bohling, my dad's parents had their home built at 18166 X Rd. outside of Meade, in 1928..

Stewart sold their Iowa farm before coming to KS. It is said that some members of his family suffered from Consumption (TB) and that is why they moved to western KS to a better climate for this illness. Stewart and his oldest son John came to Meade Co., KS in early 1886 to build a house for the family. 

In the second half of the year 1882, Seth Cheney made the two-hundred mile trip from the Texas panhandle to Meade County in southwestern Kansas, most likely following the Jones and Plummer Trail. With this move, his journey was complete. His reasons for making this move at age 50 are not fully known, but we are fairly certain the earlier relocation of the Best family was a strong inducement. 

Sometime in 1891 or 1892, a group of men with guns rode up on horses to the Andor Eliason homestead (4 ½ miles west of Fowler on G Road(old Hwy 98), 1 mile south on 22 Road, ¼ mile west, located on the south side of the H Road). Andor & Helena were some of the early white folk to come to Meade County. They were Norwegian immigrants that had come from Norway in 1866, settled in Minnesota..

In 1982 my son Theron asked for help in putting together a family tree for a school project. I had heard several stories how the Hantla’s came from Germany. I was also told there was speculation that because the last name ended in “la” we were Finnish. So, I started out on my own with the help of my Aunt Doris Copple. She gave me the beginnings of a family tree surrounding Meade, Kansas and their movement..

This is an excerpt from a 19-page autobiography written in the 1930s by my maternal great-grandfather, John Christopher Kern (b: 1861 in Canada, d: 1947 in California). His father, Edward Kern, moved the family in and out of Kansas twice, while trying to make a living as a farmer.

CAPT. ROBERT MILLER PAINTER, a pioneer of Meade County, is undoubtedly one of the best known men in Kansas. He grew up in a district of Iowa which was then well out toward the western frontier, made a gallant record in the Civil war, went into Colorado as a participant..

My Great Grandfather was Louis Peterson, aka Ludvig (Ludwig) Peterson. I spent several years trying to figure out the genealogy of my mothers family and there lineage from Sweden. Finally I got help and learned why I could not trace my mothers family. It was because of patronymic's.

According to his sister, Anna Sourbier Griggs, page 199 in the 1985 Pioneer Stories of Meade County,  Charles K. Sourbier had "contracted infantile paralysis as a small child and never did walk." Charles had a gift and jewelry shop in Meade until his death in 1940. Being a pioneer in this county must have been difficult for the healthiest of folk, and one has to admire the grit and tenacity of this man who experienced it from a wheelchair. 

Arthur Vail was the first of the Vail Family to move to Meade County in 1911, and he was soon followed by his brother, Homer and Clara Vail, and sister, Anna (Vail) and Amos Holmes, in 1913.  They moved here from Hume, Missouri, and all settled on farms a few miles south of Plains. Another Vail sister, Lizzie Kaufman and husband Koren, moved to Plains from Vernon County, Missouri in the early 1920’s.  The oldest Vail brother, Willie Vail and wife Essie..