Rose's Story

This picture of our great-aunt Rose B. Krajicek Allgeier was taken in 1956 at her home in Deer Park, Washington. The back of the picture has more information - Rose painted the vase and plate in the center of the picture. The German pipe by her head came from Joe Krajicek when he was in Germany in 1918 after WW I. He was still in the army of occupation. (Another note says that he was in Koblenz).
It seems appropriate to inclue the story that Rose wrote for the Kray Round Robin letter in January of 1967, as transcribed by our mother, Minnie Blood. I realize that most of my siblings have a copy of this, but there may be others who would find it interesting, since it is the only first-hand history we have of the family. The Krajiceks had moved to Nebraska by the time this story is told.

"Back to bygone years: When Mother and Father were building the sod house on the claim, they went to Pine Ridge across the Niobrara River and cut logs for the roof. We kids were supposed to debark them as our part of the work.

Henry was about 6 months old, and we had to take care of him. Mother had gone the three quarters of a mile to Mrs. Schultz's and Lou was using the little ax to loosen the bark. We had Henry sitting by, and like a baby, he had to help, so he reached over and his little finger mixed with the ax.

We were all frantic. Lou picked him up and ran all the way to Mother. Mrs. Schultz chewed snuff, I guess, or tobacco, anyway she grabbed a chunk of the stuff from her mouth and bound it to the little finger. It grew together in no time, but Henry always had that broken fingernail.

Stanley had a job herding cows for Tom O'Keefe at Nonpariel, which was 17 miles or so away. He would come home sometime on Sunday. Father had to stay in Alliance most of the time on account of his tailoring business. When he came out he would cut some sod and then we would help mother build the sod walls as high as our supply lasted. . . we thought it was fun to run up and down the walls as the sod was laid as if building stairs. . .

We hauled our water from the Niobrara River in a barrel, guess it was two barrels, which was five miles, and that road was old Indian trail which ran up and down over hills and rocky hillocks. Those barrels bounced around in back of the wagon and old Jack and Bill, the oxen, would run down with the wagon pushing them, back up hill they had to pull it. Mother surely had a time to control the entire outfit. Had to tie the barrels so we would get home with our supply; as it was we did get our backs soaked as the water splashed from side to side in the barrel. Crow Agency wasn't very far away and some squaws often crossed through our land.
(To be continued)