Interviews with Anna Erskine and Martha Soliday, 1961-07-08

RT 398 F666m 1961 no. 08 - 7 Inch Reel Tape and 1 Audio Cassette Tape

6 index cards - Erskine, Anna; Folklore of the Middle West, 1961, no. 8; Folk-songs - Kansas; Frontier and pioneer life - Kansas; Soliday, Martha; Soliday, Phyllis;Gunckel, Edith Dale; Gunckel, Oscar Lee; Kansas – History; Keyser, Calvin H.;

Typed and handwritten notes.

Interviews with Anna Erskine and Martha E. Soliday regarding their experiences homesteading in Kansas in the late 1800s.

Digital Collections - FHSU Scholars Repository – Digitized Copy of Recording

00:00:31 - Personal history and move to Kansas

00:03:03 - Living in a dugout

00:04:52 - Watering cattle

00:06:51 - Cool house

00:07:15 - Farming and types of trees

00:09:10 - Moving to Kansas from Illinois

00:10:40 - Trouble with Cattlemen

00:11:35 - Move to Gray County from Greenwood County

00:12:39 - Prairie fires caused by trains

00:18:49 - Early Cimarron and feud between two hotels

00:22:45 - County seat fight

00:23:47 - Employment opportunities for women and pay

00:25:30 - Teachers and schools

00:26:51 - Women homesteaders and teaching in rural schools

00:31:31 - Other jobs and education

00:33:34 - Contested claim

00:34:04 - Working at the bank in Cimarron in 1906

00:38:35 - Her only vacation

00:39:40 - Pioneer diet

00:41:23 - Treatment for colds

00:42:25 - Clothing

00:43:20 - Moving a house from Cimarron

00:46:35 - Irrigation. Recording becomes difficult to hear

00:48:28 - School entertainment

00:51:03 - Games played at school

00:55:00 - Games, Miller Boy, Needle's Eye, and Post Office

00:59:34 - Prairie fires and tumbleweeds

01:00:28 - Snowstorms and teacher's duties

01:03:42 - Family's religious experiences. Recording quality improves.

01:08:07 - Singing school and music in the community

01:11:26 - Runaway buggy

01:13:55 - July 4, 1887

01:15:25 - Grasshopper swarms

01:16:19 - Pink lemonade
01:18:03 - Introduction to interview with Martha E. Soliday, July 9, 1961

01:18:36 - Family history and move from Tennessee

01:19:31 - Blizzard of 1886

01:21:00 - Moving from a dugout to a sod house then to Hutchinson

01:21:46 - First job

01:22:15 - Move back to Stafford County

01:22:41 - Indigenous Americans in Stafford County

01:24:15 - Romani people and Italian migrant workers

01:26:00 - Entertainment

01:27:39 - Song, "Man in the moon making cheese."

01:28:06 - Grandparents and parents

01:29:05 - Her wedding in 1910

The remainder of the recording is missing