LINCOLN IN THE EARLY SEVENTIES
By (Mrs. O. C.) Minnie DeEtte Polley Bell
In the spring of 1874 my father, Hiram Polley, came from Ohio to Lincoln, I being a young lady of nineteen years. To say that the new country with its vast prairies, so different from our beautiful timber country, produced homesickness, would be putting it mildly. My parents went on to a farm near what is now the town of Raymond, I remaining in Lincoln with an aunt, Mrs. Watie E. Gosper. My father built the barn as soon as possible and this was used for the house until after the crops were put in, then work was begun on the house that they might have it before cold weather.
The first trouble that came was the devastating plague of grasshoppers which swept over this section of the country in the years 1874 and 1875. Not long after this a new trouble was upon us. The day dawned bright and fair, became hotter and more still, until presently in the distance there could be seen the effects of a slight breeze; this however was only the advance of a terrible windstorm. When the hurricane had passed, the barn, which only a few months before had served as the house, was in ruins. Undaunted, my father set about to rebuild the barn, which still remains on the farm; the farm, however, is now owned by other parties.
In the winter of 1875 there was quite a fall of snow, and one of the funny sights was a man driving down O street with a horse hitched to a rocking chair. Everything that could be used for a sleigh was pressed into service. This was a strange sight to me, having come from Ohio where we had from three to four months of sleighing with beautiful sleighs and all that goes to make up a merry time.
During this winter many were using corn for fuel and great quantities were piled on the ground, which of course made rats very plentiful—so much so that when walking on the streets at dusk one would almost have to kick them out of the way or wait for them to pass.
In the course of time a young man appeared upon the scene, and on December 10, 1874, I was married to Ortha C. Bell. We were married in the house which now stands at the northeast corner of Twelfth and M streets, then the home of my aunt, Mrs. Gosper. Four children were born to us: the first, a daughter, dying in infancy; the second, Jennie Bell-Ringer, of Lincoln; the third, a son, Ray Hiram Bell, dying at the age of three; and the fourth, a daughter, Hazel Bell-Smith. Two grandchildren have come to brighten our lives, DeEtte Bell Smith and Edmund Burke Smith. Our home at 931 D street, which we built in 1886, is still occupied by us.