I arrived in Fairbury the first day of May, 1871. The morning after I came I counted every building in the town, including all outbuildings having a roof. Even so I could only bring the grand total up to thirty.
That summer proved a very hot one—no ice, and very few buildings had a cellar. We rented for the summer a little home of three rooms. The only trees in sight were a few cottonwoods along the ravine that ran through the town and on the banks of the Little Blue river. How to keep milk sweet or butter cool was a problem. At last I thought of our well, still without a pump. I would put the eatables in a washboiler, put the cover on, tie a rope through the handles, and let the boiler down into the well. In late September a lady told me as her husband was going away she would bring her work and sit with me. I persuaded her to stay for supper. I intended to have cold meat, a kind of custard known as "floating island"; these with milk and butter were put down the well. After preparing the table I went out and drew up my improvised refrigerator, and removing the cover went in with milk and butter. Returning almost instantly, the door closed with a bang and frightened a stray dog doubtless attracted by the smell of meat. He started to run and was so entangled in the ropes that as far as I could see, dog, boiler, and contents were still going.
The whole thing was so funny I laughed at the time, and still do when I recall that scene of so long ago.
HOW THE SONS OF GEORGE WINSLOW FOUND THEIR FATHER'S GRAVE
By Mrs. C. F. Steele and George W. Hansen
Statement by Mrs. Steele
I have been asked to tell the story of how the sons of George Winslow found their father's grave.
In April, 1911, it was my pleasure and privilege to go to Washington to attend the national meeting of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I went in company with Mrs. C. B. Letton as well as a number of other delegates from different parts of the state. While passing around to cast our votes for president general, an eastern lady noticing our badges exchanged greetings with some of our delegates and expressed a wish to meet some one from Fairbury. She was told that Fairbury had a delegate and I was called up to meet Mrs. Henry Winslow of Meriden, Connecticut. She greeted me cordially, saying her husband's father was a "Forty-niner" and while on his way to California was taken sick, died, and was buried by the side of the Oregon trail. In February, 1891, a letter appeared in a Boston paper from Rev. S. Goldsmith of Fairbury, Nebraska, saying that he had seen a grave with the inscription "Geo. Winslow, Newton, Ms. AE. 25" cut on a crude headstone, and that he was ready to correspond with any interested party as to the lone grave or its silent occupant. This letter came to the notice of the sons of George Winslow, and they placed Mr. Goldsmith in communication with David Staples, of San Francisco, California, who was a brother-in-law of George Winslow and a member of the same company on the overland journey to California.
Mr. Staples wrote him about the organization of the company, which was called the "Boston and Newton Joint Stock Association," and the sickness and death of George Winslow; but after this they heard nothing further from the Nebraska man.