Lucia Ann ⁸ BIGELOW

     The Hopkins brothers made life very enjoyable for everyone who knew them. Their jokes, gayiety, and their wonderful sense of humor seem to live on through the generations. I hope to include in this writing a few of the jokes and stories of the Hopkins brothers which have always fascinated me from childhood. Of course, they will be stories that have been handed down from one generation to another. My grandfather, Fern W. Hopkins. came to western Nebraska when he was 21 years age from near Fond du Lac, Wisc, in the year of 1886. He came to Ogallala bv train and was met by his brother, Elmer, who had come in 1885.
     Elmer Hopkins, Lou Clemmons and Jack Gitlinger left Dale, Wisc. in the spring of 1885 and started west to Chamberlain. S. D., enticed by a ·land drawing. In .South Dakota they found land open for homesteading and filed as others had, but the Indians began to make trouble. The U.S. Government encouraged those who had homesteads to relinquish their claims and move out. Having to change plans and responding to a call of the wild, they bought a yoke of oxen fitted up a covered wagon and took out for the' promised land of western Nebraska. They started on this daring trip in May and got to Nebraska just .in time to dig in' for the winter. It was the funny' things that happened to them along the way and the troubles that they had on the trip that Elmer enjoyed telling about whenever he could get an audience to listen.      Once as they were traveling to the west. the front wheels of the wagon dropped into a bog hole and the oxen could not get a footing to pull it out. After much fooling around and exhausting the .good will of the oxen, they unhooked the team and hitched it up to the back of the wagon. Being a bit over-enthusiastic, and each doing" a bit to encourage the oxen. they over did themselves, and the oxen not only pulled the wagon out. but continued to pull'the wazon backwards at quite a pace. The wagon overturned, spilling out.................................................

     "Oh. well. then what the heck did you bring the gun along for?" Elmer, Lou and Jack drove their oxen all the way across Nebraska to Perkins County (then south Keith County ). There they stopped to file on homesteads and to to dig in for the winter. Sorne of the land had been filed on but there were few settlers. Elmer finding this level land could see the opportunity of a fortune in a few years. So he wrote to his brother, Fern, and told him to come out and wrote that he would 'meet him on a certain day in Ogallala.
     Fern told his father that he would not disappoint Elmer who had to............

     Settlers were coming into the area so fast by this time there was need for a Post Office. This copy of a petition to establish a Post Office in the Hopkins home (just across the road from Perkins (then Keith) county was preserved in some of the Hopkins family records: "There is a Petition for Post Office to First Assistant Postmaster General; Washington, D. C "We. the undersigned citizens of Chase ,County. Nebr., hereby respectfully petition to have a Post Office established at the store of J. W. Hopkins, said store situated on Section 2 Township 8 Range 41 in Chase County and state aforesaid ...........

     Arthur, the oldest brother, homesteaded just across the road from Winchester. The boys had built a blacksmith shop on his land where Elmer spent many hours along with helping Wede to learn the trade. Whenever Wede made a mistake he would burv it outside the shop so Elmer wouldn't know about it. And to this day the people who live there are still finding Wede's mistakes. One evening Fern, Elmer and Wallace Clemons, a friend of the family, were visiting at the home of Richard Watkins. On their way home they decided to give their brother Arthur,a good scare and make him think horse thieves were around the country. Arthur and James, father of...................(these breaks are where the newspaper article was ripped...........ROD)