My grandmother Myrtie Crabtree (first girl from the left) with her parents John and Ida Higginson Crabtree, and brothers, late 1903 or before Spring 1904. Others may be relatives or their neighbors, the Pence family. Photo’s original border: J.J. Wall, Gross, Nebr.

Around May 1892, the Crabtree family moved (because of terrible dust storms) from their sod house on homestead land near Norden, Nebraska, to Bonesteel (near the Rosebud Sioux Reservation). Bonesteel the town was just starting. My great-grandfather John was the Postmaster at the trading post for six years. After the Postmaster position, John owned a the wagon shop where he fixed buggies and wagons.

Sometime after spring 1904, the Crabtree family moved to a farm in Mondamin, Iowa. John had traded his successful business (mud and all) in Bonesteel, for property he had not seen. Myrtie, her dad and brother had typhoid fever in Iowa, possibly contracted in Bonesteel, where many people had been sick with typhoid before they left. View full size.