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Rosebud School
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Rose Bud Soddy School
State of Nebraska Teaching Credential and grades for Miss Hansen
Rose Bud Soddy School, Sudents with Teacher Miss Hansen
THE ROSE BUD SODDY
By Lorinne Hansen Barker
(Written ca 1975)
I was born in a sod house ten miles northwest of Red Cloud, Webster County,
Nebraska, December 23, 1897. Peter and Lillie (Holmes) Hansen (my parents)
moved when I was two years old into a frame house my father built. I graduated
from Red Cloud high school in 1916, and went to Cherry County to teach,
where I taught for three terms.
The nearest town was twelve miles, Whitman, Nebraska. A post office, Hire,
was over two miles by horseback. I boarded in a sod house, and it was a mile
from school, and I always walked. We had to carry water to school. Rose Bud
Soddy was a small school with only four regular pupils and at times, seven.
In 1917, during World War I, coal was hard to get, as it came in on the train
to Whitman, and if the men weren't there when it arrived it was all gone.
With no trees for wood, we had to burn cow chips, which the boys would take
a team and wagon and pick up dry chips on Saturdays. Chips make a hot fire
but do crumble and floors aren't always neat. We would use two or more large
wash tubs of chips each day.
As this was a sand hill country, wagons, buck boards, and horseback were the
most common way to travel. There were very few cars and not much entertainment.
Pie or basket socials, literary or school programs and a dance were rare events.
Teachers were paid very low salaries then. I received $45 a month. When the war
began food prices rose, also board. As I liked to ride, I helped out with some
ranch chores on weekends to pay on my board bill.
My County Superintendent, Edith Adamson, came once a term from Valentine, Nebraska
to visit the school. She drove a team.
About two months before school was over the northeast corner of the soddy began
to lean out and had to be propped up. As there would be no school the next year,
(the family of the children were leaving) the school board would not be repairing
the Rose Bud Soddy.
*(My mother passed away October, 12, 1994 at North Bend, Washington.)
Submitted by daughter Coral Barker Allbee, Email: coralaa@aol.com
A big Thank You to Coral for sharing this with the Cherry County website.
It is a precious piece of history that would have been lost to all of us.