My father, August Fanselau, was born in Germany in 1852 and came to the United States when he was 18 years old.  He lived in and around Philadelphia and was married to Miss Minnie Wolf in 1876.  Then he moved to Texas for a short time, then back to Philadelphia and lived there until 1882 when he moved to Denver, Colorado.  They had two daughters by this time.  In ' the spring of 1889 they moved to the homestead that he had taken up the year before in Kit Carson County about 20 miles north of Burlington.  How they enjoyed living out on the open plains after having spent their lives up till then in towns, but they missed a lot of things. too, such as schools and church.  There were no schools but in town, 20 miles away.  The nearest church was 8 miles.  Father had some 20 acres of sod broke that first year so we put it into corn and he went back to Denver to his old job, that of cleaning coaches on the U. P. Railroad.

     Mother and we girls stayed on the homestead.  Father had bought a milk cow before he left so we had milk and we had some chickens so we had our eggs.  We had no well so had a neighbor haul water for us.  The neighbor was a mile away.  They had the only windmill that we knew about except the one in Burlington.  They didn't charge for the water but we paid 10c a haul for the hauling.  The cow we led to water a half-mile away.

     Later the fathers in the neighborhood went together and built a sod schoolhouse, so we had school for the first time in the fall of 1890.  Just four months.

     Father would come and go to Denver to earn a little money so we could keep going.  One time he came home driving a nice pair of bay mares.  We worked hard at home with what we had so father could come home to stay.  In 1893 we lost our dear little sister, from the after effects of diphtheria.  We had had a visitor in our home who came from a home where they had recovered from this illness.  They said they had fumigated but it must not have been good enough to have killed the germs for shortly after that we had it.  We did not have much chance to get well.  I will never forget that gargle and that was about all the doctor did for us.  I don't think the gargle was a thing but alum water.  We thought Tillie was getting well but her throat was so dry, like mine, and she had just lost too much strength.

     In 1894 we had our first drouth and it was very dry.  No feed was raised.  No one would buy cattle here then, so we would trade cattle to the Bar T Ranch and the Spring Valley Ranch for the wild hay.  Then with what we had left over from the year before we were able to take the rest of the stock through the winter.  Things were never very easy for papa.

    I think we came after the buffalo were all gone as I do not remember seeing any.  I do remember hearing about one being killed around Burlington before we came.

    I remember the time the big barn burned on the Chase Ranch.  That is where John Richards lives now, 1958.  It burned in 1896 and I was a small girl at home.  It seemed to me that it was as nice a barn that I had ever seen.  It was big and they had been particular about building it.  They hauled all the sod for the walls clear from the Spring Valley Ranch on the river and the roof was made of that long tough hay that never let the water through.  They had been working the horses that day and there was other stock in it and they were about ready to eat supper and Mrs. Chase wondered why it was so light in the house.  It was dark outside.  Then she noticed what the reason was.  That nice big barn was on fire.  They just got one horse out and it was burned so around the head that they had to shoot it.  The loss was awful.  We thought that it was the house that was on fire and papa sent me over to tell them to come to our house and stay and eat.  We felt bad about it.

   The first little church that I can remember stood just two miles west of where George Homm is living now.  At that time there was a road that went west from the Homm place and on west from there, beyond the church.  It was just a little church but as far as I knew it was at that time the only church in the country.  My brother Henry Fanselau was baptized there in 1890.  It was built of sod.  There were a few burials in a plot close by.  My sister Tillie was buried there in 1893.  Then there was a nine-year-old boy buried there in 1893 also.  He was from the Lange family that lived east of the George Homm place.  The boy died in a snowstorm.  The father had gone to get supplies and did not get home until late in the evening.  It had started to snow so the mother told the boy to see about getting the cows in.  They were not usually very far away, but with no fences and the storm struck quickly with such fury that the boy did not get back.  They looked for him all night but he was not found until after the storm was over.  He had drifted nine or ten miles with the wind and so was far from home.  Shortly after this the father passed away and he was buried in this little plot.  Then in 1901 the other boy was riding home from the Spring Valley Ranch, when a thunder shower came up and he was killed by lightning.  He was buried there also.  The mother and the girls moved away shortly after that.

     It did not seem to me as a girl that this country was fenced very fast.  We did not even have a fence to keep away cattle from our meager stacks of feed, and I have known of Papa getting up at all hours of the night to drive stock away.  We tried to protect it with the wagon on one side and the sod barn on the other, but they would still get in.  The grass was not too good then as I heard so many say it might have been.  I have seen lots better grass since the land has been fenced.  'Those herds of cattle that used to roam the prairies were large and after they passed over it, it was not too good and these large ranches knew where it was if there was any good grass.  There were horses too and some wild ones.  We never tried to catch any of the wild ones for it was hard to do and you did not have much after you caught one for they were small, just about too small for work.  But quite often one was caught and broken and was used for riding, but sometimes not even good for that.