• General Notes

  Rigby thinks things are getting better
  Harry Rigby thinks things are getting better all the time!
  November 8, 1973 - The Osborne County Farmer
  (By Dave Magruder)
  
  Relaxing in the living room of his cozy Natoma home. Harry Rigby finished off a sentimental journey of the past by observing, "things are getting better all the time."
  
  Anyone looking over the logbook of his life would have to agree. He spent many of his productive years trying to climb this mountain and it seems for every step he went up, he would slide back two. The, when he finally gave up, he discovered he was on the wrong hill.
  
  A man could become discouraged and bitter from such a disappointment. Not Harry. He found the right way to travel and the further he came, the better it got and like he says it keeps getting better.
  
  For many years, he tried his hand at farming, entertaining visions of one day owning his own spread. Thi9s never happened. For one thing, his time was wrong, running into such obstacles as the dust bowl days and the depression. And, what little money he eked out of tenant farming before that barely kept his growing family in necessities.
  
  Harry was by no means unique as to his ambition and the way it all unfolded. The one thing about the Osborne County native setting him apart form others was he amount of determination and effort exercised before admitting defeat.
  
  Once he got out of the country into town, the tide turned first at Natoma and later at Osborne, finding a niche at the county courthouse that was highlighted by tow terms as county sheriff.
  
  The Rigby family originally came to Kansas from Pennsylvania after three of the children had died, probably from respiratory ailments that were common back east, especially around the Pittsburgh steel mills. Since doctors had nothing to fight the diseases, they would advise a move west.
  
  His father, Harry, was age four when the clan made the move in 1880, filing for a claim at the head of Covert Creek to settle. His grandfather Joe had a talent as a plasterer to go along with farming. His dad farmed too and he remembers at one time running a butcher shop in Waldo.
  
  Harry's parents were married in 1896, the mother being the former Grace Sealey, a native of Toledo, Iowa. The Sealeys migrated to Osborne County in 1878, two years after grandfather Frank, a Civil War veteran from New York arrived.
  
  The granddad's way of adding to his existence came in the form of shooting prairie chickens and quail, shipping them east for use in restaurants. Although the buffalo was gone by this time, some wildlife was still abundant to permit harvesting in large numbers.
  
  He started school at Blue Ridge, south of Covert, attending two years before finishing his eighth grad at Pleasant Hill. He recalls the Blue Ridge School also served as a Baptist Church.
  
  School recess periods featured games such as black man, dare base, fox and geese and the standard, baseball, which on Saturdays was played with other nearby groups. He played first base and caught and remembers some of the schools scheduled were Shady Bend, IXL and Covert.
  
  Another big deal for the community was the literary programs and box suppers held at school evening every other week. Harry's role in the events came through acting in plays and singing.
  
  About the same time, there were parties and barn dances, folks often going to a neighbor's house, moving out the furniture and dancing to a fiddle while singing out the rounds and squares. Some of the popular songs would be repeated throughout the evening and the fiddler would play as long as a quarter was put in the kitty for each selection. When the parties broke, often in the black of a moonless night, the horses knew the way home. This brought a smile across his face as he retold of his father courting his mother in a two wheel-cart and this progressed to the horse and buggy by the time of Harry's romance days.
  
  His bride was Merle Bealby with their wedding coming in 1916. She was born near Brookville on the Ellsworth County side.
  
  James Bealby was age 11 when he immigrated from England in 1882, the family coming to Kansas to raise cattle. He was wed to Mary Hoss, a Lincoln girl. In 1913, they bought the Cedar Bluff ranch and drove their Herefords to the place and later brought five wagon load's of equipment and household goods.
  
  They met at the first literary she attended at the Pleasant Hill School, yet another advantage of those early-day social events. Later, he farmed 80 acres of land for her father.
  
  The couple set up in housekeeping on a 120-acre farm in Victor Township, eight miles southwest of Covert. Of the acreage, only 50 were broke for wheat and he had some cattle and hogs. They stayed four years.
  
  The family was increasing with the couple having five children. Gladys Haynes now works for Fuller Brush at Great Bend. Reva is wed to Harold Beck, farming 12 miles northeast of Natoma. Harold is an Amoco pipeline engineer at Herndon. Kenneth is a Hays oil field pumper. Winifred Davis lives northeast of Hays, working at the Plainsman store while husband, Clarence, is also an oil pumper.
  
  There are 11 grandchildren, one boy killed in the Vietnam war, and 21 great grandkids.
  
  Between 1920 and 1937, the Rigby family were located on eight different farms in southwest Osborne county. As anyone in agriculture during the period can testify, they were years to tear at a man's soul.
  
  Before 1920, the farmer had to contend with World War I price controls. After that, the grain and livestock markets were plagued by manipulation of politics and profiteers. Overnight during the Harding administration, the price of a cow or horse tumbled $100 a head.
  
  That sort of thing continued until the big market crash of 1929 and then it got worse. The depression was one thing. In Kansas the woe was greatly enlarged by drought and blowing dust. Men like Harry Rigby had little resources to fall back on at best and became pawns in the vicious set of circumstances.
  
  Many gave up long before he did, but Harry always had hope the tide would turn. It didn't. So, in 1937, the Rigbys came to town. As a farmer, he had become a handyman and for 18 months found work at odd jobs.
  
  Then he caught on with the Union Pacific Railroad section crew, spending seven years. After that was the opportunity to work as a carpenter's helper and later he worked as a school custodian while Merle had the school hot lunch program.
  
  A building boom hit Natoma in 1948 what with construction of a new grad and high school structure, followed by improvements of the town streets with paving, curbs and gutters. He calls the steady work he had on the projects as the "best years of my life in Natoma."
  
  He went back to carpenter work with these jobs completed while Merle was clerking for Herman Urban at the general mercantile store.
  
  Their move to Osborne come in 1954 when he took over the custodian industry at the county courthouse. He did a good job and when Leonard Pruter resigned as sheriff, the county commissioners didn't look too far to find their man.
  
  Serving out the four months of the term, he was elected in 1956, Merle acting as his jail matron. Narrowly defeated in 1958, he went back to his former courthouse duties and was elected sheriff again in 1960, retiring and moving back to Natoma at the end of the term.
  
  Life has been real good to them back home just like it was in Osborne. They live right across the street from the Church of God Holiness, where they have many interests.
  
  Once members of the Free Methodist Church, he now teaches Sunday School, has been church superintendent, son leader and trustee, his wife also teaching classes. Religion is the thing they think kept them going through the thick and thin.
  
  It is through their bountiful garden that permits the Rigbys to reassure themselves of having a touch with the soil. "We've always raised a lot of vegetables and we find it especially good now to provide us all the exercise we need," he said. "I have always held the idea farming was the good life and that garden gives a lot satisfaction.
  
  It also give them more then enough vittles to carry them through a winter, as Merle is busy the summer long canning, that adds up to about 600 pints and quarts of goodies in a cellar larder, along with gathering fruit from their trees.
  
  Aside from gardening, the Rigbys have a yard project to keep them busy, growing a wide variety of flowers.
  
  They are especially fond of visiting and go in heavily for spectator sports. She once sewed for the family, but now is content to knit and crochet.
  
  The Rigbys figure they made a wide friendship in the years at the courthouse and Harry says he has been on just about every farm in the county during sheriff campaigns, getting to meet most county residents.
  
  He figures part of his success in getting elected was knowing the problems farmers faced. "I've had as much good luck as anyone." He said in talking about good and bad times. "But I know how it feels both ways."
  
  Indeed, he does that, which makes his good years of retirement feel so much better.
  
  END
  

Details of Harry's family with Lydia Merril Bealby