• General Notes

  [316552.ftw]
  
  1833 - Jacob Powell - 1915
       Jacob Powell, commonly known as "Ben" Powell, was born
  in Monroe County, Mo., June 8, 1883.  Departed this life
  February 20, 1915, at his home in Butler.  He was brought
  up in Schuyler County, Mo., and moved to Bates County about
  48 years ago.  The last five years the Powell family has
  resided in Butler.
       Deceased was married in Schuyler County, 60 years ago.
  Along the way of life these good people have walked
  together.  Through the changing scenes along the way, and
  the labors of all the years they have lightened each
  other's burdens and deepened their joys.  On the third day
  of this month, just sixteen days ago, his wife passed over
  the river, and so shortly he to, answered the eternal call.
       To this family eleven children were born, seven of
  whom survive. Sarah A. Powell, Mrs. Jennie Miller of St.
  Joseph; Mrs. Helen Venner of Canada; W. B., Lee, David and
  Andrew Powell of Butler.  John T. Lane and G. W. Lane, sons
  by a former marriage, and both of Oklahoma, also survive.
       Deceased was well and favorably known  by his friends
  and neighbors.  Mr. Powell was a kind father and a devoted
  husband.  He shall be missed through all the days that are
  to come.  These children are doubly bereft by the going of
  both father and mother so closely together.  The blessings
  of a rich Heavenly Father, and the warm sympathy of many
  friends and neighbors are sufficient for the hour of
  bereavement and a source of comfort.
       Funeral conducted from the house Sunday at 2:30 p. m.
  by Rev. R. M. Webdell,  Interment in Eilliott Cemetery
  south of Butler.
  
  
  POWELL FAMILY HISTORY IN MONTANA By Irene (Powell) Rudolph
  
       Willis Burton Powell, son of Jacob and Emily Powell,
  was born 31 March 1858 near Boliver, Missouri, and married
  13 June 1892 to Eva Ludora Vance, born 4 March 1868 in Ray
  County Missouri.
       They had two sons, Harry Leslie Powell, born in
  Butler, Missouri, 5 March 1893, and Mac Stewart Powell,
  born in Buffalo Wyoming, 5 April 1895.
       Willis, Eva and Harry came to Buffalo, Wyoming in
  1894, to Willis' brother, Lee Powell, and family.  They
  both worked for a large cattle and sheep ranch.  Willis was
  foreman of the cattle end of it and Eva was a cook for the
  ranch "hands", as the men were called that worked there.
       If I remember right, they stayed in Buffalo, Wyoming
  until the boys were seven and five years old.  They then
  went back to Missouri and Willis went to Alaska to the gold
  rush.  He came home broke.  When he got back Willis took
  his family and went to Flagstaff, Arizona.  Here he worked
  in the copper mines.  Eva and the boys had chickens and
  milk cows.  The boys had a milk, butter, and egg route.
       I don't know how long they stayed in Arizona.  I took
  by their stories that the boys were in their middle teens.
  They then went back to Butler, Missouri and stayed until
  both sets of parents had died.
       In 1918, the Powell family loaded all their belongings
  and two saddle horses on an emigrant car and came to
  Sheridan, Wyoming.  I am sure the boys and, I suppose,
  Willis all found work.
       In 1919 Harry went to Montana horseback to find a
  place to live.  He went to Miles City, Montana to file on a
  homestead of 640 acres.  I am sure he rode to Miles City
  horseback too.  Mac filed about the same time as their
  places joined.  Willis did not homestead.
       In 1922 Willis and Eva went out to Montana to live.
  Along with their wagon, team and stuff they also brought a
  few milk cows they got around Sheridan, Wyoming that were
  driven behind the wagon out to Montana.
       The place in Montana was about 50 miles from Sheridan,
  Wyoming and the closest post office was seven miles away.
  Another homesteader said to a neighbor "If we just had a
  post office now it would quiet us."  When they got the post
  office they called it "Quietus."
       In the spring and fall Harry would take a four horse
  team, a double box wagon, camping outfit and go to
  Sheridan, Wyoming to get the summer supplies they needed of
  staple goods such as flour, sugar, salt, etc...and block
  salt for the livestock and whatever else was needed to do
  the farming, haying and ranch work.  In the fall he would
  do likewise.
       They lived off the land, with their milk cows and
  chickens, the large gardens they grew, and a lot of wild
  game such as deer, antelope, wild chickens, sage chickens,
  grouse and cottontail rabbits.  There were also wild
  berries such as chokecherries and plums.  The family all
  lived together in a two room log cabin until they could get
  lumber to build an addition for three small bedrooms.
      The family went out there as a corporation, W. B.
  Powell and Sons. The country was full of wild horses and as
  soon as they had cut timber enough to build a corral the
  boys got their horses, went out and drove in a bunch of
  wild horses.   They picked the ones that they wanted to
  break to work and the small lighter weight ones they broke
  to ride.  I'm sure they had fun doing this.  This is how
  they got into the horse business.
       Eva always had chickens for eggs and also to eat.
  After they were in Montana a while they leased land from
  two men that had homesteaded next to them but did not live
  there.  They both worked around Sheridan, Wyoming.  Also
  leased was a "school section" of 640 acres and around 1200
  acres from a lady that lived in Clearmont, Wyoming.  They
  had quite a few range cows at the time Harry and I were
  married as well as some "share cows" that a friend that
  lived in the country around Sheridan, Wyoming had put out
  with the Powells.  The Powells got 60% of the calf crop and
  the friend got 40%.  That is how we got started in the cow
  business.
       On October 9, 1930 Harry married Irene Matilda Decker,
  born 24 September 1912 at Greenwood, Wisconsin.  We all
  lived together.  I worked outside with Harry, farming,
  riding, etc...  I had my own four horse team.  In the
  morning I got the halters, went out to the corral and
  caught my horses (they were gentle), took them to where the
  harness hung, put it on them, bridled them, and went to the
  field to work them.  Once in the field I hooked up the
  harrow, that had a board fastened to it and stood on the
  board and harrowed all day.  We took our lunch to the field
  and would stop just long enough to eat it.  Harry worked
  eight horses on a three bottom plow.  His horses were not
  all gentle.  He had one horse he called his "Bronco Horse"
  that helped handle the rest.  He had horses tied to horses,
  so that is why we never unhooked them until time to quit.
  Except for me.  I would come in early, unharness my horses,
  turn them loose, get my saddle horse and go to the pasture
  of 640 acres to bring in the milk cows (Mac, at that time,
  was living on a place that they had leased).  Harry and I
  milked 14 to 18 cows, separated the milk and cream and sold
  the cream in five and eight gallon cans.  Harry had a
  Graham truck at the time that he hauled the cream to
  Sheridan, Wyoming in.  We didn't get much for it and when
  the depression hit in 1934 to 1935 we got much less; $1.50
  for five gallons of cream and ten cents a dozen for eggs.
  We put in long, hard hours.  We always raised a large
  garden and had many chickens.  Eva and I did a lot of
  canning of vegetables and frying chickens, as well as
  stewing hens.  When Willis was still able to ride
  horseback, he and I would get on our horses with a bucket
  each and a 100 pound grain sack and go pick the wild
  chokecherries in their season.  The wild plums came later
  when they were ripe.  Eva and I made a lot of jelly and jam.
       In 1931, while our first child was on the way, I
  continued to help with the work outside until the last week
  in December when Harry brought me to the home of a friend
  in Sheridan, Wyoming to wait for my baby. January 15, 1932,
  Alice Mae was born.  I did not go to the hospital.  I was
  at the Eureka Home that was run by a nurse.  It was also a
  place where the people from the country went from the
  hospital after surgery to recover before the long trip
  home.  It didn't cost so much there.  One morning as the
  nurse was giving me my bath, she told me she would not
  dismiss me until my bill was paid, which was $35 to $40.
  As a new mother, I really got excited.  Instead of telling
  the friends I was staying with, which would have paid the
  bill then Harry could pay them back, I wrote a letter to
  Harry.  He then caught two saddle horses, rode the 50 miles
  to Sheridan in the cold with the snow up to the horses
  knees most all the way.  It took him two days to come in.
  He stopped for the night with the same folks about 20 miles
  out of Sheridan.  I must say, he was a little angry with
  the nurse.  He paid the bill, had another friend outside in
  his car waiting and we went as far as we could on the main
  traveled road in the car.  The other folks met us at the
  road with team and sled and took us one and one half to two
  miles to their house.  How exciting and what wonderful
  people, did all this without charging us a penny.  I was
  there until the first of February when the weather broke so
  Harry could come get us in the Graham truck.  With no
  heater in them in those days we had to keep warm with a
  large heavy quilt.  I was already, by that time, to
  continue with outside work, while Grandma and Grandpa took
  care of the baby.
       When spring came and Willis would go out to ride his
  horse, he took Alice for a horseback ride.  She was six
  months old, still had on a white dress, and that is what
  started her "cowgirl career."  It was 1936 that Alice got
  her own first saddle horse.  My folks had left the country
  and went to Idaho.  So mother gave her white pet saddle
  mare, named Peaches, to Alice.  All the children learned to
  ride on her.
       In 1936, when the depression got really bad, it was
  hard to make a living; not enough rain to raise a corp nor
  hay, nor gardens.  That is when W. B. Powell and Sons
  dissolved the partnership.  As Willis and Eva were going to
  live with us, Harry got two thirds of the cattle and
  machinery, Mac got the other third.  Mac went to Sheridan,
  Wyoming, got a job on a ranch haying for the summer.
  Willis and Eva got $20 a month, old age pension, each.
  Harry and I kept on milking cows.  All helped to live.
  That was the summer our U. S. President Roosevelt made
  programs called WPA and PWA, what the difference was I
  don't remember.  A lot of the folks out our way worked on
  the programs.  That is when we got our dirt roads from
  Sheridan, Wyoming graveled.  Harry worked on it during
  October, November and one paycheck in December.  When it
  ended, Harry had our year's supply of flour and sugar
  stacked in a corner of the front room along with a lot of
  canned vegetables and some fruit in the cellar. It was a
  gift from God; we sure did appreciate it.
       On 19 March 1937 our son was born named Willis Alfred
  (Bill).  By this time Grandma (Eva) was not able to care
  for the baby, so I got to be a housewife and mother for a
  while, something I did enjoy.  On 30 November 1939 our
  second daughter, Addie Marie, was born and on 23 December
  1940, our second son, Lee Stewart, was born.
       In October 1940 Eva passed away.  We had moved them to
  town for the winter as she was ill and they were boarding
  with a couple.  She only lived a couple of weeks after
  moving to town so she didn't get to see her last grandson.
  Willis passed away at the ranch of old age on the 29th of
  January 1944.  They were both buried in Sheridan, Wyoming.
       As the years began to get better, Harry bought the two
  homesteads he had leased and more that we had not leased so
  that we had 5000 acres of deeded land, 640 school lease and
  200 acres of federal lease.  We were running around three
  hundred head of cattle.  Mac also bought more land and he
  joined us.  We ran our cows together and we all worked
  together. We began to have some great times doing other
  things besides work.  We went to Tongue River Dam to picnic
  and fish and went to country dances.
       When Alice was ready for school, she had to board away
  from home through the week.  We lived thirteen miles from
  the nearest country school.  Bill also had to board away
  from home for school.  When Addie was ready for school
  Harry bought a one room cabin that was in the school yard
  (a teacher had lived in it)  and Alice, Bill and Addie
  stayed in it through the week.  When Lee was ready to go to
  school Harry bought a Willys Jeep and Alice drove it to
  school.  It was handed down to Bill when Alice was out of
  school and when he was done with school it was my job to
  drive the school route.  All the children went to Sheridan,
  Wyoming to go to high school.
       In 1947 Harry had a deep well drilled on a hill from
  the house, 255 feet deep.  It was "soda water" but a lot of
  it.   Then we built on to the old house; a nice big kitchen
  and bathroom on the first floor and two bedrooms and two
  nice bedrooms and clothes closets upstairs.  A nine hundred
  gallon cement water storage tank was made, a ditch and
  water pipe was laid to the house.  The water came gravity
  flow and by fall we had all the conveniences of running
  water in the house.  We also had propane hot water heater,
  a propane refrigerator with freezer compartment and a
  double sink.  Hot and cold water, what a luxury and how
  happy we all were!  Our hard work had paid off.  We had
  gotten a new Dodge car, two tractors, machinery to go with
  them, and we had to milk only one or two milk cows for our
  own use, and had our chickens for eggs and to eat.
       The time came when the two oldest children had left
  the nest and were feathering nests of their own.  At
  Christmas vacation  time in 1957 Range Telephone Company
  installed our first phone.  And the following spring on the
  evening of April 20th, after Harry got to see five of the
  grandchildren, he was talking on the phone to Alice when he
  fell over backwards; dead.  What a shock!  He is buried in
  Sheridan, Wyoming also.
       About four years after Harry died, Mac sold his place
  to a neighbor, and moved to Sheridan to live.  In the
  spring 1978 Mac got quite ill and the doctor put him in the
  nursing home in Gillette, Wyoming as the one in Sheridan
  was full.  I was put in as his guardian to take care of his
  business.  I went often to see him and he  was always clean
  and kept nice, he got good care.  He died on the 12th of
  September, 1978 from pneumonia.  He was an Elk so is buried
  in the Elk's cemetery plot in Sheridan, Wyoming.  This
  comes to close the Powell family life in Montana.
       Daughter Addie and family have the ranch now and I
  hope when she retires form teaching school she and Ace will
  go to live there the rest of their lives.[576008.ftw]
  
  Line 5108 from GEDCOM File not recognizable or too long: BIRT PLAC Monroe Co. M issouri POWELL FAMILY HISTORY IN MONTANA By Irene (Powell) Rudolph Willis Burto n Powell, son of Jacob and Emily Powell, was born 31 March 1858 near Boliver, M issouri, and married 13 June 1892 to Eva Ludora Vance, born 4 March 1868 in Ray County Missouri. They had two sons, Harry Leslie Powell, born in Butler, Misso uri, 5 March 1893, and Mac Stewart Powell, born in Buffalo Wyoming, 5 April 189 5. Willis, Eva and Harry came to Buffalo, Wyoming in 1894, to Willis' brother, Lee Powell, and family.  They both worked for a large cattle and sheep ranch. Willis was foreman of the cattle end of it and Eva was a cook for the ranch "ha nds", as the men were called that worked there. If I remember right, they staye d in Buffalo, Wyoming until the boys were seven and five years old.  They then went back to Missouri and Willis went to Alaska to the gold rush.  He came home broke.  When he got back Willis took his family and went to Flagstaff, Arizona .  Here he worked in the copper mines.  Eva and the boys had chickens and milk cows.  The boys had a milk, butter, and egg route. I don't know how long they s tayed in Arizona.  I took by their stories that the boys were in their middle t eens.  They then went back to Butler, Missouri and stayed until both sets of pa rents had died. In 1918, the Powell family loaded all their belongings and two saddle horses on an emigrant car and came to Sheridan, Wyoming.  I am sure the boys and, I suppose, Willis all found work. In 1919 Harry went to Montana horse back to find a place to live.  He went to Miles City, Montana to file on a home stead of 640 acres.  I am sure he rode to Miles City horseback too.  Mac filed about the same time as their places joined.  Willis did not homestead. In 1922 Willis and Eva went out to Montana to live.  Along with their wagon, team and s tuff they also brought a few milk cows they got around Sheridan, Wyoming that w ere driven behind the wagon out to Montana. The place in Montana was about 50 m iles from Sheridan, Wyoming and the closest post office was seven miles away. Another homesteader said to a neighbor "If we just had a post office now it wou ld quiet us."  When they got the post office they called it "Quietus." In the s pring and fall Harry would take a four horse team, a double box wagon, camping outfit and go to Sheridan, Wyoming to get the summer supplies they needed of st aple goods such as flour, sugar, salt, etc...and block salt for the livestock a nd whatever else was needed to do the farming, haying and ranch work.  In the f all he would do likewise. They lived off the land, with their milk cows and chi ckens, the large gardens they grew, and a lot of wild game such as deer, antelo pe, wild chickens, sage chickens, grouse and cottontail rabbits.  There were al so wild berries such as chokecherries and plums.  The family all lived together in a two room log cabin until they could get lumber to build an addition for t hree small bedrooms. The family went out there as a corporation, W. B. Powell a nd Sons. The country was full of wild horses and as soon as they had cut timber enough to build a corral the boys got their horses, went out and drove in a bu nch of wild horses.   They picked the ones that they wanted to break to work an d the small lighter weight ones they broke to ride.  I'm sure they had fun doin g this.  This is how they got into the horse business. Eva always had chickens for eggs and also to eat.  After they were in Montana a while they leased land from two men that had homesteaded next to them but did not live there.  They bo th worked around Sheridan, Wyoming.  Also leased was a "school section" of 640 acres and around 1200 acres from a lady that lived in Clearmont, Wyoming.  They had quite a few range cows at the time Harry and I were married as well as som e "share cows" that a friend that lived in the country around Sheridan, Wyoming had put out with the Powells.  The Powells got 6

Details of Jacob's family with Sarah Emily Melvin