The Worcester Family Miscellany
Lester Ray and Octa May Worcester - No. 1289
The following material is quoted verbatim from a pamphlet entitled "123 Years With the Descendants of Lester Ray and Octa May Worcester." The pamphlet sets forth the family history of Lester and Octa along with many of their descendants. The pamphlet was provided by Merlyn Worcester of Hill City, Kansas. The author of the pamphlet is unlown.
Lester Ray Worcester and Octa May Bird were pioneers in
Graham County. Both crossed the plains of the midwest in covered wagons, arriving in
Graham County during the same year.
Lester was born in Brodhead, Wisconsin and had a twin sister. His
parents, Leverett Downs and Rozanne Woodard Worcester, along with four sisters and one
brother, arrived in the county in 1879. They settled Northeast of Hill City in the Spring
Creek area. The trip to Kansas from DeKalb County, Mo. lasted three weeks, arriving
in Graham County on the 8th day of March, 1879. Graham County as such was not organized
into a county until April 1, 1880.
Lester and Octa May were married in Guy, Kansas. The town of Guy was
located a few miles east of the county seat of Hoxie. It no longer is in existence. John
and Rachel Bird's house was located about two miles southwest of what was later known as
Tasco. Tasco likewise no longer exists.
They built a sod house on homesteaded land. It was built on a cement
foundation three feet wide. The slabs of sod about four inches thick, approximately
eighteen inches wide and two feet long were placed grass side down in a criss-cross
manner. A hand dug well lined with native rock was located a few yards behind the house.
A.D. Worcester, a grandson of John and Rachel, tells of being at the
sod house and Grandma had just baked some pumpkin pies. She put them outside on the ground
to cool and a drake duck walked through them. He quacked and all the other ducks followed
suit, walking through the hot pies.
Within three years after John and Rachel moved to Sheridan County, all
their children were married except Lillie and she was teaching school.
May and Lester grew up on the prairie. Many were the stories they told
of living of pioneer living. Of wearing gunny sacks bound to their feet and putting shoes
and socks on just before entering school and church. They told of prairie fires sweeping
across the open plains with nothing to stop them. Also of rolling hoop snakes, of
gathering cow chips for fuel, of summer heat and winter cold but always enough to eat and
plenty of love and laughter.
The houses they lived in had dirt floors. Gunny sacks for carpeting and
muslims for windows. Both attended country normal school and prepared themselves for
teaching. Both held positions for several years.
They were charter members of the First Christian Church of Hill City,
driving 12 miles each way in a spring wagon on Sunday to attend services.
The family moved into town in Hill City in 1910. Soon
after they located on the family place southeast of town on a ten acre site. Lester became
a rural mail carrier on a route south of town. In addition to delivering mail, he also
delivered thread, groceries, medicine and good will all along his route. At one time, he
had the largest orchard in Northwestern Kansas. If it could be grown in the area, (apple
trees, peaches, apricots, berries, melons, garden vegetables) he had it growing on his
place.
Not being a selfish man, he furnished fruit and vegetables to anyone
who cared to stop by the home place --- without charge. His delight in giving his
products away was a bright, cheerful smile -- and he always had plenty for canning
purposes to carry his family through the winter months. The storm cellar was filled to
capacity every fall. May Worcester raised her own chickens for eating and for eggs for the
family as well as "pin money."
Anyone passing through the town without a place to stay was always
welcome in the Worcester household. During the dust storms of the early 1930's, one never
knew how many visitors or family members would come in from the country to find refuge in
the Worcester home.
On one occasion, a passing motorist had been involved in an accident and was confined to a
hotel room. May heard about the accident and had the victim removed to her home to take
care of the patient for three weeks while bones mended. The patient was a front room guest
in the Worcester home.
May and Lester were very religious people and practically kept the church alive themselves
-- both financially and spiritually.
Lester took his Noah's Ark complete with animal cookies to any country church needing to
conduct Sunday services at any time he was called.e was heard to remark: "If I could
have my heart's desire, it would not be wealth or fame, but to know God's book of
memory."
The question arises about why a man and his wife who own their farm in Missouri, pick up
the family and move westward? The weather being what it is, why would they travel 300 to
400 miles by horse and wagon? Here's one logical answer: John served in the Civil War. He
had a family of seven children, three boys nearly grown. Out west land was free. There
were 160 acres for planting a tree claim. Where else could a man offer so much for his
sons and daughters? His parents and grandparents had moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia
and Ohio. Rachel's family moved from Boston to West Virginia to Ohio. They were what we
call pioneer blood, and as such, new horizons and the unknown must have held a challenge
for them. Why would they leave in February? Crops need to be planted in the spring. A new
home had to be built from material that was available -- sod, rock and timber. Perhaps
this was one of the mild winters, sometimnes we have nice weather in February.
Octa May Worcester was born on May 24, 1874. She came
to Hill City at the age of 4 was and settled northeast of town. As a child, she did a lot
of sheep herding for her family and they had a huge sheep shed which covered over an acre
of land.
Each person had their doors that they were responsible for and they
could nail them shut if the Indians bothered them. They were always ready, but "as
long as they left the Indians alone, the Indians wouldn't bother them." While the
Indian scares were numerous, all they usually wanted was food and would leave after they
got it.
Before she died, Octa May recalled that she was quite a wanderer and
that she continued her schooling in Great Bend before teaching school.
When she married Lester in 1892, he continued teaching and she stayed
home and farmed. She "snapped corn and fed hogs and cattle." They kept cactus
around the windows to keep rattlesnakes out because they had no window screens. She also
remembered that they had more trouble with fleas than with flies in their homes. Coyotes
and rattlesnakes offered problems as did horse thieves and bandits passing through. The
weather caused its share of the difficulties in early-day Graham County as a flash flood
once roared down Spring Creek taking out a picket fence near Octa May's home. It was bad
enough to lose the fence but even worse to lose the half dozen head of cows to the fence.
One particular prairie fire burned form northeast of their place down
through Nicodemus, but the Indians kept the prairies pretty well burned off for their own
protection so there weren't too many unplanned fires. Caves were often used as refuges
from storms and they were alweays well equipped. The Owrcester's like other early
settlers, would take a load of wheat to town in the fall and sell it to by their supplies
for winter and would take another load in the spring to carry them throguh until the next
crop.
They would spend $10-15 for several months' supplies and lived off of
mush, milk and hash. Thre or four hogs would be butchered at the time and the pork was
stored in brine and the sausage in lard and kept in the cave. They made their own butter
and cheese and cooled it in the spring near the house.
On their 50th wedding anniversary, Lester's rwin-sister (Mrs. Frank
Blackburn) was in attendance as was her husband. They were the young couple's attendants
at their wedding 50 years earlier.
The followong bit of wisdom might well be the philosophy of Lester and
Octa May Worcester: "We may not leave our children a great inheritance, but day by
day, we are weaving tham a coat to wear through eternity."