KANSAS COLLECTION BOOKS
The Story of a Kansas Pioneer, by Melissa Genett Anderson



Part VI.


     My father, my mother, my brothers and sisters are all dead. Of the fourteen children of my father's family, I alone am left. On January 11, 1920, my husband, after eighteen years of patient suffering, passed away and is sleeping now in the Greenwood Cemetery.

     Since we came to Kansas in 1857, we have seen many changes. There have been many joys, as well as many sorrows. Many burdens have been too heavy for human strength. but we early learned to cast our care on One who careth for us, our great Burden Bearer.

     And surely we have lived in the greatest age the world has ever known. My grandfather cut his wheat with a sickle; my father cut his with a cradle; my husband had a McCor-Mick reaper. What is used now, I do not know, for it has been forty years since I lived on a farm or saw a field of wheat harvested. Instead of the ox, we have the automobile. Doubtless our grandchildren will think that is too slow. They will ride in airships. Instead of shearing the sheep, carding the wool, spinning yarn, weaving cloth and then making clothes, we can buy our clothes ready to wear. We have gone from the tallow candle to the electric light. Our grandmothers had no washboards and rubbed their clothes with their hands. We have the electric washing machine. We once considered it wonderful to have the little melodeon. Today we sit in our homes and enjoy concerts from far and near through the invention of the radio.

     And now comes the thought: What is the future for the children of men?


gold sculptured divider line

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