>From "Growing Up With Tulsa" which was written by Blanche Opal Kern Schad, a Harrison descendant, first cousin of my G-grandfather Herman R. Harrison. This story occurred when Opal was 10 years old. This book can be read in its entirety online now: http://freepages.books.rootsweb.com/~irishrose/tulsa/index.html Mother and I spent most of the summer of 1910 in Beemer, Nebraska. We had traveled there to be with her brother, my Uncle Dick, as his wife, my Aunt Liz, had died suddenly of a heart attack and Uncle Dick was having a hard time adjusting to the loss. My mother was a practical nurse so we stayed with him as long as we could that summer. The doctor told Mother that Uncle Dick would not last long after she left. He was right. Uncle Dick died of grief less than a month after we had gone. (*Note - the Uncle Dick mentioned was my GG-grandfather --William Brice Harrison & Emma Osborn were my GGG-grandparents. Richard is buried in Cuming County, NE and William & Emma are buried in Weston, Saunders Co., NE) In the summer of 1912, we again made the trip to Nebraska. We went first to Weston where Mother’s sister Clysta lived. Mother showed me where her father and mother, William Bryce (Brice) Harrison and Emma Osborn Harrison, were buried. Both had died before I was born. My grandpa Harrison died in 1898 at the age of eighty-five. We visited with the cousins and went to see places of special recollections and interest to Mothers, including the surrounding towns. From there we went to Omaha to visit Mother’s niece and then to Beemer, where Uncle Dick had raised his family. Many of my cousins were living in Beemer, surrounding towns and on nearby farms. Mother was next to the youngest in the family and I was the youngest in our family, so that my second cousins were in my age group. From Beemer we went to Casper, Wyoming, to visit Mother’s brother Sam and his family. Uncle Sam’s youngest daughter, Gladys and I were the same age, but her older sister Katherine had a son who was also our age. Uncle Sam and Aunt Mayme decided it would be nice for us to go camp in the mountains for a couple of weeks. There were three wagons loaded with supplies and those of us who were going. The mountains are about eight miles south of Casper and there was a place there where a natural spring fed a mountain stream and there were log cabins in the area. We rode in the wagons until we reached the mountains and then we had to get out and walk, as the horses could not pull the wagons with the supplies and us both in them. The trail was winding and steep and we could often climb up to the next road and be there long before the wagon got there. We got to see many things, such as mica mines, which seemed to be right on top of the ground. When we arrived, we met some sheepherders tending their flocks. The shepherd’ s life is a lonely one, so our arrival was cause for a celebration. Then over the weekend, my cousin May and some of her friends rode horses up to the camp. She was about twenty years old. May later married and moved with her family to a small community near Pawhuska, named Nelogany. When she got homesick, she would come to Tulsa to visit our family. I once attended a teachers meeting at Pawhuska and stayed with her. Incidentally, this was the time that our school superintendent, whose name was Porter, also attended the teachers’ meeting. He had a car and would ask me to meet him outside instead of attending the speaking and go for a ride. Of course, I enjoyed the rides more than the speeches. One of the shepherds asked us all to have supper with him. He had killed a lamb or two and cooked them. He even made biscuits and prepared a fine meal. He put wide boards between some trees to serve as a table. He was living in a covered wagon in which he had his bed, a stove, food storage and essentials. The meal had been prepared in these crowded quarters. The cabins were deserted and people used them free along with the nearby spring water. While the adults and my older cousin and her friends were eating, Gladys and I stole their horses and went for a ride (remember, children waited until the adults were finished eating when there was a crowd). By the time we returned, the rest of the folks were getting anxious about us." Since there were so many of us there for the night, the grownups decided to have a square dance on the board floors. Sheep herders came from all around. One of them played a fiddle or violin and I believe another one played the harmonica. The problem was that no one knew how to square dance except my mother, then over fifty, and an old man who was also well over fifty. Therefore, they led the dance. As the night wore on, we younger ones went to the cabins which were used for sleeping and went to bed. I believe that we all had a very good time on the campout. Always digging for my roots, Kathie Harrison Lancaster Co. Coordinator, NEGenWeb Project http://www.rootsweb.com/~nelancas/index.html