Shaffer Families

by Mona Taggart
In 1904, homestead entry for the Sioux ceded lands of the Rosebud > Reservation became available. Settlers to the newly opened area had to live on the site for five years
before being able to have the acres of land signed over to the homesteader.
Orlando (O.B.) Shaffer was born on December 22, 1874 in Voila WI, to William and Cassandria Shaffer. O. B. was the oldest of five boys and two girls in his family. At this
period in time, very few were called by their first names, initials were more commonly used. Even though O.B.¹s given name was Orlando, he signed all of his homestead > papers
Orra. This was found in research after Betty Shaffer wrote to Washington, D.C. to obtain documents on their centennial farm. When O.B. was twelve years old he moved with his
family to Bijou Hills. He completed his eight grade education in Bijou Hills and began helping his father and neighbors farm.

In 1900, he married Margaret (Maggie Kendall) on October 19. "O.B. remembered the blizzard of 1888, and told the story to family members," stated Betty. "He and his younger
siblings (two girls and four boys) held onto each others hands and O.B. led them home from school following the fence line." O.B.¹s favorite pastime was playing baseball and was
on the Bijou Hills baseball team where he played the position of catcher. They did not have any mitts at that time, so O.B. would tie his little finger to the next one, so it would not get
broken. The eldest of O.B. and Maggie¹s children, Vivian was born in 1901.

In 1904, O.B. traveled to Bonesteel to file for a homestead. He crossed the river on a ferry that was used at the time. He filed his claim on the NW 1/4 section 20 township 100
range 73, on August 24, 1904. He received application #858. O.B. told of many rattlesnakes, prairie dogs, very little grass and no trees. There were many Native Americans that
lived near the Shaffer homestead.

In the beginning, O.B. resided with Frank Dooley, as he did not have a claim shanty built. Later he purchased lumber from Pukwana, and hauled the material to the site to build
a two room house with a porch and shanty on it, before moving his wife and two daughters to the homestead, as Lula was born in August of 1904.> O.B. dug a well that provided
water for the livestock. The water was very hard and lye had to be added to soften the water. A cistern was added to provide the family with drinking water. O.B. was keen on
horses and raised and sold some for profit. "He and some of the neighbors drove some horses to Colome, while he was there, he purchased a pair of pure bred Perchon mares that
were offered for sale. He traded two good teams and $750.00 to boot. They were valued at $1,500.00, said Lyle." All homesteaders lost horses to rustlers, as well as cattle. Since
O.B. raised horses, there were a lot of stalls, as well as a tack room in the barn. Calves and cows were always put in the barn during blizzards.
In 1905, O.B. had 20 to 25 acres of crops planted, in 1906, it increased to 30 to 40 acres and in 1907, O.B. had expanded 80 plus in crops being planted.
Sanford (1906) and Vilas (1908) were born on the Shaffer homestead. When Vilas was a mere five weeks old, their mother, Maggie passed away. O.B. loaded his four children
on a train and headed to Oregon where his parents lived. He did not like it in Oregon and returned to the homestead with the three oldest children and left Vilas with his grandmother
Shaffer. At eight years old, Vilas returned to the Shaffer homestead to live with his family. In 1907, a frame house measuring 22x28 was erected. A frame barn measuring 42x56
was then built in 1916, along with a 14x18 shed. A hog house, hog corral, corn crib, well, pump, a 24x24 cow shed, a 10x20 log crib, and an orchard with about fifty trees soon
followed. Also in 1916, a 28x16 addition was added to Shaffer home making it a two-story house. In order to have the land transferred into ownership, four neighbors were required
to sign off on a document verifying that the settler had indeed worked the land, made improvements, etc. Neighbors Fred Vosacek, Herbert E. Swedland, George W. McWright and
Henry Feyerisen were the four neighbors that verified the improvements made to the Shaffer homestead and the land was then transferred to O.B.
The patent record is filed in Burke and is signed by President Theodore Roosevelt. Many people are under the assumption that after you lived on the homestead site for
five years that the land automatically became yours. However, through research from papers provided by the Shaffer family that they acquired through Washington, D.C., it shows
that a payment of $160.00 was paid in the first year and $120.00 per acre was paid in the next five years.
O.B. then married Fannie Felton on October 13, 1913. The couple had four > boys and two daughters, Kenneth (1914); Harold (1916); Lucille was born in 1918, and died shortly
after birth; William (1919); and Lyle February 3, 1922; and Georgia was born in 1925 and died as an infant. Kenneth passed away in 1952 from Leukemia. Fannie Felton was born on
December 18, 1887, near Chamberlain where her parents, Henry and Alma Felton lived, before her father homesteaded east of Iona in 1888. There was no lumber available, so her
father made their house in the side of a hill and the walls were slabs plastered with mud. The roof was made from slabs covered with hay and dirt. When Henry was able to
acquire lumber and get it across the river from Plankinton, he built a large two story home that the Vance Feyerisen family eventually lived in.
Fannie homesteaded in 1893, in Iona (Lyman County). Fannie helped her mother with seven children, as she was the oldest until she married O.B. In 1916, O.B. added a living
room and bedroom downstairs and three bedrooms upstairs to accommodate the large family. A new large barn was also built by Bob and Bill King and Togy Nelson at the time.
When the barn had been completed, and before the hay was stored in the haymow, they hosted a dance that lasted all night. The next morning before all the neighbors left, Fannie
and the neighbor ladies fixed breakfast for everyone. It took a long time to break the virgin sod, so that crops could be planted. Avery Fisher broke some land for O.B. with a
fourteen inch plow and four head of horses. At the end of each and every row, Avery had to sharpen the plow with a file, while the horses rested. It took Avery two years to
break half a section of ground. O.B. used a five section harrow pulled by a team of horses while he rode a horse. O.B.¹s operation included crops of corn, wheat and oats. The
family raised Hereford cattle. Since that time, Lyle has mainly bought John Deere and raises Angus, Charolais and Hereford cross cattle. Orra also raised hogs, they used a straw
pile or small buildings for the sows and piglets.
O.B. butchered his own hogs, as did Lyle for many years before they began talking them to the locker plant years later for processing. O.B. had a corn cutter that cut two rows
at once pulled by one horse. The reins were hung around his neck and he had his arms out for the corn to fall on and when he had enough for a bundle, he stopped and tied it up
with the twine that rode on the cutter.
When they thrashed wheat, it was too long of a day to get a wagon load to Dallas, then later when he purchased a truck, he would take a load of wheat to Gregory and trade it
for flour. "It took two bushels of wheat for one sack of flour" recalled Lyle. The family¹s first car was a Buick that O.B. purchased in 1914. It was also in 1914 that O.B. purchased a
Maytag washing machine with a wooden tub and a gas motor for his wife, Fannie. ³The Maytag washer had to have water in the tub all the time to keep it from drying out, since it
was made from wood. It was very much appreciated, as it was so much faster than scrubbing all the clothes on the scrub board, advised Lyle.
One July 4th, all of the younger four boys had chicken pox, so we could not go to Gregory for the celebration, as that was one celebration we usually attended, but otherwise
we didn¹t get to go to town very often. Kenneth and Harold were going to make candy while our parents were in town.
Harold was starting the kitchen stove when some of the kerosene spilled on his shirt sleeve and caught fire. He ran out of the house and was headed to the water tank, when
Kenneth caught him and threw him to the ground and pounded it out. Harold¹s arm was quite badly burnt. He wasn¹t taken to the doctor, so his arm never did heal quite right,recalled
Lyle.
In the 1930¹s, the grasshoppers came and ate everything, they would even eat the clothes on the clothes line. Then the dust storms followed and it was so dry. Many farmers
lost their land, but O.B. managed to keep his, and soon the rains fell from the heavens. He purchased a threshing machine and ran it with a Titan tractor. He> helped all of the
neighbors, as well as threshing his own grain. The ladies helped each other cook for the crew. His next tractor was a 1020 International tractor.
Fannie was busy raising eight children, but she always planted a large garden and canned a lot of fruit for jelly and jams. She also raised chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, so
that she could make feather pillows.
In 1928, Evon Davis, came to live with the Shaffers, as her mother, Bessie Davis had passed away. Bessie was Fannie¹s sister. Fannie was known for sewing all of her
clothes, as well as Vivian¹s, Lula¹s and Evon¹s. "You probably owned two sets of clothes, one to wear while the other set was being washed," stated Betty. A cook stove was
located in the kitchen and they used corn cobs and some wood and in the living room they had a A Warm Morning stove that used coal to heat the house. The Warm Morning stove
was not used much as the living room was rarely used. Kerosene lamps were used until the 1930¹s when a carbide plant was installed. These lamps were nice, but too expensive
to run.
In 1936, a telephone line was put in and was maintained by the farmers themselves. It was quite a struggle to keep a family of ten fed and clothed in those day,² remembered
Lyle. ³We walked one and a half miles to the Lincoln School in the LaPoint School District, which O.B. served on the board for thirty-two years.
During World War II, tires, gas, sugar, meat and many other things were rationed. ³You had to have a book of stamps to use to get things that you needed,² recalled Betty.
³Everyone had coupon books and you could only buy what you had coupons for, sugar was always precious. If you had children you fared better. Farmers had their own meat, milk
and eggs, which really helped them, as well as the vegetables they canned from their gardens. Before marrying Lyle, Betty worked for Dr. Donahue and received her room and
board and a mere three dollars a week. Dr. Donahue had married an eastern lady and Betty was never allowed to eat with the family and had to take her meals in the kitchen.
On January 2, 1942, Lyle married Betty Bailey. Betty was born on January 29, 1923, and was raised on the Westonka Ranch, about eight miles east of where the Shaffer¹s lived.
Her parents came to South Dakota in 1921 from Battle Creek, IA. The Bailey¹s had three homesteads in Iowa and three of the Bailey brothers and their families moved to the
Westonka Ranch, Ed, Fred and Betty¹s father, Elmer. Fred only stayed two years, then he and his family moved to Omaha, NE. The Westonka Ranch covered an area that went to
the Missouri River, having a lot of pasture ground, they took cattle in over the summer months. Betty had two older sisters, Alice and Doris, and one younger brother, Art. They all
attended the Hawk School.
In 1946, the Elmer and Lucille Bailey family moved north of Dixon. All the girls graduated from Gregory High School. Lyle and Betty resided with O.B. and Fannie for a few months,
then they lived on the Messick Farm and later moved west of Dallas, where Janice was born in 1944. They lived there for two years before O.B. decided to retire
and they moved to Gregory in 1948. Lyle was asked to come and farm the home place. Bill assisted Lyle with the farm and ranch work. O.B. had purchased an additional 775
acres and Lyle bought 200 to go with the original 160 acres that O.B. had homesteaded in 1904.
In 1944, the Shaffer¹s put in a 32 volt power plant that had batteries. The plant was housed in a building. A wind charger was used to charge batteries, which was a great
improvement. The family recalled another blizzard that came through the area in 1950. Janice was in the first grade and in school when the blizzard first came up. Lyle took the
tractor and had to go south through a field onto the road, then north to the school. Janice had already went home with the neighbors and was there for three days, recalled Betty.
She added, "In 1955, lots of snow came and the roads were blocked. If the snow plow came by your place, you went to town then. The stores would stay open twenty-four hours
so that you could get to town and get what you needed efore the roads would blow shut.
In 1954, the REC went through and we had electricity and water installed in the house. We could have a bathroom, so we did not have to go out to the little house outdoors,"
said Betty. In 1962, Bell put telephones in. Jerald joined the Lyle Shaffer family in 1946; Richard (Dick) in 1948, and Kenneth in 1954. The children all attended the Lincoln School
where Lyle served on the board from 1946 until it closed in 1967. Lyle and Betty still have all the school meetings, teachers books, etc., from 1905 until 1967, still in their care.
Darrell McCollam also resided with Lyle and Betty for six years, while he attended high school. After obtaining his teachers degree from Springfield, he taught school in Iona for
one year and at the Lincoln School from 1952-53, before the Army in January asked Darrell to report for a preinduction physical in Sioux Falls. He then joined the Army. McCollam
remembered, "No one told me what a spike-pitcher did, but I assumed he was to throw in as many bundles as he could. I crawled on the load with Carl and he pulled in the next to the
threshing machine. Grandpa got the F20 wound up and got the threshing machine going and motioned to us that we could begin putting bundles in. I was about 15 or 16 and full of
energy. Maybe I wanted to impress Grandpa and Carl how fast I could throw bundles in. I was throwing them in almost one on top of another. Carl didn¹t say anything to me. He had
his fork in a bundle and he was just watching me. He added, Even with the noise of the threshing machine, I heard someone screaming. I got over the edge of the load and it was
Grandpa. Even from way up on top of the load I could hear what he said. He told me I was about to get the threshing machine slugged full of straw. There was so much straw in the
threshing machine, that it was about to kill the tractor. He said for me to throw in a bundle, grain first, let Carl throw in a bundle, wait, and throw in another."
If Darrell wouldn¹t have been stopped, he would have jammed the machine full of straw for about thirty feet. The only way to un-jam the machine was to disassemble the front and
have someone crawl in and pull out the packed straw. Needless to say, next year Darrell was demoted.
"Everyone went to town on Saturday evening. We took our cream and eggs and> sold them to buy the groceries we needed. Then everyone would meet at the> cafe for coffee
and to visit with the neighbors," recalled Betty. Square dances started and Lyle and Betty belonged to the one in Dixon and the one in Hamill. These lasted about ten years, then
everyone started going to regular dances. Lyle and Betty enjoyed going to Carlock and Dallas. "We got our first TV in 1956. That was the wonder box"² stated Lyle. Betty washed
with a gas powered washing machine for several years until she got an automatic Maytag and an electric clothes dryer. "That was such a wonderful pair," exclaimed Betty. "You
used to have to hang the clothes on the clothes line outside and they would freeze stiff then you brought them in and hung them on chairs or clothes lines to thaw and dry. But no
one changed clothes as often as they do now and the ladies all wore aprons to keep their dresses clean, so you could wear them for several days. Lyle played baseball in Dixon
with the Beren¹s boys and the Native American men. Lyle always played catcher and Pete Berens was the pitcher. When
Jerry and Dick were old enough, Lyle managed the midget team. Soon Jerry was on the Legion Team, Dick on the Teen team and Lyle was stil managing the Midgets that Ken was
on, so at times the farming suffered.
"Lyle bought a boat and we all went to the river every Sunday. The kids all learned to water ski and there were a lot of young people there. We grilled hamburgers for supper
and it was a fun time," recalled Betty.
In 1954, Lyle and Betty joined the Iona United Methodist Church. There were fifty kids in Sunday School and many babies. Lyle and Betty started a 4-H Club in 1955, which had
thirty-two members in the Lyman Leaders at Iona. Betty joined the Friendly Neighbors Club in 1954. They continue to serve for funerals and take care of the Iona Cemetery. The
Shaffer children attended the Gregory High School and stayed with Lyle¹s mother from Sunday Night until Friday night.

The United Methodist Church is still a big part of the Shaffer¹s lives and they hope that the church continues to serve the community for many years to come. The Shaffer¹s
believe that the homestead will still be here in twenty-five and many more years to come. The Shaffer farm held their 100th Anniversary at the farm on the Fourth
of July. We had a float and used Dick¹s red semi truck. There were 60 Shaffer¹s present and they all wore red t-shirts with Shaffer Farm, as they rode or walked and handed out
pens with Shaffer Farm on them to the adults, advised Betty.