Just Pete – Life on the Prairie

Stories of this particular Schrock family are told in a self-published book titled “Just Pete” (c. abt 1980) written by Pete and Jennie Schrock, Jospeh Schrag’s great, great grandson, Peter Alvin Schrock (b. 1895-d. 1980), son of Samuel and Ellen Zendner Schrock. Excepts of Pete’s life are adapted from that book.

Joseph Schrag b. 1772> Johannes Schrock b. 1801> Peter Schrock b. 1839> Samuel Schrock b. 1864> Peter “Pete” Schrock b. 1895

Sam and Ellen with first child, Katie (abt. 1890)

Sam and Ellen beside their sod house in Thurman

Ellen Zendner Schrock (left), with Pete’s grandmother Zendner (Barbie Marie Schrag Zendner) on the right.

As can be found in other parts of this website, Peter Schrock (“Just Pete”) was a descendant of Joseph and Maria Neuhauser Schrag/Schrock. Joseph and Maria’s family spent most of their early lives in the Moselle area of France, but emigrated from Meuse to America in 1831— first to Pennsylvania, then to Butler Co., Ohio. Several of their children, including Johannes, moved on westward to Tazewell Co., Illinois. Johannes’ son Peter and wife Anna Garber eventually settled in Fisher, Illinois.

These families followed in the tradition of their forebears, moving from place to place in order to find work, and a hospitable reception to their Mennonite religious beliefs. And so they left their European homelands and endured the hardships of beginning again in a new part of the world.

But back to our storied families. Grandfather Peter had a penchant for whittling with his jackknife, and used it for cutting his chewing tobacco as well. Today, the knife is in the possession of a family member.

Samuel had married Helénè (Ellen) Zendner in 1888 while still living in Illinois. Ellen was born in France to parents Christian Zendner and Barbe Marie Schrag (sometimes shown as Serach or Gerard). The family emigrated in 1867 to Woodford Co., Illinois, from the Meuse area of France. Barbe Marie’s ancestry goes back many generations earlier to the very same family in Switzerland as her husband Sam. Ellen’s mother, Barbe Marie, brought with her a woolen coverlet woven in France and treasured by several generations of descendants (shown in the photo below).

Peter and Anna’s second living child, Samuel, eventually moved his family further westward to Thurman, Colorado. In the fall of 1907, Samuel, Ellen, the four children, and Ellen’s widowed mother Barbe Marie, exited a train at Flagler, Colorado, at 4 o’clock a.m. After a meal, they were taken 35 miles by John Zendner to Thurman, where the Zendner families lived.

Grandpa Sam loved hunting and trapping and taught his sons how to stretch the hides on frames so they could be sold to help buy winter clothing. This helped their meager income. As Grandpa Sam got on in years, he became rather caustic when an adult irritated him, but he loved the children and kept crackers and pink wintergreen bits in his house that he shared with the visiting children. And his dog, Trixie, entertained them with his tricks.

Sam and his family lived for a few years with Zendner families, but eventually he and son Pete, no doubt helped by Zendner relatives, built a sod house northeast of Thurman a mile or so for the Schrock family. When Pete grew into a young man he homesteaded his own 240 acres of land six and one-half miles from Thurman and built another sod house, living in it while improving the land.

Building a sod house was a rather complicated process: first, a sod cutter needed to be made, then the heavy prairie sod was cut into long strips and taken to the building site by a team of horses. The house walls were made of 18” thick blocks of sod, leaving openings for doors and windows. Finally, board rafters were formed and covered with wood boards, then covered with heavy tar paper. On the very top were laid sod chunks, very closely together. Thus, a sod house was cool in the summer and warm in the winter. If there was enough rain, the occupants would be treated to cacti and other wild flowers blooming on the roof!

But not all was beautiful: the perils of the prairie were many: sickness, blizzards, tornados, rattlesnakes, and always the threat of prairie fires.

Sickness

One day Pete asked Grandpa Sam if he knew why so many babies and children died in the Thurman community from 1890 to 1893. His answer was “he had been told of a diphtheria epidemic during those years.” The Thurman Cemetery has an entire row of small gravestone markers, most are identical white marble slabs with a little lamb engraved on them. Some of the names were Roth, Kennel, Erb. The Roth family had five children die during those years. The Erb family lost three children in July 1891. The flu was also a killer. Pete’s family had their share of maladies, and were treated with bed rest, castor oil, and sometimes skunk grease.

Blizzards

One sunny day in March 1923, Pete and his father Sam, known to be cautious men, decided to drive to Flagler in the Model T touring car to pick up a new cream separator Pete had ordered (seen in the two photos below – top down, top up). For some reason, they didn’t check the barometer as usual before going very far. When they reached Flagler they were told a bad storm was on the way, so they loaded the separator and started for home. Three or four miles into the journey a fierce Arctic wind of hurricane force, accompanied by heavy snow, hit them—a rolling black fog cloud from the northeast. They stopped at a farmhouse to warm up a bit, put chains on the tires, and put the car top down to eliminate it pulling against the strong wind. This left the men without protection and their faces open to the full fury of the storm. They finally made it to Thurman, but Sam was almost frozen to death and Pete’s ears were frozen.

The storm came so fast that chickens got stuck in the snow and froze to death. The milk cows didn’t make it from the pasture, so some had frozen teats.

Tornados

In 1924, four families were eating Sunday dinner together: Henry Kuhns, Fred Garrets, Joe Yoder, and the Amos Birky families. The men had driven north a mile or so after dinner to watch a tornado, not noticing the one approaching from the southwest. They looked back in time to see it hit the Kuhns home and rushed back to find complete destruction. Mrs. Kuhns and her nine children were killed. Mrs. Yoder was seriously hurt but recovered. Pete helped clean up the wreckage, hauling away dead hogs and chickens. The funeral was so large that it was held outside the church. Most are buried in the Thurman Cemetery. See: https://www.weather.gov/bou/1924ThurmanTornado

Rattlesnakes

Were always a threat. One bit a little pre-school boy. The doctor came but got there too late. Many ways were devised to get rid/kill them and treat anyone who was bitten. Pete and a friend saw a large rattler go down a hole in the yard. They heated water to boiling and poured it down the hole, and after some time the commotion in the hole subsided – the snake was dead.

In June 1936, Peter and his family drove to visit his larger Schrock family back in Illinois, arriving finally at his two sisters’ “hotel” in Fisher. Ella and Lena lived in several of the rooms, but rented other rooms mostly to itinerant laborers, school teachers, and the like. They also visited the Joseph Heiser farm where Sam’s brother John and his wife Mary Birky lived. Peter was impressed by “the strong family ties, hard work, ambition, cleanliness and organization that were in evidence.”

Lena and Ella Schrock’s boarding house in Fisher—locally called, “the hotel.”

Pete with his two aunt’s on the porch of Peter’s (1839-1922) original home in Fisher.

Endnote: In May 1948, Pete and his family left Colorado after a farm sale, and moved to Hesston, KS. But today there are Schrocks still living in the Thurman area.

1950s photo of the Thurman Mennonite Church

Translate »