Mellette County, South Dakota
Family Histories & Biographies - Astleford Surname
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Astleford Surname
The Charles Astleford Family Story
by Sybil Astleford
(Transcribed, with permission from the Mellette County Historical Society, from "Mellette County 1911-1986" published by the Mellette County Historical Society)
Our father and mother were both natives of Iowa. They were living on a rented farm near LeMars the first years of their marriage from 1900 to 1909. They were not satisfied to be renters and wanted to have a farm of their own. My father had made two trips west of the Missouri River to look at the prospects for buying land and had finally bought 80 acres on the southwest edge of Murdo in 1909. He rented a pioneer car on the Milwaukee Railroad and loaded his livestock, the household goods and machinery on it and rode with it to Murdo. Later my mother, and our then family of five children, came on a passenger train to join him. There was a house, barn and sheds on the place so we could move in. He farmed part of the land, raised pigs, chickens and garden and kept a few milk cows. He also took a job in the Murdo roundhouse to earn enough to keep his family.
Three years later Mellette County was opened up for homesteaders. Prospective settlers had to draw to see who would be awarded the right to file on a claim. My father drew a lucky number and filed on a quarter section 16 miles northwest of White River. Our claim was three miles south of the Big White River. Fortunately most of the claim land was level, suitable for farming.
While the family continued to live at Murdo, my father and oldest brother, Gerald, hauled lumber to our claim site and built a two-room house. Unhappily, they did not know exactly where the boundary line was and when they finished their building, found that the house was sitting on Harry Cummins' claim adjoining ours on the south. That meant that they had to move the house 80 or more rods to locate it on our land. When they returned to Murdo, they told of some of their experiences in batching. My father had made bread. It turned out nice and light but he had forgotten to put salt in it so it proved to be flat and tasteless.
On their next trip to the claim they brought some of our horses down to graze on the land. Of course there were no fences, so our two black mares, with their colts, ran with the neighbor Swan's horses. One night they were feeding in a very deep canyon to the east of our house. After dark, Dad and Gerald heard something that sounded like screams for help coming from the canyon. They took the kerosene lantern and walked about three quarters of a mile to the top of the canyon. My dad called loudly to see if some people were in danger. Next day, Andrew Swan came by to ask if our dog might have attacked the herd of horses. Some of his colts and both of ours were badly torn and chewed up on the hindquarters. Of course, the screaming was from them when the gray wolves attacked. One of our colts was much more gashed than the other and it died. The other one's gashes healed and he lived to be one of our main saddle horses, working until he died of old age. This took place in the early spring of 1912. When school closed in May in Murdo, my mother and family moved to our claim shack—very close quarters for the size of our family. Later, my dad with the help of my three older brothers built a barn, cowshed, chicken house and pig sty. Still later, they bought an empty house we often passed when driving to Murdo and built a third room on the house.
When we first moved to the claim I really loved it. There were many hills and valleys, and trees in the valleys—so much to explore. My mother was pleased to find chokecherries, buffalo berries, plums and grapes to use in jelly-making.
In those years a favorite place for gathering for homesteaders and some people from across the river was Mallett's Store. Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Mallett ran a general store three miles north of our claim. On Sundays, people from all around would come and spend the day visiting, shopping, picnicking and enjoying the fellowship of others. In the summer, pick-up teams would play baseball, which we all liked to watch.
For years, our main town was Murdo. a long trip of eighteen miles across country with team and buggy or wagon. We had to ford the Big White, a very temperamental stream. Often the water was low in the morning when we were going to town, and easy to cross, but at night when we reached it coming home, it might be high enough that it would come up into the wagon or buggy—sometimes even making the horses swim. People often told of how sometimes their groceries were washed out.
Our first school was a small shack covered with blue building paper. It had two windows and sat all alone on the Swan Flat. It was a mile and a quarter from our home, and the five of us walked. Three or four other families sent their children to this school. We usually had 15 or 16 pupils enrolled. In those first years, we never had an eight-month term—it usually was four or five months. It was hard to find a teacher willing to endure the hardships. One year our school year lasted seven days because our teacher was called home on an emergency. After a year our father built a standard rural schoolhouse on the same site as the shack had been. Some of the school patrons helped by hauling supplies from Murdo—a laborious task, a long trip with team and wagon. Some years later when local school districts were organized, we attended a new school in the opposite direction from home.
By this time several new families had settled in the community. For recreation during the winter months, the people held literaries in what had been the Rule store. These meetings featured a program and debate. Everyone brought something for a shared lunch afterwards.
Living on the frontier involved many risks and tragedies. Our family was very fortunate on the whole, but we suffered one tragedy. Our 10-year-old brother was killed when thrown from a horse while riding for the cattle. The horse had stepped into a hole and thrown Howard over his head. Another brother, who was with him, rode home for help. My mother was home alone with the children but she ran on foot over a hill to where he lay, only to find he had already passed away.
The two oldest boys in the family left home when they were quite young to find work. I was the first one to have the advantage of attending high school. I enrolled and graduated from Murdo High School. My parents believed education was very important, so all the rest of the children finished high school either at Murdo or White River.
My parents were active in community affairs. They helped organize Cottonwood Church and Sunday school. They were, like most of the pioneers, progressive-minded, willing to work for the betterment of life, and glad to see the gradual improvement the years brought.
This family story begins in Los Angeles. California, where Warren and Joyce were joined in marriage on the radio program, "Bride and Groom," December 16, 1948. Back in White River, her high school classes were listening in the Assembly, and his family were gathered around the radio out on the ranch, to which the couple would return.
But in the meantime, a South Dakota blizzard intervened, making adjustments very difficult for the newlyweds. The elder Astlefords couldn't get moved into their house in town, nor could Joyce get out to join her husband for several weeks. In fact, it was spring before they could get their furniture into the old homestead house they were to occupy for four years. They had no electricity to use the lovely appliances, which were gifts of the radio show. But the next summer they acquired a 1500 watt generator. It was five or six years before REA found its way to their area. By that time the couple had built a new home on Butch Creek, a natural spring, four miles west of the homestead.
Joyce, the daughter of Mae and Arthur Siegmund, had grown up in White River, attended college at SDSU three years, and then graduated from Iowa State with a degree in Home Economics, Textiles and Clothing.
Warren had spent his youth on the ranch owned by his parents. Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Astleford, eighteen miles northwest of White River. He had returned in 1945 from three and one half years of Army duty during World War II in the European theatre.
Through the years the couple were blessed with four children, two girls and two boys. When Jan, their firstborn, was 6 years old, they built a small house in White River. There was no country school in their area at that time, and the dirt road to White River was often impossible to travel. So Joyce stayed in town with the children during the school week and returned to the ranch weekends and vacations. This pattern of a double household continued for 21 years. It wasn't until 1971 that their county road was cast up and graveled.
Warren was often alone daring storms and adverse conditions. There was no telephone until 1971. Fortunately he was a healthy and resourceful man. He came to town as often as possible to share the family and school activities.
While the family was growing up, Warren was enlarging and improving the ranch. He acquired a sizeable addition of seventeen quarters south of White River from Tim Cox in 1967. He built up a reputable herd of Hereford cattle, keeping cows and calves and selling his 2-year olds, later yearlings. He raises only-feed crops, such as cane and oats. For many years his sons and daughters helped with the farming and ranching. Now he does it alone, or with occasional hired help.
In 1959, just a few weeks after the birth of their fourth child, Kim, Joyce had surgery in Rapid City for cancer of the colon. This experience deepened her appreciation for life and all its facets. She has taught off and on in many forms—English, Home Ec., C.A.P. classes, G.E.D. tutoring, Sunday school, V.C.S., and substituting. While the children were in school, Warren and Joyce attended all the school activities, were 4-H leaders, Job's Daughter Guardian and Associate Guardian, M.Y.F. leader, Band Parents and P.T.A. officers, frequent drivers and/or chaperones (Jan was through high school before W.R.H.S. acquired a bus). Since their children covered a nine-year span, this called for a lot of running all kinds of sports, rodeos, camps, musical events and church every Sunday. A highlight in Joyce's life was being chosen Mother of the Year in 1969 at the annual Mother-Daughter Banquet.
As the years went by, the children all took advanced education and left home. Jan graduated from SDSU in Home Ec and taught several years before marrying Wayne Steinle. They are the parents of three boys and live in Sturgis, South Dakota, where Wayne is a medical technician at Fort Meade. Brad married Marcia Schlske, whom he met at the University of Nebraska. He has just opened his dental clinic in Dodge City, Kansas, and Marcia is his full-time assistant. Scott is an engineer for a steel foundry in Dallas, Texas. Kim is a registered nurse in I.C.U. for newborn babies at the Rapid City Regional Hospital.
So Warren and Joyce are alone on the ranch. He remains a real cowboy in every sense of the word, rarely missing a day without riding horseback. (Rainy days are his cue for extensive riding in his yellow rubber slicker.) He is very active in the Masonic Lodge, of which he is presently District Master, and Oriental Consistory, having recently been conferred the title of K.C.C.H.
Joyce loves her gardening, sewing, music and church choir. She is an officer in the Cottonwood Aid and G.F.W.C. Both have offices in O.E.S., the White River United Methodist Church, and Frontier Twirlers, a square dance group which meets every Sunday evening in the courthouse basement.
They visit their children regularly and travel 10 some distant points annually. But their roots are in Mellette County, from whence came their seed.
by Sybil Astleford
(Transcribed, with permission from the Mellette County Historical Society, from "Mellette County 1911-1986" published by the Mellette County Historical Society)
Our father and mother were both natives of Iowa. They were living on a rented farm near LeMars the first years of their marriage from 1900 to 1909. They were not satisfied to be renters and wanted to have a farm of their own. My father had made two trips west of the Missouri River to look at the prospects for buying land and had finally bought 80 acres on the southwest edge of Murdo in 1909. He rented a pioneer car on the Milwaukee Railroad and loaded his livestock, the household goods and machinery on it and rode with it to Murdo. Later my mother, and our then family of five children, came on a passenger train to join him. There was a house, barn and sheds on the place so we could move in. He farmed part of the land, raised pigs, chickens and garden and kept a few milk cows. He also took a job in the Murdo roundhouse to earn enough to keep his family.
Three years later Mellette County was opened up for homesteaders. Prospective settlers had to draw to see who would be awarded the right to file on a claim. My father drew a lucky number and filed on a quarter section 16 miles northwest of White River. Our claim was three miles south of the Big White River. Fortunately most of the claim land was level, suitable for farming.
While the family continued to live at Murdo, my father and oldest brother, Gerald, hauled lumber to our claim site and built a two-room house. Unhappily, they did not know exactly where the boundary line was and when they finished their building, found that the house was sitting on Harry Cummins' claim adjoining ours on the south. That meant that they had to move the house 80 or more rods to locate it on our land. When they returned to Murdo, they told of some of their experiences in batching. My father had made bread. It turned out nice and light but he had forgotten to put salt in it so it proved to be flat and tasteless.
On their next trip to the claim they brought some of our horses down to graze on the land. Of course there were no fences, so our two black mares, with their colts, ran with the neighbor Swan's horses. One night they were feeding in a very deep canyon to the east of our house. After dark, Dad and Gerald heard something that sounded like screams for help coming from the canyon. They took the kerosene lantern and walked about three quarters of a mile to the top of the canyon. My dad called loudly to see if some people were in danger. Next day, Andrew Swan came by to ask if our dog might have attacked the herd of horses. Some of his colts and both of ours were badly torn and chewed up on the hindquarters. Of course, the screaming was from them when the gray wolves attacked. One of our colts was much more gashed than the other and it died. The other one's gashes healed and he lived to be one of our main saddle horses, working until he died of old age. This took place in the early spring of 1912. When school closed in May in Murdo, my mother and family moved to our claim shack—very close quarters for the size of our family. Later, my dad with the help of my three older brothers built a barn, cowshed, chicken house and pig sty. Still later, they bought an empty house we often passed when driving to Murdo and built a third room on the house.
When we first moved to the claim I really loved it. There were many hills and valleys, and trees in the valleys—so much to explore. My mother was pleased to find chokecherries, buffalo berries, plums and grapes to use in jelly-making.
In those years a favorite place for gathering for homesteaders and some people from across the river was Mallett's Store. Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Mallett ran a general store three miles north of our claim. On Sundays, people from all around would come and spend the day visiting, shopping, picnicking and enjoying the fellowship of others. In the summer, pick-up teams would play baseball, which we all liked to watch.
For years, our main town was Murdo. a long trip of eighteen miles across country with team and buggy or wagon. We had to ford the Big White, a very temperamental stream. Often the water was low in the morning when we were going to town, and easy to cross, but at night when we reached it coming home, it might be high enough that it would come up into the wagon or buggy—sometimes even making the horses swim. People often told of how sometimes their groceries were washed out.
Our first school was a small shack covered with blue building paper. It had two windows and sat all alone on the Swan Flat. It was a mile and a quarter from our home, and the five of us walked. Three or four other families sent their children to this school. We usually had 15 or 16 pupils enrolled. In those first years, we never had an eight-month term—it usually was four or five months. It was hard to find a teacher willing to endure the hardships. One year our school year lasted seven days because our teacher was called home on an emergency. After a year our father built a standard rural schoolhouse on the same site as the shack had been. Some of the school patrons helped by hauling supplies from Murdo—a laborious task, a long trip with team and wagon. Some years later when local school districts were organized, we attended a new school in the opposite direction from home.
By this time several new families had settled in the community. For recreation during the winter months, the people held literaries in what had been the Rule store. These meetings featured a program and debate. Everyone brought something for a shared lunch afterwards.
Living on the frontier involved many risks and tragedies. Our family was very fortunate on the whole, but we suffered one tragedy. Our 10-year-old brother was killed when thrown from a horse while riding for the cattle. The horse had stepped into a hole and thrown Howard over his head. Another brother, who was with him, rode home for help. My mother was home alone with the children but she ran on foot over a hill to where he lay, only to find he had already passed away.
The two oldest boys in the family left home when they were quite young to find work. I was the first one to have the advantage of attending high school. I enrolled and graduated from Murdo High School. My parents believed education was very important, so all the rest of the children finished high school either at Murdo or White River.
My parents were active in community affairs. They helped organize Cottonwood Church and Sunday school. They were, like most of the pioneers, progressive-minded, willing to work for the betterment of life, and glad to see the gradual improvement the years brought.
This family story begins in Los Angeles. California, where Warren and Joyce were joined in marriage on the radio program, "Bride and Groom," December 16, 1948. Back in White River, her high school classes were listening in the Assembly, and his family were gathered around the radio out on the ranch, to which the couple would return.
But in the meantime, a South Dakota blizzard intervened, making adjustments very difficult for the newlyweds. The elder Astlefords couldn't get moved into their house in town, nor could Joyce get out to join her husband for several weeks. In fact, it was spring before they could get their furniture into the old homestead house they were to occupy for four years. They had no electricity to use the lovely appliances, which were gifts of the radio show. But the next summer they acquired a 1500 watt generator. It was five or six years before REA found its way to their area. By that time the couple had built a new home on Butch Creek, a natural spring, four miles west of the homestead.
Joyce, the daughter of Mae and Arthur Siegmund, had grown up in White River, attended college at SDSU three years, and then graduated from Iowa State with a degree in Home Economics, Textiles and Clothing.
Warren had spent his youth on the ranch owned by his parents. Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Astleford, eighteen miles northwest of White River. He had returned in 1945 from three and one half years of Army duty during World War II in the European theatre.
Through the years the couple were blessed with four children, two girls and two boys. When Jan, their firstborn, was 6 years old, they built a small house in White River. There was no country school in their area at that time, and the dirt road to White River was often impossible to travel. So Joyce stayed in town with the children during the school week and returned to the ranch weekends and vacations. This pattern of a double household continued for 21 years. It wasn't until 1971 that their county road was cast up and graveled.
Warren was often alone daring storms and adverse conditions. There was no telephone until 1971. Fortunately he was a healthy and resourceful man. He came to town as often as possible to share the family and school activities.
While the family was growing up, Warren was enlarging and improving the ranch. He acquired a sizeable addition of seventeen quarters south of White River from Tim Cox in 1967. He built up a reputable herd of Hereford cattle, keeping cows and calves and selling his 2-year olds, later yearlings. He raises only-feed crops, such as cane and oats. For many years his sons and daughters helped with the farming and ranching. Now he does it alone, or with occasional hired help.
In 1959, just a few weeks after the birth of their fourth child, Kim, Joyce had surgery in Rapid City for cancer of the colon. This experience deepened her appreciation for life and all its facets. She has taught off and on in many forms—English, Home Ec., C.A.P. classes, G.E.D. tutoring, Sunday school, V.C.S., and substituting. While the children were in school, Warren and Joyce attended all the school activities, were 4-H leaders, Job's Daughter Guardian and Associate Guardian, M.Y.F. leader, Band Parents and P.T.A. officers, frequent drivers and/or chaperones (Jan was through high school before W.R.H.S. acquired a bus). Since their children covered a nine-year span, this called for a lot of running all kinds of sports, rodeos, camps, musical events and church every Sunday. A highlight in Joyce's life was being chosen Mother of the Year in 1969 at the annual Mother-Daughter Banquet.
As the years went by, the children all took advanced education and left home. Jan graduated from SDSU in Home Ec and taught several years before marrying Wayne Steinle. They are the parents of three boys and live in Sturgis, South Dakota, where Wayne is a medical technician at Fort Meade. Brad married Marcia Schlske, whom he met at the University of Nebraska. He has just opened his dental clinic in Dodge City, Kansas, and Marcia is his full-time assistant. Scott is an engineer for a steel foundry in Dallas, Texas. Kim is a registered nurse in I.C.U. for newborn babies at the Rapid City Regional Hospital.
So Warren and Joyce are alone on the ranch. He remains a real cowboy in every sense of the word, rarely missing a day without riding horseback. (Rainy days are his cue for extensive riding in his yellow rubber slicker.) He is very active in the Masonic Lodge, of which he is presently District Master, and Oriental Consistory, having recently been conferred the title of K.C.C.H.
Joyce loves her gardening, sewing, music and church choir. She is an officer in the Cottonwood Aid and G.F.W.C. Both have offices in O.E.S., the White River United Methodist Church, and Frontier Twirlers, a square dance group which meets every Sunday evening in the courthouse basement.
They visit their children regularly and travel 10 some distant points annually. But their roots are in Mellette County, from whence came their seed.
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Sybil Alice Astleford
(obituary from funeral program transcribed by RB and contributed by the Mellette County Historical Society)
Sybil Alice Astleford was born in LaMars, IA on November 21, 1906 to Charles Wesley and Alice Bauerly Astleford. She was (he fourth of twelve children. When Sybil was three years old, the family moved to Jones County, SD. They lived in Murdo until she had completed the first grade. Meanwhile Charles had built a small shack and settled a homestead claim in NW Mellette County.
From their new country home Sybil rode horseback to school every day until she had completed her elementary schooling in seven years. She lived with the Carl Langs in Murdo for her four years of high school.
Sybil was Salutatorian of her graduating class. She then attended Dakota Wesleyan College in Mitchell on a scholarship and earned her Associate's Degree in Education. Sybil returned to Mellette County and taught at Roundup #3 and Cottonwood Schools. It was Cottonwood where her little brother Warren stayed with her and took his first grade studies.
They rode to school on horseback often through sub zero weather and deep drifts of snow or spring rains and slippery gumbo. When one arrived at school (in darkness during winter), the room was ice cold and a fire had to be started from wood and paper.
Sybil then fulfilled a longtime dream by enrolling at Oberlin College in Illinois. She earned her Bachelor's Degree in two years graduating in 1932.
Those were bad times with the drought and depression. Sybil taught at Highland School north of Murdo, Craper, and Big Stone City, each for three years. Her next school was Bancroft in Sioux Falls, where she stayed with Mabel and Stanley Estenson for eleven years.
In 1952 Sybil moved to Elmhurst, Illinois and taught at Eugene Field Elementary. She had her own apartment in the home of her sister Ruth Hrachovec and family.
After touching many young lives, she retired from teaching at age 66 in 1972 and came back to South Dakota. She found the apartment on 12th Street where she resided in Sioux Falls, close to her beloved First Lutheran Church, downtown, favorite library, and many services she used regularly. Though she never learned to drive, Sybil was more agile than many women half her age, which she attributed to walking and climbing a steep stairway to her apartment.
Sybil played piano and taught Sunday School in Elmhurst and Sioux Falls First Lutheran, she helped with mailings, the bazaars, visiting shutins, and sewing.
Sybil not only remembered the birthdays and anniversaries of all her immediate family and their spouses, but also her 33 nieces and nephews. All were remembered at Christmas time as well. She was the central exchange of the C.W. Astleford family.
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