The People That Made Grandpa

My memories of Grandpa Albert Shell are limited for a man that lived well into his nineties and deep into my twenties.  He seemed, to me, to be a little too loud and a little hard of hearing and he didn't seem to have much of a story to tell. If he did have one no one knew if or when he was going to tell it.  He would often show up to the house unannounced on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.  As a small household we kids were often engaged in chores or odd jobs.  Sometimes we would see his pickup truck across the street in the cemetery slowly making his way through the cemetery lanes.  My dad or I would make a dark joke about Grandpa visiting loved ones and all his friends, most likely unannounced.  Then he would slowly drive his pickup truck over to our house and stay awhile.  Sometimes our chore responsibilities would kinda fizzle out, but not always, during Grandpa's stay.  Which could last an hour or two or more.  Sometimes he would fall asleep, other times mom or dad would nod off during the visit.

It wasn't until Grandpa had passed away and I had aged or matured a little that I started to wonder about Grandpa.  My mom's dad.  It wasn't hard to find so much of this out but it still would have been better, more complete, to have heard it straight from him.  But every family historian and genealogist has thought that a million times over.  So we start building this patchwork quilt of stories, mementos and photographs after the honoree can no longer defend themselves in this life.

Grandpa was from another time.  Literally.  Born in 1904, he came to this world about 6 months after the Wright brothers flew their first flight at Kitty Hawk, NC.  He was born just a few years before radio programming for music and entertainment was a thing.  Albert was born in central South Dakota surrounded by flat land and family.  Being the youngest of 9 kids he was surrounded by older brothers and older sisters and cousins. His oldest sister, Myrtle, was 19 years older and his oldest brother, Frank, was 18 years older.  His parents, Lewis Shell and Rebecca Nass, were homesteaders.  They had moved from Iowa to South Dakota
with the goal to file a claim on acreage to live on and farm.  After residing on it and improving the land and building a home and plowing some fields one could then purchase the land for 1.25 an acre from the federal gov. Grandpa's father filed on this central South Dakota 160 acre starter farm on 8 March, 1887.  On Dec. 30, 1887 Lewis Shell would file on another 160 acres of farmland close by.  By this time Lewis and Rebecca had only been married about 4 years and now they were parents to a baby girl and a baby boy and managing a 320 acre farm where there had not been one previously.

In South Dakota Lewis and his wife raised children, farmed and helped other family members with their kids and farms.  Through US census records I learned that Rebecca's parents had a farm as well as 3 of her sisters had family farms, all of which in the same county, Hand county, South Dakota.  Kids went to country school.  Helped with farm work. Albert's brother Arthur once commented for a newspaper interview in 1985 that "An 11 year old was expected to do a lot in those days."

Then in 1911 Lewis and Rebecca Shell sold their farm in South Dakota, put their belongings, horses and 10 milk cows on 2 train cars and headed west to Wyoming.  At this time Lewis is about 51 or 52 years old.  Rebecca's father had just passed away a few months prior and her mother had passed years ago.  So they headed west to Wyoming and seemingly do it all over again with homesteading being the goal.  One not so small difference being this time some of the children are old enough to file on their own homestead claims and potentially own farms or pasture close by, maybe even right next door.  Over the next few years Lewis and Rebecca again filed for homestead land claims in Wyoming as well as two of their sons and two of their daughters. All of which were in Weston county so I believe the idea was to stay reasonably close to one another.

In 1926 Lewis and Rebecca were getting to be of an age that they started to consider letting some one else do the tireless work of farming and tending to cattle and horses.  They sold their farm to one of their sons and found a house in town.  Lewis kept working as a building custodian to the high school.  He could walk to work in just a few minutes from his "city" home.

Lewis and Rebecca celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on the 14th of Oct 1933 with their 9 children in attendance.  I am fortunate enough to have an image of that occasion. Lewis lived until Feb of 1945 when he passed away at the age of 85.  Rebecca lived on until 1952 when she passed at the age of 87.  Both are buried in the Greenwood cemetery across the street from my childhood home.

During the past decade of collecting data and photos of these Shell families I have noticed I don't see photographs of farms or livestock or even scenery but what I have found are photos of family.  They weren't wealthy people but it seems to me they recorded family gatherings through many photographs.  Every handful of years all 9 sons and daughters gathered for an event and it was photographed. A small fraction of time frozen in black and white images.

Above:  A photo, dated 1917, of the Shell place under construction.  Albert is the young boy in front in short pants, coat and tie.