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Category Archives: Family History
The “Navy” on Kanaranzi Creek
The Creek comes into our pasture about .7 of a mile above the bridge on the State Line. However, that’s the straight-line distance; it’s more than twice that far along the meandering channel. Those measurements are taken from the air … Continue reading
Posted in Family History, Farm History
Tagged canoes, children, familiies, meandering channel, rafts
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Civil War PTSD Along the Creek
The Farm has a connection to Civil War veterans: a son in the homesteading family married the daughter of a veteran. The families of that veteran and his brother-in-law, who was also a veteran, lived about four miles up the … Continue reading
Locating the Dugout
Although our homesteading family arrived in the area in 1870, they didn’t settle on the farm along Kanaranzi Creek until 1871. Their first home, like many other early settlers, was in a dugout. We know some things about this dwelling … Continue reading
Posted in Family History, Farm History
Tagged archaeology, dugout, homesteaders, primary sources
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Trails to Rails
Overland trails became the routes of railroads that provided critical links between farms and markets. In the 1920s and 1930s, Grandpa George (the son of the homesteaders) shipped cattle to Chicago from a siding called Midland located in Iowa about … Continue reading
Civil War Trails
The trails that our family followed in 1870 weren’t confined to just stream valleys. Their overland route from Waseca to the Kanaranzi Creek was probably laid out 10-15 years earlier, before the Civil War. This map was compiled (Trygg, 1964) … Continue reading
Posted in Family History, Farm History
Tagged Civil War veterans, colonies, GAR, overland trails
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Homesteading on the Kanaranzi
In the spring of 1870, John B. Shurr and his nephew, stood on a hill about one mile south of the State Line and looked out to the east over the valley of the Kanaranzi Creek. The Rock River valley … Continue reading
Posted in Family History, Farm History
Tagged Gilded Age, Homestead Act, land grants, railroads, settlement patterns
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What’s in a Name?
“Runs as the crazy man walks.” That’s what Grandma Daisy Walker Shurr said the word “Kanaranzi” meant. This is what the Creek looked like back in the early Seventies below the hill where our house is located. A friend of … Continue reading
“Sabbath” on the Farm
Voluntary self-isolation during this current COVID-19 crisis can be considered an opportunity to celebrate an extended “Sabbath”. That was the suggestion made by one of our favorite pastors in his virtual sermon this past Palm Sunday. He reminded us that … Continue reading
Posted in Family History
Tagged Apollo 13, Covid-19, Earth Day, Easter Sunday, headstone, Holy Week, Palm Sunday, Viet Nam
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Old Books
Winter is a good time to do some reading. Sometimes the books themselves have stories that are just as interesting as those on the pages between their covers. My family has been blessed with school librarians. Our daughter is currently … Continue reading
Snowbound
Earlier this week we were snowbound in Colorado. The first storm dropped about 10 inches on our kids’ home in the mountains west of Boulder. The snow piled up on the trees and then fell a second time when the … Continue reading
Lone Tree Farm on Kanaranzi Creek 