Grandfather ROTH was b. SEP_23_1850 at Circleville, OH. with seven brothers and four sisters in his family. He was tall, slender and handsome with blue-black curly hair and blue eyes. As a young man, he and the family moved to a farm in Edgar Co. IL. in the vicinity of Redmon in 1857

On the adjoining farm, he first saw Virginia EUBANK. She was wading in the creek with some of her sisters. They ran screaming when they realized they were being watched.

A few days later, he lounged on the grass in the churchyard with other young men. He saw Virginia go up the church steps and thought she had the prettiest legs he would ever see. Long black curls and flashing brown eyes added to the picture He had no doubt, then, that she was the girl he would marry. Jonas and Virginia were married in Tuscola, IL. on Dec._01_1874.

Jonas and Virginia, with their three small sons, left their home in IL. in the middle of August, 1879 to become pioneer settlers in Custer Co. NE. Joining them were Virginia's brother Richard (and wife) Elizabeth EUBANK and Albert and Louisa EUBANK_ROTH. They travelled with all their household goods in a horse-drawn Prairie Schooner. They arrived in Douglas Grove Twp. in September with sixty dollars with which they bought a cookstove and groceries for the winter.

An old log house on the west bank of the Middle Loup River near where the little town of Comstock now stands, was their home for two years. Mama (Dora Alice) and Aunt Mary Esther were born there.

The ROTHs suffered the hardships of the early settlers, the killing blizzards of 1881 and 1888, the drought and grasshoppers. They were lucky when they had a little flour, cornmeal and wild fruit. They planted orchards and wheat and raised good horses and cattle.

Gran'dad said "The boys shot rabbits and prairie chickens for meat". Once when he was laid up with a broken leg, and Grandma had a brand new baby, Mama (Dora Alice) brought a rabbit in a pan to him and he showed her how to cut it up. She was nine years old.

Gran'dad often referred to the Winters of 1881 and 1888. There was one drifting snow after another untill the canyons were level full and the hay for the cattle was buried at the bottom of them. By this time, they had filed on a homestead four and one-half miles west of Comstock and improved it enough so they could live there. They survived for three months on wheat, ground with the coffee mill as the only flour they had.

When the weather improved a little, Gran'dad took the team and wagon and a scoop shovel and went to Grand Island nearly ninety miles away. The trip took eight days. Dick EUBANK went with him. One horse died during the bad winter and he traded the other for a team of oxen with which he farmed for the next few years.

In the fall of 1883, they moved into the new sod house. It had two rooms. One of these had a board floor. Rooms were added as the family grew. Here they raised a family of four boys and four girls. The last children were twin boys. One died at birth. Uncle Fred was so frail and tiny that they carried him on a pillow for weeks. (When I was a baby, Uncle Fred and my sister Marcia had spinal meningitis without the crippling effects, except to leave Marcia with weak ankles). Mama said "They did the ironing on Fred's back". The moist heat and pressure helped to relax and straighten his back.

Uncle Fred was knocked out when lightning struck the new barn, but he came to and escaped the fire which consumed the barn. Two barns burned on the place, both struck by lightning.

The large frame house was built in 1903. Gran'dad and Grandma retired in 1912 and moved into a small house in Comstock.

Gran'dad got a new 1918 Liberty car which he drove with the same verve as he did his high-stepping team of horses with Grandma hanging on for dear life and pleading "Jona, don't go so fast!"

He drove the Liberty to Gering, NE. over mostly dirt roads with Marcia as relief driver. A big rainstorm at Big Springs left the road a mess of muddy ruts. Grandma, Marcia, Dorothy, Ethel and I shared the visit to Aunt Hal's. The trip took us two days in the summer of 1920.

Uncle Fred and his family moved in with Gran'dad following Grandma's death ( NOV_09_1920 ) and lived there for several years. When Uncle Fred moved to Batesland, S.D., Gran'dad came to live with his eldest daughter, Dora Alice WALTON_PIERCE (Mama) and family at Somerford, NE.

Many of Gran'dad ROTH's family lived in the Champaign, Urbana and Rantoul area of IL. Gran'dad and Mama took a trip to visit these relatives when he was living in our home. Mama loved Aunt Clara and especially her tiny Aunt Alice. Mama reported that "George had light hair, for a ROTH", about the color of my sister Ethel's, which has a decided reddish cast to it. Many ROTH graves are in the Edgar Co. Cemetery in Paris, IL.

Gran'dad became diabetic and so shaky, he couldn't feed himself, which was very humiliating to him. He lived in his memories and shared these things with us. We spoke of his brothers as "Brother Will, Brother Jonas, Brother John, etc.

Gran'dad favored Marcia. When Marcia was small, she spent much time with her grandparents while Mama taught school and again when Marcia went to school in Comstock for 7th and 9th grades. Later, Marcia came quite often to shave him and trim his hair.Dorothy was special to him too, because she was tiny, like Grandma and he said, "Her legs are like Grandma's."

Gran'dad always wore a light striped shirt and a black string tie. He sang "It is Well With My Soul" as he waited to join Grandma, which he did on MAR_16_1932.