A Castle on the Plains
Photo and story by Bob Thompson
From the May/June 2003 issue
We turned off the gravel county road and headed north over cow trails and through wire gates. It took another 45 minutes in a four-wheel-drive pickup to reach the top of a hill where, finally, Jason pointed and said, “There it is.”
“How did your kids get to school?” I asked. He smiled.
“By horseback. How else?”
Like so many other things in those days, life was simple, at least in the minds of those who lived it. For many of us, life in a sod house without running water or electricity — not to mention sending our children off to school on horseback — would be anything but simple.
For me, the hardest thing to grasp is that “those days” were not so long ago. It was the 1950s. Back then, I walked to school on city sidewalks or rode my bike. I had hot and cold running water and electricity at the flip of a switch. I never realized that many Sandhills families like Jason and Inez Garwood, near Whitman, and their children, Peg, Donna and Sandra, lived without conveniences that I took for granted.
As we drove toward the sod house, it appeared to be only a mound with a roof, covered in weeds and a few remaining cottonwood trees. But as Jason's stories and memories started to pour forth, I realized that he didn't recall his early life on the plains with despair. Jason and Inez look back on their early married life with pride and joy.
The soddy was more than I expected. Built in 1916 (according to words carved into a windowsill), it had three bedrooms, a living room and kitchen. Outside, the three-foot-thick walls were plastered; inside, old wallpaper hung in pieces.
The house wasn't built all at once. Jason's father, Ernest, lived there before his son and new bride moved in, and added rooms as his family grew. Over the years, the roof was improved with trusses, then with wood shingles. Eventually, Inez was treated to cold running water from a cistern, though she still had to heat water for washing and baths.
One of Inez's strongest memories of the soddy is of the ghost she used to hear moving about the kitchen. She heard it whenever Jason left for three or four days a week to work at a neighbor's ranch. The 10-gauge shotgun she kept by her bed did nothing to deter the noisy spirit. But Jason also heard the ghost when he was home, so they allowed that it was friendly.
With Jason gone so much, Inez took comfort in their three dogs. One hound slept by their bedroom window, another by the back door, and Judge, the German shepherd, by the front door.
For the family of five, evenings were filled with card playing, reading and homework by lantern light. Electricity arrived in 1955. Live entertainment was provided by mud puppies, a small salamander-type varmint that seemed to show up everywhere and which kept the young girls in fits of squeals and giggles. Ah, for a quiet, contented evening at home!
Jason and Inez lived in the soddy till 1962, when they moved into the Ernest Garwood place. They still live in the neighborhood, just five miles from the sod house where they started out.
I'm sometimes asked by viewers of my photographs about the wealth of Sandhills ranchers. I've learned to explain that they may or may not be wealthy in terms of dollars, but they're rich in another way. Maybe it's in the water they drink or the air they breathe, but Sandhills people have a “steel” about them and a joy for life that is hard to describe.
About the photographer — Bob Thompson lives in Elkhorn with his wife, Bobbie. He specializes in black and white prints of Nebraska life. His work is displayed at the Plains Trading Co. in Valentine. For information on his fine art prints, call (402) 289-4550.