| Notes |
GEORGE J. HIEB
One of the Eureka community pioneers, who has seen this section grow from a
prairie wilderness to a region of fine farms and enterprising towns, is George
J. Hieb. In coming here with the great majority of Eureka folk, he is a native
of South Russia, having been born near Odessa on February 12, 1860. His parents
were Jacob and Clara Hieb. The family ancestors came from Wuertemburg, Germany,
in 1812, when Adam Hieb and his parents joined the tide of immigration to the
region around the Black Sea in Russia. Adam Hieb was the grandfather of the
subject of this sketch.
When political and social conditions in Russia made it an unpleasant place to
live for the freedom-loving Germans, they decided to seek new homes in America.
Among them were the Hiebs. On May 2, 1874, George Hieb, then a lad of 12,
accompanied his parents on the long journey to America. After an ocean journey
of two weeks and eleven days of travel by rail, the family arrived in Yankton,
Dakota Territory, on May 27 of that year.
A few weeks later the Hiebs settled in Hutchinson County where they made their
home for several years. Meanwhile, young George grew up, and on December 17,
1883, took unto himself a wife. She was Katharina Perman, born on December 4,
1863, the daughter of Christoph Perman, a resident of that community. To this
union was born a family of children that would have delighted President
Theodore Roosevelt, as there were no less than 16 boys and girls.
However, soon after their marriage the Hiebs decided to join the tide of
immigration to McPherson County where there was still land open to homestead,
pre-emption and tree claim entry. Accordingly, George and his young wife loaded
their movable property on a freight car on May 2, 1884, and left Menno,
traveling by rail to Frederick, via Aberdeen. Frederick was then the nearest or
most convenient railroad town to the far-flung stretches of McPherson County.
Here they loaded their wagon and started the slow trek toward their future
home.
It was an interesting train. They had two mares, two years old, a pair of oxen,
two cows, six chickens, a wagon, and a breaking plow. Most important, they had
$40.00 in cash. They drove westward as far as Spring Creek in Campbell County.
But the young couple didn't like the land so well there and retraced their
tracks back to McPherson County where they selected their claims in Section 11,
Township 127, Range 71.
The land had been surveyed only into townships, so each family picked their
locations by guess. There were, namely ten families who came with the Hiebs and
were a part of the exploratory trip. On May 19, 1884, the Hiebs pitched camp on
the site of their new home. Their first concern was of course to provide some
sort of shelter, but it must not require too much time. Accordingly, they built
a wall of sod and leaned a few scrap boards against it at an angle. This was
their first home in McPherson County.
But an even more important worry met them the day after they arrived on the
claim. Mrs. Hieb discovered they were out of bread and the water jug was empty.
They had no stove nor oven. Necessity, the mother of invention, stood by. Young
Hieb scooped a hollow in the earth in an adjacent bank and drove a pole from
the top, which, when removed, provided an opening for a chimney. Then came the
question of fuel. The young couple hitched up trusty oxen and drove over to a
valley, which to this day known as Hieb's hay lake. There they cut the long dry
grass with a bread knife, tied it into wisps of suitable size for the
fireplace. The balance was used for a bed in the improvised house. The oven
worked admirably and Hieb recalls the bread was extra good. The slough water
was, of course, not good for drinking purposes, so they called the cow over for
a cup of milk whenever they felt in of liquid refreshment.
It was not long, however, until a well was dug and a good supply of drinking
water obtained. Day by day they worked and provided one after another the
little comforts that make life more pleasant. All of it made them very happy.
The coming of the winter made a more substantial house imperative and this was
one of the principal occupations for some time. They built not only a house but
a barn of sod, both of which had roofs of rafters and boards, covered with sod
smeared over with mud in order to make them as waterproof as possible. In order
to complete the houses a trip to Frederick was necessary, since that was the
nearest source of supply for lumber. The horses were too young to drive, so the
trip was made with the ox team and required four days -- a decided contrast to
the rapid means of travel of the present time.
Making hay was quite as imperative as providing shelter. But cutting the hay
with the bread knife might have been all right to provide fuel for baking
bread, but the oxen, the young mares and the cow would need a good supply of
fodder for the winter -- and the Hiebs had no mower -- and the precious forty
dollars must be conserved.
George Hieb had a good neighbor, however, in the person of Valentine Mettler,
and best of all, Mettler had a mower and a rake and was willing to loan them.
So the hay was made.
All work and no play is not so good, the saying goes. The Hiebs therefore took
the opportunity to make a visit to the old home at Menno while their neighbor,
Mr. Stein, took care of the cows and chickens in return for the use of the oxen
in breaking some sod on his claim. The Hiebs together with Mr. and Mrs. George
Neuharth, made the trip which required four days. While in Menno, the Hiebs
helped their parents harvest the crop and stayed for the threshing, earning a
bit of money.
This done, both the Hiebs and the Neuharths gathered up seed wheat, feed and
other necessities and loaded all of it, including their teams, in a freight
car, shipping it to Frederick. Reaching that point they unloaded and proceeded
with the teams and wagons loaded to capacity to their claims. Part of the
supplies had to be left behind and another trip was necessary to haul them to
the new homes.
On the return trip to Frederick, the pioneers gathered buffalo bones along the
trail, loading their wagons with about a ton or so. These bones were in demand
and brought them about $8.00 per ton. In November came another long trip, this
one to Aberdeen where the new settlers filed their final papers on the claims
they had taken, at the U. S. Land Office at that place.
The first crop was seeded in the spring of 1885. The yield was small and the
prices of grain low. Mr. Hieb now recalls his wheat yielded only 10 bushels per
acre and brought from 35 to 40 cents per bushel. Flax sold for 90 cents to a
dollar a bushel and yielded 8 bushels per acre, and oats only 15 bushels per
acre. The latter grain was saved for seed and feed.
The crop was harvested with a combination mower and harvester purchased in
Ipswich at a cost of about $100. This trip to Ipswich remains vivid in Mr.
Hieb's memory as it took four and a half days, the traveling being mainly at
night in order to escape the heat of the day. Oxen were unable to stand
traveling in hot weather, Mr. Hieb says. While the oxen were resting he was
busy picking buffalo bones and had accumulated about a ton when he reached the
town. These he sold for $13.00.
The new town, Eureka, did not come into being until three years after the Hiebs
settled on their claims. Soon after the first trains arrived George Hieb,
together with Jacob Hoffman, drove to the new town to get a load of lumber
each. But they were disappointed as no lumber had as yet arrived. The town was
composed of a mere half dozen buildings or so, he recalls, all situated east of
the railroad tracks on what was known as the school section. The present site
of the town had not yet been surveyed, he says.
Mr. Hieb continued his farming operations until 1927, when he retired to a
comfortable home in Eureka. At the time of his retirement he had added to his
original land holdings, owning over fourteen quarter sections, passing the task
of cultivating the tract to younger shoulders after forty-three years of active
work.
Talking over old days with Jubilee book writers, he recalls that of the ten
families who came with himself and his wife to McPherson County, only six
persons survive, namely, Mr. and Mrs. George Neuharth, Henry Schnabel, Nick
Lechner and himself. Mrs. Hieb died in 1933. He still makes his home in Eureka,
but has spent the winter months in the milder climate of California with his
son, George, who resides at Lodi, in the Golden Gate state.
There, as snow covers the wide fields of his old farm, he perhaps dreams of the
old days, the cold, stormy winters of Dakota and the memorable blizzard of
January 12, 1888. He perhaps remembers drouths of other years and compares them
in retrospect with the most severe of all, those of 1936-36. In spite of all
hardships and privations, it may safely be guessed that his farm and the men
and women who passed through the pioneer period with him still hold an
important place in his affections.
A list of the names and residences of surviving members of the Hieb family
follows: John J. Hieb, implement business, Eureka, South Dakota; Henry G. Hieb,
farming, Eureka; Christina Werner, farming, Eureka; Adam Hieb, merchant,
Marion, South Dakota; Jacob Hieb, farming. McIntosh, South Dakota; George Hieb,
factory superintendent, Stockton Box Company, Lodi, California; Magdalena
Neuharth, farming, Eureka; Katharina Mehlhaff, farming, Eureka; Emma Mehlhaff,
housewife, Eureka; Willhelm Hieb, farming, Lodi, California; Emil Hieb, civil
engineer, United Air Lines, Cheyenne, Wyoming; Gustave Hieb, machine operator,
box factory, Lodi, California; Helen Holman, housewife, Denver, Colorado.
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1860 - 1941 (81 years)