--------- (Mrs. W. E. Simms)

(Mrs. W. E. Simms)

Grace (unknown) was born on November 17, 1885 in Illinois. She was united in marriage to William Edwin Simms, born on March 5, 1886 in Lawrence County the son of William H. and Anna (nee Lackey) Simms. To this union the following child was born; Hubert L (b. abt. 1906). Grace died in April 1983 and William died February 6, 1967.

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Editor’s Note:

In 1909 Congress enacted the Enlarged Homestead Act. That act, which allowed settlers to claim 320 acres, set off Montana's homestead boom in earnest. Three years later, Congress enacted the Three Year Homestead Law, which greatly expanded settlement of federal lands. The law reduced from five years to three the time necessary to "prove up" a claim and permitted five months' absence from the land each year. For Montana it meant 12,500 homestead entries in the first year alone. Railroads aggressively marketed homesteading along their lines.

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(V. J. Simms)

Virgil wrote a letter in 1915 and his biography is located in that section.

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January 18, 1917

Dear Friends:

Here we are invited to another homecoming with war prices on paper, what a good editor we must have.

We call Sumner home and always will, having personal friends and relatives who will reside there and we feel very much interested in its welfare.

The weekly visits of the Press keep us posted in all your doings and is always a welcome caller.

Three years ago next May we began residents on our 320 acre homestead. We have hopes of obtaining that much more under new homestead bill recently passed.

Our lot has been that of the common homesteaders. There are days in this life worth life and worth death, worth the pangs of homesickness their memories bring. We are all the better for the remembering and the longing for the "place where we don't be."

We are proud of our adopted state, but don't expect to carry off the honors for we are few. It already bears the name of treasure state and who knows but what we may make it the honor treasure state when your citizens who visited us last fall, get here to lend a hand.

Hubert sends greetings to his little schoolmates at Franklin. He rides three miles to school and is as much at home on these windswept plains as the coyote or jackrabbit.

Since I left him a dandy new saddle and in it he will spend most of his time.

We have a new U. B. Church at Lovejoy about seven miles from us, with services every Sunday. It's one important factor in the Ladies Aid Society, who have cleared more than $200 with bazaars and lunch stands since they organized eight months ago. What would you ladies think of riding horseback 11 miles to attend a meeting?

With best wishes to all,

Mrs. W. E. Simms

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Freewater, Montana

January 14, 1917

Dear Editor and Friends:

On account of the deep snow last year our letter to the wanderer's issue was not delivered. It has been almost 3 years since I left Sumner and vicinity. This has been a prosperous year for all of the elderly people living out here in both grain and livestock. I raised over 1100 bushels of small grain, nine calves, two colts, plenty of potatoes, turnips and cabbages. My wife raised a good garden, chickens and turkeys. I will have in crop between 90 and 100 acres the coming season.

I expect to prove up on my 320 acre homestead this spring. We have been blessed with two little girls is coming here-Louella Martawn, age 22 months weighing 28 pounds and Anna Ermine age 2 months Wayne 14 pounds. They are both healthy and fat little dry landers.

We are well satisfied and will not leave the west to live in the east again.

V. J. Simms

Son of William Simms

January 16, 1917

Editor Press and old Illinois Friends and Relatives Who May Be Concerned:

I was Sarah C. Westall, born in Perry County, Ohio. My parents, Mr. and Mrs. P. F. Westall, moved by wagon from there to Lawrence County, Illinois, when I was but six weeks old, buying the farm where my youngest brother, A. T. Westall, now owns and lives, in Petty Township, where I was reared and married February 3, 1876, seven miles northeast of your city, to Washington Irving Smith, of Clark County, Ohio, and later of Lawrence County, Illinois. He was raised in Clark County, Ohio, on a farm, six miles west of Springfield. We were born in the fall of 1854.

We have been living here 21 years last October. He has been back to see his old home once since leaving here and we visit our relatives and old friends of Lawrence County pretty often and enjoy seeing their smiling faces. The old soldiers reunion is the time we go. We see almost all we ever knew for miles around. We are doing well under these prosperous times, have good health for our age and are able to eat buckwheat cakes, with honey and butter in the middle.

We have four boys-all have work. Frank, of Chicago, a bridge tender, turning the bridge for boats to pass; Ross, of this place, a Teamster; Warren, of Decatur, a Wabash Railroad conductor; Harry, of this place, a clerk in a grocery store, three blocks of home. All have homes of their own but Harry. He is with us, I am happy to say.

W. I., or Cap, as he is called here, still is in the transferred business and I think I keep my part up as a good wife and housekeeper, but I presume some will say "better let someone else say that," ha! Ha!, But you although we all think we are as good as anyone, if we are nothing in the eyes of others.

We have eight grandchildren, six boys and two girls.

I see some verses of 40 years ago. Well do I remember when my oldest sister, Mary Tobin, and I used to spin yarn for our flannel dresses, which mother used to color and we helped weave for school and meeting and knit our hose and the shoes our father used to get Mr. Houts to make us for Sunday and every day and we were better contented then than the girls and some old women are today with their silk dresses and five dollar and seven dollars shoes or more, and want to go to theaters every night, and not have enough in the house for breakfast. Oh! I am glad I was raised different. I often think how much happier people were in their log cabins, with a few acres to farm. My father and mother used to hitch to their big sled of evening after supper and go to old friends and spend the time and have supper till a late bedtime and take whole sled loads of us children and they do us likewise and sometimes I would get so sleepy I would fall across mother's bed in the living room and go to sleep and how hard it was to get up and go to bed right.

Mary and I wove my first rag carpet, which we thought fine. Well, Reese is picking his geese, we children used to say, the ground is getting white this Wednesday the 17th.

We moved to Kansas in September 1879; stayed three years but the hot wind came and killed our crops in 1881 and we returned in 1882, as well off as we went, but our next move was here, where we prospered exceedingly well and we feel it is best to have plenty in our old age when we don't feel able to work like when young. We visit Frank once a year and Warren once and sometimes twice. It is so far to brother Will's. We motored over last fall. Will close for this time, wishing everyone a happy year.
Mr. and Mrs. W. I. Smith

211 West Fremont Street

Champaign, Illinois