BASSETT, ROBERT EVANS AND IDA (STATAN) AND ELLA (CANTLEBURY)

Bob was born October 1897 to John and Elsie Bassett in Hooker County. The only school records available for him were prob-ably his last two terms in 1915-16 and 1916-'17 at which time he attended the Haney School and was a teenager at the time. The school was somewhere in Southwestern Hooker Co. His homestead was somewhere in McPherson County. He began working on area ranches at an early age just as his older brothers and sisters had.

Bob was talented in music, learning to play

the violin and harmonica. He played the “fiddle'' for dances in Tryon when he was living there on his homestead. He was good also at mechanics and that became his profession later in life. He served in the Army during WWI, being sent to Germany where he suffered Shell Shock and became afflicted with Tuberculosis of the spine. He was discharged June 2, 1919 with a disability, having to wear a back brace.

He married Ida Statan, a native of Kansas, in Mullen in 1922. They moved around a great deal. They had no children. They were divorced a few years later. Bob did not stay in our area. He spent quite a bit of time in Wyoming.

Bob married Ella Cantlebury, a girl from Pinedale, Wyoming. They had two sons, Robert John and Buddy Francis. They came back to Nebraska in about 1938 accompanied by her younger brother, 13 years old, Glen Cantlebury and stayed with Dell for a short time, then continued on to Arkansas where they made their home until Bob became ill. He was taken to a Veterans Hospital at Memphis, Tennessee where he died August 4, 1939 and was buried there. It is not known where the family went or where they are at present.