COMSTOCK, MAUDE ETHEL

Maude was born in Gilman, Iowa in 1894 to Edgar William and Lydia Baker Comstock, one of six children. they were all older than she, except one sister, Ara marie, who was born in 1895. The others were Frances (Loomis), Franklin Leroy (Roy), Errol and Arthur.

Edgar passed away in 1895 at the age of 35 years, leaving Lydia with the children to care for and no means of support. After a time, she elected to place the children in the Childrens Home at Council Bluffs, Iowa. Lydia went to Fairbault, Minnesota and sometime later married a man who had a daughter. They were divorced and the daughter went with Lydia. One night while they were asleep the ex-husband came to their home in Fairbault and shot Lydia then himself. The daughter escaped to a neighbor's home.

Little else is known of the family except the daughter had a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized the rest of her life.

Some of the older children were placed in foster homes but the young ones remained in the orphanage for an unknown number of years. All of the children's records were destroyed in a fire at the orphanage during their stay there. They were eventually adopt-ed by Edward W. and Catherine (Gragg) Bassett (uncle and aunt of Frank Bassett) the year not known but think they were possibly 3 and 4 years of age. They changed Ara's name to Irene and they grew up in a valley south of Bassett Valley. when they were teenagers the family moved to Stockville and bought a hotel-restaurant and later ran a grocery store.

Maude and Frank had known one another as children and corresponded after they moved to Stockville. maude came back for visits on a number of occasions. They were married in 1917 at Mullen, Nebraska and Maude had to prove she was no relation to Frank since her name was also Bassett. They bought the Bob Phelps place in 1919 and lived there until 1940. In September 1918, Richard Ray was born and in 1921 Dorothy Irene, Opal Thelma in 1922 and Jean Marie in 1928.

When Ray became school age there wa no school available so Maude and the children moved to the southwest community where Carters, Davis, Hammonds and Coons lived and lived in a small house near the school. It became known as the “School Camp''. This continued until 1929 when the Sam Musser family with 6 children moved six miles to the east. The Ballard school house was moved into the area halfway between the two families. They attended this school until all were ready for high school. when Ray started high school, Maude and the children moved to Mullen for two terms, then Ray and Dorothy “boarded'' and the others returned to Ballard School. Later the girls did light housekeeping until they graduated and jean dropped out of school.

With the war came jobs in ammunition plants and Maude left the place and went to Grand Island to work at such a plant in 1944. When it closed down as the war wound down she moved over to Hastings and worked at the naval Ammunition Depot until the war ended in August 1945. She then returned home and worked caring for the elderly and cooked in cafes.

For a period of several years, Maude worked as a cook on ranches, Farrars, Peter-sons, Hagers and Rothwells. Her next stop was a home in Hyannis where she ran a cafe for a time and cleaned house for a number of families in Hyannis. She continued to live in Hyannis until about 1960 when she moved to Mullen. she finally bought a trailer house and it was moved to the country home of Thelma and here she lived until she passed away in 1982. She was buried in the Cederview Cemetery in Mullen.