HODGES, NANNIE ETHEL (CARR)

by Nyle and Gladys Hodges

Entry F193 from the History of Hooker County Nebraska
with permission of the Hooker County Historical Society

Jim and Nan Hodges February 20, 1913

December 31, 1882, Thomas Warner Carr
and Mary Jane Boyer were married at the
home of her parents, Stephen and Polly
Boyer in Independence, Virginia. "In the
early 1880's, a group of young people, includ-
ing three young married couples, left the
state of Virginia and headed west" so states
the first line of the story of Nan Hodges wrote
of her parents' trip to Battle Creek, Nebr.
They came by train through the mountains
of Virginia through Chicago and on the Mid-
eastern Nebraska. They endured the blizzard
of 1888, a cloudburst 2 years later that
drowned many school children, and gras-
shoppers that came over, stripping crops.
Many returned to Virginia, others bought
more land cheap and rented to the less
fortunate, more loaded up their belongings
and moved farther west to free range inten-
ding to raise cattle.

September 30, 1900, traveling in covered
wagons, Tom and Mary Jane with six of their
seven children (having left little Mary in a
tiny grave in the Battle Creek cemetery) and
a young cousin along with various farm
animals, headed west for the Sandhills. They
settled in Dry Valley. Mullen was the closest
town around. They built a sod house, estab-
lished the Curlew government Postoffice in
their home and five more children were born
to the family. Later a frame home was built
and the postoffice remained and was man-
aged by the Carr family until it was discontin-
ued. At one time Nan was postmistress. Their
home was a rest-stop for freighters and
travelers to find rest and food for themselves
and their animals.

Nannie Ethel Carr was born September 2,
1890 at Battle Creek, Nebraska and married
Jim White Hodges (born May 15, 1880 at
Wuthville, Virginia - parents William and
Celoma Hodges of North Carolina) at Al-
liance, Nebraska on February 20, 1918.
Nannie and Jim lived on a farm near Madison
where William Lee was born March 24, 1919.
They bought a ranch in Dry Valley, Cherry
County, 1 1/2 miles from her family home. On
April 18, 1922, Thomas Nyle was born with
Dr. R.G. Roth attending, Mrs. Isom Hamp-
ton as midwife. March 3, 1927 at little sister,
Aimee Maxine was born. She was just 18
months old when Jim was hurt in haying
accident and died August 22, 1928. Nan and
the children remained on the ranch and with
the help of her brothers John and Floyd and
Jim's brother Will and his son Wallace,
finished the haying. In the fall of 1929. the
sale bill read "Public Sale 18 miles north of
Mullen and 1 mile west of the Curlew
Postoffice - Mrs. J.W. Hodges, Administra-
tor - Ridenour and Shriner Auctioneers -
W.H. Wigent, Clerk." The sale took place on
July 11, 1929. To add to the sadness of the
day, Nan's father Thomas Carr died, burial
at Dry Valley Cemetery.

Nan and the children lived on at the ranch
until the spring of 1931, they moved to the
Carr homestead with John and Floyd. Moth-
er Mary Jane passed away January 15, 1931,
burial at Dry Valley. That fall, Nan moved
to town for school, but the next spring they
moved to the Pool place, from there to Calf
Creek, Cherry County, from there to the
Wright Hampton place, to the Hyatt place
and finally in 1949, Nan was able to buy the
Ethel Reddington place and put down roots
once again.

Bill stayed at home while Nyle finished
highschool, and Nyle and Aimee finished. Bill
went to work for Russell Phipps and then
Carl Simonson before going into the Army
during WWII. Nyle stayed on at the ranch
and Aimee taught school before going to New
York state where the Wright Hamptons had
moved, she worked for the Kodak Company.
When Bill returned from the Army, he and
Jane Simonson were married. They reared
four boys, Ron, Lloyd, Mike, and Dan, all
married and there are 7 grandchildren. Nyle
married Gladys Buechler and they had three
children Peggy, Alan, and Nyla and have 8
grandchildren. Aimee married Andrew
Kravcisin and they had 3 children, Nancy,
Nickii and Billy.

Nan got an apartment in Mullen in the
mid-fifties, after Nyle went into construction
work. She would spend the winter in town
and go to the ranch come spring, later she
bought a house from Wes Crews (now Vern
Shears residence) where she enjoyed her
garden and her fiowers until her hip trouble
curtailed her from going all she wanted to do.
She fell and had to be hospitalized and to
enter the Nursing Home where she was a
resident from 1981 until February 4, 1984,
buried in the Dry Valley Cemetery. Her
daughter, Aimee Kravcisin died 19 days later
in the Greeley Hospital and on February 26,
1984 she was buried beside her mother at Dry
Valley, just east of the Carr homestead -
Curlew Postoffice, now the ranch home of
Mrs. Mary Swendener (daughter of the late
Lee and Janet (Hogg) Carr. Thomas and
Mary Jane Carr are interred at Dry Valley,
as is their small sons Thomas and Teddy, Lee
and Janet Carr, daughter Mattie Isom and
baby daughter, also nieces and nephews.