PRIEST, HUGH AND LOUELVA (CONNELL)

by Wanda Simonson

Entry F349 from the History of Hooker County Nebraska
with permission of the Hooker County Historical Society

The Hugh Priest Family about 1940. Top-Alice, Hermel. Middle row-
Louelva, Hugh, Kenneth. Front row - Audrey and Doris

William Henry and Rose Ella (Worden)
Priest became parents of their youngest son
while living at Omega, Nebraska about ten
miles north of Tryon. They named him Hugh
McKinley since the president on July 20,
1898, was William McKinley.

Hugh attended schools in McPherson
County and at Kearney, Ne., and in 1919, he
homesteaded near Hahns Peak, Colorado. In
1920, Hugh returned to Nebraska and was
married to Louelva Ethel Connell, daughter
of Michael A. and Elisabeth (Waits) Connell,
on July 11 of that year. For the first six years
of their married life, Hugh and Louelva lived
in Colorado. During this time, they became
parents of a daughter, Alice Lucille, on
1921, and a son, Hermel LaVerne, on
1923.

In 1926, the Priest family moved back to
Nebraska, and lived on the Florence Allen
place in McPherson County, while leasing the
Mitchell place in Hooker County, and anoth-
er 160 acres from Henry Lillard. Later they
moved to the Mitchell place and in the early
1930's, Hugh bought the Lillard land and
later the Mitchell and Allen places. The
Mitchell place was owned by a man who lived
in Iowa, and Florence Allen owned the Allen
place.

On 1927, Kenneth Dean was
born into the family, and on 1930,
another daughter, Doris Eileen, arrived.

During the dry year of 1934, Hugh and
Louelva decided to sell their cattle to the
government for $18.00 per head and their
winter feed supply was sold to Jim O'Brien,
of Mullen, for $1,000. They spent the winter
at Hemet, California, with Hugh's elderly
father and his sister and her husband, Mr.
and Mrs. Joe Waggoner. Their youngest
child, Audrey Maxine, was born there on
1934. They returned to Neb-
raska in March of 1935.

Hugh and his family lived on the Stan
fuller place until O'Brien's lease was up, and
after moving back to the Mitchell place he
pastured cattle for Hammonds, Kramers,
Haneys, and Mike Connell, as well as some
from the drought area of Kansas.

During the next ten years, Hugh and
Louelva raised corn and rye and almost all of
their own food, fighting grasshoppers and
jackrabbits with poisoned bran and oats.
They butchered their own meat, seldom
travelling to town, as it was a full day's trip
to Mullen by team and wagon. They made
trips to the Dismal River in the fall to pick
currants and chokecherries, and after frost,
plums. They used corncobs in their cookstove
and cow chips in the heating stove.

Hermel, my dad, related much of this story
to me, and among other things he mentioned
were setting the legs of beds in jar lids of
kerosene, since the straw mattresses attrac-
ted bedbugs. He also tells of visitors having
to park a distance away from the house and
walk in to avoid getting stuck in the sand.
Grandpa would feed thistles around the
buildings in the winter and spring to prevent
blowing. Grandpa also built a three bedroom
house which was sodded, then stuccoed, along
with a cellar and a cistern with a pipeline so
they had water in the house. They also
planted about forty acres of trees on the home
place.

Dad attended school in Hooker County for
grades 1 through 7, and some of his teachers
were Ruby O'Malley, Cleo Paxton, Faye
Paxton, Alma Zickefoose, and Doris Warren,
under whom he finished the 8th grade in
McPherson County.

Hugh and Louelva moved to Tryon in 1945,
printing the Tryon Graphic, which they
purchased from Orin B. Winter. They sold
their place to Walter and Bob Stevenson.
Louelva still lives in Tryon, though Hugh
died October 16, 1957. He had retired from
printing the paper at that time, and had been
custodian of the McPherson County court-
house and high school for about seven years.
He had also served on the Selective Service
Board for a number of years and helped
organize the Tryon Roping Club.

After Hugh's death, Louelva remained in
Tryon, boarding high school kids from the
area. In 1961, she married Elzie Hatch and
they lived in her home at Tryon, where she
still resides. Elzie died at Kearney, May 8,
1970.

Hugh and Louelva's descendent include 19
grandchildren, two deceased, and 37 great-
grandchildren. Louelva enjoys them all, and
is also close to Elzie's children and their
families.

The Priest-Worden Reunion is held in
July, at Cody Park in North Platte, as it has
been since 1952. Friends and relatives are
welcome.