COMSTOCK, MAUDE ETHEL

by Thelma Bassett Pearman

Entry F79 from the History of Hooker County Nebraska
with permission of the Hooker County Historical Society

Maude (Comstock) Bassett

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.