Late Chadron man's novels get "thumbs up"

by Con Marshall

Like many other current and past Chadron residents, Ron Grover of Wichita, Kan., did not know that Chadron native Bill Hallsted wrote Western novels until he read the information in Hallsted’s obituary following his death on May 11.

After discovering Hallsted’s “other life,” Grover began reading the novels, which are published using the pen name of Billy Hall. So far, Grover has read seven of the 39 novels and gives them a “thumbs up.”

            

“Author Billy Hall reminds me of the books by Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour,” Grover related in a message to a friend in Chadron last week.  “I guess without a trained mind for identifying authors, if I was to start reading a book without knowing who the author was, I might not be able to tell someone which of these three authors had written the book.”

            

Hallsted and Grover became acquainted in the late 1950s after the Grover family moved to Chadron.  Grover’s father, Oscar Grover, was the pastor of the Chadron Church of Christ which the Hallsted family attended.  Hallsted graduated from Chadron High in 1957 and Grover in 1959.

            

Both men became Church of Christ ministers and served in those capacities until they retired. Hallsted and his wife Arlene had lived in Hot Springs five years before he died of cancer.   

            

Among the novels Grover has read are “Bull’s Eye Stage Coach,” “Soft Soap for a Hard Case,”  “Kaycee Killer,” “Easy Target,”  “The Ten Sleep Murders,”  “The Lodge Pole Lynchings” and  “Montana Rescue.”

            

“There are passages in Billy Hall’s writings that describe the landscape in colorful words that ring true to a reader that has seen such a scene in our Western states,” Grover said.  He offered this example from “Soft Soap for a Hard Case.” 

            

“Towering thunder-heads lifted above the distant mountains.  Stark white at the tops, they grew increasingly dark as they neared the ground, forming a solid black wall that blocked out everything behind it.”

             

Grover noted that like many westerns novels, Hall’s books seem to include a good guy, one or more bad guys, a pretty lady and some gun play.

              

“If the hero is the same guy from book to book, as is Levi Hill in many of Billy Hall’s books, the character has to be true from book to book,” Grover stated  “I didn’t find any flaws in this matter; Levi Hill was true to his background and character from book to book. 

            

“I have really enjoyed reading these books and would recommend them to anybody who likes a good, clean western,” Grover concluded.           

            

Hallsted, who was the pastor at 11 churches in five states during his more than 40 years in the ministry, wrote much more than western novels.  His byline appeared on more than 200 articles in that were published in 77 Christian and secular magazines, he had three Christian novels published and also wrote a book about the joys and trials of raising a son with disabilities.

Braddock family has deep roots in Dawes County

(Editor's Note:  This article is from the 1921 publication, "History of Western Nebraska and Its People" by Grant L. Shumway.) 

William Braddock, deceased, pioneer and one of the most prominent figures in the development and settlement of Dawes county, was for years one of the best known ranchmen and cattle breeders in western Nebraska, where he gained a high reputation for his introduction of thoroughbred cattle, being one of the first men in this section to realize that well bred stock paid the best. He won marked success with the able assistance of his wife who for years was the one whom he consulted in business matters.

   

Mr. Braddock was born December 26, 1858, near Marshalltown, Iowa, the son of Martin and Deliah (Lepley) Braddock both natives of Knox county, Ohio, the father being of English and the mother of Pennsylvania Dutch descent. William was the fifth child in a family of eleven children, consisting of six boys and five girls. His father moved to Marshalltown, Iowa, in 1850, and homesteaded the farm where he lived the rest of his life. 

William was reared in the country, and worked on the farm in his younger days so that his school privileges were limited, but he came of stock that was thrifty and industrious and laid the foundation in his youth for the great accomplishments of after years. The school that taught him most was that of experience and he learned well. He first earned money as a young boy and early learned its value. 

William Braddock

Mr. Braddock remained at home most of the time until the. fall of 1884. He had already heard of the great opportunities open for a young man with grit and energy in the western part of Nebraska and came that year by rail to Valentine, the end of the road at the time, then joined a company of freighters to go the rest of the way. They reached Beaver valley on Thanksgiving day and Mr. Braddock often spoke of that memorable day and the beautiful appearance of the valley. He took a pre-emption at once which is still the property of his widow and heirs. 

As soon as possible Mr. Braddock built a dugout on his claim and prepared to pass the winter of 1884-95. In the spring he went over onto Bordeaux creek to get lumber for some building as there was a small saw mill then owned by G. W. Messenger. The distance was only about twelve miles but on the trip a hard snow storm came up and covered all the landmarks so that Mr. Braddock became lost and wandered in the white waste for two days before finding his dugout. That was a hard winter as the snow was the deepest ever known in this section and it laid three feet on a level from December to spring. 

One of the amusing experiences told by Mr. Braddock was of his winter in the dugout. He was lonely as neighbors were far apart and few and he did not trust the few prowling Indians as he believed they resented the settlers coming in and taking their hunting grounds, though they lived on a reservation. He spent many wakeful nights and heard many queer noises and after weeks of anxiety found that some sand mice had been carrying corn from his supplies up to a human skull that he had found on the prairie and kept on a shelf. After that he slept better.

With the spring, Mr. Braddock broke some of his land and farmed a little, took up a homestead and later a tree claim.  The tree claim was some distance from his other land and he found it impractical (sic) to handle and finally sold it.  That being the only piece of land of which he disposed in his many years of ranch life.  As soon as he made a little money Mr. Braddock would buy some cattle, brand them and turn them out on the range.  In the fall he would join in the round up with the large cattle owners and bring his cattle back to the home range.  He kept doing this year after year until he had a large herd.

Julia Braddock

On March 28, 1899, Mr. Braddock married Miss Julia Anna Jacobson, who was born near Nevada, Iowa, the daughter of John H. and Dora (Tow) Jacobson, both of Scandinavian descent.  In the spring of 1885, the Jacobson family came to Sheridan County, Nebraska, and took a pre-emption northwest of Rushville seven miles, where they lived twenty years then moved near Mullen, Hooker county and continued in the ranch business.

Mrs. Braddock went through the common schools and was teaching at the age of sixteen. Later she attended the Rushville high school. She received only twenty-five dollars a month but invested what money she could in calves each year and when she was married added twenty head of fine cows to her husband's large herd. Of this accomplishment she was justly proud. After her marriage they worked harder than ever as both she and her husband toiled early and late. They attained a remarkable success however, and she feels that they were well repaid, as at one time they had twenty-five hundred head of cattle before the free range was done away with. After that the owners sold many cattle and kept smaller herds. 

Mr. Braddock was one of the first men to see far ahead and realize that irrigation was to be the great thing in western Nebraska and built nine miles of ditches on his ranch, as he had the priority water rights from Beaver creek along which his land streched (sic) for fourteen miles. His entire ranch is fenced with four wires and cross fenced with posts every rod so that that (sic) his improvements were some of the best in the west. 

The Braddock ranch has five hundred acres of alfalfa which is usually cut three times a season, two hundred acres are native wheat grass meadow which usually cuts three hundred tons of hay per year, and the ranch is one of the best located and most beautiful in the state, lying in the beautiful Beaver and White river valleys. It stands as an enduring monument to the man and woman who spent so many years of their life here, reclaiming the virgin prairie to productive farm purposes. 

In 1908, Mr. Braddock bought his first registered Herefords, gradually worked out of grades and into pure bred cattle. At the heighth (sic) of his career he died, January 7, 1917, a great loss to his community and mourned by all who knew him. 

After her husband's death, Mrs. Branddock (sic) with undaunted courage assumed the full control of her husband's business and has made an enviable record as a business woman in the northwestern country where she is widely and well known. Her large herd of Anexiety 4th cattle, some seven hundred in number, are said to be the finest in the country by experienced cattle men who are breeders themselves. Mrs. Braddock had the honor of having the first show herd of this kind of cattle exhibited at a National Stock Show, from Dawes county and the county boasts that it has more pure bred white faces than in any territory of its size in the United States. 

Mrs. Braddock exhibited at the Denver Cattle Show of January, 1921, where she won a premium on every animal exhibited. This in competition with veteran breeders who have been showing cattle for many years, a rather unusual honor for a woman. When asked by a friend, "Mrs. Braddock, were you not surprised?" She replied, "No, this was not thought out or accomplished in a day. Many months of careful watching of the development of different individuals are necessary in the selection of a show animal, and I have made an intensive study of the various types of beef cattle for several years. Right now I am planning and preparing for the 1922 shows."

Mrs. Braddock is a woman of high culture and refinement as she has studied these many years in spite of the trials and hardships she endured on the ranch in the early days. She has two cultured daughters, Gladys Enid, who after graduating from the Chadron State Normal School, in Chadron attended the Nebraska State University, at Lincoln and is now attending the University of Chicago, and Wilma Doris, who is in the ninth grade of the normal school at Chadron. 

Mrs. Braddock has a beautiful home in Chadron and now lives surrounded by all the luxuries and comforts that wealth and culture can afford but she says that wealth is not all in life to live for and is desirous of assisting in the farther development and improvement of Dawes county where she has played an important part in stock raising and agriculture. She stands high in the community respected by her business associates and loved by the many old friends. Few women have been able to take up such a large business enterprise and make the success that she has.

Ed Bieganski has long history in Dawes County

(Thanks to the Chadron Golden Age Courier and Chadron State College!)

Ed Bieganski’s connection to Chadron State College began more than 75 years ago, at about the same time as he started a 20-plus year career with the United States Army. Newly arrived in the area in the spring of 1938, after hitchhiking from his parents’ farm in Pennsylvania, the lanky, six-foot tall, 18-year old had done some boxing and says he was allowed to train in the CSC gym located in the south side of Miller Hall.

Now 95 years old, Bieganski’s life experiences have taken him across the country and around the world, but with strong and lasting ties to the Pine Ridge area, Chadron and Chadron State College, where he earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees, taught speech and communications and was involved in adult and continuing education classes.

Ed Bieganski in uniform back
at Fort Robinson in 2006

Academics were a second career for Bieganski, who enlisted at the U.S. Army remount depot at Fort Robinson in August, 1938, and spent most of his time for the next three years handling horses that were needed for cavalry troops in the field. His taciturn ways, and exploits at occasional boxing matches in area towns, earned him the nickname “the Pugilistic Philosopher” from a fellow recruit who wrote a column for the local newspaper.

During that time, Bieganski met his future wife, Fern Linabery, a Rushville school teacher, on a blind date, and they married in August, 1941, just before his three-year Army enlistment ended. But the Pearl Harbor attack a few months later sounded the call to duty, and Bieganski re-enlisted, once again as a private. Assigned first to another remount depot in Oklahoma, he was later tapped for Officer Candidate School in Virginia, where he emerged as a second lieutenant. After duty assignments in Texas and Mississippi, he was sent with a trucking company to Pearl Harbor and then to Iwo Jima, the Pacific island which had just been taken from the Japanese by the U.S. Marines. “The Marines made it safe for me to go ashore and try to win the war,” he says of helping build an airfield and other facilities on the island during the remaining years of WWII.

After the war’s end, Bieganski’s unit shipped supplies to Europe, and he later served in Okinawa, Ohio, Germany and Utah before retiring in 1959. He built a home south of Chadron, worked for a Chadron-based moving company for a time, and later, with credit for some of his military training, earned an undergraduate degree from CSC in 1968 and a master’s degree in Education just two years later.  

Bieganski spent a relatively short time on the CSC staff before retiring for good, but made a significant enough impact that one former student-1975 graduate Mitch Bean-has established and funded the Ed Bieganski Develop Your Potential Scholarship in his honor. Bean credits Bieganski with encouraging him to join the speech and debate team and study communications. “The lesson Ed Bieganski taught me in 1971 has become my life’s work,” Bean said.

Bieganski’s connection to Chadron State encompasses even more than his time as a student and on the faculty. His son Gary earned a degree from CSC in 1969, is married to Donna, a 1967 alumna, and is now in his second term on the Nebraska State College Board of Trustees, which oversees all three state colleges. Ed’s grandson, Mark, and his wife, Andrea, are also CSC graduates.

Ed Bieganski at his DAA ceremony at CSC

Although it isn’t well known, Bieganski also has a long-standing role in CSC football games. As a member of the Dawes County Honor Guard, he has been part of the flag raising ceremony before home games for more than 20 years, though he admits to not always staying for the contest itself.

He is also a strong supporter of fine arts at Chadron State, and is a regular presence at concerts, plays and lectures on campus. “My favorite events…are the fine arts recitals-the band and chorus and (individual) recitals,” he says.

With a wealth of life experiences to share, Bieganski continues to teach others as well. He was one of a number of WWII veterans profiled by students in 2000 for an award-winning special English project that was later displayed at the state capitol  and he has been part of a mentoring program for students for several years.  And at a Graves lecture series talk last year on poetry as a form of therapy, the proud veteran stood tall and recited “In Flanders Field” from memory.

Like his bond with the U.S. Army, Ed Bieganski’s connection with Chadron State College that began when he first set foot in northwest Nebraska three-quarters of a century ago has proved its strength. “CSC has been part of my life since 1938,” he says.

(Editor's Note:  We remember when the Bieganski family arrived in Chadron after Ed retired from the Army in 1959.  We've followed their achievements with great interest, and were delighted to learn that Ed Bieganski has been honored with a Distinguished Alumni Award from Chadron State College.  Our thanks to the Chadron Golden Age Courier and CSC's Director of College Relations Alex Helmbrecht for sharing the story above.)

Assumption had big sports legacy - Part II

This is the second of a two-part series that covers the highlights of athletics at Assumption Academy in Chadron during its 38-year history.  Written by Con Marshall, these newspaper stories were originally published in August of 2011.  Our thanks to Con for allowing us to use this story and to Jim Sandstrom for sharing photos from some of his years as a student athlete at the Academy.

Chadron Assumption had many athletic highlights

by Con Marshall

George Shinker was just 20 years old and still two years away from graduating from Chadron State College when he was named Assumption Academy’s head coach of all three sports in the fall of 1953. He had graduated from the Academy in May 1950 after being a standout on the basketball team.

  Shinker’s first football team at Assumption was a six-man crew that had just two seniors on the roster and went 0-7. However, during the next five seasons, the Panthers were 34-7-1 on the gridiron. The 1955, ’57 and ’58 teams lost just one game apiece. The 1955 team was also tied.

The Panthers also were strong in basketball under Shinker. They won four consecutive district tournament championships, but always lost out in regional tournament contests.  This was an era when it wasn’t easy to make it to Lincoln because only four teams were in the state tournament in each class.  The 1957 team was beaten by Uehling, which is located in northeast Nebraska about 30 miles from the Iowa state line. The playoff game was in Plainview, nearly as far from Chadron as Lincoln.

1957-58 Assumption Academy Panthers
(Photo courtesy of Jim Sandstrom)

The 1958 team went 19-4 and helped Chadron earn the title of Basketball Capital of Nebraska.  Chadron Prep was 19-3 and Chadron High was 17-3 that season.  (Editors Note:  To see a larger version of the photo above — and others — visit our Chadron Schools Gallery.

The Panthers got a boost during the 1950s when Chuck and Larry Murray came from their parents’ ranch on the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming and enrolled at Assumption. They were tough and talented enough to have played for any high school football team in the country. They also were basketball standouts at Assumption.

During a recent telephone conversation, Chuck said his family lived 24 miles from town, all of it dirt road. Therefore, his parents decided it would be more economical and safer if they went elsewhere to high school. They sought information about Jesuit institutions and chose Assumption over Alliance St. Agnes.  Their sister, Ivora, also enrolled at Assumption during this era.

Chuck said one of his many memories of his days at Assumption was going to basketball practice early in the morning so the Panthers could use the Community Building (now Middle School Gym), where their games were played. Chadron High, Chadron State and Chadron Prep practiced there in the afternoon and evenings. The Assumption Arena opened the year after Chuck graduated from the Academy in 1956.

  Following their days at Assumption, the Murray brothers stuck around and also played football and graduated from CSC.  I may be wrong, but I think they are the only Assumption grads to earn letters in football at CSC aside from Dale Tangeman in 1939 and ’40.  Both of the Murrays also went on to earn master’s degrees in education from the University of Wyoming.

George Shinker 
(Photo courtesy of Jim Sandstrom)

Some of Shinker’s other top athletes included Doyle and Dan Hucke, Jim, Jerry and Dick Miller, Larry Chamberlain, Don McVeigh, Dave Mailander, Bill Marchant, John Hostler, Wayne Sides, Bernard Lecher, Jim Konrath, George Bamsey and Bob Zahm, who earned all-state basketball honors from at least one Nebraska newspaper as a senior in 1958 and remains one of this community’s most avid sports fans.

Shinker left Assumption for a teaching and coaching job at Lusk in the spring of 1959. He earned a master’s degree from CSC in 1962 and had an outstanding career as a school administrator. He was the principal three years at Hemingford, the principal three years and superintendent five years at Ainsworth, the superintendent at Creighton seven years and the superintendent of the West Holt Schools at Atkinson 16 years. He was on the Nebraska School Activities Association’s board of control before retiring in 1995. He died at age 76 in 2009 with many friends and admirers.

The next two years after Shinker left, the Panthers were coached by Chadron State PE majors.  Jim Davison coached the 1959 football team that went 7-0-1 with the only blemish a 13-13 tie with St. Agnes and Rod Borders was the coach in the fall of 1960 when Mullen dealt the Panthers their only loss during a 7-1 season.

  

Complete statistics from that era don’t seem to be available, but a story in the Chadron Record said Bob Marchant, who was just a sophomore, had touchdown runs of 85 and 90 yards during a 31-7 threshing of Sidney St. Pat’s in 1959.

Ye olde neighborhood groceries

Small neighborhood grocery stores were popular places in the early-to-mid 20th century.  And there were several of them that we remember around Chadron. Similar stores were in Crawford, Whitney, and other county locations, we're sure.   

The store shown here was situated on the northeast corner of 5th and Ann Street, just a block north of where the Chadron Middle School sits today.  Of course, in addition to meats, breads, canned goods, and dairy products, there was an ample selection of pop and candy!  Back in the day when all grades — Kindergarten through 12th — were in the same building at 6th and Ann, this was a really popular place with the kids on the east side of town.  We first remembered it as Moore's Grocery in the 1940s and early '50s.  Insurance agent Dale More and his wife Beulah owned the store back in those days.  For a short time it was owned by a fellow named Fletcher, and then it was bought and operated by Willie and Millie Rice as Rice Grocery until it closed, in the late 1950s.

As one neighbor said, "We all liked these small stores.  They had credit and they were conveniently located.  Why would you drive to the big downtown grocery store when you had to pay 12 cents a gallon for gasoline?" 

We remember similar grocery stores, such as Kenwood Grocery, White Grocery on West Highway 20, and Miller Grocery at 6th and Main.  There were also small grocery stores in the villages of Whitney, Marsland, Belmont and others.

Crawford also had a variety of smaller grocery stores -- several of them operating at the same time.  The most venerable of the group was Absalon's, which operated at 2nd and Main Street for more than 40 years.  It is now D & S grocery.  But even before it was Absalon's, it was owned by Ploosters for several years.  Old-timers may remember when it was Knapp's.  Then there was Quick-Serve, Star Grocery, and Lewis'.  And the Galey Little Store operated for several years along west Highway 20 before closing in the early 1990's.  It was earlier owned  by Jack Ellis -- and before that by a fellow named McHugh.

Importantly, most of these locally-owned stores extended credit to their better customers.  They were, after all, neighbors!

Alas, as a kid, I don't remember having my own personal candy account at our neighborhood store.  Nonetheless, resourceful youngsters could usually scavenger and find empty pop bottles or milk bottles and turn them in for a refund, which could be used to support our candy habits.  Pop bottles brought 2 cents each, while milk bottles were worth a whopping 5 cents.

Ah, those were the days!

Assumption had big sports legacy - Part I

We're happy to present a two-part series that hits the highlights of athletics at Assumption Academy in Chadron during its 38-year history.  Written by Con Marshall, these newspaper stories were originally published in August of 2011.  Thank you, Con!

Chadron Assumption had many athletic highlights

by Con Marshall

While Mike Smith and his wife Jo were avoiding the heat in Arizona and resided in Chadron during much of July 2011 (When our high temperature reached at least 90 on 20 dates and topped 100 degrees seven times.), I wrote a sports column about Chadron Prep and Assumption Academy closing 50 and 40 years ago, respectively.

The column recounted numerous athletic highlights that the two high schools had during their existence.  Bolstered by its three Class C state basketball championships of the 1950s and the limelight that went with the titles, Prep received quite a bit of the spotlight.

Mike, a 1953 Chadron High graduate whose career included being sports editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, didn’t quibble with that. But he gently suggested that I could have named some of the Panthers who made Assumption a small-school powerhouse at times.

Assumption Academy in its early years

Since the column already contained more than 1,500 words (so does this one), I had avoided listing names by noting there were too many standouts to mention.  There were definitely a lot of exceptional athletes who wore the Blue and Gold through the years.

But Mike was convincing and helped by asking Dan Konrath, a loyal Assumption alum who has a wealth of information about the school, to loan me a copy of the 2010 Alumni Directory that Dan put together. It is a masterpiece that contains individual photos of all the 597 graduates during Assumption’s 48 years of operation.

Mike’s prodding and Dan’s book inspired some additional digging. It was interesting.  I found so much material that it will stretch over two issues of the newspaper.  This episode will discuss some interesting events from “way back when.” Next week, we’ll talk mostly about the final 20 years that the school was open.

Some great Assumption teams

Mention was made in the earlier column about Assumption’s undefeated and unscored upon 11-man football team in 1932. Despite considerable research nothing more has been learned about that team.  Since there are only 15 players in the team photo, they had to be iron men and it had to be a fantastic season. Few teams anywhere have duplicated it.

Nearly 80 years later, it seems fitting that their names are printed again. In alphabetical order they are Jack Berkheimer, Eugene Chalfant, Lester Clemens, John Coyle, Dan Jordan, Richard Lecher, John Masek, John McDermott, Richard McGannon, Francis Joe Montague, Don Rapp, Bill Riley, Orin Riley, DeLong Satterlee and Lester Wilson.  As noted in the earlier column, their coach was Claude “Bud” Rook, who had played on Chadron High’s undefeated football team in 1927 and was the founder and long-time owner of ABC Electric in Chadron.

Even before that, Assumption had at least one big moment in sports. In 1929, when Assumption was in just its fifth year, the basketball team went to the state tournament.  I learned about that team in May 1990, when Marion Talcott, the team’s coach, visited his hometown. He was 84, but still full of energy and information.

West Second Street was a "happening" place in 1890!

As our country was engaged in a huge Bicentennial celebration nearly 40 years ago (1976), the Chadron Record marked the occasion by creating a map of the early Chadron downtown business district.  It was based largely on a map created by the late P.O. Gaylord, our next door neighbor in the 1960s, and one of the few folks alive when the town was founded back in 1885.  They also consulted an 1890 Chadron City Business Directory.

In its Thursday, May 13, 1976 edition, the Record printed their map and noted a couple of interesting points about the development of the Chadron business district.

First, it was along West Second Street that that businesses seemed to gravitate.  Between Main and Morehead, there were some 39 business that fronted Second Street.  They included the post office, a couple of meat markets, furniture store, hat shop, a hardware store, pool hall, barber shop, two banks, the Chadron Journal, and "the first picture show" in town.

It seems the railroad town company, which had platted the town,l intended that Main Street should be — what else, but the "main street" — and hiked the prices along the street accordingly.  Before the old townsite five miles west of Chadron was moved — and before the new downtown lots were sold — local merchants decided they'd rather buy cheaper lots long Second Street.

Thus, the map shown at the top of the column at left reflects a much more robust commercial district along Second Street than existed up and down Main Street.  Click on the map and you'll be able to take a closer look.

Of course, circumstances changed over the years, and many new and enduring buildings would eventually be constructed along Main.  But you'll still see vestiges of the 1890 "downtown" up and down Second Street.  Click on the undated map shown at left.  It reflects a much more robust commercial district along Second Street than existed up and down Main Street.