A transcription of pages 195-469,
Family Histories from the Verdigre Centennial Book
Thanks to the Verdigre Library and its volunteers for making this available.
 
The index below only includes the husband and wife for each family.
The maiden name for the wife is used if listed.
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Index's A-I, J-P, & Q-Z

EVELYN MC CLELLAN

Since this is an autobiography, it will be written in the first person. I was born in a farm house eight miles north of Oxford, in Furnas County, Nebraska, one mile south of the Gasper County line, the youngest of six children born to Charles Arthur and Mary Elizabeth (Paine) Trunnell. My oldest sister told me that a neighbor girl, named Evelyn Rankin, had told my parents that if they named the baby after her she would make a dress for her. Evelyn’s mother was named Jessie and was a wonderful person who helped her neighbors often. I’m sure she was there helping at the time I was born. When I was small, I didn’t know this fact - my name was Jessie Evelyn. I was glad they called me Evelyn because the only other Jessie I knew was a boy and I thought my folks must have made a mistake and given me a boy’s name.

My mother died when I was only two years old and my next older sister, who was four, and I went to live with our paternal grandparents on their old homestead south of the republican River southwest of Edison and Southeast of Arapahoe. On my sixth birthday, they moved in with our father and the rest of my brothers and sisters and we lived a mile north of the farm where I was born. I lived here until I was married on December 25, 1935.

I started to school in the fall of 1920 and went to District 25 in Gasper County. It was 1 ¾ miles by the road, but we usually cut across the pasture. Since I was the youngest, often my older brother would have me walk behind him when the wind was strong and cold. He would also break a path in the snow.

At the time I started to this one-room country school, there were about 20 pupils attending. I took three grades in two years while down in the lower grades and no kindergarten, so I was able to complete the eight grades in seven years. But in 1927, when I had finished eighth grade, my father said, he could not afford to send me to high school, so I did not go to school during the term of 1927-28.

In the summer of 1928, we had a couple who lived one mile northwest of Oxford do some papering for us. She said if I would sleep on a straw tick, she would board me for $10 per month. I wanted so much to go to high school, I definitely had no complaint about sleeping on a straw tick. I walked the mile to school until November and a woman whose husband worked late nights in the pool hall asked if I could stay with her and she wouldn’t charge any board. So I stayed with them until they moved to a place where their rent was raised and she wanted me to pay the extra cost of the rest. There were also children and she was having me do considerable work, so my dad decided to change boarding places and we paid $15 per month from then on. It was not easy and I promised him I’d pay him back when I got out of school. I took a Normal Training Course and graduated in 1932.

Teachers were about a dime a dozen it seemed and many did not get a school. I was the only one in my class that got a school and it had begun to look as if I wouldn’t either. Two weeks before school started I did get a school north of Lexington in Dawson County. I taught for three years and used up my certificate. As I promised, I paid Dad back at the rate of $20 a month. I paid $15 for room and board, which left me $15 out of my $50 per month salary. Districts were hard up and I often used my own money to buy construction paper, paste, and other needed materials for the school.

It was during the time I was teaching that I met Tom McClellan and we were married Christmas Day in 1935. This was my grandmother’s anniversary date and she had always hoped some of the grandchildren would choose it also. She had done so much for me I felt this was not too much to do for her.

Oh yes, while my dad was still alive, I sent for my birth certificate and the name had not been filled in. I figured it was as my sister had told me and they hadn’t made up their minds what to name the baby; but long ago, I decided Jessie wasn’t too bad even for a girl’s name.

The rest of my history is in with Tom’s history and for 35 years, this farm has been home. It is the only place we have ever owned.

Oh, not to be outdone by the Braggs and the McClellans, my great-grandfather’s mother was a daughter of General Sullivan of the Revolutionary War. So that would make General Sullivan my great-great-great-grandfather (or something like that)! I will let my grandkids and my great grandkids do their own mathematics and figure out how many “greats” they should use in trying to figure out their own relationship to General Sullivan.

-Submitted by Evelyn McClellan
Page 329