During Leora Goff’s early decades, she gathered the tenacity, optimism and hope she would need throughout her long life. When she married Clabe Wilson, they became forged into parents who would shepherd their own family through two more great eras of world and local history–the Great Depression and WWII.

I kept chapters short, in hopes that students will also enjoy reading these stories. Here are the names of the chapters in Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots:

1  Land of the Santee Sioux (1892)
2  Indians Visit
3  Drought and Dust Storms
4  Pioneer Stock (1850s)
5  1860s
6  A Cow for Her Watch (1890s)
7  Iowa Again (1896)
8  Robinson Circus (1898)
9  Prairie Rural School, First “Talking Machine”
10 Horses, Chores, and the Liza Jane Train
11 Winter Entertainment and Christmas
12 Young Clabe Wilson
13 Grandpap Goff Dies, Goff Reunions (1900)
14 Decoration Day 1900
15 The Jail Escapade (1900)
16 A Baby Sister and the Guthrie County Fair (1900)
17 Two Moves, Two More Babies (1901-1902)
18 Key West, Minnesota (1903)
19 School in the Winter, and Christmas (1903)
20 Georgia Falls Down the Stairs (1904)
21 Another Circus, Another Move (1904)
22 Clabe Wilson’s Family (1903-1907)
23 Home to Iowa (1905)
24 Independence Day 1907
25 Riding a Horse to Piano Lessons (1908)
26 The 1909 Iowa State Fair
27 Clabe Wilson (1908-1909)
28 Mrs. Connrardy’s Sewing School (1910)
29 Wichita, Iowa (1911)
30 Popcorn King of Guthrie County (1912)
31 Grandpap Jordan Dies (1913)
32 Leora Meets Clabe
33 Leora Gets Married (1914)
34 Grandmother Jordan Dies, Willis’s Accident (1914)
35 Delbert Wilson Born (1915)
36 Tragedy for Cousins (1916)
37 Donald Wilson Born (1916)
38 The Great War, Clabe’s Mother Unwell (1917)
39 Death of Clabe’s Mother
40 Three Goff Brothers Drafted (1918)
41 Doris Wilson Born (1918)
42 Influenza and the Armistice (1918) 
43 The Goffs’ Victorian Home (1919)
44 A Move to Stuart, Doughboys Come Home 
45  The Influenza Pandemic, Stuart 
46 Nineteenth Amendment (1920)
47 House Fire, Another Move (1921)
48 Stuart Nightwatchman Killed, Clabe is Hired (1921)
49 Arrests, Twins Dale and Darlene Born (1921) 
50 Smallpox (1922)
51 Death of Georgia Laurayne Goff (1922)
52 Danny Wilson Born (1923)
53 Hemphill Place and Eye Surgery (1923)
54 Death of Tessie Goff (1924)
55 Clabe Bobs His Wife’s Hair
56 The Wilson School Bus (1924)
57 Life on the Farm
58 Junior Wilson Born (1925)
59 Dale and Darlene Start School (1926)