Hawaii
has James Michener; Red Cloud, Nebraska has Willa Cather and Grafton, Nebraska
has Alida Curtiss.
Alida
Curtiss wrote “Mother Wanted a Son – A Prairie Tale” in 1964. In her historical
novel, Captain Xerxes Stevens brought his wife Elisabeth and young daughter
Nellie to a homestead near Grafton not long after the Civil War. Nellie’s
little brother was born there, the son Mother wanted, but the story is
Nellie’s.
The
author tells us that all the characters in her book are fictional except
Xerxes, Elisabeth and Nellie plus Ora Keepers who we meet later in the book.
The actual Stevens homestead was about two or three miles southwest of town and
Nellie really did grow up to become the school teacher.
Ora Keepers (1881–1905) and Nellie Stevens (1866-1926) |
Nellie’s
finds a male role model when her father’s war buddy Rev. Hiram Curtiss
comes to Grafton with his wife Hannah and brood of little Curtiss’s including
Horace, a boy about Nellie’s age. That’s the fiction of the novel; however,
there was a real Rev. Hiram Curtiss, a Methodist preacher in Grafton and in Sutton
about that time with a son named Horrice though the real Hiram’s wife was
Fanny. The real Curtiss family also included a daughter seventeen years younger
than Nellie named Alida – the author of the novel. Are you paying attention?
Alida
Curtiss chose Nellie Stevens as her protagonist and through her, we learn about
the Stevens homestead, living in Grafton and growing up on the frontier. The
characters appear real - they were real and the relationships are believable.
This was the first and only novel by Alida Curtiss so don’t expect fine
literature. But for an enjoyable picture of the early days of our area, this
book fits the bill quite well.
Fictional
Nellie’s mother sent her to Vermont to school and she returned to become the
Grafton school teacher, just as the real Nellie did. Ora Keepers, the fourth
“official” real person in the book is one of Nellie’s students. Ora becomes an
orphan and Nellie raised her. The fictional Ora is only a few years younger
than Nellie. The real Ora was much younger, closer to the same age as Alida.
Spoiler
Alert: The novel moves on with Nellie and Ora enjoying a life together, moving
to Colorado to a “happily-ever-aftering” kind of conclusion. The real life story of Nellie, Ora and Alida
went in a different direction.
Ora
Keepers, the real one, died in 1905 at 23 of tuberculosis as her fictional
mother had and maybe as her real mother did. The real Nellie Stevens and Alida
Curtiss were the long-term companions. Alida gave Ora the gift of a long life
in her book inserting Ora into her own place in Nellie Stevens’ story.
Rev. Curtiss' family moved to St. Joseph but by 1910 Alida was back in Sutton
living with Nellie Stevens on Maple Street and partners with Nellie in a
millinery shop about where Bill Bottorf’s office is now located. Then Nellie
and Alida moved to Colorado where Nellie returned to teaching just as Nellie
and Ora do in the novel.
The
1920 census lists a Grafton household of Nellie Stevens, age 56; Lida Curtis,
37 and Fannie B. Curtis, 70. Nellie’s business was “poultry and dairy farm.” Do
not know how that happened. Was it on
the Stevens homestead?
Ad in 1912 Sutton High School Annual for Curtiss & Stevens Millinery Shop. |
Alida
answered a surprise letter from Sutton, Nebraska on the day after Christmas in
1969. She remembered Eva Weikum who had worked for their next door neighbors,
the Luebbens. Eva’s son Lawrence Trautman had tracked Alida down in Oxnard,
California. Alida’s sister Victoria Schell was helping with the letter – Alida
had suffered a stroke – and she was remembering Sutton, sixty years
earlier.
Alida
Curtiss died in Ventura, California on May 11, 1972. Nellie Stevens is buried next
to her parents in the Grafton Cemetery. Ora Keepers’ parents are not far away
and records show that young Ora Keepers should also be in the Grafton Cemetery.
I did not see a marker.
Alida Curtiss (1883-1972) with Nellie (1866-1926), her friend and main character in her novel. |
The
Sutton museum has a copy of “Mother Wanted a Son – A Prairie Tale” and I
ordered a copy from amazon.com that is now in the Sutton Library. I may need
another copy for my own library.
Thanks
to Diana Thompson and Cherie Baudrand, genealogists of the Stevens and Curtiss
families on ancestry.com for the photos of Nellie, Alida and Ora.
by Jerry Johnson and the Sutton Historical Society
This
article appeared first in September, 2011 issue of Sutton Life Magazine. For
information about this local Sutton publication, please contact Jarod Griess at
neighborhoodlife@yahoo.com or
at 402-984-4203 or at 501 West Cedar St., Sutton, NE 68979.
Grave of Nellie Stevens in the Grafton Cemetery |
Stevens Family plot: Xerxes and Elizabeth (Harvey) Stevens on the left; Nellie Stevens on the right - Grafton Cemetery. |
2 comments:
The picture of downtown Sutton with the millinery shop comes from the display on the south wall of Astra Bank discovered just today (the 10th). Had not noticed it before - never had reason to either.
There was a penciled date of 1920 on the picture of the millinery shop which would have been when they were back on the farm near Grafton. The Phelps Sisters had another millinery shop that we suspected occupied the same location. It's certain the Phelps shop was there in the late '20's but I do not know when it started. Conceivably, they bought the C&N business.
Post a Comment