Kansas Memory contains the stories of many pioneer men and women.
What follows is a shortened life sketch of Pauline Johanna Floeder (m. Wickham), typed and recorded in 1926 by Pauline (Mrs. Charles Henry Wickham), then 66 years old. The full version is at Kansas Memories.
By way of introduction, Pauline reveals that her father and mother hailed from Marienwerder, Germany, a region in what used to be part of West Prussia, now Poland. The Floeder family were well-to-do farmers owing to the fact that they had “plenty of help” and “had two maids.” Pauline’s mother Agusta (Augusta) Logan also came from the region of Marienwerder, her father being a watchmaker and jeweler. The couple married February 21, 1860. Ten days later they sailed for America, bringing along Samuel’s twin brother Julius.
As a genealogical note, although Pauline describes her father as coming from “Germany”, the name “Floeder” sounds more Swedish than German, and possibly derives from the Swedish word for “river”. A second possibility is that it is Norwegian and derives from the Norwegian name for a farmstead with a ‘floe’, ‘tarn’ or ‘pool in a bog’. Certainly the Floeders spoke German in Prussia. In Nebraska and Dakota they settled among immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia. In Kansas they settled where many other German immigrants took up homesteads.
The three arrived in the small settlement of Frankfort, Nebraska, mostly immigrant, mostly German, on the south bank of the Missouri River across from Yankton, Dakota Territory, ominously nearby to the ancestral home of the mighty Sioux. Samuel acquired a homestead, cut sod out of the earth for a home, a few timbers for roof, covered with dirt, a chimney at one end of the house to cook and for warmth. Samuel broke the earth with his oxen and put in a crop. What he planted is only a guess, but as good a guess as any is: corn for cash, and pumpkins, squashes, onions, and vegetables for the dinner table. Pauline was born in December that year.
Meanwhile, Julius enlisted in the Union Army as the Civil War raged. [Other sources place Julius as a private with the Dakota Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cav Battalion Co A, assigned to protect settlers from the Sioux on the Dakota frontier. The NPS keeps a list of the regiment’s battle engagements.].
Pauline’s parents got along well enough until October 14, 1862.
Then, an Indian passing through Frankfort warned the settlers that the Sioux were rising. Wasting no time, the 800 or so settlers on horse and in 50 wagons hitched with oxen, carrying their bedding, clothing, a kettle for cooking, tools, everything they could, headed 50 miles down river and away from the Sioux to Ponca and safety.
Samuel then took his small family which now included a new sister, Marie Auguste Floeder, to Omaha. There he sold the oxen and the family traveled 180 miles south to Leavenworth, a hub of activity during the war.
In 1870, a new tract of Osage Indian Lands in southern Kansas, coming available, the family set off by rail from Omaha to Emporia with the goal of settling in Sedgwick County. Uncle Julius had preceded his brother and taken a claim six miles southwest of newly settled Wichita on Cowskin Creek. Julius’ claim and that of Charles Wickham who married Pauline can be found in Township 28, South Range 1 West, Sedgwick County, Kansas Atlas, 1882.
Abandoned, old, and interesting Kansas 