From the Graphic Pen of William Blum 1898-1996

I was the sixth of eight living children, born on the bleak and barren prairies of White Lake, South Dakota on February 17. 1898, sometime after noon, as mother (Louise) confidentialy related to my wife in their heart to heart talks. 

My father (Andrew) and mother's sister, Caroline (William Blum's wife) went into town to replenish the family larder, as things were not so conviently handy, as we have it now, and in their absence, it was such a beautiful day, my mother decided to get straw for bedding for the live stock, and chickens.  She harnessed the horses, hitched them to the hay rack and drove them to the straw stack.  Soon after arriving there, she felt the urgence to get back to the sod house, for the impending birth made itself felt.

So, she had the concious concern, would Andrew and Caroline get back in time.  (Caroline was the area midwife and delivered many babies on the plains.).

I was two years old when, after nineteen years of very strenuous living, ekeing out an existence on a South Dakota homestead, they were lured to South Bend, Nebraska to a land of plenty of water.  A natural spring which seemed to originate from the roots of a red oak tree.  Pawnee Creek flowed through the middle of the eighty acre tract of land, which had trees and orchards and was a productive land.

My folks were always strapped for funds, as my father made snap decisions, which were not always productive, and mother had to fill in the gaps.  He was always hale and hearty with friends and hired men, to cook for , but was also helpful to provide.

We do not realize the aches and pains our parent suffer until we experience them ourselves.  Mother was so plagued with headaches, I remember her using the horse radish leaves to tie around her head, and the agony she had with her gall bladder.  After her operation in January of 1928, she died February 2 of pneumonia.  She was recognized as a friend of the old people to releive them of their suffering.

I was baptized in the Lutheran Church in White Lake, South Dakota on the tenth day of April 1898.  I was confirmed March 31, 1912.  Psalms 37:5 was the Bible passage.  Commit thy way unto the Lord: trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

We were always guided and warned of temptation under mother's watchful eye.  This quotation:  God knew he couldn't be everywhere, so he put his little children in a loving mother's care.  Mother was alway more thorough in exercising attention.
William Blum

William Blum with my daughter Chrisinthia Alcorn

1993

William Blum and Myself with his son Herbert Blum and wife Una Jean

Family Reunion 1993

William Blum was the last of the Andrew Blum Children to leave us in 1996.

William Blum