When Grandma Stedman came to live with her son in Kansas, she found life far different from that she had known in her native England and in New York state. Not wanting to admit her son’s home was a soddy, she wrote to her other children, “We live in a prairie flagstone house.”
But she took things in stride. One spring day a snake crawled out of the sod wall toward the fire. She just rocked forward and when the snake was under her chair, she rocked back and severed it.
Mrs. Adolph Musil
Home, Kansas
Back in 1955 a call went out from the editors of the then Capper’s Weekly asking for readers to send in articles on true pioneers. Hundreds of letters came pouring in from early settlers and their children, many now in their 80s and 90s, and from grandchildren of settlers, all with tales to tell. So many articles were received that a decision was made to create a book, and in 1956, the first My Folks title – My Folks Came in a Covered Wagon – hit the shelves. Nine other books have since been published in the My Folks series, all filled to the brim with true tales from Capper’s readers, and we are proud to make those stories available to our growing online community.
