Saturday evenings. Uniform international quarterlies were used and the last class had an enrollment of twenty-nine. Henry proved successful in this work and moved next to the children's home of the I.O.O.P. in Manhattan, Kansas. They cared for 37 children, ages two to eighteen. One two year old, Bonnie Kralicheck, they loved and cherished as their own. Bonnie is now married to William Smiley. They have two boys and live in Hutchinson, Kansas. In August, 1941, Henry and Myrtle moved to Topeka where Henry clerked in Gibbs Clothing Store until his untimely death in 1949. Myrtle continues to work at. Sears Roebuck. Myrtle writes of Henry, "I only wish he could have known how people respected him."
     Mary Louisiana (Lou) taught school in the vicinity of Soldier for several years and then was employed in a bakery at Frankfort, Kansas. It was while here that she met Eugene Kihm, her future husband. They were married in 1944 and continued to own and operate the bakery. Her death occurred in Frankfort and burial was in the Soldier cemetery.
     Grace received her education in the Buck's Grove district school. She marrked Andrew Johnson In 1944 and they have oper- ated a farm near Waterville, Kansas. She had two children. Her life was saddened by the death of her little daughter Phyllis Sue when only five years of age. Her son Kenneth is married and lives near them at Waterville.

GEORGE HOWARD KROTH
by Mary Kroth Yeagley

     George Howard Kroth and Anna Katherine Venneberg, both of Avoca, Kansas, were married at the Venneberg farm on October 15, 1895. They lived in a small house in the Buck's Grove community where three children were born. The first and second, a son and daughter, died in infancy before a name had been given them. Their third child, Lorena Merle, was born on October 20, 1898. The family departed their home in Kansas in a covered wagon headed for the Cherokee Strip around 1900. It was a new country with many inconveniences but with the pioneer spirit and lots of courage, they made the trip. When they got to their destination, Uncle John Kroth and a friend Jim McLinn were living near, in a dug-out, and they took George and family in for a while until their house on a nearby farm was ready. They settled on a farm about ten miles from Arapahoe. Here they raised cattle and hogs, increased their family by the addition of three children, Mary, Milton and Myrtle.
     George and Anna were community minded people and assisted in conducting Sunday School and Church. These services had to be held in the school house and a preacher came from one of the surrounding towns every other Sunday or perhaps less frequently, to hold church services. Of course, the preacher had to stay overnight in the neighborhood and it fell to the Kroths, many times, to "bed him down". Mother was forced to sleep on a pallet


50


Next Page
To the Table of Contents
To Roger Kroth's Homepage