As the homesteading story of my great-grandparents, Roy and Lillian Bedichek, was told and retold over the generations, it came with a P.S.: After Roy and Lillian left Deming, Roy's parents, JM and Lucretia, moved to the 160-acre claim and lived there for three years until JM's death in 1916. I never really thought much about that part of the story. I imagined his parents moving into Roy's little cabin and living a quiet several years in the desert on the claim. I should have known better!
JM's life was worthy of a published biography, from joining Quantrill's pro-Confederate guerilla group at age 16 and participating in the Lawrence, Kansas massacre, to enlisting as a Confederate soldier, to serving time in an Ohio POW camp. Then, after teacher training in Illinois, he moved his young family to the Central Texas prairie to run a school that became known as the Bedichek Academy. He had demonstrated a thirst for adventure and a willingness to take risks. As I wrote in a previous post, I find these life events at odds with one another -- voluntarily participating in the vicious raid and blood bath in Lawrence, and eventually becoming a teacher of children -- though there is a throughline of extreme dedication to his principles and causes.
Lucretia appears just as adventurous and willing to take risks, leaving her Maryland home and traveling across the country with her new husband to attend teacher training in Illinois and eventually landing in Central Texas to jointly administer the Bedichek Academy.
The family story goes that after decades of running the school, JM and Lucretia "retired" to the Deming homestead claim in 1913 -- just as Roy, Lillian and their toddler and infant, Mary and Sarah, were moving from Deming to Austin. My first question is, "Why?" I don't hear many stories of new grandparents packing up and moving 1,000 miles away just as their grandchildren are moving close to them! As far as I know, the family ties were strong and everyone was on good terms. Hmm. Perhaps their sense of adventure overrode their grandparenting yen? No answer to that one, yet.
However, the Deming Headlight article below gave me loads of insight into the elder Bedicheks' time in Deming. Their entrepreneurial spirit did not wane as they aged.
JM noticed a lack of dairies near the homestead -- so he started one with the cows he brought from Texas! Wow. Did they put the cows on a train? Did they hire someone to drive them out? I have found no record of how the elder Bedicheks moved themselves the thousand miles, much less their cows, to Deming.
As I enter my sixties, I have much respect and admiration for this couple and what they did in their advanced years. They could have chosen to stay in Eddy, Texas -- in familiar surroundings, esteemed by the community, close to family and friends -- but they chose to move to the frontier and try their luck homesteading in a demanding semi-arid land. Evidently, they had success in short order. In the article above, they had been in Deming a mere three months.
So, the family story becomes much richer! Roy and Lillian's adventure was amazing, and now we have the just-as-amazing story of his parents' Deming adventure. They made their own mark there, just as their son and daughter-in-law had.
Sadly, JM's health did not last and he passed at age 72, just over three years into their Deming chapter.
Lucretia moved back to Texas and lived another twenty years.
More Information Leads to More Questions
While the articles above shed light on the elder Bedicheks' life in Deming, small nuggets of information challenged our family narrative of the "Bedichek homesteading story." The first article notes they (JM and Lucretia) "acquired a fine piece of land." This implies they did not move on to Roy and Lillian's homestead claim, but perhaps had a claim of their own. Also, the last article states Lucretia "has proven up on her homestead south of Deming." In other words, at that time (after the death of her husband), the claim was in her name, not her son's. These clues piqued my curiosity, so I turned my attention to learning about homesteading and researching homestead documents.
Stay tuned for what I found...
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