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May
16
2008
| Hervale Farms Herman Family |
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| Friday, 16 May 2008 | |
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Hervale Farms Herman Family
The year of 1908 was a relatively dry year and they were short of there was ample feed available on the newly aquired farm for the winter of 1908; thus the reason for the fall moving instead of moving in a muddy spring move. Jons and Nilla Herman and their family of two daughters, Elsie and Sigrid, and son Nels, arrived in Wakefield, Neb. the winter of 1880-81 and began farming 1 1/2 miles east of Wakefield, adjacent to Logan Creek in 1880. These were good years and the trend was to the west and a few years in the future would find Nels Herman and young son, Walter J. Herman, on a farm in the valley a few miles upstream but still along Logan Creek. The swampy ground was first referred to as "Nels Herman's frog pond in the valley" then the phrase was "contracted to Herman Valley" and still later to "Her-Vale Farms" famous not for its frogs, but rather for "Herford Cattle." Walter Herman took over management when he married Julia Lundahl on May 13, 1920. To his union, a daughter, Twila Herman was born on March 21, 1921 and a son, Leland W. Haerman , was born Nov. 13, 1922. As an "Immigrant Swede" Nels Herman was proud of his adoptice country and hope the U.S.A. might be of him. He was so impressed with "The boy orator of Nebraska" William Jennings Bryant that he named his son, Walter Jennings Herman. Walter did not become an orator, but he was a community leader and during World War II was awarded the "W.G. Skelly Agriculture Acheivement Award" for food production. "Food will win the war, Food will write the peace." Walter was an active 4-H livestock leader. His club was the state leader in war time collection of scrap metal. His son Leland began his herd of cattle as a 4-H boy so on his graduation from Wayne High School in 1940, he was able to aquire a 1/3 interest in the farming part of the operation until the need for soldiers became more urgent than the production of food. Leland was serving in the Transportation Corp in the E.T.O. when received an emergency furlough for his father's surgery and a discharge on Walter's death on July 29, 1946. Leland continued to farm the ground and raise Herford cattle for many years, until health issues forced him to retire from farming. Mary Graves Skiles homesteaded the farm on Dec. 27, 1881. She and her husband, Robert, in turn sold the improved property to Nels Herman in 1908. 
Nels and Clara Herman with Walter Herman sitting on his father's knee. |
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 27 July 2008 ) |
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