Finding Family Stories in Old Government Homestead Documents
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, Week 39, Homestead
When I ordered my grandparents' homestead application, I expected to get dates, land coordinates, and notes about how the land had been improved.
What I didn’t expect was to stumble upon a much deeper story—one of illness, hardship, and the surprising twists their lives took along the way. It felt like opening an old, dusty box expecting to find a map, but instead, finding a story.
I walk through the contents of the papers in this video. (Carver fam: this is the same one I shared on Facebook.)
Before I ordered these documents, I found a 1912 notice of Grandpa's intent to file his final homestead claim, but it took me a while to find the actual homestead application papers. After some searching I found that I could get them from the National Archives.
When they arrived, the first few pages looked a lot like others I've seen, but then I got to this page. "You are informed that your application for a leave of absence for the period of six months beginning October 12, 1909 ... has been granted."
Leave of absence? For homesteads? I didn't even know they had those. I asked about it at my genealogy group. Turns out if you were a homesteader and away for more than six months in a year, you risked losing your homestead. However, the Homestead Act of 1862 allowed extended leaves of absence for up to a year in three specific situations:
The crops didn't grow well or got destroyed.
The homesteader got sick.
Other unavoidable events made it impossible for the homesteader to support the family.
Grandpa's leave of absence application listed reason number two: illness. "My wife has been an invalid under the care of a physician for the last 22 months ... her health at this present time is very low and at times during the last week she has been so low that her death was expected ... she is now at Butte, Boyd County under the care of G. E. Darrow M. D., Physician ... there is no resident physician nearer my homestead than Butte."
Come to think of it, there is a paragraph in the paper from 1908 mentioning that Dr. Darrow came to the homestead to care for Grandma because she was sick. And I remember my dad saying that Grandma was often ill. Once he remembers her being sick for eight months, and the doctor said it was from eating green potatoes. Getting medical care back then must have been a challenge—doctors had to travel miles, and diagnoses were often more about survival than precision
The application contains a letter from the famous Dr. Darrow verifying Grandma's illness. It says he's a regularly licensed physician and surgeon, a graduate of a standard medical college, authorized to practice his profession.
At this point he's been practicing on Grandma for two years. Come on, Doc — do better!
Right after the leave of absence, I discovered a potential reason why Grandpa filed this paperwork. Somebody contested his homestead claim, saying that he had abandoned it for more than six months. This is followed by two more leaves of absence, one for Grandma's continued illness, and one because Grandpa broke his hand.
I had to pull out my calendar and do some math here. If Grandma had already been sick for 22 months by October 1909, that means she first fell ill in December 1907—just a few months after they moved to the homestead and three months before Aunt Sina was born. She stayed sick through her pregnancy with my father, who was born in August 1910, and it didn’t end there. Shortly after, little Sina contracted meningitis and had to learn to walk all over again. Then Ralph, just 10 years old, caught measles and died in April 1911. Through all of this, I found letters from three different doctors, each stating the same thing: Grandma was very sick.
And now I’m left wondering, who was taking care of the children while she was so ill? Grandpa was busy working the homestead when they were there, and later, he was often off looking for work. I can only imagine the older kids — Susie and Clarence — doing their best to take care of the younger ones.
And then another page catches my eye. I knew that on July 5, 1912 the homestead burned down. We have family stories about this and some rumors about whether it was accidental or not. But I had no idea there was a house before that, and that it blew over in a storm. I'll huff and I'll puff ...
Not only that, but the house that burned down? Grandpa built another one, right after that, and just before they traded this land for land in Missouri and moved away. It was a 14 x 16 two-story frame house, with a shingle roof, sided and sealed on the inside. Total value of improvements on the land, $2000.
This last part is more like the forms I was expecting to see, except the part where he had to keep building new houses. Slap them up. Blow them down.
In our family we've been exploring a BRCA1 genetic variant. It came from Grandma and her brother, passed down from one of their parents, and has caused breast and ovarian cancer through several generations.
It's hard not to wonder if her long illness and the health struggles of her children are connected to any other medical mysteries we're still trying to untangle today. There's a lot about genetic health that we don't understand yet.
In the end, I still don't know everything about my grandmother's illness, or why my grandparent's lives took the turns they did. It’s strange to think that, more than a century later, the details of their lives—sickness, struggle, and all—are tucked away in something as dry as a homestead application. It’s a reminder that history is never just about dates and places—it’s about the people living through those moments.
A Few Great Resources:
US Government Railroad maps are available at the Nebraska Historical Society
Galbraith's railway mail service maps, Nebraska. These are particularly charming.
General US Homestead Research - Start Here: www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Homestead_Records
To look up US land patents - Start Here: www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Land_Patent_Search
To search Fold3: www.fold3.com (paid service with perhaps some things free)
My favorite way to order from the National Archives: www.gopherrecords.com (not sponsored. I just like Bob at Gopher records. Faster and lower priced than ordering directly from NARA in my experience, and he will contact with questions and clarifications.)
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks/
Music credits for video:
• Songwriting: Nancy Carver
• AI Composition & Production: Suno AI
• AI Vocal Performance: Kits AI
Note to family:
For a copy of the homestead application get in touch and I’ll provide via email. If you know other family interested in family history, please share.
The personal letters in government files are the best. Love how you shared pulling it all together and what that meant. They had a really hard life right from the start.