Sunday Journal and Star - Lincoln Nebraska, March 25, 1934, section C and D. -- "Clatonia Golden Wedding Celebrations Have Interesting Features". -- (Saturday Meant Double Anniversary for Two Couples, Married in That Gage County Town in 1884).

By LULU MAE COE. [note 1].

IT WAS March 24, 1884 that Mary Schramm and George Krauter and Margaret Cramer and Mary's brother, August Schramm, went up the hill to the minister's house. And when the Rev. Mr. Unland of the Clatonia Methodist church opened his door again, Mr. and Mrs. George Krauter and Mr. and Mrs. August Schramm came out in the brisk Nebraska March weather. They "stood up" with each other. Mary Schramm's wedding dress was of gray henrietta. Margaret Cramer's was of black, with a little figure on it. They were very stylish, fashioned with a polonaise and pleats at the bottom of the skirt. Margaret Cramer who sewed, made both the dresses. In those busy days, there was little time for a honeymoon. "We went right to housekeeping," said Mrs. Krauter. That was fifty years ago. Yesterday was the golden anniversary of that double wedding, and the event was observed very quietly at the Krauter home in Clatonia.

Farmed Near Clatonia. -- The Krauters haven't roamed. Twenty-five or twenty-six years on a farm near Clatonia, and the remainder of their married life in the village of 250 population. The Schramms have been about more, but there were long years in one place. At this time, Mrs. Schramm is residing in Beatrice and Mr- Schramm is in Pawnee City. Interesting as the two wedding anniversaries is that Mrs. Harriet Schramm [note 2], mother of Mrs. Krauter and Mr. Schramm pioneer of a couple of frontiers who years ago celebrated her own fiftieth year or wedded life, saw two of her children observe the same occasion. Eighty-seven, married before she was fifteen, mother of nine children, of whom eight are living, Mrs. Schramm is still in excellent health, hale and hearty. She reads without glasses and does little for the dentist's pocketbook, having all her own teeth. In her '70's, she fell and broke both legs seriously, but she recovered and walks today without aid.

Nebraskan 55 Years. -- Born in Nashville, Tenn., February 15, 1847, she went with her family to Rushville Ill where she was married, and Nebraska has been her home for fifty-five years. Charles Schramm, her youngest son, is the only one of her children resident in Lincoln. Mrs. Schramm has 121 descendants, fifty grandchildren, fifty-four great-grandchildren, and nine great-great- grandchildren. Mrs. Krauter, who was only seventeen when she was a bride of a half century ago, and Mr. Schramm are natives of Rushville, Ill., and came out to this state with their parents. Mrs. Margaret Schramm was born in Bremen, Germany, of Belgian descent, and with her parents came to Illinois, and from there to Nebraska when she was about eightteen [note 3]. Mr. Krauter a native of Burlington, Ia., is seventy-two and Mr. and Mrs. Schramm are seventy-one each. Following a couple of years in Clatonia after their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Schramm decided to go to Colorado, and with them went Mr. Schramm's mother, who was accustomed to new countries, and was quite willing to try another. Each of them, together with a third member of the family, took a claim about sixty miles from Brush, Colo. The long journey across Nebraska was made in covered wagons, following the uncertain trails left by the later "prairie schooner" voyagers.

Butter was "Delicacy." - The entire family recalls that one delicacy of the slow, tiresome trip was fresh butter. No machine age could do more than was possible then. The cream was put in a pail and hung on the wagon, and the constant motion of the cumbersome affair churned the butter without benefit of manual labor. There were few delicacies in the now home, and a great deal of hard and discouraging work without compensation. The families lived in sod houses, and the big bad wolf who whuffed [note 4] and puffed came in the guise of the Texas longhorns. The animals had a penchant for the flimsy little homes of the new settlers, and liked nothing better than to bore into and tear off the roofs with their horns. There was little interest or opportunity for constant home construction, so the Schramm women, seeing predatory Longhorns approaching, took white cloths and waived them frantically until the animals took fright and left. In the three years they remained, there was no rain. Crop were three times a hope, but never a realization. The closest neighbor was twenty five miles distant. The most meager little town was a couple days' trip. Need for supplies, medicine, food, a physician meant a waiting period of forty-eight hours, at least, more if heavy rain mde [note 5] the going hard.

"We had Hard Times." -- "You talk of hard times today," Mrs. Harriet Schramm says, "But everything is handy. There is a lack of money but it is isn't complicated by the fear that something you may have to have as a doctor, is so far distant that he may not get there in time." All in all the Schramm family was glad to return to Nebraska. It meant another trip in the wagons, but Mrs. Schramm was delighted to put the canvas together, for it meant coming back to a state where there was some return for the physical labor expended. The August Schramms settled at Cortland for a while, and then went to Pawnee county, residing near Burlington for thirty-five years. The Schramm family and all its numerous connections has an annual reunion the first Sunday in August in Beatrice. Then, as yesterday the tales of pioneer life are told. For many years Mrs. Harriet Schramm spun and wove and made the clothes for her children, and for years, if he hasn't yet, August Schramm kept the last pair of "jeans" his mother made for him. Although they were never I bothered by the Indians, except for minor depredations, they were around constantly and their presence was a threat. It always was a relief to have them move on.

Escaped Indian Vengeance. - At one time, a group of the braves bent on trouble, shot a cow belonging to a neighbor of the Schramms, No sooner did he do that then the settler killed the Indian with a bullet from his gun. For several days the man was in hiding, and the Indians hung around the community in a menacing fashion, but, for some unknown reason, they finally buried their dead friend and started back home. The settlers expected an attack of some kind, but It never came. The anniversary was celebrated very quietly, because of the large relationship embraced in the Schramm-Krauter family, and it would have taken the Clatonia hall to have cared for all of them. Because of that, only the immediate families were included. Mr. and Mrs. August Schramm have eleven children. Mrs. Gaylord L. Madden, Fred Schramm, and Miss Edna Schramm all of Lincoln; Mrs. Charles McClary, Denver; Mrs. W. Meyers, Alvin, Raymond, and Leavenne Schramm, Beatrice; Mrs. William Kronberg and Frank Schramm, Alliance; and George Schramm, Pasadena Cal. There are three children in the George Krauter family, Mrs. William Heller and Mrs. August Gerlach, Clatonia, and Fred Krauter, Crete, who until rather recently living in the "home place" near Clatonia. Two of the several groups of five generations that might be found in the family were present for the celebration, all from Clatonia, with a single exception. Mrs. Harriet Schramm is the great-grand mother and Mrs. Krauter the grandmother. The other generations include Mrs. Gerlach, Mrs. Edwin Schneider, and little Patricia Ann Schneider, or Fred Krauter, Mrs. George Albert, and little Beverly Ann Albert. And yesterday, when "the children" came home for a quiet day, with some of the long time neighbors dropping in to wish happiness for the years to come, the talk was of simple things, Of whom the baby resembles. It would have been nice if Anna or Ruth or Frank could have come. Of the kind providence that had kept the family together, with so few deaths among so many. None of them had flown the Atlantic or has a paragraph in the "Who's Who." Some of then go to California for the winter, but some of them stay right by the home fireside, scarcely troubled by the prairie snows and winds they've known for near a lifetime. "Mother" Schramm could tell of the pioneer hardships of a life not so far short of a century. And while the state of Nebraska had passed its earliest stages when the golden wedding anniversary couples were married, they, too, knew something of the shadows of too much rain or too prolonged sun, of low prices, of lackadaisical markets, of sickness and discouragement, as well as the sun of gayly [note 6] growing things, of a compensation stored up for age, of children, and grandchildren, and infant great grands [note 7] carrying on the family names. Loking [note 8] back over the fifty years from that March of 1884, not much had happened. Just work and making a home, babies and a little travel, long acquaintance with the same neighbors and town folks, no marked heights or head-lines, no stormy depths or black canyons.

Just a half century of living.

NOTES:
1. Optically transcribed (form a photocopy obtained from the Jail-Museum of Rushville, Illinois) using OCR computer technology, with footnotes and annotations by Robert C. Kuhmann of Delavan, Wisconsin on the 15th of June 2003. Mr. Kuhmann is a Great-Grand-son of Elizabeth Mary Schramm-Stremmel (deceased, formerly of Rushville, an Aunt of August Schramm and of Mary Schramm-Krauter).
2. Harriet Houser-Schramm, wife of Friedrich Schramm (brother of Elizabeth Mary Schramm-Stremmel).
3. "eighteen" – the original was printed with two "t"s.
4. "whuffed" – should be spelled as "huffed"
5. "mde" – a type-setting error, should read "made"
6. "gaily" – is misspelled as "gayly"
7. "grands" -- meaning grand-children
8. "looking" – is misspelled as "loking"

SOURCE: Sunday Journal and Star, Lincoln, NE, Sunday March 25, 1934.
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Children, 11 known (order of births has yet to be established, as of 2010-07-31):
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-Frederick Schramm, b.????-d.????.
-Edna Schramm, b.????-d.????.
-[Name?] Schramm, b.????-d.????, m.Charles McClary.
-[Name?] Schramm, b.????-d.????, m.W. Meyers.
-Alvin Schramm, b.????-d.????.
-Raymond A Schramm, b.1898-d.1960.
-Leavenne Schram, b.????-d.????.
-Alta Elizabeth Schramm [FAG #66113420], b.01-Mar-1890 NE., d.02-Feb-1986 Alliance, Box Butte, NE., m.???? to: William Henry Kronberg, b.21-Nov-1895, d.16-Oct-1962 NE.
-Frank Schramm, b.????-d.????.
-George Schramm, b.????-d.????.
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Married Augustus Schramm in Clatonia, Nebraska, on 26-Mar-1884, officiated by Rev. Unland of the Clatonia Methodist Church. The ceremony was a double wedding with his sister, Mary Schramm & George Krauter. (In later years, they also celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary together in 1934.)
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IMPORTANT NOTE: the correct (historical) spelling of her married-name is: "SCHRAMM" (not Schram).