From a Pioneer Album - Frank E. Brooks

by June Willson

Frank E. Brooks came to Wyoming in February, 1888 at the age of thirteen years. He came from Kansas by train to Lusk.

His father, brother George and himself came in an immigrant car. A week later his mother and another brother Will, came on a passenger train. The family (lived) by Manville.

In February they ployed the land for crops. By March, the snow was very deep and the temperature was 20 below zero.

The next spring Frank went to work herding sheep for Gene and George Willson. Gene did all the cooking for the outfit. One day Frank was left all alone and had to get his own dinner. He was hungry and decided to make soda biscuits as that looked easy. However he forgot to put in the baking powder and the biscuits were rather hard.

A few years later when he was about fifteen years old, he got a job with Jake Mills. It was thirty-five miles from home and he got homesick, so he quit and walked home, through knee-deep snow. It was late at night by the time he reached home.

Frank went to school at Manville. He stayed with Charlie Meader in whose store he worked for room and board. At school it was an offense to make a hanky rabbit. By folding and rolling a handkerchief in a certain way, it looked like a rabbit. One day Frank made one and kept it in his pocket to play with at recess. The teacher, Miss Cassie Stowitts, asked if anyone had a rabbit. He said he did. As a result, the entire class received a licking. There were about twenty to twenty-five in school then.

When Frank was eighteen years old he batched at the Amspoker place for a year. Getting up at three each mothing he milked twelve cows. He milked at night also and hauled the milk with a team of horses to the cheese factory in Manville.

A frequent visitor was Sam Joss who was working at the Willson brothers ranch.

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