John was born the third of nine children, the oldest of who was born, not only while the parents were  crossing the plains, but also wandering around, trying to decide where to settle.  Thomas met Mary in Nebraska and there they were married in 1870.   I believe she was only 16 at the time.  The first child, Charles, died as a baby.    All of the other children except Pearl who was born in Red Willow, Nebraska, were born in Kansas and I know that’s where they grew up, John being the oldest boy.   He was a red head and grew up to be a big man, 6 feet tall and weighed about 200 pounds,  but was bald by the time he was 21.   He taught me to count to ten in German when I was quite small  but he really didn’t have too much to do with us kids.  I think he mostly didn’t know what to do with us  However, Rolla, Aunt Pearl’s oldest girl, told me that she loved to go to Uncle John’s and Aunt May’s to visit. 

 When John was young, the family lived out on the prairie and I have no idea how far from town or what town it was.  Their father was a teamster, freighter, and/or scout  for the wagon trains crossing the country at that time...again, I don’t know from where or to where, but this did leave his wife with small children in the middle of nowhere.  His mother, Mary, never knew when her husband would be home, if ever.   I’ve never seen a picture of the house but I know that at one time it just had a blanket for a door so it probably was a sod house.  I’d hate to think of what winters were like. 

 One time when John’s  father had been gone for a long time, Mary was down to the last of the flour and used it to baked bread.   Just about the time the bread was done, she looked out and saw a group of Indians approaching.  There were men, women and children with horses and travois .  She wasn’t afraid of them other than she knew they would smell the bread and would eat it all, she had no idea when Thomas  would be back from his this trip and she would be unable to replace the flour.  However, she did come up with an idea.   Sure enough.  The Indians headed straight for the house.  She pulled back the blanket that served as a door and put one child on either side back far enough from the door that they couldn’t have been seen from the outside.   Then she took a broom and had them hold it across the doorway. (Probably Sarah and John as they were the oldest and probably the biggest).  The Indians of course came to the door and it was obvious to Mary that they wanted her fresh bread.   Then she indicated (I don’t know how) that there was a spirit holding up that broom and that anyone that came in while it was there would die and somehow made them believe this.  The Indians left and a couple of days later Thomas returned.

  One of the amazing things about this was Mary probably spoke very little if any English at that time, having grown up in a German home.  I have been told she didn’t learn English until her kids went to school.   Of course I don’t know how old any of them were at the time.  I always thought they were living in northwestern Kansas but have heard that Aunt Margaret, John’s youngest sister, said they were living in Nebraska.  I think she heard the story told,  just as I did, when she was a little girl.   I doubt if she was born yet as she was the youngest child. She was born in 1891 at Jaqua, Kansas, and I don’t think they lived out on the prairie at that time or any time after that.  However, it could have been in either Kansas or Nebraska. 

 One time Thomas brought home pocket knives for the boys when he came home and that was a real treat.  He could be ornery and even mean to the older kids (and his wife).  One time when they were still living away from town a neighbor stopped by and said they were going to the circus, I assume in St. Francis, and asked if the boys could go with them.  Their dad said they could but when they got there they found out that it cost money and they didn’t have any and the neighbors didn’t have enough for them so they didn’t get to see the performance.   When they got home Thomas asked them how they liked it and the told him they did get to see what went on in the tent because they didn’t have any money.  He told them he knew that but he had only told them they could go, not that he was giving them any money. 

 The summer that Grandpa was 13 he and Uncle Lon was 11,  they took a herd of cattle  from western Kansas up to South Park in the mountains of Colorado and herded them all summer and then took them back home in the fall.    I think the trip was about 200 miles one way.  I never heard that they had any trouble.   Boys were much more liable, and even expected, to do things like that back then.  That would have been about 1887.

 The Alaskan Gold Rush started in the 1880s, ended in 1916,  and Grandpa and his brothers, Lon, August and Robert, all went to Washington State intending to go to Alaska.  However, when they got there, they found that Canada would not let them in unless they had money and/or supplies for a least six months and they didn’t even have money to go by boat.   That ended the Alaskan adventure.  For years I never knew why they changed their minds and then read about this Canadian requirement and am sure this is why they didn’t get up there.  Canada had evidently had too many U.S. men that ran out of money and had no way to get home. 

 Grandpa and Uncle Lon played baseball at one time.  I think it was before Grandpa was married as I never heard Grandma say she ever saw him play.  There was a picture of the  two of them wearing baseball hats and some kind of uniform and wearing some kind of gloves, looking  like regular leather gloves, not the ball gloves used today.  I don’t know what happened to the picture but imagine it got thrown away by someone who didn’t know who they were.   His sons as well as some of his grandsons and even great grandsons have followed in those footsteps.   And yes, some of the girls have also played.  (New Information:  On Karen’s last trip to Kansas she found a little book about Jaqua.  In it is a picture of the Jaqua baseball team dressed as I describe.  She also found out that Grandpa played the bass drum in the Jaqua band.               

 I don’t know when or why Grandpa became a blacksmith but he was one before he and Grandmas were married.  In fact his shop was close to the store Grandma’s foster parents  had and that’s probably how they got to know each other.  His mother, dad, and brothers, as well as he, all had land, anywhere from 40 acres to 240 acres and most of the boys had more than one piece around Jaqua.  Grandpa had forty acres  right on the Colorado-Kansas line and he and Uncle Lon together had two parcels of 150 acres each.  Their brothers, August and Rob each had one parcel.  This information is from the 1907 Cheyenne County atlas. 

 Eventually all of Thomas’s family left the Jaqua area.   Mary, Thomas’s wife, moved to Denver, bought property on Elm and lived out her life there but she and Thomas never lived together again.   This would have been between 1900 and 1910 according to the census records Karen has.   They split the money they got for their land in Kansas (they each had land in their names but Thomas’ was  larger), she bought her in property in east Denver and still had money to live on until her death in 1936.   Pearl,  Margaret and  probably Grace were with her when she moved there.  

 After Charles and Monroe were born, Grandpa and Grandma homesteaded in Colorado right on the Kansas state line getting their mail at the Kanorado post office in Kansas.   They proved up on their claim in 1914 and as far as I know that is the only time Grandpa farmed.  Merle was born on the homestead in 1911.  Grandma got sick there and the doctor thought she had tuberculosis so they moved by covered wagon to the Denver area  in 1915, living several different places.   She didn’t have TB but I have never heard what she did have.  Ed was born while they lived in Englewood in 1917 and Grandpa always made his living black smithing.  (Information about where they lived is in the history Grandma wrote years later in 1949.  They lived in Englewood at least twice and also in Denver. 

 Oh, by the way. Grandpa was a jealous man.  When they were living in Englewood, Grandma had gone to church one Sunday evening and a man walked her home because it was after dark.  There was such a ruckus over this that Grandma quit going to church on Sunday nights. 

 Eventually they moved to the Bancroft area, living in two or three places and Grandpa bought a blacksmith shop at the Curve (Wadsworth and the Morrison Rd. now only Wadsworth didn’t go north of the Morrison Rd. at that time).  There was a small lake near the shop and this shop was where Grandpa was so rough on Charles and Monroe.  I mentioned this in the piece about Grandma, how he beat them for their mistakes when helping him and how differently they reacted.   I don’t think they could have been more than early teens at this time.  Fortunately, Merle and Ed never had to go through this.  Later, in 1927,  he built the shop further out on the Morrison Rd west of present day Kipling Blvd, north of the north side of the Morrison Rd. This is the one I remember and it was his last.   That is the first place they lived that I have any memories of.  They lived in a large lean-to (probably 36 x 24 ft) attached to the shop but that was built a little later as they were living in Kelseys’ big house  when I was born as my folks lived with them there.  (The Kelseys had the big house which was pretty nice as I remember from visiting there later, the slab house where Grandpa and Grandma lived three different times, and then another very plain house where Kelseys lived.) By the time they moved into the lean-to  Jack and Ed were the only boys at home.    It sure wasn’t a fancy place and I imagine Grandpa always meant to finish it up better but that never happened. 

 Sometime after the automobile came into common use Grandpa took a course in auto mechanics.  This was in 1914 at the  Sweeney Automobile School  in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1914.   (I couldn’t  find my copy of the certificate but Karen found hers and gave me the date.)   Grandpa serviced the Bear Creek School buses as well as drove them and was still a blacksmith.   He also worked on cars and had a gasoline pump out in front.  There was a little one room building just to the west of the shop where Jack and Alma lived when Norma was born in 1933.   No running water and no electricity.  That wasn’t too unusual at that time: many people still lived that way.  It was also the Great Depression.  Yes, it was really  hard for many adults raising a family but us kids never thought about it , or at least I didn’t.

Earlier, just before the depression struck, Grandpa had invested in stock in Crown Hill Cemetery which was being built at that time.  After the depression hit, it went broke and of course the stock did come back but Grandpa was one of many who lost more than they could afford.  Grandma almost never criticized him but she told me that he was just trying to get rich quick.  Anyhow, that’s what caused them to leave the shop.  They moved first to the Autavat place and then to the Cykler place.  It was while they were living there that I finally got to know Grandpa a little bit.  I was about 12 years old and we would talk some.   That is, he started talking to me some and I really enjoyed that.  

 Grandma’s father, Grandpa Bud, lived with them while they were living there.  I can never remember hearing Grandpa Bud says anything and I think maybe he was getting senile.  (New information: Duane, son of Monroe, says he saw Grandma and Grandpa Bud talk but very quietly.)   Once on the day he was to  get his Old Age Pension check . he was sitting out on the front porch of the Cykler place, Grandpa Cowger was out in back chopping wood and Grandma came hurrying out to tell Grandpa Cowger  that the Gypsies were coming down the lane to the house.  Gypsies still traveled around at that time and evidently were known for conning some older people out of their pension checks.  Grandpa Cowger didn’t even lay his ax down, just walked around the corner of the house about the same time the Gypsies got to the steps of  the front porch.  They took one look at Grandpa with his ax and left in a big hurry.   Grandpa Cowger wouldn’t have hurt them but he must have made a pretty impressive sight.

 He  still drove school bus until he had a little stroke or something similar, then worked for the WPA until he turned 65 which was the  mandatory retirement age.  After that he really didn’t have much to do.   He kept the weeds chopped down along the lane down from the slab house to the Morrison Road and he would go walking in the hills.  The summer that Clarence, Jon and I stayed with them he and Jon, who was three at the time, would sit out on the front porch and count the cars going by on the Morrison Road.  However, his mind wasn’t as sharp as it had been and there were times when Grandma had to go out in the hills and look for him.   At least when I was there he never went too far, and though he didn’t know it, he was lost.  He still chopped the wood and brought it in.  And he could keep us kids in line.   All he had to do was speak to us and we changed our ways.  At mealtime, Jon would sometimes swing his legs as he was so little his feet didn’t touch the floor.   Somehow Grandpa would know he was doing it and would thump Jon on the head and tell him to sit still.  Jonnie wasn’t making any noise but Grandpa could tell.  He and Jon were pretty good buddies.   He still worked on his car, a Model T, or tried to and Grandma helped him.  There were times when Grandma knew he was doing it wrong and it took a lot of her persuasion to get him to do it right. 

 In the summer of 1943 they moved to the basement house on West Mississippi and lived there until 1945.   This house was probably supposed to be the basement for a new house but had been finished as living space.  Grandpa’s mind was getting worse and in late 1943 or early 1944, Grandma’s ulcers got very bad again.  Jack or Ed would go over every morning and night to get Grandpa dressed for the day and then at night, ready for bed .   I don’t know if Monroe went because they were living clear over on the other side of town.   Anyhow, for three weekends I went over there on Friday night and stayed until Sunday...mainly to fix meals.  Grandma stayed on the couch.  Grandpa and I ate together.  He was to the point then that when he sat down at the table he didn’t know what to do so I would hand him a fork or whatever and then he knew. When I gave him the salt one day he said, “Do you know where salt comes from?  Well, it comes from the Great Salt Lake.   My brothers  and I were there once and the salt was just floating in the water in big chunks.  Men would go in with ice tongs to grab the pieces and bring them to shore.”

 Another time we had the radio on listening to the news and most of that was about the war and the Japanese and their atrocities.    Grandpa said, “Those Japs worked on the railroad down in Kansas and they always were sneaky little devils.”  Of course he was remembering the Chinese workers and I doubt if they were sneaky.   He didn’t know who I was but he liked me.  Grandma would tell him I was Charles’ daughter but he couldn’t remember that.     

He would ask where that nice girl was once in a while.  Grandma got worse and had to go to the hospital in an ambulance.   He evidently thought it was a hearse and that Grandma had died because from then on he would occasionally ask her who she was.   She would say, “John, I’m May.” and he would say, “My wife’s name was May but she died.”

 He was never mean to her or anybody else except for his older sister, Sarah.  He didn’t know who she was either but he knew he didn’t like her.  Once he wedged himself between the organ and the wall and couldn’t get out.  Grandma had to move the organ.   He also started having fainting spells or little strokes, would fall and couldn’t get up.   Grandma couldn’t really manage him by herself and her doctor strongly suggested she admit him to the State mental hospital in Pueblo.  There were no nursing homes at that time so pueblo was the only choice.  It was a hard decision but necessary and Monroe, Jack and Ed all agreed (Charles was living in California and so was not consulted but he would have agreed too.)  Grandma went down to Pueblo as often as she could, sometimes getting a ride and sometimes riding the bus.  He was always clean and shaved.  He had that  very tender skin that sometimes goes with red hair and Grandma said they must be very good at shaving him because he could really get upset with having it done by her. 

 I don’t know how much schooling he had but he had beautiful hand writing.  That is, his signature was beautiful.  I’ve seen it in his bible and in his autograph book.    He was a hard worker all his life even if some of it was “make work” at the end.   I think he treated his children, or at least his boys, as he thought best and may never have had any way to learn about kids.   And I really think he liked his grandchildren.  After all, he did feed me part of a hot dog when I was still a baby.  My mother was afraid of him and just knew I was going to die.  You know, I always have liked hot dogs.

 I wish I knew more about him.  He was a hard worker, loved Grandma, was close to his brothers and most sister, was a good blacksmith and auto mechanic.  He and his sister, Aunt Sarah never seemed to get along but Aunt Sarah was a domineering woman and was also his older sister and older sisters can be sort of bossy I guess.                 

 Written by Fern Cowger Hately, granddaughter of John Carl Cowger from her memories of what she was told and what she knew from experience.  May 2006  

 I certainly want to thank Karen (Cowger) Hutchins, Monroe and Alice Cowger’s daughter who has done so much to find information on all our family as well as building a great web page for Cowgers.   I also want to thank her brother Duane who has also given me some information I didn’t have’