My grandparents, Gerlach and Nettie George, came from Germany to Kansas
  about 1855. John, their sixth child and my father, was born in Leavenworth
  county in 1859.
     In 1883 John, his sister Nettie, and brothers William and Charles filed
  homestead papers for adjoining farms of 160 acres each near Hazelton in
  Barber County. They paid the Government $1.25 per acre and broke ground,
  dug wells and put up fences and one-room houses. In 1885-6 there was a
  blizzard that was so severe the cattle froze standing up. Everyone lost
  their cattle and had to start all over.
     My mother, Susie Tracy, was born in Iowa to Basil and Hannah (Reed)
  Tracy. They moved to Barber County in the 1880's.
     John George and Susie Tracy were married in 1886 when Mother was only
  sixteen. They drove to Anthony in a spring wagon for the ceremony, a day's
  trip from Hazelton. Dad had dug a basement in the side of a hill - three
  dirt walls, and the front wall of lumber - and they lived in it until he 
  built a house above it. All seven of us children were born in that house.
  When I was four years old, Dad bought the Blanton house on the road to
  Sharon 1 3/4 miles north of Hazelton.
     The first school house was a dugout with cowhide for a door. The children
  sat on the floor. My parents gave two acres of their homestead for the
  school grounds. My brothers and sisters and I and lots of our cousins went
  through eighth grade at that school, called Maple Grove. After we moved to
  California, the school building was moved to Hazelton and the school board
  deeded the two acres back to my folks. They sold it for $225.
     Grandma George lived with us most of the time. I remember she was a very
  sweet person of slight build. She stayed in her room knitting or darning
  wool socks for all of us and only came out for meals or to go outside to 
  smoke her corncob pipe. She sang German songs and taught me a few phrases in
  German when I visited with her every day after school. I was eleven when she
  passed away. Her casket was in the living room for three days. Someone sat
  up with her day and night until she was buried in the cemetery in Hazelton.
     In 1914 Dad got pneumonia and the doctor said he wouldn't live through
  another Kansas winter. So the next year Mother, Dad, Bessie and I boarded
  a train for Los Agneles. Mable, Maude, Lillian and Earl were all married by
  then and stayed in Kansas as did Clyde. All but Lillian later came to California.
     Through the years we always managed to stay in touch with our Kansas relatives
  through letters and visits. I have many fond memories of growing up in Kansas.
                
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas,  pg. 167 
     Submitted by: Edith George Elliott (Mrs. Frank Elliott)