J.T., son of Michael and Mary Spicer, and wife, Huldah Virginia (Garlow)
     and six children left Leroy, West Virginia, by train in 1886. They settled 
     in Phillips and Thomas counties until 1895. Their homestead northwest of
     Colby, Kansas, was a sod house. They suffered severe hardships and poor
     crops due to droughts. Water had to be hauled for miles for all uses.
       My mother taught school to help put food on our table and to help clothe,
     by now, nine children. Mother baked bread in exchange for flour from 
     neighboring bachelors.
       I recall my father telling of the severe snow storms. The blizzards were
     so blinding that he feared he would be lost, so he tied a rope to his waist.
     It would unwind as he walked to the barn to attend to chores.
       My oldest sister, Mae Wheaton and husband, Charley, moved to a farm near
     Kiowa. They encouraged my family to move because of the great advantages of
     good crops and a plentiful supply of water. My sister, Vallaree and husband,
     Charley Boling, had moved to Capron, Oklahoma, where they staked a claim in
     the Cherokee Strip. Son in 1895, my parents, 7 children - 2 girls, Della and
     Cora, and 5 boys, John, Clyde, Ray, Lee and Charles - traveled by two covered
     wagons drawn by oxen to their new farm home near Crisfield, Kansas. Sand Creek
     supplied them with ample supply of water for their household and livestock,
     hogs, cattle and mules. Corn and alfalfa did well.
       William McKinley and Mildred Virginia were born on this farm.
       We lived on this farm until 1903, when my parents bought 600 acres of farm
     land 3 miles north of Hazelton.
       Our recreation was school, church and Sunday school at Maple Grove School.
       My sisters always helped herd the livestock as there were no fences. My
     sister, Della, met her husband, Lone N. Hughbanks, while she was herding
     cattle.
       We resided on this farm until 1916, when my dad retired.
       My parents celebrated their 50th anniversary in 1922.
       My parents planted 2 cedar trees in the yard. Almost seventy years they
     provided beauty and shade. When they were removed, my niece, Verda (Spicer)
     Diel, used the large trunks as porch pillars in their new farm home, south
     of Kiowa.
       There have been three generations of Spicer own and live on this farm -
     my father, J.T., my brother, Clyde, and his son, Donald.
     
                
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas, pg. 433 
     Submitted by: Mildred (Spicer) Turner