Leaving Grant City, Missouri in 1883, George Austin came to Kingman
     County where he homesteaded. He moved to Valley Township in 1884.
          In 1886 he married Emma Strohl and he built their house near her
     mother. Quoting from Emma's story: "Our home was 14 by 16 feet, had
     shingled roof, real siding, was lathed and plastered, had three large
     windows that opened, two boughten doors, a real hard pine floor (not
     rough wide boards like most), doors and windows cased. It also had a
     mopboard all around the floor, was painted inside and out, and had a cellar
     under the whole room. The lumber and all material cost $87.00 and it was
     hauled from Attica."
          George and Emma had four children - William, Mary, Madge, and Harry.
     All attended Franklin country school and later graduated from Kansas State.
     George and Emma left the farm in 1912, moving to Manhattan, Kansas. Will
     took over the farm; he married Margaret Keys. They had one daughter, Wilma.
     Mary married Dr. Jack Gingery of Muscatine, Iowa. He was a veterinarian;
     they had one daughter, Willodine. Madge married Lester Tubbs, an engineer
     with Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, PA. They had one son, Austin Lester. Harry
     practived veterinary medicine at Letts, Iowa. He married Beulah English;
     they had one daughter, Charlaine.
          In 1908 George and Emma bought their first automovile, a 2 cylinder
     Buick for $1400.00. In 1920 they drove their Franklin to California and
     stayed a year. They spent the next two years traveling. Then they settled 
     down in Muscatine, Iowa near Mary and Harry. George died in 1926 and
     Emma in 1939.
          After his death, Emma wrote a short history of their life together.
     closed with,"Our little home is broken up. But God is good and I know He
     will not forsake me. As I write, George's face and form, as he was younger,
     is ever before me. My thoughts seem to go back in the past and they are the
     pictures that are the plainest. And now, as I come to the end of this story,
     my one thought is that God was good to us, all the way." 
              
     Source: Isabel, Kansas - The First 100 Years, 1887 - 1987,  pg. 36 
     
     Submitted by: Wilma Austin Bell