Arza Stone Lacy was born 18 October 1883 at Maud's Station, Pisgah Township, Butler County, Ohio the third child of Christian Daniel and Clara Adella (Stone) Lacy. Very little is known about his childhood, his family moved from Ohio to near Turkville, Ellis County, and Kansas between 1885 and 1888.

It is known that when he was old enough, he helped his father on their rented farm and on the threshing crew. His father went from farm to farm threshing wheat. He lost his mother in 1904 to Brite's Disease (Uremia) and when he was 21, about 1905, he and his brother, Chris, went to Joplin, Missouri to work in the zinc mines there. While working in the mine, there was a cave in. Chris had either gotten out or wasn't working the same shift or even possibly had been in another part of the mine. When Chris realized that Arza was still in the mine he and some others went back for him. The cave-in had completely buried him; the only thing saving his life was a timber that had fallen across him forming an air pocket. One of his arms had been trapped in an upright position. He kept saying over and over, "Somebody come and get me, somebody come and get me." When they finally got to where he was buried the first thing they uncovered were his fingers. They wiggled causing a flurry of digging to get him out. Arza had one of his legs broken in seven places. When it healed it was shorter than the other and until later years when he wore an elevated shoe, he walked with a limp. There was a man buried next to him that didn't survive. When they removed his body is was like moving a sack of Jell-o, every bone in his body had been broken.

In 1908, he was in Lawrence County, Arkansas. He paid a poll tax of one dollar on the 10th day of April 1909 and personal property tax of 3.40. (No real property is listed on the receipt.) He also worked for the Sherman Texas Nursery Co in February of 1908. He worked for various people in 1908 and 1909. Traveling back and forth between jobs (according to his account book). He worked some for his brother-in-law, Tom O'Loughlin, harvesting and working Tom's mules. Apparently the homestead in Arkansas did not fare well and in 1909 he was back in Hays, Kansas again working for Tom O'Loughlin and shucking corn for L. A. Stone (possibly another relative)

In 1910, he started a homestead in Two Buttes, Baca County, Colorado. Still he needed to supplement his income until his homestead could earn its own way, he pulled beets for a Van Eaton (Van Eating) and Jorden (Jorgensen) in Springfield, Colorado. He worked with his father, threshing wheat. He paid property taxes, personal and real estate, from 1911 thru 1922 on his homestead in Two Buttes. In 1912 he worked for John Gelinka in Wilson, Kansas, in 1914 he worked for Dan Brumitt in Ellis County, Kansas.

In 1916, he married Myrtle Lillie Smith in Springfield. They lived at Two Buttes on the homestead. Their first two children, Arza Daniel and Rozella, were born there and their first child, Arza Daniel died there.

Arza and Myrtle's honeymoon cottage, 1919

One story, my mother told to me, was about a drought that was so bad that they had to burn the nettles off of cactus to feed their cattle. This was probably in the early 1920's. He and his brother George went together and sold their livestock and personal possessions at an auction sometime between 1920 and 1923. His father paid his 1921 property taxes. In 1922, again he worked in Kansas, as his Baca County taxes were paid from Hays City, Kansas.

By March of 1923, Arza was living in Lamar on a beet farm called Center Farm, it owner and location yet to be discovered. Kenneth, Mary and Margaret were all born while he worked here.

Arza went to work for the ice house and sometime the town of Lamar. They moved to 8th street where George, Norma Jean and Verna were born. Arza and Myrtle lost another child while they lived on 8th Street, Norma Jean. She was awfully sick but the doctors didn't know for sure what was wrong with her. She was nearly a year old. They put pneumonia on her death certificate.

Arza had bought the house on 8th Street but lost it in the depression. They then moved across the track to 10th street. This must have been a better part of town as it was the first house that they had had that had indoor plumbing. They had their first Christmas tree while they lived here.

Arza and Myrtle nursed their kids though whooping cough, those that hadn't had it while they lived on 8th Street got it when they lived on 10th. The kids got Scarlet Fever also while they were on 10th Street. It seemed Myrtle had a quarantine sign in the window most of the time. Myrtle quilted quilts for people and hung a sign in the window about her quilting. She was very good at quilting. The neighbors thought that she had put up another quarantine sign and wondered what the kids had now.

The winds started in the late 30's and everything dried up. Sometimes the wind blew so hard that it would blow pieces of straw and boards clear through telephone poles. The dust was so thick that you could get lost. One time Rozella was late coming home and Arza went to look for her. He found her with her face against a telephone pole, covered with her hands so she could breathe. She was crying and afraid if she moved she wouldn't be able to breath and she couldn't see where she was. The kids held hands when they walked home from school and when they came to the railroad tracks they would listen for a long time then put their ears to the tracks to see if a train was coming. Luckily there were never any trains on the tracks.

The dust storms and the lack of work made Arza and Myrtle to decide to move to Missouri. Arza was operating a road grader for Prowers County at the time. Though food was not in abundance, they never went hungry. Mary can remember eating potato soup with striped potatoes in it. That was what Myrtle called onions when she put them in the soup.

Arza got the car ready and built a four-wheeled trailer with a box for Kelly, the dog, to ride in, for the trip to Missouri. They realized that they were really going when he took the old red cow to the sale. They loaded everything they had in the trailer. Arza tied the bedsprings on the outside of the trailer and the mattresses on top. They cooked their food on campfire and the children had a wonderful time. It was the first time that they had ever camped out. The only sad thing was they lost their three-legged cat on the trip to Missouri.

They had to go over a lot of hills before they got to Wichita, Kansas, called the Devil's Washboard. Their old car didn't have enough power to pull the trailer and its load of people over the hills. When they had gone as far as they could go, everyone would get out of the car and push the car up the hill. Arza would push by the door handle so when they reached the top of the hill he could jump in and everyone would get back in the car and they would ride as far as the car could go to the next one. Then the process would start all over again. They were traveling so slow that a state police officer asked them to pull over and let the cars behind them pass.

They broke an axel near Cabool. A farmer let them stay in his field until it could be repaired. About the time that they got the axel fixed it started to rain. The farmer told them they could put the trailer in his barn. On the way to the barn, the hitch broke on the trailer and the trailer started rolling backward toward a creek that ran beside the road. Kenneth jumped out and got the tongue but he wasn't strong enough to hold it. The trailer turned over in the creek.

They stayed in the barn for 2 or 3 days waiting for the rains to stop. The farmer's wife may have let Myrtle and Rozella use her kitchen to cook their meals. They decided that they had traveled far enough and Arza went into town to find them a house to live in. He found a two-story house that they could live in until spring. The rain let up and they moved in. The kids started school. The neighbors were very good and gave them things out of their gardens and let them help with butchering of some hogs for a little meat. Myrtle canned every thing she could and Arza did some odd jobs to get the staples that they needed. He bought a couple of goats. Sometime Arza would shoot a cottontail and once he brought in an opossum, but Myrtle couldn't cook it. If she did, she camouflaged it and the kids didn't know they ate it.

Arza and Myrtle would bring hot soup to the school for lunch for their children. Little did the kids know that in the future a hot lunch would be a delicacy to the next generation, instead they were embarrassed to have a hot lunch when the other kids were eat cold sandwiches. They may very well have the first hot lunch program served in a school. They walked about two miles to school and when it snowed, Arza would bring some of the boys' overalls for the girls to wear and tied gunnysacks around their feet to keep them dry and warm. When the strings he used to tie the gunnysack to their feet started to come loose he would stop and tie them again.

The next spring, 1936, the man they rented the house from bought a sow and some sheep. He wasn't ready to move back into the house until the weather got warmer so he asked Arza to stay and look after his stock. The sow had had her piglets and most of the sheep had lambed by the time they had to move on. One of the sheep had a set of triplets and the owner gave them the littlest one. They named her Lambie.

Arza found another house about a quarter mile away that hadn't been lived in for years. The windows were broken and it was full of bedbugs. Myrtle took pure lye and painted the walls, then threw water all over to rinse them off. They let it dry a few days and then papered with newspapers. When the newspapers dried, Myrtle papered it with real nice wallpaper. They didn't use the entire house; they probably didn't have money enough to fix it up. They only used the kitchen and the living room. They made the living room a bedroom; they didn't have living room furniture anyway. The boys slept in an alcove in the kitchen. Food was pretty scarce and Myrtle made pancakes from a little flour and some shorts (shorts is ground wheat with bran left in and was what they fed the goats). A man that was living in the brooder house gave them some molasses to make the "pancakes" more appetizing. The children took them to school for lunch. They didn't have to eat the "pancakes" very long as Arza got paid for some work he had done.

Later that summer, Arza found work on one of the neighboring farms. He had to walk through the woods to get to work. One day he lifted something heavy and hurt his back, which put him in bed for several weeks. Someone told the county that the kids didn't have shoes to start school in and that they didn't have any food. A committee of county people brought two-bushel baskets of food and got the kids some shoes. Myrtle didn't want to accept charity but they talked her into keeping the food. Arza got better and went to work shortly after that, but had to be very careful what he lifted for a while.

Someone bought the house they were living in and they had to move again. Arza found another job with another farmer and another house. This was a big two-story house and the children had bedrooms upstairs. It had a barn and a chicken house. They got some chickens and they still had Lambie and their goats.

That fall they moved again to a smaller house about half a mile from the last one.

The next spring, Arza found a small farm they could buy. It was about three miles on the other side of Elk Creek. The children went to Stultz School. The house was ell shaped and had an old log shed on the property. They cut down some of the trees to build a log barn. Arza bought a horse to pull the logs to where the barn was being built. The horse was blind in one eye and too old for a riding horse but she pulled the logs just fine. Arza bought a cow, sheep and they raised hogs. They still had one goat left when they moved there. There was a dugout (root) cellar where they stored their canned goods.

In June 1941, Arza and Kenneth went to work in Jefferson City helping to build Fort Leonard-Wood.

The fall of 1942, they decided to sell the farm since Kenneth would be going into the Army and move to Peoria. They had an auction on January 12, 1943 and on January 13, 1943, they loaded Myrtle's sewing machine, washing machine and wringer and 3 boxes of goods on the train and they got on a bus to Peoria. They each had a suitcase packed with their clothes.

Arza found them an apartment and the next day bought some furniture. They stayed in the apartment for a few days until they could find a house with more bedrooms. Arza went to work for Peoria Packing Company and in later years was made a night watchman, when he couldn't work as a laborer anymore. They even kept changing his age so he didn't have to retire. He retired at the age of 76.

He would never talk about his grandmother, just told the kids that she gave her kids away. So the truth will probably never be known.

Arza became ill in March of 1971 and for two or three months fought cancer. He died June 11, 1971 at 12:15 am at the Methodist Hospital in Peoria from Metastasis and Bronchogenic carcinoma. He was put to rest at Springdale Cemetery, Peoria, Illinois on June 14,1971.

[Contributed by Joyce Clark Collins, the granddaughter of Arza Stone Lacy.]