Journey to Nebraska

Recalled by Fannie Giddings Norris on her 90th birthday It’s the Story
  • Journey to Nebraska
    Journey to Nebraska
  • Fannie Giddings in her golden years. At age 90, a family member collected her memories into a booklet, and so we have this story. Fannie was 17 when she came. She remembered of her youth in Pennsylvania and New York, “There were lots of trees where we lived. I used to like to climb trees.”
    Fannie Giddings in her golden years. At age 90, a family member collected her memories into a booklet, and so we have this story. Fannie was 17 when she came. She remembered of her youth in Pennsylvania and New York, “There were lots of trees where we lived. I used to like to climb trees.”

    “The first of May, 1858, we started west,” Fannie Giddings Norris told her son-in-law Gaylord, who wrote down the story that followed. “We” referred to Charles W. Giddings, his wife Clarissa, and their four daughters — Fannie, who was 17, Lydia 15, Sarah 13 and Mary 4. C. W. and Clarissa had been married for 23 years, and had lost three other children, at ages 18, at 5 and at birth.

    The Giddings fa…