James Napoleon Bernard

BERNARD GRATTON UMHOEFER

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 4/18/2010 at 22:35:44

Woodbury County History 1984

James Napoleon Bernard
By Leone Bernard

James N Bernard was born and lived all of his life on the farm to which his parents, Joseph Albert and Martha Gratton Bernard, had come form Jefferson, South Dakota. When his father retired and with his daughter, Sophia, moved to Anthon in 1909, James acquired the home place which he farmed for fifty years. He began as a bachelor farmer, hiring man and his wife to ‘keep house’ and help with the farming.

On February 14, 1912, he married Josephine ‘Josie’ Umhoefer, the oldest daughter of Joseph and Marian Umhoefer, who had come to Anthon to start a variety store in 1910. The wedding was at 7:30 a.m. The train to Omaha left at 10:00 a.m. They were on it. The lone surviving witness to the ceremony, an altar boy, age eighty-six, tells of his assignment to bar the door-a routine procedure-to collect the altar boy’s tip. With luck it might be a dollar to split four ways.

Theirs was an idyllic marriage of two gentle souls. Such differences as they must have had were privately discussed. Jim was to say in later years, ‘My life didn’t begin until Mama came out here.’ Josie had never lived on the farm. Farm chores and cooking for hired men weren’t easy. Added to that might be a traveling peddler who would unhitched, hay the horses and settle in for the night, and/or an occasional traveler on foot (tramp) who seemed to feel at home there. All of this was very likely a carry-over from the boundless hospitality of pioneer Joseph, to which they were accustomed.

A daughter, Leone Marie, was born May 30, 1913; a son, Francis Joseph on March 31, 1916. With this growing family, James built a bigger house in 1917 that had running water and a bathroom. The old house, vacated, was then to be occupied by a married ‘hired man’. Life for the farm wife was getting easier and more comfortable for the farm family, despite tribulations of a large family. Children born in the ensuing years were: Mary Dolores, February 7, 1918; Wilfred James, May 31, 1920; Catherine Lucille, October 18, 1922; Mildred Martha, December 15, 1924; Mary Jeanette and Margaret Joan, the twins, November 15, 1928.

The children attended country school walking a mile or more, rain or shine. Later, as the boys were old enough to ride horseback or drive a horse-drawn surrey they attended St Joseph’s school in Anthon, where all of the family finished grade school and attended high school until it closed about 1938. Boys drove an Overland and an old Ford to school. Girls later rode with neighbor boys and still talk of the good times of sharing rides and expenses. No free bus rides for the Anthon students were provided until the days of school reorganization.

In the lean years of the early thirties, the older girls pursued a college education on a shoe string and as many jobs as the hard pressed small colleges could offer. Leone finished in Cherokee and Plymouth counties. Dolores graduated from Briar Cliff in 1939 and taught in Nebraska for several years before her marriage.

In January of 1940, Josephine Bernard died in her home after a prolonged kidney and heart illness. She never went to a hospital for any illness. All of her babies were delivered at home. The twins were delivered by a ‘specialist’ who came out from Sioux City to her home as Dr Cauley’s most urgent request, I am sure. Going to the hospital in her last hours would have been a travesty beyond endurance-for everyone. Dr Cauley had seen her through all of it.

James, like his father before him, reared and educated his younger children, with the help of the older children. Joan was eleven when her mother died. Her twin had died at six months.

On September 30, 1940, Wilfred married Marguerite Callaghan at Oto. They established their home on an adjoining farm, which James had bought in 1926. They had a family of twelve, namely: Mary, Ann, Catherine ‘Kay’, Robert ‘Bob’, died 1972, Jane, Susan, Jack, Anita, Nancy, James, Theresa, Joan. In 1960, they moved to the home place; in 1982, they retired to Anthon.

Leone after many years at the Woodbury County Library, retired and still lives with her brother, Frank, also retired, from being a lifelong farmer, but continuing to live on his farm.

Dolores married Joseph Barnas in 1943 in Denver. They have both taught in Nebraska, Alaska and Iowa. Their family are: James Anthony, Joseph Francis and Julie. Dolores was killed in a car accident, October 22, 1971, when she was teaching at Dunkerton, Iowa.

Lucille went to Wayne State College and taught in Nebraska until she married John Didier at Paris, Texas, August 16, 1945. She lives now in Bridgeport, Nebraska. Their family: Jeanne, Barbara, Tom, Don, Duane, Eileen, Laura and Lynelle.

Mildred, a graduate nurse from St Mary’s at Rochester, married David W Macken, September 3, 1947, at Anthon. Their family: Kathleen, Renee, Kevin, Therese, Angela, Julie, Christine and Michelle.

Joan, a graduate of St Catherine’s at St Paul, has worked for many years as a social worker. In June of 1973, she married Joseph Barnas. They live in Mendota Heights, St Paul, Minnesota.

James N Bernard died on May 15, 1960, of a heart condition worsened by a fire in his beloved home-now the home of grandson, James W and Kathy Baagoe Bernard, married August 27, 1982.