PIONEER STORY Narrator: Mrs. Ina W. Mayer I was born in the state of Illinois in 1866. In the spring of 1873 my father, W. J. Wauchope, went to Kansas and bought a farm in Sumner County, eight miles from Wellington and twenty-five miles from Wichita, Kansas. In the fall of this same year he sent back to LaSalle, Illinois for my mother and the five children, three girls and two boys. We went by train. We lived on this farm for six years raising wheat and corn mostly. In 1874 we had a wonderful crop and the grasshoppers came and cleaned our fields, they were called the Rocky Mountain grasshoppers. They came in such droves that the sky turned dark and we could hear the roar long before we could see what they were. We were very frightened. By night our fields were cleaned out and crops all gone. The grasshoppers were so thick that they stopped trains. The next year we put in a big wheat crop. Just as it was ready to harvest Father took the whole family to Wichita with him for supplies, going in a covered wagon. On our way back home we were caught … Continue reading Ina W. Mayer