Established in 1873, Jaeger family farm turns 130 years old

Chase County’s boundaries were established by the Legislature on Feb. 27, 1873, but the organization of the county did not begin until 1886, according to historical accounts.
The Homestead Act took effect on Jan. 1, 1863 when 160 acres of land could be had by homesteaders if they built a house and grew crops for five years.
Homesteaders began to come to eastern Nebraska at the tail-end of the Civil War, but didn’t begin settling parts of central, western and northwest Nebraska until the 1880s and later, wrote Matthew Hansen, editor of Flatwater Free Press in Nebraska.
 One of those homesteading families that settled in Chase County just celebrated their family farm turning 130 years old on Jan. 12, 2022.
Homesteading in Nebraska
John Sr., age 55, and Helena Jaeger came from Germany with their family and homesteaded a parcel of land in Chase County on Jan. 12, 1892.
The Jaegers had nine children: John Jr., Lora (Bremer), Helen (Daschofsky), Valentine, Kate (Weiss), Adam, Jacob, Mina (Wittmack) and Philip.
The youngest son, Philip and wife, Christina (Miller), took over the family farm and had six children: Robert, Edna, Hollis, Jake, Inez and Clarence.
Robert Jaeger, the oldest son of Philip, was next to take over the family farm with his wife Muriel (Surber) and two children, John and Lora.
Robert’s son, John, eventually took over running the farm and is presently still  owner of the 480-acre Jaeger family farm located nine miles west and three miles north of Imperial.
The farm consists of three circles of ground with two circles being irrigated as of 1974 and the third remaining pasture ground.
John is retired and now lives in Holyoke, Colorado, spending his winters in Arizona.
Currently, John’s daughter, Jacki (Jaeger) Speaker, a fifth generation Jaeger, is living on the farm with her husband Dustin and children Kourtynie and Bradley.
Kourtynie is a senior and Bradley, a freshman, at Chase County Schools.
“A fun fact to share is about the 1929 sign on our shop at the farm. The sign was on my Grandpa (Robert) Jaeger’s  barn which was rebuilt in 1929 after the original one burned down,” said Speaker.
The current shop was built in 1980 by Speaker’s dad, John, she added.
A little more history
Roughly one out of five homesteaders arrived in Nebraska directly from a European country, according to research by Rick Edwards, retired director of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Center for Great Plains Studies.
“Many others were brand new American citizens who had moved from possibly Germany to Ohio, as an example, and then to Nebraska,” said Edwards.
Most of those who came were poor—people who had no other way to own land.
“Often, these immigrants were lured by laughably incomplete portraits of Plains life,” wrote Hansen. “Being a homesteader was harder than we can fathom.”
    Roughly 55% of Nebraska homesteaders made it.
    The rest got sick, went broke or left.
    And then, of course, many of those who did make it sold out as soon as they could and vanished, too.
    The people who stayed faced an incredible array of enemies for decades.
    “They were leathery and obstinate, and they were among the first residents of this new state called Nebraska,” Hansen said.
An historical account
    The following is a newspaper article re-published in The Imperial Republican around 1943.
    It was originally published in 1887 in the Hamilton Herald in Champion when Champion was still named Hamilton.
    “Spring emigration has begun in earnest. Last Saturday and Sunday, no less than six families pulled in for this immediate neighborhood, composed of the following families: Messrs. Wm. Thomas, W.G. Higby, T.A. Nolin and Hugh Hill of Crete; Valentine Yeager (Jaeger) and John Yeager and family of Seward.
    The above families came well fixed in the way of stock and implements. They also bring a carload of seed grain of selected varieties.
    Messrs. Hayes and Cunningham report about seventy more families due to arrive between this and the last day of March. Yet there is room for more.
    Chase County already has a population of 3,500. But we have enough land to give each family 320 acres and accommodate 1,800 families, or a popultion of 9,000.
    With two railroads sure to be built through the county this season, we predict we will be full up in six months.”