Leo's brothers all went their own way. Jake became the Sheriff in Deadwood, a wide open gambling and prostitution gold-mining town, Leo and Joe became ranchers around the foothill towns of Whitewood and Sturgis, and the other three headed further West.

To Leo, there was no choice to be made; he was a rancher at heart and he intended to find a bride, run the race of his life for the best piece on the alkali (he'd already surveyed the land and had his eye on a piece that had an artesian well), and have the best spread in Meade County.

His bride came into Sturgis with a wagon train, an educated, healthy sixteen-year old beauty, fresh from Luxembourg already speaking like an American. He and Veronica Nyers were married and ran that race for land together, staking the artesian well for their own.

They built a sod house, as most of the prairie people did at first, and a grand wooden barn. The first seven children were born in that sod house, and they withstood drought, blizzards, blights, and sand storms, a long way from the gentle life they had known in the old country. Leo's family had been farm people whose origins were traced to France and Veronica's father had been a palace guard which had furnished her a privileged life behind the palace walls. She had attended a girl�s school for twelve years and was skilled in the genteel arts of sewing, serving tea, and gourmet cooking, nothing to prepare her for the harsh existence offered on the prairies of South Dakota.

But Veronica's good health, devout belief in the Catholic Church, and positive attitude, made her not merely a survivor, but a successful one. Their first seven children were Will, Lena, George, Ida, Mary, Katy, Lucy, and Justine. Lena died at two years of tuberculosis. The rest attended a one-room schoolhouse within horseback distance to the ranch, but none of this family made it as far as sixth grade. They were needed on the ranch and schooling didn't seem very important when survival was so tough.

They were able to build a wooden, two-story house by the time the second family came along. This family consisted of Albert, Leo, Ben, Lawrence, Cyril and Celia, the twins, and Veronica, the baby, and they would come to remember their parents more like grandparents and their older siblings as mothers and fathers. They attended the first and second grades in the prairie school, but as soon as he was able, Leo built a house in town and every winter the younger children would move to town with their mother to go to school. Papa, George, Ida, Mary, and Katy would run things on the ranch. By this time, Will had moved to Washington state and Justine had been sent away.

The following is a series of vignettes, told to me by my mother, Cecelia Elizabeth Philomena Keffeler Rantanen (Tia for short), while she was in her 70s and 80s.

She still thought in German. It would take some time to think in English, but she would. She was American now and in America one speaks English. And she wouldn't have an accent like most of these people, but the low German dialect it more difficult to lose than the high German that she spoke. Her children wouldn't speak German either. In fact, they wouldn't even hear it spoken. They would grow up hearing only English. Children, the word just popped into her head, and now it wouldn't go away. How she longed to start a family of her own, on her own piece of land. She would make this desolate land bloom, no matter how hard she had to work. Her children would never go hungry.

That all means she would have to find a husband as soon as possible. He must be nice looking, speak English well, and know how to work hard, she would not abide laziness in anyone and certainly not in a lifetime mate.

She prayed there would be a Catholic Church, or at least a Priest at the end of the trail. The Rosary had comforted her this far, but the Church was her sanctum. Her soul would not rest if there was no Mass to attend, and confessing ones sins directly to God seems so presumptuous. And how could she marry - never could she agree to outside the sanctity of the Church. And her children would have to be baptized and be taught by the good Sisters, anything else was unthinkable.

Someone at the head of the train was shouting and pointing to the western horizon. Veronica shaded her eyes from the hot sun and gazed as far as she could. There they were, the Black Hills, the end of the journey from the old country. First the sickening boat ride across the ocean, then the clackety train to a place named Ohio, and this hot miserable walk across the prairies, and it was almost over. Her life as an adult could begin. She would meet her husband at the homestead land race and they would get the most beautiful piece at the foot of a mountain. She could hardly wait.

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The vegetable garden was another matter. Tilling and enriching the soil and planting the seeds were the easy tasks. Even the difficulties of carrying water from the well nearly daily during the hot, dry, short growing season could be overcome. But the small animals, prairie dogs, mice, and rats, were attacking the beans, peas, cucumbers, yams, and potatoes with gusto. So the day Veronica saw a big, shiny, black snake devouring a rat fattened on her vegetables, she vowed that she and that snake were to become the best of friends. Soon, that snake was following her snatching the grubs her hoe unearthed as she weeded the garden, and the ranch dogs and cats felt her wrath if they even looked at her new friend.

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Meals on the ranch were large, daily affairs at a long board table with benches on both sides to accommodate the many young Keffelers and any ranch hands that were working at the time. At the head and foot of the table were regular chairs occupied by Mama and Papa and hanging on the back of Papa�s chair was a willow switch, just the right length and suppleness to create good sized welts on the legs of wayward diners. The seven youngest Keffelers, five boys and two girls, were very aware of the punishing instrument, having felt it�s sting at least once. But that wasn�t the only reason for their good behavior. The guilt that followed any disrespect for their father was more of a punishment than any stinging welts.

Leo was a good husband and father with an easy laugh and love for fun. He had made sure that all of his children had access to a musical instrument and most of them learned to play something. The boys played saxophone, trombone, fiddle, drum, bass, and piano. Celia had taken piano lessons from the nuns at the academy and, although she flunked the classical section of the curriculum, she excelled in the pop music of the day. The Keffeler Band was well-known and respected on the alkali and families for miles around traveled for the dances held in the Keffeler granary.

Papa�s switch wasn�t used much, but it continued to hang on the back of his chair as a reminder. But this remembrance and the respect they all felt for this happy, fun-loving man was enough to keep them all on the straight and narrow for the rest of their lives.

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Deadwood was a gambling town and the home of Poker Alice, a notorious daughter of a gambling man. Alice learned to play poker so well that she became rich enough to buy a successful whorehouse and establish herself as a well-known figure in the saloons of Deadwood. But Uncle Jake didn't much like whores, and he made it his personal crusade to run them out of his town. For years he harassed Alice, arresting her girls, closing her house for minor infractions, threatening her customers, and dogging her every move until finally, he wore her down.

Alice moved to Sturgis, the town where Leo was raising his 15 children and becoming the most successful rancher for miles around. He had bought a town house so the children could attend school in the winter and became a pillar of the community and the church. It was said of Sturgis that it was made up of almost all Keffeler�s and Bachand�s, and the Keffeler�s and Bachand�s were related. Alice bought a little house across the street from Leo's house on Lazelle Street from which she contentedly raised her goats, helped the poor, loved the children and irritated Uncle Jake, to no end.

Jake retired shortly thereafter and moved to Sturgis to bask in his brother's success. He didn't need or want Alice around to remind him of the past. She had befriended the young Keffeler children and, in general, did everything she could to aggravate him further, including doing a little poker playing and some madaming on the side; after all, hadn't he aggravated her for all those years in Deadwood?

In 1917, Alice died and Jake breathed a sigh of relief. It was like getting rid of a pesky fly that kept buzzing his ears and biting his legs. But, much to the delight of the townsfolk and the horror of Uncle Jake, Poker Alice had the last laugh. In her will she named Jake Keffeler the beneficiary of her estate which included, along with her little house on Lazelle Street and her goats, part ownership of a whorehouse in Deadwood.

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It was the time of year that the threshers began to gather, and ranchers cleaned and repaired the bunkhouses for them. The women picked all the gardens clean, churned plenty of butter, made cheese, and filled pickling barrels. Livestock was slaughtered, smokehouses fired-up - it took a lot of food to feed 30 to 40 hungry harvesters - and farmer's daughters primped.

Leo Keffeler was busy too. He swept the biggest granary building clean then dug the knockdown stage out of storage, nailed it together, and set it up at one end. Next he gathered the wood he used for the tables and benches, assembled them one by one and lined them up around the walls of the grain-fragrant room. Now his favorite task of all, practice.

Leo liked nothing better than fiddling. He knew all the songs by heart, never could read music but he didn't have to, he'd just stomp his foot, put the bow on the strings and music came out. He'd play alone for awhile, making sure he remembered all the songs, then call his sons, Will and George, out to rehearse with him. Others would bring instruments too but they'd just have to follow.

Neighbors too were preparing for the big weekend. They baked big loaves of take-along bread, put together potato salads and bean pots, and worried on what to wear. Single daughters pinched their cheeks, bit pale lips to pink and rolled sun-baked hair up in rags. Wagons were hitched and filled with baskets and children, and pointed toward the alkali, stirring the dry prairie dust behind them. The threshers settled into familiar fitting saddles, bedroll hanging on one side and a bulging saddle-bag on the other, and headed trail-worn horses for the Keffeler Ranch for two days of fun and two months of back-breaking work.

The clomp of heeled boots on the wooden floor, and shouts of excited children echoed in the rafters. Skirts rustled in time with the murmur of women's voices as tables filled with bowls, baskets and pitchers, and the aroma of food mingled with the pungent smell of dusty wheat. Men were shy without their Stetsons and the white foreheads contrasted the leathery texture of faces and necks. The piano tuning added to the tone of expectancy and the musicians gathered on the stage and made important decisions about the repertory.

The music was about to begin. The men were eyeing the line-up of available womenfolk, the kids were plotting mischief and hoping Great-Aunt Mary and Grandpa Jake wouldn't kick them too hard in the square dances, and everyone awaited the arrival of Mother Keffeler at the twin's birthday party. She was up at the house bunking them down for the night - they were much too young to attend.

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Justine

She was always the prettiest in the family. The ranch-hands watched her when she went to the smokehouse or knelt in the garden. She'd turn red and lower her head, but she kind of liked it, that they thought she was pretty. Not that she liked them. They were just dirty talking, ignorant farm hands, and she wanted nothing to do with them. Besides, she'd have to confess to Father Columbine if one of them got near her. No, she just liked the idea of being pretty.

Life on the ranch was hard on a girl, especially one who wanted more than what her mother had, fifteen kids, and work from sunup to sundown. She wanted to see cities and go dancing somewhere besides the granary and meet people who could talk on something not to do with cows. Lots of times she'd hide in the barn and dream about a fancy city guy, whose face was forehead color; who had clean fingernails, wore flat heeled shoes and said 'yes' instead of 'yep'.

As the depression got deeper, the type of drifters looking for work changed. They wore dusty brown fedoras and city shoes and spoke in fast whole sentences. They carried desperation in their eyes and hunger in their sunken cheeks. All Pop could do most of the time was give them a meal and send them on their way, but once in a while, he'd hire one on for a special chore.

Harry was one of these. He had one strand of untamed hair that fell on his forehead, almost touching eyes permanently fixed in a mischievous smile, (or a wicked smirk, depending on who was interpreting). When he first spotted Justine hauling buckets of water to the trees, he knew he would not rest until he had her. All handsome women were his due and he would collect.

As for Justine, here was the man in her dreams, the curl was extra. Her sixteen-year old body ached with an urge she didn't understand and longed for a fulfillment she couldn't control. It was his eyes, watching her every day, with a lust she couldn't interpret, so her eyes answered in kind.

Afterwards, Justine cried, it was not what she expected. It was ugly and it hurt, and what would she tell Father. Harry left, as they all did, taking what none of the others had taken, Justine's girlhood. When she could no longer hide her condition, her mother sent her away to a home for wayward girls, run by the Sisters of Charity. They delivered her son and sent him back to the ranch, but Justine had learned about life. She left the home and it was decades before she saw the ranch again.

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Vink

It is hard being the youngest in the family. It is really hard when you're a girl with fourteen older brothers and sisters, and it's really, really hard when number thirteen and fourteen are twins, a girl and a boy. She was timid and tiny, and liked to play with her dolls, actually clothespins that her older sisters dressed to look like dolls. She'd sit in the corner of the parlor and build pretend houses out of sticks, cook on a pretend stove and love her wooden babies so much.

Vink didn't like the out-of-doors. She was afraid of the bugs, and every time she ventured out, an animal attacked her; besides, she didn't like getting her pretty dresses dirty in the farmyard dust. And she cried easily, a fact that caused her much pain and trouble. The twins were almost always outside, riding stick horses, pulling legs off bullfrogs, killing rattlesnakes, or doing chores. But sometimes they tired of this, and would wander into the house to play with her. She'd be thrilled serving a pretend supper on her pretend table, and the twins would say that it was good, and she would thank them so politely. Then she'd let them hold her babies, and all too soon the twins had enough.

They would begin small, just teasing a little, and Vink pretended not to notice, after all, a turned over pretend table wasn't so bad. Then one would pull one of her long curls and the other untie her starched hair ribbon with a dirty hand. But when they began to insult her babies, all forty-five pounds of her would rise up in anger, skinny little arms and legs flailing helplessly, and she'd start to cry. That was the twin's signal to upgrade the torture. The dolls reverted back to clothespins without their clothes, Vink became a ball in a game of pass, and her cries of anguish would bring a big sister running to the rescue. On the way out the door, they'd yell the final insult, "cry baby vinegar jug!"

Her real name was Veronica, after her mother. It was the twins that gave her the name that stuck. Vinegar jug became Vink.

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The Dance

The dances were held in the Armory on Saturday nights. Everyone in town went, some to watch, most to dance. It cost a quarter to get in, and ginger beer and peanuts were on sale at a snack counter in the corner. Chairs were lined up against dull walls stained with men's hair grease. The women sat on the far side of the hall and the men closest to the exit as if a quick get-away might be needed. The silence was invaded only by embarrassed mummers, a giggle here, and a cough there.

Only when the band began to tune their instruments, did the crowd stir and set up a buzz of expectant excitement. The fellows found courage to peer at the merchandise on the far side of the room, and the ladies posed, hoping to catch an eye or two with fresh-cut bobs and up-to-date spit curls, copied from pictures in the Harper's magazine. Finally, the band leader would raise his hand, and the first strains of the opening waltz awakened the dead air of the Armory and roused the pin-striped men to action.

The sisters had made their choices from the mustachioed faces across the room and could only pray that the cautious eye-flirting allowed good girls was enough to attract. And they were good girls, not because it was their conscious desire to be so, but four of those pin-striped suits belonged to brothers, tasked by the wrath of Papa to ensure that they remained so.

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