Emmet Gore Life Story
Overview of Ancestors
Virginia
The Gores had been in America for 124 years by the time Henry Gore was born. He
was Emmet Gore’s great grandfather. Henry Gore moved from Culpepper County
Virginia to what is now Shenandoah County.(originally part of Frederick County then
Virginia became Dunmore County then finally Shenandoah County). It is believed he
met and married his first wife, Margaret around 1756. They had eight children. Our
lineage comes through Henry Sr. and his second wife, Ann Catherine Keller.
They married in 1779, a time of Post Revolutionary War. They lived on a plantation
near New Market, Frederick County, Virginia. After Henry’s death in 1791 Catherine
Keller Gore moved from Shenandoah county to what is now Summers Creek, Summers
County, WV.
Their youngest son Henry Jr. with Susanna Swinney is our direct line and his story
would take a full page. He was notorious for being a bigamist in addition to having a
child by a black slave. Henry remained his whole life in SW Virginia;
Missouri
Seven of Henry Jr.’s eleven children migrated in the 1840’s and 50’s to Northwestern
Missouri. We descend from him through his second son William Allen born 1809.
William Allen married Isabella Jane Campbell 1831 in Virginia. Wm Allen was the first
son to migrate to Missouri about 1840 followed by his brother, Greenville, and
subsequently his other five brother were all there by 1859. They settled in Buchanan
County, Missouri. Susanna Swinney, William Allen’s mother, left Henry due to
By 1850 Wm Allen moved from Buchanan County, Missouri, to the most NW county
of Atchison, Missouri. Wm Allen and Isabella had 14 children.
Freemont County Iowa
81 miles
by 1870
By 1870 the William Allen Gore family moved across the Missouri border into Fremont
County, Iowa. Grandfather Emmet Gore was age 17 (Note: at this time I am not sure
when they arrived in Iowa, only that they were there by then) Emmet had 5 older brothers
and 7 older sisters. One more male child was born to his parents, Holbert, in 1855. (Get
more from notes in Ancestry)
Grandfather Emmet Gore
In 1875 at the Fremont County Seat of Sidney, Iowa, Emmet Gore, age 21, married
Flora Jane Crane. Their marriage may have taken place at the school house which
doubled as the church. Their marriage certificate is signed by Thomas Jenkins Baptist
Minister., Flora’s grandfather, who was the first pastor of the newly organized “Old
School Baptist Church”.(membership was 58)
The 1880 US Census shows Emmet and Flora living in Benton Township, Fremont,
Iowa with two children, Oliver “Ollie”and Hobert.”Bert”with their births being
registered as Sidney, Iowa.. I believe they moved 81 miles to Percival, Fremont, Iowa
where their third child, William Michael, is born May 1882. In 1884 Emmet Gore a
resident of Fremont County, Iowa, bought 57 acres for $1250 in Fremont County.
Nebraska 36 miles
1884-1890
By 1884 they moved 26 miles across the Missouri River, west to Syracuse, Otoe,
Nebraska. In 1886 Emmet sells the 57 acres in Fremont, Iowa, to his brother Holbert in
two separate transactions at the price of $1550 netting himself $100 in two years. Perhaps
there were some improvements made and Holbert got the better end of the deal.
1884-90 they unofficially adopted their first female child, Lizzie Monahan. Her
parents passed away just months apart away from TB and she was the youngest of several
children. She stayed in contact with her natural siblings but had a warm relationship with
her Gore brothers and sisters and returned to visit with them when she could. Her
daughter said she called them Ma and Pa. Her children remember visiting Aunt Hazel in
California and playing with their Gore cousins. Three more children were born in
Syracuse, Otoe, Nebraska. Robert Lee, Ernest Roy and Ralph Romine (Romine was
Flora’s father’s middle name). Robert Lee passed away about age 2.
Kansas 200 miles 1890-1900
In 1890 they moved to North Central Kansas, Esbon (Lebanon), Jewell, Kansas
near the Nebraska line. This time the distance was 205 miles. They had their 7th child
there, Hazel Alvina. They may have stayed until early 1900. Emmet’s oldest son, Oliver,
a single man, bought a piece of Land in Smith County, Kansas which is right next to
Jewell County for $500 in 1899. A year and three months later sold the same property
for $500.
Note: Emmet’s Brother Isaac Campbell (3 years older) moved from Fremont County,
Iowa to Kansas with him. Isaac buys land in adjoining Smith County in 1893 and sells it
in 1894. Census shows Isaac still living there in 1895. Jewell and Smith counties are
adjacent and the three towns they lived in are very close being Smith , Lebanon an
Esbon.
Sydney, Cheyenne, Nebraska 319 miles
1900-1902
In 1900 From Esbon, Jewell, Kansas the whole Emmet Gore family made an
even longer move (319 miles) west to Sydney, Cheyenne, Nebraska, which is almost to
the Colorado border. In the Federal census we find Emmet and his sons, Oliver 24,
Hobert 20 and William 18, employed as Day Laborers with the Railroad. The 1900
Census shows Holbert and his complete family residing in Sydney, Nebraska, with
Holbert working on the Railroad too. Then we find a Nephew, Albert Gore (presumed to
be son of Allen Maxwell Gore, brother to Emmet) also working on the Railroad.
Note: At this time in history the US government was awarding the railroads a
minimum of 10 miles of land on either side of their rail line as an incentive which usually
paid about 90% of their costs in their expansion.
It is interesting to note life sketch of Emmet’s youngest brother, Holbert George,
said that he built roads in Nebraska and Colorado. His work for the Railroad must have
somehow been connected to his road building contracts through his life.
Neodosha County, Kansas
628 miles
1902-1906
They traveled 628 miles, presumably paid for by the railroad, to Neodosha Kansas, ,
where Helen Olive, their 8th child was born in 1902. Living with them there in the state
census of 1905 is Daisey Kellog Oliver Gore’s future wife, Freddie Kellog, her brother,
W. Bowles age 33 and PE Gore age 20. PE is Perry Ellis, son of Emmet’s brother Holbert
As you recall they were just working side by side with Holbert in Sydney, Cheyenne,
Nebraska in 1900 census.
Homesteading New Mexico Territory 1906
(Statehood 1912)
New Mexico
622 Miles
It appears that Railroad employment made travel to Emmet Gore’s next job
convenient and we assume they received reduced or free fare. Each Railroad destination
was preceded by a post office and a real estate office where they began to sell their land
shares rewarded to them by the US Government. I believe that Emmet and his sons
became inspired through railroad contacts to make their next move to New Mexico.
Either by word of mouth from those who had been there or through the Rail Road Real
Estate Office promotions, they decided to capture the big dream of homesteading and
cattle ranching in Upton New Mexico. Railroad routes into Portales on the
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> made it easy to transport a large family and what livestock they had
to New Mexico.
Emmet Gore and his wife Flora Crane Gore moved to Eastern New Mexico in
1906 with their five sons and two daughters. They homesteaded in the Upton Valley
community in Roosevelt County. Flora’s brother, Albert, also homesteaded in Upton
Valley.
“The Gores moved from Kansas because they were tired of the long wet winters
of Iowa, Nebraska, and Northern Kansas. When they saw the grass knee-deep to a horse
they surely thought they had found the land of milk and honey.” At this time his two
oldest sons Oliver and Hobert were married. Oliver married a second cousin, Daisey
Kellogg (1907) and ‘Bert’ married Mary Kinsolver (1904).
Emmet, his wife, and each of his sons bought a section of land (160 acres) The
Homestead Act of 1852 provided that any citizen 21 years of age or the head of a family,
on payment of $10 might file a claim to not more than 160 acres of the surveyed public
domain. After having “resided on or cultivated” this land for the following 5 years, the
settler could receive a patent on payment of additional fees. This was later commuted to
6 months and $1.25 per acre.
.
They chartered railroad cars and shipped all their belongings to Portales. The
men rode in the box cars with the live stock and the women and children rode in the
coach at the end of the train. “People were coming into the country around Elida, which
was at that time the end of the railroad track. The railroad was being built from Amarillo
to Roswell” a ten mile stretch at a time. “Usually a post office was established, then the
track was completed; then they’d start another 10 miles of track and another little town.
From Muleshoe, Texas they established Portales as the first town on the Atchison,
Topeka and Santa Fe Line; then Delphis, Kermit and Elida.” (Edward Gore)
On 14 Feb1906 imagine the energy in the air when Emmet, Oliver, Hobart, Bill and
Roy all walked into the land office in Portales to apply for their homestead land. All five
of them medium tall and medium build with their light blue piercing eyes, Emmet with
gray hair and the boys with black. Did they put on their only suits or did they arrive in
shirts, work pants and boots making loud noises as they walked across the wood floors?
Their patent document numbers today tell the story 02940, 02941, 02942, 02943 and
02944, each signing in turn on the dotted line for 160 acres. In just 5 years after working
the land they would return and receive their official patent papers. Ralph applied later (I
estimate in 1908) for 80 acres.
“Elida was kind of an advantageous place. It seemed that more people came and
settled around there than any other place except Portales. At one time Elida had a pretty
good sized hotel and saloons just nearly everywhere you’d go. So it was a pretty wild
place. But this was the place that welcomed the Gore family into New Mexico in 1906.”
“Emmet and the others established land northwest of Elida, New Mexico, about
15 miles, not to farm but to ranch. As time went on those people who came to New
Mexico with only two eligible members for 160 acres couldn’t make a go of it. You had
to have more land than that in this dry climate to survive. It took about 5 acres to sustain
one cow. So the undersized claimants would have to give up and leave so you could go
over there and buy their homestead. You would have to live on that land 6 months, build
a fence around it, then go ahead and complete the term to get total ownership. In this
way the Gore’s gathered quite a few more acres.” (Edward Gore)
In these early years three more of Emmet’s sons married selecting wives from this
New Mexico pioneering people. In 1907 Roy married Amanda Jane Jones whose people
came from Texas by covered wagon with pots clanging loudly on the sides of the wagon.
Ralph married next in 1910 to Cora Beatrix Rummage “Trixie”. Bill married Georgia
Hulen in 1908 and divorced in 1911. Bill took his two sons to Oklahoma in 1911 to lived
with his Uncle Holbert “Hal” whose wife Em cared for the boys until Bill secured a
divorce and custody of the boys. There he worked in the Oil Fields but retuned to his land
in New Mexico as soon as he could. Bill married another local girl, Gypsie Goldston, in
1914. Apparently his boys were still in Oklahoma and he and his new wife went to work
in the oil fields again. Six months later the new blended family returned to in New
Mexico and remained.
“The Gore’s accumulated a good sized ranch and were doing well for a time up
through World War I.
We know that Hobert who was the second son, already married to Mary Kinsolver
two years earlier in Iowa, built a dugout about 19 miles west and 2 miles south of
Portales, New Mexico. Family stories say that Emmet also built a dugout as did most of
the settlers upon arrival. This provided immediate shelter for the homesteaders
Hobert’s son Howard William was the first Gore child born in the Upton
community in Jan 1907. Hobert donated five acres of land ¼ mile north of his
homestead for a school. (I think the school is the one Edward said was 15 miles North of
Elida) Prior to 1920 the children rode to school in a Model T Ford Truck with solid
rubber tires. Later on ________drove the children in an old school bus without glass in
the windows. It had flaps over the windows. In the winter it was dark going to and from
school. (get picture of bus). Family accounts say that Aunt Hazel who had a 10th grade
education taught in the one room schoolhouse in Upton.
Albert Crane, Grandmother Flora’s brother, was the first postmaster at Upton. In
1907 Grandfather Emmet was the first Star Route contractor to carry mail to all the post
offices in the area: Upton, Benson, Ingram, Kentucky Valley; a circuit of about 40 miles.
He drove a little buggy and a team of mules 6 days a week. They had to change mules
twice on that 40 mile radius. His contact paid 90 dollars a month because people worked
for 50 cents a day at that time. Emmet had to furnish the 4 mules so he had some
overhead and he had to spend one night a week away from home because he couldn’t
make the round trip in one day.
1917-1918
The year of 1918 was a happy one for their daughter Hazel who married Ed
Raydon. In the Fall of 1918 it was the end of WWI and the economy was booming.
Grandfather Emmet Gore was the Draft Board Precinct representative in Upton,
New Mexico. Emmet Gore signed the draft registration cards of three of his sons, Oliver,
William and Ralph, between June 1917 and Sept 1918. None of his sons had to serve in
either world war but one grandson, Oliver Jr. suffered and died during the Bataan March
in WWII but Emmet did not live long enough to suffer that day with his oldest son,
Oliver. By 1918 Roy was a Railroad Postal Worker in Albuquerque and was registered
for the draft there. Hobert was registered in Kansas but his card is filed in Roosevelt the
same date as Oliver’s and Bill’s in Roosevelt County. He declared Upton, New Mexico
as his residence and is shown in the Census in Upton, New Mexico, January 1920. It
looks like he moved back to Kansas around 1912 and remained through part of 1917.
Two of Hobert's children were born in Kansas. One in Smith County in North Central
Kansas (which is very close to Jewel, Kansas where he lived with his parents, Emmet and
Flora, between 1890-94) (At this time Emmet's Uncle Isaac “Ike” still lived there) and the
other child was born in Barber, Kansas where he registered for the draft in 1917. (Kansas
had enacted a law prohibiting the driving of cattle from Texas into Kansas that year due
to the spread of disease.) Uncle Jim, the brother to Emmet's father, had a drovers cabin
or camp around Dodge, Kansas. Finally all of Emmet’s sons and daughters (except
Lizzie who was married and living with her husband Robert Kelley in Oklahoma) were
gathered to Upton, New Mexico, living in their beautiful new wood home.
“The Gore family had contracted to sell their expected calves in the spring of
1919 and put up a certain amount of money guaranteeing the delivery of these calves.
The winter of 1918 was one of the worst. It snowed and snowed and there was no way to
buy feed for the cattle. When the grass was gone, that was it. The snow covered the
ground and fences. The cattle just walked over the fences and starved to death by the
thousands. I can remember during that time that my dad, Bill Gore, would go out and see
some sprigs of beargrass sticking up above the snow and he would dig ‘em out with a hoe
and there would be 3 or 4 cows standing there chewing on that beargrass which had no
nourishment. I also remember “tailing up” the cows. They’d get so weak they couldn’t
get up and Dad (Bill) and the uncles would grab ‘em by the tail and lift them up on their
hind legs, then the cows could get their front legs under them and they‘d stagger around
and hunt for food.” (Edward Thomas Gore dictation)
With Emmet at the head and four grown sons working the large ranch they should
have had an advantage over the small ranchers but they still couldn’t change the outcome
of the brutal winter. “ They had encumbered themselves with the purchase of these cattle
on the train delivery. Thousands of people went broke in the cattle business that winter.
Emmet Gore and his family were among many Americans who held high expectations of
getting rich in the cattle business. Due to the ongoing war they believed there was going
to be a strong demand for cattle. “How many times have people gone broke by
depending on future markets?” Emmet wound up almost broke but had enough to buy a
filling station and garage in Elida. All of his son’s except Hobert “Bert” sold their land to
a bachelor brother of Grandma Emma Gore’s, Albert Crane. They had enough to buy a
mercantile store in Elida which was still standing in 2008. They left their land in Upton
and moved to Elida. It is a two story block building on the corner of the main square.
The ground level was the store and the second story had some rooms in which some of
the Gores, including Bill, lived.” Usually these arrangements had a communal kitchen,
one bathroom and then rooms down a long hall. Their children had attended school in
Upton but some of them found they were drastically behind academically when they
started attending the Elida Schools.
Clovis
In the 1920’s the economy drove prices high and the mercantile store couldn’t support
all the Gore families. The price of cattle fell so I don’t know which was the economic
cause……. Uncle Albert bought Bill out. Bill and his brother, Ralph, bought adjacent lots
and moved to Clovis. They bought a thrasher with a 90 horse power steam engine to go
into wheat harvesting. Somehow Bill used the engine to move his ranch house from
Upton to Clovis. They went from farm to farm north of Clovis at Grady NM . On the off
season Bill established a trucking line from Clovis to Ft. Sumner. These were good
economic times and he paid off his house and had money in savings by 1924
Eventually the nephew of Emmet, “Bert”, (son of Isaac Campbell), ended up in Clovis
working for the Railroad. Bert and his wife Bertha enjoyed association with the other
Gores and their children played together in Clovis. There is a story of the children of Bill,
Ralph and cousin Bert playing together on the tragic day that Bill’s children’s dog,
Rover, was run over and killed. Bert’s son Harold ran home to get a sheet and they
wrapped the dog in it and held a littler funeral service for Rover in Bill’s back yard
complete with a sermon by Harold, singing of songs and a wood marker for the gravesite.
“When Harold’s mother, Bertha, missed the good sheet, we nearly had to dig poor old
Rover up!”
Uncle Bert must have been a entrepreneur at heart even though history shows some of
his ideas failed, like the cotton Gin idea. Many southern farmers who did not inherit their
family plantations moved to Texas and raised cotton like they had in the deep south.
They had to adapt to the climate and develop different strains but some of them
succeeded. Uncle Bert (Isaac’s son) talked Bill into investing his recently acquired
savings in a cotton gin business in Elida. Up to now cotton had never been grown in
Elida. The gin company set them up in business and they recruited farmers to grow
cotton. They moved their steam engine to Elida at a substantial cost in coal and water.
The ginned 360 bales of cotton that first year which didn’t pay a tenth of the costs to fire
the boiler for the engine. So they lost everything they had.
Social Life
Vivian Gore’s account tells of community dances as early as 1913. Before the dances
they would remove the stall walls. One of the fiddlers was Moses Aaron Goldston whose
daughter married Bill Gore. Most of the families would come in wagons and spend the
night. The Gore brother’s sang in a quartet but we don’t know which four except for Bill.
One time he treated his grandson, Denny Akers, to a concert at the high school football
stadium in Clovis to hear his favorite country singer, _____________. Edward Gore, son
of Bill played the fiddle. The local people would have what they called “Singings” in the
schoolhouse or church. People would gather for an evening of a sort of talent show. So
dances, Singings and Church were the extent of their socializing in Elida.
MIDWIFERY etc
Because this is the story of Emmet I don’t have the time to write the complete story of
Flora. I would like to mention that she was a midwife. In addition to delivering almost
all of her own grandchildren we don’t know how many other’s she delivered.
Around 1921 she contracted Lupus. The doctors treated her with radium which turned
her into one complete sore. She called upon the Lord in her pain and suffering during her
last days. She died in April 1922.
Emmet died in 1926. The last couple years of his life he lived with his daughter Hazel
Gore Raydon and enjoyed the company of his grandchildren Helen, Gloria and little
Jimmy.
Conclusion
Pioneering, rich farm land, manual labor, land deals and railroad jobs ……took Emmet
Gore and his family from place to place. Finally they took a chance on the New Mexico
Territory where they dreamed of being ranchers. The land was cheap and water readily
available for such and arid climate. Thus Elida/Upton New Mexico became the place the
Gore name took root and is the (homestead) that all Emmet Gore’s descendants identify
with as the place the Gores have gone out from.