ABOUT WILLIAM J. "BILL" MAIDEN
William Joseph Maiden was born August 30, 1886 on the Dawes County Nebraska homestead of his parents, William Henry Maiden and Dora (Derrick) Maiden. Henry and Dora had moved from Carroll County, Iowa onto their homestead in May 1886. The property was along White River, about 13 miles northeast of Chadron.
Young "Will" Maiden was not yet three years old when mother nature gave the Maiden family -- and all of the residents of the northern plains -- a severe lesson in harsh weather with the "Blizzard of 1888." Temperatures dropped to 34 degrees below zero, accompanied by heavy snow and strong winds. The quick moving storm struck on January 11, 1888. When it was all over a week later, more than 1,100 persons in South Dakota and Nebraska had frozen to death, many of them children who never made it home from their country schools.
An only child, young Bill Maiden was not yet five years old when tensions between the white settlers and area Sioux indians reached fever pitch. His mother and the neighboring Christensen family sought refuge at the courthouse in Chadron. In later years, Bill Maiden recalled that his father and four neighbor men stayed at the Maiden home in the dugout at night and wen to their respective homesteads in the daytime to do necessary work. The events occurred at about the same time as the infamous "Battle of Wounded Knee" in late December 1890.
Formal education was very hard to come by in thelate 1800s. Young Bill's first teacher, as he remembered years later, was Margaret Maika. The first superintendent of the District 83 school, probably located right on the Maiden homestead, was Cordelia Maika. Bill's father built him a school bench, which he prized and preserved until late in his life.
Bill Maiden grew up with many responsibilities. In the harsh climate of the northern plains, farming had always been a tough proposition. Ranching, too, presented numerous challenges, but it could be profitable. A $20,000 her bull was sold and became the foundation for successful breeding stock raised by the Braddock family, neighbors of the Maidens.
In the late 1800s, both farming and ranching were quite labor intensive; those families blessed with numerous children -- especially boys -- were better prepared to meet the challenges of such operations. Thus, it's understandable that young Bill Maiden -- an only child -- had little leisure time, assisting his father with the many chores of the Maiden homestead.
However, drought conditions forced Bill's father to seek other ways to help support his family. Henry Maiden took a job at the relatively new railroad roundhouse in Chadron, as well as "any odd work" he could find. Nonethless, the elder Maiden -- with the help of his son -- maintained the homestead, eventually seeing it grow to a ranch of about 800 acres, almost all of it hay and pasture. The Maidens were clearly in the cattle and horse business.
As he grew to be a young man, young Bill quickly surpassed his father in height; unlike his bearded father and despite the popularity of moustaches and beards in this era, Bill Maiden was usually clean shaven.
With the death of his father in 1911, the burden on Bill Maiden increased significantly. Twenty-five years old and unmarried, Bill Maiden now had to care for his mother and run the Maiden place. There was preciouis little time for social activity. However, four years later, he did court a single parent named Leota Irene Durham Weston.
We don't know exactly when Bill and Leota first met, but they were married December 15, 1915 in Belle Fourche, South Dakota. She was 24 years old -- he was 29. Ensuring that he would raise more than an "only child" as he had been, Bill was immediately stepfather to two children -- Minnie and William LeRoy Weston.
When Bill and Leota were married, World War I was raging in Europe, but withouit American involvement. Then in April 1917, the United States entered the fray as one of the Allies. Eight months later, Bill was notified by penny postcard that he had been declared IV-A by the local Dawes County Draft Board for the War Department. He would remain in Dawes County and maintain his farming operation along White River with his mother. The Maidens built a frame home with four rooms: two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. It was only about 75 yeards from the original dugout constructed some years earlier by Henry Maiden. An oak tree that was there when the house was built is still standing, but many other trees surround it.
Bill and Leota Maiden would have seven children of their own: Nettie, Lettie, William H., Dorothy, Betty, James and Jocelyn. With this family of nine children, Bill and Leota Maiden had much responsibility; the house full of girls quickly mobilized to take on tasks often reserved in other homes for boys and men in the family.
In 1928, a horse fell on Bill Maiden, breaking his right leg. Without the benefit of modern surgical procedures, the accident resulted in his right leg being about two inches shorter than the left. Not only did the accident have an immediate negative result on the family's ranching business, it would slow Bill down throughout the rest of his years.
On the heels of Bill Maiden's accident came severer drought and the Depression of the 1930s. Then, in 1932, his mother -- for whom Bill had cared since the death of his father in 1911 -- died. Even in the midst of the Depression, the Maidens remained hopeful that things would get better. One glimmer of hope was fueled by the prospect of establishing the first coal mine in Nebraska. William J. Maiden was a partner with Frank Cottrell in the "Cottrell Coal Company," which obtained leases and deeds on coal rights for more than 50 sections of land northeast of Chadron. The first mining effort was on the nearby Braddock ranch; however, it was to no avail, and the project soon died.
Life on the White River place was seldom easy. There was no electricity, and it would not be until about 1940 that it was available. Kerosene lanterns were the primary source of lighting in the house and outbuildings. Nettie Maiden Drake remembered some years later that there was no church in the vicinity, but a friend would send out Sunday School cards and a lesson book, and her mother would teach a lesson from 9 to 10 o'clock every Sunday morning.
By the time World War Two arrived, things had gotten increasingly difficult for the Maidens. Bill's only remaining son Henry (William Henry) enlisted in the Army and was gone from the place. When Henry wrote his sister Lettie from "somewhere in Italy" in August 1944, he expressed concern for the worsening plight of his parents.
Finally, in 1945, Bill and Leota Maiden auctioned off their equipment and sold their place to Bill Jones. They were leaving the homestead that Bill Maiden had called home for almost 60 years.
Bill and Leota Maiden moved to Buffalo, Wyoming and then to Hulett, where he did ranch work, carpentry, or "anyting else that I could do." The Maidens returned to Chadron in the summer of 1949. Only the youngsest of their children, Jocelyn (Jackie), was still living at home. Bill took a job as groundskeeper for the Dawes County Fairgrounds, and the family lived in a house on the fairgrounds. On January 17, 1951, Leota Maiden died. She was 59 years old. Bill and Leota had been married 36 years.
Bill Maiden went to work for the City of Chadron, maintaining grounds at the City Parks and Greenwood Cemetery before retiring. In July 1955, he married Lillie Guidinger in Hardin, Montana. The were both 68 years old. They lived in the Kenwood area of Chadron for nearly 10 years. In 1960, Bill Maiden was recognized as one of the few remaining "old settlers" as Chadron prepared to celebrate its "Diamond Jubilee." He wrote a brief history of his years in Dawes County.
After a life of considerable toil, leisure did not come easy to Bill Maiden; however, his passing years and bad leg caused him to slow down considerably. Occasionally, he could join some of his old friends at the Chadron Card Club at First and Main.
Lillie Maiden died in March 1965, and Bill moved to a small house on East Third Street along Highway 20 in Chadron. Five years later, on November 23, 1972, Bill Maiden died at the age of 86. Except for three years in Wyoming after World War Two, Bill Maiden had lived his entire life in Dawes County.
