Murphy Fritz

Laura Dell Murphy, daughter of William J. and Sephronia (Baker) Murphy was born July 1, 1862 in Hardin Co. Ohio. She married April 11, 1880 in Pulaski Co. Indiana, Charles J. Fritz, born January 13,1858 in Darke Co, Ohio. ( Charles was born to John George (b.March 23, 1823) in Stuttart, Wurttenburg Germany John George died November 30,1876 and Mary Graul Fritz born in Germany. )
Charles bought a farm in Jefferson township, Pulaski co Indiana in the late 1890’s, and moved his family there. He suffered from a bad heart for which he took “heart drops” and whiskey. Thinking different air would might help his condition, he packed up his family in 1899 and with several other Jefferson township families went homesteading near Carrington, North Dakota. The first year there the family lived in a sod house, made from tough buffalo grass which they cut in chunks and stacked. The Fritz’s struggled with their first crops it seemed the rains all went south. The family moved further south and raised four years of good crops. They grew flax, wheat, rye and oats. The homesteaders found North Dakota to be a wild country,where they lived among prairie dogs, six inch long grasshoppers and coyotes, in addition to a hostile climate.  The children went to school in the summer because the winters were too harsh. Their dogs accompanied them to school the keep the wolves away. It was while living in North Dakota that four year old Eugene fell into a well and drowned. In 1904  Charles and his family decided they could endure the hardships and bad tasting water no longer, so they packed up and moved back to Jefferson township,  Turn of the century life in Jefferson township must have done no further harm to Charles’ health as he lived to a month shy of his 77th birthday, dying December 8,1934, and Laura died April 16, 1942. Both died in Pulaski county Indiana. They are buried in the Koster Cemetery in Pulaski county.  Charles and Laura had moved one last time to a home in Winamac, Indiana, where they marked their golden wedding anniversary  in 1930 with a large celebration of family and friends.