There are no Renters Here: Homesteading in a Sod House

MATTIE'S STORY

Introduction | Building a Home | We Are at Home | Working the Farm | Without a Mother

Every lick we strike is for ourselves. I tell you this is quite a consolation to us who have been renters so long. There are no renters here.
--Mattie to her family, June 16, 1873
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Martha Virginia Thomas Oblinger was born in 1844 near Onward, Indiana. In 1873, at the age of 29, she left her parents and kin in Indiana and boarded a train for Nebraska. There she settled on a claim with her husband Uriah and their baby daughter, Ella, and lived as a homesteader. This is their story.

But it is also the story of thousands of other people who left a familiar world and traveled into the unknown. In this exhibit you will meet Mattie Oblinger, her husband Uriah and their daughter Ella. Mattie and her family will allow you to visit their home, their farm, and their lives. Through them you will explore the lives of the sod house pioneers.

I expect you think we live miserable because we are in a sod house, but I tell you in solid earnest I never enjoyed my self better.
--Mattie to her family, June 16, 1873
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Martha (Mattie) Virginia Thomas married Uriah Oblinger in 1869 in Cass County, Indiana. After several years of renting a farm in Indiana, Uriah, his brother, and Mattie's two brothers decided to homestead in the West. A Civil War veteran, Uriah took advantage of an amendment to the Homestead Act of 1862 that reduced the five-year residency requirement for veterans. He settled in Fillmore County, Nebraska, leaving Mattie and their daughter Ella in Indiana until he built a home. Uriah and Mattie corresponded frequently during their months apart. In the spring of 1873, Mattie joined Uriah in Nebraska. While living together in their sod house on their claim, the couple had two more daughters, Estella and Maggie.

Uriah had been in Nebraska for a long winter without his wife. He wrote about the new homestead:

I am in hopes that this is almost the last letter I will have to write. For I want you and baby to answer in person pretty soon...I have realized this winter more than ever before that it is not good for man to be alone. You say I have had two men with me. Well that's true, but 20 men cannot fill the place of one woman.... I begin to want some bread that tastes like if a woman's fingers had been in it."
-- Uriah to Mattie, April 6, 1873
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You must make up your mind to see a very naked looking home at first. Nothing but the land covered with grass and a sod house to live in. The prospect will no doubt look monotonous enough to you at first no fences (as none is needed) in sight but we have a soil rich as the richest river bottoms of Ind[iana].
--Uriah to Mattie, March 9, 1873
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Building a Home

I commenced my sod mansion last Monday. ...I will soon have a house done. I have the walls up, the door frame in, the pole up in the middle, the ridge pole on and the rafters up now I have to roof to put on yet, and a window to put in and the floor to level off and then it is ready to move into. I have worked a little over 9 days at it and hauled the sod and done every bit of work alone.
--Uriah to Mattie, April 6, 1873
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I have just as much land as I desire. Now I want to fix it up so that I can live on it comfortable and happy, and it will do no one any good to throw anything in my way for I am running my own machine now and if I keep my health I am going to succeed.... I come to get a home, and I want you to come determined on a home too. You may get some homesick but make up your mind for the worst and we WILL succeed.
--Uriah to Mattie, April 27, 1873
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It looks very strange to me to see crops growing here and no fence around them....The prairie looks beautiful now as the grass is so nice and green and the most pretty flowers I can not tell how many different kinds I have noticed.
--Mattie to her family, June 16, 1873
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We Are at Home

When she left Indiana for Nebraska, Mattie brought many items to make her "soddy" into a home.

We are at home.... I got one tea cup & sawcer [sic] and the corner of the glass and the little hero picture broken. Pretty good luck, I think.
I suppose you would like to see us in our sod house. I ripped our wagon sheet in two, have it around two sides and have several papers up, so the boys think it looks real well.
--Mattie to her family, May 19, 1873
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A sod house can be built so they are real nice and comfortable. Build nice walls and then plaster and lay a floor above and below and then they are nice. Uriah is going to build one after that style this fall. The one we are in at present is 14 X 16 and a dirt floor. Uriah intends takeing [sic] it for a stable this fall.
--Mattie to her family, June 16, 1873
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To day I give the house a general sweeping and brushing, cleaned out the cupboard and washed off all my dishes then washed the tin ware so we will live bright for a few days.
--Mattie to her family, April 25, 1874
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Working the Farm

What a pleasure it is to work on ones own farm. A person has some heart to go ahead and fix up for you can feel that it is ours and not for someone else to come along say well you will have to hunt another place...I would rather live as we do than to have to rent and have some one bossing us and telling us when to move and be bothered moveing [sic] as we use to.
I believe nearly every one in this neighborhood was renters back east and now I do not know of one that would be will[ing] to give up their homes here and go back and rent. They all come through the rubs as we have and now the ones that come first are getting through all right are satisfied and willing to stay.
-- Mattie to her family, April 25, 1874
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Dear Grand Pa and Grand Ma, Maggie and Stella are in bed asleep & I must tell you how I spent Christmas Eve[.] We all went to a Christmas tree on Christmas eve & each of us girls got a new red oil calico dress I will send you a piece of them...I eat till I nearly bursted eating oysters & good things.
--Ella Oblinger to her grandparents, January 12, 1880
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Without a Mother

The sod house on the Oblinger claim was Mattie Oblinger's last home. She died there in February of 1880 at the age of 36 from complications due to childbirth and was buried with her infant son.

Giles Thomas, Mattie's brother, wrote to the family in Indiana:

She was confined Tuesday evening about 4 O'Clock and about 8 O'Clock she took a fit very suden [sic] and never spoke after the first one--the spasms came on about every hour and lasted until about 18 hours before her death. The doctors were compelled to perform a surgical operation by relieving her of the child. The child is also dead and will be buried with her some time Sunday. There has been nothing left undone that could be done in her case the doctors worked with great skill but to no good. I can't write more at this time but will write again. Uriah said he could not stand to write now don't know what he will do yet its left him his three little girls in a sad condition--without a mother.
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A photograph of the Oblinger children was taken after Mattie's death. The three girls left the claim with their father soon after their mother died, traveling to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, and Kansas before returning to Nebraska.

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MATTIE'S STORY