PRECIOUS MEMORIES

Sarah was born in DeKalb County, Missouri and came to Harvey County, Kansas in the Halstead/Newton area with her parents when she was was about 12 years old. Census records show her father was a farmer. Shortly after they moved to Kansas her father, Henry Cutter, Sr., died suddenly. He was only 48 years old. This must have been a great loss to the large family of nine children ranging in age from one to nineteen. A great deal of responsibility was placed on the shoulders of the two oldest children, Orville & Richard, since they were 17 and 19. Sarah was 13 and her older sister, Ellen, was 15 and her younger sister, Molly, was 11. The four youngest children were Henry, 9; Sam, 6; Nate, 4 and John, 1. The three sisters were of help in the care of the four young boys.

When Sarah was 19 she had met a young cowboy, Joe Gibson, 27 years old, and they were married in Halstead, Kansas. He was a close friend of her brothers and may have ridden the cattle drives with the older ones. In 1993 they moved to the Cherokee Outlet in Garfield County, OK where Joe had claimed land east of what was to become Douglas. He built a one room dugout for them to live in until he could get a house built. He soon added another room and they had a two room dugout but they had to come up out of one to go into the other.

Sarah's sister, Ellen, had married Simon Irey, and Simon and Joe made the race for land together and settled on adjoining claims. Her younger sister, Molly, had married Dan Bierschbach in Halstead and they remained in Kansas and made their home there. (See Molly's letters in Chapter Eight).

Sarah had two children born before1902 but they did not survive and were buried beneath the china berry trees on the family homestead. Finally in 1902, after she had been married 13 years, she gave birth to a little girl, Ethel. then in 1905 she gave birth to another little girl, Blanche. However Sarah died due to complications from childbirth a week later. Joe was overwhelmed with the loss of his wife and the care of two motherless babies. Sarah's sister, Ellen, was a great help to Joe with the care of the two little girls but he had them with him as much as possible. In fact all of the Cutter family rallied round and gave him a great deal of help until he married again in 1906 and they accepted his new wife as one of their own. The above picture and her wedding portrait are the only known pictures of Sarah.