From "The Wolbach Messenger" September 18, 1958, page 1 transcribed by Linda Berney:

Funeral services were held at ten a.m. Monday at the St. Michael's Church in Spalding for Henry A. Nestor, 74, who died Friday evening in the Spalding hospital. Mr. Nestor had been in ill health since suffering an attack of circulatory thrombosis on June 29.

Burial was in the St. Michael Cemetery at Spalding.

Mr. Nestor, a Greeley County pioneer, was born on the homestead of his parents near O'Connor on October 17, 1883. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Nestor, were among the first homesteaders in the county.

He and Addie Gillham were married in O'Connor on October 28, 1907, and they then lived on a farm adjoining the homestead until 12 years ago, when they retired and moved to Spalding.

He leaves to mourn his passing, his wife, one son, Albert of Colorado Springs, Colorado; four daughters, Mrs. Clarence Murphy of Fullerton, Mrs. L. J. Klinefelter of Oakland, California, Mrs. Raymond Molt of Spalding, and Mrs. Steve Reiter of Spalding; two sisters, Mrs. Joe Kinney of Missoula, Montana, and Mrs. Geo. Kinney of Omaha; one brother, Fred of Lincoln; 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.


This is from "Greeley Sacred Heart 1893-1993":
Henry A. and Addie Gillham Nestor
The family of Henry A. and Addie Nestor grew up in the Church of the Visitation Parish at O'Connor.
Henry Nestor was one of 14 children of Michael and Emma Davis Nestor, who are buried in the O'Connor Cemetery. Michael and Emma had immigrated to Greeley County from Pennsylvania. Emma had been alienated from her family because of her marriage to an Irish Catholic, and she had only very minimal contact with her family throughout her life.
Henry was born October 17, 1883, at the family homestead 6 miles southeast of O'Connor. His wife, Addie, was born January 28, 1890, to John R. and Weinheimer Gillham at Basco, Illinois. The Gillham family moved to Greeley County when Addie was a young girl Henry and Addie were married in 1907 at the O'Connor Church. They made their home on a farm adjoining the Nestor homestead in the O'Connor area where all of their five children were born. They moved to Spalding in 1946.
Henry died in 1958, Addie in 1983. Grace, the oldest daughter of Henry and Addie, graduated from O'Connor High School. She married Clarence Murphy, also of O'Connor, in 1930 in the Church of the Visitation, O'Connor. They lived in the Greeley area until 1936 when they moved to Nance County. The Murphys had two daughters: Darlene, Mrs. Clifford McCray of Fullerton and Alice, who resides with her mother 6 miles west of Fullerton. Clarence died in 1984. Kathryn, the second child, also attended high school at 0'Connor, graduating from Wolbach. She married Raymond Molt in 1942 at O'Connor. They made their home in Spalding where their four children were born. Raymond died in 1969 and Kathryn died in 1980. Their four children are Bill Molt and Bob Molt of Spalding; Mary Molt of Manhattan, Kansas and Mrs. Lyle Person (Janet) of Albion.
Albert, the Nestor's only son, graduated from Wolbach High School. He married Amelia Jensen of St. Paul in 1941. They, as well as their two sons, Roger and Michael, currently live in Colorado Springs,Colorado. Vivian, the fourth child, moved to California in the late 1930's. She is married to Lawrence Linefelter, and they are currently living in San Rafael, California. Marjorie, the youngest, married Steve Reiter of Spalding in 1948. They moved from Spalding to Corpus Christi, Texas in 1971. The Reiters are the parents of six children: Mrs. Phil Cagle (Dee) of Gainesville, Georgia; Mrs. Larry Bray (Colleen) of Columbus, Nebraska; Mrs. Tom Spelts (Maureen) of Dallas, Texas; Mrs. Karen Clemens of San Diego, California and Steve Jr. and Larry, both of Corpus Christi, Texas.
Appeared in the Omaha World Herald sometime in the 1950's


A Pioneer Report
"The day of the grasshopper Plague"
The following report won third prize in the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce " Nebraska Old West Story Contest."
By Henry Nestor Spaulding, Neb.
Many are the tales of those who chose to fight the grasshoppers that plagued the plains in the 1870's. Many, too, are the tales of those who chose to give up and return East. But few are the stories of those who stayed for one reason only—they couldn't go back. Mike and Emma Nestor were of these few. Mike, an immigrant Irishman, had convinced his young Pennsylvania bride that wealth lay in the land—and land was free under the Homestead Act in Nebraska. To young Emma, land meant the rolling hills and green valleys of Pennsylvania, not the bleak Nebraska prairie. But they came with their first son and took a homestead in Greeley County, 6 ½ miles north of the present site of Wolbach. Into the land Mike poured his labors and his love. Emma gave her hate and distrust. But she stayed. Her family came into the world with the aid of the nearest neighbor. At one birth she was all alone in the house except for her three other children.
In 1874, thing were beginning to look better. They had raised a fair crop the year before. More homesteaders had arrived, and time had dulled the horrible loneliness.
It was with a lighter heart than at any time since their move to Nebraska that Emma planted her garden that spring. The cottonwoods they had brought from Spring Creek, two miles to the south, were flourishing. Two small Cherry trees, raised from seeds given her by another homesteader, were loaded with blossoms. As July arrived, the trees were splashed with reddened fruit, the land beginning to fulfill Mike's promise. The oats were heavy and the corn knee high. And then, on July 17, the grasshopper hordes came. They came as a blanket to strip and devour. Unbelieving and horror-struck, Emma watched them cover her precious cherry trees, and seizing quilts from the beds, she ran to cover what she could. She couldn't realize that hours later, even her handmade quilts would be nothing but shreds. The oldest two boys jumped on old Maude and Dick, and holding a rope between them, galloped up and down the corn rows only to have the rope eaten through by millions of insects that lighted upon it.
By nightfall, a promising future was a bleak nightmare. The corn, the wheat, everything in the garden was gone.
There was nothing that escaped their hungry jaws; not even the bark of the young cottonwoods or the strips of cloth hung at the front of the door to help chase flies.
It was a sleepless night for the Nestor's. By morning Emma had made a decision.
"Mike, we've got to go back. I just can't stand any more. I've done without and without and without and just when it looks like maybe we'll have enough to eat and some to sell for a change, then this comes. We've got to go Mike, before another baby is born."
"We'll go Emma. I don't know what else to do. I'll take what wheat we have left to Grand Island and sell it. Then I'll come back for you and the kids. If we sell the team and wagon in Grand Island, we should have enough to go back east.
With a heavy heart, Mike went out to hitch the team and wagon. Emma went on with her work, but as time passed, she wondered what was keeping her husband. Finally she went to the door and looked to the lean-to that served as a barn. Mike was standing there, just staring. "We can't go Em. There's old Maude. He pointed off to the north-east. Emma's eyes followed his finger, and came to rest on the mare trying to get up. Maude had broken her leg in a badger hole. Had the winged hordes pestered the mare until she had tried to run away and had stepped in the hole? Or had fate decreed that Old Maude would make them permanent settler in spite of themselves?
"Maybe the Hills would let us borrow a horse to take the wheat to Grand Island. Then later they could take us."
"Em without selling Old Maude, we don't have money to go."
Emma turned and went wordlessly into the house. When Mike came in, he found her dry-eyed on the bed nursing the baby. "Mike, we've got to get the boys up. There's work to be done. If we've got to live here, we're not going to starve to death. They say the Indians eat dogs. Well, we're going to eat horse meat. We'll butcher Old Maude.
Then there's some carrots and turnips in the garden. I guess there's a few beets too. The hoppers wouldn't eat what's under the ground. We've got our hens. They can eat hoppers. We've still got the old rooster. We'll set another hen and raise a few more chickens."
All the hot day long, the family worked. The meat was cooled in the cold well water, stripped for dying, or salted down in brine. The carrots were dug and packed in sand in the cave the next day. The grasshopper hoards had gone as quickly as they had come.
Yes, the Nestor's stayed not only that winter, but to raise 14 sons and daughters, to adulthood and to finally be buried in the virgin soil at O'Connor, only a short distance from their homestead.