Clifton ("Cliff") Wood was the son of Elisha Wood and Susan Ann Baker of the area of Pettis and Saline Counties in Missouri. He married Anna Mae/May McDaniel (dau of Watson McDaniel (1840-1925) and Madaline/Madoline/Madeline Yeager McDaniel (1844-1923) of , Pettis, Missouri). Children: Barbara (b. abt 1889 in Longwood, MO, died in infancy); Harold Boyd (b. 1891, Longwood, MO); Ernest ("Ert") Clifton (b. 1893, Longwood, MO); John Prowell/Powell (b. 1895, Longwood, MO); Samuel Basil (b. 1900, , Kiowa, KS). Clifton came to Kansas from the area of Saline and Pettis Counties, Missouri, in the fall of 1886 and homesteaded one mile north of the Comanche-Kiowa County line, eight miles northwest of Wilmore. With his two brothers and two friends, all of whom came with him from Missouri, he built a dugout on the land (a 4 quarter corner), and they lived in it the first winter, a year with a very heavy blizzard and concomitant hardships. To improve school land at that time, one had to build a house and live in it for six months, thereby becoming entitled to 160 acres with 20 years to pay for the land. Having met the homestead requirements, Clifton returned to his Missouri home and in the next year married Anna Mae. Three sons and a daughter were born in Missouri. In October 1898, Clifton and Anna Mae and the three boys (the daughter had died) came by covered wagon to settle at the Kiowa County homestead. They had only a tent to live in and tied the horses to the wagon wheels at night. The winter was extremely hard, and Clifton became very ill and almost died. The family moved into the school house until the winter ended. In the spring a four-room, two-story house was moved from near Greensburg to the homestead. A barn and granary were built with poles for uprights and roofed with hay. Breaking sod and farming became their life, with the sons working alongside the father. In 1900 another son was born. In 1910 they built a large barn with lumber that cost $35 per 1000 sq. ft. A two-story, six-room house was built in 1912. They participated in community activities in Wilmore and Coldwater and helped to organize the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ, Campbellites) in Wilmore, which met at first in a schoolhouse in the north part of town. They were actively involved in building a new church building made of cement blocks. In 1926 they retired and moved to Wilmore, where they stayed for seven years, then returned to the farm, staying there until the early 1940s. They then purchased property in town and moved again to Wilmore where they stayed until their deaths. Anna Mae died in 1943 and is buried in Wilmore. Clifton died in 1945, at which time his son Harold was located in Wichita, Kans., his sons Ernest and Basil in Wilmore and his son Powell/Prowell in Sheridan, Wyo.; two sisters, Mrs. Minnie Wilson, Sweetwater, Texas; and Mrs. Susan Gibson, Cleburne, Tex., survived him, as did 18 grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

see "Comanche County History," published by the Comanche County Historical Society, Coldwater, Kansas, 1981.