I was deep in debt, still I did not give up. I had an idea that some day I would own my farm clear of debt. As the years roll on some are happier than others. This happened to me. As, for instance, when I sold nineteen hundred dollars' worth of products off my farm in one year. This helped me to pay off the second mortgage to my father before it expired. A few years after he received this money from me he died in Omaha. After my father died I could not pay off the first mortgage until my youngest brother became of age, which was in 1902. So it was not until 1902 that I owned my quarter section of land clear of debt.
To-day I own two hundred and eighty acres of land and have some money on hand. I have to thank my father for it. For he was the one who brought me to the notion of buying a farm by offering to loan me his money. Without him I never could have done it. Alone I could never have thought of facing such a large debt as I was forced to face after I purchased the farm.
Now, in the year 1913, I am fifty years old, I weigh two hundred pounds and I have raised a family of four boys and two girls. At the present time, after taking into consideration all the trouble I had to bear in order to accomplish what I have, I will say that I do not feel a bit sorry that my grandparents in Europe never got my letter and that therefore they did not send me money to return to Euorpe. Kansas has changed considerably since I first saw it, and I intend to remain in Kansas the rest of my days.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH SATRAN.
On the 4th of July, 1851, the writer was born in the hamlet of Wesec at the foot of historic Mt. Rip in north-central Bohemia, which is a province of the Austrian Empire in Europe. I was the first-born of nine children—three boys and six girls all of whom are alive at this writing, which goes to show that we came of good, hardy stock. My father, Frank Satran, was a shoemaker by trade, but his trade did not suffice to keep a family, so he had to eke out a living by farming a few acres of land he owned, in addition. Laboring and living conditions in those days were very hard, laborers’ wages averaging only 10 to 12 cents a day, with board. This made my parents very discontented with their lot, so shortly after their third child was born they resolved to sell their little holding and emigrate to the United States. As soon as they got a buyer they sold, and the last days of August, 1856, found them at the seaport of Bremen, Germany, where they embarked in the steerage of a small sailing vessel bound for New York. At that time there were very few steamships crossing the ocean, and the rates of passage, as a matter of course, were exorbitant and out of the question for my parents. There were over two hundred and fifty human beings, herded together like cattle, in the steerage of their little vessel, and no cabin accommodations except for the ships crew, consequently living conditions were frightful, and the food served out to the emigrants was so coarse and unpalatable that young children could not digest it and cried with hunger. In addition, the drinking water doled out was barely sufficient to keep down the thirst of the people there was none whatever for washing except salty sea water which was entirely unfit for that purpose. Looking back now it would seem unendurable, but we and the others stood it for seven long weeks, until we reached New York. In these days of fast travel it appears unreasonable
