Stories That Live In Us

Nebraska: Connecting to the Land Through Stories (with Greg Wagner)

• Crista Cowan | The Barefoot Genealogist • Season 2 • Episode 82

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When Greg Wagner's great-great-grandmother made her dying wish to be buried not in a cemetery but beneath an oak tree on their Nebraska homestead, she planted more than roots in the soil. Greg is a sixth-generation Nebraskan whose family has maintained the same land for 158 years through blizzards, armed robberies, and economic crashes. As someone who's spent 46 years caring for Nebraska's natural resources through the Game and Parks Commission, Greg brings a unique perspective on how place shapes family identity. We explore how his grandmother's death in 2005 launched his genealogical journey, uncover the resilience required to keep land in a family for over a century and a half, and discover why every single Wagner descendant has chosen to remain in Nebraska. This conversation reveals how the stories we inherit from our ancestors become the compass that guides future generations home.

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Greg Wagner:

And they didn't really didn't really believe in banks very much, because things were kind of getting unsettled and they they kept the money to themselves on that farm. Well, they got robbed.

Crista Cowan:

Stories That Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present, and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist. Counting down to the upcoming celebration of America's 250th birthday, you'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America. Tales of immigration, migration, courage, and community that remind us that when we tell our stories, we strengthen the bonds that connect us. So join me for season two as we discover from sea to shining sea the stories that live in us. We are continuing our move from the west to the east as it goes with our America 250 series. And today we get to visit the state of Nebraska. Now, we have had people on the podcast who have been expert genealogists and professional archivists, and some people who are just deeply, deeply tied to the place because their family has lived there for so long. My guest today is a little bit unique. His family has not only lived in Nebraska for 158 years, but for the last 46 years, his career has been to help take care of the state of Nebraska. He's worked for the State Parks Commission, the Game and Parks Commission. And I'm just going to read a little bit of his biography because I'm amazed at what he's been able to accomplish in his 46 years there, but also because it shows this really interesting connection to the land. He has worked for fisheries, parks and information, education, and now communication for the Nebraska Games and Parks Commission. But what I think is really interesting is he says not only does he passionately and deeply care about Nebraska's wildlife, parkland, natural and cultural resources, but because of that caretaking, he has visited all 93 Nebraska counties, all 76 state park areas and recreational trails, plus a host of state wildlife management areas, and has been on every highway and major river system in the state. If there is anyone who knows the state of Nebraska from both a professional and a cultural and a familial way, it is Greg Wagner. Not only does his career tie him to the state, but so does his family history. Enjoy my conversation with Greg Wagner. Well, Greg, I'm so excited to meet you and to have this conversation. I would love to just hear a little bit about your background in Nebraska and growing up and how family stories were a part of that life that you've lived there.

Greg Wagner:

Well, I've been in Nebraska my whole life. My family's been here 158 years, and uh the stories, the diaries have all been passed down through the generations. And it's interesting to note that uh, you know, sometimes with families, they spread out across the country or around the world. All of us who grew up here, who were raised here in the generations prior, no one left here. We're all Nebraskans, we've all stayed here. And to be honest with you, I love Nebraska.

Crista Cowan:

Oh, I love that. And you've all married other Nebraskans?

Greg Wagner:

Yes, yes. My wife from Grand Island, Nebraska, but uh my brothers married um women from Gretna. You're gonna hear a lot about that in the Forest City area. But uh, we've all married Nebraskans.

Crista Cowan:

That's insane. I don't I think that's very unique, actually. It is. I love that. Well, so tell us a little bit about um as you were growing up, where you know, you you mentioned that there were journals and things, but like, was that a part of your consciousness as a kid? Like, did you engage in that as a child, or at what point did you become interested?

Greg Wagner:

I was always interested in history, and that was instilled in me by my mother and my grandmother, and a little bit uh with my great-grandmother, and they always instilled in me that those stories and the diaries that were kept some very loosely that were very important for me to pass down to my children and grandchildren. Because if you don't know history, you don't know origins, you don't know um a lot of things, you don't know why the land became in our family. And so it was very, very important. And I really got into it. I love history to this day. I um can't get enough history. Um, my mother is deceased, and obviously grandmother, great-grandmother deceased, but they just instilled in me this uh genealogical uh love of family and to always dig for more.

Crista Cowan:

I love that. That's amazing. It's so interesting because oftentimes in family history, we see people come in from two directions. One is people who are just so passionate like you are and have been surrounded by it their whole lives, and others are people who just know nothing and are craving that knowledge and that information. And it sounds like you very much come from this camp of being surrounded by good women in particular who have their part to pass those stories on. So, at what point did you kind of pick up the torch and start really diving into your family history? Was there a moment or a document or a story that captured your attention?

Greg Wagner:

I think it was the passing of my grandmother in 2005. We lived right next to my grandmother. Uh, I did growing up. So I spent enormous amounts of time sitting on the bench, hearing stories, reading some of the diaries, if I could kind of read some things and have my grandmother translate things. And it was my grandmother's death, and I had recorded her back in the 90s on Half-inch VHS and through cassette recordings. I've since had those transferred to digital, and said, You need, I need to capture these stories not just through me, I need them through you. So upon her death in 2005, it prompted me to go, all right, now it's time to now it's time to really go to town and really dig and look at birth records, um, not only just the diaries and the anecdotal stuff, birth records, death records, tour the cemetery, and of course helping me connect the dots as we progressed down the line. I'm gonna guess I can't remember, maybe 2015 was ancestry, big time, because there are there are the ship records, there are records that are gonna validate what I have or not validate what I have. And so that's what prompted me to do it. And I was urged by a lot of the other relatives to say, hey, you you know the history, tell us the history. Well, I need to write it down. My grandmother always told me, if you don't write anything down, no one will ever know any history. So that's when I started.

Crista Cowan:

What a gift to have her with you for so long. And well done on you for making sure you recorded her stories. I think if you ask any genealogist who's been doing this for any length of time what their number one regret is, and almost to a person, they will say, I'm sorry I didn't capture the stories before those people were gone. So the fact that you did is amazing. Do you have a favorite story from your grandmother?

Greg Wagner:

I do actually. It's very interesting. So uh my great-great-grandmother, I found her death record. Uh, my great-great-grandmother would be directly from Ireland. Um, she was met in the eighth ward of Philadelphia by my great-great-grandfather James. Uh, she was 24, he was 18, and married, then came across this country uh in a covered wagon to kind of the Chicago area, basically the Galesburg, Illinois area. And um then they made their way west. But my great-great-grandmother always told um her husband always told James, always told her four children, and wrote in her diary: When I die, never bury me with dead people. I don't want to be buried with dead people. I want to be buried on the land that we homesteaded and settled. I want to be buried in nature. And to this day, um, she has no headstone, no gravestone. She is buried below a 250-year-old oak tree on our farm that we still own today.

Crista Cowan:

Wow, what a gift. And so that's your grandmother's grandmother, yes.

Greg Wagner:

Correct. I would have loved to trace back into history and go, oh, I want, I just want, I just want 30 minutes with you. But uh no, did obviously did not know her. Did your grandmother know her? Yes, she did. Okay, my grandmother lived to be almost 98 years of age, 97. So she yeah, she knew her as a small child and said she was just a lovely human being and and a great cook, and she was tough. And yeah, and she would hunt alongside the men and everything. We had a lot of strong women in our family, and that carries over today, even with my daughter and um with uh my wife as well, actually.

Crista Cowan:

Wow. So James and what was her name? Margaret. James and Margaret. And about what time was this that she immigrated?

Greg Wagner:

James came here first in 1855, and so she she was already here in the eighth ward of Philadelphia, and got they got married, I believe, in 1857. Uh, it was the potato famine, obviously, that drove James here. He came over here when he was 16. Wow. They had a funeral awake service in County Limerick, Ireland for him and put him on a ship alone because they knew they would never see him again. And he meets this beautiful older woman in the eighth ward of Philadelphia and Margaret. And um, so she was more mature, and um the joke always was in some of her diaries my Civil War husband thinks he runs this family, but I do.

Crista Cowan:

That's amazing.

Greg Wagner:

Yeah, so we have Margaret, is my great-great-grandmother. Um, then her daughter was Mary, that's my great-grandmother, then my grandmother is Margaret, and then my mother was Margaret. We have a lot of Margaret. Did you name a child Margaret? My the middle name of my daughter, Emma, is Margaret.

Crista Cowan:

I love that. I love the continuity of names. I think that that's really important. Um, we have that in my family as well. So, as James and Margaret, they went to Chicago. Um, at some point, you said he um she referred to him as her Civil War husband. How do you know how he got involved in the war or where he signed up from?

Greg Wagner:

Well, uh at the time, it was during the war, kind of the latter part of it. Um they were still coming around Union Army officers and trying to recruit uh people uh for the cavalry, especially. And so my uh great-great-grandfather James is the son of a blacksmith, so he was highly recruited and probably was made a deal he couldn't refuse. But he always uh told my great-great-grandmother in the diaries that he felt no one should ever be enslaved, and he would always fight against slavery and fight to have no one be enslaved in this world. So he he joined, and he was with the 5th Illinois Cavalry uh on horseback, and the 5th Illinois fought a lot of skirmishes in the South during the Civil War. Um, there were two small children that Margaret had. She had to be tough because he took off, he had to go go fight. And uh the latter part of the Civil War in Louisiana, he served directly under General George Armstrong Custer. Wow. And then after the war, he tried to um evidently they tried to recruit him to stick around to ferret out uh renegade Confederate officers, and then to maybe fight in some of the Indian Wars, the Native American Wars. And he said, No, I've had enough of war, and then came back to Illinois and then regrouped with my grandmother a little bit, and then took off for a while to go look for land and cross the Missouri River into Nebraska.

Crista Cowan:

And was that land part of some of his pay for his Civil War service, or was there a homestead act? Like, was like why Nebraska?

Greg Wagner:

I think um he had told my grandmother in some of the diaries that he was going to go only as far as he had to. And um he didn't really want to go, you know, by himself across the country because he'd have to come back and get them. And it was wilderness pretty much, uh, and in 1866, uh, after the Civil War. But um, so he went on his own, horseback, um, from that Illinois, that Galesburg, Illinois area, and then crossed the Missouri River, and then came to where we are now in the Gretna, Nebraska area, which is just southwest of Omaha, Nebraska, along the Platte River, in the bluffs along the Platte River, and found suitable land. This is before Nebraska was uh an official uh the Homestead Act was signed before it was an official state. It was a territory. And so staked out, claimed the land, and uh he did odd jobs in this place called Forest City, which was a crazy lively Irish-based settlement near Gretna. It was the forerunner of the town of Gretna. They had gunfights, they had cat houses, they had all kinds of things go on, and he said he liked going into town, but only for short bits of time. And but anyway, he staked out this land on the bluffs overlooking the Platte River, then went back to the Galesburg, Illinois area, got my um um great-great-grandmother and the two kids and covered wagon. Here they come. They're coming to where he had staked out and claimed land as best he could with the territory. They about die on the Missouri River in the spring during the floods. Just about they lost they lost two or three horses and just about perished themselves, but they made it. Uh, I know that one child was in the river for a while, was grabbed by one of the the uh the ferriers going across the river, and then went further west a little bit, uh, probably a day's ride on the covered wagon, and then to their territory that they had staked out.

Crista Cowan:

That is incredible. It's incredible that you have that level of detail because they kept a record because the story had been passed on. Yeah, that's so rare, but also just the incredible nature of that journey to to strike out on your own like that to a place that then was the Wild West, really, and to bring your family and to and did he do that alone? I mean, did he have in-laws or men he had served with that he migrated with, or was he striking out all on his own, literally?

Greg Wagner:

Well, initially he struck out on his own, but when the covered wagon um uh type scenario was playing out, he went with a cluster of other Irish immigrants, and so I'll tell you, it gets very interesting. So um he um with this cluster of other Irish immigrants, they went west together and they crossed the Missouri River together, they all made it, and then they all went, they had land close to each other. There was safety in numbers, obviously. And so around our farm today, we have names like uh McMahon, Patterson, uh McMurtry. We have all these names, we are all descendants of these Irish immigrants that came over in 1866, all of us that uh we're all friends today, we see each other, and we are all descendants of those people.

Crista Cowan:

So, as your family got to um Nebraska, what were those first few years of settlement like? It's not like you walk across the country and you've got a Walmart available.

Greg Wagner:

Well put. Well, the interesting thing is they lived in a dugout. They did not live in a sodhouse, it was a dugout into a hill. Uh, the area that they settled was it's today, it's beautiful. It it's in its virgin state. Um, it's gorgeous. It's it would look something kind of a slice out of um of low mountain country. It's beautiful, but they lived in a dugout. Can you imagine? Or I mean, we have such rampant weather. We're in tornado alley here. Um, we have real harsh winters at times, and they lived in a dugout. That's where they started. And then a a little over a year later, they had plentiful amounts of wood, and then they built a log cabin. Then they built outbuildings and everything. They then the you'll see from census records, they registered you know, the property and claimed it. And when Nebraska uh had, you know, we we're the home of the Homestead Act, and whether we had that enacted. So they lived in a dugout on the side of a hill. We know where that is today, and we just shake our heads and cannot imagine living in a dugout for well over a year. Wow. So through all seasons, and they no one perished. Um, I'm sure it was rough, tough, and they had an abundant amount of wood for you know for fires and everything, but it was a dugout in the side of side of a hill, and obviously facing south and not north.

Crista Cowan:

I keep imagining like the hobbit houses. Is that like when you think about a dugout, right? Like literally just dug into the mountain. And the yeah, like that's amazing. But you think about like what else that land, like what else that land looked like? You said today that it's still very much in a virgin state, but is there are there unique features about the land that made them choose that particular spot?

Greg Wagner:

Yes, uh, there were fertile soil, very good soil, um, water. We still have Bird Creek that was named. There's an almoh Indian term for that bird creek, but it means bird creek. Uh, it goes through the entire farm that we have, the entire parcel. And that creek is fed by artesian wells, seep springs. It is some of the best quality water we've been told in the country. I've I've had it tested, and it's outstanding, it's crystal clear, it's ice cold, it never freezes, but that good water was very important to them. Fertile uh land, fertile soil. Um, we have probably oh, we have the widest variety of hardwood trees that Nebraska has to offer. Um, we have hickory, we have burr oak, red oak, white oak, cottonwood, um, hackberry. We have all this variety of trees for a variety of uses, and that was very important um to my early uh relative settlers as well. So it was teeming with a lot of wild game, uh, from what we know, turkeys, deer. Uh, the creek had fish in it, um, it had catfish, and so they were able also to live off the land, plus use a lot of the natural resources. So they were fortunate.

Crista Cowan:

Sounds like it. That's amazing. Now, you mentioned earlier, as you were talking about living in a dugout, floods, tornadoes. Like this is a place that um also has some harsh realities, as especially as it relates to the weather. And one of the things that we see in a lot of history as things like that occur, a tornado comes through, a flood destroys the crops. Um, in in my ancestor's case, it was an earthquake in 1813 in Kentucky that just freaked everybody out. Like, what, like, why do you think they stayed like and didn't keep looking for something better when things like that happened?

Greg Wagner:

I think it was the aspect of freedom that this this is now their official land. And it does have a lot of uh abundant and plentiful natural resources available. We have good water, we have good soil to grow crops, we have wild game and fish to catch, we have a lot of wild fruits and berries and wild edibles that we can pick. So this is this is a nice home, even though we're dealing with uh the crazy realm of Nebraska weather: hail, blizzards, um, tornadoes, uh, drought, um, heavy rains. They didn't have to worry about flooding because we were in the bluffs above the Platte River. And there's another interesting story to that. But um I remember that um when they first got there, they remembered or they had pinned down looking at the wagon trains on the Mormon Trail on the Platte River below them. Just they said a sea of covered wagons, and they just kept coming and coming. But during periods of high water on the Platte River below them, um, they had what's called the Oxbow Trail. And so the wagons couldn't get through because the bottom land was flooded, so they would come up into the hills and go through uh their property uh and down it was the Mormon Trail. And so there were quite a few settlers during the latter part of the Mormon migration on the trail that came through our property. Um, my great-great-grandfather was always gracious if people, if neighbors wanted to hunt or fish, or if uh, for example, the wagon trains, you know, being a pioneer himself, they understood if you you need to get west, you know, before winter, you can come through my property. No problem, no problem. And they would circumvent the fields and everything. So an interesting aspect of it. But I think just to cut right to the chase, it was freedom. It was this is ours, this is our land. Isn't it beautiful? Look at all the natural resources. That was kind of a recurring theme in my great-great-grandmother's diary.

Crista Cowan:

That's amazing. Well, and what an interesting fact about the Mormon Trail. So I have uh one grandparent who has Mormon pioneer ancestry, and many of her ancestors came from England in the late 1850s and early 1860s. So maybe some of them stopped along on your property. That's amazing. So, uh, how many children did James and Margaret have?

Greg Wagner:

They had four children. Um, the they had three boys and a girl. Um there were there was James Jr., was the oldest, then Mary. This is in line, and then it was William, and then it was Dennis. Um, so one girl and three boys there. The three boys became hermits and never married. They never married. They were a little paranoid because you know, it was the wild, wild west still, and and there's a lot of craziness going on. But the three boys pretty much stayed on the farm, farmed, and never married. But um, Mary, the daughter, that is um my great-grandmother. So she married another Irish uh settler, Peter Ward, who came from Shenandoah, Iowa here. But uh, and they had met, I think, um, in Forest City, I think at the General Mercantile Store. And I think uh from what I can gather, Mary had dropped some flour, and this gentleman helped to pick it up and sweep it up. Well, that's a meat, a meat cute. Look at that in the grocery store. But so uh, but the three boys um never married. Uh they were pleasant, they enjoyed neighbors and everything, but never married. Um James Jr. Uh obviously was older, he had died first. Uh Mary lived, that's my you know, there is there's my great-grandmother, who also really did want to be buried on the farm, but she ended up in the Forest City Cemetery. But um, and then it was Mary, she lived a good good life in I think into her 80s, and then there was um William. William lived to be 99, which was a long time back then, died in the 1950s. Um, and then Dennis, the young one, had died eating breakfast uh during the depression.

Crista Cowan:

Well, it's interesting because kind of where I was going with that was they had four children, but if only one of them married and had children, then there probably wasn't a lot of dispute about who to pass the land on to. That is correct. Whereas if they had all had children, that then becomes kind of a something that changes family dynamics when they've all been raised working that land. Um, and so Mary got married, and because she had a family, I assume the farm went to her and her husband. Absolutely. And then how many children did they have?

Greg Wagner:

They had two. Um, and this gets out this gets interesting as well. So it would be my grandmother, Margaret, um, and they had her later in life, which is interesting, and then she had a brother, Thomas. So Thomas was a World War I veteran, and he uh came back, worked on a bridge gang, and had fallen off the bridge, and my grandmother said he was he was not doing well, he was spitting up blood, and then he died. And he and I said, I I can't find his gravestone either. He's on the farm too. He's buried on the farm on the high hill. I have her on tape saying that. I go, the highest hill? She goes, the high hill. You know where the high hill is, Greg. Yep. So we have two people buried on the farm, but my grandmother, um, you know, with him, he died young at 20. Oh, I'd have to think look back a little bit. I think 25, 24. So falling off the bridge, working on a bridge gang after he served in World War One. So it and then here's my grandmother. So she inherits this farm. And she gets it all, and then she um again, born later in life. I think when uh my great-grandmother had hers, she was 48 49. But anyway, so uh persevered and she ended up taking care of the older relatives and the hermits, and she took care of and there was no question that she was the apparent heir to that farm. And she had met up with my grandfather at a dance. Uh, it was actually in Gretna because Forest City had moved at that time, and uh, so they had met right before they had dated before the depression. I have some wonderful photos, and he was of German ancestry from Madison County, Nebraska.

Crista Cowan:

And so now you've got this German family and this Irish family with your grandparents. Like, did they have cultural things they had to work through? Did like when it comes to food or celebrations or like even just how they worked the land, were there differences they had to navigate?

Greg Wagner:

And I spent a lot of time with my grandpa, and hence is the name, H-I-N-T-Z German. But uh, he always told me, he goes, I Greg, young Greg, I can't get used to the wakes that these Irish people have because around the caskets there's more alcohol flowing than food and everything else. And he said, Irish whiskey. He goes, Boy, and he said, and you don't bring Jameson, that's really not Irish, you know. I go, Oh, oh, okay. But um, he always had a difficult time getting used to a lot with funerals and wakes, it was a celebration of someone's life, and boy, the alcohol flowed, stories flowed. Oh, and to this day, when we have a few. Funeral our family, that is how we do it. We have videos, a collage of photos. We have alcohol there. We do. And yes, we have Guinness. Um, and food Irish food, and that would be Irish stew. Um, and to this day, we still celebrate our wakes and our funerals like that. My grandpa was of German answer. He goes, Yeah, he goes, and then he got tired of a he goes, they have potatoes for every meal. I'm not used to potatoes for every meal. I'm German. And he goes, We don't have potatoes for every meal. I remember him saying that, and a lot of stew. They liked I they liked a lot of a lot of stew meat. And and my grandma always said, because I yeah, I held her on her deathbed. I was she requested me. She goes, I need I want you with me. And you know, on her deathbed, she told me, tell the stories, relay the information from the diary, tell the generations, tell them about us. And I said, I will. And I did, and I am.

Crista Cowan:

I love that. And I love that your family was able to maintain that Irish identity and in spite of the German influence or maybe your grandfather's sensibilities that he wanted to impose on the family. That's that's always an interesting thing to see how those cultures either blend or kind of subsume one another in in different ways.

Greg Wagner:

Yeah, and my grandfather's side is also very interesting. Germans from Madison County. That would be northeastern Nebraska, near the town of Norfolk. But um, yeah, and in into ancestry, when I got into that, and then doing full three, uh, my my grandfather, my grandpa, hence that would be my grandmother's husband, um, could have got a deferment in World War II as um a farmer at age 35 and chose not to, chose to go to war in the infantry six days after D-Day. My grandfather came ashore at 36 years of age and said, This is my destiny. I have I have to do this. I have to do this. Um interesting on my Civil War grandfather, great-great-grandfather. So to this day, I don't I should have brought them. So I have his buttons and his cufflinks, and I have his sword. They were willed to me. I have them.

Crista Cowan:

That's amazing. What an what an inheritance. To have not just an inheritance of land, but an inheritance of story and history and family and those connections and those traditions. I think that is so rare. Um, and so what a gift that you've been given.

Greg Wagner:

I feel very fortunate. And my wife always says, you know, today, Greg, your family probably would be declared hoarders. I said, if you don't save anything, you don't know anything. I said, we're collectors of sorts. We have to save these things to tell the stories. And she'll say, Oh, okay, all right. All those volumes of diaries and pictures and I love that.

Crista Cowan:

Um, so as you think about um, you know, the fact that this land has weathered so much time and has stayed in the family, through all of that, like from you know, 1860, what was it, 60 1866, 1867? Okay, so from 1866 until now, this land has remained in your family. But through that period of time, there have been, you know, the Great Depression, there have been economic hardships, there have been natural disasters. How did your family hold on to the land?

Greg Wagner:

Difficult. Um, and my father actually was a banker, and that I think helped helped later on with the savings and loan crisis in the 80s and everything else, but um, it was tough. Um, the 1888 schoolhouse blizzard um was just a big killer of pioneers here in Nebraska. Um, the pandemic of 1918-1919, um, all my relatives never left the farm. They never left the farm, they never went into town, lived off the land, grew everything, ate everything, hunted, had livestock, never went to town. Um, you fast forward then to 1932, they had an armed robbery on the farm. And they didn't really, didn't really believe in banks very much because things were kind of getting unsettled, and they they kept their money to themselves on that farm. Well, they got robbed. And you know, neighbors kind of knew they, well, they're kind of hermits, they're keeping the money on the farm. And the word got out and uh they were robbed at gunpoint. And uh the robbers um were from a nearby town, Ashland, and they were caught, and the money was retrieved. Believe it or not, uh, they were caught pretty quickly by the sheriff at the time. Um crazy. And then, you know, you come up to the savings and loam, the farm crisis of the 80s, tough times there, very difficult times. Uh, but we're able, you know, to hang on to everything. And and uh my dad, I remember my father having to sell some stock and to do some other things just to preserve that farm.

Crista Cowan:

Wow, but they chose to do that, like in spite of everything, like nothing was too hard for them to overcome. They made the effort, which is so admirable. As you think about that and other, like just characteristics that kind of get bred into you because of living in that place, because of having this experience of living on a multi-generational piece of land. What do you think your children uh inherit from you and from your grandmother and from your great-great-grandparents uh and from the land?

Greg Wagner:

I want them to intricately just know that no, that picture just isn't your great-great-grandfather. Here's what your great-great-grandfather did. Here's what your great-great-grandmother did, here's what they said, here's here's how they persevered. Um, and it's interesting that uh you bring up the land. I will have my grandson on that land um tomorrow. We'll hike it. We'll I get my grandkids out there all the time. My children, we we are hunters and and anglers, fishermen, and we spend a lot of time on the land. I've restored the prairie. Um, it's beautiful with the wildflowers and everything else. We farm our best land and conserve the rest. We farm the best, just as they did, my relatives, and conserve the rest. Um, the land to me, when I get out there, I start thinking of all of the characters in uh our family history. And I I get a little emotional, I get very emotional, uh I'll tell you, because that land is like wow. And I just want to say thank you to all the generations for what you did to uh keep this in the family 158 years. Now it's up to me, with my own kids, obviously, and with my grandchildren, to relay the love of the land, the appreciation of natural resources, and you need to know the people that came before you and what they went through uh to retain this land, for you to be on it today.

Crista Cowan:

That's an incredible legacy that you have both inherited and are preserving and passing on. So thank you for sharing that with us. Um, as you think about what it means to be a Nebraskan, what how would you describe that?

Greg Wagner:

Well, this is what I tell everybody that I'm a Nebraskan through in and throughout. I've traveled all across the United States and Canada and Mexico. I don't want to live any other place. I do not. Nebraska's still very rural. Um, our farm sits from where I live, about a half-hour drive, and I'm on it, basically. Um, and I just think it's the people here in Nebraska. Um, the analogy I give is this that I had uh broken down during a deer hunt uh not far from the farm, and the first person by stops. Are you okay? Can I help you? What's wrong? What's wrong with the vehicle? The second person by stops. The third person by stops and says, Hey Greg, yeah, I I've heard of you. Hey, we're branding cattle over here. Why don't you come and have lunch with us? I know how to fix this this truck. You don't need to take it to a shop. Come over. And you, you two people that stop to help you come too. That's Nebraska. I love it, absolutely. Um, I love the people, um, and and everything about it. I would choose not to live any other place. Sometimes when people come here or they're transferred here, uh, whether it's with a business or a company, they'll say, You're winters. Oh, your winters. But you know, I enjoy the changing of the seasons, it's never boring. I love it, um, and I embrace it. Um, my family is all here, and I would choose not to live any other place than Nebraska. And I work for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, the state fish, wildlife, and outdoor recreation agency. So uh I'm really entrenched here.

Crista Cowan:

Well, Greg, thank you so much for sharing Nebraska with us, for sharing your family history with us. I so appreciate that. Thank you very much.

Greg Wagner:

I appreciate you. I appreciate Ancestry. It helped me to connect the dots.

Crista Cowan:

Studio sponsored by Ancestry.

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Crista Cowan | The Barefoot Genealogist

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