"As I Remember Seneca"
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Gerald Devine, a native to Seneca, was the person I chose to interview as a source of my information. Gerald P. Devine was born and raised in a two-room sod house. He still owns the house and it is still livable. His brother, Jim, stays there when he comes to visit from Colorado.
His grandmother on his mothers side came to Seneca from West Virginia with her father, two sisters, and a brother in a boxcar with their cow, a team of horses, some pigs and chickens. Her name was Amanda Poston; her father was David Poston, a Lt. Colonel in the Confederate Army. Since Seneca was the end of the track on the railroad, they came here to look for work.
His mother, Elise, was a Smith that lived in a dugout east of town by the river bridge. There were so many Smith’s in the country they were called “The Hillside Smith Girls.” Joseph T. Devine, Gerald's father, worked for the CB & Q railroad on the bridge construction and married Elise Smith. The first three years of marriage they lived in a tent up and down the railroad line.
Gerald remembers the 1949 blizzard. He said you could walk up the snow banks and be on top of buildings. For fun Gerald enjoyed fishing, hunting, and swimming in the river as a child. They didn't have television like we do today until 1954; so they pretty much had to use their imaginations for something to do. Gerald recalls going to grade school and high school in Seneca. He graduated in 1952 from Seneca, in a class of four.
Gerald has remarried and is now living in Mullen with his family. He still owns the sod house and the post office in Seneca.