Cash and Eileen Baird and their son. Jack, and daughter, Betty, moved to Merrick County Dec. 1, 1945. The Bairds have since resided on their farm in Midland Township, which they had purchased from Mr. and Mrs. Ted Beck. The farm was better known as the Bert Crouch farm.
Cash was born in Redding, Iowa, September 7, 1898, to Samuel P. and Ella McMasters Baird, being the seventh of a family of ten children. He received his education in a rural school near their home and attended High School in Redding, Iowa. In 1918 he went to Idaho to visit relatives and two years later he moved to Grand Island with a sister and her family. They resided on a farm west of Grand Island near my parents and that is how we became acquainted.
Eileen was born in Grand Island, Nebraska April 23, 1904, to Roscoe W. and Mary Lahann Poore. She was the eldest of their two daughters and attended rural grade school in Hall County and graduated from Grand Island High School in 1922. After graduation she did office work in Grand Island for the next three years. On January 1, 1926, Cash and Eileen were united in marriage in her parents home west of Grand Island. The first four years of our married life was spent on a farm near Grand Island, then we moved to Doniphan, Nebraska, where we resided until we came to Merrick County.
Jack was born in Grand Island July 7, 1928. He graduated from Grand Island High School, University of Nebraska at Lincoln and Washington State University at Pullman, Washington. On June 5, 1949, he was united in marriage to Leola P. Rawlings. They are the parents of three sons and have resided in Raleigh, North Carolina, the past sixteen years, where Jack heads the Soil Science Section of the Extension Agronomy Staff.
Betty was born at Doniphan, Nebraska October 26, 1931. After graduating from High School she attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. On April 20, 1952 she and Howard Zeilinger of David City, Nebraska, were married in the Fairview Church near Central City. After getting out of service, Howard has worked in Soil Conservation work in Hall, Franklin and Kimball counties. They have resided in Kimball, Nebraska, the past seventeen years. They are the parents of one son and one daughter.
After moving to Merrick County Cash continued his farming operations for several years, then rented out the land, but continued to reside in the farm home, then gradually worked into the Insurance business until 1975 when he suffered a severe heart attack and was forced into retirement. On May 21, 1980, he had another attack and died suddenly in Kimball, Nebraska, where we were visiting our daughter and family.
We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in August 1975. We have been members of the Fairview United Methodist Church since living in Merrick County. We are both members of the Eastern Star and Cash was active in several Masonic organizations.
Written by Eileen Baird, October 1980.
Source: Merrick County Historical Society, History of Merrick County, Nebraska (1981), Volume I, Dallas, Texas : Taylor Publishing Company, 1981.