, 1922-10-22

NI~AH1A " AoVos LIS D1kGnl5 were OL
French and Scotch ancestry. In the
Civil War, which began when young
Mondell was a few months old, his
father was a Captain of Missouri
Union Cavalry. At the age of five
he lost his mother. during n scourge
of cholera produced by war condi-
lions, and a little more than n year
later his father died from the effects
OF his army service, leavinr six or
phan children. of whom Frank was
the youngest 1t being impossible to
keep the family together. Frank was
taken by a relative to Northern Iowa,
where, a year later, upon the death
OF The relative who had befriended
him. he was taken into and became a
member OF the family OF a C~ongrega-
tional minister.
Life On An Iowa Homestead.
A little later the minister and his
family moved to a homestead in the
extreme northwest corner of Iowa, a
hundred miles from a railroad, taking
Frank with them. This pioneer Iowa
homestead was the home of young
Mondell for nearly ten years. The
country was new and sparsely set
lied. The pioneer preacher served
several churches of u considerable
distance from the homestead. The
boy had the usual experience of farm
boys under pioneer conditions. First
he did. the chores and, as he grew
older and stronger, gradually took
yer The farm work and the manage
ment of the farm. There were more
than the usual vicissitudes of life in a
frontier settlement, for, in addition to
short crops and poor markets. there
was the grasshopper scourge of the
seventies which for several years
swept the country bare. Only the fish
and wild fowl of the region saved the
settlers from hunger. The skins of
the muskrats which young Mondell.
in common with the other boys of the
neighborhood, trapped in the neighbor-
ing marshes, were traded o powder
and shot with which to kill h feath-
cred game with which the country
abounded. They lived on the land,
for there was little or mo- cash. Few
had store clothes; the boys T7ore the
cut-downs of their elders. In winter
there were three or foGr moaths of
district school. and this young Mon
dell attended wheii he could be
spared from the farm work. There
was in the home, however, a compar
lively small but thoroughly good IL
brary, and with the aid of this and
the instruction which he received at
home the boy secured an excellent
fund of general information and an
appetite for knowledge which served
him well.
On a Cattle Train for Chicago.
firing of the -discouraging condi-
lions on the farm. when near the age
of seventeen, young Mondell took adj
vantage of a neighbours cattle ship
ment from the nearest railroad point
- ---I -Al. L., Ia. xxArlraA Ifn
way to Chicago. He lived in the
windy City, about eighteen months,
during which time he ran a station
airy engine in a stone quarry; was
night car checker in the yards of the
Pennsylvania railroad; ran IA street
car; worked in the South Chicago roll
Ing mills, and drove a purchase and
delivery wagon. BUT the West CALLED,
and a friend got him a pass to Den
yer, where he took the first job that
was offered-that of driving a mule
team hauling brick. In six months he
was foreman of the outfit. And then
the mountains called, and he rode in
a box car to a railroad construction
camp near Kokomo, where he engaged
as corral boss and timekeeper.-
To the COHEN Wet.
Thus at the age OF -welty Mondell
took up the outdoor life of railroad
and general construction work, which
occupied his time the next twelve
years. Beginning as corral boss, team
ster, ~freighter, timekeeper and rock
man, he became in time foreman, SUI
perintendent and manager. His work
carried him throughout the western
mountain states and as far east as
Illinois and Wisconsin. Most of the
winter and summer was spent in tenn
porary camps, in cabins, or in tents,
and always the work was in h open
and of the most sort. Dur
ing all this period, however, time was
found in the evening for h eading
and study of such books as were OBJ
tainable, particularly those on engi-
neering, geology and law.
He Starts for Wyoming.
In the fall of 1887 Mr.. Monden took
charge of n party organized at Ster-
ling, Colorado. for the exploration of
Northeastern Wyoming, in the hope of
finding a workable vein OF coal fit
for engine use, the northern lignites
not being at that time considered
disable for such purpose. The trip
across the Black Hills from Buffalo
Gap through the snow of an early
winter ended q few miles northwest
of where Newcastle 10Y stands, where
camp was made. The winter was hard,
but establishment of n permanent
camp and prospecting and drifting
went steadily on. Not. however, until
the following fall, after the country
from Powder River to the Cheyenne
had been explored and prospected,
was the burned and buried outcrop of
the coal vein discovered which became
the Cambria mines. The c., B. & Q.
was at Alliance, Neb.. $50 miles dis
tan and Cambria became the lode
stone which drew the RAILROAD IN A
townsite was needed on the main line
near the mines. The present site of
Newcastle was the only logical place,
but it was held as oil land. and Mon
aou uvhflo dovaIonfng the mines.