The Sioux City Journal Tues., November 8, 1927
PONCA PIONEER WOMAN IS CARRIED TO THE GRAVE.
Ponca, Neb., Nov. 7.—Special: One more of Dixon county’s few remaining pioneers, Mrs. Helena E. Stough, 84, who lived here for more than 68 years, is dead. Services were held from the Ponca, Salem, Lutheran church, with Rev. C. P. Karriker, pastor, officiating. She was a charter member of the church, which was organized in the 60s.
Mrs. Stough came to America from Germany in 1858, at the age of 15, with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Ernst. They made the voyage in a sailing vessel and landed at New Orleans, where they took a steamboat up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to Sioux City. They were met by Mr. and Mrs. Adam Smith, the latter being a sister of Mrs. Stough, and they were the first settlers in the county. They traveled to Ponca in a covered wagon.
The pioneer witnessed practically all of the making of the history of Dixon county. The year she came here the county was organized. Her husband, S. B. Stough, was the county’s first surveyor and doctor and he platted the townsite of Ponca. He built and operated the first sawmill in the county.
Mrs. Stough shared the settlers’ anxiety over the Indian scare of 1862, when the Sioux went on the warpath. She felt the pinch of the drouth of 1864, saw the grasshoppers come, knew the horrors of early day blizzards, and watched Ponca develop from a handful of log houses into a modern little city.
Surviving Mrs. Stough are four children: Mrs. S. K. Bittenbender, Seattle, Wash.; Mrs. Cassie Williams and Mrs. O. I. Newton, of Ponca; and Charles of Spokane, Wash.; and nine grandchildren.
* * * * * * * * * Find-a-grave Note: Helena Ernst Stough (Mrs. Solomon) was born Maria Magdalena Ernst, daughter of Johann Jost Ernst and Anna Maria Garthe, in Ellerhausen, Hesee, Germany, in 1843. With her parents and sister, she immigrated to Ponca Nebraska in 1858, entering the country at New Orleans and traveling up the rivers to Nebraska.
