Miss Jennie Flood operated a millinery store in Battle Creek. Hatmaking was an art. There were few ready made hats in those days. They were made of straw-braid, velvet, artificial flowers, fruit, ribbons or feathers. Her shop was well known and ladies from the surrounding country and nearby towns came to buy her hats. Her niece and nephew, Clare and Brian Flood, came to live with her after the death of their mother. Brian will be remembered as Battle Creek's rural mail carrier.

The old hat shop has been improved and remodeled and now houses Dr. Hunt's Office.

George Connolly sold his farm south of Battle Creek and moved to Tilden. He was the son of James Connolly who farmed 6 miles south of Norfolk. His wife was Sarah Flood. The family children were: Margaret who married Anthony Stanton, son of Pat Stanton, Sr. of Tilden — somewhat of "an institution" in his own right, as Tilden folks will agree. A daughter Winifred married Dr. Roy Leach of Oakdale. The Connolly sons were: Frank, Bill, Hugh, Roy and George.

Douglas Preece came to Nebraska in 1867. He was born in Kesaqua, Iowa in 1845. His father, Thomas Preece was from Herefordshire, England; his mother, Sarah Montgomery was born in Montgomery County, Virginia of parents who came originally from Pennsylvania. Thomas Preece was killed in the 1850's on the Oregon Trail and his wife later married Eli Littleti.

At the age of sixteen Douglas Preece enlisted in the northern army for the duration of the Civil War. He was captured in North Carolina and released from Andersonville Prison when the war ended. Freed prisoners who were able to walk went by foot to the Tennessee River where they were picked up by government boats and returned to the north. On their way from Georgia to the river they traveled only by night, staying in hiding during the daylight hours. Douglas Preece and the small group of soldiers he was with lived on a stocking of dried beans that had been given to them by a Negro woman.

March, 1867, Douglas Preece married Mary Carrabine in Carlyle, Illinois. She was born in Canada and came to Illinois with her parents, Timothy Carrabine and Hannah Carey Carrabine. Douglas and Mary Preece came to Dakota County, Nebraska in the summer of 1867. The following March Timothy Douglas Preece was born and the next year another son, Eli Preece. In 1869 Douglas Preece and his family moved to Madison County where he homesteaded a quarter section of land northeast of the Broken Bridge between Norfolk and Battle Creek. They lived here until 1873 when Douglas preempted a timber claim near the Yellow Banks and bought a house and forty acres of land from M. J. Rohrke, the original homesteader of what was known for many years as the Schinkus place.

There were now two more children, Ben and Mary Nettie. Two

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