chores to do first. Mary Nettie's task was to pick grass still wet with dew and pack it around prints of butter wrapped in wet linen cloth, all of which were packed in a deep crockery jar to keep the butter cool and firm. The butter and some eggs were to be sold in Madison, no doubt for circus ticket money. When they got to Madison the grandmother found that all the stores were overstocked with farm produce. However one of the storekeepers told her to try the hotel as he had heard that they were expecting an overflow crowd and were setting up tables in the yard under the trees. She not only sold her butter and eggs but got herself a job for the day helping at the hotel, and when the circus was over she bought the children a hot supper there before they started on the long, slow drive home.

In 1885, Douglas Preece having sold his land after the death of Mary rented land from Pat O'Neill north of Battle Creek where the family lived for some time. About a year or two after this Tim Preece, Fred Terry and Fred Volk went to the Black Hills and worked for a railroad that was building a line into Deadwood, South Dakota. This was the beginning of a friendship between these three that lasted throughout their long lives.

In 1889 Tim Preece rented his grandmother's farm west of Norfolk and began farming for himself. The next year he shipped his first cattle to the Omaha stockyards and received $1.25 to $1.75 per hundred. More than a half century later the Agricultural Committee of the Omaha Chamber of Commerce honored him at a meeting in Omaha as one of the pioneer stockmen of the state who had shipped to the Omaha markets continuously for fifty years or more.

In January 1891, Tim married Elene Wade. Elene had moved to Madison County in 1883 with her parents, Owen and Eliza Connolly Wade, both of whom had come to America from Ireland as children with their parents in 1846. The Wades were married in Providence, Rhode Island in 1854 and moved to Chilton, Wisconsin where Elene was born in 1868.

The same year that Tim Preece was married, his brother Ben married Tilly Krauntz of Norfolk. The next year, 1892, Douglas Preece with Eli and Nettie moved to Oklahoma then Indian Territory. Mary Nettie rode in the famous Cherokee Strip horse race and won a quarter section of government land. She married Duncan Doles and has two children, Leila who lives in British Columbia, and L. E. Doles in Hugo, Colorado. Eli married Edna Harvey and had one daughter, Marion, who lives in California. Ben had two daughters, Hazel who died in 1961, and Gwendolyn who lives in California. Douglas Preece died in 1918. Mary Nettie is the only surviving member of this family. She lives with her son in Hugo, Colorado.

Tim and Elene Preece lived one year on the Michael Connolly farm south of Battle Creek and the fall of 1893 they moved to Battle Creek where he bought a dray that he owned for ten years. It was by chance that Tim got into the auction business. Nate Graves of Humphrey, brother-in-law of Joe Dittrich of Battle Creek, bought a bankrupt stock of merchandise and scheduled an

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