I am a descendent of the Adkins-Mattas-Mize families and have spent the last fifty years researching their fascinating histories.

As a young child I listened to tales of claim jumpers in Montana and grasshoppers eating fence posts during the 1930's depression. I thought they were just tales until I got old enough to research them. They turned out to be true!

My purpose with this website is share the stories, not only about my relatives, but their friends and the communities they lived in.

This website has been featured in the South Dakota Magazine in their Jan/Feb, 2023 issue.

It was also a feature on South Dakota Public Radio. To hear that interview, click here.

March 23, 2023, I was also part of  South Dakota Public Television series, "Dakota Life," featuring Parkston, S.D. To see that episode click here.

I hope you enjoy the stories!

Kay Adkins Brown wearing her father's letter sweater from 1930. Photo courtesy of Lura Roti and SDPB.

Kay Adkins Brown, Story Teller

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My sisters, Diane Graber (left)

and Gloria Leonard (center) have been invaluable in the research. We visited many dingy old courthouses, and exhausted our eyes peering over microfiche documents.

A special thank you to our parents, Pete and Margaret Adkins for telling us their stories.

Newspaper articles, handwritten interviews with people now passed, old letters, photos, and pieces of scratch paper with the names of children fill my office cabinet files. Thanks to all who contributed to this collection.

Now, it is time to share what this research has produced: the stories of our families, their friends and communities. This site is somewhat a genealogical site, but most of all, it is a site about those stories. Stories that I hope will make our shared history come alive.