Last updated: November 2, 2021
Person
Alfred A. Emanuel
JoyceAnn Gray
Quick Facts
Significance:
Nebraska Homesteader, father of James Emanuel (poet)
Place of Birth:
Overton, Dawson, Nebraska
Date of Birth:
4 November 1885
Place of Death:
Alliance, Box Butte County, Nebraska
Date of Death:
8 September 1945
Place of Burial:
Alliance, Box Butte, Nebraska
Cemetery Name:
Alliance Cemetery
Alfred A. Emanuel was the child of a homesteader who took advantage of the Kinkaid Act, securing just under 615 acres to ranch and grow hay.
Emanuel was born in Overton, Nebraska on November 4, 1885. His parents Joshua and Mary (Robinson) Emanuel were proving up on their homestead when he was born. They received their patent in 1889.
The Emanuel family later moved to Cherry County to file for a Kinkaid claim, a specific type of homestead. It allowed homesteaders to claim plots of up to 640 acres in the Nebraska Sandhills. The sandy and somewhat infertile soil of western Nebraska made growing crops too challenging to succeed. Homesteaders found that it was best to ranch cattle in the Sandhills, but quickly realized that was hard to do on only 160 acres. So, on April 28, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Kinkaid Act, allowing homesteaders to successfully ranch in the Sandhills of Nebraska.
Following in his parent’s footsteps at the age of 22, Alfred filed for Kinkaid homestead entry #18591 at the Valentine, Nebraska land office on February 2, 1907. He submitted his application for southwest quarter of Section 19 and the north half, the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter, the north half of the southwest quarter, and the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 30 in Township 28 north of Range 29 west of the Sixth Principal Meridian, Nebraska in Cherry County, Nebraska in the black homesteading settlement of Dewitty.
For the next six years, Emanuel made great efforts to prove up his land, such as constructing a sod house, a sod barn, two wells, a windmill, a chicken coop, a cow shed, a corn crib, and 1½ miles of fencing. They also cultivated 300 forest trees, and farmed grazing crops and hay on twenty-five acres.
Emanuel married Cora A. Mance on March 23, 1912, in the middle of his homesteading years. Together, they had seven children: Julia Lovetta Emanuel (1913), Janet Emanuel (1915), Alfred Raymond Emanuel (1916), Gladys Antoinette Emanuel (1919), James Emanuel (1922), Dorothy Christina Emanuel (1924), and Alvin Emanuel (1927).
Every week from January 10 to February 7 of 1913, The Thomas County Clipper, a nearby newspaper, published a notice that Emanuel and his two chosen witnesses would testify for Emanuel’s claim on February 12 of that year. Seven days later than the publication stated, Emanuel’s neighbors, William Sirrel and Leroy Gields, testified as witnesses to his proof at the Great Falls Land Office. His patent, #343406, was issued on June 25, 1913.
However, once the land was proved up, the Emanuel family did not stay for long. From 1916 through 1930 he worked for railroad companies causing his family to move all around Nebraska and Colorado. They eventually settled in Alliance, Nebraska. His wife Cora filed for divorce in 1935 and she was given custody of their children.
Alfred later remarried to a young widow, Leona Glass, in May 1944. He died a year later in St. Joseph’s hospital on September 8, 1945 at the age of 59.
Legacy
Aldred's son James Emanuel would go on to serve as assistant secretary to Brigadier General Benjamin Davis Sr. commander of the Tuskegee Airmen and earn a PhD from Columbia University in English and Comparative Literature. James Emanuel is regarded by some as one of the best and most neglected poets of the 20th century. Much of his work focuses on racism in the United States.
Learn more about Black Homesteading in America.
Sources:
- Patent Details - BLM GLO Records 613.14 acres - Alfred's Kinkaid patent
- Patent Details - BLM GLO Records 160 acres - father's original homestead patent
- Patent Details - BLM GLO Records 640 acres - father's Kinkaid patent
- Land Entry Case File (see below)
- 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930 U.S. Federal Census
- World War I & II Draft Registration Cards
- "Divorce Is Filed" 3 Dec 1935, 7 - The Alliance Times-Herald
- "Divorce is Granted" 3 Jan 1936, 2 - The Alliance Times-Herald
- "Negro Youth, Sister In War Program Jobs" 19 Jun 1942 - The Alliance Times-Herald
- "Leona Glass Weds Alfred Emanuel" 9 May 1944, 5 - The Alliance Times-Herald
- "Services are Held for Alfred A. Emanuel, 60." 11 Sept 1945, 2 - The Alliance Times-Herald
- Box Butte County, NE Funeral Home Records
- Alfred A. Emanuel (1885-1945) - Find A Grave Memorial
- "Alliance High Grad Heralded for Literary Achievements" 30 Nov 1967, 3 - The Alliance Times-Herald
- "James A. Emanuel, educator and poet who wrote often of racism" 14 Oct 2013, B9 - The Boston Globe