Lizzie Jane was born in Floyd County, Virginia, in September, 1876. The Quessenberrys were of German descent. The Hagans were Irish. Four children were born to this union: Fred, February 1904; Effie, September, 1906; Arthur, April 1911; Mildred, January, 1915. From Mansfield, Missouri, the couple moved to Waverly, Kansas where the two older children were born. Clide, who was a railroad employee,  moved to Freeport, Kansas, where Arthur was born. They returned to Mansfield, Missouri, where Mildred was born.

In 1917, the Hagan's moved to the Joes-Kirk community. They came by train to Stratton, Colorado,and from there with the mail carrier to Kirk, Colorado. It was Miraculous how four kids , three adults, baggage and the mail got into that Maxwell touring car! Even more amazing was the fact that the side curtains had no broken isinglass. Fred had the chicken pox when the family got to Stratton. Clide's brother, Mack, who had lived near Kirk for several years, met the family and took them to Grandma Gleaves' home in a wagon pulled by a team of horses. Grandma lived seven miles west of Kirk. She and her husband Ike, homesteaded in 1906. They had moved to Colorado in a covered wagon.

Adam Elsey, who lived one mile west of Grandma, asked Clide if he would rent his farm. Clide did. this was completely different type of farming. In Missouri, you surface planted corn with a hand planter and cultivated with a walking cultivator. The shovels were spring equipped, and when they hit a rock they would flip back, after passing the rock they would flip back in place.

In Colorado, we used a riding disc, pulled by four horses to prepare the ground, then a riding one row lister, pulled by four horses to plant the corn four or five inches below the surface of the ground. Later, the four horses pulled a two row "go dig" to cultivate the corn. Eventually, we had a two row lister which was pulled by six horses. This was all riding equipment, what a change from Missouri! Harvesting the wheat took a crew of six men. One man was on the header pulled by six horses, there were two header barges with two men in each barge and one man to stack. Usually, the stacks were in pairs so that a threshing machine could pull in between the stacks and thresh both at the same time. We threshed four to six week after stacking, as the wheat needed time to go through a sweat.

A farmer had eight or ten cows and a bunch of chickens. He would milk the cows, separate the cream from the milk, and once a week haul the cream and eggs to town and do the shopping. Every town had at least one cream station. We used a wagon and four horses to haul the grain to town, fifty to seventy-five bushels per load. The road between the farm and Vona, Colorado, was quite a challenge. The wagon had no brakes and north of Vona were many steep hills. You held the horses at a slow walk at the top of each hill, by by the time you reached the bottom of the hill the weight of the load of corn would have pushed the horses into a long trot or gallop. Such was the life on a farm, you didn't know any different and you had a good time! Literary, parties, singing groups, and visiting, but you didn't go very far from home.

Clide and Lizzie Jane Hagan are buried in the Kirk, Colorado Cemetery. Their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are reaching out into all walks of life." Source: West Yuma County Historical Book, 1985, page 221.

Contributed by Dallas Riedesel