1873 Death Poetic Tribute:2441, p. 13-15.
A tributary of Turkey Creek was Brush Creek,
Southwest of Wilber, a precinct was Brush Creek.
The land was prairie, homes of dugouts or sod,
Gold School, built here, was a frame school, most were sod.

Miss Ella Taylor was the schoolteacher,
On Sundays many a school was used by a preacher.
One and a half miles west in a blacksmith shop,
In October ' 73 here people voting would stop.

A prairie fire started near Beatrice on Otoe Reservation,
Men had plowed fireguard for protection.
Fires were enemies of pioneers of all classes,
Winds whipped flames in the tall native grasses.

Many people saw smoke coming this way,
Mrs. Malinda Morey galloped to school one mile away,
And took ten children towards home north one mile;
Shelter was found in a vacant sod house a while.

As Silas Bullis was going home from voting,
He could hear heart-rending children's crying.
He couldn't see, the smoke had clouded his eyes,
He found Charles Clark and Alec Beeney yet alive.

He found nine dead, from burns and suffocation;
He loaded all bodies, clothing burned, flesh fallen,
Hurried to his place, covered them with a sheet,
He sent son Joseph for Dr. Root in Crete.

Though Miss Taylor and pupils had become alarmed,
Because of plowed fireguard they remained unharmed.
Even though the building was missed by the fire,
Miss Taylor went to Omaha, another they must hire.

The bodies were buried near the school ground,
As there was no cemetery around.
The Bohemian Cemetery was platted, coffins carried,
Mrs. Morey and some children were reburied.

Burned were Mrs. Malinda Morey, 45, children:
Ruth age 11, Stilman age 9, Minnie age 7;
Neighbor children Arnie Berkley, Eva and Johnny Neely,
And their friends Charles and Dick Beeney.

—— Irma Anna Freeouf Qurecky, A Poetic History of Wilber, 1985