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I'm Cheryl Kotecki and am in the process of transcribing several hundred letters from the 1840-18900 timeframe that were written to and saved by my great-grandfather, Calvin Wilder, son of Dorcas Maynard Wilder and Calvin Wilder. A few letters are from Wilder family (the older Calvin's sisters Rebecca and Philenia) but the bulk are from uncles and cousins on Dorcas Maynard's side. These family members left Hayden Indiana after the Civil War to start new homes in Kansas, Missouri and Iowa. The letters were written as often as monthly and chronicle these early homesteaders' lives on the prairies.