"I Laura": A Stoneham Resident’s Inspiring Story of Growing Up in Rural Kansas

The recent snowstorms are nothing compared to the difficult winters Laura Schmid Hogan of Stoneham recalls from her youth in Kansas.

After graduating the eighth grade, Hogan struck a deal with her father: To avoid repeating the grade, she would get a job and give him half her pay.

As luck would have it, Hogan was hired on at a local farm. Shortly after she started, the family she was working for traveled and left the entire operation in the young girl’s care. She heard on the radio that snow was coming, and made preparations.

By the time she woke up the next morning, a freak snowstorm had left snowdrifts that covered the windows.

“I tunneled my way out a window, and it took me six hours to shovel my way out," Hogan said. "I then shoveled my way to the barn, and had to chip ice out of the tanks so I could get water for the animals. I don’t know how long it took."

It was so cold that despite her care, the farm’s cow died. While today this kind of situation seems unthinkable for a child that age, it’s just one example of the determination that foreshadowed the strong woman Hogan would become.

In “I Laura, The Story of a Kansas Family,” Hogan, 87, ofStoneham recounts the story of her life growing up as part of a family of 15 children plus her parents.  Laura’s mother lost six other children as stillbirths or miscarriages.

Photographs of her parents’ homestead in Kansas hang in her Marble Street home.

“This was the bunkhouse where we girls slept,” she said, pointing to a single building in one photo. “It was unheated."

Hogan walked miles to school each day. On cold days, her father would haul the family in a covered wagon, warmed by bricks her mother heated in the oven.

Martin Schmid, Hogan’s father, immigrated to the United States from Solbock, Germany and eventually made his way to Kansas where he met and married her mother, Eva Marie Haller. 

Martin Schmid operated a butchery through the Great Depression when the dust storms ravaged the region. Eventually he lost the butchery after a health incident related to being mauled by a steer.

Hogan’s father didn’t believe in education beyond grade school. “He believed you could be a good person without all those things,” Hogan recalled.

Yet she had a strong desire to further her education, and attended high school at the age of 18. She was the only sibling in her family to graduate, and eventually attended the University of Kansas. It was there that she met her husband, Daniel Hogan Jr., who was originally from Wakefield.

The couple returned to Massachusetts after graduation, where Daniel Hogan began a career in education. The two had five children, and Daniel Hogan had a distinguished professional career that included time as Superintendent of the and achieving the rank of Lieutenant Colonel from the National Guard.

Daniel Hogan passed away in May 2010 after 63 years of marriage.

Laura Hogan, in addition to a busy family life, had a thriving career as a principal in the real estate firm, which would eventually become ERA Andrew Schmid, where she still works today as an agent. Hogan is also deeply involved in the Stoneham Catholic community, as a congregant and volunteer.

“I Laura” began as a way to convey the history of her family and life to her own children, grandchildren, and many nephews and nieces. After a chance meeting with editor Stephen Webb, the project eventually evolved into a book they published.

Hogan’s recommendations for aspiring authors, especially those of autobiographies, is to get started taking notes. She’s currently on tour discussing the book to local groups and signing at a number of stores. She’s also begun to think about a second volume, which would pick up at her marriage, where “I Laura” leaves off.

“If people take one thing away from my book, it’s the importance of honesty, integrity, and kindness,” Hogan said.