Averting
A Possible Family Disaster
Morrowville,
Kansas
Fall
1929
Our final family residence while living in
Morrowville was in the west-central side of town, across the street from the
Vern Darby family. The Darbys were good friends. Mrs. Darby was our piano
teacher; Vern was postmaster in town so he had a good government job; Bob and
Clara were their children, a few years older than Charlotte and I. We were in
the third and second grades in school that fall.
Dad had kept chickens to keep us
supplied with eggs and chicken dinners "every Sunday". We kids went
after the thighs and legs, but Dad's favorite piece was the neck. You would be
surprised how he could go after that piece of chicken! And how much noise he
could make sucking each neck bone clean of eatable material! Wow! That eating
style was his fashion and he enjoyed it.
In the summer of '29, Dad bought a couple of
baby pigs. His plan was to add pork to the family menu and that part worked out
as planned. He built a fence along one side of the barn that stood back near
the alley and the outhouse (a 2-holer). The pen was small, just large enough to
contain two little porkers. They were cute AND they were always hungry. They
were fed corn on the cob and scraps from our dining table, but it was never
enough to satisfy their raging hunger. The fence was close-meshed at the bottom
and staked into the ground so the little rascals couldn't root their way under
the fence and get away from us. Higher up on the fence, the wires were further
apart so they could get their snouts through the mesh.
One Saturday morning the old red roster flew
the coop and threatened to leave the state. Dad called us three kids to help
catch him. Charlotte, James and I responded to his call. The four of us were
closing in on that early morning riser as he raced back and forth along the pig
pen fence.
Arms wide spread, we were about to catch him
when he made a desperation move: He stuck his head and neck through the pig pen
fence to get away from us. That was his undoing.
The two hungry pigs had been watching all the
action from inside their fence. When that rooster's head suddenly presented
itself to the hungry pigs, one of them made a lightning move and bit that
rooster's head right off! CHOMP!!
Well, we couldn't believe our eyes. There was
a headless rooster flopping around on the ground, and inside the pen the pig
ran to a corner of the fence and was enjoying his tasty snack! What an
unbelievable sight!
Well--what to do. First, get that chicken
ready for Sunday dinner tomorrow. The only problem was Dad would have no
chicken neck to chew on for that meal.
Another more important consequence of that
event was that Dad decided to butcher those two piggies immediately. They were
half-grown and would make wonderful pork chops.
The reason for Dad's quick decision and why
he must act right away: What if one of us children had stuck an arm through the
pig fence for some reason? Yeah, what then???
My
First Experience at Parachuting
I was seven years old in Morrowville KS in
1929. We had a small barn in our back yard that served as a garage and storage
shed. The hayloft had a large door from which you could look out over an alley.
You could also put hay up there but we had no use for hay then.
I got the idea it would be great fun to jump
out of that window and land on a pile of grass. A second look gave me the idea
I might land too hard and hurt myself. I piled the grass higher and took
another look. I thought: Maybe I should get something to slow my speed
downward. It was about 12 feet.
"Ah-ha" says I. I'll use an
umbrella and I know exactly where one is!
Umbrella in hand, crouched, poised,
contemplating..... waiting.... waiting.... Finally, out I went. BOOM! The
umbrella was a failure; the hay did not help. I landed in a crumpled heap.
Conclusion: Parachuting with an umbrella was not
a good idea.
My
Xylophone and Early Band Experiences
Beattie
KS 1932-1935
This story actually begins in Morrowville KS
when I was five or six years old. Daddy had worked for a couple of summers in
the early '20s with a Chautauqua Ten Show. It would give us some introduction
to theater, stand-up comedy, and music solos and ensembles. So when the
Chautauqua came to Washington KS, county seat of Washington County, he loaded
us all up in our old Whippet and we drove over to see the show on a summer
evening. I remember the comics and parts of the drama, but I was moved most by
a young man playing on the marimba. He used four sticks and I was blown away by
the glorious sound! Never had I heard anything musical that moved me so. On the
way back to Morrowville after the show, I announced to Mama and Daddy that that
was the instrument I wanted to play. I can still remember the setting: Mama and
Dad were in the front seat with baby Benny Bob, Charlotte and little boy (2)
James were in the back with me.
Charlotte and I had been taking piano for a
year or so with Miss Graham and Mrs. Darby, so we both were beginners in music.
Now, on to Beattie (say "BAY-tee").
There was not school or community band in
Beattie, so the American Legion, of which Daddy was a leading member, offered
to pay the salaries of two music teachers to get a band started. Mr. Nelson
Inglesbee taught brass and percussion; Mr. Glen Wood taught woodwinds. There
were no oboes or bassoons. Dad had bought me a xylophone from one of the music
stores in Marysville for $16, and he had ordered a metal clarinet from Sears
and Roebuck for Charlotte. It likely cost $23 or so.) We took private or group
lessons every Saturday morning and then had a full band rehearsal just before
noon. It must have been pretty awful, but we were having fun. We played only
marches, as I recall, and most of them were in the old Bennet Band Book I.
"Activity" was the first march in the book and we played it lots; but
"Military Escort" was on page 5 and it was our favorite. I played the
oboe part on my xylophone for concerts, but when we marched I played the cymbals.
We provided our own uniforms: white shirts
and white pants for the boys, white blouses and white skirts for the girls. Our
folks prepared a red strip of cloth for each of us for sashes around the waist.
When we did play, it was mostly for an occasional concert in the bandstand in
our park. The old Opera House basement was our rehearsal area. We did play out
of town from time to time for what the city fathers called "Booster
Trips". We'd go to neighboring towns to show them how much better we were
than they. The band was small. I'd estimate 20 at the most. We had an imported
drum major, a teenager who came over with our directors from Marysville. We did
indeed think we were something else!
Beyond the band work, Daddy and I worked up a
dandy lecture-and-entertainment program that we presented to rural school PTA
meetings in the surrounding area. Dad would accompany my xylophone solo on the
piano, and then he'd give a talk about almost anything, mostly topics of
interest to farm folk. He told farmer jokes and we were a big hit, usually
getting invitations back the following year.
My favorite piece was "Valse Bleu"
which had been one of my Mama's piano pieces when she took lessons in Salina
KS. It was an easy piece but I added little flourishes to make it more
interesting. I can still play it; daughter Susan is now my accompanist. Another
favorite was the Trio of "Stars and Stripes Forever". I played it
fast with glissandos inserted in appropriate places. It was a big hit!
My most prestigious performance was for the 8th
Grade County Graduation ceremony in Marysville, county seat of Marshall County.
I was a 7th grader then, 12 years old, playing for all the 8th
graders in the county. The auditorium was full. What a good feeling to hear all
that applause!
A Terrible Tragedy for a 5th-Grade Boy
April 1932, Beattie KS
Paul Mason was a
classmate and we were good friends. His dog had a litter of pups and when they
were about 6 months old, he gave me one that was totally black. Such a happy,
friendly little playmate. I was thrilled with the gift. I named him
"Blackie".
The pup slept in a
box with an old blanket for a while, then I decided to build him a small dog
house. I would use an old orange crate, cover the openings in the side with
thin boards, leave the front end open so he could get in and out, and nail a
roof on it.
I was working on it
down in the basement of our big house, making good progress. It was in the
early evening hours. I was hammering on the roof . . . and the puppy was inside
the box. I wanted him nearby, of course.
Then the accident
happened. I was hammering hard to make the roof secure when my hammer went
through the roof and SLAMMED the pup in the head! Oh, MY! What have I done?
The pup was crying.
He was in terrible pain. I was carrying him around the basement, petting him,
trying to sooth him. His head became frighteningly swollen within 30 minutes or
so. Dad was there trying to help.
Blackie finally
calmed down and I was able to leave him in his box. Daddy said, "We'll
check him first thing in the morning to see how he's doing." Okay.
You could hear the
whimpering from time to time throughout the night. My heart was being torn
apart.
Early the next
morning I went to the basement to check. It was a never-to-be-forgotten sight:
His head was even more swollen and he could not quit whimpering. No position
was comfortable my little dog.
Daddy said,
"We cannot leave him like this. He is in such pain. Bring the doggie and
come with me."
We went outside and
through the garage where Daddy picked up an old ax handle and a spade. Out
behind the garage, next to the alley, Dad was on his knees, convincing me
quietly that we must "put the puppy to sleep so it would not be in any
pain." He explained the puppy would feel no pain; it would not know what
hit it. I accepted the verdict and watched, hiding tears.
One swift blow to
the back of the head ended it all. We buried the little doggie there in the
edge of the garden. Blackie was gone - - my carelessness had done it to him.
Some years latter,
Daddy told us why he did not like having pet animals around. He would get so
attached to his pets, always dogs, and they would die and leave him
heart-broken. He left that message with me. Our family dogs and cats were
always the property, the responsibility, of one of my brothers or sisters.
After Blackie, I never owned another dog.
My Hero: Grampa Charles Elmer Galley
1927 -
1935+
He was my Mother's father and he lived with
my Grandma on a 160-acre farm east of Osborne. He was a big man with a burly
mustache and a deep growly voice. He had a great chuckle -- I can hear it yet
-- something like a John Deere tractor trying to get started. He was a big
tease with all his grandchildren. We went to visit the farm every summer and at
a few Christmas times. I recall asking my Dad once when I was quite small if he
knew any giants. "Well," he answered, "your Grampa Galley is a
giant." Of course.
I don't remember this story but my mother
told me about it years later. As I said, Grampa was a big tease, words complete
with little pokes and nudges. I must have been very young, but he was teasing
me to the boiling point when I turned on him and said "GRAMPA! DAMN
YOU!!" Grampa nearly rolled on the floor he laughed so hard. My parents
were both chagrined, I'm sure, because they had taught us kids NEVER to use
swear words. We couldn't even say "darn" or "Gosh". Can you
believe that?! Even "doggone" was forbidden because it was merely a
substitute for "G__ d___". Grampa thought it was completely hilarious
that their little boy had any words like that in his vocabulary.
Grampa was addicted to chewing tobacco. It
was always Beechnut and it came in a little packet that he kept in his left hip
pocket. His body smelled like that tobacco and I loved the aroma. Well, one day
when I was following Grampa around the bard yard, he took out a big chaw of
those leaves and threw the empty bag off into a ditch. I snuck off over there
and retrieved that bag, smelled that wonderful aroma in it and decided I'd try
a leaf that was still in the bottom of the bag. I put that leaf on my tongue
for a taste, and I couldn't get it out of my mouth fast enough. It was burning
a hole right through my tongue, and the burning didn't go away for several
minutes. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "Boy, my Grampa is something else! He
can take a whole wad of that stuff and keep it in his mouth forever!"
That's my hero, thought I.
Hero worship
I had been named after my two grandfathers:
David Richard McGuire and Charles Elmer Galley. It turned out to be: David
Charles. My paternal grandfather died back around 1908, so of course I never
got to know him. My Dad talked about him occasionally but not a lot. His death
was a terrible time in their family life. They lived on 160 acres and his
Mother had had 14 children, 3 of whom died at birth or early childhood. I'm not
sure what caused the death of David R. but it was appendicitis that took Dad's
favorite brother at his age 23. Kosciosko, who was called our Uncle Kossy, was
musical like Dad was and they were in the family household at the same time. He
was a few years older.
My Grandfather McGuire had been a leader in
his country church and was a member of the school board. He was a
community-minded person and my Dad got most of his traits from him. Anyway, that
grandfather was out of the picture as far as being a hero for me.
Grampa Galley was a flesh-and-blood hero, so
when I got back to school that fall in the third grade, I changed my name to
give greater honor to my idol: I became "David Charles Elmer McGuire"!!
and that's how I signed all the papers I turned in to Miss Lohmeyer, my
teacher. I heard no objections from my folks for the name change. As a matter
of fact, Mama thought it was a neat idea.
Grampa's Shotgun
My introduction to the weapon came one summer
evening, just after dark, when we were visiting the farm. We were all in the
old farmhouse when Grampa came in from the barnyard and announced,
"Willis! (that was my Dad) Come on out here with me. I think there's a
skunk getting into my chickens!" He did not yell -- I never heard him yell
ever -- but he was moving a little faster than usual and I can see him now
reaching up over the kitchen door to get the gun. He and Dad hurried out the
kitchen door and I was going to follow to get in on the action. I was 9 or 10
then. Grampa turned and said, "You kids must stay in the house. We don't
want anyone to get hurt!"
We couldn't follow them but we sure could
keep our noses pressed into the screen of the kitchen door, waiting to hear the
shot and watching out toward the chicken house.
In about 10 minutes they were back in the
house reporting all was well. They did not see a skunk or anything but
chickens. But they did get the door closed on the hen house so no predator would
invade.
February 1987 (Scene change here): Katherine
and I were on a post-retirement trip through KS and CO, and Osborne was one of
the overnight stops. We visited the farm so Katherine could see it. My cousin
Clyde Noffsinger had been operating the farm ever since Grampa died in about
1949. He took me on a tour of the old place and I recalled climbing in the
hayloft, climbing up the silo, and seeing the chicken house. Then the shotgun
"Moment of high excitement" came to memory. After telling Clyde the
story, I asked innocently enough, "What ever happened to that old
gun?"
He answered, "It's in the upstairs
bedroom of the old house. Do you want it?"
(DO I WANT IT! I said to myself, barely able
to contain my enthusiasm.) I calmly inquired, "Does anyone else want
it?" I held my breath until he answered "No... It's yours." IT'S
MINE!!
It was right where he said it was and I was
glowing when it got into my hands. It hadn't been fired in years and the
barrels were filled with wasp nests. It was a 12-gauge double barrel with a
"Genuine Damascus" set of barrels! Damascus steel was originally
invented in the Holy Land centuries ago and was of super quality. That
particular steel barrel was the best you could get for a shotgun in 1850.
On a trip later that year (1987), Katherine
and I were in Toledo OH and in the City Library where we found information on
the old gun. It had been made by the Colt Firearms Company in 1894, which was
about the time Grampa and Grandma got married and moved from Ohio to Kansas for
their lives on the farm. It was obvious that some of the parts, if not all, had
been hand made. It came apart in three pieces and I had great sport cleaning
it, preparing to show it off. A local authority warned me that it should not be
fired ever again because the nature of the Damascus steel could not stand the
pressure of today's shotgun shell loads.
The old gun now leans against our living room
wall with a photo of Grampa and his family right above.
Being A Stand-Up Rider on A Circus Horse
Beattie,
KS Summer 1934
We kids were all excited about the
announcement that a circus was coming to our little town. Beattie must have had
a total population of around 350, a small village, and the entertainment
usually went around us and on to larger towns or cities. This was not a large
circus, had only one rather large tent, and they had quite a collection of
animals for us to watch while the trainers put them through their antics.
It must not have cost much or we kids would
not have been there; either that or perhaps they let kids in free. Can’t
remember.
The last act in the show was to have
volunteer kids come out of the stands and ride standing up on a horse’s back
while the horse trotted around in a circle. I was one of the volunteers.
Normally I wouldn’t volunteer for much of anything, but this time I did raise
my hand enthusiastically. When the trainer said, "I’ll take you – and ---
you - and you..." signaling to raised hands, he pointed to me and three or
four other boys to come on down. We hopped down out of the bleachers and stood
in line for our turn.
Here's how the rigging was assembled: A long
wooden pole, perhaps 10 feet long, was securely suspended from the roof of the
tent by a chain on a swivel bolted through the middle of the pole. A long rope
was hanging down from each end of the pole. The end of one rope was snapped
onto a harness that went around our chest and shoulders, looped through another
swivel and hooked to the back of the harness. The second rope swung down and
was in the hands of the trainer. It worked as a safeguard against our falling
off the horse.
The trainer pulled down on his rope and
lifted us off the ground into a stand-up position atop the horse. Then we were
ready to go. "Hang on!" said the trainer.
To stand on the platform (pad), we were handed
a set of reins to hold that were fastened to the bridle (head harness) of the
horse. When all was ready, the horse trotted around in a large circle and we
would try to keep balanced and hold our footing. As the horse was moving we
tried to stay upright, standing on the small pad. Truth is, we probably could
have performed very well at it if the trainer hadn't kept putting on his end of
the rope to make us bounce up and down, trying to regain our footing.
It was a real crowd-pleaser! People were
yelling and screaming when they thought we were about to fall, and it got real
humorous for them watching us try to stay on the horse when often we were
suspended in mid-air, kicking. The trainer was really playing a trick on us,
and that added to the humor of the event.
I guess I'd made a couple of circles,
bouncing up and down all the way, when I decided I would play a trick on the
trainer. That was to wrap my legs around the horse's neck on one of those
downward swings, and hold tight so the trainer could not pull me up into the
air again.
I got a special applause from the crowd by
turning the tables on the trainer. He then brought me into a safe landing after
the wild ride.
Summer
1933
I was about 11 years old that summer when we
went for our annual vacation to Grandpa Galley's farm. It was hay-mowing time
and Daddy had volunteered to ride the 2-horse-drawn hay cutter. It had a sickle
bar about 8 feet long and he drove round and round the field cutting the
alfalfa. The field was not terribly large, probably about 15 acres, and it lay
in a low place just down below the barnyard. Cottonwood trees grew around it,
here and there.
Charlotte was not with us, as I remember, but
James and Benny Bob were with me. We went to watch. Dad had made a couple of
rounds. We were staying clear of that sickle bar, for sure. All of a sudden a
baby cottontail jumped out of the grass and ran across the mowed area. We three
boys gave chase and caught it. Hey! (I mean "hay"!) This was going to
be great sport!
It must have been Grandpa who brought us a
rather large cardboard box to put the little bunnies in and we went after that
task. We caught several. They were so cute running and jumping over, into,
around and under each other. We'd catch one and pet it for a while then put it
in the box.
This fun activity went on for at least an
hour and we had a whole bunch of bunnies in the box. I have no idea how many,
but lots of 'em. Great sport!
Then I heard a little rabbit let out a cry
for its mama. The sound was much like a baby goat -- sort of bleating and
pitiful. The sound was coming from a clump of grass on the other side of a
barbed wire fence that circled the field. I hurried through the fence and the
bunny cried out again. I didn't look to see exactly where the little critter
was; I just made a big GRAB in the grass with both hands. I got it!
But you can't guess what I came up with. It
was a big bull snake! It had the baby rabbit in its mouth!
Do I need to tell you I dropped that snake
like a hot potato and jumped back out of its reach? The little rabbit came out
of the snake's mouth and ran free across the road, and I skeedaddled back over
the fence as fast as I could move.
Everyone had fun telling that story, especially
me.
We knew, of course, that it was difficult to
keep baby rabbits alive in captivity. After a few hours of playing with them we
turned them loose near the alfalfa fields, so they could run free and grow up
to be mama and papa rabbits.
1936
Grandpa and Grandma Galley moved out to that
homesteaded farm in the 1890's and broke the ground for the first time. It had
all be untouched native land before the settlers arrived. My Dad's parents had
settled on a similar farm about 20 miles south of Osborne KS, a mile or two
north of Lucas KS. That was the way people moved westward and occupied the
untamed country and made a living for their families, most of which were quite
large.
There were 14 children born in my Dad's family,
but there were only in five in the Galley family. Uncle Frank was the oldest
and the only boy. He grew up and became a veterinarian in Washington and the
Clay Center KS. The second child was my Aunt Edna, who married Charles Campbell
and lived in Maywood IL, a suburb of Chicago.
Next in line was Eunice Belle, our Mother,
who was born in 1893. Then came Aunt Ruth and finally Aunt Anna. Anna married
Bill Vaughan and they lived in Tennessee with daughters Elizabeth and Anna May.
Both daughters are still living as I write this story (Feb. 2001).
I didn't stay with Grandpa and Grandma that
summer in 1936, but I did see them quite often. I stayed with Aunt Ruth and
Uncle Lyle Noffsinger in the "new" house on the farm. Grandpa had
built that house in the late '20s and had lived in it for a while then turned
it over to the Noffsingers and lived in the old house. The new house was about
200 yards west of the old one that had been built in the 1880's.
The Noffsinger family had as many kids as we
did -- actually one more. Clyde was the oldest. He was about 2 years older than
I was. Then came Marjorie, Dorothy, Wayne, Marietta Belle, Lyle Carolyn, and
Clifford. Clifford was a babe in diapers that summer. We all spent on the large
screened porch playing with each other and the baby. Clyde and I slept together
in one of the 4 bedrooms.
Aunt Ruth was a wonderful cook and a sweet,
sweet lady. Unlimited patience. Unlimited energy. I played some that summer,
but mostly I remember working with Aunt Ruth in the garden. She had a monster
of a garden, and this was in the Dust Bowl Days so we had to carry tubs and
tubs full of water to keep the plants alive. Most of our food came from that
garden and from the chicken coop. The water had to be pumped from the well by
hand and that became WORK!
Uncle Frank was not the worker Aunt Ruth was.
He was a "manager" and kept busy with something out of sight, mostly,
from me. I remember one time when I was trying to get Clyde to go fishing with
me down on the Solomon River, a small stream that ran near Grandpa's farm. We
could walk down there. Uncle Lyle teased me about being a "city dude"
wanting to play all the time. Clyde never did take me fishing because he had to
work in the corn field. He was good with the team of horses -- old Pete and
Jill -- and just couldn't take the time.
Next summer, our Daddy took us fishing on the
Solomon where we went fishing by hand. The water was muddy, as most streams in
Kansas were, and you'd wade into the stream slowly, feeling along the edge of
the water for carp or catfish. I don't remember catching any fish myself, but
Dad did. One time when James was about 5, he went fishing with us. Daddy
positioned him in a shallow part of the stream between two deeper holes. His
task was not to catch the fish but to keep them from swimming upstream into the
other deep hole. Well, James was squatting there doing his job when a big old
carp came roaring upstream right between his legs, turning the kid upside down
in the water. You never ever heard such loud screaming from a boy! You could
have heard him all the way into Osborne. You'd-a thought he was being killed!
The old fish went on his merry way, and eventually James got calmed down.
Back to 1936. I was 13 then and enjoyed
working and playing with Marjorie and Dorothy, primarily. Wayne was a little
young for me then, as were the other children. But the three of us worked hard
for Aunt Ruth in the early evening on her watering chores. We all got very well
acquainted.
Finally it came time for me to leave and go
back home to Barnes. Uncle Lyle wanted me to stay and help Aunt Ruth. He
offered me "a quarter a day" to keep on the job. Boy, that was a lot
of money then and I was sorely tempted but declined the offer. I think I was
getting a little homesick by then anyway. I don't remember how I got back to
Barnes but I did not hitchhike!
Snowy-Day Winter Fun in Beattie and Barnes
1935
to 1938
It started when we lived in Beattie and
carried over into the Barnes period. It was Daddy's idea. When the snow got
good and packed on a wintry Saturday, we'd hook our sleds up in a train behind
our trusty Oldsmobile and he would tow us slowly around our small town streets.
No worry about any traffic in those days. I think he would travel at not more
than 5 to 10 MPH but it felt like we were going sixty.
The lead sled was attached to the car bumper
with a 15-20 foot length of rope. The other sleds in the train were tied in
line by shorter, lighter pieces of rope. We kids would be one or two on each
sled, holding onto the sled and each other for dear life, yelling and screaming
as we bounced along. When we were doubled we would sit, the one behind holding
tight to the one in front; single on a sled, we'd be flat down on bellies.
In very recent years, I'd say around 1985 or
so, our daughter Susan was interviewed for the Denton Record-Chronicle
newspaper. It was a Fathers' Day issue and folks were talking about their
fathers to the writer. Susan spoke very complimentarily about her Dad (me) and
used the phrase "kid-oriented" in her description. That phrase
described Willis McGuire, who always had something in mind to do with us kids
and our neighborhood friends. Swings, chinning bars, kites, fishing, hikes,
yard games, etc. He had the ideas and made them work. I guess I inherited that
trait from him.
Well, the McGuire snow train idea met with
some opposition from neighbor ladies in Barnes, and before too many more trips
around the village a halt was called to that activity. "TOO
DANGEROUS!" the ladies claimed, and for a Preacher to be perpetrating that
kind of activity was just not acceptable.
Ah, well - - so much for good old-fashioned
fun.
My Maiden Flight In an Airplane
August
1934
Our whole family of eight loaded up one late
afternoon and drove to Axtell KS to have some fun at the Carnival. Carnivals
consisted of a few rides (usually a Ferris wheel and merry-go-round), 3 or 4
sideshows (like "See the heaviest man in the world" or "See the
lady with a baby growing out from the middle of her stomach"), and 3 or 4
food stands. We never had much money to spend so we picked and chose carefully
to make our money go for the most fun.
Another activity we pursued at carnivals was
looking for Wrigley gum wrappers that folks had thrown away on the ground. You
could send in a number of wrappers and get prizes from the Wrigley Company in
Chicago.
Seems like we spent an awful lot of time
looking down as we walked around the grounds. Benny Bob was a real hawk at this
activity. He came up with more things to put in his pocket. He was about 7
years old then.
It wasn't at this carnival but at another one
a couple of years later that I had an interesting experience with my friend Vic
Roper. We were just walking around and talking not spending any money at a
Barnes carnival when I spotted a small tin box on the ground. Oh, yeah. There
were lots of interesting things to find if you just kept looking down while you
walked. Well, this little tin box held a number of strange-looking rubber
loops, something I'd never ever seen before. I opened the box and showed it to
Vic, and can you believe it: he grabbed that box out of my hands without even
asking permission and stuck it in his pocket. I asked, "What's going on, Vic?
Those are mine." He replied, "You don't want to know about this and I
am not going to tell you." I didn't put up a fight over it. I knew I
didn't have any use for it.
Not too many years later I learned what that
little box contained. It was a box of condoms! Well you see, I was the local
Methodist preacher's kid and Vic was not going to be the one to tell me about
those rubbers. Not at all.
Many years later, about 1985, Vic and I got
re-acquainted after years and years of separation. And I had my chance to chide
him for delaying my sex education! We had fun discussing that in the presence
of our wives, Katherine and Alice.
Back to the Axtell carnival in 1934.
At the edge of the carnival grounds there was
a pasture. An airplane was out there warming its engine. We all hurried over
there to see it. The plane had made no flights yet, but it was exciting to
examine from a distance, since we'd never ever been that close to a real plane
before. Remember that this was back in 1934 and there just weren't many
airplanes in the world then. Very few airports. No jet planes at all. Our plane
in Axtell was a single propeller job that would carry four people: the pilot
and three passengers.
The pilot strolled over to the crowd of, I'd
say, about 100 people, and said, "Would any of you children like to take a
ride?" We couldn't believe our ears, when he added, "It will be free.
Won't cost you a cent!" Charlotte and I took one quick look at each other
and our hands shot into the air immediately. The pilot pointed to us to
"Come on", and with another kid we boarded the plane. Wow! Were we
excited! Charlotte was about 13 and I was 12.
We fastened seat belts (they had them in
planes but not in cars in those days) and the plane was taxied over to the
take-off strip of the pasture. There was no runway there, just a flat area in
the grassy field. Preparing to take off, the pilot roared the engine. The plane
was a single wing Boeing. Charlotte and I kept looking at each other and
grinning. We couldn't believe our good fortune.
Off we went on a bumpy ride, roaring into the
blue for a smooth ride. We got up to about 200 yards in the sky and I looked
out my window and saw a farmer down below just getting ready to milk his cow.
He had a 1-legged stool in one hand and a bucket in the other. He was looking
up at us when I stuck my arm out the window to wave. Big mistake! We waved to
each other and then I had trouble getting my arm back in the window. I had
never traveled at that speed before and the wind would not let go of my arm.
Daddy had never driven our car that fast and I had not idea about wind speed.
I'll tell you, there was no more thrusting my arm out of that plane window!
We circled around the countryside for a few
minutes. Charlotte and I had never been up in the air so high before. Our
highest elevation ever was when we climbed the water tower in Barnes. It was
100 feet high and that height nearly scared us to death because we had a fear
of falling off the steps of the tower. We had no fear of falling in the plane.
It was great sport looking down at the
carnival grounds and seeing our family and other people all waving to us. We
waved back -- through the plane window, which was made of isinglass (no
plastics in this world yet).
The landing was rough and bumpy but fairly
smooth. Once down you better believe we had fun telling everyone about how it
was to be so high in the sky that "all the uncles looked like aunts!"
(ants) !?!?
Our Huge, Wonderful Home in Beattie, Kansas
Summer
1930 - Summer 1935
Most of the houses we lived in as children
can generally be described as "6 rooms with a path" (the path leading
to the outdoor toilet). But not Mr. McReynolds's house in Beattie (say
"BAY-tee"). It was a mansion. 18 rooms on four levels, plus an attic
and a basement, plus indoor plumbing! Mother was usually overjoyed to have lots
of space and facilities indoors. We loved it too, us kids; and we'd roam and
play all over the house and yard.
Daddy was the principal of the public school
(there was also a Catholic school that had students through 8th
grade). The public school went from first through senior high. Dad's salary was
$250.00 a month, which was pretty good for those days, and I think the amount
must have remained at that point all through our years in Beattie. 1935 was
right in mid-Depression and the School Board was going to have to lower the
salary for lack of tax funds. Daddy had been wanting to make a career change.
He had been doing some substitute preaching when area pastors were on leave
from their charges. He knew we would take a cut in salary in the ministry, but
the church would give us a parsonage to live in so he thought we could make a
go of it. Besides, there was a Mr. Farrar that had been following Dad in his
school jobs and twice before had offered to take the principal jobs from Dad by
accepting a lower salary. Mr. Farrar, the rat, had taken Dad's job at
Morrowville, and I think he must have also been a factor in the previous school
system in Luray KS. The Farrars had no children.
Back to the mansion.
The rental arrangement we had with Mr.
McReynolds was that he would continue to live in one room of the house. Mr. M.
must have been in his 80's or even 90's. He seemed awfully old to us kids. He
was short, thin and bearded and walked with a limp; and he would have breakfast
with us every day. When the food was ready in the kitchen, one of us kids would
be sent to knock on his door and announce, "Breakfast is ready, Mr.
McReynolds" and he would come limping slowly down the short flight of
stairs to floor level and food. He was a quiet man and seemed to enjoy our meal
chatter. He owned and operated the only drug store in town, and after the meal
he would walk slowly the 2 blocks down to Main Street and open his business. We
usually would not see him again until next morning. We did share the only
bathroom in the house, but he did not use it much.
The "mansion" was solidly built,
probably just after the turn of the century. Native limestone blocks, perhaps
10"x14" by 5 feet long. Monsters. They formed the foundation and the
lower 15-foot-high walls of the house. Above the stone was the usual white
wooden siding (there are photos available). The woodwork interior was classic.
Beautiful, including the stair steps, banisters and railing. The stairway
zigzagged around a large square opening in the center of the house extending
from the first floor up to the 4th. It was a great area to scream
and yell in, and we had great sport throwing balls or whatever up and down to
each other. Using handkerchiefs or larger pieces of cloth, we parachuted all
kinds of dolls and toy soldiers down from the top floor. Great fun, especially
on winter weekends.
One of my regular chores was to dust, with a
lightly oiled cloth, the woodwork on all the stairs. I seem to remember that
there were 8 steps from the first floor along the north wall up to the second
floor landing. Then 16 steps turned left and upward to the third level hallway
along the south wall, connecting the two large bedrooms (one for the boys and
one for the girls, more or less). Then there was another left and up another 10
steps on the east wall to the fourth floor landing. There were two bedrooms and
a bath on the fourth floor that we rarely used. The water was not working in
that bathroom. The two large bedrooms were on the third floor. The second floor
had the front entrance to the street, and you entered into a hallway with the
music room on the right, and on into the living room (a large one). Then on
westward down the hall to THE bathroom and to Mr. McReynolds' quarters. The
first floor exit had a door into the back yard from the large kitchen. On the
other end of the downstairs hallway was the formal dining room.
A large attic was above all that. The only
time I recall being up there is when I was helping Daddy mover our salt pork
hams up there to cure.
Then there was a spacious basement of 3
rooms. One was for storage, and we had an extra bed in there for emergency use.
The middle room was the furnace--it burned wood and coal when we moved into the
house but for the second winter Mr. McReynolds had the stove converted to burn
natural gas (how nice of him!). The west room was the water supply and laundry
room. Talk about fancy! There was a large round water storage tank there and we
would pump water out of our outdoor well into that tank. Daddy did most of the
pumping, but Charlotte and I, maybe even James, took a hand to pushing that
pump handle back and forth to move the water from our well into the house tank.
There was, of course, no city water system in Beattie.
In the kitchen Mother had a wood range and
later a kerosene cooking stove for use especially in the summertime. The south
windows in the kitchen let in lots of sunlight. We had an icebox (no
refrigerator yet) and ice was delivered to our door. We had a sign to stick in
our front window to let the iceman know how much ice we needed that day. The
ice truck was horse-drawn over the graveled streets of town--no curbs and no
pavement yet, but we did have cement sidewalks over most of the walkways.
We got our mild from Alex Eckert, the
Methodist minister who lived across the street and north of the church that was
just across the street from our house. Alex and Daddy were good friends and he
kept a cow on a vacant lot back of the parsonage. It was often my job to go
about every other day with a quarter to pick up a half gallon of milk in a
glass jug. "Be careful! Don't drop it" I heard often.
I'm guessing that the population of Beattie
must have been around 350. Our largest business, on the edge of town, was the
McMahan (say "mac-MAN") Poultry Processing Plant. Farmers would bring
in wagonloads of chickens, and workers at the plant had a genuine assembly line
to prepare the birds for the meat markets. Otherwise in town, on Main Street,
we had two groceries, a furniture store, a hardware store and a First State
Bank. I likely would not have remembered the bank because we didn't do much
business with money, but I remember vividly about the suicide of Mr. Miller
when the bank failed. Lots of financial institutions went belly-up in those
Depression years. The sheriff found him dead in his car. He had used a garden
hose to pipe the carbon monoxide from the tailpipe of his auto into his closed
car. His death caused quite a stir in our little village.
Getting back to our very own
"mansion", use your imagination now and just think about how much fun
it must have been for we six kids to roam around that house and its yard. When
we moved there, Charlotte Ruth was 9, I was 8, James Lewis was 5, Benny Bob was
3, and the twins, Shirley Adel and Sheldon Lee, were 1 year old. Shirley was
actually older than Sheldon by 20 minutes, and you can't believe how she pulled
her rank on her little brother because she was older and knew better what to
do!
We all added 5 years to our ages in Beattie
and we totally made quite an impression on the new town when we moved to
Barnes.
Here are a few short family stories that came
from our Beattie period.
The little boy had damaged his hand in some
way and was screaming bloody -murder, holding his injured hand with the good
one. Daddy bent over him trying to see the hurt and kept saying, "Let me
see! Let me see!" James ceased his yelling just long enough to yell,
"There's no see to it - it's all dry land!" WA-A-A-A continued
immediately. We all laughed.
She was a little spitfire and Mamma was
always proud of her for that saying, "That attitude will serve her well
later in life." I'm not sure we knew what Mamma meant, but the evidence of
self-sufficiency was there when we teased her, or she became angry with us. She
would get in our faces and call us bad names like "You big bawoney!"
or "You big shut-up!" She knew the latter was never to be used in our
household. Neither were we allowed to say "Gosh" or "Darn".
On a few occasions our Mother would become so frustrated or mad she would burst
out with "Oh Darn!" and when she did that we kids headed for the
out-of-doors fast. I think she went upstairs to rest on her bed for a while.
We kids had a unique way of telling a
sibling his/her face was dirty. One would say to the dirty-faced: "Say
thirty." The answer: "Thirty." The response: "Your face is
dirty."
Well, little Shirley, perhaps three, went
into the bathroom and caught Daddy with shaving cream all over his face,
preparing to shave. So she said, "Daddy, say thirty." Dad:
"Thirty." Shirley, after a pause, realizing his face wasn't actually
dirty, said, "You got swiskers on your face!"
I do remember that the bathroom was a long
way away from our bedroom, terribly inconvenient, especially in the middle of
the night. We had "chamber pots" (Sometimes just a gallon tin can
with a folded newspaper covering it) which were more convenient but not very
desirable. So sometimes when I'd waken and had to go with no delay, in the
summertime, I'd go to the screened window and pee right through the screen. It
was so available. What a great idea! What a quick relief!
Then one day Daddy happened to notice the
yellow stain on the white siding just below the window. Well, I got a scold,
but not a whipping (Thanks, Dad). I did revert to proper chamber habits.
I remember only once when Daddy cuffed me. We
had a rule: NO SINGING AT THE TABLE. I have no idea why we had that ruling but
there it was. So I was singing as we were about to sit for a meal, and he had
warned me gently a couple of time that it was time to settle down. But I had
one more line to sing and I would be through with the song. Unfortunately, the
last line was the title of the song, "Why don't you practice what you
preach." And WHOP! - right up the side of my head! I took it like a little
man and did not let out a whimper.
Russell was president of the school board, a
farmer whose farm was out south of town about a mile. Dad and Russell
cooperated on several projects that were fun:
1.
Butchering time. They
slaughtered half-grown steers and pigs for family fare. What an education for
me to watch. And then what fun eating "cracklins" when the pig fat
was rendered for lard. We could get a whole year's supply out of one big hog,
enough for the two families. The hams we rubbed with curing salt and put up in
our attic to finish curing.
2.
Dad and Russell both
wanted to play a little golf. Each had only about 3 clubs that included a
putter, a driver and an iron of some size. There were no golf courses anywhere
in the county, so those two guys made a five-hole golf course out in Cassidy's
pasture. There were no greens - not really - just pasture grass but they had
fun banging the balls around out there and that's where I got my first taste of
golfing. I never did develop a great desire for the game even though in 1946 I
took a few lessons from a golf pro in Japan on old Roko-san Course.
The Brueningers (say
"BREN-in-jurs") were farmers too, living another mile down the road
south of Cassidy's. They had at least as many kids as we had and most of them
were older. The big attraction to their farm was when in the fall it became
molasses-making time. They had large fields of sugar cane and they were the
only ones for miles around that made a business operation of their produce to
make money in those Depression days. Their farm was right on Highway 36 and
they set up a stand and sold to passers-by.
The sugar press was a one-horse job. The
animal was hitched to a long tree branch and went round and round while the
cane was fed into the press and the sweet juice flowed into a large
half-barrel. The juice was then taken into the cooking shed and poured into a
long (say, 10 feet) rectangular-shaped tank with a fire roaring underneath. I
can still remember the wonderful sweet aroma in that shed. And then we were
invited to get a clean stick and poke it into the syrup and make one of the
most delightful sucker-sticks we ever tasted. Even more than for apples, in the
fall we kids always looked excitedly toward molasses-making time.
The Brueningers (say
"BREN-in-jurs") had a daughter Rose who was my age, and we were good
friends. She had an older brother, David, who was 22 when he suffered a burst
appendix. In those days, it meant only one thing: death, and it came quickly.
The service was across the street from our house, in the Methodist Church, and
my Mamma wanted me to go with her. I did. I'd never seen a dead body before. It
was a sad scene, and kinda spooky. Afterward, just outside the door of the
church, my Mother leaned up against the porch post and cried, audibly. I'd
never seen or heard that from her before. And I can't recall her ever crying in
my presence again. I was moved by the great sadness.
Somewhere south of Beattie there was a high,
round-topped hill that was known as Indian Mound. We went out there, the whole
family occasionally, to look for Indian arrowheads. And by George, I found one!
That spurred my interest in collecting those very important little stones. We
didn't find any more out at the Mound but my Uncle Bill Vaughn (my Mother's
sister Anna's husband) worked on highways in Tennessee. From time to time he
would find some arrowheads and send them to me. Such great excitement! His
daughter Elizabeth was one of my favorite cousins and I'd usually get a note
from her along with the shipment. That was very nice.
My collection had only 15 arrowheads, even
though I never stopped trying, casually, to find more. What I did find, years
and years later, to add to the collections were three stone hand-axes in the
garden area behind our home at 1820 West Oak. Those were added to the
collection in about 1968.
When we moved out of the Big House on Oak, I
gave each of those historical stone items to my grandchildren. I thought that
was a neat idea - and I think they did, too. They each got to choose one,
beginning with Molly Francis; and then around again until they were all gone.
Joy-Joy missed out on that little ceremony.
A
Depression-years Story from Jim
When I first admired the bicycle I was
only six years old and unable to ride it as my older sister and brother could.
It was a sort-of brownish in color with peeled paint, some rust, no fenders and
no other attachments. It probably had a few spokes missing when we first got it
and it always seemed to be void enough of them to cause one or both of the
wheels to wobble most of the time. The tires seemed always to be so thin they
were constantly punctured by sand burrs. Hardware stores sold a
"never-leak" designed to seal small leaks but our dad had his own
formula for solving the problem. He would mix a small amount, each, of flour
and salt with water and pour that solution into the inner-tube's valve stem. It
worked for years.
Now that bicycle had one other very special
feature. It had been broken time and again and welded many times by a kindly
mechanic, especially at the front of the horizontal bar. That part of the bike
was twice the size of normal and it was a shiny bronzed color, all bumpy and
clearly showing the rectangular bars which had been brazed into place to
strengthen the horizontal tubing and other broken parts.
Until I saved enough money to buy my own bike
at the age of sixteen it was the only bike we six kids had. Sure, we had to
share a lot and that is a big part of the story. Charlotte and David had the
bike to themselves until I learned to ride it in about '33, then Benny Bob
learned, then the twins, Shirley and Sheldon. They knew how to ride it well
before 1941. That meant, of course, we had to take turns. We even worked out a
system with each child having control of the bike one day of the week and we
rotated on Sundays. When it was my day for the bicycle I could
"allow" a sibling to ride for a designated time then he, or she,
would let me have a turn on their day. Sharing became a part of the fun for us
and not many squabbles grew out of it.
There probably never was a more used or more
appreciated bicycle in this country than that old wobbly, oft-broken bike that
was called "ours" by the six kids in our family.
* * *
The scooter was more of a deluxe machine, as
scooters go, than was the bicycle. The tires were hard rubber and about two
inches wide. The frame was sturdy and at the rear of the foot platform it had a
lever which served as a brake when you stepped down on it. There was also a
"stand" which could be rotated around the rear wheel and would hold
the machine upright if you were stopped on level ground or sidewalk. I recall I
sort of considered the scooter to be my responsibility before I learned to ride
the bike.
One summer day in about 1934 I looked for the
scooter and could not find it -- anywhere. I asked my siblings and neighborhood
kids about it but it had totally disappeared. Gradually we gave up the search.
About a year later that beloved scooter appeared in our front year. We didn't
recognize it at first because it had been covered entirely with red paint. The
frame was red, different from the original red, and the black tires and sturdy
maple handle were also painted red. The only answer we had for the mystery was
the coincidental move out of town by a family, the R's, who had lived two or
three blocks north of us.
To help bolster that theory, I recalled a
sort of show-and-tell story by one of the R children at school several months
earlier. She told about her older brother's finding some small white rabbits
and painting them red. When her parents told her brother the paint would kill
the rabbits he tried to wash it off with kerosene. The kerosene killed the
rabbits, she said.
This sort of appeared to us to be a couple of
attempts to camouflage stolen properties. Then someone in our family recalled
that a year or so before the re-appearance of the scooter we had lost five
small white rabbits from the only hutch in our back yard. We had just assumed a
cat had broken into the pen and taken all of the rabbits the same night,
strange as tat would have been. I'm convinced these events were all related and
were all brought to light by the R family returning the scooter just before
they moved out of town.
An addendum by Ben: At some point in the
story big brother Dave went to the R home to ask about the small rabbits and
perhaps about the scooter, also. He was greeted at the door by Mrs. R who told
him in no uncertain terms to "get out of there" and she threw dirty
water from a dishpan all over him.
* * *
The sled story ties into the bicycle episode
because it was also repaired many by the same friendly local mechanic who told
me one day that he just didn't like to see kids have broken toys. I thanked him
profusely because he never charged a thing for his work. At least once a winter
for four years the sled would get a crumpled runner. It seemed to be the right
runner that would get broken along the runner itself, or at one of the braces
which held the runner in place. Of course if one brace buckled under it would
almost always cause the other brace to buckle on that same side. This happened
more than once when someone got "bulldogged" while cruising down a
long hill with his stomach flat on the sled.
I feel the sled story isn't complete without
relating how my taste buds made a lasting mark on the metal frontpiece of the
sled. No doubt you realize what's coming already. It was a very cold day and I
was gliding down Billy Willis' long back yard when I wondered what that black
frame right under my face would taste like. (Cold metal had a peculiar taste, I
recall.) I didn't get much of a taste at all. It was more of a bite and I
yanked up quickly leaving a pink patch that I could see throughout the next winter.
I was eight or nine years old and I knew better than to yell or cry about such
a stupid trick. I don't believe I told anyone about the incident for several
years.