Archive for the ‘My Memories’ Category

Day 7 – 365 Days of Memories – Was My Face Red!

Question for Today:  What was Your Most Embarrassing Teen-Age Moment?

I decided before I began this journey down Memory Lane that  I didn’t want to write in a linear fashion that began with birth and continued through my life.  When a memory popped into my mind I wanted to grab it right then and commit it to paper.

So here goes…  My most embarrassing teen-age moment.

I think I was fifteen.  Maybe sixteen.

It involved a brand-new pair of jeans, summer, a softball game, and a slide into second base.

There were no discount stores in our tiny town then, just a store named “Hazel Harper’s”.

Hazel’s didn’t carry cheap clothes, and so for most of my teen-age life, after I began caring about how what I wore looked like, I wore zip-up, button top Lee Jeans from Hazel Harper’s.  In blue jeans color and in what was called “wheat jeans” in a lightish, whitish, wheat-colored, tan.

And tight.

There was no stretch in the jeans in those days, so you had to lay down on the bed to get them zipped and buttoned when they came out of the dryer.

But this brand-new pair of jeans weren’t my favorite “Lee” brand.   I had been watching the ads in the teen magazines, and so I decided to go for a different brand of jeans. Went to a store in Wichita, and came home with a brand that I’d never worn.

Because I have no desire to get on the wrong side of a lawsuit, that widely popular brand of jeans shall remain nameless here.

So I bought these new jeans, threw them in the washer and the dryer, laid down on the bed to get them zipped up and then snapped the top shut.

And this is where it matters.

I snapped the top shut.

And went off to play softball against a rival team.

The jeans fit fine. Snug, they moved with my every move, and towards the end of the game, I led off of first and headed to steal second.

The girl covering second had to tag me, not the base, for me to be out, and when I saw the ball land in her mitt, we both raced for second, and I slid down to the dirt, and slid in, feet first.

Safe.

Or thought I was.

Then I stood up.

My jeans – didn’t.

The top snap had snapped, and popped open.

The zipper slid down

My jeans just didn’t quite get all the way up when I did.

I grabbed denim as fast as I could. Yanked the jeans up with me by the belt loops.

Maybe the only one who saw my ‘tighty-whitey’ underwear, and my embarrassment, was the second base ump.

My best friend’s brother….

But he got a glimpse.

Maybe everyone did.

I was mortified.

No one said a word, not even the ump.

I don’t remember whether we won the game that day, or lost it.

But I do remember that I never wore those jeans again without a belt to keep them up where they belonged….

And I went back to my favorite brand of Lee jeans when I bought the next pair.

Day 6 – 365 Days of Memories – My Earliest Childhood Memory

Today’s Question is;  What is Your Earliest Childhood Memory?

It was my intent to post a new question to write about every day for 2018.

Now, I’m writing the Memory for Day 6, and today is already January 13th.  I’m 7 days short already! So Sorry!  Maybe I should have tried for 52 weeks of memories!

One of my earliest memories was one between my oldest brother and I.  We were in the pasture, in the back of the old Chevy grain truck that Mom would later nickname “Wobble Knees.” It was cold.  We both had our heavy coats on, and we could see our breath, and the breath of the cattle that we were (well, he) was feeding, as he pitched ensilage over the side of the truck to our dairy cattle.

For some reason, he must have agreed to let me tag along. (Or maybe Mom begged him to take me.)  I had to be somewhere between two and three years old, so it was really nice that he let me go.

Dad usually fed the cattle. But that evening, my brother was the one pitching the silage down to them.  Maybe Dad was ill, but my brother was always good to help Dad, especially after Dad’s heart attack.

The reason that this sticks in my mind is because the question that I kept asking my brother was one that he didn’t answer, and couldn’t answer, to my toddler satisfaction.

I must have just been to Sunday School, and we must have studied how God made the world and everything in it, because the question that I continued to ask him was: “Who made God?”

His reply was that God was, and always had been, and always would be, and that no one made God.

My next question, and the next many questions, was: “But. Who. Made. God?”

I know that I asked him that question many times, and I remember that he was patient, if a little exasperated, by the time the cattle were fed.

I don’t remember how he got me sidetracked, nor if he ever convinced me that God was, and always had been, and always would be, and was the Creator, not the created.

In fact, it’s just that that little scene that has replayed in my memory throughout my life, and I’ve wondered if that exchange has played a part in my faith today.  And I’ve also wondered if my question might have helped trigger my brother’s desire to become a minister.

That last is a question that I can no longer ask him, as he went home to be with the Lord in December of 2012.

Bartlett Arboretum and Best Friends Forever

Best Friends Forever Visit the Bartlett Arboretum in Belle Plaine Kansas

Sometimes, when you take a memory out and look at it again, and again, it gets better and better.  This time we four girls had together again after not being together for nearly twenty years, was just such a memory.

The day before we met up at our 50th Wellington High School Class of 66 Reunion. We shared hugs, and memories, photos of our kids and grandkids and got caught up.

We made plans the next day to meet and take in the beautiful Bartlett Arboretum and enjoy the lovely together before BFF Nancy and her hubby headed back home.

The day was one of those lovely Kansas Indian summer days in October that make you glad to live in Kansas. The sunlight was golden, the grasses still green and the leaves just beginning to turn gold.

It was a beautiful day, and a beautiful memory.

Day Four – Memory Four – Wading in a Buffalo Wallow

The challenge:

What is one of your favorite childhood memories involving water.  Preferably not in a swimming pool?  What was fun about it? What was special about it? Why do you remember it? Where were you?

I’m going to try to write up 365 memories this year.

So far I’ve been 2 hours late and a day behind.

It will probably get worse before January is over!

So lately I’ve been thinking about buffalo wallows.

The backyard I played in while growing up was a cow pasture.

Before it was a cow pasture, it was prairie. There were coyotes, antelope, prairie chickens, pheasant, quail – and buffalo.,

Our pasture had quite a few large depressions on a hillside between two creeks. Water gathered in the wallows and it would stay there for several days after a rain.

We loved to splash and wade in those buffalo wallows, squishing grass and mud between our toes with the water almost up to our knees. (we were pretty short then…)

Every spring, those buffalo wallows were full of little pollywogs or tadpoles.

We’d gather them up in canning jars, and cart them back to the house, where over several days’ time, we’d watch them turn into little baby frogs.

Once they turned into frogs we’d take them outside where they were thoroughly admired, their jumping skills assessed, and turn them loose.

And when the next spring rain came along, we’d start all over again with more pollywogs.

Caution:  I don’t know if any children will read this, or parents who might try to find pollywogs for their kids to watch grow, but when I googled Pollywogs to try to learn exactly how long it would take on average for a pollywog to turn into a frog, I found that frogs and tadpoles can transmit diseases to humans.

Two scary diseases, such as salmonella and tuberculosis.  (Check out the article here: http://frogsource.com/article/from-frogs-humans-disease-transmission

The article indicates that the salmonella can be a lot riskier for younger children, so I feel pretty lucky that we didn’t end up with any bad side effects from all the fun we had with pollywogs!

Day Three – 365 Days of Memories – What’s in a Name – Part Three

This will be my last post (for awhile) on names!

I promise!

It just seems only right to add the meaning and/or origin of my husband’s family, and the last name that I’ve shared with his family since we said our “I do’s” in 1968.

The KLINE name…

According to Ancestry.com, Kline is an American spelling of the name Klein, Kleine, Kleyn or Klehn, and can have German, Dutch, and even Jewish origins.

It is probably a nickname or topographic name, and could be derived from ‘wedge’ or ‘wooden peg.’

My husband’s family came from Germany.  Their name was Klein when they arrived in America, and was spelled “Klein” for a few generations in Pennsylvania.

Just why it changed to the “Kline” spelling, nor who decided that it should change, I am not certain.

I’m also not certain if all branches of the family, or siblings in the family, changed their name at the same time.

According to www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Kline, the word Klein meant “small” and was a descriptive nickname originally given to someone who was small or short.  It could also have been used to describe someone in the family who was younger.

Interesting, because my husband was about 5’6” tall, and his father was about the same height.   Makes me wonder, as I write this, how many generations of my husband’s Kline family were short in stature.

Day Two – Memory/Memoir Number Two  – What’s in a Name, Part Two

OK, so my Day Two is at least an hour, maybe even two hours, late getting posted, but what do you do when the bathroom sink overflows and goes everywhere?

You mop first and write second!

When I started my memory writing journey, I decided to write about the name my parents gave me, and how it almost caused a rift between my mom and her mom.

Today, I decided to continue with the name game, and tell you that as a family historian and genealogist, I looked up the meaning of my maiden name – Stocking.

Not that I would have had to, the Stocking Family Historians who came before me had already done that and told us what it meant.  But I wanted to double check it for myself.

So, what is the origin of the Stocking name?

It isn’t what you might think.

It has nothing to do with “sox” or hosiery, although Sox was my brother’s nickname all through his life, and a few called me that in high school.

When my family hunted up the name, they found that it originally was “Stoccin” and was a “place name” referring to a topographic feature.

It meant someone who lived in a clearing in the woods.

According to Ancestry.com, it is Middle English and means “ground cleared of stumps.”

Interesting thought, that my early ancestors in England must have lived in a clearing in a forest. See more about the Stocking name at Ancestry here

At Surname Database, the spellings were:  Stocken, Stockin, Stocking, and Stockings. The Surname Database stated that it referred to a place or people that might have lived near stocks or punishment stocks.

According to Surname Database, the Stocking name might also refer to a monastery cell, a tree trunk used as a bridge, a boundary marker, or the place where a local council met.

Interesting, and surprising, as I’d never in all my searches found a meaning besides “a clearing in the woods”.

Want to know more about your own surname?

Google your surname origins and check it out at Ancestry.com, Surname Database, and the Coat of Arms and Family Crests store.

This is Day one – Memory 1 – of what I hope will be 365 Days of Memories!

If you decide to follow along, but you don’t have time to write up the “What’s In a Name?” memory for yourself, then do what I’m going to do with some of the memories that I don’t have time to write up right now.

I can’t take credit for this idea, but I’ve heard of others who do it.  They write up the question on a piece of paper and stick in a jar, Mason or Kerr, any kind with a lid, put the lid back on and pull a memory out when they do have time and write about it.  And frankly, if you’re not in the mood to write about the memory you pull out later, put it back, and pull out one that you are in the mood to write about!

So here goes…

What’s in a Name?

Questions to ask yourself:

Did your mother ever tell you the story of your name?
How they came to choose your name?
Why they named you that?
Were you named for someone else, a friend or a family member?
If so, why did they name you after this person?

What’s in a Name?

My mother must have told me the story of my name when I was pretty young or I heard her telling someone else this story, many, many times.

My parents named me Sherry Lynn.

If my mom every told me why they did, that hasn’t stuck with me, but what I do remember, is that it really annoyed her mother!

My mom’s mother, Carrie, was very opposed to the consumption of alcohol, and I shared my name with an alcoholic drink.

This fact upset my Grandma Carrie.

So much so that I heard my mom telling people, a lot of people, how upset my grandmother was many times before I began 1^st grade, so when our teacher stood in front of the classroom, and told us the story of Carrie Nation, and how she carried an axe into saloons to break bottles and chop up bars I actually thought maybe, just maybe, that Carrie was my very own Grandma.

Because at the age of six, I really didn’t know what my grandmother’s last name was, so I thought anyone who hated my name, might be the very same Carrie who hated liquor enough to take an axe to it..

I don’t remember if I asked my parents if my Grandma Carrie was “the” Carrie, or if I just waited and found out later that she wasn’t.

But it’s interesting to know that my grandmother, who I’m sure loved me, actually hated my name.

When you’re hunting for information about your family, and especially if you are trying to find glimpses into their lives and create a word picture for your family, you want to look every place you can think of, so checking old atlases can add more information to your family tree.

The 1883 Historical Atlas of Sumner County, Kansas shared information about my Great-grandfather, Roderick Remine Stocking.

Some of it was information that I might not have found otherwise.

According to this Atlas (and not all have this information), my great-grandparents came from Michigan, and settled on their farm in 1878 where they farmed and raised livestock.

They lived near Mayfield, Kansas, in the NE 1/4 Section 13-32-3W.  From other sources, I know that they homesteaded that quarter section and raised their family there.

Their son, Roderick Porter, raised their family there until he was killed in a farm accident, and then the family moved to the small town of Mayfield.

See excerpts from the atlas below:

Historical Atlas of Sumner County, Kansas,
Compiled – Drawn – Published from Personal Examinations and Surveys;
John P Edwards,
No 31 South 6th Street, Philadelphia, and Quincy, Illinois, 1883,
Engraved by A. H. Mueller, 530 Locust St., Philadelphia, PA, Printed by F. Bourquin,
31 S. 6th St.,
Philadelphia, PA

List of Patrons – p. 14
Name: Stocking, R. R.
Post Office: Mayfield, KS
Section: 13-32-3W
Business: Farmer and Stock Raiser
Nativity: Michigan
Settlement in County: 1878

p. 67
R. R. Stocking
Township 32 South Range 3 West
NE 1/4 13-32-3W
R. R.Stocking

Oh, and don’t forget to add this information into your family tree program (if you use one) and be sure and cite your sources so you know where you found it!

Elizabeth Shown Mills has written the definitive source for citing your resources, and the following links to her book and “Cheat Sheet” can help you cite your sources correctly :

“Evidence Explained: History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace 3rd Edition Revised”  by Elizabeth Shown Mills

“QuickSheet: Citing Ancestry Databases & Images Evidence Style 2nd Edition” by Elizabeth Shown Mills

Disclosure: Some of the links included in this blog post may be affiliate links. This means that I receive a small commission for recommending this product.

This does not increase the price that you pay, and it helps support this genealogy blog.

I do not promote products that I do not use or do not believe in. However, it is always best to do your own research on products to make certain that they are a good fit for you and your family.

I hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas!

Thanks to Footnote Maven of  http://www.footnotemaven.com/, Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/footnoteMaven?fref=photo for her Christmas Carol blogging challenge!  I have many, many favorite Christmas carols, and listening to all of them is a favorite part of Christmas for me.  Most all of the time, I love the old favorites by the original artists, but I add new favorites as they come along.

Two years ago, I added “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” by Kansas girl Martina McBride and Dean Martin to a favorite’s list on my iPod!  (And just so you know, my hubby got to meet her when she was still singing with her parents in different gigs around Kansas!)

He had truck trouble, and Martina’s folks were on their way to a gig and they picked him up and took him into town!  She was a beautiful young lady (still is), and he came home with stars in his eyes!

Here are photos and their version of this Christmas classic

And last year, I added a new couple, Missy and Jase Robertson, singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” to my iPod’s favorites’ list.  Missy has a lovely voice, and together they do such a cute job of singing this Christmas favorite.

And as for WHY is it one of my Christmas favorites.  Here my “why.”

My Mom and Dad got up at five a.m. every morning, EVERY morning, cold, rain, snow, sleet,  ice, didn’t matter, to milk the dairy cows.  After they finished milking, Dad  went out in the pasture to feed the cows, and Mom came in the house to start breakfast. (And wake me up if I wasn’t already.)

I have this wonderful memory of my dad coming in from a cold, snowy, early winter morning after feeding the cattle, all bundled up in overalls and a heavy flannel-lined coat, his face red from the cold, and that twinkle in his eye that was always there when he looked at my Mom, and he would sing “Baby, it’s Cold Outside” as he snuggled up to her, nuzzled her neck and gave her a chilly hug and kiss.  And there was always laughter between them when he did that, and usually a few more kisses.

My dad died when I was not quite 13, and I am thankful for such a special memory, and the love that my parents had for each other and for me, and  that still brings a smile to my face.

And as I sit here, playing these two songs, my mom, age nearly 103, has a big smile on her face, and she is singing along!

Thank God for the memories!

My first thought when I read the  Carnival of Genealogy Challenge for August was “we didn’t have a family business, we had a farm…”

And then I re-thought, realizing that a farm always was (and still is, no matter the size) a business also, though some might say that  farming is more of a calling than a career, and for those of us who grew up on a farm, it’s more a part of our hearts than most brick or mortar businesses could ever be.

One of the sayings that I grew up hearing was “You can take the boy off the farm but you can’t take the farm out of the boy.” (Same goes for many of us farm girls, too!)

When my oldest brother was just a toddler, our folks bought the farm where dad grew up with his seven (living) brothers and sisters, and dad’s parent’s, Elmer and Maud (McGinnis) Stocking.  My grandparents moved to the nearby town of Mayfield, Kansas with their youngest children and my grandfather Elmer continued his work as a mail carrier until his untimely early death from a heart attack.

Mom, Dad, and my brother Fred moved back to the Mayfield area from Arkansas City (“Ark City”) after they purchased the farm.  All of this happened before I was born, or as my brother Harold, Jr. “Fred” would say “before you were even a twinkle in Dad’s eye.”

Farmers then, and farmers now, wear many hats.  They must be amateur weathermen/women, watching the weather with an eye to scheduling their work.  Their planning, planting, fertilizing, field work, harvesting, and even praying for rain circles around what the farm land needs and when it needs it.

Farmers also need to be bookkeepers, grain marketers, have the ability to supervise their family as workers, as well hired hands if they have some, and during the summer, they often have to put in 60 to 80 hour weeks as well.  It wasn’t just sun up till sun down at our farm, it was before the sun came up till the job got done, especially during harvest.

I have always felt that I was one of the luckiest kids in the world, growing up on my folk’s wheat and dairy farm, with 160 acres running room for a back yard!  I grew up collecting tadpoles from the buffalo wallows in the pasture (yes, I said buffalo wallows!), chasing crawdads along the creek, roping calves I wasn’t supposed to, and dodging cow pies in the pasture while playing cowboys and Indians, or Yankees and Confederate soldiers with my nephews, who were not much younger than I was.

I also learned to drive a tractor, an old blue Chevy farm truck with a stick shift that my mom nicknamed “WobbleKnees,” and milk a cow by hand as well as with a milking machine.

I was responsible for watering the chickens, gathering the eggs, spoiling our purebred collie puppies and making sure the cats and dogs had food and water.

I loved helping feed the baby calves, and always, always fell in love with one or two each year, wishing they could be my very own pet.  I learned to back up straight (after I learned to drive a stick) by backing several hundred feet along a lane, and dumping a half-full milk can of water (about 70 pounds if they were full!) into the calves’ water tank to make sure they had enough water.

I helped hoe the garden, and helped preserve its bounty, enjoying the fresh tasting frozen sweet corn and the better than store-bought canned green beans all winter.

And, lucky me, with my work-at-home folks, I usually either had both my parents home with me, or I was in the field where they were working!

I loved growing up on the farm!