Posts Tagged ‘Stocking’

Here is the Saturday Night – time for some Genealogy Fun! Assignment from Randy Seaver at http://www.geneamusings.com/

“We all have childhood memories, but if you’re like me, you’re concentrating on getting the family history of your parents and earlier generations. Let’s think about ourselves here.

Here’s your mission if you want to accept it …

1. What is one of your most vivid childhood memories? Was it family, friends, places, events, or just plain fun?

2) Tell us about it in a comment to this post, a Comment or Note on Facebook, or in a blog post of your own.”

Building a Pond in the Pasture and the Leaky Tin Bathtub!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
October 4th, 2009

And there was the time we kids built a pond in my folk’s pasture.

We weren’t supposed to.  We weren’t even supposed to be home from school.

My Nephews Were Out of School With Colds

But my nephews (who were nearly my age) had stayed home sick with colds, and so, because they were coming to visit, my mom allowed me to stay home from school, too.

Since it was a mild spring day following several days of rainy weather and since we weren’t very old we headed outdoors as fast as we could and headed for the pasture to see if we could find some water.

We had some pretty deep buffalo wallows in our pasture when I was growing up, and they were a constant source of tadpoles and good place to wade after a rain.

We were in luck that day, the buffalo wallows were full and spring rains had filled the little creeks till we were wading in water that was nearly up to our (four, six and eight-year-old-high) knees.

Soon We Were In Water Over Our Knees

But we wanted it deeper! So we grabbed tree limbs, branches, old boards, and whatever else we could, and dammed up the creek.    Awesome, pretty soon we were wading in water over our knees. One of us scrambled back up to the house, and drug back an old tin bathtub to be our makeshift boat.

We set the leaky old tin tub afloat and for quite awhile we took turns, using an old board for a paddle.

We Had a Lot of Fun Till…

We had our own little pond, and our own little boat (bathtub), in our own (huge) backyard. We were so happy. We were going to have fun forever.

We had a lot of fun that day.

Till we got caught. You know how sometimes when you were a kid your mom would be so annoyed she’d take a whack at your backside, and you’d get another one with each step she took and each word she said?

Well, let’s just say my mom was annoyed, and so was my nephew’s mom. We heard “I’ll never let you stay home from school again,” “you ought to have known better than that,” and “you kids could have drowned.”

I don’t think I ever did get to stay home from school like that again.  But  that day was a lot of fun even if I did have to sit kinda easy in the chair later that night.

Unfortunately, though I’m sure it was for our safety, our little makeshift dam was dismantled, and the Good Ship ‘Tin Tub’ never sailed again.

Roderick & Frances Stocking's Tombstone

By Sherry Stocking Kline
September 22, 2009

My great-grandparents, Roderick Remine and Frances “Fanny” Hitchcock Stocking are buried here, in the Osborne Township Cemetery near Mayfield, Sumner County, Kansas. This cemetery lies on the Chisholm Cattle Drive Trail.

Roderick and Frances came to Kansas from Michigan in the 1870’s, homesteaded just north and west of this cemetery, in a one-room house so small they had to put the table out of the house at night to put down their beds.

Their first child, my grandfather, Elmer Stocking, was born in that tiny house! Fortunately, they built a bigger house before they had three more sons, Ralph Hurlburt, Roderick Porter, and John Lester.

My great-grandmother passed away from cancer in 1920, but my great-grandfather Roderick lived to be nearly 98 years old, passing away in 1951. I remember him as being tall and distinguished looking.

My mother, his granddaughter-in-law, says he was a “fine, gentle, man” and she always thinks of him when she thinks of this verse, “Prayer was his key for the morning and his lock for the night”.