Archive for the ‘Mayfield’ Category

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.

Wellington Daily News
8 July 1921
Pg 1

R. STOCKING INJURED

I love doing newspaper research, especially when I find ‘buried treasure’ about my Great-Grandfather, Roderick Remine Stocking!

Roderick Stocking – Wellington Daily News

R. STOCKING INJURED (transcription)

Wellington Daily News
8 July 1921
Pg 1

Roderick Stocking of Mayfield, father of Ralph Stocking of this city, is suffering from an accident which might havev proved very serious. He and his son Porter are threshing at the Fred Stayton farm near Mayfield and their machine is run by an electric motor. In some unaccountable manner Mr. Stocking took hold of a bunch of live wires with a current of 13,200 Volts. Ralph says that the situation is similar to that described by one of the Chautauqua lecturers last summer when he said that a great deal of electricity has just the same effect as a small amount; that is the person will be stunned but not seriously injured. Mr. Stocking was put to bed, and while he is still unable to be up today, it is thought that he will suffer no serious result. A peculiar circumstance of the affair is that a tack in one of his shoes burnt a hole in his heel.

Live in Kansas?  Have a Kansas Driver’s License?

If so, you can research (most) Kansas newspapers for FREE!!!

Thanks to the Kansas State Historical Society, Kansan’s can access most of the Kansas newspapers offered on Newspapers.com just by going to the Kansas State Historical Society website, click on “Research”,, then click on “Digital Newspapers” in the dropdown box. Then scroll down on the page till you see a box like the one here that says: “Verify Your Driver’s License.”

Verification Form for Digital Newspaper Access.

I am so glad that my Great-Grandfather was not killed in this incident.  He lived to be almost 98 years old, and I remember seeing him 3 different times, even though I was 2 1/2 when he passed away.  He was a tall, handsome gentleman and I guess what I remember most is how tall he was and how white his hair was!

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 re-did my membership with the Rutherford B Hayes library, www.rbhayes.org, recently, as I had found some interesting ‘stuff’ on their website, and I really like having access to the www.newspaperarchive.com site and also Heritage Quest, and that is included with the membership I have at that level.

Today, I was searching NewspaperArchive.com website for my uncle, Frank Stocking, and found a copy of my Aunt Peggy’s from the Hutchinson News digitized on the NewspaperArchive.com website.  And it never would have occurred to me to look at the Hutchinson News microfilms!!  Eureka!  I wasn’t doing genealogy when my lovely Aunt Peggy passed away, and so I had not saved it!

It was such a shock when Aunt Peggy died.  We knew she had a heart condition, but still, it was a shock.  My daughter had been born three weeks before, and we were all looking forward to visiting with Peggy’s brother and his wife when they came to visit in a few weeks, but that wasn’t to be.

I was still off work on maternity leave when we traveled to the funeral, and I took my 2 1/2 year old son and three-week-old daughter with Mom and I to her service.

Aunt Peggy was a ‘hoot.’  She also had a beautiful smile, a heart of gold, and an infectious laugh!  She was always cracking jokes, and I miss her.

Margaret E. (Peggy) Glaze Obituary
Hutchinson News
July 28, 1977
Column 1; Page 6

MEADE – Margaret E. (Peggy) Glaze, 62, died Tuesday at Meade Hospital.  Born Margaret E. Stocking, May 23, 1915 at Mayfield, she was a retired postal employee and lived here since 1945.

She was a member of United Methodist Church, Rebekah Lodge, OES, all of Meade.

Survivors include brothers: Carl L. Stocking, San Jose, California, Frank A. Stocking, Castro Valley, California, Herbert L. Stocking, Downeyville, California; sisters: Mrs. Frances Hill, Arkansas City, Mrs. Mary E. Metcalf, Colorado Springs.

Funeral will be 10 a.m. Saturday at the church; Reverend Dale Ellenberg.  Graveside services will be 3:30 p.m. Saturday in Mayfield Cemetery.  Friends may call 11 a.m.  Thursday until 9 a.m. Saturday at Fidler-Orme Mortuary, Meade.

Here is Peggy’s Find a Grave Memorial.

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!

 I can’t begin to tell my cousin Larry how grateful I am that he shared these photographs with me, and allowed me to add numerous photos of our shared ancestry into my own family tree!

Roderick Porter and Myrtle Nyberg Wedding Photograph

Roderick Remine Stocking Photograph

Roderick Remine & Frances (Hitchcock) Stocking’s tombstone

by Sherry Stocking Kline
October 12, 2011

I have been blessed this year with so many who have shared family photographs with me, and this past spring, my cousin Larry brought me a huge box of photographs to scan!  I have yet to measure the box, but it is approxinately 1.5 feet by 3.5 feet, and chock full of family photos!

Needless to say, I spent hours scanning and am still trying to make time to organize the results!

The following photograph is my Great-Aunt Myrtle Nyberg Stocking and her husband, Roderick Porter, who was called Porter by his family and friends.  Porter and Myrtle were my cousin Larry’s grandparents.

Roderick Porter & Myrtle (Nyberg) Stocking

Porter and Myrtle were married on December 30, 1908, and Porter was killed on July 5th, 1924 when he was working on electrical lines.