Posts Tagged ‘Childhood Memories’

Sherry Stocking Kline
November 19, 2009

This photograph is of Margaret “Maggie” (Corson) McGinnis taken on her 100th Birthday, January 19th, 1949.  The photograph was taken at her daughter’s home, Maud McGinnis Stocking, in Cedarvale, Chautauqua County, Kansas.

Margaret (Corson) McGinnis on her 100th Birthday with gr-granddaughter Sherry Stocking

The chubby little urchin sitting on Maggie’s lap is myself, Sherry Stocking.

Great-grandma McGinnis died on March 26, 1950, and I do not remember her.  How I wish I did!  She is buried at Osborne Cemetery, in Sumner County near Mayfield, Kansas.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
Nov 15, 2009

In 1959 The Clutter Murders Shattered Our Peaceful Life

There are times in your life when some event occurs and it changes your life in profound ways.

Fifty years ago, on November 15, 1959, when four members of the Clutter family were murdered in Holcomb, Kansas, it sent shock waves through our small community and especially in our farm home. And it changed the way our family lived and viewed the world.

We didn’t know them. In fact, we lived hours away from Holcomb. But that murder changed the way our family lived.

The Family Was Murdered for About $40.00…

What we heard on television and read in the newspaper, was that the farm family of four had been murdered for about $40.00.

I remember my parents, my dad and mom sitting at the kitchen table, faces somber, frightened looking even, and my father, saying “If people will murder a family for so little, they will do anything.”

(Later, we read that the murderers had heard in jail that the family kept a large amount of money at their home; but all we knew then was that an entire family had been brutally murdered for such a small sum.)

Murder was something that happened in far-away cities…

Murders like that were something you rarely heard of, they were something that happened in far-away large cities, not something that happened to Kansas farm families.

Up until then, our doors were never, and I mean NEVER locked, not in the daytime when we were gone, not at night when we were asleep.

Up until then, there was no need.

They were always locked at night after the Clutter murders.

Up until then, because the air conditioning we had wasn’t really that great, my folks would put beds and old Army cots out into the back yard on the hottest summer nights, and we slept under the stars.

And before the Clutter murder the only thing we worried about while sleeping outside was getting bitten by mosquitoes, and the only thing I worried about was whether the coyotes we could hear yodeling at each other in the distance would come closer.

We never felt completely safe again…

After the Clutter murders, a new fear, a new possibility had entered our lives and our minds, and that changed our lives.

The peace and safety that had been ours was gone. We never felt completely safe on the farm and we never slept in the yard under the stars again.

You can read more about the Clutter Family at the Wichita Eagle website here.

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.