Posts Tagged ‘Memories’

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.

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.

I love this blog post by Billy Coffey.  He says he’s not a genealogist, but in this post, he’s captured the essence of why many of us do this, search for this person, and then that one, hunt for this fact, or that, and try to find out who these ancestors of our truly are, and if we can, what they were like.

Billy Coffey captures most of the reasons why I do genealogy, and he says it better than I ever could.

Like Billy, I’m not looking for the rich and famous.  (I would enjoy finding just one, but I don’t think I will.)

Most of my recent ancestors were farmers, and my distant ancestors, on two sides, were people who left their home country in search of a place where they had the freedom of worship.  It is these everyday people, these people who climbed on a ship in search of freedom, these homesteaders, and farmers and farm wives, who bravely faced everyday hardships that I search for!

I don’t think anyone could say it better than Billy said in his blog post at BillyCoffey.com:

“Because I am the result of many moments and many decisions that mattered to people with whom I share a common bond. And those who come after me, my children and their children and theirs, will be the results of my own moments and decisions.”

I appreciated Billy putting into words at how I feel about my ancestors.

It reminded me that we’re all a part of the tapestry of history, the tapestry that living our everyday ‘nobody’ lives weaves each and every day.

Thank you, Billy.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
April 1, 2011

Week #13 – Sweets Week 13: Sweets. What was your favorite childhood candy or dessert?   
Have your tastes changed since then? What satisfies your sweet tooth today? This challenge runs from Saturday, March 26, 2011 through Friday, April 1, 2011

Deciding what my favorite Sweet Stuff was when I was growing up wasn’t easy!   Several things vie for first, but the most special sweet that I enjoyed eating at Christmas when Mom made pounds and pounds of it,was divinity! 

White, airy, sweet, melt-in-your-mouth divinity!

Mom knew just when to stop cooking the corn-syrup-rich mixture, when to pour it over the whipped egg whites, and just how long to beat it.  Mess up, and it will become a sticky caramel-like substance that tastes good, but you need a spoon to eat it.

Get it right, and it’s the food of angels.

Mom usually got it right.

A favorite with many, it was a ‘best-seller’ at the Mayfield Federated Church Lord’s Acre sale, often bringing high dollar bids.  It was also a huge favorite of my nephew’s as well.  For many years while he served in the Navy, Mom sent him a large box of divinity at Christmas time.  Once he confessed to opening the box, hiding it from everyone, and eating the entire three pound box all by himself! 

Can’t blame him for that!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
April 1, 2011

My mom and two brothers, Gary, Dorothy & Fred Stocking - maybe dressed for church, with "Nancy Jane" before I was born.

Cars were an important part of our lives on the farm. They took me to school, helped herd dairy cows, took us to town for groceries, to the elevator for supplies and nickel pepsi’s, and  made ‘blood runs’ (high speed trips) to the parts store when the combine or tractors broke down.

Nancy Jane…

Our cars had personalities (some more ‘congenial’ than others) and Mom always, always,  named them “Nancy Jane.”

“Nancy Jane, you start now, we need to get to church,” she might say as we hurried off to church on a cold morning.

“Nancy Jane, don’t you dare get stuck,” she’d say as we slid sideways down slippery, muddy unpaved roads to and from our home.

It always seemed to me, growing up, that after Mom called the car Nancy Jane in a firm, encouraging, and sometimes scolding voice that the car made an extra effort to do exactly what Mom asked.

After she spoke to it,  ‘Nancy Jane’ nearly always came through for us.

Do I talk to my vehicles?

Surely you jest!  Of course I do!  How else are they going to know what’s expected of them!

“Come on, Baby,  we gotta go pick up the granddaughters from school….”

Sherry Stocking Kline
February 15, 2010

Best Picture – Deciding which photograph I liked best in 2009 was extremely difficult!

Was it the  photograph of new-found cousin Nancy and my husband looking over the Glasgow, KY cemetery?  Or was it the  photo of my brother Gary with his street rod?   In the end, I chose the photograph of my Great-grandma Margaret “Maggie” Corson McGinnis holding little baby me on her 100th birthday.

Not everyone has a great-grandmother who lives to be 100, so this is a special photograph, and I’m glad my parents captured the moment on film.

Best Screen Play – I’m not sure that any of my stories would make a great screen play –  unless it would be the part of the Christmas Gifts story that involves myself and my two oldest nephews playing Cowboys and Indians in the pasture on our stick horses!   Even my patient collie dog Lassie wasn’t safe if we had a lasso!

I’d have to cast John Wayne as my dad.   First, I always thought there was a resemblance, and second, my dad had that same kind of confidence that the Duke projected on film.

My mom, well, she might be a cross of Maureen O’Hara and the Beav’s mom, June Cleaver, though she never wore dresses, pearls, and heels everyday,  those were church clothes.

Because she worked in the field she was more likely to be in jeans, flannel shirts, and maybe even overalls.

And the casting for  my nephews and I, well, lets just say “The Little Rascals” would be the best cast for us…

Best Documentary – My blog post about the Burchfiel Cemetery, the church and the church history connected with it holds a special place in my heart.

Best Biography – This post about my brother, Gary “Sox” Stocking is probably my favorite biography.  It doesn’t tell when he was born, nor whom he was born to, but it does capture just a bit of the essence of who he was, what kind of man he was, and you get an idea of why other street rodder friends came from three states in their street rods to honor him one last time.

Best Comedy – The funniest thing that I blogged about in 2009 was when we crazy high school kids used to drag main singing the top hit at the time “Hey There Little Red Riding Hood” at the top of our lungs!

It was fun then, and it gives me a chuckle now to remember it…

by Sherry Stocking Kline
February 12, 2010

They say time flies when you’re having fun, and I didn’t realize just how much fun I’d had or how much time had flown past until I received the following Congratulatory e-mail from National Federation of Press Women on Friday.

It was my Ten Year Anniversary!  What a nice reminder:

SUBJECT: NFPW MILESTONE CONGRATS!

Fri, February 12, 2010 1:57:27 PM

February 12, 2010

Dear Sherry,

CONGRATULATIONS!

As a member of the National Federation of Press Women, you have reached the 10-year Milestone in your membership.

Your name will be in the 2010 NFPW Chicago Conference Program recognizing your 10 years of membership

Our thanks from the entire membership for your support of this wonderful organization through your dedicated membership.

Information about the conference in Chicago is forthcoming, and I hope you will be attending the entire event. As anyone knows who has attended a conference, they quickly become addictive. Not only for the information gained, but the priceless friendship and memories as well.

Again, my congratulations to you. I hope you will join us for the informative workshops, the inspiration gained, and the never-ending fellowship and fun that fills every conference.

Cordially,

Barb Micek, NFPW Historian

And it’s by such little choices that lives are changed…

Just a little over ten years ago, shortly after I graduated from Kansas State University’s distance learning program with a bachelor’s degree in Arts & Sciences, (emphasis on home economics taken in the late 1960’s) and history (taken in the 1990’s), I took a writing class at Wichita State University.

Seeing a flyer on the bulletin board for a writing group, I went to the meeting.  Would we like a mentor?

Well, yes, of course!

And it’s by such little choices that lives are changed.  I was assigned Beth Bower, editor of a newspaper that I’m ashamed to say I can’t recall the name of right now.  I went to meet Beth, we hit it off, and she asked me to write an article about my genealogy hobby.

So I did.

One thing led to another…

Shortly after that, Beth called and told me that she was leaving that newspaper to go to the Wichita Eagle, Special Publications Division,  and before I could get sad about not doing any more writing for her, she said “Give me a little time, (to get settled into her new job) and I think I can get you some work.”

Beth encouraged me to join the local and state chapters of Press Women, now  Wichita Professional Communicators and Kansas Professional Communicators. It was excellent advice.

One thing led to another and genealogy continued to grow in popularity, and that’s how my column “The Family Tree” that ran in “Active Life” and now in “Healthy Living” came to be.  And now I’ve been writing about genealogy in the Wichita Eagle for ten years also.

Thanks to Beth’s encouragement, advice, (and excellent editing) I’ve won state awards and national honorable mentions.   Woo Hoo!

Thank you, Beth!

Time does fly when you are having fun!

Sherry Stocking Kline
January 8, 2009

I grew up around tractors. Lots of them. Big ones. Little ones.  ‘Tricycle’ front end ones like my dad used to cultivate the cattle feed and squatty little red and green tractors with big wide fenders perfect for children to ride along with their parents.

I don’t remember my first tractor ride…

I don’t remember my first tractor ride. I was much too young for that to ‘stick’ in my memory.

I do remember countless hours riding on the fender, hanging on, then getting off when mom or dad stopped (yes, they had his and hers tractors) and running in the furrow behind the plow, my bare feet pounding the sun-warmed damp earth.

I watched out for fishing worms (and picked them up if there was any chance we might go fishing soon).  Little baby bunny rabbits ran to get away from the tractors (and me).

Back then,  the long, muley-eared jackrabbits were a common sight in Sumner County, Kansas.   Now, jackrabbits are pretty rare.  I’ve not seen one in a good, long, time, but I have it on good authority that they are still around.

Nowadays children would be taken to a baby sitter…

Nowadays children would be taken to a baby sitter while mom and dad worked, but mom was a ‘work at home’ (or in the field) mom, and I went along. Mom and Dad’s day began at 5:00 a.m. when Mom and our collie dog Lassie brought the dairy cattle in to be milked.

After they milked, dad took the truck with silage in it out to the pasture and the feed bunks to feed the cattle while mom came in and got ready to feed the people in our home, which in the time period I’ve got in mind included Dad, myself, and my brother, Gary.

After breakfast, if it was spring, summer, or fall, Dad and most often Mom would head to the field on a tractor.   Not the fancy ones like they have now with air conditioning and GPS, just plain red, then later yellow, and much later the green John Deere’s made their way onto our farm.

I always felt sorry for city kids…

Those were good days, and good memories.  I know some city kids would feel sorry for me, no swimming pool around the corner, and no park to go swinging in.

But I always felt sorry for city kids (like my own kids later on) who didn’t get to ride on tractors and combines each summer, who had to play in a postage-stamp-sized back yard instead of a quarter section with pasture and creeks full of pollywogs and crawdad, and who never got to watch baby chicks scurry around after the mama hen, and baby calves grow from awkward to adult.

Sherry Stocking Kline
December 16th, 2009

Thanks to Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers for his daily blogging (and memory) challenges…

Christmas At School

What did you do to celebrate Christmas at school? Were you ever in a Christmas Pageant?

Oh, my gosh, the Christmas pageant. How could I forget?  (Maybe because I’ve tried hard to?)

I attended a fairly tiny little school in a small town in Kansas. Eighty kids in the whole school, grades one through eight. That’s right, no kindergarten, and no middle school.

We had roughly 12 to 14 in our class at any given time, four classrooms, and two classes in each school room.

My very first experience in the program was when the folding wall dividers of the school were folded up, and parents poured into the school to watch us on the stage.  A couple of years later, there was a stage in the gymnasium, and we held our programs there.

Everyone was in the Christmas program…

Everyone was in the Christmas program.  Everyone.  Even people who couldn’t sing, people who couldn’t act, painfully shy people, and people like me who couldn’t sing, act, and were painfully shy.

Do I have horrible memories of the Christmas pageant?  No, but it was a long time ago, now, or seems like it, and the memories are all jumbled together.

Memories of waiting on the steps up to the stage, every kid full of Christmas excitement and too much Christmas candy, teachers threatening everyone within an inch of their lives if they didn’t quiet down, didn’t behave, or didn’t remember their lines.

He ran to the bathroom to ‘toss his cookies…’

Of course, the older kids got the more responsible, leading roles, and so the older we got the more responsibility we held.  One year the excitement got to one boy, and he ran to the bathroom to ‘toss his cookies.’   I felt his pain.

My one (and only)  shining moment as a lead in a play came when they needed someone to play the part of the daughter who honors Santa Lucia, the Swedish saint. (Read about that tradition here.)  Celebrated on December 13, the oldest daughter dresses in a long white dress with a red sash, and a wreath of leaves and candles (or battery powered tiny flashlights in my case) white socks and no shoes.

Because I had long, nearly waist length blond braids, I was a shoe-in for this part. It was my job to serve bread cubes to the others in the part of the skit.  Whether I was good or was lousy I can’t say, but it was my last leading role…

These past few days a really nice award has been circling among the Genealogy Bloggers! I don’t know who started the “tag you’re it” award that allows each of us to pick our seven favorite  blogs to receive it, but I’m certainly grateful to be nominated three times!  Thank you!

Kreativ Blogger Award

I received this Kreativ Blogger award from  three of my favorite  bloggers  to read:

Thomas McAtee from Geneabloggers,

Louise Bernero of Our Twigs Blog,

and Jenna from Desperately Seeking Surnames

I just want to say Thank You all very much!

I appreciate your recognition and encouragement, and this means a lot to me!

Here are the rules for this award:

1. List seven things about yourself that others do not know
2. Copy the award to your site
3. Link to the person from whom you received the award
4. Nominate 7 other bloggers.
5. Link to those sites on your blog.
6. Leave a message on the blogs you nominate.

There’s only one thing I can think of that most people don’t know about me. It’s silly ( it really is, but it’s the truth).

For the other six things, well, I’m pretty sure those aren’t a secret to those who know me best….

1.   The one thing I think no one knows, not even my family, so you’re the first to hear this… I’m honestly still scared of the dark…  Maybe it’s the murder mysteries I read, but I’m just pretty sure the boogeyman is out there somewhere, and who knows, maybe Big Foot really does exist, and maybe the government really was hiding Space Aliens in Area 51.    So, ask me to run outside after dark, haul out the trash, or go out to feed the dog, well, I can and I will, but it’s really outside my comfort zone. And I live in a pretty quiet neighborhood.

2.   I’d rather read than clean house or wash dishes. (this would come as no surprise to anyone in my family!) I love murder mysteries, historical fiction, some romantic historical fiction, all the “Mitford Series” books by Jan Karon, and anything by Max Lucado.

3.   O.K., so this is no secret to anyone, either. I love the puzzle-solving, gotta-find-the-next-family-fact, break-down-that-brick-wall, collect ‘dead relatives,’  build the family tree, and record our family history stories that makes up my family history fun.

4.  I love garage sales! (Going to them, not having them) Which means I bring home more stuff than I get rid of. Which means I’m a pack rat.  (it’s genetic, my mom is a pack rat, too, but a much more organized one than I am…)

5.  I love to take photos. And I’d love to learn how to Photoshop them.

6.   I’m a sucker for a cat with a sweet face and a hungry sounding meow.  That’s probably why we’ve had two extra cats on our porch for the last year. Sinbad, the black and white ‘tuxedo’ cat that has everyone from the mail lady to the UPS guy stopping to pet him, and Boo, a beautiful long-haired Siamese type that has a ‘rusty’ meow.

7.    I cry E-v-e-r-y time I watch “A League of Their Own”, even if we just watched it. It gets down to the last scene,  the reunion scene, and I’m grabbing for the Kleenex box…

There are so many great Blogs, and so many new ones! Thanks to all who inspire me, and here are my Seven Blog Awards!

1.    Greta’s Genealogy Blog

2.    George Geder’s African American Genealogy Blog

3.   Michael Hait –  Hait Family Research

4.    Mavis Jones – Georgia Black Crackers

5.    Amore E Sapore de Famiglia – Valentino’s Wife

6.    Footnote Maven

7.    We Tree Blogspot – Amy Coffin

It was such fun to be awarded, and to be given the opportunity to leave an award for others!  But it was difficult to just pick seven, there are so many wonderful blogs to choose from!