Roger’s Remembrances

My parents were very special people — though in my growing-up years I never stopped to think about it. As a youngster I called them “Mama” and “Daddy”. These terms evolved into “Mom” and “Dad”. (Neither brother Bob nor I called them “Mother” or “Father”.) Bob started using “Ray” some time after high school years. Bob and Dad were especially close to each other in the later years.

I can’t recall ever seeing either Mom or Dad really angry, though Dad could get pretty disgusted at times with people. I never heard them argue.

Mom
Mom was raised in Mound City, Kansas. She married Dad in Hutchinson on October 15, 1913. I do not know how they met. I never did ask.
Most of the people on the list of guests at their wedding ===>>> are mentioned elsewhere in these chapters:
Mrs. Wm. Ghormley, Dad’s mother,
Ethel Botkin, Mom’s sister,
Jessie Murphy, Dad’s sister,
Annette Botkin, Uncle Clyde’s wife,
Beth L. Buser, Mom’s girlhood friend (we used to drive up to Concordia to visit them),
Mrs. Alice Parks, there’s more about “Auntie Parks” in the Chapter Aunt Ethel,
Ernest Murphy, husband of Aunt Jessie,
Carrie Jane Flagg, Dad’s half sister,
C.G. Hamilton, husband of Aunt Hattie,
Hattie Eva Hamilton, Dad’s sister,
Clyde J. Botkin, Mom’s brother,
Mabel B. Parks, more about “Aunt” Mabel in Aunt Ethel chapter.

Mom was a gentle person, though she could — and did — wield the rod on our behinds when the occasion called for it. She was also good at washing out our mouths with soap when we used words picked up from the local ruffians. She did it with determination, but without anger. Sometimes she deferred our spanking so Dad could do it when he got home. I don’t know what as so special about our transgressions in those instances.

When I was just a few years old — I remember it vaguely — Mom would get up early in the morning, crank up Lizzie (the 1914 Model T), and drive the 50 miles up to Lindsborg to take organ lessons. I don’t know how many times she did this nor who took care of Bob and me while she was gone. Maybe she went on Saturday so Dad could do it and miss only a half-day’s work. Or maybe it was Aunt Ethel.

The First Baptist church hired her as their organist soon after. I can remember going with Mom when she practiced at the old — that’s the FIRST First Baptist — church. I would play with my small lead cars in the pews. One day after we got home, Mom answered the phone and someone told her the Baptist church was burning down. We got in Lizzie and drove down and watched that BIG fire completely destroy the church. The Baptists bought a new lot on 8th and Main and rebuilt — that was the SECOND First Baptist church.

A few years later Mom took the job as organist at First Presbyterian and was organist there until her death in 1956.
Mom was a better-than-average church organist. I have heard her complimented on being able to get all the music out of organ there was in it. She seemed to have a feel for it, and could really lead a congregation to sing without overpowering them with the organ. She also played for funerals at Johnson and Sons across the street from the church. To keep from “getting involved” in the sadness, she worked cross-word puzzles during the service.

A few expressions of hers I remember —
:::You can’t fix everything that’s wrong in the world, but you CAN do something right where you are.
:::If your heart’s in the right place, you can say almost anything.
:::If you always tell the truth, you don’t need a good memory.
:::The cussedness of inanimate objects.

Dad
I never asked Dad about when he was a boy. About all I know is he went to Hutchinson High School and attended Kansas University (Lawrence) for one year. I THINK he told me they lived out on the farm by Partridge for a few years and then moved to Hutch. Sorry I can’t tell you more.

In 1910 Dad worked on a cattle boat that went from Canada to Europe. I do not know what prompted the trip. (His father had died just the year before.) He and some pals bummed around France and Germany until time to catch the same boat back to Canada. Somewhere there is a picture album with snapshots he took on that trip. I wish I had asked him to tell me more about it.

I have read a letter (9 handwritten pages) he wrote to his mother while on the boat on the return trip. It’s postmarked Montreal, Aug 8 1910, and addressed to Mrs. S.H. Ghormley, 507 Ave. B. East, Hutchinson, Kans. U.S.A. An interesting bit of history shows up near the end of the trip homeward:
“….We just passed the place where the great Quebec Bridge fell. It is nothing but a mass of twisted iron & steel. One piece on each end is still standing.”

When Bob and I were small boys, Dad would often entertain us with his “ventriloquist” voice. He would also amuse us by singing “Sing Polly Waddle Doodle All the Day”.

Dad helped Bob and me make kites. We walked two blocks north of 506 to fly them in the Reformatory Field. The Reformatory Field was farmed by the inmates of the Reformatory. It lay east of Plum Street, from 11th to about 15th streets, with an east border somewhere around Severance street. In 1938 the new Junior College, stadium, and arena were built there.

One day Dad went with me to fly the kite. On the way back we stopped to talk in the cornfield just east of Ford at 10th street. I don’t know what we talked about, but I do remember leaning against a corn shock while Dad showed me a standing back flip. He stood on the ground, flipped over backwards, and landed back on his feet. I was much impressed. He had possibly been telling me about his being on the gymnastics team at Kansas University. (He’s at our left on ground level.)

When I was Junior High age, Dad had surgery to repair some of his plumbing. His subsequent concern over health and worry about our very tight financial straits (we were just getting into the Great Depression) led to what Mom described to me as a “near nervous breakdown”. Our Hutch doctor sent him up to the Menninger (sp?) clinic in Topeka for the help he needed. It was a real tough time for Mom.

Dad spent several weeks up there, and though I wasn’t paying very close attention, I recall his being pleased at the way Will and Karl dealt with him. Their major advice was to insist that Dad get out of the insurance selling business working for someone else and find a job where he would not be under so much pressure. At almost exactly the right time the position of custodian at First Presby became available. Dad took it and became the best church custodian either side of the Mississippi.

Dad had been a very elusive halfback in high school football (I looked up some early Hutchinson News sports stories). I benefited from his interest in the game when I started high school football. He almost never missed a game in which I was playing. He drove to many of the out-of-town games. Mom’s church and funeral schedule kept her from seeing many of the out-a-towners.

Dad was good at making gadgets:
:::He fixed Lizzie so that the whole family could sleep in it overnight. (One of my early remembrances mentioned under FAMILY CARS.)
:::He worked with a machine shop to adapt an electric motor to drive the ice cream freezer. It is still in use in Lincoln. Thanks, Dad, for the help in several thousand gallons of home made ice cream! ]
::: He built a squirrel cage blower and associated car radiators to cool 506 through the furnace ducts. After Dad’s death we brought the blower and car radiator assembly to Lincoln and used them at 720 South 33rd for a time. We blew the air up through the clothes chute. (720 had hot water radiators — no furnace ducts.)
:::He rigged a centrifugal pump in the basement to water the yard. The motor could be turned on and off from pull wires at the front and rear faucets.
:::If a screen or door was to be taken on and off regularly, Dad put the required hardware some place close by.
::: He hiked up north of Hutch to find two small branches and fashioned them into a pair of crutches for me to use as a little lame boy in a church play (Junior High age). They are overhead in the computer/radio shack in the basement at 2115 right now.
:::He fixed up a rock garden/fish pond in the back yard of 506, arranged with a pump to cascade water down over the rocks.
:::He built a sleeping porch onto 506.
There are more, but that’s enough.

When Dad was church custodian, he fixed up the “boiler room” into a cozy office environment. The church was kept spotless. He had a side “hobby” of memorizing poetry. He could recite from memory over 200 poems. At the dinner table we often gave him a number, and he started out that poem — (though we didn’t know if the poem agreed with the number specified). Groups in the church would often ask him to give a program.

Dad was a “genuine” person —
:::He would not hesitate to speak to a complete stranger in friendly fashion about something germane to the occasion.
:::He would stop the car (depending on traffic) to remove a road hazard.
:::He allowed his emotions to show but was not gushy.
:::He loved to take the family for rides in Lizzie up north of Hutch in sandhill country.
:::He never skipped a table blessing.

A few expressions of his I remember —
:::We are building another room on our house of memories.
:::… and keep us safe from harm and evil… (table blessing)
:::It’s not a question of “IS it going to slip?” (the screw driver aimed at your palm), it’s just a question of “WHEN is it going to slip?”!
:::That was not his brains you heard.
. . . . . .The occasion for this remark came one afternoon when Dad, Bob, and I were talking on the sidewalk in front of the church at Sherman and Poplar. Some local yokel really squealed his tires as he started up from the stop sign on Sherman. Dad’s remark followed. I use it today under similar circumstances.
:::Drive as if the other driver is a d—- fool, ’cause he often times is!
:::Hold ‘er Newt!! (going over a big bump in the road).
:::Keep your shirt on! (at someone’s being impatient).

The only advice Dad gave me concerning an occupation was to be sure I liked the work. Pay would be secondary. Also, I might consider teaching as a rewarding job.

Dad had his first (and last) heart attack on the streets of New York City in September of 1954. I flew back (my first airplane ride) and drove Mom to Lincoln. She drove to Hutch. Mary and I followed later for Dad’s funeral. I don’t remember what we did with the kids.

No one ever had better parents. I owe them much.