Family Secrets - Oregon or Bust

Family Secrets – Oregon or Bust

My grandmother on my father’s side was born to a tenant farmer in the back woods of Tennessee.  She was the seventh child out of what would become nine children in all.  For reasons not known to me her father decided to uproot the family and head for Oregon where I guess he assumed that life would be better.  They must have looked like the Beverly Hillbillies when they all loaded into a pickup truck and headed west.

They got as far as Platt County Missouri when the truck broke down and his wife decided to have their ninth child in the back of the pickup.  Out of money and vehicle and with another mouth to feed, plus a sickly wife he got a job on a farm for less than the going wage but a house was thrown in to the mix.  He thought according to what my grandmother could remember that he would only be there just long enough to scratch some money together to fix his truck and continue their westward migration.  However his wife was bitten by a brown spider and given the medical treatment available at the time and an already sickly condition due to her last child being born under less than desired circumstance she died.  He was left with nine children ranging from ages 10 years old to three months.  His dream of Oregon had busted.

It soon became obvious that he was not going to be able to take care of them all and with the help and guidance from the local child welfare agency of Platt County the children were placed in foster homes, no two children being placed with any one family.

Except for the youngest three, my grandmother included, all the brothers and sisters lost track of each other for several years there after.  My grandmother and her two youngest sisters some how managed to keep in contact and given their very young ages it is remarkable to me that they were able to do so.  I guess they had the same case worker and he or she stayed on top of things.

While the two youngest children seemed to have been placed in stable homes, my grandmother bounced from one foster home to the next for the next several years.  By the time she was entering the sixth grade at Mt Washington Elementary School,( the same school I went to years later,) she had moved in with one of her older sisters who had left the foster care system and married.

Times were tough and when grandmother was in the seventh grade her brother-in-law told her that she was going to have to drop out of school, get a job and help pay her own way if she wanted to continue to live with them.

The next day the school principal, Mr. Ritter, noticed that Tennessee, my grandmother’s name then and the cause of much teasing by classmates, was up set.  She told him about her having to drop out of school.  With the help of the principal at Sugar Creek, Mr. Stone, and the county welfare agency they placed her in another foster home.  Her new foster parents were pretty well-to-do and it just so happened that the foster family was also named Stone, the lady of which was always referred to as Mother Stone when I would be told a story or two growing up.  Others in the family called her Nono, a name apparently given her by my dad.

Her new home came with a new foster sister, a foster cousin, her own bedroom, and a new name, Marie.

Given the fact that she was now in an upper middle class well-to-do family that thought education important, her future looked bright.  She continued her schooling for a few more years but then my grandfather showed up.  He had just returned to Independence from his time in the army and he was a dashing blade.  He jauntily wore a round straw hat, a blue blazer, and white trousers and had a job.  He was considered to be quite the catch among the local females looking for husbands at the time.  He zeroed in on Marie against the wishes of Mother Stone but like in most cases the wisdom of adults was no match for the passions of youth.  They were married two years later.

http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Homer-Conley-Stone-McAnally/dp/0615779808/ref

Van Horn and Other Friends - Tom

Van Horn and other Friends

Tom was undoubtedly the best football player on our team my senior year.  In fact he was one of the best players ever to play at Van Horn and started on the varsity his sophomore year.  He was fast, strong, quick, had a head for the game and never feared any opponent.

He could have gone to any college or university and excelled there also. 

School was not kind to Tom however and it let him down.  The scouts that came to the games our senior year were very interested in him, but things did not work out for him in that regard and he was drafted soon after graduating from high school.

He was an excellent soldier but hated it none the less.  He became a sergeant during his tour in Viet Nam and like many of his generation was unappreciated when he returned.  Although he and I were about as close a friend as one could be he never commented or if he did he talked very little about his experiences in the war zone.  I never asked anything about his tenure there; I felt I did not have the right to probe, I had spent my fighting years in the National Guard.

He married a girl he had gone to high school with and went on to have a successful marriage and productive life, produced a family, and over all lived the American dream. 

I know very little about Tom’s experiences while being a foot soldier, pounding the ground in the jungles for 30 days at a time on search and destroy missions.  But even though Tom and I are close and there is nothing we would not do for the other there is a wall of separation.  He belongs to a club that I will never gain entry.

If he ever feels bitter about going to Viet Nam he keeps it pretty well hidden but did tell me recently that he thought everyone should have had to serve back then in some capacity.  If they were not physically fit they could have pounded a typewriter, driven a truck in the states, or done something.  He knows that it is not the fault of those who did not serve due to being 4F and holds no grudges against them, but I suspect he gives no quarter to those who went to Canada.

There are just a few people in my life that I am proud to call a friend.  Tom is among them.

Paper Boy - Craig Walters

If any of you have anything you want to share about Truman or anything else, you are more than welcome to use my blog site.  Thanks Craig.

 

Snapper, I enjoy reading of your adventure's! Especally the one about the Van Horn teachers.
I also have a fond memory of President Truman, this goes back to the late fifties when I was a substitute (Examiner) paperboy at the
Truman home for a period of one week. On more than one occasion
President Truman walked out on the porch and remarked " Nice Shot"
as he went to get the paper from the bushes!
Keep coming with your adventures.
Craig Walters VH 65

Mr. Truman and Me

Family Secrets – Mr. Truman and me

When I tell people I come from Independence, depending on their age, they always say something like, “Ah, yes the home of President Truman.  I always say yes.  I tell them that Independence is famous for Harry Truman, Jessie James, and Joseph Smith and “there was not much difference between two of them, take your pick.”  That always got a laugh.

I go on to tell them about how often I saw Mr. Truman, (as those of us in the know refer to him) and they are always thrilled by my accounts.  When they return to wherever they are from I suspect they tell everyone they met this guy who seemed like he and President Truman were best friends. 

The truth of the matter is that I only saw Mr. Truman one time and that was in a limousine he was riding in with President Johnson the day he (Johnson) signed the Medicaid or Medicare Bill at the Truman Library and then just briefly.

I did know a lot of people who knew him very intimately and their stories about him were the foundations of mine.  My grandfather did get Mr. Truman to sign my Masonic membership card via the bodyguard and I did drive by his house many times.  I was also once the Executive Officer of his old Battery D artillery unit, but that was about the size of his involvement with the “Old Man (the name used by the local politicians when referring to him.)  My mother on the other hand had a much more interesting contact with him.

 Mom and Mr. Truman lived on the same street.  She would walk south along

Delaware street

to catch the bus down town and most every morning he would go on his famous walks north along Delaware.  They would pass and he would always tip his hat and say, “Good morning mam.”  She would nod and say, “Good morning Mr. President.”

One day he stopped her and said that he had been passing by her almost every morning for the last several months and wanted to know where she was always going and what she did.  She told him she was a telephone operator in Kansas City and she caught the bus each day down my

Truman Road

next to his house.  There was an awkward silence and mom said “And what is you do now?”  He responded, “Not much really.”

Every morning there after when they passed one another Mr. Truman would tip his hat and say, “Good morning telephone lady,” and then she would respond, “Good morning Mr. Truman."

Family Secrets: The Melting Pot of Diversity

Family Secrets: The Melting Pot of Diversity

America: The great melting pot.  The McAnally family: the melting pot of diversity.

Recently I found out two things that had long gone unknown to our family.  One, I cannot trace very far, and could be just a family type of an urban legend and the other, with a little speculation of historical migratory facts, could be true.

My oldest cousin let the cat out of the bag by saying that his mother had told him that her father had ancestors that were of Asian decent.  None of the family look Japanese or Chinese but there is a slight family resemblance with the Mongols of the western steppes by some of the older pictures I have seen of my relatives on my grandmother’s side.  So I could be related to one of the Kahn boys.  But who knows and will ever know.  My grandmother’s side of the family are 100% Americans whatever that means.

My grandfather’s side of the family was also 100% Americans.  Of course his great great grandfather came from Scotland, via of Northern Ireland, then back to Northern Ireland, where his father was probably fathered by a Spaniard whose ship was wrecked along the coast of Eire after the Spanish Armada failure.  The Spaniard was probably descended from either Moors or maybe even a frisky Roman legionnaire, who gained his freedom fighting in the Coliseum as a gladiator.  But the McAnally family is 100% American whatever that means. 

The McAnally family of this day and age are Americans by choice.  I have an array of cousins, grandchildren, in-laws, nieces, nephews, and a brother and sister, that when we get together looks like a meeting of the United Nations.  For example I have African American grandchildren, Hispanic and Greek nieces and nephews, a Korean daughter-in-law and granddaughter , a son-in-law from the Balkans, the Gay community is represented, a female impersonator vaudevillian (two different people,) several republicans, a couple of democrats, one bomb throwing anarchist, and one in prison.  Some are still fighting the civil war on both sides.  We have a couple of rich ones, more than enough poor ones, doctors, lawyers, and candlestick makers.  The only group not represented is Native Americans but I do have a half brother and sister that by the tone of their skin is suspect, and I dated an Eskimo girl while I lived in Alaska but I don’t think that counts.  But all in all we are all 100% Americans what ever that means.

Van Horn and Other Friends - Teachers

Van Horn and Other Friends - Teachers

I taught school off and on for almost 40 years, more off than on.  I began as a very young man by teaching in Sedalia, took a break for several years, went to Alaska to teach Eskimo children, and ended my career as an English as a Second Language teacher at Northeast High School.

I have often asked myself if I had ever made any difference in the lives of the students I touched.  I have recently heard from several students of years ago via Face Book and of course they have nice things to say, but we don’t remain in touch on a personal basis, just read what the other has posted now and then. 

There is a Face Book page now called Van Horn Friends.  I read it almost daily and now and then contribute.  Most of the VH Friend contributors I do not recall immediately because they seem to range from 1960 into the 70’s.  I enjoy reading what they have to say.

Recently the question was asked who was your favorite teacher at Van Horn.  I contributed that mine was Carl Simonie.  The teacher that seemed to get the most responses was a math teacher named Otto Kaifes.  It seems as though I am the only student that didn’t cross his path.

I decided to pull out my senior year book and go down the picture alphabet of the teachers that taught there my senior year and give a one or two word or sentence response as to my feelings about each represented after 46 years.

Mr. Curtis, principal – strict, would love to have had him as a principal if I was teaching, but not as a student.

Mr. Heine, vice principal – loved his job and his students.  They loved him.  He gave me more than one break.

Miss Johnson, counselor -  Could read me like a book and is mostly responsible for me becoming a teacher.  She asked me one day what I wanted to study in college and I told her I had thought about teaching.  She said she thought I would make a good one, because I had done everything a student was not supposed to do and my students would get by with very little.

Mr. Brower, science – He opened up a love of biological science.  I never did much with it, but he was organized and presented the material well.  I enjoyed his class and him personally.

Mr. Closson, history – A nice man but had no classroom control.  I never caused him any problems, mostly because I felt sorry for his classroom management inefficiencies.

Mr. Cofer, Chior – Nice man, but I suspect he only put up with me because I was dating his most prominent student.

Mr. Cross, Geometry – I never understood a word he said and was completely lost that year.  The only reason I passed the course was that a mistake was made by a student grading my test and she awarded me more points than I deserved.

Mr. Dehardt, gym – Over worked, tired most of the time due to working on the rail road after school.  A nice guy.

Mr. Fessler, Human Science – He was also the head foot ball coach.  He was very influential my entire four years and not a bad classroom teacher.  He kept you entertained.

Mr. Fields, Social Studies – Funny man but should have retired much earlier.  He would go to the school phone when the class was acting up and call for reinforcements.  He would always say also when a student for got his pencil, “would a soldier go into battle with out his gun.”

Mr. Klamm, Speech and Drama – He was legally blind but an excellent teacher.  He developed in me a love for the theater.  When I was in Alaska I looked him up on the internet and we passed several emails back and forh.  Heard he died recently.

Mr. McArthur, General Math – Excellent teacher, had good class room management and organization.

Mr. McCoy, Driver’s Ed – He was also one of my football coaches.  He was a great teacher a wonderful coach, and just an all around nice guy.  But would kick my ass in a minute when it needed it which was more than just once.

Mr. Medina, Latin – Knew Latin and Greek, taught us how to conjugate verbs in Latin.  He was a small man but a very good teacher and I don’t remember anyone ever giving him a hard time.  I still remember the first phrase he taught us in Latin and can still conjugate a few verbs.

Mrs. Mullen, Second year Latin,- I don’t remember a thing about her class other than she was pretty well versed in Latin history and would tell us stories about the Romans now and then.

Miss Palisowski, Art – She had a tendency to send me to the office now and then.  We did not get along very well.

Mr. Simonie, English – He gave me an appreciation for literature.  I remember very well the way he went about teaching us Julius Caesar, and can still recite some of the lines by heart.  The two other books he brought to my attention were Huckleberry Finn and The Tale of Two Cities, each I consider one of my favorites to this day. I wish I had his address so I could send him the books Ihave written.  I guess I ought to dedicate one to him.

Miss White, Civics – She provided an interesting introduction to impressionable youth as to what it meant to be an American.  She would often say she would rather be  “dead than red.”

Mrs. Esler, Nurse – She was also the nurse when I was in gradeschool.  She always seemed to like me and was interested in my well being because I was a Christian Scientist and did not take any of the polio vaccinations.  The interesting thing about her was that she was with her husband in Hawaii when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.  She said he got into a plane and headed out to chase the planes back to their carriers and he never returned.  The story had a real impact on me.

There were other teachers of course that were not pictured in my senior year book, only six of which I remember.

Mr. Fridell, Eighth Grade Common Learning’s – He brought history alive to me and one of the main reasons I became a history teacher. 

Mr. Reagan, Gym – He could get my attention pretty easily.

Mr. Fields, Gym – Not to be confused with the social studies teacher.  The difference was night and day.  He used his paddle on me several times, but I knew he liked me in spite of my shenanigans.  He and my great uncle had been high school friends and nothing I did at school went unnoticed at home.

Mrs. Anderson, English – Don’t remember much about her but I don’t think I caused her any problems.

Mr. Levesy, General Shop – A real good teacher.  He introduced me to different aspects of wood working and drafting.  When you messed up in his class he would make you do push ups.  The drafting section of his class enabled me to get a job many years later.

?, typing – Oddly enough the teacher who taught me the only skill that has been more beneficial than any other in my life I do not remember the name of.  We did not have any sort of relationship or interaction but some how I learned how to type and it was the only real skill I took away from high school.

I never knew what happened to most of my teachers.  I did run into Mr. Fridell at UMKC, he had received his Doctorate and was teaching history.  I was able to tell him what an inspiration he had been.  I saw Mr. Simonie at Block Buster’s once and he was most gracious in talking to me longer than one would normally expect.  Mr. Cofer I ran into at an art showing in Independence once and we did little more than say high etc.  For some reason while I was in Alaska I emailed Mr. Klamm and got a nice response.  I bumped into Mr. Levesy at a convenience store several years after high school and he remember me.  He said he was teaching vocational skills to handicapped people.  When we shook hands I noticed he had one less finger than I remembered.  I sort of thought it was funny, the handicapped teaching the handicap but kept my remarks to myself because I did not want for him to make me do push-ups.

I have heard a few of them have died, but most I have never seen or heard about since.

Crisp Lake Chronicles - The Dead Man

Crisp Lake Chronicles – July 1956

Last month there was a tragedy that almost shut down Crisp Lake for the rest of the summer.  Logic and cooler heads prevailed and the lake remains open to the swimming, diving, and boating that has gone on there for the last 40 years. 

The Crisp Lake Chronicle decided to hold a writing contest among the children in the area at the suggestion of a child psychologist from the University of Kansas City.  He convinced us here at the Chronicle and members of the Crisp Lake Association that it would be therapeutic for the children to chronicle what they observed that one particular afternoon. 

We had several entries and printed below is the one the judges thought the winner.  The winner will not receive anything because it was decided that a prize should not be given because of the misfortune of another.

(the entry was not titled)

Mom was bringing me back to my house where I live with my grandmother and grandfather.  I noticed a crowd had gathered down at the swimming area so naturally being the nine year old that I am I went down to see what was up.

At the end of the dock I saw a man laying on his stomach with his arms extended forward and his chin resting on top of his hands.  Two firemen were bending over him pressing on his back, sliding their hands along his arms towards his elbows and lift the two elbows  up slightly keeping the man’s hands under his chin.  The process was repeated for several minutes.  I don’t know how long they had been doing it.

Pretty soon one of the firemen stopped and signaled to another to bring the stretcher.  They placed the man on the stretcher and carried him to the ambulance standing by.

At the time I did not realize the man was dead.  My grand parents told me later that evening.

Of course the lake was shut down and when the kids went out to play that night after dinner we talked about what had happened and by me not being there to witness the events I had to listen more than talk.  This is what I found out.

A man and several friends arrived at the lake opposite of where they were supposed to check in with the care taker.  Barbara was on duty that day.  His friends jumped into the water and swam over to Barbara and presented her with all the needed swim passes.  The man stayed on the other side of the lake but his friends had taken his swim pass also so he was legal to swim.  Barbara went about her business.  She was not considered a life guard and there are signs all over the place saying swim at your own risk.  All the caretaker is supposed to do is check the outsiders in, raise and lower the flag everyday, and if any of us start acting up, tell us to stop.  She can be pretty firm.

After awhile some one noticed that there was a lot of splashing and hollering in the middle of the lake.  Barbara looked up and saw what looked like a guy trying not to sink under the water.  She went to the end of the dock, took the life buoy that hung there for just such emergencies, and through it in his direction.  But the man was not to bee seen.

Some of the older boys started diving down in the general area of where the man had last been seen and after five minutes, Dave, Barbara’s brother by chance, latched on to the man's foot and pulled him up and over to the dock.  Gary, who was an Eagle Scout, started artificial respiration and continued to do so until the firemen arrived.

 Well I said earlier that the man died.  Supposedly he was on leave from the army, could not swim but thought for some reason he could make it across the lake to the shallow end and join his friends. 

I have been swimming since I was 5 years old or younger so my folks tell me.  It is very hard for me to believe a man as old as the person was did not know how.  After all he must have been at least 19 years old so the kids in the neighborhood told me.