I really hate speaking of mother in the past tense. She died at Midland Care Hospice, Topeka, Kansas on January 5, 2011 after an illness of about 10 days. Mother was just short of her 90th birthday and we who loved her were fortunate to have her with us for so long. She had a relatively healthful life and was seldom ill. She had one major surgery when she was in her early 80s, and that incident is worthy of repeating because it says a lot about Mother.
Mom had not been feeling well and went to the doctor to find relief. Her doctor sensed there might be something more than just a tummy upset and sent her for a colonoscopy. The test revealed that she had two large polyps in her intestine and the doctor took a biopsy. Mother had a impenetrable faith and she immediately began to pray for healing and asked all those around her to pray for her. She was a lifelong member of her church, the Maple Hill Community Congregational Church, and the pastor and members immediately began a prayer chain asking that she be healed. Other relatives and friends asked their churches to pray and soon there was a network of thousands of people praying for Mother.
The day of the surgery arrived and her family was in attendance. The doctor had told us that the operation usually takes about l.5 hours. Her pastor and family had prayer with she and her doctors and nurses before they went into surgery. One hour passed, then two hours and three hours. Finally, about three and one-half hours after the surgery began, the doctor came into the waiting room and asked to meet with her four sons and their spouses.
We went into a special conference room and sat down. The doctor closed the door and said, "I wanted to speak with you because I've never experienced what happened in the operating room this morning. We opened your mother up, opened her intestine, and we found nothing, not even a scar from her biopsy. If you believe in the power of prayer, this is the best example I've ever seen."
We were all stupefied. We were sorry that Mother had needed the operation when nothing was found. Within a few days, there was talk of a law suite but my Mother, in her most forceful way, said, "Absolutely not. If we sue, we're saying that this wasn't a miracle of God and I won't have it!" There was no law suite but we're still giving thanks that Mom was healed.
That surgery, was an example of a long life of testing and faith. Mom could "get her Irish up," but she was far better known for her love and mercy. To her brothers and sisters and their families, she was known as Aunt Lucille, the oldest sibling, the "rock" who believed there was nothing more important than family.
This is the earliest picture of Lucille (Corbin) Clark that I am aware of. In fact, this is the earliest photo of any of the children of Robert and Mildred Mae Corbin that I am aware of. From L-R: George Samuel Corbin, standing in the rear my mother, Lucille (Corbin) Clark, in front of her Joan (Corbin) Andrews-Frazier, in the read Mildred (McCauley) Corbin, in front of her Sarah Emma (Corbin) Justice, in the rear Robert Corbin and in front of him the youngest child, Vivian Mae (Corbin) Wild. Since Vivian was born in 1932, we believe that the photograph is from about 1935 or 1936. Lucille would have been about 14 or 15 years old.
She was the oldest of five brothers and sisters born to Robert and Mildred Mae (McCauley) Corbin. To say she had a life of challenges was to put it mildly. The Corbins were proud but poor. Mother was born in 1921 and within a few years, the family was within the grips of the Great Depression. Grandfather Corbin worked hard in the oil fields, on his mother-in-law's farm, on the Adams Cattle Ranch, as the janitor and bus driver for the Maple Hill Grade and High School, and finally as a highway maintenance worker for the State of Kansas, helping maintain Interstate 70.
I have heard my maternal Grandmother, Mildred Corbin, talk many times about sending mother to the general store in Maple Hill to buy a pound of hamburger and five pounds of beans and making that last a week for the family of seven. I've heard both Grandmother and Mother talk about using sugar, flour and feed sacks to make clothing, pillowcases and sheets, aprons, etc. for the family. I've heard Mother talk about taking two slices of bread with rendered lard on them to school for lunch. Life was very hard and every time it seemed that they were going to get ahead, something happened. But I would never say that all of their misfortunes caused them to lose their faith or to become discouraged. They were always optimistic and hoping and working towards better times.
This is an early photo post card of the Maple Hill School, Maple Hill, Kansas. From the time it was built in 1904, until the new two-story brick high school was completed in 1929, high school was held on the upper floor and grade school on the lower floor. The basement had a large furnace/coal room, and a large multi-purpose room where you could eat lunch or play in bad weather.
My mother went to Maple Hill Grade School in the old two story frame building on the west side of Maple Hill. The school sat exactly where the present one-story brick building is located. She went to Maple Hill High School, which was practically new, and graduated in 1939. Mother worked very hard helping with her brothers and sisters and with the housework. She told me that Grandmother Corbin taught her how to make bread before she was 10-years-old and that she often helped her mother prepared the evening meal. Mom was never afraid of hard work and in fact, Mom worked hard all of her life. The thing most people remember, is that Lucille (Corbin) Clark almost never did anything for herself, she was always working for her family and for others. Over and over again, when we were growing up and throughout her life, she would say, "It is more blessed to give than receive." That was just they way mother lived her life, giving to others.
Lucille Corbin began to date John Leander "Tim" Clark in high school, although they had been in the same class throughout elementary and high school. They were the same age, and their birthdays were just four days apart. Tim Clark was born on April 19, 1921, the youngest child of James Peter and Mabel Rachel (Jones) Clark. He was born south of Maple Hill on the David Stewart Farm and lived in the Maple Hill Community all of his life.
Tim Clark's youth was a little easier than his future wife's. Tim's mother was the Maple Hill Central Office Telephone Operator and she therefore had a steady income from 1914 through the Great Depression years and until she retired in 1958. Tim's father at one time owned the Maple Hill Livery Stable and then bought a small acreage in south Maple Hill where he kept a few milking cows and also traded in riding and work horses. He would attend farm sales and purchase farm equipment at the request of area farmers.
My father did help milk the cows in the morning and evening and then helped separate the milk from the cream and deliver both to customers in Maple Hill. He and his sister, Thelma Maree Clark both helped their father with the dairy. Thelma learned to operate the telephone office switchboard but married at a young age and never was interested in working in the telephone office as a relief operator. So far as I know, my father never learned to operate the switchboard and didn't help in the central office at all.
This is a photo of John Leander "Tim" Clark taken in 1926 at the Central Office after a fishing trip with his Grandfather Lee Jones.My father used to say he lived a charmed life as a child because his maternal grandfather lived right across the alley from the Central Office and from a very young age they were hunting and fishing companions. In fact, I have often heard my Grandmother Clark tell the story about her husband, Jim Pete, and her father, Lee Jones, taking Tim fishing when he was only 18-months-old and tying him to a tree on the creek bank to keep him from falling in Mill Creek.
My Dad loved to hunt and fish his entire life. During the summer, he would come home, eat supper and almost immediately head for Mill Creek or the Kansas River to fish. If he wasn't fishing, he was playing baseball with one of the Maple Hill teams. He pitched until he was 50 and then umpired for various Maple Hill teams until he became ill with lung cancer when he was 60.
He and Mom dated throughout high school and continued to date after graduation in 1939.
My mother, worked as a caregiver for Mrs. John "Fanny" Turnbull after graduation. She first lived in her home and when Mrs. Turnbull's health declined, they both moved to the Kansas City home of Roderick and Edith Turnbull, son and daughter-in-law of Fanny Turnbull. Roderick wanted to send Lucille Corbin to college in Kansas City but mother missed Tim Clark and wanted to get married so she turned the offer down.
John Leander Clark and Lucille Corbin were married on January 24, 1942 at the parsonage of the Oakland Christian Church in Topeka, Kansas by Rev. Kenneth Tuttle. Mom said that Dad did not want a big church wedding and so their parents agreed to having them elope. Richard and Lois Clark were their only attendants.
My mother said that my Dad did not have a job when they married, so cousins Charlie and Bonnie Mitchell invited them to move into their farm home south of Maple Hill, on what was called The Young Place, home of Bruce and Mary (Clark) Young.
My Dad had a trapping line and hunted coons and coyotes. I have some of his old receipts from selling furs and he made between $2000 and $3000 over the winter, which was a very respectable living.
Mother said that she helped with the farm chores on the Mitchell/Young place and that Dad's mother, Mabel R. Clark, gave her a part-time job working as relief operator in the Maple Hill Central Office.
I was their first child and didn't come along for three years. Nicholas Leander "Nickey" Clark was born on November 16, 1944 at Stormont Vail Hospital in Topeka, Kansas. An interesting aside is that Nicholas was delivered by Dr. Robert E. Pfuetze, one of the first obstetricians in Topeka, Kansas. Dr. Pfuetze also delivered the son and daughter of Nicholas Clark, Nicholas II and Amelia Clark. Amelia was one of his last babies delivered in March 1977.
Mother said the nurses thought I looked like "a fat papoose." I weighed 9# and 6 oz. and had long black hair. There were no problems with the delivery but in those days mothers stayed 7 to 10 days in the hospital. Mother and Dad brought me home from the hospital and stayed a few weeks with her parents, Robert and Mildred (McCauley) Corbin. It was World War II and Tim and Lucille still did not have a home of their own. My Grandfather Corbin was working for Franklin Adams at that time, farming his river bottom corn land east of Maple Hill. My father, Tim Clark, was helping him pick the corn crop when I was born. Mother said it was very cold and a light snow was falling and they didn't know if they'd make it to Topeka on the old gravel roads---but they did.
This is my first photograph, taken on the back steps of the old stone farmhouse known as the Holden Place, three miles east of Maple Hill. The house stood atop the highest hill and overlooked the Kansas River. My Grandmother Corbin said all she remembered was that the wind constantly blew on top that hill and it made the house and walking to the barn (which was located at the bottom of the hill) an unwelcome task.
Before I was born, my father began working for Alex and Helen Adams as a cowboy. They lived on the old Sells Ranch south of Maple Hill, and Dad helped Alex with both his horses and with his cattle. Although Helen Adams could drive, she always had Dad drive her to Topeka where she wanted to be seen being chauffeured.
Dad told me many times about another highlight of working for Alex and Helen. Alex Adams was part owner of ranchland in Western Kansas along with his brother Horace G. Adams and other members of the family.
Horace and Alex Adams had quarter horse sales at Maple Hill once each year and they would invite people from all over the country to attend. They would stay in Topeka and special trains would bring them to Maple Hill for the sales. Some even came in their own private rail cars. One that dad remembered was Lulu Long, whose father had been a venture capitalist and made millions in lumber founding both Longview, Washington and Longview, Texas.
One of the highlights of the sale was the wild game dinner. Alex and Helen would send Dad and one or two of the other ranch hands on the train to western Kansas and tell them to kill as much game as they could. They would shoot antelope and quail and pheasant and other game, put it on ice, and ship it back to Maple Hill where it would be cleaned and prepared for the wild game dinner. Dad said it was the best time of his life being sent on a journey like that and getting paid for it!!
Alex Adams was born at Maple Hill, Kansas in 1900 and died at a very young age in 1948. He had instructed his widow, Helen Lewis Adams, to give his favorite bay gelding quarter horse "Red" to my father, which she did. After Alex Adams died, Dad went to work for his sister, Mary Dougan, at a large river bottom farm she owned near Silver Lake. I must have been four years old because I have one very clear memory. I had been told repeatedly not to leave the yard around the house. The farm was right on the Kansas River and there was a dike that ran along the field. I really don't remember what happened, but I think I followed one of Dad's coon hounds down the field road to the dike. The next thing I knew, I saw Dad coming across the field towards me. My Dad was 6'3" tall and I can still see those big long strides.
I started running for the house as fast as I could, because I knew what was coming. Dad stopped long enough to break a willow switch off and it found it's mark about every third step until we reached the house. I never went to the river bank again!
My younger brother, Gary Wayne Clark, was born while we lived at the Dugan Farm on January 26, 1947. He weighed 8 pounds and 6 ounces and was a very healthy, happy little boy, also delivered by Dr. Robert E. Pfuetze. We lived at the Dugan Ranch until March 1949, when we moved to the Sells Ranch south of Maple Hill, where my father worked for Mrs. William S. (Alice) Sells, an elderly widow, and her daughter Miss Ava Sells. They were happy to be back in the Maple Hill Community.
My mother and father moved into the one and one-half story ranch tenant house located back a long drive south of Maple Hill. A second small ranch house a little east of our house was occupied by Mrs. Sells and her daughter. During the depression, William S. Sells had lost the major portion of his ranch holdings along with the large house occupied by Alex and Helen Adams. Somehow, they were able to retain about 900 acres of pasture and crop land and two small tenant houses, a barn and a large chicken coop. The ladies never took an active part in farming or ranching but hired my father to do the work. I have not been able to find a photograph of the house other than the one shown, and it has since been razed.
I do have a couple of very clear memories from our time in the Sells House. One is that I started to the first grade at the old frame Maple Hill Grade School. The lane from our house to the main road was probably 1/8th mile long. On cold days, my dad would bundle up in some kind of long, wool overcoat he had, saddle "Red" and take me horseback from the house to the main road to catch the school buss.
The other took place when we were all sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch. It was probably in 1950 or 1951. The telephone rang and it was my Grandmother, Mabel R. Clark, making what was called an emergency line call. When the phone rang with continuous short rings, that was a sign there was an emergency and people on the party line should all answer. My Grandmother said that the Stockgrowers Bank had been robbed and that the robbers had made their escape from Maple Hill by car and were headed south on our road. She said that the sheriff was in pursuit and that everyone should stay in their houses and keep out of sight.
My dad was doing nothing of the kind. He loaded his 22 caliber repeating rifle and headed for the elevator of the big double corn crib behind our house. If the robbers turned into our driveway and headed down our lane, my father was going to be ready to spray them with a little lead!
This is a photo of Nicholas L. "Nickey" and Gary Wayne Clark taken about 1949. I think I was three and Gary was one.
Mother, Gary Wayne and I stayed in the house and we heard nothing from dad's gun. Within maybe 10 minutes, Grandmother Clark called back to let everyone along the line know that the Sheriff had apprehended the robbers as they tried to break into the home of Oscar and Blanche Lett Richter, which was about one mile north of the Sells Ranch. I remember that we had the radio on, and a group of local musicians was singing, "You Are My Sunshine." Mom began to sing with them and urged us to sing along to keep us calm and quiet. I still know the words to that song!
Seeing this photo reminds me of one other thing. My dad had a pair of hand operated hair clippers and he used to cut my hair with them. It looks like he must have just cut my hair in the photo. Those clippers would pull like the Devil when they needed oil or sharpening.
In about 1952 or 1953, Mom and Dad moved again to the old Harve Clark place. My Dad farmed for Mr. Brownlee, who owned about 320 acres across the road. I believe that we rented the house we lived in from our cousins Reed and Edna (Miller) Romig. Their grandchildren, Johnny Joe and Anita Oliver still live on the property.
I almost died when we lived in that house. I had the croup and it went into Scarlet Fever. We first called Dr. John Wilson Lauck, the aged country doctor from Maple Hill, and he then asked Dr. Henry Miller from Rossville to come. I had a very high temperature and my throat swelled shut. They didn't have the drugs we have the antibiotics we have now. My Grandmothers, "Aunt" Bonnie Mitchell and cousin Mrs. Fred (Mable) Clark stayed up with me day and night. I really don't recall what the doctors gave me but it worked and I slowly recovered. They watched me carefully for a long time because Scarlet Fever can come back as reumatic fever, which weakens or destroys the heart. Fortunately, none of that happened.
This photo is Lucille (Corbin) Clark with sons Gary on the left and Nickey on the right. It was taken under the old walnut tree on the Robert and Mildred (McCauley) Farm south of Maple Hill in about 1950.
My Grandmother Clark owned a house at the south end of Maple Hill. I believe in 1953 or 1954, we moved into her house. We really liked living in town because we could walk to school and the Maple Hill Central Office was right on the way to and from school, so we could visit Grandmother Clark there often. We had lots of cousins and relatives living in Maple Hill. My mother had begun to help my Grandmother Clark regularly at the Central Office. My father had gotten a job working for Chuck Fauerback, operating a Cat D-9 bulldozer. Chuck operated a company that built farm field terraces, dug ditches and carved out ponds. My dad really enjoyed the outdoor work and the work and money were good and steady during spring, summer and fall. During the winter, he continued to hunt and run his trapping lines. With both salaries, it seemed like our family was at least able to keep it's head above water.
Speaking of water, there was no running water in the house and no indoor plumbing of any kind. We had to carry water from a well for drinking, bathing and washing. The outhouse was located along the back side of the property on the alley. There was no indoor plumbing in the house for several years to come. My brother Gary Wayne and I carried many buckets of water from the well but I'm sure what we carried was minuscule compared to what my mother carried. My Grandfather Clark's old cow and horse lot was on that property and Uncle Ed Miller would bring his horse down and plow the lot so we could plant a large garden. Mom, Dad and we boys had a huge garden on the lot---but I'm certain most of the work was done by Mom. There was also a barn on the lot which was in very bad repair and we tore it down while we lived there.
Then in 1955, there came an event that rocked our world. Mom and Dad were 39-years-old and I was eleven. Gary was nine and I'm sure the furthermost thing from anyone's mind was that there would be an addition to our family, but in late summer 1954, Mom told us that we were going to have a little brother or sister. Gary and I were very excited about that possibility and we were certain that it was going to be a sister. After all, we had two boys and we wanted a sister. We planned and planned for the arrival of our sister.
On January 26, 1955 we had a birthday party for Gary Wayne Clark. I remember that Grandmother Clark, Grandfather and Grandmother Corbin, Uncle Charlie and Aunt Bonnie (Thomas) Mitchell were there and that Aunt Vivian and Uncle George Wild dropped by. I don't know how she did it, but she made a big double layer chocolate cake and we all had such a good time. Everyone went home and Gary and I went to bed and fell asleep.
Neither of us woke up so all that occurred must have been done very quietly, but during the night, my mother went into labor. In the morning, both Grandmother Corbin and Aunt Bonnie Mitchell were there when we woke up. They prepared breakfast and got us ready for school and we were just ready to leave when the phone rang. My Dad was on the other end and Gary and I were both listening at the receiver. "What do you think we have boys?" was his question. "A sister of course, when can you bring her home?" "Nope---sorry. We have twin boys, Steven K. and Stanley J."
I remember Gary and I were so disappointed we didn't even want to talk about it and went off to school, regretting the loss of the sister we never had.
This photo was taken in summer 1955 behind the Maple Hill Central Office. Steve Clark is on Dad's left side and Stan Clark is on Dad's right side. I always liked the little curls my mother made down the center of their heads.
Mom and Dad had not known they were going to have twins. Mom had gone to Dr. Orval Smith at St. Marys, Kansas for her prenatal visits and he had not detected two heartbeats. Mom said that she gained so much weight during the pregnancy that she had thought about twins, but the doctor had said nothing. If I remember correctly, she gained 55 pounds or more. The twins were both large, healthy babies. They both weighed in excess of 6.5 pounds.
This is a photo of Lucille (Corbin) Clark with her twin sons, Steven K. on the left and Stanley J. on the right. The photo was taken in the living room of the house at the south end of Maple Hill owned by Grandmother Clark.
Steven K. and Stanley J. Clark were born on January 27, 1955 to John L. and Lucille (Corbin) Clark. They were born at Gen Hospital in Wamego, Kansas. Mom stayed in the hospital for about five days and it was a good thing. Grandmother Mildred Corbin and Aunt Bonnie Mitchell had planned to wallpaper Mom and Dad's bedroom while Mom was in the hospital. But now they also had to find another crib and gather together a whole second set of baby diapers and clothing. All was still in readiness when Mom and Dad brought the twins home. They were such good, happy babies that Gary and I soon forgot about having a sister and bask in the attention having twins brought to our family.
I believe I will end this blog here although there is much more I want to say about my parents and brothers. It will wait for a later blog.
Happy Trails!!
No comments:
Post a Comment