As I write this afternoon, the temperature in Palm Springs is 103 degrees. It's supposed to begin cooling off this time of year but for some reason Ol' Sol just continues to bearing down. Growing up in Kansas, this was the time of year when there was often a definite chill in the air. The first killing frost is usually about October 15, and when I was a child, everyone in our rural community was thinking about picking corn.
I'm going to continue to write about my mother's family, so I'll use photos of them picking corn although I have photos of other lines of the family at work in corn fields.
This photo is very easy for me to identify, because I'm in it. My mother's parents, Robert and Mildred McCauley Corbin, lived about 1.5 miles south of Maple Hill on a 20-acre farm that bordered Mill Creek on the south. My grandfather had an old John Deere tractor with the big metal wheels that had lugs for traction. For some reason it isn't in this picture but I know it was pulling the wagon. I am standing in the wagon with my brother Gary Wayne, and I do not know why we both have scarves on our heads. It must have been to keep the dirt out of our hair because I notice everyone else also has some kind of covering on their heads. I look to be about five and Gary about three so I'm guessing this is about 1950.From L to R: Robert Corbin, Mildred Corbin, Lemon cousins Bonnie and Charlie Mitchell and my mom, Lucille Corbin Clark. Squatting in front is Sarah Emma Corbin Justice, my mom's middle sister.
In the second picture, the cast of characters is the same except Leslie Justice, husband of Sarah Emma, is on the far right end. I have a feeling this was a Saturday, because my Grandfather and Grandmother Corbin never missed Sunday Services at the Maple Hill Community Congregational Church in the town of Maple Hill. Grandfather was chairman of the church Board of Trustees in 1950, and the church was in the middle of building the Fellowship Hall just to the south of the sanctuary. Grandfather and Grandmother Corbin felt it was important for the family to be consistent in attendance. My mother, Lucy, taught Sunday School every Sunday morning for many years. Some of my earliest memories are of taking Saturday baths in the big wash tub and getting up early Sunday morning to go to Sunday School before services. Our extended Corbin family usually filled one and at times two whole pews and it was so much fun growing up sitting between grandparents and aunts and uncles.
Grandfather Corbin obtained a job with the State of Kansas Department of Transportation maintaining the new Interstate 70 that was built across Kansas during the 1950s. He also drove a school bus for the Maple Hill school system. I remember being loaded on school buses and taken out to #10 which became the new Interstate 70. It was thought that history was being made and the school children should be witnesses. We enjoyed seeing the huge concrete machines and earthmovers at work---and we didn't have to go to school!!
Incidentally, I remember my mother, Grandmother Corbin and Aunt Bonnie Mitchell telling me hat #10 was still gravel when I was born in 1944. My birthday is November 16, and they said that it was snowing when my mom and dad started for Stormont Vail Hospital in Topeka. Everyone was worried about whether or not they would get there safely---but they did!
Tenant farming was not a dependable source of income but once Grandfather got the state job, he and Grandmother felt they could become landowners. That is when they bought the 20-acre farm which had belonged to Charles Montgomery Lemon and his son, Harry Lemon. Harry Lemon was a good carpenter and he had built a two bedroom house with living room, dining room and kitchen. Across the east side of the house he built a lean-to porch which was enclosed. In the summer, that became the kitchen and dining room and many times we also slept on that porch to escape the heat. There was no indoor bathroom and the well was just outside the porch door so water was fairly convenient.
Myself and other older grandchildren spent many happy hours with Grandfather and Grandmother Corbin. I would often walk directly from school in Maple Hill and spent weekends there. When Grandfther Corbin died in April 1958, grandmother made a very hard decision to sell the farm and move the house into the town of Maple Hill. We all watch in awe as the house moved down the old gravel road up the hill and down mainstreet. The house was then remodeled by Rick Andrews and provided my grandmother with a very comfortable home for the next 30 years.
I also remember my grandfather and mother bought a brand new 1953 Ford and immediately went on a long vacation with grandfather's sister, Edna Corbin (a Kansas Gas and Electric Switchboard Supervisor in Wichita) and grandmother's cousins, Charlie and Bonnie Mitchell, who lived in the remodeled Taylor Hotel in Maple Hill. They went to Yellowstone National Park and enjoyed all of the wildlife and roads. The car had "overdrive" and grandfather couldn't get over the wonderful mileage and the way it cruised up the mountains.
My Grandfather Corbin and Charlie Mitchell were no strangers to picking corn. They had both worked on rented farms most of their lives when picking corn was a required skill. I have my father and grandfather's corn husking peg, which was worn over your thumb and the peg was used to rip the ear of corn from the stalk. The picker sort of stabbed the ear with the peg and then jerked to snap it off the stock. Usually you were reaching for an ear with one hand while throwing the ear just pulled from the stock into the wagon with the other hand. I don't see a bang board in this picture, but I remember this wagon and other corn picking wagons had bang boards on the far side of the wagon. The picker would throw the ear of corn in the wagon and it would hit the board and "bang" before falling into the bed. Maybe grandfather had taken it off because there were so many picking and on both sides of the wagon. Charlie Mitchell, my Grandfather Corbin and my father John "Time" Clark, were all 75-bushel-per-day pickers. That was a lot of work considering it was done one ear of corn at a time.
My Grandfather Corbin also picked corn for Horace and Raymond Adams at the Adams Ranch north of Maple Hill, and for Franklin Adams on his river ground three miles east of Maple Hill. Depending on how dry the year might be, corn picking could start in September and continue until Christmas or even later if it was a very wet or snowy year. It was long hard work and often undertaken when the weather was very, very cold.
I really miss my mom when it comes to dating photographs. She seemed to be able quickly remember the time and occasion when almost any picture had been taken. This is the Robert Corbin Family. Shown L to R are: George Samuel Corbin, Joan Corbin, Robert Corbin, Mildred McCauley Corbin, Lucille Corbin Clark, Vivian Mae Corbin Wild and Sarah Emma Corbin Justice. Of the group, only my aunt, Joan Corbin Frazier is alive.
I do know when this photograph was taken because I am in this picture and was about one-year-old. L to R are: Vivian Corbin Wild, Lucy Lemon McCauley and her fourth husband, Jerod Strong, Margaret Lemon Miller and Mildred McCauley Corbin. Standing in the back are my mother, Lucille Corbin Clark, holding Nicholas L. Clark, Sr., Sarah Emma Corbin and Joan Corbin. I was born in November 1944, so these two photographs have to be taken in July or August 1945. My Great Grandmother Lucy Lemon Strong was 75.
I'll include one more picture from the Lemon Family: L to R on the front row are George Washington Lemon, his sister Margaret "Maggie" Lemon Miller, their brother Charles Montgomery Lemon, oldest of the children of Stewart and Luroncy "Lucy" Grandy Lemon. In the back are William "Bill" S. Miller, son of Maggie and Lucy Mae Lemon McCauley. Bill Miller was born in 1895 and he appears to be about 20 so I'm guessing this photo was taken about 1915.
L to R: Lucy Mae Lemon McCauley Strong, Lucille Corbin Clark, Nicholas L. Clark, Sr., and Mildred McCauley Corbin. At that time, Great Grandmother Strong and her husband lived on East Paramore Street in East Topeka, Kansas. She would live for another 10 years and would have to go through one of the greatest natural disasters Topeka has ever seen, the 1951 Kansas River Flood. Somewhere in my photo collection, I have a picture of Great Grandmother Lucy and Aunt Margaret "Maggie" Miller out on the front porch of Great Grandmother's house picking through what remained. My great grandmother had come to Kansas in a covered wagon with her family. They had all gone through the Great Grasshopper Plague of 1874 and had worked hard all their lives. She had endured worse, she said. Great Grandmother didn't believe in banks after the depression, and she had Calumet Baking Powder cans with tightly rolled bills under cabinets and loose stair boards. She refused to leave the house even though the water crept well into the second story. I was only seven, but I remember thinking how brave she was.With that dear friends, I will bring these recollections to an end for today. I hope they bring you enjoyment. Forgive and report any mistakes! Happy trails!!
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