My grandparents, James Peter and Mabel Rachel Jones, were married at the home of her father, Leander Emory and her stepmother, Jeanetta Susanna (Reinhardt) Jones who were living in Paxico, Kansas at the time. Grandfather Jones had married Susanna after the death of his first wife, Vergie (Miller) Jones on December 7, 1901. I don't ever remember hearing anyone say how Lee and Susanna met. She lived with her parents in Silver Lake, but her family had previously rented the Woodford Farm a mile west of Maple Hill on what is now Warren Road.
My Grandfather Jones owned a custom steam harvesting operation and he may have cut and processed the Reinhardt grain. Lee Jones also played the violin (fiddle) for barn dances and played the trombone for the Newbury Philharmonic Band. They may have met in that way. It's all conjecture unless one of my Jones or Clark cousins has the definitive story.
Mable Rachel and Edith Belle Jones taken about 1908 or 1909.The whole family, Lee, Susanna, Mabel and her sister, Edith Belle Jones all operated the central telephone office at Paxico. Jones Cousin Francis M. "Frank" Shipp was the lineman for the local phone company and got the job for them when it was vacated in 1911. Lee Jones continued to operate his threshing rigs and the women operated the switchboard, taking all calls in the area.
I have a copy of my grandparent's wedding invitation which states: "Lee and Susanna Jones have the pleasure of inviting you to the wedding of their daughter, Mable Rachel Jones to James Peter Clark on Sunday, March 15, 1910 at high noon. The ceremony will take place at the Lee Jones Home. A Wedding Dance and meal will follow at the Modern Woodman Hall, Snokomo. " (The Modern Woodman Hall has been moved into Paxico and made into an antique shop but was originaly located on the grounds of the Snokomo Stone School House south of Paxico.) The date was special because it was Grandfather Jim Clark's birthday. He had been born on March 15, 1886 at the home of his parents, James E. and Anna Lawson Clark in Snokomo.
Grandfather Jim Clark was a farmer and "horse trader." I put the latter in quotes because that term had a broad definition. He bought, broke and sold horses to area farmers and individuals. He broke them for riding, driving behind buggies and wagons, and for pulling farm implements. More of that another time.
After the wedding, they moved to the Hauboldt Farm in Snokomo. That farm was located about three miles south of Paxico and was a good farm with about 10 acres of pasture, 70 acres of farmland and a good four-room frame house. I remember Grandmother Clark always emphasizing that it had ingrain carpet on the floors, which was uncommon. The house no longer stands.
The Morris Chair, a wedding present from Jim to Mabel Clark in 1910.I had four items that were wedding gifts and I have now given them to my children, Nicholas and Amy. The Morris Chair and oak bookcase were wedding gifts from Jim Pete to Mabel. Nicholas has the large oak chair which has been re-upholstered in green velvet. The back of the chair has four covered button tufts. Each arm has a carved lion's head. It has been upholstered many times but it was originally done in a black horsehair fabric. Grandmother always said the horsehair fabric was very scratchy and you couldn't sit on it long---another reason she disliked it. It is called a Morris Chair and has a wooden bar that goes across the back. This bar can be moved up and down in three positions and allowed the back of the chair to be upright or almost lay horizontal. It was the first recliner. Nicholas also has a tall oak bookcase. This is the type that had three shelves below with two drawers and one door above. The door has a beveled glass mirror. Grandmother Clark told me many times that had she been with Jim Pete when he bought them, she would have selected something entirely different. She never liked either one of the pieces.
The Golden Oak Bookcase and Kerosene Lamp that were wedding presents to Jim and Mabel Clark in 1910.Shortly after my wife and I were married, we were looking for fruit jars in Grandmother's attic and stumbled over the chair. She was keeping the bookcase hidden in the back of her closet and had old chamber pots on the bottom shelf with a cloth tacked in front to hide them. When we asked if we could have them, I remember her saying "What on earth would you want those ugly old things for?" They were ugly. Both needed lots of TLC.
My daughter Amy has two more decorate items. One is a pressed glass kerosene lamp which Grandmother Clark always said was the first thing she and her husband Jim purchased for their new home. She said they purchased it at the Strowig Hardware in Paxico and it cost .25 cents. It has a large font and wick and still provides a good amount of light when needed. The other item was another piece grandmother considered ugly and of little use. Again, we stumbled over it in the attic on an expedition to gather canning jars. It was a silver plate coffee urn. It was in four pieces and black as coal. The urn swivels back and forth and hangs from a silver plateau that has a u-shaped piece on which the urn stands. Grandmother said that it was a gift from her father, Lee Jones and his wife Susanna. "I don't know why they gave it to us. We were poor as church mice and the kind of entertaining we did on a tenant farm sure didn't require a silver coffee urn, but Papa thought we should have something nice."
I had the urn for 30 years and always wanted to have it replated but never seemed to have the money or time. Finally when I got ready to break up housekeeping in 2008, I had the work done at Meridian Silver Restoration and Plating in Connecticut. Grandmother told me her father paid $15.00 for it originally. I paid $1,200.00 to have it repaired and replated. It now sits proudly on the sideboard in my daughter's dining room.
I also gave Amy the pillow shame that was made by Vergie Miller Jones for the hope chest of her daughter, Mabel Jones Clark. It was made of fine white cotton, wide enough and long enough to cover two pillows on a regular bed. It has a six-inch wide ruffle of the same white cotton. Across the entire sham is a delicate red embroidery in sort of a paisley design. This would have been made sometime between 1893 and 1900 but I don't know exactly when. Fortunately, Grandmother Clark used it very little and kept it out of the light so it is in very good condition. Amy treasure's it but probably will never use it.Photo of Virginia "Vergie" Hannah Miller Jones taken about 1890.
Grandmother Mabel and Grandfather Jim named their first child Thelma Maree. She was born on August 10, 1911 at the Hauboldt Farm in Snokomo. I have several photographs of Thelma as a little girl which I'll use here. So far as I have been told, Grandmother and Grandfather Clark lived on the Hauboldt Farm for three years when one day Cousin Frank Shipp visited them and offered her the Central Office Telephone job at Maple Hill. Frank was the son of Thomas James and Evaline Jones Shipp. Evaline was Leander Jone's sister.
Photo of Frank Shipp, Pauline Shipp Love and Grandson Richard (who is the son of Marian Shipp Orton) in about 1949 or 1950. This photo was taken in front of the Central Office at Maple Hill, which was covered in ivy vines.Grandfather Clark put up all the arguments you might expect a man to make. He didn't want his wife to work. They now had a child to take care of and raise. A woman's place was in the home. But none of those was strong enough to persuade Grandmother from taking the job, so they moved to Maple Hill and took over the Central Office on August 1, 1914. During the Great Depression, Grandfather Clark would be very glad his wife was one of the few people in Maple Hill receiving a regular pay check.
The Central Office was really a switchboard that was located in one room of a large four-room house located on Maple Hill's Main Street. The "front room" was the Central Office. Throughout my memory (1950 to 1962) the front room had the switchboard and lots of electrical switching equipment to handle incoming and outgoing telephone calls. Just behind the switchboard was a large oak partner desk. It is possible to place a chair and sit on either side of a partner desk. This is where Grandmother did all of the bookkeeping for the Central Office and also met with customers. In the far corner was an enclosed "booth" of about 3'x3' with a telephone and glass windows on two sides. If you didn't have a phone in your house, you could come to the Central Office, go into the booth, and the operator would place a call and collect the appropriate fee. Between the desk and booth was a large Warm Morning Coal Stove. It sat on an asbestos stove board and there was always a coal hod, shovel and poker there. There was also a large rocking chair and what Grandmother called a "day bed." It was an upholstered sofa that had no back, only four large upholstered pillows. If you took the pillows off, it could be used for a single bed.
Just behind the front room/central office, was a very large living and dining room. There was no partition, just one big open space. I would guess it was perhaps 16'x20'. Grandmother and Grandfather Clark had the typical kinds of living room furniture as well as a dark wood dining set that had six chairs. Grandmother always had lots of interesting pictures hanging on the wall. There was also a Warm Morning Coal Stove against the east wall until it was replaced by a propane heater in the 1950s.
Behind the living/dining room was one large bedroom. It was unusual in that it had a walled-off walk-in closet where they kept all of their clothing. In this room, there was only a kerosene heater that was used when it was very cold.
Thelma Clark, 1919, eight years old.
Built on the south end of the living/dining room, was a very large eat-in kitchen. In the southeast corner, there was a porcelain sink that had a pitcher pump. The pump pulled water from a rain water cistern that was located just outside the south kitchen window. Also on the south wall was a huge coal iron cook range. Grandmother did get a gas cook range sometime during the 1950s, but I surely remember that big iron range with the warming oven across the top. Lots and lots and lots of good food came from that range---and the propane gas range that followed. As I recalled, there was no built-in storage but grandmother had a Hoosier-type cabinet that held all of her pots, pans, baking equipment and spices. There were two drawers above, a roll-top-type center section that had a flour sifter, a porcelain board that pulled out to make it large enough to roll pie crusts or roll and cut noodles, and below was one large drawer on the left and four drawers on the right. In addition, Grandmother also had a narrow but tall cabinet that held all of her dishes and glassware. In front of the west window was a kitchen table with four chairs. This is where most meals were eaten. It was painted green at one time and then gray. Grandmother had found stencils of birds that she had applied at the corners on the top and also on the legs. She also had the stencils on the middle splats of the chair back. I always spent lots of time looking at those birds and asking questions. Grandmother could whistle as well as anyone I ever heard and she would imitate the bird whistles. I thought she was very, very special---and she was!!
Thelma Clark, holding new brother John Leander "Tim" Clark at Stewart Farm where he was born on April 19, 1921.
Aunt Thelma went to school at the old, two-story white frame school house in Maple Hill. I have a scrap book she made when she was in the third grade. It's made with oil cloth covers and has lots of pictures cut from magazines. Aunt Thelma was born with a "lazy eye." Now we know that lazy eye can be cured with glasses and exercises, but then that knowledge was not available. I know, because I have that same trait. Supposedly its a "Jones" family gene :) Because of the eye, Aunt Thelma avoided having her picture taken and I have very few. I'll include them all here in this article.
Aunt Thelma was married at the age of 18 to John Milton Hedges. John was a native of Lakinburg, Jackson County, Kansas and was born September 1, 1908. Uncle John and his family had moved to Maple Hill where his father (and I believe also his brother) taught school. He and Aunt Thelma would spend the majority of their lives at Denison, Jackson County, Kansas with the exception of a decade or more spent in Omaha, Nebraska where Uncle John was a Federal Meat Inspector.
When my parents, John L. "Tim" and Lucille Corbin Clark were married in January 1942, they soon moved to Denison, Kansas where they helped Uncle John and Aunt Thelma Hedges operate a grocery store. Uncle John and Aunt Thelma operated the store for many years.
Photo of Thelma Clark taken on the south side of the Maple Hill Central Office at 10-years-old, 1921.They were the parents of four children: Peggy Lou born December 31, 1928 at Maple Hill, Kansas; Maree Vietta born March 30, 1933 at Maple Hill, Kansas; James Franklin "Jimmy" born April 28, 1936 at Maple Hill, Kansas and John Clark "Johnnie" born December 7, 1947.
L-R: John L. "Tim" Clark, Mable R. Clark and Thelma M. Hedges taken in the dining room at Moundview Farm on Mabel's 80th birthday, September 6, 1973.
Uncle John went to Normal School and received his teaching certificate. He taught in country schools for several years and then went into the United Stated Navy during World War II. After spending several years in operating the general store in Denison, he became a meat inspector for the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Aunt Thelma was a hard worker and helped him with the store. After moving to Omaha, she worked as a clerk in a novelty store. When Uncle John retired, he and Aunt Thelma moved back to Denison, Kansas where he passed away on January 13, 1989. Aunt Thelma died on October 28, 1995.
I really don't have a lot of memories of the Hedges during my youth. I spent more time with them and with their children and their families after they moved back to Denison and when I was an adult. They were members of the Denison Bible Church and gave liberally of their time and talents. I always remember Aunt Thelma and Uncle John as very caring people. When my Grandmother Clark celebrated her 80th birthday on Sunday, September 6, 1973, my wife and I had a luncheon at our home Moundview Farm, three miles west of Maple Hill. We invited Aunt Thelma and Uncle John to come down for church and then we all ate and had such a good time visiting. I'll include a photo, which is the only one I have of my father, Aunt Thelma and Grandmother Clark together. All of my brothers and I drove to Denison to see her at Christmas time in 1993. We had such a good visit and Aunt Thelma said that she had regretted that we didn't spend more time together but our families were busy raising children and lived about 50 miles apart. That was a long way from Maple Hill to Denison on poor roads in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. I'll write later of my four Hedges cousins.
L-R: Thelma M. Hedges, John M. Hedges, Mable R. Clark, Jim Pete Clark, Lucille Corbin Clark and Tim Clark taken in January 1942 shortly after Tim and Lucille Clark were married.
Enjoy this information. Happy Trails!
I am going to visit Moundview Farm tomorrow afternoon at 3 pm July 29th, 2017
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