Jones/Clark Christmas Photos and Memories Related to Sports and Hunting

I've now passed more than 1,000 readers of this blog, and I have yet to receive a single comment.   However I expect that to change after today's post.   Why?   I have several Clark family photos that were taken on Christmas Day, and strangely they all seem to relate to hunting.    I well remember doing just that when I was a boy and young adult.   We would usually gather at one of my grandparent's homes, or in later years at my parent's home, and after stuffing ourselves full of good things to eat, we would either take our shotguns and go quail hunting, or we would take our 22 caliber rifles and go rabbit hunting.

I love animals as much as the next person and I want to make sure there is plenty of wild game to hunt when if my great grandchildren want to go hunting, but I'm not a radical member of PETA or other animal rights organizations.   Animals have a cycle of life, and I believe in protecting the environment so animals will have habitat in which to life and multiply happily, but I also believe that if you obey the laws you will not depopulate or over harvest any animal.   Okay, enough said, on to the photos and hunting memories.

I never knew my paternal great grandfather, Leander Emory Jones (who was also called Lee or Deacon) but he was an avid hunter and fisherman.   My father, John Leander (Tim) Clark, told me that Grandfather Jones took him fishing when he was so young, he had to tie him to a small tree with a dishtowel to keep him from falling into Mill Creek.   Grandpa Jones was a "mans man" and was into all kinds of athletic sports.  He was a good friend of Jess Willard, who was the heavy weight boxing champion of the world in 1915.   Willard was born in Pottawatomie County, Kansas and grew up on a farm.   He was a wheat farmer until starting to box at age 27.   They met at a barn dance where Grandfather Jones was playing the violin and became great friends.

Jess Willard, who won the heavy weight boxing championship of the world in Havana, Cuba in 1915.

My maternal great uncle, Robert McCauley, worked for Leander Jones.   Lee Jones owned a threshing machine and went all over western Kansas and Wabaunsee County threshing grain for farmers.  Uncle Bob McCauley said that he used to drive the water wagon which hauled water from creeks, rivers and ponds to the threshing machine.  Water was needed to produce steam which powered the threshing operation.   Uncle Bob said that Lee Jones used to go into nearby towns in the evening and offer to fight for money.   Uncle Bob said that he was a good fighter and mostly won fights he was in.

Leander Emory (also called Lee and Deacon) Jones.  Born September 20, 1871 near Alma, Wabaunsee County, Kansas.
Everything about this photo indicates that he was a "mans man."

James Peter (Jim Pete) Clark, with his beloved whippet hounds.  This picture was taken in the back yard of the Central Office, at Maple Hill, Kansas.   In the background are a coal shed and outhouse and a portion of the Charles Montgomery Lemon home on the left and the home of coal shed and Leander E. (Lee) Jones to the right.  The date is before 1935, because the second story of the Lee Jones home burned in 1932 and the house in the photo is one story.  The caption on this photo is in my Grandmother Clark's handwriting and just says, "Jim and his hounds, Christmas Day."

My paternal grandfather was James Peter (known as Jim Pete) Clark.   He was the son of Johnnie and Mary Eliza (Woody) Clark and was born on a farm near Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas on March 15, 1886.   There was an adult men's softball team in Maple Hill in the 1910s, and Grandpa Clark played for that team.   He was also an avid hunter and raised whippet hounds, mostly to hunt coyotes and jack rabbits which were plentiful when he was young.  The whippet was smaller than a grey hound but could run just as fast.  When in pursuit of game, they could attain speeds of nearly 20 miles per hour.   My grandfather raised these hounds and sold pups to other hunters in and around Maple Hill.  He was married to Mabel Rachel (Jones) Clark who served as the Central Office Operator (telephone operator) at Maple Hill from 1914 until 1958.   The Central Office was a room containing the switchboard and other telephone equipment on the front of a three room house located at the main intersection of Maple Hill. 

My Grandfather Jones, my Grandfather Clark, and my Dad, Tim Clark all participated in many coyote and jack rabbit hunts, also called roundups.  These animals were plentiful during the early 1900s.   The coyotes were so numerous that there was a bounty of $3.00 if you brought the ears from a dead coyote to the county courthouse.   The jack rabbits were plentiful and were used to feed hungry families during the Great Depression Era and before.  Having said all I did about hunting in the first paragraphs, I will admit that the jack rabbits were over hunted as were the coyotes.   Eventually, they became endangered species and their populations were reduced to almost nothing during the 1950s.  Now coyotes are plentiful again but jack rabbits are rarely seen in Wabaunsee County, Kansas.

There is no caption on this old photo and I don't recognize anyone but I would guess that it is from the 1920s.



This picture is dated New Years Day 1945 but I do not recognize anyone in the picture.

I never heard my father, John "Tim" Clark, say that his Father or Grandfather Jones went coon hunting, but my Father went at least two or three times a week during the winter.   I have gone on many coon hunts with him, as have all of my brothers.   I never liked coon hunting much because it was always done in winter when it was cold and often the dogs would chase a coon for miles and "get lost" until the next day, when a neighbor would call and say they were at their house or they would just find their way home.   We would often leave our house on these coon hunting expeditions about 7pm and not return home until 10pm or 11pm.

John "Tim" Clark shown with coon hides on drying boards on Christmas Day, 1950.  This picture was taken at the Sells Ranch south of Maple Hill.  The caption on the photo indicates that these are his red bone coon dogs, "Rock" and "Rowdy."

Until going to work at the Veteran's Hospital in Topeka, Kansas my father, John (Tim) Clark farmed and also worked as a heavy equipment operator for Fauerback Construction, St. Marys, Kansas.  My dad was very good at operating a D-9 Caterpillar bulldozer and mostly built ponds and terraces during the winter when he wasn't farming.   Construction was not always dependable work during the winter so my father's primary occupation during the winter was trapping fur bearing animals and hunting for coons, coyotes and rabbits.    He would often make $3,000 or more over the winter from the pelts he obtained.   He would set traps along Mill Creek, the Kansas River, ponds and sloughs and would catch beaver, muskrats, and mink.   It was cold, hard work but he reveled in it.


There isn't any caption of date on this photo, but judging from my Dad's gray hair, I would it was probably taken in the 1970s.  I believe I'm able to count seven coyote pelts.   The bounty was taken off coyotes in the 1970s and these pelts all  have their ears, another reason for the date.

Making money from furs was hard work.   It might take a whole morning in freezing temperatures to check your traps.   Then you had to bring the animals home, skin them, scrap all of the fat off the pelt, and then stretch them over properly formed and shaped fur boards.   Then you had to let the pelts dry before taking them to market.   The coyote pelts in this photo have all been skinned, stretched, dried, taken off the boards and grouped.   There were many fur dealers in those days in Topeka, Pottawatomie and Wabaunsee County.   My Dad would call them, or they would send him pricing fliers, and he would take the pelts where they might bring the most money.   The very best price I remember him getting for premium grade pelts was usually $12 to $15 each for raccoons and $10 to $15 each for coyotes.   The beaver pelts might bring $20 to $40 dollars each and minks $15 to $20 each---but those were all the best prices.  Usually the net was much less.   None-the less, $3,000 in the 1940s, 50s and 60s went a long way toward feeding a family and most importantly, my dad lived and breathed hunting and loved every single minute of it.

I don't know the date of this photo, but the smile on Dad's face tells me that he was in the height of his glory---he has just caught a bob cat in one of his traps.   In the background at raccoon pelts on stretching boards.  Again I would say the photo is from the 1970s.

I don't ever remember my dad shooting a bob cat.  We have head them "scream" when coon hunting but I don't remember seeing one or shooting one.   However, my Dad did catch two or three bob cats in traps.   Those were always happy days.

In the summer, Dad's attention turned to fishing.  I do not consider it boasting, to say that my dad was one of the best fisherman in the Maple Hill area.   He fished with a rod and reel and he fished by setting lines both on Mill Creek and on the Kansas River.   Occasionally, he would fish from a pasture pond, but mostly he fished with a rod and reel.  Having said that, the photo to the right was taken in 1973, when my Dad (John "Tim" Clark) caught this 38# flat head out of the Kansas River on a rod and reel.  During the summer, I think that it's safe to say that he fished four or five nights every week.   He fed his own family and then fed his extended family and gave fish to half the town.   He loved fishing and never tired of it.   Unfortunately, I didn't inherit that love but all three of my brothers love to fish.  Just this morning I received an email from brother Gary Wayne Clark saying that he had gone fishing in Mill Creek on last Saturday and Sunday and had caught a total of 10 cat fish.

My brother, Gary Wayne Clark, carrying a pan of crappie fillets from the warmer at the 2008 fish fry.

My Dad, my brothers and other friends and relatives started the Maple Hill Fish Fry on the last Saturday in August more than 30 years ago.   They wanted to share their bounty with relatives, friends and neighbors.    Any time they have the opportunity to fish, whether it's a warm day in winter or throughout the spring, summer or fall, you will likely find my three brothers on the banks of Mill Creek or at one of the many man-made reservoirs in Kansas.   They all have one or two freezers and my mother, Lucille (Corbin) Clark always had two big freezers filled with crappie, bass and channel cat.   On the Saturday of the fish fry, my brothers and their friends gather to batter the fish and now have two large friers that are used to fee more than 200 people in Maple Hill City Park.   Everyone brings a covered dish at 5pm, and the fish is courtesy of the Clark family and fisherman friends.


Most years, the temperature will be between 95 and 105 when the annual fish fry is held in late August, but it never seems to make the crowds smaller.  Everyone brings a dish to share in the shelter house in Maple Hill City Park, there's free margaritas, lots of good conversation and no one goes home until well past dark.








  

My mother, Lucille (Corbin) Clark was always the biggest duck in the puddle at the annual fish fry.   Mom was an avid quilter and took the opportunity to sell quilt chances for the quilting group.   You could always find her under a tree in her rocking lawn chair "making a dollar for the Lord."  She was sorely missed at this year's event.

Fortunately, this story is going to have a happy ending.    While the fishing and hunting gene may have skipped me, it is alive and well in my son and grandchildren.   At right is left Liam Clark with a nice bass caught from the pond near his house.  His sister Mia Clark is just as eager with the rod and reel.    To the right are grandsons Will and Wyatt Allendorf who have a great fishing pond just a few houses from them in their subdivision.   Every time I visit we have to take bread to the pond and feed the fish and turtles which are real gluttons!

My son Nicholas with his bob cat.                             My son Nicholas Clark belongs to a hunt club near his home in Suffolk, Virginia and also has a fishing boat.   He is often out on the James River fishing.   In recent conversations he has been more than willing to share stories about deer hunting, shooting a bob cat, trying without success to get a red fox----so I'm very sure that my father and other ancestors would be happy to know their skills are alive and well.               Happy trails!