More Pictures of Mabel R. (Jones) Clark Taken at the Central Office and a Story

Yesterday, I knew that I had a couple more pictures I wanted to use with the blog but I just couldn't find them.   After a couple of hours searching through my pictures, I had some luck but one is still eluding me.   I especially wanted to include pictures of the Maple Hill Central Office building/house where my grandparents, James Peter and Mabel Rachel (Jones) Clark lived from 1914 to 1958, with the exception of two years, 1919 to 1921.  During those two years, they moved to the Stewart farm south of Maple Hill, where my Grandfather Clark farmed.  My father, John Leander Clark, was born in 1921 when they were living there.


This is a photo of my Grandmother, Mable Rachel (Jones) Clark, standing on the south side of the Maple Hill Central Office, which was home to she and my Grandfather, James Peter Clark from 1914 to 1958.   Grandmother loved to grow caster beans and moon flowers, both of which were usually in this location.  Grandmother Clark was a large, tall woman and was always proudest when the caster beans exceeded her height.  This picture was taken in about 1950.

Grandfather Clark wanted to try farming.  He and a cousin named Lee Wilson, had purchased the Maple Hill Livery Stable on Main Street and had operated it for four years after it was owned by Rufus King, the famous murderer.  One day in August 1921, Frank Shipp went to the farm and begged them to move back to Maple Hill and take over the Central Office again.   Within a couple of weeks they made the decision to do so after the telephone company promised to make significant improvements to the Central office.

These are pictures of the moon flowers grown by Mabel R. Clark at the Maple Hill Central Office.   The photos are dark because the moon flowers didn't open until after sunset, thus the name.  My Grandmother had a small, black Brownie box camera that she always kept at hand and snapped photos.  The first photo shows the screened in back porch at the Central Office.  It was on the southeast corner of the house.   I don't know when it was built on but I slept on a cot on the porch many times, as did other cousins.   There was a door going into the kitchen and the bedroom from the porch.

The Central Office was at the southeast corner of 3rd and Main Street.  My Jones cousin, Frank Shipp, who was for more than 40 years an employee of the telephone service in Wabaunsee County, told me that it had originally been a one story, two room house on a farm south of Maple Hill.   The telephone company had purchased it before 1910 and moved it to Maple Hill, where they added  kitchen on the south and a west room on the front of the house to provide a telephone office where the switchboard and switching equipment could be located.   The Central Office room would eventually also include a phone booth for long distance calls and an office area where people could pay their telephone bills.  Frank could not remember the exact year the house was moved to Maple Hill nor could he remember the name of the people who owned the farm where it was located.  He was nearly 90 when that interview took place.

This is a photo of the Main Street of Maple Hill, Kansas looking south and taken in 1910 for a Bower's Post Card.  The first structure on the left-hand side of the photo, a frame house painted white with two windows on the north side, is the Maple Hill Central Office.  It does not yet have the front Central Office room added on.  Also visible on the same side of the street are the blacksmith building of John Turnbull and the Livery Stable owned by the Romick Brothers as well as the grain elevator built by Fowler and Tod in 1887.  Across the street is the Maple Hill State Bank founded by Russel T. Updegraff and the two-story store building belonging to David Stewart.

This is a photo of Elmer Emory Jones and his wife Fleta I. (Marney) Jones, taken in 1932 in front of the Central Office at Maple Hill, Kansas.   Elmer, better known as Casey Jones, was the son of Leander Emory and Jeanetta Susanna (Reinhardt) Jones and was born in 1911.  Casey Jones was a half-brother to Mabel Rachel (Jones) Clark and he and Fleta were frequent visitors at the Central Office.  Casey and Fleta Jones lived most of their married lives in Topeka, Kansas where they owned and operated various businesses.   Casey and my father, John Leander (Tim) Clark were good friends and hunting companions.  I always knew them as Uncle Casey and Aunt Fleta.

The Central Office was the "hub" of the community and my Grandmother Clark served as the head of Maple Hill Central Intelligence :)   She knew all of the comings and goings of her customers.  When there was a funeral, Grandmother collected money for the community flowers and ordered them from Topeka florists.  When there was illness or a wedding, or any other right of passage, Grandmother could provide information with the permission of the family.   While some Central Office operators were known to listen in on calls and gossip or repeat information, Grandmother was never among them and held what she knew in strictest of confidence.
Her tenure was the longest of any Central Office operator, 43 years, and she was replaced by my mother, Lucille (Corbin) Clark, who served from 1958 until the telephone company became a part of Southwestern Bell Telephone and was converted to dial switching in 1962.   My mother was a relief operator for Grandmother Clark as was her cousin Mable (Phillips) Herron, Irene (Leeper) Hoobler, and Irene Flannary.   There were undoubtedly others.   I should have had her make a list but didn't.
My Grandmother also held another special role in the community.   When one of the town's doctors was out delivering a baby and needed assistance, he would call my grandmother.  She would find my Grandfather, Jim Pete Clark, have him tend the switchboard, and she would go help the doctor deliver the baby.   On seventeen occasions during her 43 years, there was a need to deliver a baby and the doctors were either out of town or already attending sickness and could not be summoned.   My Grandmother Clark delivered those seventeen babies.   I do have list of them and will write about that later.

This is a photo of my Grandmother, Mabel Rachel (Jones) Clark, when she became "Central Mabel" at the Maple Hill Central Office in 1914.  She is sitting at the switchboard console in the telephone office.







A photo of Mabel Rachel (Jones) Clark taken about 1958 in the doorway between her bedroom and living room in the Maple Hill Central Office.

There was a porch on the south and east side of the Central Office that ran along the office proper and the kitchen.   Grandmother stretched wire along the east side of the porch and planted a Virginia Creeper vine.  The vine kept the west sun from coming into the kitchen.   Every year, cardinals came to build their nests in the vine.   Grandmother would watch over them and pamper them and incredibly, every year, neighboring cats would come and eat the baby birds.   Grandmother would war against the cats, scalding them with hot water and every other manner of torture she could think of, but I don't ever remember a family of cardinals being raised to maturity in the vines.


My Grandmother was a large woman and incredibly strong.   I remember one Sunday afternoon, she had asked her cousin, Mabel (Phillips) Herron to watch the switchboard and had picked my brother Gary Wayne Clark and I up to go for a ride.  That was a very common Sunday afternoon thing to do in Maple Hill.   Every time I visited Maple Hilll over the entire course of my life, I took my grandmothers, mother and cousin Bonnie Mitchell (and many others) on Sunday afternoon rides around Maple Hill, and through the Flint Hills of Wabaunsee County.  On this Sunday, we stopped and visited with my Grandmother and Grandfather Robert and Mildred Corbin at their farm south of Maple Hill, and then we started back to town.   The railroad crossing was very steep and went up 8 or 10' to the level of the tracks.   Grandmother stopped and put the car in low gear before starting up the incline at the crossing, but she killed the engine just as the car pulled on the track.  She let the front wheel roll off the raised gravel between the crossing and the rail and the front tire rolled off and came to rest against the rail.   Had she had time, she could have probably started the engine and backed the car off the track.   However, just as she started to do so, she heard the whistle of an approaching locomotive  as it came around the curve heading east into Maple Hill.

This is a photo of L-R Mabel R. Clark and her cousin, Bernice Herron taken on the front step of the Maple Hill Central Office in 1935.   Bernice was the daughter of Mable (Phillips) and Wilber V. "Jack" Herron.   Mable Herron was Mabel Clark's first cousin through the Jones Family.   Bernice Herron was later the principal of Maple Hill High School.

Grandmother didn't panic, and she didn't take Gary and I out of the big Dodge car.   She just stepped around to the front of the car, grabbed hold of the bumper, picked the front end of the car up and rolled it back off the crossing.   The train was whistling and whistling as it approached the crossing but it didn't seem to alarm my Grandmother.   She said she wasn't scared until after the train had passed.   Her strength in lifting that car off the rail and pushing it back off the crossing was always amazing to me.  There are many other stories that I will share in future blogs.  

At the back of the Central Office, was a large plot of ground that was first used for a vegetable garden, and then as Granmother Clark aged, it became a flower bed with tomato plants at the back.   This photo shows Mabel R. Clark with her bed of bachelor buttons and larkspur and at the back, the large tomato vines.   Growing on the clothesline pole are Heavenly Blue morning glories.  At the left midground of the photo, is the south side of Earl and Alice Lemon's house and behind Grandmother is the Charles M. Lemon House.   The home of her parents, Lee and Jeanetta Susanna Jones is in the right mid-ground.
This is a 1925 photo taken on the south side of the Central Office.  Show is the corner of the front porch, the south kitchen wall and the back porch.  Also shown is are the outhouses on the Central Office property and the Charles M. Lemon Property.   In the photo L-R are baby Bessie Weeks, Betty Gilispie, and Tim Clark.  Betty Gilispie was a Clements.   Bessie Weeks was a Clark cousin of Jim Pete Clarks.   Tim Clark was the son of Mabel and Jim Pete Clark.


This is a photo of my Uncle, John Hedges (husband of Thelma M. (Clark) Hedges and their youngest son, John "Johnnie" Hedges taken behind the Central Office and in front of the flower and tomato bed in 1950.

My Grandmother, Mabel Rachel (Jones) Clark, was a lovely Christian lady, a devoted wife and mother, and a servant to others all her life.   She lived out her life in Maple Hill, and passed away at the age of 93 on July 27, 1986 and is buried beside her husband in the Old Stone Church Cemetery, Maple Hill, Kansas.  I don't believe she had an enemy in this world.  I hope I can end my life the same way.   Happy Trails!