I want to begin this blog with an apology to all my Clark, Jones, and McCauley Cousins. Don't give up on me. I have lots more information to share about your families but I think it is important to finish the material about the children of my maternal great great grandparents, James and Cynthia (Casteel) Corbin. It provides more continuity. I'm planning on doing the same thing with the Clark family next.
Secondly, I want to apologize to all my cousins who have gotten married and had children since 1980. I did most of the genealogy work I'm sharing between 1970 and 1980. After that time, I was busy with my own family and career and just stopped doing research. So you won't find much information on the contemporary family members born between 1980 and 2012. I'm sorry about that but I also know that when I began to do family research in 1970, I didn't have anything except the names of my grandparents and great grandparents. There were no genealogy websites which meant you had to do a lot of handwritten correspondence and also plan summer vacations so that you could visit the locations where they lived and do research in courthouses and libraries. It sure wasn't as easy as it is today with computers and scanners. So forgive me all you cousins 30 years old and younger! I am going to let you write the blog about yourselves. Let us now continue with the last three children of George and Sarah Ann "Sadie" (Todd) Corbin: Edna, Robert and Frankie.
This is a photo of Robert Corbin, his oldest sister Sylvia M. Corbin and his older brother Ira Lee Corbin taken in about 1940.
The last half of the 1890s was the worst imaginable for George and Sadie Corbin. I say that because they lost half of their children during that time. Goldia Mae was born in 1889 at West Liberty, Missouri and died on May 3, 1896 while either visiting relatives or living at Ayr, Adams County, Nebraska. She is buried with her grandparents, James and Cynthia Ann (Casteel) Corbin in the Blue Valley Cemetery at Ayr, Nebraska---although there is no marker on her grave. Her younger brothers and sisters, Pearley E., Raymond, and Hazel D. Corbin all died in that same summer of 1896 but at West Liberty, Missouri.
When I was visiting Putnam County, Missouri and looking through some of their old newspapers, I found the death announcements for the little children. They were heart wrenching. "All that medical training could do was not enough to save Hazel, the little daughter of George and Sadie Corbin. The angel of death slipped through the cover of darkness and took her beautiful little soul to the other side, leaving grief stricken family members to mourn at her grave." There are three headstones in the cemetery at West Liberty, Missouri, each bearing witness to what was at that time an uncurable illness: diptheria.
This is a photo of the George Washington and Sarah Ann (Todd) Corbin family picturing several of their children that died. From L-R: Sylvia M. Corbin, George Washington Corbin, Ira Lee Corbin, Sarah Ann "Sadie" (Todd) Corbin, and Pearly E. Corbin. The two small children are Goldie Mae Corbin in the dark dress and the baby is Raymond Corbin. Pearly, Goldie and Raymond were all dead of diptheria within two years.
Even though the parents must have been broken hearted, the circle of life goes on. Three more children were born to George and Sadie Corbin, a daughter Edna on March 11, 1897, a son Robert Corbin on January 5, 1899 and lastly a son Frankie Corbin in 1901.
Edna Corbin was just two-years-old when her parents decided to leave their farm at West Liberty, Putnam County, Missouri and move to southern Kansas where they would operate railroad hotels. The family sold all of their farm machinery and furniture and moved by train to their new home at the City Hotel in Corwin, Kansas. They later moved to the City Hotel in Freeport, Kansas and finally, by 1910, the family had moved to Wichita, Sedgwick County, Kansas.
A 1898 photo of Edna Corbin, daughter of George and Sadie (Todd) Corbin.
Edna Corbin completed both grade school and high school and began working as a stenographer in about 1915 or 1916. Her mother passed away in 1916 and she continued to live at home and assisted her sister, Sylvia M. Corbin, in caring for her father and keeping house.
I do not know her entire work history but I do know that she spent the last 20 years of her working life as first an operator and then chief operator for Kansas Gas and Electric in Wichita, Kansas
In between 1916 and 1940, I know that she was married twice and divorced twice but I do not have the names of her ex-husbands. I do know that she moved to California during World War II and lived with one of her husbands for a period of time.
She lived with my parents at the end of her life and I asked her about her marriages but she was not well and she simply said it was too painful to talk about. My mother knew that she was married, and met one of the husbands but didn't really know anything about them or why the marriages didn't last. No children were born as a result of either of the marriages.
A photograph of Edna Corbin walking to work at Kansas Gas and Electric in Wichita, Kansas. The photo was taken in the 1940s.
Aunt Edna was very successful and well-liked in her employment at Kansas Gas and Electric in Wichita. I always remember her dressing beautifully and wearing a hat.
I remember my great aunt Edna Corbin as being a very sweet, happy person who came to Maple Hill, Kansas often to visit my grandparents, Robert and Mildred (McCauley) Corbin and my parents, Tim and Lucille (Corbin) Clark. During the 1950s and 1960, it was whispered among the adults that Aunt Edna was a functional alcoholic. She didn't drink during the daytime but drank either alone or with friends in the evening. She died at the home of my parents on July 25, 1975 from complications of liver serosis.
I always liked Aunt Edna and enjoyed our visits together. I remember that she always wore "Taboo" perfume. She had an infectious laugh. She would often begin her sentences with "Oh my Gaaaaawwwdddd honey...." I never knew of Aunt Edna to be argumentative or to cause any difficulties. She was very grateful to my parents for taking her in and caring for her at the end of her life. I don't really know how long she lived with our family, but I'm pretty sure it was over a year and under two years.
This photo was taken during the 1950s in front of her apartment building. She lived on the second floor.
I was married and leading a tour of Spain with 10 of my Spanish students from St. Marys High School when I received the word of her death in July, 1975. I was not able to attend her funeral but she was buried in the Old Stone Church Cemetery at Maple Hill, Kansas alongside her sister, Sylvia M. Corbin and her brother and sister-in-law Robert and Mildred (McCauley) Corbin-Clark.
Robert Corbin was born on January 5, 1899 at the family farm at West Liberty, Putnam County, Missouri to George and Sarah Ann "Sadie" (Todd) Corbin. He was their eight child. Soon after his birth, the family sold their farm and all their belongings and moved to Corwin, Kansas where his mother and father operated railroad hotels.
A photo of the children of George and Sadie (Todd) Corbin.
Standing L-R are Sylvia Myrtle Corbin and Ira Lee Corbin.
The little girl on the left is Edna Corbin and the baby sitting on the chair is Robert Corbin. The picture was taking in mid-1899.
Robert moved with his parents from Corwin, to Freeport, Kansas and finally to Wichita. I don't know if he finished high school in Wichita, Kansas but I do know that he enlisted in the United States Army and became a "doughboy" in France where he drove a field ambulance pulled by four mules. He used to talk to me about how he hated the mules and how stubborn they were. He was seriously injured with poison mustard gas while in France and hospitalized for some time before being sent home after the November 11, 1918 armistice.
This is a 1920 photo of Robert Corbin on the left and his friend Orsen Banta, who served with him in World War I. I never did hear my Grandfather or Grandmother Corbin talk about how they met but Orsen Banta would have been a step brother of my grandmother, Mildred (McCauley) Corbin. Her mother, Lucy Mae (Lemon) McCauley-Banta-Strong was married to Orsen's father Frederick Banta for a time.
During 1919 and 1920, my maternal grandmother, Mildred Mae McCauley was attending Business School in Wichita. Her mother, Lucy Mae (Lemon) McCauley-Banta-Strong had always operated small businesses most of her life. She owned small grocery stores or cafes. She wanted her daughter to have a business education and to go into some kind of business.
When my maternal grandfather, Robert Corbin, returned from World War I, he met and began to date Mildred McCauley in Wichita. Mildred graduated from Business School on August 16, 1919 and she and Robert Corbin were married on June 2, 1920 at Wichita. Mildred's mother was very angry with her for marrying Robert Corbin. She wanted her daughter to marry someone who was in business and was from a well-to-do family. Robert didn't have a job, his family wasn't wealthy, and Lucy (Lemon) McCauley-Banta couldn't see how he would be a good husband for her daughter. She refused to give them her blessing and did not attend their wedding. If there was a wedding picture taken at the time of their marriage, I have never seen it.
Robert Corbin got a job working in the oil fields at Elbing, Fairmount Township, Butler County, Kansas. It was there that their first child, my mother, Lucille Corbin, was born on April 22, 1921. Evidently, my maternal great grandmother, Lucy Mae (Lemon) McCauley-Banta could not stay angry with them forever---because before the birth of their next child, they moved to her farm in the Snokomo Community, Newbury Township, Wabaunsee County, Kansas. It was there that their second child,George Samuel Corbin, was born on February 27, 1923. The baby was named for his two grandfathers, George W. Corbin and Samuel McCauley. Their third child, Joan Corbin, was born at Grandma McCauley's farm on January 15, 1925. Tension was always high between Robert and his mother-in-law and the Corbin's moved from the Snokomo Farm to a rented farm west and a little south of Eskridge, Wabaunsee County, Kansas. The farm was located very near what is today a man made lake, built by World War II German prisoners and named Lake Wabaunsee.
It was while they lived on this farm that their fourth child, Sarah Emma Corbin was born on June 12, 1929. The family then moved to Maple Hill, Kansas and their fifth and final child, Vivian Mae Corbin was born on August 3, 1932.
Like so many Great Depression Era families, my Grandfather Corbin worked hard but just never seemed to be able to get ahead. He didn't own any land and didn't inherit any land or money from his family. The jobs were very scarce and he did mostly day labor. The Adams Family owned large amounts of land and farmed and raised cattle and horses at Maple Hill, Kansas. My Grandfather Corbin worked for them during the 1930s, mostly in the farming operations where he raised corn, picked it by hand and delivered it in horse-drawn wagons to their elevators and feedlots. He worked for both Horace G. Adams, Sr. and for his brother, Franklin Adams. It was very difficult to accumulate any money when you were a tenant farmer with a wife and family of five children. My grandmother, Mildred (McCauley) Corbin always planted and raised a large garden and she also had chickens and a milk cow. My grandfather Corbin would help with the garden when he could but my mother, their oldest daughter Lucille, learned to work in the garden, help with laundry and cooking, gather the eggs and do most of the general housework and farm work at a very early age, as did her brothers and sisters.
This photograph was taken in about 1936, since their youngest child, Vivian, who was born in 1932, looks like she is about four years old. L-R are George Samuel Corbin, Lucille Corbin (in rear) Joan Corbin in front, Mildred (McCauley) Corbin standing in back, Sarah Emma Corbin, standing in front, Robert Corbin standing in back and Vivian Corbin standing in front. If Lucille had been standing next to George, they would have certainly been stair steps.
During the 1940s, Robert Corbin became the custodian and school bus driver for Maple Hill High School, Maple Hill, Kansas. The economy and "times" were getting better as the Great Depression came to a close, and Grandfather Corbin began to be able to accumulate enough money to make some progress. He left the school job and became a maintenance worker for the Kansas State Highway Department. With a stable source of income, he and Grandmother Corbin were able to purchase a 20-acre farm 1.5 miles south of Maple Hill. The farm had belonged to Charles Montgomery Lemon and his son, James Harrison Lemon. James Harrison "Harry" Lemon was a very good carpenter and built the one and one-half story farmhouse located on the farm. It had two large rooms downstairs, two large bedrooms upstairs, and a screened-in back porch that went across the entire east front of the house. The Corbins moved there in 1949. With the help of his sons-in-laws, Grandfather Corbin was able to make many improvements to the house.
A 1950 photograph of Mildred (McCauley) and Robert Corbin at the Lemon Farm south of Maple Hill. This is the way I first remember my grandparents. My grandfather always wore a cap, although he had a full head of hair.
In about 1955, they purchased a 1953 Ford with overdrive. This was the first newer car that they had had. They used it to take their first vacation, a trip to Yellowstone National Park. They took along Grandfather's sister, Edna Corbin, and Grandmother's cousins, Charles and Bonnie (Thomas) Mitchell. They also made trips to Wichita, Kansas to see Corbin family relatives. These were good times for Bob and Mildred Corbin. Most of their family had married and left home by the time the moved to the Lemon Farm south of Maple Hill.
The lone exception was my aunt Vivian Corbin. In my earliest memories, she was in high school and dating her future husband, George Wild, Jr. One of the memories of those early days is the method my Grandfather Corbin would use to signal the end of their Saturday evening date. Aunt Vivian had a curfew of 11:00pm on Saturday night. Uncle George Wild had a 1950 or 1951 Ford. He would come and pick Aunt Vivian up and I really don't know where they went or what they did. But about 10:30pm, they would drive in the big circle driveway at the house. They would park on the far side of the circle drive near the barn, where I'm sure there was plenty of "spooning" going on. (They're both dead now so I have no fear of telling this!!!:) At 11:00pm sharp, my Grandfather Corbin would walk to the lightswitch by the kitchen door and begin flicking the big yard light off and on until Aunt Vivian would appear at the door. Those were good times. I was the first grandchild and nephew. I was about 8 or 10 years old and my three aunts, Joan, Sarah and Vivian all spoiled me incredibly.
Lucille Corbin married John "Tim" Clark in 1942, Joan married Richard G. Andrews in 1946, George S. Corbin married Freda Kitt in 1947 and Sarah Emma married Leslie Justice in 1947. Vivian married George Wild, Jr. in 1953. So all the children were away from home and Robert and Mildred (McCauley) Corbin could begin to think about themselves and plan for the future.
This picture was taken standing on the top step of the front screened-in porch at the Lemon-Corbin Farm south of Maple Hill. I want to spent some time talking about it because there are it evokes so many memories. The old dog in the photo was named "Colonel." My grandfather raised some alfalfa hay on the farm at first and had two workhorses that he called "Western Horses." They pulled the mower and one day, Grandpa came carrying Colonel up to the house because he had gotten in front of the mower and it cut his lower back leg off---the one you can't see in this photograph. Everyone thought Colonel would die, and he did lay around for several days, but eventually he got up and learned to walk again. Within a few weeks, he could run just as fast as he ever did.
To the south of the coal shed and out of view, was the outhouse. To the west of the coal shed (in front of it) was the below ground "cave." This was a cement structure which had two big doors that opened to the east. (They almost never opened to the west or south because tornado winds would blow them open. You walked down a big flight of cement steps and there was a heavy wooden door which opened inward. It had a big metal bar across the back side so again, a tornado could not blow it inward and fill "the cave" with debris. A tornado was through to "suck" the door outwards so the doors always opened inward. On the left side of the "cave" were wooden shelves where all manor of canned goods in glass jars were stored. On the right side were big wooden bins where the potato, beet and carrot crops were stored. In the middle were a number of old chairs, most of which had lost their backs. These we used to sit on when a storm came up. My Grandfather would always chid my Grandmother Corbin for waiting too long to go to the "cave." Storms usually came at night. Grandpa would light a lantern on the back porch, we would throw a jacket, coat or towel over our heads and run from the back porch to the cave. The cave had a ventilation pipe that went up through the center and it seemed to magnify the howling wind and roaring thunder. The cave was a frightening place for another reason. At times, there were big toads, salamandars and yes----SNAKES----that found their way to the cave. Usually they were bull snakes, black snakes or garder snakes. It was a place I thought of as a life or death choice!! Even as an older child, I never liked going to the cave or retrieving canned goods or vegetables for Grandmother Corbin.
When I was about four or five, my Grandmother Corbin, Aunt Bonnie (Thomas) Mitchell and my mother, Lucille (Corbin) Clark was cleaning out the cave. It was spring and lots of plant materials and trash would accumulate there in fall and winter. I was told not to play on the cement steps but I did. Sure enough, I slipped or tripped on the top step and fell head over heals on the cement all the way to the bottom. I probably remember more of what they all told me as they repeated the story time after time, but they got me into Aunt Bonnie's old Plymouth sedan and rushed me into Maple Hill where our old country doctor,John Wilson Lauck, looked at me and told them that I had broken my left ear drum but otherwise seemed to be fine. He told them to take me home, put a drop of sweet oil (whatever that was) in my ear in the morning and evening and in a few weeks the ear drum would grow back again. It did, but much thicker than at first, and I have about a 20% hearing loss in that ear today.
Sitting upside down on the lawn (which incidentally Grandfather Corbin mowed with a push mower) are two galvanized wash tubs. They were taken into the screened-in back porch when Grandmother Corbin would wash. She kept a Maytag washing machine with electric wringer on the back porch. I know this photograph is taken before 1951, because the well was destroyed by the 1951 flood of Mill Creek. It was located about 100 yards south of the house and served both the need for drinking water and also water for the chickens and livestock. The new well was drilled about where you see the old brick walk in front of the screened-in porch. It was much more convenient than the old well. I know, because I pumped lots of buckets of water from both wells for drinking and washing. Those are large, 10-gallon wash tubs and so it would take at least 10 buckets of water from the well to fill each one.
I also remember the tubs because that is where we took our Saturday night baths. Sometimes if we got dirty, we could wash in the hand wash basin on the back porch. But on Saturday, during the summer, we would dip gallon buckets of water from the cistern tank located on the south side of the house, and take our baths outdoors on the south side of the house. The road to Maple Hill went on the north side of the house so privacy dictated the use of the south side. This large rain water tank was made of steel and the sun would heat the water so it was just right for baths. Myself and many of my cousins have been bathed in those tubs using solar heated rain water.
The first building seen in the photograph was the coal/tool shed. It had a divider wall in the middle of the shed and a door from outside into both sections from the west. Coal for heating the house was stored on the far south side. Grandfather Corbin used the near north side of the building as a workshop. It had a workbench and all of his tools for doing carpentry things and repairing farm machinery, etc. Sometime in the early 1950s, he bought a five horsepower gasoline engine mower that had an old-fashioned cycle cutter on the front. That was used to mow the large areas of grass and weeds around the house, garden and outbuilding. My brother Gary Wayne Clark and I both remember using the old mower lots of times.
The clothes line for drying laundry and clothing was behind the coal shed and in front of the garden. I studied the photograph and I believe that Grandfather Corbin's large potato patch is what can be seen growing in the garden. I've also spent time hoeing in that potato patch and picking potato bugs off the plants.
The long building to the south of the coal shed was the chicken and brooder house. I would estimate that my Grandmother Corbin had a flock of about 100 laying hens in the west portion of the building. Along the north wall there were roosts for the chickens. Along the east wall there were two rows of laying boxes with about a dozen boxes in each row. Along the western wall there was a long cage that had a wooden frame but had metal wire on three sides. Those were the confinement boxes for sitting hens. Grandmother would buy chicks every spring at Harry and Hazel Ballinger's general store in Maple Hill. Sometimes they also ordered them from hatcheries and the rural mail carrier would deliver them to the farm. She would then put the chicks in the brooder house which was on the east end of the building. It was probably 20'x30'. It had a large kerosene heater that hung from the ceiling and provided heat for the chicks until they were old enough to go outside into the chicken yards. The brooder stoves could be dangerous and it was fairly common for them to explode and burn the chicken house down. However, that did not happen on this farm during my life.
I remember going to the chicken house and gathering eggs with Grandmother Corbin when I was little. As I grew older, I would go by myself. We would then take the eggs to the back porch or the kitchen and wash them. Some were used for cooking and eating and others were put into crates and taken into Maple Hill where they were sold for "egg money." In the spring, some of the hens would get "sitty." Grandmother would take those and put them into the big wire covered cages along the west all of the coop. She would then put a couple of eggs under the hens and they would begin laying. Sometimes, she used glass eggs to get them started. She would put feed and water in their cage every day and there was a ledge in front of the cage so that the hens could jump down to the floor. The hens had to sit on the eggs for 21 days and they would hatch. Grandmother would always take most of the chicks and move them to the brooder house. There were two or three little cages down on the floor of the chicken house where she would put her favorite hens and their little families of chicks. As time passed, it was fun to watch these hens take their little chickens out to the farm yard and scratch for bugs.
This photo was taken in 1956. Robert and Mildred Corbin are standing in the back. Seated L-R are Bonnie (Thomas) Mitchell and her husband Charles Montgomery Mitchell. "Uncle" Charlie is holding Stanley Clark, one of the twin sons of Lucille (Corbin) and John "Tim" Clark. The photo is taken in the living room of the Lemon-Corbin Farmhouse.
Although Charles Mitchell was a Lemon cousin, we always called them Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Charlie. The four were constant companions from the 1930s forward. Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Charlie had a farm south of Maple Hill, when the Corbin children were small and I've heard my Grandmother and mother say many times that the Corbins would have gone hungry sometimes if it hadn't been for the Mitchells.
Another memory from this photo is that Aunt Bonnie and my Grandmother Corbin both have on "flour sack" dresses. Both were excellent seamstresses and both used to take the printed material that chicken feed and sugar sacks came in, and make clothing. I have worn many "flour sack" shirts and didn't think anything about it.
For me, the dreaded days were always those when we "dressed" chickens. Usually my mother, Lucille (Corbin) Clark, our cousin, Bonnie (Thomas) Mitchell and my grandmother Corbin would gather on a weekend with the goal of dressing 25 chickens at a time. This meant that you took a long piece of #9 wire with a crook bent in one end, and you snagged twenty five chickens by the leg with the chicken catcher. Then you would kill the chicken. There were many different ways but my Grandmother Corbin used to put their heads under a shovel handle and pull up quickly. You wanted to immediately throw the chicken in front of you or you would get covered with blood. The chicken would flop and flop and sometimes we thought those headless wonders were actually chasing us. Eventually they would lay still on the ground.
There were a lot of innovative ways to kill a chicken. One lady in the Maple Hill community had her husband build a picket fence in front of their house with the pickets spaced just far enough to allow the chicken's head to slip down between. She would place the chicken's body towards the gravel road, slip it's head down inbetween the pickets, facing the yard, and then walk down the fence with a machette-like corn knife and "do them in." The bodies would then flop toward the road and keep the blood and mess out of the yard.
Another common way was to take the chicken by the head and give it a sudden violent twist which pulled the head off. This was called "wringing" the chicken's neck. Although in common use, none of the Corbin women I knew seemed to favor that method. Used occasionally, was the method where you layed the chicken's neck over a stump and chopped off the head with a sharp axe. Of course, if the chicken moved or your aim was poor, it could prove to be very unpleasant.
An hour or so prior to killing the chickens, you had to pump and carry water to the big tubs (yes the same ones we used for bathing!) and there she would run an extension cord from the back porch of the house and hook it to a portable water heater and drop it into the tub. You had to be very careful because you could really get shocked it you stuck your hand on the tub or water. The water had to be very hot, almost boiling to scald the chickens.
Water was heated on Grandmother's old kerosene cooking range (which was always moved to the back porch in summer) and when the water was hot, and the chickens had been killed, you took them to be scalded. This was a very smelly but necessary job. The scalding caused the feathers on the chicken to loosen so that they could be easily picked off the bird by hand. This was a nasty, dirty, smelly job but the chicken was worthless unless it was picked. There were pin feathers underneath the big feathers and they were hard to get out. Sometimes you had to take a paring knife and pull them out by hand.
Once you had picked all the feathers out you possibly could get out, then Grandmother Corbin would light her old kerosene range on the back porch and turn one of the burners up so that you could singe all of the remaining feathers and little hairs off the bird. This really made a stink. What came next was gutting the birds. You had to make a slit across the rear ends of the chickens with a sharp knife, reach inside the body cavity and pull out the intestines (also called entrails) hearts, livers, and gizzards. Incidentally, you had to be very careful when doing this to not break the gall sack attached to the livers. If the gall fluid got into the cavity of the chicken, it would leave a very bitter taste.
When all that was finished, we would put them into a clean tub of water and make sure they were very clean inside and out. We would always dress a few old fat hens that weren't laying anymore. These were left whole and were boiled on the bone to make chicken and dumplings or chicken and noodles with. The "spring fryers" usually two or three pounds, would be cut up and used for frying chickens. We would then put them in freezer bags and take them into Mote's Grocery Store in Maple Hill, where you could rent a locker and keep your chickens and other meat frozen. When I was very small, I remember Grandmother Corbin and Bonnie Mitchell cooking several chickens, taking the meat off the bone and then canning it in glass jars. This was used for soup and for chicken and dressing and other dishes that required boned chicken. However with the advent of frozen food lockers, they and most farm women quite canning meat.
I was glad we had the experience of dressing chickens because raising chickens was something I did most of my life until I moved away from Maple Hill. After I was married, we raised chickens and butchered them every year until 1977 when we moved away.
This is a photo of the Robert Corbin Family taken in 1949. L-R are George Samuel Corbin, Joan (Corbin) Andrews-Frazier; Robert Corbin, Mildred Mae (McCauley) Corbin, Lucille (Corbin) Clark, Vivian (Corbin) Wild and Sarah Emma (Corbin) Justice.
Grandfather Robert Corbin was 56 and thinking about retirement in a few years when he learned that he had lung cancer. He had always been a heavy smoker and had smoked "Camels" which were unfiltered. His cancer was particularly aggressive and they didn't have the treatments in those days that they do today. They discovered the cancer in September of 1957 and he died on April 16, 1958. I was in the 8th Grade and remember his illness very well. It was a sad time for the entire family. He was buried in the Old Stone Church Cemetery, Maple Hill, Kansas.
My Grandmother, Mildred Corbin, was a widow at 56 years of age. The life insurance policy that Grandfather Corbin had through Mutual of Omaha, had a cancer exclusion clause. All the premiums they had payed were of no value to them. In addition, there was still a mortgage on the farm they had purchased. Grandmother Corbin talked with her children and their spouses and it was decided that they would move the farm house into Maple Hill, and sell the farm itself. I don't know how much the mortgage was, but I remember Grandmother sold the 20-acres of farm ground to Howard Deiter for $2,500.00.
If memory serves me, it cost about $700.00 to move the house 1.5 miles into Maple Hill. It was put on a new foundation on north Main Street. Much if not all of the work in building the new foundation, putting in a septic system, installing a modern bathroom and kitchen, and building a carport on the south side of the house were all done by her children and their spouses. Richard G. "Rick" Andrews, Leslie Justice, my father John "Tim" Clark, George Wild, Jr., and George S. Corbin did most of the carpentry and plumbing. Rick Andrews was a very good carpenter and was a sort of foreman for the work. I remember nothing was removed from the cupboards of the house when it was moved into town, and nothing was broken.
Grandmother Corbin then went to work going to people's homes and babysitting with their children. She worked for Howard and Louise Deiter in raising their four children Steve, Julie, Timmy and Shelly, and then worked for Larry and Lavina (Mackie) Schulte in babysitting for their son Layne Schulte, and being there after soon for his older brother and sister Larry Schulte, Jr. and Lana (Schulte) Johnson. In addition, Grandmother Corbin was not using one of the upstairs bedrooms in her house and had Blanche McLeod, who taught math, Latin and Spanish at Maple Hill High School.as a boarder. She was able to pay off her mortgage and put aside a very nice nest egg by the time she finally retired at 70.
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This photograph was taken in January 1982 at the 40th Wedding Anniversary party of my parents, John "Tim" and Lucille (Corbin) Clark. Standing L-R in the back row are Leslie F. Justice, Robert L. Frazier, George Wild, Jr. and George S. Corbin. In the middle row L-R are: Sarah Emma (Corbin) Justice, Joan (Corbin) Andrews-Frazier, Vivian Mae (Corbin) Wild and Freda (Kitt) Corbin. In the front row L-R are: Mildred Mae (McCauley) Corbin, Lucille (Corbin) Clark and John "Tim" Clark. These are all the children and their spouses of Robert and Mildred (McCauley) Corbin.
Mildred Corbin thought she would remain a widow for the rest of her life, but in 1973, she met Roy Hasdale Clark, who had owned and retired from a men's clothing store in Topeka, Kansas. He had been an excellent tailor and had been quite successful. He proposed and they were married at the Maple Hill Community Congregational Church in September 22, 1973. I was the organist for their ceremony. Mildred was 72-years-old and Roy was about 10 years older. They had several happy years together. Roy believed in eating healthy, homegrown food and they had a beautiful and large vegetable garden to the east of their home and a large flower garden on the south side of their home. Roy composed plants and soil and mixed them with goat manure to make his own fertilized soil. He had an open cut on his hand and got infection from mixing the manure, compost and soil and died within two days from blood poisoning on August 4, 1977. During their four years together they enjoyed a good deal of travel spending a couple of winters in Sun City, Arizona and traveling to the Hawaiian Islands. Roy also believed in exercise and he and Grandmother Corbin-Clark walked a mile or more every day.
After Roy's death, Grandmother Corbin continued to live in her home and care for herself until at age 90, she began to suffer from senile dementia. She then moved to live with my mother, Lucille (Corbin) Clark, who was by then a widow. Grandmother Corbin lived with mom for a year and her illness progressed so that it became impossible. She spent the last several months of her life at the St. Marys Manor, St. Marys, Kansas and died there on March 21, 1994 just five days short of her 93rd birthday.
I have so many happy memories of my Grandfather Robert Corbin and my Grandmother Mildred (McCauley) Corbin. I spent many, many weekends with them at their farm, and after my Grandfather Corbin died and Grandmother moved into Maple Hill, I spent even more time with her. She was a strict grandmother, but we all loved her. She was a terrific manager of money and worried about it constantly. She was generous to a fault! She eventually had 16 grandchildren and made every effort to treat all of them alike. She was very religious and never missed attending church at the Maple Hill Community Congregational Church. She did beautiful needlework of all kinds and also crocheted doilies and made trim for pillow cases and table clothes. I think most people would have to think long and hard to come up with anything negative to say about Grandmother Corbin. I miss her every day
Frankie Corbin was the ninth and final child of George W. and Sarah Ann "Sadie" Corbin. I know almost nothing about him and I know of no photographs. He was born in 1901 when the family lived in Corwin, Kansas but I don't have an exact date. Either he became ill and his mother needed help, or the family just went for a visit with the sister of Sadie (Todd) Corbin, Mrs. Lee Brisendine in Oklahoma, but Frankie died while there with the family. I found a note among the papers of Edna Corbin that simply says of her little brother, "Frankie Corbin was 18 months old when he died of summer complaint at the home of my aunt, Mrs. Lee (Hannah Ret) Brisendine in Harper County, Oklahoma." I do not know where he is buried.
I will write about the children of Robert and Mildred (McCauley) Corbin next. Happy Trails!
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