Here are some notes that my great aunt Jesse Betchel wrote:
Jessie Leona Baggett, born Jan 18 1891 to James and Mary Baggett at grandmother’s home near Humbolt, KS in Allen County. The oldest of 8 children, moved to Oklahoma when I was five years old. At that time, there were just three girls Me – 5, Alta 3 and Ethel 6 weeks old. My dad and Grandpa Baggett (Allen Sherrill) had come to Oklahoma and bought farms. Later, mother and us 3 girls, grandma Baggett (Synthia Catherine) and aunt Pearl came on the train to Perry. I remember dad and grandpa met us there in a lumber wagon to take us to our new home, which was 25 miles out. It took almost all day. When we arrive our new neighbors were there to meet us. They had 2 little boys about my age. Our new home was a one room log house. Our neighbor lived just across the road a little ways in a little one room and a dug out. We all carried water from a spring across the road for a while, until we got a well dug. The country was new and everyone was hard up. They all began to try to get a school house built so got a place and build White Hall School about 1.5 miles from our place. I was not old enough yet for school. Aunt Pearl was just a young lady and she taught the first two years. I started the second year I started to school. The carried water from a spring for a while. There was a water bucket and dipper and everyone drank out of the same dipper and no one died. We never heard of germs, calories or diets in those days. All were hard up, no one had much, but we never did go hungry. As time went on everyone had large families. There were 50+60 went to White Hall one room school with one teacher. We had good times at our school house. We had S.S, literacy, pie suppers and box suppers. Christmas and the last day of school were big days there. That was the only school I ever went to. We had only been there a couple of years when Grandma B (Synthia) died. There was no cemetery anywhere but a neighbor’s baby had died and was buried in a corner of their farm. They decided to bury grandma there also. Mr Hopp gave an acre for a cemetery which was called Hopp Cemetery for a long time. Now it is called Union Cemetery. Grandma was the second one buried there. Now it is full and another acre has been added. The only railroad was the one at Perry. Dad would go one day and return the next to buy groceries. Most time one or two neighbors would go together but it was 25 miles in a wagon and they didn’t go very often. There was a little shack at Lela, about 6 miles from our place. The mail came out once a week. We sure thought things were getting good when we got a mail carrier. Then came the rail road and they staked off a town about 5 miles from our place. We sure thought things were booming. When we got the word that the RR was finished and the first train was coming, everyone for miles went to see the train come in. The engineer’s name was Glen Coe so they named our town Glencoe. People began coming in covered wagons, putting up tents and hauling in lumber to build with. Glencoe now has 5 or 6 hundred people. I sure can remember how we all loved to go to town on Sat. go down to see the train come in. Okla at that time was still not a state. It became a state in 1907. I remember the first phone that I ever saw and tried to get Dad to put one in. I was getting grown up and remember the fun us young kids had on the phone. Cars were just beginning to come. The first car that I saw was a little medicine show which came to town. They had a little red, one seat car. I have seen a lot of changes in my time. Electricity, washing machine, etc. I used to wash on a board and iron with and iron that I had to heat on the stove. Sure seen some hard times but I think in a way we appreciated what we had more than people do now. I don’t really remember the first time I met Eslie. We went to school together. They just lived a mile from us. We were married in 1908. We didn’t have anything but no one else did either so we didn’t mind it. Erman was born in 1910. We lived on a farm, worked hard. No one had any money. Every thing was so cheap. Some years we didn’t raise much and couldn’t sell what we did raise. Wayne was born in 1917. We began to do a little better and got our first car, a second hand model T Ford. Then we bought the farm 2 miles north of Glencoe where Norma Lee was born in 1927. We lived there 37 years then sold it and bought a nice little home in Glencoe, lived there 6 years when dad (Eslie) died of lung cancer in 1965. I lived lone 6 years and on my 80th birthday had a light stroke. The doctor said I couldn’t live alone; was in Rosewood rest home in Stillwater nearly 2 years and got better. My house was shut up for 9 months so sold it. Came out to Normas, was with her 1.5 years and found a nice place with a lady 75 years old who keeps 2 old ladies , so I came here, to near Norma’s and she comes to see me often. Just us 3 old ladies, Lillian Burns, Maud Martin and myself. We get along but I miss my own home. So here I am - 87 years old in Jan and this is Nove 28th. I feel like I have seen a lot – some good and some not so good. Lived through world wars 1 and 2, seen droughts, floods, airplanes and phones – good times and bad. I still get around with a cane, and still crochet – Just finished my 51st afghan – made all my children and grandchildren one and 12 great grandchildren. Have sold the rest. Don’t know if I will get any more done or not. Letter of Jesse Baggett 11/28/1979 Map from 1907, see the JN Baggett lot on the north end of town and more north the Duncan and Walton lots.
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The Matt Kuka farm was 80 acres. Peter Kuka and Anna Sonsalla had the barn built and then later the house. Part of the old house was used as the chicken coop. Grandpa (Peter Simon Kuka) called the oldest grandchild (Martha Agnes Murphy) Martushka (google search says this means lady). Every time mom (Helen Kuka) expected and delivered another baby, Martha was sent to live with grandparents (Peter and Anna Kuka).
Blanche Kuka went to take Clara's place to work for Mrs. Markham when she married Adolph. Mom (Helen Kuka) worked for Mrs. Markham before she married. Grandma asked Mrs. Markham to teach the girls how to be ladies. Aunt Lizzie Kuka didn't last long. She would stay out too late at night and Mrs. Markham didn't want to be responsible. Grandma (Anna) Kuka was very ambitious for her children and worked very hard. Imagine being able to give a dowery of $1000 to each daughter. This money was applied to a farm - she felt like her daughters would be co-owners. Clara Kuka lent her money to St. Peter & Pauls so she could afford to buy the farm from Helen Kuka after she married Ed Grutzik. Blanche claimed the house that she lived in as her dowery. Martha Skroch sometimes felt that grandma (Anna Kuka) had a right to get angry. Grandpa was such a gentle person and equally hard working but the rheumatic fever/heart held him down as well as Alphonse. Grandpa Peter Kuka loved to try something new every year. One year tobacco, another peanuts. Once he wrote a farmer's magazine for a pattern to make a boomerang. Allie (Alphonse Kuka) would take it into the pasture to throw it (it didn't always come back)... Martha Skroch trotted behind her grandpa in the furrow, barefoot, in the spring when he did the plowing. The Matt Skroch and Helen Kuka children named the cows, Daisy, Katie, Flora, Wishbone, Billie, Nellie and Rose. - written by Martha (my grandmother) to her brother Peter M. Skroch My Great-grandfather Denis Murphy was a partner at Gordon & Koppel Clothiers at 1005 Walnut from 1915 to 1925. According to an article written by McGilley chapel. Gordon was a Protestant, Koppel was Jewish so they invited my Catholic grandfather to round out the demographic. That is not the cool part, the cool part is BASEBALL. The founded the Gordon Koppel field where the KC Packers of the Federal League played.
There are several websites out there with interesting factoids about this project. Apparently the MU vs KU football games were also played there. It should also be noted that the field eventually failed because it was located in the flood plain by Brush Creek (Currently Thomas J. Keily Park around 47th and Tracy) so that explains why I am not currently the heiress to a baseball franchise, typical.
I got very confused about the Murphy and Foley families. There are literally 2 Bridgets, 7 Kates, 4 Johannas, a Mary Catherine and a Catherine in the same family, Maggies are everywhere with an occasional Mary Margaret (are they the same?), & a few Alices....and that is just the women.
About year ago, I started helping my father organize my grandmother's house as it was clear that she was never going home again at 94 years old. It quickly also became clear that this was no small task. The first time I tried to take a load of books for donation, I found that my grandfather's original CCC paperwork from 1933 had been stuffed into an old atlas and I barely caught this fact before the book was thrown onto a pile and would have been lost to our family forever. That was the moment that I got the bug to become our family archivist. Since then, I have scanned thousands of pictures and documents, Developed a pretty lengthy list of to do items on Ancestry.com and the Midwest Geneaology Library, given dna tests to anyone in my family that will spit into a cup, and started planning several road-trips and overseas trips with the sole intention of research.
Sadly, since then, the family historian on my mother's side has also passed away and my responsibility has doubled. However, if I am to take on this task, it will have no reward unless I can share it with the people that I hope will appreciate it. And, frankly, I am hopeful that I can find people out there who have pictures or information that is lost to my family already. I do not think I can post everything out here but my hope is to provide enough to paint a picture for my family, future generations and lost connections. I will continue the work that my grandmother and aunt started. in loving memory of Helen Louise (Dawson) and Kathleen (Murphy) Mallon. |
MeNewly self-appointed family historian for the Baggetts and Murphys of Kansas City. ArchivesCategories |