Spooky!

Ok, I have to tell on myself tonight. I scanned a picture of my gr gr grandfather, August Rutkowski, and cropped it so i could use it in my family tree file. This is what it looked like when I started. I decided to put it in Photoshop, just to clean it up. While I was trying to clean the dark area in the upper right corner, I must have hit the wrong button. This is what appeared as I ran the mouse over the area. I actually jumped! Who says genealogy isn't exciting? :)

Halloween - 75 years ago and in the more recent past

Halloween was a different kind of day seventy-five years ago, according to my dad, Earl Johnson. 

My grandchildren: Halloween 2020

He grew up near McPherson, Kansas, on a farm. He was so full of stories, that I began calling him a few times a week just to hear new ones. One October night, all I had to do was ask if he was ready for Trick or Treaters, and the stories started coming!

The president of McPherson College once received the very special treat (or was it a trick) of finding a cow in his office the morning after Halloween and a buggy was found on top of North Union School another year. He told about one dark Halloween night, when a farmer quietly helped some boys carry all of his corn shocks out into the middle of the road. Once they were finished, he politely (but at gunpoint) introduced himself to them as the owner of the shocks and asked them to put them all back. They complied! 

The most common trick to find yourself a victim of in that farming community was the outhouse turnover. That trick you might discover a little earlier the next morning. Uncle LeRay, my dad's youngest brother, found himself a part of one of those tricks. 

LeRay and some friends were talking after a church event one Halloween and one of them mentioned an old outhouse sitting on someone's unused property. They got the idea to load it into the back of a young man's truck and give it a new home at Lambert Lundberg's place. Lambert was a nearby neighbor and the object of many pranks because of his sour disposition. He also had two entrances into his farmyard so it was a good place for a drive-thru prank. The boys piled into the truck and soon had the outhouse loaded in back. They drove in the drive and quickly pushed the outhouse off the truck. It hit the ground, breaking into pieces as the driver gunned the engine; sure that Lambert would be on their heals. Lambert never appeared. Bewildered, and not sure what to do, the boys finally broke for the night and went home. LeRay tells me that he was so curious about the absence of a chase that he returned to the scene of the crime... I mean he drove by the Lundberg farm on his way home. Much to his surprise, Lambert was waiting in his truck at the end of the drive. LeRay hit the gas and after a short chase, he lost his neighbor and headed home another way. The next morning, poor LeRay found that a trick had been played on him. It was a work day and as he walked to the barn, where he always parked his car, he saw Lambert's truck parked nicely in front of the barn door. Lambert leaned against the truck with LeRay's keys in his hand. Lambert laid into LeRay about the prank and demanded he clean the mess up if he wanted his keys back. Grandpa heard the commotion and came to his son's rescue. LeRay describes the scene with Lambert towering over his dad as Grandpa raised his fist into Lambert's face, grazing his neighbor's nose as he said, "Lambert! Can't you take a joke?" Somehow, he got LeRay's keys back so he could get to work with the promise that the outhouse would be removed. LeRay kept the promise and hauled it away later that day.

Dad recalled that it was all tricks back then; never treats.

When I was growing up in the sixties, Halloween was a big deal around Pleasant Valley. For weeks before, plans for costumes, parties and who I would trick or treat with were the main topics of conversation. The parties at my school consisted of lines of children and parading, costumed, through every room and onto the playground, eating giant cookies iced like pumpkins, and playing games such as bobbing for apples in tubs of water or dangling from string. I never enjoyed those games much, except to watch my classmates attempting to snag an apple with their teeth.

It’s funny that I can’t remember very many of my costumes. I do remember an early one. A plastic Snow White costume with a mask that had tiny eye holes that had to be positioned just right to keep me from tripping over everything in my path. That one is hard to forget! Once I was in upper elementary school, I think I just alternated years between homemade hobo and hippy costumes.

In 3rd grade, a boy in my class invited me to his Halloween party. When I knocked on the door of his house the night of the party, it mysteriously opened to reveal a tunnel made of tables covered in sheets. I remember having to immediately drop to my hands and knees and start crawling while someone moved the sheets and made scary noises. I finally came to the family room which was lit only by black lights. The game we played is what I remember the most. Rod’s older sisters told a scary story as we passed bowls around in a circle. Each bowl held something horrible and slimy that went along with the story. They made sure each of us put our hand in each bowl to touch whatever was inside. Such a sensory rich experience full of pealed grape eyeballs and spaghetti brains has stayed with me for many years!

There was always lots of activity on Halloween night as my friends and I would grab the largest paper grocery sack we could find and headed out in our costumes. There were some pretty cold years but that didn’t stop us. We had the entire area to canvas before 10:00 and our plan included every house. Many times we exchanged our weighty sacks of treats for empty ones half way through the evening; hiding the full sack safely at one of our houses before heading out again. The loot included many things that aren’t seen very often now. We found homemade treats; cookies, popcorn balls with sticky, sugar coatings, and caramel apples, along with the regular assortment of candy. No wonder the sack got so heavy! Once in a while someone would feel sorry for us with our red-cold hands grasping tightly to our sacks as we shivered on their front porches. Then we would be invited in to warm up. Sometimes it was a cup of hot chocolate that warmed us. Once we reached our limit of either time, temperature or the heaviness of our sacks, we would head for our homes to sort our goodies on the living room floor, trading certain items with my sisters and dumping everything in a large shopping bag. That bag served as a sweet depository of candy that hung on the back of the utility room door, visited often after supper for months after.

Halloween was different fifty years ago, too.

Updated October 30, 2020 after conversations with my Uncle LeRay.

It Didn't Start with Me

This slideshow has pictures from all four of my family branches. My story
started with some very strong people!

Art's Art

On June 19th, Emily, Brittany and I traveled to Lucas, Kansas to visit the Grassroots Art Center. We were there to attend the open house for a new exhibit on display in their museum. A display of my Grandpa Johnson's metal replica's of buildings he made in his later years. Arthur Theodore Johnson (Art) died back in 1986 but you can find his buildings all over Kansas.

Grandpa, the artist, fit right in with the others that have their work displayed in this gallery. Most of them were self taught artists who developed a passion for a specific medium and began creating the majority of their work after they retired. Grandpa fits this description but his creative work began many years before he retired.

For as long as I can remember, Grandpa has loved creating things. He was a farmer with a Swedish accent and a lot of ideas rolling around in his head. I recently learned from my dad that Grandpa would begin work before sunrise on their farm outside McPherson and, many times, when his sons had finished their chores and were ready for farm work, he would find a reason to go to his metal shop or wherever he was working on his latest project, and work for a while there. He couldn't resist the call to create. It was important enough to take up valuable daylight. I understand this and so, have developed an even stronger connection with him.

Besides farming, Grandpa was an inventor. I learned much later that at least one of his inventions, a handheld machine that would pick up grain from the ground and deposit it in a truck, was produced and marketed. Grandma and Grandpa's old crank telephone hangs on my wall. The insides have been gone a long time. I wonder what project they ended up in. He definitely was ahead of the times with the whole reuse recyle, reduce idea. That's all pretty cool but not what I remember him for.

When I was young, I was never wanting for original play equipment. My swing set was the tallest any of my friends had ever seen. The only ones as tall were on the school playground and Riverside Park. It was made entirely out of recycled parts from farm machinery carefully fitted and welded together to form a strong frame. The swings had long chains that made me feel like my feet could touch the clouds and we sat on tractor seats to ride the glider. The merry-go-round in my backyard spun over a huge tractor tire.

That was all really neat but not even close to the coolest thing he made us. When we went to the farm, we were sure to find something new to entertain us.

One of our favorites was a gas powered car. The body was metal, of course, and it had a seat and steering wheel. This is me in one of his earliest cars. It was a lot of fun to drive around the farmyard. At least once a year we would arrive to find that our car had been updated. Sometimes it had two doors and other times four. I remember when it had been transformed into a four seater, painted green and sporting a hood ornament. Then more of us cousins and siblings could ride.

I think I believed all grandpas made things like this for their grandchildren. It was later when I realized that this had been a very special "grandchildhood." Not every grandpa made cars or rowing machines with a (you guessed it!) tractor seat. The homemade camper, complete with bunks was my favorite place to sleep when I spent time there during the summer. Didn't every grandpa make one of these? My sisters, cousins and I were allowed to use the equipment in his metal shop. We learned to use his riveter to make swords out of scrap metal. The only rule was to leave everything the way we found it. Now that was trust!

Well, most grandpas do finally retire and their interests adjust to a new lifestyle. That is when grandpa started crafting buildings out of metal. He worked from memory and pictures creating two or three hundred little metal buildings in his basement workshop in a little house in McPherson. People would bring him pictures of the sides of their favorite building or house and he would recreate it on a smaller scale. At Christmas all of the kids might open a present and find a very small church or windmill. That workshop was always open to us also.

I am fortunate to have acquired several of his buildings over the years. They are some of my favorite things and have a special place on my mantel and in my heart. Several Kansas museums display one or two, also. Looking at them brings a flood of memories of my Grandpa Johnson.

Portal to the past

My mother-in-law, Helen, handed me an old canning jar during one of our trips to pick up more stuff for a garage sale we are preparing for. She said I might be able to sell it. Emily, standing on my other side, said, "Mom, that would look good in your kitchen". She knows me very well! It's now sitting in my kitchen window with it's glass lid clamped down tight and proudly displaying it's logo, "Ball". According to the Internet, it was made in the early 1930's.

I like how it looks, but even more, I like how it makes me feel when I look at it. This jar would have been in kitchens when my mom was a little girl. She would have watched and helped my grandmother and her sisters can all sorts of things in jars like this one.

I look at it and immediately smell dill or vinegar or tangy apple or sweet preserves. I see sunny windows in Aunt Ella's farm kitchen near Kingman, Kansas. This is the same kitchen my grandmother helped her mother in when she was growing up and my mom visited and cooked in during her childhood. Embroidered dishtowels hold clean jars ready for some yummy food that is being prepared by skilled hands. Steam is rolling above tall, well used pots on Aunt Ella's gas stove. There is talk and laughter as sisters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, daughters, cousins and granddaughters all find a way to be a part of the process of preserving fresh food and fond memories.

Without all of the sensory input of those days, the memory might be buried deep in my mind forever. There is no chance of that happening, considering the activity of the day.

One small object, like my canning jar, opens a portal into my past that allows me to experience again the love and rich heritage I share with so many special people.

New technology

I'm trying out some new technology on my iPhone. I hope it works!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I sat down with 2nd cousin Glenna and her mom, Donna Mae, last night to put names on some pictures I had come across a while back. Donna Mae hurt both of her ankles last week and is sitting in a wheelchair while she heals. I know its wrong to take advantage of a situation but right now she can't run away very easy so I had her captive for a few hours. Very mean, I know, but necessary! Actually, the 3 of us had a great time looking, guessing, arguing and writing the names of people in pictures that are only 15 or 20 years old.

Even pictures that new, relatively speaking, proved to be a challenge. If I am studying a picture that is 80 years old, imagine the difficulty! Take the picture above. At one time it was so newly taken that anyone in the family would have known exactly who everyone was. How silly to write names on a picture like that! Now it is a very difficult task. Never write something like "Grandma and me" on a picture. In 80 years, your decedents will not have any idea who that refers to and it will become one of the mysterious pictures that gets set aside as unidentifiable. Do you see where it says "Great Grandmother Warnken"? This would be okay if we knew who labeled the picture but there is no clue as to the writer. I'm lucky that Henry is in the picture which would be "Great Grandfather Warnken", so this must be my Great Grand Aunt Sophia. Henry is my Great Great Grandfather but his first wife, Wilhelmina was my Great Great Grandmother. This is Henry's 2nd family after his first wife died and he had remarried her sister. This is where names REALLY help!

Still, it's a lot of fun trying to solve these mysteries.