Every writer has blindspots. It’s so easy not to realize that readers have little or no knowledge of things you reference, or don’t think to mention. Here is a modest start to remedy that.
Timelines
The first two that come to mind as relevant cover the early years for my mom and dad. Partly that’s because we moved around a bit during those years. They also provide perspective on some of the stories I’ve told and probably others that I will tell.
Philip Dallas Spohn
This timeline covers the time up until our permanent move to the “Home Place.” That’s where we siblings grew up, but how we got there is interesting too: Remember to click images to see them larger.
We always knew how old Dad was — just subtract “1” from the current year and that was it. As the youngest son of a German family, he became a “full-time farm hand” right out of grade school — the same Alpha we attended — at 14-years old. It wasn’t long until he was running a steam-powered threshing machine during harvest season.
His father died in 1919. From that time on, Dad managing the farm on his own (I sure his brother Charlie helped some). He farmed until the fall of 1985. Most of the farming from 1924 until 1938 was done in the summer time. Not the best farming practice, but I’ll tell that story later.
In 1924 his mother allowed him to start school at McPherson Academy, where he took courses for students who hadn’t gone to high school. No doubt he did some commuting back to the farm because he was the first student to have a car — naturally, a Model T — at McPherson.
He went on to McPherson College and graduated in 1929. Mom and Dad were married that summer. They evidently lived with his mother while working her farm. In the fall he started teaching “out in Western Kansas” — as they would have said — at Quinter. Remember — it had only been 60 years or so since most of Kansas had been settled, and anything beyond where you were was still “out West.”
Shortly after school started in 1929, the stock market crashed — big time. That didn’t have a lot of effect on the economy right then, but by 1932, when I was born, it had collapsed. I’m definitely an iconic “depression baby.” Dad still had a good salary as a school teacher, though, even though farming didn’t pay much at all.
In a few years, things got much worse, and politics reared its ugly head. (I’m sure you’re familiar with how that works about now.) The cronies of a young school teacher’s uncle got himself elected to the Quinter school board. The board discontinued the courses that Dad taught and fired him (laid-off in today’s parlance). Then they hired the nephew to teach some new cockamamie courses.
That’s how we wound up in 1936 in the depths of the Great Depression and the center of the Dust Bowl. I’m pretty sure it was 1936 going by this picture. It’s in the fall (no leaves on the trees), and Marilyn looks to be about a year old. That would make me a little over 4 years old, which is consistent with 1936.
Two years later, I was a little over 6 years old and going to Alpha Grade School. Of course, that meant we had moved to the “home place” permanently. The country was clawing its way out of the depression, Dad had a new tractor, and I had learned to read.
During the summer of 1937, we lived in the little shack on the Postier Place that I wrote about previously. That must have been quite a challenge. But Mom and Dad were still in their thirties.
Doris Daisy Spohn
The corresponding timeline for Mom. Marilyn, Paul, and I were born about 18 months apart. Mom had to drop out of College to teach grade school at Springfield, Kansas so she could finish College. She also helped her parents pay the mortgage on the hard-scrabble farm they had. Good thing — they would have lost the farm, but instead, they struck oil in about 1928.
Related Timelines
Leona Mae Griffitts: Born 1885 > Cooking at Welsh Ranch 1899 > Married 2002 (@17?) > Doris Daisy Miller born 2005
William Moses (WM/Moe) Miller: Born 1881 > Canada 1898 > Cripple Creek 1899 > Kansas 1901 > Married 2002 > Doris Daisy Miller born 2005
More to come…
I’ll add genealogy links after I do more research online.
Didit.Live 