Introduction and Background

I grew up thinking that I had very few relatives. I was born and lived on a farm north of Athol, in Smith County, Kansas, until my folks gave up farming and my Dad took a job operating a dairy and general farming just southwest of Sabetha, in Nemaha County, Kansas. While I grew up playing with two of my first cousins and occasionally with some distant cousin, moving to Sabetha removed me from contact with any relation. Operating a dairy is a seven-day a week job, so my folks did not take any vacation, nor did they have the money to do so.

After graduating from High School in Sabetha, I worked summers for the Kansas Highway Department (now the Kansas Department of Transportation - KDOT) and attended Kansas State College (now Kansas State University - KSU). Therefore, I did not accompany the folks any more when they did take vacations. The vacations were almost always to visit relatives.

If my parents did talk about their relatives, I apparently didn't pay much attention. My grandmother (Dad's mother) lived with us for a number of years and I heard all of her stories about how hard she worked when she was a kid. I was really turned off by hearing them over and over. I never asked her about family history. I would love to have another opportunity to ask her questions. That is part of the reason that I got so involved in writing this bit of history.