Between the Lines: Family History and Quirky Stories From Our Forgotten Past

       Mr. Editor, will you please give room in your paper to say a few words in regard to the serious accident that happened to our eight-year old son?       So began an extraordinary “Card of Thanks” printed in the Coffeyville, Kansas Gate City Enterprise October 30, 1885. The Card of Thanks was a standard item in newspapers after the death of a loved one. The family would thank those who helped them in their time of bereavement. But this one was completely different. P.H. Heckert and his wife Sarah farmed in Fawn Creek Township just a few miles outside of Coffeyville. October 6th, little John Heckert was riding on a horse at the farm when he was suddenly thrown, landing in front of his mare. To use Mr. Heckert’s words, he was “struck above the left ear by the toe of one of her shoes, crushing in the skull so the brain oozed out.”      Newspaper accounts of accidents were far more graphic and grisly than what we s...

       A 1910 Ford Motor Car featured in an ad in the Coffeyville newspaper In February 1914, Andy Patchett bought a new buggy. This is a bit surprising because so many of his neighbors were buying cars – automobiles, or motor vehicles as they were referred to. The first car purchased by a Coffeyville, Kansas resident was way back in January 1902; the Coffeyville Daily Journal ran a story when the second was purchased in March and suggested a race between the two. In June 1903 the newspaper reported that W.H. Mahan of the brickmaking factory had ordered a “devil wagon” – an Oldsmobile, and that other prominent businessmen were considering the same. “There’s nothing like being in style and in the push,” the reporter said. “Coffeyville people are always there.”   By July 1903 the paper said that, “Now that Coffeyville has a good-sized flock of automobiles running about her streets,” the editor thought people should brush up on newl...

                                                    Josephine "Josie" Patchett (1872-1956)        The sweet, grandmotherly face of my grandma’s Aunt Josie, with her bobbed and marcelled hair, looks out from the black and white photo with a slight smile. Josie was the oldest girl in a family of ten. Two siblings died as infants. She was 14 when her mother, Avarilla Stephens Patchett, died. The youngest child in the family, Bertha, was only ten months old. Josie became a mother substitute to her siblings.      The photo was probably taken in the late 1920s, when the youngest of her own ten children was in high school. We look at photos of grandparents and great-aunts and uncles from long ago, and don’t imagine them as young, running around, and getting into trouble. Josie did get in trouble - trouble of the worst kin...

      Just before Christmas 1888, a sensational trial began in an Independence, Kansas courtroom. Rebecca Detre charged Columbus “Lum” Harkins with bastardy. To compel a reluctant man to pay child support, one had to file a bastardy case in court, bastardy being a legal term. Related cases were “seduction” and “breach of promise.” The latter was a promise to marry which, it was assumed, compelled a young woman to yield to sexual advances.       In taking this action, 17-year old Rebecca exposed herself to great shame and humiliation. Everyone who knew her already knew, of course, that she had given birth to a son in September. Having a child out of wedlock was one of the most shameful things a woman could do. To have a man charged with bastardy, though, meant facing a public display of court watchers and newspaper coverage as her most private life was publicly dissected. It also exposed her to questions about her actions and virtue, and gave ...

  In an illustration from a 1890s short story, "Jenny's Calico Ball," Jenny inspects her date's jacket. What to do in the 1850s and onward about the distressing poverty so visible in New York City and other city slums? Industrialization, urbanization and immigration brought about a changing America with large numbers of poor concentrated in cities. The rising middle class and upper class were concerned about the “dangerous classes,” the “vicious and irresponsible” poor. The slums were surely breeding grounds for crime and drunkenness. The denizens of such places weren’t properly Christian - especially with so many Catholic immigrants. Surely, if left unchecked, this criminal element would overwhelm the country.       What about hosting a ball - one in which ladies would all dress in calico, with no fabric costing more than 12 ½ cents per yard? Proceeds from the ball could go to support the work of Rev. Louis Peese, a Methodist minister worki...

    If you read the January and February “Gleanings,” you know that Coffeyville, Kansas newspapers - and lots of other papers - ran “Seen-around-town” columns, especially in the 1870s and ‘80s. This is a compilation for March. I enjoyed selecting items and researching things common in the lives of our ancestors so much that I did two this month. 4 March 1875 Vegetables are scarce. March came in like a lion. Capt. Hershey says the fur trade is not over yet, “not by a longshot.” It is sad that there is a large number of destitute people in Fawn Creek Township. Larkin Cook has sent a carload of corn from Iowa to be distributed among the destitute in this vicinity. Joe Baker, who returned yesterday from a trip to the Territory, says there is a great deal of destitution among the Creek and Cherokee Indians.  John Carey, one of the substantial farmers of Fawn Creek Township, was in town yesterday looking after the interests of some of his destitute neighbor...