Childhood Highlights, Father's Business, Roland's Birth, and Family Memories

Red, White and Blue Sidewalk
While we lived at this home, my father decided he would replace the wooden sidewalk in front of the house with a cement walk.  He got some red, white, and blue coloring to put in the cement.  We had the only such walk in town--and maybe in the entire state of Missouri--of alternating red, white, and blue sections.  He did such a perfect job of smoothing the surface of the walk that when it rained or otherwise was slick, people walking were afraid to walk on it, since it was on a fairly steep little grade.

Spectacular Fire
While living here, I was awakened one night by someone running past, yelling "Fire!"  As my window was fastened over, and the light of the fire gave it a red glow, I first thought our house was on fire.  But I soon learned it was the three-story opera house on main street a few blocks away.  It was a spectacular fire; fortunately, the wind was blowing from a direction to keep it from spreading to nearby buildings.

In Ridgeway we had no fire fighting equipment other than a "bucket brigade," which consisted of people forming a line from the nearest well and passing buckets of water from one person to another, on up to the fire.  This usually was a futile exercise, except for a small fire.  It was a tragic sight to see a fire in a beautiful three story house.  We would rush in and start carrying things out into the yard.  There were actual cases of people being so excited that they would carry a load of clothes or bedding down the stairs and outside to safety and return and pick up a beautiful mirror or lamp and throw it out the second floor window--thus breaking it all to pieces.

Halley's Comet, May 4, 1910 (www.uh.edu)

During this period of my life [age 11] I had the privilege of seeing for several nights, Halley's Comet--a bright star with a long tail of light.

Father's Business
After being cashier of the First National Bank a few years, my father, with the help of a few well-to-do farmers, organized the Commercial State Bank of Ridgeway and became the cashier.  The bank prospered and provided my father with an income of $100 per month, which was above the average income at that time.  Father also was secretary for the Masonic Lodge, which was the source of a little more income.

Another Home in Ridgeway
It was about this time that Father had an opportunity to purchase a large two-story house and more than a square block of ground, 2 1/2 blocks from Main Street.  It was rather near the depot of C931Rail Road, running between St. Joseph and Chariton, Iowa.  There was a two-car passenger train that went down to St. Joe in the morning, and returned in the afternoon to Chariton each day.

This may be the two-story house Elzumer bought

First Bicycle
It was about this time that I ordered my first and only bicycle from Montgomery Wards and Co.  That catalog was the source of many things for our family, as the small local stores had very limited stock of merchandise.  For several days, I watched patiently while things were unloaded from the baggage section of the first coach of the train.  Finally, my bike arrived nicely.  My father helped me get it home and I began learning to ride it--by having a box at each end of the seat, to help me mount the shining new possession.

The Perfect, 1910 (http://oldbike.wordpress.com)

My Bay and White Pony
Our new home site included an oversized pasture for our cow and a large garden area, in addition to a large yard.  Father bought me a bay and white pony about 2/3 the size of a regular horse.  Queen was the source of a lot of enjoyment for riding, pulling the garden implements, the four-wheeled spring wagon, and the attractive buggy with a second seat facing the rear.

Kenneth holding the reins, ready to take a group of children for a buggy ride.  It may be Roland seated next to him and Winnogene in the back.

I had "gas pipe" runners to convert the buggy into a sleigh with bells in the winter.  This was a popular rig and when several of my friends would take turns riding with me, Queenie would get tired.  Despite my efforts to keep her moving, she would go to the side of the road and lay over against a snow bank until she was rested.

The following account is from a tape-recorded interview with Kenneth, found in the appendix of his and Mary’s autobiographies:

When I was about your age, we lived back in Ridgeway, Missouri. We had a pretty good-sized place, the area equal to about a block-and-a-half of land. We had a big pasture and a big garden. So [my father] got a pony for me. The pony was named Queenie. She was about as big as a pony we had out to the farm in Maryland. My father also bought a nice little buggy and it didn’t have a top on it but it had a nice wide seat in the front. Right back behind was a smaller seat that faced the other way....That little pony was a real nice pony to drive and she’d just haul us around in that nice little buggy.

I also had a little spring wagon. It was big enough for a pony to haul. It was a pretty-good size wagon but just for one pony to pull it. I haul things around it on the farm and our big garden we had and go down there and gather the produce down there and have a lot of fun. We had a cow at that time that we milked. That was my job to milk that cow every morning and then I had to drive the cow down to a bigger pasture--down probably about six or eight blocks and I had the job of taking some neighbor’s milk cows down there too. They were all gentle cows. I would stop by one barn and get the cow out and go down the road and get another cow and take them on down there. Then in the evening, I’d go down there and get the cows and take one to each one of the neighbors. This pony [Queenie] that we had in the winter time, I had sleigh runners I’d put on that little buggy and they were little gas pipe runners that fit up at the top and went back for the back. My, that was a nice little rig. I had some sleigh bells, a string of sleigh bells to put on the pony, and I was pretty popular.

My friends would all like to go and take a ride with me in my buggy and one time we’d spent riding along for quite awhile weren’t thinking too much about Queenie and it was a pretty heavy snow. It wasn’t snowing then but it had piled up along the road where the grader had come along and pushed it out you know.

So Queenie got tired of hauling us around so she just insisted in getting over there to that big bank of snow along side of the side of the road and she just laid right down, right in the harness and everything. I had my whip and whipped her and got out there and got a hold on her bridle and tried to raise her up and she just stayed right there, just laying up against that big snow bank until she got rested and then she got up and we took another little ride.

Brother Born
My brother Roland joined the family circle on October 3, 1910, bringing joy and happiness to all of us.

Kenneth, Unknown woman, Roland, Carrie and Elzumer Scott

Memories of Family
Most of our neighbors kept a milk cow but in the summer they pastured their cow in a field about half a mile from our house.  With my pony, I arranged to drive 6 or 8 of the cows to and from the pasture each day for 75 cents each per month.  by this time I was old enough to go to my Granfather Scott's farm when the wheat and hay crops were harvested.  Grandfather's second family included three boys:  Howard, Russell, and Raymond.  I was about the age of Howard.

When we shocked the grain bundles, we four boys could easily keep up with the horse-drawn blinder, so occasionally we would run to a nearby farm--partially undressing on the way--for a swim, until we could see my Uncle Ralph had made about three or four rounds with the binder.  Then we would hurry back and catch up with arranging the bundles into shocks of about eight bundles standing on end with one on top as the cap to protect the grain ends of the bundles.

Grain shocks in an Amish field (http://powc2c.files.wordpress.com)

This may be the farm of  Kenneth's grandfather, Aaron Graham Scott.

During the evenings, we would sit in the yard and ask my grandfather to tell us about his hunting trips.  (There were no TVs or radios and no daily papers.)  He was a great story teller.  Most every year after harvest, he would take a trip to western Kansas and Colorado where his son, Oat, and family, and daughter Minnie Jacobs and her husband Ruthy [Rutherford] and family lived in that newly settled area.  There was an abundance of wild game and my grandfather was an experienced hunter.

Thanksgiving was a day when my grandfather Scott always wanted all his family there.  My Aunt Minnie was still at home.  Aunt Ruth and Kenneth Weary came from Cainsville, Nick and Myrtle and children came from a nearby farm and Mother, Dad, Winnogene, Roland, and I joined the group.  Each family would bring pies, cakes, and other food.  Grandfather would have shot several wild quail that became a quail pie.  He would have killed one of his large turkey gobblers.  There would be pork and beef that he had butchered from the farm animals and pies and cakes in abundance.  After dinner the folks would gather around the organ (with foot pedals) and have a joyful time of singing church hymns.  My grandfather had a good tenor voice and my father sang well as did each of the others.