Biography for Theodore Eddie (Markham) Marcum (my father)
Ed is my father. I write this in loving memory of him. He was a great dad. While he only had an eighth-grade education, he was smart. He had a lot of common sense and street smarts. He was a very friendly and likeable guy. Being a big man (about 6 foot 3 inches and 240 pounds), he was known as Big Ed. He had this on a personalized license plate on his car in Kansas.
Ed was born Theodore Eddie Markham on February 28, 1919 in Chitwood, Jasper, Missouri.[1] Ed died February 6, 1987 at Hillhaven nursing home in Topeka, Shawnee, Kansas at the age of 67. He is buried in Crocker Cemetery outside of Pittsburg, Crawford, Kansas and is next to my mom.
His parents were Edward J. Markham and Mary Etta Marcum. Edward was born September 25, 1868 in Kansas and died July 18, 1944 in Joplin, Jasper, Missouri. He was 48 when Ed was born. Edward’s parents were Eugene A. Markham and Sarah Jane Lee. Etta was born May 16, 1875 in Glasgow Junction, Barren, Kentucky and died February 12, 1951 in Miami, Ottawa, Oklahoma. She was 43 when Ed was born. Her parents were James Marcum and Nancy Jane Brown. Edward and Etta are buried next to each other in Webb City Cemetery in Webb City, Missouri.
Ed married Lucille Jessie Farris on February 4, 1939 in Miami, Ottawa, Oklahoma.[2] Lucille was born November 28, 1920 in Oklahoma.[3] She was the daughter of Talbert Sabastian Farris and Omega Imogene Tedrow.
Ed and Lucille had the following children:
- Evelyn LaDeane Markham, born October 30, 1939, Missouri; married Everett A Smith Sr., January 29, 1961; married Gerald Max Nichols, October 22, 1956, Jasper, Joplin, Missouri; died September 14, 1971, Parsons, Kansas.
- Eddie James (Jimmy) Markham, born October 26, 1941; married Arla Mae Kral, August 30, 1971, Nevada; married Diana Lee Burgess, April 19, 1966, Carson City, Nevada.
- Mary Francis Markham, born July 19, 1943, Joplin, Missouri; married James Peterson, November 3, 1990, Washoe, Nevada; married James Edward McCarty, May 23, 1958, Clackamas, Oregon; died April 27, 2004.
Ed married Dorothy Maxine Hughes on April 29, 1956 in Miami, Ottawa, Oklahoma.[4] She was the daughter of Charles Victor Hughes and Mary Luilla (Lula) Hurd.
Ed and Maxine had the following child:
- Kem Eugene Marcum, born October 16, 1957 in Baxter Springs, Cherokee, Kansas; married Rebecca Sue O’Dell, June 27, 1980 in Cimarron, Gray, Kansas.
Narrative
Ed (Dad) was born in 1919 in Chitwood, Missouri, a small town in today’s west Joplin area. He was the first and only child of Edward and Etta. Edward had five children from his first marriage and Etta had four from hers. This means Dad had 9 half siblings, and the youngest of these was 14 years older than him.
Chitwood was formed as a mining camp and small village in 1900 and in 1908 was incorporated into Joplin.[5] It was part of Galena Township, which is how it is described on the 1920 Federal Census. Ed was likely born at home. His mother, Etta, made many good notes in his baby book.[6] His delivery nurse was his half-sister, Julia Todd. His first outing was when he was three weeks old, when his mother pushed him in his baby buggy to Julia’s house. Jimmy Alleman, his half-brother, got him the baby buggy.
Etta, Dad’s Mom, wrote this in his baby book when Dad was one year old: “Last Easter I sure had a nice time me and my parents and sisters went out at Filmores bridge. I sure enjoyed my trip. I saw many wounderful things as I went and as I come home. We cooked our dinner out there. I had much fun watching the big waves of water dash against the big rocks. And I laughed to my self and enjoyed the large stream of water and thought how I would like to wade in it.” Fillmore’s bridge is on Shoal Creek in Jasper County, Missouri, and is about 5 miles from their home in Chitwood.
By 1926 the family was in Hockerville, Oklahoma. His baby book says he was promoted to first grade there. He got a birthday card from Hockerville Mission when he turned 7 years old.[7] This was probably the church they went to. His father, Edward, was probably working at a nearby mine. This is what most men in the area did.
Hockerville, Oklahoma came into existence in 1916 when lead and zinc were discovered there. A Post Office was established on January 18, 1918. It is east of Picher several miles and near the Kansas state line. It was a mining boom town that quickly sprang up and reached a population of 1500 or more. Mining at Hockerville created huge underground caverns in the unstable ground of the area. A very deep cave in occurred on main street around 1950 and ended most of the town’s existence. Today, Hockerville is a ghost town and little remains under the brush grown ruins of the once prosperous mining town.[8]
By 1930 the family was in Buffalo, Missouri. The Great Depression hit in 1929. This had a very negative effect on the mining industry. Many mines either shut down or cut back dramatically. Many mining jobs were lost.[9] Edward likely lost his job and probably had a hard time finding work. So, they moved to a farm in Buffalo, which they rented according to the 1930 Census.[10] They took up a more subsistence lifestyle out of necessity. Dad went to school in nearby Neosho, where he graduated from the 8th grade in 1932.[11] He also would have helped his father on the farm. His father would have been 64 years old at this time.
Dad probably started working after the 8th grade. He did not go to high school and his dad was getting older. The first record of him working was in 1939, as a miner.[12] I think he started working in the mines earlier than this, sometime around 1936. On his 1947 Navy Reserve enlistment documents, he stated that he had worked in the mines for 11 years, so this means he started in 1936 at age 17. On the 1940 Federal Census he is listed as a shoveler in a lead mine.[13] Also on this census he is shown to have made $560 the previous year, and his sister Alice lives next door.
Shoveling was a tough job. You used a big hand shovel to scoop up rock that had been dynamited into small pieces. The rock, containing small amounts of ore, in this case lead or zinc, was put into a large can. A can’s capacity was 1000 to 1650 pounds. The can was then hoisted up the shaft to be emptied and then returned. The shafts were either 6 by 6 foot or 5 by 7 foot. The miners rode down and up the shaft in the can to get to and from their work area. Many of the mines were 100 to 300 foot deep.
The shovelers were relatively unskilled and made little money. The toll of shoveling on a miner’s body became quite obvious in William James Cassidy’s study of the Tri-State zinc and lead mining region.[14] This is what the mining area of Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas was called. According to Cassidy a young 19-year-old man could fill 60 to 70 cans per day, but after 2 to 6 years of working in the mine this number would drop to 35 to 40. Since miners were being paid by the ton, they would place a wooden paddle with their designated number on it in the can after filling it. As the cans were lifted out of the mine the paddles were counted, and the miners pay was based on his work. If a miner did this same type of work for 10 years down inside the mine, they were often unable to work by the age of 30.[15] In addition to the hard physical labor there was the dust. Many miners suffered from this dust in the form of lung disease at an early age.
I remember Dad talking about being able to fill over 100 cans in a day. In one article on mining the following is stated: “some claimed that there were miners who even filled over 100 cans, which meant over 100,000 pounds”.[16] This was quite a feat. He was a big, strong guy and would have been a shoveler for a number of years. He was lucky to have been able to do this without having obvious health problems at a young age.
At some point Dad became a dynamite man. I remember him talking about this. At the end of each day’s work, the dynamite men would set off their charges to make more rubble for the next day’s work. They would drill deep holes horizontally into the walls, about eleven feet. Then they loaded dynamite into these holes and inserted the blasting caps (like fuses). When the time came, they would set it off, which of course made a big explosion. One hole might hold twelve sticks of dynamite. The objective was to keep blasting into the new ore contained in the walls, and making rubble that wasn’t too large or small. The right size rubble was important for effective shoveling. This job, while dangerous, was a step up from being a shoveler. Dad always did like big fireworks and blowing things up.
Dad and Lucille were married in February of 1939 and LaDeane was born nine months later. In 1940, according to his WW2 Draft Registration card, Dad was working for the Beck-Robinson Mining Company.[17] This mine is just northeast of Picher, Oklahoma.
Picher originated as a mining town in 1913 and had a population of 14,252 in 1926. It was the most productive lead-zinc mining field in the Tri-State district, producing over $20 billion worth of ore between 1917 and 1947. Over half of the lead and zinc used during WW1 came from Picher. At its peak over 14,000 miners worked the mines and another 4,000 were in some type of mining service. Dad lived in Joplin at this time and would have taken a trolley to the mine. The larger mining companies had an extensive trolley system to take the miners to and from work. It was 22 miles from Joplin to Picher. Mining in this area started slowing down after WW2 and by 1967 had ceased. There were about 14,000 abandoned mine shafts, 70 million tons of mine tailings (chat) and 36 million tons of mill sand and sludge. This was a huge environmental problem and extremely hazardous. In 1983 the EPA designated the area as the nation’s number one Superfund site. It was considered the most toxic town in America. Blood tests showed lead levels were high in about 35 percent of the children. The water and soil were contaminated with lead and other metals. The EPA closed the town in 2006. Today it is a ghost town.[18]
In 1947 Dad left Joplin and went to Rock Springs, Wyoming. He started work at a trona mine (trona is used for making glass, paper products, detergents, baking soda and many other products) for FMC (Food Machinery & Chemical Corporation). He operated a Joy loader, a device that was a type of electric conveyer to move mined material into train cars.[19] This was a big move for the family. LaDeane was 8, Jimmy 6 and Mary 4. To move his wife and 3 children to Rock Springs was a big change. I’m not aware of any family connections they may have had in Rock Springs.
In addition to working at the trona mine, Dad also worked as a cook in a local restaurant. This is according to my brother Jimmy. I think it was connected to a motel. They went hunting a lot. Jimmy remembers going hunting for elk, moose, deer, rabbits, squirrels and even mountain lion. They went trout fishing in Green River. One time Dad went elk hunting with only three bullets. He came back with an elk and two of the bullets. Another time he killed two elk with one shot, the bullet when though one elk and into another one.
Dad was allergic to some types of animal fur. This is interesting given that he was a hunter and was around fur quite a bit as a result. I remember going to a zoo once and he got a red rash from being around some animals. This didn’t seem to bother him too much, it was just a bit of an irritation. Dogs and cats didn’t seem to affect him, just other certain types of animals.
After WW2 the lead and zinc mining industry slowed down drastically again. The government need for lead and zinc diminished after the war, and federal subsidies were stopped. Two thirds of the mining jobs in the Tri-State mining area were cut and many smaller mining companies closed for good.[20] I think this is what drove Dad to move to Rock Springs. He needed a job and the Joplin area didn’t have a lot of options with the mining slowdown. FMC was probably trying to attract experienced miners for their trona mining operation in Rock Springs. Dad must have decided this was an opportunity and moved his family there in 1947.
Also in 1947, Dad signed up to be in the United States Navy Reserves. This was a four-year commitment, but he signed an extension in 1951 for another four-year period.[21] He received an Honorable Discharge in 1955.[22] While we have all of his service records, I don’t know much about what he did. He must have gone to training exercises of some kind, but this is not documented in the records.
In November of 2017 I went to the Joplin History & Mineral Museum in Joplin, Missouri. Part of this museum is the Everett J. Ritchie Tri-State Mineral Museum. They have a collection of old mining pictures and displays. I was looking through the pictures, and saw that some of them were of work gangs at specific mines. In going through these I found one that had a guy that looked like Dad. I took a picture of it, expanded it and saw that it must be him. It was at the Hunt mine, which is outside of Picher, Oklahoma. The date was 1950. Dad was sitting on a dynamite box. I found this kind of ironic knowing how he liked to blow things up. I talked to my brother Jimmy and sent him a copy of the picture. He agreed that it was Dad. The question this raises is why was he in Picher in 1950 when they lived in Rock Springs from 1947 to 1953? They may have gone back to the Joplin area for a while and maybe he needed work temporarily. This is a bit of a mystery, but the picture sure does look like him.
In 1953 the family made another big move, this time to Kelso, Washington. I don’t know why they went to Kelso. The three children would have been 14, 12 and 10, so all of school age. Dad went to work for Reynolds Metals as a plant man.[23]
In 1955 another big change occurred. Dad and his wife Lucille separated. I don’t know the specifics as to why, but Dad left Kelso. On November 5, 1955 he applied for a new Social Security number. He was in Pinedale, Wyoming.[24] According to the form, he was unemployed and used general delivery at Pinedale as the address. At this point he changed the spelling of his last name from Markham to Marcum. After separating from Lucille, he must have felt the need to do this. He probably chose Marcum as that was his mother’s maiden name. He would use Marcum exclusively going forward.
Separating from Lucille meant that he left his three children. They were 16, 14 and 12 at that time. I don’t understand this. It must have been hard for him, but he thought it was necessary.
By November 30, 1955 he was visiting his brother Jimmie Allemann in Miam, Oklahoma.[25] This article also states that Ed would be visiting his sister, Alice, in Peoria, Oklahoma. Peoria is about 13 miles from Miami. Ed was very close to Alice. She lived with Edward and Etta for some time before getting married, and helped raise Dad as her much younger little brother.
Dad ends up in Carthage, Missouri. He got a job at Red’s Café as a cook. Another cook that had been there a few years was Maxine Hughes. They must have hit it off. They got married on April 29, 1956. This is how my Mom and Dad met. I remember them talking about working together. Dad worked nights and Mom was on days. It was a small 24-hour café. When their shifts overlapped, Dad would “steal” some of Mom’s cooked food items. After seeing a trend, she would make a little extra for him.
In 1956 he also worked at L. D. Schreiber and Zuvekas Mining Company. Schreiber was a cheese plant in Carthage. He was a plant worker of some type. Since he had a lot of mining experience, he must have decided to get a mining job to make money. Zuvekas was in the Tri-State mining area southeast of Picher.
Dad made another significant decision in 1956. He decided to become a meatcutter. He entered the National School of Meat Cutting in Toledo, Ohio on October 1 of that year. It was a two-month course. He scored 96.6% on his final test.[26] He would be a meatcutter for the rest of his working life. This decision had to help his health a lot. He no longer worked in the mines, which was very unhealthy. While cutting meat certainly involves physical labor (I watched him carry a side of beef from the cooler to his cutting table many times), and he had to stand up all day, it was better than mining work.
After meat cutting school Dad and Mom moved to Baxter Springs, Kansas. Their address was listed as 120 E. 19th Street on his meat cutting school documents. In 1957 he got a job as a meat cutter at the IGA store in Seneca, Missouri. He was also working at a Hudson Oil Company gas station and at the Zuvekas mine that year. That year he made $472 at Zuvekas, $112 at Hudson Oil and $240 at IGA. He must have changed meat cutting jobs that year, from the IGA in Seneca to a Kroger store in Joplin. He made $1851 at Kroger that year. So, his gross earnings for 1957 was $2675.[27] According to the Census Bureau, the average family income that year was about $5000. They were certainly below that.
But something important did happen in 1957. I was born on October, 16, at the Baxter Springs Hospital, which was on Route 66. Our house was at 235 E. 9th Street, where they must have moved to earlier that year. The small house is still there. Amazingly, the house is still there and doesn’t look all that much different. We went there in 2017 and took a picture of it.[28]
As Dad was working in Joplin and they were living in Baxter Springs, in 1958 they moved to Joplin, at 2402 Annie Baxter Street. In 1958 he made $3461.[29]
In 1960 they moved to Parsons, Kansas and Dad took a job as the meatcutter at Foodtown grocery store there.[30] Their address was 3019 Redwood. They may have moved in 1959 as Dad’s W2 earnings at Kroger were less, indicating a partial year of work there.
LaDeane followed Dad to Parsons. She was living there by 1960. On November 19, 1960 there was a newspaper announcement of her engagement to Everett Smith.[31] LaDeane worked at Oklahoma Tire and Supply store. Everett worked at Foodtown with Dad, so Dad knew Everett and may have been involved in hooking them up.
We saw LaDeane quite a bit. We would go to her and Everett’s house and they would come to ours. They remodeled an old one room school house to be their home, which was on a farm. LaDeane would babysit me once in a while. One time she was sitting me at our house. I fell down and cut my head on my train set. She rushed me to the Doctor’s office. They said it might be a while. She told them I needed attention immediately, in no uncertain terms (she was a pretty forceful person). I got right in. I think I had a few stitches; the worse part was getting a shot to deaden the area around it before putting in the stitches.
Another memory of LaDeane I have was when I was in the hospital in Parsons with appendicitis. I was in a room recovering from the surgery. There was a younger boy in the same room. He somehow got gum in his hair. The nurses were using ether to try to get it out. The ether was making me sick. Just then LaDeane walked in to see me. She instantly saw what was happening and yelled at the nurses to get rid of the ether. They did, and then made sure that I was OK.
Jimmy came to Parsons to visit Dad and LaDeane in November of 1961.[32] He was in the Air Force and was stationed at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. I thought it was cool to have a brother in the Air Force. I remember that he sent me some foreign coins from some of the places he had been. I really liked this and I still have them.
Mary came to visit Dad and LaDeane sometime in the mid 1960’s. I remember her husband, Jim, made me a leather billfold with some car things carved on it as well as my name. I thought this was great.
In 1962 they moved to 2330 Belmont Street, still in Parsons. This address is listed in a small Parsons Sun newspaper article where Dad won tickets to the Parsons Theater.[33] This house was 3 blocks from where Dad worked at Foodtown. Mom could walk there to get groceries. It was also right across the street from the school where I went to kindergarten. This was a small, two-bedroom house that they rented. The second bedroom was upstairs over the garage, this room was mine.
Dad was in a bowling league in Parsons. I don’t think he was a particularly good bowler, but it was something he did. One night he came home from bowling with a hurt arm. He had torn a tendon in his bicep. He had to take it easy lifting things for a while for it to heal. This was an odd thing to happen, hurting his arm while bowling. Being a big, strong guy who shoveled rock and carried sides of beef, this was pretty remarkable.
The next year, 1963, they moved back to Joplin, at 528 S. St. Louis.[34] This was another small, rented house. This is where I went to the first grade. I do not remember where Dad worked at here. He was a meatcutter. It seems like it would be somewhere in Joplin, but I remember him driving to Pittsburg, Kansas to work. He got home later than if he would have been working in Joplin. One evening he got home looking a little shaken up. He had hit a pig that was walking out of the ditch across the highway. There was a truck coming towards him. He felt that he was very lucky that hitting the pig didn’t push him over into the oncoming lane. It must have been a close call as he didn’t get shaken up easily, and it’s something I do remember. He had a big car, a 1960 Mercury. This probably helped keep the car going straight and not pushed to the side.
Sometimes Dad would bring home a big box for me from the grocery store. I liked big boxes. They were fun to play in. You could put two or three together to make a little house.
Dad put up a tent in the back yard for me to play in. It was great fun, like having my own little house. One night I wanted to sleep in my tent all night. Mom wasn’t too happy about this. I was in my tent after dark, getting ready to go to sleep. Then all of a sudden something starting hitting the side of the tent. It scared me and I ran into the house. I decided to forget sleeping in the tent and went to bed in my room. I found out later that Dad had gone out and thrown some small rocks at the tent. I think Mom won, and was he trying to get me to change my mind. I didn’t try to spend the night in my tent after that.
One time before we were going on a trip Dad wanted to make me something to take. He cut off about a one-foot piece of an old broom handle. Then he took a small piece of wood and carved a propeller. He painted red stripes on the propeller. After drilling a small hole in the middle of the propeller, he nailed it to the end of the broom stick. He painted the handle, the broom stick, blue. When I held it out the window of the car the wind would spin the propeller. I thought this was great fun. And it was something to keep me occupied on our trip.
Then in 1964 they moved to Erie, Kansas. The house there was at 133 West 3rd Street and was a larger one, still rented. It was two stories, with three bedrooms upstairs. There was also a porch room upstairs, which had been turned into a fourth bedroom. This house was right across the street from the grocery store, called Olson’s, where Dad worked. It was an easy walk for Mom, and it was just a half of a block to Main Street for the other stores in the small town. She worked with Dad as meat wrapper for a while. We attended the Methodist Church. We lived here for six years and I have a lot of good memories of this house and living in Erie.
I remember at this time we got three TV channels, NBC, ABC and CBS. We had a TV antenna on the roof. Dad would have to adjust it once in a while after a storm or something. NBC and ABC had pretty good reception, they were what were called VHF channels, which was 2 through 13. CBS was on channel 16, which was a UHF channel, these were channels higher than 13. UHF didn’t always come in as well and sometimes we couldn’t watch channel 16. We didn’t get cable TV until quite a few years later. Also, we had no air conditioning, just fans.
In 1965 Dad made $5898 working at Olson’s.[35] According to the Census Bureau, the average family income that year was about $6900. They were still under the average income for a family in the U.S. But living in a small town with a low cost of living certainly helped, and they were getting along well. I remember Dad got paid weekly in cash. The money would be in a small paper bag, stapled shut with a pay stub showing the amount and deductions. Mom would take the money to the bank the next day.
We didn’t have trash service to haul the trash away. Dad had a small trailer that we put trash in. When it was full, we would take it to the dump outside of town. Sometimes we would take our rifles and shoot rats or other little critters in the dump. This was always fun and was good target practice.
Dad liked to collect coins and paper money. He didn’t have a lot, and it wasn’t worth all that much. But he enjoyed having what he did. The highlight of his collection was a few very old gold pieces. They were small ones, but they were very shiny. There was a local coin club that had a monthly meeting. Sometimes when he went I would get to go with him. There would be dealers selling items and they also had an auction to sell items. Sometimes Dad would buy something, or maybe sell something. Dad eventually sold most of his collection, but I still have some coins that I have kept since then.
In February of 1967 Dad had to go to the hospital at Parsons. He was there for a couple of weeks. Then he was sent to the KU Medical Center in Kansas City. He had fluid on his heart. I’m not sure how long he was there, but it was a couple of weeks or so. Mom was of course worried. I got to sleep with her. When he got home, he had to stay home to rest for a week or two. I thought this was great, having Dad at home and not working. I remember he made me a kite. He cut up some pieces of wood for the frame, and used meat wrapping paper and string to cover it. The tail was some old cloth. It took a little trial and error, but then it flew really well.
A little after this Dad decided he needed to get more exercise. He got a used bicycle. We went for a ride together around town. The next day his legs were sore. I don’t remember him ever riding it after that.
About 1967 Dad decided to get a new car. Of course it wasn’t new, he never owned a new one. But it was a nice used 1964 Ford Galaxy 500. On the way home we stopped at a drive-in to get a drink. It was probably a root beer. This was a real treat and something we didn’t do a lot. Dad sat his drink on the dash as he was trying to figure something out in the new car. When he reached for his drink, he knocked it over. It spilled all over the dash. Dad said a few cuss words, something he didn’t do much. Mom was very quiet and so was I. He got some napkins and cleaned it up as good as he could. I held my drink very tightly and make sure not to spill it.
The next year the Ford needed some work done that took a few days. We had a trip planned to go to Kansas City to see my Aunt Janie (Mom’s sister) and Uncle Charles. The dealer gave us a loaner car, a brand-new 1968 Ford Mustang fastback. I thought this was great, it was a really cool car. This was in the winter. As we got close to Kansas City it started snowing. The Mustang wasn’t very good on slick roads. When we got to the road where Aunt Janie’s house was, the car wouldn’t make it up the hill as the road was too slick. We ended up leaving it at someone’s house at the bottom of the hill and Uncle Charles came down in his car to get us. He had a car with snow tires and weight in the trunk. The next day enough of the snow had melted to get the Mustang up the hill. Dad didn’t care much for the Mustang. It was too small for him to be comfortable in and didn’t get very good gas mileage. I still liked it a lot.
One year Dad decided to plant a garden. He bought a new tiller, a Troy Bilt. It was a small tiller but he used it to till up a nice sized garden in the back yard. He planted several things, tomatoes, corn and I don’t remember what else. The corn didn’t do very well. Dad would joke about his miniature corn. I still have this Troy Bilt tiller, it’s over 50 years old.
When Christmas time came, we always had a nice Christmas tree. But Dad wouldn’t buy one. We would drive around out in the country and look for a tree somewhere. When Dad spotted one that looked good, he would go cut it down and put it in the trunk. I remember doing this a number of years. We always had a great Christmas.
Dad was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF). Odd Fellows is a fraternal organization that aims to provide a framework to promote personal and social development. The degrees of Odd Fellowship emphasize leaving of the old life and the start of a better one, of welcoming travelers, and of helping those in need.[36] I find the emphasis on “leaving of the old life” to be interesting. Perhaps he was trying to reconcile leaving Lucille and his children in Kelso versus his new life with Maxine and me.
Dad belonged to the local American Legion group in Erie. He was the Commander of the group at one point. The Legion is the nation’s largest service veteran’s organization. Dad qualified for membership from being in the U.S. Navy Reserves for 8 years. They promote patriotism, provide community youth programs and support veterans and current military service members.[37] There is also a lot camaraderie among members. Dad went to meetings regularly and was an engaged member.
Being a good cook, Dad became the cook for the American Legion dinners. These weren’t just normal meals. They consisted of things like deer, elk, rattlesnake, frog legs, duck and all kinds of wild game animals. Even mountain oysters. He liked doing this and his meals were certainly appreciated by the other members.
Erie has an annual Old Soldiers and Sailors Reunion. This is a week-long festival in the summer that has a fair, carnival and lot of other activities. One of these activities is a bean feed. The American Legion sponsors this. They have a bunch of large pots that they put ham and beans in. They are cooked outdoors with a small fire under each pot. It takes all day to set everything up and cook the beans. They cook enough to feed the whole town, it’s about 1000 pounds of beans. Everyone comes with their container to get their free ham and beans. It’s quite an event. The women’s auxiliary group cleans the beans, Mom always helped do this.
Mom and Dad liked to go play bingo once in a while. One place they went to was a weekly bingo session in Parsons that was sponsored by the Parsons American Legion. Dad realized that the Parsons Legion group made quite a bit of money from this, which they could use for their various programs. He decided to start a Legion bingo game in Erie. He became the leader of this. He went to other bingo games around the area and talked to those in charge. He learned what worked and what didn’t work. Before long the Erie American Legion had a regular bingo game. It was on Saturday night, and the Legion had a big building with plenty of room. It was right across the alley from our house. Main street would be lined with cars on Saturday night by those coming to play bingo.
Mom and Dad ran the Legion bingo for over 15 years, it became something that they did together and they both enjoyed it.
Dad gave blood quite often. We have his donation cards from 1954, 1959 and 1964. He obviously felt this was important. He donated enough to be a member of the Gallon Club of the American Red Cross.
Sometime in the mid-1960’s LaDeane got me a puppy for my birthday. We named her Cee Cee. She was a small border collie mix that LaDeane got at an animal shelter in Parsons. She was a great little dog. Mom didn’t like her too much, or so she said. Sometimes I would see her petting Cee Cee or giving her treats. I thought Cee Cee was great. I had a lot of fun playing with her, and with all of our outdoor cats.
Dad liked blackberries, he liked to eat them and he liked to pick them. We would drive around in the country looking for wild blackberries. He knew where a lot of patches of them were. He had several gallon coffee cans with coat hangers hooked to them for handles. In a good spot he could fill up several cans. We would eat fresh blackberries for several days. Mom would also can some and freeze them for a later time.
Dad liked guns and hunting. We would go hunting when I was a kid. It was mostly for rabbit or dove, or some other small game. Anything we got Dad would take home and clean and then Mom would cook it. We also went fishing. The Neosho River was close to Erie and we would go there sometimes in the evening to fish. Dad had some hip waders that he would wear so he could stand in shallow parts of the river. I would fish from the shore. Mom would sit in a lawn chair and watch. If we caught anything Dad would clean it and Mom would cook it.
Guns that I remember Dad having include two 22 rifles – one single shot and one semi-automatic, a 7.7-millimeter Japanese rifle, a 4-10 shotgun, a 16-gauge shotgun, a 12-gauge double barrel shotgun, a 22 Luger semi-automatic pistol, another small 22 pistol and a “convertible” pistol that had a 4-10 shotgun barrel (which was illegal) and a 45-magnum barrel. I don’t know where he got the Japanese rifle. It was a WW2 period gun, and was considered quite a good hunting rifle for big game. It uses a 2.28 inch long bullet and has a deer shooting range of 750 yards. The “convertible” pistol was an oddity. I don’t know where he got this either. It was in a wood case with a glass over. I don’t think he ever shot it, but he liked it and I do remember him showing it off to people. It was an unusual and serious weapon.
Dad would usually use the 12-gauge shotgun in turkey shoots. This is where you pay to enter the contest. About a dozen shooters would be assigned to a group. Each person in the group would shoot at a fixed target. The closest to the bull’s eye would win a turkey. Dad was quite good at this and I remember him winning turkeys quite a few times. Something else we did was shooting clay pigeons. These are small frisbee like discs that were thrown into the air either by a machine or with a throwing device. The goal was to shoot it before it hit the ground. Everett had a clay pigeon thrower and a lot of room on his farm. We would go there and all of us would shoot clay pigeons. It was fun. Of course, Dad was also good at this. Sometimes Everett would throw two pigeons at one time and Dad could quite often hit both of them.
I liked playing basketball as a kid. Dad made a basketball court for me in Erie. He bought a rim and net. He took some boards and made a backboard. Then he put the blackboard and rim up on a telephone pole that was in our back yard next to the alley. The “court” was some gravel but mostly dirt. I was happy, I could shoot baskets and play basketball in our back yard.
I remember that Dad wanted a metal shed to put the lawn mower and other stuff in. He bought a kit that contained all the pieces needed. I think it was for about a 8-foot by 6-foot building. There were a lot of parts, and they all were all held together by sheet metal screws. It took him about a day, and he screwed in a lot of screws. His arm was sore for a couple of days. It was a nice storage shed.
As Dad worked six days a week, sometimes he would take off on Wednesday afternoon if he had something to do. One time he took off for him and Mom to go shopping in Joplin. I was at school. Later that day, after they were back home and I was out of school, Dad gave me his car keys and asked me to go get some stuff out of the trunk. I went out to open the trunk. I didn’t realize that Mom and Dad were watching me. When I opened it, I saw a mini bike. This is what they were doing, buying me a mini bike. It was a Go Devil. It had an unusual feature in that it could be folded up to be smaller and somewhat portable. Dad took it out of the trunk and unfolded it. We put gas in it and started it up. I think I was about 10 years old, and now I had my own mini bike. I was thrilled. I rode that thing all the time and soon had a track around the yard (which Mom wasn’t crazy about). It was great fun and I loved it.
We took some great vacations when I was a kid. They were always driving vacations, Mom and Dad never flew in an airplane, it was too expensive. We went to Disneyland and the Grand Canyon. One trip was to Yellowstone Park. This trip was with LaDeane and her husband, Everett, and was to meet Mary and her husband, Jim, there. Another trip was to Florida. We went deep sea fishing and Dad caught a small octopus. Yet another vacation was to Pikes Peak and to Mount Rushmore. Another trip was to Galveston and to Six Flags over Texas in Dallas. Once we went to Louisiana with Grandma and Grandad. Part of this trip was to go fishing at a lake. We drove two cars. Grandad had his fishing poles in the back of his station wagon. Our family vacations were always great fun. We got to see and do a lot of things. We got to eat out, something we normally didn’t do much. We stayed in motels, sometimes with a swimming pool.
I remember on one trip Dad stopped at a coin collector shop in a town somewhere. I didn’t know what he was doing at the time. Later I realized that he had brought some of his coin collection with him, I think it was some silver certificates. He sold them. He needed the money to pay for the trip. Mom and Dad made enough money to be comfortable, but they didn’t have extra money, and taking these vacations was a stretch on their finances. I don’t remember us ever going to an expensive restaurant, or staying in an expensive hotel.
In 1970 Dad quit his job as a meatcutter at Olson’s to manage a restaurant. It was newly remodeled and was named for him – Ed’s 59 Diner. Dad ran the place and was also a cook. Mom also worked part-time as a cook or a waitress. Being 12 years old, I worked as a dishwasher sometimes. It was a 24-hour restaurant connected to a truck stop a few miles outside of Erie on Highway 59. When there was a problem in the middle of the night, Dad would get a phone call. Sometimes Mom had to go in to cook at night. They did this for about a year before Dad decided to go back to being a meatcutter.
In 1971 Dad got a job as the meatcutter at the IGA grocery store in Oswego, Kansas. We still lived in Erie and he was driving about 35 miles each way. Then one night when he got home, he told Mom to close her eyes and hold out her hand. He dropped a set of house keys into her hand. He had bought a house at an auction during his lunch hour. This was the first house he had ever owned. We moved to Oswego shortly after this.
The house in Oswego was at 1324 West Fourth Street. I don’t remember what the purchase price was, but the mortgage was for $3000.[38] They would have paid a small down payment. It had three bedrooms and one bathroom. The bathroom had been added on as the house was quite old and was built before inside bathrooms. I think the original part was built in the 1800’s. It was four blocks from the IGA store and the downtown area. It needed a little work on the inside. Dad put in a new lowered ceiling in the living room and dining room, and also new carpet. Mom and I helped.
There was a garage, but it was old and small. A car of that time would not fit into it (you might get a car in, but there wouldn’t be room to open the door). Dad built a carport next to the garage, using the garage as one side of it. A load of gravel made a nice driveway and this gave the car some protection from bad weather.
In November of 1971 Dad got a letter from the United States District Court in Kansas City requiring him to be on a Federal Grand Jury. He was gone for several days to Kansas City. He found this to be quite interesting and he talked about his experience with this quite a bit.[39]
Knowing that I wanted a basketball court at our new house. As I was getting ready to be a freshman in high school, he decided to make me a more serious court. He got a wood pole and bought a basketball backboard and goal, with a bracket to fasten it to the pole. He dug a hole and cemented in the pole. We measured it to be exactly 10 foot high. Then he laid out forms to make a concrete court. It was 24 by 24 foot. This seemed huge to me at the time. He had the concrete brought in but he spread it and finished it. I don’t know where he learned to do this, but the result was great. I loved it. I spent many hours playing on that court.
I was in Boy Scouts for quite a few years as a kid. Every once in a while I would get to go on a Boy Scout camp out. They were usually for a couple of nights over a weekend. One time after I got home after a camp out Dad told me to go get something out of the garage. Mom and Dad were watching from the back porch. I opened the garage door and found a new Honda 70 mini bike. They had bought it while I was gone, trading in my old Go Devil. It was fantastic, much better than the Go Devil. I spent a lot of time riding it around the yard and also up and down the alley behind our house. I loved it and really appreciated having it.
We always had a lot of outside cats. Dad would bring meat scraps home from work for them. The cats knew his car, and would go running to it when he came home. They knew a feast was on the way. Dad would sit a tray of scraps on the ground and the cats would all start eating.
One day Dad was going from the kitchen to the dining room. He cracked his head on the doorway. It was a six-foot-high door, and he was about 6 foot 3. After saying a few cuss words, he went to the garage, got some tools, and proceeded to knock out the top of door to raise it. It turned out that there was an electrical wire that ran over the doorway. He was only able to raise it to about 6 foot 4 inches. This was enough for him. Being 6 foot 6, it wasn’t high enough for me and I remember hitting my head on that doorway a number of times.
When the roof on the house developed a leak, Dad decided to put on a new roof. He bought the shingles and other stuff needed. I helped him and we put the roof on over a few days and evenings. Sometime after that Grandad’s garage needed a new roof. We helped him do that as we didn’t want Grandad up on the roof by himself.
In 1972 I was 14 years old. In Kansas at that time you could get a restricted drivers license, which I had. It let you drive to school and to work. I had a motorcycle, but I wanted a car. Dad decided it was time to get me one. Throughout grade school and junior high, Mom always gave me money to buy savings bond stamps every week. You put these in a little booklet. I had over $600 saved up from doing this over the years. This would be the money for my first car. Dad knew a guy who was selling a 66 Mustang. His name was Billy Joe Gallagher. It had been in a minor accident and the guy had fixed it up and painted it. It was Maroon, with a 289 engine and a 4 speed. We went out to look at it. Billy asked if I wanted to take it for a test drive. I looked at Dad. I had never driven a standard transmission. Dad looked at me and said yes, I would drive it. Dad got in the passenger seat and Billy got in back. I was certainly paranoid about driving the car, I didn’t want to do anything wrong. Somehow, I managed to get it going and drove down the road a ways and then turned around and went back. When we got out at Billy’s house, Dad said “wasn’t that the first time you drove a standard?”. Of course, he knew it was. Billy was pretty surprised and he said I really did a good job of driving. We bought the Mustang for $400. I wanted cool wheels and tires, so I spent my remaining $200 on a set of new chrome wheels and new tires. It was a fantastic car and I loved it. I would spend hours cleaning it and just sitting in it.
Dad came home for lunch every day. Mom would have lunch ready and they would eat in the living room while watching “Days of Our Lives” on TV. This was a popular soap opera at the time. They watched it every day.
Being a cook and a meatcutter, Dad was often called on to do some unusual things. Sometimes hunters would bring him a deer or some large animal to cut up. Dad would do this, and the grateful hunter would give him part of it. This means there might be a deer leg in our freezer. One time some guys came back from a rattlesnake hunt somewhere in Oklahoma. They didn’t know how to clean and cook them. Of course, Dad did. He cleaned them, basically skinning them like a fish. Then he breaded them and cooked them in his pressurized chicken cooker. It was pretty good, they actually tasted like chicken.
Another time during the annual county fair the guy than ran the carnival came to the store to find Dad. He wanted to have a big pig roast as part of a party at the end of the fair. Dad agreed to get one and cook it for them. He had them dig a big pit, then they buried the pig in wood and charcoal and let it cook for most of a day. Dad made a big batch of his homemade barbeque sauce. The carnival people thought the barbequed pig was great, it was a big hit. Another odd thing I remember Dad cooking was bananas. He breaded them and deep fried them. A lot of people at the store liked them, I didn’t think these were so good.
One day around 1972 Dad was at work and was slicing ham hocks on his meat saw (an electric band saw). He got too close to the blade and cut off the end of his thumb. He needed to go to the emergency room, but the closest one was 15 miles away in Columbus. I had a restricted drivers license so I drove him. As he was in a lot of pain and his thumb was bleeding a lot, I drove pretty fast. I had never over 70 miles per hour before. We got to the hospital and they stitched Dad’s thumb up. They put a big bandage on it. I also drove us back to Oswego. We went back to the grocery store. The end of his thumb was still laying on the saw. Dad put it in the meat scraps to be thrown away.
Dad had a lot of trouble with his feet. He had corns on several of his toes. His toes were not straight, the joints wouldn’t straighten out and lay down properly, they were higher up. He may have had shoes that were too little and constricted his toes when he was young. I think it was also from standing up so much while working as a meatcutter and when working in the mines. He used Dr. Scholl’s corn pads a lot. He cut some slits in his work shoes for his toes to have more room. He spent a lot of time doing things to help his feet.
In 1976 Kansas started making personalized, or vanity, license plates. Mom decided that Dad should have one for his car, and that it should say Big Ed. This is what people called him. She got it and I think Dad liked it. He had that tag for quite a few years. I still have it.
Mom and Dad weren’t sports fans. Neither one of them was interested in sports. But I was, and in Oswego the high school basketball games were a big deal. I was captain of the basketball and was All State my senior year. Once in a while Mom and Dad would come to one of my games. The coach was Coach Spigarelli. We called him Coach Spig. When Coach saw Ed coming in the guy before a game he would say “Big Ed is in the house”.
During the gas crisis in the mid 1970’s, Dad decided to get a moped to ride to work. It was basically a bicycle with a small gasoline motor. For a man of his size, he looked kind of funny riding it. He rode it to work when the weather was good. I think he liked doing this.
When I was in High School I got a Suzuki 185 trail bike. One time Dad decided to ride it. He went through the ditch by our back yard and came out of it doing a wheelie. He went over backwards and wrecked. He hurt his leg a little bit, but not too bad. I think that was the last time he tried to ride that motorcycle.
Dad had a sense of humor. Once he had a quarter with a nail fastened to it. He nailed it in the floor in the front of his meat counter. He liked to watch people try to pick it up, which of course they couldn’t. There was an insurance agent that had little brochures that looked like a $10 bill folded up. Dad got some of these. He would leave them laying on the floor by the meat counter. People would see one, drop something on the floor, then pick up that item and the fake $10 bill. They usually didn’t look at it right away when they picked it up. They would put it in their pocket or purse. It would be a surprise for them later when they realized what it was. Dad thought this was fun to do.
Dad wasn’t a drinker. He might drink a beer once in a while. He did keep a small bottle of whiskey in the cabinet in the kitchen, but I never saw him drink any. I think he used it to season or marinade something once in a while. But the guys at the grocery store did drink. Every day at 5:00 they would stand around at the back of store and drink beer. Dad would join them for the camaraderie. But he kept his own can of beer in his meat cooler. It was a beer can that he filled with water. This was his way of drinking with the guys.
I have a lot of good memories from growing up in Erie and Oswego. We ate all our meals together, breakfast, lunch and supper. Mom was a good cook. We always had a big dinner. There would be plenty of meat and vegetables, maybe a salad of some kind, and almost certainly some kind of dessert. Sometimes Dad would cook out, which was always a treat. When Dad cooked out steaks, he would marinade them first. He would make some kind of marinade often using beer and some seasoning, then put it on the steaks and wrap them in a paper bag. He then put the bag in the refrigerator to soak for a while. Then he would cook them on the grill.
While Mom did most of the cooking at home, sometimes Dad would want to make something different. This might be, brains and eggs (beef brains mixed with scrambled eggs), chitlins (cooked pig intestines), turnips, deer, frog legs, caviar, rabbit, squirrel, pheasant, dove, and probably other things I don’t remember now. I didn’t like a lot of these, but Dad thought they were good and fun to cook.
With both parents being real cooks, I ate well. This is somewhat ironic given how skinny I have always been.
Dad worked 6 days a week, his day off was Sunday. This is the day we always went to Grandma and Grandad’s house in Asbury. We did this every week. Grandma would make lunch, which of course was always good. Most weeks we would then all go over to Joplin. Dad liked to go to the auction at Webb City. There was always a lot of stuff being sold. It was interesting to hear the auctioneer. You had to be careful how you moved, a scratch of the ear could result in you buying something. A lot of the smaller items were grouped in boxes, and the box was auctioned off. If there was one thing you wanted in the box you had to buy the whole box to get it. Dad got a lot of extra stuff that way.
Another place we often went on these Sunday trips to Joplin was May’s City. This was kind of like a Walgreens today, it was a drug store but with many other items like a variety store. But Missouri had what was called the Blue Law. Items such as clothes, furniture, tools, jewelry, toys, hardware, appliances and many other things could not be sold on Sunday. The law was a carryover from the days when working on the Sabbath was frowned upon. The sections of a store that held the restricted items would be roped off, or the items covered up.
Mom and Dad started having health issues in 1983. In March of that year Dad had 2 heart valves replaced. They used valves from a pig.[40] Ed thought this was funny and always told people about his pig valves. In June of 1984 he passed out at an American Legion picnic. Fortunately, there was a doctor there who used CPR to revive him. He got a pacemaker shortly after that.[41]
While Dad was in the hospital the grocery store had to get a guy to substitute for him as the meat cutter. This last time when he went back to work the manager of the store wanted to talk to him. He fired Dad. It really was a case of age discrimination, and they wanted the substitute to remain as the new, younger meat cutter. I was about 17. I went down to the store to talk to the manager. I had worked there for several years and knew him well. I cussed him out for firing Dad. He threatened to call the police to have me kicked out. I left, I had said what I wanted to say. Dad was old enough to get Social Security and Medicare. He was forced into retirement but still had enough money to get by.
In September of 1984 Mom had stomach cancer. I remember sitting in the waiting room with Dad. The doctor came out and told us it was malignant, and they would have to remove part of her stomach, gallbladder and part of her esophagus. They ended up taking out over half of her stomach. She recovered from this, but it did affect her eating habits.
In May of 1985 Mom seemed to be having heart problems. She ended up in the hospital in Wichita. They did a heart catheterization and decided she had experienced a mild heart attack, but was OK. While recovering from this procedure, Dad went to his hotel room for a while. He called her a little later, there was a phone in her room. She answered the phone but Dad knew instantly something was wrong. She was not talking well at all. He hung up and called the nurse’s station. They went to check on her and discovered that she had experienced a stroke. It was quite serious. She was paralyzed on the left side of her body. It was like you could draw a line separating her right side from her left. The left was complete paralyzed. This would not change for the rest of her life.
After starting recovery in Wichita and then back at the hospital in Oswego, it was obvious she needed a lot of rehabilitation. She had to learn to talk and eat again, how to get around in a wheel chair, go to the bathroom, and do simple things with her right side. We put her in the Rehabilitation Institute in Kansas City. Dad lived with Charles and Janie (Mom’s sister and her husband) during this time, which was a number of months. She went through intense physical, occupational and speech therapy. It was tough. She left being able to do simple things, but still needed help from Dad. We set their house in Oswego up to be as wheelchair friendly as possible, including putting in a big ramp up the steps to the front door. Becky and I lived in Topeka at the time, which was three hours away.
In September of that year, 1985, Dad had a mild stroke. It wasn’t a paralyzing stroke; it affected his vision. He lost vision in the bottom half of one eye. It became obvious after this that we needed to be closer to them. In December we bought them a house in Topeka and moved Mom and Dad from Oswego to Topeka. It was a nice little house. It was very flat, there were no stairs to the doors. We widened the bathroom door and put in rails. We made it as wheelchair compliant as possible. It worked out pretty well and they liked it there. But after a few months we realized that Mom needed more care than Dad could provide. We found a nursing home in Topeka called Hillhaven, and moved Mom there during the summer of 1986. Dad’s health was getting worse and we moved him to Hillhaven with her a couple of months later. They had their own room together.
Dad passed away at Hillhaven on February 7, 1987. He was 67 years old. His heart was weak and his health had deteriorated pretty quickly the prior few months. Dad is buried next to Mom in Crocker Cemetery outside of Pittsburg, Kansas. They are next to her parents, my grandparents. The cemetery is about 7 miles from Asbury.
Dad didn’t have a will; he didn’t have anything of much value. One thing he had, that I wasn’t previously aware of, was a Merrill Genealogy book. I don’t know where he got it or how long he had it. His great grandmother (on the Markham side) was a Merrill (Mercy Merrill, married to Orsman Markham). This book shows the Markham family line from Orsman, to Eugene, to Dad’s father, Edward.
Orsman’s son Eugene was married to Sara Jane Lee, but the book mistakenly has her maiden surname as Tee, not Lee. We have seen this error copied to many trees on Ancestry.com and other online genealogy repositories. Dad had crossed out Tee and written in Lee. This is how we knew what her name really was. There is no Sara Jane Tee, she was a Lee. The book, with Dad’s correction, was a great help in researching Sara Jane Lee.
Here are some cards and items that Mom and Dad kept and that we have:
- Zales Jewelers credit card. Dated 1960. This is the same nationwide Zales Jewelers as is in business today. There was a Zales in Joplin.
- Newberrys charge card. Dated 1960. Newberrys was a small variety store in Parsons. They also had a small restaurant, with a soda and ice cream bar.
- Sears credit card. This is not dated, but they likely used it at the store in Joplin. There was a large Sears store there, it was the only one in the area. Sears was a lower priced department store that also had things like tools and some hardware items.
- Montgomery Ward charge card. This is not dated. Wards was a lower priced department store. There was one in Joplin.
- J C Penney charge card. Not dated. There was a Penney’s in Parsons as well as in Joplin. It was a lower priced department store. I remember going to the Penney’s store in Parsons a lot. Back in the 1960’s the stores were open in the evening only on Thursday’s. The other days of the week stores closed at 5 or 6. So Thursday evening, after eating dinner at home, is when we would make the 15-mile trip from Erie to Parsons to do some shopping.
- Venture stores senior citizen discount card. It is not dated but they had this in Topeka. Venture was a larger discount store, similar to a Walmart store today but without groceries.
Items from Mom:
- Driver’s license from 1982.
- Social Security card, not dated.
- Medicare card from 1983.
- Blue Cross medical insurance card from 1983.
Items from Dad:
- Washington state driver’s license from 1956
- Blood donor card from Kelso in 1954.
- Meatcutters Union card from 1957.
- Social Security card from 1956.
- Meatcutters Union optical insurance card, not dated.
- United Mine Workers envelope, not dated, this envelope held a membership card that we don’t have.
- Blood donor card from Joplin in 1959.
- Meatcutter Health Certificate from 1958.
- KU Medical Center card, not dated (would have been 1967).
- Blood donor card from Parson’s in 1962.
- Oddfellows membership card from 1968.
- American Legion card from 1979.
- American Legion membership card from 1983.
- American Legion card for lifetime membership, not dated.
- Medicare card from 1983.
- Heart valve replacement card from 1983.
- Pacemaker card from 1984.
- List of the medications he was taken, a list he made and carried in his billfold, also a list of the hospital dates for major events.
- Southwestern Bell phone calling card from 1986.
- Capitol Federal bank debit card from 1986.
- Kansas driver’s license from 1983.
Summary of Jobs:
As a boy and young man, Dad would have worked on their farm while growing up.
Miner, Joplin – from 1939 Joplin City Directory
Miner, Beck – Robinson mine, Picher, Ok area – from 1940 WW2 draft card, also listed as lead mine shoveler in the 1940 Federal Census.
Miner, Joplin – from 1942 Joplin City Directory.
Driver, Joplin – from 1946 Joplin City Directory.
Joy loader operator for FMC Corp at Trona mine in Rock Springs, 1947-1952 – from Navy Reserves job experience document dated 1949 (also said he had 11 years of mining experience, drilling, dynamite, loader) (signed up for reserves in 1947, was in Rock Springs), also Joy Loader operator on 1950 Census.
Miner, Hunt mine (part of Eagle Picher) at Picher, 1950 picture
Plant man at Reynolds Metal, Kelso – 1953 city directory
Cook at Red’s Café in Carthage – 1956 W2
Plant worker, L. D. Schreiber & Co, Inc. – Cheese plant in Carthage, 1956 W2
Miner, Zuvekas Mining & Milling Co., Inc. – Baxter Springs, 1956 and 1957 W2
Gas station attendant, Hudson Oil, Baxter Springs – 1957 W2
Meatcutter at IGA, Seneca – 1957 W2
Meatcutter at Kroger, lived in Baxter Springs, job was probably in Joplin – 1957 W2
Meatcutter at Kroger, Joplin – 1958 and 1959 W2
Meatcutter at Foodtown, Parsons, 1960-1963 – newspaper articles
Meatcutter at Kroger in Joplin, 1964 (I remember that sometimes he drove to Pittsburg to work, they may have wanted him to fill in for someone or help a Kroger store there)
Meatcutter at Olson’s in Erie, 1965-1970
Manager of Ed’s 59 Diner outside of Erie in 1970
Meatcutter at IGA in Oswego, 1971-1984
Summary of Places Lived:
1919 – Chitwood, a small place in Galena township, Joplin, Missouri. (Birth certificate and 1920 Census)
1926 – Hockerville, Oklahoma (Ed’s baby book, and 1926 birthday card)
1930 – Buffalo, McDonald County, Missouri. (1930 Census, also from 1932 8th grade graduation doc)
1935 – Joplin (per question on 1940 Census)
1939 – 819 Grand Ave., Joplin (1939 Joplin City Directory and 1940 Census)
1940 – Route 3, Box 16, Joplin (WW2 registration doc – believe he used this address as it was Edward & Etta’s)
1941 – 2108 W. 2nd, Joplin (1941 Joplin City Directory)
1942 – 423 N. Maple Ave., Joplin (1942 Joplin City Directory)
1945 – 2902 W. 4th, Joplin (Newspaper article about fire in flue, also 1946 Joplin City Directory)
1947 – Box 334, Rock Spring, Wyoming (Navy Reserves enlistment doc) – I think they were living in a mining camp
1950 – 611 Euclid, Apt 2, Rock Springs (1950 Census, 1950 Rock Springs Directory)
1953 – 1408 5th Ave S., Kelso, Washington (Navy Reserves address change, Kelso-Longview City Directory)
1955 – Pinedale, Wyoming (SS card application, November 5, 1955)
1956 – 514 E. Macon St., Carthage, Missouri (1956 W2)
1957 – 120 E. 19th St., Baxter Springs, Kansas (from meat cutting school doc)
1958 – 2402 Annie Baxter, Joplin (1958 W2, 1959 Joplin City Directory, blood donor card, 1960 Zales credit card)
1960 – 3019 Redwood, Parsons, Kansas (June 1 Parsons Newspaper, Newberry’s charge card)
1961 – 2330 Belmont (Newspaper article about Jimmy visiting)
1964 – 528 McConnell, Joplin (my memory of this house, also from 1964 Joplin City Directory per phone call with the Joplin Library)
1965 – 133 W. 3rd, Erie, Kansas (1965 W2, blood donation card)
1971 – 1324 W. 4th, Oswego, Kansas (deed record)
1986 – 1707 29th St. Terrace, Topeka, Kansas (deed record, house we bought)
1986 – 711 Garfield, Topeka (Hillhaven nursing home)
Summary of cars owned:
1939 Chevy four door van (Kelso, from Jimmy’s memory)
1941 Oldsmobile (Kelso, from Jimmy’s memory)
1951 Buick Tourback Coupe (January 1958 picture)
1955 Chevy, two door, turquoise and white.
1960 Mercury, brown, this was a big car.
1964 Ford Galaxy, white.
1966 Ford Galaxy, blue, and a 390 engine.
1968 Ford Galaxy, beige.
1972 Ford LTD, light green
1976 Ford Torino, silver.
1966 Chevy Chevelle station wagon; this was Grandad’s car, Dad bought it from him when Grandad got too old to drive.
1976 Buick, brown; Dad got this car from Grandad’s neighbor, she was getting old and didn’t drive any more, it was a low mileage car.
Suggested reading:
“A History of Jasper County, Missouri, and its People” by Joel Thomas Livingston, Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, 1912.
“History of Jasper County, Missouri”; Des Moines, Iowa: Mills & Company, 1883.
“Poor Man’s Fortune; White Working-Class Conservatism in American Metal Mining, 1850–1950”, by Jarod Roll; University of North Carolina Press, 2020.
“The Hard and Deadly World of Joplin Mining”, posted March 28, 2011 by Brown, accessed at https://www.historicjoplin.org/?p=414. Source for this article is “Pulmonary disease among miners in the Joplin district, Missouri, and its relation to rock dust in the mines,” by A.J. Lanza.
“The World’s Greatest Zinc and Lead District, as Seen Through the Camera”; Means & Head, Publishers, Joplin, Missouri, 1907.
“Miners and Their Machines: How Early Turn-of-the-Century Mining Techniques and Equipment Influenced the Tri-State Area”, by Chuck Boyles, 201, History, Paper 9; accessed at http://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/hist/9.
“The Miami-Picher Zinc-Lead District, Oklahoma”, by Samuel Weidman, published by University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 1932.
“Dixon’s Oklahoma-Kansas Mining Directory”, 1926 Edition.
“Thirty-third Annual Report of the Department of Mines and Mining of the State of Oklahoma for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1940”, by Robert H. Brown, Chief Mine Inspector, Oklahoma City, Okla.
Biography written by Kem & Becky Marcum; April, 2023.
[1] State of Missouri, Division of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Birth, Number 7222; Certified copy retrieved October 6, 1945.
[2] On Demand Court Records; accessed at www1.odcr.com/detail?court=058-&casekey=058-ML++2000487
[3] Social Security Death Index; accessed at Ancestry.com.
[4] State of Oklahoma, Marriage License, County of Ottawa, in County Court, Certificate of Marriage for Theodore Ed Marcum and Dorothy Maxine Hughes.
[5] A History of Jasper County, Missouri, and its People, by Joel Thomas Livingston, Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, 1912, Page 464.
[6] Ed’s baby book, which we have the original and we have photographed each page as an image.
[7] Birthday card from Hockerville Mission, which we have.
[8] From ghosttowns.com, a site that documents the history of ghost towns since 1998; accessed at https://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ok/hockerville.html.
[9] Poor Man’s Fortune: White Working-Class Conservatism in American Metal Mining, 1850-1950, University of North Carolina Press, 2020, page 200.
[10] 1930 United States Federal Census, accessed on Ancestry.com.
[11] This is from the diploma from his 8th grade graduation at Neosho, Missouri, which we have.
[12] Polk’s Joplin (Jasper Co. Missouri) City Directory, 1939, located in U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995, accessed at Ancestry.com.
[13] 1940 United States Federal Census, accessed at Ancestry.com.
[14] The Tri-State Zinc-Lead Mining Region: Growth Problems and Prospects, by William James Cassidy, University of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 1936.
[15] Miners and Their Machines: How Early Turn-of-the-Century Mining Techniques and Equipment Influenced the Tri-State Area, by Chuck Boyles, 201, History, Paper 9; accessed at http://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/hist/9.
[16] The Hard and Deadly World of Joplin Mining, posted March 28, 2011 by Brown, accessed at https://www.historicjoplin.org/?p=414.
[17] Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Multiple Registrations, Published by National Archives, Oct 16, 1940, accessed at www.fold3.com/image/251/618717141?xid=1945
[18] Picher, Oklahoma; Wikipedia; accessed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picher,_Oklahoma.
[19] Ed’s Navy Reserve service records, retrieved from the National Archives, National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Missouri, in September, 2017.
[20] Ibid, Poor Man’s Fortune, page 246.
[21] Ibid, Ed’s Navy Reserve service records.
[22] Ed’s Honorable Discharge certificate, which we have.
[23] Polk’s Kelso-Longview (Cowlitz Co. Wash) Directory, 1953-54, located in U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995, accessed on Ancestry.com.
[24] Application for Social Security Account Number, filled out and signed by Ed Nov. 5, 1955; retrieved from Social Security Administration, Division of Earnings Records Operations, Baltimore, MD, December 20, 2016.
[25] Miami Daily News-Record, Miami, Oklahoma, Wed, Nov. 30, 1955, Page 5; accessed at Newspapers.com.
[26] Ed’s documents from the National School of Meat Cutting in Toledo, Ohio; we have these documents including his certificate of completion.
[27] This is from Ed’s 1957 W2 documents, which we have.
[28] We have a 1958 picture of the house and I have a picture I took in 2017.
[29] This is from Ed’s 1958 W2 document, which we have.
[30] This is per a Newberrys charge card dated 7/7/1960, which we have. There is also a newspaper article that shows him as the meat market manager at Foodtown in Parsons; The Parsons Sun, Parsons, Kansas, June 1, 1960, Page 18, Column 4.
[31] The Parsons Sun, Parsons, Kansas, Saturday, November 19, 1960, Page 3, Column 4.
[32] The Parsons Sun, Parsons, Kansas, Friday, November 24, 1961, Page 2, Column 1.
[33] There’s a small article dated August 4, 1962 where Ed won tickets to the Parsons Theater; The Parsons Sun, Parsons, Kansas, Saturday, August 4, 1962, Page 2, Column 6.
[34] This is per Ed’s blood donor card dated 3/26/62, which has donation dates and locations on the back, it shows moving from Parsons to Joplin and then to Erie. The first Joplin donation is dated 8/28/63.
[35] This is from Ed’s 1965 W2 document, which we have.
[36] Independent Order of Odd Fellows; Wikipedia; accessed at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Order_of_Odd_Fellows.
[37] American Legion; Wikipedia; accessed at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legion.
[38] We have the deed records for the purchase and later sale, and the mortgage record. These are from the Labette County Courthouse, Recorder of Deeds. The purchase price and subsequent sale price are not shown in the deeds, it is listed as one dollar.
[39] United States District Court letter dated November 1, 1971, which we have.
[40] This is from Ed’s heart valve implantation card, which we have.
[41] This is from Ed’s cardiac pacemaker identification card, which we have.