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To continue Myrtle Jones’story:

THE CLARENCE AND NANNIE STOREY FAMILY

by Myrtle Jones

Claud and Clint were growing up and Claud and his friend, Walt Morhart, went to Wichita and got a job in a hide company. There they heard of a bad snow in eastern Colorado, so they decided it would be better if they went out there. They rode the train to Syracuse, Kansas. On the way they decided they would need a horse for their job of skinning cattle. They stopped off at Syracuse, not far from their destination. Here they met a Shyster Real Horse Trader, who sold them a horse. The poor animal barely made it to Granada, Colorado, so they went to work for the Dodge ranch south of Granada skinning the dead cattle that lay all over the prairie. The work was tough but there was lots to do. I have a letter that Claud sent to his dad telling him to get some part for his car as he would be back soon to fix it. Hum . . . wonder if he got paid for that part? Just like a kid of 18 or so, he may not have paid him.

Claud was in love with Edna Stone, but she married Clarence Clark. Claud got a threshing machine and went to work in Beaver County. Here he met the young lady that would mend his broken heart. Claud met Verna Bush at a dance. This young lady was so impressed—he had a car--she fell head over heels in love with him. Or maybe it was the car. I don’t know if he got a lot of jobs but he did get a girl. Grin.

I don’t know how long it was, but Verna got a job at the Buffalo Hotel where she no doubt hoped to see Claud. She said this job entailed everything from cleaning rooms, to waiting on tables, to helping cook. But she got her man. They were married in February 1921, at the hotel. The couple who operated the hotel helped Verna get ready for the wedding.

Strange, but Willie Williams met Verna’s sister, Almira Williams, in Beaver County, too, where she was cooking for a harvest crew. They married. I guess he liked her cooking. I don’t know much about this but Albert recalls that was how they met.

It was the Roaring Twenties, but about the middle twenties things started going south for Clarence. He couldn’t make his payments and he lost the place. Who knows what did happen but it wasn’t long before the Dirty Thirties were upon everyone, and since farmers usually feel the crunch first, this may have been what happened. Or possibly Clarence simply didn’t lay up for hard times and poor crop and cattle prices. Who knows why? Does this sound like a whiny farmer? Grin. Anyway I would guess his friend Billie Williams knew Clarence was losing the place and got in touch with the mortgage company that had the lien and rented it from them. Albert remembers living there, and that he and his brothers were forbidden to play near the graves of the babies.

Clint was working for ranches around Harper County. Claud and Verna and their two sons, Clarence and Veryl, moved to Stanton County, Kansas, in 1928, to a farm that Claud had purchased. They worked on building a basement on this place and by late fall were ready to move in. Clint followed them later on.

Clint and Levi London had a wreck with their truck and Clint hurt his back. But he toughed it out, and when he went to the doctor, they said he had a bad liver. I have heard my parents say that Clint won the roping on the Phinas Dunn place on the Arkansas River in Hamilton County, Kansas, the Saturday before he went to the Garden City, Kansas hospital to have his liver operated on. Many ranches would have rodeos just for entertainment. Clint was given many blood transfusions to no avail, and he lived a little over a month after the liver operation. Guess he was more or less a guinea pig for the doctors.

Clint was brought back to Harper County, and the funeral was in a country school house. Albert remembers that Johnny carried Mrs. Wagner in. She had diabetes, and the doctors had removed a leg. I’m sure this was a sad time for the Wagners too, as Mrs. Wagner had been Clint’s mother after his mother died. Albert, not really understanding what all was going on, also remembers seeing all the young cowboys crying.

In August 1945, Clarence died in Hamilton County, Kansas. Don Pettingall was working for Claud at that time. Don was another farmer who had come to Harper County after 1910. Clarence was brought back to Harper County to be laid in the Nixon Cemetery. This little cemetery lies just inside the Woodward/Harper County line, in Woodward County.

There were so many people both my dad and grandfather loved and respected: The McFaddens, the Parsons. I remember staying at a home of one of the Parsons when Aunt Almira Williams died in 1950.

Nothing remains of the old homestead—the barn and house are gone; the wind blows over the little graves, and there is not even a road to get to them. Nothing remains of the place that held so many hopes and dreams of the family.