Anna Mae!

After searching through one Hutchinson Cemetery on Sunday evening without finding our lost Anna, we waited until Monday morning and made a couple of phone calls to the other two. So much easier! But not as fun. We were told that she was buried at Fairlawn Cemetery on Carey Blvd. in Hutchinson.

So off we went in search.....

.....and found! What we were later to learn from Anna's sister, Nadine, was that the Pritchard family had bought about 7 plots here. They were making payments on them when Anna died of an acute myocardial infarction, so she was taken from Kinsley to Hutch to be buried. We think it was her sister Lola who orchestrated the move, as she was the sibling charged with making the payments. Sadly, she missed the last payment (as per oral history) and so the rest of the plots were taken back by the cemetery. So she rests here alone, apart from the rest of the family.Darrell places a fragrant white flower on her headstone

The sad thing about the headstone, is that Anna never was a true mother. She had two children, Cecil and Kenny, from her brief marriage to Harvey Clyde Harmon. Clyde, from all accounts over the years, was a no-good sleazy carouser. I met him several times after my marriage into this family, and that description sure appears to be accurate. Sad. Therefore the marriage ended at the time Kenny was born. The court found both Clyde and Anna to be unfit parents, and awarded both boys to Grandma Chloe White Pritchard. She had just given birth to another child herself (having birthed 13 altogether), so because she could nurse infant Kenny, the judge felt that was the best place for the boys. Although Anna stayed in the general area so that she could visit the boys from time to time, neither parent was ever really a part of their lives. They were raised alongside their aunts and uncles, Chloe's children. Aunt Lola is who Kenny bonded with. I think she must have taken the boys under her wing.

Anna is buried at the south end of the cemetery, under a nice tree. We were not able to glean any more information from Nadine regarding Anna's character, but just the fact that she married such a loser, then divorced and lived with another man for many, many years until he died, then married Frank Bernatzki, might tell us that she had a wild streak in her. Who knows?

That was it for Hutchinson, so off we headed for Wichita, where we had managed to dig up a grandson of Anna's sister Mabel. Mabel has already passed, but Michael (grandson) knew that Nadine was still alive, and had her phone number for us to call.

It was a bit difficult to find, but we found her place. Darrell had called earlier to get the address.

This is the old house that she has lived in for years and years.

Nadine is the last remaining sibling of Ben and Chloe's children. She is 96 years old and seems to be as sharp as a tack!

Below is a picture of a photo of Nadine with her husband Virgil in their early days together.

They had 13 children also. Dale, #10 child, lives with Nadine now. These are all second cousins to Darrell.

Both Nadine and Dale were insistent that Ben and Chloe Pritchard were buried at Maple Grove Cemetery on Hillside Ave. in Wichita, so off we went feeling like we had struck gold (date on the headstones are always helpful in following history upwards).

However, there is no record of them being buried there. We checked out the other 2 close cemeteries without any success. We were on a time constraint to have our rental car back to Kansas City, so had to depart Wichita and hurry on. I am putting this bit in here thinking that they just might still be buried there, but they records may be bad. So close.....

We feel like we have made good headway so far, and hope to meet up with Darrell's Uncle Cecil yet. We learned that he moved from Florida to Kansas City (the Missouri side) a little while ago!