Pleasant Discovery!

On Wednesday evening we spent a wonderful time with Darrell's Uncle Cecil (age 89) and his pleasantly demented wife, Bunzie! Just about every 15 minutes or so, she shared with us that she and Cecil met in a cemetery! They both had recently lost their spouses and were visiting their grave sites when they met and shortly thereafter, married. That was in 1989. Nineteen years later they seem to still be in love.....

Cecil and Bunzie Harmon

Cecil married Helen Golliday on September 6, 1942 in a town near St. Louis, Missouri. They had one daughter, Patricia Ann born August 18, 1945 and a son, Bruce born July 27, 1958. Helen passed away in 1988 from cancer. Pat is married to John Sweeten and they have 2 children: Matthew Sweeten is married to Stephanie and they have a daughter Madeleine, and Melissa recently married Matthew Mustain. They all live in Raymore, MO. Bruce Harmon married Becky and they live in Coral, FL. Pat and Bruce are first cousins to Darrell.

Left to Right: Matthew and Stephanie Sweeten, daughter Madeleine; Bruce and Becky Harmon; Cecil and Bunzie Harmon; Melissa and Matthew Mustain; Pat and John Sweeten

Cecil served in the Army Air Corps (Air Force) for over 20 years. Above are all of his decorations. He was a pilot of the B24 bombers. Once while on a bombing mission to Germany, his plane was shot down over Italy. Fortunately the English picked him up before the enemies found him! He retired out of McCoy Air Force Base in Florida, where he lived until 2 years ago when he and Bunsie moved to MO. to live with his daughter Pat as their health fails.

Uncle Cecil and Darrell with Harmon Coat of Arms

Cecil became a Christian in 1950. It is sad that he and his brother Kenneth (Darrell's father) were seemingly estranged. Perhaps things would have turned out better for Kenny's line of the Harmon family if they had been closer. But we all make choices in life that will affect our life, and often our descendants' lives, for better or for worse. It was pretty exciting to find that common bound between Uncle Cecil and Darrell, though! Who would have known?!?!

HARMON Coat of Arms

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!

Ancient Family Photos!

This is our long lost Anna Pritchard Harmon Bernatzki! She is the mother of Kenneth Lee Harmon, grandmother of Darrell Lee Harmon, and great-grandmother to Scott Wayne, Ryan Lee, Scott Alan and Bethany Jean (only our line listed here). Does she look like your grandpa or what?!?! These next 4 very old photos were taken at or around the marriage of Benjamin and Chloe Pritchard. They would be the grandmother of Kenneth Lee Harmon, but in actuality, they raised him from birth. Following the line, they are great-grandparents of Darrell Lee, and great-great-grandparents to Scott, Ryan, Scott and Bethany.

Chloe White Pritchard

Benjamin Pritchard

Later photos:

Chloe White Pritchard

Ben and Chloe

Chloe was blind her last 20 years from a fall on the ice

Benjamin, deaf

Ben and Chloe

Chloe's Father

______ White

Great-grandfather of Ken L Harmon, great-great-grandfather of Darrell L., and great-great-great-grandfather to Scott, Ryan, Scott and Bethany! Wow!!!

Home Town

Hutchinson, KS is the birthplace of my hubby. His family moved out west to CA. when he was around 4 or 5 years old. So when he found out that the annual ICBO Conference (for his work) was held in Kansas this year, we jumped at the opportunity to come revisit his early history as well.

Hutch has a population now of 41,000. It sure did not seem that big. Our first task was to search out the house that they lived in. From his birth certificate we saw that the address was 315 E Park St.

We found the street.....found 313 and 317, but 315 was missing. Mind you, Darrell has a clear memory of playing with matches in the closet of that house, and starting it on fire. He and his brother and mom all sat in the car in the driveway and watched the fire! How smart was that?!?! So we were not totally surprised to find it gone, except that his mother had told us a day before, that only the closet and the back bedroom burned down, and thinks they continued to live there afterwards. My theory is that this was the reason they had to move out to the farm. Who knows? And guess what? His mother never knew Darrell started that fire! She still thinks faulty wiring was the culprit!

This is 317. We decided to knock at the door to see if whoever lived there could verify whether or not 315 had ever really existed there.

pretty worn down, I'd say..... but I like the rustic look!

The owner of this house....... well see for yourself..... he is a pretty big man! Looked a little scary, but was very kind and helpful. Apparently an elderly man had lived in the old home for a while. He kept all sorts of animals in the house, leaving quite the stench. Between the animals and the fire, it was deemed that the house needed to be demolished. It was, and this neighbor bought the property at that time.

See where the long fence is? That was Darrell's home when he arrived in this world. You can just barely make out where the driveway used to be.

Darrell is standing on the old brick sidewalk in the front yard, and reminiscing about the days when he and his older brother, Steve (there were to be 8 boys in all), would pull up the bricks from the streets and sidewalks and build a fort out of them. Destruction of public property 101. He started on this pathway early, Folks!

Here is another piece in the front yard that brought up recollections of the not so good times.

See the name of the company that produced these manhole covers? We found their covers in every city we went to, so they must have been the one and only in those days. Hutchinson Foundry.....

Here is the old building that housed the foundry back then. The unkind recollection Darrell has is the time when his dad took he and Steve with him to the foundry. While he was talking with the owner, the unsupervised boys decided to play 'stage coach' on a couple of stacks of manhole covers. Steve reared back on his 'horse', knocking over a pile of covers onto Darrell's leg. It was crushed. Fortunately, the hospital was right down the street. The massive scar on his leg can still be seen today. Ouch!

Grace Hospital, where they took him to, was also the hospital where he was born. Today only 1/3 of the building still stands, and it is vacant. In the 1980's Grace merged with St. Elizabeth Hospital, becoming Hutchinson Hospital. They built a new building at another site. One month ago, Hutchinson Hospital was renamed Promise Regional Medical Center. I like the first name best.

Darrell remembers walking to this school to get Steve after school. He himself was too young to be going to school while they lived in Kansas.

Hutchinson also has salt mines below it. They still mine today, and produce salt for Morton! Darrell's great grandfather, Benjamin Wesley Pritchard, worked in these salt mines in his younger years. His feet became so dried and cracked from the salt, that he eventually left that job.

Morton Salt Company

Hutchinson is also home to the great Cosmosphere, an interactive space museum. It was not in existence when Darrell was here, of course.

This granary is actually in the town of Stafford, but I can't find the pictures at this time that I took of some of the Hutch ones. They are something else! They run the length of entire city blocks.......... just the silo parts alone! Tall, massive structures!

Notice the sign on this silo! People are not only more friendly here, but more conservative, too!

I don't know what this building use to house, but the sign now claims it to be apartments for the elderly.

Another cool building.....

The old firehouse..... don't know whether it is still in use today.....

We also searched for Anna's grave in Hutch...........more on that next blog.....