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- Richard Whiting was born on the 4th of January, 1909 in Brunswick, Nebraska, the second child of Julian and Amy (Gentzler) Whiting. He was what they called a "blue baby" when he was born, and was sickly quite a bit of his younger life because of it. His father was a station agent for the railroad, so they moved around a lot. When he was only a few months old they moved to Wolf Creek, Montana where they lived for about 4 years.
During their stay at Wolf Creek they lived in the back of the train station, and so he got to know about all of the train engineers by name. He used to tell the story about the time Verni Bayless, who was the husband of his first cousin, came out for a visit. It seems there was a bum who came in on the train on a cold night, and he asked my Grandfather if he could spend the night in the freight room of the station. Grandpa said ok, as long as he didn't bother anything, so he went back and laid down on top of a coffin that had came in for shipment and went to sleep. Later on, Grandpa asked Verni if he would go back in the freight room and get a bucket of coal for the stove that night, but when he started back, he woke up the bum and he set up on the coffin. Dad said Verni came running back into the room scared to death, and hollering "the dead man's came back to life". He said Grandpa got a big laugh out of it, but he never could get Verni to go back out there to get the coal.
The following spring after Dad was 4 years old, my grandfather quit the railroad and they moved back to Clitherall, Minnesota where his father (Isaac Whiting) lived. After arriving, they lived in a tent for awhile but a big storm came up and blew the tent all to pieces, so they moved into the hayloft of a new barn that was being built and lived until they could build a house of their own.
Dad attended first and second grades at the Girard School in Girard Township. Nettie Tucker was his first grade teacher, and Alta Kimber was his second grade teacher. Then my grandfather went to work in the store in Old Town and they moved down there, trading houses with his brother. He attended school at District #1 (the first school built in Ottertail County) for the balance of his school years. Halley Gould was his third grade teacher, and then Gladys Gould took over. After school he worked for the local farmers in the area to earn a little spending money. After he graduated from eighth grade, He worked as a hired hand for different ones around the area, and then later on he went to Fargo, North Dakota with Leonard Oakes and worked for awhile. Then they went on to Wilton, North Dakota and worked for the summer thru harvest.
He returned to the Clitherall area, and on March 27, 1930 he was joined in marriage to Myrtle Imogene Vargason, oldest daughter of Orrin and Belle (Fletcher) Vargason. On December 10, 1930 a daughter, Phyllis Arlene, was born prematurely about 6 months into the pregnancy. She was stillborn, and is buried on the farm where they lived. On December 5, 1931 a son, Robert Orrin, was born. He died shortly after birth, and is buried in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery on the hill overlooking Clitherall Lake. On August 2, 1934 their third child, Vernon Orrin, (me) was born.
From my earliest recollections, I have fond memories of my father. He was basically a gentle man, but could also be stern when occasion required it. He farmed 160 acres bordering the shore of Battle Lake for many years. They always raised a large garden, and grew most of their own food. He always saved enough seed back from what he raised to plant the next year's crops. I remember him telling about living through the "great depression". They didn't have any money, and had to live solely off the land. He said many times they would pick peas to have for dinner, and then Mom would cook the pods down into soup which they would then have for supper.
Until I got old enough to help in the fields, Dad always kept a hired man through the summer months to help with the field work and chores. There was a small 2 room cabin behind the main house that they stayed in, and pretty much worked for board and room. I remember when I was about 5 years old, He had a man named Bud Blair and his wife, Rilda, living there. They were from Kentucky and Bud used to sing and play the guitar. Every evening after chores, we would all sit around and listen to him play. A couple of his favorite songs were "Gold Mine In The Sky" and "It Makes No Difference Now", and before long they were my Dad's favorites also. They had a boy named Buddy who was a year younger than me, and we immediately became bosom buddies. Dad always threshed the grain in the barnyard so he would have a stack of straw to use for bedding for the livestock in the winter. They had to stay in the barn all winter in order to survive the cold weather, oftentimes 40 degrees below or colder. This straw stack was "off limits" to us kids because if it got holes in it, it would collect water and rot. Needless to say, it intrigued us greatly, and we had a really hard time staying off of it. One day Buddy and I had been tromping around on it while he was working in the field. He came back before we expected him and caught us both nearly up to the top of it. He came running down there yelling for us to get down from there, and as I came down he caught me and gave me a good swat on the behind. Then he took off running after Buddy, and Buddy ran into their house yelling "Richard's gonna whup me". I don't remember if he caught him or not, but it sure made an impression on us. I do know we didn't get on the straw stack again for a long time.
Dad always had to work long hours in the fields during the summer months, but during the long winter months about all he had to do was cut wood and tend to the livestock. This left him with quite a bit of free time and we used to spend a great many hours playing games. Dad used to like to play games and he brought me up the same way, because Mom never did much care for it. Every Christmas he would get me a new game, and we spent many happy hours playing monopoly, sorry, caroms, backgammon, etc. Another pastime I thoroughly enjoyed during the winter was of an evening when he did the milking. Dad was always a great story-teller, and every evening while he was milking the cows he would tell me stories about all of his adventures in the African jungles and many other exotic places. He used to make them into serial type stories, and leave them right in an exciting place for the next night. I used to hardly be able to wait for the next evening's episode. Dad was a very prolific reader, and when he wasn't reading in the Bible, his favorite pastime was reading adventure stories. I'm sure this is where he got most of his material for his own stories, but he sure had me snowed. He also enjoyed reading mystery novels, and I am sure he read every book that Earl Stanley Gardner and Agatha Christie ever wrote. The closest public library was in Fergus Falls and we would make a trip in there about every couple weeks so he could turn in his books and check out about 20 new ones.
I would like to relate one more story about my father. He was always very dedicated to his Church, and the importance of attending services on Sunday was instilled in me at an early age. I only remember of one time we didn't attend Church on Sunday. It was in the middle of the winter, and I was probably about 8 or 9 years old. It was the only time in all my 12 years of schooling that they ever closed school for a whole week because of the weather. The warmest it got in the whole 7 days was 40 degrees below zero, and one morning it was 52 below. We got 58 inches of snow that week with a bitter North wind blowing, and the snow had crusted hard on top to a depth of about 12 inches. On Saturday it finally quit snowing, and by Sunday morning it had warmed up to 40 below. When we couldn't get out with the car or tractor, Dad always hitched up the team to the sleigh and we all bundled up and went to Church that way. This particular Sunday he hitched up the team early to see if he could get out ok, but the snow was so deep and crusted over that when the horses tried to go they couldn't bust through that thick crust. We got up on top of the snow-drifts and found out the icy crust was so thick that we could jump around on top of it all we wanted and not break through. Dad decided that if he could get the team up on top of the drifts, they could get along fine until we got out into the open fields where the wind hadn't crusted it over so hard and they would be able to plough through it then. He proceeded to build a rail and snow ramp up to the top of the drifts (about 8-10 ft high) and packed it down good. This accomplished, he bundled us all up and put several thick quilts over us to keep warm under and we started off to Church. We made it fine up the ramp and on out past the hog house, but then we got to a sheltered spot where the wind hadn't hit and the horses broke through the crust and sunk clear to the ground with their noses barely sticking out of the snow, leaving us in the sleigh sitting up there 6-8 feet above them. Needless to say, we didn't get to Church that day. The horses were completely floundered in the snow and couldn't go anywhere. We spent the rest of the day busting up the crusty snow and digging them out so we could get them back to the barn. I'm sure he was upset, but he never let it show. He just said "Well, we tried our best".
When my grandfather got too old to take care of his farm, Dad took that over and started farming it also. It didn't actually join our land, but Dad made a new road along the levee by the lake for about half a mile so we could have access to it. It wasn't very good land - mostly hills and hollows. The topsoil had all blown off the hills and there was nothing left but sand, and the hollows stood full of water for a good share of the time. It took a lot of work and he got very little out of it.
After the man died that used to do our threshing, the Church bought a threshing machine of it's own and Dad got chosen to run it, as if he didn't have enough to do. There were about ten families that used it, and he would go from one family to the other as needed. Whenever he moved it to a new farm, then everyone else in the neighborhood would bring their team and wagons over to help haul in the bundles. Sometimes there would be 10 or 15 wagons lined up waiting to pull in beside the threshing machine to unload. In that day and age everyone helped all of their neighbors out. Dad was always very mechanically inclined and always did most all of his own repair work, not only on the threshing machine but also on the car, tractor, or any other piece of equipment that needed fixing.
In the fall of 1952 Dad decided he'd had enough of farming and packed up and moved to Missouri. He was always good with machines, so he accepted a job with Black, Sivals & Bryson as a machinist trainee. He worked there until they went out of business, and then he went to work as a machinist for the Fairbanks Morse Company where he worked until his retirement in 1974. He also took a correspondence course in upholstery, which he did on the side for many years.
My mother died on August 20, 1973, about 5 months prior to his retirement, and this left him very lonely. He said it just didn't seem fair - to work all of his life for retirement, and then have no one to share it with.
Dad met Velma (Burkhart) Leakey while doing some repair work on her house. They became good friends, and on November 9, 1974 they were married. She had lost her husband in 1971. Velma was my wife's oldest sister, so my father now also became my brother-in-law...what a deal!!
Dad and Velma both liked to travel, so they took several trips together including one to Ireland. They also went on an Alaskan cruise, which they both enjoyed except for the fact she broke her arm on the trip and had to miss several of the side trips to the mainland. She insisted Dad go on and take them without her, which he finally did.
Velma died on January 25, 1989 and Dad was left alone again. He had a massive heart attack, and had to have a quadruple bypass. He still had some problems, so they had to install a pacemaker. By this time he was hardly able to care for himself, so his grandson (Gerry Whiting) and family moved in with him to care for him.
In 1992 he had to be moved to a rest home, and on April 20, 1994 he passed away at the Independence Sanitarium Hospital. He is buried in Mound Grove Cemetery in Independence, Missouri in the northwest corner of the old part of the cemetery.
The above account was written and submitted by Vernon Whiting in August, 2001.
[Whiting OK Fam Tree.FTW]
Richard Adrain
15540 E. Highway 24
Independence Mo. 64050
!Gary Whiting
BIRTH: Also shown as Born Brunswick, Antelope, Nebraska.
DEATH: Also shown as Died Independence, Jackson, Missouri.
BIRTH: Also shown as Born Brunswick, Antelope, Nebraska.
DEATH: Also shown as Died Independence, Jackson, Missouri.
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1909 - 1994 (85 years)