Chapter Eight - Gramps

Chapter Eight
Gramps
My mother’s father’s name was Ralph Scott McMahon, “Gramps” (that’s what we called him). My mother use to say “when our faces were dirty we were shanty Irish and we were called Mac-Ma-hon, but otherwise we were Mc- Man. I don’t know much of anything about Gramps’ brothers or sisters. I don’t even know if he had any. What I remember though is that his family came to Kansas by wagon from either Indiana or Ohio. One time in doing some research on our family history on his side I came across an article about one of our relatives being a fairly well known itinerant preacher who had a preaching circuit there in Kansas.

Gramps had four daughters and one son. My mother was the third daughter. Her two older sisters were Aunt Grace and Aunt Midge and her younger sister was Aunt Fran. Her brother, who I believe was older than her was Uncle Roy. Gramps was a carpenter by trade and in those days that included cabinet making. I remember his tool room and the carpentry tools he had. There were no power tools. If he wanted to drill a hole in some wood, he would use a brace and bit. A brace was a tool that had a pommel like handle at the top connected to a shaft that had a U shape bend in it and a receptacle at the bottom to hold a drill bit. A craftsman would hold the brace and bit vertical to the board and then apply downward pressure with one hand on the pommel while with the other hand he would grasp the U shape handle, rotating it in a circular manner to cause the bit at the bottom to drill a hole in the wood. In Gramps’ day cabinet makers built cabinets and furniture using wooden pegs instead of nails and screws. Furniture was not put together with a powered staple gun like today.

As long as I can remember Gramps lived with my Uncle Brownie and Aunt Midge there in Cherryvale. He had a small room at the back of the house that had a bed, chest of drawers and a large easy chair. His bedroom wall was a gallery of grandkids’ pictures. I don’t remember how many grandkids and great grandkids he had but it was more than thirty. Gramps had a habit of sitting in the front room of the house reading the paper in the evening. He fell asleep while reading one evening and never woke up. He was in his mid 90’s when he died.

Going to the Kansas State Fair were probably my fondest memories of Gramps. The fairgrounds was probably four to five blocks from our home there on Fillmore St. When the fair was going on we could sit out back of the house and listen to all the side show barkers at the midway. A traveling carnival would always be the highlight of the State Fair. I remember going down to the fair with Gramps for many of the State Fairs which came around every year at the end of summer. We would visit the agricultural exhibits with the award winning farm produce. We’d also go through all the barns checking out the prize winning sheep, pigs and cattle. Also, we would watch the horse pulling contest where they would load up sleds with bales of hay or some other matter to see which team of horses could pull the heaviest load. The horses were later replaced by tractors – not quite the same. But the races that were held at the grandstand was a real favorite with Gramps. Now I’m talking about harness racing (and I feel like I ought to break into a chorus of “You got Trouble” from the “Music Man”.) If you’re not familiar with harness racing, the driver doesn’t ride on the horse like a jockey but rather rides in a small, light weight wheeled seat behind the horse. The horse had to maintain a fast trot like gait. If he broke out of that gait, the driver had to rein the horse back into the gait or be disqualified. Though gambling was not legal in Kansas, Gramps always said that the betting would be hot and heavy in the stable area. One other memory about the fair that doesn’t involve Gramps, but I want to relate it anyway was the Sally Rand sideshow. Sally Rand was I believe a somewhat famous burlesque dancer. I was too young to get inside to see the show, but of course her other dancers would put on a little bit of show on the outside to entice customers to come on in. Of course, all us young boys were right up front gawking.

One other memory of Gramps which I wouldn’t put into the category of fondest memories was a train ride with Gramps from a station in a town just a little East of Topeka down to Cherryvale. The reason it stands out in my memories is that when we made a brief stop at a station in the Southern part of Kansas I remember seeing a water fountain with a “Whites Only” sign. A little more on segregation in Kansas later.