Thursday, November 29, 2012

W.W. Kyle retires as Weston mail carrier

The Weston Chronicle, Dec. 24th, 1965, p. 6

Around Weston 28 Years Ago...

J. W. Scott popular and highly efficient teacher of the seventh and eighth grade, has been appointed to the position of rural mail carrier to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of W. W. Kyle last spring. In the interim, Maurice Vaughn has been carrying the mail.

Lynn's note: The retiring mail carrier was my great-great uncle. Uncle Willy is the reason my grandfather left his dad's home in Kentucky and came to Missouri. He helped Uncle Willy with his apple crop shipment and a few years later came back to Missouri to stay. W. W. Kyle was Grandad's father's brother; also originally from Kentucky.

Weston distillery has ties to St. Joseph's Missouri Valley Trust

From The Weston Chronicle, Dec. 24, 1965, p. 4

Ancestors Worked At Distillery

Although only 18 registered at the local museum on a recent Sunday there were some very pleasant visitors and exciting moments for the hostesses, Mrs. Ida Allison and her guest, Mrs. Nettie Miller.  Mrs. Miller is not a native but is far more interested in Weston, its history and its museum than some who are closer to the 'good earth' of their home town. She interviewed several persons, among them Carl R. Wellenkoetter of St. Joseph, who was seeking information about his great-great grandfather, Abbott Porter Goff.

Goff, according to his descendant was at one time an investor and a bookkeeper at the Holladay Distillery forerunner of McCormick. Mr. Wellenkoetter thinks it was about 1860 Goff was also one of the first directors of the Missouri Valley Trust Company, oldest bank west of the Mississippi today. He owned vineyards and a winery on Lovers Lane in St. Joseph.

From the name it is assumed Goff belonged to the German population of Weston and with most of them moved to St. Joseph when the steamboat fiasco occurred here and the handwriting on the wall indicated Weston's doom as a commercial center.

(end of my transcription...more in the paper of the women assisting them along with a thank you note.)

Services Monday for E.R. Kyle, Weston Chronicle 1965

I've inherited old newspapers and finally am getting around to storing them correctly. Of course, I read them as I put them away and have found genealogy material that should be shared. This obituary is from The Weston Chronicle, Weston MO, Dec. 24, 1965.

Services Monday For E.R. Kyle

Egbert Railey Kyle, 80, prominent farmer and tobacco grower of Platte County died Saturday at the Atchison hospital after being a patient there about two weeks. Mr. Kyle was a native of the County and of the Iatan community and was born and raised on the land homesteaded by his grandfather, Matthew Kyle. He was a son of William and Melinda Krusor Kyle and was born April 16, 1885.

He was a member of the Mt. Bethel Presbyterian church and of the Weston AF and AM Lodge No. 53. He was married to Miss Carrie Ditto on Feb. 5, 1913 and she with a daughter, Mrs. Kenneth Myers of Excelsior Springs survive. He also leaves three grandchildren.

Rev. John Cox of the Iatan Church of the Nazarene conducted services Monday at the Vaughn Chapel in Weston. L.R. Vaughn was at the organ adn Mrs. C. R. Hall sang.

Pallbearers were Ora Palmer, Nelson Smith, J.C. Page, John G. Kyle, Floyd Smither and Tom Bishop. Burial was in Mt. Bethel cemetery.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Antiques Roadkill, Book Review

Antiques Roadkill, Barbara Allan
 
The first in the Trash 'n Treasures series...no recipes this time but an end of section tip on antique hunting at estate sales or shops.
 
Brandy moves back home with her mother after her divorce that resulted from a drunken night at a reunion with her HS boyfriend. Her mother has a mental problem that requires medication and when she is off the medication wild and weird things can happen. So when Brandy walks into a house devoid of the family antique furniture she knows what has happened. An unscrupulous antique store owner has purchased all the expensive heirlooms. This story builds on what this dealer has done to the town's elderly and sick population with no one surprised when he turns up dead. Brandy and her mother are suspects in the crime and in typical mystery fashion set out to solve the murder.
 
The authors of this book are husband-and-wife writers Barbara Collins and Max Allan Collins.

The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose, Book Review


The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose by Susan Wittig Albert
If I find an author whose books I enjoy I will search for anything else they may have written or might be writing.  Albert’s series of China Bayles mysteries has been a favorite so I picked up this book hoping for good things. Reading the book jacket and finding that this is a new series set in the Depression had me second guessing my choice. But Albert pulled it off.  Her research into the time period created a highly believable 1930s small Southern town. The people inhabiting her book are characters you might almost know from oft-told family stories: the spinster librarian, the assistant who knows more than her boss, and the small town newspaper man looking for a big story.
Albert’s 1930s world seems pretty close to what my grandparents and others have told me about it. So I was able to suspend belief and enter her world rather easily. The Darling Dahlias is a garden club. The Confederate Rose is a common name for a hibiscus and the name of a female Confederate spy during the Civil War. The weaving of the two into a cozy mystery of earlier times had me turning pages and enjoying the experience. I’ll be reading the first book in the series as soon as it arrives by request to my library.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Cake on a Hot Tin Roof Book Review

Ok, heads up alert on this one...it's just for fun. Just as I can't resist a good dessert, I can't resist clever titles for summer beach reads either. Cake on a Hot Tin Roof follows A Sheetcake Named Desire by Jacklyn Brady. The premise is a bakery chef inherits a pastry shop from her late, almost ex-husband in New Orleans. There is a mystery involved, as in her first of this "A Piece of Cake" series. However, it's the inner workings of the pastry shop that interests me the most. New owner Rita Lucero who is still trying to earn her spot as the boss of the shop finds her visiting uncle a suspect in the murder of one of New Orleans prominent businessmen. Several families' secrets are revealed in the course of the book and a view of Mardi Gras a few years after Katrina keeps things interesting.

As in many books lately, recipes are included in the back of the book.  None for the fancy cakes made up for the pastry shop but some recipes for brunches and other meals. Only one appealed to me but then I'm not a fan of New Orleans style food.

Have fun as you get an inside glance at a business most of us will not see in daily operation.

Objects of My Affection Book Review

The premise of this book hooked me. Lucy Bloom is an organizer given the job of clearing out an artist's house with a deadline that is an important part of the plot. The artist is a hoarder and refuses to let go of her stuff creating most, but not all, of the tension in the story. I like my 'stuff' too so I picked this up to discover how the cleaning out goes. Along the way I found myself guessing as to what happens to the hard working organizer who has recently lost her job, her boyfriend and sold her house to pay for her drug addict son's therapy.

I crave happy endings so this book pretty much tied up the storyline the way I wanted with a few surprises along the way. I'll be reading Jill Smolinski's earlier book, The Next Thing On My List, now that I've enjoyed Objects of My Affection.