GRANDFATHER AND GRANDSON 1945

GRANDFATHER AND GRANDSON 1945
Originally uploaded by roberthuffstutter

A SHORT ESSAY ABOUT GRANDAD HAWTHORNE

Frank E. Hawthorne was born in Centerview, Missouri, near Warrensburg, in 1878. He married his sweetheart, Sadie Ella Osborne, also of Centerview. They enjoyed the turn of the century events. Grandad, I learned, was quite a good guitar player. The two were married and moved to Kansas CIty to begin their life together. Grandad purchased a home near the then new Standard Oil Refinery in the Sugar Creek, Missouri area, near the MIssouri River. He never learned or wanted to drive an auto and walked to work each day for many of the more than 40 years he was employed by Standard Oil. Grandad loved to make his own wine; he kept in the basement. He was a pipe smoker and always smoked in the basement or out in the backyard. I loved the aroma of his pipe, thus declared to smoke when old enough. At one time, back in the early 1900s, Frank and Ella kept a cow at the house for milk. By the time I arrived, the cow was gone, but I do recall their chickens and turkeys, kept in a long and pleasant pen covered by a grape arbor. In the summers, when Grandad wanted to spend time with the boys outdoors, he would take out his pocket knife and fashion twig and bark whistles for each of us young boys. We would then drive the neighbors to the point of closing their windows. On summer nights, with no television then, we sat out on the front porch and burned a smudge pot to keep the bugs and mosquitos away. I have, like many people, many great memories of Grandad and Grandmother