​     As the school year draws to a close, one cannot help but reflect on their own time in high school and realize what the Class of 2020 has missed.  Of course, prom is only one of the many events graduates have missed out on and for this, I am truly sorry.
     Back in the 1950s and 60s prom was very different than today’s extravaganza.  It was known as the Junior & Senior Prom because the juniors sponsored the event to honor the seniors.  This is how it worked.  When a class entered the 8th grade they began massive fundraising.  All of the monies raised went to 5 major events; 8th grade graduation, homecoming floats, prom, senior trip and high school graduation. While the senior trip may have been the most expensive, prom expenses exceeded the other three by far.
     For most classes planning began during the first week of junior year.  The prom committees were formed and a theme was chosen. Of course, it was the goal of every class to out do the previous year.  One of the responsibilities was planning a menu for dinner, served in school library before Grain Valley got a cafeteria in 1954.
     The meal was served by a group of sophomores and it was considered an honor to be chosen to serve. After the meal, each junior was presented with their class ring, another BIG deal.
    Decorations to carry out the theme required months of planning. I remember staying after school for days to make all of the apple blossoms required for the fake trees in the apple orchard at the entrance to the gymnasium.
     The gym was closed for classes during the week of prom so decorations could be put in place.  The doors were covered with heavy brown paper so no one could get a sneak preview! By midnight on Friday the miraculous transformation had to be completed. While there was no hiding the basketball court lines and circles on the floor or the goals at each end, the fake ceiling hid the balcony, and the walls were covered with crepe paper.
     There were no limos, no champagne glass souvenirs, no $100 dinners, and certainly no $500 outfits or $150 to $200 tuxedo rentals. There was a printed invitation that came in the mail, a dance program, favors, a live orchestra and refreshments.
     We didn’t have a project graduation but we did have some post-parties.  My class met for breakfast the next morning before leaving for our senior trip to Scott Valley Dude Ranch in Mountain Home, Arkansas.
     While I don’t know where every class went I do remember my cousins class went to Rock-a-Way Beach and my brother’s class spent a week in Branson. Oh yes, those were the “good old days.”
 
Visit www.grainvalleyhistory.com to learn more about the Grain Valley Historical Society and “like” the Historical Society on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (@grainvalleyhistory).
 
 
 

​     If the calendar on the wall is correct, this photograph was taken in April, 1924.  The barber is Charlie Johnson. He was the son of Harvey and Permelia Johnson, born on April 13, 1896.
     A World War I veteran, Charlie enlisting on June 5, 1917 in Battery E, 129th field artillery, 35th division and was discharged on June 6, 1919 having fought on the front lines for 89 days. 
     When he returned home he married Ruby Huff on September 15, 1919.  That same year he opened the barber shop which he ran for 16 years.  I remember a barber shop in the basement of the old Sni-A-Bar Bank building, but I have no idea where this shop may have been located. 
     In 1935, Charlie became the acting postmaster of Grain Valley.  Four years later on January 1, 1940 he became the postmaster, third class, where he served until transferring to rural carrier on Route 1 in August of 1944. He retired in 1957, having served as the rural carrier for 13-years under 2 different postmasters, Iva Gosney and Ruth Fine.
     I remember Mr. Johnson and his wife Ruby from the 1950s when they had a basement filled with over 400 boxes of red wiggler worms. They began raising worms as a hobby to keep them busy after retirement. The worms were sold to fishermen and to individuals for composting and soil conservation. 
     Mr. Johnson died in 1971.  His wife, Ruby was the 1978 Centennial Queen. Both were life-long  residents of Grain Valley and they are buried in the Perdee Chapel Cemetery south of town.
     Visit www.grainvalleyhistory.com to learn more about the Grain Valley Historical Society and “like” the Historical Society on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (@grainvalleyhistory).
 

​     This building was on the east side of Main Street, just south of the railroad tracks. Currently there is a car wash at this location.  When I was growing up in the 1950’s, it was Floyd Sharp’s Lumber Yard and it still had a dirt floor. 
    But from about 1906 until the mid-1930’s, the building housed Kershaw & Williams, General Blacksmithing.
     Robert W. Kershaw came with his family to Grain Valley from Savannah, Missouri in the 1890s. His father, Peter Ferdinand Kershaw fought with the Union Army and was a Civil War Veteran with some disabilities. 
     He was in his 50s when he brought his family to Grain Valley. The U. S. Census in 1900 list his occupation as grocery. It is unclear whether he worked there or owned the store. Peter and his wife, Hannah Elizabeth (Walters), raised three children, Frederick, Hannah and the youngest, Robert (1879-1961). 
     On March 18, 1903 Robert married Iva Belle Bloomer from Holt, MO.  He brought his bride back to Grain Valley to live and start a family. Sometime after that, he started the blacksmith business with Charles Williams.
     Charles Evan Williams lived in Mayview, Missouri, before coming to Grain Valley with his young bride, Miss Goldie Pearl Dishman of Odessa.  They were married on Christmas Day in 1905 in Mayview, Missouri. They also came to Grain Valley to live.
     His family ancestry is unknown to this writer. I’m not sure when all of the streets in town were named, however, the 1910 U.S. Census said the Williams family lived on “church” street. By 1920 their address was on Capelle, the street with two churches. I’m guessing they did not move.
     Together, the two young men established the blacksmith shop on what was then known as Broadway, now Main Street. Grain Valley was already a busy little town on the C & A Railroad, but when Mr. Nelson started buying land and established Sni-A-Bar Farms, business exploded.  It must have taken a lot of horses and even more horseshoes to run a 1,700-acre farm!
     When my grandfather arrived at the farm in 1922, he recalled that all of the “shoeing” was done by Kershaw and Williams. By the 1930s, tractors and trucks had replaced the horses and mules.  The blacksmith shop closed around 1935. 
     When this photograph was given to the Historical Society by the family of Mrs. Ruby Wyatt, Williams’ daughter, we learned that her father, Charlie, also did all of the sign work for the farm and the stall cards that hung above the purebred cattle at livestock shoes and exhibitions from coast to coast. 
     Stop by the Historical Society.  I still have 20 or more of the signs Mr. Williams made.
 
Note: According to the 1930 U. S. Census, the Robert Kershaw family had moved to Cass County near Harrisonville. His parents are buried in the Grain Valley Cemetery.
 

​     If you have driven south on Main Street toward Eagles’ Parkway and beyond, you have driven past this house.  This photograph was taken in the spring of 1926, so the house has changed a bit. It is now painted brown; a room has been added on the front and an addition on the back. The porch is a bit longer and the bottom third of the post supporting the porch roof is surrounded by stone.
     Known as the “Little House,” it was part of the original Sni-A-Bar Farms. Today, it is all that remains of Sni-A-Bar that is inhabitable, although right now it appears to be vacant. Since early 2001 it has been a gift shop, a law office and an insurance office.
     The children in the front yard are Isabelle, 8; Charlie, 10, and Billy Napier, 16.  When they, along with their parents James and Belle, and an older brother Jim came to Grain Valley in 1922, this was their home. After they moved up on the hill by the “Big House,” the Becker family lived in the house. Mrs. Becker furnished food for the farm hands that lived in the bunk house, behind this home.
     Several years later, this was my parents’ first home after they were married in 1937. My mother ran the boarding house in those days and most of the boarders were college students there for a semester to learning about the experiments taking place at Sni-A-Bar. I’m not sure about others that lived in the house except the Starke Family. Bob Starke worked on the farm for Mr. Batman during the 1950s and 60s. Barbara Starke was the school music teacher and I along with many others took piano lessons in the room that had been added to the left front of the house.
     With a laundromat on the north side and a car lot on the south side, I wonder about the future for this “little house” that is now over 100 years old.
 

     With a little help from Ancestry.com, the family can be traced back to the early 1700s, when David Kirby came to America from England.  But I will start with one of his sons, Jesse Kirby, who was born in Virginia in 1757, fought in the Revolutionary War, and was around in 1776 when our nation was formed. 
     In 1778 he married Sophie Choice, moved to Kentucky and together they raised eleven children.  One of their sons, Major Willian “Bill” Kirby fought in the Spanish American War before marrying Lavinia Anderson on February 24, 1806 in Warren County Kentucky. They had seven children, including William Wyatt Kirby and Julia Ann Kirby (Herrington). After Lavinia’s death, he married Clarinda Herrington Doak, Julia Ann’s sister-in-law. Are you confused yet?
     William Wyatt’s eldest son, William Robert was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 1831.
     Like his father and grandfather, he was a farmer.  But, not contented to be a farmer, he headed West. He was in Texas from 1857 to 1865 and California from 1865 to early 1868 before settling in Jackson County near Buckner.  On October 7, 1868 he married a Grain Valley girl,  Susan Rebecca Capelle . 
     Together they raised four children on their farm located on land that is now part of Lake City. Their eldest son, Edward Early Kirby, moved into Grain Valley. He was the namesake for E. E. Kirby Road.  In the 1920s, he was the Jackson County clerk before moving to the Raytown area to become a successful fruit grower. 
     Sallie Kirby married Luther J. Slaughter (the namesake for Slaughter Road). Truston Wyatt Kirby moved to Independence and Durwood Britton Kirby bought a 70-acre farm on Buckner Tarsney Road where he raise Hereford cattle, and Berkshire hogs, and mules which he sold to the U. S. Calvary during World War I.
     After Durwood’s first wife, Susan A. House, died, he married Rose Hicklin in 1915. In 1920, they torn down the old farmhouse and replaced it with the two-story stone house. The stones for the house came from house the Buckner Rock Quarry, north of their home on Spring Branch Road (later Truman Road).
     Together they had two children, Durwood Hicklin “Hick” and Emily Rose Overall. Emily’s daughter, Barbara alone with her husband, John Washburn, live in the house just south of her grandfather’s farm.
     Side note: Julia Ann Kirby became my great, great, great grandmother when she married Clinton B. Herrington. Their oldest son, Merrick Marion Herrington is buried in the Grain Valley Cemetery, originally known as the Herrington Cemetery.
     Many of the early families at Stony Point, Pink Hill, and Grain Valley came from Warren and Simpson counties in Kentucky.  If you lived in Grain Valley in the mid-1900s, you were probably distantly related to nearly everyone!
 

     If you are a regular reader of The Voice,  my monthly newsletter from the Historical Society, you will no doubt remember many references to grocery stores in Grain Valley.
     From the beginning, the Cannon Mercantile and Jacob Gregg’s grocery store supplied canned and dried foods, fresh meat, produce and farm fresh eggs in a crate to the residents of Grain Valley.
     Other stores supplied groceries to Grain Valley over the years. Bill and Addie (Cannon) Minter took over the Cannon Mercantile and later relocated a few stores to the north in the current Historical Society Building. For a while Anna Louise (Perkins) and Cecil Poage ran the store and lived in the back. 
     Wayne Minter owned the store when it closed in the late 50s. Clyde Fristoe moved his grocery business from Sni Mills to Grain Valley in the late 1930’s. And the Crull’s had a mercantile store in late 1940’s and early 50s.
     Perhaps the longest run, as grocery stores go, was the Frantz Grocery Store on the east side of Main Street. Roland Frantz, younger son of Ray and Ella (last weeks’ story) and Louise (Huff) Frantz operated a store there for 25 years. It closed in 1973.
     Frantz Grocery was one of the last old-time stores of its kind, offering services that slowly died out with the introduction of modern supermarkets. 
     The grocery store specialized in high-quality meat and Mr. Frantz and his butcher, Otis Williams, cut it for the customer’s needs. If Mom needed a 3-pound roast, that’s what she got! If company was coming it might be 4 or 5-pounds. If you ordered hamburger it was ground just before it went into the wrapper and a variety of lunch meats could be bought by the slice.
     When the store closed, Roland Frantz reminisced about his stores’ past. He recalled Saturday’s when as many as 25 customers would drop off their grocery list; he would fill their orders and deliver the food to their homes.
     On Saturday evening, he remembered “...the farmers would come to town to buy groceries, gather around the old coal stove and talk” until he had to kick ’em out at midnight.
     Behind the check-out counter were the “ticket” books. Like other stores in Grain Valley, Frantz’s Grocery extended credit. I don’t recall my family having a “charge account” at the store, but my grandmother did and occasionally she allowed me to get a candy bar or my favorite Hostess cupcakes and put them on her ticket! 
     Does anyone recall the grocery delivery van? I remember it was usually parked in the alley behind the store, and I think it was some type of brown panel truck, but I can’t be sure. My family only rarely got deliveries, but I can remember Mom buying groceries for Grandma and having them delivered.
     After the grocery store closed Grain Valley residents only had a convenience store for several years. The population in 1973 was probably less than one-tenth of our current size. Now we have not only Price Chopper, but 4 gas station convenience stores.
     And, just for the record, you can only charge with “plastic,” the eggs are in cartons, and there are no home deliveries!
 
Visit Grain Valley Historical Society online at www.grainvalleyhistory.com.
 

     Ray Frantz (February, 1885 – March, 1977) moved his family from Benton County, Iowa to Kansas City, Kansas in the 1920s.  He took a job as a brakeman for the railroad.  According to the 1930 U. S. Census, he was living in Grain Valley with his wife, Ella Mildred (Kiff) Frantz (October, 1888 – August, 1963). Their two sons, Harold (June, 1913 – August, 1994)) and Roland (February, 1915 – September, 1994) are graduates of Grain Valley High School. 
     The 1930 U. S. Census lists Frantz as an Oil Company owner. The exact details are unclear, however, at some point the family lived in a two-story home on the southwest corner of Main Street and Yennie. (The house was torn down a few years ago.) His Oil Company and Motor Service was housed in the old Royal Playhouse at the northwest corner of Main and Walnut Street. The photo does not include the gas pumps which were on the corner near the intersection.
During this time, Ray “Pop” Frantz owned and drove a school bus for Grain Valley. This photograph (or a similar one) appeared in the 1938 yearbook. At that time, he owned and drove the only bus used by the school. Wouldn’t you like to know his route?  In a September 1942 Broadcaster (school newspaper), there was an article that included a second bus, one with a route north of town and one with a route south of town.
At some point, after World War II, the old Royal Playhouse was sold to Robert’s Salvage Company, who turned it into a salvage yard for planes, tanks and jeeps used by the armed services during the war.  Mr. Frantz moved his service station 3 blocks south to the northeast corner of Main and Harris street. Their home was on the north side of the station. It still stands today, although not as a home. The station was torn down and has been replaced by a muffler shop.
     For more information on the Grain Valley Historical Society, visit www.grainvalleyhistory.com and follow the Historical Society on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (@grainvalleyhistory).
 

     At some point, John T. O’Connell put away his barber sheers and started a business on US Highway 40. Also known as “the Main Street of America,” it was the first highway to stretch coast to coast across United States. 
     Often referred to by locals as “Old 40” (Eagles’ Parkway), it was completed in 1926. The route was built on top of several older highways, most notably the National Road and the Victory Highway. The Victory Highway was an auto trail across the United States between New York City and San Francisco, roughly equivalent to the present U.S. Route 40. It was created by the Victory Highway Association, which was organized in 1921 to locate and mark a transcontinental highway to be dedicated to American forces who died in World War I.
When Patricia (Davis) Parr gave this photo to the Historical Society, she related to me the success of her grandfather’s business.
     Built about a half mile west of Buckner Tarsney Road (Main Street), it was the equivalent of our modern-day Casey’s convenience stores.
     The prominence of Sni-A-Bar Farms, located just across the road, and the newly completed highway afforded the O’Connell family a good living and a big new house on Walnut Street.
 

​     As a young girl I remember my grandmother telling me about owning a millinery shop. I wish I had paid more attention and asked more questions.  I have no idea where it was located, but apparently it was next door (on the right) to John O’Connell’s business.
     The small building may have been on the east side of Broadway (Main) between Walnut and Front Street. The information on the back of this photo includes the business name and the date, 1910.
    Tonsorial comes from the Latin tonsorius, "of or pertaining to shearing or shaving." You're most likely to encounter this adjective in a humorous or overly formal context, and it can describe anything that has to do with cutting hair or shaving. The two men in the photo are identified as Jerry Sweeney and John O’Connell. The dog shall remain nameless!
     Jerry Sweeney was born about 1840 in Ireland. In the 1910 United States Census he was listed as 70 years-old, single and living as a border in the Edward Williams home. (Tommie Webb, owner of Warren Webb Hardware was also a border in the Williams home). I found no further information so I don’t know if he has a relationship to the Sweeney family who owned a large piece of land on Sweeney Road, a mile-long road between Duncan Road and Pink Hill Road, ¼ mile east of Buckner Tarsney.
     John O’Connell was born in St. Louis in 1875. His parents were James and Martha Elizabeth (Richardson) O’Connell.  James died when John was about 4 years-old. His mother then married Dennis Costigan and they moved the family to Jackson County in the early 1880s.  In 1906, O’Connell married Creola Warren, the daughter of William A. and Nancy Warren and the sister of Ellsworth and William Durwood Warren.
     If you read last week’s article about the Warren Webb Hardware you can begin to see that Grain Valley was indeed a small town and it must have seemed as if everyone was related.
     When you consider the three O’Connell children along with the six Costigan children and their spouses you can connect to the Richard family, the Elliott family, the Herrington family, the Houston family, etc..
     In later years, O’Connell owned a business on U. S. Highway 40 (Eagles’ Parkway) south of town.  But that’s a story for another week!
    
     Learn more about the Grain Valley Historical Society at www.grainvalleyhistory.com.
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     The back of this photo is dated “about 1900” and identifies the owners as William Warren  second from the left) and Tommie Webb (lower front). The other gentlemen include Watson Hendricks (in front) Orie Morrison (3rd from left), Nob Alexander, Bill Brammer and two are unknown.
     In the 1910 United States Census, Thomas (Tommie) Webb was listed as  60 years-old, single, a merchant and living as a border with the Edward Williams family in Grain Valley, Missouri. After spending a couple of hours on the internet, I can only say this is my best guess. There are at least four Thomas Webbs in ancestry, all living in the area at that time; however, the Williams Home was just a block north of the hardware and he was the only one listed as a merchant.
     William A. Warren is much easier to identify. In 1900, he was already the third generation of the Warren Family living in the area. Benjamin and Lucinda Warren came from Tennessee in 1843.  They settled at Tarsney Lakes with their children, including Zachariah.
     He married Nancy Terrance on March 24, 1850.  William Andrew was the fifth of their eleven children, born May 20, 1856. William A. and his wife Mary were the parents of William Durwood “WD” Warren, founder of the Bank of Grain Valley.
     The Warren Webb Hardware was built on the north side of the railroad tracks on Broadway (now Main Street). Exactly when it was built is unknown to me, however Warren died in 1914. Perhaps that is when the name changed to Loring Hardware.
     William H. Loring and his wife Ada ran the store until his death in 1930.  After that, Walter Hoehn ran the store.  Other than a new roof and asphalt siding, the building had remained much the same when Charles and Mildred Napier purchased it from Cecil and Anna Louise Poage in 1949.
     The store no longer sold Askew Saddles as the sign on the right of the building advertised, but it did sell about anything else one might need.  Sewing machine needles, baby clothes, dishes, garden seed, Cook’s paint, and nails. A garden plow, tools, window glass and washing machines. You name it, you could probably find it at the hardware.
     In 1954 the name was changed to Napier Hardware, Plumbing & Heating. The store burned along with the old hotel, in the background, in December 1959. Since that time the property has been a parking lot.