BIRTHDAY BIO - Phyllis Egli Schmidt - The Early Years

Last year I wrote about Mom on her birthday and today I am going to write a little more about her early life. I have learned things about my parents since their deaths because I have been going through old pictures and letters and miscellaneous documents. It has been an interesting journey and there are so many things I wish I could ask them.

Mom kept several scrapbooks when she was young that I don't remember ever seeing when she was alive.

Some had lots of photographs and some were pictures that she had cut from magazines.

Fortunately she wrote about the photos and the people in them.

    

Phyllis, Harris, Tom

Many of them were pictures of her with her siblings and her cousins.

Cousin Kathryn, brother Harris, Phyllis

Tom, cousin Richard, Phyllis, Harris

Phyllis lived near many of her cousins and they often talked of all the times they shared as kids. These pictures are a glimpse into that childhood.

Phyllis and her cousins, Sandra and Karol

BIRTHDAY BIO - Ken Schmidt 1932-2011 - The Early Years

Kenneth 1936

I started Dad's bio blog in 2013 on his birthday, and continue here . . . .

Kenneth 1935

Kenneth was the oldest child. His brother was two years younger and the two of them were constant companions as they grew up. They worked together on the farm, they went hunting and fishing and they went to school in a one room schoolhouse up the road from where they lived.

Ken and his brother, Lee, on bicycles

Harvey and Kenneth

Kenneth - first duck

The back of this photo says that Ken skipped school to go quail and duck hunting with his dad south of Coldwater.

 

1932 Chevy, Ken and Fred Smith

Ken liked cars. His early letters often mentioned that he had stopped at a dealership to look at the new cars.

Harvest - the boy in center is Ken

Ken with his sister, Judi and their dog

Kenneth's sister, Judith, was several years younger than her brothers. They thought the world of their adorable little sister, although I know they teased her as well.

One of Ken's school papers tells what he like to do . . .

Ken - school assignment "What I Like To Do"

BIRTHDAY BIO - Edna Amanda Peterson Egli 1900-1984

Edna Amanda Egli was born on February 16, 1900 in Manson, Iowa. She was the fifth of eight children born to Peter and Annie Peterson. Three sisters, Minnie, Sylvia, Delphia, and one brother, Floyd, were older than her and when she was born they were 8, 6, 4 and 2. Needless to say, her mother had her hands full and in less than a year, she was expecting again. Her younger siblings were Sanford, Lillian and Hazel.

 Edna says in her handwritten memoirs:

“I can remember leaving home to stay with an Aunt and Uncle in Cherokee, IA.  They carried me wrapped in big shawl to the train and I stayed with them because Mother was expecting another baby, he was 1 1/2 years younger than I. Seemed like for years I would go and live them every so often up until 10 or 12 years. (I) would go home for school and back with them in summer months. Their children were older than I so I told people I was adopted and my own folks weren't my real parents.” 

Edna and her Cherokee County Mama, Aunt Mary

In spite of the time spent in Cherokee, Edna detailed lots of memories of her life in Manson as a young girl. Her uncle built their house on “Swede hill.” Her dad worked as a clerk in the grocery and dry goods store. They had a barn with a cow and chickens so they had plenty of milk, cream, butter and eggs. 

Her mother did all the sewing of dresses, shirts and coats. Her dad had a shoe repair kit and would resole their shoes. The Peterson family faithfully attended Augustana Lutheran Church in Manson.

In the winter the neighborhood children would sled and skate and in the summer they played games “like run sheep run” and 4^th of July picnics, or going on a long hayrack ride out to Twin Lakes.

1922 Ford Model T Runabout

Edna attended Manson schools and graduated from Manson High School in 1918.  During her school years she worked at Dalton Press, a publishing company in Manson. She earned 5 cents an hour.  Later, in 1922, she sold subscriptions to the Manson Journal and won first prize in a contest. The prize was a car – a Ford Coupe Runabout. Or so I was told. [see link]

Edna also attended and graduated from Fort Dodge Business College and was later employed by Davis Bros. & Potter Grain Company as the manager of the Manson Elevator. It was here at the elevator that she met Emery Egli, who also worked there.

Edna married Emery Egli on October 5, 1929. Soon after they were married, Edna joined the Mennonite Church in Manson. 

Edna and Emery Egli farmed in the Manson vicinity until they retired in 1966. They had four children -- Thomas, Phyllis, Harris, and Kenneth,  – and ten grandchildren. 

Edna passed away on February 12, 1984, just short of her 84^th birthday.  Her funeral was February 15 at the Manson Mennonite Church; interment at Rose Hill Cemetery, Manson.       

SOURCES

Baptism certificate

Phyllis Egli Schmidt

“Recollections of My Childhood” by Edna

Obituary

Funeral card

BIRTHDAY BIO: Phyllis Egli Schmidt (1933-2010)

Today, April 17, would be my mother’s 80^th birthday.

Phyllis Eileen Egli was born in Manson, Iowa in 1933 in the home of her grandparents, Peter and Annie Peterson. Her grandmother, Annie Peterson, was a midwife. 

 Phyllis was the second child and only girl born to Emery and Edna Egli. She had three brothers: Tom, who was a year older, and Harris and Kenneth who were younger. The Egli’s lived on various farms in the Manson area while Phyllis was growing up. Phyllis attended one room school houses in the county and the family was active in the Manson Mennonite Church. Both the Egli’s and the Peterson’s were large families and there was always plenty of family around. Phyllis grew up knowing many cousins.

Phyllis attended Hesston College in Hesston, Kansas, where she met her future husband, Kenneth Schmidt. But Phyllis had dreams of becoming a nurse. She had several aunts who were nurses and in fact one, Maude Egli Swartzendruber, taught at LaJunta Mennonite School of Nursing. So after Hesston, Phyllis moved to LaJunta, Colorado for nurses training. Ken, her husband-to-be, was working at hospitals in Pueblo, Colorado, to fulfill his service as a conscientious objector.

Phyllis and her brother, Tom

During that time Ken and Phyllis wrote letters. Nursing students were not allowed to be married so they knew they had a wait ahead of them. A wait they complained about in the hundreds of letters written during those years. They wrote to each other nearly every day and I still have those letters.

Finally in May of 1955 Phyllis graduated. And in August 1955 Ken and Phyllis were married in Manson, Iowa. They settled in Greensburg, Kansas, farming for Ken’s parents.  Phyllis also did some nursing but soon she had a family to care for: a son in 1956, a daughter in 1957, another daughter in 1959. And when Ken decided to return to school, the family moved to North Newton, Kansas, and Phyllis worked the night shift to help support the family.

After Ken graduated, the family moved with Ken’s job to Texas for a short while. They lived in Colorado for over ten years and they added a fourth child, another daughter in 1966. Then in 1978, they moved to Indiana. Phyllis continued to work as a nurse. Sometimes she did hospital nursing, but for many years she worked in doctors’ offices.

Ken Schmidt family

 Phyllis was a working mother, but she was always there for her kids, always involved in their lives and their activities. She was a very giving and loving person and gave her time to volunteer work and also to help her friends and neighbors and anyone she saw in need.

Denim comforter she made
for her grandson

 Phyllis loved to sew and spent much of her free time quilting and sewing for her children and later her grandchildren.  She was also very involved in her grandchildren’s lives, attending many activities and doing many things with and for them.

Phyllis with two of her granddaughters

Everywhere Phyllis went she made friends. And she continued to stay in touch with family far and near and with old friends scattered all around the country. Her nursing classmates are still in close contact, writing letters and spending time together. They share that Phyllis was often the life of the party.

After they retired, Ken and Phyllis moved back to Greensburg, Kansas and lived on a farm southwest of town. The devastating tornado of 5 May 2007 came less than three miles east of them before destroying the town of Greensburg.

Phyllis suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. Over the years she chose aggressive treatments and met the crippling effects of the disease head on.  In 2008 Ken and Phyllis moved into a retirement community in Hutchinson, Kansas, where they reconnected with old friends and made new.

In December 2009 Mom was having trouble keeping her balance. On January 4, 2010, she fell and was injured. She was taken to the ICU in Wichita and on January 13, 2010, Mom passed away. We all miss her everyday.

BIRTHDAY BIO - Emma Grimm Egli - Emma's Life

Emma and CB Egli

Yesterday’s "Matrilineal Monday" tells you about my research into Emma Grimm and in the process, some of Emma’s life. But there is more to her story and since today would be her birthday, what better day to tell it. Her daughter, Maude, wrote more about her:

“[Emma] was born on April 2, 1877. . . . near Tremont, Illinois, in a small cabin surrounded by dense timber or woods.  She was born prematurely. I recall her describing herself, as told by her relatives. Her head was small enough to fit inside a teacup and her hand was small enough to fit through her mother’s wedding ring. Her little body was wrapped with cotton and placed inside a shoe box. Her incubator was the kitchen range oven. . . . .

When mom was 12 or 13 years old the stepmother sent her out to the woods to see why her father was not coming home. As mom told the story, she remembers her father had come into the house that day and ate a bowl of bread and milk before going out to the timber to chop down some trees to supply the cows with leaves to eat. It was getting dark so she was too frightened to go to the woods alone. She was fearful of what she might find. So she ran to the neighbor and asked him to go along. He lit the lantern and together they walked to the timber where he was working. They found her father lying under a large branch of the tree. They figured he had already been dead several hours.

After her father’s funeral, mother’s stepmother told her she would have to make her own way now as she could not afford to keep her, plus her four little children." 

From what her children recall her telling them, she lived with various families in the community, helping them as a domestic servant.  She may also have lived with her half-sister, Anna and Anna’s husband, John Egli. It was through that family that she met Christian (CB) Egli. She married CB on the 19^th of December, 1895, although she told her daughters that if she’d had a place to call home, she would not have gotten married so young. She was 18.

CB and Emma settled in Tazewell County, Illinois and started a family.  Their first four children were boys: Amon, Joe, Lou and Emery (my grandfather). Then they had a daughter, Maude, followed by three more boys: John, Sam, and Lawrence (known as Ted). Then they decided to move to Iowa. Emma was very pregnant when they moved to Iowa by train, the first of March. Her second daughter, Elsie, was born on the 30^th of March.

The family settled in a place called Blanden. It was near Manson, Calhoun County, Iowa. There, CB and Emma had five more children – the above mentioned Elsie, then Jesse, Ida, Rosetta, and Stan. Thirteen children in all.

CB Egli Family

They lived on a 640 acre farm in Iowa. The life of CB and Emma is detailed in a book entitled, “Family Memoirs” written by Maude with input from her siblings. The book gives wonderful descriptions of the places they lived, the chores they did, the animals they owned  --  all the day to day details of family life for a large family living on large farm in the early 1900s.

Emma, I’m sure, felt blessed to have such a large and loving family after her difficult years as a young child. But her adult life was not without sorrow. She saw two of her children die. Young Rosetta died at only a few months from pneumonia and her son, John, died at 15 of a ruptured appendix.

CB, Emma and their grandchildren

Then a few years later, she too suffered a ruptured appendix, and, although they did surgery, she had a blood clot and died. She was 57.

SOURCES:
Swartzendruber, Maude Egli.  Family Memoirs of Christian Benjamin and Emma Grimm Egli ...1895-1930...to June 1983. Hesston, Kansas; privately printed, 1983.

BIRTHDAY BIO -- Kenneth H. Schmidt (1932-2011)

Today would have been my dad’s 81^st birthday.

Kenneth Howard Schmidt was born in 1932 in Greensburg, Kansas, in the home of a midwife. He could point the house out to me before the tornado of 2007 destroyed it.

He was the oldest child of Harvey and Beatrice Schmidt. They would add another son, Lee, and a daughter, Judi, to their family in later years. He grew up on a farm southwest of town.

While the Schmidt families came from a Mennonite background, Harvey and Beatrice were not regular church attenders as Ken grew up.  But Ken would return to his Mennonite roots and join the church as a young man at Hesston College, Hesston, Kansas. And Ken would go on to work for the Mennonite Church – and in particular, the medical ministries – the rest of his life.

 Ken’s path into this field began with his salvation experience. As a Mennonite, he chose to be a conscientious objector and registered as such with the selective service. This change of status made him a target of selective service investigation for many years.

Ken served out his alternative service as an orderly in hospitals in Pueblo, Colorado. While this wasn't his first choice, he was glad to have a location in Colorado as his girlfriend and future wife, Phyllis Egli, was in nurses training in LaJunta, Colorado – about 75 miles away.

After he completed his service and Phyllis completed her training, they were married and settled in Kansas working as farmers for Ken’s dad, Harvey. But Ken kept his hand in the medical field. He was on the board at the local hospital.  And eventually he decided to go back to college and got a degree from Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas in Medical Technology.

In the following years, the Mennonite Church hired him to work in hospitals and nursing homes in south Texas, Colorado, and Indiana. Although he was trained in medical technology, he worked in administrative positions. And even after he retired and returned to Greensburg, Kansas, he worked as administrator of the local nursing home.




Ken was also active in churches wherever he lived and active in the lives of his children and grandchildren. He was also a part-time farmer in Colorado and in Kansas.

Ken was a very devoted husband and in their later years, Ken and Phyllis - his wife of over 50 years – were often seen holding hands as they walked down the halls of their retirement apartment community.

As Phyllis struggled with illness and disabilities, he was more and more her constant help and companion. And as her health failed, so did his. He was showing early signs of dementia.

Mom passed away in January 2010 and in the months that followed, Dad seemed to lose his will to live. He lost weight and slowly slipped away from us. He passed away on the 25^th of January 2011. We love you and miss you, Dad.

Postscript: I have added more bio info and photos on this post Birthday Bio early years