03 Tuesday Sep 2019
Posted in Family history, Genealogy
Tags
1930s, Dad, Family history, Family photos, First day of school, Genealogy, Hare, Kansas, Stephenson
I don’t know any details about this adorable picture, but my dad, (Billy in those days) is the little guy with the polka dot tie. Too cute! Seems appropriate on the first day of school. Probably taken in Kansas about 1937.
Relationship:
12 Sunday May 2019
Tags
Augusta, Baltimore, Coffeyville, Family dogs, Family history, Family photos, Genealogy, Hill, Kansas, Lebanon, Maryland, Miller, Mills, Mother's Day, Oliver, Owen, Ras el Met'n, Salem, Sheely, Stephenson, Wright
Just a few images in the spirit of the day. Love these mothers, one and all!
31 Tuesday Jul 2018
Posted in People
Tags
Dad, Family dogs, Family history, Great Dane, Hare, Stephenson
Today would have been my Dad’s 85th birthday. I wish I could write about our long years together, the joys we shared, his interests and accomplishments, but at 28 he died in an accident. I was four and a half. That’s not a lot of time to build memories of a parent, and I want to remember more than I do, but here are some random thoughts:
Happy birthday, Daddy. Love you.
William Edward (Stephenson) Hare (1933-1961) – took his step-father’s surname, Hare.
14 Saturday May 2016
Posted in Genealogy, Uncategorized
Until I discovered how many yearbooks are lurking online, I had only one photograph taken of my grandfather, Bill Stephenson, before he was an adult. I knew hardly anything about his interests, activities, or friends and I had no mental picture of the schools where he spent all those years. What an eye-opener three yearbooks have been!
At age 14, Grandpa Bill, who I knew as a gentle, loving man with a very silly sense of humor, looked like a bit of a punk, or at least a surly teenage boy.
The Orange A, Augusta, Kansas High School, 1925. William Stephenson, center
Bill, my dad’s father, was born in 1910 and raised in Augusta, Kansas–a middle child with two brothers, Paul and Clark. Paul was eight years older, while Clark was just a year younger, going all through school in the same grade. From Augusta High School, they went on to the University of Kansas together, where they were roommates and fraternity brothers. Clark was the scholar in the family, and Bill always found it challenging to be in the academic shadow of his younger brother.
What tidbits did I learn from these yearbooks?
The Orange A, Augusta, Kansas High School 1928
Grandpa Bill was musical. He played in his high school orchestra, (what instrument?) and sang in the glee club and a special boys quartet.
The Orange A, Augusta, Kansas High School, 1928
He was class president his sophomore year and Uncle Clark was class president their senior year.
He played basketball, (top right). He always loved sports.
While Bill always looked serious–sometimes even scowly–Clark occasionally had a big grin in his pictures.
He had a girlfriend! And his best friend might have been Arlice Williams (to the right in the photo at the top of the post), who appeared next to him in many pictures throughout their high school years.
Augusta High School was two blocks down the street from the Stephenson house.
I didn’t dig as much in the University of Kansas yearbook for 1932, but…
Bill and Clark were both members of Alpha Nu of Beta Theta Pi.
Bill is 2nd row center, Clark is upper left
The fraternity house at 1425 Tennessee Street in Lawrence, Kansas is the former Usher Mansion, a striking limestone, Italianate structure which has continued to house Beta Theta Pi since 1913.
More grandparents and yearbooks to come.
I’d love to hear what others have found through scouring yearbooks!
A participant in the 7th Annual Genealogy Blog Party Potluck Picnic.
26 Tuesday Apr 2016
Posted in People
This is my dad, on the move early and around the same age as my mum in my previous post.
Born in Wichita, Kansas in 1933, Bill Stephenson Hare was definitely one of the nomads of the family during his brief 28 years. He was about 4 when my grandparents, Bill Stephenson and Jane (Miller) Stephenson divorced and my grandmother remarried to Bob Hare.
And the Hares did move and move. Bob worked for natural gas companies and seemed to pick up and move on every few years, usually to small rural towns in remote places. (Why was that, anyway?)
Young Billy moved from Kansas to Missouri to Connecticut to Waldorf, Maryland (and maybe more in between?) before staying put long enough to go through high school and then college nearby at Johns Hopkins.
Graduating from college and marrying my mother all at the same time, he had also graduated from two wheels to four, and off they went! During the summer of 1955, Bill and Celia hit the road for Anchorage, Alaska, where he had been offered a job. They drove cross country, stopping along the way to visit grandparents in Kansas, see the sights, and start their adventure. More to follow…
Generations of Nomads 