My First Ninety Years
Mary Jane Baird
Published by Murder Creek Publishing at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Mary Jane Baird
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment.
It may be shared with other people because the author is interested in providing this thought-provoking book to the widest audience possible. However, please ask them to download a copy of their own to help the author keep track of the number of interested readers.
Since writing a short review of Grandpa Keesecker's life (publisher's note "From Kansas Farm Boy to Moderator"), because few of the grandchildren knew him, I thought you should know something about my part. Other than Kristen Land, I really never saw any of my other grandchildren more than once or twice a year. So there is really no reason for them to have known either one of us well.
My life has not been out of the ordinary, but considering my beginnings, it has been truly blessed.
I was born in Kansas City Missouri on October 10th 1919, in a home for out of wedlock mothers, to a woman named Edith Bushman. Three days later, my real mother rode a train from Kingman Kansas and came to this home and chose me. She was able to come and speak to this woman who birthed me, and noticed she was a rather large woman. Rules were different "way back then." Then she rode, by herself, back to Kingman where my father William, was county superintendent of schools. In those days you didn't stop working, except on special days (at least not to stop working to go to Kansas City). Kingman is a small rural town forty-five minutes west of Wichita, and was quite parochial, even when I was a young person living there. It had just 3,200 population. But I was glad I was raised in a small town, for even though you knew almost everyone, you were conscious they were keeping an eye on you. My parents were 45 at the time, and Bruce, my adopted brother, was seven.
Mary Jane's Brother Bruce
We were never close as children, not only due to gender, but activities. He was very involved in sports, and of course, his music lessons (which, like all kids, he hated). He became an excellent jazz musician. The one thing I remember we did together as children was to help clean the house on Saturday.
Those were the days we had rugs on the wooden floor, and we would get on our hands and knees and clean around the big rugs. We also had to do the dusting of the furniture. Like most families, I helped my mother in the kitchen and the dishes, while Bruce helped Dad with the outdoor jobs. We had a big garden, a large yard to play in, and some of the time - chickens, which we ate.
Our parents were both very hard working, very caring, and godly people.
Mary Jane's Mother and Father
Mary and William Murray
My father never spanked me, but I got a swat or two from my mother for "smarting off" (and I don't blame her - also, you never said "I won't do ----"). As I grew older, and slightly more accomplished in piano, I played the piano for Sunday school and then for church on Wednesday nights and Sundays. The main reason I did this was that Bruce had left for college and there was no one else who could play. Also, my dad was Sunday school superintendent for many years, and his strong voice could lead the hymns over my many mistakes. I had taken music lessons several years, but did not learn how to play hymns, which incidentally are harder to play than some pieces that have a simple melody.
Of my many memories of my years at home, the least favorite was playing for Wednesday night church services. Everyone can remember your years of high school when you hated to go places when you were the only young person there. My playing the piano for Wednesday night church services fell into that category. I always felt as if I could be studying (maybe) rather than playing for church. I was getting experience, but did not view it that way.
Later, as I became more accomplished, I accompanied the high school girls' chorus, as well as the mixed chorus, and many different individuals going to state contests. I much prefer accompanying to solo performance (probably, because you have the music in front of you).
I really enjoyed my high school years, not necessarily the studies, but the social life. There were eight or nine of us girls who had a little "supper club" and would each bring something to contribute to the meal. Afterward we would go to the home basketball game.
The Girls in Mary Jane's High School Class
She Is the First One on the Left
This was during the depression years, so we were almost all in the same spot. My dad, by then, was the manager of the Badger Lumber Company. One of the two lumber businesses in town. Since he had a monthly salary, we always had all the necessities, as well as money for music lessons. Mother tried to help out by making candy professionally, as well as baking cakes for other people. She sent me out to try and sell candy, and I was not a good salesperson.
During my junior high years, we kept a man who was living and working for an oil company, in Kansas; and my mother rented him a room and board. Both parents were very good at being careful with their money, but were very generous to their children, their church, and their relatives. I had several aunts, uncles, and a grandfather, for a short time living in Kingman. My father's father lived a good distance from us with his second wife, who was "Dutch," and spoke very brokenly and was a very difficult person. But we saw her when necessary.
I did not have any cousins my age living in Kingman, but Richard Haifley who was four years younger lived in Wichita. Whenever we did visit his family or when they came to Kingman, Richard and I fought constantly. As I now realize, he was the baby of the family and his big brother was gone and my brother was away from home, so I was also the baby of the house - two babies trying to get their own way didn't work very well.
My dad was mayor of Kingman while I was in high school, so I received a little prestige (ha!) from his position.
Mary Jane's Father - William Murray
While he was mayor, he fell off a fire truck (he was 61 then) and broke his hip. In those days you were in a bed for six weeks and had to wear a heavy cast. I had turned sixteen so I could drive, which was fortunate because my mother could not drive. As I think about it now, there was a great possibility he could have lost his job, for this was still the depression. Fortunately, the company allowed the business books to be brought to the hospital where he would do the days records. It was my job to take the papers to him every morning, pick up yesterday's business accounts and get him working for the day, then I'd deliver the completed accounts to the lumber yard and give a daily account of Dad's health to all concerned.
The hospital had about 50 steps, plus no elevator, and my mother suffered with arthritis so she could not go see my dad often. She would not take anything but an aspirin and then only in a "blue moon." First, they had no specific medicine for it then and, may I add, 75 years later are just now suggesting they may have found something to help the pain.
After my dad returned home, and the cast was removed, he still could not walk or go to work. My uncle Fred (Richard's father) from Wichita was out of a job, so he came and lived with us to help Dad learn to walk, bathe him and help him dress. This was truly a blessing because soon after he returned home, I got typhoid fever. There was an epidemic in town when one of the dairy farmer's cattle herd got into a polluted creek and drank the water. Several people died. I lived, but lost almost all my hair (I was a senior in high school) and was very embarrassed, of course. I managed to go to school, but in October of that same year, got an infection in my knee and couldn't walk. I used crutches all through the winter and had to be driven to school. Which meant I took Dad to work and picked him up (this was in the days of one car per family).
Our entertainment during the summer months would be to bring a friend home from church, or go to their house for dinner; and play or talk, depending on your age. We took several trips to Colorado when I was living at home. Mother had brothers and sisters living there. After my brother Bruce and his wife Leone moved to Washington D.C. and I could help Dad drive, we went to D.C. and stayed with them. Again, I realize I was privileged, but of course didn't know it then. After the D.C. trip, it was time to go to college. I had a friend at church who had gone to college at Emporia and I was smart enough to realize I did not want a big school. So I was glad to go to the College of Emporia. Since it was a Presbyterian sponsored college, my parents felt I would get good religious training there.
College of Emporia
We did have chapel for fifteen minutes every day (mandatory), but a very ineffective religion professor. So, I became a minister's wife, not knowing any more about the Bible, than the next person.
I met Bill Keesecker when I was a freshman and he was a sophomore, at College of Emporia. After the first so called "date," I knew he was the one, and never doubted it over 50 years.
William "Bill" Keesecker and Mary Jane Murray
We were engaged over five years, married five years before Maribeth was born, so we had ten years of getting acquainted.
Mary Jane and Bill Keesecker
on Their Wedding Day
I have already written a short account of my life with Bill Keesecker, but I want to emphasize again, I could never have been more happy and treated more considerately than with your dad and grandfather.
Jack, my current husband, has come into my life, and has added a different dimension, and made life very fulfilling. He is a wonderful and loving husband, and I am truly blessed.
While married to Bill, we moved several times because he was called to different churches. After we were first married, we moved to Chicago so Bill could finish his last year of seminary at McCormick Theological Seminary. We lived close to the Seminary, so he could walk to school. Since I worked in downtown Chicago at the Insurance Department inside of Butler Brothers (a big distribution center for dime-store businesses), I had to take the elevated train, which went through the loop of Chicago. We lived three or four blocks from it. The first time I took it by myself I couldn't understand the conductor, so I went past my stop. Bill was waiting for me, and knew I should be on it, and when I wasn't, figured I'd been lost forever. But I had enough sense to go to the next station, get off and catch the next one back. After that I paid close attention and hopped off fast.
We had a funny apartment. One room with a pull down bed and a small kitchen with a sink, stove and refrigerator. We had no cupboards, we used orange crates for cupboards. The bathroom was next door and used by three other apartments. But we never saw any other occupants. I made $90 a month, just enough to pay the rent. Bill drove 200 miles every weekend to serve a small rural church, and was paid enough to pay our bills and food. There was no money for extras.
After graduation we went to Peoria which had a large church building close to the not good area of town, and consequently not a large congregation. This was in 1942-43 which was during the war. These years were rather traumatic, for I had a miscarriage and Bill enlisted in the Navy, which meant I had to move back home to Kingman. I lived there for 19 months and taught some 40 piano students. I was truly grateful when Bill returned safely from serving as a chaplain on a troop ship.
We immediately left Kingman and went to Washington Kansas to see his mother and other relatives, and while we were there Bill was asked to serve the church in Washington. We stayed in Washington 16 months and while there Maribeth was born April 20, 1947.
Maude Keesecker, Mary Jane Keesecker, Mary Murray
and Baby Maribeth
There was not a hospital in Washington, so we drove 50 miles to Concordia Kansas, where she was born without our doctor but one who happened to be in the hospital. There was not a private room available, so I was in a room with three other ladies with new babies. Remember this was after the war when babies were booming. These are now the Baby Boomers they refer to. I really didn't mind, mainly because Bill thought he couldn't come over every day, for this was still during the time of gas rationing. I stayed nine days, and his mother came over with him once; he came three times. So the other ladies in the room helped keep me company. One lady was not married and her boy friend came to see her once. In those days, having a child out of wedlock was scandalous. Later, the Catholic sister came and asked her if she wanted to have the baby adopted, and she said she did. She was very young, and it was sad.
When Becky was born on December 10th, 1949 we lived in Fort Scott.
Rebecca Anne Keesecker
Bill's Church in Fort Scott
There was one hospital, and again it was Catholic. Since we did not have relatives close who could come and watch Maribeth (age 2 years and 8 months) our good friends, the Grant Pearceys, offered to care for Maribeth the day I went to the hospital. It was 4 AM when we awakened their household, Grant, Jamie, David, and Judy. They all came out to the car to wish us luck, and to get Maribeth. Bill picked her up after Becky was born and then my mother came over and stayed until Christmas Day, when Bruce and Leone and Dad came over to take Mother back to Kingman, as well as to spend Christmas with us and to see Becky.
After seven years in Fort Scott, we moved to Burlington Iowa, where Sharon was born. Maribeth was going into the second grade and Becky was not yet five, so she could not go to Kindergarten.
Maribeth - Second from Left - With Her Kindergarten Friends
Becky - on Left Was Quite Envious
She missed being with Maribeth terribly, plus being in a new house, so she was constantly threatening to run away. Finally I said, "Go ahead." So she left and got one half block up the street, and came back home - mad at me because I didn't come after her.
When Sharon was born August 25th, which was three days before her dad's birthday, Bill was at the church at the monthly session meeting. When I knew it was time to go to the hospital, I waited until he got home to tell him, rather than call him before the meeting was over. I had to put the girls to bed without telling them they were going to have a new brother or sister (those were the days when pregnancy was not an everyday topic). After Bill got home, he immediately went to get the baby sitter. Then we left for the hospital and when we got there our friend Bill Strausser was waiting for us to be with Bill. He and Mary Strausser were some of our best friends while we lived in Burlington. He stayed with Bill until Sharon was born at 2 AM (those were the days when fathers had to be waiting in the "waiting room," not the delivery room). Bill Strausser was an Episcopalian priest and they lived a block from us, as well as moved to Burlington the same time we did. They had a boy, David about Becky's age and a girl, Susan, older than Maribeth. We saw them several times, even after we moved from Wichita, until they finally divorced.
Four years later we moved to Wichita when Sharon had just turned three; Becky was in the second grade and Maribeth in the sixth grade. So they had to go to a new school and a new neighborhood. We lived in Wichita 22 years, while Bill served Grace Presbyterian Church, and later became the General Assembly Moderator in 1976-77.
Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas
All the girls graduated from East High School. They all eventually graduated from college, and married while we were in Wichita, so we have many memories of that home and church.
The Home Where the Keesecker Daughters Grew Up
After that many years in one place, Bill felt the need for a new type of challenge, and decided he'd do interim ministry in Oklahoma City. It was a very divided congregation, due to the many mistakes of the ministers before. So Bill was definitely challenged. We moved to a rented house and then the church finally bought a manse for us after he became senior minister. We spent almost eight years there, enjoying the people and the very beautiful church. With three associate ministers, the church finally came together, and Bill felt he could retire, for he would soon be 70.
Bill Being Honored at His Retirement
You know the rest of the story: our move to Kansas City to be able to help Maribeth and Kristin; Bill's tragic death on July 19, 1992 after a heart operation, soon after our 50th wedding anniversary; and Maribeth's untimely death January 15th, 1995 of cancer.
But the end of my story, as yet, is good news. For after moving to Lakeview, three years after Bill died, I met Jack Baird, a college acquaintance, and we were married Oct 5, 1995. We have had fourteen happy years, and every day has seemed that I have been blessed all my life.
Mary Jane and Jack Baird
I had good, loving parents; was able to go to college during the depression; and I met and loved Bill, and we were able to marry while he was in Seminary. We were fortunate to have had three fine, beautiful and healthy girls, plus later - six grandchildren and five great grandchildren. Now after fourteen years of marriage to Jack, my story continues to be a happy contented one.
As I look back, I think how fortunate I have been all my life, and I am extremely thankful. I realize I have not included many little things that make an autobiography interesting, but I did not intend to write a book anyway. It certainly would not have been worth reading, so this is the end.
Mary Jane Keesecker Baird
###
About the Author: Read a short biography Mary Jane wrote about her late husband at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/21983