Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

On September 22, 2000 I received the following letter from Thomas Carroll of Merriam, KS. I quickly called him telling him I had found a very interesting writing about his ancestor of the same name. I told him I would run his letter and what I had found so that his family might know this valuable information about his grandfather who was an early day settler of our Franklin, County. Thomas Carroll of Merriam tells me he is elderly but still drives his car during the day. He seems to be a positive man with lots of patience shown to me in my lack of getting his story run in my column. I have lots of stories just waiting in files like the one below. Please be patient, if I say I will get to your story I will, it just might take me awhile. First I will run the letter Thomas Carroll wrote to me. He tells us the background history of his family. Next week I will cover the information I found about his grandfather.

“Dear Rena Donovan,

“I have enjoyed reading your For Another Day column for quite some time. I have always been looking for something about my grandfather, Thomas Sturgeon Sr. I have always been most interested in the city of Franklin. A few weeks ago there was a listing of buildings, and previous business owners. The first building north of Naden’s old drug store was listed as the Tom Sturgeon building. I enjoyed seeing this in print. The building was left to Thomas Sturgeon’s five children. My mother, Katherine Omega Sturgeon Carroll, over a period of time purchased the other children’s shares of the building. His legal adviser at that time was Paul Spence, a very nice person. She finally paid off her loan during WWII. Thomas Sturgeon had a general store in this building she told me, and all the siblings had to help. During some of my time in Franklin she rented the building to Mr. Wistrand (Bob Wistrand’s late father), for an auto parts store. Mom sold the building to some one in Franklin after WWII.

“Recently you have been talking about early settlers in Franklin County. I mentioned to Stanley Copley, I hoped you would run an obituary of Thomas Sturgeon Sr., as other than what my mother has told me about their father, I don’t know very much about him. Mom was always looking for a book she once saw as a child titled Early Settlers of Franklin County, which she said told a great deal about her father. Her father, Thomas Sturgeon Sr. married Harriet Herden in Kingston, NY. I have an old tintype taken of them in Kingston, NY. He was in a Union Army uniform and she looked beautiful, but very young. Mon always said he either owned or worked in a shipbuilding yard and a fire wiped them out overnight. Mom was always talking about the chest she used to see as a child with ship building tools inside. She always thought one of the other daughters had got it. Mom got her mother’s bible, with Harriet Sturgeon engraved on the cover, and her mother’s cookbook. Mom also told me that her father had a make shift ferry across the river at Franklin.

“The Franklin alumni records say that in 1881 Franklin paid $75.00 for a land site, and paid Tom Sturgeon $985.00 to build a school house.

“The only information I have on my grandfather is an old tarnished newspaper clipping with three lodge brother groups on his death January 28, 1909. He must have been very well thought of and liked. I am enclosing a photocopy of this, which I do not want back.

“From my grandmother’s bible I have copied the entry when the where the children were born to Thomas Sturgeon and Harriet Sturgeon: Elizebeth K Sturgeon, Sept 18, 1875, Kingston, NY, died; Rutherford B. Sturgeon, February 16, 1877, Kingston, NY, died; Fannie R. Sturgeon, November 6, 1877, Lincoln, NE; Thomas R. Sturgeon, October 8, 1880, Franklin, NE; Mammie H. Sturgeon, November 1, 1882, Franklin, NE; Elizabeth Sturgeon, September 16, 1884, Franklin, NE; Katherine Omega Sturgeon, January 8, 1886, Franklin, NE; Jeannette Sturgeon, November 1, 1889, Franklin, NE.

“Of these six living children only one graduated with a high school diploma from their father’s school building.

“Fannie Sturgeon Shoemaker, class of 1898, died May 22, 1942. My mother, Katherine Omega Sturgeon Carroll did not graduate from high school at Franklin. She went to the Franklin Academy, and took piano. She could really play the piano, but only from printed sheet music, nothing by ear. She used to tell how the teacher would tap her fingers with a ruler, when she made a mistake. Years later when she could afford to buy a new piano in Kansas City; she made the dealer import a Hallet & Davis piano, because that’s what she used in Franklin.

“I noticed in the Bible, all the children, wanted to leave home, as soon as possible, and they did. Mon and Jeannette both changed their birth dates in the bible, but they calculated wrong, and both made themselves two years younger.

“Thomas Sturgeon Jr. left first, and came to Kansas City, he went to Florida with his wife and died. No children. Elizabeth Sturgeon Matts married a railroad engineer and lived in McCook, NE, and had one daughter. Two sister I am not sure which one lived in Greybull, WY, and the other in Demming NM.

“My mother was christened Katherine Omega Sturgeon, however the Omega didn’t seem to work, as one more daughter was born about two years later.

“My mother left Franklin, and was a Harvey Girl, I believe at Prescott, AZ, or at least it was out west. From there she went to Kansas City, MO and married my father, Ernest C. Carroll about July 4, 1916. I was born in Kansas City, MO, August 21, 1919 and was christened Thomas Sturgeon Carroll, after my mother’s father. We then moved to Detroit, MI, and I went to school through the third grade. Somewhere in this time slot mom’s mother Harriet Sturgeon married a nice gentleman in Franklin, George Hirshfield, and some time later mom’s mother passed away.

“The depression was on. My father stayed working in Detroit, and my mother and I returned to Franklin in about 1928 or 1929. When we first returned to Franklin, mom started keeping house for Mr. Hirshfield. He had a house just north of Fruhlings that seemed to sit high on a hill, across from a mini golf course across the highway. Notes from about a nine-year-old boy would say, Mrs. Fruhlings could really make homemade cookies. The first house north of Mr. Hirshfields was Lena and Will Larrington, Mrs. Larrington could really make cookies too. The second house north was a wonderful elderly gentleman, whom I respectfully called ‘Old Mr. Arnold.’ He was bedridden but used to tell me stories of how he had rode a wild buffalo, that he had shot, but it kept running. Also many stories of Indians, and he would show me all the guns that he still had in easy reach from his bed. In his yard was a concrete pillar, full of Indian arrowheads and artifacts. My mother and I left keeping house for Mr. Hirshfield, and dad arrived shortly after.

I entered Franklin High School in 1928 or 1929 in the forth grade. I never really knew that my grandfather had built one of the first schools, I sure didn’t want anyone to know my middle name was Sturgeon, as I knew a Sturgeon was a very ugly fish and didn’t want to be called fish.

“I graduated from high school in 1939 with friends and classmates, Lloyd Naden, Bob Butler, and Stan Copley. My father was by then, Custodian at the Franklin County Courthouse. We had living quarters in the courthouse, and all three of us dusted, mopped, waxed and etc. all for the price of one janitor. There was always work to be done, but it was a very nice.

“I knew what occupation I wanted and that was to be a photographer. I was told that the army had use for photographers. In September 1939 I enlisted in the Army Air Corps. After I left mom and dad returned to Kansas City for defense war work.

“Dad worked at the B-24 Bomber plant and mom being one of six ladies in the TWA Airline Test Kitchen. These ladies cooked and prepared food, which they put in segregated plastic trays, that was quick frozen, to be reheated in airplane flights. Mom got a 25-year pin from TWA when she retired, Mom and Dad purchased a 12-unit apartment building, upon their retirement.

I was in the service for six years, after being in Panama about 15 months; I was given furlough in 1943. I went to Kansas City to see my parents. While there mom had talked to an old friend of hers to have her daughter drop by to meet her son. I met this lovely very intelligent young lady, and spent more time dating her than with my parents.

“We were married in Kansas City on April 4, 1944, which is an easy date to remember. We have now been married 56 years. The last part of the war years we lived off the base in Ogden, UT. I had to get up about five every morning, to ride the winter roads with the officer who was in charge of the base photographic section at Hill Field, which was a very large installation. I supervised about 14 enlisted men, and all day and night long photography was used. While in Utah, we used to have Sunday visitors with Charles and Maxine Burton, who are Franklin residents, or were.

“After the war we settled back in Kansas City, MO. and I owned and operated a commercial photo studio specializing in catalog and fashion photography for large wholesale and retail companies.

“We have a lovely daughter, who used to help her dad run his photographic shop. She now helps us and keeps a close eye on us.

“Jane has had some light strokes, which has slowed her down. We’re not able to travel because of this. I retired ten years ago, sold my equipment, and rented my building. I sure miss working. I guess this must be some of the Sturgeon genes that have rubbed off on me.

“I have figured Thomas Sturgeon Sr., has been dead 91 years, it has been 120 years since he was at Franklin.

“My mother, Katherine Omega Sturgeon Carroll, passed away in 1964. This has been 36 years ago. It has been 114 years since she was born at Franklin.

Thomas S. Carroll, 6312 Goodman Dr. Merriam, KS. 66202.

Though their voices are hushed and o’er their sweet eyes,
The unbroken signet of silence now lives; they are with us again, as of old. Anonymous.

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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