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Thomas Knapp  The Denison
Press
Monday, August 10, 1942 pg. 4 OLD TIMER HERE, NOW AT OMAHA, SEEKS BIRTH DATA Mayor T.J. Long today was searching old records in an effort to locate the exact birth date of Thomas Knapp, public welfare inspector of Omaha, Nebraska, who requested the information in a letter addressed to the " Hon. Mayor, City of Denison." "Please, may I ask you for some assistance," the letter stated. "I am forced to procure a birth certificat to prove I was born. In about 1886 my sister started me to school one morning. It seems like the school was on high land in the N.W. part of the city. I was entered as "Tommy Knapp." He disclosed his parents were J.M. and Ellen Mary. Knapp said he thinks he was 6-1/2 years old when he entered school, but no records or relatives of any kind to refer to. In an endeavor to prove he was here, he recalled the following incidents concerning the city: "Dr. Lighthall used to have an Indian medicine show on your Main street. Often he would throw all the money he would take in for his "Kickapoo Indian Sigwa," medicine to the winds and great crowds gathered at his sales expecting this at any time." "Mr. Clark was master mechanic of the M.K. and T. shops and my father was a spring maker at these shops. They had strikes, tough ones. My father was a leader for the union." "Denison had a long red brick passenger depot, two story and lofty. I remember a lake west of the shops where they skated. I remember whole trains of baled cotton coming in on flat cars and cotton on fire. They passed the lake. "I remember a small creek that ran around the southeast part of Denison where I fished with twine and a bent pin in vain." Mr. Knapp said he recalled his brothers would take him to Red River and enroute, approximately a mile outside the city limits, he would see an average of one dead snake every 8 or 10 feet where they had been killed by trains and cut into halves. He also recalled "a park south of town, evidently Forest park, six inch snows, cracks in the earth 8" wide caused by dryness; Prichett's punch and judy shows. "Hokey-Pokey" ice cream and many other incidents. Biography Index Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |