BMD (Birth, Marriage, Death) records are the stock and trade of the genealogist. They’re important, but don’t provide much context about our ancestors’ lives. Like most of our stories, this one includes Maninger BMD info.
Sometimes we’re lucky to find collateral stories, vignettes into people’s everyday lives. These enrich our understanding, and help us get to know our ancestor. This story features the importance of music in Maninger family life.
Let’s begin 1911 with a birth…
Frannie Maninger
Ferne Frances “Frannie” Maninger was born Saturday, September 16, 1911. She was the fifth daughter, and seventh and final child, of John and Priscilla Maninger.
Not everyone was happy about it
When I was five years old my folks sent me to my aunt and uncle’s house to the farm adjoining ours. I remember my aunt answering the phone and turned to me and said I had a baby sister. I was very upset because I had enjoyed being the baby and when my dad came to take me home I cried and didn’t want to go home. I didn’t know where she was going to sleep as we had three bedrooms; my mother and dad occupied one, and the other two bedrooms each had two double beds. My three sisters and I had one and my Uncle Buddy and my two older brothers had the other one and I thought she was just one too many. Our home was very crowded by today’s standards.
My Experiences Growing Up On Our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger
But she got over it
…after Ferne was old enough to play, we became very close and I think I loved her more than any of my older siblings.
My Experiences Growing Up On Our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger
Music
As John and Priscilla’s children grew up during the first decades of the 1900s, some of learned to play musical instruments. Dude played the trombone. Jess acquired a new bass horn for $125. Emily played the violin.
Many of the Maninger cousins learned to play too. Cousin Magdalena played the violin. Charles and Earl Maninger took up instruments.
In 1913, John and Priscilla Maninger bought a piano for their children to learn. A year later, Ed and Mabel Maninger bought a piano, and Gus and Bertha Maninger followed suit a year after that.
The Maningers were a musical family.
The Maninger Orchestra
By around 1910, there were enough Maninger musicians to make up an orchestra. In the following years, the Maninger Orchestra played all over town, at box suppers, concerts, school assemblies, and family parties.
Violins
Emily Maninger and her cousin Magdalena were the violinists. Magdalena was the daughter of Frank and Frances Maninger, and a year older than Emmy.
Emily and Magdalena often performed violin solos and duets.
The Harper Band
Several of the Maninger boys were involved in the Harper Band.
There had been a band in town in earlier years, but it had declined. Jess, Dude, Charles and other cousins reinvigorated the organization, and sustained it for many years. Charles and Fred Maninger were band organizers and leaders in later years.
Family news
John Maninger was still on the Harper School Board. He’d been a member for over a decade.
He was still an entrepreneur. John Deere was testing a secret new cultivator on his farm.
Marriage
Sylvio “Dude” Maninger and Hattie Baker were married September 7, 1912. They were married in Anthony, at the home of Rev. J.R. Edwards. Dude was the eldest son of John and Priscilla Maninger. Hattie was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J.N. Baker, who farmed west of Harper.
Fred Maninger and Mina Berg were married at 2 p.m. November 11, 1912, at Independence, Kansas. Fred was the youngest son of Val and Lena Maninger.
Wheat harvest
The wheat crop in 1912 turned out fine. Yields averaged over 20 bushels per acre, sometimes as much as 26.
Harvest crew and cook shack
The highlight of the summer was at harvest time when the threshing crew, with its steam engine and all the crew, would pull into the yard. Most of all I liked the cook shack. A lady by the name of Mrs. Knouse was the cook and I admired her so much that I thought when I grew up I would be a cook shack cook. It all seemed so easy; she had time in the afternoon to put on a nice dress and smell so good, and she would sit out under a shade tree. I thought all one had to do was peel potatoes and open cans of tomatoes and beans and get paid. I was privileged to eat after the men were fed and I’ll never forget eating out of a tin plate and drinking out of a tin cup.
On days when it rained while the threshing crew was there, I would go to our big wheat granary where the men would stay out of the rain and play a game called “fly light.” They would give me a nickel to start and we would all put a nickel on the floor and the first fly that would light on a nickel, that person would get all the nickels. I don’t know whether they were on the up and up, but I usually ended up with enough nickels to buy a strawberry soda on Saturdays.
My Experiences Growing Up On Our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger
Val and Lena deed farms
Val had been in poor health for a while. By June 1913, Val’s prognosis was very bad.
Val and Lena must have scrambled to get things in order. Val and Lena still owned the farms where their children lived and farmed.
On June 6, 1913, Valentine and Magdalena deeded each of their children (except Frank) the farm where they lived.
The price of each farm was “love and affection and one Dollar.”
Frank had bought his own farm years ago. To Frank, Val and Lena deeded their house and lots in Harper, subject to a life estate reserving their right to live there.
Here’s a map showing each of the Maninger farms.
Death
Valentine Maninger died just a month after settling the deeds for his children. He died at home on Friday, July 4, 1913, at 5:15 pm. He was age 77.
We won’t write an obituary for Val, as we’ve journeyed with him through all these stories. Here’s his official obituary from the Harper Advocate.
Fittingly, Val was buried in the Christian Apostolic Cemetery, the original Maninger Cemetery that he and Lena had donated to the church five years earlier.
Life goes on
“Life goes on.” It sounds harsh and insensitive. But so it does.
In the months following Valentine Maninger’s funeral, these events occurred.
- Eunice Maninger got her teacher’s certificate, and began teaching 3rd grade.
- John Maninger had an 80 foot deep well drilled on his farm.
- Ed Maninger’s well had to go to a depth of 194 feet for water.
- Fred and Mina Maninger had a son Wayne.
- Gus Maninger had a fire.
- Dude Maninger mashed his hand in a gas pump.
- Frank Maninger bought an Oakland electric car.
- The Maninger Orchestra played at a box supper.
John and Priscilla Maninger family 1913
- In 1913, John Maninger was age 46. Priscilla was 43.
- Dude married Hattie Baker in June 1912. They had a baby boy Glenn in 1913.
- Jess was age 20.
- Eunice graduated high school in 1913 and began teaching 3rd grade in Harper.
- Emmy was age 15 and a freshman at Harper High School.
- Mattie was age 11 and in Harper elementary school.
- Billie was age 8 and in Harper elementary school.
- Frannie was age 2.
1913 comes to an end
Let’s end 1913 with a celebration. John and Priscilla hosted thirty relatives for one of their famous dinners. Guests of honor were Joe Weynette from Oregon and Mrs. H.S. Palmer from New Mexico. Joe was Priscilla’s nephew, son of her brother Albert.
The dinner was opulent and, of course, the Maninger Orchestra entertained.
Timeline
Sources:
- Image – Harper Band Parade – 1910 – Harper Museum Scrapbook – Harper Historical Museum – Harper, Kansas
- News – Frannie Maninger born – Harper Sentinel – September 22, 1911 – newspapers.com
- News – Maninger orchestra – Harper Advocate – November 13, 1913, and November 20, 1913 – newspapers.com
- News – Emily Maninger violin solos – Harper Advocate – February 28, 1913, and September 25, 1913 – newspapers.com
- Image – Harper City Band – 1914 – Harper Historical Calendar – Harper Historical Museum – Harper, Kansas
- Image – Harper City Band Uniform – Harper Historical Museum – Harper, Kansas
- News – John Deere testing cultivator on Maninger farm – Harper Advocate – July 14, 1911 – newspapers.com
- News – Marriage of Dude Maninger and Hattie Baker – Harper Sentinel – September 13, 1912 – newspapers.com
- Marriage license – Dude Maninger and Hattie Baker – September 7, 1912 – Harper County Clerk – Anthony, Kansas
- News – Marriage of Fred Maninger and Mina Berg – Harper Sentinel – November 15, 1912 – newspapers.com
- News – 1912 wheat harvest – Harper Advocate – July 5, 1912, and July 19, 1912 – newspapers.com
- News – 1912 wheat harvest – Harper Sentinel – August 2, 1912 – newspapers.com
- Image – Harper threshing crew – Harper Kansas Museum Scrapbook – Harper Historical Museum – Harper, Kansas
- Quote – Harvest crew and cook shack – My Experiences Growing Up On Our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger – The Maninger Family – F. Robert Henderson – 2000
- News – Valentine Maninger in bad health – Harper Advocate – June 6, 1913 – newspapers.com
- Deeds – from Valentine and Magdalena to each of their children – June 6, 1913 – Harper County Register of Deeds – Anthony, Kansas
- News – real estate transfers from Valentine Maninger to children – The Anthony Republican – June 26, 1913 – newspapers.com
- Map – excerpt showing Maninger farms – Standard Atlas of Harper County, Kansas – Geo. A. Ogle – 1919 – Ancestry.com – https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1205/images/USAOTH2007MAP_143624-00026?ssrc=&backlabel=Return&pId=14544
- News – Valentine Maninger obituary – Harper Advocate – July 11, 1913 – newspapers.com
- Photo – Apostolic Christian Cemetery (Maninger Cemetery) – Harper, Kansas – Mark Jarvis
- Image – John and Priscilla Maninger family – c. 1913 – Maninger family photos – Emily Maninger Cheney collection
- News – Maninger dinner – Harper Sentinel – October 2, 1913 – newspapers.com
- Family Tree diagrams – Ancestry.com and Mark Jarvis
- Music – Maple Leaf Rag – U.S. Marine Band – Free Music Archive – https://freemusicarchive.org/music/US_Marine_Band/Antique_Phonograph_Music_Program_01132015/Maple_Leaf_Rag_-US_Marine_Band/
Family Nibbles 