Family Nibbles

Mabel Jennings had a photography studio in Harper. She’s the photographer of many of the photos of people and places in Harper.

Professional Photography

Here’s a studio portrait of the Maninger girls, daughters of John and Priscilla. It was taken around 1915, probably at Jennings Studio. Professional photographers had been plying their craft for decades.

Newspaper photography had been around for years. It required expensive and complicated cameras.

Here’s a recipe submitted by Emily Maninger for the Domestic Science class.

I haven’t tried it. I’ll reserve judgment, but I’m not sure I’d like the thick layer of powdered sugar.

Maybe Emily Maninger served the omelet to the Domestic Class at the slumber party at her home.

Amateur photography

In 1900, Eastman Kodak introduced the Brownie box camera. With a price of $1, it made photography available to the masses. Everyone could now take a snapshot.

In 1915, the Folding Autographic Brownie model was introduced. Instead of a clumsy box to carry, this camera had a folding case and accordion lens housing. It was more expensive at around $10.

These cameras were runaway successes. They were inexpensive, and they took great pictures. Kodak made them easy to use: “You press the button, we do the rest.”

Eunice’s photo album

Eunice Maninger acquired a Folding Brownie camera around 1915. We’re lucky to have some pages from her photo album.

Editor’s Note: We will include some of Eunice’s photos in the next few stories. The black borders will identify Eunice’s pics. We can identify some of the people in the photos, and will guess the identity of some others.* If you can identify people, please let me know and I will make corrections.

Gus and Bertha and family

Oil well, sure thing

In March 1914, investors founded the Harper Oil and Gas Company to explore for oil around Harper. Each investor agreed to give oil leases on their farms, a total of 30,000 acres. The Maningers were all in.

The first well was drilled in September 1914. Excitement was in the air. In the end, the oil investment didn’t pan out.

Baggy knees

Saturday afternoon was bath time for the family. The water would be carried from the windmill well and put on this cooking range on the side, which was called the reservoir. We would fill that to get warm water and we would fill a boiler on top of the stove and put the wash tub next to the oven with the door open and we would put all our clean clothes on the oven. Then we’d fill the wash tub with soapy water. I remember how wonderful the bath felt, as we only took baths on Saturdays. We would take turns getting in the tub with my two sisters using the same water.

We put on long underwear on October 15 and I always got to take it off on May 1. The clean long underwear and black satin bloomers that we wore over the underwear and the long black stockings were on the warming oven and there are no words to describe the great feeling of being bodily clean and putting on the warm tight underwear.

As the weeks progressed the underwear stretched and the knees looked bent even though we were standing. We tucked the legs into the black stockings and by the end of the week we could lap the legs over a couple of times. I often wonder what the schoolroom smelled like because that was the way we all lived – a bath a week.

My Experiences Growing Up On Our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger

Curly Minger

John William Minger was born October 16, 1889, in Marion County, Indiana. His parents were John and Rosa Minger.

John and Rosa were born near Bern, Switzerland. They immigrated to the U.S. in 1879, first locating in Pennsylvania and then to Bluffton in Marion County, Indiana.

Curly Minger’s family was associated with the Bluffton Apostolic Christian Church. His father John Minger had visited Harper with a group from the Bluffton church in 1904.

The connection between churches may have been through the Dotterer family. Frances Dotterer married Frank Maninger. There were Dotterer elders in the Bluffton church.

Beginning around 1914, John “Curly” Minger lived with the Maninger family, sharing a bedroom with Dude and Jess and Uncle Buddy Weyeneth. He worked as a farm hand for John Maninger, but was like another Maninger son.

I don’t know how arrangements were made for Curly to live with Maningers, but they were made through church connections.

We’ll see more of Curly. He was like a Maninger family member. In fact, Curly and Eunice Maninger will marry in 1920.

Family celebrations

As 1914 ended, the Maningers celebrated notable events.

On Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 26, Fred and Mina Maninger hosted. Over fifty Maninger family members attended.

A few days later, on Sunday, November 29, John and Priscilla Maninger celebrated their silver anniversary – 25 years of marriage. Around sixty family and friends attended.

Maninger Orchestra

The Maninger music machine continued to be booked all over town. They played recitals, parties, box suppers, and more.

Emily and Magdalena Maninger were often featured on violin solos and duets.

Off to school

Eunice and Jess and Charles Maninger attended Kansas State Agricultural College in Manhattan, Kansas.

Magdalena Maninger attended music college in Wichita.

Earl Maninger was accepted to Electrical College in Washington, D.C.

In 1858, Bluemont Central College, a private institution, opened in Manhattan, Kansas, and it was only a few short years later that Kansas was admitted to the Union. Nearly immediately, efforts began to establish a state university, and Bluemont Central College was converted to the Kansas State Agricultural College in 1863.

The institution that later became known as Kansas State University, or K-State, was the nation’s first operational land-grant university.

Kansas State University – History and Traditions

John Maninger, entrepreneur

As we’ve seen in past stories, John Maninger was always up to something.

He was still farming, of course. But I suspect most of the work was done by his farm hands Curly Minger and Buddy Weyeneth.

John was still on the Harper school board. He’d been a very active member for over a dozen years.

John was an officer or board member in other local organizations, like the Democratic Committee, Woodman Lodge, AHTA (Anti-Horse Thief Association).

John had always been interested in new technologies to make farm work easier. In 1915, John built a grain elevator on his farm. The elevator loaded the grain into his silos mechanically, eliminating hand shoveling.

He made a deal with Bull Tractor Company to test their new tractor. John built a pond, and stocked it with fish.

John advertised brood sows for sale. The 1915 census showed that he had 55 hogs on the farm.

Magdalena Maninger died

Lena had several bouts of illness during the first months of 1916.

Magdalena Maninger died Friday, April 14, 1916. She was age 74.

Lena was buried next to Val in the Christian Apostolic Cemetery.

Billie’s recollections

My Grandmother was a small woman. If the family knows my sister Emily, she looks like Grandmother as we both remember her.

Grandmother had a lot of flowers. They had a bay window in their dining room and she had that full of flowers and she was always working with them.

I remember her in a wheel chair. My cousin, Jane Barth, lived with grandmother after grandpa died. She was always there.

Emily and I stayed with grandmother for two weeks when my parents took Ferne (my young sister) and went to Illinois.

I remember the feather beds, they were so high when they got in them at night and you sank way down, and they felt so good. In the morning, you puffed them all up, beat them and beat them and got the feathers all up and they looked like a mound.

My Experiences Growing Up On Our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger

Magdalena Smith Neuhauser Maninger

Just as we had only one photo of Val Maninger, here’s our only photo of Magdalena.

Lena was born in 1841 in her parents’ log house two miles southeast of Farnisville in Woodford County, Illinois.

At age 14, in 1855, both her parents and two siblings died of cholera within days of each other.

At age 19, in 1860, Lena married Peter Neuhauser. They had three children. Peter died in 1864, and the three children all died in infancy or youth.

At age 25, in 1866, she married Val Maninger. Over the next twenty years, they had eight children, seven boys and one girl.

At age 53, in 1885, the family moved to Harper County, Kansas. Over the next thirty years, Lena and Val practiced thrift and industry. They gave each of their children a farm as they came of age.

Throughout her life, Lena was a devout religious believer, first in an Amish family and then a follower of the Christian Apostolic Church.

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Timeline

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Sources:

• Image – Photo of Harper flood – c 1914 – Mabel Jennings Studio – Harper Kansas Museum Scrapbook – Harper Historical Museum – Harper, Kansas
• Image – Photo of Maninger girls – c 1915 – Maninger family documents – Emily Maninger Cheney collection
• News – Photo of Harper High School Domestic Science class – Harper Advocate – May 28, 1914 – newspapers.com
• News – Articles about Harper High School Domestic Science class – Harper Sentinel – January 1, 1914, and March 25, 1915 – newspapers.com
• Images – Brownie cameras – Kodak Brownie Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak_Brownie
• News – Kodak camera ad – Harper Advocate – May 21, 1914 – newspapers.com
• News – Gus Maninger family visits John Maninger family – Harper Advocate – May 13, 1915 – newspapers.com
• News – Harper Oil and Gas Company – Harper Sentinel – September 3, 1914 – newspapers.com
• News – Maninger Thanksgiving at Fred’s – Harper Sentinel – December 3, 1914 – newspapers.com
• News – John and Priscilla Maninger 25th anniversary – Harper Sentinel – December 3, 1914 – newspapers.com
• News – Maninger Orchestra articles – Harper Advocate and Harper Sentinel – various dates – newspapers.com
• News – Jess and Charles Maninger to school – Harper Sentinel – January 8, 1914 – newspapers.com
• News – Off to school – Harper Advocate – September 16, 1915 – newspapers.com
• Images – Photo album of Eunice Maninger – Maninger family documents – Emily Maninger Cheney collection
• Image – John L. Maninger – The Maninger Family – F. Robert Henderson – 2000
• News – John Maninger entrepreneur – Harper Advocate and Harper Sentinel – various dates – newspapers.com
• News – Magdalena Maninger illness – Harper Advocate – January 20, 1916 – newspapes.com
• Obituary – Magdalena Maninger – Harper Sentinel – April 20, 1916 – newspapers.com
• Image – Headstone – Valentine and Magdalena Maninger – Christian Apostolic Cemetery – Harper, Kansas – Mark Jarvis
• Quote – Billie’s recollections of Magdalena – My Experiences Growing Up On Our Kansas Farm – Billie Maninger – The Maninger Family – F. Robert Henderson – 2000
• Image – Magdalena Maninger – c 1914 – The Maninger Family – F. Robert Henderson – 2000
• Family Tree diagrams – Ancestry.com and Mark Jarvis
• Music – Prelude No. 23, Opus 28 – Chopin – Arranged for Strings – Gregor Quendel