Individual Details

For centuries each generation looked ahead confident that life for them would be very similar to the lives of their parents and of their grandparents before them.

When twenty-one year old Isaac Barber Kirkpatrick left his father's farm at Mulkeytown, Franklin County, Illinois to follow his eldest brother west to Mound Valley, Labette County, Kansas, he was exhibiting the pattern of his family since the 18th century. Scots-Irish, with a bleak future in the British Isles, at least one of them decided to try the English colony of Virginia ( Editor's Note: this line enter the colonies at New Castle, Delaware and thence to South Carolina by way of Pennsylvania and North Carolina).

After the American Revolution, in which some of the Kirkpatricks served, they moved to Tennessee. Other generations went to Texas, some to Iowa, and I.B.'s father, John Foster Kirkpatrick, married Hester Ann Dial and farmed in Illinois. They were neither frontiersmen nor true pioneers, but were always looking for better opportunities and gravitated west as they heard that this or that region was developing.

John and Hester's oldest son, William Ashley, saw Kansas coming under the plow at the same time as two railroads, the Frisco and the Katy, thrust their lines into it, and he recognized his golden opportunity. He built a storage elevator along the Frisco track at Mound Valley in Labette County and started buying grain. A number of his numerous siblings followed him, the boys to work for William Ashby and the girls to find husbands among the men who were developing Kansas. Some of the men stayed in the business but at least one became a lawyer and State Senator.

I.B. was seventeen years William Ashby's junior, so by the time he arrived in Kansas in 1877 or `78, there had been substantial development. He learned the grain business from his brother and in 1888 he felt confident enough of himself and the region to borrow money from the Condon Bank at Oswego, Labette's county seat, and opened a business of his own there. Before he left Mound Valley, he married Mary Jane Tanner, the twenty-year old daughter of Dr. Eldred E. Tanner, and within months established a home in Oswego from which he started branching out.

I.B. and Mary were the last generation of the old order. World War I effectively terminated it and the Modern Era began. They never had to relinquish their world, although it frayed badly before their deaths, but their children - Sibyl (Sybil), Ashby, Alfred and Shelby - had to make the transition. They were launched into the modern world with a map prepared for the old one - and so, to a large extent, has been each generation which followed them.

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According to Ashby, his father was "all business", delegating the running of his home and the raising of his children to his wife, and except to back up her authority, had little to do with either. When he did have a demand, it was met. Mrs. Kirk saw to it that his meals always included meat, potatoes and desert and were served on time - dinners at noon sharp and supper promptly at six.

The Kirkpatrick's home, a two-story frame house, stood on a quarter of a block amidst shady trees and a lawn giving four children plenty of space for active play. In the rear were a barn for the horse and buggy and a kitchen garden. For years the family kept a cow for the dual purpose of providing milk and cropping the large lawn short.

Mr. Kirk was generous with his family, according to his station. He provided his wife with a colored woman to help with the cooking and housework and allowed Mrs. Kirk the money to furnish the house with suitable and good quality appointments. When Mrs. Kirk needed a new dress or the children shoes, they were purchased as a matter of course.

But being generous did not mean that Mr. Kirk believed in conspicuous consumption or "spoiling" people. He was not a man to lavish furs or jewelry or flowers upon a wife nor to buy children expensive toys. When they wanted bicycles or guns, they went to work to earn the money for them themselves. Ashby recalled, with some wonderment, that his father DID buy him a pair of ice skates once, however.

When Ashby wanted a rowboat to put on the pond, he and his brother Alfred built it themselves, stretching canvas over a wooden frame. A photo of the boat suggests they had great fun building it but not great success. In fact, it looked distinctly perilous.

Mr. Kirk kept a horse and buggy for the use of himself and his wife, and the horse was a terrible temptation to the children who wanted desperately to ride it. Their father said no, a stance the children tried to circumvent.

"We just want to play with him," they begged.

Mr. Kirk explained that the horse performed his assigned work quite satisfactorily every day, and hauling children on his back in addition was not play for the horse.

"But what about Sundays?" they begged. "The horse doesn't work on Sundays."

To which their father responded that if people had a day of rest, it was only fair to grant the same to the animals that served them.

When he said something, he expected obedience and he only said it once. One summer when the tart cherries were nearly ripe, Mrs. Kirk asked her husband to tell the children they were not to pick them as she wanted them for pies. He told them.

Several days later he came home to find Ashby feasting in the tree. Without a word, he cut a switch and thrashed Ashby's legs.

"What did I do?" bawled Ash.

"You known what you did. I told you once," said his father.

Although all three of his sons were ardent outdoorsmen, all of their lives, I.B. had no interest in it. Whatever walking he had to do in a day was all the exercise he ever needed or wanted. His evenings were spent reading the newspaper or 'cheap' novels. (In that day almost all novels were considered 'cheap' and an abuse of the intellect. The Intellegensia read poetry, religious, philosophical or political essays, history and only such fiction as could be classified as educational and uplifting.)

Mary Kirkpatrick, on the other hand, was a devotee of good literature, particularly the poets, so much so that in a fit of romantic fancy, she named her second son Alfred for Lord Tennyson and Emerson after Ralph Waldo. Why I.B. allowed this I cannot think, unless he felt is was only fair to give her a turn after he had named his first son for his beloved elder brother.

But when a third son was born, Mr. Kirk insisted he be called after him, Isaac Barber, Jr. Mary pretended to acquiesce but secretly mounted a psychological campaign against it. She instructed her female relatives and friends, her maid and her children to make a point of calling the newborn "Isaac" in front of I.B., which they did until he relented. He was, after all, a fair man and admitted the name was inappropriate for an infant. he was never called Isaac himself, but always I.B. or Kirk by family and friends. Mary presented a compromise - Shelley, after Percy Byss Shelley, and Barber in honor of I.B. As time went by, Shelley became Shelly by common usage.

I.B. expanded his business over the years, first getting rid of the Condon connection, which was not strictly speaking a loan, but a partnership which gave Condon 50% of the profits. He bought Condon out, then established elevators and collection points throughout southeastern Kansas and Northeastern Oklahoma. His network included Oswego, Mound Valley, Fredonia, Afton, Vinita, Claremore, Tulsa and Mounds.

Overseeing this business network caused him to travel a good deal. It was his custom to hop aboard the Frisco and go up or down the line for unexpected spot inspections. He knew to the bushel how much grain should be on hand in each and woe to the manager if his inventory didn't match Mr. Kirk's books. he figured that being honest with his property was not a thing he needed to tell a manager even once!

On one such inspection in Fredonia, he knew there was trouble before he even got to the elevator. He didn't pay any manager a salary sufficient to support the motor car, clothes, house and family the Fredonia manager exhibited. Before he could complete an inventory, the elevator burned down.

Now I.B. knew to a certainty his manager was responsible, but if the insurance company learned there had been an embezzlement, it would never pay off on the total inventory. Hence, I.B. kept his suspicions to himself, impounded the car, an International Harvester, fired the manager, collected the full amount of insurance and drove the car home to Oswego.

Thus the Kirkpatrick's acquired the third car in town. One of the bankers already owned a Maxwell and Dr. Liggett had a Dorris. For the boys, that car was a key to the modern world. Ashby comments that his lifetime coincides with that of the automobile, from it's inception to fuel injected engines.

Despite the ethics of this episode in Fredonia, I.B. had a reputation for integrity and couldn't have survived a lifetime in this particular business without it. No doubt he and his contemporaries thought this was a rational business judgment. As it is today, business then was tough.

Mary, on the other hand, was all her life a "soft touch". She had been born in Owensboro, Kentucky (editors note: actually she was born in Covington, Campbell County, Kentucky), and came to Mound Valley with her parents when she was eight. As her father was a country doctor, she no doubt had seen a great deal to arouse compassion and developed a different perspective toward life than did I.B.

Mary and I.B. very largely shared the same strict moral standards, but they didn't share the same attitude toward church. I.B. was against churches (not religion) because in his experience they were hotbeds of hypocrisy. Mary was a staunch Baptist who wanted to march her family off to church every Sunday. She could prevail with the children when they were young, but never with her husband, to her unending regret.

Mary could not be accused of hypocrisy. She strove for spiritual experiences, practiced her moral code in her own life and had a genuine compassion for unfortunate people. If any Negro appeared on her doorstep with a hard luck story, she dove into her closets for clothes and her pantry for food to carry them through. If her larder was low, she wrote a note to the grocery store to give them what they needed and charge it to her account.

Her largesse finally caught I.B.'s attention when the monthly grocery bill exceeded $100.00, a truly extravagant sum in those days. He ordered her to stop it immediately and forever, an order which Ashby says, "nearly killed her."

She was tiny, not quite five feet tall, and like a lot of small people, charged with great energy. She was exceedingly bright, passionate, positive of her opinions, outspoken and direct in her dealings with people. You always knew where you stood with her.

Not only did she manage her house and family, she also taught adult Sunday School classes, often served as president of the Women's Guild of the Church and quilted with them once a week. In addition, she was often involved in civic projects. People said of her that she was a woman you definitely wanted with you on any project because she could speak out with telling effect.

Before women could vote, Mary Kirkpatrick ran for the School Board and was elected to it for several terms. At the time the Westside School was built, she was president of the board.

As you would expect, she was right out in front when the debate was on about giving women the right to vote, and she had I.B. on her side on that issue.

I.B. served on the City Council one term, but when there was talk of running him for mayor, he scotched the idea because he thought it would be bad for his business, nor could he be lured into civic matters unless they had a direct bearing on his elevators.

He was not antisocial. As a matter of fact, he was quite pleasant to people as a general rule, and belonged to the Oswego Men's Club which socialized one evening a week. It's just that he literally cared about nothing but his business. He had no small talk, being quiet and soft spoken in any group. he would laugh at a joke or good story but was not a man to tell them.

Also, there was in I.B. a streak of melancholy, and when it overtook him, he was want to sit alone in the dark softly singing Stephen Foster songs such as "Old Black Joe" and "Swanee River."

As people knew Mrs. Kirk was in town, so were her children aware of her at home. A life-time member of the W.C.T.U.*, she, of course, taught them that liquor was a sin. She expected them to be clean in body, clothes, language and thought, diligent students, polite and respectful at all times. Disobedience brought punishment and was never allowed to slide by. Chores, homework duty, reverence and honor were expected of the children as a matter of course. It was a hard code for children to live up to, and they often didn't, but they expected it of themselves all of their lives.

When her fourth child, Shelly was born, Mary relaxed a good deal and didn't discipline him as she had the older ones. They resented it and it drove a wedge between them and Shelly. Mr. Kirk was too little involved at home.

For all her spunk and character, Mary had an unreasonable fear of thunderstorms. She would gather up all the children, push them in the closet and cover up herself and them with a feather mattress till the storm passed. It didn't take too many sessions of sweltering in the closet to make the children more afraid of it than of the storm. They soon learned to completely disappear at the first hint of one so as not to have to undergo that tortuous experience.

According to the expectations of her society, Mary Kirkpatrick was a most fortunate woman, well supported by a successful husband who was faithful, didn't drink or beat her but instead respected her and gave her a lot of authority. But Ashby does not remember his father ever kissing Mary or even giving her an affectionate squeeze, hug or pat. "He loved her. Of course, he loved her," Ash said, "but a man of my father's class didn't show affection in those days. They showed respect."

He always addressed her as Mrs. Kirk and she called him Mr. Kirk in return. Although Mary may have known intellectually that she had made a good marriage, I suspect her romantic instincts must have been disappointed.

Little by little she appears to have turned to her children for affection. Certainly she demanded insane amounts of it from them late in her life, and even in her 40's it began to be a burden upon them. Ash says he hated to come home from college because his mother's welcome was too intense, her lamentations on his departure too emotional. (And this statement is from the most openly affectionate and sentimental man I ever knew!)

I.B., on the other hand, did not show emotion. The first time Ashby ever saw him do so was when they stood together on the railroad platform waiting for the train that would carry him to boot camp in World War I. Suddenly surprising a tear in his father's eye, Ashby turned away greatly disconcerted.

Ashby felt that he never knew his father until he went into business, too. At last he had something to say that I.B. was interested in. He was proud of his children, but holding conversations with them wasn't his forte.

Mr. and Mrs. Kirk both favored college educations for their children, but it was another of those things I.B. believed they should be responsible for. It was understood that any monies he advanced for their educations would be deducted from their inheritance. He kept meticulous books on every expenditure.

The oldest child, Sybil, had a mathematical mind and I.B. early enlisted her to help in his office. Had she wanted it, he would gladly have taken her into the business with him, but she chose to go to college for a music education instead. Then Ashby disappointed his hopes for a family partnership by going off to study banking.

As the century progressed, I.B. saw the handwriting on the wall for private grain businesses. He bought at harvest when prices were lowest and held the grain till prices rose. Farmers figuring they should be able to do the same, organized co-ops and began to run their own elevators. Then, too, large milling concerns started contracting with farmers to grow grain for them exclusively at a fixed price.

I.B. started selling off his elevators, retaining only the one at Oswego which he kept primarily "to keep his hand in." He had made a fortune, "over $100,000.00", said Ashby, a very large sum for his day. When the Oswego elevator burned down in 1918, he retired completely.

That it burned was the result of his own depressed state. Ashby had reported to his father that a piece of machinery at the top of the elevator was running too hot, but he brushed it off. "It will be all right if it's kept oiled enough," he said without inspecting it, and continued to brush off further warnings until it finally ignited the grain dust.

Retirement was not a serene period for him. The family had problems that fretted him, normal problems, but ones he didn't want to deal with at his age. I.B. was over forty when his sons were born. (He was a parent not in his mid-years but for the last half of his life.) Without a business to escape to daily, he had no relief except his "cheap" novels as he had never developed any hobbies or outside interests.

His primary concern was Mary who had earlier had a late pregnancy terminated by tumors and ended up having a complete hysterectomy performed in St. Louis. On the surface, and to an outsider, Mrs. Kirk appeared to have recovered, and if people noticed anything different about her, they accepted it because "everyone knew a woman wasn't normal after that."

But Mary didn't fully recover and she didn't accept it. She started going from doctor to doctor looking for relief. As her children left for college, the service and marriage, Mary's demands fell more and more on I.B. who had never had to deal with anything like this before. He dutifully paid the medical bills she piled up but beyond that he was helpless to do anything for her.

Not only had he to worry about the personality change in his wife, but he had cause to worry about finances. He wasn't earning any longer and the college bills for Sybil, Ashby and Alfred, coupled with Mary's medicals, caused him to start spending principal.

Also, they had worries about the children. Ashby and Alfred were in the service and might be sent abroad, and Shelly was not only beyond his parents' control, they hardly knew what he was doing at all. In 1918 Alfred got influenza and they almost lost him, and then he was discharged and hung around the house for months recovering.

After the war, the boys didn't seem to settle down the way he thought they should. Ashby tried banking, didn't like it and drifted for a time until her tried the automotive business. Alfred quit college after two years. Sybil was having a romance with a man not good enough for her. On top of everything else, the man drank and he feared Sybil did, too. He knew for certain she smoked, though she still had enough respect not to do it in front of him or her mother!

And Shelly. I.B. knew he'd never gotten a handle on Shelly, and Mary, he felt, had spoiled him rotten. First he refused to go to college, and then he got married and had a baby before he had a job or career.

Following the war, I.B. lost some money in the ensuing depression, inflation cut into their standard of living and finally he lost the profits from a farm because of flood. He simply could not impress upon Mary that the family needed to economize. She spent as though he still earned.

One evening, sitting on the porch talking with Ashby, I.B. suddenly put his face in his hands and cried, "What are we going to do about your mother?"

Asby couldn't tell him. He thought, "If you don't know, how can I?"

During the last year of his life, he was relieved that Ashby and Alfred had settled down, and he absolutely doted on his grandson, Shelly's Billy. He died of a heart attack in December, 1923, when he was 67.

Sometime after 1917, I.B. copied this quote from "Kindred of the Dust" by Peter B. Kyne into one of his old bank deposit books:
"As a man grows old, he grows kindlier. Those things which at middle life appear so necessary to an unruffled existence frequently undergo such a change due to the corroding effects of time that at 70 one has either forgotten them or regards them as something to be secretly ashamed of. A smile, a bit of encouragement, the habit of being a little more than decent - these travel like waves through the air."

He left no will saying, "If I leave more to one than another, there will be fighting. Let the law take care of it." Half went to his wife, the remainder being divided among his children, their college expenses having been first deducted and given to Mary.

As Ashby recalls, his share was $4,000.00 and Sybil's being the same; Alfred inherited $6,000.00 and Shelly $10,000.00 It was a large amount of money for the young men, enough that they could legitimately expect to have a decent start in life.

Mary would live till 1941. She no longer was wealthy, but with care she could be comfortable for the rest of her life. After all, she owned her home and had no obligations toward any of her children any more.
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*Women's Christian Temperance Union
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From "The I. B. Kirkpatrick Family; Oswego, Kansas - 1888-1941"
"A Memoir by Jane Kirkpatrick Gerard Watts, privately published 1986"

On the 1900 U. S. Census of Oswego, Labette Co., Kansas Isaac B. and his family appear. Mary J. and children Sybil and William J. Isaac is a grain dealer.

Birth	5 Feb 1856	Mulkeytown, Franklin Co., Illinois
Marriage	30 Sep 1888	Mound Valley, Labette Co., Kansas - Mary Jane Tanner
Death	11 Dec 1923	Oswego, Labette Co., Kansas
Burial		Mound Valley Cemetery, Mound Valley, Labette Co., Kansas
Research Notes

Spouse	Mary Jane Tanner (1868 - 1941)
Child	Infant Kirkpatrick (1890 - 1890)
Child	Sibyl Kirkpatrick (1892 - 1960)
Child	William Ashby Kirkpatrick (1896 - 1989)
Child	Alfred Emerson Kirkpatrick (1900 - 1927)
Child	Shelly Barber Kirkpatrick (1902 - 1968)

Father	John Foster Kirkpatrick (1817 - 1869)
Mother	Hester Ann Dial (1818 - 1899)
Sibling	William Ashby Kirkpatrick (1840 - 1895)
Sibling	Reuben D. Kirkpatrick (1842 - 1927)
Sibling	Margaret Anne Kirkpatrick (1844 - )
Sibling	Snyder Solomon Kirkpatrick (1847 - 1909)
Sibling	David Elwood Kirkpatrick (1848 - 1915)
Sibling	Frances Elizabeth Kirkpatrick (1851 - 1887)
Sibling	Nancy Jane Kirkpatrick (1853 - 1936)

Notes