Volume 4, Number 12 - Summer 1973
The Editor Speaks by Jewell Ross Mehus
This year we joined in celebrating the 62nd anniversary of the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Kimberling. Just across the bridge in Kimberling City stands the home.
The sitting room, dominated by a big fireplace above whose mantel hangs big pictures of Fred's mother and father, gives to one the impression of "Here stands America".
Some one asked Mrs. Kimberling how old she was when married. She answered, "Twenty-one. Old enough to know better. But it all began when I was twelve. At a party, I told my father that Fred wanted to walk me home. Father said that would be all right.
I presume thereby, that as in Henry County, the parents attended the parties, too. Yet we will likely presume wrong if we think that Fred walked the pretty little girl only a few yards or a block out in the country, where houses stood, often miles apart.
Daughter Freda Kimberling Yeo, wife of Burdette Yeo of Kansas City baked and brought down the anniversary cake last week, for Burdette must be in court this week. 'Tis thru Burdette that we became close to the Kimberlings. All of the Yeo boys attended NWMSTC Maryville when Myking was on the faculty there. Freda is a graduate lawyer, too.
Mrs. Kimberling says the snows of the days when she was a child were real snows. She knows, for she remembers when they wrapped her shoes with gunny sacks for her to walk thru the snow to school. There the teacher would help remove the sacks and put them beneath the stove, that they might dry before school closed.
Mr. Kimberling showed us the document that made his father, William Wesley Kimberling postmaster of Mabry's Ferry in 1875.
The house is basically the same as the house builded 60 years ago, with a big front porch. Now, with big trees in the yard where formerly stood only one.
The stories these two Kimberlings, Mr. and Mrs. Fred, can tell of this area will keep you entertained for hours on end. I am going over, take my sandwish, then eat Mrs. Kimberling's. I will stay a full day just to look at pictures and listen to the stories.
You will recall that when I took over the editorship of the Quarterly, I stressed that the Quarterly is your magazine and added that if I came to press time and no one had sent material we would carry only my column. I yet edit on that premise.
For this issue, I have done some of the writing. It seemed that the Kimberling story worth telling. Mr. and Mrs. Fred Kimberling spent time telling me the stories and finding formerly used material. I spent time trying to understand and get background to understand.
We have just skimmed the wealth of material available. This is merely a starter from which the children of Fred Kimberling and his brothers and from the Petersons may continue a real history of the families.
From this story, you members of the Society can learn what you can get together for the information of future generations, so much of which will be lost if not collected during the present generation, now growing old.
[Inside Back Cover]
This volume: Next Article | Table of Contents | Other Issues
Other Volumes | Keyword Search | White River Valley Quarterly Home | Local History Home
Copyright © White River Valley Historical Quarterly
