Matheny, Ralph 5

 I think Dad was closer to his sister Clarice than he was with any of his other siblings.  This is how I mostly remember them.  

Side note:  When Dad and Clarice were in the Blackduck nursing home at the same time, Dad spent much of his time with his sister.  Dad still had his memory, but Clarice had completely lost hers.  She would ask the same questions over and over again, immediately forgetting the answers.  I once asked Dad how he could stand those conversations.  His reply:  "That's easy.  She's my sister and I love her."

Sometimes the nursing home aids would line up patients in wheelchairs for a session of upper body exercises.  Sitting in their chairs next to each other, Dad and Clarice dutifully did their exercises.  Until Dad would reach out and lightly hit his sister on the arm.  Both would keep on exercising until Clarice would lightly smack Dad upside the head.  This play would continue until an aide could be heard yelling, "You Matheny kids!  Behave yourselves!"

And they would behave until Dad popped her on the arm and she smacked upside the head!!  Again.

Dad loved spending time with his grands and great grands.  The first photo shows him with Duane, Jill and David.  In the second, he is with great grands Nicki, Zach and Chris.

The following photo has been entitled within the family as "A Man and His Tomato."  Tongue in cheek, of course.  Dad loved to garden and if he couldn't do that, he would grow things on his balcony.  This tomato plant sat on Dad's balcony all summer and produced several tomatoes.  In the fall it was still growing and producing, so Dad brought it indoors.  The silly thing kept growing until eventually it touched the ceiling.  Dad got a big kick out of raising an 8 foot tall tomato plant!

This page wouldn't be complete without the next picture.  Dad enjoyed giving Mother flowers.  Most times he picked lilacs or peonies from our yard or gladiolas from the garden.  Once in a while he would give Mother a single yellow rose.  He claimed that the single yellow flower represented love.  We always thought he told Mother that definition just so he wouldn't have to spend the money on a dozen roses!  

We were at our favorite lake in the summer.  There were no flowers growing wild nearby.  So Dad's solution to the problem of finding flowers for Mom was to pick water lily flowers.  And here he is with his little gift for Mom.

This last photo was taken outside of the apartment house in Blackduck where he lived for many years.  And this is how I remember him, along with the memory of always being greeted with a hug when I saw him and the memory of the words, "I sure love you, Sis," whenever we ended a phone call.

I really miss my Dad.

Matheny, Ralph 4

 The following photo is typical of Dad.  He is talking with Mother's sisters Emily and Elaine.  The little smile on his face is one that I have seen many times when he is joking with folks and enjoying himself.

Dad's job was physically taxing.  As a result, he had medical problems.  At one point he was in a body cast after rotator cuff surgery.

Another time he had something wrong - not sure just what - with his neck and spine.  His doctor tried having him stretch those areas by wearing this contraption and attaching it to a closet door.  The object was putting weight on the affected areas by "hanging' on the door.  My sister and I delighted in yelling, "Mother!  Dad's hanging on the closet again!"

Mother's nearest relatives were her sister Emily, her husband Ronnie Lindblad and their family, who lived on a farm near Svea.  We spent a great deal of time with them.  In the summer, a favorite activity was a picnic and swimming at Big Kandy Lake.  This photo shows right to left, Dad, Ronnie's Dad Lawrence, Ronnie, Em, and Ronnie's sister Margene, at the park by the lake in about 1956.

About 1954 - 55 my family spent time at a small beach at Lake Florida, near Willmar.  It was private and had a nice, sandy beach and was great for swimming.  There came a day when Dad dragged home a small travel trailer that was in pretty bad shape.  Mother was embarrassed to have it sitting in the driveway.  Dad, however, was delighted.  He spent nights and weekends first fixing up the inside and then he went to work on the outside with a can of pale-yellow house paint.  When the repairs were complete, he rented our favorite Lake Florida beach spot, set the trailer on it and we had a wonderful summer!

My family took only one vacation while I still lived at home.  We went to the Dakota Black Hills and Badlands around 1954.  One stop was at a tourist trap meant to look like an old west town, complete with saloon.  Dad, loving a joke of any kind and being a teetotaler, he got a kick out of posing in front of the saloon, pretending to be drunk.

Matheny, Ralph 3

 The following four photos are of my dad when he was a young man and before his marriage.   I don't know who the others in the photos are, but chances are good they are neighbors living near the Matheny farm near Blackduck, or they are cousins.

The next photo is of Dad and his mother, Rachel Alzora (Allie) Olmstead Matheny.  The photo was taken some time after the death of my grandfather, Clifford Alton Matheny in 1936.  Dad stayed on the farm with his brother Kenneth, helping to keep the farm going and caring for his mother until he married at age 33.

Matheny, Ralph 2

 The photo below is my dad with his sister Lois's daughter, Ellie Lindsey.  Ellie was born in 1927, which would make Dad's age here 16 or 17 years old.  What struck me was how much like my brother Kelly he looks here.

Dad had several dogs over the years, but the one he talked about was Fritz.  I think Dad was in his 20's at the time the photo below was taken.  He said that wherever he went, Fritz went, too.  I asked how long the dog lived and Dad said he wasn't sure, but "when Fritz knew his life was ending, he just walked out into the surrounding woods and didn't come back."

Dad is the person behind the wheel of this car.  I know the other three are friends of his, but I never knew their names.  I always thought that this group looks like they might be capable of generating some mischief.

The man in this photo with Dad is Jim Jensen, husband of Dad's sister, Clarice.  They are cutting firewood.  Most homes in the northern part of Minnesota burned wood for heat and many like my grandmother cooked on a wood burning stove.  Dad said it was a never-ending job to keep enough wood cut for those purposes.

The next three photos have to do with Dad's job after he married Mother in 1945.  He worked at the local gas station in Blackduck, pumping gas and delivering fuel oil to customers in the area.  He lost that job for reasons I never knew.  Jobs were scarce in that area at that time.  That prompted the move of my family to St. Paul, living with my Grandma Paul for a couple of years.  Dad took whatever work he could find including working at a business that manufactured refrigerators. Eventually he found work in Willmar, working as a grain sampler, climbing into box cars and taking samples of grain for testing.  He worked at that job until he retired.

Matheny, Ralph 1

When my grandfather, Clifford Matheny, moved his family from Meeker County to Beltrami County in Minnesota in about 1904, he built a log house.  Several of his children were born in that house, including Dad.  Here is my dad as a baby, held by his sister, Clarice, who was three years old at that time of 1911/1912, sitting in front of the original house.  Dad told me that later, his father built another house around the log house, tearing down sections of the one as the new house was being built.

           

The photo below is of my dad and his sister, Clarice.  Dad said at that time, baby boys were clothed in dresses until they were old enough to manage the button closures on their long pants.

This next photo shows Dad and his brother Bruce, standing on a ladder.  Dad is the one on top.  The family was never wealthy and that can be seen by the condition of the boy's clothes.  I realize that now, holes in jeans are a fashion statement, but at that time, it was a sign of poverty.  The family didn't live in poverty, but as the two youngest boys in a family of five boys, and where outgrown clothing was passed down, by the time overalls reached the last kid in line, they likely were nearly worn out.

The two boys wearing overalls are my dad - the smallest - and his brother Kenneth.  I don't know who the rest of the people are.  Dad, in talking about this photo, told me that before the photo was taken, he had thrown a hissy fit.  Seems the overalls he was wearing were his new "work overalls" and he didn't want to get them wet.

The photo below was taken next to the small one room schoolhouse that the Matheny children attended up through the 8th grade.  I don't know who the three girls on the left are, nor do I recognize the kid in the hat.  The others, from right to left are Ralph (looking at his hands).  Right behind him is his brother, Bruce.  Next to him are Kenneth and Keith - twins.  The little girl in front of Keith is their sister, Clarice.

Dad went to school through the 8th grade.  He didn't further his education but went to work on his family farm or at other jobs to add to the family finances.  That was common practice for farm families at that time.  Some of the girls went on to be educated, usually as schoolteachers.  Dad's oldest sister, Lois, taught at the local country school when Dad was a student.  He said it was tough to get away with any shenanigans then, as his teacher / sister would go home and tell their Dad on him.

 

William Matheny - Elizabeth Everhart

 William Matheny, born in 1814 in Virginia, was my great-great-grandfather, father to Hiram King Matheny and grandfather to Clifford Alton Matheny.  He married Elizabeth Everhart, born in 1824 in Ohio.

William and Elizabeth were the parents of nine children:  Mary Jane, George Leander, Hiram King, Simon Peter, Hannah Anne, Jesse Newton, William Andrew, Sarah Elizabeth, Minnie Orrilla.

I have no date for this photo.  Nor can I identify their children, although I am inclined to believe the man on the far left, front row, is Hiram.

William and Elizabeth, sometime before his death in 1906.  She passed on in 1913.

Hiram King Matheny - Aletha Zorade Smith

 Hiram King Matheny was born in 1847 in Indiana.  His wife, Aletha Zorade Smith, was born in 1844 in Indiana.  They were the parents of my Grandfather, Clifford Alton Matheny.

Hiram and Aletha were the parents of six children:  Clifford, Esther, Maude, Harley, Sarah and Bertha.

I don't know the dates of the photos below and I have not been able to identify all of the daughters.

Of the children above, Clifford is the tall boy at the center back, with Harley being the other boy.  The youngest is Bertha, seated between her parents.  I am guessing that the next to the youngest, Sarah is standing alongside her father.

In this family group, I believe Bertha is seated between her parents.  Clifford is standing behind his mother and Harley, behind his father.  I have no dates for the photos.

This is Hiram King Matheny in his later years.  He passed on in May of 1936, his wife Aletha preceeding him in death in 1916.