Hutchinson Daily News, Wednesday, April 30, 1902 Obituary -- Grandpa Hawkins died Sunday morning at 1 o'clock. He was ill a short time. In six months he would have been 89 years of age. He leaves only two children living, but quite a number of grandchildren. Frank Hawkins, his son, is taking treatment at the hospital in Hutchinson, and a daughter, Mrs. Belle Tavener lives in Ohio. The funeral sermon was preached by Rev. Wm. Smith at the Congregational church Partridge, Monday at 2 p.m., after which the remains were laid to rest beside his wife who died in 1894 and was buried in the Partridge cemetery.
==== NOTE: The following was provided from work that Mary Jane (Hill) McIntire had done on Julius Jay... ====
Hutchinson, Kansas News, Tuesday 26 Jan 1932, pg. 6, col. 2, 3, 4
One day two pupils at Sherman school started out after school about 4 o'clock, went to every house in Hutchinson selling tickets, walked all over the town, not missing a house, and were back home in time for supper. Impossible, you say? Not back in 1880. For that is when this was. The pupils were Carrie Hawkins and Minnie Empey, both little girls then attending Sherman school. Carrie Hawkins, who is now Mrs. Hugh O'Hara, 215 Fifth west, explains that one could very easily walk all over Hutchinson and visit every house in the town in those days in a couple of hours. "Hutchinson was pretty small 52 years ago," she remarked. "We lived on Sherman street then, two blocks east of Main, and our house was the next to the last on the street. Sherman school was at the edge of town then. "There wasn't hardly anything south of Ave. B on Main. The courthouse on
that corner, on the west side of the street, was about the last building to the south. There was practically nothing north of the Santa Fe railway. The railroad was the north edge of town then. The town didn't run much west of Main street. Just a few houses there."
The other Sunday evening Mrs. O'Hara attended services at the First Presbyterian church and heard a sacred concert on the fine organ, said to be one of the best church organs in Kansas. "It took me back to the time when I played the first pipe organ in the Presbyterian church here, the old frame church that stood on that same corner," she remarked. "I was just a school girl then. It was early in the '80s. Anyway Rev. Stewart was the preacher. That organ was a little thing and it was pumped by hand. A little girl, Ellen Hughes was her name, 12 years old, pumped the organ. Her mother was the janitress. "Well, I had been invited to play the pipe organ and it was a big experience for me, just a school girl. But something went wrong. The organ wouldn't go. What happened was the little girl who was supposed to pump it had fallen asleep. That doesn't happen any more with these new electric motor organs." Carrie Hawkins, as she was known then, was in much demand as a musician. When the revivial meetings were held, she played the organ for the singing. When a dance was on deck, she played the organ for the fiddlers.
Frank Hawkins, her father, was one of the leading carpenters in early day Hutchinson. He built many a building. Some of them are still standing. For instance, the Puterbaugh house at Eleventh and Main streets, with all that bric-a-brac work on it, later owned by Ed Guymon, and now the property of Mrs. C.D. Woodford - was the handiwork of Frank Hawkins.
His father, J.J. Hawkins, Mrs. O'Hara's grandfather, was also handy with the carpenter tools. For nearly ten years he was the only coffin maker in Reno county. And back in those days coffins were home products. Which brings to the memory of Mrs. O'Hara something that might seem shocking today, but which was very matter-of-fact back in the '70's. The Hawkins family lived then in Center township, not far from where Partridge is now. J.J. Hawkins and his son, Frank, had come out from Wisconsin and filed on adjoining claims, twelve miles southwest of Hutchinson, in Center township, sixty years ago in 1872. The homesteaders in those days did everything they could find to do to get an extra dollar, when dollars were mighty scarce. So J.J. Hawkins made coffins. His stock in trade consisted of three coffins of assorted sizes. The store room was up in the attic above the little prairie homestead home. Now that attic was the play-room for little Carrie, the granddaughter, and the other children. What more natural than that the three coffins should be their play beds - the little one for dollie, the others for the children playing "papa" and "mamma." Of course, when there was a death in the county, as happened now and then, one of the play beds would be disturbed and have to be given up for its more solemn business of a funeral. But the playroom would not be empty long. Grandfather Hawkins would soon have another coffin made of the proper size. He always had three sizes, all ready waiting any emergency. "When the coffin would be sold, grandmother would line it and fix it up," said Mrs. O'Hara. "My grandfather provided nearly all the coffins for those days until the first undertaker located in Hutchinson, along about 1880, when M.J. Ruddy opened his furniture store.
That Hawkins place, in Center township, became famous for its fruit. Sandhill plums. Mr. Hawkins had transplanted some of the wild sandhill plum bushes to his homestead. First he planted a row, and cultivated them. Finally it grew until there was five acres of it. People came for miles and miles to gather plums there. It was not unusual to see many parties camped about there, picking the fuit on shares. (J.J. Hawkins sold hundreds of dollars' worth of plum from his patch.) "Those wonderful wild sandhill plums were one of the greatest blessings of the pioneers," said Mrs. O'Hara. "We don't appreciate them as much now. But back in the '70's those wild plums were about the only fruit we could get. "We always had plenty to eat. Maybe folks today wouldn't thing it very much. We had buffalo meat, and wild game.
We always got along some way. Yes, we hd to burn buffalo chips. There wasn't much else to burn. Mother alwasy had wild goose wings hanging up in the house to brush the ashes. The ships made so much fine ashes. Every kitchen had these wild goose wings for brushes." That Hawkins plum patch, by the way, was a regular prairie limber-lost, Mrs. O'Hara said. Trees and shrubs were scarce on the prairie and this patch of plum bushes attracted a myriad of butterflies and other little wild life. "We burned buffalo chips, twisted hay, corn stalks, cottonwood shoots and cobs from the pig pen, anything we could find to burn," said Mrs. O'Hara, "I have picked up many and many a basket of chips for the kitchen. "It was a rare treat to get to ride to Hutchinson with a load of buffalo bones. I have come to town more than once sitting on a load of buffalo hides. The bones would be sold for from $5 to $8 a load. There was a pile of bones where the Bisoute hotel stands now that was larger than this hotel building." There was no lumber yard in Hutchinson when J.J. Hawkins located in Center township in 1872, and he hauled the lumber for his frame house clear from Wichita.
The Hawkins place was widely known because most of the homes of that day were dugouts or sodhouses. The Franklin school, built near the Hawkins place, in 1874, still bears that name, having been so named after Frank Hawkins, who built it, and also the John Martin school, further west.
People in those days were not so easily upset by "depressions" and hardships as now. The first crop of sod corn raised by Mr. Hawkins was up in fine shape and promising a good yield. Then along came a herd of buffalo one day, literally thousands of them. They trampled that field of green corn down until it was ruined. Mrs. Hawkins took a look after the great herd of wild beasts had passed. There wasn't anything to be done about it. He went to the house and jokingly remarked: "I have a mind to sue Uncle Sam for damages if he don't keep his cattle up." That was the spirit of the pioneer.
Frank Hawkins moved his family to Hutchinson in the middle '70's, and Carrie Hawkins has lived here ever since, some 58 years now. She started to school at Sherman in 1878. She recalls that the first board walk was being laid in Sherman street then. Her brother, Al Hawkins, who now lived in Fort Smith, Ark., was the first fireman at the waterworks when it started. Mrs. O'Hara has seen Hutchinson grow from a little village of frame shacks to become the modern city of today. It has been a wonderful period of progress - these sixty years since the Hawkins family came here - the sixty years of progress being celebrated this week at the Farm and Home week birthday party.
====
==== NOTE: The following was provided from work that Mary Jane (Hill) McIntire had done on Julius Jay... ====
Hutchinson, Kansas News, Tuesday 26 Jan 1932, pg. 6, col. 2, 3, 4
One day two pupils at Sherman school started out after school about 4 o'clock, went to every house in Hutchinson selling tickets, walked all over the town, not missing a house, and were back home in time for supper. Impossible, you say? Not back in 1880. For that is when this was. The pupils were Carrie Hawkins and Minnie Empey, both little girls then attending Sherman school. Carrie Hawkins, who is now Mrs. Hugh O'Hara, 215 Fifth west, explains that one could very easily walk all over Hutchinson and visit every house in the town in those days in a couple of hours. "Hutchinson was pretty small 52 years ago," she remarked. "We lived on Sherman street then, two blocks east of Main, and our house was the next to the last on the street. Sherman school was at the edge of town then. "There wasn't hardly anything south of Ave. B on Main. The courthouse on
that corner, on the west side of the street, was about the last building to the south. There was practically nothing north of the Santa Fe railway. The railroad was the north edge of town then. The town didn't run much west of Main street. Just a few houses there."
The other Sunday evening Mrs. O'Hara attended services at the First Presbyterian church and heard a sacred concert on the fine organ, said to be one of the best church organs in Kansas. "It took me back to the time when I played the first pipe organ in the Presbyterian church here, the old frame church that stood on that same corner," she remarked. "I was just a school girl then. It was early in the '80s. Anyway Rev. Stewart was the preacher. That organ was a little thing and it was pumped by hand. A little girl, Ellen Hughes was her name, 12 years old, pumped the organ. Her mother was the janitress. "Well, I had been invited to play the pipe organ and it was a big experience for me, just a school girl. But something went wrong. The organ wouldn't go. What happened was the little girl who was supposed to pump it had fallen asleep. That doesn't happen any more with these new electric motor organs." Carrie Hawkins, as she was known then, was in much demand as a musician. When the revivial meetings were held, she played the organ for the singing. When a dance was on deck, she played the organ for the fiddlers.
Frank Hawkins, her father, was one of the leading carpenters in early day Hutchinson. He built many a building. Some of them are still standing. For instance, the Puterbaugh house at Eleventh and Main streets, with all that bric-a-brac work on it, later owned by Ed Guymon, and now the property of Mrs. C.D. Woodford - was the handiwork of Frank Hawkins.
His father, J.J. Hawkins, Mrs. O'Hara's grandfather, was also handy with the carpenter tools. For nearly ten years he was the only coffin maker in Reno county. And back in those days coffins were home products. Which brings to the memory of Mrs. O'Hara something that might seem shocking today, but which was very matter-of-fact back in the '70's. The Hawkins family lived then in Center township, not far from where Partridge is now. J.J. Hawkins and his son, Frank, had come out from Wisconsin and filed on adjoining claims, twelve miles southwest of Hutchinson, in Center township, sixty years ago in 1872. The homesteaders in those days did everything they could find to do to get an extra dollar, when dollars were mighty scarce. So J.J. Hawkins made coffins. His stock in trade consisted of three coffins of assorted sizes. The store room was up in the attic above the little prairie homestead home. Now that attic was the play-room for little Carrie, the granddaughter, and the other children. What more natural than that the three coffins should be their play beds - the little one for dollie, the others for the children playing "papa" and "mamma." Of course, when there was a death in the county, as happened now and then, one of the play beds would be disturbed and have to be given up for its more solemn business of a funeral. But the playroom would not be empty long. Grandfather Hawkins would soon have another coffin made of the proper size. He always had three sizes, all ready waiting any emergency. "When the coffin would be sold, grandmother would line it and fix it up," said Mrs. O'Hara. "My grandfather provided nearly all the coffins for those days until the first undertaker located in Hutchinson, along about 1880, when M.J. Ruddy opened his furniture store.
That Hawkins place, in Center township, became famous for its fruit. Sandhill plums. Mr. Hawkins had transplanted some of the wild sandhill plum bushes to his homestead. First he planted a row, and cultivated them. Finally it grew until there was five acres of it. People came for miles and miles to gather plums there. It was not unusual to see many parties camped about there, picking the fuit on shares. (J.J. Hawkins sold hundreds of dollars' worth of plum from his patch.) "Those wonderful wild sandhill plums were one of the greatest blessings of the pioneers," said Mrs. O'Hara. "We don't appreciate them as much now. But back in the '70's those wild plums were about the only fruit we could get. "We always had plenty to eat. Maybe folks today wouldn't thing it very much. We had buffalo meat, and wild game.
We always got along some way. Yes, we hd to burn buffalo chips. There wasn't much else to burn. Mother alwasy had wild goose wings hanging up in the house to brush the ashes. The ships made so much fine ashes. Every kitchen had these wild goose wings for brushes." That Hawkins plum patch, by the way, was a regular prairie limber-lost, Mrs. O'Hara said. Trees and shrubs were scarce on the prairie and this patch of plum bushes attracted a myriad of butterflies and other little wild life. "We burned buffalo chips, twisted hay, corn stalks, cottonwood shoots and cobs from the pig pen, anything we could find to burn," said Mrs. O'Hara, "I have picked up many and many a basket of chips for the kitchen. "It was a rare treat to get to ride to Hutchinson with a load of buffalo bones. I have come to town more than once sitting on a load of buffalo hides. The bones would be sold for from $5 to $8 a load. There was a pile of bones where the Bisoute hotel stands now that was larger than this hotel building." There was no lumber yard in Hutchinson when J.J. Hawkins located in Center township in 1872, and he hauled the lumber for his frame house clear from Wichita.
The Hawkins place was widely known because most of the homes of that day were dugouts or sodhouses. The Franklin school, built near the Hawkins place, in 1874, still bears that name, having been so named after Frank Hawkins, who built it, and also the John Martin school, further west.
People in those days were not so easily upset by "depressions" and hardships as now. The first crop of sod corn raised by Mr. Hawkins was up in fine shape and promising a good yield. Then along came a herd of buffalo one day, literally thousands of them. They trampled that field of green corn down until it was ruined. Mrs. Hawkins took a look after the great herd of wild beasts had passed. There wasn't anything to be done about it. He went to the house and jokingly remarked: "I have a mind to sue Uncle Sam for damages if he don't keep his cattle up." That was the spirit of the pioneer.
Frank Hawkins moved his family to Hutchinson in the middle '70's, and Carrie Hawkins has lived here ever since, some 58 years now. She started to school at Sherman in 1878. She recalls that the first board walk was being laid in Sherman street then. Her brother, Al Hawkins, who now lived in Fort Smith, Ark., was the first fireman at the waterworks when it started. Mrs. O'Hara has seen Hutchinson grow from a little village of frame shacks to become the modern city of today. It has been a wonderful period of progress - these sixty years since the Hawkins family came here - the sixty years of progress being celebrated this week at the Farm and Home week birthday party.
====
Hutchinson Daily News, Wednesday, April 30, 1902 Obituary -- Grandpa Hawkins died Sunday morning at 1 o'clock. He was ill a short time. In six months he would have been 89 years of age. He leaves only two children living, but quite a number of grandchildren. Frank Hawkins, his son, is taking treatment at the hospital in Hutchinson, and a daughter, Mrs. Belle Tavener lives in Ohio. The funeral sermon was preached by Rev. Wm. Smith at the Congregational church Partridge, Monday at 2 p.m., after which the remains were laid to rest beside his wife who died in 1894 and was buried in the Partridge cemetery.
==== NOTE: The following was provided from work that Mary Jane (Hill) McIntire had done on Julius Jay... ====
Hutchinson, Kansas News, Tuesday 26 Jan 1932, pg. 6, col. 2, 3, 4
One day two pupils at Sherman school started out after school about 4 o'clock, went to every house in Hutchinson selling tickets, walked all over the town, not missing a house, and were back home in time for supper. Impossible, you say? Not back in 1880. For that is when this was. The pupils were Carrie Hawkins and Minnie Empey, both little girls then attending Sherman school. Carrie Hawkins, who is now Mrs. Hugh O'Hara, 215 Fifth west, explains that one could very easily walk all over Hutchinson and visit every house in the town in those days in a couple of hours. "Hutchinson was pretty small 52 years ago," she remarked. "We lived on Sherman street then, two blocks east of Main, and our house was the next to the last on the street. Sherman school was at the edge of town then. "There wasn't hardly anything south of Ave. B on Main. The courthouse on
that corner, on the west side of the street, was about the last building to the south. There was practically nothing north of the Santa Fe railway. The railroad was the north edge of town then. The town didn't run much west of Main street. Just a few houses there."
The other Sunday evening Mrs. O'Hara attended services at the First Presbyterian church and heard a sacred concert on the fine organ, said to be one of the best church organs in Kansas. "It took me back to the time when I played the first pipe organ in the Presbyterian church here, the old frame church that stood on that same corner," she remarked. "I was just a school girl then. It was early in the '80s. Anyway Rev. Stewart was the preacher. That organ was a little thing and it was pumped by hand. A little girl, Ellen Hughes was her name, 12 years old, pumped the organ. Her mother was the janitress. "Well, I had been invited to play the pipe organ and it was a big experience for me, just a school girl. But something went wrong. The organ wouldn't go. What happened was the little girl who was supposed to pump it had fallen asleep. That doesn't happen any more with these new electric motor organs." Carrie Hawkins, as she was known then, was in much demand as a musician. When the revivial meetings were held, she played the organ for the singing. When a dance was on deck, she played the organ for the fiddlers.
Frank Hawkins, her father, was one of the leading carpenters in early day Hutchinson. He built many a building. Some of them are still standing. For instance, the Puterbaugh house at Eleventh and Main streets, with all that bric-a-brac work on it, later owned by Ed Guymon, and now the property of Mrs. C.D. Woodford - was the handiwork of Frank Hawkins.
His father, J.J. Hawkins, Mrs. O'Hara's grandfather, was also handy with the carpenter tools. For nearly ten years he was the only coffin maker in Reno county. And back in those days coffins were home products. Which brings to the memory of Mrs. O'Hara something that might seem shocking today, but which was very matter-of-fact back in the '70's. The Hawkins family lived then in Center township, not far from where Partridge is now. J.J. Hawkins and his son, Frank, had come out from Wisconsin and filed on adjoining claims, twelve miles southwest of Hutchinson, in Center township, sixty years ago in 1872. The homesteaders in those days did everything they could find to do to get an extra dollar, when dollars were mighty scarce. So J.J. Hawkins made coffins. His stock in trade consisted of three coffins of assorted sizes. The store room was up in the attic above the little prairie homestead home. Now that attic was the play-room for little Carrie, the granddaughter, and the other children. What more natural than that the three coffins should be their play beds - the little one for dollie, the others for the children playing "papa" and "mamma." Of course, when there was a death in the county, as happened now and then, one of the play beds would be disturbed and have to be given up for its more solemn business of a funeral. But the playroom would not be empty long. Grandfather Hawkins would soon have another coffin made of the proper size. He always had three sizes, all ready waiting any emergency. "When the coffin would be sold, grandmother would line it and fix it up," said Mrs. O'Hara. "My grandfather provided nearly all the coffins for those days until the first undertaker located in Hutchinson, along about 1880, when M.J. Ruddy opened his furniture store.
That Hawkins place, in Center township, became famous for its fruit. Sandhill plums. Mr. Hawkins had transplanted some of the wild sandhill plum bushes to his homestead. First he planted a row, and cultivated them. Finally it grew until there was five acres of it. People came for miles and miles to gather plums there. It was not unusual to see many parties camped about there, picking the fuit on shares. (J.J. Hawkins sold hundreds of dollars' worth of plum from his patch.) "Those wonderful wild sandhill plums were one of the greatest blessings of the pioneers," said Mrs. O'Hara. "We don't appreciate them as much now. But back in the '70's those wild plums were about the only fruit we could get. "We always had plenty to eat. Maybe folks today wouldn't thing it very much. We had buffalo meat, and wild game.
We always got along some way. Yes, we hd to burn buffalo chips. There wasn't much else to burn. Mother alwasy had wild goose wings hanging up in the house to brush the ashes. The ships made so much fine ashes. Every kitchen had these wild goose wings for brushes." That Hawkins plum patch, by the way, was a regular prairie limber-lost, Mrs. O'Hara said. Trees and shrubs were scarce on the prairie and this patch of plum bushes attracted a myriad of butterflies and other little wild life. "We burned buffalo chips, twisted hay, corn stalks, cottonwood shoots and cobs from the pig pen, anything we could find to burn," said Mrs. O'Hara, "I have picked up many and many a basket of chips for the kitchen. "It was a rare treat to get to ride to Hutchinson with a load of buffalo bones. I have come to town more than once sitting on a load of buffalo hides. The bones would be sold for from $5 to $8 a load. There was a pile of bones where the Bisoute hotel stands now that was larger than this hotel building." There was no lumber yard in Hutchinson when J.J. Hawkins located in Center township in 1872, and he hauled the lumber for his frame house clear from Wichita.
The Hawkins place was widely known because most of the homes of that day were dugouts or sodhouses. The Franklin school, built near the Hawkins place, in 1874, still bears that name, having been so named after Frank Hawkins, who built it, and also the John Martin school, further west.
People in those days were not so easily upset by "depressions" and hardships as now. The first crop of sod corn raised by Mr. Hawkins was up in fine shape and promising a good yield. Then along came a herd of buffalo one day, literally thousands of them. They trampled that field of green corn down until it was ruined. Mrs. Hawkins took a look after the great herd of wild beasts had passed. There wasn't anything to be done about it. He went to the house and jokingly remarked: "I have a mind to sue Uncle Sam for damages if he don't keep his cattle up." That was the spirit of the pioneer.
Frank Hawkins moved his family to Hutchinson in the middle '70's, and Carrie Hawkins has lived here ever since, some 58 years now. She started to school at Sherman in 1878. She recalls that the first board walk was being laid in Sherman street then. Her brother, Al Hawkins, who now lived in Fort Smith, Ark., was the first fireman at the waterworks when it started. Mrs. O'Hara has seen Hutchinson grow from a little village of frame shacks to become the modern city of today. It has been a wonderful period of progress - these sixty years since the Hawkins family came here - the sixty years of progress being celebrated this week at the Farm and Home week birthday party.
====
==== NOTE: The following was provided from work that Mary Jane (Hill) McIntire had done on Julius Jay... ====
Hutchinson, Kansas News, Tuesday 26 Jan 1932, pg. 6, col. 2, 3, 4
One day two pupils at Sherman school started out after school about 4 o'clock, went to every house in Hutchinson selling tickets, walked all over the town, not missing a house, and were back home in time for supper. Impossible, you say? Not back in 1880. For that is when this was. The pupils were Carrie Hawkins and Minnie Empey, both little girls then attending Sherman school. Carrie Hawkins, who is now Mrs. Hugh O'Hara, 215 Fifth west, explains that one could very easily walk all over Hutchinson and visit every house in the town in those days in a couple of hours. "Hutchinson was pretty small 52 years ago," she remarked. "We lived on Sherman street then, two blocks east of Main, and our house was the next to the last on the street. Sherman school was at the edge of town then. "There wasn't hardly anything south of Ave. B on Main. The courthouse on
that corner, on the west side of the street, was about the last building to the south. There was practically nothing north of the Santa Fe railway. The railroad was the north edge of town then. The town didn't run much west of Main street. Just a few houses there."
The other Sunday evening Mrs. O'Hara attended services at the First Presbyterian church and heard a sacred concert on the fine organ, said to be one of the best church organs in Kansas. "It took me back to the time when I played the first pipe organ in the Presbyterian church here, the old frame church that stood on that same corner," she remarked. "I was just a school girl then. It was early in the '80s. Anyway Rev. Stewart was the preacher. That organ was a little thing and it was pumped by hand. A little girl, Ellen Hughes was her name, 12 years old, pumped the organ. Her mother was the janitress. "Well, I had been invited to play the pipe organ and it was a big experience for me, just a school girl. But something went wrong. The organ wouldn't go. What happened was the little girl who was supposed to pump it had fallen asleep. That doesn't happen any more with these new electric motor organs." Carrie Hawkins, as she was known then, was in much demand as a musician. When the revivial meetings were held, she played the organ for the singing. When a dance was on deck, she played the organ for the fiddlers.
Frank Hawkins, her father, was one of the leading carpenters in early day Hutchinson. He built many a building. Some of them are still standing. For instance, the Puterbaugh house at Eleventh and Main streets, with all that bric-a-brac work on it, later owned by Ed Guymon, and now the property of Mrs. C.D. Woodford - was the handiwork of Frank Hawkins.
His father, J.J. Hawkins, Mrs. O'Hara's grandfather, was also handy with the carpenter tools. For nearly ten years he was the only coffin maker in Reno county. And back in those days coffins were home products. Which brings to the memory of Mrs. O'Hara something that might seem shocking today, but which was very matter-of-fact back in the '70's. The Hawkins family lived then in Center township, not far from where Partridge is now. J.J. Hawkins and his son, Frank, had come out from Wisconsin and filed on adjoining claims, twelve miles southwest of Hutchinson, in Center township, sixty years ago in 1872. The homesteaders in those days did everything they could find to do to get an extra dollar, when dollars were mighty scarce. So J.J. Hawkins made coffins. His stock in trade consisted of three coffins of assorted sizes. The store room was up in the attic above the little prairie homestead home. Now that attic was the play-room for little Carrie, the granddaughter, and the other children. What more natural than that the three coffins should be their play beds - the little one for dollie, the others for the children playing "papa" and "mamma." Of course, when there was a death in the county, as happened now and then, one of the play beds would be disturbed and have to be given up for its more solemn business of a funeral. But the playroom would not be empty long. Grandfather Hawkins would soon have another coffin made of the proper size. He always had three sizes, all ready waiting any emergency. "When the coffin would be sold, grandmother would line it and fix it up," said Mrs. O'Hara. "My grandfather provided nearly all the coffins for those days until the first undertaker located in Hutchinson, along about 1880, when M.J. Ruddy opened his furniture store.
That Hawkins place, in Center township, became famous for its fruit. Sandhill plums. Mr. Hawkins had transplanted some of the wild sandhill plum bushes to his homestead. First he planted a row, and cultivated them. Finally it grew until there was five acres of it. People came for miles and miles to gather plums there. It was not unusual to see many parties camped about there, picking the fuit on shares. (J.J. Hawkins sold hundreds of dollars' worth of plum from his patch.) "Those wonderful wild sandhill plums were one of the greatest blessings of the pioneers," said Mrs. O'Hara. "We don't appreciate them as much now. But back in the '70's those wild plums were about the only fruit we could get. "We always had plenty to eat. Maybe folks today wouldn't thing it very much. We had buffalo meat, and wild game.
We always got along some way. Yes, we hd to burn buffalo chips. There wasn't much else to burn. Mother alwasy had wild goose wings hanging up in the house to brush the ashes. The ships made so much fine ashes. Every kitchen had these wild goose wings for brushes." That Hawkins plum patch, by the way, was a regular prairie limber-lost, Mrs. O'Hara said. Trees and shrubs were scarce on the prairie and this patch of plum bushes attracted a myriad of butterflies and other little wild life. "We burned buffalo chips, twisted hay, corn stalks, cottonwood shoots and cobs from the pig pen, anything we could find to burn," said Mrs. O'Hara, "I have picked up many and many a basket of chips for the kitchen. "It was a rare treat to get to ride to Hutchinson with a load of buffalo bones. I have come to town more than once sitting on a load of buffalo hides. The bones would be sold for from $5 to $8 a load. There was a pile of bones where the Bisoute hotel stands now that was larger than this hotel building." There was no lumber yard in Hutchinson when J.J. Hawkins located in Center township in 1872, and he hauled the lumber for his frame house clear from Wichita.
The Hawkins place was widely known because most of the homes of that day were dugouts or sodhouses. The Franklin school, built near the Hawkins place, in 1874, still bears that name, having been so named after Frank Hawkins, who built it, and also the John Martin school, further west.
People in those days were not so easily upset by "depressions" and hardships as now. The first crop of sod corn raised by Mr. Hawkins was up in fine shape and promising a good yield. Then along came a herd of buffalo one day, literally thousands of them. They trampled that field of green corn down until it was ruined. Mrs. Hawkins took a look after the great herd of wild beasts had passed. There wasn't anything to be done about it. He went to the house and jokingly remarked: "I have a mind to sue Uncle Sam for damages if he don't keep his cattle up." That was the spirit of the pioneer.
Frank Hawkins moved his family to Hutchinson in the middle '70's, and Carrie Hawkins has lived here ever since, some 58 years now. She started to school at Sherman in 1878. She recalls that the first board walk was being laid in Sherman street then. Her brother, Al Hawkins, who now lived in Fort Smith, Ark., was the first fireman at the waterworks when it started. Mrs. O'Hara has seen Hutchinson grow from a little village of frame shacks to become the modern city of today. It has been a wonderful period of progress - these sixty years since the Hawkins family came here - the sixty years of progress being celebrated this week at the Farm and Home week birthday party.
====
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