Thomas Whittemore Mitchell

When Granny mentions Grandpa M, she's talking about her father's father, Thomas Whittemore Mitchell. Here's a bit Granny wrote about him in a family history in the 1950's, also his obituary from the Burlingame Enterprise, and a couple photographs -- the one in his civil war uniform was a tintype. One of our cousins (Zella's grandson) had the image restored and it was then used in some sort of Civil War Calendar. 

Grandpa, Thomas Whittemore Mitchell, was born in Maine, brought up in the woods. Besides being a woodsman, he was a stone mason. He went to Kansas before the Civil War, dug native stone with which he built a house in the small town of Burlingame (the house is still standing -- 1950, nearly a hundred years later). On Aug. 7th, 1861, he boarded up the windows of his little house, enlisted in Company D. of the 5th Kansas Cavalry. When he returned, someone was living in his house; but that was soon remedied. He then made a trip back East to Massachusetts, married his second cousin--who was by this time practically an old maid--almost twenty-nine years old!

Grandpa took Grandma's dowry --so the story was told to me, anyway—traded it along with the stone house, for a half section of land two miles south. Besides the land, he acquired a house which had been a hotel as some people thought that the "big town" was going to be located in this particular vicinity. It was in this house that my father and his younger brothers were born and raised. Grandpa also bought and raised cattle, using his boys to "herd" them, thus accumulating quite a lot of land, houses, and some money.

Grandma was interested in music; she sang alto in the church back home in Boston. She had an organ, but Grandpa made no bones about disliking music; so that was one subject on which they disagreed. I don't exactly what caused the final break; but, although they both lived to "celebrate" their golden wedding anniversary, for the last twenty years of their life together, they didn't speak to each other. It was convenient for such a state that their only daughter didn't marry and lived with them; she could act as their go-be-tween. I don't know how they conversed when Aunt Mettie wasn't there, but I heard that they conveyed their messages to the cat--in the presence of each other.

Of course my most vivid picture of Grandpa M. was the one acquired first hand when I was a little girl. By that time he was getting old, walked with two canes as he had lost his sense of balance. He wasn't very well groomed, his hair and whiskers being long, two pairs of glasses adorning him--one on his eyes and the other on his forehead--, his shoe laces untied. He was an agnostic, and spent his later days down town, holding forth on his views. Then my sisters and I would meet him, we would holler "Hello, Grandpa", as he was also partially deaf , and he would always stop and say "Hello, Hello, Hello".