Blanche A Parr

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Birthday- Parr, Blanche 2

by Dorothy N. Hoobler

On Thursday, July 18, Miss Blanche Parr, a resident of Rossville Valley Manor, will be 101 years of age. "But I'm not going to celebrate," she said [ ]. "I celebrated too much last year, with three cakes and three parties. Then I got sick, and I came here to live." In her room hangs a memento of the occasion, a 100th birthday "best wishes" plaque from the Jayhawk Area Agency on Aging.

Blanche is an amazingly alert, [ ] independent person. Only [ ] snow white hair betrays her [age]. Her eyes are bright, and [ ] snap on occasion. They also sparkle when she laughs, and that's much more frequently.

She really misses being in her home at 442 Orange Street, where she was born and lived for her first 100 years. Her grandfather, John Wesley Parr, came from Indiana. His sons, Jim and [ ], settled on the rich farmland [ ] of the new and thriving little town on Cross Creek. Son, Andrew Jackson Parr, however, Blanche's father, preferred being a carpenter. He built the stately, [ ]-story farm house where he was born. With the big bay windows, and its two columned porches, it must have been quite a showplace.

There were lots of fruit trees, [ ], peaches, apples, and cherries, and a grove of walnut trees. Like most people, the Parrs had a big garden. The children grew up doing their share of the chores in the house and garden. "We were always [ ] to work. We were expected to help, and we did," she [ ] matter-of-factly.

Blanche remembers the town yard, the brick yard, the hotel, and the Opera House. Their home was just one-half block from the new school, a fine two-story, four-room red brick building.

Blanche's mother, Cyrene Matilda, a former Lawrence school teacher, gave them their first lessons at home - no kindergarten a century ago. She insisted that all homework had to be done the first thing after supper. "Then we played," Blanche remembered. There were card games like "Authors, checkers, marbles, and spin tops," the old-timer tops that you'd wind up and throw," she explained. "And I had a top, too, just like my brother's," she smiled.

Miss Parr spoke with such loving admiration of her parents. "We really had good parents," she emphasized. "We never came home, but that our parents were there. They were always home at nights, too. Dad read to us, while Mother mostly mended and knitted socks for Dad. And we had apples and walnuts to eat." And here, her eyes snapped as she observed, "Parents shouldn't neglect their children the way some people do now. That's why kids go wrong."

Blanche reminisced about church activities, too. "Grandpa Parr was a good old Methodist. My Dad used to tell how he and Grandma (Catherine) hitched the team to the lumber wagon, filled it with straw, loaded up the kid, and came to town for church. The boys would be so hungry before they got home at 2 in the afternoon."

She remembered the church programs, too. "There were a bunch of little Parrs running [not sure if some is missing here or not]. Brothers Jim, Joe, and A.J. had a combined total of 20. "And there were a lot of Resers, too," she added.

She had vivid memories of the 1903 flood which devastated so much of the town as well as the farm land to the south, when the bank-full Cross Creek waters couldn't empty into the over-flowing Kaw. Uncles Jim and Joe were marooned, along with many of their neighbors, as the muddy waters rapidly inched higher. A Rossville newspaperman, U.G. Stewart, described in vivid detail how several local carpenters, including A.J. Parr, built a crude boat, the "Sally Ann," and sailed through raging current to rescue the stranded families. "Uncle Jim's stayed with us until they could get back home," she recalled. The flood waters covered only one corner of A.J.'s yard.

Did she remember anything special about childhood birthdays? "I had friend chicken and peach pie!" she laughed, and this time, her eyes really sparkled. "Mother made lots of pies, Dad like pies, and mother liked to bake, and she used whatever fruit was ready.

"I was the only one with a birthday in the summer. It was so hot, and I was the middle child. I always figured I got a little cheated!" she exclaimed with a laugh. Then she quickly added, "But I didn't! Mother and Dad didn't have a favorite child. And we weren't allowed to fight, either. We could defend ourselves, but we couldn't pick on each other. And even after we grew up, we still helped each other."

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