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Letter from my grandmother, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Salina, Kans.,
Tuesday, July 21, 1942. My grandparents
had to drive about 33 miles to Wichita (pop. 114,996 in 1940) to sell livestock
at the stockyards. Montgomery Ward's company presented a
useful option for rural people far from any stores by allowing consumers to
have products from their catalog delivered by mail. The company
operated its catalog business from 1872-2001, and operated brick-and-mortar stores part of that time. (After bankruptcy and liquidation in 2001, it sold its name and brand which are still used by a separate company, Direct Marketing Services Inc.)
My father wrote the following about visiting the stockyards in his memoir: “In my childhood taking cattle to the stockyards in Wichita for sale was a pleasant break from the farm routine. Leonard usually took me with him on days that seemed right according to the farm report of Bruce Behymer. Behymer delivered his radio program in a nasal twang, which many tried unsuccessfully to imitate, from his office at the stockyards over Station KFH, keeping us up to date on prices. One or two animals we loaded into our own trailer to be pulled behind the car, but, if a half a dozen were slated for sale we hired a neighbor’s truck, sometimes Charlie “Slim” Myers’s new 1936 Chevrolet. We pushed the uncooperative, bawling cattle, up a loading chute one by one into the bed of the truck. They were justifiably alarmed at the change in their routine. Once the truck was underway, we followed by car.
“At the stockyards we made our way through the bustling crowd in to the offices of Rieff-King Commission Company, where Jeff King greeted Leonard warmly as an old friend, and sometimes walked with us on the catwalk above the pens. There we found the cattle that we had unloaded for sale. Jeff, dressed in a stylish ten-gallon hat and boots essential in the muck of the pens, descended among the bellowing, circling cattle, brandishing his whip at recalcitrant animals. When Dad returned to the office for the check, Jeff was cordial, and talked about all kinds of things. We believed that he had gotten the best possible price from Jeff, and we learned about all kinds of confidential business arrangements. Rieff and King had an agreement that in the event of the death of either, their widows would share in the business profits. Then Jeff handed me small pencil which could be put back into the tubing with the Rieff-King name on a red background. A valuable memento it was to a small boy, and Leonard was doubtless glad to have the check to keep us going. He could sell his steers as money was needed.”
My father wrote the following about visiting the stockyards in his memoir: “In my childhood taking cattle to the stockyards in Wichita for sale was a pleasant break from the farm routine. Leonard usually took me with him on days that seemed right according to the farm report of Bruce Behymer. Behymer delivered his radio program in a nasal twang, which many tried unsuccessfully to imitate, from his office at the stockyards over Station KFH, keeping us up to date on prices. One or two animals we loaded into our own trailer to be pulled behind the car, but, if a half a dozen were slated for sale we hired a neighbor’s truck, sometimes Charlie “Slim” Myers’s new 1936 Chevrolet. We pushed the uncooperative, bawling cattle, up a loading chute one by one into the bed of the truck. They were justifiably alarmed at the change in their routine. Once the truck was underway, we followed by car.
“At the stockyards we made our way through the bustling crowd in to the offices of Rieff-King Commission Company, where Jeff King greeted Leonard warmly as an old friend, and sometimes walked with us on the catwalk above the pens. There we found the cattle that we had unloaded for sale. Jeff, dressed in a stylish ten-gallon hat and boots essential in the muck of the pens, descended among the bellowing, circling cattle, brandishing his whip at recalcitrant animals. When Dad returned to the office for the check, Jeff was cordial, and talked about all kinds of things. We believed that he had gotten the best possible price from Jeff, and we learned about all kinds of confidential business arrangements. Rieff and King had an agreement that in the event of the death of either, their widows would share in the business profits. Then Jeff handed me small pencil which could be put back into the tubing with the Rieff-King name on a red background. A valuable memento it was to a small boy, and Leonard was doubtless glad to have the check to keep us going. He could sell his steers as money was needed.”
(Sources:
Sidney DeVere Brown, Kansas Farmboy: A
Memoir of Boyhood and Youth [2008], 112-13; Montgomery Ward in Wikipedia)
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