Susan Keeney

Susan is the sister of Rob & is a descendant of Jonathan Anthony KEENEY (1778 - 1850)

She has sent in the following Family Stories

The Cherry Banister

(Charles & Emily {Bersot} Keeney)

At Grampa Charlie and Grandma Lizzie’s house, the stairs had a banister made of cherry wood, very slick and just right as a short-cut downstairs. It happened one day that in using this shortcut because his sister was chasing him, Lowell didn’t get stopped at the bottom. Now, this banister was aligned just right with the front door, I imagine it looked really pretty in the front hall. And because of the alignment of that banister and the front door, Lowell went right out the door and onto the porch. Aunt Ruth got stopped.

The Skunks and Uncle Otis

(Russell Lowell Keeney "Poppy")

Poppy grew up on a farm in central Indiana, including milk cows in the barn. It happened one year that a mother skunk took up residence in the barn with her family of kits. The mother skunk never bothered anyone, probably because Poppy fed the kits fresh milk every day at milking time. Now, everything went well with that family of skunks until the day that Uncle Otis managed to stir up the mother skunk and she squirted him “but good”, in Poppy’s own words. Uncle Otis had to put on a new suit of clothes and Poppy had to get rid of the skunks.

Halloween, 1919

(Russell Lowell Keeney "Poppy")

Poppy went to Pittsboro High School with a class of about 10 students. The Halloween of his senior year, 1919, the Senior Class decided to have a “little” fun. They did the mundane at first, throwing seed corn at windows and the like, but then they got really creative.

They took the milkman’s Model A Ford truck to the lumber yard and managed to hoist it on top of a large pile of lumber. They fenced in an intersection of two county roads and stocked the intersection with animals borrowed from the nearest farm. They took corn shocks from a neighboring field and put those in the fence to feed the animals, since they all knew the importance of keeping the stock well fed.

Now, as no real damage was done to the fence, the animals or the milkman’s truck, no one was the worse for wear, except the milkman’s temper, and no one got in trouble.

Aunt Marjorie and the Highchair

(Marjorie Ellen Keeney)

Being very small, Aunt Marjorie liked to put her feet on the edge of the table and lean back in her highchair. Despite numerous warnings that dire consequences would result if she kept it up, she enjoyed it too much to quit, until the day that she finally fell over backward and ended up on the back porch. You’d think that a scare like that would have been sufficient, but Poppy picked her up and spanked her anyway.