Mary was born the 7th of October 1911 in Plains, Seward County, Kansas.
She was the fifth child born to Gilbert Cheney Carney and his wife Annie (Miller) Carney.
Gilbert Carney was the second of seven children born to his parents John C and Susan Ada (Rowan) Carney, and their eldest son. Gilbert was born in Lagrange County, Indiana the 24th of Sepetember 1882.
The 18th of April 1903 he married Anna Elma "Annie" Miller the youngest daughter and 11th child of Joseph P and Martha (Wortinger) Miller. Gilbert was 21 and Annie was 18 when they married.
Gilbert was a farmer. The 5th of July 1903 Treva Carney was born. She was soon followed in 1905 by sister Opal Pauline Carney. In 1906 Gilbert and Annie moved their family of four (two adults and two children) to Seward County, Kansas.
In 1907 Bessie Belle "Bets" Carney was born and in 1909 son Russel J Carney joined the family making six CARNEYs in all.
In 1910 Annie's father Joseph P Miller died and his wife Martha according to the 1910 census was living with their youngest child Otis Miller and a granddaughter(not Otis's child) who's name 'Oyrial' may have been mus-transcribed. (The image is only available through ancestry.com).
I had thought that Martha (Wortinger) Miller had gone to live with her daughter Anna (Miller) Carney by that time but I was mistaken. It is possibly she visited the Carney's as family tradition says that she was present when their fifth child (Mary) was born in 1911. It is said that Martha named the child as Anna was too tired or busy at the time.
This fifth child of Gilbert and Anna Carney was my great grand mother. I knew her as Great Grandma and Mary McKinsey. My great grandmother did not get a birth certificate until she was an old woman with grandchildren.
Interestingly Mary Carney's birth certificate has two interesting errors on it:
Firstly it gives her name as 'Annie Carney'. Now the woman the certificate belonged to went by Mary all her life though later documents add 'Anna' as her middle name.
The second error which might explain the first one is that in the box for the mother's maiden name someone wrote 'Martha Wortinger' then crossed it out and wrote 'Annie Miller' above that. I suggest that Martha (Wortinger) Miller filled out the form and accidentally filled it out for her daughter as the child and herself as the mother before realizing her mistake or alternately Anna (Miller) Carney filled it out and due to fatigue goofed the names. If my great grandmother was meant to be named Annie she never knew it as she was always called Mary and nothing else all her days. (While most of her siblings did go by nicknames they still knew their given names. So it seems unlikely that Mary was a nickname for Annie though not impossible given the family's nicknaming habits).
Going backward a bit. Over in Missouri in the late 1800s lived a coupled named John L and wife Winnie (Dunlap) McKinsey. John was the first son and youngest child of his parents Drury C and Lydia "Ducky" (Brown) McKinsey. After John's mother died his father remarried and John became the big brother of ten little half brothers and sisters.
By the time John's eldest half brother was 8 the older McKinsey brother had married a local girl named Altha Dunlap, better known as Winnie. The couple had eight children, the first died young.
The third of their seven boys Oren Orvile "Orville" McKinsey was born the 26th of April 1904.
The McKinsey family moved from Missouri to Oklahoma around 1901. Twelve years later in 1913 the Carney family also had the idea to move to Oklahoma. Mary their youngest at the time was about two. It is not clear how long the trip took each family. The McKinsey came from Missouri and the Carneys from either Kansas or possibly Indiana (no census records suggest that the Carneys lived in Kansas during a census year).
Mary Carney years later watched a popular television show called 'Little House on the Prairie' with one of her daughters-in-law I have been told (as this daughter-in-law is my maternal grandmother). In the episode the characters had to ford a river and little girls are inside the wagon getting bounced around. My grandmother says that her mother-in-law, my great grandmother, became upset watching the scene as it reminded her of the trip her family had taken when she was a child and how she had been frightened when they had forded a river by wagon when she was small. I do not know how old she was when the Carneys forded a river or which river it may have been. I do have a photo taken around the time they left for Oklahoma or shortly after they arrived there. I can't say for sure but I'd put Mary's age at between 1 and 6 years of age and leaning closer to the younger end than the older end of that. (She's the girl in the wagon in the middle with the hat on).
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In Oklahoma the Carney family continued to grow adding son Raymond Gilbert (Dec. 1914 - Jan. 1915) who lived less than a month and two more longer lived sons.
Owen Leonard "Pete" Carney was born in 1918 and Lowell Emerson "Bud" Carney in 1921. And baby sister Retha Iola "Jean" Carney, born in 1925, was the last of Gilbert and Annie's 9 kids. Gilbert and Annie had a thing for nicknames it appears and I imagine they made sense to the family back in the day, but they don't seem to make much sense all this time later.
Now Orvile McKinsey and Mary Carney were both living in Oklahoma in the 1920s. Mary got two more siblings in that decade.
I do not know exactly when Mary and Orvile met or how they met or better yet who introduced them, but I do know they married each other.
My maternal grandmother told me when I asked her about Mary and Orvile(after they had both passed away) that:
'He would buy a pack of gum and they would sit on a bench and chew gum together'.
This was a typical date for the two of them.
It may seem cute or odd, and given the 7 year age difference and that she was 14 or 15 at the time and he was 21 or 22 it may have been for the best that their dates involved sitting on a bench sharing a pack of gum. Depending on when they met and how long they dated they may have been younger.
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Edit: The same grandmother (daughter-in-law of Mary and Orvile) who told me about their chewing gum dates also implied that Orvile had originally had his eye on Mary's older sister, but Mary made it so he dated her instead - I do not recall the details of the story as there was not much said and my grandmother who told me this is unable to remember such stories clearly anymore.
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Mary Carney and Owen Orvile McKinsey were married the 23rd of November 1926 in Custer County, Oklahoma.
Now the paperwork clearly says that the girl in these situations has to have a parents permission to marry if she's under age.
Gilbert Carney, Mary's father, was it seems in poor health around this time and around 1929-ish(the news clipping is missing a date) he had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance after he had a bad turn while out visiting a Dr. for something. I'm summarizing what was printed.
It is possible that Gilbert's condition had been bad in 1926 and that his wife Anna had to take care of him. This of course is me guessing at reasons for things.
Whatever it was Mary did not have a signed permission slip from either parent to get married at age 15.
So she and Orvile fudged it and he being the one to fill out the form he put her age down as ... 20. I'm guessing the person filing the paperwork never saw the couple in person as I doubt15 year old Mary could have easily passed for 20.
The first of Mary and Orvile's four sons was born the following year (7 months after their marriage).
Gerald LeRoy McKinsey born to Orvile and Mary (Carney) McKinsey the 29th of May 1927.
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(Left to Right: Bessie Bell "Bets" (Carney) Sevier holding nephew Gerald LeRoy McKinsey, Owen Leonard "Bud" Carney standing in front of Bets, little Retha Lola "Jean" Carney between her brothers, Mary (Carney) McKinsey - girl in the pale shirt in back and mother of the baby,
Lowel Emerson "Pete" Carney standing in front of Mary.)
Mary would have been 16 - 18 at this time. (photo taken about 1927-1929).
Between 1929 when my late grandfather was born(in Oklahoma) and 1933 when the first of his two younger brothers was born (in California) Orvile and Mary moved their family of four to the west coast or near enough, settling for good in Stanislaus County, California. The family added two more sons ending up with a total of four sons in all and no daughters.
Their older two boys passed away in their 60s. The family has mostly stayed in California with only a few grandchildren and great grandchildren moving out of state(to my knowledge).
Oren Orvile McKinsey preceded his eldest son in death and followed my grandfather, his second son. Orvile, to my knowledge, was very ill for a very long time or at least it seemed that way to me.
I personally only knew him as a frail scary seeming old man that lay in a hospital bed at my great grandma's house. I remember only vaguely knowing that he was my great grandpa, but not knowing how to talk to him or if I should talk to him. I was maybe seven-ish at the time(I'm bad at remembering when things happened and I'm not all that old yet.) I recall that he couldn't talk and he didn't move. His head moved a tiny bit from side to side and he could move his eyes and his fingers a little bit. My sister and I had to squeeze past the end of his bed to get to the play room (a former guest bedroom) to play with the few toys Great Grandma kept at her house. There was an old night stand with maybe three kids books in it. I think one was an old Donald Duck or Micky Mouse comic book or something like that and one may have been a Little Golden book. The sliding closest had a few toys in it though I only remember the large tub of army men figures and some big toy army trucks that may have gone with them. The army men were mostly small, green and stuck in one pose. There were some that were a different shade of green and at least one that was not quite Barbie size and painted a bit more realistically. I can't remember now if he had moving limbs or was stuck in one pose. I also remember Great Grandma would have a plate full of different flavors of cheap wafer cookies the stick ones that are pink or yellow-white or chocolate with a thin layer of cream between the waffle print wafers. I would always pull mine apart and just eat the cream from the middles because I didn't(and still don't) like the wafer part. Great Grandma's house was very small and everywhere there were figurines of elephants. I remember crouching down beside Great Grandma's chair next to her little elephant case that held most of her collection (other bigger pieces sat on tables and on top of the boxy television set). I remember being a little kid and just looking at those elephants and being told not to touch them. I remember sitting in that spot and asking Great Grandma 'Great Grandma, in a long time, when you die, could I maybe have your elephant case? After you die.'(I was trying to word it in such as way as to not offend her or make her think I wanted her to die so I could get her stuff or that I was greedy). Those may not be the exact words I said but it's close enough. I recall saying something to the effect of 'when you die' and 'can I have your elephant case' and my mother making a breathing noise that suggested that I'd said something wrong. I also remember my Great Grandma not minding what I said in the least (which made me confused as to why my mother was upset if Great Grandma wasn't) and she smiled and I think maybe she chuckled and agreed. I must have mentioned that story to my mother ever so often over the years as nothing was written down, it was only a verbal agreement between an old lady and a little girl, something that could be easily forgotten over time.
My great grandpa Orvile McKinsey (alternately Owen Orvile McKinsey - though the old family bible has it written as Oren Orvile McKinsey by his mother) died the 6th of February 1994. I don't remember much about him dying or the funeral, I doubt I went as I was only 9 years old at the time. I do remember being told that he died and I remember the hospital bed wasn't in Great Grandma's house anymore which made getting to the play room much easier. As I hadn't really known the man during the short time that our lives overlapped I never really felt any strong emotions when he wasn't there anymore. In hindsight I can look back and think about how he may have felt in that bed and about how I treated him and felt sad about it, but I was very young back then and didn't know better, you could say. Half the time I knew he was my great grandpa and felt a bit bad about things, I remember trying once to talk to him when I was maybe 8 or 9 and I think he tired to reply as he made a noise with his mouth and looked at me. Before that the other half the time he was a stranger, a strange very old person that was in a hospital bed in my Great Grandma's house for reasons unknown to me that I had to sneak by to get to the toys in the play room and he was due to his illness which I then had very little knowledge of(not that it would have made a difference) and very scary. It didn't help that I was a timid child anyway and it had taken me a long time to warm up to my great grandma who was the oldest member of the family(other than my great grandpa Orvile though to very young me they seemed not that far apart in age).
My Maternal grandpa, my mother's father, was born in 1929 in Oklahoma and died in 1990 in California. I don't remember him at all. I do remember playing with a foil balloon my grandma had bought to take to him in the hospital. I was patting it and batting at it(it had a straw at one end, and hugging it and stuff and then it popped and I cried because I'd popped Grandpa's balloon and I assumed I'd get in trouble for popping his balloon. I was also upset that we didn't have a balloon to take to him - and that was my fault. I was 5 or 6 at the time, the idea of leaving the balloon alone, I'm sure, had not entered my head once that day. I didn't get in trouble. I suspect the constant crying prevented Grandma from getting too mad at me, though I know she'd told me not to pop the balloon earlier and to be careful with it. It, I think, it was maybe red? I do know it had a picture of a band-aid on it. There may have been writing but I don't remember any on it.
In 1998 I was in my last year of Junior High (I was 14/15). I remember getting called at home from school by my mom and then sitting in the van on the street Great Grandma's house was on. Mom wouldn't let me or my sister(I think she was there too) out of the car. I was told my great grandma, Mary McKinsey had, had a heart attack. Later I was told that she had died. The details came out slowly over the next week and I remember that funeral. I remember my mom and aunt crying and seeing relatives I didn't know I had (up until then I had though that my maternal grandmother was an only child which she wasn't as her older sister(Sara) was there - I think. So sister of a daughter-in-law to the then newly deceased). I remember people going up to talk about my great grandma during the funeral and some told stories. This was where I heard the story that:
'Mary had a horse that she'd ride to school every day. And she'd tie the horse up and he was a smart horse and he knew how to get his rope untied. And so she'd tie him up and go in to school and he'd untie himself and go home so she had to walk home everyday.' (paraphrased). I think the horse was named 'Pet', but that may have been a different horse Mary owned.
I did end up with the elephants that had filled my great grandma's house, but not the little case with the sliding glass doors they had been kept in when I was little. Someone else had got that. Instead I got the open wooden shelves they'd sat on when my mother was a child. My mother was very pleased with this. I was not. In hindsight I was big brat about it. I had thought that the case they were in came with the elephants so it took a looong time for me to get over that imagined injustice. I don't remember exactly when I got over it but it doesn't bother me now many years later. My dad made me a new case for my elephants which is more than double the size of the little case Mary had them in when I was a child and the figurines are far less exposed now then when they were on the small wooden shelf I got with them.
Mary Carney and Owen Orvile McKinsey were married the 23rd of November 1926 in Custer County, Oklahoma.
Now the paperwork clearly says that the girl in these situations has to have a parents permission to marry if she's under age.
Gilbert Carney, Mary's father, was it seems in poor health around this time and around 1929-ish(the news clipping is missing a date) he had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance after he had a bad turn while out visiting a Dr. for something. I'm summarizing what was printed.
It is possible that Gilbert's condition had been bad in 1926 and that his wife Anna had to take care of him. This of course is me guessing at reasons for things.
Whatever it was Mary did not have a signed permission slip from either parent to get married at age 15.
So she and Orvile fudged it and he being the one to fill out the form he put her age down as ... 20. I'm guessing the person filing the paperwork never saw the couple in person as I doubt15 year old Mary could have easily passed for 20.
The first of Mary and Orvile's four sons was born the following year (7 months after their marriage).
Gerald LeRoy McKinsey born to Orvile and Mary (Carney) McKinsey the 29th of May 1927.
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(Left to Right: Bessie Bell "Bets" (Carney) Sevier holding nephew Gerald LeRoy McKinsey, Owen Leonard "Bud" Carney standing in front of Bets, little Retha Lola "Jean" Carney between her brothers, Mary (Carney) McKinsey - girl in the pale shirt in back and mother of the baby,
Lowel Emerson "Pete" Carney standing in front of Mary.)
Mary would have been 16 - 18 at this time. (photo taken about 1927-1929).
Between 1929 when my late grandfather was born(in Oklahoma) and 1933 when the first of his two younger brothers was born (in California) Orvile and Mary moved their family of four to the west coast or near enough, settling for good in Stanislaus County, California. The family added two more sons ending up with a total of four sons in all and no daughters.
Their older two boys passed away in their 60s. The family has mostly stayed in California with only a few grandchildren and great grandchildren moving out of state(to my knowledge).
Oren Orvile McKinsey preceded his eldest son in death and followed my grandfather, his second son. Orvile, to my knowledge, was very ill for a very long time or at least it seemed that way to me.
I personally only knew him as a frail scary seeming old man that lay in a hospital bed at my great grandma's house. I remember only vaguely knowing that he was my great grandpa, but not knowing how to talk to him or if I should talk to him. I was maybe seven-ish at the time(I'm bad at remembering when things happened and I'm not all that old yet.) I recall that he couldn't talk and he didn't move. His head moved a tiny bit from side to side and he could move his eyes and his fingers a little bit. My sister and I had to squeeze past the end of his bed to get to the play room (a former guest bedroom) to play with the few toys Great Grandma kept at her house. There was an old night stand with maybe three kids books in it. I think one was an old Donald Duck or Micky Mouse comic book or something like that and one may have been a Little Golden book. The sliding closest had a few toys in it though I only remember the large tub of army men figures and some big toy army trucks that may have gone with them. The army men were mostly small, green and stuck in one pose. There were some that were a different shade of green and at least one that was not quite Barbie size and painted a bit more realistically. I can't remember now if he had moving limbs or was stuck in one pose. I also remember Great Grandma would have a plate full of different flavors of cheap wafer cookies the stick ones that are pink or yellow-white or chocolate with a thin layer of cream between the waffle print wafers. I would always pull mine apart and just eat the cream from the middles because I didn't(and still don't) like the wafer part. Great Grandma's house was very small and everywhere there were figurines of elephants. I remember crouching down beside Great Grandma's chair next to her little elephant case that held most of her collection (other bigger pieces sat on tables and on top of the boxy television set). I remember being a little kid and just looking at those elephants and being told not to touch them. I remember sitting in that spot and asking Great Grandma 'Great Grandma, in a long time, when you die, could I maybe have your elephant case? After you die.'(I was trying to word it in such as way as to not offend her or make her think I wanted her to die so I could get her stuff or that I was greedy). Those may not be the exact words I said but it's close enough. I recall saying something to the effect of 'when you die' and 'can I have your elephant case' and my mother making a breathing noise that suggested that I'd said something wrong. I also remember my Great Grandma not minding what I said in the least (which made me confused as to why my mother was upset if Great Grandma wasn't) and she smiled and I think maybe she chuckled and agreed. I must have mentioned that story to my mother ever so often over the years as nothing was written down, it was only a verbal agreement between an old lady and a little girl, something that could be easily forgotten over time.
My great grandpa Orvile McKinsey (alternately Owen Orvile McKinsey - though the old family bible has it written as Oren Orvile McKinsey by his mother) died the 6th of February 1994. I don't remember much about him dying or the funeral, I doubt I went as I was only 9 years old at the time. I do remember being told that he died and I remember the hospital bed wasn't in Great Grandma's house anymore which made getting to the play room much easier. As I hadn't really known the man during the short time that our lives overlapped I never really felt any strong emotions when he wasn't there anymore. In hindsight I can look back and think about how he may have felt in that bed and about how I treated him and felt sad about it, but I was very young back then and didn't know better, you could say. Half the time I knew he was my great grandpa and felt a bit bad about things, I remember trying once to talk to him when I was maybe 8 or 9 and I think he tired to reply as he made a noise with his mouth and looked at me. Before that the other half the time he was a stranger, a strange very old person that was in a hospital bed in my Great Grandma's house for reasons unknown to me that I had to sneak by to get to the toys in the play room and he was due to his illness which I then had very little knowledge of(not that it would have made a difference) and very scary. It didn't help that I was a timid child anyway and it had taken me a long time to warm up to my great grandma who was the oldest member of the family(other than my great grandpa Orvile though to very young me they seemed not that far apart in age).
My Maternal grandpa, my mother's father, was born in 1929 in Oklahoma and died in 1990 in California. I don't remember him at all. I do remember playing with a foil balloon my grandma had bought to take to him in the hospital. I was patting it and batting at it(it had a straw at one end, and hugging it and stuff and then it popped and I cried because I'd popped Grandpa's balloon and I assumed I'd get in trouble for popping his balloon. I was also upset that we didn't have a balloon to take to him - and that was my fault. I was 5 or 6 at the time, the idea of leaving the balloon alone, I'm sure, had not entered my head once that day. I didn't get in trouble. I suspect the constant crying prevented Grandma from getting too mad at me, though I know she'd told me not to pop the balloon earlier and to be careful with it. It, I think, it was maybe red? I do know it had a picture of a band-aid on it. There may have been writing but I don't remember any on it.
In 1998 I was in my last year of Junior High (I was 14/15). I remember getting called at home from school by my mom and then sitting in the van on the street Great Grandma's house was on. Mom wouldn't let me or my sister(I think she was there too) out of the car. I was told my great grandma, Mary McKinsey had, had a heart attack. Later I was told that she had died. The details came out slowly over the next week and I remember that funeral. I remember my mom and aunt crying and seeing relatives I didn't know I had (up until then I had though that my maternal grandmother was an only child which she wasn't as her older sister(Sara) was there - I think. So sister of a daughter-in-law to the then newly deceased). I remember people going up to talk about my great grandma during the funeral and some told stories. This was where I heard the story that:
'Mary had a horse that she'd ride to school every day. And she'd tie the horse up and he was a smart horse and he knew how to get his rope untied. And so she'd tie him up and go in to school and he'd untie himself and go home so she had to walk home everyday.' (paraphrased). I think the horse was named 'Pet', but that may have been a different horse Mary owned.
I did end up with the elephants that had filled my great grandma's house, but not the little case with the sliding glass doors they had been kept in when I was little. Someone else had got that. Instead I got the open wooden shelves they'd sat on when my mother was a child. My mother was very pleased with this. I was not. In hindsight I was big brat about it. I had thought that the case they were in came with the elephants so it took a looong time for me to get over that imagined injustice. I don't remember exactly when I got over it but it doesn't bother me now many years later. My dad made me a new case for my elephants which is more than double the size of the little case Mary had them in when I was a child and the figurines are far less exposed now then when they were on the small wooden shelf I got with them.
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