My
grandmother was the second of 13 children born around 1904 (no official birth
certificate) in a 3-room wooden “house” out in the middle of the Kansas Prairie.
It was in an area originally populated by the Cherokee Indians during the Trail
of Tears (1830s–1850s). The original house had dirt floors, no running water, no
bathroom, no kitchen — simply two bedrooms (one for all the kids) and a sitting
room where you ate meals and “sat.”
When
the children were very young, my great-grandmother, Nancy (a Cherokee
descendant), cooked those meals just
outside the back door, on a fairly
large, flat, wooden “stoop,” or porch (about a 6’ x 10’ space and 6-10” above
the dirt), covered with a roof but no walls. It was called the stoop because the
adults had to stoop (bend their heads down) as they stepped up on the porch to
keep from hitting their heads on the roof. Just beyond the stoop, in the
backyard, was the outhouse, and just beyond that was a set of train
tracks.
The
story that’s been passed down in our family is that Nancy loved to cook, can her
crops, and take care of people (and bottle her grape and plum wine). Years
later, that stoop area was eventually expanded, built in with walls and
plumbing, and became the eat-in kitchen and bathroom. During the Great
Depression (1929-1939), with most of her children having moved out as adults,
she became known for leaving bowls of soup on the steps of the “stoop” for
the
homeless train travelers (aka
hobos). She’d wake up in the morning to empty bowls and, by evening, would
refill them and set them back out. As the hobos would find occasional work, she
soon started to find small coins left alongside the empty bowls of soup — their
way of paying what they could.
Nancy
saved all those coins, and as the economy grew and the depression faded, she
opened her small restaurant in what was then the small, vibrant, growing town of
Dexter, Kansas —complete with Post Office, school, grocery store, church — AND a
candy store, home of the O’Henry candy bar! That restaurant is long gone, the
family home is gone — as is most of the town of Dexter.
As a
small child playing with my friends at the corner park in the hot summer Kansas
heat, Mr.Henry would call us all into the candy store, invite us into the
ICE-COLD walk-in refrigerator (somewhere along the right when you look at the
photo), and let us pick out our favorite piece of chocolate candy! That must be
why Henry’s Candy Store is still around — although they have long since updated
their equipment and moved out to the edge of the state highway that runs past
Dexter. Check out their Facebook page and order some homemade candy for
yourself! https://www.facebook.com/henryscandies
I
recently heard someone discussing the current economy as the “new” Great
Depression. I beg to differ. As a GIVING COMMUNITY, we can turn this around! One
never knows what kind of ripples a small gesture, such as leaving Soup on a
Stoop (OR letting a small child pick out a FREE piece of chocolate!) will
create. Here we are, over 60 years later, and I’m posting a LINK,
asking
you
to please go buy some candy from Henry’s Candy Store!
What’s YOUR Soup on a
Stoop?!
Cathy
PS:
Are you thinking about sharing your wisdom and making a difference in this
world? Reach out. Let me know your budget. We’ll create a customized book
program just for you. We can even set you up with installments.
Together, we can create a
Great
Expression of
Community and
Service! |