Everything's Up To Date In Kansas City

I was 15 years old when I moved from Celina, Ohio to Kansas City, Missouri. I had lived with my grandparents from 1942 until September 1949 and my grandmother's health was failing. My brother, Ben, left right after his Junior year in high school to live with our mother in Muncie, Indiana. So I was alone for the first time in my life and needed another place to call home.

Uncle Ray and Aunt Edith Moore lived in Kansas City and was visiting Ray's parents which were my grandparents. They had a daughter, Kathy, who was 18 months old at the time. Kathy and I got along great and on the way back home to Kansas City, Edith asked Ray if they should take Dick into their home. Ray wrote me a letter which I still have in my memory box asking me to consider moving to Kansas City and finishing my high school years in their home. Ray was my dad's brother.

Uncle Ray and Aunt Edith - my new parents in Kansas City

I accepted their invitation and before I knew it, I was on a train to Chicago where I met up with another uncle, Dale, who accompanied me to Kansas City. I arrived in my new home just a few days before the school year was to start. My wardrobe was lacking in decent clothes and we went shopping. What I wore in Ohio just didn't work in Missouri!

Their home was a single story, two bedroom, one bath home. Kathy was sleeping in their bedroom and the music room (Ray taught voice) became my bedroom.

My new home on 67th Street in Kansas City, Missouri

It was obvious that something had to be done as Kathy was needing to be moved out of their bedroom and into one of her own. Ray began plans to "raise the roof" and add a second floor to the home. He became the contractor and the hired hand to do the job. He needed help on raising the roof but everything else he (and sometimes me) did the job. In time three bedrooms and a bath were added upstairs. They would need all three bedrooms after I left for college as Philip and Harlan were born to the family. Kathy, Philip, and Harlan had their bedrooms upstairs.

I spent my last three years in high school attending Southeast High School which is pictured below.

Southeast High School - attended there 1949 to 1952

I graduated from there in June 1952 and was off to Pasadena Nazarene College in Pasadena, California in the fall. I returned to Uncle Ray and Aunt Edith's home for the summer of 1953. When I returned to college, I never went back home for anything other than a short visit. I stayed in the "old" home when I went back in July 1955 to be married to Ann.