Violet Marie Burwell

Violet Marie Burwell was born on September 12, 1921 near Elk City, Beckham, Oklahoma to Ira Burton Burwell and Cecil Pearl Allender. Upon the divorce of her parents, she moved to Kansas with her mother. In Hutchinson, Violet worked at a retail store while going to college to help support her siblings and mother.

When she had completed enough schooling to begin teaching, Violet moved to Stafford County, Kansas in August of 1940. It was there that she met William "Bill" Calvert McCandless.

Bill was drafted to serve in February 1941 and was stationed at Camp Robinson, Arkansas. The US joined WW2 in December 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbor, which led Bill's division to be moved to California to secure America's defenses along the west coast. The couple married on June 15, 1942 at the Little Church of Flowers at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.

They had three children, all living.

My grandmother showed me an embroidery sample she made for my grandfather one year for Christmas. She told me he never liked it, so she should have buried it with him. I think he tended to aggravate her, but she loved him dearly. She'd often remark during holiday dinners after he had passed that "Bill was the one who got the conversations going" and she wasn't as good at it.

Bill passed away on November 17, 1987 in Stafford County, Kansas of heart failure and ALS. They were married 45 years.

Several years before she passed away,I sent out genealogical questionnaires to my relatives and my Grandma McCandless was the only who sent hers back. She knew how important family and history were. Here are her responses, with the questions removed. In this format, it reads as a story of parts of her life.

I was born September 12, 1921 on a farm near Elk City, Oklahoma. I was named Violet Marie Burwell. My father was Ira B. Burwell and my mother was Cecil Pearl Allender Burwell. In those days most children were born at home. The doctor came to the house for the delivery. His name was Dr. Kilpatrick. Grandma Allender came to help, too. I weighed 8 lbs. I had an older sister—June Delight Burwell who was 18 months old when I was born.

I started to school—first grade—January 1928. We did not have kindergarten. It was not a one-room school. There was a teacher for each grade. Since I was not six when school opened—I could not go the first semester. I was six by January, so I went to school only one-half year in first grade then was promoted to second grade. I attended Merritt school located near Elk City, Okla. I rode the school bus to school. It was a consolidated school. At that time in Oklahoma, school started about Aug 1 and ran for six weeks. Then school was dismissed for six weeks. The children were let out of school to pick cotton for their parents. The farmers all grew cotton in that area and some still do. Then after six weeks school started again to finish the school year—nine months.

My sophomore and Junior year I went to Halstead, Kansas to school. Mama thought she was sick so we moved there to be near the hospital. My father stayed on the farm. He owned it. My senior year I stayed with an aunt who was a teacher in the Tulsa school system in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I graduated Tulsa Central High School in May, 1939. By then mama had moved to Hutchinson, Kans. I moved back home and attended Hutchinson Junior College. I taught school two years and took courses at Hays State and also Wichita University. I do not have a degree but I have lots of hours.

One of my favorite things to do when we lived on the farm in Oklahoma was to go to town on Saturday night. We fixed our hair and dressed up and met our friends. We would walk along the streets and visit. Most everyone did this. After we moved to Kansas (I was fourteen) we lived in a rooming house that mama ran. It was kind of like the Bed & Breakfasts we have now.

Our chores were not assigned. We did what had to be done. No electricity on the farm then. We had to garden—had to carry water to water it. We milked cows—maybe 3 or 4—not many. We had milk and butter. We gathered eggs as we had a flock of chickens. I did not chop wood, but we heated the house with wood. We did have fried chicken from our own flock of chickens and sometimes in the winter parents would butcher a pig. We always went to church on Sunday and sometimes ate dinner with other families that went to church or we came home and sometimes had company for dinner. Transportation then was limited—Model T and later a Model A and in 1925—a Buick Touring Car. It was real classy.

[When I was younger,] I do not remember having a job that paid money. Sometimes we were given a little money when we went to town. A candy bar cost 5 cents. My father gave us some money for working in the cotton field. He also hired people to work in the cotton field. We did not have to do it all. When I taught school I was paid $80 per month. This was about what teachers were paid.

I lived in Oklahoma on a farm as a child. Our house was a white frame house—a good house—an average house. There were four rooms downstairs and one large room upstairs. The room upstairs had sloped ceilings. The children slept upstairs. It was heated with wood stoves. No electricity and no cooling in the summer. We all slept outside at night during the hot summer months.

The most exciting thing that happened was the advent of rural electricity—Franklin D Roosevelt was president. He did a lot for the common person. He promoted the building of rural electric lines, the 4H clubs, jobs for people, CCC men who worked in national parks, built outhouses on farms, and did public works. The worst thing was the war. We went from the depression years to the war years. A depression is a disappointment—we couldn’t have what we wanted because there was no money. A war is a heart break—to lose friends to such a senseless act.

Bill and I met when I was teaching school in Stafford Co. He was a native of Stafford County. I went there in Sept. 1940. In 1940 the draft came into being. Males 21 years and over were required to register for the draft. Bill drafted into the army Feb. 1941 and was sent to Camp Robinson, Ark., at Little Rock. War was declared in Dec. 1941. Thirty-Fifth division, Camp Robinson, Little Rock, Ark was shipped to California. They were stationed up and down the California coast. The United States thought Japan was going to attack the west coast.

We were married June 15, 1942, in the Little Church of Flowers at Forest Lawn in Glendale, California. It was a beautiful little church—only movie stars and important people and rich people were allowed to be married there. During the war soldiers were allowed to be married there. We were honored. We went to San Diego on our honeymoon on a three day pass—not a long honeymoon. For the wedding I wore a Sunday-like dress. Bill wore his uniform. During wartime soldiers were not allowed to wear civilian clothes. Guests were soldiers and a few of Bill’s relatives. I had no relatives in California.

I worked as a school teacher before I was married. Why? Because my mothers relatives were all teachers. They thought I should do that, too. During the war I worked in a J.C. Penny store. When we were in Laurel Md.—Fort Meade—I worked in a drug store. Teaching paid more than working in a store. On the move with the army like we were—I had to get a job where I could. I did not renew my teaching certificate.

[When] we were married during the war, the army picked the places we lived: Inglewood, Calif. Buzzard’s Bay, Mass., Enterprise, Ala., Laurel, Md., Little Rock, Ark., Fredericksburg, Va.—to name a few of the places we lived. After the war we lived two years in Los Angeles, Ca., In 1948 we moved to Stafford County, KS and lived there ever since."

I will always remember my grandmother as being a frugal, no-nonsense woman with a dry but clever sense of humor. When we lived with her for a few months after my parents divorced, she had a way of challenging my then-teenage sensibilities (or non-sensibilities). I'd sleep in late and she'd ask me if I was ill. My sister wanted to bring her pet cockatiel and my grandmother would ask why we'd keep a "prairie chicken" in the house. It was summer so the bird ended up on the porch until we moved.

I remember she had us shuck corn from her garden for supper. I put a ceiling fan in her kitchen and she would remark often about how she told all the ladies in church that her granddaughter had installed a ceiling fan.

A few years later she told me about an encounter she had with a possum before church one Sunday morning. She hit the animal over the head with a shovel to stun it and it played the part, then she went inside, retrieved my grandfather's shotgun, and came outside and shot it, still in her Sunday clothes. She had to have been in her mid-80's. Grandma always took care of business.

She ran the family farm all on her own for years after my grandfather passed away. She always had farm cats and a farm dog or two. Her last dog, Dutchess, was a Great Pyrnees whom she loved very much. In her last days her sons took her back to the farm to say hello to Dutchess. After she passed, Dutchess went to live with a friend of mine on her farm in Missouri, but shortly after arriving Dutchess got sick and passed away from cancer.

Violet Marie Burwell died on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 of congestive heart failure. Over Christmas 2010 she came down with pneumonia and ended up in ICU for a month. She was otherwise a very healthy woman into her later years, but the illness left her weakened and disoriented. She only lived a short time at a care facility in Pratt before passing away.