Egg Money - Mabel Gillette Hoofnagle and Alice Gillette Bradley

Mabel and Alice and the Egg Money

This is a story about Mabel Gillette Hoofnagle and Alice Gillette Bradley, two sisters who grew up south of Dodge City at the turn of the century. By the time I was a boy old enough to remember, they were older of course and Mable was my grandmother on my moms side. She had married Glen Hoofnagle whose real name was Ross as he was adopted by Harvey Hoofnagle when a small child. They lived out by Satanta and the Gillettes by out that way also.

Alice lived in South Dodge which by definition was everything south of the railroad tracks. That was part of the original town and grew mainly due to the cattle herds coming in from that direction and the close proximity to the Arkansas River which was vital to towns back in the early days for water.  Wright Park is down there along the river and we spent many a summer afternoon there with the Bradleys and Weiss and Hoofnagles at picnics.

So Alice like many people, had chickens in her back yard. She had a chicken house and pen and provided eggs to people for extra cash money. Now we are talking 10 ro 15 cents a dozen here back in those days but gasoline was 15 cents a gallon too then.

Alice's house was on a railroad spur line and we used to go over there and play on the railroad cars and get in trouble whenever my grandma took me down there to visit. hah. Just a side note.

So Alice would come to my grandmothers on Saturday and deliver eggs for the week and I was often there as my father, Fred Kirkpatrick, came to Dodge to help Charles Williams with a Friday night meeting he was preaching at. I always spent the night at Mabels as they were so much fun.

So they would sit at the kitchen table and talk and talk and talk and talk. Then it came time to leave and Mabel would ask what she owed. Alice would say,. "Now Mabel, you know that two weeks ago, you didn't have change and gave me a quarter so I owed you 15 cents?" And Mabel would say, "No, Alice, I think you gave me two extra eggs that week so I owe you two more cents for those, too." Alice: "Mabel, eggs are 10 cents a dozen so that's not a penny each." Mabel:" but alice, I know I didn't have a nickel last week and you said it was okay?" Alice: "Yes but Mabel, you gave me some tomatoes three weeks ago and a cucumber last Sunday at church?.

So you get the drift., This would go on and on and on while Grandpa Glen and I would sit in the living room and just giggle at them. ITS one of our favorite family stories about Grandma and Alice.