Ancestor Artifacts - 1909 Commencement Program

Ancestor Artifact

1909 Commencement Program

 

 After sharing Paul Kinnick’s 1912 Personal Notebook and followup 21 conduct issues letter, this post will step back three years, momentarily, to his high school commencement program, share his family information for this period, and set up the following couple of posts which will be letters he wrote his mother from college.

 

There were nine students in his 1909 graduating class at Coon Rapids, Iowa, High School, four females and five males. The only other graduate that I recognize is Bonnie McLaughlin. Interesting. None of the Smith persons listed in the program are relatives - for those of you sure to ask.

Paul would have been 16 years-of-age at graduation, 17 in the summer of 1909 - an August birthday. He would become 20 in the summer of 1912, as he went off to Des Moines to work in the fall.

He was the oldest of the five children in the family of Alonzo (Lon) and Nettie (Williams) Kinnick. in 1912 they were 42 and and 43, respectively. They married on July 6, 1891, when they were 21 and 22. Paul was born in August 1892. Lucille followed in March of 1894, so she was 18 in 1912. Robert, Paul’s only brother, was born in March of 1896, so he was 16 in 1912. Gertrude was third, born in October of 1902. Therefore she was a ten-year-old in 1912. Finally, Lillian was born in May of 1908, so she was just 4 in 1912. As Paul went off to college in Des Moines in 1912, there was still a full household at home in Coon Rapids:
Lon - 42
Nettie - 43
Paul - 20
Lucille - 18 - actually she would marry Wilson Herron in Sep 1912…
Robert - 16
Gertrude - 10
Lillian - 4

I share this here as a reference point as we move on to those two letters written to his mother in September and October in my next two postings - so I won’t repeat this context there.


Families are Forever! ;-)