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PITTSBURG —
Mildred Boggs, a Vintage Place resident, will celebrate her 100th birthday today.
Mildred Allene McKay was born June 12, 1912, to Allen J. and Minerva Jane “Jenny” Hollingsworth McKay on a farm five miles west of Liberal, Mo. Her father was a farmer who also worked at the area coal mining company as an operator of the tipple.
Her father was the son of Benton and Margaret Waltz McKay. Benton McKay was a county circuit judge and rode on horseback to hold court at the county courthouse in Lamar, Mo.
Mrs. Boggs’ mother came to Missouri by covered wagon from Palmyra, Ill., in 1898 when she was 15. She played the organ and became a school teacher in the Coal Valley district, where she met her future husband.
The couple had seven children, five boys and two girls.
“You can imagine how much razzing my mother and her sister, Ruth, took from five brothers,” said Janice Klein, Plevna, Kan., daughter of Mrs. Boggs.
She said that the children walked the half-mile to their country school, but on some occasions her mother was allowed to ride her pony, Billy. Some winters it was not uncommon for the children to walk across the fence tops over the deep drifts of snow.
“My mother can still recall, in vivid detail, just how frightening it was to her and Ruth to be caught out in the field and chased home by their father’s bull,” Klein said. “They ran for the barn, getting the door shut and latched at the last possible moment.”
Her mother took piano lessons and played for many school functions and activities.
“Her first recital was held at the new Pittsburg High School building in 1922,” Klein said. “She was 10 years old.”
Mrs. Boggs is a member of the Mulberry High School class of 1931, which celebrated its 75th anniversary at the alumni reunion banquet in 2006.
Tom McKay, Liberal, her nephew, decided that his aunt should arrive at the celebration in a car made in the same year as her graduation, so he drove her to the event in a polished 1931 Ford roadster, accompanied by Klein and her husband, Bob Klein.
After her school years, her mother took a job doing domestic work.
“My mother worked hard for a family of five, doing the cooking, laundry, ironing, scrubbing and caring for the children,” Klein said. “A week’s pay consisted of room and board plus a salary of $3.”
Mildred Boggs, a Vintage Place resident, will celebrate her 100th birthday today.
Mildred Allene McKay was born June 12, 1912, to Allen J. and Minerva Jane “Jenny” Hollingsworth McKay on a farm five miles west of Liberal, Mo. Her father was a farmer who also worked at the area coal mining company as an operator of the tipple.
Her father was the son of Benton and Margaret Waltz McKay. Benton McKay was a county circuit judge and rode on horseback to hold court at the county courthouse in Lamar, Mo.
Mrs. Boggs’ mother came to Missouri by covered wagon from Palmyra, Ill., in 1898 when she was 15. She played the organ and became a school teacher in the Coal Valley district, where she met her future husband.
The couple had seven children, five boys and two girls.
“You can imagine how much razzing my mother and her sister, Ruth, took from five brothers,” said Janice Klein, Plevna, Kan., daughter of Mrs. Boggs.
She said that the children walked the half-mile to their country school, but on some occasions her mother was allowed to ride her pony, Billy. Some winters it was not uncommon for the children to walk across the fence tops over the deep drifts of snow.
“My mother can still recall, in vivid detail, just how frightening it was to her and Ruth to be caught out in the field and chased home by their father’s bull,” Klein said. “They ran for the barn, getting the door shut and latched at the last possible moment.”
Her mother took piano lessons and played for many school functions and activities.
“Her first recital was held at the new Pittsburg High School building in 1922,” Klein said. “She was 10 years old.”
Mrs. Boggs is a member of the Mulberry High School class of 1931, which celebrated its 75th anniversary at the alumni reunion banquet in 2006.
Tom McKay, Liberal, her nephew, decided that his aunt should arrive at the celebration in a car made in the same year as her graduation, so he drove her to the event in a polished 1931 Ford roadster, accompanied by Klein and her husband, Bob Klein.
After her school years, her mother took a job doing domestic work.
“My mother worked hard for a family of five, doing the cooking, laundry, ironing, scrubbing and caring for the children,” Klein said. “A week’s pay consisted of room and board plus a salary of $3.”
At 19 she underwent goiter surgery, a very delicate procedure at that time.
“This involved a large incision being made across the throat area and it was performed under local anesthesia,” Klein said. “This allowed the surgeon to talk with her and keep a check on the vocal cords throughout the surgery.”
When she was in her early 20s, Mildred McKay was introduced to a handsome, dark-haired young man named Fred C. Boggs. After dating about three years, they were married on May 16, 1936 at Liberal. Boggs owned and operated Boggs Garage in Pittsburg, working overtime many nights to provide for his wife and their three children, son John and daughters Janice and Marilynn.
Mrs. Boggs loved gardening and sewing, and used both skills to provide for her family.
“She was a beautiful seamstress and her stitches were never less than perfect,” Klein said. “She sewed and outfitted the three of us children up until the time we reached high school, making apparel ranging from shirts and skirts to formals, coats and suits.”
Mrs. Boggs had a vegetable garden and enjoyed canning with her mother and sister Ruth.
“This was an all-day affair and usually took place at our house,” Klein said. “Pretty jars of colorful canned peaches, pineapple, cherries, beets and blackberry jam soon filled the shelves of our little storage area. Grandma Jenny still liked to make her own laundry soap, so Mom would save the bacon grease, buy the lye and they would make the soap.”
Klein added that her mother always grew the prettiest flowers on the block, and beautiful cut flowers graced the family dining table all summer long.
Every summer in the first part of July, Mrs. Boggs would go blackberry picking.
“We would literally take a dust bath in sulfur powder, supposedly to ward off chiggers,” Klein said. “Mom would load up the car with us kids and a packed lunch with cold drinks, then we would pick up her sister Ruth and her two boys, and off we would go to the coal dumps to pick berries.”
Klein added that she has inherited her mother’s “blackberry genes,” and couldn’t think of living in the country without having a blackberry patch. She and her husband have a large berry crop planted on their land near Plevna, in the sand hills of south central Kansas.
Christmas time always meant candy making in the Boggs home. Mrs. Boggs loved chocolate fudge and peanut brittle, but her children most enjoyed their times of taffy pulling.
“Mom would divide the cooked taffy into several small portions, allowing each of us to pick and choose his or her favorite flavorings,” Klein said. “Then the pulling would begin. Even now as we recall these fond memories, we can almost taste that sweet confection that we made so many years ago. It was just pure heavenly.”
She said that her parents provided private music lessons and college for their children, supported them in Boy Scout and Girl Scout programs and always attended their school functions.
Mrs. Boggs is a charter member of the 20th Century Sunday School Class of the First Christian Church, now known as the 21st Century Class, and was also a member of the Pleasant Prairie Extension Unit.
“Mom kept our home spotless, and we always felt a sense of pride in bringing friends home with us,” Klein said. “We children were very blessed, and give our thanks to God for these wonderful parents who provided a warm and loving home for us. They worked so hard to provide for our needs, along with giving us a safe and secure place to grow up in, and instilling memories of a happy childhood for us.”
Fred Boggs died on March 21, 1997, at the age of 89.
Their son, John Boggs, lives in Pleasant View, Tenn., with his wife Frances.
Daughter Janice Klein lives in Plevna with husband Bob and daughter Marilynn Toomey lives in Holton with husband Terry.
There are seven grandchildren, with one deceased infant, and nine great-grandchildren, with one deceased infant.
The immediate family will have a celebration and party in honor of Mrs. Boggs’ birthday. A release of 100 white balloons is also planned today at Vintage Place.
