MH & Mae Kenney

KENNEY MCFARLAND GODSEY GUTHRIE

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 9/15/2010 at 20:16:10

History Of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

M H and Mae Kenney
By Gertrude Kenney

Mack Henry Kenney, the son of Bill Kenney and Dulcena McFarland, was born at Pilot Knob, Tennessee, October 16, 1878. He had three brothers, Hixon, Sam and Jerome, and five sisters, Lou, Lizzie, Minnie, Mary and Pearl.

He came to Iowa in 1901. When he got off the train in Sloan he bought a bicycle and rode to the farm of his cousin, Will Talley, in Lakeport Township. He had never seen corn planted in lister rows. He thought they must have planted potatoes, and there sure were lots of them.

He met and married Betty Godsey in 1906. She died in 1907.

He returned to Tennessee where he met and married Flora Mae Guthrie in 1909. She went by the name of Mae. Mae was the daughter of Mary Ann Ward and Joseph K Guthrie.

Mack and Mae came back to Iowa in 1909 after they were married, and moved to a farm near Whiting. Three of their children were born there. Wayland was born February 25, 1910. Harlan was born December 19, 1910. Maxine was born September 16, 1912.

In 1915, Mack and Mae went back to Whitesburg, Tennessee. It was a difficult trip. Mae took the three children on a passenger train and Mack took three horses on a freight train. He rode in the caboose and had to take the horses off at each stop to feed and water them.

Two more children were born at Whitesburg, Tennessee. Willard was born on February 3, 1917, and Mack Harlow on January 10, 1922. Harland was a diabetic and died in 1922.

In 1929, they came back to Iowa and lived on a farm east of Whiting and worked for Gene Russell.

In 1930, they moved to a farm in Lakeport Township northwest of Sloan and lived there until 1948. They bought a farm one-half mile west of the place they originally farmed. They lived there until M H Kenney died April 15, 1954, and Mae died August 28, 1972.