E. Claire Henderson was a life-long resident of Tingley. He was born May 28, 1897. My great grandparents always said that it snowed the day Claire was born. Although he was a school administrator in various communities across southern Iowa, he always maintained a home in Tingley.

Grandpa Claire was my paternal grandfather and he was a terrible tease. One of his biggest jokes concerned his finger. Grandpa was missing the ring finger on his left hand. When asked what happened to it, he always said that the chickens ate it. As a child, I had terrifying images of giant, angry chickens snapping off his finger.

When I was in high school, I was finally told the truth -- the chickens ate it. When he was 17, he was roping a calf in the barn on the family farm north of Tingley. Just as he was tying the rope to a spike in the wall, the calf bolted. His class ring caught on the spike and amputated his finger. When his dad went to retrieve the finger so that it could be reattached, the chickens had eaten it.

Contribution by Margaret Henderson Ebersold, July of 2009