Brother
Chris Vogt in 1954
By Doug Boilesen 2018 (my uncle and
half-brother of Betty Ann Barr).
Chris "Crissie" Vogt, who
was born on November 4, 1907 at Elba, Nebraska to Frank and Anna Ellen
Ender Vogt.
Chris had one brother, Ray Vogt, a sister
Fay and seventeen years later half-sister Betty Ann Barr.
Fay, Chris and Ray Vogt,
circa 1908
Chris circa 1909
Chris grew up in the Elba area. He married
Miss Hilda Jensen in 1926.
Chris and Hilda had two children, Dorothy
Jean Vogt Holechek (b. 1927) and Franklyn "Sonny" Vogt (b.
1934). Throughout Betty Ann's diary Chris and Hilda are always referred
to as "Crissie's."
Cotesfield News:
The Phonograph, St. Paul, Nebraska February 13, 1929
Chris and Hilda, Christmas
1951 at Anna and Manley's farm with daughter Dorothy and 'Sonny'
Like many Nebraskans, Chris
and Hilda had hard times during the Great Depression and lived with
my grandparents Anna and Manley Barr while they got back on their
feet. During the week Chris would drive to small towns of Nebraska
selling brooms and then return to Elba on the weekend. (1)
According to Mom, Chris
enjoyed Rice Krispies and "ate very large bowls".
1933 Rice Krispies ad
I don't know much about
Chris's later worklife but do know that Hilda worked in the ladies'
dress department at Gold's in Lincoln for many years.
Chris and Hilda, 1951
Chris Vogt, November
4, 1907 - January 1, 1987
Hilda Jensen Vogt, January
20, 1910 - November 1, 1982
Chris had quite a sense
of humor and liked to try to shock his much younger step-sister, Betty,
which he was probably trying to do when this picture was taken with
me standing between my two two uncles with a cigar in my mouth.
Chris, Doug and Ray at
a family picnic in Grand Island, Nebraska ca. 1953
Chris and his mom, ca.
1952.
Chris and Hilda lived in
an apartment near the State Capitol Building in downtown Lincoln and
I can remember as a little boy that we would visit them on Sunday
afternoons.
They had a light fixture
in the middle of ceiling of their living room and Chris would work
it out so that when I wasn't looking he would have a candy bar or
other wrapped candy seemingly fall out of that light fixture. I think
I was a bit skeptical that candy was actually coming out of that light
fixture but I didn't really question it and was happy to gather the
candy and eat it.
Chris and Doug outside
Chris and Hilda's apartment building, ca. 1954.
Years later Chris would
like to remind me of the time that I spent the night at their small
apartment and I slept in the same Murphy bed with Chris. I had just
gotten a new flashlight and he claimed I kept shining that light in
his face all night long.
One other story I also
remember Uncle Chris telling me was about his early experience of
going to the moving pictures.
In the summers there were weekend movies
shown in Elba during the teens and 1920's. Since there was no movie
theatre in Elba the silent movies were projected on the outside wall
of the grocery store for people to watch who sat in the empty lot
next to the store on chairs and blankets.
According to Chris he would ride his
horse to Elba on a Saturday night if there was to be a movie that
night and if the weather was ok. This would have been about a 2.5
mile ride from his mom's family farm outside of Elba. Though not a
great distance he still would have been a teenager and it would have
been quite dark as there were no farm yard lights or outdoor lighting
as the Rural Electrication Administration did not yet exist. Lighting
for his journey home, therefore, would have primarily been by the
light of the moon. But that was no deterrent for Chris as he thought
there was nothing better than watching a good western moving picture
on a Saturday night.
I don't know the name of the movie or
its star (perhaps Hoot Gibson, Tom Mix, William S. Hart or some other
movie hero of the day) but Uncle Chris remembered a particular movie
from some western serial (1) which left him quite perplexed. On one
of those evenings the movie's single reel had ended and the situation
was dire: the cowboy and his horse were stuck in quicksand and they
were slowly sinking to certain death.
Tom Mix, The Best
Bad Man 1925
What concerned Uncle Chris
and what he said he couldn't understand was how that unfortunate cowboy
was going to survive all week in that quicksand.
Now he probably told me
that story with a smile as I was young and he might have thought I
wouldn't get the disconnect that this was only a movie.
Or perhaps he really was
worried all week about the fate of that cowboy. Suspended belief,
after all, has its own reality and is a requirement for enjoying a
good story.
Either way this new wonder
of moving pictures was making strong impressions on Chris at the time
and it was a memory he enjoyed sharing.
July 1965 - Betty, Chris,
Fay, Manley
1976 Chris, Betty and
Hilda
Footnotes
(1) A movie serial was a series of short
movies or one-reelers that were designed to be seen as episodes. They
were famous for leaving you wanting to know what was going to happen
next.
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