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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