Katy Kelly Research

 Kate Kelly was from North Robinson, Ohio, just west of Crestline.  She moved to Heyworth, Illinois as a teenager, with her family,  including her older sister Mary.  She and her sister were demonstrators/trainers of circular sock knitting machines with Franz and Pope Company in Bucyrus, Ohio for many years and presumably travelled by train.   

It was Sunday.   I had been attending COWS (Crankers of Wonderful Socks) in Monticello, Illinois. The event was over and most everyone had said goodbye.  There was no UCC church in Monticello.  So I visited the local Presbyterian church in honor of Katy Kelly, as her lifelong membership was mentioned in her obituary.   Surprisingly, the liturgy followed the format almost word for word,  that was traditional (not to mention repetitive) in the 1960's-1970's UCC church I attended in Crestline as a child.  

I visited the railroad museum after church.  You can see Bucyrus Ohio, where Franz and Pope was located, on the far east side of the 1890's railroad map I found in the museum.  I tried to trace a direct line from Bucyrus to Heyworth on the map.  A straight line west from Bucyrus, roughly paralleling the route I took on the Lincoln Highway, would have put them at Gilman.  To get to Heyworth by train, they would have had to go further west on the train they were on to maybe El Paso, then head south.  This map dates from the 1910, though, so it is possible that these rail lines did not exist when Stephen Kelly migrated west in 1881. 

Kelley family move to illinois

Article from Mar 4, 1881 Bucyrus Journal (Bucyrus, Ohio)

 

The article states that the entire town of North Robinson gathered at the depot, despite the cold rain, so I am assuming they travelled by railroad. 

 

Katy's husband was a farmer, and her sister married a state senator.  I had no trouble finding the cemetery in Heyworth and no trouble finding their stones.  

I also found the stone for Stephen Kelly, their father.  It was on the other side of my car seen in the background above, about four rows in. 

I also noticed a very large memorial stone with "Rutledge" name on it.  I assumed that the size meant they were promiment members of the community. 

It's maybe the same size town as Crestline. I ate a very reasonably-priced and delicious hamburger in Heyworth at one of the two restaurants. 

Yesterday I visited the historical museum in Bloomington, Illinois. The area where I am staying in Bloomington is quite a contrast to the small towns of Monticello and Heyworth.  It is more like Hall Road in Macomb, Michigan.  In contrast, the Bloomington home of Katy Kelly, where she spent her last years, was a quiet residential street next to the Grove Street Historic District where many Victorian mansions have been preserved.  Katy's spacious home appears to have been converted into apartments. 

Katy Kelly McComb's home

Mansion next door to McComb home.

I spent several hours at the historical museum. I probably exceeded the 90-minute parking limit, but since I was legally parked in a handicapped space, the signage did not indicate a time limit.  Luckily I did not get a ticket. 

When the Kellys first moved to McLean county in 1881, Stephen Kelly landed in Randolph Township. Unfortunately the available atlases were published in 1875 and 1894.  He passed away in 1889.  So if he did own land, it would not have been shown on the plat maps for either of those years.  He could have also been a tenant farmer, or even lived in town.   If I want to dig further I will have to visit the government offices.  

 I found a plat map in an atlas in the gift shop, marked "for display only", showing J B McComb, Katy's husband,  in Downs Township, McLean County.  The farm was just on the edge of Downs township, next to LeRoy Township. 

The museum had a display devoted to farming in McLean county.  It was quite interesting, there was a small "tractor seat" theatre that showed the evolution of farms from small holdings with wheat, oats, corn, beans, and lots of livestock like chickens, pigs, beef, dairy and horses to today's corn/soybean rotation with little livestock.  The coming of the tractor meant that draft animals like Percheron horses and and oxen weren't needed on the farm, and the advent of the automobile meant that harness horses were no longer needed.  The wheat and oat crops previously raised for livestock feed were not needed as livestock husbandry moved to feedlots and industrial poultry operations.  

I noticed that the lithographs used in the film were very similar to the ones in my 1873 Atlas of Crawford County, Ohio and I presumed that they were taken from a similar atlast for McLean County, perhaps the one I had seen in the gift shop. 

I then spent some time in the research library in the museum, but really didn't find anything of note.  

On Tuesday I visited the Heyworth Library, where I spoke with Sunny, a volunteer. She turned out to be also the historian of the local Presbyterian church, so I explained what I was doing and she said she would see if she could find anything.  She gave me a few resources, which are also available online. I asked about the Rutledges (the family with the large memorial stone.)  I had noticed in one of my newspaper clippings that Mrs. J. B. McComb (aka Katy Kelly) had been the hostess of a meeting of the Rutledge Social Club.  I asked Sunny and she wasn't sure who the Rutledges were.

 I spent some time comparing Google Maps to the Plat map showing the J. B. McComb farm.  It seemed to me that perhaps the I-74 highway had been built in the railroad right-of-way. 

Then I drove out to the spot where I thought the farm might have been.  There was nothing there except corn and soybeans.   I drove to the spot where the road dividing the townships of Randolph and LeRoy crossed over I-74 for a higher vantage point over the flat landscape. 

"Prairie Madness" is a condition that was described by Willa Cather in her novel "Oh Pioneers!"  I found a reference in Wikipedia and also the link to an article in "The Daily Beast' that refers to the novel.  

    "Prairie madness was caused by the isolation and tough living conditions on the prairie. The level of isolation depended on the topography and geography of the region. Most examples of prairie madness come from the Great Plains region. One explanation for these high levels of isolation was the Homestead Act of 1862. This act stipulated that a person would be given a tract of 160 acres if they were able to live on it and make something out of it in a five-year period. The farms of the Homestead Act were at least half a mile apart, but usually much more. Although there were thriving Indigenous nations and communities, there was little settlement of Europeans on the Plains and settlers had to be almost completely self-sufficient.

The lack of quick and easily available transportation was also a cause of prairie madness; settlers were far apart from one another and they could not see their neighbors or get to town easily. (In many areas, towns were usually located along the railroads and 10–20 miles (16–32 km) apart—close enough for people to bring their goods to market within a day's travel, but not close enough for most people to see town on more than an infrequent basis. This particularly applied to women who were often left behind to tend to family and farm while the men went to town.) Those who had family back on the East coast could not visit their families without embarking on a long journey. Settlers were very alone. This isolation also caused problems with medical care; it took such a long time to get to the farms that when children fell sick they frequently died. This caused a lot of trauma for the parents, and contributed to prairie madness. "   Wikipedia, downloaded 7/30/2023 1:22 pm. 

I remember that my own mother had a copy of Cather's "My Antonia" on her headboard of her bed.  She had come to an Ohio farm of 80 acres (half an original land grant) when she married my father, having met him on the beach in Jacksonville when he was in the Navy. Ohio's landscape is not nearly as flat as the Great Plains, being in the foothills of the Appalachies, but she still was quite isolated, on a farm six miles from town, away from her family and friends.  To make regular long-distance calls to Florida at that time was not in our family's budget.  My father's sisters did welcome her, and she joined the local Extension homemaker's club, church,  and the monthly township council meeting, but the bulk of her days were spent alone with four children and no car until the late 1960's.  

I have to wonder if some of Kate Kelly's work with Franz and Pope was a way of coping with the loneliness of the farm land.  She could hop onto a railroad and be in Philadelphia in 10 hours. 

Tuesday night I ate dinner at the Epiphany Farms restaurant in downtown Bloomington.  An anonymous benefactor paid my bill, making me feel grateful, and also a little concerned about my possibly disheveled appearance.  Did I look like I was in need? 

I visited LeRoy on Wednesday, the last day before returning home. The library in LeRoy is a new building, built in classical style.  The upstairs is the library, and below, in the basement, is the historical museum.  The librarians were quite helpful.  In fact they pointed me to some scrapbooks kept in the library which are not available online, and in one of them were newspaper clippings about the Rutledge Social club.  It was the oldest social club in McLean County, and was organized for the purpose of doing good work and providing a social outlet.   I thought about my mother's experience with the Homemaker's club. 

The librarians also tipped me to the fact that the historical museum was not always open, but it happened that the docent was available that day.  So I interrupted my library research to visit the historical museum.  The docent was quite glad to see me, it seems that she did not get a lot of visitors.  But she was able to provide me with the original copy of several books.  I made sure that they were also available electronically online, and snapped a photo of the cover plate to let me research them more thoroughly at home. 

I had been suffering with a cough for the last several days.  I had planned on following my visit in McLean county with a stop on the way home to ride with some fellow cyclists, but I decided that it would be too difficult with my coughing and the weather forecast of 100+ heat index and the planned 50-mile ride each day.  So I texted in my regrets and drove home. 

COWS - Crankers of Wonderful Socks

 I packed a suitcase full of bicycle jerseys and dresses the day before I was supposed to leave for COWS.  COWS is Crankers of Wonderful Socks, a convention of sorts for sock knitting machine enthusiasts held in Monticello, Illinois.  The day I was supposed to leave, I took some time to stake my tomato plants which had started to sprawl.  Then I watered the garden.  Then I pulled some weeds.  Then I fixed lunch. 

Mind you I had still not packed up the Home Profit Master Machine and the Franz and Pope machine into the back of my car, nor had I checked over my bicycle.  After COWS I intended to spend a few days around Bloomington, Illinois, then head over to the Cardinal Trail in Indiana to stay overnight in a mansion with some over-60 women cyclists.   So, a total tour from Wednesday to the following Friday, away from my husband.  I really didn't want to leave him for so long.  But I was also looking forward to seeing other knitting friends. 

I finally did get everything packed, then I few in a few extra skeins of yarn.  Last minute trip anxiety had me packing extra stuff.  I also packed my huge poster with the Franz and Pope ad inside its cardboard sleeve.  It blocked the rear window and I couldn't see behind me, so I rearranged everything so that I could see.  I pulled away from Ohio and got four miles down the road when I realized I had forgotten my wallet with my ATM and credit cards that I had been carrying around in my jeans pocket the day before. So I turned around and went back to get it.  

Finally, I was on the road.  I took Route 30 West.  This highway is also known as the Lincoln Highway, as it was the route Abraham Lincoln supposedly took from Kentucky through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The new interstate roughly parallels the historic highways that are now named 330, 430 and so on.    Google maps routed me along some really narrow country roads in western Indiana.  I realized how close to the Great Plains I was getting.  I thought that northwest Ohio was pretty flat, but Indiana and Illinois are even flatter. The weather was beautiful, the flat horizon defining the border between blue sky and green fields of corn and soybeans.   I finally arrived at the hotel in Monticello at about 9:30 pm, and I found my friends Merida and Deb waiting for me to help me set up.  They had saved a place for me! They had arrived the day before and started knitting promptly when the event began at noon.  

The next morning I ran into my friend Dorinda from Grand Blanc before breakfast.  I was taking my bicycle out to ride to Allerton Park before sitting down to knit. Dorinda was there with her friend Sharon who I also knew from my time in Michigan. They introduced me to their friend Jan, who had brought along some flatbed knitting machines.  Left to right, Dorinda, Deb, Merida, Jan, Sharon, and me. You can see my poster behind my head. 

Many of the attendees were using their new Tru-Knit machines, which Jamie Mayfield and her husband have started to deliver.  This product has been in development for a few years.  Yesterday Jamie posted in Facebook "I created the tru-knit to be an open cam machine on purpose. An open cam as defined by me is one that you can see the needle butts in action.

Some people like to make a big deal that their machine can go backwards and forwards without raising needles. (Machines with closed cams do this)

1. That’s with no yarn on the machine (they might forget to mention this part)

2. If there was yarn on the machine and you tried to reverse direction, you would drop about 5 stitches because they would be down inside the cylinder when yarn passed them by! I do not understand why anyone would think this a desirable trait of a csm. But for some reason, this is and has been a selling point for years.

I chose an open cam for several reasons:

1. I hate fishing out a ribber needle when I drop it inside the cylinder between the wall and the cylinder

2. You can not see what’s causing the dead stop. It’s always a needle butt somewhere but with a closed cam, you can’t see it.

3. The wall around the cylinder gets in my way when doing cables and changing needles.

Now, the open cam has features that make it different than other open cam machines that one would never even notice unless they actually use the machine that they manufacture.

The tru—knit is NOT made from castings. I consider this to be a less than desirable material when machining. The parts are made from solid stock or tubing. They are machined on state of the art CNC machines (please see previous posts for pictures of the clean machine shop where parts would NEVER be piled in a shopping cart) in Missouri.

The machine has no unsightly welds. And parts were never flat then bent by hand, curved parts are machined with the proper (accurate) curve.

Aluminum parts are anodized (a surface hardening process) and some of these parts are colored black. The black will not chip off like powder coating or paint does.

It is made from non magnetic stainless and aluminum. There is one steel ring on the inside of the machine. It is there so that the anodizer can’t screw it up. The counter counts with a magnet that has to be glued to the machine since there’s nothing that’s magnetic.

The stainless stem weights are magnetic because they don’t get close to the machine.

All machine brands work differently and you don’t just sit down to a new style of machine and make a sock without previous experience on said machine. One must learn a new operating system before one can make it work. Think of it like this, if you’re an iPhone user and you switch to android, it does the same thing and has the same features but all the buttons are in different spots.

I created this machine with the help of lots of my knitting friends. We sat around making lists of the features we wanted to see in a machine, combining features from antique machines and thinking up new features that we thought would be great if the machine could do that.

I test the machine by making a sample sock that I project to fit the intended recipient. I include a card with the pattern I used. I include the rest of the cone of yarn so that the receiver can make the same sock at the same tension. If it fits, they can use the same rows for the foot. If too big or too small, they can count how many rows to make their sock.

The tru-knit also comes with my customer care. I answer the phone on nights and weekends (just not in the middle of the night). In rare instances where I am not available, I have someone on call to help. I have thousands of references as to my character and my willingness to get someone knitting.

For those who don’t know, I worked in a family business for many years selling sock machines before my mom relieved me of my duties and I took off on my own.

If you have further questions, you are welcome to pick up the phone and call me or go to www(dot)tru-knit(dot)com. My phone number and my email address is listed there.

I will not respond to nasty, hateful , or inaccurate remarks.

You can also see the tru-knit in action for free every Friday on Socktv. If you are a subscriber, you can see it perform all duties and functions. I make mistakes just like everyone else and they are embraced in order to make them a teachable moment. Since that’s what Socktv is about. I also have a tru-knit YouTube channel."

Everyone knitting with a TruKnit was raving about them.  My intentions for the weekend were to make one pair of socks on the Franz and Pope and then do some ribbed socks on the Master Machine. 

It took me all weekend to make a single pair of socks on the Franz and Pope.  I knit them from Aktiv yarn.  I struggled with the Franz and Pope, and I struggled with not having good habits from knitting frequently enough.  They will look better once I block them. 

 

When I decided on a 3x1 mock rib, I set up the needles for a 1x1 mock rib, and didn't realize it until I had hung a hem and knit four inches of sock.  Well, that was a waste of time! 

Franz and Pope advertised that a sock could be made in seven minutes.  If I didn't put any needles out of the machine to make a mock rib, if I didn't allow any interruptions or loss of focus, and I didn't drop any stitches, I might be able to achieve that. 

Durinda and Sharon were smart, they did not work on sock projects.  A crank-in is not an environment where you can achieve perfect focus.  Nontheless, Shelly, another knitter from Ohio, managed to crank out several pairs plus a pair of mittens!  

Despite only making one pair of socks, I had a great time, met some new people, and learned a lot about the Tru-Knit.  Can I justify the purchase of a third circular sock machine? Maybe not. 

Franz and Pope Restoration Part 6 - Success!

I have not heard anything back from the Knitting Elements sales team.  I don't know if it is because they don't have needles specifically to meet my specs, or if it is because they only deal in large quantities of industrial needles.  

In the meantime,  I responded to Milissa Ellison Dewey's post in one of the circular sock knitting machine groups on Facebook with some facts I gleaned from the research I am doing into the history of the Franz and Pope Company.  One thing led to another, and eventually she messaged me privately and she suggested that I try the Imperia needles on the Angora Valley web site as they may be the correct gauge, correct butt height, and only slightly longer needle.  The Franz and Pope yarn carrier is not adjustable for height.  She happened to have some of that type of needle in her stash (she has an incredible number of antique machines), and she went ahead and installed it in her machine and sent me a short video, it was working perfectly. 

So I went ahead and ordered the Imperia needles from Angora Valley.  A few days later they arrived.

The Imperia needle is on the left, and the original needle is on the right.  

They work smoothly in my machine.  I was a little concerned about the curve in the shank of the needle but apparently it does not matter. 

I used the vintage weights I ordered from an ebay auction in Nova Scotia, the Kris Krafter buckle, and borrowed my heel fork from my Master Machine.