LETTERS: Congratulations
By ROWENA PLETT
Staff writer
Norma Hannaford, longtime Marion resident and business woman, is about to celebrate her 99th birthday. Her guest commentaries are featured on the editorial page of the Marion County Record every week.
Norma was the oldest of six children. She has two living sisters.
"I had to be the role model," she said. "I had to be good for the rest to follow."
The spirited woman remains in good health although, as she said, she has been getting weaker during the past year.
"I always said I didn't what to live to be 100," she said. "I don't know if I'll make it, but I'm getting closer now."
Norma was born on April 10, 1904, at Leon. Her parents, Gilbert and Mabel McCullough, owned a cattle ranch. They moved to a ranch near El Dorado, where Norma attended a small country school. Teachers boarded at the McCullough home.
When Norma was 12 years old, the family moved to El Dorado, where her father started one of the first gas service stations in town. The year was 1916, and cars were new on the scene.
El Dorado was experiencing an oil boom, Norma said, so the town was bustling with activity.
The United States was drawn into World War I. Norma joined many others in knitting scarves for enlisted men. Whenever soldiers traveled through town, people went down to the train station and waved at them.
"Of course, I liked the boys," Norma said, smiling. She said most couple activities were done in groups, playing games and dancing.
She experienced the "flapper 20s," as they came to be known. "It was kind of a wild period of time, with wild music and dancing," Norma recalled.
After Norma's junior year in high school, the family moved to Marion. She graduated from Marion High School in 1922.
The McCulloughs lived on Elm Street. Norma's father managed a Kelly gas station "at the bottom of the hill" on East Main Street just east of the Luta Creek bridge. Years later, the building was remodeled and became a lawyer's office.
After high school, Norma attended a girls' church school in Columbia, Mo. She especially enjoyed dancing and swimming classes.
"We all fell in love with our Spanish teacher because he was so good-looking," she recalled.
The girls had strict rules not to leave campus without permission.
After returning home to Marion, Norma began to assert her independence:
"I thought I was a big shot. I could do everything."
She conducted a dancing school and also joined with a friend, Ethel Gardner, to operate a daycare or pre-school class with about 10 children. They met in an upstairs room in the current Marion County Health Department building at Third and Main.
Then, deciding she wanted to be a teacher, Norma attended Emporia Normal School for a year and summer.
"I should have gotten my teaching certificate, but I got a MRS degree instead," she joked.
She quit school to marry Roger Hannaford on Aug. 30, 1927. He was a coach and teacher at White City.
Soon afterwards, Roger's uncle, Ed Hannaford, who owned a title company in Marion, asked Roger to join the business, and the couple moved to Marion. The business is one of the oldest in Marion and was located at that time on the second floor of the Marion County Record building on South Third.
The Great Depression of the 1930s was in progress, and times were tough for the young couple.
"Roger was getting $100 a month, but his uncle helped us out until things got better," Norma said.
The three children born to the couple — Wanda, Roger II, and Mary — kept Norma busy. She was involved in clubs, church activities, and civic events and had a backyard vegetable garden. During the World War II years of the 1940s, people's gardens were known as "victory gardens."
Norma said she always had the desire to write. She did write two children's stories which were published in magazines.
When the children got older, she became involved in the family business, which Roger took over from his uncle. Her friend, Ethel Gardner, also had a share in the business. An oil boom in the area during the 1940s kept them very busy.
Roger died in 1949.
When son Roger II, "Bud," went off to serve during the Korean War, she felt she needed help, so she sold half of the business to Dean Batt.
They were partners for about five years until Bud graduated from college and bought Dean's share.
In the 1960s, the Hannafords joined with the Cases to erect a new building on Main Street, where the former Duckwalls building stood until it burned.
Norma continued to do title work for 30 years but also found time to travel.
"I always loved to go and see things," Norma said.
Edward Good, a longtime employee whom she trusted, gave her the opportunity to get away from time to time.
She traveled with family and friends to far away places like Europe, Hawaii, and China. Summer vacations were spent at various places throughout the United States.
After Norma quit working at about age 75, a grandson, Roger III, joined the business.
"Honorarily, I'm still in the business, but not financially," she said. She still has a license as an abstractor.
Norma turned 90 in 1994. In predictable fashion, she threw a big party at Marion Country Club. An orchestra entertained, and a dinner was served to the many guests.
With the help of home health services, meals on wheels, and family and friends, she continues to live in her home at 220 Elm, where she has lived for almost 75 years.
Daughter Wanda Burk lives in Colorado Springs, Colo. Son Roger W. and wife, Lavonne, live in Marion. And Mary Margaret and husband, Robert Exline, live in Salina. Norma has nine grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild.
"My mother certainly is a survivor," Bud said. He noted that she experienced several serious health problems and came through them with flying colors.
Norma thinks that her attitude toward life may contribute to her longevity.
"I've always been an optimistic person," she said.
That optimism shows through in her sense of humor and her willingness to adapt as changes come along.
"My motto is, 'Change is surer than death or taxes'," she said.
She enjoys reading history and biographies, and uses the television to keep up with news and weather. She is an elder in Marion Presbyterian Church, the first woman to serve in that capacity.
She doesn't go out much anymore.
"The thing I miss the most is getting in my car and tootling around town," she said. She gave up driving two years ago.
She has no regrets about her life.
"It was a good ride," she said. "I've enjoyed it. It had its ups and downs like everybody's, but I think I am a lucky woman. From horse and buggy to rockets, I've covered the whole thing."
On April 10, she hopes to enjoy a quiet birthday with family.
