Harry Wendell Kucker
- birth: 20 AUG 1908, Iowa
- death:
1 FEB 1996; Watertown, SD.
Father: Guy Earl Kucker
Mother: Rose Ann Springer
Biography Notes...
Tee talk article-August 2011
IT'S A SMALL WORLD!
Let me do something a little different this month. I'd like to share a something special that has happened to me here at the club.
It started on a crisp, fall day in September of 2009, when I decided to join the Seniors on a Friday morning rather than going to the office. I was paired with someone I had not met before, Phil Stanwood. As we drove down the first fairway I remember asking him "Where's home?" He told me his family was from South Dakota.
That sparked my interest, because I had also grown up in South Dakota. So my next question was "What town?" His response was "A little place you probably never heard of." I said "Try me!" He said "Troy"-----TROY??? (I about fell out of the cart!) I grew up on a dairy farm 2 ½ miles south of TROY!!!!
Then the name Stanwood hit me. I remembered hearing that name many times from my mother. She was still living at that time, so my first call after I got home was to her. She was also excited to hear about my new acquaintance because, she informed me, she had worked for Ed Stanwood in his store in Troy after school as she was growing up. Ed, we found out, was Phil's grandfather! Unfortunately Mom passed away shortly after that phone call, so other than to document her relationship with the Stanwood family the rest of any information departed with her.
A couple of weeks ago I went back to South Dakota for my 50th High School reunion. Mary Louise and I made a point to return to Troy. Many of the buildings that I remembered are gone now-the school, two churches, the grain elevator, the depot-even the dance hall (that I was told to NEVER caught near when I was growing up!) However, the store where my mother worked for Ed Stanwood, has now been converted into a residence and the onlyother two remaining houses were the Stanwood house and the Kucker home. Both are vacant and in very poor repair-but I thought it was interesting that they still standing.
In the small country cemetery north of town, where my parents are buried, I found a row of Stanwood graves adjacent to the Kucker family graves-further documenting the relationship between our two families.
I had one more surprise waiting for me. We spent the next morning with my sister in Wilmot, SD. I shared with her the friendship that Phil and I had developed. She said she thought she had something I might be interested in seeing. With that she brought out a picture from the family archives showing my father and a man named Fay Stanwood in front of the Kucker house in the late 1920s.
I scanned the picture, emailed it to Phil, and said "Do you know this guy?" Phil responded-"Yea I know him, his full name is Charles Fay Stanwood….my father!"
I thought you might enjoy seeing what we found:
Picture came from: Lee Kucker
Date of picture: Unknown
Front row: Unknown
My father stayed in South Dakota and spent his life farming just outside of Troy. I was raised on that farm. Had it not been for a serious accident that caused us to lose the farm in 1964 I might still be there today.
Phil's father left Troy and found his way into the military-joining the marines he fought in World War II. He later returned to Troy for a brief time before moving to Colorado where Phil was born in 1944.
Picture came from: Lee Kucker
Date of picture: Unknown
Front row: Unknown
After twocareers, Phil in research field in Colorado and mine in Genetics research at Michigan State, and the corporate jungle in Ohio and Illinois before entering the Financial Services industry here in California, we now both find ourselves in Oakdale!
What are the probabilities that after more than eighty years and from over 1800 miles from Troy, South Dakota, two guys would meet at Oakdale Golf and Country Club? Isn't it interesting what this sport called golf can bring together?
Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 11:31:27 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jack Kucker "jikucker@net66.com"
Hi Dan,
A brief explanation on where my family (Roy Kucker) fits in relation to Harry Kucker. As you probably know there were 19 Children of which 16 survived into adulthood. My dad was the third oldest (Harry was eleven oldest) and as a young man worked with or for his dad, Guy E.Kucker, with Western Union. My understanding is they put the telegraph line up between Minneapolis, Minn. and Denver, Col. They lived in Troy, South Dakota because it was located about halF Way between Denver and Minneapolis. During downtime in the winter my dad visited his older sister who was married to a chemist living in Delavan, Wisc. While he was there he met my mother and they were married January 14, 1922. They raised 6 children and he never returned to South Dakota to live, making his home in Delavan.
In my youth we made annual trips to Iowa to see his sisters who had married and were living in Iowa. Less frequent trips were made to Rochester, Minn. and South Dakota visiting other aunts and uncles. In later years annual trips were made to South Dakota during the fall for pheasant hunting. Harry's brothers farm you mentioned was probably Calvin Kucker or it could have been his sister Lora Kucker Larson, they had farms in the Watertown area. In addition there were other brothers and sisters living in South Dakota who you may of met.
Have a good day.
Jack
