Migration of Carl Darwin Heady from Parsons, Kansas to Sacramento, California
by: Myrl Heady Jeffcoat
 
At 5 minutes past midnight on April 28th, in the year of World War II, 1943, I was born in the little South East Kansas railroad town called Parsons.  From my mother’s accountings it was not a difficult birth. . . consisting of about 4 hours of labor spent most walking around the neighborhood of my mother’s brother and sister-in-law’s (Alvin and Minnie Myers)  home at  319 South 27th Street.  When Dr. R. W. Wells arrived around midnight, he suggested to my mother it was time to go inside the house, where I was born within about 5 minutes.  I was named Myrl Carlene Heady.  I am the namesake of my father’s favorite Aunt Myrrl Kellogg Heady.  She had an extra “r” in her name, which was unknown to my parents at the time of my birth. Although, it is not mentioned on my birth certificate, my Aunt Minnie told me I was of average birth weight, about 7 pounds. 
 
My father was not present at the time of my birth, he had remained in Sacramento, California where he was working as a Carmen at the Western Pacific Railroad.  Sacramento had become the new home of my mother and father.  My mother had returned to Kansas to await my birth in the familiar surroundings of her family and the doctor she had for many years known.
 
Migration of my mother and father from Kansas, after many generations had established the ancestral home there, had come after the turbulence and hardship of the Great Depression years, which had taken extreme tolls on both of them.  My Father, who had been married before and sired 6 children from his first marriage, become divorced.  My Father had the responsibility of raising his children while trying to farm land that was becoming a part of what we currently know as the "dust bowl.”  My mother, who was married to her first husband, Martin Oler, was having an extremely hard time raising a young daughter, by that marriage, Gloria Louise.  My mother’s husband, Martin, had become severely disabled by a condition resembling Multiple Sclerosis (which was not identified in the years of the depression.)  My Father, with his children, and my Mother with her husband and daughter had been friends for several years.  A decision was made to combine forces to try to make it through the terrible times the Great Depression brought.  They rented a small farm called the old Shoneberger place, where they raised enough vegetables, chickens and etc. to feed the families, and still have enough for my mother to can for winter.  My mother would sew clothing for the children from the proverbial “feed sacks” we have all heard about.  She would perform the daily chores homemakers would do in respect to watching over and caring for all of the children, while my father would farm a little, and do odd jobs of roofing and wallpapering.  
 
In 1941, at the end of the Great Depression, my father had visions of warm faraway places like Hawaii and California.  He left Kansas to pursue his dream.  The illness of my mother’s first husband escalated to the point where he was hospitalized and later died.  At the time he became hospitalized, my mother moved back home with her family, and my father began his journey to Hawaii.  On the way, he stopped off to visit an old friend in Sacramento, with whom he had worked on the old MKT Railroad in Parsons.  During that time, on December 7th 1941, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was bombed by the Japanese and the United States was catapulted into World War II.  My father’s plans of proceeding to Hawaii were forever changed.  After procuring work at the Western Pacific Railroad with his friend in Sacramento, he realized after a time that he missed my mother. . .so he sent for her.  They were married on October 9, 1942, in Gardnerville, Nevada. 
 
My father never made it to Hawaii, and put in over 25 years of service to the Western Pacific Railroad in Sacramento, before his death on October 15, 1966.  My mother lived on until September 2, 1975.  She had one last marriage to Ernest E. Olson on December 24, 1967... He preceded her in death.