William (Buck) R. Buckingham - Part 1, Childhood in Harrisburg, Indiana

Dad was born in Connersville, Indiana, but grew up on a small farm between there and Harrisburg, a nearby village. The farm was probably no more than three or four acres. They had a couple of cows and some chickens, but their place was mainly a residence, not a working farm. Dad grew to be tall and lanky. At six-foot three he bested his two older brothers by several inches. Tom, the oldest, was born in 1907. George followed in 1909, and then Annis in 1911. Dad came a year later in 1912, and the family was complete with the birth of Martha in 1918.

The Trees and our 1936 Ford in front of Dad's Childhood home

I don’t remember Dad relating a single thing about his childhood. I’ve spoken to several cousins and they tell the same tale. There was a curious silence from dad and his siblings about their formative years. The four older were in their teens during the 1920’s, but little has filtered down to us about the farm, how they did in school, life around Connersville and Harrisburg, who they hung around with, or what they did. Mom told of Dad’s interest in radio at a time when broadcasting was in its infancy. He built “crystal” radios and strung antenna wires crisscrossing the attic. Cousin Sarah, Aunt Annis’s daughter, wrote, “My mother always told me how smart he (Dad) was and what a great memory he had…their father let the kids each have one animal pet (chicken, pig, etc.) on the farm… and a charity bought them Christmas gifts one year and dad sawed the head off the doll my mother was given”. That is the extent of what I know about my father’s childhood.

The 1930 US census in Indiana listed all the family in residence except George. He was, apparently, the first to leave the hearth. George would have been twenty-one that year, and had enlisted in the Army, The 1930 Census listed him in the Vancouver Barracks, and indicated he was in the “guard house”. His daughter, Mary Ann, thought of him as being the “black sheep” of the family. He settled in northern California, living around Oroville and Marysville until his death in 1980. Tom, the oldest, moved to Norfolk, Virginia. Annis got a degree at Ball State and migrated ot California by 1935, and Dad moved to Kokomo in 1937. Martha, the youngest, was the only one to remain close to home.
GO TO: Part 2, His Parents