This is a picture of my great-grandfather Cal Drew and his dog Snoop.
He was born Carle “Enrique” Drew in Creston, Iowa in 1857. His siblings all called him “Reek”- he quickly changed his name. He married Estella Meacham in Rice County, Kansas in 1882 and they led a varied and interesting life.
They homesteaded a farm northwest of Chase, Kansas. In the winter Cal hunted, and shipped many ducks from the salt marshes at Stafford, Kansas to eastern markets. He was in charge of the Stafford Gun Club and the Salt Marsh Hunting Club for some time. The picture comes from this time period.
Around 1904 Cal and Estella had a merry-go-round and an arc-light movie machine and in the summer they set up shows in small Kansas towns.
My aunt wrote a profile of Cal which gives a little more information about him and his wife Estella.
Calvin was a handsome man and his wife Estella was an excellent needlewoman and so kept him supplied with beautifully embroidered black sateen shirts, the cuffs and fronts of them being heavily embroidered. Calvin played the bones and perhaps the french harp with a small groupd of men who played for dances in and around Chase, Kansas.
In 1912 Cal and Estella moved to Wichita, Kansas – to a house next door to their daughter, Mabel. After Estella died during the flu epidemic in 1914 Cal wandered for a while, living first in Protection, Kansas and then in Hutchison. He returned to Wichita to live with his daughter in 1920 and died there in 1928.
A lengthier version of this article was written for Week 2 (Jan 8-14) of the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge.