Mother's high school and high school diary

News reports today tell us the old high school building in Stafford, Stafford, Kansas burned last night, evidently from arson. My mother, Ruby Flanders Margheim Craine, graduated from Stafford High School in 1943. This is what the building looked like then:

Several years ago my half-sister Julie gave me the diary my mother wrote in while she attended Stafford High School. Somehow, that makes me feel more connected to this landmark building. My mother spent years and fun times in this building as a teenager. 

I transcribed my mother's diary and also copied the original pages in mom's beautiful handwriting, then made copies for each of her children and grandchildren.

Just today I was looking in Google maps at the corner where my mother's parents lived in Stafford, KS. Their address was 602 N. Union, but it's a vacant lot now. I made a photo of the map, however, because it has significance to me. Shortly after I met my husband, he encouraged me, tirelessly, to research them on the internet. This was in 1991 and I had not yet used the internet for anything personal. I argued with him that I'd NEVER find anything about my grandparents on the internet. My words to him were (over and over): "My Grandpa and Grandma Flanders lived in this little old house on this little old corner in this little old town of Stafford, Kansas. We're not going to find anything about them on the internet!" Words I've eaten many times since then. Of course when I finally gave in and sat down at the computer in the Family History Center at the LDS building in Colorado Springs, I found a lot of information about them. I even learned, for the first time, that I had cousins living in California! News to me! That was actually the beginning of my genealogy research.

I don't have any good pictures of their house when I visited as a child, but here are a couple of photos I do have: 

Becky and Dennis Margheim with Grandma Nannie (Becker) Flanders, Stafford, KS

Twins Dennis and Becky Margheim at Grandpa and Grandma Flanders' home in Stafford, KS. 1949

This is what the lot looks like today from the air:

So many things are gone. But my memories live on!