William and Edna Hampton

William Hampton born March 22, 1884 Franklin, Ky Death Dec. 7, 1967 Indianapolis Marion county, Indiana Burial Culver Masonic Cemetery

William Hampton, 83, 1901 Copenhaver Dr., Indianapolis, Ind., passed away at 7:00 a.m. Thursday Dec. 7, 1967 at the Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis following a two-week illness.

He was born March 22, 1884 at Franklin, Ky. He lived in Culver for many years before moving to Indianapolis in 1966. He was a caterer and a member of the St. Mary's of the Lake Catholic Church.

He was married Jan. 1911 to Edna Grant. She preceeded him in death in 1960.

Surviving is one son, William A. Hampton of Indianapolis and three grandchildren.

Funeral services were held at 10:00 a.m. Saturday Dec. 9, at the St. Mary's of the Lake Church with Father Joseph Lenk officiating.

Burial followed in the Culver Masonic Cemetery.

The Easterday-Bonnie Funeral Home, where the rosary was recited at 8:00 p.m. Friday, was in charge of the arrangements. - THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1967 Culver citizen

married Jan. 1911 to Edna Grant

Edna Hampton Dies After Long Illness Just as today's citizen is about to go to press the sad news comes of the death this morning of Mrs. Edna hampton of West Lake Front at at the home of her son, William, in Indiianapolis after a long illness.

Mrs. Hampton would have observed her 70th brithday on Aug. 20. she was a fine woman.

Mrs. Hampton is also survived by her husband, William, and 3 grandchildren..

The body is being sent to the Easterday Funeral home from which the time of the services can be obtained.

A complete obituary will appear in next week's Citizen.

In Memory Of Mrs. W. Hampton

Editor's Note: The following article, written by Archie Simmons, grandson of William Hampton of Culver, and the late Mrs. Hampton, was recently published in the "Literary Supplement," an Evanston High School paper.

MY FIRST LOVE

"In years past, more than seven, I went to a place called grandmother's house. Always, the nights before leaving, a Christmasy excitement filled me. I would think about the cookies and candies and other goodies that only grandmother had. I would think about the boy next door; I always seemed to end up spending the summer at his house. Every once in a while I would think about the sweet girl with the brown braids who lived down the tracks.

Grandmother's house was in a Small Indiana town, surrounded by an infinite number of cornfields. A lake there was the magnet of fun and sport. In town all of the few department stores and businesses peppered two blocks of Main Street, the spine of the town. The town was so small that its busiest intersection, State and Madison in Chicago, had no stoplight.

When I finally reached grandmother's I was greeted with much kissing and hugging. I always had innumerable aunts and uncles to meet, who were really of no relation to me. Everyone ate a dinner of sugar-brown turkey gorged with dressing, with hot blow away, buttery rolls. On the table was a bay of sweet potatoes, studed with little white islands of marshmallows. The room was so thickly enveloped in the aroma, that I could almost taste the feast by sticking out my tongue.

Mornings I would wake before sunrise, to find that only the perpetual ticking of the clocks disrupted the quietness of the house. I put on the play clothes that had found their own way on to hangers over night. My feet were cat paws as I stepped over the tired steps on the way downstairs. Straight for the train tracks I would head. These were in front of the house, and they went half way around the kidney-shaped lake. I explored the huge railroad cars, whose hugeness sucked my eye balls out of their sockets. But bacon and eggs soon invited my stomach inside again.

In the afternoons, the boy next door and I went, to the beach. As we walked along down the tracks on our bare feet, we were forced to dance over sun-baked stones. I dove off the high diving board and resurfaced, only to find that my trunks had been confiscated upon impact with the wale. On late afternoons I went to see my girl friend down the tracks. We talked in paragraph; of giggles and wrote, "I love you," on little notes to each other. When we kissed each other on the cheek, we had wall-to-wall grins. After kissing on the lips, we ran paths around the house.

I stayed awake at night to see if the old story of Maxinkuckee, the Indian chief, came true. The story says that on clear, star-lit nights, when the air is petrified with an uneasy stillness, the Indian ghost of the lake makes trips across the lake. The usually flawless waters are broken as though a hundred paddling canoes are on it, and'the waves rush to the shores, crying for help. Some nights my imagination helped the story turn real.

Recently I went back to find, that grandmother's house is just a house now. She is in her last, inevitable resting place. The town is proud of its single stoplight. Supermarkets and big businesses have sprung up like weeds. A veil of lassitude has covered the oscesmiling faces of my playmates. The boy next door is a boy far away. The girl down the tracks has lost her braids, and time has covered the paths around her house."

Child:

William A. Hampton