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Facts and Events
WINF: Y
Roy Anderson Kennedy grew up in the East Bottoms of Kansas City, Missouri. (down by the river). He was a member of the Third Regiment of the National Guard. He served on the Mexican Border. Later, he went to France during WWI and served with the 140th Infantry where he was wounded in the knee.
NEWSPAPER CLIPPING - Kansas City Boy Spends Birthday in Front Line Trenches - Article is faded. This is the script that is included with a picture of Roy in uniform.
"Srgt. Roy Kennedy, son of Mr. and Mrs. George Kennedy, 3400 Gardner Avenue, recently passed his twenty first birthday in the trenches. He has been in France for several months with the 140th lnfantry, Company D. Sargeant Kennedy was a member of the old Third Regiment and was on the border. At the expiration of his three years' enlistment term he refused to accept an honorable discharge but remained in the service. He was formally employed at the Traders' National Bank."
After the service, he went to work for the Trader's National Band, later renamed the Merchants Produce Bank at Kansas City, Missouri.
As a small girl, (about 5) I (his granddaughter) remember visiting Grandpa at the bank. It was an old style bank with a huge Christmas tree in the lobby area. One time, we went to the bank and I saw Grandpa at the teller's window--the old style with bars on it--and I asked in a very loud voice "why is my grandpa in jail?" As a result of that statement, bank officials started plans to remodel. This latter information was related to my family by one of the bank officers.
Grandpa was fun and loved to visit with us. He would tell everything in great detail. His WWI picture of his unit is in the museum (I believe) in Torrington, Wyoming. He would tell us about the wound in his knee and show us the scar.
We would visit Grandpa and Grandma almost every Christmas. They lived at 3914 Myrtle Ave. in Kansas City, MO--near Van Brunt Blvd. They had moved there about 1923. The area later became an African American neighborhood and when Grandma died, there was only 1 other white family in the area. We usually traveled by railroad on the Portland Rose--Union Pacific. It would leave out of Cheyenne and to Denver and from there to Kansas City. A few times, we went by train through Nebraska. Grandpa and Grandma would take us out to see the "new malls" and the Christmas lights in the city. I recall visiting Santa Claus in one of the department stores downtown. One place in particular, (I believe it was a mall), decorated with lights the same way each year and reminded me of a camel and buildings from the middle east. Grandma always fixed a turkey on Christmas day. One of Grandpa's customers always gave him butter in the shape of a Santa Claus for Christmas and we got to eat it on Christmas Day. Great Grandma Winfrey always came over for Christmas dinner.
Grandpa loved to play the piano and he also loved to play Chinese Checkers. He rarely lost a game. We would play for hours with him when we went to visit. He also loved to play jokes on people and tease them.
Grandpa and Grandma always came to visit us in the summer. They usually brought a lot of toys--Grandpa's bank was near a toy store and he would collect the toys that were slightly damaged and bring them to us. They were fantastic!!
After Grandma's death, Grandpa moved to Torrington, Wyoming to live with his daughter, Dorothy Stricker (my mother) and her family in October, 1974. He had cancer and was unable to live alone in Kansas City anymore. He died of lung cancer in April, 1975, while a patient at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Cheyenne, WY. He was buried with Grandma in a single grave site at Ft. Leavenworth, KS.
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