Click here to return to the Dawson Biographies and Stories menu | Click here to return to the home page

Verna (Dawson) Karns took grades five through twelve in the Ford, Kansas, public schools. She attended Lincoln school, a rural school north of Ford, Kansas, for grades one through four. After graduation she attended Normal School in Emporia, Kansas to earn a certificate to teach. She taught for a few years in rural schools near Ford.

Verna and Elmer Mearkle Karns were married August 14, 1921. They first lived on the Clark Place south of Ford, Kansas, although at that time the address was Kingsdown, Kansas. While living there they experienced a tornado on their property, though it did not do extensive damage to the buildings.

While there, Verna had two close friends--Edna Patterson Haley who was a schoolmate through their school years, and Nancy Karns, wife of Carl. One of the family pictures, for example, shows Verna and Nancy working on a car engine together. Along with their husbands and children, they kept busy with farm, church, and community activities. She was active in the various ministries of the Church of the Nazarene.

In 1924, they joined a group of their fellow community friends in establishing and building a new church, the Church of the Nazarene. Both she and Elmer were very involved in the activities of the church until they retired and moved to Oklahoma.

About 1930, Elmer and Verna moved west of Ford to the Taylor Place where they farmed for several years. Their two girls, Winifred Colleen and Melva Jean, began school years in the rural Wilroads school, a mile or so north of their home. Later they moved to the Madison farm about two miles east of Ford where the family lived in a home with their first basement, first indoor bathroom, first upstairs--and one very small room [only a few feet square] with windows and a step-down floor level! It made a perfect doll-house for the girls! The Madison farm adjoined the Arkansas River and as one approached the river area a beautiful pasture with large cottonwood trees made a wonderful place for picnics, etc.

In the early 1940s, one last farm move was made to the Dawson Farm north of Ford. Elmer and Verna completely remodeled or rebuilt all the buildings which had stood there since Isom Dawson came to this area in 1903/04. A large pasture of native buffalo grass lay to the west of the house and they had farm land to the north.

In 1956, Elmer and Verna decided it was time to retire. They had spent their lives in this same community and were very highly involved in the activities of the church, community, and lives of their families. They were involved either with playing or singing at many of the funerals in the area for many years. The farm was sold and in 1956 they moved to Oklahoma City to be near family. Verna managed the Bethany Book Store, a branch of the Nazarene Publishing House, for several years until her retirement in 1971. Elmer kept busy maintaining some rental properties which they had acquired along with caring for his yard at their home.

Both are buried in the Bethany, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma Cemetery, just north of the City of Bethany.

Memories of Her Parents by Daughter Melva Jean (Karns) Ladd

SOME THINGS I REMEMBER . . . by Melva Jean KARNS LADD, daughter

About Elmer-- . . . His habit of checking the car for flats in time to change a tire and still be on time. . . . Always stopping the machinery on the Sabbath--even though the crops were ready for harvest and storms might threaten. . . . Always dependable. . . Starting the day with family Bible reading and prayer following breakfast.

About Verna . . . Christmas programs at church . . . white sheets on the platform to look like snow; angel costumes. . . . Curling hair with a hot curling iron heated over a kerosene lamp--or making long curls by winding on rag rollers. . . . Teaching Sunday School and leading evening young people's service. . . . Gardening for vegetables. . . . Flowers for the yard and cut flowers inside our home. . . . Cooking for Sunday guests--or a harvest crew. . . . Winter projects of quilting, sewing clothing. . . . Summer canning of grapes, and "fuzzy" peaches. . . . Varnishing floors--and the fun it was to walk from carpet to carpet bridged over the varnish with table leaves.

About the family . . . The yearly trek to church assembly in August--sometimes staying in homes of community people, a few times sleeping in a tent, always meeting old friends from earlier years. . . . Trip to Colorado to see Pike's Peak and crossing the Divide--first time to see a mountain. . . . Trips to take Grandmother Allie Dawson to Missouri to visit relatives--always looked forward to roasting ears and visiting the well to draw water with a bucket at the home of Roy and Audra Dawson in Sarcoxie, Missouri.