Lebanon’s girls baseball team in 1904

The only identified people in this photo are Gar Weatherwax, center, back, and his sister, Hattie Weatherwax, back row on the right. Photo courtesy of Larry Richards, the grandson of Hattie Weatherwax Kincaid. Courtesy photo

About the time I think this column has run its course, someone like Larry Richards stops in the office with an answer to a question posed some time ago. If you remember, I wrote about the Lebanon Girls Baseball team and their games against the Sunflower girls of Kansas in 1904. In the article, I mentioned how great it would be to see a picture of these girls and here months later, Larry stops by with just that thing!

It seems his maternal grandmother, Hattie Weatherwax, played on the team and his great uncle, Gar Weatherwax was the coach and when Larry read the article, he was pretty sure there was a picture somewhere. That somewhere was in his sister’s files from their mother’s collection and now it is shared with their permission so that we all can enjoy it!

Of course, Larry recognized his grandmother and great uncle, but the remaining members pictured are a mystery. We know these additional players were on the team: Hannah Kaiser, Hattie Horton, Martha Halsey, Flora Waugh, Lottie Horton, Hallie Horton, Bessie Slutts, Alta McCarty. Now it’s up to my readers to help identify the rest.

Going back to the article, which was in the McCook Tribune, November 4, 1904, on page 5, both Hattie Weatherwax (able to curve the ball) and Hannah Kaiser pitched for the team and Hattie Horton caught the first half. Gar Weatherwax was their coach, but he also served as the umpire that day. His team lost 38 to 15.

Hattie Weatherwax went on to become a school teacher and participated in many Normal School activities in McCook. On December 20, 1905, at the age of 27, she married A.G. Kincaid of Danbury. When you go to www.swngs.org and look at the World War I registry, you find that A.G. was Andrew Grant Kincaid, more commonly known as Grant. He was 38 at the time of registration and was listed as being tall and stout with brown eyes and red hair! Both he and Hattie, plus their respective families, appear several times in listings on our web site.

If you have pictures that depict the early years of southwest Nebraska, please consider sharing them with SWNGS. If you bring a large photograph in, we can copy it and save it to your thumb drive so that it is preserved forever. All we ask is to have a copy for our records also. We also have members that provide an online source for identifying photos that are mysteries. As in the past, we try to connect pictures with families or places depicted.

Our monthly meeting will be this Saturday, October 13th, at 1 PM in the library located at 110 West C, Suite M-3. The public is welcome to attend.