The Little Red Rocker

McFerren Heritage

Celebrating John McFerren’s  90^th Birthday, November, 2009

From what I can gather:

Love of God and country are a theme running through this family.  Of Carl and Harriet McFerren, it was said, “They were a beautiful couple who taught their children how to live in joy, faith and love through God.”

by Robert Clancy

John McFerren’s father is Carl McFerren [born 1893].

Carl’s father, Clarence McFerren, a farmer [born 1872], had a high fever which cause his feet to club and he was “never too well.”

Clarence’s father, Archibald [born 1838], was a teacher and farmer and helped build the St. John’ Church in Albion where most of the family eventually land. The story has it that, when Clarence was very young, Archibald took the team to town to get the rocker for his little boy.  There had been some concern about the sustainability of the child.  This father’s prayer was that his little boy’s excitement about having a rocker of his own would keep him alive until his daddy returned.  And that’s exactly what happened.

I’m still researching Little Red’s early history. I don’t know when the little red rocker came into my possession…perhaps in the 1970’s.

The hope was that I might repair it so that my children could enjoy
him.  His color has faded a little, and the patina has cracked.  More than a century of wear resulted in the horsehair stuffing protruding from the worn seat.  My mother, Emily McFerren, needle pointed a new seat cover in the 70’s but we never had enough money to get the broken arm repaired, so Little Red waited.

I may not know all of where he’s been, but I do know is where he’s been on my watch:

He came into our Berquist home in suburban St. Louis and lived quietly in our basement for many years, waiting for promised repair, waiting for my girls to get big enough to sit in him, waiting for them to be careful enough to appreciate him…always waiting.  Then the adventure began.

In 1993 Little Red was loaded carefully into a double cardboard box and began a vagabond life, not knowing that it would be 15 years before he emerged into the sunlight of a sweet little girl’s smile.

The first leg of his journey took him to the attic of a lovely Connecticut house on the shore of Long Island Sound.

From there, he went to live for a while in a storage loft over a barn-turned-garage on three bucolic acres outside of Cleveland…rather close to where he was probably “born.”

A brief stint in a public storage locker preceded his move into the basement of a townhouse in Cleveland Heights for a couple of years.

Then in 2000, it was on to Boston where he lived in the cramped basement of a beautiful old brick apartment house on Commonwealth Avenue across the street from Boston College.

On the next leg of his journey, he was transported by truck right past the smoldering ruins of New York’s twin towers on his way to Ft. Lauderdale where he spent six months in the boat warehouse of a family friend.

Still in his protective box house, back north he came - full circle to St. Louis, where he spent summer time in a spare dormitory room, then back into a basement.  This time an apartment house was his home.

Further north he went.  Elgin, IL beckoned, and this time he landed in an attic where he sat patiently for four years until finally it was time to meet his new owner.  Inspired by Uncle John’s 90^th birthday and the need for a picture to prove his beloved little rocker was still intact, Little Red was carefully brought down from his perch, unpacked, loaded into a little RAV4, and delivered to a house in Bolingbrook, just south of Chicago.

The delight on the face of little 3 year old Abigail was unfeigned.  Sister Madison, realizing she was too big to have a turn, yielded to her smaller sibling, then suddenly turned to me with the pointed [and eerily accurate] question: “Is this little rocking chair 150 years old?’ 

Seven generations later…how did she know?  Has the little rocker a voice of his own that only small children can hear?  Or are all those grandpas upon grandpas upon grandpas smiling now and whispering in her ear?

Soon Abigail will outgrow him, but next year a baby boy will join our family and soon a little boy bottom will find its rightful place – where so many have sat before him.