The Moloney Farm
and the Moloney farming family

 On 11 June 2003, Marilyn Moloney Wasylk wrote:

"...my brothers have been full time farmers all of their lives.  When the Milford Dam project in 1961 took all but 80 acres of the 328 acre farm that we grew up on, my dad started shopping for a replacement.  A short time later, Highway K-244 came through the corner and took another 14 acres!  We still have about 66 acres with the house, which was moved to the remainder, from its original location.

"Our dad found a farm about twice as large as the ground that the Corps of Engineers took, about twenty miles southeast of here!  My brother, Foye and his wife Jody, live on it.  Our brother, "J" and his wife, Ella, and their family own another farm (I think it's about 400 acres) between here and there.  Both brothers have the 320 acre farm that our uncles lived on near Abilene.  They have another 160 acres, not far from Foye and Jody's so they spend some time going from one to another.

" When Don, the kids and I lived at Emporia, we bought 160 acres, near there, in 1973.  When Don transferred to Iowa (he worked for Iowa Beef Processors at that time), we didn't sell the farm.  Our oldest son, Dave, has been spending a lot of time there, raising livestock.  We have rented out the farm ground.

"My sister's two sons (Curt and Brian) have kept up the horse tradition.  They both live in the country, ride in parades, etc.  They have some cattle, too.

"Our daughter's husband, Tobey Watt, is a full-time farmer and rancher (he comes from a "long line" of them).  He and Sue just finished building a new home on his land, not far from Abilene.

"Our middle son, Mike, is into the mail contracting business (he has one route), like Don (he has seven).  Mike and Shauna also manage a small town café, about 80 miles from here, where they live.

"Our youngest son, Dan, is the manager of Fastenal in Manhattan KS.  They have stores all over the world.  (editor's note: the Internet web for Fastenal lists 1237 stores, some in Canada, Mexico, Singapore, but most in the USA.  There are 26 Fastenal stores in Kansas alone.  The company makes and sells cutting tools, electrical supplies, fasteners, hydraulics and pneumatics, janitorial supplies, material handling, metals, alloys and materials, packaging and safety supplies, tools and accessories and welding supplies and abrasives.)  They have stores all over the world, but I hadn't heard of them until he went to work for them a year and one half ago!  Every time I start to explain his company, the person I'm talking to tells me they're familiar with it!   This happened in Kentucky (funeral) and West Virginia (wedding).  I liked seeing him sell musical instruments, but he makes more money in this.

"When Don, our children and I returned from Iowa, we rented a house that we intended to buy but it had a leaky lower level that the owner tried to fix but couldn't seem to.  In the meanwhile, our mother passed away and this old house that we grew up in was standing vacant, which worried all of us — a target for vandalism, especially so close to Milford Lake (the biggest lake in Kansas).  My siblings thought it would make sense for us to move here.  We were the only ones who weren't  'settled'.  It wasn't as nice and new as we had been living in (you know how teenagers can be) but it had sentimental attachment, so we did.  Don and I have had apartments in Fort Worth TX and Kansas City KS when we were working there during the time we have had this as our "home base".