A train, tenacity and the belief that "People have got to keep active. They need to keep working at something and they need to like what they are doing."

Those are the words of Burlington farmer Franklin Hamilton who was born June 27, 1878, in Illinois. He came this direction with his parents to Kay County. In 1908 he married Minnie Stuckey and they resided in Cherokee before moving to Burlington in 1917. He farmed there and operated a threshing machine.

The words that Hamilton said about staying active were in a newspaper quote he made at age 96. A Wichita News-Eagle reporter Les Thomas was i...