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Bidding farewell to a family friend

By the time you’re reading this column today, family and friends will have paid their final respects and bid farewell to Mildred “Mid” Kinney, who at 94 was one of Richmond’s oldest remaining citizens.

She died Aug. 20 after a brief illness, news that sadly was a reminder of the many losses this little community I call home has sustained in 2016 alone, among them JoAnn Birney, Jess Long, Frank Bengier and Steve Humble.

I last saw Mid at the annual Kinney reunion in late July, having been extended an invitation not because I’m a blood relative but because of my Hout family connection.

The Houts and Kinneys have been longtime friends, after all.

Mid and her husband, the late Harold Kinney, were friends of my parents, Jay Wendell and Ruth Ann Hout. So were the late Ed and Anne Kinney.

My dad was “Pidge,” Harold was “Diesel,” and Ed was “Bag Eye” — nicknames I always thought were pretty cool. Harold and Ed were two brothers who married two sisters, Mid and Anne, resulting in 13 double first cousins between the two couples.

I decided last-minute style to stop by the Kinney reunion held at the shelter house at Richmond Park (the old college campus grounds to us Richmondites), and I’m especially glad now that I took the time to do so.

There was Mid, the matriarch of the family, someone I’ve always admired and appreciated for her laid-back ways, her gift of hospitality and her style of taking everything in stride.

Near the reunion’s end, Mid rattled off with the usual ease and dry humor one of her many memorized recitations, this one called “When I’m an Old Lady.” It’s the tongue-in-cheek version of the mother who in later years goes to live with all her offspring, paying them back for all the grief they wrought as children.

Mid’s readings also came as recently as Richmond’s Memorial Day observance where she read “My Hometown Memories,” a poem written by one of her daughters, Glenda Kinney Kelley of Georgia.

And at Christmas, her reading of  “St. Nicholas Visits the Sales Girl” was a program staple and favorite at the Richmond Community Historical Society’s annual holiday dinner.

Mid Kinney was one of my first employers, recruiting me to babysit Janeen, the youngest of the Kinney bunch, when Mid served as Richmond’s postmaster. One hallmark of her career included the gesture to individually answer every letter that the Richmond Post Office received that was addressed to Santa Claus, according to her obituary.

I’m guessing that wasn’t part of her job description, but it’s often what we do that’s not expected of us that best defines us.

I also crossed paths with Mid in July at the Crew House Museum where she presented a program on the history of the old Richmond Hotel during the historical society’s meeting. Mid knew a lot about the building, considering it was family owned for many years, it was where she lived for a time, and it was where she operated the popular Kinney’s Kones.

At Mid’s 90th birthday celebration back in 2012, everybody got a hardback copy of  “The Road Less Traveled — A Journey of Love,” a compilation of tributes to her along with a DVD of her memorized recitations.

At the time, I thought how special it was.

Just like Mid always will be.

(Kiaski, a resident of Steubenville, is a staff columnist and features writer for the Herald-Star and The Weirton Times and community editor for the Herald-Star. She can be contacted at jkiaski@heraldstaronline.com.)

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