BARNEBEY, WALTER MACK AND FLORENCE MAE (CHARBONNEAU) DAVEY

Walter is the youngest son of Charlie and Florence Barnebey, born at their home in Mullen on March 26, 1911. He attended school in Mullen until the family moved to Lakeside, Nebraska, when he was in the 4th grade, where he attended through the 10th grade. He then returned to Mullen and lived with his Aunt Lillie while attending the 11th grade. The next year he stayed with Grandma Garrett's until he finished the 12th grade at the end of the first semester.

Walter tells the story of the time he gave his old saddle horse named “Dan'' a music lesson. The year he was in junior high school he rode horseback to school. The old horse was kind of wild, and Walter would have to guide him with a martingale until he could get him quieted down. There was a barn just west of the high school where Ray Ridenour lived, and he kept the horse there during school. In manual training class, Walt Jones had refin-ished an old mandolin that kind of took Walter's eye. He had tried everything in the world he knew of to get music out of himself, so he talked his schoolmate out of the mandolin. On the way to get his horse he laid the instrument on the gatepost. Never thin-king to put the tie-down on the horse, he climbed on and as he came past the gate he reached up and got the mandolin. As he drug it up under his arm, the strings went “branggg'' and the horse took off through town. Walter managed to get him turned down Main Street at the corner of the courthouse, heading east. He finally got a hold on one of his ears and turned him sideways as he ran into Prof. Humphrey's coal shed, wiping all the shingles off the eaves as he went. At that point he was kind of cornered, and there wasn't anything left to the mandolin but the handle and the strings and a knob on the end. Kenny Lowe came around from the lumber yard to see what was making all the racket and asked, “What are you doing – giving him a music lesson?'' Walter was ready to get on when the horse got up or he would never have got on him, and he says that was the quickest trip ever made back home.

Walter had started working in the hayfield before he finished the 10th grade, and after high school went to work at the Roseberry ranch, doing carpentering and ranch work. He returned to Lakeside where he did carpenter work around the area. Among his employers were Pete Sandoz and Henry Sandoz who were both cousins of “Ole Jules,'' father of author Mari Sandoz whom she memorialized in her book by that name.

At one point during the mid-thirties Walter and Roy Long made a trip West with “ideas of grandeur in California'' where they stayed six months or so. He returned to the Sandhills of Nebraska and continued doing carpenter work at Roseberry's and also the Pullman Ranch. About 1935 he set up a carpenter shop in the back of a building where his father, Charlie Barnebey, and sister Zelma ran a candy and magazine shop in Lakeside.

Walter returned to Mullen in 1939 and, with the help of John Gillispie, constructed the building on the corner across the street east of the courthouse. Walter then opened a plumbing and appliance store, while Gillis-pie lived in an apartment on the east side of the building until they finished his house.

Walter married Florence (Charbonneau) Davey on April 26, 1941, in Valentine, Nebraska. Florence was a widow with one 4 year old son, Jack Nelson Davey. When the apartment in the appliance store building became available, Florence and Walter moved into it. All the appliance supplies were moved out and Florence ran a Ladies Ready-to-Wear shop in the front end.

In about 1942 Walter began working at the Light Plant in Mullen as manager of the utilities. Shortly after that he was “talking when I ought to have been listening'' and bought the telephone system. He bought a new switchboard which was installed in the east end of his building, then later sold the whole works, building and all. They bought the old Evergreen Hotel and renovated it, making it into apartments which they man-aged for a time. He then sold that, quit his job with the city, and took out stock with the R.W. Hughes Construction Company. They went on the road with Hughes, building power plant buildings, installing diesel gen-erating sets, and building water and sewer treatment plants. They traveled over a five state area doing construction work for 10 or 12 years. Then the company dissolved and Walter took a job as utility manager at Tecumseh, Nebraska, in about 1959.

Walter has been a member of the Masonic Lodge since about 1948, as well as belonging to the Order of Eastern Star. His many Lodge affiliations include: 5 years as High Priest of the Royal Arch Masons, Royal and Select Masters in Beatrice, Commander of Knights Templar Lodge in Tecumseh for 3 years, Sosostris Temple at Lincoln, and the Associa-tion of Past Commanders of the Knights Templar of Nebraska as well as the High Priesthood of Nebraska.

Walter took on hunting and keeping rattlesnakes as a hobby. He read everthhing he could find about rattlesnakes, and he says his rattlesnakes had “read only about a third of those books.'' He first got started rattle-snake hunting with his Uncle Floyd Garrett in Whitman, Nebraska. The day's catch was brought back to Mullen in an old crippled box. Walter built a cage and his dad, Charlie Barnebey, fixed hinges and a hasp on it. Charlie said, “Now you want to get a padlock on that hasp and go throw the key in the well.'' Every fall for several years Walter would return to the Sandhills and go out to gather more snakes. For about 4 or 5 years he kept a display at Tecumseh, and had as many as 45 at one time, which people came from all over and far away to see.

He stayed in Tecumseh until after his retirment in 1974, and moved back to Mullen the following year. He started a furniture repair shop and sharpening service. Since the latter part of 1984 he has cut his activities down to sharpening service only. During most of his life he has also repaired clocks and watches. Back in the mid-twenties he used to take a kitchen knife and a pair of “Monkey Ward'' (Montgomery Ward) pliers, and keep the old Ingersall alarm clocks running. He built two clocks from scratch with all wood parts, including the works. At this time he still has most of the toolbox full of carpenter's hand tools that his dad gave him for his 9th birthday, plus all he has added to it since.