BARNEBEY, WALTER MACK AND FLORENCE MAE (CHARBONNEAU) DAVEY

by Walter Barnebey

Entry F3 from the History of Hooker County Nebraska
with permission of the Hooker County Historical Society

(C.M.) Dad Barnebey and son Walter "visiting" about 1965

Walt (Abe Lincoln) an Florence Barnebey, Tecumseh
Centennial 1969

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.