Over the weekend, I took a road trip with my parents. We drove to visit my grandfather in Hamilton, Missouri, a town of 1800 people about an hour away from Kansas City. In between visits to the nursing home, my dad and I adventured about the town, which has a surprising amount to do for its size. 
Hamilton is the home of JC Penney, the man who founded the department store by the same name in 1902. There’s a quaint little museum devoted to JC Penney in the local library and Penney’s childhood home sits in the center of town. Until the 1980s, there was a Penney’s store in Hamilton. Quilting is a huge business here, too. The Missouri Star Quilt Company (seen in the top photo) opened in 2008 and now it is widely known around the country as a great place to go for fabric and quilting supplies. I first heard about Missouri Star in this NBC Nightly News broadcast, so I was interested to go and check it out. Hamilton is only a few blocks long and there are seven quilt shops in town. It’s pretty amazing. (I’ll talk about both the museum and the quilt shops this week!) 
Of course I made time for mail! I wrote out postcards at a little bakery (Poppy’s) and at the nursing home.
The trip was bittersweet but I’m glad we went. It was good to see my grandpa and to experience the town he’s lived in almost his whole life.
I took a look at a map, is it almost 600 miles you traveled? And how long did that take you?
How lovely to have a grandfather to visit in what looks -to me- like a real American town.
A tribute to Dad’s hometown. You made the trip special by being so interested in everything. Wish I could have enjoyed more of it with you. Hamilton has changed a lot but still some special memories.
Wish you would have called, we could have fed you BBQ in KC!
I know! If we were a little closer & I had my car and more free time I would have. It was a quick last minute trip.
[…] of our first stops while we were exploring Hamilton was the J.C. Penney Museum. The museum is part of the local library and is filled with items used […]
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