The Hyphen Family Lineage

The Kroger grocery store (in Huntington, Huntington Cty, Indiana) held a contest in 1952 (I believe for their grand opening) inviting customers to submit a name for the pictured pony, with the best name winning the pony itself. My great-grandmother, Mildred Ruth (Hinklin) Stonebraker, entered the name "Mijo," using the first two letters of each of her two grandsons' names (Mike and Joe), and her entry was chosen as the winner. The photo is from the presentation of the pony to the winning family, on 18th Oct 1952.

Sitting on the pony is Floyd Joseph "Joe" Thomas, while the boy holding the pony's lead is his older brother David Michael "Mike" Thomas. Peering out between the pony's ears is the boys' father, Floyd "Tommy" Thomas Jr., and immediately to his left and looking over the pony's neck is the boys' mother, Kathryn (Stonebraker) Thomas. Held up between Kathryn and Joe is the boys' baby sister, Ann Elizabeth "Beth" Thomas, who would have been a few months' shy of her second birthday. In the upper-right corner of the photo, in the crowd behind the pony, is a smiling woman in glasses - Kathryn's mother, Mildred (Hinklin) Stonebraker.

My father recalls not being very fond of the pony; Mijo's stubbornness made the pony hard to lead or control, and the pony had a frequent tendency to walk under the low-hanging branches of the apple trees to knock my father out of the saddle.