Kenney House

Kenney House. . This house, at 332 Center Street, was the Kenney family home from 1898 until 1911. Patrick Kenney worked for the Singer Sewing Machine Company in Minneapolis and came to work at their Mankato store in 1897. The Kenneys purchased this house in 1898 with their nine children., One of the Kenney daughters named Frances (or "Bick") became friends with Maud Hart, a little girl who lived across the street. The children played, imagined and grew up together in Mankato. Starting in 1940, readers throughout the world would know them as Betsy Ray (Maud) and Tacy Kelly (Bick) in Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy books., In 1920, Bick married Charles Eugene Kirch in Minneapolis. The couple later moved to New York. Although years and miles separated Bick and Maud, they remained good friends, even traveling to Europe together in 1968, until Bick died in New York on December 14, 1969., The Kenney family left Mankato in 1911. Among later owners of the house was junior high school English teacher Ila Flathers, who owned the house from 1920 until 1965. She enjoyed welcoming Bick and Maud back to the house for visits. In 1995, the Betsy-Tacy Society acquired the house and restored it for use as an interpretive center, gift shop and office., This building was listed as a National Literary Landmark in 2010 and locally designated as a Heritage Preservation Landmark in 2011., Researched and written by the Blue Earth County Historical Society