Too Long in the Wind

January 2010

Six players identified

[January 29]   Dean Blackwell was conversing with Jack Bowman and found out the names of the players in one of our recent photos made by Paul Schmidt in the early 1950s.

Thanks for digging up the names, Dean. Jack, thanks for the help. Barb Schmidt, thanks for sending the photo.

Here's what Dean wrote:

I talked with Jack about the football pictures and this is what he sent me.

Jack says: Starting at the bottom faces in huddle with Jack and go right. It's: Hubert Fry, Thane Carpenter, Jimmy Parrack, Rod Ross, and Bill Ross. 1952 was the year. He's working on the other picture.

I might mention Fred Hubert Fry was in my class and when he went to college he was then called Fred. Old timers like me from PR will call him Hubert, Fred was his dad.

Many of my generation know Hubert's mother -- Virginia Fry, Pawnee Rock's longtime fourth-grade teacher. They lived in the house at the southeast corner of the school property.

Back to top

On Kansas Day

[January 29]   This is for all the children who made it to school this morning, stomped the snow off their shoes, and sat down to make sunflowers out of construction paper and crayons.

Today is the swellest of all days in Kansas, the anniversary of our collective birth as a political body.

Think of what the state of Kansas has been through: Bleeding Kansas and the Civil War; the grasshopper plague, the droughts, and the Dust Bowl; the destruction of the native cultures and the assimilation of Germans, Mexicans, Filipinos, and Somalians; the departure of the bison and the arrival of the railroads and highways; the booms in farming, oil, and aviation and the busts and booms and busts again; the riots, the outside agitators, and the home-grown terrorists and demagogues; yearly generations of floods, tornadoes, and ice storms; Amelia Earhart, Goat Glands Brinkley, William Allen White, and the Clutter family; and the parade of flat-minded world citizens who still delight in thinking of Kansas in terms of the Wizard of Oz.

A lot has happened in our Sunflower State since the sun crawled out of Missouri, shook the mud off, and glided into our blue heavens on January 29, 1861. Since that auspicious morning, when we ourselves became the 34th star, we have awakened to 54,422 sunrises, including 37 on February 29.

Sunrise, sunset; our Kansas has endured.

Today Pawnee Rock feels the hard edge of winter, although perhaps the chill and mess will be softened by the shouts of children who were excused from school. A day like this, however, should have an hour for talking about our Kansas and making sunflowers that will bloom irrepressibly from a thousand refrigerator doors by suppertime.

Back to top

Ready for the bear

My experiment took place not far from the tree near Grandma Unruh's barn (this was years before the farmstead was given over to cattle.)

[January 28]   I might have been one of those kids who blends into the woodwork until he wants to do something worthwhile . . . like fire a rifle mounted inside a tire.

As a youngster, I voraciously consumed Outdoor Life and Field & Stream, the two main purveyors of monthly fishing news. It's not like they ever had feature stories about places I might fish, but I loved the writing nonetheless. At the least, I could drool over the advertisements.

Although I publicly talked incessantly about bass and bluegills, I secretly kept up with the hunting news, too, especially when it concerned .22 rifles. I recall one back-of-the-magazine article about an Alaska woman who killed a black bear with a .22 rifle because it wouldn't leave her cabin alone. She shot and shot and shot and shot and finally the bear, which might have run about 300 pounds, lay down and died from dozens of small wounds.

Maybe such stories inclined me toward life in the north, where bears are our neighbors. A dozen years ago out in the woods, a woman cooked bacon for her husband's supper. The aroma attracted a black bear. The bear broke into the cabin. The couple, with her especially smelling of bacon, fled to the roof. The husband saw his chance, got down, and ran for safety. She fell off accidentally and was eaten. At least, that's the story the man told later.

We didn't have bears in Pawnee Rock, or much wildlife at all, but I wanted to be prepared. I filled tree stumps at Grandma's farm with little bits of lead. I sent dozens of of cans flying. I cleaned and polished Dad's bolt-action, single-shot .22, because I might have to feed us with bounty from the wheat-stubble fields and fencerows.

Mostly, though, I just liked being able to put a round where I wanted it to go. I wanted to be capable and maybe even competent -- I intended to persevere but I didn't really want to kill animals.

I didn't want to be killed either. With warnings that I would put my eyes out, my mom had derailed my clueless intention of getting a BB gun. I never heard of an actual case of eye destruction, but the scare story stuck with me. I maintained a healthy respect for firearms, knowing that an untrusty gun could explode in my face. When I found Grandpa's old pump-action .22 with its hexagonal barrel and tragically worn shell ejector, I should have left it alone but I knew I had found the perfect reason to put my some of my Outdoor Life book-learnin' to good use.

Following the method laid out in print, I scavenged an old truck tire that was too worn to be used and too worthless to be bothered with throwing away. I laid the tire flat on the ground in the field near the barn and arranged the rifle, the barrel resting on one side and the rear of the stock wedged in behind the bead, where the inner tube would have gone. Outdoor Life recommended using a wire to pull the trigger from a distance, but I had none besides fence wire and so I used bailing twine.

From 30 feet away I pulled the twine until the pressure overloaded the trigger and the old gun fired its first -- and last -- round in years. The report startled the pigeons, and the lead went flying off over the draw and toward the late-afternoon sun. Then I struggled like the dickens to eject the spell casing, finally pushing it backward and out with the barrel-cleaning rod.

Was this experiment worth the whose-grandson-are-you-just-don't-put-a-hole-in-the-barn looks from Grandma? Of course. Did I learn anything useful? I hope so. Did I put my eyes out? Nope. Do I still wonder where the bullet landed?

That minor event in a lifetime of safe and sane behavior is one of my favorites because I converted reading into an experiment and gained practical knowledge.

Whether the episode qualifies me for sentry duty in bear country is a different issue. I guess the truism that I'm waiting to test is that the fight won't be over when I'm tired, but when the bear is.

Back to top

A Kansan for 110 years

[January 27]   On this site we've had many stories of wild and determined people who had a role in our county's and our town's history. Today, I'd like to point everyone toward a woman who didn't live in Pawnee Rock -- although she was born nearby and surely climbed on our Rock's sandstone bluff.

Jennie Fanshier of Great Bend turned 110 last Monday. She was born in 1900, only thirty-nine years after statehood. Three years before the first powered plane flew. Seven years Oklahoma became a state. Eight years before the Model T was first pushed out of a factory. Eight years before Pawnee Rock itself was sold to the state.

She was brought into the world in a rock house in Olmitz, hard along a covered-wagon trail. Her family moved west to Lane County, where they lived in a sod house. She became a teacher, moved to Stafford County, and honeymooned in the Ozarks. She drove until she was 100. (Tribune story)

She sounds as tough as a fencepost, a real Kansan. History on the hoof.

Back to top

Basketball in the old days

[January 26]   Barb Schmidt had a good time looking through her parents' high school yearbooks, which seem a lot more interesting than the ones published these days.

Here's what she wrote:

I did not know until browsing through my parents' old high school yearbooks recently that, a long time ago, PRHS regularly played Great Bend in basketball. The attached photos are from the 1928 annual ("The Combine") and show a close loss to GB (20-23). The school year calendar appears elsewhere in the 1928 yearbook and lists the game on February 21, 1928.

My mom's GBHS yearbooks report better luck for PRHS several years later. In 1934, PRHS won 3 times (17-11, 36-18, 29-17) and lost only once to GBHS (16-20). In 1936, PRHS won both games against GBHS (25-21 and 28-19).

I also like the photo of the 1928 PRHS boys basketball team because I recognize so many of the names in the caption. Just wish I could match the names to the faces in the photo -- especially since I have an old notepad in which my dad (PRHS '29) wrote down all his notes from classes and some of those boys' names appear there. For example, dad noted at various times that:

Wendell Smith (basketball guard) gave a report to the class on women's suffrage (wish I could have heard that one!).

Lester Abbott (basketball forward) reported on the American Socialist Party and similar political parties/movements in Europe.

Bennie Smith (baske tball center) gave a report on the Ku Klux Klan. On a later day, Bennie gave another report, this time on "Exercise," in which he stated that the "best game" for "the good health of the body" was polo (Do you suppose a polo game has ever even been played in PR?). Bennie told the class that football was the next best game and that boxing and wrestling were the best indoor games. Curiously, basketball did not make Bennie's list. And, despite the earlier talk from Wendell on women's suffrage, Bennie apparently did not have any suggestions on exercise for the girls in his class.

My favorite, though, is Willard Wilson (basketball forward), who reported to the class on "teeth." From dad's notes, it must have been a rather gory talk (I can imagine the groans and "ughs!" from the class, especially the girls). But the best part was when Willard reported that the only requirements to become a dentist were to complete 4 years of high school and then all you had to do was pass a licensing exam.

By the way, Leon, do you know whether PR ever had its own dentist?

Back to top

From Ruth French's great-granddaughter

[January 26]   Holly Sessions wrote Monday after googling up a pleasant surprise.

I just saw the following item on your blog -- "Ruth French turns 90." I don't know what possessed me to google "Pawnee Rock" this morning after checking my e-mail, but I smiled when I saw this.

Ruth French was my great-grandmother (and the baby-sitter of my childhood, while my mother was at work as a nurse at St Joseph's in Larned). That birthday reception was a huge deal for her -- she talked about it for the remaining two years of her life. I still have the cameo necklace she was wearing in the picture in the paper.

Thanks for creating and maintaining such a great website! I will read it often from now on.

Holly Sessions
daughter of Ruth French Sessions (PRHS '61)

Back to top

A boy from the airbase

January 25   Larry Boston of San Francisco attended the Pawnee Rock Grade School when his dad worked at the Great Bend airbase in World War II. He sent this nice note:

I didn't spend long in Pawnee Rock, but I remember it fondly. I was one of those waifs from Great Bend Army Air Force Base who rode a bus every day to attend sixth grade. My father managed the base post exchanges in the closing days of World War II, and our family lived on the base.

What I remember most is how warm and welcoming everyone was to us outsiders, the children from the base. Mrs. Esther Zieber was in charge of sixth grade, and Claude Welch was the high school principal. Looking at the old photos of the 1950 homecoming, I remember Vivian Welch, the homecoming queen, and basketball star John Woelk, both of whom were in our sixth grade class in 1944-45.

In those days, we trooped from the grade school to a downtown building for lunches prepared by Pawnee Rock homemakers, all great cooks. Somehow, we all crowded into the high school's little gym to cheer the basketball team taking on Zook and Bison and other neighboring communities. Many of the players went off to the closing days of the war in the spring of 1945.

Those were difficult days for Pawnee Rock residents, stressed by the war and inconvenienced by all those students, crowding in from the air base. For us youngsters, however, those were warm, memorable days that some have remembered for a lifetime.

Back to top

Iris Pfister will be buried today

January 25   Alice "Iris" Pfister of Great Bend died January 22. She was the widow of Daniel "Jerry" Pfister, who is buried in the Pawnee Rock Cemetery.

Mrs. Pfister's numerous survivors include a son, Marvin, of Radium, and a daughter, Lanette Weese of Great Bend.

Her funeral is at 10 a.m. today in Hoisington. She will be buried in the Pawnee Rock Cemetery. (Obituary)

Jerry Pfister's grave marker.

Back to top

River ice and dogs

[January 22]   A bunch of us have dogs that are big enough to run around outdoors, and those who trust the dogs not to run away might do what Jim Dye does -- take the hounds to the Arkansas River and let 'em use up all their energy.

Even in the winter. Even in the water.

Dogs being dogs, they'll follow their noses anywhere and worry about the consequences later. Or not.

Perhaps our knowing better is what lifts the human species above the canine species. Not that that's any great advantage.

These dogs might know our grasslands and riverbottom better than any of us do, and it's fun for them just to be there. They love to sniff, to run, to play tag, to laugh with their human.

You and I are not dogs (although on the Internet no one knows for sure). Where do you go, and what do you do, to be happy?

I'll meet you on a sandbar by the bridge -- but not until May.

Back to top

When Ruth French turned 90

[January 21]   Pawnee Rock honored Ruth French, one of its longtime residents, in July 1982. This item appeared in the Larned paper.

Celebrate 90th birthday

Mrs. Ruth French of Pawnee Rock will be honored at a reception Sunday, July 25, for her 90th birthday, at the Pawnee Rock Depot from 2-4 p.m.

Hosts of the celebration will be her children, Mr. and Mrs. Gwen French and Mr. and Mrs. Eldon French of Pawnee Rock and her grandchildren, Mr. and Mrs. Gary French and Mr. and Mrs. Terry French.

Mrs. French has four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

All friends and relatives are invited.

(Mrs. French now is in the Pawnee Rock Cemetery, buried next to husband Earl. She passed away, I think, in 1985.)

Back to top

A newspaper that's tolerated

[January 21]   Below the item for Mrs. French (above) was a blurb -- known in the newspaper industry as a "house ad" because it is advertising for "in-house" business. Normally these filler ads are chest-thumping tidbits or calls for readers to renew their subscriptions.

The writing in this house ad, however, makes me wonder what brought this on:

"When you advertise in The Tiller you're advertising in a newspaper that's willingly accepted in the home."

This stilted writing, reminiscent of 1910, makes me wonder which papers in Larned were not "willingly accepted in the home."

Back to top

Gold miner, pack train driver, farmer

[January 20]   I tend to think of Pawnee Rock's settlers as mildly heroic but also mildly boring -- Mennonite wheat farmers, grain salesmen, merchants, clerks, preachers, and teachers; in general, people closely tied to the economy of sod busting.

But there's always room for a real self-starter. The fellow described below didn't live in Pawnee Rock itself, but he did settle down on a farm north of town.

This biography of William James Fee -- perhaps Billy Jim to his friends -- came from the Biographical History of Barton County, Kansas, published in 1912. I wish I had known the man. He would have been a purveyor of many good tales around the pot-belly stove.

William James Fee

To attempt the biography of William James Fee in the space at command would be impossible, because he has probably lived more in his allotted time than most of the resident farmers of Barton County. He was born June 16th, 1838, on a farm near Laurel, Clearmont County, Ohio, and in 1859, when twenty-one years of age, was attracted by the gold excitement in California, and decided that that was the shortest route to attain both fortune and fame among those with whom he had grown to manhood. An expedition was fitting out in Omaha, Nebraska, to cross the plains by ox teams via the Northern Platte route, and this he and his companions joined and consumed six weary months in the journey.

The California-Oregon trail was conceded to be a favorable passway, but those who made the trip recount many hardships and the written history of that time proves that those who made the trip possessed stout hearts. In haying time Honey Lake Valley, California, was reached and Mr. Fee piled hay until fall and then took up placer mining for a company, and was launched in the business that he had crossed many weary miles to attempt, and his eyes at last feasted on the gold that had lured, and which has been the making and unmaking of man in all ages.

A farm hand in Ohio received at that time $8 per month, and $2.50 a day mining seemed a fortune for a time, but as the golden microbe assumed dominion, and as he had learned during his experience how to do all classes of mining; prospect work was taken up with more or less favorable results. The year 1862 found him in Idaho, where he worked for others, prospected on his own account, owned a pack train which made regular trips out of Boise City; and at one time owned a flume in California that conducted water to the mines. His mining experience covered districts in California, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona and in the Black Hills in Dakota, during the excitement of 1875-6, and ended at Tombstone, Arizona, in 1886.

During these years of search he was rewarded many times and had fortune within his grasp; but owing to many causesÑthe lack of sufficient capital being the greatest obstacleÑhe was forced to abandon them to the next claimant, who frequently made his fortune. One instance recalled sold for $100,000 after slight additional development, and there were others that promised as well.

His labors were often in a country overrrun with hostile Indians, and where if their claims had any shadow of right in the eyes of the government at Washington the regular troops took the side of the Redman and the miner was at the mercy of both factions. The reward, however, while fought for in contests that tried the man, netted as much in dollars as could have been earned in a life time of peace on an Ohio farm, and Mr. Fee is now well satisfied to rest at ease on his Kansas acres and recount what he has passed through.

Satisfied that he could not "buck nature single-handed" in February, 1886, Wm. J. Fee, wife and son came to Barton County and purchased the right to a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres, entered by one Hemmingway, seven miles west from Great Bend. This he afterward proved up in his own name, and later buying another quarter, he now owns and cultivates a half section. it is well improved and in a high state of cultivation.

William James Fee and Miss Elizabeth T. Haines, of New Richmond, Clearmont County, Ohio, were married in September, 1881, at Santa Fe New Mexico, and have one son, Charles Haines Fee, 27, who resides with them.

Back to top

Visitors, clubs, and TOPS

[January 19]   The Pawnee Rock news, as reported by Mrs. Henry Kurtz in March 1983 in the Larned paper, was heavy on club news. One item appeared regularly -- the report from the local chapter of TOPS -- Take Off Pounds Sensibly. It's hard to imagine such information being published in newspapers these days, but at the time it provided a kind of sport for a segment of our population.

Here's the scoop:

Rev. Rogert Siebert, pastor of the First Mennonite Church of Hillsboro, arrived on Saturday afternoon to present a series of sermons on "Revelations" at the Bergthal Mennonite Church. He was a guest of his stepmother, Mrs. Gladys Siebert, over the weekend.

Tom Flick, Mabel Flick of Larned and Don Bowman of Great Bend returned last Friday from a trip to Arroyo Grande, Calif., where they visited their aunt and and sister, Fannie Vassar. They also visited Wendell and Marilyn Nairn in that city and Frank and Vera Farwell in Santa Maria. All are former residents of Pawnee Rock.

Mrs. George Bowman of Larned hosted the Federated Twentieth Century Club, Thursday, March 17. The theme of the program was "Color your World with Federation and with Knowledge of those Around you." Roll was "What I appreciated about my heritage." Mrs. Bowman played a piano number, "Poem" by Fibich. Mrs. Roland Schmidt reviewed articles on "Expanding our World View." Mrs. Harold Geil read an article, "Is $100.00 too much for a child's life?" Mrs. Percy Converse reported on the "Club Woman" and Mrs. Wendell Smith reported on International affairs. During the business session, Mrs. Keith Mull announced plans for a soup and pie supper to be held on Saturday, March 26, at the Pawnee Rock Depot. Plans for a Community Card party will be announced soon. Other members present were Mrs. Roy Blackwell, Mrs. Cecil Pfister, Mrs. Roger Unruh, Mrs. Harold Schmidt.

TOPS-KS-512 met at 6:30 p.m. on March 17 with 12 members present. Best loser of the week was Mary Flick with a loss of 3 1/4 lbs and second best was Barbara Tutak with a 1/4 lbs loss.

Back to top

Out on the Wedel farm

[January 18]   Dave Hiebert remembered Frank and LaVina Wedel, mentioned last week.

Here's what he wrote:

After living at Zook, KS, in 1950/1951, my family returned to the Pawnee Rock area. We rented the Wedel place, then owned by Frank & LaVina Wedel, a few miles East of Pawnee Rock; past the Loving farm, past the curve near the Brady Farm, but before the Henry Unruh farm. We lived there for 5 or more years; then moved Northeast of Pawnee Rock to the Bill Mull Farm, which was close to Harold Schmidt's farm. My folks lived there till they moved to Larned around 1973.

I loved living less than 1/2 mile from the Arkansas river for those years on the Wedel place. I knew every hollowed-out log or tree for a couple of miles along the river. Occasionally, I caught a cottontail rabbitt, by hand, from one of these hollowed-out places.

Dave Hiebert

Where the Wedels went: My mom -- Anita Byers -- wrote that Frank and LaVina Wedel moved to Larned, where they built a brick home near the country club.

Back to top

Emma Wedel, mother

[January 15]   Emma Wedel is buried with family members in the Pawnee Rock Cemetery. There's a family marker and a series of smaller stones that remember Benjamin, the father, and two other Wedels, Frank and LaVina, who are set off.

You might know this family; no doubt lots of people do although I don't. Wedels have lived north of town since before 1900. What is known about the Wedels is kept in their family's and neighbors' hearts and minds. What a stranger finds in the cemetery reveals little.

Maybe that's all right. The family is together, and the identifications that mattered to the survivors were cut into the granite after Benjamin died in 1949.

And there the Wedels lie, Emma and Benjamin and Frank and LaVina, together with their sorrows and joys. The days pass -- noon and sunset and midnight and sunrise -- and today, tomorrow, and forever Emma will be Mother.

Back to top

Louis Svoboda and other news

[January 14]   In April 1983 there was plenty of news about Pawnee Rock. I pulled three clippings to write about -- one is about the birth of an institution, another is an obituary about a longtime resident, and the third one just struck me as odd. Who, in any somewhat gossipy town, would attend public marriage and family counseling provided by a school psychologist in a church? (Well, if you did, good for you.)

Depot benefit: A benefit card party for the Pawnee Rock Community Center will be from 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday at the Pawnee Rock Depot, which is being renovated to become the new center. Admission fee is $2, including refreshments. Pitch and bridge will be played.

Obituary: Louis V. Svoboda, 84, died April 9, 1983, at his home in Pueblo, Colo. Born April 26, 1898, in Ellsworth County, he married Anna Lilak Aug. 9, 1921, at Russell. She died Oct. 27, 1964. He married Leatha Curtis May 4, 1966. He was a retired carpenter and had been a Pueblo resident since 1966, moving from Pawnee Rock.

Survivors: widow, of the home; son, William, Topeka; daughters, Betty Svoboda, Pawnee Rock; Lila Robinson, San Antonio, Texas; stepson, Charles White, Oregon; stepdaughters, Gerry Knight, Arizona, Genivea Wilson, Omaha, Neb.; sisters, Josie Neushaffer, Big Springs; Anna Hokr, Ellsworth.

Funeral will be at 1 p.m. Tuesday at Beckwith Mortuary, Larned; the Rev. Galen Unruh. Burial at Pawnee Rock Cemetery [north end]. Friends may call from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday and 9 a.m. until service time Tuesday at the mortuary. Memorials to the American Cancer Society.

Counseling: The Christian Church in Pawnee Rock will offer marriage and family counseling sessions from 7:30 to 9 p.m. April 10 and 17 at the church. Dr. Walter Moody, Larned school psychologist, will lead the sessions. For more information call 316-982-xxxx.

Back to top

Strolling north on Centre Street

[January 13]   Let's say there's no traffic today on Centre Street -- it's safe enough for a dog to sleep in the middle of the street -- and we're walking north from the south side of Pawnee Rock. Then, let's say it's January 2005, which is when these photos were made.

Photo 1, County Line Road: Unseen on the left: The American Legion basement (rebuilt as a house), and the former Blackwell home. Unseen on the right: the Chet Spreier and Cobb Miller homes. The brick place on the right is the former home of Reford and Beulah White.

Photo 2, Janell Avenue: Unseen on the left is a Farmers Grain installation. Then there's a railroad signal; around 1970 some driver plowed into it and knocked it off its pedestal. On the right, near the other signal, a sidewalk once crossed the tracks. The Santa Fe depot was farther to the right. In the middle distance is U.S. 56. Across the highway on the left is an antique shop, in a sandstone building that started out as an opera house and later became a restaurant and a Knights of Pythias Lodge. Across the street from it is another antique shop, which has since burned and been replaced but in its prime was a succession of bars and restaurants. It is on the site of Stella's, a long-ago restaurant.

Photo 3, U.S. 56: The small white building and the white building behind it are part of Jayhawk Mechanical Engineering, but before that the small building was a scale office for several of the town's elevators and then the Midget Malt Shop. Behind the old malt shop is the old Betty's Cafe and then the relocated depot and the former Lindas Lumber Co. store. The white building is the post office. On the right side is a shed belonging to the antique store and then a blue-green metal building owned by Farmers Grain.

Photo 4, Flora Avenue: This is the old business district. The west side of the street held two banks, a drugstore or two, an elevator company, a farm equipment store, a barbershop, a telephone exchange, and one or two grocery stores, depending on which year you think back to. In 2005, the view is generally the same as from U.S. 56, but with a better view of the fire station, the white building beyond the metal building on the right. It replaced the Clutter Lindas Lumber Yard, which was removed around 1990.

Photo 5, Pawnee Avenue: On the left, out of sight, is the post office, then a storefront that contained a succession of businesses (drugstore/laundry/hair salon/marshal's office) and Willard Wilson's welding shop. The ragged edge of a building on the left is what's left of Dutch Smith's blacksmith shop, and the open space north of that was the site of a livery stable. There's the Christian Church. On the right, behind the cedar, is the tennis court, where public dances have occasionally been held. Back in the 1940s, before the land was a tennis court, crowds gathered there to watch open-air movies projected onto a screen set up near what was then the lumber yard's north wall.

Photo 6, Santa Fe Avenue: Flick, Howerton/Carris, Ross, and Schultz families at one time lived on the left, but that was a couple of decades ago. On the right, Countryman/Stegman and Wilhite families lived in those houses.

Photo 7, Bismark Avenue: Out of sight on the left is the former Alan and Dorothy Bowman house. The blue house on the left has been Howard and Carole Bowman's place for as long as I can remember, and beyond it is the former Benjamin Unruh home, dating to the early 20th century. On the right, out of sight, is the former Harry Lewis home with its round porch, and then the Bright home. At the end of the road is a house built for the Rev. and Mrs. Galen Unruh, in the 1960s I think, at the top of the hill. Tucked off to the left, halfway up the hill, is Pawnee Rock State Park.

Back to top

The Ritchie family

[January 12]   Jeanne Ritchie was one of the baby sitters hired by my mom to take care of Cheryl and me. During those few months, she was always singing one of the day's popular songs, whether she was doing her homework, fixing a snack, or hanging clothes on the line in our backyard.

Here's what she sang:

Oh, Sweet Pea
Come on and dance with me
Come on, come on, come on and dance with me
Oh, Sweet Pea
Won't you be my girl
Won't you, won't you, won't you be my girl

Virgil Ritchie was a class or two ahead of me in school. Recently he was the superintendant in the Lewis school. I didn't get to know the rest of their family, but students in many other classes certainly did.

Jeanne (now Vratil) and Virgil came from a large family. There were two daughters besides Jeanne: Christenia and Sondra. There were sons: James, Harold, Stanley, William, Dennis, Gary, Virgil, and a son who died early, Ora Jr.

Ora and Ruth Ritchie celebrated their 50th anniversary in 1983, and their children threw a party in Pawnee Rock.

The Ritchies were married for another year and a half. He died 25 years ago today, on January 12, 1985. She died on December 18, 2001, and they are buried together in the east section of the Pawnee Rock Cemetery. At the time of her death, Mrs. Ritchie had 29 grandchildren, 38 great-grandchildren, and four great-great-grandchildren.

Back to top

Cheerleaders are identified

Top to bottom: Tina Bright, Robyn Symank, Mandy (Amanda) Myers, Theresa Unruh, Melinda Jacobs, and Susan Levingston.

[January 11]   Last week I posted a photo of several Pawnee Rock junior high cheerleaders -- but I didn't have their names. Well, I thought I could read a couple of names from their sweaters but got only one of them right.

Three readers -- Susan Ellis, Cheryl Unruh, and one who has asked not to be identified -- came up with this consensus:

Top to bottom: Tina Bright, Robyn Symank, Mandy (Amanda) Myers, Theresa Unruh, Melinda Jacobs, and Susan Levingston.

Cheryl sent a couple of yearbook pages showing these girls in their fourth and fifth-grade years in 1974, so this photo must have appeared in the 1977 yearbook (if my math is correct).

Back to top

Friends and family and memories

[January 11]   Jamie Clawson-Young sent this reminder of what is important:

Thank you for putting the news on the site about the passing of my grandfather A.B. Clawson and the photos. He will be greatly missed by all of his family and friends.

I flew from Florida to attend his funeral and was able to see many friends of ours from P.R. while in town. Although many of us have moved away from that area, we never forget where we were raised and the great memories we have there.

Thanks for all your work you put into keeping us informed and together.

Sincerely,
Jamie Clawson-Young

Back to top

Jack Bowman receives award

[January 11]   Jack Bowman, Pawnee Rock Class of 1952, on Friday was officially inducted into the Great Bend High School Hall of Fame. He had coached at several high schools and was the track coach at Barton County Community College on his way to accumulating many honors. (Story and photo in the Tribune)

Back to top

Hiring a judge, 1983

[January 8]   A tidbit in the Great Bend Tribune in early November 1983 hints at tumult in the city offices -- but the good citizens of Pawnee Rock also were being offered a good reason to stay home and indoors. The item is short on details and background, although it suggests that there had been some interesting council meetings before this one:

Pawnee Rock names judge

Joel Jackson, a Great Bend attorney, was named municipal judge by the Pawnee Rock City Council at its Nov. 7 meeting. The position had been vacant for several months.

City Marshal Doug Walker offered his resignation, but it was not accepted by the council and he will continue to serve as marshal.

In other action, the council voted to participate in a mortgage revenue bond program, and will offer hook-ups to the municipal cable TV system for half price and the donation of a toy to be given away for Christmas.

Back to top

Ice see myself

[January 8]   With lots of snow and ice in Kansas this week, I thought it would be fun to display one of my favorite winter photos.

This little cataract is Thunderbird Falls in Chugach State Park in the Anchorage area. I took an old 120 roll-film camera with me to stand on ice-covered rocks at the bottom of the creek's canyon, hoping that I'd avoid breaking a leg and have to be rescued from beyond the "do not enter" sign.

I gave up film photography not long after our first son was born; having darkroom chemicals in the house didn't seem like such a good idea. But now, when I look back at my contact sheets and prints, I realize how much I miss pretending to be Ansel Adams. It's not that I'm any good, but it's something that makes me feel good.

Back to top

Pawnee Rock author

[January 7]   This newspaper clipping describes a Pawnee Rock woman's upcoming book-signing session at a store in Larned in 1983. Marilyn Black Phemister was the new author of "Seedlings: Verse for Meditation."

O Marilyn Black Phemister, how I wish I were you.

How many times have I wished I had written a book. And had crowds show up to buy the book and have me sign it with a personally uplifting message. Lots of times. Every week.

Now all I have to do is write a book, research the subject, rewrite the text until it's readable, get it published, and get bookstores to put it on their shelves (or the electronic equivalent). In other words, I have to actually earn that signing.

A few years ago, I did contribute a lot to a book about cemeteries in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico -- but that was right after I moved back to Alaska and I didn't get to attend any signings.

Maybe I -- maybe you -- could write about Pawnee Rock. Surely there's something we could say that isn't a cookbook or a book of inspirational poetry. You know -- the real Pawnee Rock. And then our words could live forever.

I searched the Internet for Ms. Phemister. She achieved greater fame, and her poetry lives online.

Back to top

Echoes of "Echoes of Pawnee Rock"

[January 6]   Ken Stromquist of Parkville, Missouri, was on eBay recently and discovered several bookstores offering "Echoes of Pawnee Rock," a booklet put together to commemorate the creation of Pawnee Rock State Park a century ago.

The booklet was compiled by Margaret Perkins. About $800 from the sale of the book was contributed to the fund, which was used to buy the land. Emporia editor William Allen White, Gov. E.W. Hoch ("I was one of 14 young fellows who built the first house and dug the first well in Pawnee Rock, and will be glad to do anything I can to preserve what remains of the historic relic of the old trail," he wrote), and assorted poets provided the words that made of the book.

There's a wide range in price -- from $12.71 to $112.45 -- for the three copies I saw last night. (eBay page)

Back to top

Radium, part and parcel

The Radium post office, about 1980.

[January 5]   Being from the big city and from a postal family, I expected all post offices to be as substantial as the one in our former downtown Pawnee Rock bank building.

Look at Larned, Great Bend, Claflin, Macksville, Hutchinson.

And then there was Radium.

Radium in the 1970s remained a grain-elevator whistle-stop, and its post office was enclosed in the same corrugated-tin-sided building as the town's bar/cafe/Pepsi dealer hard by the tracks east of the elevator.

In the year after our high school was closed, a lot of us car-pooled the 11 miles to Radium each morning to catch a bus to Macksville, so I was in town quite a bit until I got my own car and started driving to school. I stopped in now and then at the cafe for a Pepsi, but I never had a reason to use the post office. I wish I had -- not that I had any mail to send but so I could look back at it and feel as if I'd been somewhere that I wouldn't find anywhere else or anymore.

Here's the sign:

Back to top

Busy Pawnee Rockers

[January 4]   In the years of my youth, there was a well-spaced procession of open houses, holiday meals, and meals at friends' houses. Our family's various visits didn't make the newspaper, because our life was relatively private. Many other families, though, were in the news quite a bit, and I suspect that I might have lived vicariously through their exploits as described in the local-news columns printed in the Larned paper.

Here is the town life recorded by Mrs. Henry Kurtz and published November 21, 1983.

Mr. and Mrs. Roy Bauer recently returned from a 4800 mile sixteen day Fall Foliage Tour through the Northeastern states. Highlights of the tour were Niagra Falls, Canada, New York -- where they attended the Broadway play, "Dream Girl," Washington -- where they visited the White House and the Capitol building while the Senate was in session.

Mrs. Alan Bowman and Mrs. Roy Bauer attended a brunch at the home of Mrs. James Darcey in Great Bend on Thursday morning.

David Briggs of Manhattan was a Saturday evening dinner guest of his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Fry.

Mrs. Jack Wilhite, Jerry, Sasha and Wesley of Amarillo, Texas, arrived Thursday afternoon to visit Mr. and Mrs. W.W. Wilhite. On Friday, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Regan, Neodesha, Travis and Troy Regan, Fredonia, Rob Regan and Tom Cox, Ottawa, and Jack Wilhite of Amarillo arrived to spend the weekend at the Wilhite's. On Saturday morning, thirteen men from Houston and Amarillo, Tex., and Monroe, La., and Mr. and Mrs. Jim Hearn and Lavinia Low, Great Bend, joined the others for breakfast before the opening of pheasant season. Mr. Wilhite prepared lunch for all Saturday evening. Willis Malone of Amarillo was host to a rib-eye steak barbecue served to the group at the Wilhite home. Following some hunting, the group departed to their various homes on Sunday.

Frances and Mo Nahafizadeh of Houston, Texas, are the proud parents of their first child, a daughter, born November 1. She has been named Jessica Meenoo and weighed 8 lbs. 15 oz. at birth. Mr. and Mrs. Adam Deckert returned home Nov. 14 after spending a week in Houston getting acquainted with their new granddaughter. Other weekend visitors were James and Anna Sue (Deckert) White and children of Goliad, Texas.

Lucille Kurtz spent Monday and Tuesday with her father, Wilbur Bryant, of rural Ellinwood.

The Sewing Club was held at the home Reva Ross in Larned, Thursday evening. Those present were Doris Spreier, Mildred Mull, Hannah Moore, Marguerite Darcey, Peggy French, Elsie Rogers and the hostess.

This must have been a difficult column for Mrs. Kurtz, as one finds at the end of her recitation of family affairs:

Our beloved mother, Hilda Bryant of Ellinwood, age 83, departed from this life on October 12, 1983, at 7:45 p.m. at CKMC following a sudden heart attack. She was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother and friend. Her world was shaken on April 26, 1983, when her eldest daughter, Ruby Wilson of Ellinwood, passed away at age 63. It was then that a heart problem began to limit mother's active life. Until 6 p.m. on the evening of her death, mother had never been a patient in any hospital. She leaves to mourn her passing, her husband, Wilbur Bryant; two daughters, Barbara Adams of Great Bend and Lucille Kurtz of Pawnee Rock; one son, Leo Bryant of Chetopa, 12 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. She will be sadly missed.

Back to top

Happiest New Year

One (quiet) symbol of the new season.

[January 1]   It's every generation's wish to have their kids live a more enjoyable life than the one they had. That includes New Year's Eve celebrations.

My childhood New Year's Eves were festooned -- if that's the right word -- with hot chocolate and interminable games of Monopoly while the more adventurous members of my Mennonite youth group were upstairs getting a snootful of sloe gin. We didn't have fireworks of any kind. In fact, I don't think it ever occurred to me in Pawnee Rock to shoot fireworks off in the middle of winter.

Fireworks are illegal in the city where we live now, no matter whether the forest is flammable or not in the winter, so I didn't drive Nik and Sam to an outlaw town and buy big wire sparklers and 200 firecrackers, and I didn't build a sound-deadening arena out of blocks of snow last night, and I didn't teach the boys how to shoot firecrackers in the dark, and then we didn't wait until midnight and burn sparklers in the street while our neighbors didn't shoot off a hundred dollars' worth of Chinese-made roman candles and various whizbangs. But I would have, were it legal to do so.

In the middle of the evening, I fixed supper -- sauteed chicken, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas with ham simmered in pineapple chunks, and steamed carrots with butter and brown sugar. I wasn't sure whether I was sending off the old year in style or welcoming the new year, but I'd like to think our lamplight dinner could become a tradition each year before the boys set out to explosively rearrange the neighborhood's molecules.

Something must have gone right with the night's activities, because Sam announced that it was the best New Year's Eve ever in his thirteen years. I guess I've reached the age where I will accept his judgment about the quality of the holiday. If it's Sam's best, then it's the best I've ever had too.

I hope you all had a grand introduction to 2010, with all the fireworks you wanted. Maybe this whole year will be a success for each and every one of us and our hometown.

Back to top

Sell it

Advertise here to an audience that's already interested in Pawnee Rock:

Or tell someone happy birthday.