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Too Long in the WindWarning: The following contains opinions and ideas. Some memories may be accurate. -- Leon Unruh. Send comments to Leon April 2010Stirring up trouble
Pawnee Rock's former sewer plant, east of town. Elgie Unruh made this photo. April 30 Pawnee Rock's third most famous landmark, after the Rock and the Farmers Grain elevator, was the wedding-cake sewage treatment plant east of town along the highway. Most of the time, it was hidden in plain sight. We drove past it so often on the way to and from Dundee and Great Bend that few of us really gave it a good look. But then one day the vandals crossed the fence. Bill, poor Bill. He did the city's dirty work and, like people (teachers, cops, newspaper editors) who handle problems no one else wants to be reminded of, never got paid enough or given his due respect. He did, however, get something that most of us don't -- semi-immortality. Maybe Bill would gladly have forgotten about this sign, spray-painted some years ago. But here it is again, in honor of his work and the crap he had to put up with because of his job. Pardon my French. The stolid old sewer plant is gone, replaced by a newer model in basically the same location. But Pawnee Rock history and Bill live on, thanks to the sly cruelty of a jerk who might never have imagined he was doing Bill a favor. Angela Marie Wiley diesApril 29 Angela Marie Wiley, who was 35 years old and lived in Pawnee Rock, died yesterday in the hospital in Hutchinson. She had three sons -- Kyle Hatch, David Bayse, and Travis Wiley -- and a daughter, Mercadies Congrove. Her husband, Steve, also survives. Ms. Wiley will be buried Saturday in the Russell cemetery. (Full obituary) Home, sweet home all over againApril 29 I've been away longer from PawneeRock.org than expected because I was moving my family to Fairbanks and the ordeal just wouldn't end neatly. We closed last Friday on our house in Eagle River (it sold in three days because of my wife's keen remodeling skills), and then we began the awful task of sorting out what could go on the moving truck and what had to stay behind. I have committed deeds of abandonment that no man should have to face. But now my wife, the boys, and I are all together again. The family has a new part of the state to explore. When I was a kid in Pawnee Rock, my family didn't move. Mom came from Larned (and several towns before that), and Dad moved in from the farm, and then they stayed put. I lived 18 years in the same house in Santa Fe Avenue, plus four college years, and then I let my job as an editor help me see the world west of the Mississippi. I'm starting to wind down, now that we have kids. When I took a job at the university last summer after 17 years at the Anchorage newspaper, it was the first time I exchanged one job for another in the same state. Sometimes I wonder whether the boys are missing something by not being as rooted as I was. Sometimes, also, I wonder what I missed out on by spending my formative years in one place. But what can you do? I guess it all comes down to adapting to the choices the family makes. My parents took a lot of pride in revealing to my sister and me the Pawnee Rock area's human and natural history, and that seemed to work well for us. Maybe it gave me the foundation I needed to put other places into perspective. So, now my wife and the boys are here, and I'm overjoyed at not needing to drive 350 miles each way to visit them every other weekend. Plus, the requirement that I sort all my worldly goods has given me plenty of opportunities to look into cardboard boxes bearing treasures from my salad days on Santa Fe Avenue, and I didn't leave those goods behind despite pressure from my wife. I have traveled and at the same time brought home with me. Taking a break[April 21] I have so much going on for the rest of this week (lots of travel, a real estate deal, and a conference) that I won't be able to add to the site. I plan to return on Monday, April 26, and I hope you all have a prosperous and happy interlude. Blue sky, scowling at me
A storm marches in on a wheatfield. [April 20] Bad weather and ripening wheat frequently appear at the same place, much to the regret of farmers and those who depend on their business. I don't think anybody wants wheat to be damaged, but I suspect that we all -- at least secretly -- get a kick out of Big Storms. It is thrilling to see a terrible event happen, and too often we concern ourselves with the consequences only after someone we know has been left in a bad way. Maybe the wheatfield in this photo can be a sacrificial lamb as 2010's spring storm season develops. May the lightning strike elsewhere, may the hail not fall at all, and may the rain come now and not in June. "The day they walked to the river"
Alice Schmidt, Maxlyn Smith, Ruth Smith and Helen Schmidt set out across country. Barb Schmidt sent this family photo. [April 19] Our friend Barb Schmidt sends us this delightful photo and the story behind it. Here is one of my favorite old PR-related photos. Pictured are (left to right) Alice Schmidt, Maxlyn Smith, Ruth Smith and Helen Schmidt -- later known as Alice Ortman, Maxlyn Schmidt, Ruth Graber and Helen Deckert. I don't know who took the picture or exactly when, but my guess is the early 1940s. Alice and Helen were my dad's [Paul's] younger sisters. Maxlyn and Ruth were their "first cousins once removed," besides being farm neighbors a couple miles northwest of Pawnee Rock. The photo in my parents' album is labeled "the day they walked to the river." When I was in high school, I asked Dad what he knew about my teacher Maxlyn. He showed me this photo and told me with a big smile how excited and talkative "the girls" were that day about their grand adventure, which they had been planning for quite some time. He said they packed their lunches in bags and set off across the fields heading south, happy as could be. They were "bubbling over," he said, "and nobody else could get a word in edge-wise." If they had wanted, someone could have driven them the 5 miles or so down to the river. But they said they preferred to see what the walk was like "in the old days," before automobiles or even wagons. So here we are in 2010, looking back on a slightly fuzzy photo of four young women who many of us once knew and cherished. And what do we find? That they, too, were taking time to think about the past, all the while clearly enjoying the present. Barb A.F. Jacka, Republican candidate for sheriff
[April 16] The hat. The hatchet face. The stare. A.F. Jacka looks as if he would have shot a man just for snoring. But Mr. Jacka was a man of the people when he campaigned for sheriff of BT County. He knew the way to a male voter's heart was to provide a handy list of Kansas' 105 counties and county seats. This was back in the days when Kansas tags openly announced which county the driver was from and what part of the alphabet the owner's name began with. Now everybody is just an alphanumeric designation, and there's no personality left in the overdesigned tags. It was also a good way to keep track of SG County vehicles that carried hunters up from Wichita to drive uninvited in our fields and kill our pheasants. A.F. Jacka -- listed as Alfred E. Jacka on the county's page of former sheriffs -- apparently served briefly as sheriff in 1950. Having gotten a taste of the job, he ran in 1951 and was defeated. But because Jacka's campaign card contained the state's designators for the counties, my dad kept the card and tossed it into a box, where I found it nearly 50 years later. I wonder whether A.F. Jacka ever considered the campaign a path to immortality. Radio, radar, and a turtle
Doyle wrote: "Here's a picture of my pet turtle Herman. I've had him since 1985. He's quite a character. Saturday we went to LaCrosse and he rode on the dash, sunning himself and taking in the sights. He needed to 'thaw out' after the winter. He has the run of the house, doesn't hibernate but they slow down in the winter." [April 15] Doyle Mayse, the one-time voice of KANS radio in Larned and now with the Pawnee County Sheriff's Office, wrote to lament the departure of radio from Larned. He later sent the photo of Herman, which I must say is a remarkable tableau I never expected to see. Here's what Doyle wrote: Long time since I've looked at your column on the web. I was surprised to find way back when I mailed you the KANS note pad that you put it on your web along with another write up of 'your hero.' A lot of water under the bridge since those days. We don't even have a radio station in Larned any more. The ownership changed hands a half dozen times, finally the station was moved. Since it all comes off the satellite now, all they need is a computer and that makes up the radio station, sending the signal to the tower south of Larned. I read with interest your comments about Pawnee Rock being in the speed trap list. Back a number of years ago, maybe 1989-90, they had a city marshal in Pawnee Rock, I don't remember his name, his CB handle was "Flashlight." He lived on the highway by the south elevator in the patrol car and ran radar almost day and night. He like most little town marshals didn't last long and moved on. Pawnee Rock doesn't have a Police Dept. anymore, their patrol car was turned over to the fire department as a first responder vehicle of some kind. Ah progress. School consolidation, revisited[April 15] With the recent news about possible district consolidations in Hanston and Pawnee Heights and in Claflin and Lorraine, it's appropriate that Cheryl Unruh's broadcast this week on Kansas Public Radio was about the linger effect of school closings. Cheryl was an eighth-grader when Pawnee Rock High School was closed by the Unified School District 495 board in Larned. Here's a link to the page where you can listen to her presentation. Up the spiral staircase
[April 14] The pavilion on the Rock is one of our town's trademark buildings, created out of mortar and the red Dakota sandstone on which it sits. It was built in 1920 and has given Pawnee Rockers and their visitors the best view in Central Kansas for 90 years. The key to the whole view is the spiral staircase, a black-painted metal structure with a handrail on the outside and a pipe on the inside. If you listen to your memory, you can hear the rapid thump of children dashing up the ladder and the careful footpats of adults going down.
At the top, there is exhilarated talk. Back on the main concrete floor, the talk is subdued, a little relief in the voices of people who again find themselves safe from the perverse notion that they could have flung themselves over the edge had they wanted to. Going up the 540-degree staircase gave me the willies when I was a kid, and I'm not all that much more secure on it these days. The triangular risers still seem too small, and they look as if they're going to be slippery even when they're dry. My fears might have something to do with the long flight of wooden stairs I tumbled down as a child, landing on our basement floor with a circular wound that would scar my forehead for three decades. I never complained to anyone about the spiral staircase. People would have laughed at me. And when I went up, the expansive view from the top of Barton County was always worth it. Always.
Now, it turns out, the staircase -- a piece of our shared history -- may be in trouble. My cousin, Brenda Jones of Great Bend, wrote to describe an investigation she and her sisters, Mary and Cynthia, saw when they stopped by the Rock last Thursday. State employees from Topeka were "looking at the spiral staircase and taking pictures of it. They were discussing on replacing or repairing the staircase because it may be unsafe." Brenda added: "I couldn't hear everything they were talking about but we did talk to them some and they were trying to decide what type of staircase to put there if they replaced it. They may have been looking at other things at the Rock too. But we just saw them looking and taking pictures of the staircase." I don't wish an end to the spiral staircase, but I also don't want the structure to collapse when someone is on it. Perhaps the steel left over from the Great War has corroded too much, or maybe the bolts holding it high and low aren't secure anymore.
The staircase, like much of the park itself, is not accessible to those without sure feet. Perhaps that too will play into the state's decision. Given a choice, and despite my own concerns, I'd like to see another spiral staircase replace the first one. There's symmetry to the staircase -- a cylinder rising through the cube made by the pavilion's four towers. The feel of the handrail foretells the cool pipes that fence in the upper deck. It's a steel-and-stone pavilion, as spare as an old tractor, and no place for wood or plastic. Let's hope our friends with the state make a good choice. 
Memorial Day and school reunion[April 13] The end of May isn't far away, and that means that it's almost time for the annual Pawnee Rock school reunion. But first comes the memorial ceremony at the Pawnee Rock Cemetery. It starts at 11 a.m. on May 31, Memorial Day. Immediately afterward, graduates and former students who attended Pawnee Rock schools are invited to the reunion at the Lions Club depot downtown. According to a note received from Glenn Mull and the rest of a committee (Sandra Haun, Marilyn Haynes, and Vivian Bright), lunch will be served and there will be a free-will donation. The second part of the reunion will occur on August 21. The annual golf meet will begin at 8 a.m. at the Stoneridge Country Club in Great Bend, and it will be followed at 3 p.m. by conversation in the big meeting room at the Angus Inn on West 10th Street. A catered meal -- brisket, fried chicken, and trimmings -- will be served at 6 p.m. The golf costs about $45. The meal costs $15, the alumni association's letter said, and you don't have to play golf to meet and eat. Reservations must be made for one or both events by calling Ed Crosby (620) 285-2365 or Roger Hanhardt (620) 923-5807. Reservations required by August 10. Pay at the door. Click here for a PDF reminder page you can stick on the refrigerator. Photos from last year's reunion are in our Reunion section. Firefighting gear and a bunny suit[April 12] The February 11, 1999, issue of Pawnee Rock News contained useful news.
The edge of the world
Photographer's studio, John Vachon, Sisseton, South Dakota, 1939. [April 9] One day not long ago I came across this photo of a distant town called Sisseton. The photo was made by John Vachon, a Farm Security Administration photographer sent out during the Great Depression to record life as real people knew it. This scene, despite being found in northeastern South Dakota in 1939, struck me as familiar. Finally I realized what it was. Look past the house in the background, and what do you see? Early photos of Pawnee Rock were the same way. The town ended and the plains went on. Now, of course, we have shelterbelts and the farms near town have trees. There's no direction you can look from the edge of Pawnee Rock and see nothing. Pawnee Rock's speed trap[April 8] Jim Dye e-mailed a link to a website that purports to identify speedtraps around the country. I checked on several cities where I've lived, and the spots cited by users seems plausible. There's a listing for Great Bend and Pawnee Rock, but oddly none for Larned. In Pawnee Rock, speeders had best beware the cop who parks by the elevator bins. Because of my name, I looked up the town of Leon. Hoo-boy, speed traps are a touchy subject. All I can say: Find another highway if you're driving east of Wichita. Check it out. Anything on TV?
[April 8] You may remember when no television signals reached Pawnee Rock. I was lucky, or unlucky. We got a black-and-white TV one day in 1963 -- it was on the living room counter when I got home from school, and from that moment on the electronic world opened doors for me. We got Channel 2, the NBC station in Great Bend. Sometimes we got the CBS station from Wichita, and once in a great while the ABC station, 10 KAKE, fluttered like a blizzard across our screen. Other people got much better reception, but our TV did the best it could and we had a decent antenna rising on a metal pole outside my bedroom window. Dad watched "Gunsmoke," and often I helped him and for a while believed that Dodge City had mountains just like on the little screen. Usually, though, I watched pro football and "Major Astro" and "Laugh-In." There wasn't much else on, except for the soaps and those meant nothing to me. A decade after I left Pawnee Rock for the big city and all its TV possibilities, Pawnee Rock got cable TV. You can see from the listings (May 21, 1986) how many more choices that gave everyone. Now, of course, there are many more channels, more ways to squander the part of our lives that isn't given to the Internet. Sometimes I miss the old shows and the reassurance that came with them. We always knew Lassie would fetch little Timmy out of the long-forgotten well and that the sheriff would capture the bad guy after a gunfight. I suspect that in a town our size, we also expected our marshal to be just like Andy Griffith, and that just wasn't going to happen. John Goatley and Michael Sweeny
[April 7] Typing was not necessarily easy for whoever wanted to remember John Goatley and Jim Sweeny, but he or she nevertheless rolled a card into the typewriter and hammered out these death notices. I'm guessing the news had been published in the Pawnee Rock Herald or one of the Larned newspapers. The writing doesn't indicate when Mr. Goatley died, and he wasn't buried in Pawnee Rock. Mr. Sweeny died in 1945 and is buried in the Pawnee Rock Cemetery. Mistakes aside (typos have been corrected), it's nice to see that these old-timers meant enough to be remembered this way. John Goatley DeadJohn Goatley died at his home in Great Bend, Wednesday morning at eight o'clock. Although his death was not unexpected, since he had been critically ill for many weeks, it brought the same shock and grief to his relatives and friends, that death always brings. Mr. Goatley had lived in the Pawnee Rock community many years. He had been a rural mail carrier here for seventeen years, and until a year or so ago he seldom missed a day on his route. At that time his health began to fail and until his death he suffered much pain at intervals. Mr. Goatley was a man of genial, kindly disposition, ever ready to grant a favor to his neighbors and among his rural patrons, he was very popular. Just a few weeks ago the home here was sold and a home in Great Bend was secured, so Mr. Goatley might be taken from the hospital and be with family. Mr. Goatley will be greatly missed in Pawnee Rock and throughout the community. Funeral services will be held Friday afternoon at 2:30 from the M.E. church here, conducted by Rev. Cecil, Mr. Goatley pastor. James F. SweenyDemocratic leaders from over Kansas, and a number of former state legislators, were here Tuesday for the funeral James F. Sweeny, 71, who for four terms had served as representative in the state legislature from Pawnee County, and also for eight years was a member of the state legislative council.
His father, Michael Sweeny, was the first Santa Fe agent in Pawnee Rock, and Jim was born in the Santa Fe depot there in 1874, his parents living in the rear of the depot. His father walso was a state legislator, serving for six years as represenative from this county. Both father and son were leaders in Democratic Party circles in Pawnee County. Jim Sweeny was first selected to the legislature in 1934, and re-elected in 1936, 1938, 1940 and 1942.
The cream station
[April 6] I have the information. Does anyone have the photo? This page of writing paper, to which four album corners were affixed, once held a snapshot of the Merritt & Schwier cream station along the highway. I think the writing is my dad's. Unfortunately, the photo was gone by the time the paper got to me. The station stood south of Tom Brewer's home; he died in 1928, so the landmark is old. It was just east of the Huffman Garage. Does anyone remember this business from the early 20th century? What can you tell us about it or the folks who ran it? Where exactly was the Tom Brewer house? Another tie to a master teacher?[April 6] My sister, Cheryl, notes that magician/comedian Rex Getz is married to a Lou Ann Getz, and they live in Manhattan, and a Lou Ann Getz was recently named one of Kansas' master teachers. If what we suspect is indeed true, Pawnee Rock has sort-of ties to two master teachers, the other being Andrea Sayler-Siefkes. Is Pawnee Rock an educational nexus? Hello from Rex Getz, magician[April 5] The last rabbit I expected to pull out of my hat was a message from Rex Getz, but there it was, and it made me smile. "I saw the picture of me on your site from the 1970s. What a surprise. John Foster is the person who talked me into bringing my magic show to Pawnee Rock. Back in those days it was just a hobby that eventually turned into a business. Take a look at my site. Thanks for the memories." Rex Getz Father thanks town for daughter's care[April 5] H.D. Duggan, a saddened father, wrote a letter to the Larned paper to thank the people of Pawnee Rock for taking care of his dying daughter. This appeared in the Tiller early in 1913. Kind words for Pawnee Rock People Iola, Kans., January 27th, 1913. Editor The Tiller and Toiler, Larned, Kansas. Dear Sir: -- I crave to say through the columns of your most excellent paper, that I have been in the world for above seventy years, and have mixed and mingled with humanity during all my time, closely observing the progress of the same, but never in all my experience have I found a people so clearly demonstrating the spirit of Christ in the form of true charity "That hopeth all things," and that "thinketh no evil" equal to what I found in the people of Pawnee Rock and surrounding country. A precious daughter, the wife of Ira L. Downs, lay sick among them for months, and at last passed away into eternity, and during all this period of sorrow and sadness, they gathered around her, manifesting their unceasing sympathy, and doing everything they could for her, and the family. I took their measure in length and breadth, in height and depth, and I am bold to say that I have never witnessed such a demonstration of personal kindness in all my life, and I am sure they will never lose their reward. God bless them in all things, is my constant prayer. Some of our noted scripture expositors think that some day heaven will be removed to earth. I do not say that such will be the case, but if it is true, and I had the privilege of selecting the location, the New Jerusalem would go up right where Pawnee Rock now stands. If I had a million of heads, and each head a million of tongues, and each tongue could distinctly articulate a million different voices, I would employ them every one in praising the people who lived in the above named country. Again, let me say, God bless them, and may we meet in that happy land where there is no sickness or death. -- H.D. Duggan and family. It should be noted that the "precious daughter" has a name. She was Bertie May Downs. She was 31 years old when she died January 21, 1933, and she is buried in the Pawnee Rock Cemetery just southwest of the old water pump. Her husband was buried elsewhere. The Rev. Duggan was recognized for his way with words. A genealogy website repeats a letter he wrote about the death of his brother, which occurred only a few weeks after the death of his daughter. (When you get to that page, search it for "H.D. Duggan") Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?
April 2 I went shopping last night and, just for fun, strolled down the "seasonal" aisle. This time of year, that means chocolate rabbits, marshallow chicks, and all the rest of the stuff that's not good for your body but might be okay for your soul. Seeing all the sacrificial animals and candy eggs reminded me of bright Sunday mornings once each spring when we kids, bleary-eyed from staying up to watch out the window for the Easter bunny (while wondering what a bunny was doing with eggs in the first place), nevertheless were willing to arise long before Sunday school and hunt for dyed eggs. As holy-days go, Easter was the most fun because we got to be outside in warm weather. I think it was also fun to have a religious holiday -- unlike Thanksgiving and Christmas -- that wasn't based on pigging out or being burdened by presents; there was a certain cleanliness to it. Although the fact should have been obvious to me when I was very young, it wasn't until I was an adult that I finally understood that Easter is Christianity's most holy day. And when I think about it . . . there wouldn't be a Christian religion worth mentioning were it not for the Easter saga. It's a story of betrayal, homicide, ear slicing, feasting, a forsaken son, a hooker with a heart of gold, a thorny crown, gambling, torture, and in the end a happy ending and the promise of a sequel. It's easy to see how such a tale became the basis of grand-scale movies like Ben-Hur, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and Jesus Christ Superstar. Plus all the sunrise pageants, of course.
All of that imagery, however, was not the Easter I knew when I was a tow-headed 8-year-old racing his sister for eggs hidden under the forsythia. Those were kind mornings, uncomplicated by the terror of grief and redemption. A school portrait, 1958-59
[April 1] In the 1958-59 school year, Clair Rucker made $6,200 as superintendant of the Pawnee Rock schools. Glenda Franklin, with 10 years' experience, was paid $4,000 to run second grade. H.A. Smith collected $4,300 to teach social science, history, and citizenship. That's part of what we learn from the Barton County School Directory, a 6x9 paperback held together with a pair of staples. We also find out the town's population in 1959 was 384, down from 392 the year before. The township's population was 191, down from 222. Roger Unruh was a member of the Kansas State Association of School Boards. Here are the grade enrollments for the town's 266 students: Kindergarten -- 20 Tangible $2,386,473 Intangible $169,970 Levy $20.67 Director -- Keith Mull
Tangible $1,890,046 Levy 12.68 Director -- Keith Mull
In addition, we find that Pawnee Rock's cooks were Vida Ross, paid $110; Elizabeth Schmitt, $133.33; and Josephine Kopke, $110. The bus drivers were Gene Bowman, paid $145; Gene Deckert, $125; John Howerton, $125; Earl Schmidt, $125; and Elgie Unruh, $125. Master teacher has PR ties[April 1] Cheryl Unruh, over at FlyoverPeople.net, notes that Andrea Sayler-Siefkes, a teacher at St. John/Hudson, has been named one of the state's seven master teachers. She's the granddaughter of Art and Bea Sayler, who lived near Albert but were involved in so many Pawnee Rock activities, and the late Bennie and Ruth Deckert of Pawnee Rock; her mother is Esther Sayler. Fire Department goes to work[April 1] The Pawnee Rock volunteer fire department was called into action for a couple of hours Tuesday afternoon to help corral grass fires in highway ditches and the diversion ditch east of Dundee. Check out the story in the Great Bend Tribune. |
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The funeral was held at Sacred Heart Catholic church Tuesday, with Father N.J. Staab officiating. The burial was in Pawnee Rock Cemetery.
The main religious thing I remember from the Rev. Gerhard Peters -- an imposing Mennonite who preached with an accent -- was an Easter sermon. He asked us to imagine the dying Jesus straining to say, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which, translated from the Aramaic, is the haunting "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" More than the appearance before Herod, more than rising from a grave, that moment of anguish meant something. Maybe that's why, despite my Mennonite upbringing, I find the Catholic crucifix more thought provoking than the sanitized Protestant cross.|
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