Special September Meeting! Presentation Explores Multicultural Workforce of Harvey Girls

2015 - Saturday, September 19th - Special Program!

                   

          Presentation Explores Multicultural Workforce of Harvey Girls

[Wellington, Kansas] – Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society in Wellington, Kansas will host “The Harvey Girls’ Multicultural Workforce,” a presentation and discussion by Michaeline Chance-Reay on September 19, 2015 at 1:00 p.m. in the meeting room of the Wellington Public Library, 121 W. 7^th, Wellington, Kansas. 

Members of the community are invited to attend the free program. Contact the Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society at 620-447-3266 or the Wellington Public Library at 620-326-2011 for more information. The program is made possible by the Kansas Humanities Council.

The Fred Harvey Company not only hired recent immigrants to work in their famous Harvey House restaurants, they actively recruited them. Eventually, African American women became part of the workforce, and during World War II American Indians and Mexican Americans were hired as well. This presentation explores the job duties and working conditions of Harvey Girls from 1876 to the early 1950s.

Michaeline Chance-Reay teaches courses in Women's Studies and Education at Kansas State University. Her current research focuses on the Harvey Girls and historic sites on the K-State campus, especially those related to women.

“Women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who wanted jobs or careers outside of the home had few choices,” said Chance-Reay, “but the Harvey Company offered unique opportunities.  It was demanding work but also offered a decent salary in a protected environment, in addition to travel and adventure.”

“The Harvey Girls’ Multicultural Workforce” is part of the Kansas Humanities Council’s Humanities Speakers Bureau, featuring presentations and discussions that examine our shared human experience—our innovations, culture, heritage, and conflicts.

  

The Kansas Humanities Council conducts and supports community-based programs, serves as a financial resource through an active grant-making program, and encourages Kansans to engage in the civic and cultural life of their communities.  For more information about KHC programs contact the Kansas Humanities Council at 785/357-0359 or visit online at www.kansashumanities.org.

For more information about “The Harvey Girls’ Multicultural Workforce” in Wellington, Kansas contact the Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society at 620-447-3266, the Wellington Public Library at 620-326-2011, or visit http://ks-schgs.blogspot.com/p/programs.html

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“Etta Semple – Kansas Free Thinker” 

On Monday, March 24th, at 6:30 p.m., in honor of Women's History Month,  Vickie Stangl, Andover, will present the program “Etta Semple – Kansas Free Thinker” to Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society members and guests at the Wellington Senior Center, 308 S. Washington, Wellington.  In case of inclement weather, contact Jane Moore: 620-447-3266.

Stangl was required to do a “piece on a Kansas person” for her Master’s degree at Wichita State University, and after reading about Etta Semple, she became fascinated, and asked her instructor if she could “write about this heretic in Ottawa.”

Stangl said that Etta Semple, born near Quincy, Illinois in 1855, had views that were considered radical for the time.

Stangl said that Semple was a humanitarian, and had a state of the art sanitarium, but she was also an activist.

 “She and her second husband were active in the labor movement,” Stangl said.

“I began reading her newspapers and I was fascinated,” Stangl said, adding that she worked on her thesis for three years.

Stangl said that Semple died in Ottawa of influenza in 1914.

“It was pretty emotional when I realized that she was going to die of pneumonia,” Stangl said, “It became very personal to me.“

Stangl hopes to get her thesis published, and she is also working towards getting a documentary made on Semple’s life.

 “I think her story is important,” Stangl said, “everyone has their own beliefs and Etta was no different. She was a very courageous lady. Her story is just important.”

November 25th Meeting - Horse Racing - A Family Affair

November 25th Meeting

 “Horse Racing: A Family Affair”

On Monday, November 25th, Joyce Church, retired teacher and former girl jockey will present the program, “Horse Racing: A Family Affair,” to Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society members and guests at 6:30 p.m., at the Wellington Senior Center, 308 S. Washington, Wellington. Visitors are welcome; no charge for the program. For possible weather cancellations, contact SCHGS President Jane Moore at 620-447-3266.

In 1946, wearing maroon and pink racing silks, a skullcap, and wielding a bat, fourteen-year-old Joyce Riggs Church began her short career as a ‘bush’ jockey, racing her father’s thoroughbreds on small ‘bush’ tracks. Church and her sister raced in several Kansas towns, including their home town of Conway Springs, Anthony, Burden, Garden City, Emporia, and many other towns in Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, New Mexico, Missouri and Illinois. 

Church, a genealogist, was surprised to find that breeding horses and racing them was ‘in their genes.’ Her research turned up that not only had her grandfather bred and sold mules by the train car load, ancestors before him had also bred mules and pacing and trotting horses.

“Dad grew up in that atmosphere,” Church said, adding that it was her father’s dream to breed and race thoroughbreds and after her folks bought four colts and a stallion from a man in Fairfax, Oklahoma, her father needed jockeys, so he enlisted the help of his two daughters.

“Mother never wanted us to ride,” Church said, adding that although her father allowed them to race, her parents were very protective and she and her sister were not allowed to hang out with other jockeys in the barns where there was drinking and gambling.

“Racing was a family affair,” Church said, adding that the entire family traveled to the races with the horses. The horses traveled in the back of a wheat truck, and her mother drove the car. 

Church said that her mother packed picnic baskets with fried chicken and cherry pie, and the family picnicked on the race track grounds, and often spent the night in the back of the wheat truck with a tarp strung over the stock racks to keep off the rain.

Although Church went off to college when she was 16 years old, she came home on weekends to race, and at times lived at home and drove back and forth to school at Friends so that she could continue to ride. Church stopped racing when she was twenty-nine years old, and married in 1963.

“Before that, I ran around so much I didn't have time to get married,” Church said.

 Church said she “had had some accidents,” and been knocked out and taken to the hospital by ambulance, but had never broken a bone. But Church added that 1976 was a bad year for the Riggs family when her sister was killed in June at Churchill Downs at the age of 37, and her father died later that year.

Church will bring photographs and other racing memorabilia to share with the group, as well as the book “The Boys From the Bushes” by Lou Dean, a book about ‘bush racing’ that shares stories from Church and other ‘Bush’ jockeys.

Amanuensis Monday - Conway Springs Star Flashbacks - September 1933

Conway Springs Star - Flashbacks
reprinted 26 Sept 1933

Flashbacks from September 1933

Kenneth Beal, Roy Jenkins, Clyde Clark and Harold Lange of this place and Julius Miller of Clearwater returned last week from several days visit to the big fair in Chicago.  The boys made the trip in a Model T touring car.

Sam Scott has moved his store from next door to Ebersole Mortuary to the I.O.O.F. building which he occupied several years ago.  He is using only a portion of the building, the balance being used by Bicket and Staley Produce.

Averill Skiles is among the 57 students selected for membership in Southwestern's A Cappella Choir this semester.

The annual Presbyterian rummage sale will be held in the Myers' building Thursday and Friday of next week.

Amanuensis Monday - Flashbacks from Milan and Argonia, Kansas

From Argonia Argosy Files
One Hundred Ten Years Ago, November 1899
Reprinted in the Conway Springs Star & Argonia Argosy 12 November 2009


Argonia Clipper History
   Milan is adding two rooms to the parsonage which will make it a very comfortable residence.

   At a meeting of the Christian church in Milan F. M. Shore was appointed elder and J. G. Bailey, Sr., Jesse Rhodes and Mrs. Shobe, deacons. At a meeting which closed Sunday night thirteen were received by confession, three reclaimed and five by letter.

   The ladies of the Milan Helping Union will give an entertainment at the M. E. church Thanksgiving evening.

   At a recent revival at the Methodist church in Conway Springs there were sixty conversions and sixty-four accession.

   Another item in the Clipper told of the organization of a county temperance league whose purpose was to raise $10,000 with which to suppress the joints and gambling dives in every town in the county where they exist.  Rev. Cunningham of Wellington was elected president.  None of the officers named were from Argonia.  The interesting name of the organization was "The County Law Lovers League."

Fast Forward to 1939
Organizations in Argonia in 1939 were: The IOOF organized in 1885 was an extremely active organization.  The Masons organized in 1913 are also active in the community. Eastern Star obtained their charter in 1921.  The Rebeccas were organized early but during the World War disband but reorganized in 1925 with a new charter.  The Junior Library Club was organized and sponsored by the Argonia Library Association.

Civic Club president is Howard Jones; vice-president, W. G. Buser; secretary-treasurer, Virgil Ingram.  City officials in 1939 were Mayor R. W. Karnahan; clerk, G. M. Pohlenz; treasurer, L. B. Mitchel. Councilmen: George Achelpohl, M. H. Haworth, A. O. Swan, Luther Phillips and M. H. Wooden.

Argonia business places in 1939 were Argonia Cleaners, Argonia Drug, Argonia Mill, Argonia Produce, Argonia Shoe Shop, Argonia Undertaking Company, Argonia Argosy, Bates Service Station, Badiger Lumber Company, Bettis Wood Shops, Bringer Implement, Brown Poultry, Buser Oil, Coffman and son; Copeland Creamery, Frank Cornwell, Dr. Craig, Harry Doll, Dutch's Quick Lunch, Elarton Garage, Factor Barber Shop, George's Market, Gingham Girls Cafe, Forrest Implement, Hamilton and Newby, Hammnd and Haworth, Hartle Garage, Haworth's Store, Hunter Milling Company, Hometown Grocery, Johnson's Cafe, J. B. Supply, Lee and Stehle, Lee's Repair Shop, Leu Variety, Logue Oil Co., Main's Store, Farmers and Merchants State Bank.

Kansas Humanities Council Awards Grant to the Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society

Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society receives
grant from the Kansas Humanities Council

TOPEKA – The Kansas Humanities Council (KHC) recently awarded Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society of Wellington a $3,500 grant for the “Prairie Letters: Written in Rural Kansas in the Late Nineteenth Century” project.

Jane Moore, SCHGS president said that in 2012 the Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society received a notebook containing the “Prairie Letters,” letters that had been written primarily in the 1870’s by Emily Sell, one of Kansas’ earliest setters. Sell homesteaded in the Rome, Kansas area with her husband.  Moore said that even though Kansas was opened to settlement in 1854 and became a state in 1861, there were only 22 white people living in Sumner County by 1870 (The Sumner County Story, Paul and Gwendoline Sanders, 1966, p. 9).  Sumner County was not fully organized until Nov. 7, 1871.

“When I saw that the first letters were dated 1870, and learned that there were only about 22 white people living in Sumner County in 1870, I couldn't imagine what life must have been like for those early settlers,” said Elaine Clark, Prairie Letters Project Director and grant author.

There have been histories written about other areas of Sumner County during this time period, but very few collections of letters have been discovered which give a first-person perspective,” Clark said,  “that makes this collection of letters a priceless, irreplaceable piece of Kansas history.”

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“Transcription and preservation of these letters will give future historians, researchers, genealogists, and those interested in early settlement of the Midwest a first-person account of the hardships and difficulties of early homesteaders,” said Moore.

“Historical details about settlement in the Rome, Kansas, area are sketchy, but the town was officially organized in 1884,” Moore said, adding that  SCHGS members involved in transcribing Emily’s letters to friends and family are eager to learn about early-day settlement of Sumner County through the eyes and viewpoint of the homesteader and his wife.

Clark said she and her husband, Larry Clark, traveled to Jordan Cemetery recently to view and photograph Emily’s grave stone.

“I stood there and wondered what her life was like,” Clark said, adding that “these letters reveal much about the early days of Sumner County and the hardships and sorrows that families endured.  We tend to take food, warmth, air conditioning, doctors and medical care for granted, but these letters share the facts of everyday life for Kansas’ early settlers, babies that died because no doctors were available, weeks that go by before getting letters from family and friends, and children who can’t get an education because they live too far from school or they are needed to work on the farm.”

“These situations would seem foreign to today’s young people,” Clark said.

Clark said that some of the letters are almost unreadable because of fading, so it is imperative for the SCHGS to transcribe these letters as soon as possible. 

“This Heritage Grant from the Kansas Humanities Council will assist in preserving this treasure,” Clark said, “I can hardly wait to do the transcribing.”

Clark added that as the project progresses and they learn more about the contents of the letters, they will share information on the website at www.ksschgs.com, blog at www.ks-schgs.blogspot.com, SCHGS Facebook page and in area publications. 

“KHC Heritage grants encourage the preservation of local cultural resources,” said Julie Mulvihill, executive director of the Kansas Humanities Council. “This transcription project will preserve these one-of-a-kind primary source documents for generations to come. What a treat to find out what stories these letters will tell.”

The Kansas Humanities Council is a nonprofit organization that supports community-

based cultural programs, serves as a financial resource through an active

grant-making program, and encourages Kansans to engage in the civic and cultural

life of their communities. For more information, visit www.kansashumanities.org.

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Amanuensis Monday - Flashbacks from the Caldwell (Kansas) Messenger

Here are a few tidbits - reprinted with permission from the September 19, 2012, Caldwell Messenger, Caldwell, Kansas.

September 6, 1882

G. W. Miller had five or six teams hauling wire and posts from Caldwell to his pasture south of Deer Creek.

Sixty of the old soldiers at Caldwell were planning on attending the state fair in Topeka.  A special fare of $4.80 was offered.

The east roundup at Pond Creek was a decided success. The strays being brought in at a cost of 5 cents on the dollar of their values. Cattle were recovered that had been out for over two years.

September 13, 1922

Capture two stills in Arkansas City.  Two fully equipped stills, capable, they say, of turning out enough "corn" to supply all thirsty dwellers in this part of the state.

Si Sprague was down the first part of the week wiring his mother's house for electric lights.

September 15, 1922

Sunday - fried chicken 35 cents - Iles Cafe. 

September 18, 1922

Pity the bootlegger. Prohibitory violators will get stuck with $1,000 extra taxes.

Wordless Wednesday - Dr. Edward & Mrs. Smith - Oxford, Kansas

Photographer is George H. Dresser, Winfield, Kansas. 

This photograph of Dr. Edward and Mrs. Smith, Oxford, Kansas, is located in the Beals Family Files in the Pioneer Settler files at the Sumner County History and Genealogy Center in Wellington, Kansas.

 While only a few of the Family Files contain photographs, the files are rich sources of information and family stories, and in many cases the family trees in them contain generations that reach back to the first immigrant ancestor's homeland.