First Kansas Governor Dr. Charles Robinson and his wife, Sara, will make an appearance at the Kearny County Historical Society’s Annual Meeting on May 3. Portrayed by Steve and Suzanne Germes of Topeka, the presentation is guaranteed to be both educational and entertaining. The public is invited to attend the event which also includes a meal and short business meeting. There is no charge, but reservations are required. To make yours, call the Museum at 620-355-7448 by 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 24.
This story about a 1930s dirt storm was written by the late Cora Rardon Holt and appeared in Volume II of the History of Kearny County.
I woke up one Tuesday morning and the smell which confronted me told me what to expect. A musty odor, that was disgustingly familiar, was the immediate explanation for the dim, strangely-colored half-light, that would be with us for some time. Outside the wind was howling and I knew we were having another duster. What I didn’t know was that it would be Friday morning before the air would again be clean and pure.
Sitting up in bed to turn on the light, I noticed the white print of my head on the pillowcase – everywhere else it had taken on a gray-brown color. Everything in the room was covered with a layer of tan silt. The curtains looked like they had been dipped in it. My bedroom slippers had to be emptied before I could put my feet into them. I had forgotten to turn them upside down the night before, a precautionary measure I had learned from past experience.
We lived in a sturdily-built stucco house with a living room extending the length of one side – 30 feet. As I came into this room, the light at the opposite end glowed like a fuzzy ball suspended in a thick haze, which made everything appear indistinct and far away. I looked down at the window sill, which was filling up with dirt, and a tiny landslide started and trickled down to the floor. Outside the window there seemed to be a wall; visibility was zero. This wall enveloped us as if we were contained in a capsule and, for days, changed only in color. If it took on a reddish-brown hue, we guessed New Mexico was going over; if it lightened to a dirty white, it might be Oklahoma; but always it would be black again, just like night.
Time hung heavy on our hands as the day progressed and eating posed a real problem. We learned to either gulp something like cereal and milk quickly under a newspaper tent, or to take our plates to the stove, ladle directly from a covered pan, and eat standing. Even then my teeth always ground particles of dirt and seemed to be coated with a layer of grime. My nose was full of it, like I had rooted in the ground. My face and skin were always gritty, and to scratch in my ear made a magnified, grating sound. Worse than all this to me, was the grit on everything I touched. It was a sandpaper effect that took the fun out of much we could have done to make the time pass more quickly – games for instance. We worked countless crossword puzzles from a stack of old Kansas City papers; we watched the changing colors at the window and a pile of dirt grow under a keyhole; and we scooped paths from room to room using a dustpan. Real cleaning of house or ourselves was an absolutely futile activity. But, perhaps, the most unbearable experience of all came at the end of the monotonous day when we had to go to sleep in a dust-laden bed.
We lived two miles from town at that time and owned the drugstore. My father went the distance each morning to be there in case someone needed medicine. He would don his homemade gauze face-mask and top that with a narrow-brimmed Stetson hat, which was his trademark, before he braved the elements. When he returned, he was even dirtier than the rest of the family. He was our only link with the outside world. There was no telephone service, no trains ran, and the highways in all directions were blocked. People from eighteen states were marooned in our little town during this blackout.
We had some day-long dirt storms again two decades later and newspapers coined the phrase, “Filthy Fifties,” but we old-timers sort of chuckled and said, “They don’t hold a candle to the ‘Dirty Thirties.’”
April 14th marks the 90th anniversary of Black Sunday, the day that the Great Plains was struck by what was considered to be the worst dust storm of them all. It wasn’t the first dust storm that Kansans endured during the Dirty 30s, and it definitely wasn’t the last. Drought had ravaged the plains states since 1931. Little to no rain – together with poor soil conservation and overplowing – meant that when the typical high winds that are common in this area blew, they blew dirt. Eyewitnesses said one could tell where the dust storms originated by the color of the dust: black soil came from Kansas, red soil from Oklahoma and gray from Colorado and New Mexico. In all, it is estimated that 350 million tons of soil from Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma were deposited in eastern states.
Black Sunday started out mildly enough. The dust had settled out of the air, and it was a quiet afternoon with few clouds in the sky. Working on a farm south of Kendall, Howard Zook saw the rumbling wall of dirt approaching. “It just looked like a big solid bank rolling in,” said Zook. “When it hit the sun, the sun disappeared, and we beat it into the house. We stood there leaning against the wall. The only way you knew where people were was by feel. We could reach out and hit ‘em. You couldn’t see ‘em a foot away from ya. The dirt was just that thick.”
Ulysses, Kansas went from daylight to total darkness in one minute on Black Sunday, April 14, 1935. Photo by R.L. Gray.
John Grusing and his sons were working a mile northwest of their home in northern Kearny County when the storm hit. “We couldn’t see the road or anything at all. We didn’t know where to turn south or where we were after we turned south. Then we came to a fence,” he recalled. “I knew my own fences so we felt of the wires … knowing the fence west of the house was a two-wire and the fence north was a three-wire, I could tell where we were. Every joint in the fence sparked with electricity. The fence was a three-wire fence and by that we knew how to follow it to the house. There were lights on in the house, but we couldn’t see the lights from the windows as the dust was so dense. But we knew now where we were and finally felt our way to the door.”
The Lakin Independent reported, “A spectacular dust storm came over us Sunday afternoon from the north, and within two minutes the country was plunged into dense midnight darkness. It was impossible to see a hand before your face or to drive a car into the garage. Ernest White was out on horseback and unable to see the horse he was riding. After a half hour the atmosphere cleared a little, but the storm kept on, and lamps were needed the rest of the day.”
Hannah Rosebrook lived in the Fairview Community near the Wichita County line and wrote a weekly column for The Independent. In the April 19th issue, she said, “Still we are fighting dirt. Not a minute’s let-up since Sunday at 1:00 p.m.”
Siblings Winona, Clyde and Lola Green, who lived about two miles north of Lakin, are shown here heading off to school in 1935 wearing goggles and homemade dust masks. This photo appeared in the PBS Documentary “Dust Bowl” by Ken Burns as well as the November 2012 issue of Reminisce Extra.
The Black Sunday storm was estimated to be 500 to 600 feet in height, moved at a rate of 50 to 60 mph, and covered approximately 800 miles. Some wind gusts reached up to 100 miles per hour. The temperature dropped 25 degrees per hour, and more than 300,000 tons of soil blew away. That is twice as much dirt as was dug out of the Panama Canal. It was after the Black Sunday storm that Robert Geiger, an Associated Press reporter, coined the phrase, “Dust Bowl.”
Meteorologists rate the Dust Bowl as the #1 weather event of the 20th Century. The first notable dust storm with winds reaching 60 mph was documented on Sept. 14, 1931, and the weather bureau reported 14 bad dust storms the following year. By 1933, the number had increased to 38. During March and April of 1935, about 4.7 tons of dust per acre fell on western Kansas during each dirt blizzard. In 1937, a high of 72 storms marked a peak in the Dust Bowl era. Rosebrook reported not seeing the sun from Saturday until Wednesday noon during one of the severest periods in February of 1937.
The Independent described the dirt as, “fine, penetrating dust that fills the air like driven snow; stifling, blinding, it comes in through every crack and crevice and fills the whole house with silt, and piles up in drifts beside buildings and in sheltered places as it blows and swirls through town and country.” Those who inhaled the dust suffered coughing spasms, shortness of breath, asthma, bronchitis and influenza. Hundreds died from dust pneumonia, also known as the ‘brown plague.’ Infants, children and the elderly were especially susceptible. The Red Cross set up emergency hospitals in the Dust Bowl states and handed out 17,000 gauze masks, but it could take less than an hour exposure outside to darken one of the masks.
Livestock also suffered. Lack of feed reduced them to weakened conditions, and many were unable to stand the black blizzards. Some drifted with the storms and starved before being found while others smothered. Dust buried buildings, shrubs, farm fences and machinery. Tourists were unable to further their journeys and took refuge wherever they could. Trains were stopped in their tracks, and dust storm “holidays” were declared for students.
The McConaughey place which was located north of Deerfield shows a ridge of blow dirt during the Dust Bowl.
Complicated by the Great Depression, overpopulation of jackrabbits and hordes of grasshoppers, conditions continued to deteriorate on the Great Plains. By 1940, 2.5 million people had left the area, at least 300,000 traveling to California in what was considered the largest single migration in U.S. history. Approximately 250,000 boys and girls became hobos.
Several national programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and Soil Conservation Service were born to combat the effects of not only the crippling dust storms but the drowning economy as well. Men were put back to work through programs like the Works Progress Administration and Public Works Administration which led to the construction of the Kendall bridge, Menno Community building and the Kearny County courthouse. Still others were employed on conservation projects like planting tree rows or shelterbelts. Causes for the Dust Bowl were carefully studied, and new agricultural methods were encouraged such as terracing, contour farming, crop rotation, strip farming and planting ground cover.
The drought and its associated impacts finally began to subside in the spring of 1938, and by 1941, most areas of the country were receiving near-normal rainfalls. These rains, along with the outbreak of World War II, alleviated many of the domestic economic problems of the preceding decade. Drought returned in the 1950s, and from 1954-1957, twice as many acres in the Great Plains were damaged annually by wind erosion as from 1934-1937. Improved farming techniques and equipment, soil conservation, and irrigation saved the area and its people from a repeat of the Dirty ‘30s.
SOURCES: National Weather Service; National Drought Mitigation Center; Kinsley Public Library; “Dust Bowl” by Donald Worster; “Ethnic Heritage Studies: The Fairview News”; History of Kearny County Vol. II; Archives of the Lakin Independent; Hutchinson News, and Southwest Kansas Senior Beacon; and Museum archives.
Fortitude was a standard requirement for one-room school teachers in Kansas during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Instructors were often female, unmarried, and in many cases, only a year older than some of the students in their classroom. Challenged with limited resources and rudimentary rooms and supplies, rural school marms generally had minimal teacher training too. Most were recent graduates of normal schools which in this area of Kansas amounted to a one-week crash course to prepare them for the classroom. These young women were not only responsible for teaching all grades in a single room, but also performed custodial duties, served as counselors, and administered first aid. They were charged with maintaining the classroom, hauling water for drinking and washing, and were responsible for hauling wood (or cow chips) and kindling the fire. Teachers had to be at school early to get the wood-burning stoves started to warm up their rooms before the arrival of their students.
Veturia E. Boyd taught at the Deerfield school in the winter of 1887-1888. Miss Boyd walked back and forth to her school each day as she boarded with Ada Oliver, a single woman who lived in a dugout three-quarters of a mile north of the schoolhouse. The school board told the young teacher that if a blizzard ever arrived to never send the children home but to keep them at the schoolhouse until help arrived. On December 19, 1887, a blizzard arrived during school hours and unleashed its fury. Somehow, Miss Boyd got all the school children dismissed safely, and she started for Miss Oliver’s place in the middle of the afternoon. Starting was about all she got done. For nearly two hours, she walked around in circles and asked the good Lord for help.
She eventually stumbled upon the dugout door of a young bachelor named Dayton Loucks. Hearing a loud noise and wondering what it was, Loucks pried opened his door and in dropped Miss Boyd. Both were quite surprised to see one another; nonetheless, Miss Boyd was thankful to have found shelter. She was a shy and modest woman and spent the night in her wet clothes, sitting in front of the fire for warmth and to dry her clothing. Outside, the blizzard howled on, but the next morning dawned bright and clear. Miss Boyd thanked Loucks and walked a quarter mile south to the Neil Beckett farmstead where Mrs. Beckett gave her some breakfast and fixed her a lunch to take to school for her dinner. Miss Oliver, worrying that Miss Boyd had not made it home the night before, went to the schoolhouse and found the educator there getting ready for her students and another day of teaching.
Boyd’s story is not atypical of the young women who taught in rural schools. Many a night was spent inside a schoolhouse because of severe weather, sometimes with charge of students and little (if any) food. Occasionally these young female teachers were left in their schools to battle the forces of nature all alone. Their grit was unmatched.
Miss Boyd was born in 1862 in Indiana and came to Kearny County in the spring of 1886 to take a claim near Lakin. She also taught at Lakin and in Finney County before she returned to the Midwest where she taught in a Chicago suburb. She later became a doctor of osteopathy and often led five-mile nature walks and hikes in the Chicago area. Miss Boyd never married, and she returned to Lakin on more than one occasion to visit friends she had made during her time here. She died in 1935 at Chicago.
Kearny County Museum tips our hat to Veturia Boyd and other teachers like her who left their mark on history and in the hearts of the students they taught. And that’s a rap for Women’s History Month! We hope you’ve enjoyed the stories we’ve shared this month about some of the remarkable women of Kearny County, Kansas!
SOURCES: History of Kearny County, Vol. I; archives of The Lakin Index, Kearny County Advocate, Garden City Herald, Chicago Tribune, and Warrick Enquirer; ancestry.com and findagrave.
Kearny County Museum takes this opportunity during Women’s History Month to recognize Mary Campbell Thornbrough for her tenaciousness, generosity, and commitment to the Lakin community.
Always a loyal booster and supporter of the Boy Scout movement, Mary Thornbrough was presented the “Guardian of Scouting” award in a special ceremony in May of 1957. The long-deserved tribute honored Mary who gave thousands of dollars to benefit scouting, including more than $5,000 to build the Boy Scout cabin in Lakin’s City Park. Mary’s generous donations to the building fund were made in memory of Lt. Wayne Thornbrough, her youngest son who lost his life in service to his country during World War II. In 1945, Mary and Wayne’s widow donated two bonds totaling $1,500 to the Southwest Kansas Boy Scout Council to be used for camping equipment. A scouting hut, originally donated to the Lakin troop by Miss Sue Tate and the Tate family, was put up for auction in 1948 with the monies to be used to fix club meeting rooms above the Lakin Implement Co. Mary purchased the hut for $25 and then turned it back to the Scouts to be sold a second time. She again bought the structure, later resold it for $200, and handed that money over to the troop.
Richard H. Heitsmith, who organized the first scout troop in Lakin in 1933, said Mary aided the scouting program financially time and time again and “was always such an inspiration when I needed advice.”
Interesting enough, both of Mary’s sons, Albert and Wayne, wanted to be Boy Scouts, but there was no scouting program in Lakin when they were of scouting age. Through the Boy Scouts of America correspondence course, the Thornbrough boys became “Lone Scouts.”
Mary Thornbrough receiving the “Guardian of Scouting” commemorative plaque from Scoutmaster Bert McCue in May of 1957.
Mary Edith Campbell Thornbrough was born January 28, 1890, in Scott County, Mo., the third child of A.G. and Sarah (Mudd) Campbell. The family came to Kearny County in 1902. Mary was an outstanding student at Lakin High School from where she graduated in 1908. She then furthered her education at Emporia College.
Mary Campbell Thornbrough is on the front end of the donkey and Ida Piper is on the back in this picture from 1907. The house in the background is currently the Speer home on the southeast corner of Lincoln and Garfield.
In 1910 in the home of her parents on the southwest corner of Lincoln and Garfield, she married businessman Roy Thornbrough. The couple made their home at Holly, Colorado for a while but returned to Kearny County and lived at Deerfield where Roy was assigned duties in 1917 as an Army recruiter. Roy and Mary later divorced. She and her sons lived with her parents prior to moving in to a home which was built for them next door at 107 N. Garfield. That house still stands, and some may remember it as the home of Jack and Leona Randolph.
According to her great nephew Earle Dean Rice, Mary and her sons spent weekends homesteading land in the sandhills south of Lakin where a house was built for them. The house apparently was once blue because it was called the Blue House, and her family used that name as the name of their trust, The Blue House Family Trust. Mary would later acquire the original townsite of Hartland.
Ms. Thornbrough worked for Campbell-Loucks Realty, Campbell Mercantile and as a stenographer in various private offices. She substituted in various offices in the court house and served as deputy county treasurer prior to being elected treasurer in 1936. She became a licensed and bonded abstractor, and construction began in June of 1948 on her own business building. This structure at 117 N. Main is currently the business location for Matthew Medill, CPA. Always self-reliant, Ms. Thornbrough did her work with great care.
Mary was the first treasurer of the American Legion Auxiliary at Lakin, a charter member of the Lakin Book Club, and as a member of the Kearny County Historical Society, contributed to Volume I of the History of Kearny County. She also held membership in the Order of Eastern Star, Auxiliary of the American Red Cross, and United Presbyterian Church.
In addition to the Boy Scouts, Mary gave liberally to the all-faith Memorial Chapel at Kansas State University at Manhattan which both of her sons graduated from. She also gave to the local hospital, her church and many other civic causes.
Interested in history and genealogy, Mary researched the Campbell and Mudd family histories and contributed significantly to the book, “The History of the Mudd Family in the United States of America.” The genealogy was of one of the oldest families in the United States. Mary’s mother was a first cousin three times removed of President Abraham Lincoln. She was also related to Dr. Samuel Mudd who treated the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth and was sentenced to life imprisonment when a military commission found Mudd guilty of aiding and conspiring in Lincoln’s murder. President Andrew Johnson later released Mudd from prison, but the doctor’s conviction was never overturned despite repeated attempts by family members and others to have it expunged.
Mary Campbell Thornbrough died February 28, 1962 at Lakin. In 1965, her surviving son, Albert, donated all of block four of the Thornbrough Subdivision to the City of Lakin for a ball park and place of recreation. The donation was a visible expression of the love and affection Albert bore toward his beloved mother and his brother, Wayne.
Mary Campbell Thornbrough
SOURCES: Diggin’ Up Bones by Betty Barnes; History of Kearny County Vols. I and II; Ancestry.com; Wikipedia; archives of The Manhattan, Kansas Mercury, The Wichita Beacon, Lakin Investigator, Advocate and Lakin Independent; Museum archives and information provided by Earle D. Rice.
Mary Blanche Waterman was only four years old when her family moved to Lakin in December of 1880. Her father, James Waterman, had accepted the position as agent for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. The family of four, which included Blanche’s two-year-old brother, boarded with the Boylan family until the new railroad section house was completed in 1881. Then they made their home there. There were few houses in Lakin at the time and even fewer playmates for the little girl. The vast and rambling landscape was quite different than what Blanche was used to in Worchester, N.Y. where she was born. In her own words, her back yard, “reached north to where the sky met the earth.”
Blanche was given strict limits to just how far she was allowed to roam in that expansive back yard. Three boys built a playhouse from a big wooden packing box and other smaller boxes, and the house was just big enough for those three youngsters to squeeze in. After they drifted off to other adventures, the playhouse became a delightful refuge for little Blanche and her dolls. When indoors, the young girl listened intently to her mama’s stories. “Our treeless, hill-less, stoneless and usually snowless prairie made a large screen on which these word pictures were painted.”
When Blanche grew older, she frequently volunteered at the town’s social events. She belonged to the Lakin Literary Society and was known for giving excellent recitations. Miss Waterman attended Lakin schools, and when the spring semester ended in 1893, she moved temporarily to Wichita to take classes at the short-lived Garfield College. When she returned to start her senior year at Lakin High School, the practical-minded, respected and highly responsible Blanche was elected school librarian.
Inspired by Doc Lovin who cared for the sick and had a drug store here, she left the plains of Kansas after her graduation for Chicago where she earned her medical degree in 1899 from Northwestern University. She interned at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital before being appointed as the college physician at Blue Mountain Female Institute in Tippah County, Mississippi. “Dr. Waterman, the lady physician at the college is an expert in her profession and is rapidly making friends. . . as an expert surgeon she has already gained an enviable reputation and received many flattering offers from different state and local institutions where lady physicians are required,” raved a Tippah County newspaper. Dr. Sanford worked at Blue Mountain for three years. In 1903, she joined the Salvation Army and was placed in charge of a maternity hospital in Tappan, N.Y.
The good doctor never forgot her Lakin roots and spent many summers and vacations here, often having charge of the practice of local physician Dr. George Johnston in his absence. When Mrs. Ross Elvin and her seven children were struck by a train at the railroad crossing east of Lakin in 1919, it was Dr. Sanford with the assistance of Dr. Lena June Madison Hull who set the bones and cared for the five surviving children until Dr. Johnston’s return.
Dressed modestly in her blue Salvation Army suit and carrying a spray of lilies of the valley, the good doctor married Ensign Hobart Sanford on September 1, 1908. Blanche was a captain in the Salvation Army by that time and the head of a rescue mission in Buffalo, New York, and her husband had been in the Salvation Army since 1901. It was a mutual interest in the organization’s work that led to their courtship and eventual marriage.
Hobart’s service with the Salvation Army led the couple to various cities along the eastern seaboard, but they made their home at Mount Vernon, New York for around 20 years. Hobart retired as a commanding brigadier after dedicating over 40 years of service to the Salvation Army. After his retirement, the Sanfords moved to Methuen, Massachusetts, but retirement did not rest easy for Hobart. A year and a half later, he was back with the Salvation Army in Cleveland, OH. When Dr. Sanford retired from active service with the Salvation Army, she accepted an appointment as resident physician at Mahoning County Tuberculosis Hospital in Youngstown, OH, where she worked for three and a half years.
In 1966, Dr. Sanford died at Orlando, Florida where she was spending the winter. She was 89 years old. Brig. Sanford died at the age of 97 at Asbury Park, New Jersey nine years later. They were the parents of one son and three daughters. Their son was a career serviceman with the U.S. Air Corps and daughter Ruth, like her parents, made her career in the Salvation Army.
During Women’s History Month, we honor Dr. Mary Blanche Sanford for her compassion, bravery, service and selflessness. She is but one example of the many fine women who grew up in Kearny County and made significant contributions to society.
SOURCES: History of Kearny County Vols. I and II; Ancestry.com; Findagrave; Museum archives and archives of the Franklin Repository, Mount Vernon Argus, Allegheny Mail, Orlando Sentinel, Asbury Park Press, Kearny County Advocate, Lakin Index, and Lakin Pioneer Democrat.
On a bitter cold night, January 16, 1912, the operator of the Santa Fe station at Lakin hurried into a restaurant with a telegram in his hand. The restaurant was the only place in the town still open, and a number of men lingered there.
The operator told the men that the envelope had to be delivered to the Isaac Hoffman ranch that night, 35 miles south of Lakin. It was from Otto Lewis to his nephew, John Lewis, working at the Ike Hoffman ranch, and said Lewis must come at once to Hutchinson, for his father lay dying in a hospital there.
In addition to the men in the restaurant was Mrs. McRae, who ran it, and her 17-year-old daughter, Agnes.
One by one, the men in the restaurant made excuses why they could not take to the message to John Lewis – especially on such a cold and nasty night. The operator, in despair, was about to go when Agnes spoke up from behind the counter and said she would take the telegram to the ranch.
Her mother, surprised, told the girl she would do no such thing, but the daughter replied, “How would you feel if you were out on our ranch and such a message should come for you, telling you that father had died?”
She asked the liveryman to saddle her pony, Button, and kissing her mother, rode out into the cold with the letter.
It was a half mile to the long bridge across the Arkansas River. Already the lights of the town had given way to the black of a winter night. The pony’s hooves struck the planks of the bridge, and the clatter echoed up and down the valley in the brittle air. At Alvin Beaty’s ranch, near the bridge, peafowl were disturbed by the noise and set up a clamor.
As soon as the bridge was crossed, Button, who had been snorting in protest at being led from a warm barn into the cold night, settled down to a steady gait.
The horse and rider passed the Billy Stutzman, Nathan Fulmer, George Bahntge, and Thomas Gibson ranches and galloped on into the sandhills. Halfway through the hills they passed the Frank McAlister ranch where no one stayed at night. Twenty miles south of Lakin they reached the Charles Hoffman ranch.
Agnes woke the Hoffmans and told them her story. Charles Hoffman took Button into the barn, and throwing the saddle on Chinook, his own saddle horse, sent the girl on her way with a fresh mount.
At about one o’clock in the morning she arrived at Ike Hoffman’s ranch, southeast of Ulysses, delivered her message and started on her return.
Through the sandhills, going south and coming back north again, every bush cast a menacing shadow in the cold night. The crusted snowbanks dotted the hills like ghosts. Wild-eyed cattle would start up at sight of the horse and rider, then race off in a wild stampede. Wire fences had to be crossed, and Agnes crossed them by stepping on the wire while the horse passed over them.
When she reached the Charles Hoffman ranch again, Mrs. Hoffman had prepared coffee and a lunch which the girl ate with relish. The saddle was put back on Button again, and the girl started for home.
As dawn began to streak the eastern horizon, Agnes reached home again. She had ridden 70 miles through a winter night – a little over a third of it through the trackless sandhills of Kearny County. And all this on an errand of mercy.
Agnes McRae and her favorite steed.
March is Women’s History Month and an opportune time to share this story which appeared in Volume I of the History of Kearny County and was written by the Rev. F.F. Thomas, subject of last week’s article. The eldest daughter of Billie and Josephine McRae, Agnes was born on the McRae’s Bear Creek ranch in the sandhills south of Lakin. As she grew up, she showed an unusual ability to handle horses and often joined her father on the range. When she was 12 years old, she helped in the cattle roundups doing just as good a job as many of the ranch hands. At 15, Agnes was not only an expert rider, but she was also more skillful with a rope than her father. Mr. McRae stayed on the ranch during the winter, but Mrs. McRae moved to Lakin so their children could attend school. She ran the restaurant as a way of helping out with expenses. While Agnes knew the sandhills well from childhood, still the ride across them in the cold and dark against unknown dangers was one that made grown men hesitate to undertake it. The fact that she made the ride is another feather in the cap of pioneer womanhood. In 1913, Agnes married Everett Kemper whose family resided on the South Side. They made their home at Lakin until 1942 when they moved to Dodge City where she died in 1963.
The Westward Expansion was in full swing by the 1880s, and as American settlement pushed west, a shortage of clergyman led to the common practice of circuit preaching. Traveling by horseback or horse-and-buggy over the open frontier, ministers covered rural circuits that included several communities. Reverend Franklin Forrester Thomas was one such minister.
The reverend had attended Hedding College at Abington, Illinois where he was born in 1855. After completing his studies at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., Thomas went on to teach for a few years, but then he attended a school of theology and entered the Methodist ministry. In 1883, during the early settlement of Furnas County, Nebraska, Rev. Thomas was assigned to preach a circuit and pastor the Methodist church at Beaver City. It was here that he married Ella Francis Gilmore in 1884. Born at Greencastle, Indiana in 1858, Ella had been educated at Asbury University, now known as DePauw University. Her father had moved to Furnas County in 1878 and was joined by Ella and the rest of the family in 1880.
The Reverend and Mrs. F.F. Thomas.
During Franklin and Ella’s time in Nebraska, a son and daughter were born to the couple, Forrest Lemon and Mable Clare. Rev. Thomas also became a trustee of Mallalieu University at Bartley, a church-affiliated institution of higher education that opened in 1886 and was named for Methodist Episcopal Bishop W.F. Mallalieu.
By 1888, Rev. Thomas and his family were in Colorado, and as a circuit preacher, he ministered the Burlington, Claremont and Lansing circuits. Two more sons, Frederick Gilmore and Frank Fleetwood, were born here. In 1891, Rev. Thomas accepted the call to the Methodist Episcopal church at Steele City, Nebraska, but he was back in Illinois serving the congregation at Ustick by 1896. He became identified with the Presbyterian Church, and in 1901, he left his charge at the Greenup, Ill. church for Kansas. His first assignment in the Sunflower State was pastoring the Presbyterian church at Neosho Falls. He would take turns at churches in Colony, Gallia and LeRoy before making his way to Lakin, accepting the call to the pastorate of the Lakin Presbyterian Church in the fall of 1907. While here, he and his family helped build the first Presbyterian manse, and the reverend also preached at the rural school in Fairview in the extreme northern part of Kearny County.
In 1910, Rev. Thomas gave up the pastorate at Lakin when he was appointed superintendent of missions for southwestern Kansas with headquarters at Garden City. In 1913, he was appointed by the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions to lead the mission work among Mexicans at Taos, New Mexico. A man of strong conviction and always ready to help the needy, Rev. Thomas was greatly admired by the congregations he served and highly favored whether he was behind the pulpit delivering a sermon or bellowing out a favorite hymn.
Rev. F.F. Thomas and his wife, Ella, at Taos, N.M.Rev. F.F. Thomas in 1920 with his son Franklin Fleetwood Thomas’s two oldest children. Jim Thomas, sitting on his grandfather’s lap, gives his full attention to the camera while his older brother, Frank, is spellbound by the flower garden in front of them.
The reverend passed away at Taos on July 4, 1921, and was buried in the historic Kit Carson Cemetery, a national historical site. This cemetery was established in 1847 as El Cemeterio Militar for the burial of American soldiers and civilians killed during the Taos Rebellion. By 1852, it was known as the American Cemetery and was then the only burial ground at Taos for non-Catholics. The cemetery became known as the Kit Carson Cemetery in May, 1869 when the bodies of Kit Carson and his wife were buried there.
After her husband’s passing, Ella Thomas returned to Lakin to be near family. She died September 6, 1929, and was buried in the Lakin Cemetery. According to a family member, an attempt was made to have Rev. Thomas’s grave removed to Kansas and buried beside Ella’s, but because the cemetery he is buried in is a historic site, the request was denied. Several generations of Reverend Thomas’s family have made Lakin their home.
SOURCES: “The History of the House of Ochiltrees” by Clementine Brown Railey; Diggin’ Up Bones by Betty Barnes; mynehistory.com; Ancestry.com; Wikipedia; HMdb.org; archives of The Scott Republican, Kearny County Advocate, Yates Center News, The Neosho Falls Post, Garden City News, Lakin Independent, LeRoy Reporter, Woodson County Advocate, The Daily Republican, The Times-Tribune, Phillips County Herald, The Lamar Register, Larimer County Independent, Cheyenne County Rustler, Beaver Valley Tribune, and Sterling Gazette; and Museum archives. Special thanks to Donna Neff.
Lakin’s Presbyterian congregation was officially organized with 16 charter members on May 6, 1887, at the home of D.C. Hawthorne. The Rev. David Kingery, pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Garden City, served as moderator, and according to the Lakin Pioneer Democrat, $300 had already been donated to build a Presbyterian church at Lakin. The financial backing came from Senator F.J. Pringle, J.M. Jones and Dr. J.H. Rodgers, all of Springfield, Ohio. “Each of the gentlemen have large landed interests near here and are ready to work for the upbuilding of Lakin, and to secure the county seat for this place.”
In April of 1888, fundraising efforts began in earnest when Hawthorne and Jones began circulating a subscription paper, and on June 2, the Advocate announced that Jones had selected a lot for the new church. The church was to be constructed of brick and stone for around $3,000. A tin box filled with relics of value, church records and other important papers was placed in the cornerstone which was laid in front of a large congregation on July 22, and the following week, the Advocate reported that the material was “mostly on the ground, the foundation is done and the workmen are erecting the building according to plans and specifications adopted.”
Notices began running in the paper asking subscribers of the church fund to pay their first and second installments. “Please pay promptly that work may go forward rapidly.” The Sept. 8, 1888 Advocate printed a letter from Jones who was back in Ohio at that time. “I hope, as soon as possible, to be with my friends in building the church at Lakin,” and that was the last mention of the building that could be found in the local papers. Where the church was being erected and what happened with the project is not known.
The Presbyterians used the 1886 school for services, taking turns with Methodists and other denominations until 1895. In February of 1895, word broke that the Presbyterians were considering purchasing an abandoned church building near Kinsley and having it moved to Lakin. The Lakin Index voiced its support of the Presbyterians’ project, “We sincerely hope they will consummate the deal, as we are badly in need of a church building. It is an improvement which should receive the hearty support of every citizen of Lakin.”
The Kinsley church was purchased and torn down, and the lumber was transported to Lakin where a force of men went to work immediately rebuilding the church at the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Western Street on land donated by L.I. Purcell. In late May, the Advocate reported that the tin-box and its contents which had been placed in the cornerstone of the Presbyterian church in 1888 were transferred to the cornerstone of the new church. By mid-June, the church was under roof, and later that month, many strong and willing arms hoisted a large bell to its position in the church’s belfry.
Dr. Browning of Garden City delivered a stirring sermon at the first services in the church on Thursday, July 11, 1895. This was the first segment of a four-day grand dedication service which included sermons by C.E. Williams, pastor of the local Methodist congregation, and ministers from Wichita and Hutchinson. On Sunday, July 14, the church building was crowded to full capacity with many friends from Hartland and Deerfield in attendance. Dr. S.B. Fleming of Wichita surprised the crowd when he announced that $450 was to be raised before the dedication exercises could be completed. In less than 30 minutes, $460 had been given either in cash or by promise.
“The Presbyterian folks are to be congratulated on their success in erecting so beautiful a church free of debt. It is the finest church building in this part of the state, and is a credit to the Presbyterians and an ornament to the city,” proclaimed the Index.
When the church was first opened, local Methodists were invited to use the facility. While a number of them accepted the invite, others opted to continue using the school house. Eventually, the church was used by all denominations for services, funerals, school and other community affairs. Often there was ‘standing room only’ for the evening services and special occasions in the church. When the Presbyterian primary department decided to raise funds for a Sunday School room of their own, practically everyone in town, regardless of creed, contributed. A 12×26 building was erected for this purpose and opened in March of 1904.
The church’s manse sat to the east of the church and was built with a great deal of donated labor from members of the congregation as well as the Rev. F.F. Thomas family. “Rev. Thomas is as happy as a little boy with a new wagon, and well he may be, for after so long a time of working and waiting he has realized his long-cherished dreams of a manse. The family took possession of the new home this week,” revealed the Aug. 6, 1908 Advocate. The manse opened to the public the following month.
The old wooden church served the congregation until 1950 when a new $65,000 church was dedicated free of debt on Sept. 24, 1950. Morning services started in the old church which had been moved to the back of the lot, and following weekly announcements and instructions, a prayer was given by pastor W.E. Dysart. “Onward Christian Soldiers” was sung as the congregation marched from the old to the new church where the remainder of the dedication services were held. The 1895 building was sold to the Community Church at Holcomb and moved there.
In July of 1961, a contract was awarded to Lee and Woolman Construction Company of Garden City to construct a new educational wing on the 1950 building. The church observed its diamond anniversary on Feb. 4, 1962, by dedicating the church’s new facilities which included six classrooms, expanded kitchen facilities, a women’s parlor, storage facilities, two rest rooms and the remodeled chancel which expanded the choir and added a study and choir room. The old manse was purchased by Maxine Campbell and moved in 1967 to 115 N. Campbell Street where it is still used as a residence, and the brick home located at 406 W. Washington was purchased the following year to serve as manse. In 1988, after a severe thunderstorm had caused considerable damage, the flat roof on the north wing of the church was remodeled into a pitch roof, and in 2022, a new shake metal roof was installed by Lianro Construction.
During a severe thunder storm in the summer of 1896, the entire front of the church’s bell tower was downed by lightning and laid flat on the ground. It was picked up and replaced practically unscathed.The manse which sat east of the church was moved in 1967 to 115 N. Campbell where it is still stands today.A new $65,000 church was dedicated free of debt on Sept. 24, 1950.
SOURCES: Special thanks to Donna and Martin Neff; archives of the Finney County Democrat, Lakin Pioneer Democrat, Index, Advocate, Lakin Pioneer and Lakin Independent; information provided by the late Olivia Tate Ramsey for History of Kearny County, Vol. 1, and Museum archives.
David Harold Browne came to Kearny County to work as a clerk in the railroad eating house. The oldest of three boys born to Charles Browne and Helen Potter Browne, Harry was born at Cowansville, Canada on April 18, 1859. While growing up, he spent much of his leisure time ice-skating and attending “sugar-off” parties, a French-Canadian tradition that brought friends and families together to enjoy the sugar high that comes from boiling maple sap into taffy. Harry’s father was a doctor, and Harry often helped in his office and rode with him to visit patients and help with emergencies. The knowledge of medicine which Harry gained in this way was most useful to him in later years as a pioneer in Western Kansas.
His father died five days before Harry’s seventeenth birthday, and his mother moved the family to Chicago, Illinois where her people lived. Harry had to quit school and go to work to help support his mother and brothers. His first position was as a clerk for a packing company, and in 1880, Harry joined his maternal uncle, Guy Potter, who was managing the eating house here. Shortly after Fred Harvey became the proprietor of the dining hall/hotel, the building was moved to Coolidge which became the division point of the Santa Fe Railroad. Harry remained here, and for a time, he joined Alonzo Boylan and Rolla Walter in catching and taming wild horses which they sold to cowboys and horse traders. After a time, Harry took a clerk position at John O’Loughlin’s general store.
While working for O’Loughlin, Harry met Maria Dillon, one of Lakin’s most popular young women. Born in New York City on June 17, 1866, Maria lost her mother as a small child and was educated in a convent in Montreal, Canada. She came to Kearny County in 1879 with her father, step-mother and younger siblings, and she made a name for herself as one of the best compositors in Kansas while working at the Lakin Herald where her father served as editor. Wearing a blue silk taffeta dress fashioned with a fitted basque and pleated bustle, Maria married Harry in an evening ceremony on April 7, 1886, at the dugout home of her brother in-law and sister, Alexander and Annie Cross. Three children were born to Harry and Maria: Helen Florence (Mr. J.H. Rardon), Charles Harold, and Hazel Louise (Mrs. F. Ivor Williams).
Harry was the first elected county clerk of Kearny County, and the Browne family moved eventually to Hartland and then back to Lakin when Lakin won the 1894 election. Harry recalled that one of the most dramatic events in his life was counting votes for the location of the county seat. Each town that had entered the race had the privilege of sending men to see that the votes were properly counted. Barney O’Connor was Lakin’s representative and stood over the election judges with six-shooter in hand, and Harry said he never expected to get out of the building without someone being killed. He was re-elected to the county clerk position several times, serving until 1896, and also worked as assistant cashier in the Kearny County Bank.
When Harry’s health failed, his doctor recommended a change of climate. Harry decided to buy a team and wagon and go overland to Colorado Springs, taking his herd of purebred jersey cattle and selling them along the way. One fine June morning in 1896, the Browne family stored all their worldly possessions in a covered wagon and started to Colorado. First was Maria with one of the girls in a top buggy drawn by a blaze-faced bay horse named Bally, then came the wagon to which were hitched two large gray mares with Harry as driver, and then the herd of cattle urged on by Doc Miller, the hired hand. Except for being awakened one night by water flooding their campground, the trip was uneventful. It took about a month to complete the journey and dispose of the cattle. At Colorado Springs, Harry engaged in the coal business with his friend, Frank Kelly, whom he had made acquaintances with earlier in life.
After three years and the death of Ben Bacon who was the cashier at Kearny County Bank, Harry was beckoned back to Lakin to fill Bacon’s shoes. Harry was always interested in everything for the advancement of his town and county and gave generously of his time to that end serving as a member of the board of education and on the city council. He was an ardent fisherman and lover of nature, and when worries and pressures of business weighed heavily upon him, he would spend the day fishing at Lake McKinney. Harry always came back with a cleared mind and refreshed body. He had the gift of being a good listener and gave to others a feeling of strength and confidence.
Harry maintained his position at the bank until his death on March 8, 1931. He had been in failing health for some time, but the trooper that he was, Harry continued working until three days before his death. He was loved and respected by all who knew him, and all the banks and business houses in Lakin closed during his funeral. Known as Gippy to his grandchildren, his granddaughter, Cora Rardon Holt, wrote of him, “I shall always remember his long fingered, iron strong hands. They revealed his character and always gave me a sense of comfort and security.”
Maria, or Gammy as she was known to her grandchildren, died on Oct. 18, 1948, as a result of shock caused by burns she received earlier that day. It was thought that her robe may have caught on fire as all three burners of her oil stove were lit, and coffee was boiling on the middle burner. Maria also was very much loved in the community, and she was remembered for the sunny disposition that characterized her her entire life. She had been a lifelong caregiver; first to her younger siblings, then to her own children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Left to right: Charles, Hazel and Helen, the children of Harry and Maria Browne. 1892.The home of Harry and Maria Browne stood near the corner of Campbell Street and Smith Avenue in Lakin but was later moved west on the river road. The house later became the home of Otis and Shirley Jennings and stood next to the Jennings Indoor Arena.
SOURCES: Information provided by the late Hazel Browne Williams and Charles R. Browne, great grandson of D.H. and Maria Browne; History of Kearny County Vol. 1; Ancestry.com; museum archives, and archives of The Advocate and Lakin Independent.
Dr. Browning of Garden City delivered a stirring sermon at the first services in the church on Thursday, July 11, 1895. This was the first segment of a four-day grand dedication service which included sermons by C.E. Williams, pastor of the local Methodist congregation, and ministers from Wichita and Hutchinson. On Sunday, July 14, the church building was crowded to full capacity with many friends from Hartland and Deerfield in attendance. Dr. S.B. Fleming of Wichita surprised the crowd when he announced that $450 was to be raised before the dedication exercises could be completed. In less than 30 minutes, $460 had been given either in cash or by promise.
