KANSAS SUNSET

 

West of Marysville (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marysville%2C_Kansas), where my wife went to high school, on our way to a 50th anniversary party for her brother and sister-in-law. It was held in the town of Bremen, population 50, where you can rent out the firehouse for events.                

Rehab Job

The old barn needs lots of work but that doesn't mean that the family farm is down and out. There is another wooden barn in good repair (but not so photogenic) and new metal buildings for the machinery, as in the second picture. Mel and Pat still have cattle and grow hay and corn. They still need side jobs, though.                             

Very few photos this weekend. Freezing rain continued off and on through Saturday, limiting movement. The sky was leaden. The annual Santa parade, held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, was postponed due to Marshall County's icy roads. It should get progressively warmer as we drive east on our way home today.

Winter In Kansas

We drove from Kansas City to Marysville, Kansas, Thursday morning in a cold rain. Nothing dangerous. We awoke Friday to find about a third of an inch / 8 mm of ice on the car. The main roads were fine but the rural gravel roads were glazed over. Slow, cautious driving.

Mrs. C's brother Mel and his wife Pat still live on the old family farm. They throw a big potluck dinner for the family on the day after Thanksgiving. The barn out back is in bad shape. It may be that Mel intends to restore it but there was such a crowd I didn't get to ask him.                 

Baseball On The Prairie

From the old school at Immanuel Lutheran Church, where my wife studied, and is now a museum. Amateur baseball was a big deal out among the farms. Note the sign in the middle, promoting a game against a Kansas City team from the old Negro Leagues (whose museum is in Kansas City). American baseball was integrated in 1947 when the Brooklyn Dodgers signed the brilliant Jackie Robinson.                            

Heartland Monuments

Eye-poppers on the prairie.

My wife's biannual family reunion is held in the parish hall of Immanuel Lutheran Church, way out in the soy and corn fields. Its mailing address is Bremen, Kansas, the town of 50 I alluded to yesterday, but that has to be six or eight miles away. My wife and her siblings went to the parish school, now closed due to dwindling population. There is a museum inside now, more about which soon. The white siding just pops against the boundless summer sky.

The next big town to the north is Beatrice, Nebraska (population 12,400!). The old railway station has been beautifully restored and now used as the county historical museum. A small model of the Statue of Liberty stands in front. There is very little information about it online. It seems to have turned up about 1970 and was made by a sculptor from Los Angeles. Doesn't have quite the same patina as the original.                   

On The Farm

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My brother-in-law, Mel, and his wife, Pat, bought the old family farm from my wife's parents more than 30 years ago. With the way agriculture has changed, they both had day jobs while they grew corn and raised cattle (and children). Four generations were hanging around the place yesterday, from 93 year old Elvira to five month old Sydney. The number of great grandchildren is beyond my comprehension (none contributed by my division to date, though). Some of them played on the old tree swing while the boys went out to skeet shoot.

STL DPB On The Road: Bremen, Kansas

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My wife sometimes jokes that she grew up in the suburbs of a town of 350. The family farm was about four miles outside of the hamlet of Bremen, Kansas. It has a bank, a farmers mutual insurance company and a post office. It does not have a grocery store, a gas station or a bar. This is the facade of the defunct saloon, which was called the Pool Hall. Saying that something is a bar in Kansas is a a bit of an exaggeration since they can serve only 3.2% alcohol beer. Not a glass of single malt or malbec in sight. Those cowpokes on the top wouldn't want a drop of no sissy malbec, either.

Too many time demands and too little Internet access yesterday. Downtown St. Louis 365 my go up Monday morning or perhaps Monday evening when I get home. Seven hour drive back to St. Louis today.

Immanuel Lutheran School, Hermansberg, Kansas

Immanuel Lutheran School, out all alone among the farms, is where my wife and her siblings received their elementary education. All the children of her brother who took over the farm went there, too. It operated for 127 years until the rural population became too small to support it. Hermansberg isn't really a town. It may have been once but now it's just an area in the countryside. Tiny Bremen (see yesterday's post) is the nearest cluster of homes. The school is preserved as a museum by the still-active church where the family reunion was held Sunday. I'd never been in it before. About these images (click to enlarge):

Top: the California Test of Mental Maturity (whatever that means - and do they have mental maturity in California?) my wife took on October 23, 1953 when she was nine. I don't know about her mental maturity. She married me.

Top row of composite: left and right, school books from years past. Note the books in German. The population were mostly immigrants from the north of Germany (hence Bremen and Hanover) and my wife's grandparents spoke German at home. My father-in-law was pretty impressed that I could recite the Lord's Prayer in German, even though I learned it in a Catholic high school. Center, a brief note from my nephew Tom (the one who more or less saved my life last Friday night - see Saturday's post) about his opinion on the local education system.

Bottom row of composite: left, the sign outside the school. Right, one of the two schoolrooms.

WHAT I WANT TO APOLOGIZE FOR: how few comments I have left on your blogs lately, particularly those of you who have been so kind as to leave comments on mine. I've been exploring new dimensions in overwork in my day job and getting these posts together with duct tape and twine.

TOMORROW: back to the Thursday Arch Series, postcard version, not artsy.

Cherokee Road, Bremen, Kansas

I mentioned on Saturday that my mother-in-law lives in the small town of Hanover, Kansas. The family farm, now owned by my wife's youngest brother and his wife, is several miles outside the hamlet of Bremen. A Kansas state web site says that the population is 347 but that must include the outlying farms. My wife always said the town proper had 45 - 50 people. Yet, there is a post office, a bar and and a farmers insurance company.

There aren't paved roads back here. The county roads are gravel, on a grid one mile apart and are graded periodically. When the weather is dry, passing cars kick up a big cloud of dust. Cherokee Road runs east - west past the family farm. Here, a car driving into the sunset stirs up the baking Kansas soil.

WHAT I LISTENED TO IN THE CAR DRIVING BACK FROM KANSAS CITY YESTERDAY MORNING: Pimsleur's Japanese, Level 1, Lessons 18 and 19. Hajimemashite, dozo yoroshiku.

TOMORROW: Kansas school days.