Too Long in the Wind

October 2012

Hello, Eldon Esau

[October 25]   This note arrived from Eldon Esau of Whitewater. You may have known his grandparents, Lamont and Edith Smith. He has asked to be included in Friends of Pawnee Rock.

I discovered your site several years ago when I searched my grandfather's name Lamont Smith. Down the list a ways, past the African American football players, I found a line of text including "Mrs. Lamont Smith" and reference to a womens group in Pawnee Rock. When I clicked on it, your site came up. I added pawneerock.org to my favorites list and follow it several times a week. I enjoy recognizing some names, places and faces in your photos and articles.

Last spring I started methodically going thru first the gallery then the archived blogs, I still have a ways to go. I am writing to offer my encouragement to you for your work and dedication to preserving the history of Pawnee Rock. My primary PR interest is my ancestral heritage. Your writings, particularly in the earlier years, of your childhood memories sparked many memories of my own, the essence of holiday celebrations in your family are familiar to me.

I mentioned Lamont and Edith (Base) Smith as my grandparents. They were married in 1926, raising their children, Zola, Durward, Edwin, and Marilyn as tenant farmers thru the depression. At some point they were able to buy a farm on the correction line a few miles west of PR. In the late 1950s they moved into PR into the next to the last house from the west on the north side of Bismark. The poverty of the depression as reflected in stories from my mother, Zola's childhood has had a deep impact on the grain of the structure of my mental picture of the people and places of Pawnee Rock.

My parents, Elbert Esau and Zola Smith met at Bethel College. Zola studied with the Bethel Deaconess nursing school and became a Registered Nurse. Elbert graduated Bethel and went on to earn a Masters Degree in agronomy at K-State. As soon as they were married in 1953 and thru with school they served with Mennonite Central Committee in the mountains of Greece, stories from that time are still common. They raised their family on a farm in my father's home community of Emmaus Mennonite Church near Whitewater, KS.

We made the three hour trip west into drier territory several times every year to visit the Smith grandparents. At holidays, Christmas for sure every year, we played with our cousins. A walk to the Rock was something we kids could do on our own. Over the sidewalk bridge with the bent down rail, past the concrete box with a locked lid. Sometimes our family would spend a night with the grandparents and would attend Bergthal Mennonite Church with them. Leon, I probably met you in Sunday school there. I also graduated high school in 1975.

I have the priviledge of living in the house on the farm my grandparents Esau built for their family. I took over my uncle's farm, after about ten years I took a job in construction to support my farming habit. I eventually gave up my rented ground, planted my quarter to brome grass and during the growing season I let a neighbor graze cattle on it. In the process of maintaining an old house I have discovered shellac was the finish of choice in the early 1900s, it is the smell of Sunday School at Bergthal and at Emmaus.

I have noticed some common interests between you and I, Leon, I spent the summer of 1979 on a bicycle in the western half of the 48 states with a camera. We are also third cousins, having great great grandparents Christian and Helena (Rudiger) Schultz in common. You mention my uncle Durward Smith as your grandparent's neighbors, and my cousin Kirk Smith as having built one of the houses upon the geography of your childhood. I am married and we have two sons in their 20s, one is married.

I look forward to meeting you if our paths ever happen to converge. My name is Eldon Esau. email Eldon Esau @ Yahoo.com , no caps or spaces.

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Faye Steffen, math teacher

[October 16]   Barb Schmidt of Seattle was browsing the 1968 yearbook when a photo of Faye Steffen at her desk caught her eye. Barb wrote:

I like this photo from the '68 PR annual. It's of Faye Steffen, an excellent young math teacher we were lucky to have for a few years. A nice, kind person, too. I believe Mrs. Steffen graduated from PRHS in the class of 1960, but someone else will need to remind us what her last name was during her own school days. And give us the rest of the scoop on her too, maybe?

[Here's the senior photo of Faye Wilson; as Mrs. Steffen, she taught from the 1966-67 school year through the 1969-70 year.]

As for high school math, I recall taking Algebra I, Algebra II and Geometry. Can't recall if other math classes were offered. Does anyone else remember?

Since high school, a tad bit of geometry has come in handy from time to time. Algebra has been useful to me not so much for the math but for the logical reasoning it taught.

I enjoyed all these classes at the time and never gave a thought then as to how I might actually use the information learned as an adult. I'm sure others put all this knowledge to much greater use than me. Today I use only the simplest calculator. I can still add, subtract, multiply and divide, but please do NOT ask me what "pi" is (or why I should care) or how to calculate a square root (or why I would want to).

This photo also brings back memories of overhead projectors in high school. Mrs. Steffen used hers a lot. Did H.A. Smith use one? Did any other teachers or the coaches use them? Overhead projectors seem so quaint now that we have PowerPoint.

Speaking of oldtime technology: Remember the sweet smell of mimeo fluid? Ah, I just loved that smell -- better than "Evening in Paris" perfume -- ha!

Best wishes,

Barb

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Grade school memories

[October 15]   Last week I wrote back to Dawn Cole, since it appeared that we were nearly classmates at Pawnee Rock Grade School. It turns out that she was in the class after mine; she graduated with the class of 1976.

She wrote:

In fact, I would have been in the 3rd grade picture you posted in February if we hadn't moved the summer before. Paula Keener was a good friend of mine and I had a puppy love crush on Bobby Givens. Robert Bowman and I carried the flowers for the Homecoming queen when we were in kindergarten. I believe Susan and I were also friends, although I couldn't recall her last name.

I was saddened to see that Mrs. Wilhite had died in February. She was my teacher -- in the second grade, I think. Mrs. Loving was my kindergarten teacher. I can't recall my first grade teacher's name.

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Welcome, Dawn (Keys) Cole

[October 8]   Dawn (Keys) Cole, who went to school in Pawnee Rock from 1963 until 1966, has joined Friends of Pawnee Rock. She attended kindergarten and first and second grades here, and she and her family lived a block and a half west of the post office.

She remembers Pawnee Rock as "a golden place over the rainbow."

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More about the Originals

The Originals of 1966: Noel Shank, Dave Steinert, Verlin White, and Glen Grunwald. (Bill VanSkike photo; Berny Unruh made the photo available.)

[October 1]   Last week we had a photo of a hometown musical combo, the Originals. Barb Schmidt wrote about it, and now Charles White, Verlin's brother, adds to the photo's legacy.

Charles wrote:

That is positively Glenn Grunwald in the picture of the Originals. Thanks to Berny Unruh for posting this picture of my brother and band that I had never seen. Also thanks to Phil Bowman (who was in the band when they played at the Midget Malt Shop at least once), for spotting this photo and reminding me to go look at it!

Thanks Leon,
Charles White

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