Several years ago my daughter Cindy asked me to jot down some events relative to my life experiences for the benefit of my grandchildren. I was flattered that she wanted to know about my experiences from as long as I can remember to now, age 78. SO HERE GOES.
I was born on a farm about two miles northwest of Emmeram, Kansas, a small community about six miles north of Victoria, Kansas. Victoria is located about 90 miles west of Salina, Kansas.
I was born July 20, 1928 at 8:00 p.m. and weighed about seven pounds. I was born in the family home attended by Dr. Anderson, a Danish physician who was in attendance with all my siblings (12) at the family home.
My parents were John J. and Margaret Dreiling Denning. My parents were first generation Americans of Volga German ancestry. My grandparents came from Saratov Russia in the middle 1870’s and settled in Ellis County Kansas. They acquired land through the courtesy of the Homestead Act of 1861 which designated if you were a citizen in good standing, and lived on the land it was yours. You usually were able to attain 160 acres of land as part of the program.
My father was half German and half Polish and my mother was German and French. As a child I spoke German before I learned English. In fact I rarely spoke English until I began the first grade at age six. We were required to speak English while in the classrooms and during recess.
At present I weigh about 220 pounds and am slightly taller than 5ft 10 inches. I have gray hair (I used to have black hair) and blue eyes.
I have been married twice; first to Alice (Needels) 1951; we were married 48 years until she died in 1999. We have three children: Bruce, Gary and Cindy and four grandchildren. I met Alice my senior year at Emporia State. Our anniversary date is August 20. We were married in Emporia, Kansas, which was Alice’s hometown. I remarried in 2001 to Janet Wilbur.
My occupation is that of a college professor; I have been in the teaching field since 1951; on the College and University level since 1959. My religious affiliation is Roman Catholic. I live at 1831 Hillcrest Drive, Salina, Kansas. We have two wonderful pets, Plato and Lucky (cats). I had a nickname in high school…Duke…a name I got after I appeared in a play…I think the name Duke Snyder, a player for the Brooklyn Dodgers was also a factor…I had that name the last two year in HS and at class reunions, most of my classmates still refer to me as “Duke”
I usually vote Democrat. My favorite color is blue, and my hobbies are collecting ancient coins, Greek and Roman coins over 2,000 years old. I also enjoy foreign films, especially French and German films. My favorite flower is the camellia, and my favorite president was Franklin D. Roosevelt. I do think Lincoln was our greatest president. Until I had a rotator cuff injury I enjoyed golf; in fact Alice and I used to go on golf vacations. I started playing when I was twenty-five years old.
My father was John and my mother was Margaret; her maiden name was Dreiling, one of numerous Dreilings who lived in the Victoria and Hays, KS region. I never knew any of my grandparents other than my father’s stepmother; this, unfortunately was a “cool” relationship since communication between her and my father was practically nil.
I heard many stories, mostly told my mother…this was natural, since she was the talker, or conversationalist in the family. My father was the strong, silent type, and my mother spoke frequently about all matters.
My grandparents came to America in the 1870’s; in fact, I have the copy of my Grandfather Denning’s citizenship application to the USA dated August 17th, 1876. They were Volga Germans…so named because they lived in enclaves in the Volga Valley near the city of Saratov, Russia…this city had well over a million is located several hundred miles N.W. of Stalingrad and about 500 miles S.E. of Moscow. M parents were part of a huge enclave of Volga Germans who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1870’s since their rights and freedoms were deprived them by the Russian government. These Germans were a group of the people that Catherine the Great, empress of Russia had invited to live in Russia around the year 1775; there was an agreement with these Germans that they could live on good farmland in the Volga Valley for 100 yeas, free from the Russian draft (no military duty), could practice their Catholic faith, and not have to learn the Russian language, nor become Russian citizens.
In 1875, this agreement had run its course, and the Russian government now began to conscript these people into the army, tried to get them to join the Greek Orthodox religion, and threats were made about depriving them of their land. As part of the homestead act of the 1860’s a citizen or immigrant who planned to live on the land and improve it could have the land free; the amount of land amounted to 160 acres; the U.S. government tried to placate the railroad builders, so the encouraged the immigrants to live close to the railroads so as to provide business for the railroad. This was one of the main reasons so many Volga Germans settled close to the Union Pacific Railroad in Central and Western Kansas. Kansas was also a good choice,since most to these people were wheat farmers, and the U.S government tired to place these people in areas correlating to their previous occupations.
It is my understanding that most people had a one-way ticket. They literally sold everything they owned, and once they were in Kansas, they were here permanently. A few were able to return to their homelands if things did not work out. I heard numerous stories about the old country, especially about the long Russian winters, the poverty of the Volga region, and horrible stories about ravaging tribes on horseback (the Khirgez) nomads who raped and pillaged the German villages, and on occasion kidnapped some of its citizens. These Germans were pacifist Germans…opposed to warfare, and in many cases the villages were unarmed since they did not believe in owning firearms, thus, they were literally defenseless.
Catherine the Great was German; this was one of the reasons the Germans were invited to live in Russia; she suggested that the German presence would upgrade the backward conditions in Russia; this attitude by the queen did not endear the German settlers to the Russian population. There was constant animosity between the two groups…the Germans implied they were superior, did not learn the Russian language (I was taught perhaps three words in Russian) did not intermarry with the Russians, and in fact did not live in Russian villages, but lived quietly in small villages on the Volga river with entire German populations.
The town of Victoria was actually founded by a group of English aristocrats, they failed to make a go of it (they never brought their wives) and shortly after its founding, Victoria was abandoned and the Volga Germans moved in…actually, the north part of Victoria was called Herzog, and the Southern part was called Victoria. Victoria has the distinction of being the city in the USA where the Black Angus cattle were imported. There is a landmark commemorating this feat.
The practice of calling their towns by German names was consistent with their lifestyle from Russia. In Russia, the towns were also called by their German names, so they merely transplanted whole communities in Ellis, Russell, Trego, and other counties. In Ellis, county there are towns called Schoenschen (where I had my first HS teaching job), Liebenthal, Emmeram, Pfieffer, Munjor, and Antonino. There was one small community, about four miles from our home called Catherine…still there…named after Catherine the Great from Russia.
I mention these factors since they had an amazing impact on my early years. My friends were all German, we spoke German, we attended German wedding dances, funerals, and our church services were in German. Some of my most profound memories are the great and plentiful foods we had at weddings…of course German meats, cakes, pies, confections…I also remember the wonderful songs I heard at the wedding dances…special numbers which were traditional among the groups dating way back to Russia and before then to Germany. My mother told us stories in German. Many stories about the old country were handed down by her parents.
A special ethnic event that I remember was New Year’s day “wenching” a wishing tradition…it was your duty to go to your godfather and godmother’s house and wish them a happy new year. For this you received a coin, or at least a bag of candy or confection. To receive a nickel or dime during the depression years was a windfall, and could not be taken lightly; besides, the godparents seemed to enjoy it thoroughly.
Just one more comment about the language bit; when we began school we were not allowed to speak German, so this became quite a problem. We spoke English (as best we knew how) and during recess we reverted back to our native language. I must confess that German and my heavy German accent was one reason why I took a lot of speech classes in H.S. I wanted to improve my diction, pronunciation and articulation Ironically, when I attended the University of Kansas to earn my Ph. D, I needed two foreign languages; I selected German and French. At long last, my German paid off…I walked through the German class with flying colors.
To my knowledge most of the family members were born in the home we had at Emmeram. After we moved to Russell, we eventually moved the farmhouse from Emmeram to Russell proper (1946) and my father had it upgraded after we moved from the Driscoll dairy farm (outside Russell) to the home on West 13th .
As nearly as I can remember, our house never had a coat of paint. It served remarkably well as a metaphor for the Depression. It looked 30’s and my most vivid memories of the house relate to the Depression years, especially during the periods known by Kansas as the “Dust Bowl: period. We had a very small kitchen on the S.E. part of the house, with a window facing south. To the west part of the house we had a dining room with two windows facing west, and a main doorway facing south. There were three small bedrooms, and a fairly spacious closet between two of the bedrooms. Above the house was an attic for storage, but it was not large enough to provide sleeping quarters.
This house afforded living space for fourteen members of my family. I don’t remember exactly remember where everybody slept, but obviously we, as family members slept together in our beds. One very pleasant memory is that of the huge feather quilts/pillows my mother made…they were as large as ordinary quilts, but they were filled with goose down. Since we did not have heat in the three bedrooms, they were obviously terribly cold during the Kansas winters. The goose down feather, quilts were absolutely comfortable. In the daytime, it was fun to have pillow fights with other members of the family, and I can remember with glee the number of times I dived headfirst into the huge, soft, down quilts. Sometimes they burst and the end result – a cloud –of goose feathers in the room and a very unhappy mother.
In the living room we had a large table with chairs designated for every member of the family. No one began to eat before we said Grace for which we made the sign of the cross (we were all standing) after which the Lords Prayer, and a Hail Mary and Glory Be. There were two large oval pictures of Jesus and Mary above the west windows, and in between these pictures was the classic Di Vinci Last Supper picture. I did not say painting, since I do not remember an original painting in our home. My father sat at the head of the table under the pictures, and my mother at the other end of the table closer to the kitchen from whence the food was to arrive. Eating was done with the usual utensils, but not until we moved to Russell do I remember using cloth napkins at the table.
There was lively conversation ranging from the political situations. My parents lived and breathed politics…my father used to run for school board member…so that was big stuff. My mother was a Dreiling, and the Dreilings were more interested in politics than food, social issues, and of course family matters such as chores, house cleaning, some gossip, discipline of unruly children etc.
Here I must discuss the “cuisine” that was typical of a good day at the Denning’s. I said this was about the time of my birth to the 6th grade, so I am referring to the years 1928 to 1940. You will note that the Great Depression and the utter poverty suffered by many during the Dust Bowl years….there just was not much food to go around. We had homemade bread (which was terrific just after it came out of the oven with fresh butter or heavy cream) vegetables during the garden season, fruits had to be purchased. I can never remember our family growing fruit. Plenty of cream and milk, bacon, beef during the early summer lots of good spring chickens on Fridays as Catholics naturally we could not eat meat so beans and noodles were a staple and occasionally fish, eggs, cheeses, dumplings. In the summer time especially late summer, my father would haul the horse drawn wagon to a place north of the Saline River where people raised watermelon. He would return with a wagonload of watermelon. We would bury the melons in the grain bin so they would not rot. We had melons and cantaloupes galore for weeks and of course we did have a slight problem with “bedwetting” during the watermelon period (he paid five cents per melon).
The best foods were the dessert. German cakes, strudel, “kuchen” from blackberries (we really had what they call sun berries, and my grandparents brought them over from Russia). They were terrific on kuchen or pies…the cakes, the cheese cakes, the sausages during Christmastime and the special dishes at holiday times, handed down from previous generations, still make my mouth water just thinking about them.
This house, while sterile and wanting in niceties and refinements had its own character. I remember the smells of the house, the people, the very dust that collected in the crevices, floors, windows, and above all the curtains. My most vivid memory is that of a little boy (probably 4 years old) standing by the kitchen window, gazing southwest, to the top of a hill, waiting for my brothers and sisters to come home from grade school, around four-thirty in the afternoon. If memory serves, school went from 9:00 to 4:00 in those days. I remember sanding there by that window, with soiled curtains as my companion, with the odor of dust filling my nostrils. During the dust storms everything was dust laden, so this is not a matter of my mother and sisters being bad housekeepers (cleanliness is Godliness is the German motto, and they liked to keep things clean) but there was no way to keep things clean during the dust storm. (I will speak on the dust storms later, since this period is one of the most depressing periods of my lifetime)…dust in the air, and behind me a cream separator…the rancid smell of greasy cream and its by-products never really disappear completely, no matter how much you wash…other smells that I recall…the smell of freshly baked bread, and that was at least once each week, frequently twice…with twelve children to feed, bread was indeed a staple. I remember around the house and the farm was the wonderful smell of freshly plowed earth, newly mown hay, the cuttings of wheat made by the horse drawn wheat header, the smell of perspiration from man and beast during harvest time, the smell of diapers in the corner pail…there were little ones in diapers until I was in the third grade…another odor that was pleasant was that of freshly dried laundry. We did not have electrical appliances until we moved to town, so clothes were hung on the outdoor clothesline to dry. It was interesting in the cold of winter when the clothes were hung out to dry. They froze instead, forming unusual patterns, and would have to be thawed out after bringing them into the house. Another odor I remember was one that went with an accompanying sound. My father made his own beer. Behind the potbellied stove he had this huge barrel with all the needed ingredients. Do not recall how much time it took for the beer to mature, but in the middle of the night in our beds we heard the friendly sound of beer gurgling and frothing there was the telltale smell of the beer throughout the house when this was going on. Another smell, less pleasant was the annual preparation of sauerkraut…a huge container about forty/fifty gallon I expect was used for this purpose…the cabbage heads were sliced with a grater and the cabbage with water was pushed into this container for the kraut treatment. For some reason my folks placed a number of delicious apples in the bottom of the barrel…I never did get to taste these apples. I question that they are delicious after the kraut treatment…nevertheless, during sauerkraut preparation, this odor was pervasive, to say the least.
Concerning the view from our home; fortunately we lived on a hill and on a nice clear morning we could easily see Victoria, six miles to the south…the spires of the beautiful Cathedral Of The Plains, one of the many beautiful Catholic churches in
Ellis County were in full view. Not only could we see the church in its splendor, we could hear the chiming bells on a cold winter morning…to the west, we could see the Union Pacific trains speeding on the track. My favorite sight was the long, beautiful white cloud of steam escaping from the smokestack of the “iron horse” as it sped to its varied journeys. Another view most memorable was the incoming weather systems. There were few trees in the areas, and the spaces is wide open, so if a thunder storm builds, you could see it for many miles in the distance. They almost always arrived around sundown, so just look to the southwest, there they were…huge thunderheads, fantastic lightning flashed, and thunderous roars of thunder…frightening, but so majestic.
My father was terribly frightened of tornadoes, so many, many, times we were awakened in the middle of the night and escorted to our storm cellar (about thirty yards from the house to the southeast, right next to the hand dug well) until the storm arrived, abated and disappeared. Only one time did a tornado actually arrive, and fortunately we got in the cellar. It hit around six in the evening. We lost a shed and part of a granary, but other than that we survived. It was a close shave, and on that day we were thankful that Dad was so vigilant. My mother always opposed the numerous treks to the cellar. On a number of occasions she stayed in the house. My memories of the basement/cellar were these. First, we went there barefoot…for some reason I had a great fear of lizards and the dark basement seemed to breed the critters. On more than one occasion I stepped on a lizard. I also stepped on frogs, and other stuff that congregated. A damp cellar does not make for a positive experience for half asleep four-year old on a storm night.
Another view, which I so enjoyed, was the sight of the farm animals. Colts goslings, chickens, piglets, calves, and the numerous bird varieties we had near our home. The government built this huge pond on our place and it became the gathering place for geese, ducks, and scores of different kinds of birds. Another view I remember from my window was the pleasures of seeing my older brothers and sisters arriving home from school after four o’clock. To see the other members of the family arrive home was exciting,. I counted each step as they cam closer and closer to the house…until I could hear their chatter and laughter…thus the end of loneliness and an evening of fun and gaiety, as only a large family can have.
I think the atmosphere in my house on the Emmeram farm was for the most part, a pleasant one. There was a lot of touching…my mother was not afraid to put her arms about her children…there was hugging, and good natured ribbing by my siblings…a lot of good-natured teasing, and I must admit, it was well to develop a thick skin in this kind of atmosphere.
A typical childhood evening at the Denning home went something like this. After the dishes were washed and dried (always done by the girls…the menfolk did the outdoor work) the table was cleared and the children had to do their homework. My mother did more teaching than did my teachers. My mother came from a relatively well-educated family. She had attended high school…(few girls from our neighborhood did) and she wanted the Denning kids to be at the head of the class. So all the reading writing, spelling, history, geography, social studies was carefully screened on a nightly basis. On Saturday and Sunday nights we did not do homework.
After the homework was completed, out came the Bible; my mother always read a chapter or two of the Bible each night and discussed it with us. She covered the New Testament on winter, and during the next winter she would hit the Old Testament. I enjoyed her reading and the illustrations in the Bible.
After Bible sessions were completed there was time for popping of popcorn, the playing of pinochle or a Russian game of “Turoc” (I hope this is a correct spelling) after which there was frequently time for storytelling. My mother was great at telling scary stories, as well as pleasant tales. Older sisters, namely Stella and Bert frequently led us all in folk songs…after this we said evening prayers and departed for bed. Prayer was fairly short except during Lent, during lent we recited the entire rosary each night except for Saturday nights.
I can honestly say that my mother was an inspiration and guide during my grade school years. Needless to say, the Dennings usually were champs in the weekly spelling bees, the math contests, and other contests of academic skill at the Emmeram grade school. I think I have to thank my mother for this (also some older sisters and brothers who pitched in to help out…education became a family affair).
My memory of my siblings and parents during my early years is fleeting since there were many times when we were not all together in the house. Older brothers left to get jobs, and the younger ones were away at school. First I would like to speak about my father and mother. My dad came from the old school. He was very German; strict disciplinarian, stiff upper lip, did not talk much, but pretty much handled the tough discipline situations. My mother actually did 90% of the disciplining, but when push came to shove, we were told, “wait until Dad comes home”. This usually meant a spanking or a good talking to. My father was a well respected member of the community. He was liked and above all respected by his peers. I think the people of Emmeram thought of John Denning as a man of his word. I can honestly say that I have never seen my father do anything seriously wrong. I never saw him cheat. He was a good husband, a good father, and he did his damnedest in some of the worst situations any father could imagine.
Emotion was something my father kept to himself. Until his later years, (when he caught encephalitis…(sleeping sickness) I only saw him cry twice. Once when he got word that his sister Kate in Brighton had died, and another when a beautiful wheat crop ready for cutting was completely wiped out by a hailstorm. He did not insure for hail at the time. He was extremely conservative, was not a risker, was quite religious, and had a fairly quick temper. He loved to dance, especially at wedding dances (my mother by contrast did not care to dance…she would sit on the sidelines and enjoy watching my father dance) and he was proud of his role as a bass on the Emmeram church choir. We all enjoyed going to midnight mass where they annually presented a new mass for the congregation. He was German and Polish; proud of his heritage, and honest to a fault. He was an interesting contrast to his brother Leo, who was charming, smiling, entertaining, but rather shallow, and lazy. He died age 67 in 1958 in Russell, KS of a heart attack.
My personal relationship with my father has to be descried as distant until years after I graduated from college and he felt that I had gotten my feet firmly planted and was on my way to a successful career. I was always able to communicate better with my mother; this is not to say that I did not love my father; more important, I had a great respect for him. Raising twelve children during the Depression, and having them turn out as successful as they turned out is no mean feat, and he must get credit for his fair share.
I have many memories of my father and mother together, and alone, but since my father was a farmer, he was out of the house a lot during my early years. I saw my mother, I talked to her, she fed me, she loved me, as she did all her children, and last but on least, her greatest pride was to raise twelve worthwhile children, and I think she and my dad did exactly that.
My mother did not have the strong emotional fiber my father had, but she was an entrepreneur, a risker…she was willing to experiment. My memories that stand out are of a woman, who if she were alive today, would be in the mainstream of the business and social world. She loved to read, how she loved novels, non-fiction magazines, newspapers, discussions on all topics. To wile away the boring hours of the day, I used to read Greek and Norse mythology…she brought these books home from eth Hays library, and I devoured them with gusto. She died in 1970 age 78 in Russell of a stroke.
I remember on many a night, after we were asleep my mother would remain by the dining room table, next to a kerosene lamp reading a noel or piece of non-fiction. She would remain awake many times after 2:00 a.m. reading these stories. She loved to tell stories and she had many to tell. My first dramatic experience was shared with her. I was asked to do a “piece” for the annual parent/teacher meeting in the church hall in front of a large congregation. She worked with me for hours on expression and diction and articulation to get it just right. After the performance that night she told me that I was the “best” on the stage and of course I believed her.
One memory I will never forget. Broke my arm during the summer of 39. I’ll explain that particulars later) and we drove from Russell to Victoria to Doc Anderson to have it repaired. It hurt something awful after the chloroform had worn of. She remained with me for the entire night consoling me and “hurting” with me during that agony. I can always remember her sitting on the Emmeram stage next to my father, with her brood of twelve children sitting on either side…her entire expression…A WONDERFUL SMILE OF PRIDE. She knew she had done it. She liked to argue, and sometimes was not mentally strong enough to stay the battle. She lived and dreamed politics, she was after all a DREILING, she loved movies…I will always remember how many times we all had to relive the retelling of Anthony Adverse, and Elizabeth The Queen. She loved to tell funny stories…she liked to tell jokes in German, and there is a difference in German jokes when they are told in their native language; she was not a great cook but she was more interested in survival than being fancy. She was moral to a fault, in that she would go to confession, and remain in the confessional longer than that was normal. She was religious, but she never really pushed her children in to the priesthood or sisterhood. She loved her husband to a fault. She had view vices, if you can call card playing and reading of books a vice. She liked a drink, but I never saw her taking too many. As a young person, my memory tells me she was a MOTHER COURAGE of the Depression years and between her and my father we survived, and to my dying day, I think the Depression years and these experiences have made me a better person.
As a member of the Denning family of thirteen children, and being number eleven I felt closer to several members of the family near my own age; with the exception of my sister Stella. I have more vivid memories of my early years with sisters Ida, and Armella, but Stella, the oldest girl in the family was like a second mother to all of us. To be right frank, my mother was terribly busy raising the little children as they came along, so it was almost natural that some of the older girls in the family would assist her in the business of child discipline and babysitting.
Stella had a warm and caring personality. She was very gentle, and loving to all of us. It was Stella that would lead us in singing during the evening before bedtime…I still remember her reading and telling us one of her favorite stories, again and again. EVANGELINE by Longfellow. She would take us walking at dusk in the flowering meadow behind our home and tell us stories. She later became a school teacher, and I am sure she was an excellent teacher. I think my parents thought she would go into the nunnery, but she never did…nor did she get married. She eventually went to live in Denver where she spent her lifetime until 1972 when she passed away. She was a real inspiration to me. We were hard up for money, but on the night of H.S. graduation at Russell, it was Stella who presented me with a wristwatch for my graduation present. My very first watch. Written on a card with the watch was a line that read, “Gaze at a star you can’t reach, then grab it.”
The eldest member of the family was brother Cy; as was so typical, he was the first, and much was expected of him. My father placed him in a position of authority. This was good news and bad news. In some ways he was appreciated and other ways we were resentful. He was very supportive of the family and did much to help us out of the misery of the Great Depression, but I don’t think he ever received the appreciation that he was due him. Cy became family disciplinarian and spokesman for my dad. This role was resented by most members of the family. Of all the family members, he had a head for business; he was an entrepreneur. It is not accidental that eventually he had several farms, and on one of these farms in Rooks County, oil was discovered. He died a wealthy man in 1981.
Art was the second brother. He lived in Cy’s shadow. My memories of Art were that he was one of my favorite family members. I don’t think he ever told me what to do…did not try to discipline me, and as a kid I think he always had some thing good to give me. I will always remember his return from the CCC camps one rainy evening. He was dropped off at our gate, which was about a quarter of a mile from our house. I ran down the walk to meet him. He was wearing a long army khaki coat. He said, “reach in my pocket”. I reached into the long pocket, and of course found a handful of hard candy. He was gentle, and had a winning smile and was very popular with the young members of the family.
I don’t think I shall ever forget a family squabble that occurred on Sunday evening between Art and Cy. The two, I think it was in 1938, had purchased a 1935 Ford Coupe. They had joint ownership. On this night one brother wanted to go to one destination and the other brother, unfortunately had other plans and wanted to go elsewhere. This is OK except they began arguing in front of the family, and parents and family members got involved in the controversy. To this day Art felt that my father took the side of Cy, and my mother, the emotional type, tried to remain neutral (actually she took Art’s side). I think those of us who served as bystanders sided in with Art. Of course it was an impossible situation…joint ownership of cars is a hazardous venture, and this outcome could have been predicted. The two resolved their dilemma, but I do not think the relationship between these to brothers was the same again. I guess the moral of this story was …don’t involve the family in your petty quarrels. I remember that my mother was not able to sleep for several nights brooding over the situation. Art later served in the army during WWII in Germany. Cy, by the way did not serve in the war since he was declared 4F. He had a bad accident as a young boy when a horse stepped on his foot. His foot was slightly deformed and this kept him out of the army. For two years Art served in CCC camps – sending his salary home to help the family.
Max is the next brother in the line. Max had a winning smile, a good personality, and was the favorite of all the girls in the family. He could do no wrong. He seemed to be the protector of his sisters. He was concerned about the boys they were seen with, he took them places, and he was just an all around favorite. I remember many nights being part of the fun and games, with Max as the leader. As a young kid, I of course was in the background, but the pranks and jokes that were spent filled the house with laughter. There was a slightly sad aftermath to all these memories. When Max found his beautiful girl and later to be wife, Frances, the sisters were resentful. I’m not sure how aware of this they were, but I think Freud would have had a field day with this one. They were plainly jealous of their favorite brother who now must leave them and live with his new bride. He went to Colorado Springs, CO…married, and eventually was drafted into the army during WWII, He served for over three years in Egypt. He later came home after the war, took over a family farm in Trego County and later served Ft. Hays State University as a greens lawn keeper for the college. He was in charge for all the shrubs, flowers, etc. on the college campus. He found a career he thoroughly enjoyed.
Next in line was Stella. I have already mentioned her so I will move to Bert. Speaking of sisters and brothers, they seem to run in trios, or lonesome…Cy and Art, Max, Stella, Bert, and Zita; then Ralph, a loner, Armella and Ida, then Dennis, a loner, the Adlore and Carroll.
Bert and Zita did things together. They were so close. They belonged to church choir, in H.S. they were together in pep club, they roomed together in Russell when Bert worked at the Airbase (Walker Army Air Force Base) and Zita worked in town. Bert was a beautiful girl with a vivacious smile and an outgoing personality. She had a wonderful laugh, great sense of humor, was very intelligent, was popular with the boys, and seemed to be the life of the party. I never had a disagreement with her in my lifetime, in our later years when I married and worked for twenty some odd years on the college level, she was the closest member of the family to me. She and I would visit for hours, and we were able to discuss matters if general and confidential matters. She marred Gibb Kuhn, a jeweler and seemed to have a very happy life with Gibb and a great family. She died in 1982 at age 63.
On our way to Colorado (in August of each year) we would always stop at her place in Russell, invited or otherwise, and have brunch…the coffee pot was always on, and the welcome mat was there for me. When she departed, I lost a warm place in my life and heart.
Probably the best looking member of the family was Zita. My relations with Zita were 100% positive. She had an easy going personality, a winning smile…never raised her voice and ad a gentle sense of humor. I skipped a year of high school after the eighth grade; I stayed on the Driscol farm until Ralph finished school. During this year, I got to know Zita very well. We both worked on the farm. For that winter, after chores were completed and things were in order, she and I would frequently spend the day reading magazines…Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, and another pop mag…we read them from cover to cover and then discussed the plots and stories of each. Later when I attended high school she lived in a apartment in Russell where she worked. I used to eat lunch at the place over noon hour. She seemed terribly interested in my welfare. While I was in college she would send me some money from time to time. She was much loved by father who liked her quiet ways and demeanor. She later moved to K.C. where she married John Compton. They had one daughter.. She died in 1980 (?). She was a lovely person. In high school she was very popular with the boys. I thought she was one of the prettiest girls in school.
Armella and Ida were a little over a year apart in age, and they were very close companions for a lifetime. Armella, as a child seemed volatile and angry, although I never had any bad experiences with her. Her battles occurred with brother Ralph. This seemed to be an ongoing battle…I was smart enough to stay out of the conflict. As I grew older I became great friends with Armella. She was an excellent dancer, and she taught me a number of dance steps. After high school she went to work in Hays. On occasion she would line me up with some dates. She was generous to a fault. She met a handsome gentleman, fresh out of the U.S. Navy. Tony Ruder. They got married and had a wonderful family of children. She died in 2004.
Ralph, a brother five years older than me had a definite influence on me. I was the younger brother always trying to tag along. What he got to do, I wanted to do…obviously, a brother five years older does not want a punk brother to follow him around. On the farm as a kid, I learned early, not to cross Ralph. I did cross him, and on numerous occasions got clobbered. I just always knew that he was much stronger than I was and he had perks as an older brother that I did not have…strangely when in the eighth grade and H.S. , he allowed me to accompany him to some dances at Susank, Beaver, Bender hill, Halatin where you went stag, and returned stag. One experience I will never forget…I tagged along one Sunday to the Schaffer pond east of town, where Ralph and a gang of guys went skinny dipping and after the swimming party the broke out bottles of beer, sandwiches, etc. and allowed me to participate. I remember Kenny Dole (Bob Dole’s brother) was one of the guys there.
Ralph married in 1951. I was his best man for his wedding. He worked for an oil company, ran a service station and eventually worked for the state. He has a wonderful family. He is noted in the family for his fantastic garden of several acres. He sold garden products to many people from Russell who came by his house daily, during the summer months. He loves to play his accordion.
Sister Ida was closer to me age-wise than any other member of the family. She was two years older. She was closer to Armella than to me. Ida and I were good friends through our lifetime; she was a bridesmaid at our wedding, and my home was visited on numerous occasions when she would make her jaunt from K.C. to western Kansas to visit relatives. Ida was always strong-willed, had strong opinions, and was not afraid of voicing her opinions. As a child, I was not really welcome to tag along with Ida and Armella…they were a pair. Ida did not marry. She worked in Kansas City and passed away in the fall of 1997. She loved sports and her lifetime hero was Ted Williams.
This brings me to the final pair of brothers in my family; Adlore and Carroll. I really feel that I was a “loner” caught between Ralph, five years my senior, and Adlore five years my junior. Adlore was a favorite of my father’s since he was quiet, (which I was not), never caused any trouble (which I did) and was totally obedient in every shape and form (which I was not). So we have a real contrast here between two siblings. I think Ad learned by watching me…don’t do it and you will be OK. Ad has an easygoing personality…never seemed to raise his voice and got along well with everyone. I must admit to a strange phenomenon…I can’t remember a single social situation that Ad and I did together all through school and beyond…we seemed to go our separate ways…of course being five years older, and more socially inclined, I went to dances, proms, parties,…he seemed more of a recluse…it is not accidental that in college at Emporia State I was elected as social chairman of my frat three times, and Ad was elected president when he arrived on the scene after I graduated.
Over the years we have developed a good relationship…we play golf together and spend time at each other’s homes when possible. He lives in Phoenix, AZ…retired from Aetna Insurance Co. He married and has three children. In politics we are on opposite sides, but we are still good friends.
Carroll was the last member of the family. Would you believe that when he arrived he was a surprise? My mother was over weight, and no one in the family, save my father knew she was pregnant. On the morning after he was born, my father proudly brought him into the living room at breakfast time, and no one would acknowledge my father as he walked about the room with the newborn baby. My dad was terribly hurt. I guess my sisters felt that twelve was enough, and number thirteen was just one too many.
As time went by, Carroll became the most popular member of the family. He was the stereotypical last member of the family…a great personality, charisma, good sense of humor and well liked by everyone. He was sort of a bonus as the older members of the family started to drift away. Carroll was a talented actor in high school plays, played some basketball, was socially adept, and gave his high school teachers a run for their money (not much different from his brother Dennis). I can always see him with a winning smile to this day, at family reunions he is the one who designs and sells reunion t-shirts to the delight of everyone there. He is divorced from his first wife with whom he had three children. He married a wonderful second wife who died four years ago. He lives in Kansas City.
One of the most impressionable memories I have is of the dust storms of the Dirty Thirties as we called them. As I remember I must have been four or five years old.
This would make it 1933 or 34, when a black, gray cloud rolled off the northwest horizon one spring, and the rest was history. We did not really understand this horror, since we had never experienced anything like it.
The dust storm rolled in late in the afternoon, and everything turned gray. We needed lights in the house for visibility, we needed to shine the headlights on the car to see where we were headed, and we needed a sheet or heavy coat to shield us from the horrible dirt which pervaded all surfaces. As I recall the storm raged all night, and well into the next day. When it subsided we literally had to shovel ourselves out of the front door. The dust had gathered like snowdrifts around the doorways, windowpanes, fences and outbuildings. The fine, gritty dirt sifted into the house, settling on the floor, our bedding, the dinnerware, every object visible was covered with a fine grit.
It is needless to go into detail about the extent of this tragedy, other than to say this situation continued for several years. First the storm that I remember came from the northwest, and the dirt was a gray/black. But most of the dust storms came from the southwest. The wind in Kansas blows from the southwest about 75 percent of the time, so this was consistent with the weather patterns. The southwest storm dust was of a reddish variety since it had blown from the states Oklahoma, New Mexico, which has a red loam soil.
Here a little history is in order. What caused this catastrophe, and what finally settled the dust. The Dustbowl states were Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Southeast Colorado, New Mexico, Eastern Arizona, parts of Nebraska, Iowa, and much of Missouri. The area covered more than fifty million acres of land.
The major reason for the dust storms was the over planting of farmland which received twenty inches or less of rain annually. Most of this land should have remained pastureland. Due to the need for wheat during WWI the dry area of the Great Plains was planted into wheat farms. Obviously the wheat could t not adequately protect the soil from drifting, and the result was one of the great tragedies of the century. At times the dust storms were so severe that clouds of Great Plains dirt were carried to the Atlantic coast, and into the Gulf of Mexico.
A novel, “The Grapes of Wrath” is representative of the place and people. Set in Oklahoma, people by the hundreds of thousands began the sojourn from Oklahoma, and the other prairie states, to the promise land, California. This state did not have dust storms, and promised employment in the fertile valleys, which supplied the area with fruits and vegetables.
My most vivid memory of the Dust Bowl was when I approached my mother with a geography book with maps indicating that our expected rainfall, over the centuries, in Ellis County never was much more than 20 inches annually. I suggested that since it did not rain in the past (we spent many hours praying for rain), we would probably always have dust storms, and why not do what so many others were doing, and leave Kansas. My mother was adamant that we stick it out. I think both she and my father were reluctant to leave their ethnic connections, they were rooted in the Volga German community, and there was a certain strength in numbers. I think the five or six years from 1933 to 1939 were the most difficult years of my life as well as that of our entire family.
Let us not forget, this was in the middle of the Great Depression, and the land we farmed was terrible farmland. My father tried to farm wheat, but the entire areas should have been turned into pasture. It was rocky, hilly, did not hold soil and when it rained, the soil washed away, and when the wind blew, it blew the soil away.
While living on the farm at Emmeram, I do not remember a single good year, or shall I say a successful year of farming. Even my mother’s attempt at gardening was a failure. If the wind and hail did not wipe out her efforts, hordes of grasshoppers would settle on her tomato, potato, bean, etc. plants. And literally make them useless. She did on occasion raise radishes, onions lettuce and “schwartzedberries”, a berry they brought from Russia. I think their name is “sunberry”. At least, this was something that she was able to raise from time to time…the berries were terrific on kuchen, pies, and the Friday delight “schwartzeberries and dumplings”.
Some memories I have of the Dust Bowl period are those of grit in just about everything we ate…I remember getting candy from the Dechant grocery store in Hays, and as you were chewing the hard candy one noticed a sandy grit about the candy. It seems that the gritty, sandy dirt settled onto the bottom of the candy counters and of course, we did not throw away the candy. We ate it.
Washing clothes was an adventure. For days the dust did not settle altogether, thus the newly washed clothes, still wet were placed on the outdoor clothes lines; shortly after they dried we noticed that usually white sheets had a gray color about them since the wet material absorbed the dust in the air.
One year a number of our cattle died since they had nothing to eat but Russian thistles. We had no money and no feed for the cattle. The thistles by themselves would not have been the problem, but the thistles were loaded with dirt and dust which lodged in the guts of the cattle and they died…they literally died from eating dirt.
When people speak of The Depression, I have one image in my mind. The dust storms. This was so, since the two literally came to us at the same time. There were no jobs, there was no money and our farm was unproductive. My father and mother had twelve children and no income.
The low morale point for this family was in 1934 when my parents applied for relief (today we call it welfare). By relief, I mean they applied for food, and a monthly stipend from the government. There was just no other way to survive.
In Eastern Kansas at least there were gardens where people could raise food. There was grass for the cattle, thus plenty of beef. But here in his barren wasteland there was nothing. Our parents had to surrender their pride and go to Hays, the county seat and ask for food, referred to as “commodities”.
I can still remember some of the government foods that we received. Cartons of prunes, boxes of oranges, apples, bags of corn meal…to this day I hate corn meal since my mother fed us corn meal morning noon and night. For a period of time that’s about all we had. One item I enjoyed was canned Argentina beef. When we had beef from Argentina, when we had an over supply of beef in the USA escapes me. Another food that we all despised was Australian mutton. I think we were on relief for around three years. The food plus a monthly stipend kept us alive.
During this time, brother Art joined the CCC, Civil Conservation Corps, one of the many programs initiated during The Franklin D. Roosevelt years. He received $25.00 each month. I believe he kept $5.00 and sent home the remaining $20 for the family. Our family was eternally grateful for his service during those years.
One painful experience was the embarrassment of being forced to acknowledge that we were on welfare to the rest of the Emmeram community. Children on school playgrounds would accuse you of being poor, or getting relief money. I shall never forget is going to the joint country mailbox on the day when the government check was to arrive. One of us was sent to the box early. Our mailbox was one of about ten in a row of other mailboxes. It was the practice of neighbors to “snoop” into other people’s mail. The govt. check came in an envelope with a green trim. We did not want the neighbors to see this envelope, so we had the postman hand it directly to us, rather than place the envelope in the box.
My parents were extremely proud people, and the fact they were on govt. relief was one of the low points in their lifetime. I still remember some of the Depression Christmas’s. We would save a bit of cream and milk money, perhaps some of the relief check money, or a few dollars from the CCC check…this was used to buy candy and goodies, plus at least one present for every member of the family. We all got something every Christmas. My mother was insistent that none of the children go to bed on Christmas Eve empty handed. Granted, the gifts might not have cost more than thirty-five cents, but a gift was a gift, and we did not question its value. We were grateful.
One vivid memory I have is that of my father in tears after a hailstorm during the Depression. It seems we had a pretty good stand of wheat that year, and there was much hope for a good crop.
Toward evening, around six o’clock a storm approached from the southwest…they always seemed to come from that direction. Of course we were all herded into the cellar. After the storm began, it became obvious that we were in trouble as far as our crop was concerned. There was an enormous pounding and beating on the cellar door as a hailstorm of enormous proportion descended upon us. My mother had our entire family kneeling on the cold, hard concrete cellar floor praying for the storm to subside…eventually it did subside, and the aftermath was the complete destruction of our wheat crop.
The next evening after the terrible storm, I found my father sitting on the front steps of the house, with my mother consoling him. He was weeping bitterly. It was shocking to see this since I had never seen my father cry. He was of the “stiff upper lip” German mentality. Show no emotion, and weather the worst with the best…but on this occasion he lost it. My mother cried from time to time, she was more emotional, but when my dad cried, it was a rare experience.
One aspect of the dry Depression years, which was of a positive nature, was the construction of a large government pond on our farm. To the southeast of our house and to the east was a valley about ¼ mile in length. This valley was dammed up and the result was a beautiful country pond. It was fronted by giant cottonwood and willow trees. When the pond filled my father stocked it with thousands of catfish.
While I complain about the miserable years of the dust storms and the Depression years, one highlight was the fun we had playing in and around the pond. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn had nothing on us. We fished on a daily basis, bathed in the evenings, built wooden rafts and had sea battles (especially Ralph and I), and usually went swimming in the pond for several hours each hot, sunny summer day.
Armella and I were partial to catching crawdads. We would muddy the holes in which they were hidden, and when they would come to the surface, claws first, we could catch them. Quite frequently my mother would take the crawdads, remove the tails and claws and boil them in salt water. They were delicious. Armella and I, for some reason had the knack to be able on just about any day to catch just about as many fish as we cared to. The only problem was that the only person in the family who really enjoyed fish was my father. This was unfortunate, contrasted to the present day we did not realize what an excellent diet fish afforded. For practical purposes, Armella and I usually fed the fish to the cats, pigs, or threw them back into the water.
One pond activity of delight for us, but to the derision of my father was the practice of herding some cows into the pond. We would then urge the cows to swim across the pond (it was quite wide) we would then grab their tails and hitch a ride. This was probably not healthy for the cows, but we, even before we learned how to swim, enjoyed the trips across the water.
In the wintertime we would go skating on the pond. We did not own actual skates, so we skated with our regular shoes. On occasion we heard the crackle of ice, as it got too thin. Heaven help us if ever we had fallen under the ice. Our chances would have been nil.
Our neighbors to the south, the Leikams made an annual trip to our house to “make ice”. This sojourn consisted of driving an open bed wagon next to the pond…they had ice cutters and large tongs. They cut the ice chunks, stored them in their ice cellar; thus, in the summer, and fall, they had ice for ice cream, a cool place to store their cream and milk products. The ice cellar was a simply constructed storehouse with a straw floor. The stored ice usually lasted well into the fall. For some reason we never “made ice”. It was such a simple and practical idea, but my father never made the practice.
One wonderful memory I have of my Emmeram years is that of my parent’s 25th wedding anniversary. It was a highlight of my younger years. I didn’t quite understand it…the older members of the family did most of the planning and organizing. We were dismissed from school for the day. The activities began with a high mass and my parents took their marriage vows a second time. I remember my mother wearing a silver tiara. After the wedding there was a light meal and some celebrating. The big event took place in the evening.
The Emmeram church had an adjoining building, which was used for business and social activities. It was a two-story structure with a full basement. There was room for a meeting hall, with a small stage and a dance hall, and a place for large dinners. As I recall, we were all assembled (on stage) and my parents came into the hall, greatly surprised to be entertained by members of the family. We, the children, were seated in chronological order in a semi circle on stage, while various members of the family paid tribute to our folks, who were seated, front and center in the audience. As I recall the evening program concluded with my two sisters, Stella and Alberta singing “Silver Threads Among the Gold” a popular folk song of the time.
After the program we moved to the dance hall for dancing and food. I had a blast…we were the guests of honor, and most of the community was there to celebrate with us. I remember I had a bad stomach ache the next day. I got more food than I needed the night before. My most vivid memory of that night was that of my parent’s faces as they gazed on the stage at their children with pride. My mother, who periodically wrote articles for the Hays Daily newspaper, wrote a wonderful article about the event. Her rendition was quite colorful as she sang the praises of her offspring.
When I was six years old, it was time to begin my schooling. Of course, by that time I knew quite a bit of information about school since I had listened to my mother tutor the older members of the family. I remember I cried at the beginning of each day for about a week because I was afraid of going to school. This crying subsided shortly after I got to the school grounds and made friends with the other kids in school. We attended the district 34 school a short distance to the east of the Catholic church of Emmeram.
The school was public, but all students were Catholic except for one girl who was Lutheran. We were not allowed to pray during school time, but we said prayers shortly before 9:00 a.m. After prayer, and when school officially began we said the pledge of allegiance to the flag. I recall that in the room there were two pictures; one of George Washington and the other of Martha Washington (why Lincoln had been omitted I do not know). There was also an American flag. In our room there was an iron grillwork on the floor from the furnace beneath the school. This coal furnace heated the three rooms of this public school.
My school memories were generally fond ones. I had friends that were close until we moved to Russell in my 6th grade. Hubert Windholz, Elmer Huff, and Ray Joe Dreiling were my best friends. Ray Joe Dreiling was a close relative (my mother was a Dreiling) and he is the father of the all American basketball player, Greg Dreiling from K.U.
Teachers I remember were Ray Hammerschmidt, Ansel “Scottie” Windholz, and Jenny Wittman. As I remember, Joe Hammerschmidt was an excellent teacher. He had good discipline and did a good job of teaching and controlling the class. Scotty Windholz was another story. My impression was one of chaos; he was not knowledgeable, and had poor discipline. I remember he seemed to have a cold most of the year. He was rather frail and sickly.
My favorite teacher was Jenny Wittman. Genevieve was a short lady, with a hunched back. I believe she had polio earlier in her life and she was deformed. When I first met her I was shocked, actually scared. Later as I got used to her and her manner of teaching, I truly loved and admired her. She was a most compassionate person. I never ever saw her mistreat anyone in the class. She did a wonderful job of making you feel important. I will always remember her reading us “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in daily installments during on winter semester. I remember being impressed and terribly moved by the story and her reading ability.
One thing I remember about her; she usually let me select the stories she would read on a daily basis. My favorites were adventure stories about the pioneers and Indians (especially the Sioux). I think she was a personal friend of the family. Ida and I seemed to receive special favor from her, In all fairness, we were well behaved in her class because we really enjoyed her presence. This was during my 5th and 6th grades.
An early memory of school was the food we took to school. Our lunch was packed in a Karo syrup bucket with holes punched in the lid for air circulation. Other kids would have fancier lunch pails, and the contents were also more sophisticated than ours.
Our lunches usually consisted of homemade bread sandwiches with bacon, or chicken pieces….sometimes the sandwich was simply two pieces of bread spread with corn syrup. Never anything fancy, but very basic. Usually an apple or plumb. When chicken was in season, or when that was what was left over, we had chicken for lunch.
We walked to school…many jokes have been made about the hard days when we all walked to school with holes in our shoes. Etc. Actually we usually walked to school. We did not really think this a major hardship. Most of the kids walked and seemed good natured about it. We lived about 2 miles from the school. Most of the walk was on graveled country road until we came to the Leikan farm, and we cut across the farm up a hill and thence to our house.
I do recall many a winter walk when it was too cold to walk. My dad had a horse drawn buggy, but it was terribly cold sitting in the back of the buggy, or on occasion a flatbed wagon with a metal bed. This bed was ice cold. Most of us preferred the walk than to sit still in the cold wagon. At least the walking/movement kept our circulation going. Our feet were freezing for quite a spell after we came home. The potbellied stove in the corner was a welcome sight as we came in and out of the cold to the warm living room.
There are many anecdotes o my school years that have an amusing aura about them. I love the episode about Ray Joe Dreiling. One morning we came to school, and written on the south side of the white schoolhouse in bold letters was the statement “RAY JOE IS A BULL”. Scotty Windholz, who fancied himself a Clouseau of sorts, decided to investigate the matter and bring the culprit to justice. He asked everybody in the school to write on a large sheet of paper, “ RAY JOE IS A BULL”. Of course Scotty analyzed the handwriting (he wasted a good half a day with this nonsense) and came to the conclusion that the handwriting matched that of Ray Joe Dreiling himself. After a bit of prodding, RAY JOE confessed. My last memory of the incident was Ray Joe outside the schoolhouse, removing the evidence with soap and water. (a note from Cindy…I’m typing these memories…In about 2002 I was doing business with an ad agency out of Wichita. I was speaking to a gentleman by the name of Dreiling. I asked him if his relatives were form Ellis County etc., and it turned out that he was the son of Ray Joe. I had heard this Ray Joe is a bull story throughout my life and passed on the story. He, in turn, spoke to Ray Joe himself about the incident. To this day Ray Joe claims innocence…he said it was Denning!!! We may never know the truth of this matter other than that if it were Dad, I don’t think anyone would have been able to read the writing. I also got to hear a bit about Ray Joe’s memories of the Dennings. Apparently one of his lasting memories was that of the Dennings moving away with all their belongings on a wagon. He also remembered the entire house being moved off the property).
Another incident was one I refer to as the “peach tree” affair. It seems I was eating lunch outside the building with school buddies Hubert Windholz, Elmer Hoff, and others; the last food item was a peach. After I finished eating the peach, I sauntered off fifteen or twenty feet, dug a small hole and planted the peach seed. Just for the heck of it, I told Elmer that when the tree became fruitful, he could have some of my peaches, but that Hubert would get none. A full-fledged fistfight broke out since Hubert was not to be allowed the peaches. Of course Scottie brought things to order and by 4:00 p.m. Hubert and I were the best of friends. I later offered him peaches, but told Ray Joe he could have none…such were the travails of country school life.
Since there were as many as six Dennings at the school at one time, we stuck together through thick and thin if there was a fight. And there were fights on almost a daily basis. My protector was Ralph; I would get into a fight and I was sure that Ralph would come along and defend me. Consequently I got into more fight than normal since was pretty sure that one way or another I would win.
One incident of note. We (the boys),were into boxing on the playground. Joe Louis, Max Schmaeling, Jack Sarkey, Gene Tunney, Jack Dempsey, were household names. We did not have actual boxing gloves; just ordinary gloves to warm oneself during the winter. These were the gloves we used for our fights. It was not unusual to see four or five full-fledged boxing fights during recess. The end result on a number of occasions was black eyes and bloody noses.
When fighting Ray Joe Dreiling a sense of honor prevailed. Ray Joe was crippled on one arm. His arm and hand were almost useless; it was my impression the he had polio as a child. He other arm and fist was unusually large and strong. When fighting with Ray Joe we were obliged to hold one arm behind our backs so it would be a fair fight.
Once I got into a fight with Ray Joe and the end result was a bloody nose that caused problems for days. Years later when I was in my twenties I had nosebleed problems. I was informed by my doctor, who cauterized several veins in my nose, that I had my nose broken at an earlier date, and I am sure that culprit was Ray Joe Dreiling. I am sure others had similar problems. It was survival of the fittest. If you got belted you did not cry since you were branded a sissy. We learned to be tough as leather.
Ironically, after I moved to Russell in 1939, I was never in another fight. The environment was different…just a different way of life.
During my grade school years I was also an alter boy at the Catholic church services, usually the mass. We were all pretty ornery. It was a privilege to ring the church bell announcing service. Folks came to church early, before the services began they would go from car to car to visit; then the bell rang and they would gather in their assigned pew (our pew was usually either the first or the second up front. The poorest parishioners were seated up front…you bought a pew rental at a pew auction once each year…it was a great relief when we moved to Russell…they did away with this dreadful practice. Parishioners sat wherever they wished in Russell, and no attempt was made to segregate the poor from the better heeled church members.
As an alter boy, we used to drink left over wine after mass…This was no big deal, there was very little wine remaining, but usually Hubert, Elmer, or one of the Brundgardt servers shared the wine leftovers. I remember faintly, the ordeal I was to serve for midnight mass. Since I usually got to bed around nine each evening, to try to remain awake until 1:00 a.m. was a difficult feat. I usually began to doze off as the priest began his sermon. After the sermon, someone would shake me and we went about our business with the mass.
I enjoyed the mass serving activity. I found the Latin ritual fascinating. The smell of candlewax, the odor of incense, the choreographed movements of the priest and servers was interesting. The colorful church windows reflecting light from the outside and the candlelight pus the church choir was riveting. I also did well with the Latin responses.
The Stations of the Cross were memorable since they took place during the weeks of lent, before Easter Sunday. As an alter boy I had to participate in front of each station, which consisted of standing genuflecting several times and kneeling on the hard wood church floor. There were Latin songs to go along with the ceremony, and the proper prayers. I was always happy when Easter arrived which meant the end of the Station of the Cross. We did these every Friday afternoon or evening during Lent.
The priest usually favored the alter boys; sometimes they would give us candy; one time Father Basil gave me an air rifle to use for a week; this was then to be shared with other alter boys. By the end of the week the air rifle was ruined and Fr. Basil had to find other gifts for the others.
In 1940 we made the move from our farm in Emmeram to a large farm on the outskirts of Russell, a booming oil community about 20 miles to the east. Russell in 1940 had a population of around 3,000 people.
We moved to a large farm about two miles northwest of Russell. This was quite a big move for us. The farm had a huge barn, several outbuildings, and a huge house, which actually consisted of three houses dating back to the late 1890’s. By three houses, I mean that the living quarters were actually three houses one attached to the other. The farm, owned by a local lawyer, Jerry Driscoll, at one time was the headquarters of the Sutton Ranch, which extended from our house to the Saline River.
The main house that we occupied was made of white limestone with walls about eight inches thick, and the west and north parts of the house were built into the hillside; thus the house was well insulated and cool in the summers and warm in the winters.
This move was to change forever the financial status of the Dennings. The farmland for growing wheat, milo, etc. was some of the best land in the entire area. In addition to about four hundred acres for farming, we also had several hundred acres of good pasture for grazing.
For a family that was in the throws of poverty seemingly forever, the move in 1939 represented a complete turnaround. We began a very successful dairy industry. We purchased a number of milk cows (to be milked by hand) and the milk to be delivered in bottles each morning to apartment houses and homes in the town of Russell. Since there was an oil boom, there was a ready need for milk by the oil field workers. The daily industry became a family affair with each younger member being allotted so many cows to mile each morning and evening. In addition, the land had to be plowed, seeded and harvested, which also became a family affair.
From 1940 to 1947, the Dennings became debt-free, with enough income to retire my father with enough money to purchase two farms in Trego County.
Naturally the move from Emmeram to Russell was quite a change for me. I attended Junior High school with complete strangers; there were three classes in the seventh and eighth grades labeled X, Y, and Z. (this was the demarcation indicating the intelligence of the students). Since I came from country school, I was placed in the Y classroom, which implied the middle. X was deemed for the top students, and Z was the room for the poorer students. The students soon realized the breakdown and a feeling of discrimination prevailed in the school.
My two years in Junior High were uneventful…I made friends quickly, usually with kids from Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc., kids whose parents worked the oilfields, and who were also new to the school. It was not unusual to see half of your friends leave the school after one year since the parents were transferred to new oil producing areas.
Since we had such a large farming/dairy operation, I was obliged to skip a year between the eighth and my freshman year, so I could remain at home to work the farm until Ralph, five years older could graduate and assist with the farm work after graduation from school. I rather resented this since I lost track of my class, and after I resumed my classes a year later, I was in class with students who were all one year younger that I was.
I made the adjustment. My high school years as a student at Russell High School were some of m happiest years of my life. I enjoyed my classes (except Algebra) was a flag bearer with the H.S. band, which meant I got to go to all the football games, parades, and one year a fantastic trip to Kansas City, to the American Royal.
Highlights during my high school years included the great school dances, football games, plays, men’s glee club, mixed chorus, and forensics.
My sophomore year I was advised by an English teacher, Mabel Lacy, to go out for plays. I had read a rendition of THE RAVEN in class and she told me I had a good speaking voice, and that I should audition for plays, and do dramatic readings. This advice was a turning point in my life.
My mother had taken us to one-act, and three act plays at Russell H.S. from time to time, and I was enthralled by theatre productions. When auditions were announced I participated, and I can never remember a single time I auditioned, and not get a part. In my sophomore year I presented a dramatic reading “Another Spring” for the annual Driscoll Reading contest and placed 4th out of ten. I received many compliments for my work, and for three years I competed in this contest. Two times I received cash prizes for the readings (this is illegal now in high school). I performed in major theatre productions. Several I remember were “Tomorrow the World:, “Nothing but the Truth”, and “Lost Horizon”. These were excellent scripts, and we had full houses when we presented these plays. In short, I had the bug and this involvement in theatre was to be a stepping stone to my lifetime career in the field of theatre.
In my sophomore year I organized a boys quartet, which performed for three years at local civic clubs, music festivals, and school programs. I attended the Junior/Senior prom three years as a sophomore as entertainment (the quartet) and of course the other two yeas as an eligible class member. I enjoyed the social life in the school; school dances on Friday nights after football games and basketball games. I also attended numerous ethnic wedding dances in the community. Usually I went stag to the wedding dances (wedding crasher) since many girls my age were there stag also.
I can honestly say I enjoyed each year at Russell High School, and the thought of cutting class never occurred to me. It was during the summer of my junior year when a female friend of mine asked me where I planned to attend college…I was taken aback since I had never thought that far ahead.
The class of 1947 was loaded with outstanding students. In my senior year, our debate team won State beating a fine Newton school. One of the debaters was Arlen Spector, now senator from Pennsylvania. It also included Steve Mills, who later served as Vice President of CBS TV. I recall during my freshman year, Arlen Spector was my debate partner.
The students I worked with in plays, forensics, extra-curricular activities were all college and university bound. Peer pressure definitely influenced my decision to do more than return back to the farm after graduation.
Upon graduation I decided to attend Emporia State Teacher’s College. I had received some excellent critiques at several festivals on forensics work from several E-State professors. They wrote several letters asking me to visit the campus and major in theatre at the school. After a mid-summer visit in 1947, I decided on Emporia State as the school I would attend.
Here I want to comment on the reason why I participated in forensics and theatre activities. When we moved to Russell I soon became aware that I spoke with a heavy German accent; other students reminded me of this, and this became a source of embarrassment. I took speech classes to improve my diction and speaking abilities.
During my freshman year I was selected to join the debate team (we had t audition – give speeches to be accepted) and I enjoyed this experience for one semester thoroughly.
While debate was enjoyable, I had more of a desire to participate in plays, dramatic interpretation, one-act plays, and the dramatic aspects of forensics. I opted not to continue in debate, for three years I was very active in drama and forensics.
I graduated from Russell High School in 1947, I was very proud of the school. Favorite classes included speech, American and World History, English, especially English Literature, Sociology, Biology. R really enjoyed mixed choir, glee club, and working with the men’s quartet.
I received numerous awards for my participation at contests and festivals at league, regional, and state festivals in the areas of forensics.
I arrived at Emporia State early September of 1947 with enough money to pay my rent, and board for a month and enough money to pay for tuition, books for one semester. During my first semester I roomed in a house owned by Maude Quinner, a local widow who wrote poetry and ran a rooming house for college students. I remember the room costing $8.00 per month (room shared by another student) and about $6.00 per week for board. We ate two meals daily, family style with ten students, mostly athletes who liked the “eat all you want” rule of the house.
I had a job at the Bon Ton cleaners in town for 60 cents per hour for the first semester. It was obviously going to be touch and go. During my first week on campus I was rushed by every frat on campus, and offered membership to each, and I pledged a local frat Phi Delta Chi. A high school friend, Kent Shearer had a relative who was a member of the frat. I was persuaded this was the best organization on campus and I think this was right.
One funny incident occurred during my first week of rush. I did not understand Greek letters, I was being rushed by the Kappa Sigs. I went to what I though was their house. I was there for about thirty minutes and I found it odd that in the chapter room there were mostly girls and several men, who were obviously dates of these girls. I soon realized that I was at a sorority house rush, the Pi Kappa house, not the Kappa Sigs. Nice try Dennis.
For the most part, the frat life was great. I moved from the house on W. 12th after the first semester, into the Phi Delt house, where I roomed with the WWII veterans who had also pledged. Since I was a freshman, just out of high school, I was dubbed the “Boy Scout” in the room. I was constantly regaled with war stories, many of them fake, but as green freshman pledge, I survived and enjoyed this experience.
The room rate was $10.00 per month, and meals were 50 cents each, for lunch and dinner. I liked the fact that we had to sit at a semi-formal table, had to use good table manners, show respect for our house mother and on Wednesday evenings had to dress in suits and ties for the dinners.
I had some very good friends at the frat. Due to the fact that I was heavily involved in theatre productions at the college, my evenings were spent in rehearsal, not fraternity activities. Highlights of my four years at frat were obviously the wonderful and many social activities. We had one big spring formal each year, participated in at least two formals the college sponsored, and on numerous occasions were invited to be a date/guest of a sorority girl to their sorority formal. While I enjoyed these activities, I could ill afford the custom of buying a corsage for each of these dances, but I did attend them anyway.
During my sophomore year, I was elected social chairman of our frat, and I held this office for three years. In my senior year, I was also elected as the music leader for the frat when we went serenading at the sorority houses.
By the time of my senior year, I began thinking of graduation and the fraternity began to lose its luster. I had been there, done that, and I sort of became tired of seeing the same people on a daily basis, at breakfast, lunch, dinner, sleeping quarters, and social functions. In short, I had senioritis. During my senior year, we joined the national fraternity Sigma Epsilon which had more than 100 chapters across the USA. No big deal for me… I was graduating anyway. I was a Sig Ep for two months before graduation.
Probably the greatest highlight of my fraternity days was the night of our Golden Hearts Ball in the spring of 1951 when Alice and I announced our engagement. We were pinned during the intermission at this dance.
Since I attended E-State as a theatre major, I audition for plays after I arrived on campus. The first play was the annual freshman play, in this case a new Broadway show just released, Ramshackle Inn. I was to learn that I receive the leading role of Patton, the villain. During my first year, we did for major productions, and I had two leads and one secondary lead in these shows, not bad for a beginning freshman from Russell, Kansas.
I was especially happy to get the leading role of Johnny Case in the show “HOLIDAY”, our final production of the year. The role was played by Cary Grant in the movie and on Broadway. Naturally I received a lot of publicity in the school paper about these roles, and some recognition in the fraternity. It was an eye opening experience.
I participated in theatre for the four years at E-State, with the exception of my senior year. I got involved in the social climate of the fraternity, and during my second semester, I had to take the teaching block at the school.
I can honestly say that the theatre experiences were for the most part very pleasant. Many of the most attractive girls on campus were in plays, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with the different directors employed for this occupation. During my senior year I was elected president of the Emporia State Players.
The tuition at Emporia State was sixty-five dollars during my first semester, and fifty-five dollars thereafter. This does not seem like much, but these were the days when you could earn 50 cents per hour and fifty dollars was often a lot to come by.
During the spring of my freshman year I landed a job at the Didde Print Shop. These were wonderful people to work for. I received sixty-five cents per hour, and I worked from 1:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday, and from 8:00 to 5:00 each Saturday. I did this for approximately three and a half years. This was my main source of income during my college years. My salary was usually around twenty dollars per week. With this I paid my monthly rent, my meals, my cleaning, and incidentals. To this day I am in contact with Carl and Theresa Didde. He has now become the CEO for a major firm Didde-Glazier Inc. a firm that produces printing machinery and equipment, used around the entire world. His major invention was an automated collating machine, a device he was working on while I worked at the store. He is now a multi-millionaire, and spends most of his time in Phoenix, Arizona.
I was very fortunate when I returned to Russell the summer after my first year in college. I landed a summer job as vacation help at a local flourmill. The job paid around $1.50 per hour with time and a half after forty hours. This was a great job for me since the mill never closed. It ran seven days each week…so I was paid the regular salary, until I earned the time and a half wage. On Sunday the job paid double time.
I was very busy, and working seven days a week, alternating two weeks by day, and two weeks on the night shift, I had very little time to spend/waste my money, so I was able to save more than a thousand dollars each summer. After my freshman year I returned to the campus lush with a thousand dollars to spend. I first paid my rent for the entire year at the house, paid my tuition and books, paid for a full semester board at the house and bought brand new suits, jackets, shirts, ties, shoes, etc. For a brief period I was the best-dressed student at the fraternity.
Of course, I continued my job at the print shop. During my college years I had three cars. My first car was a 1927 Buick Coupe, with a rumble seat. I purchased this car from a brother named Saul Strauch for $50.00. It was OK except the brakes were shot and I did not have enough money to repair them. After a year with this car (which never warmed up in the winter) I purchased a Terraplane during my junior year. In fact my frat brother Ed Gaughan, an Irish guy from Reading, Kansas and I bought the car from the Kindred estate. Kindred was a multi-millionaire who was murdered and his estate had to be settled. To say the least, part ownership of a car worth $50.00 is questionable.
I finally purchased a ’35 Chevy, during my senior year. Cars were always an expense item, and I never did well with them. For dating purposes, I usually preferred to double date with a friend who had newer and better transportation.
During the second semester of my senior year, I met the girl I was to marry, I dated on occasion, attended many social functions, was invited to numerous formal and informal dances. A fun highlight of my entire four years was the many times we went to movies, followed by dancing at the college hangout “The Sunset Inn”. This was a student hangout in Soden’s Grove on the south part of Emporia. We danced to juke box music to jazz, blues, jitter bug, and slow dances. It was just the place to go.
I never went steady with any girls since high school. I wanted to finish my degree; my thought was to pursue a career in acting after college, and frankly I did not want to be tied down in marriage with family.
Alice was the best friend of a girl named Beverly, who I had dated. One evening after a chapter meeting, I loitered across the street to Moore’s drug store, a place where guys and gals hung out after Wednesday evening meetings. Beverly and Alice were there and I joined them for a Coke. I offered them both a ride home, but I dropped Beverly home first; when I reached Alice’s house we had a fairly long conversation. I was impressed with her conversational ability and personality. I asked her for a date on Saturday night.
After three dates I asked her to go steady and within three months we announced our engagement; six months later on August 20th we were married. The qualities I found to be extremely intelligent, very attractive, well mannered, and seemingly interested in most of the things I found interesting. She was net and well dressed. We did not have any serious differences. We both belonged to the same religion, were both work ethic oriented, came from middle class families, and obviously enjoyed each other’s company.
We married August 20th, 1951. I can honestly say this was the most important and most positive decision of my lifetime. Alice is and has been a positive part of my life. Also, she was a great support in my career. To this day, in short, she was the best thing that ever happened to me.
We married in Emporia in 1951. My first job was not that of a budding young actor; we scrapped that in favor of teaching…in short, a paycheck for a newly married couple. My first teaching job was in a small German community about 10 miles south of Hays, Kansas called Schoenchen. The high school job paid $2700 annually for a nine month period. I taught there for one year. It was an interesting experience…my getting used to teaching students in classes English I, II and III, American History and World History. In addition I was junior class sponsor and directed my first major production, a play “Do Re Mi”…a clever comedy in a school gymnasium to a one night audience with filled the facility.
In addition to directing four plays that year, I sponsored the junior senior prom, and got used to married life. Alice and I did things together. We drove to rehearsal each evening to Schoenchen from Hays where we had a small one bedroom apartment. She had a job at a local clinic. I have many fond memories of our first year.
Year two, returned to Emporia State to begin work on my Master’s degree during the summer. That fall I took a teaching job thirty-five miles north of Emporia called Osage City. This was a good year; more shows, jointly produced…”Nothing but the Truth”, “Tiger House”, and a giant variety show called “Skit Parade”. The big event of this year was the birth of our first child, our son Bruce. He was born at St. Mary’s hospital in Emporia. He was a preemie, in that he weighed slightly over four pounds.
After one year at Osage City, we moved to Larned, Kansas, where I taught two years at the high school. In all honesty, I feel that those two years were perhaps my two most happy years in teaching. I received such fantastic support from the townspeople of Larned. I got a good salary raise to make the move, and I found the students to be extremely excite g and talented.
I did one show “Skit Parade” (a repeat of the giant variety show I did at Osage City) and our Larned opening night crowd was over 1500 people. We had to do a second performance for the overflow crowd and played to another one thousand people. In short, more than one half of the entire population of this town saw this show. Another highlight during my Larned years was the birth of our second son Gary, born on July 10th. Alice was a member of my community theatre production cast of the Heiress, and had to take time out for this endeavor.
After two years I took my next teaching job at the Hays High School in Hays. I also finished my Master’s degree. I was now eligible to pursue a teaching position at a college or university. I stayed at Hays for two relatively uneventful years. My forensics teams did extremely well at contests, and I did several plays at Hays, which featured some very talented actors. Kay Homberg and Beth Fellers in the “Rich Full Life”, were really outstanding. Sue Suran, daughter of Ft. Hays BB coach did some excellent work as well.
After two years we moved to Manhattan. I took a job at Manhattan High School. In Manhattan we had our first nice house, a Phelps brick house, which cost $13,000 and we thought it was a castle. I did a series of successful theatre productions at Manhattan High, taught Speech, Drama, and American History. One day, while playing golf with a good friend, I was notified that Kansas State University was looking for a good drama director, and the head of the Speech Department was a good friend of my golf partner. To make a long story short, I took a position as instructor of theatre in the fall of 1959 at Kansas State University. After three years I was “Director of Theatre” in the department, and had that position until 1968 when I left K-State and took over the theatre department at Marymount College, Salina.
Highlights at K-State were many. I was able to direct and produce a large variety of theatre fare, which was sophisticated, worthwhile, quality theatre. I had begun work on my PH.D at the University of Iowa, Iowa City in 1959 (summer) and transferred my credits to the University of Kansas, Lawrence where I completed the degree in 1966. The real highlight of my K-State career was the birth of our third child, a daughter, Cindy. I was proud of my sons, but I was enchanted with this girl. What is it about the relationship between father and daughter? I took her everywhere…to the drugstore in Aggieville for root beer floats (I think she was six months old) for walks in the park, to my office at the university to show her off to friends…to football games…we became fast friends.
While teaching at KSU I was in the middle of the sixties revolt. Anything from anti-Viet Nam to black rights, gay rights, women’s rights, Indian rights, student’s rights were all being debated on the campus. A major student issue in our department was the erection of a new theatre facility. The old auditorium had stood since about 1912 and was so outdated and dilapidated. It housed the theatre equipment, costumes and a main stage, with a house that seated 2200 people. It was also the home of the music department. In 1964 in early winter, students burned the building to the ground. I had no theatre for the rest of my K-State years.
After 1964 we produced our shows in Williams Auditorium, a place that seated 500 people with a tiny stage; in the All Faith Chapel, a place not suited for theatre, with no lighting or electrical equipment designed for theatre productions. My final production, one of the best things I think I have done was staged in the Isadore Chapel, a Catholic church on campus. We did a well suited for church production “Murder in the Cathedral” by T.S. Eliot. Other shows of note at K-State were Media, The Diary of Anne Frank, Mother Courage, The Visit, The Physicist, Teahouse of the August Moon: a show of note was a comedy “Never Too Late” starring the late Ed Begley, who spent two weeks on the KSU campus in rehearsal with my college students.
While at K-State I finally finished my Ph.D, which pleased the rest of the family, especially Alice, as much as it did me. Two years after the completion I took a job at Marymount College in Salina.
My K-State years were interesting, in that Alice and I were able to meet a wide range of people with cosmopolitan interests. As Head of Theatre, I was able to begin a program in Children’s Theatre; an annual trip to New York City to see Broadway Shows, and also the organization of a Foreign Film Series which brought outstanding films from foreign nations to the K-State campus.
I really liked the town of Manhattan. Nice homes, lots of trees. Tuttle Creek reservoir with good boating and fishing opportunities. But I did not have a theatre. A new theatre was in the planning stage, but it would be several years before its completion, thus the move to Marymount. A side note – in 1967 Alice began to sell real estate.
In January of 1968 I was invited to Marymount College to serve as a guest director to direct the play The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman. While on campus (during our January K-State recess) I was offered a job at the college. The school had one of the most beautiful, best equipped, theatre facilities in the country. I was offered a substantial salary raise, employment for eleven months out of the year, a raise in rank and instant tenure. I took the job. I was rather disenchanted with KSU as a theatre school. Emphasis in this school was more on agriculture and Engineering, that the arts.
From 1968 to 1989 I served as Head of the Speech and Dram Department of Marymount College; from 1 972 to 1989 I was also Division Chairperson of the Fine Arts Division.
The initial move to Marymount was to be a temporary move. It was my thinking that I might teach at the small Catholic Liberal Arts college for a year or two while I shopped around for another university job. It is interesting as time went on I fell in love with the college, the administration, and the theatre program.
We bought a beautiful home next to the country club section of the city; 113 Eastborough was the most beautiful home I had lived in, and I really enjoyed my ten years in the house. We planted trees in the back yard, redid the basement, and installed a basketball goal above the garage for our kids. Gradually the three children liked Salina and their friends at school. I realized that after a few years it would be harder and harder to leave the schools, the kid’s friends, and my job at Marymount.
The Marymount position gradually began to grow on me. I developed a philosophy about education and how theatre was not just show biz, but an educational discipline that was worthwhile and uplifting. I built my program, with three full time faculty members around four major productions annually. First a major musical to be staged during Parent’s Weekend in October; next a contemporary show, followed by a children’s show in February…this show usually played to full houses seven or eight days to eight thousand children. Finally in the spring we finished off with a classic. In addition, students, in order to graduate with a theater degree had to direct a play, dubbed a “studio production”. This was usually a one-act play lasting around an hour. Each studio was performed three times in the little theatre, which seated 155 people.
During the summer time we instituted a program for locals and tourists with the Sunflower Summer Theatre, with a new show running five nights in air-conditioned comfort.
The theatre productions were all well attended and were a major attraction to majors in the department who wanted a good lab experience with live theatre. I realized how lucky I was…here was a theatre facility of the highest caliber that attracted some of the finest talent in the Midwest. The students in my department received a smattering of dramatic theory, theatre history, acting, directing, plus costuming, lighting, and scene design. We had some excellent scene designers in the department, and the department produced many well-trained students who became teachers, financial advisors, business managers, and lastly theatre professionals.
A number of my graduates have played on Broadway, television, written and produced plays and films professionally. I am very proud of the alums that graduated from our Marymount program. I never had a strong attachment to the students at K-State. It was a large university, and it was difficult to have close associations with the majors. At Marymount the students were seen on a daily basis; there was a real family spirit in the department, and Alice and I had numerous social affairs involving the students.
Alice deserves a lot of credit for the social affairs we sponsored out of our home. The initial social event was the first fall introduction of drama freshmen to the rest of the department. We had a volleyball/picnic in our large backyard. It ended up being a barbecue for the group. It was a great icebreaker for the new students and a homecoming for the returning majors.
Another highlight was the annual Parent’s Weekend function at our home. After the fall musical, which usually had a huge cast, parents and siblings plus the cast and crew were invited to our house for a post performance party. It was a terrific way for the parents to meet other parents, other students, and above all a way for them to get to know the chairman of the department and his wife. I never saw any parents leave the party unhappy.
A real highlight was the annual Christmas party at my home for the drama majors and their dates. Christmas carols were sung, the kids dressed up in decorated hats, gifts were exchanged, much food and drink was devoured. A fun time was had by all. The Christmas party at our home was the envy of the other departments on campus. There was a real feeling of togetherness after this event. - Just before students left for their own Christmas vacation.
The final special social event for the students in the department was the annual “Oscar” banquet at the Salina Country Club. This was a dressy affair for all the students. Dinner was served in the classy setting of the country club’s private dining room. The students put forth their best effort to be well mannered, well dressed, and in good humor. Major acting, directing, technical, and trouper awards were presented. This usually was followed by a roast of each student with the presentation of the Armadillo Award. Each student was sited for a stupid thing they had done sometime during the course of the semester.
In my third y ear at Marymount we began the practice of taking the drama students to NYC to see the sights and view the best on Broadway. We went by bus the first several years, but later we flew to the city. The trip was a two week affair during January. The students earned two hours credit for their efforts.
We took the students to such attractions as The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, Staten Island Ferry, The World Trade Towers, The United Nations, Chinatown, and Greenwich Village. A tour of a number of churches namely St. John of the Divine, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Trinity Church in the business district, shopping at Saks, Tiffany’s etc.
The real highlight of the trip was the viewing of major theatre productions. We usually saw ten to twelve shows. These included musicals, plays, opera and ballet. For their college credits the students had to write reviews on each show and prepare a major scrapbook of the trip. After each show we adjourned to our hotel for an oral discussion of the production. This kept the students off the streets and resulted in some very exciting discussions.
The college closed its doors in the spring of 1989 due to a lack of financial support. This was a sad time for the many fine students at the school and the city of Salina. In all we played to more than 350,000 people in my twenty-one years at the helm of the theatre department.
I am proud of the years at Marymount. At first I thought it would merely serve as a stepping stone; later I realized that for a person interested in doing a good job on the college level in the fine arts, a small school such as Marymount was an ideal setting. Excellent facilities, great students, and a supportive administration helped make this a reality. I really enjoyed working for the Marymount administration composed for the most part of nuns from the order of Sisters of St. Joseph. The nuns gave me a free hand to run my program. It was a tragic event to see the school close. The Fine Arts Theatre opened in 1957 and closed in ’89. The finest theater building in the Midwest closed its doors after only thirty-two years. The entire campus has now been taken over by the Kansas Highway Patrol for its headquarters. The main theatre, which seats 1,000 persons on plush seats, is used sparingly for a few graduation exercises annually. The several hundred thousand dollars worth of lighting equipment is completely worthless since about all the Patrol needs is an off/on switch for basic room illumination.
Growing kids with lots of energy want to do things with their dads. I enjoyed the years when all three began playing golf. We began on sand greens at Stagg Hill in Manhattan. In Salina we joined the Country Club, which has an excellent golf course. All three children became excellent golfers. Gary and Cindy both played varsity golf at Salina Central. Both played on State teams.
I was very proud of Bruce who became an excellent baseball player. He had a terrific curve ball in Little, Senior League and while playing for The American Legion. It was a joy following him to games during his junior and high school years. I coached Bruce during his Senior League season with great success. He took direction well, which is sometimes a bit difficult when your coach is your dad.
Gary was the best golfer in the family; in fact he is one of the best golfers in Salina. Highlights were the times he wont the Salina Country Club championships, and the three times he and Marty Simpson won the “best ball”. I especially enjoyed watching him when he won the long drive contests. I believe he won this on three separate occasions in the city of Salina.
When the two boys graduated and went off to college, Alice and I felt that the last athletes had left the family. But lo and behold, the daughter Cindy surprised us all. She came along when girl’s athletics became vogue. She joined a program called the Presidents Physical Fitness program at Meadowlark grade school. She went out for track, cross country and golf. Her achievements in track are one of my highlights while living in Salina. She won the half-mile at State in her sophomore year, while capturing third place in the mile at State that same day. She still holds four Salina Central records to this day in girls track. The half mile, the mile, the two mile and the two mile relay. Cindy had a bulletin board adorned with more than a hundred medals she won while running track at Central. She attended KU and lettered in track her freshman year.
Another enjoyable experience was watching Cindy perform in high school musicals and plays, as well as the wonderful singing ensemble Free Spirit. During the summer time she performed with the Salina Rec Commission’s Smoky Hill River Gang.
One of my pleasant memories was doing the production of HICKOK at satire about Wild Bill Hickok. We toured the show to Abilene two summers as part of the Sunflower Summer Theatre. I cast Cindy in a small role with one of her friends. It was enjoyable driving from Salina to Abilene to the show and back. It gave us a chance to be together and comment about the show, the cast, Abilene. She had a great time doing this, and I had a chance to get to know my daughter.
Gary also appeared as a drover in Hickok for several summers. We all have good memories about this production.
Bruce attended KSU. What great parties I remember on Dad’s Day at the frat. We would walk to the stadium, go to dinner after the game, and then party with the gang until midnight. Several dads from Salina who had sons in the same frat in Manhattan would go to the event together. It was a fun experience.
Gary chose my Alma Mater, KU to attend Law School. Not a single member of the family attended Emporia State. It never seemed to be an option. I think it was a matter of peer pressure since most of their friends attend the schools they chose. Gary graduated from Law School and eventually set up a practice in Salina. We also had fun at his frat, the Sigma Nu house.
Cindy began school at KU, and stayed three years. She eventually transferred to Marymount where she received a degree in Psychology. Gary married Jan Howard and they have two terrific kids, David and Cathy. Both are intelligent, attractive, and wonderful to have around the house. I have especially enjoyed teaching them puppetry, and staging puppet shows for their parents. David attends high school at Salina Central, and Cathy is in her second year at Roosevelt Lincoln Junior High.
Bruce moved to Denver, which will probably be his home forever. He is a sports nut who lives and breathes the Broncos. He likes the Buffallo’s the Nuggets, and the Rockies. Going to Denver to be with Bruce is a joy I have never been disappointed by his hospitality and his desire to show his parents a good time. He lives in a very elegant home, and is a very successful wholesaler for a major glass company in Denver.