Researching Ancient Native Americans in Kansas

On Monday, February 23rd, at 6:30 p.m., Donald Blakeslee, Professor of Anthropology at Wichita State University, will present “Researching Ancient Kansas Native Americans” to Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society members and guests at the Good Taste Chinese Buffet, 1311 E. 16^th St., Wellington.  No cost for the program; guests are welcome.  For possible weather cancellations, contact Jane Moore at 620-447-3266 or the restaurant at 620-399-8401.

 

Blakeslee said that he specializes in the history of the Great Plains with a special interest on the Walnut River basin during all time periods. His current research could, in his words “rewrite the Great Bend culture.” The Great Bend Aspect, as archaeologists call it, refers to ancient Native American people, particularly the ancestral Wichita tribe, who lived in several regions of the state, including Cowley County, from about 1425 AD to the early 18^th century.

Native American Research - Sunmer County Historical & Genealogical Society

On Monday, January 26th, at 6:30 P.M., Michelle Enke, Wichita Public Library, will present “Researching Your Native American Ancestor” and will share tips and hints for finding your elusive Native American Ancestor in the Wichita Public Library’s extensive Native American Collection to Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society members and guests meeting at the Good Taste Chinese Buffet, 1311 E. 16^th St., Wellington.

Wellington, Kansas Tornado - May 27, 1892

On Monday, April 28th, Jim Bales, local historian and President of the Chisholm Trail Museum Board, will present the program “A Turning Point In Sumner County: The 1892 Wellington  Tornado”, a program about the 1892 tornado in Wellington, and how it affected Wellington’s business and the growth of the city, to the Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society members and guests at the Wellington Senior Center, 308 South Washington, Wellington at 6:30 p.m. Contact Jane Moore at 620-447-3266 in case of inclement weather.

On May 27th, 1892, when a tornado hit the fast growing new town of Wellington, Kansas, there was no radar, no tornado sirens, no trained tornado spotters, and the tornado took everyone by surprise.

“About where the Memorial Auditorium was it took out an area about 2 blocks wide there,” Bales said, “That was probably the widest spot.”

There were no radios or televisions,” Bales said, “And people on the south side of town woke up the next morning and didn’t even know anything had happened.”

Bales has photographs of the damage. Lots of photographs. Using a Powerpoint presentation with maps and photos, Bales will track the path that the tornado took through Wellington, twisting through the new and bustling downtown area, cutting a two-block-wide swath in places, coming down at about West Harvey and the Rock Island tracks, and heading  east towards the area of “B” and “C” streets.

Thirteen people died. More were injured. Buildings, banks, and homes were destroyed, and one man was picked up along with the timber that had him pinned down, and then dropped him off, mostly uninjured, about where Roosevelt school is now.

Bales will tell the stories that go along with the tornado, and will also talk about the lasting effect the tornado had on the city. According to Bales, Wellington had just gone through a big growth spurt following the end of the cattle drives and the beginning of large wheat harvests, and the tornado had a long-lasting and very negative impact on the growth of the city.  

 “At that time, Wellington was growing faster than Wichita, and we had a population of 12,000 people” said Jim Bales, “We lost several businesses and banks in the tornado and Wellington never did recover.”

Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sumner County Genealogical Society

 

Where DID I Come From? 
What DNA indicates about Ancient and Recent Human Migration

On Monday, February 24th, Pam Robinett, Wellington, will present the program, “Where DID I Come From?  What DNA indicates about Ancient and Recent Human Migration”  to the Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society at the Wellington Senior Center, 308 South Washington, Wellington at 6:30 p.m. Contact Jane Moore at 620-447-3266 in case of inclement weather.

“The title of the book “Seven Daughters of Eve” by Brian Sykes, caught my eye, made me curious, and piqued my curiosity in using DNA for genealogy,” Robinett said. Robinett, former Wellington High School math instructor now works with the high school diploma completion program for the Sumner County Detention Center.

 “I have done genealogy since I was in high school,” Robinett said, “I am the kind of genealogist who is interested not only in the names and dates of the individuals, but also the context, or the setting that the person lived in.”

“It’s one thing to know that a person was born, married, died and was buried in certain years,” Robinett said, “But it’s quite another, to me, to think of her as the woman who held down the farm, literally, while her husband went down the Cherokee Strip as a paid hunter at certain times of the year; and to discover that they nearly lost the farm over taxes one year when he was late returning.”

Robinett said she believes DNA is a tool that can put “flesh on the bones on a bigger scale,” and give us the “ability to track migration patterns over a period longer than recorded history can offer,” as well as the provide the opportunity to find cousins that could not easily be found with traditional sources.

 “As more and more people take advantage of this tool, more and more data will become available,” Robinett said, adding that this will make the picture/story of our species and each of us clearer.

Robinett said that with DNA research you may learn that there was an infidelity at some time in your family tree’s history, adoption(s) that were not recorded, and you may be able to add cousins that you didn’t even know that you had, allowing you to “fill in the blanks in your family tree” as well as “learn the migration path that your family tree took over the last 60,000 years or so.”

Robinett said that while she is curious about what DNA research can provide for genealogists she “hasn’t acted on it yet.”

 “If you and I have the same mitochondrial sequence, then you and I had a common female ancestor sometime in the last 10,000 years,” Robinett said.

“The opportunity to put your family in the biggest picture is pretty exciting,” Robinett said, “It lends a historical perspective.  It’s kind of cool when you can do that!”

Sumner County - "Emily Sell: Letters of a Kansas Homesteader's Wife"

On Monday, January 27^th, Elaine Clark, Sumner County Historical Society Prairie Letters’ Project Director, will present the program, “Emily Sell: Letters of a Kansas Homesteader’s Wife” to SCHGS members and guests at the Wellington Senior Citizen Center, 308 South Washington, Wellington, Kansas, at 6:30 p.m. For bad weather cancellation information, contact Jane Moore at 620-447-3266

In 2012 the Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society received a notebook containing letters written primarily in the 1870’s by Emily Sell, one of Sumner County’s earliest settlers.

SCHGS President, Jane Moore, shared the letters with Elaine Clark, and they soon realized that they were holding a treasure trove of first-hand accounts of the everyday life of the wife of a Kansas homesteader.

Moore said that the Sells homesteaded in the Rome, Kansas area in the 1870’s, and even though Kansas was opened to settlement in 1854 and became a state in 1861, there were only 22 white people living in Sumner County by 1870.

“There have been histories written about other areas of Sumner County during this time period,” said Elaine Clark, adding “but very few collections of letters have been discovered which give a first-person perspective.”

 “That makes this collection of letters a priceless, irreplaceable piece of Kansas history,” Clark said.

Because of the historic value of the letters, the Kansas Humanities Council (KHC), a nonprofit organization that supports community-

based cultural programs, www.kansashumanities.org, awarded the Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society of Wellington a $3,500 grant for the “Prairie Letters: Written in Rural Kansas in the Late Nineteenth Century” project.

Since receiving the grant, Clark said that she has spent 194 hours transcribing the letters, and preparing them for publication. Clark will share details about the entire process: the acquisition of the letters, the transcription, the research, and the preparation for turning them into the book with SCHGS members and guests.

Clark said that when she first held the letters in her hand “I just stood there and wondered what her life was like.”

Now, Clark knows.

“We tend to take food, warmth, air conditioning, doctors and medical care for granted, but these letters share the facts of everyday life for Kansas’ early settlers,” Clark said, adding that for some, it was a life that included hunger, deprivation, and early death.

“It was hard to put the letters down,” Clark said, “I kept wanting to transcribe the next one to see what was new in the life of Emily.”

“I kept wanting things to get better for her,” Clark said, adding that for her, the saddest event in Emily’s letter was the death of her toddler child.

“I've transcribed letters that probably would have languished in someone’s closet, or worse yet, been destroyed,” Clark said, “It gives future generations a glimpse into the life of a homesteader in the early days of Sumner County.”

Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society

On Monday, August 26th, at 6:30 p.m., Lori DeWinkler, Lead Investigator and Historian for Moonlit Ghost Hunts, will present the program “Wellington After Dark” to Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society members and guests at the Wellington Senior Center, 308 S. Washington.

Lori DeWinkler, a paranormal investigator since 2008, loves being a paranormal investigator for Moonlit Ghost Hunts, www.moonlitghosthunts.com. 

But Dewinkler doesn’t just go to a location for the first time on the night of the investigation. She checks out the location ahead of time. Thoroughly.

She researches the building’s history, who owned it, who lived there, and maybe even who died there.

She reads newspaper articles, talks to folks who know the history of the location, and the area, searches for clues, and compiles and analyzes her findings before the group ever goes in to investigate. And she gets excited when the pieces of the historic puzzle start falling into place and she can pull together a structure’s fascinating history before an investigation.

DeWinkler will share several fascinating stories about Wellington and Sumner County and bring along some of the tools they use to investigate.

The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m.. There is no charge for the program and everyone is welcome. In case of bad weather cancellation, contact Jane Moore at 620-447-3266. For more information, go to www.ks-schgs.blogspot.com.

Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society Receives Grant from the Kansas Humanities Council

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society

March 25^th Meeting
Contact: Sherry Kline – 620-326-3401

On Monday, March 25th, at 6:30 p.m., Dolores Carr, Wellington, will present the Women’s History month program “Who Was Mary Elizabeth Lease: Kansas Homesteader, Mission Teacher, or Political Activist?”  to Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society members and guests at the Best of Orient meeting room, 114 E. Lincoln, Wellington.

The meal begins at 5:30 p.m. and the meeting at 6:30 p.m.. There is no charge for the program and everyone is welcome. For possible bad weather cancellation, contact Best of the Orient at 620-399-8575 or President Jane Moore at 620-447-3266.

Dolores Carr said that Mary Elizabeth Lease, author, speaker, and editor, was born in Pennsylvania to upper-class Irish immigrants Joseph P. and Mary Elizabeth Clyens, was raised in New York, and was well educated before coming to Kansas to teach in an Osage Mission after her father and older brothers died fighting for the union in the civil war. 

According to Carr, Mary Elizabeth Lease “read for the law” while earning money washing clothes for the neighbors, and after marrying, she and her husband homesteaded in Kingman County, Kansas but were not able to make a go of it, and she and her family moved to Wichita where she founded a club for woman who wanted to improve their education.

 “She became a speaker for the Populist Party,” Carr said, “and was often called “The Lady Orator of the West” and “the Kansas Cyclone” by some because of her speaking abilities.”

 “She could just mesmerize the audience,” Carr said.

Carr stated that Lease believed that if she had been a man she would have been appointed to the U. S. Senate, but Carr added that because Lease promoted women’s suffrage as well as temperance and was politically active in the Populist Party some comments about her were not complimentary.

“She was probably a woman ahead of her time,” Carr said.

Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society

On Monday, February 25th, at 6:30 p.m., Neta Jane Doris, Winfield, will present the program “Exodusters in Kansas” to Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society members and guests at the Best of Orient meeting room, 114 E. Lincoln, Wellington.

The meal begins at 5:30 p.m. and the meeting at 6:30 p.m.. There is no charge for the program and everyone is welcome. For possible bad weather cancellation, contact Best of the Orient at 620-399-8575.

When two of Neta Jane Doris’s former high school classmates asked her to do their family history, Doris was only too happy to help them out.

Doris has been involved in several family history projects, found ancestors and descendants for several, reconnected family members, begun family reunions, and published a family history on her mother’s side of the family.

She was glad to help her friends out.

“I’ve been researching for about 40 years,” Doris said, “I just love the research. Actually, when I’m researching, they almost feel like my family.”

Doris, who did the bulk of this research prior to the age of computers, learned that her two friends were not only the descendants of “Exodusters”, or African-American slaves freed by emancipation, they were also related to each other.

“The more I researched, the more interested I became,” Doris said, adding that it took several months to find much of the information and expand their family trees.

“There were about three years when there was a mass exodus,” Doris said, adding that most Exodusters came to Kansas between 1879 and 1881 and many were from Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas where circulars were passed out by both black and white people to entice the new settlers to Kansas.

Doris said that the mass exodus “happened so fast and so suddenly that it caused a Congressional investigation.”

 “Over 40,000 poor black people emigrated during that time,” Doris said, “they were kind of led to believe that they would get money and land, and that didn’t happen.”

Doris said that she will “speak about the general history of the Exodusters and talk a little” about the people who settled in Kansas: one family who was involved in the Underground Railroad, one family whose owner (and father) freed them and gave them money to move, and Lutie Lytle, who became the first woman black lawyer in Tennessee in 1897 and was the first black woman to be admitted to the Kansas bar.

“Sometimes families were torn apart and you never get them back together again,” Doris said.

For those genealogists and family historians searching for their own Exoduster history, Doris said that she will bring along a copy of the circular used to advertise settling in Kansas as well as books and articles, census and land records, and share information on some of the resources that she used, and also how and where she found the information.

According to Doris, many of the citizens in Larned today are descended from the Exodusters.

“They were some of the earliest settlers in that part of Kansas,” Doris said, “they showed a lot of strength and determination.”

Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society meeting

On Monday, November 26th, Frank Korte, Wellington attorney and Vietnam veteran will present the program “The Normandy Invasion” to members and guests of the Sumner County Genealogical & Historical Society in meeting room A at “The Rock” restaurant, 1311 East 16^th (east Highway 160), Wellington. 

The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m.; meal begins at 5:30 p.m.. Reservations are not necessary for the meal. Contact "The Rock" in case of inclement weather for cancellation information.

In 1968, Frank Korte’s National Guard unit was activated and they were sent to Vietnam on January 3^rd, 1969.  In the years since his military service, Korte has become interested in both Civil War era and World War II battles and the preparations that led up to them.

“I’ve always kind of had an interest in the military,” Korte said.

“WW II was the first war we fought with Armored machinery,” Korte said, adding “we woke up about 1939 and realized that they (the Germans) had tanks and had developed artillery and fighter aircraft, and we still had an army equipped to fight WW I.”

I’ve always been fascinated by that transition,” Korte said, “and by where we started and where we’ve come to today.”

 “In 1939 we got busy converting to a WW II Army. It was the infancy of how we fight today” Korte said, “we do a lot of the same things we did then, but we have much better equipment.”

Korte will share maps and photographs of the area at Normandy, including German bunkers that still exist today.  And while his talk will encompass the tremendous battle fought at Normandy Beach, he also plans to touch on what led up to the Normandy invasion, including “Operation Fortitude” the operation that was created to deceive the Germans into believing that the main attack would be elsewhere.

“The whole name of the game was to isolate the beaches and keep the Germans off of them so we could get on the beaches,” Korte said, “that operation really threw the Germans off.  Rommel was at Normandy trying to defend the beach with one-third of his Army.”

Contact info: Sherry Kline – 620-326-3401
skline09@gmail.com

Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Center

The Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Center will be closed after October 16, 2012 due to ongoing renovations at the Memorial Auditorium. And to also prepare for moving to our new rooms.  We hope to reopen by December 1, 2012. We will still accept research requests via email and postal mail, but it may be some time before you will receive a reply. 

12 Months of History from Sumner County

When Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Society President Jane Moore saw a calendar at a genealogy meeting, one filled with fascinating historic old photos and interesting historic tidbits, she knew she wanted to do that for Sumner County.

I had seen another one from another county,” Moore said, “I just thought it was a cool idea.”

So for the past several months, Moore, Elaine Clark, and Photoshop expert, Jerry Sayre gathered and tweaked photos, researched newspapers, double-checked facts, and put together the SCHGS Calendar “A Look at Historic Sumner County.”

Getting it back from the printers, Wheatland Services, this week had everyone excited.

“The calendar itself has historic information on every page and with every photo,” Moore said, adding that facts and photos representing Oxford, Belle Plaine, Wellington, Caldwell, Geuda Springs, South Haven, Hunnewell, Perth, Mayfield, Argonia, Milan, Millerton, Corbin, and Conway Springs cover each month of the calendar, and include such interesting tidbits as location of the first lynching in the county, where the first post office in the county was located, and when the Baptist Church was organized in Wellington.

Moore said that the calendars can be purchased at the SCHGS Research Center (north door Memorial Auditorium, 208 N. Washington, Wellington) on Tuesdays from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., or from the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, and sell for $10.00 per calendar, with discounts for orders of five or more.  Mail orders are welcome.  Address orders to SCHGS, Box 402, Wellington, KS 67152, and add $5 shipping and handling for one calendar.  Contact the society for shipping rates on orders of multiple calendars at schgs@sutv.com, or contact President Jane Moore directly at bjmoore@kanokla.net.

Moore said that the proceeds will be used to support SCHGS’ family history preservation activities and equipment needs at the SCHGS Research Center.

“If you are interested in Sumner County History,” Moore said, “you will really enjoy them and they will make a nice gift for folks who no longer live here, too.”