Update on Celebrating Kansas Literature: Tell Me What Is On Page 56, The 5th Sentence

In my last entry I asked for everyone to grab the Kansas-themed book - either about Kansas or by a Kansas author -  closest to them, open it to Page 56, choose the fifth sentence and then send it to me for reposting.  The response has been great and the entries sent in most interesting in their variance.  Here are the entries I've received so far:

Velta Ince:

“Levin concluded the supper I made for him was good enough for him to live on.” – Sod-House Days, by Howard Ruede.

Erika Nelson:

“I wish I had a rolltop desk.” Liz Knitter, The New Kid In Town - a collection of poetry and essays and articles from The New Kid in Downs, Kansas.

Connie Dougherty:

“Layer potatoes, beef, and mushroom soup in casserole and top with vegetable soup and put in oven until everything is blended (30 min at 350 degrees).”  From The Muscotah Cookbook!

Sue Parker:

OK! You ready for this spell binder?  “However, at various places in Kansas - especially in northeastern Stafford County and near Jamestown in Cloud County - salt flats occasionally form (see figure 32).”  Kansas Geology, Edited by Rex Buchanan.  Fill free to look up figure 32.

Katie Parker:

“More traditional entrepreneurs might simply locate a company such as Dessin Fournir’s in a crowded urban ‘fashion center’ and never consider a rural option.”  Survival of Rural America, by Richard E. Wood.

Frank Thompson:

Sentence: “For a time she forgot herself, and only came back to reality when Henry turned in his chair to see what had happened.” Closest book: Sod and Stubble by John Ise.

Tracy:

It just so happens that I am sitting here working on the 2011 edition of the Kansas Authors Club yearbook -- www.kansasauthors.org. So this is from a book soon to be published. Unless I find major page number errors in my final edit, page 56 is a poem by Roy J. Beckemeyer titled, A Kansas Farm Wife's Snow Song. I will share the 4th sentence since the poem only has 4 stanzas:

                           “At last the end of fence mending is near,

                            we are about to end this cold day.

                            Your day’s work is done and now you’re a mere

                            quarter section of snowdrifts away.”

This poem was also the first place winner in the “Poet's Choice” category of the 2010 Kansas Authors Club Literary Contest.

Stephen Locke:

“She is suffering severely with the inflammatory rheumatism; sometimes she seems to be in perfect anguish - could not move her hands at all to-day.” Went to Kansas, by Mrs. Miriam Davis Colt, Page 56, Line 5.

Cheryl Unruh:

     The first book I picked up was Ducks Across the Moon by Ken Ohm, which I am about to read, but its page 56 was blank.  So . . . .

     From Pam Grout’s Kansas Curiosities, 3rd Edition: “Not more than ten days after he was buried, Hillmon’s body was dug up at the bequest of the insurance company that held three life insurance policies in his name.”

Marcia Lawrence:

From William Least Heat Moon’s PrairyErth: “The land was not at all barren, and, when the immigrants of Cottonwood Falls and Council Grove and a hundred other Hills places saw their apple trees bloom and their corn and oats grow, all that remained was to get clear title and evict the inhabitants of the last ten thousand years.”

Tom Parker:

     “With only the yard light for navigation, I walked across the road to where Maclura grows thickest.” Page 56, fifth sentence, Dispatches From Kansas, by Tom Parker.

     Just happened to have a copy sitting beside me – but then, I wrote the book. I just learned of your blog through Cheryl Unruh on Facebook. I’ll definitely be checking for updates!

The wealth and depth of Kansas literature is truly something to behold.  Let's keep them comin' in, folks!

Time For the Annual Maintenance of the Rediscovering Sod-House Days Self-Guided Auto Tour

It's May 15th, temperatures are in the high 60s, sky  is overcast with no immediate threat of rain, winds are 5-15 mph - yep, its time to venture out to the Kill Creek Store shelter for the annual cleanup and overview of Osborne County's Rediscovering Sod-House Days Self-Guided Auto Tour.  Set in the west-central part of the county 16 driving miles southwest of the county seat of Osborne, the SHD Tour celebrates the people and places made famous in the classic 1937 book by Kill Creek area homesteader Howard Ruede.  The book is still in print and remains popular today, nearly 75 years since its publication.

                

The shelterhouse, now located on the site of the Kill Creek General Store (1872-1921), is both the starting place and last stop on the SHD loop tour.  There are 22 stops along both rock and dirt roads on the three-hour tour, making it a great day trip destination with which to enjoy an outing into the Kansas countryside.  The shelter sports both a mailbox holding brochures and a sign-in book for visitors and four markers telling the story of Ruede and his fellow homesteaders in the area during the book's time period of 1877-1878.

                           

The original Kill Creek Store started as a postal stop on the Bull City-Russell Freight Trail.  It was operated over the years by a number of people, the longest by Mr. and Mrs. Richard Benwell.

Printer by trade and homesteader by choice, Pennsylvanian-born Howard Herman Ruede (1854-1925) arrived in the Kill Creek community in 1877 and claimed a homestead a mile north of the Kill Creek Store.  His letters to his family in Pennsylvania, written over the next year and a half, were rediscovered in the 1920s by University of Kansas professor John Ise.  Ise edited them together and published the book Sod-House Days in 1937.  Ruede lived on his homestead until he moved into the county seat of Osborne in 1901.

The Ruede family in 1895, having their photo taken in front of the sod house made famous in the book.  From left to right:  George "Bub"; Howard; and Ruth Ruede.

An 1895 view of the Ruede farm.

The Ruede farmhouse as it appeared in 2002.  Since then the frame part of the house has collapsed.

Saturday, May 15, 2010:  Joe Hubbard begins trimming the walkway into the the Kill Creek Store shelterhouse.

Laura McClure helps with the cleaning up on the walkway.

Something unusual:  a patch of wild asparagus was found growing next to the Kill Creek Shelterhouse.

At some point someone had planted iris at the Kill Creek Store site as well.

The cleanup work progresses towards the shelterhouse. 

The 1949 Kill Creek Store Monument was built of native limestone and some excellent concrete work; as no noticeable repairs are as yet needed to the marker.

Two more views of the Kill Creek Store Monument.

And here the Official Supervisor of the Cleanup Work can be seen directing Poor Joe, who is studiously ignoring him.

The Kill Creek Store monument and shelterhouse, cleaned up and ready for the 2010 hordes of summer visitors.

We then took a look at some of the markers at the tour's stops, to see what damage a hard winter of wind and moisture.  Such as Stops #20 & 21, definitely needed a little work around the base.

Laura and yours truly had the great fun of redigging a hole in which to reset this marker, brought down sometime during the winter.  I say great fun because two inches down the dirt turned into hard limestone; breaking out an 18-inch hole was no picnic.  Turns out the four field mice who had made a nice home out of the fallen marker were not too happy with the whole thing either.

The heads on the wheat in the Kill Creek area appears to be in good health and way ahead of normal schedule.  Look for an early harvest this year!

Two views of one of the many abandoned farmsteads to be found in the Kill creek region. 

If we were to give this scene a descriptive caption much like that of a formal painting, it would go something like this:  "Windmill amid Stand of Trees amid Field of Wheat."  Wow.  The photo is much more impressive now!

The spring has brought excellent moisture to the area, as is evidenced by this normally dry watercourse now teeming with movement and life.

Okay.  So it's suggested that I get out of the van and start walking along the road, searching for a unaccounted-for marker.  I get out and start walking, only to turn around to find the van beating it down the road the other way. 

Sigh. 

In actuality we had decided to go to opposite ends of the mile stretch of road and seek out the fallen marker.  And never discovered it.  Should anyone run across the Shellenberger Homestead Marker, please let someone know as soon as you can.

On the way back to Bloomington we stopped by the kiosk at Bloomington and watched Joe do some more cleanup around its base.  This kiosk is one of the 24 erected in 24 communities along U.S. Highway 24 in Northwest/North-Central Kansas by the Solomon Valley Highway 24 Heritage Alliance in the early 2000s. 

The Bloomington Kiosk, all cleaned up and ready for visits by YOU today!  Just drop by and leave your name in the sign-up book located in the blue mailbox.