Lyons, KS

Lyons, Kansas

Oh my, lots and lots of wind... as I was driving through Kansas and having to keep two hands on the steering wheel, I kept thinking of Dorothy and Toto and the classic quote... "Toto, we're not in Kansas any more" and began to understand why they chose Kansas as the hometown place of the movie.

I am amazed at the heart of rural America, as I drive through these little towns I am thoroughly intrigued by the architecture of the buildings, the condition of them and that they are still being used. I can see town squares and band stands much like I imagine were a part of River City USA, from The Music Man. I suppose I have traveled cross country many times, and seen many places, but I always fly and I realize on this trip that I have missed out seeing and experiencing these things, in the heartland of our great Country.

After leaving Jerry and Tom at Ponca City we made our way North and a little west to Lyons, KS to see my friends and former Pastor Don and Connie Strohmeyer. While some towns may lack the franchises that we have become accustomed to seeing every where like Micky D's, Denny's and IHOP... I've learned that they aren't every where ! but the one that is truly every where in rural America is the NAPA auto parts store. Even when I was going on and on about rural SE Iowa... they did have NAPA stores in each little burg. The more I think about it, I am convinced that those counties with out franchises probably have an ordinance forbidding them, as opposed to the franchises not wanting to be there. When I drove through Lyons, I found it interesting that the courthouse in there was very similar in structure to the one I was so excited about in Bloomfield, Iowa.

We met the Strohmeyers at a Mexican Restaurant for dinner and as soon as I heard Don's voice... as we began visiting... I got tears in my eyes, it was very soothing and comforting... kind of like coming home. Made me very melancholy. Don had been my Pastor for 11 years at the Harney Church of the Nazarene. Those years were very important years in my Christian growth. It's been too long since our last visit and the over night was just not enough time to really catch up... but none the less, the time spent was really nice. We ended up getting a pretty late start, as I ended up spending the whole morning, finishing up scoring the OYCC grants that I didn't get done on flight. It was very nice to be able to spread out on Connie's dining room table, and it was probably was more comfortable for Ansel to hang out there on the sofa while I finished up too. The scoring process I thought would take an hour... was more like four hours. I am on the State Advisory Comm for the Oregon Youth Conservation Corps.

Lyons Church of the Nazarene, there is another building to the right out of the picture that you can't see, that is where the fellowship hall/classrooms are. I really had it in the back of my mind that I had intended for us to land there (in Lyons) on either Sun or Wed so we could have attended their service but that didn't happen.

One of the neat things for me this visit was sitting there on their kitchen counter, was Don's special communion challis that he used in Burns to serve us communion... it summoned some very special memories for me. I was always fond of Easter Sunrise Service since it was the one family tradition I remember as a little girl on Cape Cod. We were not a "churched" family, but we did always go to the Easter Sunrise Service at Coast Guard Beach. (1/2 mile from my family home) They always timed the service so that the sun rose towards the end, over the surf and white sandy beach. I can smell the salty air and hear the surf and seagulls. I carried on that tradition with my boys, we always attended an Easter Sunrise service every year. The HC Nazarene Church always met for Easter Sunrise service at the foot of their rustic gigantic wooden cross on hill behind the church in the sage brush over looking Harney valley... the smell of the dew on the sage, the sun peaking over the valley, the mist rising from the flooded meadows, soft sweet guitar cords, the gentle voices lifting their praises carried over the desert as the sun rose over the valley... sometimes it was only 20 degrees, and there was frost on the sage brush, but we always met outside at the foot of that beautiful rugged cross. Any way... the challis has much more meaning than just the memory of the many poignant services... Easter of 2001, was especially memorable. As we gathered that morning in the sanctuary before we would all walk up the hill together to the foot of cross, Pastor Don had asked Sandy Carlson and myself if we would help to serve communion outside during the sunrise service. We hadn't done that before that I remembered, but it sounded sweet. At the foot of the cross, with the early sun shining through the mist rising across the flooded meadows of the Harney valley... sweet music coming from the acoustic guitars... one by one single file they came forward to Sandy who held the bread, and then to me where I held the challis. As each parishioner dipped their bread into the juice, "this is the blood of Christ..." and I blessed and prayed for each one. Then what a special surprise it was when I looked up and there was my son Tim and girlfriend Linsay coming up to me for communion. Knowing how much I treasured our tradition of Easter Sunrise Service, they had decided to surprise me. Little did I know that precious morning, that that would be Tim's last communion in this lifetime in his earthly body and the fact that I had had the honor of serving him that morning was very very special to me. God is pretty awesome !!! Anyway, seeing Don's challis there on the counter stopped me in my tracks and it was a very sweet memory. Connie told me that it's not normally there at their house, but Don had just brought it home to wash. I felt like it was there just for me to see that day... Sweet sweet memories, Thanks Pastor Don, bless you.

On the road again:
When I finished the grants, and faxed my results, then it was time to head for Colorado. We drove through lots and lots of corn stubble. Somewhere out there, actually I think it was in Hodgemen County, KS, I saw this sign... "Largest watershed district in the World"... I don't think so~!!! Being cyndy coleman;-), first this morning I emailed them and told them the bad news, that I didn't know where the biggest watershed district was, but that I did know the Harney County Watershed Council's basin in Eastern Oregon covered more than 6.1 million acres.

We saw lots and lots of horizon... I hate to say flat, cause I know it really isn't. It just is void of Mountains. There was the most beautiful sunset as we were driving... I looked for something to stop and take a picture of with it, like a barn or windmill, but nothing was handy, so I didn't stop to take picture of it. I don't see many sunsets on the horizon living in Bend... the trees are too tall.

Garden City, Kansas
When we got to Garden City... there wasn't anything left of the race track except this one piece of railing. If you look closely at the picture of the cement grandstands, there is a pipe railing in the foreground. That looked original from the old race track.

Ansel protects Mama: Ansel recalled a story of being there in Garden City when they were living in the horse drawn covered wagon. They were at the race track, his mother was in the lower seats of grandstands, and Ansel was playing up in the very top seats of the grandstands. They had a 22 rifle that his Dad had been using to kill jack rabbits to eat, and the last time he'd used it, the lead had jammed, and Papa wasn't able to dislodge it. So he'd given it to Ansel to play with. He had the rifle with him in the grandstands that day and was playing with it...

There was a man that was had put some pressure on Ansel's Mom to bet on his horse. In the process he had grabbed her money that was visible in her purse. Ansel heard the commotion and his mother demanding the man to return her money... Ansel came running down with his gun and leveled on the man, and said "Mister, you give my Mama back her money and git outta here and leave her alone or I'll shoot you!" The man scoffed at Ansel and said "oh what do you think you're gonna do with that pop gun???" Another man said... you better look closer, that aint no pop gun, and I seen him put shells in it, If I was you I do as he said !" So the man did and they never saw him again. I asked Ansel if the gun was really loaded and he said no, the lead was jammed in it or his Papa wouldn't have given it to him to play with.

On to Lamar...

Revised: Ponca City, OK and the 101 Ranch

Yesterday we went up to the 101 Ranch in Ponca City, OK. We met Jerry Koch from Redmond, OR. He was in Tulsa for a gun show. While he was at the gun show he met the president of the Old Timers Assoc for the 101 Ranch and arranged for him to meet us and give us a tour of the museum and what’s left of the ranch. Ansel had told Jerry a few stories about the 101 Ranch, so he made the connection for us to meet him.

Back in the 20’s and 30’s the 101 Ranch was a booming enterprise, sporting it’s own General Store and Dairy. They put on Wild West Shows, traveling all around the country and had a variety of exotic animals there on the ranch.

Ansel’s connection to the ranch was mostly through Harry Walters, his brother in law. Harry was married to Vivian, Ansel’s older sister. Harry was a world champion bronc rider and he worked for the 101 starting colts and training race horses for them. Bill Picket, world champion bull dogger also worked on the ranch and is buried there also.

What Ansel described, reminded me of the opening scene in the movie The Virginian… He said that when they were starting a horse, they would snub him to a post, hobble him and put a saddle on, take the hobbles off, and Harry would step on as the horse was jumping away from him beginning to buck.

Ansel remembered Bill Picket, the first black cowboy to win a worlds championship. While he was working for the 101, the ranch owners matched him for competition in Mexico to bull dog a Mexican steer. During the exposition, the Mexican fighting bull gored Bill Pickett’s horse. He took the horse back to stall and cleaned the wound, feed the horse for the night. The next morning the horse was down with a raging infection in the wound. Pickett contemplated putting the horse down, but the Mexican stable had said, “no sir, I fix senor’s horse. He left and came back with a bunch of over ripe bananas. Everyone watched in disbelief as the Mexican stuffed the hole in the horse’s chest with raw over ripe bananas… The next morning the infection was gone, the horse was on his feet and good as new.

Sadly all that's left of this glorious ranch are piles of cement rubble. Except for the silos, and cement foundationis, you really can't see very he did that.


April 7, 2008: Sorry no words for tonight, all is well, we are in Lyons, KS and having a severe, I mean severe thunder and lightning storm and don't want to chance messing up my computer.

Okemah, OK

We were going to rest today... Ansel has been a good sport, but he's pretty tired. If he gets back to OB Riley, Bend Oregon, he may never get in a car again with me...

So I thought we'd just kick back today and hang out with cousin Dee. It was an incredible 75 degrees, blue sky, no wind to speak of gorgeous day. I got in a nice 2 mile walk, and then decided that if we were going to make to Okemah we'd better go this afternoon. So that's what we did.

While driving down there, I laughed out loud at a billboard advertisement for Grape Ranch Winery. It said, "Just like CA, only not as fruity".

Let's see the Marshall family had left Iowa in 1915 and moved to Okemah, OK. Ansel's dad, Hiram W. Marshall bought and operated a Livery Stable in Okemah. Ansel said it didn't take his dad long to experience the negative side to renting horses and equipment, and changed his business to trading/selling horses and mules. Ansel remembered that it was at an intersection where the highway went four ways and there was a ditch with a wooden bridge beside the Livery building. When we got to Okemah we drove around and guessed at where things might have been. We looked for the railroad and couldn't find any sign of it. We stopped and asked to learn that it had been torn out sometime in the 40's. Finally Ansel saw the water towers and remembered the little one was there when he was a boy. We drove up to it, and it had a steel manufacture plate dated 1910.

We drove by the schools and there was a glimmer of recognition. He said he thought this was where the elementary school was, and if it was then there house was just a block or two to the SW. He remember there was an outhouse on the SW side of the school that was the attached to the back of the building. He said the indian kids would climb up on the roof and pee on the white kids when they went into it, so he never used it and would run home at lunch time.

Then Ansel saw a white building that reminded him of a white church that his mother used to take them to. He remembered an incident where there was a preacher who had prophesied that the world was going to end on a certain day. Ansel said that his mother took all three of the children down to the church, which was a white clapboard sided smallish building that had a big grassy area surrounding it. He said that there was 100's of towns folk surrounding it, listening to the "Hell fire and brimstone" preaching, while waiting for the world to end. He said it was pretty anti-climatic... the world didn't end, and they walked home and had dinner.

As we were driving around we'd stop and look for corner stones in the old buildings. I'd tell Ansel, well do you remember that building? it was here, it was built in .... I stopped to look at The First Baptist Church which to me looked like it might have been the first high school. It's cornerstone said that it was built in 1907. As we drove by, I saw an older lady visiting with someone in front as we drove by, so I parked and asked if they were locals? She said yes and was very accommodating with early information about the town. She was born in 1920 and was still selling real estate. She confirmed that the original elementary school was where Ansel thought. When I asked about the livery stable, she said she knew exactly where it was, as her dad owned the auto station right across the road from it. She offered to show us where it was. When we got down there, it made perfect sense from Ansel's recollection. It was down in the flat, his house would have been about a mile to the SW. There was a ditch that ran beside the road. She said the WPA had rebuilt it with soapstone to what it is today. It was on the SE side of a four way intersection, with the railroad being 1/4 mile or so to the north of it.

I wish it would have worked out to be there on a weekday, so that i could have gone to the Courthouse and Library... but it didn't... oh well. So next week I'm going to contact the Okemah Library and see if anyone has any pictures from 1915-20 showing the Livery Stable.

Ansel recalled being about 5-6 years old and his family going to visit the Lester family who ranched north of Okemah. He remembered that his parents slept inside the Lester's house, and the kids had to sleep on the front porch in a pile of corn husks. He said there weren't any blankets, that they had to burrow down in the corn husks and cover themselves with the corn husks for warmth.

Tomorrow we are off to the 101 Ranch in Ponca City.

Remembering Will Rogers

Ansel said Will Rogers had a very talented horse named Buttermilk that he did everything on. He roped on him, worked cattle, did trick riding and roping, and he even played polo. (I checked the Will Rogers website, and they say his favorite horse's name was Soadsuds)

Ansel said he remembers one of Will's comments from his weekly radio show: Will Rogers reported: “they’ll tell you there isn’t anymore big cow outfits left in America… Well I’m here in TX on the 3 D ranch (home of Poco Bueno) and they have 6500 mother cows and it’s reported that each and every one of them has their very own private oil well."

Ansel says he was one of the last persons to see Will Rogers alive before he died in a plane crash.

They were going to fly around the world, he and Wiley Post.

The summer of 1935, August I think, we were racing at Long Acres (Renton, WA) at the time, and Will Rogers was a good friend of Harry Walters, (Ansel's sister Vivian was married to Harry) and they (Will Rogers and Wiley Post) stopped at Boeing field on their way to Alaska to see Harry. They came out to the track and hung out for awhile, Ansel can’t remember how they got to the track, whether Harry picked them up, or someone else drove them.

After visiting in the stable area for an hour or two, we took them back to Boeing field.
We drove them back in my car, it was parked right close to the stable. I chauffered everyone around at that time, I had a 1934 Ford V-8 dark blue four door sedan, that he had bought it at Sidlows in San Bruno, CA.

At that time Boeing field was just dirt runway with a little shed where they repaired airplanes.

There was always a controversy whether they had ever filled up with gas or not, no one ever knew, but they crashed up in Alaska somewhere.

Cowboy Hall of Fame & OK Fed Building Memorial

Saturday... Oklahoma City

Today Ansel, myself, Laurie Kemp and her cousin Dee were headed to explore Oklahoma City

Dee lives in Stillwater, OK and on the way we stopped at her neighbor's house so that she could show us this mystery tree. They haven't been able to find out what kind of tree it is and she thought maybe Ansel might know what it is.

The mystery tree here is one nasty hombre and it is definitely not a kid friendly tree! These thorns are like 2-3" long and really hard. They are all over the trunk and all of the branches that are 2" in diameter or more. If you fell into this tree it would do some serious damage.


The tree here in this picture is a mystery, It's Dee's neighbors, and they haven't a clue what it is, other than it's pretty dangerous and ruthless. Anybody out there in blog reading land have any idea what it is???

Oklahoma Cowboy Hall of Fame

Our big excursion for the day was the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. It was amazing, beautiful grounds, gardens, fountains and many buildings. Fortunately Ansel had his electric scooter and that made it easier for him to see as much as possible. We spent five hours perusing the exhibits and didn't come close to seeing it all. As we looked at the exhibits, Ansel told us stories that each one would jog from his memory. He was especially intrigued with the Women of the West Exhibit. We were all ready to leave and he was getting his second wind. It was kind of cute seeing him get all perked up when he saw them. The women that were featured were mostly from the 30's to 60's. He seemed to know them all.

My head is spinning there were so many stories in one day. I took the digital recorder with me, and taped most of the them. I'll try to type some of them tomorrow for you. Tonight it's all I can do to get these pictures uploaded.

Oklahoma Murrah Federal Building Memorial Site

Next we went to the Oklahoma Federal building Memorial Site managed by the National Park Service in downtown Ok City. It was very surreal. I was very impressed with all of the symbolism thought out and put into each part of the memorial. It's so hard to believe that it's been 13-14 years since that happened.

The site is sub-street level, which provides a buffer and separation from the hustle and bustle of the city. You see a large reflecting pool, flanked on each end by a free standing wall. To the south is a large rectangle grassy area with chairs representing each life that was ended that fateful day. The south side grassy area perimeter represents the where the Murrah building was. On that grassy area, empty chairs face the reflecting pool. A simple chair crafted from bronze and copper sits atop an opaque glass bottom, there is one for each person who died that day inscribed with their name on it. How appropriate to have an empty chair... any parent who has ever lost a child, knows what it's like to have that empty chair at their dinner table or at a holiday table that will never be filled again. There are 19 smaller chairs among the larger ones representing the 19 children that died in the blast. At night the glassed area is lit under each chair, illuminating and signifying hope. There are nine rows of chairs, signifying the nine floors of the building, and there are how ever many chairs in each row as the number who died from that floor. The free standing wall at the east end of the reflecting pool represents 9:01AM, when life was normal. The free standing wall at the west end 9:03AM, represents when lives were forever changed by the tragedy. There is one large elm tree to the north, (you can see it in the upper left of the picture below) it represents the survivors, and there are fruit trees planted around it signifying the rescuers and protectors of the survivors. There is a children's area, with a wall of tiles created by children expressing their sorrow, and they can still draw their thoughts in chalk on the walkway. I was very impressed and amazed and in awe.

Then there is a whole building north of it, that is a museum to the event. We didn't have time to go through it, but reading the titles of the exhibits in the brochure sounded poignant.

On to OHHHHHklaaahoma

Route 66 Stroud, Oklahoma

We had very nice sleep in a very nice hotel in Topeka, KS last night... then we got up after a nice continental breakfast and drove on down the turnpike through Kanas, and into Oklahoma. Our destination this time was Stillwater to meet up with Laurie Kemp and her cousin Dee. It was really weird to see the way the tree tops had been broken off. I supposed there had been a storm come through, and it broke off many of the tree tops. It didn't take down whole trees, just the tops. Almost like they'd been chain sawed off at 15' above ground.

A neat twist for dinner: Last winter I got hooked on a Food channel show called Diners, Drive Ins and Dives, and one of the places that they showcased a month or so ago was The Rock Cafe on Rte 66 in Stoud, OK. It was used as inspirational material for the disney Pixar movie, Cars. (my favorite animated movie) It turned out that it was only a 40 minute drive from Dee's house. So we loaded up and all went down there tonight for dinner... and it was wonderful. I had their Jagersnitzal & Spaeztle with fried green tomatoes just as they had showcased on the TV show with Guy. The Jager is like a spicy German chicken fried steak. It was to die for. the soda pop was served in retro-glass bottles and the quaint Rte 66 and 1950's ambiance to the place was really cool too. They even provided you with a Sharpie marker to leave your personalization on the bathroom wall.

Vorhis family Troy Iowa

Ansel's maternal grandfather was Sylvester Vorhis, and his mother was Mary Melissa (Criss) Vorhis, they homesteaded in Troy, Davis Co. Iowa. I had been able to do a lot of research the last month on Ancestry.com, and then I found some letters from a 2nd cousin of Ansel's to Martina that confirmed everything I had found on the internet. This gave me a starting point, to find all the deed transfers.

So here's some pictures of the property that was owned by Sylvester and Mary in 1914 when Ansel was born. There isn't any resemblance to the house in the picture. My guess is that the house you see in the pictures was built in the 1940's. and replaced the one in the first picture that I posted.

After finding the property, then we drove to Troy. Sad little spot in the road. once a thriving agriculture hub for the county... it's not much more than a stop sign. All that's left of the high school is the memorial wall that is in one of the pictures. After we took the drive out to the property... then we went on the treasure hunt to find the cemetary where many of Ansel's ancestors are buried. It's called the Rouch Cemetary, 20 acres up on top of a knoll in the middle of a 160 pasture.

While I was in the library looking up newpaper articles with Karen, the lady from Bloomfield, we were able to find lot's of tidbits about the family in the newspaper indexes/archives. Ansel's mother was a school teacher and received her teacher's certificate from Iowa. She first married H. W. Smith and they moved from Iowa to Jorday Valley, OR and Eva taught school there. Mr. Smith, was a tin smith and while in Jordan Valley developed a servere malady brought on from inhaling the fumes from his smithing. The young widow, Eva Mae Vorhis Smith, moved back to Iowa and shortly there after married Hiram Walter Marshall, Ansel's dad. There were three children born to that union. A girl, Vivian born in North Dakota in 1907, Russell Bailey born in Colorada in 1911, and Ansel Noble born in Troy, Iowa in 1914.