KINDNESSES OF A SMALL TOWN

THE KIND HEARTS OF A SMALL TOWN
This is a posthumous commendation and thanks to some of the kindest persons I knew from my hometown of Cedar Vale, Kansas. As I say, most of these have passed on and will never hear my words of thanks; the thanks should have been stated when they were alive to hear them. Most of these are concerning kindnesses that were granted to me or my family, but one in particular was not.
I have lived in many places, from huge cities like Los Angeles, to smaller cities like Las Cruces, New Mexico and Tacoma, Washington, to large towns like Hutchinson, KS. But nowhere had I experienced kind, friendly people like those of a small town, Cedar Vale. Perhaps that is because I and my family knew all those kind souls, but I feel that
there is an inherent kindness in folks that inhabit a small community and they lose those qualities when forced to live close together with large herds of their fellow man.
But I want to tell about some of the kind people that had an effect on my family’s lives.
Some of these I have mentioned in various articles previously, but now I want to put them all together in context, so be patient.
Thanks to Rolla and Mary Holland. When my father suddenly died, my mother and sister living on the family farm were suddenly burdened with a small herd of milking cows and larger herd (you know, I cannot remember the proper word for a herd of pigs)
of pigs that needed milking and feeding. My mother was much better at playing bridge than milking cows, and my sister thought that the milk just appeared in the refrigerator.
But that evening, Rolla and Mary arrived and fed the livestock, milked the cows and did what needed to be done around the farm. They did this for several days until the next episode in this commendation.
The following Tuesday, Ralph Snyder and Fred Archer arrived at the farm with trucks and trailers, loaded the cows and hogs and took them to their Sales Barn, where they were all auctioned off and my mother was presented with a welcome check, which as I remember, was much more generous than those animals would have normally been worth. Thanks to those two great men.
But, I am not finished with the thanks to Mr. Snyder. Soon after, he approached my mother and offered to farm our little acreage for just a share of the profits. So, for the next fifteen years, he and his family continued to give mother a check each year that was certainly usually more than my father ever was able to earn from the same farm. Kind neighbors that were never properly thanked. It was probably much more bother for them to take care of our few acres in addition to the many that they owned.
Carl Steward. At my dad’s funeral, Carl came up to me afterwards, and told me quietly that my dad my one of his best friends and he wanted me to know that anytime I needed a summer job, there was one waiting for me at the Caney Valley Electric where he was the manager. And he was as good as his word. The next three summers I had a steady job with him, and even though I was a worthless employee, those checks helped tremendously when I went back to school each fall. Belated thanks to him.
Thanks to Kale Williams. I was good friends with his sons, but did not know the father well. He was a quiet, unassuming gentleman who had always been close to my father. I am not sure how he knew that I would like to have a car to take back to college, perhaps one of his sons had mentioned it to him?? But, one day Ben Bird, the sales manager at Mr. William’s car dealership, called me and said that a couple from Wichita were driving through on their way to the Ozarks, and had blown an engine on their 1951 Chevy. The garage had rebuilt the engine, and he said Mr. Williams was willing to sell it for just $300. That price would have been just about enough to cover the expenses they had in getting the car fixed, and was low enough that I could afford to have some transportation. Thanks to another kind man.
Shortly after my dad’s demise, my mother was confronted with many legal decisions and had no knowledge of how to cope with these problems. In came another very kind gentleman, who, over the next several years provided legal assistance and advice on many aspects, and Bill House would never accept any payment for all the work that he did for us. You might say, Well, he could afford to be magnanimous, but the fact is, he did these things out of love and kindness for lifelong friends. Maybe Mr. House is still alive, if so, he would be “old”, but thanks to him.
Dr. L. Claire Hays would never accept payment for the care he provided to my father at the time of his massive heart attack. Again, you might say that he could afford it, but he had been called out of bed and driven at a dangerous speed from his home well north of town all the way down to our home. To many he seemed to be a gruff, distant person, but he was never adequately thanked for this kindness.
Flo Hays, his wife, was another wonderful lady who went out of her way to help our family in a time of near crisis. She recognized that my mother was not a farmer, and had no employment skills, but she had taught in a one room school house in northern Kansas shortly after being married. She had no degree and no teaching certificate. At the time, Mrs. Hays was on the school board, and she convinced the rest of the board that mother should be able to teach first grade at the old school, and complete her teaching certificate at the same time. So thanks to her, mother had a job which I believe paid around $2000 a year; much better than nothing. Many thanks to her!!
There were many other kindnesses shown to my family by the good folks in this small town, but I will mention just one more name .. Dr. Herb Stone. Over the years, he had done thousands of dollars of dental work on me and my family, and due to his wonderful book-keeping system, we never seemed to get a bill. At the time my mother moved to Winfield, she had asked him again, how much she owed, and she got the same answer time and again, “I will figure it out and send a bill”… No bill ever came and I suppose to this day we owe Dr. Stone a small fortune. Kindness to friends. Thanks to him.
Now, away from my family. I am going to try to relate a history that may have many errors and misconceptions, and I am sure that some of the readers will not hesitate to add to or correct part of what I am going to say. I am telling this not to belittle anyone, but to again relate the kindness of a small town.
One of our early classmates was Harrison White. His nickname was Lizard, and he had an older brother whose nickname was Spider. Spider, as I recall was an athlete, but Harrison could not be recognized as any kind of athlete. He was small and skinny, quiet and shy. He was near sighted, and in the first years at school, the teachers thought he was “slow”, but eventually someone realized that he could not see the blackboard. The family lived in the abandoned hotel down in the Santa Fe addition of Cedar Vale, and the story was that there were no facilities there, no electricity, etc. Maybe true, maybe not. But, when Harrison came to school, most of the time he came in ragged (but clean) clothes and barefooted
Then came the kindnesses. From somewhere, someone, came glasses to correct the eye problem, shoes for the bare feet and clothing to replace the rags. When the school lunch program started in the third grade, Harrison changed from a pathetically skinny child to a normal appearing boy because someone had kindly decided he did not have to pay for those meals. He changed from a “slow” student to a smart boy who could be proud of himself. He finished school with the rest of us and hopefully had a happy life. But some kind people in the little town helped the start of that life.
Corrections and additions are welcomed.