4 It’s tough all
over, even in College Hill. Small business hit hard by economy.
10 Hello Walls:
Gallery owner finds fresh walls, and plenty of them, in Happiness Plaza.
8 The Toy Factory:
A workshop where a secret Santa and his elves make toys for needy children.
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER Vol. 2 No. 12
COLLEGE HILL
• CROWN HEIGHTS • UPTOWN • SLEEPY HOLLOW
NOVEMBER 2009
THE OLD, YOUNG FOLKS HOME WHEN THE WICHITA CHILDREN’S HOME HAD A COLLEGE HILL ADDRESS PAGE 12
The Wichita Children’s Home was located in College Hill at the corner of Quentin and 1st streets from 1891 until 1912. The house, now gone, had formerly been a rental and was hauled to the location by teamsters and horses. Though large (it was known as The Big House on the Hill) it would not prove to be large enough to hold all of the city’s needy children. See page 12.
THE WICHITA SEDGWICK COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM
2
LETTERS
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ NOVEMBER 2009
MISTAKEN IDENTITY A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
F
all in the old neighborhood and the leaves are on the trampoline. You can give the children corn brooms and lawn bags all day long, but there will be more leaves (probably blown down from Dellrose) by morning. Why bother? Just let the leaves be until December when it is frostier and there is less fight left in them. We’re all restless and easily distracted this time of year. You step outside, meaning to gather wood or groceries, but the world has gone technicolor and leaves are falling in slow motion and suddenly you are on a movie set and feel as if you should be doing something to help set the scene, so you hold onto your hat and lean into the wind. Your inner director tells you that you are a man off to the train station to board a sleeper for Vermont, where the apples are in season, for the first leg of your national book tour. The book is going to be a huge best seller, Oprah has already called. And NPR. The maples are ablaze and your life is changing right before our eyes. Here, hold this suitcase, you’re going places, the director says. And ... ACTION! It’s fall, oh, patient readers, and the afternoons are golden and heartbreaking and a man should be permitted to dream of such things, if only fleetingly. Soon enough the chill will settle in for a good long while—already the days are shorter—and the afternoon errands will be grim. The neighborhood is quiet in the winter without all the contractors about. There is only the mail carriers and helicopters outside. The trees are bare. The sidewalks lonely. There’s little left outside to stir the imagination. So we thank the stars for Halloween around here, the last hurrah of the season before we march back inside for a little television and a nap. Like you, we whooped it up and trick-or-treated and howled at the moon and made our children go out dressed up as garden gnomes this year. It was a lot of fun but a lot of work, too. The gnome costumes were easy, as far as homemade jobs go. But the publisher’s costume took hours as we sorted hundreds of leaves by size and color, fixed them with hot glue to fabric, and draped and wrapped them just ever so around her. A woodland creature, she called herself, with twigs in her hair and a leaf painted on her face. But she was wrong. That was no woodland creature. Clearly, that was Miss Fall. BARRY OWENS EDITOR
WRITE THE EDITOR:
We welcome your letters. No subject is out of bounds, so long as it is local. Letters should not exceed 300 words and may be edited for clarity and length.
E-MAIL US: editor@collegehillcommoner.com WRITE US: 337 N. Holyoke, Wichita, KS, 67208 CALL US: 689-8474 ADVERTISE: jessica@collegehillcommoner.com, or 689-8474 THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER VOLUME 2 ISSUE 11 OCTOBER 2009
PUBLISHER
J ESSICA F REY O WENS
EDITOR
B ARRY
OWENS
CONTRIBUTORS
G US F REY, J AMES W ILSON
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER
Published monthly by The College Hill Commoner 337 N. Holyoke Wichita, K.S. 67208 316-689-8474 editor@collegehillcommoner.com www.collegehillcommoner.com
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ NOVEMBER 2009
OP-ED
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Dearth of a Salesman
K
ids in this neighborhood have it lucky. They knock on our door at any hour of the day and we buy whatever they’re selling: chocolate bars and coupon books and muffin mix and popcorn. Girl Scout cookies by the gross. We don’t complain, because we know their parents and we don’t want to get a reputation as bitter cheapskates. Also, we feel like we’re buying insurance for when those kids get a little older and feel like someone’s DAVE KNADLER draping residence with toilet paper. But the biggest reason I keep the checkbook by the door is that I have my own dark memories. I know how it is to trudge across a strange lawn with a clipboard and box of overpriced merchandise, to knock on a strange door and hear an angry dog barking inside. Gather ‘round, kids, and I’ll tell you the story of my brief career in door-to-door sales. I handled All-Occasion cards for a short time as a member of the Junior Sales Club of America. It
was a seemingly lucrative opportu- own out of a used envelope. Second, I wasn’t connected to any nity that came to my attention worthy charity beyond myself, and through an ad in a Superman comic book. The ad showed a grin- I lacked the sophistication to lie about the possible tax benefits. ning boy about my age ogling the So after two weeks, trove of goods that I had sold three boxes. might be obtained After awhile I One was to my mom, by selling certain began to get letters another to an aunt. numbers of boxes. from the Junior The third was to a I studied the ad for Sales Club of teacher of mine who a long time. I lived up the road and decided to go for America, the 10-speed bike, wondering how the reluctantly paid me in change. With that, the the transistor radio enthusiastic market for Alland the BB gun. youngster who had Occasion cards in my Also the bugle, the sent in the coupon area was saturated. It telescope and the didn’t take a math archery set. I confihad devolved so dently mailed off quickly into a cheat genius to figure out that the proceeds were the coupon and a and a swindler. well south of expenscouple of weeks es. The bike was out later came home and so was the bugle. I from school to find figured I’d be lucky to 20 boxes of Allget out of it with probation. Occasion cards sitting on the After awhile I began to get letkitchen table. ters from the Junior Sales Club of Only then did I realize I was America, wondering how the going to have to sell these things. enthusiastic youngster who had That was one flaw in the business plan; there were a couple of others. sent in the coupon had devolved so quickly into a cheat and a First, I lived in a semi-rural area populated with grim, frugal people swindler. I would have mailed the who did not send cards, and if they cards back, but the logistics and cost seemed too daunting. So I did, they’d darned well make their
ignored the letters, and came home every day to the same accusing stack of boxes. I’m still not sure what happened to them. The letters finally stopped, and I assume that at some point I was excommunicated from the Junior Sales Club of America. I went on to major in English. The moral of the story is that kids in Crown Heights and College Hill should be grateful there are people like me, who are haunted by the past and keep trying to atone for it by blithely buying two of whatever happens to be on offer. I just hope they don’t start hawking jewelry or electronics, or this could get expensive. Hear the doorbell? That’s a neighborhood kid who wants to unload a few pounds of delicious caramel corn so his class can take a field trip to the Louvre. My advice is, go answer it. Yes, you can try lurking to one side of the window and hoping they’ll go away, but they always know. They can see when the blinds move. Go ahead and answer it. Ask about the volume discount. And take your checkbook. Writer Dave Knadler lives in Crown Heights.
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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ NOVEMBER 2009
Business is Tough All Over, Even in College Hill BY BARRY OWENS Small businesses face long odds wherever they are located, but bad luck and an even worse economy is shuttering College Hill storefronts at an alarming rate. Recently four businesses in the neighborhood, including Barrier’s which had been a retail anchor in the neighborhood for decades, called it quits. Early this month the jewelry and gift store at the corner of Oliver and Douglas temporarily closed, posting signs in the door advertising a liquidation sale Nov. 5-8. Barrier’s filed for bankruptcy last month and will close by January. The store, which started with a single counter downtown in 1933, has been a longtime neighborhood fixture. It was jarring early this month to see a “going out of business” sign draped over the shop’s iconic sidewalk clock. Such signs were scattered throughout the neighborhood on one grim afternoon early this month. At Caffe Posto, a coffee and gelato shop that opened two years ago at Dellrose and Douglas, a sign on the door announced that Sunday, Nov. 8 would be its last day. At nuDu, on the same day, a sign on the door announced that the boutique, which opened a year ago at Rutan and Hillside and sells clip on hair extensions, would be closed for two weekends this month as the owner took her wares to a trade shows out of town. “I have to go to the trade shows just to pay the rent,” owner Pattie Malone said. Even with the shows, she said it is likely she will close down by January. “Maybe it’s the economy. Maybe it’s the location. Maybe it’s both. But when you only get five people in a day, and two of them might buy, it’s just really hard,” Malone said. “But at least I can say that I tried.” And at Garden Reflections, in Clifton Square, Terri Windsor spent the afternoon creating fliers announcing a going out of business sale. “I got a job!,” she included on the fliers in parenthesis, by way of explanation. Windsor, who opened her shop in March, 2007, will close by January and is discounting her
Top: Garden Reflections owner Terri Windsor uses her laptop to draft “going out of business” fliers for her business. Top right: Caffe Posto owner Kay Conklin works behind the counter early this month, shortly before the store was set to close. Above left: NuDu owner Patti Malone packs up to hit the road for a trade show in Denver. Above right: A sign is draped over the Barrier’s sidewalk clock.
inventory in hopes of liquidating by then. Windsor, like some of the other business owners, chalks up the store’s closure to bad luck and bad timing. “We opened at the wrong time,” she said. “The first year we were open we exceeded what our projections were, and then the following year gas went up, the stock market went down, the housing crisis and all that hit and people started tightening their belts. We weren’t open long enough before all that started happening to build a customer base. So the past year and of a half we have been using all of our savings to pay the bills. Now there is no money left, and I am not willing to borrow anymore for a what if.” At Caffe Posto, owner Kay Conklin said she didn’t have the answers. “I beat myself up about it, but I can’t think of anything that we would have
done differently,” she said. Conklin said that when she and her husband, Cory, and business partner Jamie Stratton, opened the business they did not expect that competing coffee shops, Sugar Sisters and the Donut Whole, would open up nearby. And certainly, she added, “we did not see the worst economic downturn in 80 years coming.” They considered selling the business, but learned that charm and potential do not show up on the spread sheets—only the numbers do. “We worked really hard to build Caffe Posto as a brand, as a fixture in the neighborhood, and it has kind of its own personality, but that has no value in the business world,” she said. “That was not a fun lesson to learn.” Conklin said it was a painful decision
and her final days at the shop would be “like a four day funeral,” but she was confident that closing shop was the right thing to do. “I was not going to be the kind of business that was going to stay in business by not paying my taxes, not paying my staff and not paying my rent,” Conklin said. “We didn’t want to do anything to hurt the neighborhood. We live here too. We wanted to exit honestly, gracefully.” Windsor, who recently got a job as a regional sales representative based on her experience in small business, said she will walk away from her store with few regrets. “I have had a wonderful time, have met great people that I will never forget, and I got a good job out of it. So I can’t be bitter,” she said. “I’ll just be broke.”
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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ NOVEMBER 2009
Church to Become Theater, Local Owner Says BY BARRY OWENS Imagine a night on the town in the College Hill theater district. Patrons line the sidewalks. Shows are playing at The Crown Uptown Theatre on Douglas, or at the Wichita Community Theatre on Fountain, or the Guild Hall Players are trodding the boards at St. James Episcopal Church. And, just down the hill and around the corner at Hillside and English, the orchestra is warming up at the Rine Center for Performing Arts. That is the dream of a group of residents who have plans to convert a former church into a performing arts space, and in so doing, further transform the neighborhood into a cultural destination. “I think that this could be a great little cultural center,” College Hill resident Janet Rine says of the neighborhood. About a year from now, if all goes according to plan, Janet and her husband Grant will open the Rine Center for Performing Arts in the former Immanuel Baptist Church at 147 S. Hillside. The couple purchased the church over the summer, initially with plans to use much of the square footage for storage and perhaps relocate Grant’s architectural salvage business there.
The former Immanual Baptist Church at English and Hillside Streets is to become the Rine Center for Performing Arts, a theater space that owners say will boost College Hill’s cultural cache.
But then producers Kathy PageHauptman and Ann-Marie Rogers approached the Rines with the idea of converting the church into a theater. It did not seem such a stretch, as Janet notes. “The church already lends itself to theater seating, with individual cushioned seats in a semiround on a slightly sloped floor.” The school attached to the chapel would make for great office spaces perhaps for performing art organizations. And there is room for a recep-
tion hall for parties and weddings. Janet, who is owner of Caffe Moderne in Old Town, has a portable liquor license so maybe there could be drinks and appetizers in the lounge on performance nights. The wheels are still turning and there is much to consider, but the theater could fill a niche in the city, Rine says, by providing a sophisticated but affordable mid-sized venue. Ann-Marie Rogers, who also
lives in the neighborhood, envisions the Center as a catalyst for “a theater arts district in the College Hill area.” Rogers, who is to be executive artistic director for the Center, hopes the theater can be a venue for an “eclectic mix of performances, including orchestra, theater, opera, and organ concerts” and can work with existing neighborhood and city performing arts groups. She said the theater would also produce its own shows, “musicals, mostly, and reviews.” Rine says the idea is not to complete with area theaters, such as the nearby Crown Uptown. “It’s not the same niche as Crown Uptown,” Rine said. “In fact, we want to support the Crown Uptown. I would be very upset if something happened to that theatre. I wouldn’t want any part of that.” But she would like to be a part of further linking the College Hill neighborhood to the arts community and the entertainment districts of the city. “I think it would be a wonderful treat to have in the center of town, not on the outskirts,” Rine said of the neighborhood becoming a destination for theater patrons. “Why not College Hill?” she said. “We already have it all. We’re only missing a movie theater.”
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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER â?š NOVEMBER 2009
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FOR HOLIDAY CATERING Private parties and orders for the holidays Available for pick-up or delivery The Bay Leaf is open for lunch Tues-Sat
Call Becca Thomas: 684-3800
7
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ NOVEMBER 2009
A conceptual draft of artist Kent Williams column and landscaping design for the entrances of Parkstone. RENDERINGS: KENT WILLIAMS
Conceptual drafts of artist Kent Williams urn designs which will top the three columns to be installed in coming months at Parkstone. The urns are meant to echo similar finials atop the Belmont Place arches. The design of the bands, each unique, are inspired, Williams says, by the patterns found in the neighborhood, such as on antique patio furniture.
At Parkstone, a Few More Finishing Touches BY BARRY OWENS It is hard not to envy the task before artist Kent Williams, whose commission for Parkstone is to create something new and iconic for the development while examining the wider neighborhood for inspiration. So it was that earlier this year he went through longs walk through the neighborhood with a camera and sketchbook looking for clues to inform the design of the fountain installed in the courtyard in front of the townhomes on Victor Place at Rutan. He installed nine monolithic stones in a circle around a stacked fountain of amber colored stones for a primitive, natural world look, and then popu-
Now he is up to something new. But this time he has hit on something more classic and man made as inspiration for the pieces he will install at each of entrances—The Parkstone’s Belmont Arches. Williams plans to install tall neo-classic columns, topped with finials, at Douglas and Rutan, A stone and the core of a future column installed at Rutan and 1st, and Hillside and Victor Place (which finally Douglas and Rutan at Parkstone. opened to traffic early this month). lated it with bird figures. Birds, he dis“It is a contemporary take on a neocovered, are more numerous than the classic column and urn set,” Williams trees of the old neighborhood and he said. found them everywhere. The steel cores of the columns are up
and will be finished with concrete in coming months, Williams said. While the columns and urns are inspired by the Belmont Arches, he looked elsewhere in the neighborhood for decorative details. “There will be a sort of sculptural belt that wraps around each of these urns with details inspired by the neighborhood,” he said. He’s still looking and designing, but one he is fond of he found at a backyard barbecue in the pattern of antique patio furniture. And birds may return, as well. But so far, nothing is set in stone. “We want to give them a level of detail and mystique,” he said.
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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ NOVEMBER 2009
Photos by JAMES WILSON
At a workshop at College Hill resident John Belt’s house, neighbors pitched in last month to build toys for needy children, as Belt does every year. Top center: Bill Comley glues pieces together. Top right: Bus Hartnett and Randy Lair use a router to cut grooves and coin slots into the toy truck panels. Below: John Belt, at left, and Jerry Jonas.
THE TOY FACTORY
A College Hill wood shop where a secret Santa and his elves make gifts for needy children. BY BARRY OWENS here was quite a clamor the other morning coming out of the work shop above the garage behind a fairy tale perfect Tudor-style home on South Fountain Street in College Hill. The shop machinery was humming, a vacuum whined as it sucked up the sawdust from the floor, and above it all there was the tap, tap, tapping of hammers. Christmas is around the corner and the rush was on to complete at least 100 wooden toy trucks before Thanksgiving. Workshop owner John Belt had put out coffee and donuts and invited over neighbors and friends to pitch in to get the job done. The wooden, handmade toys are to be donated and distributed by the Salvation Army to needy families at their Christmas Center on Dec. 15. From Belt’s shop, the toys would go on to East High School where art students would complete the toys with custom paint jobs. It is a charitable project, organized by the Sunflower Woodworkers Guild, that Belt contributes to each year. Already this year, 100 locomotives and 50 airplane toys have been assembled in his
Far left: A cabinet is filled with toy parts ready for assembly. Left: Belt examines a piece of wood in his shop, built over his garage. He initially put the shop in to create custom furniture “but I got sidetracked,” he says, by the toy project, which has been involved with since 2001. He’ll get back to the furniture someday when “there are no more poor children,” he says.
T
shop. The goal of the Guild members is to build enough to serve the needy children in Wichita. “We do 1,000 of these a year,” Belt said. “But I think if we could build 5,000, they would go.” Helping out on this morning were College Hill residents Bus Hartnett, Bill Comley, Jerry Jonas and Randy Lair. “Like cutting out paper dolls,” Jonas said at his station at a drill press where he worked to cut plug holes into the toy
truck’s bottom pieces, assembly line style. The trucks double as banks, and across the shop Hartnett and Lair were routing in the coin slots on pieces that Comley would later glue on to make the trucks tops. “I haven’t done this kind of thing since the 9th grade at Robinson,” Comley said. “There is more to this job than there was at Robinson.” Belt, who has been building the toys each year since 2001, said that it can take days for an individual to make a single toy (“There are 28 pieces of wood in this little guy,” he said of a recently completed airplane) so assembly-line style is the only way to crank them out in mass. “As many of them as I have helped him make, and I don’t even have one,” Hartnett sighed.
The toys are charming in their old fashioned way, and Belt marvels at how popular they are with children today. “You would think that they would love things with batteries that blink and so forth, but they love these,” he said. Belt figures it has to do with quality, and pride. “All their lives, these little kids have probably never had anything that anyone else wanted. And on Christmas morning they get this heirloom-quality toy, something that maybe other kids would want. That makes them feel special. And that,” Belt said, “is what keeps me going.” Want to see the toys? The completed toys will be on display beginning the day after Thanksgiving through Dec. 11 at City Arts, 334 N. Mead, in Old Town.
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ NOVEMBER 2009
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"The Visitor Tree" by George Bair.
ARTS
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ NOVEMBER 2009
"Sky City" by George Bair.
"Reaching For The Sun" by George Bair. Photos by BARRY OWENS
Left: George Bair, owner of Springpark Gallery, moved into his new digs at Happiness Plaza, 3555 E. Douglas, this month. He was formerly in Clifton Square. “I needed a much bigger space,” he says. “I needed room to spread out.” Below: Bair demonstrates the printmaking process. “It hasn’t changed in 500 years,” he says, “though Rembrandt’s press was probably made of wood.”
HELLO WALLS Gallery owner and artist finds fresh walls, and plenty of them, at former dry cleaners. BY BARRY OWENS Regular visitors to the former Springpark Gallery, tucked into a bungalow at the back of Clifton Square, knew it to be a tranquil and homey space where you could often find artist, printmaker and owner George Bair at work at his easel with the windows open to let in the sounds of the birds and the children playing across the street. So one had to wonder how the vibe of the gallery might change when Bair packed up last month and moved his work across the street into a former dry cleaning space in Happiness Plaza. But one step inside, and it is clear that Bair and his work have found a home.
The two-story space, at 3555 E. Douglas, features towering 20-foot walls in what used to be the dry cleaner’s lobby. This month he installed large British restrike prints along one of the walls, large pieces which he has been collecting for years but has never had the room to show. He has room for two studios in the split level space, and he keeps his printmaking press and copper plates in one, and a drafting table, paint, brushes, pen and ink in the other. Works hang on every wall, even the along the stairway. It’s spacious, bright and open—there is even a balcony. What the gallery’s vibe lost in intimacy, it more than makes up for in transparency. It fairly glows at night through the storefront glass.
“It is nice to get the stuff out where you can see it,” Bair said the other day, shortly after he opened. “I needed a much bigger space. I needed space to spread out.” Bair primarily produces drawings and etchings and has a fondness for ancient structures. The gallery walls are heavy with prints depicting the buildings of Venice and the Pueblos of New Mexico. But he also looks to landscapes and botanicals for inspiration. Bair is a former electrical engineer and took up art full time after retirement. He had been collecting etchings for years, he said, and since he finally had the time, he decided to go to art school and learn intaglio techniques—
the art of making prints by cutting grooves into metal, inking them, and stamping the resulting image to paper using a heavy press. It’s painstaking work that requires rigorous attention to detail. “There is a lot of objective stuff that has to be done, as opposed to subjective,” Bair said of the process. “It’s hard to write a rule about how to do an oil painting. But when you are doing etching, there are some pretty refined rules. I guess that appeals to the engineer in me a little bit.” But now that he has the room, Bair said he is looking forward to stretching his artistic wings. “I’d really like to do some big, I mean massive, oil paintings,” he said.
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ NOVEMBER 2009
Bundtlettes Available at Dillons Bakery.
11
HISTORY
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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ NOVEMBER 2009
The Wichita Children’s Home was located in College Hill at the corner of Quentin and 1st streets from 1891 until 1912. The house, now gone, had formerly been a rental and was hauled to the location by teamsters and horses. Though large (it was known as The Big House on the Hill) it would not be large enough over the years to hold all of the city’s needy children.
THE WICHITA SEDGWICK COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM
THE BIG HOUSE ON THE HILL BY JEFF A. ROTH
I
n Wichita’s late 1880’s economic recession, brought on by the collapse of the real estate market, the town’s suffering was not limited to landowners. It swept over the less fortunate little ones of the city—the neglected, abused and abandoned children. Their plight was not ignored by the city, but the existing benevolent associations were struggling to handle the adult misery of the times. In the opening days of the economic crisis, a selfless group of Wichita women answered the call. A singular heart rending case served as the impetus. In the spring of 1888 a hard-working husband and father of six was laid off and struggled to provide for his family. To complicate matters, his wife was pregnant. He was convinced to go west for employment. While away the seventh child was born but the mother took ill and died. A group of local women, numbering about 20, rallied and rented a modest home on Lincoln Street in order to care for the youngest of the motherless waifs: Minnie, 5, Stella, 4, Josie, 2, and the newborn babe named Elvira. These
Children at the Home had been rescued from families broken by illness, fatalities, or separated in search of employment during the economic recession of the late 1880s.
THE WICHITA SEDGWICK COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM
four children were provided shelter on May 14, 1888, the first day of operation at the house. The charity was officially chartered on June 19, 1888 as the Wichita Children’s Home. The other three siblings, Milner, 11, Lottie, 8, and Effie, 7, were also brought to the Home and cared for. Their father sent in finan-
cial support when possible. Two years later he remarried and was rejoined with his young brood. The Home heard from them many years later from New York, Los Angeles, Dearborn, Mich., San Diego, and El Monte, California. Other children were admitted in the ensuing months. Many came from
homes broken by fatal illness or accident. Other families disintegrated when a disheartened spouse gave up in despair and abandoned the family. These children were sent to the Home on a temporary basis while the remaining parent got back on his or her feet, typically paying $1 a week for the child’s room and board. The Lincoln Street house was quickly outgrown and the charity’s Board of Directors, all women, rented a larger house at 119 N. Pennsylvania. It had 16 rooms and was able to house greater numbers of children. In 1890, a local chapter of the Humane Society was organized, “for the prevention of cruelty to animals and children and the enforcement of law.” The Humane Society would intervene on behalf of children found to be in the direst of circumstances. Some had been abandoned to “a loveless world” by “many a wretched woman, many a hard hearted man” and others were simply swept over by “poverty and misfortune.” Some were rescued from the “houses of ill fame” southwest of the town’s railway depots (today’s south St. Francis). Others were taken from homes “where drunkenCONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ NOVEMBER 2009
HISTORY
13
THE BIG HOUSE ON THE HILL CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
ness has caused cruel neglect and abuse,” as the Eagle noted in 1890. Six year old “Rose” was found begging “from place to place” on the streets of Wichita, forced to do so by her medicant father. She was give shelter at the Home. Eleven year old “Jack,” whose limbs “bear the marks of ill treatment & bruises,” was protected from an unkind stepfather, according to the Matron’s Book kept by the home. Although the support and care of the area’s needy children was normally intended to be a temporary measure, returning a child to his or her home was often neither feasible nor advisable and adoptions took time. As such the Home became more and more crowded. Solicitations were made to the community for donations to build a permanent place for the children. A donation of land for a building site was also sought. Mention was made of College Hill as a desirable place for the relocation of the Children’s Home. In the “Boom” days of the mid 1880s land values in Wichita escalated too fast for most charities to own any real estate outright. For instance, a five acre tract on College Hill, today’s Quentin to Bluff, 1st Street to Douglas, was purchased by real estate investor A.A. Hyde in November of 1885 for $750. He sold the same tract 6 months later for $2,000. In the ensuing recession, however, Wichita’s land values plummeted so drastically that by 1891 the Children’s Home was able to buy the very same tract from its “land poor” owners for $135. The paper announced the charity’s good fortune: “The new location is a very desirable one, elevated as it is in the pure air of College Hill and having a beautiful view of the city and surrounding valley,” The Eagle reported on Sept. 29, 1891. Fundraising efforts had originally planned for the construction of a new building. However, a recession-era practice had come into vogue, that of moving an existing house with teamsters and horses to a one’s lot rather than building a new house there from scratch. At a time when homes were being hauled down from the hill for placement closer into town, the charity purchased their rental
The Wichita Children’s Home, circa 1900, shows additions made to expand the crowding house. The addition was not enough. A decade later the Home built a larger building in Sleepy Hollow.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WICHITA CHILDREN’S HOME
house on Pennsylvania Street and hauled it up the hill. It was “removed” to the southeast corner of 1st & Margaret (later to be renamed Bort Street and finally named Quentin Street). Placement of the house was delayed until additional contributions were received. Donations other than cash were needed as well. Blue calico, gingham, and unbleached muslin were on the wish list. Coal for the furnace was requested in anticipation of the coming winter. Even a milk cow was asked for and received. The basement masonry was completed and provided a “split level” first floor which would contain the store room, pantry, furnace and kitchen. The house was soon jacked up and tugged atop its foundation. Its “second” floor contained the reception parlor, Matron Mrs. Craig’s room, the dining hall, bath and nursery. Upstairs provided the dormitories for the boys and girls. Their windows looked out “on green fields and pretty flowers” below. After final repairs and adjustments were made the charity’s belongings were moved “to their commodious new home” on Saturday, November 21, 1891. Thanksgiving was celebrated at the new Home a few days later. In addition to the traditional roast turkey dinner, the inmates (not a pejorative term in those days) were favored with treats from generous contemporaries. The school chil-
dren throughout town were encouraged to fill paper sacks with donations for the Home’s children. The results included bushels of meal, sacks of flour, dried fruit, crackers, beans, potatoes, onions, apples and candy, the latter being the children’s favorite. Also popular was the fresh milk afforded by their “excellent” cow, plus eggs from the hens kept on the premises. Christmas also included a festive dinner, gifts of books for the older children, blocks and toys for the play room, and a visit from the jolly one. Deaths were not uncommon at the Home in the early years. The Matron’s Book poignantly mentions the workings of the “Death Angel” or the “Great Reaper.” Foundlings were particularly vulnerable. Some were left on the Home’s doorstep, some were found by the police in Wichita’s alleys or hotels, one was found in Mr. Calhoun’s buggy following his attendance at church service and another determined to have been left at the Home by its 14 year old mother’s…mother. Some foundlings survived but there was great sadness when “Pocahontas,” an Indian baby who had been found in Delano’s Riverside Hotel “was called home” only a few months after being born. A 26 plot section was purchased in Wichita’s Maple Grove Cemetery for the Home’s early departed. The last child to be interred there was during the Great Depression in 1933
The Big House on the Hill, as it was known, received improvements in 1893. Shade trees and an assortment of fruit trees were planted, along with berries and grape vines. A cinder walk was laid out in front of the home and an arbor was built to provide shade. The mission of the home evolved around the turn of the century to include not only homeless children but to children of working mothers who “have not the time to take care of them.” The transplanted 16 room house was proving inadequate to accommodate the larger daytime numbers. Although it was beginning to show its age, a two story addition was added to it as an interim measure. By the end of the next decade serious discussions were underway concerning the building of a new, 20th century home for Wichita’s children in need. A close examination of the big house on the hill showed it to be old, cramped and beyond repair. An April 30, 1907 Beacon headlines read, “Many Children and Few Rooms” and “No Place for the Tots to Play.” In 1909 a meeting was held in the office of C.W. Carey of the National Bank of Commerce. Carey was a College Hill resident, having built the home at 155 N. Roosevelt. It was his view that, the property underlying the Children’s Home should be sold and the proceeds used to build a new home. The plan was put into effect a few years later and Sam Wallingford of Wallingford Bros., grain dealers, bought the Quentin to Bluff tract, plus a portion of the block on the west side of Quentin for $15,000. Today the homes in that area are in the “Wallingford Addition.” In 1912 the Wichita Children’s Home moved to a large four story brick building that they built at 810 N. Holyoke. In doing so they ended their 20 year stay in College Hill and began their long term residency in Sleepy Hollow. That large brick home served their needs for more than 50 years but eventually the City’s building and fire codes began to disfavor the Holyoke home. Its replacement, the current Holyoke facility, was built in 1964 and stands today as the oldest continuously operating charity in the city.
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THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ NOVEMBER 2009
SHOP THE DISTRICT IN NOVEMBER! HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSES & EVENTS
Dean’s Designs 3555 E. Douglas Saturday November 7, 8:30 to 3pm Sunday November 8, 12-5pm. Carolyn Sayre’s Fine Jewelry, 3555 E. Douglas Holiday Open House Sat., Nov. 14, 9:30am to 8pm Cero’s Candies 1108 E. Douglas Sweets & treats, holiday offerings. Sat., Nov., 14, 10-4. Spice Merchant 1308 E. Douglas Open Sundays after Thanksgiving 1-5. Eighth Day Books 2838 E. Douglas “Presents of Mind” Mention this ad to receive 10% off all children’s books through Nov. and Dec.
Clifton Wine and Jazz Clifton Square Nov. 6,13,14 Johnny Neal 8pm-Midnight, Nov.12 Jeb Beck 8pm-Midnight Juliana Daniel Antiques 3224 E. Douglas Nov. 8 Holiday Open House 12-5pm ABODE Home 1330 E. Douglas Get $100 off every $500 purchase throughout November. Final Friday Nov. 27, Holiday Window Unveiling Party and Benefit for the Wichita Children’s Home. Go to abodehome.com for Wichita Children’s Home donation “wish list.” Aspen Boutique 4724 E. Douglas Customer Appreciation Sale November 18-25. Monica’s Bundt Cakes 1328 E. Douglas Your Holiday Headquarters for delectable delights! We are now in 18 Dillon Stores! We have just added Newton and will start with Hutchinson on November 6.
SUBSCRIBE Because we don’t have a web site. Call 689-8474 for details.
THE DOWNTOWNER DELANO • DOWNTOWN WICHITA • OLD TOWN
Lincoln Heights Village Douglas & Oliver Artifacts Final Friday Art Crawl featuring various artists Nov. 27 5-8pm Angela Snow Photography Half price Senior Portrait Session through the end of the year. Susan’s Florals Holiday Open House: 8:30am5pm Nov. 6,7, 12-5pm, Nov. 8 Watermark Books Nov. 9 Mike Huckabee 10:30am; Nov. 27 Jaden Hirr — cooking demo and signing, 4-6pm; Final Friday, Nov. 27, Jo Quillin-Tomson, 6-8pm Heads Shoes Interfaith Ministries Blanket Drive. $10 off a new pair of adult shoes for every new or gently used blanket donated. Offer expires 12/31/09.
THE COLLEGE HILL COMMONER ❚ NOVEMBER 2009
Photos by GUS FREY and BARRY OWENS
ETC.
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Boo!
Halloween in the old neighborhood, and we didn’t see lions, tigers and bears but did spy the tin man and a wicked witch among the thousands of trickor-treaters on the dark and spooky streets of College Hill. And at Clifton Square, we even saw a horse appropriately named Boo.
GUS FREY
BARRY OWENS
GUS FREY
BARRY OWENS