Volume 29, Number 2
Summer, 2009
2009 Finney County Pioneer Family Awards
Each year, the Historical Society takes the time to recognize those
who have made significant contributions to the history of the county
with the presentation of the Finney County Pioneer Family awards.
The chosen families are given a plaque in recognition of their family’s
accomplishments and a DVD is compiled and shown at the Annual
Banquet that highlights the family’s history in Finney County. The
2009 recipients of the Finney County Pioneer Family awards are
the Henry & Mary Kleysteuber Family and the Martin & Melusine
Nusser Family.
Simmons in 1946. Jay and Doris farmed and ranched near Copeland,
Kansas for most of their 60 years of marriage. They have two daughters,
The Martin and Melusine Nusser Family
Jerra (Garetson) and Janis (Stapleton) and one son, Michael.
The Henry and Mary Kleysteuber Family
Henry & Mary (Wedekemper) Kleysteuber came to Kansas in 1923
and settled on a farm in the southeast part of Finney County known
as the Plymell Community. They raised four children, Harold, Ruth,
Leo and J.R. The Kleysteuber children attended grade school at the
West Point rural school and then Pierceville Rural High School.
Harold, the oldest of the Kleysteuber children, married Sadie
Ardery on October 4, 1941. Harold and Sadie settled on a farm in
southeast Finney County where the raised two children, Dennis and
Delores (Gillen). Harold served for many years on the rural school
board and was elected to the Garden City Community College Board
of Trustees.
Ruth Kleysteuber married Harry Lightner on May 13, 1941 and
settled on a farm south of Garden City where they raised three
sons, John H., Harry Kent and David Keith and one daughter Mary
Sue. Ruth was active in the Plymell Community Church, Golden
Rule HDU, Cow Belles and served as secretary and treasurer of the
American Field Service.
Leo Kleysteuber became engaged in July 1943 to Eldora Ardery,
his brother Harold’s sister-in-law. The couple married on February
22, 1944. Leo and Eldora farmed near Plymell and raised a family
of four children: Joan Davis, Jean Strandmark, Jill Bayer and Dean.
Eldora served on the Garden City Planning Commission and on the
board of the Finney County Historical Society. Leo served on the
board of the Garden City YMCA and was chosen as the Kansas
Outstanding Young Farmer in 1954.
Henry Ralph Kleysteuber, Jr., known as “Jay”, married Doris
Martin and Melusine (Trimpe) Nusser moved to Finney County in
1928 to farm a parcel of land ten miles south of Garden City. They came
to this part of Kansas for better land and to be closer to a church. They
were faithful members of Trinity Luthern Church and Martin served as
an elder in the church while Melusine was active in the Ladies Aid and
Lutheran Women’s Missionary League.
Martin and Melusine raised nine children, eight daughters and one
son. The youngest, Martin Gerhardt Nusser married Judith Glanders
and they still reside on the family farm south of Garden City. The
daughters and their spouses are: Melusine and Irvin Algrim, Opal and
Phil Sroufe, Rosetta and William Martin, Irene and Elden Gestenslager,
Lena and Donald Adams, Joyce and Lawnie Williams, Joanna and
William Boles and Dr. Edith and Gary Jones.
When Martin and Melusine moved to Finney County they planted
many trees, hedges rose bushes and spirea bushes on their property.
When the dust storms came in the 1930s, the dirt caught in the bushes
and trees and before long hills of dirt formed and grew bigger and
bigger. By digging away the dirt mounds, Martin managed to save the
ones closest to the house.
Although there was always plenty of work to do on the farm, the
family still found time for fun. There were box suppers to attend, the
Old Settlers Picnic and summer time dips in the cattle tank to cool
off. There were always fresh mulberries or sand hill plums to pick and
Melusine made delicious jellies and jams from them. The Nusser home
was always filled with the sound of music. Whether it was sound of the
piano as someone was playing, winding up the phonograph or listening
to the Grand Ol Opry over the radio, music played an important role
for the Nusser family.
The Finney County Historical Society is proud to honor the Kleysteubers
and the Nussers for their role in the growth and development of Finney
County. These families exemplify the pioneering spirit and uphold
2
HISTORIC HOMES TOUR
The Burnside House
111 W. Walnut
Young John Burnside and his father came to Finney County
in 1904 looking for a place to establish a cattle ranch. They
purchased part of the Bullard Ranch south of Garden City and
the H. P. Gumar Ranch west of Holcomb. In 1906, John returned
to Monmouth, IL where he wed Olive Bell, a college sweetheart.
The couple returned to Finney County and decided to build a
home at 111 W. Walnut. The Colonial Revival style house was
built by Mr. LaGesse using cement blocks made by John Burnside
himself. “(Dad)… made them down at the sand pit. He had a float
there and he’d put them on there and soak them for thirty days
before he’d take them out. Some of those blocks weighed 125
pounds and some of them weighed as much as 150 pounds” John
R. Burnside. A barn and a carriage house were also built of the
same blocks.
The Burnsides lived in this house their entire married life.
They raised three sons, Robert, William (Bun) and John Ralph. A
fourth son, Clifford died in 1927 of polio.
In 1908 John H. helped initiate the Cattlemen’s Carnival,
described as “a rodeo in the days before they called it a rodeo.”
He furnished stock for the event and to some he was the Carnival.
Even after the Cattlemen’s Carnival was disbanded Burnside was
involved with area rodeos for many more years.
Son, Robert Burnside remembers his mother: “Olive Bell had
the sweetest disposition possible. She not only took care of us,
she took care of all the kids in the neighborhood…She knew
everybody in Garden City. She was big in the P.E.O. and in a lot
of charities. … She lived for her family.” Olive Bell died in 1961
and John H. passed away in 1969.
Recently the house at 111 W. Walnut was purchased by Robert
and Brenda Schulz. They are working to restore the home to its
original beauty.
The Nolan House
1009 Gillespie Place
The home at 1009
Gillespie Place was
built in 1929 by Frank
LaRosch for Dr. Ronald
M. and Mrs. Troup. The
English style house had
a sunken living room, a
“decided English feature,” according to a newspaper account. Dr.
Troup, known as the “baby doctor” practiced medicine in Garden
City for 28 years.
By the 1940s the home had been purchased by John W. and
Gladys (Finnup) Nolan. Nolan came to Garden City in 1916
and first worked for the Garden City Development Co., a
division of the Garden City Sugar and Land Co. In 1919 he and
E. M. Schreiber leased the company lands and operated them
independently. In 1922 Nolan joined E. G. Finnup in the grain
elevator and seed business, which they sold in 1926. In 1927
Nolan bought the Chevrolet franchise from Frank Reed Jr. and
organized the Nolan Motor Co.
In 1918, John Nolan married Gladys Finnup, daughter of E.
G. Finnup. They had four daughters, Jacquelyn, Gladys Ann,
Sandra and Irene.
In 1949 John purchased several Lippizan horses from the U. S.
Army. Daughter Gladys Ann learned much of the classical riding
art from Capt. Karl Chimani, an Austrian trainer who was hired by
Nolan. The horses were sold in 1954 and returned to Austria.
The Nolan home was purchased by John and Beula Metheney. Mr.
Metheney owned a furniture store on Main Street. The Metheneys
filled the Gillespie Place home with antiques and Mr. Metheney’s
rock and gem collection. John died in 2004 and after several years
Beula moved to be closer to her children. Dale and Debra Bolton
are now the owners of the beautiful tree-shaded home.
The Sherman House
812 B. Fifth Street
The English Tudor style house
at 812 N. Fifth Street was built in
1928 for Richard and Consuelo
Hooper. The garage was built first
and the family lived there until
the house was completed. Hooper
came to Garden City in 1878 and
filed on a homestead west of the
sugar factory. Consuelo was the daughter of town founders W. D.
and Luticia Fulton.
In 1943 the home was purchased by Ellsworth and Matha
Sherman. In 1950 an addition was built on the east side: library,
bedroom, laundry room and bath. An upstairs bedroom was also
enlarged at this time.
Elsworth Sherman came to Garden City in 1918. He married Dr.
Eathel White, a chiropractor and had two daughters. The youngest
daughter died in 1929 and Dr. Eathel Sherman died in 1930.
Matha Harman Sherman came to Garden City in 1929 and
found work as a bookkeeper. An accomplished seamstress, she
established a seamstress shop where she met Ellsworth Sherman
when he came in to have a dress made for his daughter, Thelma.
They were married in 1933 and daughters, Lenore and Louise were
born in 1935 and 1936. Ellsworth had extensive farming interests
and served on the board of directors of Fidelity State Bank for
many years.
The Shermans shared a love of music. Matha helped establish
the Community Concert Association in the 1940s, she founded
the Garden City Civic Choral Union and helped organize the
community orchestra. She gave piano lessons for over forty years.
Ellsworth passed away in 1966 and Matha in 2003.
The home was purchased by Brett and Kari Museller who are
raising their family in this historic home.
The Erisman Building
402-404 N. Main Street
The Erisman Building was the first substantial building to be
erected on the east side of Main Street in the 400 block. Since 1886
the two-story structure has served at the corner of Main and Laurel
Street as a proud landmark of Garden City.
John J. Erisman was born in Franklin County, Ohio in 1851
and came to Finney County in 1878, settling first in Sherlock
(Holcomb) Kansas. There he operated a blacksmith and wagon
maker shop. By 1886 he and his wife Eliza (Kramer) had moved to
Garden City. That same year the Erisman building was constructed.
Unfortunately, John Erisman contracted typhoid fever and died
Cont. on Page 3
HISTORIC HOMES TOUR Cont.
October 2, 1886 at age 35. The building was purchased from the
Erisman estate by Clint C. Rush in 1892.
Over the years the building has been home to many businesses. The
G. W. Dickinson Jewelry Store was in this location, as was the C. J.
Knox Flour Store.
The Sequoyah Club, “a gentlemen’s social club,” occupied three
large rooms on the second floor for a period of time. Formed in 1886,
its membership included many prominent men of Garden City. There
was a billiard room, a reading and chess room as well as an office.
Folding doors allowed the room to be used as one large room and
newspaper stories refer to its use as a dancing club.
The ground floor has seen its share of women’s clothing stores:
Mae Baugh’s Ready-To-Wear, Bergkamp’s Ladies Shop and Hoover’s
Fashions, which did business in this location from 1967 to 1992.
Today the building is owned by Jeff and Marla Linenberger. Their
business, Linenberger Jewelry, occupies the north side of the building
while Western Kansas Community Foundation recently moved its
offices into the south side. The Linenbergers have just recently finished
an extensive remodeling project on the building. The exterior of the
building was restored to appear as closely as possible, the building in
its original design.
The bi-annual Historical Homes Tour was sponsored this year on
June 7th by the Finney County Historical Society and the Finney
County Women’s Chamber as a fund-raising project.
Thank You
3
The weekend of June 7 and 8 was a busy one for the Finney County
Historical Society. On Saturday the society participated in the Beef
Empire Days Parade with six vintage automobiles and a hardy group
of walkers and passengers made up of FCHS board members, society
members and employees plus assorted family members. Our theme
for the 2009 parade was “You…We ARE Finney County History”.
Thanks to Janis Partin, Steve Partin and Partin grandchildren;
Dennis Kleysteuber; the John and Liz Scheopner family; and Mike
Deaver who furnished vehicles for our parade entry. Thanks to Roger
Oshel who drove the society’s 1939 Plymouth police car and to
former board member Ruth Richards who “hitched a ride” with sonin-law, Mike Deaver.
Thanks also to FCHS board members Loretta DeLaRosa, Angelica
Castillo Hahn, Connie Hoffman, Barbara Goss and Marjie Clarke
and museum employees Yadira Hernandez and daughters, Chevelle
Thomas, Mary Regan and Laurie Oshel. These ladies walked or rode
the parade route handing out candy and museum brochures to the
crowd. It was a fun (but hot) morning and in the words of Marjie
Clarke, “It was a pretty painless way to get our name out.”
Sunday afternoon brought the 2009 Historic Homes Tour. This
is a bi-annual fund raising event sponsored by the Finney County
Historical Society and the Finney County Women’s Chamber. Thanks
to those who volunteered as hostesses at the various locations: Loretta
DeLaRosa, Barbara Goss, Connie Hoffman, Robin Valenzuela and
Laurie Oshel.
Report Card on Community Relations in Garden City
Some residents may recall the “Changing Relations:
Newcomers and Established Residents” project of the late 1980s.
Because of Garden City’s success in dealing with a dramatic increase
of immigrants seeking jobs at the packing plants, the community
was selected by the Ford Foundation to participate in a national
study. In order to study the relations between established residents
and newcomers in Garden City, social scientists investigated area
schools; workplaces; neighborhoods and the community structure.
At the conclusion of this project and among other reports, they made
recommendations to the public for continuing progress in our unique
situation.
The magnifying glass on Garden City brought others to
study this community. Molly DesBaillets, a cultural anthropology
graduate student at the University of Kansas came into Garden City in
2007 to conduct fieldwork on social capital, i.e. networks in the local
government and society that enable community members to have
access to resources.
Networks include things like homeless shelters, health care
facilities, and representation of the ethnic and racial makeup of the
city in municipal government, educational benefits, and participation
of all residents in public rituals, (Beef Empire Days, Tet, Fiesta), to
name a few. In trying to discover if Garden City was creating positive
social capital, DesBaillets asked questions like; 1)did the makeup of
the municipal government reflect the ethnic and racial makeup of the
community? Were all groups of the community taking part in decisions
that affect everyone? Was the community building and improving
networks that had a positive influence?
DesBaillets, working on her master’s degree, collected data
during field work between June and August of 2007. She presented
her findings at the Finney County Historical Museum on June 13
of this year. Her recommendations include: 1) increase the decision
making capacity of new immigrants in city government 2) use
successful instances of networking to further develop inclusion,
trust cooperation and to form formal interethnic networks (which do
not yet exist) and 3) provide a meeting place free to the community
to provide space for face to face interaction and the potential to
foster trust, cooperation and networks between disparate portions
of the community.”
“Garden City has a tremendous network to meet the needs
of its newcomers.
Acknowledging and addressing issues associated with
social capital can serve to make Garden City, already known for its
adaptability in the face of need, an example of a culturally plural
community with high social capital in a land of communities which
allegedly lack it.”
Now Available in the Museum Store
Gun fights, jailbreaks, bank robbers, bootleggers
and murderers. Kansas Gunsmoke: A History of the
Garden City Police Department by Myra Vanderpool
Gormley, is local history at its best. This book
chronicles the first 75 years of law enforcement
in Garden City, KS from early days of Marshall
Newton Earp (older half-brother of Wyatt Earp)
to the Fleagle Gang bank robbery and the Clutter
Family murders. Veteran officer of the Garden City
Police Department, Charlie Armentrout researched,
compiled and provided the author with reams of
information, pictures, books, and boxes of newspaper clippings and
magazine articles.
The Finney County Museum will host a book signing with Charlie
Armentrout on Saturday, August 8th from 1pm to 3pm. Books will be
available for purchase in the Museum Store. All FCHS members may
use their 20% discount towards this purchase.
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Permit No. 39
Garden City, Kansas
Finney County Historical Society
P.O. Box 796 • Garden City, KS 67846-0796
RETURN SERVICE
You can contact us at the museum:
Telephone: 620-272-3664
Email: [email protected]
Address: 403 S. 4th Street, P.O. Box 796
Office Hours: 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
4
Melanie Algrim
Allen Co. Public Library
Anderson Family Five
Fred & Kathryn Askren –
Sunnyland B&B
Laura Baker
Norma Baysdorfer
Gil & Barbara Booker
William & Pat Bridges
Lawrence & Norma Dawson
Richard & Loretta DeLaRosa
Michael & Carol Deaver
Mr. & Mrs. Emanuel Doll
Frances Embree
Leighton & Marilyn Fairbairn
Richard Fankhauser
Jim & Pat Fishback
Berniece Fry
Lloyd & Dorothy Garrison
Caverly Hart
Shelia Hendershot
Carol Hodgkinson
Ed & Ethel Hooper
Cliff & Dolores Hope
Judy Hopson
Martin & Mary Ellen Huschka
Roger & Deb Jarmer
Adah Jenkins
Memberships, New and Renewals
Suzanne Kannarr
Keller-Leopold Insurance
Leo & Eldora Kleysteuber
Evelyn Ladd
Helen Lee
Marc & Lucinda Miller
Robert & Olga Montgomery
Ron & Connie Naab
Ron & Dorothy Olomon
Inez Phillips
Leon & Marge Ramsey
Ruth Richards
Patsy Ruddick
Larry & Kathleen Scheuchzer
Larry Shea
Bernadine Sitts
Kathye Snyder-Knight
Foster & Pamela Beckett Stahl
Elsie Stone
Lot & Lorraine Taylor
Larry & Kay Thompson
Kathryn Turley
Robin Valenzuela
Duane & Pat Van Dolah
Phil & Marilyn Webb
Molly Wieland
Florence Wilson
President - Loretta DeLaRosa; Vice-President - Marjie Clarke, Treasurer
- Joe Burnside; Executive Director – Mary Regan; Recording Secretary
– Laurie Oshel Board Members – Bryce Baker, Mark Calvin, Angelica
Castillo Hahn, Norman Clark, Pat Fishback, John Frazier, Barbara Goss,
Curtis Harman, Katherine Hart, Connie Hoffman, Deborah Jarmer, Robert
Jones, Lynn Lightner, Dolores Mesa-Lopez, Patricia Nieman, Bette Jo
Roberts, Bill Saunders, Bill Stephens, Robin Valenzuela
Participants in the Teaching American History Grant
Neal Bachman
Sarah Byrne
Mark Calvin
Kaia Christensen
Kelly Daniel
Kay Daugaard
Renee Dawson
Shelley Deniston
Darren Dennis
David Duran
Mindy Duran
Isabel Elchuck
Megan Ford
Erin Francoeur
Todd Francoeur
Thomas Hudson
Kelley Jenkins
Gene Juno
Roni Knight
Anita Palmer
Connie Pracht
Dru Saddler
Randy Sleep
Janet Smith
Megan Stone
Aaron Temple
Wendi Terpstra
Russ Tidwell
Leslie Wagner
Michelle Wells
Jennifer Wieberg
Sarah Williams
Museum Wish List
Here at the museum we are always wishing for things that will
enhance either our collection or our ability to serve the public.
For the collection;
American WW2 Weapons
German WW2 Weapons
Candlestick Telephone
For museum operation:
Plastic Milk Crates
Digital Postal Scale
Wet Dry Vacuum
Dehumidifier
Portable Pump
Portable Generator
The Finney County Historical Society is an exempt organization
as described in IRC Sec. 501(c)3 and as such donations in
excess of the normal membership fee may qualify as a charitable
contribution.