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Bob Crager
Bob Crager of Lewis Street Glass is a 26 year veteran in the glass business. Lewis Street Glass is a leading Wichita Glass company, serving the entire Wichita/Sedgwick County area since 1919. They do anything and everything having to do with glass, both residential and commercial. They also do Auto glass. They are located at 743 South Market, facing Kellogg on the South, and you can reach them by phone at (316) 263-8259. You can email Bob Crager at bcrager@lewisstreetglass.com
Glass
2008-12-01 14:19:00
Entertainment on the prairie
Question: It must have been kind of lonely out on the prairie when folks first settled in these parts. What did they do for entertainment, if anything?
Answer: To conclude the series from last month, the wandering doctors finally started coming through the pioneer towns presenting the medicine shows. They traveled through the country in gaily painted wagons, emblazoned with the name of their particular panacea, often with several riders on horseback being part of the entourage. They would stop at the towns or villages or at cross roads, and then depend on passers by to herald them to the entire community. Most of them claimed to sell Indian remedies: “Many years ago my father saved the life of an Indian Chief. In gratitude the chief told my father the secret of Hopoya, the Jackapoo Indians unfailing remedy for everything from falling hair to fallen arches. Good for man or beast. It cures kidney ailments, stomach troubles, consumption and every ill to which man is heir.” Some of his horseback riders might have been Indians, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, and they rode and pranced about, giving folks a feeling that the doctors were selling “authentic” Indian cures. Others were blackface comedians and performed on the banjo and guitar and sang the songs of the day. At night, the camp was lit by kerosene flares. All came to see the “free” show and many bought, from year to year, over and over, the priceless nostrums sold, and used them with great success...or so they said. I have made mention of the lack of roads in the early days. Perhaps I should more correctly say impassable roads. Any amount of rainfall would turn the roads into an impassable morass, except for empty wagons drawn by four braced up animals, or for riders on horseback. Often up until fairly recent days, many residents of outlying areas found it impossible to come to town more than once or twice a year for their necessary trading, both because of bad roads and because of a lack of cash, which was in hand but once a year, in the fall, after the harvesting and disposal of their money crops. So one certain trip into town was staged each fall to coincide with the visit of one or another of the circuses or Wild West shows which worked the territory each fall. This trip to town was for the annual buying of supplies - staple groceries, bolts of cloth for making garments, home medicines and all other household needs. The more affluent folks among them drove to town in buggies or wagons and put up at one of the wagon yards, which were the tourist camps of the day. There they could get stalls for the horses and mules and, if they desired, a hut to live in temporarily, complete with cook stove and beds. Or people could stay in their wagon and cook on open fires. The majority, for reasons of necessity or economy, put up at one of the several camp grounds around town. These campgrounds were open space on the edge of town and there, the people fixed up a place for their family and lived for a few days, just as they did at the old time church camp meetings described earlier. From whatever spot they put up at, they operated from there as their headquarters during their stay in town. Rounds were made of the stores and purchases made, to be picked up in the wagon on the start back home. The children were given a little small change to spend as they liked. One old timer once told me that he, as a small boy one fall, had a whole nickel to spend. He walked about town for a couple of hours before deciding to blow his pile on a bottle of soda water. Then he found out he had the choice of white or red soda water and it took him several minutes to decide which he wanted. That was quite different from today, with so many colors and flavors of soft drinks to choose from. And then came the great event of the year, the circus! Starting with the mammoth free street parade in the morning, with the wagons painted with pure gold, and beautiful women and handsome men riding the wagons, the stentorian cry of the parade master, “Hold your horses, the elephants are coming,” the clowns, the steam piano, which purists would term a calliope, even to pronouncing it calliope, and of course the band with its shining brass horns, the lions and tigers and everything! How exciting for one and all! Then came the anti-climax of the show itself, with the man on the flying trapeze, the pink lemonade, goobers, and, if finances permitted, the “after concert.” And then that bumpy ride back home to dream their dreams, and wait for another year to pass by. As time passed and the country became more settled and the early citizens became better off, life became easier and more pleasant. The kitchen was moved from its separate room in the backyard and its open fireplace into the house proper, with a modern cast iron cook stove, often with a hot water reservoir on the back. A reed organ was sometimes bought, and the family gathered around the organ while one, generally the wife or a daughter, worked the foot bellows and made music for all. There would be family singing on Sunday afternoons where friends would gather for an afternoon of song and music. Churches were built at convenient locations and regular services held at least once a month and with Wednesday night prayer meetings and singing of psalms and hymns, the folks felt like they got what they needed spiritually. People were able to buy horses, especially to pull buggies, travelling farther and more conveniently than the slower wagon teams, and so were enabled to take in more pleasurable activities. As the community grew, so did the schools, which were at first either non-existent or very small and poor. The schools provided a lot of pleasure to the scholars and the parents. The spelling bees were not only intramural, between different classes, but were also between the boys and the girls, or sometimes held by selecting leaders, who in turn picked their side for the competition. Sometimes there would be one school spelling team visiting another school and vying with their best spellers, which afforded teachers, trustees, scholars and parents much pleasure. Much pleasure that is to all, except the poor pupil who had to memorize and recite as best he or she could some tear jerker such as “Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight” or Mabel, Poor Little Mabel With Her Face Pressed Against the Pane” or some such. For some reason our early citizens believed in demonstrating some gloom. But all in all they lived reasonably good lives. They came here with little except the desire to create homes and leave a better world in which their children would live. Their aim in life was achieved abundantly and if we live more easily today, it is in large measure due to the privations and hardships these early settlers endured cheerfully in their honest and sincere efforts to leave a better world than they found. In conclusion, I must say that the more I learn of our early citizens, the more I admire their courage, their resiliency and their ability to make the most of what their opportunities were at the time. I think they are entitled to say with Paul: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” I hope you enjoyed this discourse on a people we seldom think about in today’s modern world. Where we take something a simple as “glass windows” in our homes for granted. Here’s a salute to the ones who came before us... the early pioneer family...More next month…
 
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