A peek into the past

Alan Ard looked every bit the part of a historical figure when he ambled to the front to give a presentation at Allen County Historical Society’s winter meeting Tuesday night.
Dressed in long coat with beadwork, a heavily decorated hat and full beard, Ard was one of several presenters in a show-and-tell session. He brought a 1935 telephone directory that contained names and numbers of people who then lived in and around Elsmore and Savonburg.
Ard said he found names of people he knew as a youth.
Ard also told about his father’s adventures working on the Al-Can highway, which linked Alaska to the United States and provided a route to supply troops there and on the Aleutian Islands.
Animals in the Alaskan wilderness were unafraid of humans, Ard said. A particular fox became so chummy he hopped into a truck with Ard’s father, but went into a frenzy when the diesel engine thundered to life.
Barbara Sherwood brought a trunk her father, Delmar, carried with him during four years of WWII service, including time in the Philippines. He was a member of the 97th Field Artillery.
She recalled a story of her father being aboard a train carrying troops across the United States.
Once the train slowed to a stop and one of the soldiers noticed his mother and two sisters near the tracks hanging up clothes. Secrecy was of utmost importance and no one was supposed to know the troops were on the train.
Consequently, the soldier, who had not seen his family for a year and was bound for Europe, could only watch his mother and sisters go about their chores.
Shirley Blomquist brought a painting of the old Allen County Jail, now an adjunct of the historical society. It was done in 1978 by S.R. Burrows.
“What do you see in the picture that isn’t here now,” Blomquist asked.
When no one came up with a answer, she noted that part of a building to the south of the jail was where Willard Doolittle had his pawn shop.
She remembers it well.
“When I had my first child I didn’t have any money to pay the doctor,” Blomquist said. “I pawned my wedding ring at Doolittle’s to get money for the doctor.”
Nich Lohman gave a tutorial on how three old pump-up blow torches were used.
A rack above the burner was a place to heat up a soldering iron, Lohman said, and a tray below caught kerosene that might drip off.
“I’m a big fan of my electric soldering iron,” Lohman added.
Haley Trezise, new ACHS director, talked briefly about herself — she grew up in Hutchinson and has been in Lawrence the last 10 years — before showing several weavings she had done.
She studied textiles, history and museum studies at the University of Kansas.
Trezise said she’d like to give weaving demonstrations on a loom kept in the back room of Funston Hall, one of ACHS’ facilities.
She proposed showing off the loom and her skills as a part of Allen County Farmers Market events.
Stepping to the other side of the audience, Bob Johnson, Register reporter, showed two ancient flint projectile points he found years ago along the Neosho River. They diagnostically date to about 8,000 B.C.

ROGER CARSWELL handed out flyers advertising a 7 p.m. March 4 presentation at Iola Public Library by Jane Rhoads. The program is “Hard Working Entertainers on the Kansas Frontier,” and includes a segment about silent movie star Buster Keaton and how he was rescued from a burning hotel by the wife of Harry Houdini. This program is made possible by the Kansas Humanities Council.
Carswell is library director.