Having a sense of your ancestry helps you better understand yourself, according to Carolyn Whitaker of Humboldt. WANDA LYTLE and Donna Culver, both of Iola, agree with Whitaker. WHITAKER recalls how she used to celebrate Decoration Day, the precursor to today’s Memorial Day, as a child growing up in Caney. CULVER was right there with that. WHITAKER is the author of “The African-American Connection: How Humboldt, KS Conquered the Prairie,” a story, in part, about the role of African Americans in the Civil War.
That, in part, is what has led Whitaker, 66, on a search of not only her own family history, but also that of, particularly, Civil War veterans.
“We get so caught up in our everyday lives that we don’t stop and look at ourselves to see what makes us what we are,” she said Tuesday afternoon.
A wisp of a woman, Whitaker has become a warrior for veterans and their service to country.
“They suffered terribly and their families suffered terribly,” she said of not only those who fought long ago, but also those in current conflicts. “It seems we have forgotten the importance of their service.”
In their role with the American Legion Auxiliary, Lytle and Culver, current Auxiliary president, see a waning of enthusiasm in support of veterans.
“Everybody gets patriotic on Memorial Day and Veterans Day,” said Culver, 82. “But unless you are personally involved, that patriotism sits on the back burner the rest of the year.”
Both Culver and Lytle, 87, grew up during the Great Depression followed by World War II.
Culver’s husband, the late Gene Culver, served in the Army in the Korean War.
“Of the six boys, five served in the military, and two had military careers,” Culver said.
She grew up on a farm in rural Yates Center. Her father’s formal education stopped at elementary school.
“He was needed on the farm,” she said. It was the Great Depression. “Times were hard,” she said simply.
The one brother out of six who made it through high school, graduating from Yates Center High School in 1938, enlisted.
“He was so handsome in his uniform,” Culver said. “Looked just like Clark Gable.”
Newly married, the dapper Lieutenant, then 24, was killed in action while fighting in Italy.
The war effort “was everywhere,” said Culver. Food and fuel was rationed. People grew “victory gardens.” Scrap drives helped turn used metal into bullets. War savings stamps helped fund the war.
As farmers, the family received stamps to buy fuel and tires, which they traded when they could.
Before every movie was a 15-minute newsreel updating civilians on the war.
Culver’s two aunts worked building fighter aircraft at the Boeing plant in Wichita.
It was through the war that Lytle met her future husband, Richard, who fought in the same unit as her brother Wallace Pope on the island of Iwo Jima.
“We lived four blocks apart in Iola and never even knew each other,” she said. For four long years they corresponded, building a relationship that would see through a 57-year marriage until his death.
“It was a huge deal: Speakers, music, parades and dances,” and of course the ritual of decorating the graves of those who fought.
Though Whitaker’s immediate ancestors are buried in Havana, Kan., those more distant hail from Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina.
“That was a big shock for me to discover those roots,” she said. “I figured everyone was from this neck of the woods.”
The discovery led Whitaker to pursue those tangents, and, eventually, her great-grandfather’s service in the Civil War, 1861-1865.
“He married late, age 52,” she said of his second marriage.
Whitaker attended school in Chanute for a period as well as Des Moines. She worked as a mortgage loan processor in Des Moines as well as Johnson City, Tenn.
She was attracted to Humboldt for retirement because of its Humboldt Historical Society and expansive museum complex.
An avid genealogist, Whitaker said discovering your roots “can change your life.”
“When we were children growing up on the farm the only entertainment we had was telling stories,” she said. A favorite is of her great-great-grandfather stealing away to the United States as a youth of 14 in 1845.
“He couldn’t come legally because he had been conscripted into the German army,” she said. “But his sister could. He carried her trunk onboard the ship and then changed into one of her dresses.
“That’s the story, anyway,” she said.
Culver’s grandfather also lived with the family for a time, instilling in the young girl a sense of her German heritage.
The first blacks to fight in the Civil War were from Kansas. Often, they registered under fictitious names, “so they wouldn’t be discovered by their masters,” Whitaker said.
A “James Smith” in fact was Rufus Anderson, the great-great-grandfather of Otis Crawford of Humboldt.
Through Whitaker’s efforts Anderson now has a headstone in Mount Hope Cemetery, marking not only his existence but service to country.
Whitaker is involved with the Kansas Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War and has helped establish Humboldt as a “camp” of the organization.
Her involvement with The Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization that perpetuates interest in the Civil War, serves not only to harken back but also to look to today’s veterans, she said.
“We all need to stop and remember these soldiers,” she said. “We wouldn’t be what we are today without their contributions.”
For Culver and Lytle, their role with the Auxiliary is a way to identify with service to country.
Though dwindling in number, the Auxiliary plays a crucial role in Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremonies. For Monday’s program, members will have decorated 200 graves in Highland Cemetery marking service men and women.
Both worry who will step up to carry on the functions of the Auxiliary after they step down. Lytle served as president for “25-plus” years.
Besides Monday’s celebration, Auxiliary members support the veterans home in Winfield and donate items for Red Cross care packages for victims of natural disasters.
“It feels good to help,” said Lytle.
Area women cherish Memorial Day honors
