And Another Book with Color Pictures!

Still no city directories, but look at this book by Fred Harvey: Wichita

A Nifty Book About Wichita History

Found while looking for something else, which is how the best things are always discovered, the Illustrated History of Early Wichita.

A variety of digitized versions is available from this page at the Open Library. Very cool pictures.

Wichita Women's Groups

Yowza, it's been a while since I last posted.  My excuse?  The stuff I've been doing with my genealogy time, while worthwhile to me, is unutterably dull to write about.  I've been labeling vacation photos and making backup disks at home, and conducting inventory at the genealogy library.  Yawn, right?

Anyway, I don't want to talk about that stuff now.  Tuesday, while I was staffing the front desk at the library, I was asked a question I totally failed to answer.  And, since I hate being clueless, I've been doing a little research.

The question:  Could I help identify this picture?

Known:  The known woman in this picture moved to Wichita in the late 1910s and died in 1942.  The picture has a Wichita photographer stamp on the back.  The woman's husband worked for a railroad.

Observed:  The dresses are almost identical, the women each have a dark ribbon tied in a bow on the left shoulder, they don't seem to have any other common jewelry or insignia, and the room looks more like a hotel banquet room than a church or home.

Answer: I have no idea what group this is.  It appears to be an organized group, and, if they went to the trouble of matching dresses, it's probably an on-going group.  The women are too old to be graduating from high school.  The consensus of the folks at the library was that it is probably some sort of women's group, like Eastern Star.

So what women's groups were active in Wichita during the 20s and 30s?

The History of Wichita and Sedgwick County, published in 1910 by Orsemus Bentley, provides a whole chapter on Wichita women's groups.  These include the Hypatia club, started in 1886 (and only recently ended), the Twentieth Century Club, the Wichita Musical Club, the South Side Delvers, the DAR, and the Fairmount Library Club.

There were many Masonic lodges in Wichita, and many wives and daughters joined Eastern Star.

There were trade organizations, with female auxiliaries, including the Peerless Princess Lodge auxiliary of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, and the Peerless Princess Division auxiliary of the Order of Railway Conductors.

Many of the same organizations are mentioned in Helen Winslow's Official Register and Directory of Women's Clubs in America from 1913.

So, I have the beginnings of a list of possibilities, but no pictures, which might help narrow things down.
I'll have to keep looking in to this...

Native American Genealogy Class

In my inbox today from the Indian Center in Wichita:

Tracing Indian Genealogy

The Mid-America All-Indian Center is pleased to offer two free lectures by Choctaw Indian Jason Felihkatubbe on Saturday, Aug. 18. The public is invited. 

From noon-1 p.m., he will speak on the "History of the Choctaw." It will be followed by a "Genealogy" presentation at 1:15 p.m. that emphasizes the Five Civilized Tribes, ways to trace ancestry through Indian records and enrollment policies/procedures.        

Felihkatubbe is a project director at Wichita State University and instructor at Butler Community College.  

I Can't Believe a Word I Say

If you were reading this blog (both of you ) a few months ago, you will remember my rant about remaking my local genealogy library. prompted by the resignation of the librarian.  You might even remember this line:  I have zero interest in the job


You can see where this is going, can't you?  Yup!  I'm now the "associate librarian," which means that I've agreed to take on about half of the librarian's responsibilities for the rest of her term, with the understanding that I will most likely run for and be elected librarian at the next election (the librarian is an elected member of the society board.)  I did this partly because the current librarian is suffering from a severe mismatch between the workload and her available time, and partly because it turns out I kinda like being a librarian, especially the organizing part.  I've also found that several other members of the society have been harboring some of the same ideas about change, and we've already started to implement some of the smaller, easier ones.  


Wish me luck!  And don't believe anything I say...

Wichita State University Donor Biographies

Wichita State University has released an online collection of "the stories of the donors and namesakes of endowed scholarships, fellowships and other funds at Wichita State."  This is a collection of brief biographies for over 1,000 people who have been important to WSU, or who thought WSU was important.  Most bios include a paragraph about the person and a paragraph about the intent of the scholarship.  You can browse the alphabetical list at the Spirit of the Gift page.  The pages also look like they will be google-able.

Kansas Aviation Museum

On March 8, the Kansas Aviation Museum dedicated a new 6,500 square foot archive center.  Because I read that day's paper at dinner, rather than at breakfast, I missed the open house.  Still, what I've gleaned from the website and the newspaper article is rather cool.

The archive has an extensive collection of aviation materials, including photographs, books, magazines and periodicals, films, drawings, blueprints and FAA registration files.  The focus of the museum is on airplanes and airplane companies, but would likely offer fascinating contextual information for anyone who worked in the aircraft industry in Wichita.

For any of you out-of-towners who don't know, Wichita has been a hub of aircraft design and construction since the beginning of aircraft -- the first commercial aircraft company was founded in 1900 (before the Kitty Hawk flight) and the first successful Kansas plane flew in 1910.  By 1920, there were 21 aircraft companies in Kansas. Cessna, Beech and LearJet were all founded here, and Boeing built B-29s for WWII here.  Many aviation companies still design and build planes here, although competition is fierce for the good jobs that aviation provides.  The KAM has a great timeline here.

The museum is located in the old Wichita Airport building at 3350 S. George Washington Blvd.  Phone is 316-683-9242.  The archive is open to the public -- they recommend that you call and make an appointment so that they can be ready to help you.  You can also email the archivist at archivist@KansasAviationMuseum.org.  The website doesn't say whether they will do research for you, so you would have to call or email to ask.

Wichita's First Presbyterian Church Archives

One of Wichita's oldest churches, First Presbyterian has been around since starting in a dugout in 1869.  Members of MHGS recently got a tour of the archives, and I was blown away.  First, by the fact that they have an archives!  With five rooms, an archivist, an assistant archivist and several other volunteers!  As far as they know, they have the most extensive formal arrangement of any church in town, which is a pity, because more churches should do this.

What would a genealogist find there?  A brief list:

• lists of church staff members
• sermons
• class rosters
• minister files
• building records, including photos
• a Presbyterian newspaper that includes both local and national news
• bound copies of all service bulletins since the 1920s
• photos, both framed and in albums
• a WWII vet project done last year
• letters written between a Sunday school class and WWII servicemen overseas
• a Bible collection
• obituaries for members
• the church register of baptisms, marriages, etc
• the diaries of a member, written daily from 1864 to 1910

The church is at 525 N Broadway in downtown Wichita.  The phone number is 263-0248.  The archives are regularly open on Wednesday mornings from about 9:30 to 11:30 and by appointment.  Email the archivist at fparchive@firstpresbywichita.org.  They are willing to do some research for out-of-towners; they ask for money to cover copying charges and would appreciate a donation to help pay for the fireproof safe they've got their eyes on...

Wichita's Historic Preservation Alliance

The Historic Preservation Alliance appears to be focused on historic buildings in the Wichita area.  Their activities appear to revolve around saving historic buildings from development and touring historic places. They have a newsletter and a Facebook page.  A person (ok, I) could waste some time looking through their Then and Now section, which adds useful notes to the then and now pictures.

There is no mention of an archives on the website, but there is a list of local structures, sculptures, districts and archaeological sites that have been listed on local, state and national registers of historic places -- this list includes photos and links to the registration applications, which includes a history of the site and a discussion of why it is significant.  For example, the application for Calvary Baptist Church includes a chronological history of the building, a thorough architectural description, and brief history of the Exodusters who founded it and the growth of the black community in Wichita, and a bibliography of sources.

If you are lucky enough to find a tie to one of these buildings, this looks to be a good resource for additional information.  I expect that the HPA Facebook page might be a good place for queries about old Wichita buildings, although the page is brand spanking new and might not have many readers for a while.

Research at the Sedgwick County Courthouse

The Sedgwick County Courthouse, in Wichita, has published a couple of useful guides to research.


The first, A Citizen's Guide to Open Records at Sedgwick County, covers what is available from the county in the various departments of the courthouse, including property records, tax records and maps.  It also covers what isn't available, particularly vital records, which are available from the Kansas Department of Health & Environment Office of Vital Statistics, and marriage records, which are held by the District Court rather than the county. Of course, the county and the Court are all in the same building, so this may be a distinction that only a Freedom of Information Officer really cares about. (The brochure doesn't mention that pre-1917 marriage and divorce records are on microfilm at the Midwest Historical and Genealogical Society.)


The second, A User's Guide to Real Estate and Personal Property Assessment Rolls on Microfilm, is a finding aid for 36 reels of microfilmed records from 1876 to 1898.  These microfilms are available at the downtown Wichita Public Library or at Wichita State's Ablah Library.


The District Court website isn't as helpful to researchers, so a call to the appropriate office (such as Probate) may be necessary.

Genealogists to the Rescue!

Newsflash!  Someone found some old headstones in a ditch south of Wichita, the sheriff's office makes the names public while continuing to investigate, and within hours genealogists have found the cemetery while the police are still looking.  How?  Easy -- the sheriff's staff were searching actual cemeteries and genealogists were searching findagrave.com.  Thanks to the work of the local genealogy societies, Find-A-Grave has Wichita covered.

My favorite part of the article is this remark from the officer in charge of the investigation: "He estimated he heard from 50 people within an hour. “I didn’t realize how many people do these genealogy searches,” Pollock said."

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2012/02/21/2224386/headstones-dating-from-the-1800s.html#storylink=cpy

First Female Jury in Kansas

I'm really enjoying the Kansas trivia column in the Wichita Eagle lately...they've run through all the usual stuff and are getting to bits of history I've never seen before.  Today's column is about the first female bailiff in the U.S. and first all-female jury in Kansas, and includes the names of the participants; the bailiff was Eva Rider and the jurors were Hattie Riley Ritcherdson, Maggie Clark, Geneva Selig, Agnes Foulks, Frances Boston, Genevieve Munson, Rachel Stewart, Anna Ruddick, Esther Kirkpatrick, Blanche Cron, Nannie Elson and Clara Willis. Wouldn't it fun if one of these were in your family?

Wichita Newspapers online

I stand corrected -- there are some Wichita papers availalbe online.  The Library of Congress Chronicling America site has several Wichita newspapers digitized and online.  Looks like the Eagle is covered until about 1906.

MHGS Jubilee

The MHGS Jubillee was yesterday, and it was fun!  At our building, we had hotdogs, antique bicycles, a book sale and ongoing demo of the new Quiring Collection of monument purchase orders (I was astonished at how much work it took to get ready for use.  The woman who took primary responsibility worked pretty much all her waking hours for more than a month, and several other people put in significant time, as well.)  The trolley ride to TKAAM and the library was fun too, and it looked like TKAAM was doing wee with their Fall Festival.

I didn't remember to take any pictures, but I did come home with a souvenir, of sorts.

A couple came into the MHGS to ask if we wanted a bunch of genealogy material collected by Ethel Posey Anderson Brown.  Because one of the items was a typewritten autobiography and the family had owned businesses here since the early 1900s, we said yes, we'd take it, with the understanding that we'd probably keep only a fraction of the material.  Somehow, in the excitement of looking at the old pictures, I volunteered to take a stab at evaluating and cleaning it up.

My current system involves five "buckets"

• a plastic tub for stuff that makes it to the second round
• a trash bag (two have already gone outside, including magnetic photo albums and someone's empty used envelop collection)
• a bag of unrelated books and magazines to sell (anyone want an Oct 1953 copy of Motion Picture Magazine?  They're going on eBay for $10!)
• a bag of things that might be good resources for the library, like yearbooks
• and a bag of things I don't think we should keep, but which aren't indisputably trash (like a dozen photos of someone's new puppy.)  

My tentative goal is to trim it to the autobiography, a binder of interesting photos, and a binder of genealogically useful things like birth certificates.

Has anyone out there done this? Any suggestions?

Also, if there are any relatives of Ethel who want some of this stuff, either physically or digitally, email me.  Please!

MHGS New database

The Midwest Historical and Genealogical Society has acquired approximately 25,000 purchase orders from a major cemetery monument company (and it's predecessor companies) in Wichita.  Some of these records date back to 1919!   There's an index on the website, and copies of the files are available for a small fee.  Very exciting!

Wichita Photos

Another great link from Wichita State University -- a joint project between WSU, the Wichita Public Library, and the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Society to provide digitized photos of Wichita.  There are approximately 1000 photos online.  The collection is searchable by keyword, date, and 20 subject categories.

Check it out at http://www.wichitaphotos.org/search.asp

Dr. Edward N. Tihen's Notes on Wichita Newspapers

I found a cool resource on the Wichita State University library website today.  Dr. Edward Tihen read and took notes on "nearly every" issue of the Wichita newspapers from 1872 to 1982.  WSU has transcriptions of these notes in searchable PDF files. They have also identified and organized notes on almost 500 topics including particular buildings, neighborhoods, individuals and events.  Each note is tagged with the date of the paper, so you could use this as an index to the microfilmed paper.

This may not be as good as a full-text, searchable archive of the newspaper, but I'm not aware of such a resource yet for the Eagle and Beacon.

Check it out at http://specialcollections.wichita.edu/collections/local_history/tihen/index.asp

I'm a Genealogy Librarian!

Well, I'm an assistant librarian at a genealogy library, which is not exactly the same thing.  I did my first shift this morning as a volunteer at the Midwest Historical and Genealogical Society in Wichita. We weren't busy this morning, so I split my time between administrative things like learning to use the copy machine and exploratory things like poking through the library catalog and the piles of data CDs next to the computer.  The main librarian left us the task of checking a few of the obituary binders for missing pages and I was blown away by how much work the society has done on them, clipping obituaries, death notices and miscellaneous articles about accidents and murders from the Wichita Eagle and Beacon newspapers since 1955.  The binders take up a whole bookcase.

It seems that local genealogy libraries have to split their focus to serve two different audiences -- those who live in the local area and want to research their lines, which requires resources about other areas, and those who are researching lines in the local area, but may not live there.   The MHGS library reflects this -- the basement is devoted to Wichita and the surrounding areas, and includes resources the society has acquired, like city directories, and resources the society has created, like the obituary binders.  The other two floors are more outward looking.  Before joining the society, I had not appreciated how much material they have accumulated on other states; I had always assumed that, because my family arrived in Wichita in the 60's, local libraries wouldn't really have much to offer me.  I stand corrected!