The June sun was blazing overhead when I met up with a special group of women from the Yates Center High School class of 1976.
They’d gathered for a mini-reunion of sorts — based on a foundation of “life-long friendships,” as one participant put it — and as part of the festivities had agreed to humor me by taking a unique kind of walk.
It would be a retracing of the path of industrious and community-minded women who’d come before them, a walk with busy ghosts.
On the corner of Main and Bell Streets in Yates Center, near what was once the extreme north end of town, sits an inconspicuous monument that reads:
Memorial Road
Erected by
Women’s Federation of Clubs
1928
Beneath the dull and discolored marker — which looks a bit like a tombstone — hides a time capsule, more specifically, a copper box containing information about the project memorialized.
The story goes that in 1927, frustrated that the path from the north end of town to Graceland Cemetery wasn’t terribly hospitable to foot traffic, the 20-plus womens’ clubs in town decided to start a campaign to build a new sidewalk.
According to James Fisher, this was especially spurred by “the few newfangled motor cars speeding by walkers, that billowed dust or sprayed mud.”
Despite the path to the cemetery being somewhat treacherous, especially since at the time most folks couldn’t afford to buy an automobile, the city council at the time rejected the idea of building the walk as too costly.
Undeterred, the wily women of Yates Center sprung into action, starting a campaign where they placed tin cans all over town for donations that read “a penny an inch.”
AS THE CLASS of 1976 strode along these penny-inches, some reminisced about attending a rural school prior to Yates Center High, such as Perry School near the southern edge of the county.
“We were stuck out that direction,” said Debbie Stevens. “But I wouldn’t have given it up.”
Today, Perry schoolhouse serves as a hay barn, with yellow bales occupying what was once the gymnasium.
Many in the group who hadn’t returned to southeast Kansas for some time remarked on the housing blight and economic decay as they looked around from the memorial sidewalk, where they could point to places where house after house once stood.
It’s incredible, “the number of houses that look so run down and dejected,” said Kathy Alexander.
It’s just one more reminder of the many things that rural America has lost. The women had no problem enumerating events and activities that were once staples of their daily lives that are no longer present — everything from watching movies at the Temple Theater downtown to eating at restaurants like Woody’s and Peter Pan.
One thing that is still intact is their humor. When prompted to talk about any of things they’d lost more specifically, they responded, cackling:
