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.
