Bedroom 1913

In scanning photographs to share with recently rediscovered Walker cousins, I came across this one.

Its only identification is the date 1913 written on it. Below is the bedroom that was identified as being in the Walker home on Polk in Topeka and I don't think they are the same.

The photo at right was on a page with pictures of Edna and EA and Ada and Bill (grandparents of the recently rediscovered Walker cousins) from a walk to Topeka's Burnett Mound. With my detective skills I've deducted that it's EA's room, Bill's room or their room together. Continuing in this vein of detection due to the fact that there are two dressers I believe it's a shared room and let's say it's Bill's and EA's.

These snapshots of rooms fascinate -- in this one are pictures of President William Howard Taft and President Woodrow Wilson.Unlike their political positions Taft is on the left and Wilson the right. To refresh -- the 1912 election was a race between 3 candidates, Taft the Republican, Wilson the Democrat and former president Teddy Roosevelt. Wilson won with slightly less than 42% of the popular vote.Taft finished third.  The pictures of the walk are dated February 16, 1913 which I'm assuming would make this one of the same general vintage. And this is about three weeks before Woodrow Wilson took the oath of office marking the end of Taft's one term. Just a pure guess, but I'll say EA's the Wilson fan and Bill the Taft aficionado.  One fact is that Bill Smith ran for state's attorney general as a Republican in 1926, just 13 years later. I'm guessing it would be hard to go from a Wilson fan to a Republican in 13 years.

Another thing I was surprised to see was a typewriter. It's on the table, framed by the white bedstead. In my brief search of the Internet I couldn't find out how unusual that would be - to own a typewriter in 1913.

At the right are EA and Bill on that day, February 16, 1913 on their walk to Burnett Mound.

Goodbye to the Wildflowers

The riverbank this week since the city did its magic.

 We've lived in our current house for nearly 34 years. When we bought it the riverbank of the Arkansas River was a shambles, but the bike path was going in. Soon things were evened out and there was a wide expanse at the top before it sloped down to the river and the bike path. Because the kids were small we put in a fence, more to keep them corralled than to keep them out of the river. (My advice, "If you fall in, remember to stand up.") The area between our fence and slant of the riverbank appeared to be ours to maintain.

Through the years this plot of land became part of my mowing routine. To mow our entire yard usually took me nearly two hours with a walk behind mower. During this time I had much time to think I'm really not that fond of mowing the yard and especially not the bank, the city's part. Until three weeks ago I've never seen the city mowers even look at this part, and certainly not mow it.

Mexican Hat

In 1996, Debbie had an internship with Senator Kassebaum so Lee and I and the other kids decided we'd drive to DC and bring Debbie home. As we made our way to and from DC, including many stops, I noticed that there were daylilies along I-70. I thought if they can grow along the interstate, surely they can grow along the river. I knew I wasn't going to water them, but I'm thinking I don't think they get watered along the highway either. Soon I'd ordered daylilies and daffodils from White Flower Farms. It wasn't easy, but eventually I had them planted. The daffodils prospered, but the daylilies didn't like the competition from the Bermuda grass. Wildflowers seemed like they'd be more inclined to survive.

Indian Blanket

I worked again to prepare the ground and ordered a meadow from Wildseed Farms in Texas. The results were good and I no longer had so much ground to mow. Not everything survived, but Mexican Hat pictured above prospered. Well, at least until last week.

This year the flowers on the bank weren't as tall as that pictured above - it looked more like the photo at right. Three weeks ago, the city mower came up on that spot and mowed and carefully went around my plot in the center. But last week a different mower came up and mowed everything as you can tell in the first photo. I went out and asked why after all these years they were mowing down my wildflowers. He stopped to talk to me, but he said the city didn't like it because it attracted trash. I was astounded and I said in the 30 years I've lived here, no one outside of me has ever mowed that part of the bank and that I'd put in the wildflowers so I wouldn't have to mow so much.

Thanks for listening.