Kansas Day

I almost forgot today was Kansas Day, the 146th Birthday of the Sunflower State. I kind of miss being a kid and coloring pictures of buffalo, meadowlarks, and the Kansas Flag. And singing the state song, "Home on the Range". And dressing up like Little House on the Prairie.

I was looking at my genealogy stuff tonight trying to figure out how many generations of my family have been from Kansas. 6 out of my 8 great grandparents were born in Kansas, and they all died here. None of my great-great grandparents were born here....but Kansas wasn't even officially a state when they were born, so I suppose that's okay. That generation of my family was born in Wales, Germany, England, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, etc. They all made it to Kansas in their lifetime except for one set who stopped in Missouri before letting the next generation finally settle in Kansas. One of my great-great grandmothers, Phoebe, rode into Kansas on a covered wagon when she was just four years old.

Here's a photo of my mom and her siblings and the other kids who grew up at the Ft. Hays Experiment Station in Hays, Kansas. It was a national experiment where they tracked down kids with special hero genes and brought them all together to save the world.....oh wait, I'm confusing that with the television show I'm watching. Actually the Ft. Hays Experiment Station had something to do with agriculture, I think. I forget. Maybe my mom or my uncle will post a comment and explain it.

Here's an update from my Uncle Jack: "The experiment station developed new varieties of wheat and sorghum, tested different diets on beef cattle, and I think bred cattle to try to develop better breeds. The entomology project tested pesticides to see what would kill armyworms, etc., best. (I used to go out in the fields and dig up soil samples and count the number of armyworms in different areas that had been treated differently with chemicals. Entomology also studied the behavior of bees, although I am not sure why. (Bobby Binder used to follow bees around to map their pattern of movement.) I worked on the Cereal Crops Project for several years. We would crosspollinate different varieties of various crops to try to get better varieties. (Triumph, a very good variety for western Kansas, was developed while I worked there.) We also used irradiation of seeds to try to get favorable changes in the genetic makeup of the grains. Daddy was in charge of the "Forestry" project for several years. They would raise tree seedlings, which were shipped to farmers all over the western part of the state, to plant windbreaks and shelterbelts. These protected fields from the wind and caught the snow. After the tree project was closed down, that part of the station (across from our house) was used for the wheat mosaic project. That was a bad wheat disease that they were trying to find a cure for.

I don’t know why I am not in that picture. I have a copy and have wondered. I probably had to stay after school that day. Or clean out the chicken house. Or somebody was afraid I would break the camera."