2012 End of the Year Intern Meeting: Wrapping it all Up!

2012 was a busy year for the Chapman Center. On May 3rd we held out last Intern meeting and it was a bitter-sweet event. We noted all the accomplishments for the year and had to say good-bye to three graduating interns. Erin Strathe, Melissa Slagle and Katie Jones were surprised with a cake and treats celebrating their academic accomplishments. It was a full house, including the three graduates, the meeting was attended by Dr. M.J. Morgan, Dr. Bonnie Lynn-Sherow, Angela Schnee, Daron Blake, and Theresa Young.

   We all sat down and recounted the hard work taken place this year and WOW it was a long list. Graduate Assistant Daron Blake took to the white board and before we knew it, it was covered with achievements and we still had a long list of events that could not even fit on the list.

Some of our feats in 2012 include: Assisting the Rock Creek Valley Historical Society organize their research holdings, we held our yearly Open House and hosted poet Mary Swander, nominated Mark Chapman as an alumni fellow award, created a video side-show of all the undergraduate research accomplished in the past few years (thank you Chad Miller for your video skills), created a new database website for all of the research papers with the guidance and the hard work of our webmaster Dana Eastes (check it out here———>https://lostkscommunities.omeka.net/  ), help create a new newsletter for the RCVHS, created a working relationship with the Lyon County Historical Society, the Center became affiliated with over twenty individuals and societies throughout Kansas, collaborated with the Center for Community Engagement and produced the publication Filling the Larder, Feeding our Families, migrated the Journal of Kansas History to the Chapman Center, hosted the Brunswick CEO and executives, held many public presentations in and around the community, and secured funding for our Digital Archives project.

After enjoying the cake and refreshments we discussed 2013 and what the returning assistants and interns would be working on.

We are very proud of the 2012 year and all the accomplishments that took place this year. We send a big thank you out to all of the people involved directly and indirectly that made this year a wonderful success.

Congratulations again Erin, Katie and Melissa.

Introducing Our New Office Manager ~ Bethany Caldwell

We are glad to introduce Bethany Caldwell, our newest Chapman Center employee. She started with the Chapman Center in March 2012 and is settling in well. She will be graduating from K-State in May with a degree in Psychology. She is shopping around for graduate schools but right now is focusing on her forthcoming nuptials.

When she is not managing our busy office her favorite things are, “traveling, reading and swimming in her free time.”

Welcome Bethany!

Broughton Town Site Class Trip April 17

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lost Kansas Communities class and Dr. Morgan did field work at Broughton Town Site on a sunny April afternoon. Students had rough maps of the original layout of the town and found evidence of many structures, railway levees, buildings, and sidewalk pieces. Broughton, Clay County, was demolished by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1966 to create Milford Reservoir.

 

Chapman Center @ the 2012 Great Plains Symposium

Two weeks ago, Chapman Center graduate research assistants Theresa Young and Daron Blake along with the Center’s director, Bonnie Lynn-Sherow, attended the 2012 Great Plains Symposium in Lincoln, Nebraska. The event was entitled “1862-2012: The Making of the Great Plains” and centered on landmark legislations enacted in 1862: The Homestead Act, The Morrill Land-Grant Act, and The Pacific Railroad Act.

Theresa presented her master’s research entitled Living Tools: Tree Use in Nineteenth Century Kansas and fielded many questions from an interested audience.

The three of them had the opportunity to meet historians and other members of the history field from around North America and found the event to be very exciting. Featured speakers included Donald Worster of KU, Elliott West of the University of Arkansas, Martin Jischke of Purdue University, Richard White of Stanford University, William G. Thomas, III of UNL, Myron Gutmann of the University of Michigan, and David Von Drehle, Editior-at-Large of Time Magazine.

 

 

 

 

 

The three had a great time staying in the historic Haymarket Square and walking around historic downtown Lincoln.

Dr. Elliott West

Dr. Martin Jischke

Katie Jones in Lyon County

2011-2012 Chapman Intern Katie Jones presented her research on March 13, 2012, to an audience at Lyon County Historical Society in Emporia. Katie is studying languages and has applied this interest to languages spoken by Kansas settlers before 1900. Her talk, titled “The French and Welsh Languages and Settlement in Eastern Kansas,” was of keen interest to many Emporia residents descended from original Welsh families.

On March 4, Katie attended services in Emporia to celebrate St. David’s Day, the patron Welsh saint. Parts of this special service are still in Welsh. Katie was able to videotape the Welsh portions of the liturgy. She also interviewed several Welsh descendants who gave her valuable information. Her paper on the early French community around St. Joseph’s Church in Cloud County is posted in the Lost Town Collection on Chapman Center digital archives. https://lostkscommunities.omeka.net/items/show/43

Katie’s project on the Welsh, including some families settling in Geary County, will become part of Chapman Center’s K-REX collection, Kansas History and Life. Katie will graduate this May from KSU and hopes eventually to work in a consulate.

Katie Brummett ~ Honorable Mention Winner for the Broughton Prize

Katie Brummett and Dr. M.J. Morgan

Finalist and Honorable Mention Winner for the Broughton Prize is junior education major Katie Brummett, who researched the elusive community known as Moehlman’s Bottoms south of Manhattan. Many of these lost communities across Kansas were named for settlers and river bottoms. Katie’s portrait is titled, “Henry Moehlman’s Dream,” and traces the fortunes of a small group of homesteaders in the Kaw River floodplain. These farms gradually coalesced into a named community. The 1951 Flood destroyed the old stone  Moehlman School, the last vestige of this hamlet, except for striking stone farmhouses built by the Moehlman brothers.  Katie says,  “Over the course of the research, I gradually began to feel tied to this place. It became really important to me.”  Congrats, Katie!

You can read her paper here—>browse?search=Katie+Brummett&submit_search=Search

First Broughton Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Regional Kansas History ~ 2012 ~

At Chapman Center’s Anniversary Open House on February 24, we awarded the first Broughton Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Regional Kansas History. The winners were a team of history majors, Jake Flynn, senior, and Adam Rosendahl,sophomore, for their thorough and  contributory project titled, “Lasting Relationships out of Unwarranted Fear: the POW Camp in Wabaunsee, Kansas 1944-1945.”

This project fulfills Mr. Chapman’s dream for Chapman Center:  that undergraduates engage meaningfully with the rural population and its fast-disappearing history, so often preserved only in minds and memories. Adam and Jake interviewed one of the only living persons to recall the German prisoners of war — Mr. Roger Schwam of Alma, Kansas. The above photo – Adam is shown standing by the award poster.

Mark Chapman was pleased to be able to present the first award, named for his hometown of Broughton, Kansas, destroyed in 1966 to create Milford Reservoir. Dr. Morgan, Adam's research director on the project, comments that some of the photographs Adam and Jake found of the camp and its prisoners were tacked to the wall at a bar and grill near Lake Wabaunsee! "You have to dig to find this kind of valuable evidence," she said. "Adam and Jake were like badgers with this research." Adam is the son of Dirk and Caren Rosendahl of Leavenworth, Kansas. He is in ROTC as well as carrying a full academic load. Kudos!