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Actions of Gardner Grange #68 - KS
“Gardner Grange #68 was chartered in March of 1873 and is the second to the oldest Grange still active in Kansas today,” says Linda Rothwell, Gardner Grange Secretary.
Gardner, Kansas is located 30 miles southwest of Kansas City. “Our community is growing fast,” says Karen Angell. “We have a population of about 17,000, but as we’re near Olathe, population 93,000, sometimes it feels bigger. Our population has shifted quite a bit in the 6 years I’ve lived here. We have many more young families living here now. Our school population has doubled in the last 6 years.”
“When I came here after the war in 1946, there were 400 people living here,” says Jim Kincaide.
Linda, Jim’s daughter pipes in with her own statistic. “When I graduated from high school, we had a population of 2000.
“It’s a pretty diverse community,” says Karen. “We have people who have always lived here, we have a large veteran population because there was a VA hospital nearby, and now we have a lot of commuters who drive into Kansas City.”
“Gardner Grange is quite involved in community service,” says Alice Ficken, community service chair “One of our big projects has been to adopt children for Christmas. For the last year or two, at the suggestion of the Mayor of Gardner, we’ve also adopted whole families. I do the shopping for our children and families, and I just enjoy it so much to get gifts for these children. Our grocery store gives a gift certificate and our Grangers put together a really nice basket so the family can at least enjoy a few meals as our gift.”
“We also participate in the July 4 th celebration. My husband got us linked up with this because it’s sponsored by the American Legion. We put together a display, and they bring in a wonderful band,” says Alice.
“This last year we collected about 20 coats to give to the high school’s Project Warmth campaign. We get involved with Project Graduation which is a drug- and alcohol-free party. And we help with the Boo Bash at Halloween. Usually we try and work with other organizations in town.”
“The town of Gardner has a wonderful history and we’ve gotten involved with the historical society in the last couple of years,” says Linda. “But Gardner Grange has been involved in the town’s history for far longer than that. In 1956, our Grange worked with the state to get an historical marker that notes that Gardner is where the Santa Fe Trail and the Oregon Trail split. But my dad was involved in that project, so I’ll let him tell the story.”
“Well,” says Jim, “The state of Kansas had a sign made to show where the Oregon Trail and the Santa Fe Trail divided, and they wanted a place to put it. So Homer Craig who was a Grange member and farmer, donated three acres of land for a park, and that’s where the state put this historical marker. We built picnic tables for the park and it was a nice spot for many years. Then the tables got stolen. But the marker is still there and another group is working to put up tables again.”
“The National Park Service and about 15 other state, local, and national organizations are working to revitalize the park near the marker,” says Karen. “They’re going to turn it into a National Wayside Historic Park. It will be interactive and talk about the great migration of wagon trains that came from the east. We were kind of a midpoint, and then of course a lot of people just stopped and stayed right here in Kansas.”
“We still can see wagon ruts in several places here in town and in the rest of Kansas. That’s just part of what makes Gardner such an historical place,” says Linda. “And that’s one reason that we’ve gotten so involved in the Historical Society. Four of our members are on the Historical Society Board and another two volunteer. Karen is the President of the Museum and Historical Society.
“In 2000, a group of the Historical Society decided that we needed a museum for our community,” says Karen. “And since the museum needed to be incorporated, we’ve now split off into two groups – the Historical Society and the Museum.”
“One of the things we insisted on as we set up the Museum was that we have a Grange exhibit in the building. In fact, our first exhibit was a Grange Hall. We set up all the chairs just like an old fashioned Grange Hall and showed the important role that Gardner Grange and the National Grange had played in our community.”
“Since that time,” says Karen, “we’ve created a permanent Grange exhibit in the room we have dedicated to the Trails, the prairie, and time line of key events in Gardner’s history. Other Granges in our county and area have closed, but we try to recognize their historic contribution as well.”
“The Grange exhibit has actually become a recruiting opportunity for us. People ask about Grange and we tell them, ‘Yes, we still meet on the 1 st Monday of the Month.’ A lot of new people have moved into Gardner in the last few years, and the exhibit is one way for us to help them understand what Grange is.”
“Our Kansas State Master, Pat West, has promoted the Grange exhibit in the Gardner Historic Museum throughout the other Granges in the state,” says Linda. “A Grange from north of donated a rug that is now part of the exhibit. We’re preserving the history – and the artifacts – of Grange.”
“The Gardner Grange donates money, time, and people to the museum. They’ve been a great support,” says Karen.
“For our Lecturer’s Programs, we’ve held several exchanges. Some of those have been with another Grange. One was with the GFWC, a woman’s club here in Gardner. They helped us understand what they do, and we talked with them about what we do. That kind of information change makes for a really nice meeting.”
“I’ve also been trying to get us back to what Grange used to do – provide interesting meetings that draw people in from the public. This last month, we held a book discussion. The book was called Sissy by Tom Mach. It’s a history of the Civil War in Kansas. We invited the public and the author. He spoke about the book and we asked questions and discussed it. I think he really appreciated hearing what we had to say about his writing.”
“Most of our fundraising efforts are now done through use and rental of our building,” says Linda. “Our Hall was built in conjunction with the Fair Board. We needed a place to meet and they needed a building, so we built it to their specifications. We have full use of the building during the year, and then, during the Johnson County Fair, the Fair Board has the use of the building. It’s used by the Boy Scouts, 4-H, family reunions, wedding anniversaries, and that kind of thing.”
“When we built the building, we funded it with four tractor-pulling contests a year until it was completely paid for. It’s a community building and it really is used quite a lot.”
“We charge $75 per use. But we give old-time users of the building a break in the price,” says Jim. “It’s a big room, 40 by 100 feet, with a kitchen.”
“For years, we served meals during the fair,” says Linda, “but our best cooks got so they weren’t able to do that anymore. And the Fair Board wanted a pretty hefty share of our profits so we don’t do fair meals anymore.”
“We used to raffle off a hand-made quilt every year too,” says Karen. “But our quilters have gotten so they can’t see or quilt very well anymore, and our younger generation doesn’t quilt. So that went by the wayside too.”
“We have 40 members. Twelve of those are Golden Sheaf members and most of us are probably over 50. We do have three or four members who are in their 20’s or 30’s. We have a few Junior Grange members. We still have a charter for Junior Grange, and our kids go to camp and attend a few events, but aren’t really active during regular meetings. That’s something we want to change, but we haven’t quite gotten it all pulled together.”
“One of the things we decided we really needed to do was to get ourselves out into the community and let people know we’re still here. We’ve always been involved in the community, but people didn’t know it was the Grange that was doing things. So that’s been our recent priority.”
“Up until last year, we set up in form for every meeting. But now we’re doing a round table discussion format. We have a pot luck dinner at 6:30 and then meet. When I was growing up, we met at 8:30 and then we ate afterward, and it was a school night! Our meeting time is much better now!” says Linda.
“We have done the Dictionary Project in conjunction with Morning Grange. We enjoyed seeing the kids getting their own dictionaries. We have five elementary schools and one more is being built, so we’ve talked about how we can be involved with the Dictionary Project. Rotary and the Lions Clubs are very involved with the schools, and they may have tied up most of those opportunities.”
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