looking for information on the author, Ruth Smith

[W. Gray]

Thank you Jody.

I had forgotten about that little school.

When I was in college, I always wondered how Emporia could have/support two colleges.

The Presbyterian Church established College of Emporia in 1882.

William Allen White also went there.

The school became Way College of Emporia in 1975.

In 1989, it too went out of business.

[patyrn]

Are you sure that the Presbyterian Church was on North Pine Street in the 30s?  I grew up in the Presbyterian Church on Pennsylvania Avenue, and the original church bell from the bell tower was mounted on a tall concrete pedestal in its yard.  I just assumed that was the location of the church when it burned.

Alas, don't get me started on the condition of the beautiful little Presbyterian Church building.  Like the hotel and the bank building, it is so sad that these landmarks were allowed to deteriorate.  It makes me sick to drive by "my church".   

[W. Gray]

Now, you have me wondering.

Several years ago when doing research on Tom Thompson, I came across the Pine Street location but cannot remember where.

At the time of his death in 1935, both Howard newspapers mention the church without an address. The Courant says the Thompsons, who married in 1882, made their newlywed household directly across the street west of where the church services took place. The church burned a couple years later.

When he died, Tom lived on Chestnut in the 300 south block. Chestnut is west of Pennsylvania.

The Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, though, has him erecting a new house on Pine Street in 1904. However, west of a church location on Pine would not be on Pine, it would be towards Wabash. That same story says he had another house on Pine Street. Presumably he was able to keep his old home for rental.

A picture of the original church is in the Elk County history book, No location is given but says the rebuilt church had the old bell resting in the yard.

If the church were originally on Pine, one can wonder why the congregation would move to a new location rather than rebuild on land they already owned.

[W. Gray]

On June 29, 1922, Ruth Smith and another young lady furnished the music at the wedding of Paul Thompson, Grenola, and Opal Perkins, Howard, at the Presbyterian Church.

Ruth Smith died in November 1986 at Prescott, Arizona.

[Audrey.Thompson]

Oh my goodness -- thank you all!  I kept checking the web page for the forum, and it always said "0 replies," so I didn't check further.  Today, somehow, I thought to probe further, and found all these wonderful replies.  (I have never used a forum before, so I probably just didn't know how to negotiate it properly.)  Thank you so much!

Other folks have already provided information about the book itself, so I will just add what it was that drew me to want to know more.  Ruth Smith has such a sense of place, such a distinctive voice, and she was so thoughtful about the ways in which she (and many of us;  I am white and teach teachers about race relations) have learned to think (or not think) about race.  Other whites were writing about race in interesting ways in 1946, but not too many teachers were.  I liked how she could see things in such complex ways, and how she focused not on just understanding things consciously but responding to them in heartfelt ways.  And it sounded like both her church and her sense of belonging in Howard were a vital part of how she understood her place in the world, so I really want to know more about where she was from, how she lived the rest of her life, and if she ever wrote more.

I am in awe of all the details you were able to furnish me with -- thank you, thank you!  If anyone has more information or insights, I would love to hear more -- and will try to familiarize myself better with the forum so that I don't miss any replies.

Best, Audrey Thompson

[W. Gray]

I have finished reading White Man's Burden: A Personal Testament. Oddly enough, I had trouble getting past the first chapter—some thirty-five pages—even though it was about Howard. I guess I was looking for names, places, and facts but there were none.

Beginning with chapter two, she gives an interesting account of her days at the College of Emporia (she does not specifically identify her school however) and sees Negro people for the first time, even attends a Negro church. She uses the terms Negro and colored as was the custom at the time. One of the crises she describes while at the college is her school's refusal to admit a Negro. The period is around 1920.

After graduation, she goes with other white graduates to Alabama to teach at a black girl's boarding school. She describes a run in with the Ku Klux Klan. Not her run in specifically, but the school in general. It seems that when the local white populace thought the school was getting to smart for its own good the Klan visited. These visits always took place at night and somehow word always got to the school they were coming. All lights were extinguished and everyone moved away from the windows and remained very quiet. More white men than they could count came in automobiles with all wearing white sheets. The Klan leader would give an inflammatory speech in front of the school as to what might happen should the school not tone down. When they were finished, they left a burning cross in the schoolyard.

As she puts it, she became one of them and always sat in the Negro rear section of public transportation. She and several other white women appear to have been way ahead of their time in recognizing that there are no basic differences between any of the races.

She gives a description of an automobile accident in which a young Negro woman is badly injured. There is a local hospital but it is for whites only. The girl is taken to a private home but when that did not work out; they have to call an ambulance to come from a black hospital in another state. By the time the ambulance arrived, and then returned to the hospital, she was dead.

After Alabama, she goes to New York City and becomes a librarian. At one point, she returns to Alabama by train for a short visit. At Washington, DC, all colored people are asked to leave and go to a car reserved for them. The trip then continues through the Deep South.

By 1946, the publication date of the book, she is back in Howard.

***
In 1959, I was in college in South Carolina. A local black apparently did something that was objectionable and a gang of whites cornered him. Taking their knives, they carved a huge KKK into his back. The students from the south thought the man got his just reward. The local newspaper ran a photo of the man's back and much to its credit condemned the action.

The Pentagon has a Washington, DC address but is actually in Virginia. The building has restrooms all over the place. In fact, it has twice as many as required by the building code. The reason is that when it was built in 1940, it was built in accordance with Virginia law. There was an equal number of restrooms for blacks and whites.

[Leonardcrl]

Audrey Thompson:

Perhaps I can add some color to the broad strokes that the denizens of this forum have provided here.

I vaguely remember meeting Ruth Smith while she was writing the book. Her parents were neighbors of my grandparents,  Albert and Edith Andrews. 

I was around 10 years old when the book was published and it was about the biggest literary event ever in Howard.
Since it was published in 1946  I have a more vivid memory of the sound of the typewriter coming from little one room "Library" where she wrote it.  This would have had to been during the summer of 1945 in the aftermath of WWII. 

The library was the small one room building behind the residence next to alley, directly across from the grade school building.  My Grandfather was a carpenter and was friends, and sometime associate, with the builders (whose name have slipped into the dustbin).  Anyway, I was allowed free run of the site when it was under construction.   Miss Smith (I was never allowed to call her anything else.) came out to look at the place before just before it was finished and I went through the usual bashful kid "glad to meet you ma'm" introduction. I think it was right after she came back to Howard.

I remember my parents talking about Ruth Smith as someone who was thought to have been a "little odd".  I can still remember my father saying she had "more guts than good sense" do what she did in the South.  I never did find out what that was. 

I have to cut off now but I'll try to build up a Google map of the residence and location and maybe somebody can come up with some pictures.

[patyrn]

Was this house you're referring to the one facing south on Randolph right across from the elementary school?  When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s,  Mrs. Cook lived there.

My dad worked for Smith & Goodwin as a young man, and I remember hearing stories about Arthur Goodwin but never anything about Mr. Smith.  I don't know how connected he was with the store at that time in the mid-40s.

[W. Gray]

According to the Elk County history book....

George Smith was a sales clerk and bookkeeper in the store before becoming part owner in 1895.

In 1945, he sold out to Arthur Goodwin.

[Leonardcrl]

Was this house you're referring to the one facing south on Randolph right across from the elementary school?  When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s,  Mrs. Cook lived there.

Sounds close but to be more precise the house was at the corner of Randolph and Pennsylvania across from the vacant space that served as the grades 1-4 ball diamond and had the flag pole. 

As a technological exercise here is a link to what should be a google map of the area Howard
If you don't have broadband you will need to be patient to see anything. 

Re:

According to the Elk County history book....
George Smith was a sales clerk and bookkeeper in the store before becoming part owner in 1895.

In 1945, he sold out to Arthur Goodwin.

That sounds right since I remember that the Smith's moved out shortly after and I don't any other occurrence of Ruth Smith returning to Howard.