|
The Juhnke yard around the house had good spaces for playing. The
sidewalk in front of the house was uneven, but nevertheless was better
than anything available at the farm for roller skating with metal
skates. Ruth was especially excited about learning to roller skate.
She spent all her recess time at school roller skating. And she skated
all the way from home to school.
A spirea hedge separated the house from the driveway, and a weeping
willow tree grew near the west edge of the property in front of the
garage. The willow tree provided wonderful whips for Bill Jr.'s wooden
horse on his cowboy adventures. Bill Sr. put up a basketball goal
on the front of the garage--a place for many vigorous neighborhood
competitions.
The northwest side of the back yard was a chicken pen and house.
The northeast side was the garden. Between garden and chicken pen
was a pathway to the old outdoor privy at the back of the lot. The
chickens provided both meat and eggs for the family, as well as chores
for the kids to feed the chickens and gather the eggs. Beside the
garage, nearer the house, was a small shed for doing laundry and for
storage. In that shed Bill placed a metal commode that was more convenient
(and less smelly?) than the old privy. The installation of an indoor
toilet and the digging of a large hole for a septic tank in the back
yard in 195 was a major event.
Next door northeast lived Mr. Winter, an elderly widower with (as
Ruth remembered) "gigantic earlobes." Once when Bill Jr. was small,
Mr. Winter invited him into his house and offered him some dark liquid
to drink. It tasted awful and Bill Jr. thought he had been poisoned.
He ran home to his mother, hoping she would be able to save his life.
Meta, who probably smelled alcohol on her son's breath, gave him a
hug and said he would be all right. Mr. Winter was a self styled "water
witch" who claimed the gift of divining sources of underground water
and oil. Jim noted his excuse when the oil or water drillers did not
find the oil or water where he said it was The drillers, he said,
had stopped drilling just above the place where the good stuff was.
Mr. Winter died in 1959. Ruth, age eight, wrote about that in a letter
to Jim in Germany and asked if anyone had died in Germany. In a letter
to her teacher, Ruth said that Mr. Winter used to tell her stories
about Jesus. It was sad that the house now would be empty. Mr. Winter's
wife had died, too, several years before.
Bill Jr., perhaps more adventuresome than the other Juhnke children,
treated the whole town of Lehigh as his back yard. The lot directly
north of the Juhnke lot was undeveloped, or perhaps abandoned, and
was sometimes put into crops. Bill Jr. and his friends played duck-duck-goose
there in the wintertime. As Bill Jr. remembered,
But the lot to the northwest with its partial foundations, overgrown
bushes and trees was a paradise of trails, hiding places, and ready-made
forts. A latter-day Davy Crockett fought and won the Alamo many
times in that abandoned lot in those years. Abandoned buildings
all over town were a lure, especially one limestone brick structure
between the post office and the grocery store on Main Street. I
spent many hours playing there with my best friends Robert Hine
and Paul Thiessen.
For an adequate milk supply Bill arranged with the William Reddig
family on the west edge of town to keep a cow in their pasture and
barn. The Reddigs got the milk every morning and the Juhnkes got the
milk every evening. The cow--for most of these years a productive
Holstein named "Blossom,"--travelled back and forth each year from
the farm to Lehigh on the trailer with high sideboards. Milking "Blossom"
was a regular afternoon chore for Jim, and then for Bill Jr. Meta
strained the milk to remove impurities and skimmed off cream as needed.
This system would not have met modern dairy inspection standards,
but the nutritious milk surely helped the family health more than
it hurt it.
Most of the field work for growing and harvesting wheat could be
done during the three summer months. But the wheat needed to be planted
in September, after school had begun. Much depended on the weather.
The summer and fall of 1950, the first year in Lehigh, was exceptionally
cool and rainy. Bill wasn't even able to complete plowing all the
bottom land before school, much less get it properly prepared for
seeding. During the summers as well as during the school years, the
family kept the road between Elyria and Lehigh well travelled. In
summertime Bill drove back to Lehigh once a week to pick up mail,
check the house, and take care of school business.
The family enjoyed brief summer trips--to the Ozarks in Missouri,
or to see the Cardinals play baseball in St. Louis. The most ambitious
journey was in the summer of 1955 to California. The family of seven
packed themselves in the family car and traveled west on the famous
Route 66, stopped at the Mennonite Hopi Indian mission station in
Oraibi, Arizona, saw the Grand Canyon in the early morning, and were
shown the sights of Los Angeles by Meta's brother and sister-in-law,
Phil and Dolores Goering. From Los Angeles they went north into the
rich fruit-growing valley and the town of Reedley where Mennonite
friends lived. On the way back home they stopped at Logan, Utah, where
they visited Meta's cousin, Melva, and her husband Herman Wiebe. Bill
was especially fascinated with the Mormon system of irrigation. The
kids gorged themselves on Bing cherries.
Stair-step children in front of the farm house, summer 1953:
Jim, Janet, Bill Jr., Sharon, Ruth.
In the fall of 1956 Jim enrolled at Bethel College in North Newton-twenty
miles north on state highway #15. All the Juhnke children followed
him at Bethel, in the footsteps of nearly all of their aunts and uncles.
Jim took with him the old Royal typewriter that his father had used
when he had attended Bethel College. With Jim at college, the family
made more trips to North Newton for sports events, for Memorial Hall
Series music performances, and to deliver Jim's laundry. (His resolve
to do his own laundry at college lasted about two months.)
After two years at Bethel College, Jim joined the Mennonite Central
Committee "Pax" program in Germany. As "Paxmen," working with refugee
resettlement and postwar reconstruction, young Mennonite volunteers
fulfilled their required Selective Service military obligation for
two years of alternative work. Bill and Meta sent a monthly check
to Mennonite Central Committee to help pay for the costs of the program.
Nearly every week they also sent a letter to Jim in Frankfurt, Germany,
where he worked as a secretary in the MCC Pax Europe office. Those
letters, usually written on Sunday afternoons, provided more complete
documentation of Juhnke family life than is available for any other
two-year period. In those two years, 1958 to 1960, Janet was a high
school junior and senior, Bill Jr. was an eighth grader and high school
freshman, Sharon was a fifth and sixth grader, and Ruth was in the
third and fourth grades. Candace Sue was born on July 20, 1959. It
was the ninth and tenth years for the Juhnke family to live in Lehigh.
The letters to Jim reveal that in the spring of 1959, Bill Juhnke's
ninth year at Lehigh, he considered leaving for another job. The future
of Lehigh High School had been put in jeopardy the previous summer
when an anti-school faction packed an official meeting and voted not
to open the school that year. That decision had been overturned in
a new vote mandated by the Kansas state board of education, but the
future of the school was not secure. Bill applied for a position as
principal at Inman High school in western McPherson County. General
Conference Mennonite Church officials at the bi-national conference
headquarters in Newton recruited him for the denominational office.
That job would have required him to move the family to Newton. When
Lehigh offered him a $700 raise for the 1959-60 school year, he decided
to stay there and to withdraw his application from Inman.
The family did well financially in the late 1950s. For four years
after 1956, the wheat yield was around thirty bushels per acre, and
the wheat price was reasonably good. Bill bought a new John Deere
tractor and wrote to Jim in Germany (September 7, 1959), "You should
see the way the new tractor runs from field to field and the lifted
springtooth on three point hook-up works. No more loading it on the
implement trailer. Jr. turns corner real sharp with the power-steering
and lift mechanism and drops down again." After the 1959 wheat harvest
Bill bought a new Chevrolet Fleetside ½ ton red and white pickup that
kept going for twenty-five years until his granddaughter Joanne used
it to drive to and from Newton High School in 1984-85. For the house
Bill and Meta bought a new Baldwin Acrosonic piano for $706, and kept
the old upright piano at the farm. They also bought a ninety-three
piece service-for-twelve imported Sango Japanese china set. Meta wrote,
"The girls and their mother are thrilled over it and think it is very
beautiful." The family talked about building a new house, but postponed
a decision in view of their uncertain future in Lehigh.
Church activities were important for the family. Bill was president
of the Western District Mennonite Men's organization. Janet was an
officer in the Lehigh Mennonite Church youth group. In his sophomore
year Bill Jr., like his siblings at that age, took the catechism class.
He was ambivalent about joining the church, but eventually chose to
be baptized that year. In Meta's judgment the Lehigh congregation
was well behind the Eden congregation in sophistication. She reported
to Jim, "On the Sunday when the lesson was 'Perils of Pride,' our
Sunday School teacher understood it as 'Pearls of Pride' and wondered
at the title. Such is the level of intelligence around here." Nevertheless,
Meta and the entire family contributed generously to the life of the
Lehigh Mennonite Church-choirs, youth group (Christian Endeavor),
Sunday School classes, and Women's Sewing Society.
Bill Juhnke teaching Sunday School in the front pews of the
Eden Mennonite Church. Ca. 1956-57.
Bill's father, Ernest Juhnke, died in the Moundridge hospital on
April 30, 1957, after a short illness. He was seventy-eight years
old. Bill, the oldest son, was the executor of the estate and the
person responsible for the welfare of his mother, Alvina, who had
already been in declining health. With no public retirement or nursing
home facilities available, Bill found nursing care for his mother
with a private family in Moundridge. He faithfully visited her once
a week, and collected money for her expenses from the rental of farm
land and from collections from Bill's siblings. That was a major task.
Bill wrote to Jim: "Believe me that estate problems are very difficult
as personal feelings give expression to 'favoritism' shown various
children. Christian ethics are severely tested. I understand that
Jesus had no land to give or to receive. He left no clear guidance
on the settlement of estates. Or have I missed some essentials down
the line somewhere?" Bill's mother, Alvina, died August 20, 1962,
the year after the Juhnke family had moved permanently from Lehigh
to the farm.
On June 3, 1958, Meta's father, Jonas Goering, died suddenly of a
heart attack. The estate sale of farm equipment and property was that
fall and Meta wrote, "It even has an emotional impact for me." Meta's
mother, Katie, was unable to take care of the farm and, for some months,
lived with one after another of her children. She eventually bought
a house on Rosewood Street in North Newton. She baked bread for local
folks, including her grandson and granddaughter-in-law, Jim and Anna
Juhnke, after they moved to North Newton in 1966.
As she reported in her letters to Jim, Janet eagerly looked forward
to her sixteenth birthday on November 26, 1958. That was when she
would be able legally to drive the car. The next month she wrote,
"I get the car every once in a while and with a load of girls drag
down to Hillsboro. We have a wild time, within the limits of straight
thinking people." Janet, of course, already had learned how to drive
a farm tractor. In July, 1958 her father wrote: "Well, it was quite
a sight how Janet drove the Allis and I stood on the plow with a stick
poking straw thru, on the south field. She stopped short once and
I flew against the outside wheel but got no bruises." Janet was elected
cheerleader at the high school that year, served as secretary of the
4-H club, and began directing the junior choir at the Lehigh church.
She was kept busy as a member of the debate squad, a role in the junior
class play, and the Y-teen organization (including a conference in
Cottonwood Falls). For Christmas break in 1958, she made a list of
things to do, including "write a book, compose a song, make a dress,
and read a good book besides my studies." She enjoyed her Lehigh friends
more than her age-mates at the farm, who were "snobby." Her best friend
near Elyria was Joanne Zerger, who attended McPherson high school,
and whose family, like the Juhnkes, lived on their farm for just the
three summer months.
Bill Jr. in the fall of 1958 was an eighth grade star on the Lehigh
softball team. He reported to Jim that in one game he hit a triple
with the bases loaded, and in the next game a home run with bases
loaded. He summarized his attributes: "I am at the height of 5 ft.
6 ½ in. and weigh 115 lbs. Making poor grades, really not too bad,
and have not a one girlfriend. I am not lying. . . . Your Pal & Buddy,
Junior Juhnke." Actually, Bill Jr. was the valedictorian of his class
that year. The following year, as a high school freshman, he played
center field on a softball team that was undefeated in league play.
By his sophomore year, he was one of the top players on a very successful
Lehigh basketball team.
Sharon, ten years old in 1958, wrote to Jim: "The population of Lehigh
is 186 not counting Stowells they have 16 in there family they had
another girl lately that makes a dozen girls and 4 boys. There isn't
a single Stowell in my grade at school. . . . I like horse stories
better than dog stories." In April 1959 Sharon sent a letter to Jim
painstakingly written in German script. She provided a German-English
alphabet so the words could be deciphered, but all the letters in
the text were written in the old fashioned German script. It began,
"Dear Jim, How are you feeling?" In another letter she experimented
with a code signature with numbers for letters.
Ruth, eight years old, also experimented with her writing. She reported
that in school she was learning about paragraphs, so she wrote a half-page
letter with six paragraphs. In another letter she wrote, "Dear Jim.
Did you have a nice time in Austria? Have they been haveing any wars?
I hope you haven't. I do wish you would come home. Have you been shaving?
I hope so. Do you drink beer? You better not have." Later Ruth wrote
about a shopping trip, "Sharon got a very pretty purse. I got a hat.
I guess you'd call it that." Then in another letter: "I need a billfold
fierce bad but I don't have any money so I can't buy one."
Candace Sue Juhnke, "a healthy blond," was born on August 20, 1959.
Soon after coming home from the hospital Meta wrote, "About Candy
Sue--she is a sweet, cute baby. People say she looks like she belongs
in our family. Junior voluntarily held her quite a number of times
& Sharon doesn't want me to let her cry at all. Walt Juhnkes, Elmer
Goerings, Dan H. Schrags, & Preheims visited us yesterday." On Candy's
first time in church, her father reported that Meta had taken her
for the sermon, but "like a little pagan she slept thru it all." Bill
also wrote that "the way she smiles to her old man convinces me very
definitely that she in all her youth has an intrinsic understanding
of greatness."
In the Lehigh house, November 22, 1959.
Back: Ruth, Bill Jr., Janet, Sharon.
Front: Meta (holding Candace), Bill Sr.
As Bill Juhnke matured into middle-aged family and professional responsibilities,
his earlier crusading pacifist progressivism lost some of its edge.
Perhaps the more politically placid years under the presidential leadership
of Dwight Eisenhower had something to do with this change. Bill did
complain when he, along with other school administrators, was required
to sign a loyalty oath certifying that he had never been a member
of the Communist Party or other subversive organization. But he signed.
He remained a progressive internationalist, critical of narrow nationalism.
At a Sunday School meeting in the Johannestal Mennonite Church in
Marion County, Bill spoke on "Christian World Citizenship." He said
that Mennonite international missions and relief programs were fostering
an "awakening" of world citizenship. The alternative direction of
nationalism would be "fatal,"--that is, "to make the Sunday School
as well as the secular school subservient to the state." In 1959 Bill
joined others in protesting government plans to build a Nike missile
base in Marion County "near John Winter's farm." That popular protest
actually succeeded. The military officials decided instead to build
the base in Saline County. There is no record or memory of how Bill
and Meta voted in the presidential elections of 1952 and 1956. But
when Jim went to college in the fall of 1956 and had to declare a
preference in his government class, he assumed he and his family were
Republicans who would favor Eisenhower. In 1960 Bill and Meta voted
for the Democrat, John F. Kennedy rather than the Republican, Richard
M. Nixon.
Although the student enrollments remained low at Lehigh, the rural
school district was wealthy enough to do a major remodeling of the
school building in 1952, and to build a new facility in 1957. One
of the school opponents sent to Bill and at least one school board
member an anonymous letter comparing him to Hitler and Mussolini,
along with a picture of a tombstone that could well be interpreted
as a death threat. In the fall of 1960, in the face of state action
to consolidate small schools out of existence, Bill wrote letters
and sent literature to government officials making the case for small
high schools. In his government class, he had students write letters
about the issue to John Anderson, the Republican attorney general
who was running for governor. Most of the students agreed with their
teacher, but it was clear that Bill also gave them freedom to disagree.
Dennis Bartel, a member of the senior class, wrote, "I am attending
a small high school with an enrollment of only 41 students this year.
. . . While there are some advantages in going to a small school,
I feel there are many more disadvantages."
Bill Juhnke, principal, in office of the new high school building
in Lehigh, 1958.
Janet Juhnke, who had had opportunity to compare her high school
experience with that of her friend Joanne Janzen at McPherson High
School, clearly agreed with Dennis Bartel. Janet knew that Joanne
was learning much more in science, foreign languages, English, and
violin. In a letter to Jim in Germany, Janet wrote, "Joanne was in
an accelerated (English) class and they just ate the stuff up. Me--I
spend 12 weeks my junior year on capitalization and punctuation and
Miss Rempel didn't make us write anything except three book
reports. We didn't get ½ through our literature book. . . . That's
the way it was in all classes except Daddy's. Especially disgusting
was the music program but I'd rather not talk about Miss Johnson."
An opportunity for government assistance to improve farm operations
came with a federal program for conservation in the 1950s. Bill Jr.,
who had learned about conservation practices in 4-H, encouraged his
father. In 1958 Bill signed up to join the McPherson Soil Conservation
program, and in 1961 he signed an agreement for improvement of his
farming practices. The Soil Conservation agency surveyed the land
and provided maps indicating soil types and prescribed locations for
terraces and waterways. Over the next seven years, with some federal
subsidies, Bill completed the plan for terracing, contour farming,
and waterway development on his farm land.
Aerial photo of Juhnke farm, 1950s, looking southwest to the "Juhnke
Grove."
In the fall of 1961 Bill Juhnke decided to leave Lehigh and to take
a new job as admissions counselor and debate coach at Bethel College.
The new job included responsibilities for "general public relations."
The college agreed that he could live at the farm by Elyria and commute
to the job in North Newton. The Juhnke family's transition back to
full-time life on the farm was not difficult. Meta wrote to her siblings,
"We're back on our wonderful farm. We know it's grand because every
year we eagerly waited for summer so we could come here." She admitted
that the daily schedule at the farm was in some ways more strenuous:
"We get up about an hour earlier than we did in Lehigh. Then we dress
in everyday clothes and go out to chore. Luckily the cows are here
and the usual aroma greets us in the barn. We put out feed and milk
our three cows-not by hand but with a milking unit carried out there
from the milk house with water to wash it. Then we separate [the milk
into cream and skim milk] and feed calves. Junior or Daddy checks
the pigs' self feeder and replenishes same. Someone carries water
and oats to our 48 pullets and Mom hurries in to get breakfast ready.
. . . "
The Juhnke family had many fond memories of the Lehigh community
and the eleven school years they spent there. The high school was
closed in 1966. In May of 1968, Bill Juhnke was invited back to Lehigh
to be the speaker at an alumni banquet. His conclusion suggested his
emotional identification with the place and people where he had invested
the best years of his professional career: "In the spring of 1961
when I left, you made me an honorary alumnus of Lehigh High School.
I want to continue to identify with you as long as there is within
me breath as a . . . a Lehigh soul brother."
But from 1961 forward the Juhnke family was back at their rural home
base in southern McPherson county. The farm a mile east and a quarter
south of Elyria would always be their first home.
|