Runaway Bride

by Betty Jane Wilson, society president

Love conquers all or as reported in the Kansas New Era, Dec. 11, 1873, “Love Under Difficulties” or “Love Laughs at Locks and Keys!”

Editor S. Weaver told the story (with this writer’s omission of some adjectives descriptive of the characters)

“Considerable stir was created in our city by the daughter of Mrs. Easter, one of our colored washer-women, running away from home to get married..

“Harriet Easter, who has been for a long time engaged to the son of ‘old John Anderson’ of our city. The young man left this country about a year ago and went to Fort Hays where he was earning good wages, but felt sad and lonely without his lovely charmer.

“Twice he wrote to her to come to him and each time sent money to pay her fare but each time her mother took possession of the money and forbade her daughter going. At last, the young man applied to an Army officer at the fort, a son of one of our citizens, for council.

“The officer sent money to pay the girl’s fare from here to Fort Hays, to his father with instructions how to proceed.

“The girl was informed that the money was here, but such was her dread of her mother’s wrath that she dared not make a start without somebody to protect her . . . She applied to Squire Clark, and claimed to be over 21 years old. The justice told her she was of age and could go where she pleased, but beyond sending a constable with her to the train, he could do nothing for her.

“The girl went home and was packing her extra clothes when she heard the whistle of the train at the depot and immediately started on a dead run down Broadway. The gentleman who had her money and Constable Boles saw her pass like a flash, and they followed her in hot haste. As they neared the depot, the train was pulling out at the rate of ten miles per hour, but the girl, by cutting across corners met the passing train and was jerked aboard by Conductor Sheperd.

“The money was thrown in after her, and we presume by this time she is the happy wife of young Anderson.

“A short time after the girl’s escape, the old woman came down town in eager search for the lost one, and when informed of her flight, her fury knew no bounds.

“After spending about an hour in heaping maledictions on the heads of all she thought concerned in it, she went home still breathing vengeance and swearing she would fill with buckshot the man who gave the girl the money.”

A knotty story

by Frank Shrimplin and Betty Jane Wilson

An intense interest in things nautical, specifically knot tying, proved not for naught for an ambitious young seaman volunteer in 1942.

The 19-year-old Merchant Marine graduate was assigned to convoys going to North Africa. The long tedious journey afforded the sailor time to study from books he purchased and learn to make knots.

The results of his skill and handiwork he mounted on a 30-by-40-inch nautical board roughly 100 examples of types of knots tagged with their identification.

Simple names, such as square knot, granny’s, shoelace knot, and catspaw may be found along side a curiously labeled “four strand inverted turk’s head.”

A frame work 4 inches or more in depth enclosing the knot collection is a unique work of art employing slender strands of ship’s rope or hemp threaded or knotted tightly together occasionally embellished by thickly woven replicas of types of knots.

The enterprising sailor responsible for the nautical board master piece was Howard Irvin Shrimplin, an Oskalooa farm boy who volunteered for military service soon after the Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor disaster.

One of the four nautical boards he made is on permanent display at the Valley Falls Historical Society Museum. Sharing honors with the three others given to museums in Haifa, Israel, South Africa, and the Maritime Museum, Newport News, Va.

Biographical and historic facts for this “knotty” story were provided by Frank Shrimplin, brother of the seaman and society historian.

Roz Jackson and Betty Jane Wilson will be museum hosts from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5.