More Memories from the Life of Nicholas L. Clark, Sr.

There are many memories from 1951, but none are clearer than those surrounding the disastrous 1951 flood, which occurred during the month of July.

The record-breaking flood occurred throughout Nebraska, northern Kansas, Iowa and Missouri    I read in the Maple Hill News reports in the Alma Signal Enterprise that over 60" of rain fell from March through June at the Tod Ranch south of Maple Hill. There were no flood control projects or dams built on any of the major rivers at that time, so there was no way to hold or store flood waters. Of course, that all changed after 1951.  Today it would be impossible for such a flood to occur unless one of the dams broke on a major Kansas River.

I have a very clear memory of how we first experienced the flood. It had rained all weekend Monday dawned clear and beautiful. Our family lived in a small rental house in the north end of Maple Hill, next door to Aunt Bonnie (Thomas) and Uncle Charlie Mitchell. My mother went over and suggested to Aunt Bonnie that we all drive to Grandmother Mildred Corbin's to wash. So we loaded laundry in the car and drove to Grandmother Corbins.

It took a while for my brother Gary and I, helped by my mother, to carry wash water from the well in our wagon. We had to fill the Maytag as well as two rinse tubs with water. That could take as many as ten trips to the well, which was 100 yards away. Then we had to put an electric heater in the Maytag wash tub to heat the water. I suppose it may have been 10am before that was done. We had the white clothes in the washer when the phone on the wall of Grandmother Corbin's kitchen began to ring short continuous rings. That was a signal to all on the party line that there was emanate danger of some kind. Grandmother rushed to the phone and was silent as my other Grandmother, Mable R. (Jones) Clark relayed information from the Central Office: "Leave your homes immediately and flee to higher ground. A 10' wall of water is coming from McFarland towards Paxico and Maple Hill."

Grandmother looked shocked as she turned to us and said, "We must leave now. Don't take anything just get in the car. We have to go to town NOW!" I remember Gary and I started to cry as the women picked us up and headed for Aunt Bonnie's four-door Plymouth sedan. My mother, Lucille (Corbin) Clark drove and Grandmother Corbin got in the passenger seat. Gary and I sat on their side of Aunt Bonnie Mitchell in the back seat. As mother was starting the car, Grandmother Corbin told us what Grandmother Clark had said on the phone. Mother started the car, put it in gear and threw gravel behind the tires as we turned right out the circle drive of the farm and headed towards Maple Hill.

This is a 1951 photo of the Kansas River flooding both sides of east Topeka. My maternal great grandmother, Lucy Mae (Lemon) McCauley-Banta-Strong's home was flooded on Paramore Street in the area known as Oakland. Although nearly 80, she refused to leave her home. The water eventually reached a depth of 3' in the second story of her home but she stayed put. Later, we found that she had lots of cash hidden in baking powder cans about the house. She didn't trust banks and always kept a lot of cash in her home. She died four years later, and I remember Grandmother and Grandfather Corbin carefully going through cabinets, looking under carpets, and pulling mattresses apart. They always doubted they found much of what was there.
It was about a quarter mile from the Corbin house to the first left turn in the road. There were three houses there, those of Don McClelland and Hattie (McClelland) Wilson, the Young Family and the Paul McClelland Family. As she turned the corner, mother looked into the rear view mirror and said, "Oh my God, the water is coming behind us."

We all turned to look behind the car and sure enough, there was a little wall of water coming fast right behind us. Mother literally floor boarded the accelerator because for the next quarter mile we would be running parallel to the on-coming water. If we could make it one-quarter of a mile and cross a small bridge crossing a slough, we'd be safe. The road into Maple Hill made a sharp rise after the slough bridge.

Luckily, the Corbin Farm sat on the brink of a high ridge. The Mill Creek bottom was a good 10' below the Corbin farmhouse. Therefore, the full force of the wall of water greatly diminished as it approached. What was coming towards us was probably not more than 12" high if that but it certainly looked ominous.

The water reached the road and began to go under the car just as we reached the bridge of the slough and safety. Mother continued to drive to the top of the little hill and then stopped the car. We got out and looked behind us and could see nothing but water across the entire Mill Creek valley to the south. We had beat the flood waters and we were safe, but what was to come was one of the worst flood disasters in Kansas History.

There were 41 students in Maple Hill High School when I started in 1959. My 1962 graduating class of 10 (five girls and five boys) will celebrate our 50th Reunion in June of this year. I'm hopeful all of us will be there and each of us has remarkable achievements in our own fields of endeavor. In high school I had the basics, English, math, chemistry, literature, history, government, biology, and we also had electives. I took two years of Latin and two years of Spanish and I also took three years of typing and then shorthand in my senior year. I was always glad I had taken the classes because I could take almost word-for-word notes in college classes. I also played in our 30-piece band and sang in our choir. We fielded a six-man football team and had basketball and track teams.

This is a photograph taken in 1938, showing the Maple Hill High School Football six-man team plus a substitute, on the playing field.   The football field was located where the baseball diamond currently is in Maple Hill City Park.   My father, John Leander "Tim" Clark is the second from the right end.  In the background are the Beaubian Hotel (which was then occupied by the Hedges Family) and the Rock Island Depot.  If anyone knows who the other players are, please leave me a note in the "Comment" sectoin at the bottom.

The Kansas capital, Topeka, was just 25 miles away and during my growing up years, for the first time, Maple Hill began to transition from a rural, remote farming village into a bedroom community. The younger generation no longer worked on area farms, but left the farm and went to the city for their livelihood. I was the first person in my family to attend college and graduate. My brother Gary Wayne Clark graduated from Emporia State College. We both worked our ways through college, and our first jobs in high school were as hands for area farmers, but our "real" first jobs were in Topeka. Our grandparents and parents were always there urging us on and doing what they could to help. My mother, Lucille (Corbin) Clark, worked six to eight hours Monday through Saturday at the Oberhelman Egg Plant in north Maple Hill, washing and candling eggs, and Mom sent almost every cent she made to Gary and I to help us stay in school.

My first experience with college was a failure. I had received a "one" rating at the area music festival and advanced on to the state festival in Emporia, Kansas. Ruth Raine drove me there to participate and her daughter Ruth Ann Raine (Rogers) was my accompanist. I sang Handel's "Where Er You Walk." One of the judges at state contest was Dr. Morris Hayes, director of the Kansas State University Varsity Men's Glee Club. I did well and again received a "one" rating. Dr. Hayes approached me after the contest and asked if I would like to attended Kansas State and participate in the Men's Glee Club as well as the Select Choir. He offered me a tuition scholarship and I accepted. I was 17-years-old and pretty immature.

I started to K-State in the fall of 1962 and lived with Dr. and Mrs. McIntosh. Dr. McIntosh was a member of the Ag faculty at Kansas State and his wife Connie was a charming red haired Scotch lady. They had a beautiful home and they welcomed me to it. I had gotten to know them through Miss Blanche McLeod, a teacher at Maple Hill High School. Miss McLeod had gotten me involved in the St. Andrews Society Band and Choir at Manhattan, Kansas and Dr. and Mrs. McIntosh were members.

I definitely was not ready to be a college student. I was 17, terribly homesick, loved all of the music classes and activities but HATED having to participate in ROTC as well as having to take swimming lessons. The old Nichols Gymnasium at K-State was not heated and you could literally have ice cycles freeze in your hair after class. I was assigned to a class of mostly Eastern Indian students who hated the water and would cling to the rest of us rather than put their heads under water. Then in late November, one of my favorite people, Uncle Charlie Mitchell suffered a stroke and was hospitalized. I knew a fellow that was driving back and forth from Maple Hill to Manhattan every day and I called him and asked for a ride home. I believe Uncle Charlie was in the hospital for about a week before he passed away but it was several more days until his funeral. I felt Aunt Bonnie Mitchell needed me and she welcomed my presence through the whole illness and funeral. However, I missed nearly two weeks of classes and although I returned to K-State, I was never able to catch up. After flunking out, I returned home where my mother was able to contact friends at Southwestern Bell Telephone and get a job for me.

The Old Nichols Gymnasium at Kansas State University, often called "The Castle" where I took swimming lessons.

Although I always regretting failing at Kansas State (and I'm leaving a bequest in my will to repay the scholarship) it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me because I was able to work and mature. I very much liked my work at Southwestern Bell in Topeka and my boss asked me one day if I'd like to apply for a pay telephone coin collector's job that was open in Emporia. I accepted that opportunity and moved to Emporia, where I shared an apartment with four students from Marysville, Kansas They were all great guys: Steve Boyda, Gene Houtz, and Butch Ackerman. We had great times in Emporia and I often went home with them for weekends.

There was one thing that used to bother me. Butch Ackerman caught rattlesnakes in the stones of the local lake dam in the evening. He would bring them back to the apartment and put them in a glass aquarium until morning. If I remember correctly, the science lab paid him $25 each for the snakes and he loved catching them. However the rest of us didn't like listening to them rattle all night. I was glad I was sleeping on the top bunk. Each morning I would carefully look all over the floor before I'd get down and dress. No snakes ever escaped the aquarium.

Southwestern Bell was an upwardly mobile culture, and after working our of Emporia for about 18 months, I was offered a job in Texas. I still had no intention of leaving Maple Hill, the bonds were just too tight. I quit my job, which at the time was probably a terrible mistake, but in the long term, it was the best thing that could have happened.

I returned home and looked through the job ads in the Topeka Daily Capital and noticed a counter sales position at Whelan's Lumber Company in east Topeka. I made an appointment and went for an interview with Wayne Whelan, the president. I had a resume and he asked some questions, but at the end of the interview he said, "Do you know Raymond Adams, Sr. at Maple Hill?" I said I knew him and had started to school with his daughter Ann. He said, "Do you think he would recommend you for this job?" I said, "I think so, my dad worked for his brother." He said, "You'll do and you can start tomorrow." Sometimes it isn't what you know but who you know that gets the job. I worked at Whelans from 1965 to 1972, at first full-time and then part-time after beginning at Washburn University. By the time I decided to go back to college in 1968, I had matured considerably and ready to settle into my studies and work part-time jobs to pay my way through.

White Concert Hall was opened in 1968 and thankfully suffered little damage in the disastrous tornado which destroyed many campus buildings on June 8.  This is where all of my music classes were held and where the choirs performed.   I performed in a senior voice recital here in 1971.
I was fortunate to have a good tenor voice and got a music scholarship to Washburn University of Topeka, after singing for Dr. Floyd Hedberg, chair of the choral music department. Dr. Gordon Gaines became my vocal coach and instructor. Gordon was a graduate of the Julliard School of Music and Columbia University and had performed in 40 lead roles on Broadway and in opera.

The interior of White Concert Hall, Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas.

He had a big baritone voice and a jovial personality. He was a very good teacher and I excelled under his tutelage. Dr. Gaines called me one day and asked if I would like to sing for funeral services at Penwell Gable Funeral Home and Parker Funeral Home in Topeka. I had sung for lots of funerals at Maple Hill Community Congregational Church and the morbidity of the job didn't really repel me. I received $10 for each service and usually had one or two services six days each week which gave me a very good income for that time. In addition, I worked at the new Whelan's Home Center in Fairlawn Shopping Center in the afternoons and evenings after school as a counter clerk. On Sunday, I sang as a paid soloist at First Presbyterian Church in Topeka, another job Dr. Gaines helped me get. In addition to all that, I was able to carry 12 to 16 hours of college work and have a very full and fun social life. I knew my parents couldn't afford to send me to college, but I also knew that I had to have a college education to complete the goals I had set for my life. Washburn University only had 1,800 students when I went there, but it provided an excellent education that has served me well all these years. Bigger isn't always better.

This is the way First Presbyterian Church in Topeka, Kansas looked when I was tenor soloist.   It has since been greatly enlarged.   It sits directly across the street west of the Kansas State Capital building.

I will never have any regrets about being born and raised in the rural environment of a small Kansas farming community surrounded and nurtured by three generations of my family. What we need to know, isn't always learned in school it is absorbed by osmosis from grandparents, parents, friends, teachers, preachers and others who inhabited the little community of 400 where I grew up: Maple Hill, Kansas.

I have sung many tenor solos from the chancel of this sanctuary at First Presbyterian Church, with Richard Gayhart at the console of the 80-rank Mooler tracker organ, the largest in Kansas.  Richard was organist from 1947 to 1994 and also directed the choir for several periods during that time.   I have many wonderful memories of  the music and choir programs and personalities from 1969-1971.


I believe I will stop there and continue in another blog. Happy Trails!