"GHOST WRITING" AGAIN

"GHOST WRITING" takes another turn. At the University of Kansas a high ranking senior who confessed that he wrote theses for some of his less industrious fellow students at so much per copy has been denied the coveted Phi Beta Kappa key which otherwise might have been his on the basis of his own attainments. His offense, though he declared in a magazine article that it was common in all the colleges, was regarded by the faculty as almost on a par with cheating during examinations.

The lazy student has found in the "ghost writer" a convenient means of enabling him to escape work. Assigned a certain amount of reading to do, with a written report to be submitted at the end of it, he has in many instances hired a substitute to do the reading and writing for him while he has that much more time for idleness. The Kansas "ghost writer" says he guaranteed a mark of "B" on any paper he furnished, or no pay. While he says his rates were low and he worked only in his spare time, he made about $200 during a school year, but "ghost writers" in some of the big eastern schools, he says, make as high as $6000 a year.

The practice is not altogether admirable, but the man who does the ghost writing appears in no worse light than he who does the hiring and thus cheats both his school and himself. And if it is an offense in the educational system, and such it is, have not the students had placed before them the widespread practice of ghost writing that prevails at Washington?

In that city of politics and politicians it flourishes from presidential circles down. There, numerous clever writers, able to coin catchy phrases and dress up dull subjects in captivating language, for the pay that is in it, write speeches, magazine articles and newspaper interviews for political superiors who calmly palm them off for their own. There is one difference, however. They are not paid by those who appreciate their talents but out of the public treasury. Perhaps that sanctifies their work.
(Reno Evening Gazette ~ May 31, 1938 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

THE GROVER CEMETERY: VIOLATION OF SACRED TRUST

For centuries, cemeteries have been considered, legally and morally, as specially protected. According to an Albany Law Review article, early Greeks "carefully guarded the private rights of individuals in their places of interment."

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo, while serving as a judge on the New York Court of Appeals, once ruled that "the dead are to rest where they have been laid unless reason of substance is brought forward for disturbing their repose."

Historically, laws have been passed to protect burial plots, and Kansas state codes have at least four different articles relating to the formation, care and preservation of cemeteries.

But for private cemeteries, especially for those lacking visible signs of use as a cemetery, the law is less clear, according to the state attorney general's office. The Grover Cemetery in Lawrence is a case in point.

According to historical records, Joel Grover, one of Lawrence's founding fathers, and his wife, Emily, were buried in a family cemetery on a parcel that is now the southeast corner of 23rd Street and Lawrence Avenue.

A residential subdivision, Springwood Heights, is being developed on the site of what some local residents say was the Grover family cemetery. But because no visible signs of a cemetery exist today, and the plot was not recorded in the land's deed, the cemetery, if it exists, may not be protected legally.

Glenn Kappelman, president of Parkside Investors, the group developing Springwood Heights, said he was aware of the stories about the Grover cemetery, but he said there was no written or physical evidence of the burial plot.

"We just don't have any written or scientific evidence," Kappelman said. "It's all been hearsay. I wish we could get it resolved."

Pending some development, however, he said the lots on which the cemetery may be located will be sold as planned.

Kappelman, who is active in the historical society, said he regretted the uncertainty surrounding the Grover cemetery. He said he had tried, before development of the land began, to determine whether the cemetery existed but to no avail.

He said he often wondered about pioneers who were buried in unmarked grave, and he said he thought it was unfortunate that a part of history would be lost to future generations.

According to records compiled by the Douglas County Historical Society, Joel Grover came to Lawrence in 1854 and served as the city's first marshal. Grover settled his family on a large tract on what is now the southeast corner of 23rd Street and Lawrence Avenue.

Grover played an active role in early Lawrence history, the records show. He was a colonel in the Free State forces, was elected a state representative in the late 1860's, and served as county commissioner in 1870.

When Joel Grover died on July 28, 1879, the Lawrence Daily Journal said, "He was a man of decided opinions, and had no patience with men who were more easily swayed . . . according to Mr. Grover's wishes, he was buried upon the farm, a short distance south of the house."

Joel's wife, Emily, died on December 14, 1921. Her obituary states that "burial will take place at the home where she has lived for 66 years."

The Grovers' sons, Ernest and Jay, who never married, lived on the family homestead until their deaths in 1953, and they were buried in Oak Hill Cemetery.

The Grover brothers' survivors, who had moved to California, sold the family homestead, and the land passed to various owners.

One sales agreement, executed on Sept. 6, 1961, specifically mentions a cemetery on the property.

"It is expressly understood and agreed that a small burial ground exists on the southwest portion of said real estate," the sales agreement reads, and the legal description of the property shows that the cemetery may be in the Springwood Heights development.

Merle Ward, Rt. 1, lived on a farm just to the west of the Grover brothers for several years before and after their deaths. The Ward family knew the Grover brothers well, and they remember the Grover cemetery.

Recently, Ward returned to the old Grover place. On a knoll south of where the house once stood (it has been razed), stand several tall evergreen trees, and Ward identified the area, now lots 6 and 7 in Springwood Heights, as the site of the cemetery.

But Kappelman said he had heard stories that the remains had been removed from the Grover homestead. And Arvella Frazier, daughter of the late Bernard (Poco) Frazier, a nationally known sculptor who owned the land for 13 years, said she remembered some "holes" near the evergreen trees.

"When we moved in, there were big holes in the ground surrounded by tall evergreens," she said. "We speculated that it might have been a cemetery because they used to mark them with evergreens. We thought the graves might have been moved. But we sure didn't know. It was sort of a guess."

Although all of the property owners prior to the Fraziers remembered that a cemetery might have been on the property, and some remember the specific site, none can recall the removal of the remains.

A check of burial data at Oak Hill Cemetery, where the Grover brothers are buried, and at Memorial Park Cemetery shows no record of Joel and Emily Grover.

But even if the graves still remain on the old homestead site, the laws on preservation of cemeteries such as the Grover plot are cloudy, according to Michael Kracht, assistant attorney general.

Kracht said that although case law indicated that the mere burial of bodies in a given plot has constituted dedication of the plot as a cemetery, the Grover case "is a question of fact for a court to decide."

A state statute passed in 1979 requires cities or counties to prevent the use of a cemetery for "any purpose other than for burial," and Kracht said the law included those cemeteries where no physical evidence existed.

However, the law also states that cities must have "established, acquired or otherwise assumed control" of the cemetery. In addition, Kracht said, there must be proof, such as dedication in a property deed, that bodies are buried there.
(Lawrence Journal World ~ March 30, 1980 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

UNTOLD TALES STILL ETCHED IN STONES

Untold stories lie buried among the bones at the old graveyards scattered through rural Douglas County.

The stories unfold slowly in the imagination of the visitor who walks among the marble and granite tombstones of the silent cemeteries.

Echoes of Kansas' past can be heard in the familiar names, the names of people living today where their ancestors stopped on their way West in the last century.

The Stull Cemetery nine miles west of Lawrence is the final resting place for Isaac, Aaron and numerous other Stulls. Clusters of graves belong to the forebears of the Wulfkuhles, the Walters, the Bahnmalers and other living Kanwaka Township families.

Were the pioneer families as devout in life as they were in death? The most common epitaph is religious: "Blessed are they who die in the Lord" reads the grave marker of Meredith S. Hendricks, 1857-1902.

How brutal was life on the edge of America's civilization? Children's tombstones usually are small and simple, stating only the name of the child and the years of birth and death. But the marker above the grave of two-year-old Juanita May, 1915-1917, is a notable exception. The small white stone, carved in the shape of a heart, bears the inscription "Our Darling."

How was death greeted? The stone bearing the name of Addie Richardson, 1875-1907, says she has "Gone from a home of love to her heavenly home above."

A poem is inscribed on the tombstone of Rose Anna Scheer, 1846-1895:

"Peaceful be your silent slumber
Peaceful be your grave so low
You no more will join our number
You no more our sorrows know."

Sometimes the natural deterioration that comes with age has a way of twisting tombstone messages.

On the curve-topped tombstone of Louisa Scouten, who was buried in 1866 in the Mound View Cemetery just west of Clinton Lake, a hand with an extended index finger pointing heavenward was sculpted at the top of the grave marker with the words "There is rest" carved in the white stone. But the tombstone has toppled, and the hand now points due east, toward Lawrence.
(Lawrence Journal World ~ March 30, 1980 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

DOUGLAS COUNTY CEMETERIES: REST IN PEACE

While the dead in Douglas County rest in peace, the living continue to care for their graves, even in rural areas where the gravesites may be tiny and remote.

According to county records, more than three dozen cemeteries, several more than 100 years old, are dotted across rural Douglas County.

Who keeps the old graveyards from becoming choked with brush? Who keeps the roads leading to them cleared? Who pays for it? How do the little cemeteries endure?

Most of the rural cemeteries are small --- the largest is just smaller than 8 acres --- and many are filled with graves of the forebears of families living nearby.

The Stull Cemetery, for example, contains clusters of graves of the ancestors of the Stulls, the Wulfkuhles, the Walters and the Bahnmalers; descendants of all live in the area.

In some cases, the families of those buried in a cemetery take the chief responsibility for its maintenance.

"My great-grandfather, my grandfather and my father are all buried in the Vinland Cemetery," Woodrow Sturdy, president and sexton of the Vinland Cemetery Assn., said. "That's one reason I took on the job. To make sure it was maintained in good shape."

Or as George Deay, president of the Deay Cemetery Assn., said, "A man wouldn't want to bury his relatives or relatives he didn't know in a hog lot."

Records in the Douglas County tax appraiser's office show 37 rural cemeteries in the county.

Albert Gilpin, the auditor in the Kansas Secretary of State's office responsible for overseeing maintenance budgets of cemetery corporations, said most rural cemeteries in Kansas, and in Douglas County, fall into four categories:

--- Registered cemetery corporations that sell plots to the public, whether to make money or on a non-profit basis.

--- Cemeteries run by cemetery districts. These cemeteries tend to contain fewer than 10 acres and have very few burials a year. They receive a portion of the county's annual tax levy to pay for maintenance and improvements, but not more than 1 mill (a mill is $1 of tax for each $1,000 of assessed property value) can be levied for any one cemetery district.

--- Church and other religious cemeteries maintained by churches with plots available only to church members and their immediately families.

--- Private cemeteries maintained by volunteers. These are common in rural areas.

Maintenance standards for cemeteries in Kansas include mowed grass, sturdy fences and adequate entrances, Gilpin said.

Michael Kracht, state assistant attorney general, said that cemeteries that are not maintained properly may be designated as abandoned, and poorly administered cemeteries may be turned over to a trustee for liquidation.

Kracht is reviewing the Williams Cemetery, a one-acre graveyard in the Colyer cemetery district in southwestern Douglas County that is landlocked, which violates the standard for adequate access.

Ben Brohammer, secretary of the Colyer cemetery district, said, "The people living where the access is are not free enough to let anybody in that wants to." He said district officials are attempting to find a solution to the access problem."

Douglas County has seven cemetery districts, all based in the western half of the county, Darlene Hill, county budget director, said. Only residents living in the districts pay cemetery taxes, which ranged from .33 to .95 of a mill this past year (meaning the cemetery tax on a home with an assessed value of $10,00 ranged from $3.30 to 9.50 last year).

Budgets for the districts this year varied from $475 in the Twin Mound district to $3,700 in the Colyer district, Mrs. Hill said.

For many cemeteries not in districts, money for maintenance usually comes from donations from nearby residents or relatives of the people buried there. In some cases, people donate time to maintain the graveyards.

The Deay Cemetery, five miles southeast of Eudora, relies on volunteer labor and donations for maintenance, George Deay said.

The cemetery began in 1859 when his grandmother was buried there, he said. His grandfather and uncles took care of the half-acre graveyard before him, Deay said, and when they died, he took over the job.

"It's something that needs to be done, that's all," he said.

Some of the upkeep on individuals plots is done by relatives, he said.

"A lot of times, say, a man dies, and his wife, she'll come and rake the round and seed it down," Deay said.

Sturdy, who maintains the Stony Point and Vinland cemeteries, said volunteers did much of the upkeep of the two Palmyra Tonwship graveyards until a few years ago. Mowing and other jobs were handled partly by supporters who would join one day a year for a "cemetery day." But that stopped when "we got to the place where we have enough money to maintain them," he said.

Sturdy estimated maintenance costs about $400 a year for the Stony Point Cemetery and $600 a year for the Vinland Cemetery, both about three acres. A maintenance fund pays the bills, he said.

Most maintenance money goes to paying to have the grass mowed, cemetery officials unanimously agree.
(Lawrence Journal ~ March 30, 1980 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

GRAD STUDENT AT KU REPORTS ON SUICIDES IN HIGH SCHOOLS

Drugs and guns were involved in most suicides by Kansas high school students during the 1985-86 school year, according to a study by a Kansas University graduate student.

Of the 40 suicides documented during the study period, drug overdose figured in 18 cases and guns were involved in 13. Twenty-three of the victims were male.

"To our knowledge, this is the most comprehensive suicide research in Kansas. It provides a model that other states could use," said Richard Nelson, associate professor of counseling psychology.

The study was conducted by Laura Aylward of LaGrange, Ill., a graduate student in counseling psychology at KU. She mailed questionnaires to all 543 high school counselors in Kansas last November, and two-thirds of the counselor's responded.

The report said 984 teens considered suicide during the 1985-86 school year and 317 teenagers attempted suicide.

Nelson cautioned, however, that the number could be high because counselors "may not be aware of all the attempts or of students who are thinking about it." Studies have shown that only 30 percent of students will talk to counselors about suicide, he said.

Counselors questioned in the survey said family trouble was the greatest contributor to suicides and suicide attempts.

Nelson, who has consulted with many schools on suicide prevention, aid relatively few have guidelines for teachers in dealing with suicidal students. Adults are afraid to talk to teenagers about suicide, he said, because "the myth is you are going to plant the idea in somebody's head."
(Lawrence Journal World ~ June 5, 1987 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

BROUGHT BACK A CORPSE

Sad Fate Of A Kansas Bride Who Followed Her Officer Husband To Manila

SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., May 16---Capt. F. E. Buchan's return from the Philippines on the United States transport Valencia was a sad one. He brings with him the body of his wife, who succumbed to the climate in the Philippines. Mrs. Buchan had been a bride but a few months.

When the Kansas Regiment left home to fight in the Philippines, there was an understanding between Captain Buchan and his sweetheart, Miss Lucinda M. Smith, of Lawrence, Kan. Separation was more than the two could stand, so they determined to join their lot in the fortunes of war. They were married and the young bride followed her soldier-husband to San Francisco.

The officers were not permitted to take their wives on the transports and separation seemed inevitable.

But the Kansas girl, with the wife of another officer, became a stowaway on the Indiana, and although the government tried to prevent it, she journeyed as far as Honolulu before she was parted from her husband.

Although compelled to leave the transport, she followed Captain Buchan within a few days on the regular steamer and shared his lot up to the time of her death. Her body will be taken to Kansas for burial.
(Maryland Sun ~ May 17, 1899 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)
NOTE: Lucinda is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Lawrence, Kansas. ~~ Lori DeWinkler

ARIZONA GILA MONSTER FAMOUS

Animal Which Bit Noted Naturalist is Now a Pet In Kansas Household

Dr. Frank Snow, the celebrated entomologist who was here several weeks ago, still keeps the Gila monster which bit him, as a pet. The St. Louis Republic says of the reptile:

"There is nothing that Dr. Frank Snow brought back from his recent collecting expedition to Tucson and surrounding country, which he prizes more highly than the Gila monster which he captured shortly before his return to Lawrence, Kas., which gained him considerable notoriety by biting him on the thumb. The last five weeks, since the return of the expedition, the monster has spent in a cage in Doctor Snow's back yard, and seems to like its new Kansas home fully as well as its former habitat in the southern hills of Arizona. It has not been sick a single day of its captivity, and it takes its meals of raw eggs every three day as regular as clockwork.

"Gila, as Dr. Snow calls the creature for short, is a large lizard, being a little more than a foot long, and has a head nearly two inches wide. Its mouth is amazingly large, and is entirely out of proportion to the rest of its body. The body is yellow and dark brown, and at a short distance looks like Indian bead work.

"Hour after hour Gila will lie in its cage without moving, and appears as if it were dead, but stir it up with a stick or let it get angry and it will crawl around at a wonderfully fast pace. It is gentle and will never bite unless it is tormented or angry. Let it get angry and it will seize the end of a stick or anything thrust at it and hold on for dear life.

"To watch it eat is an interesting sight. In nature the Gila monster lives on bugs and insects, but thus far in captivity it appears to be thriving on raw eggs. After a little experimenting, Dr. Snow has found that every three days is the right time to feed the creature. When the time for feeding arrives, he grabs the lizard and lays it on a table or flat box. He then cracks an egg in a saucer and thrusts the creature's nose down in it, and the Gila does the rest. It stretches out its long tongue into the saucer and greedily laps up raw egg until it has a mouthful. Then it slowly raises its head to a vertical position and lets the egg run down its throat. After it has once started feeding, Gila needs no urging, but laps away greedily until its hunger is satisfied. The last time Doctor Snow fed the animal it finished two raw eggs.

"It would hardly be correct to call Gila a family pet, for all the members of Dr. Snow's family are afraid of it except Doctor Snow. As far as he is concerned, he handles it about fearlessly in spite of the fact that it has bitten him once. He took it in the house the other day, and being called out of the room, placed it in a waste paper basket for safe keeping, putting a soft pillow on top of the basket to keep it from escaping.

"Before Dr. Snow returned Gila had decided to explore a little, and crawling up the side of the basket, pushed off the sofa pillow and made its escape. Nothing more was seen of it for several hours when the family, not wanting a live Gila monster roaming about the house any longer, began a determined search for it, finally finding it snugly hid behind some book in the bookcase.

"The question of whether the Gila monster's bite is very serious or not is a much disputed one, but Dr. now believes it is not. 'The effects of a Gila monster bite have been much exaggerated,' he said, in discussing Gila monsters, and his own pet in particular. 'Of course, I have not had so much experience with them, but so far as I could judge I should not call it very dangerous. The one I have in my backyard planted six teeth securely in my thumb, and I suffered no ill effects from it other than from the mere pain of the bite. The prompt application of an antidote which I had on hand, however, may have had something to do with my escape from sickness. A ranchman near where I was bitten seemed much concerned over the accident, and told of several instances of people having to spend weeks in a hospital as a result of a Gila monster bite.' "
(Tucson Daily Citizen ~ September 19, 1906 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

HOMEMADE ROCKET EXPLODES, KILLS 3 LAWRENCE ENGINEERS

LAWRENCE, Kas., Dec. 5 --- A homemade rocket exploded this morning at a plant which manufactures missile fuel, killing three young engineers who helped build the device.

Four others were injured by the blast at the Callery Chemical Co. plant two miles northwest of here. Two of them, both engineers who worked on the rocket, were critically hurt.

Dead are Charles Sattes, 31; William Reynolds, 29; and Frank Wengrzyn, 24, all former Pennsylvanians who lived at Lawrence.

Injured were Richard Wright, 26; Elmer Boyd, 38, both engineers and two maintenance men, B. J. Leavitt and J. Longstreth, all of Lawrence. Leavitt and Longstreth were treated at a Lawrence hospital and released.

R. G. Schmidt, manager of the plant where Boron, a propellent for intercontinental ballistics missiles is made, said the rocket exploded in a waste disposal area. It caused no damage.

EXPERIMENTING

Schmidt said the engineers were experimenting with the rocket when it exploded about 1:45. He didn't know the nature of the experiment. The two maintenance men apparently weren't involved.

Schmidt said the engineers became intrigued some time ago with the idea of building a rocket. He emphasized that the project was their own and had no connection with company work.

Plant officials said Longstreth was from Baldwin, Kas., and Leavitt from Tonganoxie.

A GRIM LESSON

"This is a grim lesson for making of home-made rockets when five graduate chemical engineers have one blow up on them," Schmidt said. "They should have known they were playing with fire. After all, they were engineers."

Schmidt said the five had been permitted to pass through security gates without question because the nature of their work sometimes required 24-hour duty.

"This sort of activity is against all company regulations," he said.

The rocket assembly apparently consisted of a one-inch section of copper tubing about two feet long. The fuel used was believed to have been a mixture of waste chemicals and silver nitrate, an oxidizing agent. (Salina Journal ~ December 5, 1958 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

LAWRENCE POPULATION

Lawrence has a population of over 400—When the census was taken last fall by an order of the Governor, it was 375; of which 270 were males and 105 females. Of the population 334 were natives of the United States, and 41 in foreign lands. There were 83 farmers; 47 mechanics; 7 clergyman; 7 lawyers; 8 doctors; 4 editors; 7 merchants; 10 printers, &c. The largest number was from Massachusetts 99; New York 59; Pennsylvania 38; Ohio 25, and Missouri 16. (Source: The Kalida Sentinel Mar 17, 1855 submitted by Linda Dietz)

CASE OF SUICIDE OR ACCIDENTAL DEATH?

Kansas Attorney Dies and Life Insurance for $500,000 is Found

Lawrence, Kan., June 4---Whether Lucius H. Perkins, secretary of the state board of bar examiners and former president of the Kansas Bar association, who is dead here from the effects of a fall from the roof of his house, committed suicide or met an accidental death still remains a mystery. Relatives of Perkins declare that there was nothing unusual in his going to the roof and that he undoubtedly was intent on investigating a leak. Mr. Perkins was insured in some of the big life companies for something over $500,000 some of which he had secured only recently. Insurance agents here decline to discuss the case, which has been reported to the general offices of the companies concerned, but they are collecting evidence and say that adjusters will be here soon to go deep into the matter. It develops that no member of his family knew that Perkins carried so much insurance on his life.
(Aberdeen Daily News ~ June 4, 1907 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

SHOT DEAD BY HIS WIFE

A Kansas Farmer Killed Without Warning---Suicide Vainly Attempted

Lawrence, Kan., Dec. 19---Law evening about 6 o'clock August Beurmann, who lives first miles west of here, was standing at the window of his home watching a Santa Fe train pass, when his wife, without warning, shot him in the back with a revolver, the ball passing through his heart. She then turned the pistol on herself and succeeded in inflicting a wound in the breast which will not prove fatal.

Mrs. Beurmann gives as her reason for committing the crime that she did not love her husband and never had and that she wanted a divorce. She says she is not sorry that she killed him, but regrets that she did not succeed in killing herself.

Beurmann was a prosperous farmer and was generally thought well of, though he is said to have been rather domineering.
(Emporia Gazette ~ December 19, 1896 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)(Jackson Citizen ~ September 21, 1871 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)