Lost in Wonder, Love and Praise

by Larry Miller

We've not met Chuck Leypoldt, but the family name will ring a bell with many residents of Dawes County.

Pastor Woodrow Leypoldt is shown with 
several of his children, circa mid-1950s. 

In recent years, Chuck's son, Seth, was pastor of the United Methodist Church in Chadron from 2005 to 2012. However, a couple of generations ago the Leypoldt family called Crawford home. 

Seth's grandfather was something of a "circuit rider" for area Methodist churches, living and ministering to a congregation in Crawford and scooting up and down U.S. Highway 20 to serve the congregation at Whitney's Warring Methodist Church as well.

We met up with Chuck via e-mail a couple of years ago, and he was kind enough to share a photo of his siblings and dad (shown here) that was likely taken at Chadron State Park.

Like his father, Chuck also served as a Methodist minister for many years, and then added several working years to his resume in the banking and insurance businesses.  He's retired now and calls Lincoln, Nebraska home.

The Woodrow Leypold family (undated)

Chuck says he spends much of his time keeping up with his family, taking photos of church art (he's dubbed himself the "Steeple Chaser") and writing.

We've enjoyed his many online postings at pylodet.com, but he's also assembled a 280-page family memoir of years criss-crossing Nebraska as son of a pastor, pastor, and father of a pastor.  It's entitled "Lost in Wonder, Love and Praise."

We're delighted that Chuck Leypoldt has allowed us to share an excerpt from his book.  In fact, it's all of Chapter 5, recounting the Leypoldt years in Crawford in the mid-1950s, and you can read it here: "The Garden Beyond the Sandhills." 

Chuck's website also notes that he's taken some 20,000 pictures of church art, and you'll find many of them online and in his book, which you can order by going to:  Lost in Wonder, Love and Praise.

Remembering 125 years of school in Whitney

When the doors to the Whitney School close later this month, it’ll mark the first time that the Dawes County community has had no school in some 125 years!

Earlier this spring, the Chadron School Board announced its decision to close all rural schools in the county, including Whitney, which held its first classes in 1886 on the ground floor of the Woods Hotel at the northeast corner of Missouri and Division streets.  Many people will remember the filling station that was located there in more recent years.  Within a few months of that early school opening, classes were moved to the newly-built Methodist Church.  

There've been school kids getting educated in Whitney for a long time.  So the “Alumni Open House” set for 2:00-6:00 p.m. on Sunday, My 29^th, 2011, at the “new” school in Whitney will be a bittersweet experience -- sort of a last hurrah!  It’ll be delightful to see students, faculty, and friends from yesteryear – as well as those from this final year, but it’ll be sad to see the end of a proud era.

While the existing school seems relatively new to most of us, it sits nearly in the shadow of a two-and-one-half story stucco building that was “school” in Whitney for longer than any other structure.  But there was an earlier one!

This is believed to be the first Whitney school building
 ca. 1887.  Photo courtesy of Sam Couch

According to Mabel Kendrick’s wonderful book “Still Alive and Well - Whitney, Nebraska,” the very first school building was a one-room structure.  It was built on the same parcel of land where both the existing Whitney School and its predecessor stand.  It would have been just west of the sidewalk that led up to the front of the larger, abandoned school building.  The wooden school (shown here at right) served the community for more than 35 years.

The first teacher in the school was Miss Eleanor Burkitt (later Mrs. W.S. Gillam of Chadron).

“A term in those days,” wrote Mabel Kendrick, “was three months, and a teacher was hired for one term at a time.  Each year had a spring and a fall term with vacation between to allow for farm work and very cold weather.  Other early teachers included A.G. Shears, Stella Weed, Stella Cline, and Charlie Stewart.”

“Recess time was spent in free play out of doors most of the time.  Baseball was a favorite pastime.”

“The time from around 1910 to 1922 could be considered a transition period.  The old ways were gradually being changed.  The school term had already been extended to nine months.  A teacher was required to pass a ‘teachers examination’ for which she received a certificate.  Later the teacher had to have a high school education before she could take the test.  A second grade certificate was issued.  A knowledge of geometry, algebra and music was required to qualify for a first grade certificate.  The school day began with ‘opening exercises,’ starting with the flag salute.  The rest varied with the teacher.”

By 1919, the community had grown enough that the school was expanded to two rooms, and by 1921 there were enough students in Whitney school to justify creating high school grades, “so one was begun in the Methodist Church.”

This multi-level school was built in 1922.
It remains standing today.

The early 1920’s were a time of great optimism.  World War I had ended and Whitney had survived the great flu epidemic of 1918 better than most communities.  In the fall of 1922, construction was completed on a new two-and-one-half story school building that would accommodate all grades.

The curriculum expanded, too, including foreign languages.  At different times, Latin, French and German were taught.  There were accommodations for class plays – and even indoor sporting events.  Although its open area basement  was a bit confining, both boys and girls basketball was offered in 1923.  Alas, girls basketball was discontinued in the spring of 1927 because of “the state ban.” 

There were even school newspapers published in the early years, including “The Irrigator,”  which soon became known as “The Mustang,” in recognition of Hastings College, the alma mater of one of the teachers.  For a few years, the paper was actually printed on the presses of the Crawford Tribune.  By the Depression years, the paper became a mimeographed publication and was renamed “The Shunga,” relating to the Sioux word for mustang.

High school classes at Whitney ran from 1921 until 1943.  The last high school teacher was Mabel Kendrick.  We believe the existing Whitney School was built in about 1988 or 1989, but we need help nailing down that information.  Please let us hear from you, if you can offer details!  Many thanks.

3rd and 4th graders at Whitney School; 1948-49
Thanks to Ruth Ann Connell (teacher at left)

Over the years, we’ve collected a few school pictures from Whitney, and most of them have been displayed in our Whitney School Gallery.  We invite you to browse through them.  Even more importantly, we hope you might allow us to add any old Whitney School photos you might have – particularly group photos.  Just e-mail us. Of course, we give full credit to the good folks who offer such items.  You may also want to browse around our Whitney Reflections web site -- even though it is undergoing a bit of reconstruction at the moment.

Too, we hope that anyone with ANY ties to Whitney School over the years will make plans to attend the Open House on May 29.  People of every generation are encouraged to come and share memories.  They’re looking for photographs, written stories, documents, and any similar items.  Contact Michelle Haynes  at mihayn@eagles.csc.edu.  It'll be a grand opportunity to help rekindle some of the memories from the past 125 years. 

We hope to see you there!

A ring of Whitney memories

While working on the driveway of his home just west of Chadron recently, Richard Bates discovered a ring. Not just any ring, but an old high school class ring from a school that’s been closed for more than half a century.

Bates, who works for the postal service, could barely read the initials on the ring, but Whitney was emblazoned across the front of it. He knew of Whitney, the small community in western Dawes County that in another era aspired to be the county seat. But how to go about finding the owner of the ring?

A stop at the jewelry store confirmed that the initials on the ring were “GC,” and its small size suggested that it had belonged to a girl. The date on the ring was 1930.

Bates inquired informally of a few friends, and then visited our Whitney Reflections website in search of a possible owner of the ring. He sent an e-mail inquiry to Whitney Reflections, and we referred back to a late 1930s Shunga newsletter that listed Whitney High School graduates up to that date. Fortunately, they were listed by year, and the evidence promptly pointed toward 1930 graduate Gwen Connell – the correct gender, and the only one with those inititals!

We called Bob and Ruth Ann Connell in Chadron and Bob Galey in Whitney, all good sources for historical information about Whitney. Bob Galey asked where the ring had been found and observed that Gwen (Connell) Walcott’s daughter, Carolyn, and Carolyn's late husband Bobby Bickford, had lived in the same area, a couple of miles west of Chadron.

Confirming with Rich Bates that his house, built in 1957, had once belonged to Bobby Bickford, we determined that the ring almost certainly had belonged to Gwen Walcott, who probably passed it along to her daughter Carolyn Walcott Bickford.

In early efforts to find a family member and return the ring, I called brother John Miller to find out what he knew about any of Gwen Connell Walcott's children. Although closer in age with Gene Walcott, John knew only the whereabouts of Gordon Walcott, one-time Air Force pilot, now living in Austin, Texas. By the time I had tracked this information down, Rich Bates had done some investigating of his own and found contact information for Carolyn Bickford’s son, Rick, who apparently still lives in the area. Carolyn, according to Ruth Ann Connell, lives in a Broken Bow nursing home. Gwen Walcott was an older sister to Bob Connell.

We’re happy that the ring is on its way back into the hands of a family member – and thankful that its finder was committed to seeing it returned to its owner. Thanks to postal worker Rich Bates for delivering this heirloom.....and a good story!