By Karen Walk

Some time ago, we were thrilled to announced that we had received a grant from ADM. Most of that work has been done. The railings and steps were removed, the tall columns raised enough to remove the floor, new floor joist put in and a new tongue and grove floor put down. A set of steps was built. This along with other wood repair on the house was done by Terry Haines Construction.  What a great crew!  The new wood has all had a coat of primer on it. We applied to The Wichita County Community Foundation for a grant last summer and received the funding for a new wood screen/storm door.  This grant funded the beautiful wood Victorian door. This was a custom made oversized door. The historical society had to furnish a 25% match, which included paying for Brad Bloedorn’s labor to hang the door, along with all of the paint, primer and hardware. It will soon be finished and will be beautiful. The foundation cracks have been repaired. It has been scraped, sealed and primed, and ready for the final coat of paint. 

The central heat and air has been installed. Anyone that toured the house in the summer will remember how hot it was in the house, especially upstairs. It got real hot no matter how many fans we turned on! A new furnace unit was installed in the basement with registers cut into the floors on the main floor. Another furnace was installed in a closet upstairs and the ducts run in the attic with registers cut into the ceilings. Two smaller furnaces/air conditioners were suggested rather than one large one for better air flow and energy efficiency. This was very expensive and was funded with our memorial money from the Lorene Harvey Estate that we received several years ago.  Roger Long Electric installed all of the wiring for this and very generously donated his labor for the job. Through the hottest days of the summer, Sam and Martha Vallejo put up the north side of the fence. They did a great job and are appreciated very much. Martha worked in the yard, mowing, trimming and cleaning trash and vines out of the row of evergreen trees. Recently, Karen and Don French stained it with a water sealer/conditioner. Marcia Mehl requested $500 from the Community Thrift Shop for trees for the yard.  They were purchased last week and Kelley Burch of Wheatland Electric will dig the holes. We had planned on 3 trees, but Fred Palmblade of Wharton’s in Garden City gave us a fantastic deal. Freddie had done some landscape design for the yard, stopping by to look at it on his way to visit his mother, Jean, who lives in Leoti. His plan is to put plants and trees that would have been typical to the 1900 time period in western Kansas. He chose three large hardy crab apple trees for on the south side and five Frontier (hybrid) elm trees to be put in a large circular groove in the north side in the back. These trees have beautiful red leaves in the fall. Marcia had a big load of trees in her stock trailer coming from Garden. Curtis Kreutzer and Adam Marcotte unloaded them for us.  Last summer, Leif Christensen, took out the dangerous uneven sidewalk that ran north and south in front of the house and filled it in with dirt. When we are ready, he will take out the broken sidewalk going up to the house. It is not uneven, just cracked, but needs to come out. We are starting a new fund raiser for a brick memorial walkway project. We will sell the commemorative bricks to be engraved with anyone’s name on it. They can be in memory of a person, a veteran, grandkids, clubs or groups, school class, your pet, business or your own name. The bricks will be used to pave the walkways around the house. Jeanene French made some great brochures with her computer skills explaining the project. It has pricing and an order blank on it. For information on this, please contact the historical society. We would like to thank everyone for their help in this very large restoration project. This will be such an asset to the community and it is fantastic that so many have participated. We will be holding another work day on Oct. 8 at 9:00 am. It will consist of a variety of jobs, something for everyone! Thank you.

(The Leoti Standard, Oct. 5, 2011)