Last time, I talked about my friend “Fred,” whom I’d known for fifty years, and who had just let me know that he “might” have ALS.
However, right now, I need to get back to our trip to Kansas...which is less dramatic, but it does make up the bulk of my story.
Martha and I flew into Wichita. I used to know the city fairly well. My father spent part of his youth there. My grandparents lived there, as well as an uncle, an aunt, and a couple of cousins. The grandparents, the aunt and the uncle are long gone, and the cousins have moved elsewhere. Thus connections which were once so strong... fray, snap, and are no more.
About the photos: First, a shot of the Winfield First Presbyterian Church with its striking white dome. Second, a photo of the Masonic Hall in town. Note the striking stained glass windows. And, finally, Martha at the Winfield City Lake Recreation Area
We picked up our rental car and shortly we were on the road. We took KS-15 South to US-77 south and, in just about an hour, we were in the little town where Judy has her home, and where she writes for the local paper.
We met her. We were delighted to see that she looked fine. She had a few small mobility issues, but otherwise she seemed excellent. You wouldn’t have dreamed that just a few weeks before she’d been in the hospital, and we’d been terrified that she might even need surgery.
Now, she was full of vim and vigor, and over the next few days, we did quite a bit with Judy. We toured her town--which is called Winfield. It isn’t huge, but what there is of it is interesting.(1) It was founded in 1870 and it started off as an economic hub for the local agricultural community and for the railroads. That’s true for a lot of Midwestern towns.
But, Winfield’s history has some unusual features.. The town’s economy had and still has a health care component as well. In 1887, the state of Kansas selected it as the site of the “Kansas State Asylum for Idiotic and Imbecile Youth.” And, yes, “Idiotic” and “Imbecilic” were considered appropriate medical terms in those days. In any case, imbecilic or not, the “Asylum” remained the town’s major employer for long decades.
The Asylum is gone now...vanished with the words “idiotic” and “imbecilic”...but, you must confess, that institution would be an interesting addition to any community’s history.
Today, meanwhile, the town still serves the farming community, but also has some industries. Winfield is close to Wichita, which is home to several aircraft manufacturing companies -- for instance Cessna, Beechcraft, and Learjet. And so, an assortment of companies have set up in Winfield or nearby to provide services to those corporations. It is very likely that you’ve flown in a plane that owes some part of itself to a worker in this little Kansas town.
There is still also a hospital in Winfield, a college (Southwestern), a beef packaging facility, and some consumer goods manufacturing plants -- Crayola makes crayons at a location not far away. And, there’s a state prison, the Winfield Correctional Facility, and prisons...sad but true...do employ people.
And with Judy as our guide, we explored some of these places (though not, I hurry to add, the prison). We also went out of town for long drives in the countryside. Some of that land is quite beautiful--vast fields of wheat and corn (“Amber Waves Of Grain”), houses in small towns with amazing flower gardens, enormous parks...
One of those last we visited was the Winfield City Lake Recreation Area, which is a very large park with...obviously...a lake in the middle of it.(2) There’s even a beach. Rather impressive, really, and we parked and watched adults and teens and children having a good time there.
Meanwhile, Winfield itself provided no little charm. It has an old-school feeling to it...a bit of Mayberry RFD...and I took photos of the buildings on Main and elsewhere. Also, I git a few shots of the bricked streets I found at various places in town. At one time, of course, it was common to have streets paved with bricks. It still makes a lot of of sense. They provide better drainage, for one thing. But, asphalt gives a smoother ride, so...
Anyway, we had a lovely time...
Except...except...
All the while I was thinking of Fred...and wondering what those tests would show.
Even though, on some level, I already knew.
More to come.
1. For my sources on the town, I’m using Winfield’s wikipedia page, which is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winfield,_Kansas
2. See Winfield City Lake, https://www.travelks.com/listing/winfield-city-lake/2590/
Copyright©2025 Michael Jay Tucker
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