By I got a phone call the other night from an Emporia woman. Her maiden name is Unruh and her family is from the Marion County area.
Poor woman, when people find out that she’s an Unruh, she is always asked if she’s from Pawnee Rock. I guess those newspaper columns in which I mention Pawnee Rock as my hometown have prompted readers to forever associate Unruh with Pawnee Rock.
I should’ve been keeping a list of all the people who have contacted me over the years, people who have either Unruh connections or Pawnee Rock connections.
Four years ago, my very first fan letter came from Bob Fry of Madison who taught band in Pawnee Rock from 1947 to 1953. It wasn’t long before I met Bob and Elma Fry in person. They’re delightful people and have good memories of PR.
After I wrote a column about my family genealogy, the late Bob Ikerd (a leader in the Flint Hills Genealogical Society) contacted me and told me that I was related to his wife both on my grandmother’s side and my grandfather’s side. She and I are some sort of cousins, 7th cousins 11 times removed, or something like that.
Probably a dozen or more people have sent e-mails telling me that their family history reached back directly to Pawnee Rock. Others had friends or family who once lived there. And many people have written to me telling about stopping for picnics or about climbing on the Rock as they passed through town on their way to someplace else.
Last year, my brother, Leon Unruh, started a website devoted to our hometown: PawneeRock.org
It amazes me that Leon comes up with a new (or old) photo of Pawnee Rock every day on his home page and a thought-provoking essay every day on his “Too Long in the Wind” page.
Pawnee Rock (pop. 344), which had its heyday in the late 1800s and early 1900s, is one of countless shrinking rural Kansas communities, but Leon is keeping memories of that town alive.
Leon has developed his own following. Former Pawnee Rock residents and others with PR connections have contacted him. They send him their old photos and share their memories.
Pawnee Rock people have scattered all across the country. Maybe you have a Pawnee Rock connection. Perhaps everyone in the U.S. is only Six Degrees of Separation from Pawnee Rock.
I’ve often wondered if you are related somehow to the Unruhs in Meade county. There are a lot of them there, same religion too. Most of the ones I knew were good people. There is also a couple of young men from Garnett whose last name is Unruh, thier dad is from somewhere west of here. Funny I’d never hear of the name before I went out there, now I seem to run into it all the time. Kinda like my first name.
It has been very interesting to have a Google Alert for Blogs on “Kansas Flint Hills!”
I see your articles regularly in the Emporia Gazette, but had not picked up on the blog.
Nice article on Joyce Thierer, also. A really neat lady!
Also want to mention: http://www.kansasflinthills.travel/
Our web site to promote the Kansas Flint Hills; and:
There will be a 22 page color photo spread in National Geographic’s April Issue on the Kansas Flint HIlls, as a distinctive landscape.
We are really looking forward to the increased interest following that event.
Best wishes!
Bill 😉
P.S. Accidently posted my reply to “20 degrees off” rather than “Six Degrees of Separation” – Sorry! 😉
Queen- probably related to the folks in Meade in a long, roundabout kind of a way.
Bill – welcome. Your website looks sharp and is full of usable info. I’ll add it to my blogroll.