Ch 9 - Uphill from preservation - Million Dollar Speedway

CHAPTER 9 UPHILL FROM PRESERVATION Per 1979 I laughed in the morning's eyes.

I triumphed and I saddened with all weather, Heaven and I wept together, And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine: Against the red throb of its sunset-heart I laid my own to beat, And share commingling heat; But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.

In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.

James Lawrence, Hound of Heaven

While Wanda Swearengin may have been downwind of Cook

Paint, she was downstream of one hundred years of EuropeanAmerican history. Her Dutch-derived Harlem neighborhood grew on the Missouri River’s north bank while the Belgian-derived Preservation neighborhood emerged to its south.

Belgians migrated east of downtown, meaning their Preservation neighborhood was nearly circumscribed by the Missouri river and railroad yards. Some residents favored an East Bottoms label while others called it Preservation, claiming that term originated with the Guinotte’s.

The Irish arrived midway between early-arriving Dutch in 1822 and the Belgians, arriving 1850-52. For Indians, distinguishing among them was less important than remembering they all introduced cholera to the Midwest.

Preservation’s separation from the Missouri River possibly accounted for it permanence. Unlike similar communities, it wasn’t based on a walk-ends-in-the-river principle, instead Preservation was removed from the Missouri river by a mile.

Past humble tool shed origins, combinations of city-based job and Speedway lumber slowly corrected housing shortfalls there.

Lumber wagons departing the failed Million Dollar track traveled east along Bannister Road before passing through five miles of woods and glades near the Blue river. Lumber haulers evaluated multiple north-south alternatives, Prospect, Paseo and Troost. East-

west wagon travel varied among boulevards labeled as Gregory, Meyer or Brush Creek. The final stretch placed lumber hauler wagons east of downtown yet close to Preservation.

Unlike contracted construction projects that generate discards, lumber extras migrated from one finished house project to the next.

A few warped, mostly unusable boards were forwarded enough times they acquired nick names. Fathers and sons joined other framers.

While cholera-infected Europeans may have been acceptable to Missourians, a similar open-mindedness did not apply to diseased cattle. Texas’ drovers originally favored Sedalia as a rail head but mid-Missouri cattlemen objected, fearing for their own herds.

Kansas’ cattleman likely raised fewer reservations and Kaw Point became a permanent rail head. Thus, rail would stretch from St. Louis to Kaw Point in Kansas. Set eight miles east of there, Preservation was an eclectic mix of Native Americans, former Europeans and both African- and Mexican-Americans. By the mid20th-century that broad mix generally liked one another.

Among the more favorably disposed was Consuelo Guzman.

Consuelo, or as she preferred, Connie, became a de facto matriarch.

Consuelo and her husband, Capataz, a railroad section foreman, were frequently cited as neighborhood role models. Capataz’ pay stubs supplemented hers, derived from Nelly Don dressmaking.

When neighborhood snoops counseled Consuelo regarding the risks of a married woman working outside the home, she reminded them of the physical risks railroad section workers faced on a daily basis. While separated by nearly a hundred years, Consuelo Connie Guzman shared issues with foundress Aimée Brichaut Guinotte.

That Tuesday Connie travelled a path created by Belgian immigrants. Alternatively, it had originated with her ancestors, ones possibly accompanying Coronado in 1541 or the deBourgmont or Mallet pathfinders circa 1724. Native Americans were rarely given credit since they had created the trails centuries earlier. Even they had been preceded by an ice age six hundred thousand years previously, one that created floodable features near the confluence of what would eventually constitute the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, a place later termed Kansas City.

Consuelo strode uphill rather ironically nearing Kansas City’s downtown. Accomplished and attractive, she was conservatively attired in a brown flannel dress, one hemmed slightly below knee height, an ensemble complemented by polished oxfords. A seamstress reviewing that chocolate-hued garment would have complemented a fit attributable to multiple dressmakers. While their paid output may have belonged to Nelly Don, self-help projects allowed seamstresses’ families to wear Kansas City’s finest.

That Tuesday Consuelo was scheduled to venture well past her comfort zone. While her medical qualifications were admittedly thin, her dependability and Spanish language skills recommended her for a recently-created medical assisting position.

Nelly Don vice presidents had welcomed Kansas City internist, ID Funk, anticipating Funk would reestablish their firm’s in-house clinic. Born in Philadelphia, he was knowledgeable regarding the garment trade and had agreed to provide low-cost office visits Tuesday and Thursday mornings, for about one hundred of Nelly Don’s employees.

Decades previously Nelly Don workers had benefitted from a similar scheme originating at the Lady Garment Hospital, a converted Colonial Revivalist home operated by a surgeon-nurse couple who had transformed a kitchen into an operating theater and re-purposed five bedrooms for overnight stays. Given a single upstairs toilet, bedpans were needed for even ambulatory patients.

By 1979 less dressing-up weakened Nelly Don’s financial position, fashion steering hard left toward frayed T-shirts and patched dungarees. Male styles went wide, embracing wide collars and broad, gaudy neckties. Nat Nast, a Kansas City fashion icon had managed to convert bowling shirt designs into clever fashion statements.

A somewhat chilly reception accompanied Funk’s Kansas City arrival. Beyond medical school, his clinical skills had been strengthened by service on a Navy light cruiser. Although sometimes the butt of an unkind wardroom joke, Funk favored Navy humor over local indifference, possibly explaining why he worked hard to make Consuelo comfortable in her new role, patiently explaining chart retrieval and note-ing processes. Consuelo

reviewed predictable features. R. Gutierrez, visit 75 cents, Maria Hernandez, visit 75 cents + 60 cents - aspirin, N. Ramirez, payment deferred, husband an alcoholic.

Within a few weeks Funk acquired a secondary following, sick or otherwise ill individuals who anticipated his Tuesday – Thursday arrivals. As the doctor’s Impala nosed into the Nelly Don lot, Funk was greeted unofficial patients. He fixed what he could, other times scribbling doctors’ names on prescription pads, nervously phoning colleagues regarding these hasty patient encounters.

Given his office hours commenced inside, Funk let the Impala spotters know he had to wrap-it-up. A traveling man, he later hustled over to Volker Avenue’s Menorah Hospital. Short drives could consume more than an hour, the side effect of house-calling.

With Funk on the road to Menorah, Consuelo spent the remainder of a shift operating a treadle machine.

Nearing day’s end, her steps traced a gentle transition, first on Charlotte, transitioning to a Columbus Park path. From park greenery she trekked worn pathways adjacent to the Northeast Industrial Traffic way, the last segment paralleling Guinotte.

Preservation boasted twin landmarks, ones originating in the Norris grain elevator and it partner, the St. Francis Seraph church.

While the church’s spire didn’t height rival the elevator’s cupola, it still cast lengthening shadows across ball fields to its east.

An earlier wooden church had been erected on what parishioners thought belonged to the Guinotte’s. Controversy arose when Joseph’s widow, Aimée, declined to provide them with a deed. In fact, neither she nor Joseph had ever owned the land.

Hence, the wooden St. Francis church structure had to be dragged two hundred yards to more purchasable land located on Wyman, an avenue later re-designated as Agnes.

In economic terms, St. Francis parish was poor, its location landlocked by combinations of factories, warehouses and railroads, plus houses of drink and others of an even more questionable nature.

Prior to his assignment there, Father Jacob had chafed at what he perceived as church fathers’ narrow social justice agendas. The

young priest’s seminary years had been interrupted only twice, once to view Neil Armstrong’s July 1969 moon landing and again by the September 1971 Attica prison riots. While Jacob possessed no aerospace ambitions, his witness to televised prison riots created a resolve to aid the formerly incarcerated.Nearby steel-on-steel rail car couplings may have strengthened his resolve during the first noisy rectory night.

The day following Jacob walked door-to-door, business-tobusiness across Preservation, shortly encountering Lonnie Proffit, a former San Bernardino Hell’s Angel. Following a five-year California penitentiary sentence, he had reinvented himself in Kansas City, mainly chrome plating motorcycle accessories. He had rented a former Belgian tool shed for use as his plating facility causing him to inquire if a vacant cinder-block property on the St. Francis grounds was leasable. However knowledgeable Fr. Jacob was regarding corporal works of mercy, he lacked electroplating insights.

But responsible for more buildings than they could occupy or heat, he warmed to Proffit’s suggestion. Jacob had recently received a request from the Department of Corrections concerning church-based parolee housing. Could Proffit possibly an answer to an underpowered collection plate?

Indicating he needed a few days to consult his parish council, Jacob returned to the rectory and penned a letter to the Missouri Department of Corrections, one outlining a proposal for parolees to be housed there while learning the electroplating trade. Only a week passed before a registered letter from Jefferson City appeared, inquiring when the first class could begin.

Fr. Jacob notified Proffit he would offer favorable lease terms if Proffit would train a dozen parolee-platers. Proffit’s original platers shortly relocated electroplating lines to St. Francis’ tin-roofed annex.

Preservation’s residents were fairly neutral about incorporating the parolees, fearful individuals from eastern Missouri would remain St. Louis Cardinal fans. The only parolees arriving with more than prison-stenciled belongings were a young black man clutching a tied bundle of Louis L’ Amour paperbacks and a white

male cradling a Harley-Davidson manual. Proffit and Fr. Jacob met three more times, mainly to discuss water sewer responsibilities.

While Preservation wasn’t announced by a neighborhood marker, a family-owned Nicholson avenue firm possessed a similar name, the Preservation Sleeper Tie Company. It had originated in 1969 as a supplier of creosote-treated railroad ties but had more recently added pentachlorophenol-treated wood products.

Preservation residents were grateful for the tie-treaters co-location, particularly during flying insect season, claiming the plant’s aroma was more effective than spray trucks in deflecting mosquitos.

Neighborhood parents, older children, too, knew the plant’s two lagoons were unsuitable for wading or fishing.

Most tie-treaters originated in eastern Jackson county, others truck-pooling fin rom Ray or Lafayette counties. Their identities were mostly unknown, excepting that of Thomas Jefferson Williams, otherwise called TJ. From beginnings as a bridge and building, B&B, laborer, this TJ had first advanced to lead-man and later to foreman status, before abandoning a promising railroad career to join his cousin in the creosot-ing trade, contributing fourteen thousand dollars to the project.

During their first seven years together operated as partners. But in 1975 a Chicago-based corporate giant purchased both of their interests. Giant or not, Chicago executives apparently lacked tietreating expertise, choosing to retain TJ as a Kansas City boss. TJ’s cousin owned a Lake of the Ozarks cabin, shortly retiring to a seasonal life, one dominated by crappie, turkey and deer.

Viewed endwise, railroad ties are seven inches deep and nine inches wide, each one nearly seven feet long. At dawn each Saturday, TJ’s crew activated vacuum-side compressors, infusing creosote into 100-ton lots of rail cross ties.

Across the 1970’s nearly three thousand train derailments occurred each year, catastrophic events sometimes attributable to rotted or defective ties. Equipment-on-the-ground was a dreaded expression, meaning a train’s derailment. Thus, Preservation residents held tie-treating efforts in high regard; if decay were the ties’ enemy, creosote was their ally.

When the big compressors idled late on Saturday, quiet signaled work week’s end. A rural Roman Catholic, TJ spared himself a Sunday wake-up by attending the Saturday vigil Mass. Given his 100-ton tie haul-outs, parishioners afforded him a respectful title, Boss Man. For the Guzman’s and neighbors, Preservation constituted a vibrant industrial landscape.