THE MILLION DOLLAR SPEEDWAY A NOVEL
ORIGINS TO UPHILL FROM PRESERVATION (CH. 9)
John Thomas Pierce
Prior to Uphill from Preservation the last time we spent much time examining what’s going on in Preservation was in the tale’s 1st chapter – Mainly trying to figure out how both the Guinotte’s and the Jeffreys’ paid for 300 of their closest friends’ (Really!) to relocate to Missouri, to KC’s east bottoms & Grandview, Missouri, respectively.
Courtesy Belgian Heritage Center – Green Bay Wisconsin
So then what happened – Well, Belgians joined everybody else (fill in every ethnicity and derivation). The town had everything to build – a World War I monument, houses, race tracks, railroads, cattle terminals - more.
Similar track construction per the era 1916
But Kansas City is just one place among many and its burgeoning chemical industry attracts east coast transplants, college prof types and others who are trying to make it more similar to Cleveland or Cincinnati than like Topeka or Tulsa. Thus, the old racing mantra becomes more…
3-PER-DAY CHEMICAL DISCOVERIES NOT SO MUCH…
THE THE
MILLION DOLLAR SPEEDWAY
GREATEST DISPLAY OF SKILL, NERVE AND DARING
Back to Belgians – To gain a foothold they had to survive cholera. Hence, rather than fearing chemicals, they actually welcomed disinfecting chemicals (relevant in 2020?). Collective Guinottes and others tagged their neighborhood as Preservation (Instandhouding). Here’s another Belgian chemical-favorer, Belgian Edgar Sengier receiving the US Medal for Merit (1946). Belgium donated the fissionable material used to produce, yes, those bombs.
So when we get to 1979 contemporaries like Consuelo Guzman she and her neighbors have a very different idea of a neighborhood termed Preservation that is circumscribed by, chemical producers, electroplating shops, railroad tie impregnators and other actors. Pensioners, little kids, snoops even use nearby industrially-based comings and goings as a diversion.
Photo courtesy of Life magazine historical collection
Consuelo is a Nelly Don dressmaking employee, recently reassigned from a treadle sewing machine to help part-time in their clinic. Much of Kansas City’s social and medical history is tied to the Nelly Don firm. Ch. 9 recounts Consuelo and internist ID Funk’s experiences in re-establishing free medical and, importantly, surgical care.
Photo courtesy – KC Public Library
Coming and gong, walking to work, Consuelo is going to tell you what she sees in and near her neighborhood and how she reacts to not only “park greenery but worn grass…” The worn grass is nearer the linear features of both the Missouri-Pacific and Kansas City Southern railroads than Columbus park’s beauty.
kcparks.org
So did neighborhoods such as Preservation ever welcome “parolees turned platers” worrying more about these men’s major league baseball affiliations (Cardinals v. Royals). My tale is fictional but, yes, pastors like Rev. James Flanagan did pioneer thse programs. The real biographers are responsible to tell you about that.
Photo courtesy of Curmudgeonblogspotkc.com (building has been razed)
Ok – but only 1 passage. I heard you, >> pictures, << words. But how do we really regard our industrial neighbors?
Each year of the 70’s nearly three thousand train derailments occurred, catastrophic events sometimes originating in rotted or otherwise defective ties. Equipment-on-the-ground was a dreaded expression, referring to a train’s derailment. Thus Preservation residents held tie treaters and their work in high regard. If decay was the ties’ enemy, vacuum-impregnated creosote was their ally…Given his firm’s one hundred (creosote tie) haul-outs, St. Francis’ parishioners afforded TJ a respectful title, Boss Man. For the Guzman’s and their neighbors, Preservation constituted a vibrant industrial landscape.