In October 2016, the Franklin County, KS, Rural History Club toured the Franklin County Infirmary in Ottawa. Now a private home, for many years it was the main building on a farm that housed the indigent and infirm of Franklin County. The following article is a guest post from Eldon G. Evans, now of Mission, Kansas, who has a unique perspective of the infirmary: his parents ran the farm for several years, and he lived there as a child.
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The sign, written in stone above the door, calls it the Franklin County Infirmary. It was known in its day by a great number of other names. It was called: the county home, the poor house, the old folks’ home, and the county farm. The most common name for it was the county farm. Even the records of the county commissioners of the day call it the county farm. To me it had another name in my youth. It was home.
My father, Charles Fredrick Evans, was hired as superintendent of the Franklin County Farm on Feb. 22, 1937. We moved to the farm on March 14, 1937. I was, at the time, a few days over 18 months old. The job of superintendent of the county farm was, like most county jobs in the 1930s, a political job. He served at the will of the county commissioners. Even though the county commission records state that Fred Evans was hired it was understood in that day that the superintendent’s job was a job for a married couple. This was necessitated by the fact that there were both male and female residents at the Farm. There was some concern at the time of the hiring of my folks. I was the problem. There had never been a superintendent with small children. There was some question as to whether or not it was an appropriate environment for a small child. There was also concern that a small child might not be appropriate for the residents. Small children are noisy and old people are supposed to be cranky. The powers that be need not have worried. I became a small child with 35 grandparents. No child received more attention or was more spoiled by his own grandparents than I was by my “adopted” grandparents.
The county farm was, in fact, a working farm. There were about 35 milk cows. All cows had to be milked twice a day. All milking was done by hand. The milk, cream, and butter produced was used to feed the residents and staff. Any excess was sold to defray expenses. There was also a substantial population of chickens. These produced not only abundant supplies of eggs but also substantial amounts of fresh meat for the farm. There were also several pigs for meat purposes. There was pasture for the cattle and grain crops--corn, milo, wheat, and oats--produced as feed grain for the livestock. There were also two hay fields that supplied hay. The hay was stored loose in the haymow of the barn. There were no bales. On April 21, 1938, the county let a contract to the Stave Silo Company to build a silo at the county farm. The contract price was $470.00. The silo was built on the northwest corner of the barn.
Large projects such as harvesting and storing crops were contracted for the most part. Things like the filling of silos and the thrashing of wheat and oats required special machinery and it was then, as it is now for most farmers, more economical to contract the jobs than to own expensive equipment that was used only once a year. On Sept. 18, 1940, the commissioners hired Fred Theilen to fill the silo.
As superintendent my father was in charge of the overall operation of the farm. My mother, Josephine Evans, was in charge of the operation of the living quarters for the residents. This included all of the cleaning and laundry required in both the female and male resident areas. There was additional staff required to run the farm. There was a cook and cook’s helper, also a married couple, who were full time. In addition there was a licensed practical nurse, also full time and live in. In addition to the on-site staff the farm had access to the “county doctor.” The doctor was on call. When we went to the farm in 1937 the doctor was Dr. Jacobus, Sr. If he was called to the farm, he got $2.00 a call. Dr. Jacobus, Sr., died in November 1937 and his son, Dr. Jacobus, Jr., took the job. Dr. C.W. Henning became the county doctor in February 1939 and Dr. Max E. Kaiser took the position in January 1940. I remember Dr. Kaiser because he had a son about my age and sometimes when he made a call to the farm he would bring his son and we became friends. I also knew Dr. C.W. Henning very well as he was our family doctor for many years after we the left the county farm. The last county doctor during our stay at the farm was Dr. Trump, who became county doctor on July 30, 1941.
The function of the farm was to provide a place for those citizens of the county who had no place to live and very minimal means. Many of the residents were in fact older citizens. Some were physically handicapped in some way. Almost all were single or widowed. We did have one married couple, both of whom were blind, who lived on the third floor of the main house.
The main house is three stories. The bottom floor, which is partially a basement floor, could only be entered directly from the south. From the west entrance it was necessary to go down a half flight of stairs to the first floor. The first floor contained the kitchen across the south end and a hallway from the kitchen area to the north end. On the right side of the hall there was a large pantry room, a residents’ dining room, and a linen storage and ironing room. On the left side of the hall there was the stairway to the west exit and up to the second and third floors, one resident room (for a resident that was on crutches), the boiler room, and coal storage area. The entire main building was heated with coal-powered steam heat.
The second floor was the superintendent’s living quarters. The main entrance to these quarters was up the main stairs on the east side of the building. Inside the front door was a wide entrance hallway. To the south side of this hall was the living room. Through the living room to the south was a small room that served as an office. The main hallway intersects with a north-south hallway in the middle of the building. At the south end of this hall was the superintendent’s dining room. It was connected to the kitchen in the basement by means of a dumbwaiter. There was one bathroom on the west side of the north-south hallway as well as a storage area on that side. At the north end of the hallway there was a bedroom on both sides. The bedroom on the east was my parents’ room and the one on the west was mine.
The third floor was, for the most part, given over to the female residents. The entire south area of that floor was a dormitory area for female residents. There was also one apartment for the married couple and quarters and examination rooms for the nurse. The third floor also contained one of the most unique features of the farm, a cell! There were times when people were being evaluated by the county court for admission to the state hospital. If these people had no other place to live they might spend some time on the farm. For the most part these people were not violent but the cell must have been put in as a precaution.
To the west of the main building there is a grey wooden building. This was known as “the cottage” and was for the male residents. It was also set up in dormitory style. It was heated independently from the main house.
Other than the main house, barn, and cottage there were several other buildings. Some of these buildings are still standing and some are not. Between the main house and the cottage was the wash house where all the laundry was done. (This building is no longer standing.) Just to the west of the wash house was a two-story garage. Just to the south of the garage was a smokehouse. The farm cured all its own hams and bacon. The main chicken house was just to the west of the smokehouse. There was one grain storage shed between the chicken house and the barn, a large granary just to the south of the barn, and a tool and equipment sheds to the south of that.
The residents who were able helped with the running of the farm. Most of them had been raised on a farm so they had the necessary skills. It also gave them some sense that they were making a contribution, not just being taken care of. The men worked in the fields and did the milking. The women helped with the laundry and the cleaning.
I have been unable to determine what the cost of running the county farm might have been. When my father and mother went there the salary was $100.00 per month. I was unable to determine what the cook’s salary was but it was certainly less than my parents’ and the nurse’s even less than that. The farm didn’t supply everything needed to feed the residents but certainly substantial amounts were provided by the farm.
My parents left the farm on Aug. 8, 1942, sixteen days before my seventh birthday. It remains for history to decide whether “the farm” or a welfare check is the better way to provide for those who cannot take care of themselves. My only historical observation was that it was a wonderful place to be a child.
Eldon G. Evans, Feb. 27, 2000
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Published with permission of the author and the Franklin County Historical Society, where the manuscript is part of the collection.
