- Forward
- Interview with Bill and JoAnne Fitzgerald
- Interview with Norman Bloom and Geraldyne Langhofer Bloom
- Interview with Beulah Gleeson Ratzlaff
- Interview with Bob Keating
- Interview with Gladys Ridenour Schmitt
- Memoir by Dr. Oscar Kappler
- Remembrance of Bill Bartlett
- Interview with Lanora Webb
- Interview with Esther Swan
- Interview with Clifton Browne and his wife Nancy Browne
- Interview with Hugh Harnden
- Interview with Karen Graham, Gaylene Graham Fuller and Connie Graham
- Interview with Connie Parr Graham
- Interview with Dale Kapp
- Interview with Dorothy Fraim Brown
- Interview with Joe Brown
- Interview with Allen Kingman and Peggy Klingman
Donita Priefert Payne: In my interview with Bill Fitzgerald he talked about Bill Bartlett. I am adding just a little to those comments.
Bill Bartlett lived in what had been a small house on a quarter owned by J. W. Priefert and then by Don Priefert on the east side of Highway 83 and about the 7 mile road (not sure of that). The house was still secure but could be called a shack, it was totally unpainted. I remember being with my dad when he would stop to see about Bill B. and if he was okay or needed anything. I think he had lived there many years and I think he spent his last days there.
I think he was a WW1 veteran. I don’t recall any stories of where he was from, and I don’t think anyone knew. He played the trumpet and had played in circus bands. Sometimes when you drove onto the property you heard him playing his trumpet. When he was a little drunk, he really played that trumpet! Did he play in any of the Liberal bands? I do not know but other historical pictures would probably include him if that were so.
He had grown broom corn on this property and made brooms which he then took to Liberal to sell. Once brooms were made commercially, his brooms had no market.
How did he heat that old “shack”? It was probably with a pot-bellied stove. But what did he use for heating material? Did Grandpa Priefert supply him with coal? I hope that was so. There certainly was no wood around unless he used some kind of woody weeds. There was a water well for the livestock there, so he had water.