6: Memoir by Dr. Oscar Kappler – Liberal Memorial Library

This information on Dr. Kappler is taken from a small booklet word for word. It was provided by Karl Kappler, the son of Dr. Kappler. Oscar Kappler lived for a while on the Anthony place north of Liberal about 7 miles.

I was born Karl Otto Oscar Kappler, in Hannover, Germany, on the 31st day of October 1891, to Herr and Frau Henrich Gottlieb Kappler. I was the last of four children . The first died shortly after birth as it was premature. Next came a sister, Alma, who died when she was nine years old. She died in a kinderheilanstalt [children’s hospital]. She had been operated on but lost her bodily functions and died. The third child, Hermann, was 1 ½ years older than myself. He was in the German Army during the first world war and was killed in France. He is buried near __ in Northern France.

My father had two brothers and three sisters. One of the brothers, Hans, had eight or nine or more children, most of whom became educators. Hans got hit in the head by a windmill and spent time in and out of an institution. He was a saddle maker by trade but this was not to his liking so he changed to interior and exterior decorating. He took care of the maintenance and cleaning of Kaffe Kroepke [likely
the name of a cafe]. He was the one who wrote to me of my father’s death.

The other brother, August, was a government employee who worked for the railroad doing clerical duties. He had a daughter, Hermina, who did most of the clerical work for him. Both of the brothers were in their eighties when they died. My father was a tapezierund and decorateur [wallpaper hanger and decorator]. He also did upholstery work. He had his shop in a “hinterhaus” or a building to the back of the house. He had a four-wheel wagon which he used to carry his wallpaper and supplies. He sometimes hired people to help him pull the wagon. I had to help him when I wasn’t going to school. He was a very meticulous workman and provided well for the family. There was always plenty of food and my mother was a good cook.

I was supposed to be the smart one in the family. Everyone learns a profession and my goal was a businessman which took into account bookkeeping and business management. Hermann wasn’t nearly as bright in school, and he was to have taken over his father’s business. The house in Hannover had a basement which had storage for coal. He burned both coal and coke. The house was heated by coal stoves in each room. There were three stories above the basement. The house had running water and sewer. There were bathrooms on the first floor and in the basement. The kitchen was on the first floor. Manufactured gas was used for cooking and for lighting. Some cooking was also done with coal. There were gas lights in the street. The house was a big house and space was rented to five other families besides ourselves.

My father was a very stern man. I think he used to drink a lot but I never saw him drunk. He could absorb a lot without it affecting him much. There was always beer and schnapps around the house. When I got unruly he used to get me on the floor and beat me until I thought he would kill me. He was a big strong man and didn’t know how much beating a kid could stand. My mother would always come to the rescue to keep him from hurting me too badly. My father didn’t have much use for me, and by the same token, I didn’t have much use for him . I got along very well with my mother though.

My mother was a small woman and was about as small as they come. She was born Rosine Heil and had two sisters. Elly Hente of Arnsberg is the daughter of one of them. One of the sisters stayed at home to take care of her father until he died. My mother got part of the estate and used it to make a down payment on a building at 60 Heinholzerstrasse. A man across the street at #5 wanted a shop in his house but didn’t have room so my folks traded houses with him. My parents lived there all their days. My father died at the age of 88. He was in a great pain when he died. He probably died of cancer of the prostate. My father remarried after my mother died but I never saw the woman. I had no love for her as I had never seen her. She bore my father no children. She had a son, Robert, by a previous marriage. She was always writing to me for money. The house was destroyed during the second world war by American bombers. The property was rebuilt after the war. I inherited the house after she died but legal fees consumed practically all of the money I got for the property.

In the winter in Hannover they used to dam the canal and flood some low ground for ice skating. It cost two pfennig [a coin worth a small amount, like a penny] to skate all day. On severely cold days when they couldn’t keep the schoolhouses warm, they would dismiss school. I used to go ice skating until I was almost frozen . I would hobble home over the cobblestone streets and bawl all the way home because my feet hurt so much. My mother would warm them for me when I got home.

I worked as a kid for Kuhne and Heinemann before I left Germany. I was under a three-year contract signed by my father. I got 10 DM [Deutsch mark] per month for the first year, 20 DM per month during the second year, and 30 DM per month the third year. Mr. Heinemann was a Jew. Kuhne was a mean SOB. He mistreated and sometimes beat me. He’d tell my father and I’d get it again. Once I asked Heinemann if I could borrow a company bicycle for Sunday. Kuhne had also promised it to someone else. I got it first and when the other person came, it wasn’t there. Kuhne chewed me out unmercifully after taking it. I worked for them for one week short of three years. To show you what a SOB he was he sued my dad because I left Germany one week short of fulfilling the three-year contract. The firm was a
retail electrical business. I had to do everything about the business from sweeping the sidewalk to sales to assisting in buying. The firm had a very good business.

One time when I was in Furste I met a man named Baker from Goshen, Indiana. He was an undertaker by trade – also manager of National Casket Company, Chicago. He stayed in Chicago for a while before returning to Goshen, Indiana. He had someone run his business in Goshen while he was away. He took trips to Furste every couple of years or so to take baths and to reduce his weight by about 30 pounds.
He took a boy to America the previous time he was there. Mr. Baker took a liking to me and wanted me to go to America with him. He told me this would be my last chance to get out of Germany and I better make up my mind soon if I wanted to go. If someone had told me a month earlier that I was going to go to America I would have told them that they were crazy. I had just turned 16 and I was eligible for the
draft at age 17. I didn’t want to enter the military so this reinforced my thoughts of going to America . I got my parents’ consent to go to America. There was no love lost between me and my father and I think he was glad to get rid of me. My parents took me to the train station in Hannover and bid me goodbye. This was in late November or early December. I went to Hamburg where Mr. Baker and I got on the ship
Pennsylvania. It was a 14,000-ton vessel owned by the Hamburg-America line.

I had a first-class ticket and pretty well had the run of the ship. There were about 1,400 third-class passengers aboard. They didn’t have assigned rooms and had to sleep with their baggage or anywhere they could find to sleep. It was a 14-day trip across the ocean and after we got out of Hamburg the ocean was fierce. Much of the time when the weather permitted I would get out on deck but the poor
devils that didn’t have first-class tickets were locked in most of the time. The stench was terrible. I was sick most of the time myself.

Canary birds were very popular then and there were thousands of the birds aboard. They were of a variety that is now extinct. They were raised in Germany and were being shipped to America for sale. I don’t know how many died on the trip but the trip took a large toll.

We landed in New York Harbor. Baker wanted my stuff next to his when we went through customs. He had me change my name to Cappler so I’d be next to him alphabetically, so I entered the country under an assumed name. The first-class passengers got off first. He went through customs first and whatever he would have had to pay toll on he had me claim and I was able to get it through as I didn’t have much.
All my belongings were in a flat trunk that would fit under a bed.

We went by train to Chicago and when we got there Mr. Baker got me a job at a printing firm. The printing firm printed Montgomery Ward catalogs, among other things. I didn’t speak English so my job consisted mostly of general flunkey work. It was a non-union shop and the pay was poor. I suppose I worked there about a year.

I kept up correspondence with my parents. The German authorities wanted people for their army. I got word that I must return to Germany and register for the draft or I would be subject to severe fines and imprisonment. I bought a ticket to go back but decided against it. I had tasted freedom in the United States and didn’t even answer the letter. Instead, I decided to take out citizenship here, so I went to Dodge City. Several steps had to be taken to obtain it, but I pursued it. It took two years from the first application to apply for the second papers. They then examined me and I was dreading it but it was easy. My English wasn’t good then. After the second papers five years passed and my citizenship was final. I had been in the United States long enough to fulfill that particular requirement. I had a little trouble because I had entered the U.S. under the assumed name of Cappler. I Americanized the Karl and had my name formally changed to Oscar Carl Kappler.

I can remember when I got my money back for the trip to Germany, I took the check to a banker in Spearville to deposit it and had to tell him the story of how I came to have the money.

I had saved my money, mostly·because there was nowhere to spend it. I bought a horse and then another, and then a team and wagon. I was going to go into business for myself. I didn’t have much cash left. I met a fellow who said that he had a chance to rent a farm by Liberal, Kansas, but had nothing to put the crop in with. I let him have my team and wagon for half the crop. The fellow got married to a shrew. When I came to collect my half, it didn’t grow. He had it all figured out where he hadn’t made any money and all I got back from the deal was my team of horses.

I met a man who had 80 acres of land seven miles north of Liberal, Kansas. It was located on the northeast corner of the section. The east border was along Highway 83 north of Liberal. A man could not make it on 80 acres, but I tried it anyhow. I gave the man my team of horses and a note for $2,000 for the land. There was a one-room house against the hill and a privy. I used coal to heat the place in winter. It wasn’t too cold as the hill protected the house from the wind. There was no well on the place and I got water from [the] Priefert’s windmill across the road (north). I cooked with a gasoline stove. The man who had my note sold it and bought a quarter section. I stayed on the farm until I had spent all my savings.

It was during the first world war that I was farming and there was no mail from Germany. One night my mother appeared to me in a dream and spoke to me. She said she was so glad that I wasn’t in Germany. I knew that she had just died and I broke down and cried like I had never cried before. That was the only time that I ever got homesick but there wasn’t much I could do as the war was going on and my mother, who was the only reason for returning, was now gone. I wrote down the exact date of the dream and later after the war, when the mail started moving again, my father wrote me of her death, and sure enough, that was the exact time of her death.

I went down the road and hit Mr. Fitzgerald up for a job. He fed quite a bit of cattle so he hired me to feed his cattle. We got to be good friends and he sold me his 1914 Model-T Ford. It was a good one.

I kept the land and rented it out for $80 a year. About that time, they discovered oil in the area and I had illusions of being a millionaire. I signed an oil lease for $80 a year which helped my income. No wells were drilled on the land so the lease was dropped.

I went to the Presbyterian Church in Liberal and the minister told me I should go to school and that I didn’t belong on the farm. He made application for me to go to Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois. I was really too old for admission, but while they knew my age, they didn’t make an issue of it. Blackburn was [a] self-help school and that is why I was sent there. I spent all my money for the trip to Carlinville. They had a farm in connection with [the] college and with my experience they put me on the farm. They decided I was too good for the farm so they got me to run their buying department. I bought their groceries and other items. I was no kid and could talk right up to the agents and bargain with them. I made good at that job and had no time clock to punch. Dr. Hutson, president of the college, was always beating the bushes for funds and I got to be his middleman. I was in touch with the college program and knew what was going on all the time.

Dr. Hutson always relied on me to get his facts and figures about the college.

Blackburn was a Presbyterian school and I had planned to go into the ministry.

The Blackburn Sunday School

Who started it?
The Blackburn Sunday School was started by the Student Volunteer band of Blackburn College. This (Student Volunteer) band is a group of students who are preparing for missionary work abroad and are endeavoring to serve the community while here.

What is its object?
To create higher ideals; to make better citizens; to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ. To serve people of all creeds and denominations; to promote the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and to exalt his name.

Who may come?
Anyone who would like to know more of the Gospel. We welcome especially those who have no other church home.

What will it do for you?
It will give you new inspiration, make life brighter; it will create within you new hope and joy. It will teach your children to appreciate the finer things of life. It will make of them better men and women.

We solicit your aid and your good will.

OSCAR C. KAPPLER, Superintendent
“How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” Heb. 2f:3

During my last year at Blackburn I got sick. It was my guts bothering me again. The school nurse thought I would be dead by morning so she made an announcement at supper that I was gravely ill and for everyone to remain quiet.

The news got to me not long after she made the announcement so I asked her if I could have a last request. She said she would do whatever she could. I had gone to Dr. Eugene F. Pellette in Liberal while I was on the farm for problems with my guts so I asked her to call an osteopath. She fumed out of the room as she believed in nothing but medical doctors, but she did grant my request and sent in an
osteopath, who had me back in class in almost no time.

I decided than that if osteopathy had worked that well on me it would also work for others. I had planned to go into the ministry but decided instead to pursue osteopathy.

I was ridiculed when I started changing my curriculum around to prepare myself for osteopathy.

Between Blackburn and CCO (Chicago College of Osteopathy) I got a job with a wholesale grocer in St. Louis for about a year. I covered the states of Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and Tennessee. The CCO was the only osteopathy college with any entrance requirements so I figured it was the best. I had corresponded some with Dr. Pellette and kept it up during my osteopathic training. I enrolled at CCO.

To make my way I worked for the college. I was sort of a watchman and worked when everyone else was off duty. I was right there at the front door and no one went in or out without my knowing it.

I made it okay at the college and graduated in three years on June 5, 1930.

There was no internship in those days, and Dr. Pellette asked me to come to Liberal and work with him . I got my Certificate of Authority to practice in Kansas on June 23, 1930. I was associated with Dr. Eugene F. Pellette who had an office on the west side of Lincoln Avenue between First and Second Streets.

Postscript:
Oscar C. Kappler joined the followship of the Liberal Presbyterian Church on September 30, 1917. He was ordained an elder on March 6, 1931; this same year he began a 29-year term of service as Sunday School superintendent. He served as Sunday School treasurer, song leader, and teacher on numerous occasions during those years. In 1950 Dr. Kappler was elected Clerk of Session. Active terms of service on the Session for Dr. Kappler included 1936-39, 1940-43, 1944-47, 1947-51, and 1957-1960.

Mabel Burt became Mrs. Oscar Kappler on May 22, 1932, having been a resident of Liberal since 1918. Both Mabel and Oscar were charter members of the Gideons International of Liberal, organized in 1950.

They had three sons – Karl, Robert and Raymond and two grandchildren.

On October 12, 1975, a resident of the Valley View Retirement Home in Garden City, Kansas, Dr. Oscar C. Kappler joined the Church Triumphant. Services were held from the sanctuary of the First United Presbyterian Church, and interment in the Liberal Cemetery, on October 15, 1975.

Additional family information was provided by son, Karl:

Mabel Kappler, Dr. Kappler’s wife, died in 1969.

Son Karl graduated from Kansas State University with a degree in Industrial Technology. He was in the military service for a few years, part of that time in Germany where he married a German girl. They had two children, Christine and Michael. They were divorced after some years. Karl and his family live in the Denver area. Karl worked for 33 years with the Utility Company of Colorado, Denver. He married Karen.
She was a musician, an organist and a piano teacher. They enjoyed many years of travel and gardening. Karen died of Alzheimer’s in 2018. Karl’s son, Michael, has his business, Kappler Mechanical and Electrical, in Broomfield, which is in the Denver area. Michael and his wife Kim keep close contact with Karl. Karl enjoys hiking in the mountains once a week and working in the garden.

Son Robert (Bob) Kappler graduated from the CCO, now named Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine. He remained at CCOM all his professional career and was a professor at the college. Bob died in 2017. His wife, Barbara, also died in 2017.

Son Raymond lived in Olathe, Kansas. He was a builder of pipe organs. He traveled for the Moller Pipe Organ Company as their agent and both repaired and built organs. He had studied organ during his growing up years. He had a pipe organ in his home in Olathe. Raymond died many years ago.

Comment by Donita Priefert Payne:

My grandmother, Opal Jennison Fraim, and all the Jennison family knew Dr. Kappler. Opal and her siblings would have been similar ages to Dr. Kappler. They were friends and spent many friendly hours at the Jennison home. The Jennison home was one mile east of the place Kappler lived on that farm. Dr. Kappler experienced discrimination because of his German identity but at least some of the people in that community accepted him and befriended him.