Art,

I'm not sure what you want from me. Remember once I get started it is hard to shut me up.

Today, I found the application I made to the Kansas Humanities Council and all the reports involved with the project. I can get you copies of that material. It will explain the project and what it was supposed to do and give the costs and work involved with the project. That is the nuts and bolts of the project. Now I'm going to take off and explain how it all came about.

I was eight years old the night we attended the pageant in Morganville. I didn't really understand what was going on, but I was impressed - impressed enough to remember and ask questions over the years. My folks discussed the pageant many times and all the work that went into it. Both of my parents were �Longfellow� fans. My Dad could quote pages of the �Song of Hiawatha�. Since the narration for the pageant was set in that meter, it interested him, to the point he could tell you how the script was following the original song.

My mother, Josephine, had known, or at least known about, Velma Carson since Josephine was in high school. Some of Velma's cousins lived next door to Josephine and her mother and brother in Broughton. I'm quite sure that Josephine had heard about Velma and her life style and the things she was doing. Dad, Joe, had heard the stories from Josephine and her mother. Velma was something else again!

The first I remember, or think I remember, about Velma was after she had returned to Morganville in the mid 1940s to live. (Note: Velma said she came back to Morganville to get Cynthia, her daughter, away from her crazy father.) We were attending an auction and the crowd was all a twitter about a woman, who had on a see-through blouse (nylon, I'll bet) and only a bra on underneath. Josephine asked, �Who is she?� and the answer came back �Velma Carson.� Josephine shrugged her shoulders and commented, �That explains it!�

I'm sure Josephine and Velma crossed paths, through women's clubs, maybe. Sometime in the early 1960's, a friendship between Joe, Josephine and Velma developed. After all, we were part of that �out-cast group,� not only in Clay County, but in the state of Kansas. We were Democrats!

Velma was a character and she enjoyed shocking people. It wasn't long before she learned that Joe and Josephine took her with �a grain of salt� and she couldn't really shock them. They enjoyed discussing politics, literature and especially poetry. I went along for the ride. Over the years, I got to know Velma better. I would ask about the pageant and get a few answers, mostly about finding costumes and what a success the evening was. By the time I started asking questions, it was over twenty years after the fact and people just weren't interested.

One day, I was setting on the bed in Velma's room and she was relating family history. Right next to the bed was a door and Velma informed me that it led to the �Black Hole of Calcutta� and it was worth your life to open it. I guessed, and was later told I was right; it was a storage room. As I sat there on the bed I glanced down and there on the floor was a stack of papers, titled �Message to Feves.� I picked it up and asked, �Is this what I think it is?� �Yes, and you put it back!� she replied. I folded the paper, stuck it in my jacket pocket. �Thanks!�

The folks and I read it over from time to time and they talked about what they could remember. Velma wasn't talking. The subject was dropped. Time went by. Velma went to live with her daughter and the Carson House was sold and moved.

Then another resident of Morganville, Dan Roenigk died. Dan had been the Mayor of Morganville and had run an insurance agency in the town for years. His son and daughter came back to break up the family home. They were history minded and began to bring items to the museum. One day, Ivan, Dan's son, walked in with a box of stuff and started to unload it. He pulled out a notebook and said, �I don't think you will be interested in this.�

I almost fell across the table grabbing for the book. It was titled �Message to Feves.� Inside the scrapbook were pictures of the pageant, newspaper clipping, and letters from people in Feves. It was a treasure. Who besides Cathy was interested?

Time passed. Katie Armitage, who was doing research for the Kansas Humanities Council stopped by the Clay Center museum looking for some information. After we talked a while, she wanted to know if there was anything in the community that might be a humanities program. I though a while and cut loose on Feves. When I finally shut up, she said to apply for a grant. I did and it was approved. And produced. I can go into a l-o-n-g story about the process; meetings held, letters written, pictures found, news articles copied. It is this material that the student from K-State stumbled on. It was a treasure! All their work, research, that been done for them all and they had to do was write a report. And the rest is history.

(FYI: Once I started working on the project, the first thing the residents of Morganville informed me of was that the �s� on the end of the name of that town in France was NOT to be pronounced. The town was said as Feve.)

Cathy Haney