I think it was the stately old barn that convinced us to buy the farm. Its age held a nostalgic appeal to Judd and me Though its old red paint had faded to gray, the barn stood steady and strong under the weight of hundreds of sweet-smelling hay piled on its top floor.
As the local farmers came to reclaim the hay they had bought, the walls began to reveal not just cobwebs and dust, but memories: old harnesses, tools, and memorabilia. Painted on the south-east wall was a number: (1918).
The significance of the number was a mystery, until Judd visited one day with old Chappy. Chapman’s Gas Station was located on the main road through Keats. If you wanted to know what was happening in the area, you went to Chappy’s, bought a soda from the soda machine, sat on the bench, and leaned against the outside wall. Chappy, with his pipe in hand, knew all the news of the neighborhood. He also knew the history of Keats. Sitting down beside you, or simply leaning against the wall, he gave us both news and history.
It was through Chappy that we learned the mystery of the date we found painted in the barn. “I remember my dad talking about how he and others from Keats were putting the roof on that old barn the day that they learned that the Armistice was signed to end the war,” Chappy recounted. That would be a day that we still celebrate: Armistice Day, 1918.
My father was in France on that same day, celebrating with his battalion.
A war, a soldier, a barn, and residents of Keats, Kansas celebrating with each pound of their hammers up on that tall barn on Kitten Creek Road. History all tied together one hundred years ago!
