Sometime around 1869, the family of David Kauffman
moved to a farmstead outside Versailles, Missouri. They built a farm, which
stayed in the Kauffman family for several decades, at which time it was sold to
John C. Driver. His daughter, Mary Alice, married Leroy Gingerich. In the
mid-1930s, the Gingerich family took control of the farm and has held it for
seventy-five years. On May 6, 2006, the farm passed from the Gingerich family's
hands into those of strangers, who paid close to $500,000 for its 160 acres,
farmhouse, barn, and outbuildings.
David Kauffman was our great-great-grandfather, the grandfather of our maternal grandmother, Alice Kauffman Gingerich. Leroy Gingerich was our great-uncle, the oldest brother of Alice's husband, Fred Gingerich. Leroy died in early March 2006 at the age of ninety-eight. Grandma Alice is living in Schowalter Villa in Hesston, Kansas. She will be ninety-five on July 23, 2006.
In this old photograph, she is seated on a horse outside the farmhouse. Born in 1911, she is probably six or seven years old in this photo, which makes it sometime in 1917 or 1918. The two boys are Kauffman cousins.
Here is the way the house looked the day of the sale.
It's in pretty rough shape, inside and out. Naomi Gingerich, Leroy's daughter, who had been living there with Leroy for several years, declares that it needs to be torn down. I can't say I'd disagree with her. Bringing it back to good shape would take a lot of hard work and cold cash. I don't know if either one is in the picture for the new owner, who reportedly had someone interested in renting the place already.
The barn needs quite a bit of restoration work, too, although it's still in use for hay storage.
Several generations of Kauffmans, Drivers, and Gingeriches have left their mark(s) on the inside of one of the barn's haymows.
It's a little difficult to see at this resolution, but apparently Truman Gingerich (TWG, Leroy's younger brother) had more of an eye for cars than for horses.
The day before the sale, Eddie and I drove over from Lawrence. Not sure of how long the drive would take, we decided to go the evening before and find a place to stay. We ended up in Tipton, at a place called Twin Pine Motel (so named because of the large twin-trunked pine tree growing in front), just off U.S. 50. The morning of the sale, we drove back to Versailles, about 15 miles south on state road 5, and found the yard already full of folks and the roadside and field quickly filling up with cars and buggies.
The sale began with a word of prayer ("Leroy would have wanted us to start out with a prayer," the auctioneer announced) and a moment of silence in memory of Leroy (a conservative Mennonite minister much of his life, in addition to being a farmer) and also of the auctioneer's father, Jack Hutchison, who was to have been the auctioneer that day but who died the week before, unexpectedly, of a heart attack at age sixty-eight. (I learned this before arriving at the sale, in making conversation with the man who owns the Dutch Bakery and Bulk Food Store up in Tipton, where I'd gone to buy apple butter and pretzels.)
Items started selling fairly slowly, but things picked up as the auctioneer moved down the flatbed truck toward a bunch of old tools. Naomi had told us about a hand drill that had belonged to the Kauffmans and that had been used to drill the peg holes for the barn. One of us with Kauffman roots (Sally Gingerich Kelsey, my cousin, or Ruth Gingerich Penner, our aunt, or me) was determined to keep the drill in the family. Ruth (who stopped in with her husband Mil, en route from Indianapolis to Hesston, KS, where their son, Luke, was graduating from junior college the following day) found that she really liked it, so she was the one who bid, and ultimately got the drill and a hand-carved walnut stirring stick that had probably been used to make apple butter.
Incidentally, the first time Sally (above) bid for and won an item, the auctioneer (who was a real character) told her, "Young lady, you'd better be out of town before sundown, wearing that shirt." We were, of course, in "enemy territory" having come across the border from the land of the Jayhawkers. (We were all well out of town before sundown, just in case he hadn't been joking.)
A strange-looking tool caught my eye; some folks thought it was a root chopper, but Uncle Mil Penner informed me that it was for slicing hay. He knew this because they'd had one on his farm in Nebraska, and he'd had to use it a time or two as a kid. I ended up bidding on it, and on an old Gingerich mailbox (I'm wondering which Gingerich this belonged to -- the letters from "Gingerich" are clear, but the first name appears to have an "M" in it, and there is no "M" in "Leroy." Might it have belonged to the house where Amos, Leroy's father, lived, just up the road? I don't know whose it was, but nobody else seemed to want it). I also got a rather strange-looking mini-birdbath featuring some weathered gold-painted cherubs. Yard art is in the eye of the beholder. Those items, and a "Versailles Flint" brick bought for Mother, who was born in Versailles, were the sum total of my acquisitions and set me back $15.50. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
As the time drew near for the property to be sold, you could feel a buzz in the air. Sally and I marked the occasion by getting in line for a slice of homemade pie, and we nearly missed the moment. The auctioneer read the terms of the sale, remarked on what a unique occasion this was to obtain a piece of property that had belonged to one man for seventy-five years, and then launched into the bidding, starting at $2,000 an acre. (The bidding was all conducted in terms of the price per acre.) It started very, very slowly. Nobody bid, then it crept up to $2,100. Then the auctioneer, apparently working with some parties he had identified as those interested, announced that there was going to be a short break, so that folks could confer if they needed to. Because Sally and I were still in line for pie (we could hear this but not see it), Eddie saw that someone up near the front of the barn expressed displeasure with the fact that they were taking a break, but the auctioneer said, "This is how the family wants to conduct this sale, and this is what we are going to do." It's our guess that they were trying to encourage one of the "horse and buggy" Mennonites to buy the property, but because we couldn't really see the people involved, it's difficult to say.
It was a very dramatic auction. It soon became evident that one bidder was certain he wanted the property and the other agonized over every raised bid. The price crept up toward $3,000, then crossed that threshold. In a final attempt to get the reluctant party to raise his bid, the auctioneer said, "If you go home knowing you could have had this property for $100 more [an acre], you'll never forgive yourself." But the bidding finally ended, and the auctioneer repeated the amount three times: $3,250, $3,250, $3,250 — SOLD. At $3,250 for 160 acres, that amounts to nearly $500,000. What would David Kauffman have thought about that?
From where I was, I couldn't see the winning bidder. Naomi later told me that he was someone who owned the adjoining property and that she was very pleased with the price. He wasn't one of the horse and buggy men, though, as some had hoped for. But apparently the farmland is going to continue being farmed, and that's a good thing.
After the property was sold, the sale resumed, with many items remaining to sell, and it wrapped up around 2:30 in the afternoon.
Uncle Leroy's truck sold for $1,300. He had written his name on both sides.
Here Sally relaxes against James Gingerich's Ford pickup and talks with James (Leroy's son, seated, right) and cousin Gilbert Gingerich (seated, left), from Parnell, Iowa, who had driven in that morning. He acquired an old leather briefcase that Leroy had reportedly used to carry his Bibles and that Gilbert suspected belonged once to Leroy's father (and his grandfather), Amos. Gilbert is the son of Truman, he who carved the car into the barn wall.
As the sale ended and people gathered up the items they had bought, I walked around and took some more pictures of the grounds and (of course) the flowers.
Yes, those are horses and buggies in the background. I didn't get any good photos of them close up. The area is home to several horse and buggy Mennonite (conservative) groups, and did they ever turn out. The horse and buggy Mennonites in this area apparently have electricity but they don't have cars. I'm not sure whether they farm with tractors and other diesel machinery or not. They speak low German as do their Amish cousins, but these are not Amish. Eddie remarked on how well-behaved their children were. They were acting like children (girls and boys segregating themselves, wandering around in groups), but they were polite, didn't shriek and yell and argue, and didn't disrupt anything. It's been a while since I've been around large groups of "plain people," and I'd forgotten just how beautiful their children are — they are healthy from hard work, good food, and outdoor living, with beautiful hair and complexions. Many of the boys wore smaller versions of their fathers' black hats. The girls' braids went way down their backs. I took no photos of them (except for these little boys jumping on a bed). I don't know if they share the Amish's dislike for having a photo taken, but I didn't want to offend anyone in case they do.
There were some amazing old trees on the property, and signs of others that had not survived.
A sweet little yellow iris bloomed on one corner of the house, along with lilies of the valley that Naomi said she remembered being there from when she was a child.
A clematis wound its way among the peonies, irises, and lilies in the side garden.
We packed up our treasures (Sally had bought several items, including a 13' x 13' wool hooked rug) and caravanned back to Lawrence, with cow manure on the wheels (parking had been in a pasture), several flies in the car, and some indelible images of the day's events, which I've tried to convey in this essay. I'm really glad I went.
P.S. The pie was shoo-fly, and it was delicious.
Andrea Zuercher
Lawrence, Kansas
May 2006
David Kauffman was our great-great-grandfather, the grandfather of our maternal grandmother, Alice Kauffman Gingerich. Leroy Gingerich was our great-uncle, the oldest brother of Alice's husband, Fred Gingerich. Leroy died in early March 2006 at the age of ninety-eight. Grandma Alice is living in Schowalter Villa in Hesston, Kansas. She will be ninety-five on July 23, 2006.
In this old photograph, she is seated on a horse outside the farmhouse. Born in 1911, she is probably six or seven years old in this photo, which makes it sometime in 1917 or 1918. The two boys are Kauffman cousins.
Here is the way the house looked the day of the sale.
It's in pretty rough shape, inside and out. Naomi Gingerich, Leroy's daughter, who had been living there with Leroy for several years, declares that it needs to be torn down. I can't say I'd disagree with her. Bringing it back to good shape would take a lot of hard work and cold cash. I don't know if either one is in the picture for the new owner, who reportedly had someone interested in renting the place already.
The barn needs quite a bit of restoration work, too, although it's still in use for hay storage.
Several generations of Kauffmans, Drivers, and Gingeriches have left their mark(s) on the inside of one of the barn's haymows.
It's a little difficult to see at this resolution, but apparently Truman Gingerich (TWG, Leroy's younger brother) had more of an eye for cars than for horses.
The day before the sale, Eddie and I drove over from Lawrence. Not sure of how long the drive would take, we decided to go the evening before and find a place to stay. We ended up in Tipton, at a place called Twin Pine Motel (so named because of the large twin-trunked pine tree growing in front), just off U.S. 50. The morning of the sale, we drove back to Versailles, about 15 miles south on state road 5, and found the yard already full of folks and the roadside and field quickly filling up with cars and buggies.
The sale began with a word of prayer ("Leroy would have wanted us to start out with a prayer," the auctioneer announced) and a moment of silence in memory of Leroy (a conservative Mennonite minister much of his life, in addition to being a farmer) and also of the auctioneer's father, Jack Hutchison, who was to have been the auctioneer that day but who died the week before, unexpectedly, of a heart attack at age sixty-eight. (I learned this before arriving at the sale, in making conversation with the man who owns the Dutch Bakery and Bulk Food Store up in Tipton, where I'd gone to buy apple butter and pretzels.)
Items started selling fairly slowly, but things picked up as the auctioneer moved down the flatbed truck toward a bunch of old tools. Naomi had told us about a hand drill that had belonged to the Kauffmans and that had been used to drill the peg holes for the barn. One of us with Kauffman roots (Sally Gingerich Kelsey, my cousin, or Ruth Gingerich Penner, our aunt, or me) was determined to keep the drill in the family. Ruth (who stopped in with her husband Mil, en route from Indianapolis to Hesston, KS, where their son, Luke, was graduating from junior college the following day) found that she really liked it, so she was the one who bid, and ultimately got the drill and a hand-carved walnut stirring stick that had probably been used to make apple butter.
Incidentally, the first time Sally (above) bid for and won an item, the auctioneer (who was a real character) told her, "Young lady, you'd better be out of town before sundown, wearing that shirt." We were, of course, in "enemy territory" having come across the border from the land of the Jayhawkers. (We were all well out of town before sundown, just in case he hadn't been joking.)
A strange-looking tool caught my eye; some folks thought it was a root chopper, but Uncle Mil Penner informed me that it was for slicing hay. He knew this because they'd had one on his farm in Nebraska, and he'd had to use it a time or two as a kid. I ended up bidding on it, and on an old Gingerich mailbox (I'm wondering which Gingerich this belonged to -- the letters from "Gingerich" are clear, but the first name appears to have an "M" in it, and there is no "M" in "Leroy." Might it have belonged to the house where Amos, Leroy's father, lived, just up the road? I don't know whose it was, but nobody else seemed to want it). I also got a rather strange-looking mini-birdbath featuring some weathered gold-painted cherubs. Yard art is in the eye of the beholder. Those items, and a "Versailles Flint" brick bought for Mother, who was born in Versailles, were the sum total of my acquisitions and set me back $15.50. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
As the time drew near for the property to be sold, you could feel a buzz in the air. Sally and I marked the occasion by getting in line for a slice of homemade pie, and we nearly missed the moment. The auctioneer read the terms of the sale, remarked on what a unique occasion this was to obtain a piece of property that had belonged to one man for seventy-five years, and then launched into the bidding, starting at $2,000 an acre. (The bidding was all conducted in terms of the price per acre.) It started very, very slowly. Nobody bid, then it crept up to $2,100. Then the auctioneer, apparently working with some parties he had identified as those interested, announced that there was going to be a short break, so that folks could confer if they needed to. Because Sally and I were still in line for pie (we could hear this but not see it), Eddie saw that someone up near the front of the barn expressed displeasure with the fact that they were taking a break, but the auctioneer said, "This is how the family wants to conduct this sale, and this is what we are going to do." It's our guess that they were trying to encourage one of the "horse and buggy" Mennonites to buy the property, but because we couldn't really see the people involved, it's difficult to say.
It was a very dramatic auction. It soon became evident that one bidder was certain he wanted the property and the other agonized over every raised bid. The price crept up toward $3,000, then crossed that threshold. In a final attempt to get the reluctant party to raise his bid, the auctioneer said, "If you go home knowing you could have had this property for $100 more [an acre], you'll never forgive yourself." But the bidding finally ended, and the auctioneer repeated the amount three times: $3,250, $3,250, $3,250 — SOLD. At $3,250 for 160 acres, that amounts to nearly $500,000. What would David Kauffman have thought about that?
From where I was, I couldn't see the winning bidder. Naomi later told me that he was someone who owned the adjoining property and that she was very pleased with the price. He wasn't one of the horse and buggy men, though, as some had hoped for. But apparently the farmland is going to continue being farmed, and that's a good thing.
After the property was sold, the sale resumed, with many items remaining to sell, and it wrapped up around 2:30 in the afternoon.
Uncle Leroy's truck sold for $1,300. He had written his name on both sides.
Here Sally relaxes against James Gingerich's Ford pickup and talks with James (Leroy's son, seated, right) and cousin Gilbert Gingerich (seated, left), from Parnell, Iowa, who had driven in that morning. He acquired an old leather briefcase that Leroy had reportedly used to carry his Bibles and that Gilbert suspected belonged once to Leroy's father (and his grandfather), Amos. Gilbert is the son of Truman, he who carved the car into the barn wall.
As the sale ended and people gathered up the items they had bought, I walked around and took some more pictures of the grounds and (of course) the flowers.
Yes, those are horses and buggies in the background. I didn't get any good photos of them close up. The area is home to several horse and buggy Mennonite (conservative) groups, and did they ever turn out. The horse and buggy Mennonites in this area apparently have electricity but they don't have cars. I'm not sure whether they farm with tractors and other diesel machinery or not. They speak low German as do their Amish cousins, but these are not Amish. Eddie remarked on how well-behaved their children were. They were acting like children (girls and boys segregating themselves, wandering around in groups), but they were polite, didn't shriek and yell and argue, and didn't disrupt anything. It's been a while since I've been around large groups of "plain people," and I'd forgotten just how beautiful their children are — they are healthy from hard work, good food, and outdoor living, with beautiful hair and complexions. Many of the boys wore smaller versions of their fathers' black hats. The girls' braids went way down their backs. I took no photos of them (except for these little boys jumping on a bed). I don't know if they share the Amish's dislike for having a photo taken, but I didn't want to offend anyone in case they do.
There were some amazing old trees on the property, and signs of others that had not survived.
A sweet little yellow iris bloomed on one corner of the house, along with lilies of the valley that Naomi said she remembered being there from when she was a child.
A clematis wound its way among the peonies, irises, and lilies in the side garden.
We packed up our treasures (Sally had bought several items, including a 13' x 13' wool hooked rug) and caravanned back to Lawrence, with cow manure on the wheels (parking had been in a pasture), several flies in the car, and some indelible images of the day's events, which I've tried to convey in this essay. I'm really glad I went.
P.S. The pie was shoo-fly, and it was delicious.
Andrea Zuercher
Lawrence, Kansas
May 2006