History uncovered

FORT SCOTT, Kan. — Jewish history just keeps coming out of Bourbon County, and Norm Conard is at the forefront of it. Conard’s first foray into Jewish history was in 1999, when he helped a group of high school students at nearby Uniontown High School research and develop a play about the life of Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who saved 2,500 Jewish children during the Holocaust.

Neither Conard nor any of the young women are Jewish themselves.

Now he’s heading the history-oriented Lowell Milken Center here, which recently opened a new exhibit, “The Jewish Legacy of Fort Scott,” underwritten by Howard and Ro Jacobson, the Helen and Sam Kaplan Memorial Fund and the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City. It consists of more than 25 photos, interesting tidbits about the city’s Jewish past and artwork from local students in relation to the photos.

Conard taught social studies for 34 years and was inducted into The National Teachers Hall of Fame in 2007.

Kate Emmett-Sweetser, the exhibit curator, approached Conard with the idea after becoming curious about Fort Scott’s Jewish Pine Lawn Cemetery. Further research uncovered a Jewish community had started in 1864 with Civil War Confederate soldier Jacob Bamberger and blossomed into a thriving group that later included many prominent businessmen and even a mayor.

Jewish residents wielded influence in the local country club and, with non-Jews, helped found the Scottish Rite Temple, an organization similar to the Masons.

“One question people ask is, ‘Why is the Jewish community not here today,’ and we think we have several answers,” Conard said. “Maybe the most important one is there was no synagogue in town, so they went to Joplin for the synagogue or Kansas City. Also, rural America saw people leaving in mass numbers, going to the city where jobs were and businesses.”

The community dwindled in the late 20th century, and the last Jewish family, the Litwins, left in the 1990s. Conard said a handful of Jewish residents have moved to the area recently.

At its height, the Fort Scott Jewish community consisted of about 20 to 30 families. Being Jewish didn’t separate these people from the other Fort Scott residents.

“They do remember the people, and some of them may not have realized they were Jewish. It just really didn’t matter in this community. They were merchants here, they were their neighbors, and the people they saw at the country club and the Scottish Rite,” said Jaime Walker, the Milken Center’s director of development.

Most of the Jewish residents of Fort Scott were business owners. Their holdings included the Prager family’s jewelry store and the Litwin family’s clothing store. Cohn’s Coffee Shoppe was another popular, Jewish-owned spot in town.

“It was the tradition of children in the community, Jewish or not, to go here for your birthday party,” Conard said.

To see that level of acceptance from the general community, so long ago, surprised Gayle Krigel.

“I sort of expected that there was going to be some sort of oppression of Jews in a small town during that time, but (Emmett-Sweetser) said they were well-respected and sort of the elite of society,” she said.

Krigel met Conard through his work on the Sendler play, and even spoke at the March 20 opening of the Fort Scott exhibit. She said she was especially intrigued because her family came from a small town in Oklahoma and also traveled to Joplin to attend synagogue.

Current Fort Scott residents have been supportive of the exhibit and have taken an interest in learning about the defunct Jewish community, Conard said.

“I think we’ve been most pleased by the enthusiasm from people in the community who say, ‘I didn’t know the extent of the Jewish community in Fort Scott.’ People are interested in knowing more about Judaism,” Conard said.

That means a lot to Conard, who remembers speaking to students at Uniontown High School for the Sendler project and asking how many of them had ever met a Jewish person. The only ones to raise their hands were the students actually working on the Sendler project.

“Here we are, in a community without Jewish citizens, basically, with an exhibit that is gaining a lot of attention and is certainly bringing back wonderful memories of the Jewish community that contributed a great deal to this whole area,” Conard said. “We’ve had 400 visitors in a few weeks, which may not be a lot for a major museum in Kansas City, but for a little town, that’s quite significant.”

Exploring the exhibit
“The Jewish Legacy of Fort Scott,” a collection of photos and information on the history of Fort Scott’s Jewish community, opened March 20 and will remain on display for one year. The Lowell Milken Center, named for the Milken Family Foundation, which provided money for the Center’s creation through a grant, encourages educational use of its exhibits and will have a curriculum guide for all of its projects available in June. Visitors can find the Center at 4 South Main St. in Fort Scott, about 80 miles south of the Kansas City area. There is no charge to view the exhibit, and parking is available on the street. For more information on the Lowell Milken Center and its various historical exhibits, visit www.lowellmilkencenter.org or call (620) 223-9991. |"By: Beth Lipoff

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