Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area and the Kansas City, Kansas, Public Library are inviting people who have memories of Quindaro to share them during an oral history session Saturday, March 24, at the Main Library, 625 Minnesota Ave, Kansas City, Kansas.
This session of the Quindaro Oral History Project, the third in the series, will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, March 24. Interviews will be recorded in the first floor meeting rooms at the Main Library.
The Quindaro Oral History Project grew out of Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area, and the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, working toward National Historic Landmark status with the National Park Service for the Quindaro neighborhood.
Quindaro Oral History Project sessions are recorded and transcribed for the library, and will be available for research, as well as preserving the memories and history of the families that called the neighborhood home.
The Kansas City, Kansas, Public Library was formed in 1895. In 1899, it came under the authority of the Kansas City, Kansas, Public School District Board of Education and remains there today. It serves a population of 159,129. The mission of Kansas City, Kansas Public Library is to connect members of a dynamic community with information, tools, resources and welcoming spaces to enrich lives in Wyandotte County. The library can be found online at kckpl.org.
Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area (FFNHA) is dedicated to building awareness of the struggles for freedom in western Missouri and eastern Kansas. These diverse, interwoven, and nationally important stories grew from a unique physical and cultural landscape. FFNHA inspires respect for multiple perspectives and empowers residents to preserve and share these stories. The group achieves its goals through interpretation, preservation, conservation and education for all residents and visitors.
– Story from Kansas City, Kansas, Public Library
On my maternal side my great-grandmother was Lillian Walker Hale, the daughter of Matthew Walker. The Walkers were Wyandottes descended from William Walker, Provisional Governor of the Nebraska Territory. After the U.S. Treaty of 1837 they were forced from Upper Sandusky, Ohio, to what became Wyandot, Kansas (now Kansas City). Some of my Walker relatives are buried there in the Quindaro Cemetery. My Grandmother, Lydia Emily Hale Chapin, was the last of our direct family to live in Kansas City. She and her husband, Archibald Bertram Chapin, a political cartoonist for the KC Star, moved to St. Louis (Kirkwood), Mo., when he was employed by that newspaper. Many Walker relatives were members of the Quindaro community. William Walker’s journals, I believe, reside in the KCL collection.