The Home of Gertrude Shute is almost a museum of Pittsburg, Kansas. On the walls are various pictures of Pittsburg long ago. As the smell of Gertrude’s Christmas cookies lofted above us, her memories came pouring forth. When Gertrude talked about her life, she was recalling; not necessarily a simpler time, but a different one. Hearing Gertrude’s stories of her life and the lives of others made me more aware of what we have now, both good and bad. I learned of Gertrude’s charity, her compassion, and her good will. She always made sacrifices in her life to help others, whether she knew it or not.

The small woman sitting across from me may seem fragile to some; but to those who read this interview you will see a strong-willed individual that has been able to preserve her morals and standards during a time when that wasn’t always easy. She stood by her husband as he served our nation; and she stood by her husband when he and his brother started a printing company, Pittcraft. Through it all she stood true to herself, and always put family first.

Gertrude Shute: A True Philanthropist

I was born in Arma, Kansas on December 9th, 1917. I only lived in Arma for one year because my father, Elmer Sellmansberger, opened the bank in Arma and was invited to join the Pittsburg bank. So we moved here when I was a year old. *[My mother’s] name was Elizabeth, actually she went by “Libbie.” I had three brothers and one sister.

In my growing up years there were quite a few children in our neighborhood, and one of the highlights was when the farmer would come ‘bout once a week with fresh produce. The women would all go out to his truck and buy fresh vegetables and watermelons and whatever they wanted right then. The boys put their pennies together and purchased a watermelon and took it up into their little hide away to eat it, and they wouldn’t let me join ‘em because I was a girl. I even offered to give them some pennies, but they wouldn’t let me.

Then we watched for the iceman because people had boxes they could put a chunk of ice in. So we all followed the ice truck, and he’d chip off little pieces to give to us and that was a real treat.

My mother always felt like we needed to work for what we got, for our allowances; and so when it came close to the fourth of July she said, “I’ll give you a penny for each five weeds you dig up out of the yard.” Or something like that. So we’d have to count what we’d dug up to get the money, and that’s how we bought our firecrackers.

A couple of neighbor girls [and I] had something going. We would make a bet that we’d be the first one up in the morning on the fourth of July, and we’d go light a firecracker underneath their bedroom window to wake them up. Then if you were first, they would have to give you two or three of their firecrackers. That was the prize for being to first one awake.

Everybody charged to the grocery store, and paid once a month. We all liked to do that mostly [because] he’d give us a sack full of candy when we paid the bill.

I went to Forest Park School, which isn’t there anymore. It’s where a playground is for little kids. When I was in the first grade, our principal was quite a rough teacher. She was an older woman and she was very strict. In those days we had a restroom in the basement of the school. So, you had to get permission from your own teacher to go to the restroom; but then you had to stop at her (the principal’s) door, while she’s teaching first grade reading and let her nod and say, “It’s ok for you to go down.” They were afraid little groups would gather down there and visit. Well, one day I didn’t want to wait. I stood at her door and she didn’t pay attention to me. I needed to go so I just went on down. And guess who came down while I was there? The principal! She didn’t see me, I hurried up and got out of there and she never did see me!

Then another experience when I was in the first grade class. I went home to lunch and here are all these cousins. They’d come to visit, and my parents hadn’t been expecting them. My mother hurriedly put a meal together and my job was to be sure their water glasses were filled. I had on my apron and I was going around filling all the water glasses and making sure everybody was taken care of. All of the sudden, my mother looked at the clock and she said, “You got to run back to school. You’re going to be late if you don’t. You’d better hurry!”

So I did. I ran all the way back, sat down at my desk, I looked down and I had my apron on. I was too shy to say anything to the teacher. I sat with my chin on my desk all afternoon because I didn’t want her to see my apron.

The people I grew up with didn’t realize we were in [a] depression because everyone was in the same boat. The students didn’t have cars. We didn’t have anyone to compete with. We all made our own fun. We did what we wanted to do because nobody had any money. We didn’t feel like we were deprived because we didn’t expect it. You know? We just made the best of what we had, but we had fun. [We would] go to the show, play tennis, anything we could do that didn’t cost a lot of money. We could buy a nickel’s worth of candy and that was wonderful. Things were so different then. We didn’t expect it. We didn’t ask for things from our parent’s because we knew those things weren’t around. It really didn’t seem like a hard time to us because we were in the same category. We had a lot of fun. There were eleven children just on our block in our neighborhood where we lived, and we just had a good time.

I thought I had a good childhood. I enjoyed it. I had fun living in the old neighborhood. Basically, I enjoyed every phase of my life because I made the most of it. I worked with what I had. I never felt like we were actually deprived, and we did what we could. We had many good friends.

We were fortunate, yes. Now in later years I’ve heard people say that they kind of looked up to us because my dad was a banker, which really didn’t mean anything, because he didn’t have as good a salary as some other people. My parents wanted us to advance and they always tried to do everything to involve us and help us. I began to hear over the years how my mother would help a lot of families, and I never knew about it. My mother and father did a lot that we didn’t know about. We were more fortunate than some were, yeah. That didn’t mean that we were well to do; but, we never did suffer.

Growing up with a deaf sister, that was an experience for all. We learned to sign the alphabet. We tried to learn more, but my parents wouldn’t let us use it. They wanted her to learn to read lips. She went to the Kansas School for the Deaf in Olathe [Kansas] for twelve years. They would not permit us to sign to her. Sometimes we would try little things just for fun. They emphasized that she should learn to read lips, and they expressed that to her teachers. She was much better at that than most of her good friends that were over there. That was dramatic too, because as a little child I had to see her get on the Frisco train to send her up there. Then they’d meet her up there at the station. That was hard. She was four years older.

Then after my mother died, she [my sister] moved in. I’ve pretty much had someone to care for all my life. It was an experience, and I continued having her deaf friends over here, a bunch of these gals. It was nice.

I kinda hate to tell you this story, but my oldest brother had quite an experience at PHS (Pittsburg High School). He was on the swim team, and he was in swim class. He and another student dove in the pool at the same time. They crashed and hit bottom. The Phys. Ed. teacher had a hard time trying to revive them, but he got them out. Apparently, the other fella made it all right after a period of time; but my brother—they thought he was ok—at first. Then, five months later he started having seizures. It’d be just like epilepsy. When you have pressure on the brain, it causes seizures. He would fall a lot. They took him to Baltimore to do brain surgery. Years later there was a specialist in Kansas City and they took him there. He lived to fifty-two. He was a math expert. He was really talented. He just had a hard time trying to finish his schoolwork. He did it, and got his masters in math and science, so he accomplished it.

The first car my parents owned was called an “Essex Touring Car.” It was the kind that had two little jump seats in the back. So after church, we would pick up my grandparents and take a picnic lunch and drive down to Neosho. That was a long drive in those days. It was a beautiful park, and we’d, uh, have our picnic lunch and drive back. That was a long afternoon of prayer.

It was quite an ordeal when my mother learned to drive, but she did very well. We all took our turns knocking down the garage doors. They were folding doors, and sometimes they would close tight and they would open up again; and you’d start to back out, and you’d bump the door. My father had to replace them several times. That was the family joke.

My brother was two years older than I was. We were pretty good buddies. He was onery. One nice thing about it [his being older], was that he’d try things and get away with them; and that paved the way for me a little bit. We had a good time.

I was selected as the "Pittsburg Hostess" when they had the first Coal Festival. People thought I was a leader, thought I was a very good citizen. Which I consider the highest honor I’ve received in my lifetime, because it was not selling annuals, I didn’t have to do anything except get elected by the student body. That’s the highest award I’ve ever received.

It was a city-wide promotion to try and get many towns to come and shop in Pittsburg. The merchants all decorated their windows, and there were contests and a big parade. Then each school from the surrounding towns selected a girl to be their queen. Then we’d have to compete; and then they would vote and select one that night. The man was called “King Coal.” For the first one they built a platform right in the middle of Fourth and Broadway. It was a formal affair, and it was so cold! An older woman loaned me her velvet cape so I didn’t freeze. They had interviews, and at that time everything fancy was held at the Bess [Hotel]. So that’s where it was held. We got to meet the local people. I was actually the hostess. It was an honor and I enjoyed it. It was a two-day affair.

I knew I would go here [to college], at KSTC (Kansas State Teachers College) as it was called. I went into elementary to teach. I was only away from Pittsburg for two years, and that was when I taught school in Cherryvale and Parsons. I taught Kindergarten. You don’t care about hearing a naughty story do you? One day, it was on a Monday, and I’d been home for the weekend so I was pretty tired. The children put their little mats down to rest, and one of the little students said, “Teach, why don’t you rest too?”

Well, I thought that sounded like an excellent idea. I put my head down on the desk and fell sound asleep. The principal came in and had to wake me up. She was very nice about it, but it just showed the children must have been good because she didn’t even notice. So, I didn’t get into much trouble. Then WWII came along so I moved back here and worked in the office at the Cripe Bakery.

[Bill and I got married on] Aug 3^rd, 1941. He was actually born in Canada. He thought, at that point in time, with his mother being a United States citizen, he would automatically become a citizen. But there was a period of time there when it didn’t apply. He and his twin brother had no idea that they weren’t considered citizens, and so they took a class out at KSTC (Kansas State Teachers College). Then he applied for his citizenship so he could put into be in the service in October. I always teased him that that was the only reason he married me--so that he could get his citizen papers quicker.

Gertrude with husband, Bill; 1997

Something that happened around that time, probably ’40 or ’41, was that in order to make sure families had an income, a husband and wife could not both work. I didn’t plan to teach because I was going to get married. Well, Dec 7^th, 1941 was Pearl Harbor and so that was a difference in our lives. That’s why Bill went in the service. [A.J.] Cripe Bakery knew not to hire another man because he would be taken away. Bill had been keeping books for them for a while. He set up their book keeping system. The manager asked about me and Bill said, “She’s not had business experience.”

[The manager] said, “Well, then you can teach her your system? You’re the one that installed the system, and so we’ll pay you both while you teach her. Because we know you’ll be leaving soon.” So we worked together for two or three months, before he left.

The only thing I did, outside of my regular job, was I actually moved back in with my parents. There was a group of us that would try to help in any way we could, recycle cans. The Southern (Kansas City Southern train) would come to town; you know, the train with all the service men. They’d let them off in Pittsburg, and we would have cookies and fresh coffee for them. Just to give ‘em a break. Actually there weren’t many service men located right here so we didn’t have dances like a bunch of the other towns did for the service men.

He [Bill] didn’t go until February of the next year, ’42. Naturally [Bill being in the Army] was [a] trauma, and he was in the Pacific where the Japs were. So, he often had to make a quick run for a ditch to hide and so forth. He was gone four years, but I was fortunate because I had a good job and I enjoyed it. It helped. There were other wives that had their husbands gone, and so we just made our own time.

During the war, Bill was going to be shipped overseas. He had been stationed in Oklahoma. So he boarded the train, and was to meet me in Kansas City. There were so many military men lined up to get on the train that I was afraid they wouldn’t let me on. I looked up and down the line until I found a good looking one. I asked if I could board the train with him, and he said I could. So, we were walking along and who do we see, but my husband! He was so glad because he knew I wouldn’t have made it on. He was relieved that I made it.

Another story is when Bill was stationed in Oklahoma they had a dance, and the only way I could get there was to go over to Parsons and catch the train. When it was time to go home I got on the train, and we got into Parsons at two thirty in the morning. I had to be at work at seven thirty that morning. I didn’t want my parents to spend their gas ration to come pick me up. I carried my suitcase and walked down the streets by myself to a warehouse where I knew a feeder truck would load. I rode home in a great big feeder truck. You do all kinds of things when you have to.

When I worked at the Cripe Bakery, I would have to write checks for a whole car load of flour, big checks. They had to counter sign them. I went to the back to my supervisor and asked him to sign the check so I could send it off. A few minutes later he comes up to the office with a ball of dough. He said, “Did somebody come to the back with a fountain pen?” He showed us the green dough; and I said,

“Oh, I guess so.” He didn’t worry about it because all he had to do was take a spoon and scoop out that little bit. It didn’t hurt anything, but he let me know I’d better not come back there with a pen anymore.

They were frightening times. We [Bill and I] would write letters back and forth. It would take six weeks to get a letter from each other. By that time we’d forgotten what we’d written or asked. So, we’ d have to keep track of everything we wrote. Of course, so many of the letters were censored. Our postmaster of the time told me that I could not send anything overseas unless it was requested! I found out in other areas that was not so; but I had to abide by it even though I felt that way. If Bill had something--like a certain book that he wanted to read--he’d put it in a letter, and I’d fold it over so that the one paragraph showed, and show it to the postman.

One of his favorite stories was of one of his buddies. His parents made homemade sausage, and they would ship it. It would take like three weeks to get there, and it’d be all moldy. With mold all over it, but they didn’t care! They scraped it off and ate it! He said it tasted good! Of course they would take their showers out in the open, and use their helmets to hold the water and so forth. I have pictures of all that.

[Bill], his twin brother Harry, and Andy Wachter decided they wanted to open a print shop after the war. That’s when Pitt Craft Printing was formed. Naturally, they had problems trying to finance it and times weren’t easy right then. They were finally able to get a builders loan from a Kansas City bank. Everybody was very supportive of them after that, when they saw how well they were doing.

They started at Third and Pine, very small. Then they moved to Fourth and Pine. Bill was very involved because he kept going back and helping, even after he retired and so forth. He liked to keep in touch with things, with all of them. He just kept a relationship with all of them. Same thing every year, Christmas parties and so on.

The only time I worked in the office was when one of the women took off work, pregnancy or something. We started our family then. I had our daughter in 1948 so I didn’t work then unless I was filling in. Then our son was born in 1962

When our daughter first started kindergarten, there was a position in the office they asked me to fill in. Then in later years when one of the girls got sick or pregnant, I’d fill in for them. Other than that I took care of our children and was active in the Presbyterian Church and clubs.

He [Bill] was gone a lot. It was a busy time trying to raise a new baby, starting a business, and all that at once; but we got by. We had a very interesting life.

We actually were middle income. We bought a home in the Lakeside district. It was very small, but we were happy; and we were where we wanted to be. We had a real good neighborhood, a lot of nice friends. As years progressed, we kept adding on until we have a pretty good size home now. We can sleep twelve very easily!

My husband, being President of Pitt Craft, was very busy; but he was offered a job [by] Congressman Joe Skubitz. He became the administrative assistant in this area. I did help some with that. We interviewed people, particularly coal miners, to see if they were entitled to receive the black lung benefits. That was such a rewarding job. It meant so much to Bill because these [families] were really low income. They had worked in coal mines. There were stipulations; everybody that applied didn’t get it. The ones who did were so thankful. I can still hear some of them saying, ‘Oh, now I can put a roof on my house,” or “Now I can have this done or fix something that needed done because now I have the money to do it!” I think maybe five thousand was the maximum. I don’t know exactly how much they received.

It was very rewarding. One story that we just dearly love was this little Italian man, who was very upset because he felt like he should pay a little something for the service. He said, "You know most people when they ask for help we have to pay them a little something."

Bill said, “Well this is a government thing. Congressman won’t take money, and I won’t either.” He was really hurt.

He said, “I want to do something. I don’t take free charity.”

Bill said, “Well, I understand you’re a real good gardener. And you really know how to grow things. If you ever have any produce left over, just bring us a little something out of your garden once in a while.” He was here about once a week to bring us something great he had grown in his garden. He felt good about it, and we did too! It was nice! We had a lot of interesting experiences like that.

Bill would drive the congressman all over the area when he would come back from Washington to see how he could help people. The congressmen in the east states could not believe that he had such a big territory. With the population they just had a few miles to go [to] contact their people. He (Skubitz) would have, I think, twenty-four towns in all to contact. They would drive all day long from place to place to talk to people, see how things were going, and what they needed. It was interesting, but it sure kept ‘em busy. People didn’t get any Medicare, or social security [then]. It was fun. We enjoyed it.

I understood how a lot of these people weren’t destitute. They were frugal. They didn’t have money to spend to fix up their homes. In fact, that’s why, when times were hard, several different families started serving meals like Chicken Annie. There were a number of other people, who opened up their homes to serve meals, and they were very popular, we would go out and eat at these homes. They had good meals. That’s how they made their extra money.

We were invited to go on a trip with the congressman and his wife. He (Skubitz), was assigned the duty of checking the rail systems in Germany and in Europe. The United States was very concerned that we were losing rail business, and they were not going to re-build them and keep it going. His way was paid by the government, but his wife’s, and our’s of course [were not]. We just went along and we were really privileged to get to go on the trip. We had a friend that accused us of using government money, which we did not because we paid our way on everything.

That was a wonderful opportunity because we got to go to England, Germany, Italy, and Yugoslavia. The Congressman was from Yugoslavia and so he wanted to visit relatives, cousins, that lived there. We went through there. That was about 1973 or so.

We felt very welcome everywhere in every place except, uh--so many people would make the same comment we did--we didn’t feel that the French people were very welcoming. We weren’t as welcome in France as we were in some other countries, however; we did hire a guy who was to take us a lot of places. This guy who took us out into a little country villa and we had a meal. It was where they trained the officers of the secret service men. It was an interesting meal. We enjoyed that.

In Yugoslavia, this is interesting, we went to see an old farm home. It was so interesting because they were just great, they were so glad to see us. They had a big oven in the kitchen where they would bake their bread and everything. They used those long handled paddles. Then, on the other side of the wall, was the heat stove. It was what furnished the heat for the whole country house. They had covered it with tile, and put little pads down, and then had a flat area on top. They put the little tiny babies and children [there] to keep ‘em warm while they had dinner. They could take their naps up there. They had this little seat where you could put your back up against the tile to warm your backs. That’s how they kept warm. The same thing [went on] up above this oven. [There was] a tiny little closet where they smoked all their meat. They would have it hanging up there, and that’s how they cured meat! They didn’t waste anything. They were very frugal people.

In the Vatican, we had a visit with the pope, John Paul at that time. That was a great experience. He spoke in five languages. They carried him in on his red seat. I enjoyed it. I felt very humble all the time I was there. I could think of all [my] Catholic friends we had here at home who would have just been thrilled, more so than we were, to be there. We did purchase some rosaries, and he blessed them. We brought them back to some relatives and friends who were Catholics and they were our gifts. It was quite an experience we enjoyed that. The hotel we stayed in was close to the Spanish Steps. Everyone talks about the Spanish Steps there. It was beautiful, but when we got ready to leave all the personnel stood in a line with their hands out waiting for us to give them tips. We had already turned in most of our coins. We didn’t want to carry more luggage than that. We about ran out before we got through! They wanted their tips.

I’m sure he (Congressman Skubitz) could give a good report when he got back because we took the train. Of course, he would go into meetings and conferences while we were there that we weren’t allowed in. He felt that they had a good system over there. He just wished the United States would do more here.

We were sorry, you know, when Kansas City Southern started losing their franchise. I mean, the railroad. That was kind of hard on Pittsburg. Of course, the airlines were taking over. It had its chance I guess. They weren’t moving so much coal either. Naturally, that’s progress. We’ve made progress in the greatest ways over the years and we’re glad for that. We accepted what we had at the time. I was glad when we didn’t have to burn coal, ‘cause there’d sure be a lot of black all over the house, black smoke. It was for heat.

Well [Bill being active in the Shriners,] that kept us busy. He did so many things. They helped a lot of people. It’s very rewarding to see what they could do to help all those children who needed the help. We went to the hospital in St. Louis. Oftentimes they would bring back one child they’d helped. Wonderful things! It takes a lot of dedicated men to do it. It made us feel pretty humble and glad that we have our health.

We felt like it was very important to help the people who needed help, and they still are doing it there. Our men, a little group of them called the “Hospital Dads” that were very devoted. They’d go and spend the night in the office and wait for calls from the hospital. Whenever they have an opening, they (the hospital) would call and they (the Dads) would pick up the family and the child would be taken to St. Louis--no matter what time of day or night, morning, or evening.

We did not do that because that was just a certain group called “Hospital Dads” that volunteered to do that. Bill, of course had much more of a financial type, running the business type thing. But we did get to visit different areas, and we felt like our St Louis hospital was as good as any other.

We did visit our Houston Hospital, too, for burns and orthopedic. Ours was just as good as any others. I was impressed. We always wanted to help people, and that made us feel special. Bill was very interested in what he could do to help people.

He started a project for the town that was not publicized. They told some of the [school] administrators that if they had a student that needed to participate in something, but didn’t have the clothes or couldn’t finance it, to let them know and they would see that money was available. Of course it was all pretty secretive, so I didn’t know too much about it. I remember one incident, a girl at St. Mary’s who was very deserving, didn’t have a dress to wear to her Prom. The principal, or the one in charge, told the board about her. So they said, “You know the rule, they’re not to be told where it comes from. If they’re willing to work, or help out at school in some way, then it would be provided for them if they helped at school.”

They helped many students with that. It was just from their hearts. They didn’t want it to be publicized. They did help several schools, several kids.

Right now, since I’m a widow, I don’t like people saying to me, “Aren’t you terribly lonely?” And “What do you do with your time?”

I don’t feel like that. We’ve had a wonderful life. We have a lot of happy memories together. It just suddenly occurred to me the other day that this is really the first time in my life that I’ve been able to plan my own time. As I was growing up, I had a brother who was in poor health, a sister who was deaf, whom I pretty well raised. We all had our certain little chores we had to do. All my life I’ve had somebody to look after! [So], I don’t have that terrible lonely feeling. I had a chance to do all those things I’ve wanted to do. Anyway--you know I’m very thankful. I have good health. Very thankful.

* indicates words not said by Gertrude Shute

This interview was conducted by Ashley Gould in the spring of 2003

Gertrude with husband Bill; Easter, 2002