In Melvern
Cheryl Unruh
Originally published 12:50 p.m., November 27, 2007
Updated 12:50 p.m., November 27, 2007
It was one of those glorious fall days: sunshine, 70 degrees, with air as still as a meditating monk.
Usually by mid-November, we’ve had a bit of sleet or snow and a reason to wear gloves, but this year, we had a long and pleasant autumn.
With such great weather begging to be consumed, Dave and I set out on a Saturday morning to visit some towns within an hour’s drive of Emporia.
Melvern is along Kansas Highway 31 in southeast Osage County. It’s four miles east of the lake named for it. Melvern has about 430 people, a café, bank, gas station, tavern, and a tiny convenience store. Marais des Cygnes Valley High School sits on the north edge of town.
On the stone wall of an empty building is a colorful mural, an advertisement for both the defunct Red Goose Shoes Co. and a long-gone 1915 store, R.W. Smith General Merchandise.
“Wise Mothers Choose … Red Goose Action Shoes for Boys and Girls,” the mural reads. “It’s half the fun of having feet.”
It kind of makes you wish you had a pair of Red Goose shoes, doesn’t it? Because, obviously, we’re only having half the fun we were intended.
Dave and I stepped into the convenience store, the Sunflower In, and visited with Loretta Deskins, who runs the store with her husband.
The Sunflower In doesn’t sell gasoline; it’s a storefront in the middle of a block. Inside, a pool table covers much of the floor space. Shelves along the north wall hold spices, condiments and canned goods alongside DVD and VHS movies for rent.
Deskins sells basic food items, including pre-packaged meat. And there’s pop, paper goods and some over-the-counter medications.
Behind the counter, among the birthday candles, Cracker Jacks and decongestants, a TV was showing the Biography Channel.
The store is where Loretta Deskins spends her days. She’s open from 8:30 in the morning until 9:00 at night and later in the summertime. During the summer the store sells bait to fisherman headed for the lake.
“I spend more time here than I do at home,” she said.
Deskins moved here from the Lawrence area in 1992. Lawrence was getting too big she thought; she prefers the small-town life.
She had been retired, but that didn’t suit her, so in 1999, Deskins and her husband opened the store. Although 2007 has been a difficult year, with numerous illnesses in the family, they’ve kept the business going.
“My husband said, ‘We’re not going to close it,’” Deskins told me.
“I love it here,” she said of Melvern.
Their place fills a need in the small town.
“We don’t have a grocery store within 20 miles,” she said, adding that there was a discount general store in Lyndon which does sell some food.
“A lot of older people wouldn’t be able to live here if we didn’t have groceries and if we didn’t deliver,” Deskins said. Some of the town’s elderly no longer drive.
Kids hang out in her store and play pool and that’s fine with Deskins.
“We like visiting with people and we like kids,” she smiled. “We like our little store.”
It was the Saturday before Thanksgiving that Dave and I visited and town residents were preparing a meal at the community center.
“Every Thanksgiving, they have a free dinner,” Deskins said. “People enjoy that.”
After leaving the Sunflower In, Dave and I stopped at a 1909 truss bridge that once carried vehicle traffic over two sets of railroad tracks. Now it’s open only to pedestrians.
Within 10 minutes, we were lucky enough to see not one, but two trains blast by on the tracks that bend through Melvern.
“Flyover People” is online at www.flyoverpeople.net.
• Cheryl Unruh can be reached at cheryl@flyoverpeople.net.
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