Margaret Utz and Emily Jane Stoll

Stoll, Utz named to Chamber Hall of Fame

When it comes to preserving the history of Jackson County for future generations, two names that get mentioned — and deservedly so — are Emily Jane Stoll and Margaret Utz, mainly because of the work they have put in with the Jackson County Historical Society.

Stoll, a member of the historical society since its inception in 1979, has focused her efforts on preserving documents and stories that date back to the 1850s. 

“There’s ‘history’ history, there’s myth history and there’s tourist history,” Stoll said. “We do the whole thing.”

And Utz, who joined the historical society in the mid-1980s, has been one of the strongest supporters of the historical society’s Roebke House Museum.

“My interest was keeping the house like the Roebkes had it, to display the different styles and the different things that women did for their pastimes like the hand crafts, the crocheting and the tatting, bobbin lace weaving and spinning,” Utz said.

In February, Stoll and Utz will be inducted into the Holton/Jackson County Chamber of Commerce Hall of Fame for their efforts to preserve the county’s history through countless volunteer hours of work and dedication to the Historical Society’s cause. Both women said they were surprised by the honor but chose to look at it with a sense of humor.

“We both had the same reaction, I think — ‘Why in the world do we deserve this?’” Stoll said. “It got me to thinking it was kind of like having a funeral, thinking about all the things people were going to say about us — well, hopefully they’re going to be good things.”

Both women come from a farming background and have some teaching experience, sometimes in one-room schools that Utz said were “before the unified districts.” Utz, a 1937 graduate of Effingham High School, only taught in county schools for four years, starting in 1938, before marrying a farmer and moving to a farm about seven miles east of Holton.

“Where I live now, I’ve lived there since 1945,” Utz said. “We gave $5,000 for 160 acres. That was a pretty good bargain.”

Stoll graduated from Holton High School in 1944 and immediately went to work teaching, balancing farming and raising children with class work with children in the Royal Valley and Jackson Heights school districts.

“I taught at Sunrise School just southeast of Holton, west of Denison, where my kids took over writing the news for the smaller communities in Jackson County,” Stoll said. “The kids wrote about their parents and neighbors. It was good practice for them.”

In later years, Utz went to work at the Jackson County Treasurer’s office in the Jackson County Courthouse “for 16 years full-time, and then five years part-time after I retired,” she said.

It was during Utz’s time at the Courthouse that the Jackson County Historical Society began to take root. She said that former Chamber president Corinne Richard “planted the idea” for the historical society, and in 1979, the society had its first meeting, with Stoll among those present.

“We met at the Kansas State Bank,” Stoll said. “And the dues were only a dollar a year… They figured for a dollar a year, people would join whether they were interested or not! But it did work out pretty well, because we had members from everywhere.”

In the early days of the historical society, members would take turns holding meetings in Jackson County’s outlying communities, Stoll said. 

“Somebody in that town would give the history of the town, and it was always very interesting,” she said.

Not long after the society’s formation, its members recorded its first major gift — the Louis Roebke house at 216 New York Ave. Soon after that, the society was allowed to take over the former Bennett building on the southwest corner of Holton’s Town Square and use it for a museum.

When Utz joined the historical society in the 1980s, following her retirement from the Jackson County Treasurer’s office, the Roebke House was being maintained mostly by Doris Drechsler, and Utz would eventually find herself immersed in creating and maintaining displays there.

“I like fabrics and styles, and just everything that’s connected to the Roebke House,” Utz said. “I liked doing research about these different styles and clothes, and when people would donate these old-fashioned dresses, I would study the periods when they were made and how they were made, the methods that they used and the time it took to make some of those dresses with all that trimming, all that lace… That consumes a lot of hours.”

After Drechsler’s death, Utz vowed to keep the Roebke House Museum up and running, which she did with the help of Vera Hinnen and others. Meanwhile, Stoll continued to work at the museum on the Square, preserving documents and artifacts of what she referred to as the three different kinds of history.

“I like to specialize in ‘history’ history. If I don’t find it in at least three places, I treat it as myth history. Then there’s tourist history — I think our barn tours have all three of those,” Stoll said.

But whether it’s the clothes at the Roebke House or the documents and other items at the museum on the Square, both women agree that it’s important to preserve the county’s history.

“I felt like having the historical society was a way to teach kids patriotism and to impress patriotism and love of country on the general public, especially the children,” Utz said. “It’s important to teach them what has been done to make this county the way it is.”

Stoll, who traces her family lineage back to the early days of Jackson County, has also been proud to share the county’s history with others who come from areas well beyond the boundaries of the county.

“There was once a couple from Michigan who stopped in at the museum, and they asked me what brought people to Holton,” Stoll said. “They wondered when the buildings were built, they wondered what brought them here, why they came here.”

Both women said they have been proud to share their love of history with others over the years, whether that history is in the form of stories they’d heard relatives telling when they were young or through the sharing of documents and the showing of items that played a role in the county’s history.

“I’ve always said I’m not going to work at this until I die, but it looks like I might,” Utz said with a laugh. 

The Holton Recorder

109 W. Fourth St.
Holton, KS 66436
Phone: 785-364-3141
 

Sign Up For Breaking News

Stay informed on our latest news!

Manage my subscriptions

Subscribe to Greer Citizen newsletter feed