Those Who Serve

This Memorial Day weekend, the attention of Kansans is divided between the war in Iraq and on the insurgency here at home – the wind and the rain.

The trampling of Greensburg followed by the surge of the Shunga in Topeka has left too many of us surrounded by ruin.

It is hardly the first time the enemy has been our own planet. On Memorial Day in 1903, Topekans had to muster an army to do battle with their very lifeblood – the Kansas River.

The heavy rains had begun in mid-May that year, and by Memorial Day the riverbanks could no longer contain the water. In a matter of hours, North Topeka was under water, and its residents were forced onto roofs and into treetops where they prayed for rescue.

They had no cell phones. The police had no helicopters with spotlights.

“During those first nights, citizens on the higher bluffs on the southern side of the massive, fast-moving flood heard frequent gunshots as the stranded tried to signal to anyone, anywhere,” historian Roy D. Bird tells us. “For some the vigil in the trees proved fatal. Days afterward … newspapers printed articles, some dubious, of witnesses seeing exhausted, helpless and hopeless persons drop out of the branches and disappear into the angry, swirling current.”

So those who could get boats took to the river.

Freeman Sardou – yes, the Sardou of the street and the bridge – is credited with bringing 200 people to safety in his fishing boat.

Then there was Edward Grafstrom, who had immigrated from Sweden to work for the Santa Fe Railway.

The railroad’s chief mechanical engineer, Grafstrom used his know- how to put a gasoline-powered engine on a boat.

He was able to make a half-dozen round trips, rescuing 77 people, before the river got the better of him.

“On its last voyage, June 2nd,” Bird says, “Grafstrom’s launch collided with fast-floating debris and capsized. Six passengers survived the overturned boat, helped by Grafstrom himself. But the swift current pulled the heroic Swede to his watery death, the lone occupant of the makeshift rescue boat to lose his life.”

In 1903, Grafstrom wouldn’t have been called to war. The United States was two generations past the Civil War, and it would be more than a decade before Europe went up in flames.

But we have to think he is just the sort of who, had he been needed to wear a uniform and carry a gun, would have given the kind of service we honor each Memorial Day.

So as we continue our work this weekend sweeping away the debris, let us pause to thank those who also didn’t hesitate when the waters rose here three weeks ago and those who rushed to warn and help as the tornado bore down on Greensburg.

Then, let us bow our heads in thanks for all those who have stepped up in service to the community, to the state and to the nation.

(c) 2007 Topeka Capital Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.