By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
On July 4, the United States celebrated its 247th birthday. This year, the city of Great Bend is celebrating its 150th birthday. Not so far behind is Paulina Schartz (Strobel). Born on July 5, 1923, and a lifelong Seward and Great Bend resident, Schartz is celebrating 100 years of life this year. Everything started on a family farm in Seward.
"I can remember when we'd go out and cut corn and had a sled-like thing," Schartz recalls. "Daddy and Uncle Fred would be there. It had two blades on it, so both of them would be catching the corn. They'd throw it all back, then we'd go back and shuck it after got enough of it to do."
The oldest of nine kids, Pauline was born into a world without electricity. In 1925, just half of American homes utilized the life-changing technology. That made running a dairy then vastly more difficult than it would be today.
"We sold milk, so we had to keep the milk as cool as you can," said Schartz. "We had a tank that had water running through it continuously. That way it kept cool in that little building. It kept the butter, milk, and cheese where it would keep good."
Pauline and her siblings attended a school about a mile from the homestead. The teacher of the school stayed at the family farm. Of course, there was no drop-off line back then and the kids walked to and from the school and everywhere else.
But the family did have a car. Pauline believes it was a Hudson coupe, and driving rules were a little bit different back then.
"Daddy couldn't see so he would work the pedals and stuff and I'd sit on his lap and drive it," she said. "We'd go into Seward, which was about five miles. We could get groceries there, and he could get his bottle."
Electricity did eventually reach the farm. Pauline remembers listening to her grandma's radio in her little downtown. And she believes the sewing machine may be the greatest invention of her lifetime, largely because mom made all the clothes. The girls usually had just three dresses.
"We'd look through the catalog and see the dress we wanted," Pauline said. "Mom would cut it out and sew it up for us."
Growing up on the prairie, Pauline saw the full gamut of weather. The Oklahoma panhandle was the epicenter of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, but the black dust and drought did reach as far as Stafford County.
"I know one day, Daddy and I had gone down to the barn to do some chores and stuff and the dust came in," Schartz said. "It was just as black as it could be. You couldn't even see your hand in front of your face. I know Mom had to come down and help us back to the house. We had three big windows on the south side of our dining room, and Mom would hang damp sheets up there to catch the dust and dirt."
Also missing in the 1930s was any form of storm radar. Severe storms came and went without warning. Flooding was also an issue. According to a FEMA report, the Arkansas River outside Great Bend flowed at nearly 28,000 cubic feet per second in 1965. The third-largest flood occurred in 1921, and rains pushed the river past its limits in May 1935 as Schartz was nearing her teenage years.
"To walk down Main Street, you'd be in water up to your waist," she recalls. "You'd go into Duckwalls and maybe decide you wanted to have something to eat. You could sit there with water up past your ankles."
Travel was largely a novel idea during Pauline's younger years. In 1940, Seward boasted a population of 125 people. The family took trips to nearby lakes, but traveling to the cities was also an adventure. Great Bend had a population of 9,000 people in 1940, and Hutchinson, where Pauline's aunt lived, was the true big city with 30,000 people.
"We used to drive down there once in a while," Pauline said. "Grandma always made us say the rosary when we were driving. Every once in a while she'd have to stop and holler at daddy because of the way he was going."
Pauline eventually started a family tree of her own. She married Cletus Schartz in 1943, at the age of 20, and remained his wife until he passed away in August 2002. They had one daughter, Marilyn, and the tree grew to include four grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren, and 13 great-great-grandchildren.
Pauline cannot attribute her 100 years to any one thing. She has long enjoyed hearty breakfasts of bacon and eggs, and she's been known to enjoy a beer or two a day. She lost her sight around 1974, and has been legally blind since, but she's never lived in a nursing home, instead living with grandchildren. She currently lives with her youngest sister, Ruth, and can still dress and feed herself. Perhaps most importantly, Pauline believes she has lived a life to the fullest - a life with no regrets.