I was born i Ridge Township (1932) to Albert (Poly) and Millie Lawrence.
  My earliest recollections include "accidentally" wandering to Ridge School
  for a visit, upsetting the teacher. First and second grades were spent there
  with Miss Marjorie Watkins as teacher. Pupils were Linnea and Melvin Riggert,
  brother Kent and myself. There was no well at the school, so water was carried
  by the teacher. Water from Watkins' cistern tasted peculiarly, we protested
  by stuffing grass in Miss Marjorie's jug. We received punishment, thereafter
  pupils carried their own water.
     The school closed for two years, (not because of the water incident), then
  reopened in 1942 with Melvin and Marilyn Riggert, Kent, sister Marilyn, and
  myself the pupils, and Mrs. Erna Kahmeyer as teacher. After that year, the
  district consolidated with Nashville. Dad bought the school building in 1948.
  We used the lumber in the home where Kent and Marlyne live.
     One of the enjoyable periods of life to a boy on the Ridge was threshing
  time when neighbors helped each other thresh oats and ladies got together to
  cook meals. The only threshing machines were owned by the Burenheides of
  Sharon and Depenbusch's of Zenda. Both made runs during different years. While
  threshing at Mantey's one  year, I cut my finger deeply on a broken water jug.
  Mr. Burenheide plastered it with a cud of chewing tobacco (which I thought was
  nasty), to draw out the 'poison'. If it was meant to prevent lock-jaw, blood
  poisoning, or gangrene, it worked!
     Late one afternoon during a 1945 blizzard, we got a 'phone call from Mrs.
  Jandreu whose husband, Nat, was rural mail carrier. Nat was lost! He had made
  delivery to Harry Randolph's (5 miles west of home) but hadn't been to our
  box. No phones between! Max Kernohan, Charles Rankin, Dad, Kent and I put 
  chains on our car and headed west, driving through fields, shoveling snow
  drifts, and miserably cold. A group of men left Nashville to come from the
  west. After dark, we finally reached the Mantey's. Nat had been there all day
  after getting stuck nearby. Hadn't thought his family might be concerned.
     After consolidation, the township bought Unity School as a community
  building. About 1947, we started having square dances there every few weeks.
  Kent played guitar, Leafa Kernohan played piano, and I fiddled. Sometimes Mood
  McCullough helped fiddle, and later Jim and Alvin Thimmersch played. Callers
  were Bill Kernohan, Dad and occasionally George Lukens. These continued for
  several years until the musicians were drafted or enlisted in the service.
     I liked to listen as George Rankin told Indian tales of women and children
  congregated in a dugout in our north pasture. The men had gone south to put
  down an uprising. One day the women saw dust in the distance. Thinking it was
  Indianas they ran into a cornfield to hide. A dog with them kept barking, so
  the women choked it to death so the Indians wouldn't find them. The dust was
  from the cavalry on their way to put down the Indians.
                
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas,  pg. 275 
     Submitted by: Layle D. Lawrence