BLUE HILLS HERITAGE FOUNDATION

– 2019 Individual Inductee –

Florence E. Deeble

 

A respected teacher with over forty years experience in the classroom whose hobby unexpectedly brought her acclaim as a folk artist is the latest honoree in the Russell County Kansas Hall of Fame.

 

Florence was the eldest child of Charles Arthur and Edith May (Barr) Deeble.  She was born January 27, 1900 in Russell, Kansas.  Shortly afterwards the family moved to Lucas, Kansas, where Florence attended school and helped raise her two younger brothers, Grant (born 1910) and Burl (born 1913).  After high school graduation she attended the Normal Training examination at Lincoln, Kansas, in May 1918 and earned her teacher’s certificate. 

 

Florence’s first teaching assignment was that fall at Green Valley School, District #36, in northwestern Lincoln County, Kansas.  The following year she taught two years at Pleasant Prairie School, District #44, in Russell County, Kansas.  In the fall of 1921 Florence was hired to a teaching position in the grade school at Natoma, Kansas.  After three years she served a term as grade school principal before deciding that it was time to move on.

 

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“Miss Florence Deeble, who has been one of the very efficient teachers in the Natoma schools for several years and during the past year principal of the grade building, will not teach here next year.  She has accepted a position as eighth grade teacher in the city schools of Osborne at an increased salary.” – Natoma Independent, May 7, 1925.

 

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From the fall of 1925 to the spring of 1930 Florence taught eighth grade at the grade school in Osborne, Kansas.  That fall she accepted a position in the Osborne High School as its English & Social Science teacher.

 

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FLORENCE DEEBLE, English and Social Science

“English I gives each pupil an opportunity to improve his ability to convey his thoughts to others.  Effective speech is an aid in practically every occupation; indeed many large firms have special teachers to instruct their employees in the use of English. English I also gives each pupil an opportunity to enjoy the thoughts of others whose ideas are conveyed to him through written language.  Some of the most popular types of literature have been chosen for the first year English student to enjoy.

 

“Commercial Arithmetic is a practical course for any student.  Its purpose is to develop the ability to handle figures rapidly and accurately and to give a knowledge of the problem of business and of life.  The problems which are presented are new and modern.  They include problems of the home, of the investment of, and of corporate financing.

 

“Economics is concerned with one of the most vital of all subjects – the general welfare.  It deals with the general laws governing the production of wealth and its distribution among the various classes in society.  The unemployment situation of the present time makes it clear that a country cannot be said to be truly prosperous unless all classes of its people share in its wealth.  Since people who rule themselves must solve their own economic problems, painstaking study of public questions is essential.  Thus economics has an important place in the school curriculum.” – Florence Deeble in the Osborne County Farmer, August 20, 1931.

 

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Florence continued to teach English & Social Science at Osborne through the spring of 1938.  She was well liked among her colleagues and became great friends with fellow teacher Christine Klontz.  For many years they attended college summer classes together before embarking on a two-week vacation every August, traveling to Colorado and other locations in the West.  After the 1933 school year ended the pair decided to pool their hard-earned savings and do something a bit different.

 

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“Two Osborne school teachers, Miss Florence Deeble and Miss Christine Klontz, have decided that they will not spend THIS summer cramming themselves with more education.  They have purchased a site in Estes Park [Colorado] and will build a small cabin in which to spend the summer.  They will be envied by every citizen of Osborne. – Osborne County Farmer, May 18, 1933. 

 

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Local Teachers Receive Honors

“This year eight Kansas women were invited to join Delta Kappa Gamma, a national honorary educational fraternity, and of those eight two were from the Osborne schools.  They are Miss Caroline Beeson and Miss Florence Deeble, who are thus recognized for their highest scholastic standing and teaching achievements.  The chapter of which they are now members is located at the Fort Hays State College at Hays.” – Osborne County Farmer, February 3, 1938.

 

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Beginning in the fall of 1938 Florence became the instructor for English & Journalism at Osborne High School.  This included overseeing the students in compiling the school’s weekly “Osborne Hi-Tide” column in the local newspaper along with the production of the school’s annual yearbook, “Swan Song”.  She continued to teach at Osborne High for the next twelve years.

 

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“Miss Deeble told the English class to write a composition on what they would do if they had a million dollars.  Stephen’s paper was perfectly blank.

 

“Miss Deeble: 'Why, Stephen!  All the others wrote at least two pages and you’ve done nothing!'

 

“Stephen: 'Well, Miss Deeble, that’s what I’d do if I had a million dollars.'” – Osborne County Farmer, March 13, 1941, page 7.

 

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After teaching in the Osborne school system for 25 years Florence felt that it was time to go back to her hometown of Lucas.  In the fall of 1950 she began teaching English and serving as the librarian at Lucas High School.  After ten years at Lucas Florence decided to retire in 1960, concluding a 42-year teaching career, not counting an additional six years as a substitute teacher.

 

But now she had more time to concentrate on her hobby.

 

Beginning in 1935 Florence started work on a rock garden that encompassed the entire backyard of the Deeble family home in Lucas.  Perhaps inspired by the work of neighbor and fellow Russell County Hall of Fame member Samuel P. Dinsmoor, over the next 60 years Florence worked with concrete and rocks brought back from her travels to create miniature scenes of places that she had visited or read about using postcards and drawings as models.  Her creations included stone-inlaid bridges, columns and towers, altars, and a section honoring people who were influential in the growth and history of Lucas itself.  All this was an “outlet for my feelings,” Florence would later explain.  She even helped her friend Christine Klontz in creating a rock garden in Norton, Kansas.  In 1968 Christine retired from teaching and moved to Lucas, where she helped and encouraged Florence in her ongoing endeavor.

 

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GARDEN ARTIST

LUCAS—Florence Deeble has Colorado in her back yard.  She also has Kirwin Reservoir, the Tetons and Mount Rushmore.

 

Deeble, a prairie artist in the tradition of her former neighbor, Garden of Eden architect Samuel Perry Dinsmoor, has spent years building her concrete lessons in history, geography and geology.  They stretch the length of her back yard and include everything from a hamburger stand at a Kansas lake to the faces of presidents Jefferson, Lincoln and Washington on Mount Rushmore.

 

“I started with Jefferson because fewer people knew what he looked like, and I could make more mistakes, Deeble said with a smile. I have yet to do the head of Teddy Roosevelt.”

 

Barbara Brackman, a member of the Lawrence-based Grassroots Art Association, calls Deeble a contradiction.  “She’s a fun combination of being just like your grandmother, yet there she is out in her back yard lugging around cement,” Brackman said.

 

Deeble is 88, but looks 20 years younger. She is a retired teacher who lives in the house her father—a Lucas pioneer—built in the early 1900s. Her companion is Christine Klontz, a longtime friend and fellow teacher at Osborne.  Klontz, 85, used to help with the backyard rock garden, but health problems have forced her into the role of spectator.

 

Deeble also has slowed down, but not to the point that she has abandoned half a century of labor. She said there always is work to be done—be it maintenance, restoration or the creation of another rock mountain.  The garden was started in [1935] because Deeble’s mother wanted a lily pond filled in.

 

“A boy had drowned in Osborne and we were all so scared,” she said. “So I called my uncle [Fred Deeble], a stone mason, and he said he would do the work, but that I would have to help him. That’s when I learned to make concrete.”

 

The lily pond became Wilson Lake, complete with marina, ducks and hamburger stand. There’s also a lighthouse, which Deeble admits is out of character, but, “You have to use your imagination and my imagination is pretty wild.”

 

It wasn’t until the 1980s that Deeble started building mountains.

 

In a corner is the view from the cabin Deeble and Klontz had built in Colorado. There is a YMCA camp and Long’s Peak. A concrete eagle — Deeble’s first attempt at animal sculpture — sits atop the peak.  Farther on, Deeble has built a pueblo, castles, Cathedral Mountain in the Wyoming Tetons, Eisenhower Mountain in Canada and the Matterhorn, which sits on the Italian-Swiss border.

 

However, geographical accuracy is not the hallmark of Deeble’s garden.

 

“Have you ever seen the Matterhorn between Mount Rushmore and Gen. Eisenhower Mountain?” she asked.

 

The sculptures are done in greens, yellows, reds and browns—and they all start as cement and separate rocks.

 

“I like working with cement because it may crack, but it’s more permanent.  I like things that are permanent, Deeble said.”

 

Rocks in the garden come from Lucas, Kirwin Reservoir, Colorado and other places Deeble and Klontz have visited.  There also are flower beds filled with tulips and chrysanthemums, Deeble’s specialties. They receive moisture from her underground Irrigation system.

 

“I never did believe much in hiring anything done,” she said.

 

Deeble said her work often is compared to Dinsmoor’s Garden of Eden, which is only about two blocks from her home. Dinsmoor’s huge concrete figures depict the religious and political history of man.  As a child, Deeble watched the garden being built.

 

“People try to make a connection, but I don’t know . . . I don’t think we know who influences us when we’re that young,” she said.

 

Brackman said Deeble and Dinsmoor used the same materials, but their styles and subjects are different. She said if there is any influence it could be that, one person, like Dinsmoor, gives other people a license to do this.  Brackman said she tries to visit Deeble once a year, usually with a busload of University of Kansas art students.  Deeble is a KU graduate.  

 

But it wasn’t her alma mater that discovered her work. It was Seymour Rosen, a Los Angeles photographer who was in Lucas several years ago to see the Garden of Eden.  

 

Brackman said artists such as Deeble get little respect because their work is not a very traditional art form, at least in this country. In some ways, Brackman said they deserve more respect because they have overcome a lack of training to practice their art.

 

I think Miss Deeble has an innate artistic talent, Brackman said. “She has no formal training, but she has a desire to create. There’s something about her work that’s even fresher because she had no training.”

 

Deeble has heard this all before.  Unlike others, she doesn’t bother to analyze why she enjoys her garden so much.

 

“It’s a hobby,” she said. “I taught in the winter, and I wanted to be outside during the summer. I feel cheated if I can’t come out here and express myself.” – Salina Journal, Salina, Kansas, April 3, 1988.

 

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Florence never married but enjoyed being with her large circle of family and friends.  For many years Florence expanded her rock garden and took great delight in showing visitors her creations.  She was 99 years old when she passed away on July 22, 1999 in Lucas and was buried in the nearby Fairview Township Cemetery. 

 

After her death Florence’s home at 126 South Fairview in Lucas was given by her family to the Grassroots Art Center in Lucas, which opened her rock garden for tours in 2002.  On October 4, 2017 the Deeble Rock Garden was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The nomination form summarized the cultural importance of Florence’s work:

 

“The Deeble Rock Garden, created by Lucas resident, teacher, and artist Florence Deeble, is locally significant as a visionary art environment as it captures her beloved travel places as ‘Postal Card Scenes’ in her backyard, as well as the story of Lucas history seen through her eyes.  People and events are encapsulated in her montages, as are the national parks and sites she visited in the western United States during her summer vacations.  The Garden is made of concrete rocks, and assemblage objects.  Few women are represented in this genre of art, and her site is one of the four ‘outsider art’ environments created in Lucas in the 1900s that led to Lucas’ designation in 1996 by Governor Bill Graves as the ‘Grassroots Art Capital of Kansas.’”

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In her lifetime Florence E. Deeble influenced generations of young Americans both as a teacher and an artist – and continues to do so even now.  This educator extraordinaire brings nothing but honor to her place in the Russell County Kansas Hall of Fame.

 

 

SOURCES:

Lucas Independent, May 23, 1918, page 5; October 10, 1918, page 5; April 27, 1921 page 1; December 15, 1921, page 2; September 6, 1922, page 1; February 1, 1923, page 1; May 7, 1925, page 1; September 8, 1926, page 1.

 

Lincoln Sentinel, August 1, 1918, page 6.

 

Natoma Independent, May 19, 1921, page 1; May 24, 1921, page 1.

 

Osborne County Farmer, August 20, 1921, page 5; November 5, 1925, page 5; April 5, 1928, page 3; May 23, 1929, page 8; August 20, 1931, Page 2;  March 31, 1932, page 1; August 25, 1932, page 8; May 18, 1933, page 1; June 1, 1933, page 2; December 12, 1935, page 5; May 20, 1937, page 4; February 3, 1938, page 2; March 13, 1941, page 7; May 13, 1943, page 1.

 

Russell Informer, September 15, 1919, page 6; September 14, 1920, page 2.

 

Salina Journal, April 3, 1988, page 21.

 

United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930.

 

United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930.

 

United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930.

 

United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. 

 

United States Department of the Interior/National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form: Deeble Rock Garden.  Kansas Historical Register No. 167-3340-00004 (2017), page 8.  https://www.kshs.org/resource/national_register/nominationsNRDB/Russell_DeebleRockGardenNR.pdf 

 

Meader, Grainger.  Photographs of Florence Deeble’s rock garden sculpture of her Estes Park cabin and Mount Rushmore.  Taken in Lucas, Kansas in June 2019 by Grainger Meador.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/gmeador/49000680477/in/album-72157711606641476/ .

 

Osborne High School, “1946 Swan Song Yearbook”, n.p., page 4.

 

Sellen, Betty-Carol, “Self Taught, Outsider and Folk Art: A Guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources”, McFarland Publishing (2016), page 147.