Random Acts of Living


Friday, December 28, 2007

My Dad Made the News!

Leaving behind a 'can-do' legacy
BY DANIEL MCCOY
Eagle correspondent
Picture by staff photographer Travis Heying

Evans co-founder credits upbeat attitude for success

Harold "Harry" Heinrichs said a positive attitude has helped make his life successful. "Whatever you have to go through, you have to go through," said Heinrichs, 82, a co-founder of Evans Building Co. "Don't go around feeling sorry for yourself."

Heinrichs, who helped found the company in 1962 with John Evans and Archie Lynch, is preparing to retire in January.

For years now, he has worked three days a week, repairing equipment and tools.

Company president Bill Johnson, who is John Evans' nephew, said Heinrichs' reluctance to stop working is no surprise.

"He's got that can-do attitude," Johnson said.

To him, Heinrichs' work ethic and values have been instilled throughout the company and its more than 30 employees.

"He's been like a second father to me," Johnson said. "I want it (the company) to continue running like he's still here."

By the time he helped found the company, Heinrichs had already led a busy and interesting life.

At the age of 18, and with World War II raging in the Pacific, he joined the Marine Corps as an airman.He and his squadron, the VMSB 343, made their way to China where they began preparing for the Allied invasion of mainland Japan. But after America ended the war with the use of atomic weapons, Heinrichs returned home.

" (President) Truman saved my life," he said.

Upon his return, Heinrichs worked with his brother, Arthur, as a blacksmith, did some farming and even worked as a rancher in the mountains of Colorado, his home state.

Heinrichs then made his way east to Goodland. It was there he met and married his wife of 57 years, Lee, and became a foreman for Rhoads Construction. While at Rhoads, he met Evans and Lynch, his eventual business partners.

After the three worked as sub-contractors on the first Learjet building in Wichita in 1960, they decided Wichita might be a good location to go into business for themselves.

So, two years later, they founded Evans Building Co., which specialized in commercial and industrial construction.

Heinrichs said they initially did little work in Wichita itself.

"The Wichita market was pretty well covered at that time," he said. "We did a lot of work out of town."

Gradually, Heinrichs said they began to get more work in Wichita. At its busiest, he said, the company put up a building a week.

"We put up a lot of buildings in the last 45 years," he said, although he admitted he never kept track of exactly how many.

As he and his wife reminisced about the many jobs he had worked, one in particular stuck out in Lee Heinrichs' mind.

"I remember when you fell off the Brewster schoolhouse," she said.

"I didn't fall off, I walked off," he answered with a chuckle, recalling the 15-foot fall after a misstep while caulking the building's roof.

Heinrichs said the lessons he learned about business through the years will remain at Evans Building Co. after he's gone.

"Our goal was to have satisfied customers because that's your best sales tool," he said.

"I've learned you have to work with your customers but not let them take over your job, and treat your employees like they're working with you, not for you."

As for retirement, Heinrichs said he still plans to check in on the business every now and then.

"I intend to stay in contact, definitely," he said.

Contact Daniel McCoy at 316-268-6233 or dmccoy@wichitaeagle.com.

Memorial Service for Carol Riffel

Yesterday morning I attended the memorial service for Carol Riffel at Westside Christian Church in Wichita KS. Though the weather was cold and finding a parking place where you didn't have to walk through snow was a challenge it didn't keep friends and family from venturing out to pay their respects. The service was wonderful with a beautiful mother/daughter duet of "In The Garden" and personal reflections on Carol's life and how she affected the lives of those around her. One thing I did not realize was that the day of the service, December 27, 2007, would have been Ed and Carol's 49th Wedding Anniversary, something that Carol had been looking forward to. Another thing I learned at the memorial: I knew that Carol was a seamstress, but didn't realize how accomplished of a seamstress she was. Carol was the seamstress that made the Santa Suit for the Kakeland Santa of the famed Santa and Toy Boy, aka KAKEman. The service ended with a video montage of Carol's life, from baby pictures on. The family gathered for a meal in the gym and then on to another service and burial in Marion KS in the afternoon. I returned home directly from the Wichita service.

Godspeed, Carol.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Our Christmas Celebration

Our family gathered at my daughter's house and everyone brought all their presents. So very many presents, the dog even has some. Hmmm.... I guess I need to post another picture of the tree so you can see the pretty angel at the top. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.
The grandchildren entertain themselves while they wait.
The handing out of the presents begins. One grandchild gets to hand out all the presents and they also get to wait till all the presents are handed out before they can open their own. But Kmonster doesn't mind.
Everyone busy with presents...

Do you see the monkey slippers? There really is a rug under all that wrapping paper. Traditionally all the paper gets thrown to the middle of the room.
See, there is a rug there and all that paper fit nicely in the black garbage bag.
Here's something new for us this Christmas. Pizza! My folks picked up 6 Papa Murphy pizza's that you cook at home. I thought they were rather good. The veggie was exceptional.
Here's Auntie helping put together the baby stuff that is multiple things, stroller, swing, high chair.... not sure what all it converts into. She was thrilled!
The "boys" were sitting around talking computer and other stuff.

Finally the dog got to come in and open his presents.
Had to go after it a few times...
...but he finally got it opened. I didn't get a good shot of it, it was a stuffed black squirrel with a squeaker which he immediately removed all extruding parts from, like the ears. Then the SIL finally was able to make it home (this was Christmas Eve BTW) to open his presents.
That's what we got for him, "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader". He opened it and took out a pack of the cards and began reading the questions. He soon determined that he was going to have to study before playing the game with his sons.
I think everyone got all they asked Santa for, I know I did. All I wanted was to be able to be with family and enjoy the grandchildren's joy and that's what I got plus more. I hope the rest of you had a Wonderful Christmas!

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Auf Wiedersehen My Friend

Carol Riffel - 23 December 2007



Earlier this month I wrote about crocheting a prayer shawl for a friend, a member of our Golden Wheat Chapter AHSGR. Today I received notice that this morning she lost her courageous battle with cancer to gain the Glory of Angels.

We will miss you Carol, you have been an energetic force at the Golden Wheat Chapter AHSGR. Your passion and dedication to the society has been a sustaining strength for us, your absence will be felt. You have been a leader, a participant, a friend. You have joyfully taken on tasks when your schedule was already full. I regret I will not get the chance to teach you to play the accordion, I think you would have enjoyed it tremendously. I ask all who read this to please take a moment and offer prayers for Carol's family for strength and comfort.




Gone but Not Forgotten - Till We Meet Again!

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(Edit: Carol's obitiuary is in Tuesday, December 25, 2007 Wichita Eagle)

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Riffel, Carol Jean (Krispense), 69, Friends University and Westside Christian Church preschool teacher, died Dec. 23, 2007 at her residence in Wichita. Visitation 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Zeiner Funeral Home, Marion; services 10 a.m. Thursday, Westside Christian Church, 1819 W. Douglas, Wichita and 3 p.m. Thursday, Straasburg Baptist Church, 2249 N. Pawnee Rd., Marion, Kan. Mrs. Riffel was born Sept. 25, 1938 in Marion, daughter of David and Inez (Popp) Krispense. She graduated from Marion High School in 1956 and received her Bachelor's Degree from Friends University, On Dec. 27, 1958 she married H. Edwin Riffel at Straasburg Baptist Church, rural Marion. She was a member and past state president of the AHSGR, member of the Quilters Guild and Book Club at Westside Christian Church and a member of After 5 Christian Woman's Club. Preceded in death by her parents and sister, Violet Kaufman. Survivors: husband, H. Edwin of Wichita; son, David and wife, Sandy of Wichita; daughters, Christine and husband, LeLayne Herbel of Lehigh, Karen and husband, Dave Baliel of Marion; brother, Steve and wife, Martha Krispense of Marion; brother-in-law, Dalmer Kaufman of Durham; 8 grandchildren. Memorials may be made to Westside Christian Preschool or Straasburg Baptist Church Building Fund in c/o Zeiner Funeral Home, PO Box 6, Marion, KS 66861.

Published in the Wichita Eagle on 12/25/2007

Saturday, December 22, 2007

It Blows! ...Or... It's All White Now

I don't remember the last time we had this much snow. This is a shot from earlier today, snowin' and ablowin'.
It's not blowing so much now and we have a nice snow cover. There are bare areas because the wind has blown the snow off some and stuck it on others.
We DO have drifting! Not so bad as I've ever seen, but more than the last snow. I don't think I'd be able to just drive my car out of the driveway. I'll wait till Monday morning before I think about shoveling it. The sun may pop out tomorrow and melt most of it away.
Here's my living room window with my Christmas sitting in it. Snow has stuck to several windows.
And here's the tree taken with the flash. I finally got a picture that was in focus.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Oh! Tannenbaum

Remember my little tree all alone in the attic? Well, I got the table cleared off in the living room and brought it down to set in it's place of honor in front of the living room window. I had taken a couple of shots with the flash but for some reason they didn't focus at all. I'll take a couple more tomorrow when the living room isn't so dark. I've been really busy the past couple of days and haven't been on the computer much. I'm sure it's much the same with most of you out there also. Christmas is only a few days away and everyone is getting their last minute shopping done, food prepared and travels made. I've still got presents to wrap, but the purchases have all been made, I'm through shopping for this year. Our family will gather at my daughter's on Christmas Eve as that she is scheduled to work on Christmas Day. In case I don't get any other posts up before then...
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May Everyone be Blessed with Love and Joy during this Christmas Season!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Ice sickle

Well, maybe it's not curved quite enough to qualify as a sickle, but I thought this icicle was freezing into a rather unique form. Can't say I've seen one that had a curve to it like this one has. This was taken yesterday. Today all the icicles are gone. There's still quite a bit of snow cover on the lawns, but anywhere there's cement or pavement it's pretty much melted, which suits me fine since I have to get out into it today. No more snow forecast for a few days .

Monday, December 17, 2007

Cascading Ice Showers

The other day when the ice was melting I went outside and attempted to tape it to share with everyone because I didn't think I could describe what it was like. The video I've posted is but a couple minutes of what I taped and still I don't think I really captured the experience. The noise sounded like the trees were breaking and then the ice would fall. If it landed on something hard it was really loud. You could hear these sounds coming from all around. The park is only a couple blocks away so there was some really loud crashing coming from that direction. In the video that I did not post I got some pretty good sounds BUT every time I turned to tape ice behind me would come crashing down. It was really kind of comical and very frustrating because I would change directions with the camera and then you hear the ice crashing behind me. Oy! Anyway, turn up your volume and listen.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Christmas Past

On several others blogs I've found people reminiscing about Christmases past. So I thought I might contribute to the memories with a post or two myself. Amazingly I do not have any one special Christmas that I remember. My early childhood eludes me, leaving scattered vague memories. Fortunately, I have pictures. The picture below was obviously NOT taken in 1986. I had an old daybook that I pondered adding to the landfill and I had a stack of old photos that I didn't have an album to put them in. Soooo... the daybook has become a nice photo album with plenty of space to write whatever notes I want (and sometimes the printed quotes and what had been written makes an amusing connection with the old photos). Below two pages from that album of my brother and myself at Christmas in our trailer. I'm not sure where we were living at the time. My dad worked road construction and we moved around a lot. That's why we were living in the trailer. There was another family that moved around with us. Their dad worked with my dad and the families have been lifelong friends.
Not really sure but I think this was my 2nd Christmas. Looks like we both just got a couple presents, but we're pleased as punch! I just wanted to point out the stacking toy and the dustpan in the window over the couch. I still have those.
I especially remember going to the grandparents houses for Christmas. I don't know how often we did this when I was younger, but when I got older this was something I looked forward to every Christmas. Mom's folks lived in Goodland, KS and Dad's folks were in Burlington, CO right across the state line. So we'd spend time with one then load up the car and spend some time with the other. I remember Mom's mom having a lazy susan filled with homemade Christmas candies. I think the Christmas dinner smelled better than Thanksgiving. It was just always a wonderful time of travel, family and warm feelings.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

2007 Snow after the Ice

Pretty much all of the ice melted away on Thursday. Under the trees it looked like somebody had dumped truckloads of those round ice cubes like you get from the ice machines in hotels. I wish I would've taken the time to get my camera and get a picture. The sounds that day were amazing. I did take the camcorder out, but I haven't transferred the video to see if I got anything worth posting. It sounded like the tree branches were breaking, and then you'd hear the sound of cascading ice chunks that was amplified if it landed on something solid like a tin roof. Watching the news on TV at noon ice would periodically crash down on the roof of the TV studio making an awful sound. By evening, the only ice left was on the ground or really shaded north areas on buildings and trees.

On to Friday night and Saturday. It started snowing Friday evening, often large flakes. But we had very little wind so the drifts aren't high and the house stayed fairly warm. Not sure how much we got here. Hutch got 7" and Wichita got 3". We're south of Hutch and west southwest of Wichita. So I'd say we probably got less than Hutch and more than Wichita. My son said he only saw one car in the ditch on the way to work in Wichita and one set of tracks where one went in and came back out.

Here's my "bushsicle", now frosted with snow.
They're saying that this pretty well does it for the snow for a while. Not promising a white Christmas, but there's a possibility. I'm staying in and staying warm, today and tomorrow anyway.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

2007 Snow & Ice

The first two pictures below were taken on Monday. As you can see, the ice is not as bad as it was in 2005, the limbs are weighed down a bit, but not all the way to the ground as they were then. Hutchinson has gotten the ice that we had in 2005, their damage looks very familiar.
So far, we have not lost power. Think good thoughts! Tomorrow it's not suppose to be too bad and they're forecasting snow for the weekend. Snow will be a nice change from all this ice.
Today I was finally able to get a good shot of the bird's nest that I had mentioned in a comment. Here's some good that came from the 2005 ice storm. This bird's nest is built on the blunt top of a branch that was broken off in the 2005 storm. I think this might have gotten sawed off flat, making it all that much better. Then little branches grew up around the edges of the "platform" making the perfect place for a nest. You can see nests like these all over town.
The flowers were still in bloom when the ice hit. They hadn't yet given up and now they're flowersicles.
Same with the rose bush... a bushsicle?
All the time I was out looking for things to photograph I could hear, "honk, honk, honk..." The geese have finally decided to fly south (you may need to click on the picture and enlarge it to see them). I saw this and another gaggle in the minute I was out back and had heard at least one if not two others while I was around front.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Snow & Ice

The pictures below weren't taken in Kansas, but not far from it. These are from the flat lands of Colorado, directly across the Kansas western border. They're from the 1948 blizzard. The first is a snowdrift next to the buildings and the second is a young boy standing next to a full size windmill.

On the weather reports tonight I have been hearing the weathermen refer to the ice storm of 2005, so I thought I would post some of my pictures from that storm. This first one I call my Ice Ghost or Ice Spirit. This was how the moisture dripped and froze on my rose bush.

This picture is at my daughter's house. I looks a lot worse than it turned out to be. It just pulled some trim off. They were fortunate, nothing went through the house.
This is looking inside the yard. Their BBQ grill was destroyed as was their swing.
This is looking out my backdoor. I have a maple tree that shades the back of the house and this is what is weighed down with ice and blocking the doorway.
My backyard with the power line going across it.
Here's a National Guard Humvee. They were called out because we lost water pressure and the the generator that the city bought was too small to do the job. I wonder if they've got a better generator on it now? Hmmmm...
These are the maple trees in my front yard. There's a children's picnic table under there. Can you see it? Blue and pink.
Here's a shot of the broken tops of one of the maples in the front yard.
This is what I think is a pretty picture of the ice on the tree limbs. Can't recall ever seeing it like this before. It's like the trees have teeth.



Birthday Girl

My youngest granddaughter in Kansas celebrated her birthday on Saturday. Great Grandma & Grandpa and Great Uncle & family had to cancel at the last minute because the roads were not going to be safe to travel. But she still had a wonderful birthday and was sufficiently spoiled by the rest of us. She first received her birthday crown and earrings and had her picture taken with her cake.
After blowing out the candles it was time to cut up and hand out cake and ice cream.
The birthday girl got the first piece with plenty of icing and even chocolate syrup for her ice cream.
The first present was hidden in the bedroom... A brand new bicycle.
Then on to all the other presents.
Looks like a pony collection beginning...
and more ponies...
...and more ponies!!!
Lots and lots of little pieces.
Another wonderful birthday for another wonderful little girl.