Web posted
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Ark City native still a 'Harvey girl'
By FOSS FARRAR
Traveler Staff Writer
reporter@arkcity.net
Margaret Butler remembers walking along the Midland Valley railroad tracks as a youngster growing up in the 1920s in Arkansas City.
Several years later, as she recalls, she was serving meals to hungry train travelers stopping at a depot far from Ark City along another rail line, the Santa Fe.
"After I graduated from high school, I went to New Mexico; I lost touch with all my class," said 98-year-old Butler, a 1927 Ark City High School graduate.
Butler -- whose maiden name is Townsley -- was a Harvey Girl.
She took a bus from Ark City to her job site, a Harvey House eatery in Santa Fe. There she worked as a waitress and resided in a dormitory with the other Harvey Girls who donned starched uniforms and served gourmet meals to travelers.
"It was fun," she said last Wednesday at Medicalodge East.
Butler eventually returned to Ark City where she had strong family ties, particularly with her mother, she said. Later, she got married.
But in her young adult years she was looking for a change of scene. She had always been fiercely independent, she said.
"I was on my own for years," Butler said. "Nobody bossed me."
All Harvey Girls wore uniforms with starched collars and cuffs, she said. They worked 12-hour days.
"It seemed like we worked seven days a week," she said.
But it wasn't such a bad life because of the camaraderie of being with fellow workers and the beautiful weather and vistas of New Mexico.
"It was heaven -- the ideal place," she said.
Margaret was used to hard work. She grew up on a farm in what was then the northwest edge of Ark City -- 1200 W. Linden Ave. She was one of 10 children, a middle child, she said.
"We all went to Pershing," she said, referring to the former Pershing School on North Second Street.
It was a hard-scrabble life growing up here in the 1920s, she said. There were farm chores in the early mornings and evenings, and school in between.
And there were the daily walks along the Midland Valley tracks that angled toward the old Arkansas City Junior High School and the adjacent Senior High downtown.
"Walk, walk, walk the railroad track," Butler said, recalling those long walks.
She said her favorite high school teacher was Edith Davis, who taught gymnastics and exercise class.
Margaret Townsley was a captain on the girls intramural basketball team, according to the 1927 Ark City High yearbook, the Mirror.
(Editor's note: Foss Farrar is president of the Arkansas City Historical Society. The society is looking for stories about former Harvey Girls from Arkansas City and stories related to the former Harvey House restaurant at the Santa Fe depot in Arkansas City. Please e-mail Farrar at reporter@arkcity.net.)
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