LOUDENBACK FAMILY.

[It appears from information gathered up by RKW that the senior member of the family went by the name of “Loudenbach” unless this was a typographical error. MAW January 20, 2000.]

Henry H. Loudenbach was born March 17, 1879, and died June 12, 1941. He was buried in Highland Cemetery.

Winfield Courier, June 13, 1941.

Henry H. Loudenback, a former head of the piano department of Southwestern College, died suddenly at 8:30 p. m., Thursday, at the First Presbyterian Church in Arkansas City, where he had just finished conducting 20 boys and girls in a brilliant 10-piano number.

As he stepped from the podium following the first selection of an evening’s recital program, Professor Loudenback became ill with a heart attack, walked into an adjoining room and there died, almost immediately. A doctor was called from the audience, but he was unable to give aid. It was the first such attack Mr. Loudenback had ever suffered.

Professor Loudenback was 62 years old last March 17. He was born and reared in Wilkinson, Indiana. He first came to Kansas 40 years ago to become a teacher in the Atchison County high school. From Atchison, he went to the South Dakota Agricultural College at Brookings, S. D., to teach piano and from there to Columbia, Mo., where he was director of piano for the Conservatory Christian college.

The following is taken from the book “Blue Stem Country” by Pauline Kennedy Jones.

The last teacher to teach at Polo, Ks., was Anna Martha Loudenback. Anna Martha was born to the Weinmann family. She had a brother and a sister Dora who never married and lived in her home on 310 Mass. street, Winfield, Kansas. She taught school in Atchinson schools where she was born to the German couple. She married Mr. Loudenback, who was music instructor at Southwestern College in Winfield. He had been married before and had children. After their marriage they had two sons, John and Howard Loudenback.

She served in many capacities as school teacher, wife, grandmother, cook for students and teachers of Southwestern College in her home. She had a long table that opened up and stretched through the living and dining rooms in the house, cooking three meals a day for some 20 to 30 people. Living only one block off of College Street, times were hard in those days, money was tight, no money exchanging hands in the 1920s. The only way to purchase food at the store was “on time” until the pay came from the College to Mr. Loudenback as a teacher for several months. The checks were fixed up to go to the grocery store when pay came. The food was prepared in the home for those to eat as it is in a café today.

Mrs. Loudenback taught school at Atchinson, in Cowley County at Upper Timber Creek, Grand Center, and Polo. At the end of her teaching career in 1955, she had taught some 33 years in Kansas.

Anna Martha Loudenback was born May 29, 1890, and died May 22, 1977.