Dinsmoor's Valentines
On this February 14th, we thought an exploration of Dinsmoor's loves would be in order.
Samuel Perry Dinsmoor came to Lucas in 1888, accompanied by his wife, Francis Barlow Journey. Legend has it that Francis had always wanted to live in a log cabin, but the Kansas plains weren’t known for trees. Dinsmoor endeavored to build Francis her dream house, crafting the local limestone into long ‘logs’, erecting a stone log cabin in 1907 that was true to form. Here, Francis and Samuel made their home.
Francis was active in Lucas society, including Eastern Star. She hosted family, friends, and visitors to the Garden once it became a tourist attraction, often seen in early images of the site, while Samuel was busy building. She sometimes complained to Sam that she never got to see him, so he created a concrete figure of a little waving guy, peering in through the kitchen window, to keep her company.
Their wit seemed a good match, judging from this back-and-forth from a 1915 Kansas City Star article:
“Haven’t I got a smart husband?” chimed in his wife. “He is smarter than he looks.”
“I am going to make my second wife out of cement, so she will stay put and will not talk so much,” retorted her spouse pleasantly.
After Francis passed in the Spring of 1917 at the age of 78, Dinsmoor needed a helpmate, hiring Emilie Brozek to serve as housekeeper. Originally born in Bohemia (later known as Czechoslovakia) in 1904, Emilie immigrated to the U.S. with her family in the early 1910s.
Dinsmoor and Emilie Jane got married at the Garden in 1924, despite their great age difference. They proceeded to have two children, John and Emily Jane, the first children born in the Garden of Eden. Emilie raised the children while also serving as a host to visitors, continuing to live at the Garden after Dinsmoor’s death in 1932.
A short announcement published in an area newspaper (origin unknown, clipping in the Naegele Collection held by the Friends of the Garden of Eden) reveals that the Garden of Eden would pass to Emilie for 15 years, then to Emily Jane and John.
In 1933, Emilie married Casey Rounkles, and the couple continued caretaking the Garden of Eden until moving to Excelsior Springs Missouri in the 1940s. She lived a full life after her Garden of Eden and Lucas involvement, passing away in 1995 at the age of 91.
Some believe you can see the inspiration of Dinsmoor’s wives in the figures of Eve (Francis) and the later female figures (pointing lady, Emilie) in the Goddess of Liberty tableau. The Garden of Eden, instead of passing to Emily Jane and John Dinsmoor, was sold to the Mansfield family when Emily Rounkles left the site.